Was there even a chance that Pete Sunday’s choice to give me this box was no error? What if my visit had unsettled him? What if it stirred up some doubts he still had about Stefan’s case? Maybe he wanted an excuse for some fresh eyes on the evidence. Police did that all the time on television. As if examining again the real photos, the lock of hair might reveal motivation or something else that was previously overlooked. Or what if he just wanted to rebuke me with the facts, for my nosiness?

“We have to be brave,” Julie said.

I fanned the photos out like a deck of terrible tarot, pushing the first and most terrible picture of Belinda’s skull aside with one finger. The next photo was of the golf club. In general I didn’t know one golf club from another, but I knew this was an iron, a black shaft with a chubby foot, shiny with blood. Here was a picture of Belinda on the floor, her legs as disjointed as a doll’s, ringed in chalk, then photos of the splattered ceiling, walls, lampshades, couch cushions. Stefan’s stained, pale blue sweatshirt on the floor next to Belinda’s head; the dark, impossibly huge pool of blood on the gray carpet; a man’s rugged fist, index finger extended, pointing to a bloody footprint.

Julie and I sat back. I was panting like I was in labor. Julie went to the kitchen and brought back big mugs of tea with lots of sugar a few minutes later.

The big clock from the church at the edge of the lake struck twelve midnight.

We went on.