Michael Thomas Wilson — 1995–2024
Beloved son, forever missed.

The olive trees above his plot swayed gently in the desert wind.
I placed a single white rose on the grave and rested my hand on the cool stone.

“Michael,” I whispered, “we did it.”

Because it wasn’t just my victory—it was ours.
Every case solved, every life saved, every predator unmasked—it all traced back to him.
To the boy who used to help me carry library books, who built me a trellis for my roses, who grew into a man with a kind heart that trusted too easily.

And maybe that trust had been his undoing, but in the end, it also became the reason other people were still alive.

I sat there for a long time, watching the sunlight shift across the cemetery.
There were moments when the ache of missing him still felt like a wound that would never heal, but there was also peace now—a quiet acceptance that pain and purpose could coexist.

A familiar voice broke through my thoughts.
“Mind if I sit?”

It was Detective Rodriguez, older now, hair grayer, but still with that calm, steady gaze that had kept me grounded through the worst months of my life.
“Of course,” I said.

He placed a small bouquet next to mine. “I thought you might be here.”

We sat in silence for a while before he spoke again.
“You know, Mrs. Wilson, when I first met you, I thought you were just a grieving mother who couldn’t accept reality. I was wrong. You’ve done more for this department—and for victims’ families—than some of us manage in a lifetime.”

I smiled faintly. “I didn’t plan on becoming a detective at sixty-seven.”

He chuckled. “Sometimes purpose finds us in the strangest ways.”

“Sometimes,” I agreed.

We walked back to the parking lot together. As he turned to leave, Rodriguez said, “By the way, we’ve got a new case coming in from Seattle. Widow. Mid-thirties. Husband died after a ‘mysterious’ illness. Thought you might want to take a look.”

I nodded. “Send me the file.”

That night, I sat in my living room surrounded by files and photos.
Each face in those folders represented a life interrupted, a family left behind.
It was exhausting work, but it gave me something no amount of retirement planning ever could: a reason to wake up every morning.

Dorothy still called me “Sherlock,” half-joking, though she’d become my right hand in the work.
We’d turned my dining room into a miniature command center—pin boards, string, timelines, and stacks of reports.

Some nights we’d stay up until dawn connecting dots, tracing names, following patterns no one else could see.
And every time we found another victim, I whispered a silent promise to Michael: We won’t stop.

Two years after Margaret’s arrest, I received a letter postmarked from the women’s correctional facility in Nevada.
The return address was hers.

Inside, a single page written in careful, slanted handwriting:

Mrs. Wilson,

You’ll be pleased to know I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in here. They say prison changes people. Maybe it does. Maybe it just exposes who they’ve always been. You think you know me because of what I did to your son, but there are things you’ll never understand. Things about Michael. About us.

He wasn’t as innocent as you think.

You wanted the truth. One day, when you’re ready, ask yourself why he was on that road the night he died.

Until then—sleep well knowing you didn’t really know your son at all.

—M.W.

I stared at the letter for a long time.
It was classic Margaret—manipulative, calculated, designed to plant seeds of doubt.

But I didn’t take the bait.

I folded the letter, sealed it in an evidence bag, and placed it in the box with her other correspondence.
Some wounds didn’t deserve reopening.

Now, at sixty-nine, I’m still working with the cold case task force.
We’ve solved eighteen murders, prevented four attempted poisonings, and built a national registry of serial marriage predators.

I still tend to my garden when the cases get too heavy.
The roses bloom beautifully each spring, crimson and white, climbing over the trellis Michael built.
Every time I clip a stem, I think about how something fragile can grow strong again if it’s tended with enough care.

That’s what life after loss is like. You don’t move on—you grow around it.

Some nights, I sit by my window with a cup of tea, reading through new case files, and I can almost hear Michael’s voice:
“Mom, you never could leave a mystery unsolved.”

He’s right. I never could.

Because somewhere out there, another mother is waiting for answers.
And I know exactly what that feels like.

So I keep going—for her, for them, and most of all, for my son.

Michael’s story didn’t end with his death. It ended with justice.
And as long as I’m alive, justice will always have a mother’s face.