I have said this a great many times, to a great many people, including under oath in a deposition eighteen months later: I was not in Phoenix, I was not invited, I did not want to be there, and I found out what happened the way everybody else did, which was afterward, from people who had been in the room.

Part Ten: Saturday, Paradise Valley

There were a hundred and ninety guests.

My aunt Sarah was one of them, which was not my doing — she has been in Phoenix society for thirty years and had known Evelyn Lawson since before I was born, and her invitation had gone out in April, before any of this.

What follows is assembled from her account, from Evelyn’s own account two years later, and from a written statement that Michelle eventually gave in another proceeding entirely.

It was an afternoon reception on the lawn.