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He said, “I’m here to tie up some loose ends regarding Mr. Hollander’s death.”

I was confused. I had no idea there were loose ends. I searched back in my brain to make sense of what the detective was saying.

“You mean Jason’s father? In Georgia? He died a little over a year ago. I might have his death certificate in a file if you need it?”

“No. I mean Jason Hollander. Your late husband.”

I stared at him. Still at a loss.

He said, “Let me start by offering my condolences. My grandpa had type 2 diabetes. He had his foot amputated toward the end.” I had heard a variation of this dozens of times. People often tried to connect in the most misguided ways. I said, “It’s a terrible disease.”

“Know what?” he said. “I will take a small glass of that fresh orange juice. If you don’t mind.”

At this point I was happy to have a chore, so I got up and poured the juice into a good glass. One from our wedding registry. As I handed it to him, I saw his eyes dart over the nearly empty kitchen counter. And land on a half-filled bookshelf in the vestibule.

“Did Jason live here with you?”

“Of course. Yes.”

My brain was still searching, trying to be helpful. I asked, “Are the loose ends about his address? Because he also owned a condo that we use as an investment property.”

Detective Jackson chugged his juice in what seemed one large sip, and gingerly placed the glass on the island. He gave me a nod of thanks, pressed himself up off his stool, and walked back into the living room, toward the front door, as if this strange, vague visit was perfectly normal. I followed him. Still baffled.

Before he reached the knob, he turned to me and asked, “Where’s all Jason’s stuff? This house seems half empty.”

It was a reasonable question. I would learn soon enough that many of Detective Keith Jackson’s questions were reasonable. And I could have given him a whole lecture about how we all grieve differently. About how the day Jason died, I removed every item of his, from cookbooks to flip-flops to surf wax, in a frenzy because the sight of it all made me sick with sadness. I could tell him I did the same exact thing when our cherished dog died. And how me wanting every physical shred of Jason gone didn’t make me an unloving person. And how even my housekeeper, Jesula, understood this. She helped me pack up all of Jason’s things. But I felt this intimate answer was none of Detective Keith Jackson’s damn business. So I merely said, “I’m kind of a neat freak.”

Detective Jackson stayed standing still. So still that Mr. Cat actually ventured out from the closet, wandered toward us, unafraid, and wove his body in figure eights around the long legs of the stranger in our house. It was remarkable. Mr. Cat usually hated everyone.

I was so thrown by the whole visit, so off my game, I asked, “Is there more you want to talk about?”

Detective Jackson bent over and gave Mr. Cat a nice pat on the side. He said, “No rush on my end. Will you be in town for a while?”

“Absolutely. I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s good to hear.”

As he walked out, I thought about the morning that Richard Vale’s body was discovered. I woke up to a scream. And assumed, correctly, that Hannah’s mother had found her husband dead on the kitchen floor. The police arrived. And chatted with a few neighbors, who popped out to see what was going on. They all mentioned the Vales fought a lot. Screamed at each other, threw things sometimes. I knew that the spouse is always the first suspect when someone dies, and for a moment that morning, I worried that Mrs. Vale would be in trouble for what I had done. Killing Richard sat fine with me, but having her get punished for it would not be okay. So I was uneasy for a bit. But after a quick interview with her, it seemed, based on the detective’s expertise, that the wife didn’t want the husband dead. She was sobbing all morning. And it wasn’t just tears that poured out of her; it was snot too. Any good cop knows that people can train themselves to cry, but no one can fake snot. If honest-to-goodness snot comes out of a nose, it’s a sign that the person is in fact keening and is probably not the killer.

Then I thought about my own reaction when the ambulance and police came for Jason. I was crying, wasn’t I? Sobbing like a new young widow should be sobbing? But thinking back to that horrific early morning, I remember feeling so dry. It was more like I was heaving. Screaming. Hyperventilating. All which can be acted out. Did I have any big wet tears? Did my face show any signs of snot at all? I don’t think it did. I was in shock—that’s why my brain was arid. Or maybe, because of the things I’d done, I no longer had the ability to react to trauma within a range of normal human behavior. I hoped to God no one else noticed my lack of flowing mucus.

By the time Detective Jackson pulled out of my driveway, I felt a sinking panic in my gut. I tried to will myself into believing I was just being paranoid. And then I googled him. I scrolled through police websites and read articles and learned that Keith Jackson was not in the “tying up loose ends” division, but rather he was in the homicide division. He had a clean record, no complaints. And was honored by the city of Miami Beach on multiple occasions for his valor and bravery.

I replayed the odd and seemingly pointless visit. His manner was so casual. Too casual. I had taken several undergraduate classes on the criminal mind and graduate school classes on psychological tactics used in law enforcement to profile and catch criminals and lull them into confessing their crimes. Was Detective Jackson’s friendly meandering a way to get invited into my house without any just cause? A way to keep me, a grieving widow, off guard? But I had nothing to be guarded about. Jason died of natural causes. Everyone knew that already.