Sheriff Lowell and his two accomplices, Special Agents Nick Carlson and Tom Stone, meet David and drive to an office building where Carlson asks David what he knows about Sarah Goodhart. When David asks Carlson why he wants to know, the latter mentions an ambiguous “ongoing investigation” (77). David tells the agents about the origins of the name Sarah Goodhart. The investigators start asking personal questions, like whether David beat his wife and how much life insurance he collected when she died. He reveals that the policy was for $200,000, and David feels guilty even when he has done nothing wrong. He says that Elizabeth bought the policy to help out a cousin who was starting out at State Farm.

To trigger David, Carlson and Stone show him photographs of Elizabeth that make her look as though she’s been beaten. David explains that while he was at a conference in Chicago a few months before she died, Elizabeth was in a car accident, which accounts for her bruises in the pictures. The agents ask David if he has ever seen the pictures before. He says that he has not but asks them if he is now a suspect.