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

He had prepared for my mother’s tears, and had “she’s confused, she’s senile” loaded and waiting.

He had even prepared for the police to search the house, and welcomed it, because he believed the search would prove him right.

What he had not prepared for — what he could not have prepared for, because it required knowing a small true thing about a woman he’d never bothered to actually know — was that there was no weapon to find.

His whole plan had one silent assumption underneath it, load-bearing and never once examined: that a house with a fireplace has fireplace tools.

It was such a small assumption.

It was the kind of thing no one checks.