same green eyes as Qasim. He started quoting the Qur’an to me. (“Tell the believing women not to reveal their adornment except for that which is apparent.”) I counter-quoted. (“Tell the believing men to avert their gaze.”) He claimed veiling was required by tradition; I insisted that tradition tells us only the Prophet’s wives covered. He warned that women ought not to tempt men in the mosque; I mocked the men who would be so easily distracted from their worship. Finally, he said he had to go inside, that we could discuss this some other time, because right now he had a prayer to lead.
I lit a fresh cigarette and waited until Maryam and the girls came out. In the car on the way back, I told my wife what happened, but instead of taking my side, she complained that I had embarrassed her in front of the congregation. I was stunned. “But you don’t even know these people,” I said. “And I’m your husband.”
“I know Mrs. Hammadi, but you just had to start—”
“Okay, but that’s it. You don’t know anyone else.”
“—arguing with the imam like you know better than him.”
“Of course, I know better. I don’t need him to tell me right from wrong.”
“That skirt was too sheer, I told Nora before we—”
“Oh, no, no, no. Don’t make this to be her fault. You’re the one who—”
“—left the house. Why doesn’t she ever listen to me?”
“—dragged us all out here. And for what?”
In the backseat, Nora put on her headphones and stared out of the window. My wife and I continued bickering for a while, dredging up old arguments and using them against each other, but when I turned onto the 62, I was struck silent by the view. It was a cold, clear day in December, and there was snow on the peaks of the Little San Bernardino Mountains. The valley was a blanket of high grass and mesquite and yucca, slowly warming up under the morning sun, and after the road dipped and rose and turned, we reached the first grove of Joshua trees. How hard the believers make it to get into heaven, I thought, when they have all this right here.
Coleman
I remember this case well. It was the first homicide I investigated after I transferred here from Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2014. I’m from New York, originally, but D.C. is where I grew up, where I went to school, and where I worked for fifteen years, so it was a difficult move for me. Even more so for Miles. I could see it in his eyes when we asked him about his day while we ate dinner. He’d jab at his potatoes with a fork, answer our questions with yes or no, or sometimes just a shrug, then lock himself in his room to play video games. Miles used to be a sweet kid, you could even say a mama’s boy, but he wouldn’t let me kiss him good night anymore. Moving away from home is hard on a kid, I knew that, but it’s not as if it didn’t happen every day in this country. Hell, in the world. How did other people do it? That’s what I wanted to know.
It wasn’t even my idea to move out here, to the middle of the desert. It was Ray’s, after he was offered district manager at Enterprise in Palm Springs. He’d waited so long for a promotion, watched so many others with less experience get ahead, that he knew if he didn’t take this offer, another one might not come along. And it worked out well for him—he made more money, we could afford a bigger house, there was no snow to shovel in the winter, he could root for the Lakers. You would think he would’ve taken it a little easy, being manager and all, but he worked even harder. Every night, he studied his sales statements, going down each column with a little ruler so he wouldn’t miss a zero or a comma. Ray has always been comfortable with numbers; they’ve never disappointed him, never held any mystery or complication. Sometimes, going through his sales, he talked to himself.
Meanwhile, Miles was in his room, sulking.