Monsters Got Blamed for Murder, So I Relived the Victim's Last Hour novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: Names Returned

By nine on Wednesday morning the Joliet parking lot held forty cars and a church van serving coffee from a folding table.

The bar regulars had driven over a tray of hot wings from Jefferson Street.

The judge had signed a one-page amendment at noon on Tuesday.

Any remains identified by next of kin could be released on the signatures of both inspectors.

The pathologist, the laboratory number from a pink acrylic plate and Reiss's Missing map had found eight families by Tuesday night.

I had told each of them by phone, and by then I had learned that it is the same sentence every time, said slowly.

I said we had found someone, and that I would tell them first, before anyone else on earth.

The break room at the end of the loading hall had been cleared of its vending machines.

Eight families waited in it in their good coats.

Deloris sat with them, her glasses on her chain, and she knew every one of their mothers.

The first was a man of fifty-five whose wife had stopped answering her phone near Plainfield in March.

I knelt beside his chair, because it was the only way I knew how to say it.

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