“No, but if, in the future, you decide to remarry, they think you should marry Nasser.”
“Whoa! Where didthatcome 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 toohanoonto 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.”
