He went to your mother’s house and tried to get in.

But Mr.

Davis and Mrs.

Jenkins and two of the boys from the corner store were standing on that porch, and we told him he would not set one foot inside that door.” The lead detective took the notebook from her as if it were a holy relic.

And inside it were pages upon pages — names, dates, license plate numbers, stapled receipts, sums of money, all in my mother’s tight and careful hand — and, tucked into the back, a printed photograph of Richard standing beside a stranger in the warehouse district downtown.

My seventy-five-year-old mother, with her mocked flip phone and her aching knees, had assembled a criminal case more complete than most professionals could have built.