But marrying somebody you trusted was not a crime.”

We sat without speaking for a long time.

Connie told me how she had rushed to the hospital after Valerie called her, how Leticia had told her there was no reason to visit, and how the urgency of the cremation had made her suspicious.

She went straight to the venue because she remembered the engraved glass.

The manager nearly refused to let her into the storage room until she explained that police might need to preserve evidence.

“I didn’t think I’d actually find it,” she confessed.