A detail of the "boxes" referenced earlier. Given access to the AMM, I suspect these are the middle and aft attach points for the vertical stabilizer. In fact, one can observe a hole where the front attach point would be - we have seen this kind of failure mode in the AA587 lugs.
These structures attached to the VS would be within the tail structure itself, further attached to the fuselage structure. The "ears" and "lugs" with which some are familiar here from the AA587 accident photographs can be clearly seen attached to these box structures, except the front one, I surmise.
The "ears" which form a part of the CFRP structure of the VS remain intact. Whatever separated the VS from the tail structure had to be strong enough to tear this entire structure away from the fuselage section itself. We still do not know whether the main loads were lateral or fore/aft.
