Mitch and Carolyn checked into their hotel, and went downstairs to the restaurant to order lunch, which neither of them ate. They were just trying to do some normal things before the next step in the process. Carolyn called her mother, who told her that the boys were doing fine and that she should take her time, and come home when she and Mitch were done with what they had to do. So strange, she thought. As parents, we protect, love, forgive, worry about, and correct our kids. They love us in return and have absolute trust in us. What could possibly have caused Danny to go so wrong? Could it really all be as simple as cashing in an insurance policy? Was there another woman involved?

Maryann was sitting on her front steps, smoking a cigarette, when Mitch and Carolyn pulled up in front of her apartment building. Mitch was tempted to ask her for a smoke, but he had quit over ten years ago, and he knew Carolyn would be furious if he started up again. Perhaps he would borrow one a little later if he knew for sure that Carolyn was preoccupied.

“Oh, no, I can’t believe it!” Maryann said when they turned onto Caves Road and saw the TV trucks lined up. Before they were even able to emerge from the car, there was a swarm of reporters poking microphones in their faces.

“Are any of you family members? How are you related? Do you know why he did it?

“Who are you?” one particularly smarmy fellow demanded. Obviously their deadlines for the evening news were looming and they had yet to get a statement from the family.

While they pretended to be working as industry colleagues, of course each reporter secretly hoped for an exclusive with a family member, and once he had that someone alone, in front of the camera, each jackal was confident he could break that person. The method was to sucker in the family with a few sensitive questions, and then go in for the kill. The coup de grâce would be a three-second clip of a distraught family member in tears that the producer could play over and over as a tease, while the announcer advised viewers to stay tuned in order to see the important, exclusive interview.

Mitch and Carolyn huddled around Maryann and pushed their way up the driveway. A cameraman tried to press his lens between them to get a shot of Maryann’s ashen face, and Mitch instinctively pushed it away. A few enterprising reporters had enlisted a neighbor to provide them with information about the family, and they apparently knew who Maryann was. It only took a few seconds for those reporters to jump into the fray.

“Hey, Maryann, look over here! Why do you think your father did it?”

“Maryann, what are the funeral arrangements?”

“Is it true there was a big insurance policy?”