In passing, as if I were a heavyweight warming up for the title bout, I mentioned the contents of the box, my questions in brief. The fingerprints all made sense now, and he said he didn’t know why the toxicology reports were not included, but he did remember them well. Stefan’s blood revealed a high level of stimulants, opiates and alcohol. Belinda’s tested positive for the antidepressant sertraline, sold under the name Zoloft, as well MDMA, or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, known as ecstasy.

I thought of all the years that I would never have believed that Belinda used drugs.

Just so that I could see everything fully, I asked about the things Stefan said when he was interviewed that night. I also asked why he was interviewed when we weren’t there, because he was a minor, but just as quickly, I remembered the lawyer telling us that with a crime this serious, the age of seventeen was a presumed adult.

By the time Sunday entered the apartment, he said, paramedics were going through the motions on Belinda, and Stefan was on the floor, groggy but alert enough to already be in handcuffs. The coroner showed up about the same time as Sunday did. The first time Sunday talked to Stefan was at the hospital ward: “He was pretty incoherent, just crying and moaning. I tried to ask him what happened but he didn’t really seem to get it. The only thing he said to me was, will Belinda be okay? He didn’t realize she was dead.”

The second time Pete Sunday interviewed Stefan, he’d been processed, allowed to shower and been given a huge pair of surgical scrubs and a robe to wear. He was shivering so fiercely that Sunday went to the nursing station to get him a blanket, which our son looped over his head like a Bedouin’s robe. Wearily, then, Stefan confessed to breaking down the door by kicking it and hitting Belinda with the golf club. He didn’t recall doing it but he had been told that was how she was hurt. He did remember getting into a physical fight and screams and blood. He remembered things that hadn’t happened, however. For one thing, upon examination, the door was in perfectly good order. Pete Sunday had written down what Stefan said. “He said, I guess I just went in and then I hit her. Why would I do that?”

I sat across from the detective, delicately deconstructing and reconstructing my egg salad sandwich, but my thoughts went to Stefan. Abruptly, the sight of my food, soft and soaking into the bread, suddenly revolted me. I got up to tip it into the trash.

“You see why he was so confused now,” I said.

“Maybe. You’re thinking this girl, this...”

“Emily. Or Esme. Emily Lindquist. Emily Lundgren.”