Joshua soldiers on. “We loved our mom. We will never forgive our father. When he is caught, I hope he gets the death penalty. He was garbage.”

Sarah touches her brother’s shoulder and he stops. He looks at her and she grips his hand.

“No one is perfect,” she says. “Mom was close to it. She was always there when we needed something or when we were sick. Dad pretty much kept us away from her as much as he could. I won’t say more. Everyone’s said enough.”

“Can I speak?”

It’s Ruth.

Brother and sister step back to give her room.

“I’m very sorry that I don’t know my nephew and niece better. I can make excuses, but I want you two to know the truth.” She holds her breath. “Your father kept us apart too. He didn’t… didn’t want her to be close to anyone. I’ll miss her every day. Just like I have the past six years.”

Ruth Turner looks at her sister’s body, bends down, and pulls a frilly blue bachelor’s button from the shroud.

Her lips are tight and she’s trembling.

“May I?” she finally asks.

Joshua nods and watches as his aunt drops the blossom into the open grave.

We stand there silently, then Eve does the same, so does Sarah. We all do.

Joshua sends a shovelful of loose, loamy soil over the flowers in the symbolic grave. Then another. He goes faster and faster. A strange jolt of mania has taken over his body. Two… five… six. Again, his sister intervenes.

“That’s enough,” she tells him. “Put down the shovel.” He does as he’s told, and I think it’s a somewhat strange dynamic. She’s younger, but she is the dominant of the two.

She takes the shovel and scrapes soil onto the now-disappearing collage of flowers.

“Bye, Mom,” she says, now kneeling and pulling a flower from her hair. “Our hearts are broken. Don’t worry. We’re strong like you. We’re fighters too.” She drops the daisy on to the empty grave they’ve made.

I look at Sheriff. He’s rolling his tongue over what I’m sure is his missing filling.

“I’m going to tell them to leave,” I say, indicating the TV crew.

“Yeah, tell them to get lost.”

A news reporter with flawless skin, shiny dark hair, and a distinctly cocky prance in his walk, comes at me. A camerawoman follows.

“Jake Jackson, KING TV,” he announces. “You’re the detective on the case.”