‘I wouldn’t worry about that, Mrs Ives. I’m sure that Calvert Colony has all the contact information we need.’
‘You’re right, of course they will,’ I said, breathing deeply.
Outside the boundaries of the crime scene tape colony residents had begun to gather. Two Calvert Colony security officers, dressed in khaki uniforms, paced back and forth between the entrance to the garden and the parking lot, keeping the curious at bay. I spotted Naddie, keeping pace alongside one of them, pumping him for information, no doubt. I had to smile. You go, girl.
All that energy! I felt suddenly drained. ‘Is there anything else you need me for, Detective? This whole situation has been pretty upsetting and I’d like to go home now, if possible.’
‘Of course.’ He closed his notebook, slapped it against his open palm. ‘No worries. If something comes up I’ll know where to find you.’
If something comes up. I trudged wearily back over the bridge and along the walk, thinking that the only witness to the fact that I hadn’t murdered Masud Abaza was Nancy Harper and her poor, befuddled brain. Not that I had any motive to murder the poor man.
As I neared the crime scene tape that was stretched between the garden gateposts, a security officer spotted me and lifted the tape so I could duck under. I ran straight into the comforting arms of Nadine Smith Gray, friend, co-conspirator and surrogate mother. Sometimes a gal needs a soft shoulder to cry on.
SEVENTEEN
‘Warsaw, Ky., Nov. 26 – In the Gallatin circuit court W. J. Castleman was acquitted by a jury for killing Dr G. W. Ferrell about a year ago in this county. The two men were playing croquet and got into a trifling dispute in which the lie was passed, and Castleman struck Farrell on the head while Farrell was advancing on him, producing concussion of the brain and almost instant death.’
Mayville Public Ledger, November 26, 1900.
The killing of Masud Abaza precipitated a media feeding frenzy. ‘Is Anti-Muslim Violence Spiraling Out of Control?’ asked Wolf Blitzer from the CNN Situation Room, while Fox News bulletins were screaming, ‘Retired Professor Murdered in Anti-Muslim Hate Crime!’
It was all over the regional papers, too, of course, capturing the front pages of both the Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post, and the story was feuled anew several days later by whoever leaked the details about Balaclava Man and the graffiti, until political shenanigans in our nation’s capital pushed all other news aside. Our local rag, the Annapolis Capital, stuck with the story a few days more – ‘Police Probe for Motive in Deadly Attack on Local Man’ and ‘Bizarre Murder Weapon Baffles Police’ – but eventually a lack of any progress in the case caused even the interest of the Capital to wane.
According to a story in the paper, the Office of the Baltimore Medical Examiner had demonstrated commendable respect for Islamic burial customs, setting other work aside in order to concentrate on Masud’s autopsy in a heroic attempt to meet the twenty-four-hour turnaround between death and burial that was generally proscribed by Islamic law. They didn’t quite make it. Masud’s body was released to his family within seventy-two hours, and the beloved husband, father and grandfather had been buried privately, with only men in attendance, in the George Washington Islamic Gardens off Riggs Road in Adelphi. As I had suspected, it had been a blow to the head that had killed him. The glass spike had been – well, no other word for it – overkill. Somebody had been seriously unhappy with Masud Abaza.
As I’d told Detective Powers, number one on my list was the guy in the balaclava who’d gotten into a tussle with Masud over the graffiti. I had no way of knowing for sure, but that act of mischief had all the earmarks of Christie’s boyfriend, Richard Kent. I’d left Richard in the lobby with Christie when I went to the memory unit that day, but Naddie told me later that their date had been a short one. He’d left after an hour, so Richard could have easily attacked Masud while I was reading to Lillian Blake.
Had Masud and Raniero finally come to blows over Masud’s imagined – perhaps confirmed? – suspicions about the relationship between his wife and the master chef?
Masud had been making trouble for Tyson Bennett, too, over the incident with Nancy and Jerry. If Bennett were holding Masud responsible for the possibility that Calvert Colony might lose its accreditation, and his spotless reputation along with it, things might have gotten ugly between them. It seemed unlikely that he would have been able to persuade Masud to stay quiet on the issue. And what if Masud had threatened to leave Calvert Colony and take all the other Muslims with him?
If you added the Islamophobes like Christie McSpadden and Colonel Nate Greene, who’d also been upset for his friends and didn’t want to have to move from the colony in the event of it being shut down, and even the old guy I’d met on the porch that first day, the list grew even longer.
Could I eliminate Jerry, who’d been separated from the love of his life for no good reason? No. Stranger things had happened.
I shook myself back to reality. My iPhone was beeping.
A text message from Paul, my seafaring husband: WTF?
He must have come ashore and picked up a newspaper. I had some explaining to do.
A week after the murder I decided to pay a condolence call on Safa Abaza, but when I knocked on the door of her town home she didn’t come to the door. From the helpful woman at reception I learned that Safa had left Calvert Colony and was staying, at least temporarily, at her daughter’s home in Potomac, Maryland. With a nudge-nudge-wink-wink, I-won’t-say-anything-if-you-don’t, the receptionist gave me Laila Kazi’s phone number.
After three attempts at talking to Laila’s voicemail I managed to reach the actual daughter on the phone.
‘Mother can’t come to the phone right now,’ Laila explained. ‘She’s in her Iddah.’
In her Iddah? Was Safa in her room, her car, her boat, her cottage in the back yard or what? ‘Uh…’ I started to say, when Laila rescued me from ignorance.
‘Iddah is Mother’s official period of mourning,’ she informed me cooly. ‘It generally lasts for four lunar months plus ten days.’
During Iddah, I learned, her mother would wear plain clothing and no makeup, perfume or jewelry. She’d stay at home, seeing no one, except for emergencies, of course. Apparently talking to me wasn’t one of those emergencies. After asking Laila to convey my sincerest condolences to her mother, I hung up. I sent a handwritten sympathy note to Safa at the Potomac address, but decided that, for the moment anyway, there wasn’t much more that I could do.
The next time I returned to Blackwalnut Hall I found Angie McSpadden and her mother in the lobby trying to organize a game of croquet. Angie was dressed casually in Bermuda shorts and a yellow tank top, but Christie, her mother-in-law, had stepped out of a TravelSmith catalog wearing gray slacks and a pebble-print tunic in shades of gray, purple and magenta with matching purple tennis shoes.
‘Your mother-in-law looks nice today,’ I told Angie, sotto voce.
‘Go figure,’ she replied. ‘I’d been after her for weeks to get her hair done, then all of a sudden, like, it’s an emergency. Had to drive her out to Karen James on Maryland Avenue because the salon here was totally slammed.’
‘Is she going on a date?’ I asked, thinking about Richard Kent.
Angie groaned. ‘She lives in hope. But I haven’t seen Dickey-boy in a couple of weeks. He’s off on some secret mission. Like I’m buying that shit.’