Shortly after the policeman brings the water, Shoffler shows up. He stands in the threshold and raps his knuckles against the inside of the doorjamb. “Can I have a word with you, Alex? With you and Mrs. Callahan?”

There’s something about the look on Shoffler’s face that freezes my heart. First of all the latex gloves he’s wearing – they’re all wearing them – provide a chilling, clinical note. I stand up fast, as if there’s a rope attached to the top of my head and someone’s yanked me to my feet. “What is it?”

“You can speak freely right here,” my father says, with a little inclusive sweep of his hand. “We’re all family.”

Shoffler holds his hand up, palm toward my father like a cop stopping traffic. “Just the parents,” he says, with something that’s more like a grimace than a smile.

Liz is gray. We follow Shoffler upstairs into my study, where a uniformed officer, also gloved, sits on the corner of my desk holding a clipboard. Shoffler introduces the man: “This is Officer David Ebinger.”

Shoffler explains that it’s the custom, post-O.J., to have a single officer handle evidence, from tagging and bagging, to checking it in and out of the evidence room, to introducing it in court. “We have to establish chain of custody,” he says, in a matter-of-fact way, “in case there’s a court case somewhere down the line.”

We nod. We understand.

And then Shoffler closes the door. “We found something,” he says.

I can’t say a word.

On my desk sits a brown cardboard box about the size of a shoe box. Its flaps are open, splayed to the sides, and taped to it is a white tag with writing on it. Shoffler nods to Ebinger and then, using the eraser end of a pencil, extracts from the box a crumpled and badly stained piece of clothing. Once he’s got the whole thing clear of the box, I see what it is: a yellow T-shirt. The stain is reddish brown and I know instantly that it’s blood.

Liz moans. I put my arm around her and she leans in to me, turning her face in to my chest. She can’t look, but I can’t stop looking. Shoffler is trying to gently shake out the piece of cloth suspended from his pencil. It must have dried in this crumpled state, and it’s so stiff his efforts don’t accomplish much. For some reason I feel compelled to watch, filled with dread that the shirt will slip off the pencil and fall to the desk and that I must not let this happen. Finally the folds of fabric in one part of the bunched T-shirt lose their adhesion. It’s like a clenched fist opening, and suddenly I can see what the bunched folds hid, a palm-sized flat expanse of the T-shirt.

I don’t need to see any more.

What’s visible is the cartoonish drawing of a fish tail, the tail of what I know to be a whale, the interior of which I know to be printed with the word NANTUCKET.

“That’s Kevin’s,” I say. I seem to speak without volition. “Sean has a green one.” I can’t take my eyes off the shirt. I try to concentrate on the fabric, exclude the image of Kevin in the shirt. There’s a weird metallic taste in my mouth. Liz is shivering in my arms.

“Where did you find it?” I hear myself ask.

“Could you confirm that, Mrs. Callahan? I mean the identity of the shirt?”

Liz stiffens, lifts her head away from my chest. She turns her head, takes a look. She makes a terrible little sound. Her hand flies up to her mouth. She manages a few choppy nods.

Shoffler presses her. “Are you telling me the shirt belonged to your son Kevin?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you find it?” I ask again, but again Shoffler doesn’t answer. He maneuvers the shirt back into the box, pushes the flaps shut with the pencil. Ebinger meticulously tapes it closed.

“There’s one more thing,” Shoffler says. “Would you follow me?”

Shoffler leads, Ebinger follows in our wake. I try not to speculate on the fresh horror he’s going to show us. I concentrate on looking at the back of Liz’s head, the slight sway of her dark ponytail. We enter the boys’ room. I can hardly breathe.

“We decided to leave this in situ for the moment,” Shoffler says, levering open the door of the closet with his pencil. “Can you explain this?” he asks, using the pencil to point to the top shelf. He moves aside, allowing us to peer into the closet. There, next to Candyland and Sorry is a small glass mixing bowl full of a clear liquid. It’s on the very edge of the shelf, ready to topple.

“What is it?” Liz asks. “Is it water?”

“We’re not certain yet – but, ah – as I said, if you can tell us what it’s for, that would help.”

Liz looks at me, but all I can do is shrug. I have no idea what a bowl of liquid is doing on the top shelf of the boys’ closet.

“Did they have a pet or something?” Shoffler asks. “I mean a frog, a bug… a fish? That would make sense.”

“I don’t think so,” I tell him.

“Hunh,” Shoffler says, “you don’t think so.” He turns toward Liz. “Mrs. Callahan?”

Liz just shakes her head and frowns and gives me a funny look.

“We’ll take a sample of the liquid and print the bowl. Is it your bowl, by the way?” He looks from me to Liz.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess so.”

“I don’t recognize it,” Liz says.

“Hunh,” Shoffler says again. “Well, Dave is going to deal with this,” he says, nodding toward the closet, “and the crew can take on the family room. You can have the run of the rest of the house now.” He removes his gloves.

“Detective-”

“It shouldn’t take long,” he says, ignoring me, “and then we’ll be out of your hair. I expect everybody’s pretty tired,” he continues, “especially the grandparents.”

“The shirt,” Liz squeaks, “does that-?”

“Sorry,” Shoffler says, retreating into formality, “the shirt is evidence, and questions about it will have to wait. It would be premature to speculate. We’ll send it to the lab and then I’ll be in a better position to discuss it.”

“But-”

He’s moving toward the door now, walking past Liz and me. There seems to be no choice but to follow him out into the hall. We pause before returning to the family room, so that the two policemen coming out of my study can get to the front door. Each of them carries a large cardboard box sealed with evidence tape.

“What’s that? What are you taking?”

“I think it’s your computer.”

“My computer?”

“Relax, Alex. It’s routine. The kidnapper was here, right? Naturally we have to remove some items to examine them. Detective Ebinger will give you a search warrant inventory when we’re finished, and you should look that over. As for the computer, what if the boys have been in touch with someone over the Internet? We have to examine that possibility.”

Liz turns on me. “You did have parental controls on that thing, didn’t you, Alex?”

“They never used the computer.”

“Alex!”

“They never went near it! I don’t even think they knew how to turn it on.” This is probably true. The Apple engineers disguised the iMac’s on/off switch so well that when I bought the machine, I had to call the shop to ask where it was.

“You promised me.”

“Liz-”

Shoffler interrupts. “Alex,” he says, “would you be willing to take a polygraph test?”

“What?”

I say what, but I heard him. I also know what it means. Murder – even the murder of children – is often a family affair. When children go missing, the parents are automatic suspects. I can hear Officer Christiansen’s voice during our walk back to the Jeep in that deserted field outside the festival gates. “Nine times out of ten, it’s a parent.”

Who could forget the Susan Smith case? The smiling faces of her sons blanketed the news for days as their distraught mother begged for their return, the return of boys she herself had sent rolling into the cold water of a lake, belted into their car seats. How could she do it? I wondered – everyone wondered – did she watch the water rise, did she watch them go under? I also remember a couple in Florida who made tearful appeals for the return of their adorable daughter, whose mangled body was later discovered buried in their backyard.