AFTER DAVE THOMPSON drove off, the group sat in stunned silence until Tom came back into the dining room, and they were sure they were alone. Pete was the first to speak.

“Well, I’m grateful he was so open with us, but it still feels like there’s a lot of unanswered questions,” he sighed.

“That’s for sure,” agreed Mitch. “You’ll never convince me that Vonda just sat out there in the car all night, didn’t hear anything, and fell asleep. It doesn’t add up.”

Mitch heard himself speaking and felt disingenuous as the words came out of his mouth. In the back of his mind, he knew that it was somehow easier to focus on the mysteries surrounding the crime than on the awful brutality of Danny’s actions. While it was true that there was probably more to the story, there was no escaping the fact that Danny had killed his wife and child and then committed suicide, in each instance in the most gruesome way imaginable. Playing detective created an artificial wall that provided a bit of a respite for the group, however, and so they all indulged.

After a few minutes of rehashing the meeting with Detective Thompson, the group moved on to the particulars of the funeral service. Because Rachel’s older sister, Terry, hadn’t been heard from in several years, and no one knew how to contact her, the burden of making all the decisions regarding the service, burial, and other issues had fallen on Maryann, Pete, and Sam. Pete and Sam admittedly had had very little contact with Rachel, Danny, and the kids over the last ten years, so their role was a bit removed. It was really Maryann, as the adult child, who would bear the brunt of all the ugly choices to be made over the next few days.

Of course, there was the big, fat elephant that had shoved its way into the living room, and had sat there huffing and puffing, ignored until this point. Sam, who was never one to avoid a conflict, bluntly brought it up.

“So, are we going to have a service for just Rachel and Evan, or should we include Danny, also?” There it was. Had the mother, father, and child died in a car accident, there would be no need to ask the question, even if the father had been driving drunk, and had caused their deaths. This was a whole other set of circumstances, however.