Written behind him were four questions.
What happened?
What evidence supports it?
What remains uncertain?
What can be corrected?
Mariah stared at the image.
"Where did you get this?"
"An academy instructor sent it to me after Aaron's final training seminar."
Brenda smiled faintly.
"I thought your family might like to have it."
Mariah looked toward the photograph at the front of the hall.
"Yes."
Her eyes filled.
"Very much."
That evening, after the memorial guests had gone home, Mariah returned to Aaron's house.
She unlocked the front door and stood quietly in the entryway.
The house smelled faintly of cedarwood, paper, and the lavender soap he had always kept beside the bathroom sink.
Everything was exactly where he had left it.
His reading glasses rested beside a folded newspaper.
A half-finished crossword puzzle lay on the kitchen table.
His favorite blue sweater hung over the back of a chair.
On the windowsill stood three small plants he had grown from cuttings.
Mariah walked through the living room.
Family photographs covered the bookshelf.
The largest showed Aaron at seventy-three, kneeling in the garden beside two of Mariah's children, explaining how to plant tomatoes.
Both children were adults now.
Her son, Ellis, was twenty-six and working in digital archival preservation.
Her daughter, Olivia, was twenty-nine and had recently become a mother.
Mariah picked up the picture.
She remembered the day clearly.
Aaron had made the children plant too many tomato seedlings.
By August, the family had more tomatoes than they could eat.
He delivered bags of them to neighbors.
Then he started making tomato sauce and giving that away too.
Mariah laughed softly at the memory.
She replaced the photograph.
The estate documents were straightforward.
Aaron had been careful about such things.
His financial arrangements were orderly.
His charitable gifts were documented.
His personal belongings were to be divided among family members according to their wishes.
But there was one item Mariah had been asked to handle personally.
A wooden filing cabinet in his study.
The top drawer bore a handwritten label.
Personal correspondence — not investigative records.
Mariah opened it.
Inside were folders.