Details of the hired hand, Thomas James Cooke, emerged. He was originally from California. He was twenty-eight, the exact same age as Henry. According to his parents, he had spent the last few years traveling around the West, doing seasonal work and odd jobs. There was no indication when he arrived in Aspen or how long he had been working for and living with Miller. He had no prior arrest record. Young, hardworking, unlucky, dead. Bad timing was a shitty thing to die from.

Soon the stories got smaller and moved further back in the paper. By the second week they were no longer daily. There was nothing sensational about the crime to keep it newsworthy. Hardly the case of that French pop singer who killed her skier boyfriend—the one that more than a few people had mentioned to Claudine when she first moved to Aspen and they learned her name. No love affair. No financial scandal. Just two poor, lonely, solitary men living out in the middle of nowhere.

Then, nine days after the murders, the news she’d been waiting for.

PROPERTY WORKER RESPONSIBLE
FOR ASPEN LOCAL HOMICIDE

Police have determined that Jonathan Miller, 84, of Aspen, Colorado, was murdered by hired hand Thomas James Cooke, 28, permanent address unknown. Wednesday night, Mr. Miller was bludgeoned to death with a heavy object in his living room. Mr. Cooke was also killed in the struggle. It has been concluded that Mr. Miller fatally wounded Mr. Cooke with a shotgun blast in what was a last-ditch effort to retaliate from being struck. Both men were pronounced dead on the scene. Police have been unable to determine a motive, though they surmise the two men were having an argument that turned violent.

Henry

The morning after the murders, Henry made the decision, the vow, never to drink again. He took all the whiskey bottles, poured them out in the kitchen sink, and threw them in the garbage. Henry Calhoun, killer. This couldn’t continue; he had to become someone new to outrun it. He dove into the art of self-discipline, denying himself the one thing that would help him forget it all. When every fiber of his being wanted to get tanked, desperate to reach a blackout state in which his reality was questionable, he’d go back to that morning in his mind, reading the words in the paper. Hearing Claudine’s voice as she explained. He’d done something unforgivable. He focused on the pit in his stomach, knew he would have it for the rest of his life. Trying to live only in the space where it hurt most until it swallowed the urge to drink entirely. It was excruciating but sobriety was the punishment he deserved. He wanted the pain and the sickness. It was the only thing that felt right.