Notes on an Execution

In 2012, Hazel receives a call from her mother. Ansel has just been arrested for stabbing Jenny to death with a kitchen knife.

Hazel returns home for Jenny’s funeral. She is shell-shocked that such a “deeply average” man could have created so much grief. After the ceremony, she retrieves Lila’s ring from her glove compartment. She suddenly recalls Ansel digging a hole in her backyard the day after he gave Jenny the ring.

Hazel locates the raised earth beneath the maple tree and digs up a small box containing unfamiliar jewelry: a barrette and a pearl bracelet.

In 2012, Saffy receives the news of Ansel’s arrest. She feels overwhelming guilt for failing to save anyone.

The following day, Hazel appears at Saffy’s home and hands over the box of jewelry with Lila’s ring. Saffy’s guilt compounds as she wonders whether her interference in Ansel’s life turned him into “exactly the monster she needed him to be” (262). She is still haunted by visions of the lives that the murdered girls could have lived.

Saffy calls fellow detective Andrea Rollins for an update on the Packer case. Andrea says that the murder weapon is gone, and Ansel has wiped his car clean, so they need a confession.