The casket and vehicle documentation supported the investigation without being treated as objects that could speak in complete sentences.

The telephone records established contacts at relevant times.

They still did not preserve the words spoken during those calls.

Investigators also found business records showing a forty-thousand-dollar debt to a chemical supply company.

Other obligations were reviewed as well.

That gave the family’s financial difficulties a number and a creditor.

It did not make me responsible for the debt, and it did not prove that financial pressure was the only motive for what happened on October 12.

Arthur and David had supplied different versions of my position in the van, the purpose of the trip, and the use of the cord.