“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 togenerations 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.
