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obituary. “She was so hysterical about it,” Sands says, “that we told the funeral director in front of Karin, don’t include them. After we’d made all the arrangements, I went back in and said, ‘Look, do me a favor. We don’t know who these people are. Could you please track down their addresses and phone numbers, because we’re going to need them anyhow, and prepare the notices for the Courant and the other papers, and include those names? I don’t think it’s right not to have those people in there. I think they’d be very offended.’”
    They were. The funeral home managed to track down Joyce’s sister, Ina Camblor, in South Windsor. “They called her,” Sands says, “and told her that Karin didn’t want her included in the obituary. The next day I’m out mowing the lawn and I get a call and I come to the phone and it’s Ina Camblor, and who I don’t know from Adam. And the phone call starts, ‘You no good son of a bitch …’ She was livid. She was screaming and yelling about the idea that she wouldn’t be included in the death notice. I calmed her down, and I told her, ‘Look, the situation was that Karin was hysterical at the time, and you can understand that. She wasn’t thinking straight. The reason you got called at all was because we wanted to make sure you got into the death notice.’ After about ten minutes she calmed down, and then she gave me her brother’s name and her mother’s and everything.
    â€œTo me, it was absolutely amazing because Karin had indicated to us that there had been a real estrangement between her mother and her family. Ina Camblor readily admitted that there had been a real freeze between Joyce and her family, for whatever reason, she didn’t go into it, but that Karin was her blood, her family, and whenever there was a crisis, her family came together. They would be there for Karin, money, shelter, whatever she needed.”
    From the funeral home Karin, Sands and Zaccaro went back to the condominium, to choose the clothes in which Joyce would be buried. “We went into her closet,” Zaccaro says, “and we went through a lot of things. Then Karin picked out this sleazy green pants outfit. It was about the cheapest thing there. Jeff and I picked out a very nice dress. Karin said no. She said she wanted that dress for herself. Eventually Jeff and I persuaded her to choose at least a dress for Joyce to be buried in.”
    The undertaker took one look at that dress when they returned and was incensed. It wouldn’t do at all, he told Karin. It was just too garish. He demanded that she go back home and pick something more appropriate. She did, but the experience was distressing enough to him that in the time that followed he related it to many of his friends.
    Susan and Shannon Dubois took Karin shopping for an appropriate dress for her to wear the next day. On the way back to the house Karin was alone in the rear seat of the Duboises’ car. The sky was dark, rain pouring down. Karin began to cry. She had not shed many tears until then. These were the first that either Shannon or Susan Dubois had witnessed. Shannon reached over the seat and held her hand, tried to say comforting things to console her. She turned to her mother and said she was sure Karin was crying because suddenly she was struck by the thought of Joyce lying out in the rain under the bridge in Bernardston before her body was found.
    Joyce’s funeral was scheduled for Wednesday, August 12, exactly a week after she was murdered. A few days before the funeral the Markovs appeared at the Dubois house. To everyone’s astonishment, Karin announced that she was leaving with them. Alex was giving a concert in Philadelphia, and she intended to be there. She would be back in time for the service. It might not be seemly, but she didn’t seem to care. She did ask Jeff Sands what he