“How did he have access to that kind of medication?” It wasn’t like he could just pop some aspirin. It would have had to be heavy duty. Opioids, probably. Powerful painkillers.

The line of his shoulders broke as he hunched forward a little. “Why the hell is that important?”

“Bases,” Mia said, trying not to let it sound flippant.

“He was . . .” Cash cleared his throat, glanced back at Izzy, then finally looked at Mia. “He had Alzheimer’s. A couple months ago he wandered off, fell, and broke his femur. He was still recovering.”

Mia tapped her finger against her mug before quieting her hand. Her nerves were so easy to read for anyone who looked for them. She nodded to get him to continue.

“I kept them in my medicine cabinet.” The guilt in Cash’s voice was evident. “Locked. But it wouldn’t have been hard for him to get them. I didn’t . . . I don’t monitor it that closely. Not for this kind of thing. He’s never been suicidal.”

“A theme with this case,” Izzy murmured so low that Mia wondered if Cash had even heard.

“Did you call Sammy?” Mia asked, standing. She no longer worried that Cash was about to go off again. His volatile rage had clearly fizzled into a sad, dampened helplessness.

“No, I came straight here.” Cash glanced at Izzy’s holster. “You’re the police.”

He hadn’t seemed to be thinking about that when he’d lifted her from the ground, his fingers curled into her sweatshirt. But she didn’t mention that. Just nodded and grabbed her phone.

After a quick call to the coroner, she directed them all to the foyer to wait as she threw on some actual clothes. Along the way back downstairs she stopped by a locked drawer and pulled out her own gun.

A crisp white sheet covered Earl Bishop’s body.

Mia stood in the doorway, blocking the others from the room. She wanted a first impression that didn’t involve Izzy’s nerves or Cash’s grief or even Sammy’s surprise.

The furniture was unfinished oak, simple and bare and sparse. There was a dresser and then a bedside table with a half-drunk glass of water, a neatly folded pair of reading glasses, and a tattered paperback book.

A pair of boots, well worn and weathered, were tucked under the foot of the bed.

The walls, though . . . the walls betrayed the true state of the man who had lived there. They were papered in Post-it notes, the yellow and green and pink of them quivering at the mercy of a draft. They were layered on top of each other, a sticky mapping of the inner workings of Earl Bishop’s deteriorating memory.

Izzy nudged at Mia’s shoulder, and she knew her time was up.