Moonlight murder, p.5
Moonlight Murder, page 5
Kausar thought this over. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were asking me to investigate Qasim’s death.”
Mr. Walters’s laugh was awkward. “I suppose I am, to some extent. I worry the police are more interested in closing the case quickly, but they don’t have any context. They haven’t even come to the school to talk to the students or his teachers. Considering your prior success, I thought it worth a try to ask for your help.”
Kausar seemed to be a victim of her own success, she thought with some bemusement. From her granddaughter’s tearful plea to Brianna’s offer to cohost a true crime podcast, and now Mr. Walters’s request, she seemed to have no end of people asking for help. It all felt like a sign, and she was not one to turn away from one this blatant. “Of course, I will be there,” she said but couldn’t help adding, “Do you not think the kids would speak to you, someone they know, more readily than they would speak to me?”
“Thank you.” Mr. Walters sounded relieved. “As for your question, I started at Goldenview as a new teacher, and I never left. I don’t mind telling you the school has changed, Mrs. Khan. It’s in the middle of an identity crisis. The kids who used to attend the school lived nearby, came from regular families, and were all part of the same neighborhood community. But ever since all these specialized programs started, the population has shifted. Kids are being bussed in to the school from all over the city, and there’s even an application process to be admitted. Which means the local kids feel squeezed out of their own school. It has caused . . . tension. I’ve watched it happen, and I don’t mind admitting, I feel helpless. A lot of the Golden Crescent kids look at someone like me with suspicion. I’m just an old white guy. But if they see someone like you, maybe they would feel a bit more comfortable sharing. I was early in my career when Ali died, but I remember how helpless I felt about it all,” he added. “If there’s anything I can do this time to find out what really happened to Qasim, I want to try.”
Despite herself, Kausar was touched by the teacher’s genuine care. Mr. Walters seemed to agree with Maleeha that there were unanswered questions, which made her warm to him even more. “I will do my best. And please, call me Kausar.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Walters said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stick with Mrs. Khan. My mother raised me better than that.”
“I will see you tomorrow, Mr. Walters,” Kausar said.
After she hung up, Kausar looked around the apartment, suddenly possessed of a restless energy. Mr. Walters had shown keen insight into the situation; he understood his school community and students well and was determined not to let Qasim’s death go without deeper inquiry. He hadn’t been afraid to reach out for help, either, and had pled his case effectively. If Ali’s old teacher could feel so strongly about finding justice for a student, surely she could do the brave thing and open a few filing boxes to find justice for her own son?
Kausar marched to the mirrored hallway closet and pulled out the first of Ali’s file boxes. It was labeled School Paperwork, and removing the lid, she peered down into a mess of assignments, binders, and a stack of old report cards. Her eye was caught by a bound book, a picture of a majestic soaring golden eagle on the front, followed by the year: 2006–07. Ali’s old yearbook. She remembered he had shown it to her just a few days before he passed but had not allowed her to read any of the messages scrawled inside, saying it would invade his privacy—the refrain all parents must hear from their teenagers at one point or another. She had obeyed him at the time and then forgotten all about the yearbook in the chaotic events that followed, her overwhelming grief complete. Hassan, Sana, and Adam had been the ones to go through Ali’s things and pack them away, she remembered now with a pang. If she had been better at the time, perhaps she could have done something.
After taking a deep breath, she opened Ali’s yearbook and started to flip through the pages, trying to make sense of the handwritten scrawl of teenagers. Most of the notes were of the “have a good summer” variety, interspersed with cartoon doodles and inside jokes. She searched for a picture of Ali and found him among the grade nine cohort. Ali Abdullah Khan. His smiling face beamed up at her, and she wished she could reach through the photograph to smooth the hair on his brow. She turned the page and started looking in earnest for something, anything, that might help. She found more pictures of Ali in a grinning lineup of boys wearing jerseys and basketball shorts, then again in long pants and holding a catcher’s mitt, and one final time posing in the computer lab. Ali had been athletic but had also loved gadgets and technology. An all-rounder, his teachers used to call him. She wiped her eyes and continued to search.
Two of the messages had more inside jokes than the others, she noted, written by two familiar names: Dawud and Ethan. They had been friends with Ali since grade school. The three musketeers, Hassan had called the boys. She flipped back to the class pictures, and located Dawud Daryani and Ethan Wilson. Had the police ever spoken to Ali’s friends, following the accident? She didn’t think so, but she would make sure. Perhaps it would be worth getting in touch with the boys, to see if they remembered anything from that night or the days before Ali’s death.
At the back of the yearbook, Kausar paused over a full-page message, written in a large, looping hand. Her eye was drawn to the end: Can’t wait to spend the summer with my boo. Love you lots! C.Y.
Frowning, she texted May. What does “boo” mean?
Her friend responded with a ghost emoji, making Kausar laugh. Then May added, The kids used it for their “special friends,” too, back in the day. Like “beau.”
Kausar’s eyes flicked to the message in Ali’s yearbook, studying the words once more. Like Maleeha, perhaps Ali also had a “special friend” he had been hiding from his family. Was this the same person he had been visiting the night of the accident, when he’d told her he was going to play basketball? If she could figure out who C.Y. was, Kausar might actually have a new lead to follow.
Chapter 6
Kausar called Adam next. She thought about calling Sana, but in truth, she was annoyed with her daughter for not sharing her plans to reopen the store, and for the unceremonious way she had asked her to leave that morning. Besides, unlike her other two children, Adam could never keep a secret when directly confronted.
Her son sounded out of breath when he answered, and she did the math: It was half past four in the afternoon in London, where her son was a solicitor at a firm that specialized in estate law. He had moved to the UK to attend school right after high school, and never returned home. He lived close to his law practice in a small house with his wife, Joy, who was a barrister, and their toddler, Anisa.
“You sound winded,” Kausar said.
“I ran to catch the phone. I was with a client in the conference room but saw on my watch that you were calling. Is everything all right?” The faintly British accent her son had adopted after over a decade in the UK always amused Kausar. She was less enamored with his constant worry.
“I’m perfectly fine, beta. Can’t I call my son to chat?”
Adam sighed. “I do have a client waiting, Mum. If there’s nothing urgent . . .” he trailed off.
“Did Ali have a girlfriend?” she blurted. On the other end of the line, Adam’s silence spoke volumes.
“I’ll call you back and we can talk about this properly,” he said finally.
“I’m not mad, Adam,” Kausar said quietly. “I was looking through Ali’s old things and I found his yearbook. On the back page, someone wrote a long message and ended by calling him her ‘boo.’”
Adam laughed, but it was unsteady, as if he were trying to keep hold of his emotions. “I remember when everyone was saying that,” he said.
“The person signed their initials C.Y. Do you know who that was? Did Ali love her? Was he happy, before . . .” Her voice broke on this last query.
“Her name was Cynthia Yu,” Adam said quietly. “Ali assumed you and Dad would not have approved.”
Kausar thought about this. She had been raised to believe that romantic relationships were only acceptable within the context of marriage. “You’re right. We would not have approved,” she said now. “I am only sorry Ali felt he could not be honest with me and your father about his feelings. I am sorry if you felt that way as well, beta.”
Adam was nonplussed. “Cheers,” he said. “You accepted Joy into the family, and I’m grateful for that.”
Adam’s wife of nearly five years wasn’t Muslim, and Kausar knew that her son had worried his parents would reject her for that very reason. Hassan initially had his doubts, until Kausar pointed out that her son had been with Joy for many years, that she was a kind and loving partner, and that furthermore, if they wanted to be part of his life, they would have to accept his choices. Now Kausar had a delightful granddaughter and a good relationship with her daughter-in-law.
“Your wife is too good for you,” Kausar said, her usual response, and Adam laughed.
“Too right,” he agreed. Then, “Ali seemed happy with Cynthia, but he was young, and I think she was his first girlfriend. I don’t think it was true love for either of them, though I don’t really know. I only found out about the relationship because I overheard him on the phone with her one day. Why does this matter now, Mum?”
Kausar considered. It likely didn’t, but if she wanted to identify Ali’s killer, she needed to know everything about her son’s life at the time. Any detail might help. She explained this to Adam.
“I was worried something like this would happen when you wanted to get those old files out of storage,” he said, and she could hear the hint of impatience in his voice, a longing to return to his regular routine and put this tragedy back into the box he had stuffed it in, nearly eighteen years ago. “Ali’s death was an accident,” he said now. “He was at the wrong place at the wrong time. The only crime was that the driver—”
“Murderer,” Kausar corrected.
“Killer,” Adam amended, “failed to remain on the scene. There was no intent.”
“How can you be so sure? We have no idea why Ali was on that street. We don’t know anything about that night at all.” Kausar closed her eyes, fighting for control of her emotions. Ali had told her he would be playing basketball at a community court, as was his custom. Yet his body had been found in another part of the neighborhood entirely, on Red Hill Lane. She had never received an acceptable explanation why.
“I always thought he was visiting a friend who lived on the street,” Adam said.
“Which one?” Kausar asked.
“I don’t know, it was so long ago.” Adam was about to hang up, or put her off, she knew it. She couldn’t blame him.
“Dawud or Ethan?” she asked.
“Might have been either one. I really have to go. When are you coming to visit? Aneesa keeps asking to see her dadi,” he said.
He didn’t want to talk about this, and she couldn’t blame him. Adam had moved continents, far from the ghosts that haunted her. He had his own life now, complete with a beautiful wife and daughter, new friends, a job he enjoyed, a new community. She didn’t begrudge him any of it. She had long ago accepted that while her only surviving son loved his mother dearly, he was no longer part of her daily life in the same way he once had been. If Ali had lived past age fifteen, he would have done the same, no doubt. It was the lot of parents to be left behind, at least in part. It meant that you had done your job, which was some sort of consolation.
“I will visit, inshallah. In the meantime, give Aneesa a kiss from me,” Kausar said. Tacit agreement to drop the subject, at least for now.
Adam hesitated. “It won’t bring him back, Mum.”
“I know,” Kausar said quietly. She didn’t add that she had tried to do as he had done. She had tried to put it to rest. She had tried moving away from the city. She had even tried solving another mystery. Nothing had worked to silence the voice in her head that held her responsible in any number of ways: for not forbidding Ali from leaving the house that night; for falling apart in the crucial weeks following his death, when the trail would still have been fresh. It was the reason she still irrationally felt responsible for his killer walking around free, while her son lay buried six feet deep.
Adam sighed. “I don’t know if I should mention this or not, but if it makes any difference, I remember once I found Ali in the school stairwell when he should have been in class. This was a few weeks before he died. He was furious about something, and I got the impression he’d had a fight with one of his friends. I had to calm him down and convince him to go back to class so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”
Kausar’s heart started to pound. “Which one?”
“Not sure. I didn’t take it too seriously. He was in grade nine, and his life seemed so simple. Then he died, and in all the chaos, I forgot.”
Kausar considered this. “Did Ali tell you why he was upset when you found him?” she asked.
Adam’s answer was slow, considered. “Not in so many words, no. I got the impression one of his mates had made a move on his girl, and he found out. Never thought Ali was the jealous sort, but I saw the little green monster that day. Not sure if that’s helpful.”
“At this point, it’s all helpful,” Kausar said. “I love you, beta.”
“Love you, too.”
They hung up, and Kausar called May. Her friend was preparing lunch, and Kausar heard the crackle of a plastic container as May prepped her salad greens. She claimed that if she ate a salad with her lunch, that meant she could have dessert with her dinner.
“Finally, an update! I thought you would never call,” May said.
“The phone works both ways,” Kausar teased.
“I wouldn’t want you to get used to me always being the one to dial. Tell me everything you’ve been up to.”
Kausar quickly filled May in on the events of the last few days, starting with Maleeha and Cerise’s visit yesterday, learning of Qasim’s death this morning, her visit to the school and meeting with Mr. Walters and Brianna, the conversations with Ilyas and Mr. Jin, all the way to Mr. Walters’s strange invitation. May made all the appropriate noises as she related her long tale, and when she was done, she whistled in appreciation.
“I thought drama would pass you by after the excitement of the last few months, but you seem to attract trouble wherever you go. Remind me to sage your new place when I visit,” May said.
“Perhaps it is only that I have lived an entirely quiet life these last eighteen years, and the scales are leaning in the other direction,” Kausar suggested.
“What did you think of Mr. Walters?” May asked.
“He seems to be a very earnest teacher,” Kausar started slowly. “I remember Ali enjoyed his class. However, I suspect he’s not being entirely up front about his reasons for inviting me to the school.”
“I agree,” May said. “You know, certain personalities are attracted to the profession for different reasons. You’ve got your classic nurturers, who believe teaching is more vocation than career—that’s me. Then there are the teachers who didn’t know what else to do and went into teaching because it’s familiar and seems steady. Sometimes those settle into the profession, and sometimes they leave once they’ve sorted themselves out. Then you’ve got the climbers, the ones who see teaching as a step to something else, like administration or academia. I imagine Mr. Walters is the first type, but you never know.”
“After I attend the poetry club, I will know more,” Kausar said.
“So Ali had a girlfriend,” May mused.
“Is it strange that part of me is glad for him?” Kausar asked.
“Stands to reason. Love is always a good thing,” May said, and Kausar felt a flare of gratitude for her nonjudgmental, unflappable friend.
“Not all the aunties would agree,” Kausar said.
“Those aunties need to get a life,” May said. “What I find interesting is what Adam said about Ali being upset with one of his little friends.”
“They’re not so little anymore,” Kausar said. “They would be in their early thirties now.”
“Which means we can find them all on social media,” May said. “You know millennials love to post about their avocado toast and relationship drama.”
Kausar hadn’t even thought of that, but her friend was right. Now that she had a few names, she could start doing the work in earnest. Except she found herself saying, “That’s not a bad idea, but I think I need to concentrate on Qasim’s death right now.”
“What?” May asked, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Maleeha is very upset, and I made her a promise. I need to find out what really happened to Qasim. There’s something strange going on, and figuring out what that could be is my first priority,” Kausar said. Her hands were sweating, and she desperately wanted to move away from this conversation.
“Oh, Kausar,” May started, but Kausar had to stop talking, right now.
“I’ll call you later,” she said abruptly, and hung up.
Chapter 7
Kausar paced the apartment, still clutching Ali’s yearbook close to her heart. When she realized what she was doing, she placed it back in the bankers box.
It had felt easy to be brave when Adam asked her to stop looking into Ali’s death. Why, then, when her friend expressed unwavering support had she run back into the corner where fear, shame, and guilt lived? She knew the answer: because it felt safer than actually following up on her words.
Kausar’s hands were still clenched around the bankers box, and she looked down into the contents. A picture lay near the top, a small 4 x 6 of Ali alongside a group of boys. The lighting was dark, like all those old pictures seemed to be, but she recognized their old home, and the backyard they had never gotten around to landscaping. The boys—six in total—were posed with plates of burgers and hot dogs, cans of pop in front of them. Adam, Ali, Ilyas, Siraj, Ethan, and Dawud. Ali had raised his cob of corn like a spear, while Siraj and Ilyas looked off into the distance, but they were all laughing. She bet Adam had just made a joke. He was always the life of the party. Ali was funny, too, but his humor ran to pranks and well-timed witty remarks that invariably left everyone in stitches. Dawud was the skinny boy with pale skin and dark eyes, while Ethan sat beside him, hair sun bleached, teeth in braces. Ilyas had a soft expression on his face, and he looked young and innocent. Beside him stood Siraj, Fatima’s son and another frequent guest at her children’s impromptu get-togethers.
