Chapter Thirty-Two
“Sorry to show up unannounced,” Julia said when I answered the door later that afternoon. “But Mama made kenafa and asked me to bring it over.”
“Never apologize for bringing me my favorite Arabic dessert.” I embraced Ali’s sister.
“Where’s the new dog?” she asked warily.
“She’s at the groomer’s. I have to go get her in an hour.”
“Plenty of time to enjoy your kenafa.”
I blew out a long breath. “After the day I’ve had, I could use some kenafa therapy.”
“Why?” Julia slipped off her shoes. “What’s happening?”
I took the foil-covered plate and led her into the kitchen. “The cops want to know if I killed Ali.”
“Shut up. Are you serious?”
“I wish I wasn’t. As if I don’t have enough worries.”
“Are you really concerned that they think you did something?”
“Nasser says I shouldn’t stress out because they have no evidence against me. But I can’t help being nervous.”
“That’s understandable.”
I took out a couple of dessert plates. “Since misery loves company, you have to have some kenafa with me.”
“You twisted my arm.” She adjusted her navy headscarf, which matched her maxi-length floral-print dress. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I set a bright-orange square of the cheesy treat, made with homemade dough, on each plate and microwaved them for about thirty seconds.
“Maybe they should focus less on you and more on how Ali was drugged,” she said after I caught her up on the investigation. “What else did they ask you?”
“Nothing. Nasser shut them down once they asked if I wanted to kill Ali. He got me out of there pretty fast after that.”
We sat at the counter and took turns soaking our desserts with simple syrup. It had been too long since I’d had a chance to spend time with my sister-in-law. Especially now that I trusted in Ali and no longer suspected that his family was hiding a dark secret about him.
“Anything new on the drugging situation?” she asked between bites.
I shook my head. “No, but there have been some weird new developments.” I filled her in on Fake Jake.
Her eyes widened. “That’s so creepy.”
“It’s a good thing I have a security system and Binti,” I said around a generous bite of kenafa.
“Are you sure you want to stay in the house? I’d be afraid to live alone.”
“This is my home.” I sipped some cold water and tried to sound bolder than I felt. “I’ve already lost enough.”
There was a brief silence while our forks scraped across our plates.
“I don’t want to be a pest,” Julia said, “but have you given any thought to the headstone yet?”
I set my fork down. “Not yet, but I will.”
“When?” she pressed. “It’s been months since Ali passed. Allah yerhamo.”
“Soon.” I’d been so mad at Ali that I hadn’t trusted myself to give him a proper headstone and inscription. Now I needed his epitaph to be a perfect reflection of the man I’d lost. But I couldn’t focus on that until I cleared Ali’s name and found out who was harassing me. “I promise.”
“Baba and Mama say they’re happy to do it. They’ll even pay for the installation.”
I shook my head. “I feel like it’s my final duty to Ali, as his wife, to get his headstone installed. But I promise that I won’t finalize anything until we all agree on a design.”
“I know you’re going through a lot,” Julia said.
“I am.” I sipped from the glass of cold water. “We all are. I’ll get it done soon.”
Our conversation moved on to other topics. Relatives, community gossip, and how our kids were doing. After about an hour, Julia reluctantly got up to leave. I followed her into the foyer, sorry to see her go.
“Please thank your mom for the kenafa,” I said. “I’ll call Um Ali too. I appreciate your bringing it over.”
“No problem.” After a beat, she asked, “What do you think of Nasser?”
“That’s a weird question.”
“You seem to be spending a lot of time with him.”
“Only when it pertains to legal matters.”
She slipped her shoes on. “You do know that he had a crush on you before you were married.”
I stared at her. “Did everyone know about that except me?”
“Not everyone. But we knew, my family. Ali told us even before we met you, after he and Nasser saw you at that wedding.”
I handed her coat over. “Seems like someone should have mentioned that to me a long time ago.”
“How did you find out that Nasser was into you?” She watched me closely as she pulled on her coat. “Did he tell you?”
“Not that it matters.” My cheeks burned. “I doubt I’ll ever be able to look at another man in a romantic way.”
“I’m not suggesting that you are doing anything wrong.” She zipped up her coat. “I know you loved Ali.”
“Then what are you asking me?”
“Actually, Mama and Baba wanted me to tell you that they’d be OK with it.”
“OK with what? Are you telling me that your parents think something is going on between me and Nasser?” The thought horrified me.
“No, but if, in the future, you decide to remarry, they think you should marry Nasser.”
“Whoa! Where did that come from?”
“You’re still young.” Julia adjusted her hijab. “If you marry Nasser, Mama and Baba say that would keep you and the kids close to us.”
“I don’t need to marry Nasser in order to maintain strong bonds with you. I hope you and your parents know that.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised by my in-laws’ matchmaking scheme. It wasn’t uncommon for a widowed Arab man to marry his late wife’s sister, the idea being that she’d love her deceased sister’s children more fully than a stranger would and integrate more naturally into the extended family.
“Mama says you’re still young enough to give Nasser a son and that every man should have a son.”
“Gross.” I pulled the door open. “I’m still mourning my husband.”
“Ali loved you a lot. I hope you believe that.”
“I do. This whole secret house thing really threw me. It made me question everything about my marriage.” I tried to put my shifting feelings into words.
“But the more I think about it, about the kind of person Ali was, the less I believe he lived some sort of secret life. That’s just not who he was. ”
“Exactly.” Julia looked relieved. “That’s why none of this makes sense.”
“Especially the part about him leaving a secret house to his ex-girlfriend.”
“What does Nasser say? Is he encouraging you to think the worst about Ali?”
“He doesn’t know what to think.”
Her lip curled. “I’ll bet.”
I registered the distaste on her face. “You really don’t like Nasser.”
“I always felt like he was competitive with my brother, maybe even a little jealous of him, but Ali was too hanoon to see it. I don’t trust Nasser.” She kissed me on both cheeks as she said goodbye. “I think you should be careful.”
“Nothing yet,” Detective Fox said when I called her a couple of days later for an update on Fake Jake. “But we plan to talk with Bill Warren as soon as he gets back tomorrow.”
“What about whoever broke into my house and went through Ali’s office? Or the garage situation? Could it be Bill Warren?”
“Anything is possible and we are investigating. There is another matter I’d like to discuss with you.”
The muscles across the backs of my shoulders tightened. “Do I need to get my lawyer on the phone for this?” Being accused of wanting to kill my husband did not foster trust.
“No, that’s not necessary,” she said. “I want to update you on the investigation.”
“There’s an update?”
“Yes, we have reason to believe that your husband did not go straight home after leaving the Channel Three event at Waterman’s Grill.”
My thoughts scattered. “Where did he go?”
“We’re still trying to retrace his movements. He left Waterman’s at eleven p.m., and the accident was at eleven forty-eight p.m. The accident site is just fifteen minutes from Waterman’s. That leaves about forty minutes unaccounted for.”
“But where would Ali go that late after a long and busy day?” I spoke more to myself than to her.
“That is what we’d like to know.” She paused. “Your husband didn’t happen to mention going somewhere else that night, did he?”
I thought back to the last time I saw Ali alive.
He ran late that final morning. I could picture him going out the door, still looking sharp despite the coffee stain developing on his lapel.
He hadn’t closed his travel mug tightly enough.
I’ll change at the office. He always kept an extra suit at work for emergencies.
Don’t forget I’ve got that Channel Three thing tonight. It might run late. Don’t wait up.
I hadn’t waited up, and he never came home. It still gnawed at me that I was fast asleep the moment Ali left this earth. How could I have slept through such a life-shattering event? It felt like a failure on my part.
“No, Ali didn’t say he was going anywhere else. He just mentioned the work event. Nothing else.”
“OK. Sit tight,” she said. “Detective Lloyd and I are retracing Mr. Abadi’s steps from that night. We’re hoping security cameras along the nearby streets will offer some clues.”
“What about his phone? Can’t you track his movements on that?”
“Your husband had location services turned off. We can still find the information, but it’ll take longer.”
“You’ll let me know if you learn anything?” I asked.
“Absolutely.”
Thanking her, I hung up and stared out the window, watching the postal truck come to a stop in front of my house.
After the letter carrier drove away, I went out to get the mail, barely noticing the chill, my mind focused on Ali’s last hours.
Where would he have gone at eleven o’clock on a work night?
“Amira? Um . . . Mrs. Abadi?”
Someone came up behind me. I didn’t immediately place the voice. I turned from the mailbox and found myself staring at Fake Jake.