Imagine you’re shipwrecked on an island inhabited by only Knights and Knaves. Knights always tell the truth. Knaves always lie. There is no way to distinguish between the two just by looking at them. The only way to separate the liars from the truth-tellers is by asking them questions.

For example, suppose you encounter two islanders. Let’s call them A and B. You ask A, “Are you a Knight or a Knave?”

A responds by saying, “At least one of us is a Knave.”

B is silent.

Who is a Knight and who is a Knave?

The answer is easy. A cannot be a Knave, because if so, his statement would be truthful, and Knaves always lie. Therefore A must be a Knight, and telling the truth. Which would mean B is a Knave.

In real life, of course, there are no such things as Knights, those absolute keepers of the truth.

Everyone lies about something.

It was a perfectly normal school morning in the Campbell household—disorganized, chaotic and at least one of my children was running around half-naked—right up until the moment the police arrived at our front door to question me in connection with the death of Howard Grant.

Before the doorbell rang—before everything changed—my most pressing concern was not to overcook the eggs I was scrambling for our breakfast.

I had learned through practice and error that the key to perfectly scrambled eggs was to keep the heat low. As I slowly stirred the eggs with a flat whisk, a flash of movement outside caught my eye. I turned to glance out the kitchen window, which overlooked our side yard and the street beyond. Our next-door neighbor Judy Ward was walking her fat dachshund, Rocket, down the sidewalk. Judy was carrying a green plastic bag of dog poop in one hand and Rocket’s leash in the other. The dog was panting so heavily, he looked like he was about to keel over.

“Mom, where’re my shorts?” Liam yelled from his room, which was located on the other side of our one-story house. When I didn’t answer, he shouted again. “Mom! I can’t find my uniform shorts!”

I drew in a deep breath and counted to five to stop myself from yelling back that if my son needed something, he should walk across the house and ask me politely. Sure enough, the thud-thud-thud of large thirteen-year-old feet stampeded across our ceramic tile floor. Liam appeared in the kitchen, wearing only a navy polo shirt with his school logo on it and white cotton briefs. Liam had my husband’s unruly dark curls and lopsided smile, but his wide, pale blue eyes and long, straight nose came from me. He was getting so tall, officially a teenager, but still child enough to run around in his underwear. I loved him so, this wild boy of mine.

“I can’t find any clean shorts,” Liam said. He balanced on one leg like a crane and began to hop in place.

“Why are you hopping?”

“Because I can,” Liam said carelessly. “Have you seen my shorts?”

“Did you look in the dryer?”

Liam snapped his fingers. “The dryer,” he repeated, drawing out the word and then hopping out of the room. I smiled, watching him go.

“Breakfast will be ready in five minutes. And don’t forget your belt,” I called after him. Despite going to the same school with the same dress code for seven years, Liam still forgot to put on a belt at least every other day.

“I know!” he yelled back.

I turned the burner off under the eggs, pulled out a loaf of whole wheat bread from the pantry and started on the toast. I noticed that the pears in the wire fruit bowl were starting to look bruised. I picked one up, and the flesh gave way, my fingers sinking into the rotten fruit. I shuddered and tossed it in the garbage.

“Mom?”

This time it was my daughter calling for me. Bridget, at eleven, was more organized than her older brother would ever be. She was already dressed in her school uniform, the same blue polo with the crest embroidered on the left chest, tucked neatly into a knee-length khaki skirt. Her long strawberry blond hair—just a shade lighter than mine—was tied back in a low ponytail, and she was holding a piece of white poster board with pictures and snippets of text neatly glued to it. It was her state capital report, which she had diligently worked on for the past two evenings.

“How are you going to bring that into school?” I asked as I turned to the sink to wash my hands. “I don’t think it will fit in your backpack.”

“It won’t,” Bridget confirmed. “But it’s going to get all bent if I carry it in like this.”

“Maybe we can roll it up and put a rubber band around it,” I suggested. “Go see if Dad has one in the office.”

“Okay.” Bridget trooped off toward our home office. Todd habitually checked his email on the desktop computer there every morning as he drank his coffee.

“Liam, did you find your shorts?” I called out.

“Oh, right. I forgot to look,” he responded. There was another flurry of heavy footsteps, the metallic thwack of the dryer door being opened and slammed closed. “Got ’em!”

Bridget returned, this time with Todd trailing her. My husband was a tall, broad-shouldered man with milk-pale skin and dark eyes. Todd’s dark hair was still thick, but it was becoming increasingly streaked with gray. I’d also noticed that lately he’d started wearing his tortoiseshell reading glasses more frequently.

“I don’t have any rubber bands,” Todd said.

“Oh, no! What are we going to do?” Bridget asked fretfully, her voice thin

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