I had no idea you were talking about actual suitcases full of white powder!

And here, of course, was the perfect final ingredient of the disaster, the one that turned my private panic into a full family emergency: the innocent miscommunication, the game of telephone played across a single terrified phone call.

Zachary, hearing his frantic wife say she had found some of his mother’s things, had done the kind, sensible, thoughtful thing, which was to spare his parents a second trip by asking them to swing back now while they were still nearby.

He had no way of knowing that in doing the kind and sensible thing he was summoning the accused directly to the scene of her supposed crime, at the precise worst moment, before any of us had the faintest idea what was actually going on.