He Was Sure the Cops Would Believe the Polished Son-in-Law Over a Terrified Old Woman. Then I Asked Them to Look at the Fireplace

She did not own an iron poker, or a brass stand, or a set of andirons, or a single one of the heavy black tools that Ronan had described to the police in such confident detail.

She could not have swung an iron fireplace tool at his head, because there was no iron fireplace tool in her house to swing.

Eight years earlier, the year after my father died, my mother had grown tired of the mess and the draft of the old wood-burning hearth, and she had it sealed and replaced with a wall-mounted electric fireplace — a flat glass panel set flush into the living room wall, clean and modern, no chimney, no ash, no grate, and no tools.

I had helped her choose it.

I had been there the afternoon it was installed.

I had watched the old iron set go out to the curb.