Michael was not marched out of the courthouse in handcuffs that afternoon.

Real life moves more slowly than the stories on television, and what followed was not a dramatic arrest but a long, grinding machinery of investigations, motions, interviews, and, from Michael and Rachel both, still more lies.

Michael blamed Rachel.

Rachel blamed Michael.

Gregory Walsh withdrew from the case entirely and surrendered his files under court order, wanting nothing further to do with either of them.

And eventually, when the evidence had done its patient work, my son pleaded guilty to several financial offenses and to an offense connected to the forged document, and Rachel accepted a separate plea involving the falsification of evidence and unlawful restraint.