I stare at myself in the rearview mirror as I back out of my driveway for the drive up to the cabins near Octopus Hole. I look pretty good. I just wonder why that’s so. As I drive, I listen to country music and the sad-sack stories of love, loss, and pickup trucks on dirt roads. The sun shimmers on the waters of Hood Canal, and I put on my sunglasses. I know that Adam Warner is not a killer. The DNA found inside Sophie proves it. We were doing our job when Montrose and I interviewed him, but now I realize the price of due diligence was a friendship that mattered.

When I pull in to park, I see that Adam is out in the rowboat. He’s about fifty yards out, adjacent to a clutch of white mooring buoys. I make my way over to the bulkhead where Sophie was last seen alive, and I think how similar her final view of her husband had been. He doesn’t seem to have seen me, so I sit and watch.

It dawns on me that he’s decided not to wait: he’s pouring her ashes into the canal. That’s fine with me. A light breeze moves some dust over the glassy surface, while the majority of what is coming from the urn cascades into the water. The scene brings tears. I cannot imagine a lonelier, more personal moment than the good-bye he’s experiencing now. I feel like I’ve intruded in that way when you see something that you know you shouldn’t have. He looks up in my direction, and I give a slight wave.

Adam’s done with a final, sacred moment with his murdered wife and starts rowing in my direction.

“Hey,” he says, stepping out of the boat into the shallow water along the shore.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I feel like I’m intruding.”

He gives me a sad smile. It’s to relax me, but I know that there’s no truth behind it. He’s heartbroken over his loss. His eyes can’t lie.

“It’s all right,” he says, setting the empty aluminum urn on the beach. “I wanted you here. I pretty much have no one else now. No friends who could possibly understand.”

“You have a daughter,” I remind him.

He drags the boat to its storage spot on a bunch of driftwood and picks up the now-empty urn.

“Yes,” he says. “I do.”

“We caught him, Adam. He’s going down.”

“Her killer was here that weekend,” he says. “Not some freak driving by or stalking her at the IGA. Right here, two cabins over.”

“I know. The DNA is conclusive.”

“I want to see that creep. I’d like to fucking kill him.”

“He’s going to prison. That’s how it works.”