Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“No.” This was one financial question that I could answer. “We opened a college savings plan for each child when they were born. Tuition was all paid for by the time they started college.”
Detective Fox watched me carefully. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but is it possible that Mrs. Price was your husband’s second wife?”
“Excuse me?” I was incredulous.
“Marrying more than one woman is common in your religion, is it not?” Fox asked.
Lloyd interjected. “Your husband would have to be very connected to a woman in order to buy her a house.”
I blew out an exasperated breath. “No. Having a second wife is not a common practice. It is exceedingly uncommon, not to mention illegal in the United States.”
“But it is done in your culture?” Lloyd pressed.
“I’m forty-four years old and I’ve only ever met one much older man, who lives overseas in the Palestinian Territories, who married a second wife. So no, taking a second wife is not very common in my experience.”
Nasser cleared his throat. “Maybe we could stay on track with the facts rather than waste my client’s time on outlandish cultural assumptions.”
Lloyd acknowledged Nasser with a sharp nod. “Mrs. Abadi,” he said, “did your husband have good friends, coworkers, or family who might have known about the relationship with Mrs. Price or the purchase of the North Carolina house?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think anyone knew.” I declined to mention my suspicions that Ali’s family might have been in on the secret.
“Mr. Abadi was my cousin and we were tight,” Nasser put in. “I would venture to say I was one of his closest friends. And he never mentioned anything to me. I was as shocked to hear about the house as Mrs. Abadi was.”
“Aside from Nasser, Ali had his work friends and his college friends,” I added.
“I see,” Detective Lloyd said. “We’d like to get their information if possible.”
“I can put you in touch with the college friends,” Nasser told them.
“Mrs. Abadi”—this from Detective Fox—“do you have access to your husband’s phone, email, and any other devices that we could look through?”
“For what purpose?” Nasser interjected.
“Just to be thorough, you understand.” Detective Lloyd spoke in an almost-breezy tone as if we were talking about the weather and not the suspicious death of my husband.
“We’d like to look for evidence of a relationship, to see if it’s possible that Mr. Abadi was being blackmailed. To see if someone had it out for him.”
Nasser frowned. “I don’t think—”
“Yes,” I interrupted. “I’ll give you access to my husband’s phone and email. Whatever you need. I just want to know what happened.”
The detectives both looked Nasser’s way, but he didn’t react. His face remained expressionless. But that changed once the detectives left.
“You gave them an opening,” he said, clearly worried. “You don’t know what they might find in Ali’s email and his phone.”
“I’ve already looked; there’s nothing there.”
He ran the flat of his hand over his mouth and chin. I knew by now the gesture meant Nasser was worried. “With their resources, the police will be able to find a lot more information than you.”
“Good!” I exclaimed. “Why do you think I gave them that stuff? Because I want to know what they find.”
He shook his head, exasperated. “You might have just opened up a whole can of worms.”
“I have my reservations about the police, that’s for sure.” First, they painted the picture of a suicidal Ali, and now they wanted to know if my husband was a bigamist. “But Ali’s dead. They can’t hurt him. I’m still alive and I want the truth. I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to find it.”
The next day I went to visit Ali.
For a cemetery, the place I’d chosen to bury my husband was beautiful.
It was a serene old burial ground where some markers dated back to the 1800s.
The graves were nestled among towering old trees, silent witnesses to generations of grief and loss.
I could feel the history of the place whenever I walked through it.
We’d laid Ali to rest next to an old oak tree.
I liked the idea of its massive branches sheltering him from the hot summer sun.
I’d come by regularly after his death, until I discovered the existence of the second mortgage and life went into a tailspin.
It had been more than a month since I last visited.
I don’t know what compelled me to visit, but something drew me there.
I was a mess of tangled emotions and didn’t know what I believed anymore.
The cemetery was a peaceful, almost meditative place.
Maybe visiting Ali’s burial site would calm my inner turmoil and help me see things more rationally.
I’d do just about anything to get some clarity.
I made my way toward Ali’s grave. There was no solemn granite marker to identify the spot, just a paper nameplate encased in plastic.
I still hadn’t selected a headstone, which also made me feel delinquent in my duties.
Installing a marker—the final physical testament that Ali had lived and died on this earth, that he’d had a family that loved him—was my last obligation to him as his wife. No matter what he’d done.
But I couldn’t summon the energy to pick out a tombstone.
I still had no idea what his epitaph should be.
How could I compose a proper tribute when I wasn’t sure who Ali truly was?
Devoted husband and father? Lying low-life cheater?
I’d been married to the man for twenty-three years, yet I couldn’t say.
As I came around a tree, I caught sight of someone kneeling at Ali’s grave. I paused, at first thinking I was in the wrong section of the cemetery, momentarily confused about the grave’s location. It had been a while since I’d visited. But then the figure came into focus.
Fury rippled through me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Lizzie Martins looked up, her face pale and narrow. As I got closer, I realized she was crying. Tears streamed down her face. My stomach coiled. If I needed proof that Ali meant a great deal to Lizzie Martins, the evidence was sobbing right in front of me.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here,” she said in a watery voice. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“Why are you here?” I kept my voice calm, almost soothing. I didn’t want to risk having her run off again like she had at the lawyer’s office.
A sob escaped her. “I just heard that Ali had drugs in his system. That he might have tried to kill himself.”
I stiffened. “Where did you hear that?”
She blew her nose. “The police came to see me.”
“They told you Ali killed himself?” Who else had they shared their theory with? Fury shot through me. What if the kids heard?
“They said it was possible.” She crumpled the tissue in her fist. “They also said he had drugs in his system.”
Something rustled, and I thought I saw a shadow move in the corner of my eye. I looked toward an old tree but didn’t see anyone. The small cemetery appeared mostly empty except for a few cars pulled off to the side where people attended to their loved ones’ graves.
I was mildly surprised to see a familiar-looking vehicle parked nearby. It was the orange sports car I’d noticed at the gas station a few days earlier. The gas station and cemetery were located within a few miles of each other. The sports car owner must live in the area.
“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said to me, “very, very sorry about Ali. Did you realize that he was having . . . emotional troubles?”
“He seemed to be doing fine.”
Lizzie looked at me, squinting her eyes like she was staring into the sun’s glare. “We don’t always know the people we love.”
“I thought I knew Ali. But now I have no idea what the truth is. And I’m definitely in the dark about why he bought you that house. Will you tell me?”
Instead of answering, she said, “The last time I saw him, he seemed off. As if he had something on his mind.”
Her words hit me like a punch in the ribs. Had they met regularly? “When did you last see Ali?”
“I don’t remember exactly. Maybe a month or so before he died. I ran into him by accident when I was in town visiting my mother. I told the police.”
“What exactly did you tell them?”
“The truth. That Ali seemed worried. I had the impression it had something to do with his work.”
I scoured my mind. I couldn’t remember anything out of the ordinary in the weeks before Ali’s accident. “He seemed fine to me.”
She moved restlessly, like a skittish horse. “Why did you give my name to the police?”
“I didn’t. They found out about you on their own. They want to know why Ali left you a house.”
She shook her head. “They’ve got it all wrong. I explained everything to them.”
“It would be nice if you’d extend the same courtesy to me.”
“They also asked me if my children could be Ali’s.”
Shock rippled through me. I felt sick. “Could they be?”
Her eyes flashed. Disgust twisted her features. “How can you even ask me that?”
“How could I not?” I lost my cool. “He supposedly gave you up to marry me. But here you are, twenty-three years later, sobbing at his grave and the proud owner of a house that Ali and I paid for. And you tell me nothing. You offer no explanations.”
She shook her head, her contempt obvious. Her contempt. For me. The nerve. “Ali gave up so much for you and you still doubt him?”
“Gave up so much?” I choked on the words. “Like what? Are you referring to yourself?”
“You never deserved him,” she said sadly. “He was the most decent guy in the world.” And then Lizzie Martins did what threatened to become a habit whenever the two of us came face-to-face.
She bolted.