‘A hobby? It’s one in the morning, Howard. You spend every minute you’re awake researching and writing that book.’

‘So what? I need something to fill my summers while school’s out.’

‘Really? How about doing something with your family? How about doing something with me?’

‘We were just in Door County,’ he told her.

‘One weekend. Three days. It rained. And the only reason we went is that you tracked another white Rav to somebody in Sister Bay.’

‘I told you. It’s my hobby.’

Carol shook her head in frustration. When he looked at her, he saw how much she’d aged in the last nine years. The extra ten pounds she’d always carried had become twenty. Her face, without makeup, was pallid like beach sand. She was right that he was ignoring her. They didn’t have much in common anymore. Their intermittent sex life had dwindled to nothing; he couldn’t remember when they had last slept together. Their daughter Annie was a sullen teenager, too preoccupied with her own life to worry about them. Carol didn’t have anything else. She still worked as a checker at the Super One. She quilted. She went to church. And she nagged him about the book like a squawking parrot on his shoulder.

She didn’t understand that the case was the most important work he’d ever done in his life. It was his life. It made him feel young again. His office had become a library of evidence, all of it neatly organized and categorized by subject. The witnesses. The exhibits. The gun. The Rav. Two years ago, he’d started turning his investigative work into a book.

But a book needed an ending, which he didn’t have yet. It would end when Janine was free.

‘What did you do today?’ she asked, making the question sound like an accusation.

‘I went to a pawn shop in Grand Rapids.’

‘Every week you’re in a different pawn shop,’ she snapped. ‘You’re never going to find anything after all this time. What do you hope to accomplish?’

‘The missing jewelry is still out there,’ Howard retorted. ‘Those are expensive pieces. Sooner or later, whoever has them is going to figure they’re safe. They’ll try to sell them.’

Carol opened her mouth to shout at him, the way she usually did, but this time she held her tongue. He’d heard it all before. The jewelry wasn’t missing; it was at the bottom of a lake, where Janine had tossed it, along with the gun. He would never find it. He was wasting his time.

His wife closed her eyes. She took a long, slow breath. He realized she was crying.

‘Tell me why,’ she said.

‘I’ve told you before.’

‘Tell me again,’ she said.