You told me they were only going to be declared incompetent!” Roland turned on her like a cornered animal.

“You paid the psychiatrist!

You forged their signatures!” “Because you swore no one was going to die!” she shrieked.

And their unified front — the front they had maintained for three years, in front of teachers and neighbors and police — disintegrated entirely, in front of officers and cameras, each of them naming the other’s crimes in a desperate scramble to be the lesser monster.

I felt no triumph watching it.