to Kansas that same year. When I finished going through all the
details, Martha fell silent, then sobbed softly.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No, it’s a relief. This has been with my family for so long.”
While researching the murders, I often felt that I was chasing
history even as it was slipping away, and not long after we spoke, I
learned that Martha had died from heart failure. She was only
sixty-five. A heartbroken Melville told me, “We lost another link to
the past.”