CONKLIN GRUNTED, said, “Purification by fire. It’s a major biblical theme.”

  Just then the garage door opened behind us and I turned to see a chic forty-something woman wearing a business suit limned in the sunlight behind her. Her face was stretched in anger and fear.

  “I’m Alicia Beam. Who’s in charge here?”

  “I’m Paul Arcario,” the sheriff said to her, stretching out his hand. “We spoke earlier. Why don’t we go outside and talk?”

  Mrs. Beam pushed past him to the van, and although Conklin put an arm out to stop her, it was too late. The woman stared, then shrank away, screaming, “Oh, my God! Alan! What happened to you?”

  Then she snapped her head around and locked her eyes on me.

  “Where’s Valerie? Where’s my daughter?”

  I introduced myself, told Mrs. Beam that she had to leave the garage, and that I would come with her. She became compliant as soon as I put my hand on the small of her back, and we walked together out of the garage to the front of the house.

  “It’s my daughter’s weekend with her father,” she said.

  She opened the front door, and as she stepped over the threshold, she broke away from me, running through the rooms, calling her daughter’s name.

  “Valerie! Val. Where are you?”

  I followed behind her, and when she stopped she said to me, “Maybe Val spent the night with a friend.”

  The look of sheer hope on her face pulled at my heart and my conscience. Was that her daughter in the body bag? I didn’t know, and if it was, it was not my job to tell her. Right now I had to learn whatever I could about Alan Beam.

  “Let’s just talk for a few minutes,” I said.

  We took seats at a pine farm table in the kitchen, and Alicia Beam told me that her marriage of twenty years to Alan had been dissolved ............