I made a beeline for Ayers’s small desk, but after a time came up with nothing more interesting than an old laundry ticket being used as a bookmark in a Grisham novel. Apparently, somebody at Randolph St. Cleaners had a funny bone a mile wide; they’d charged Ayers twelve dollars and fifty cents to clean one pair of chinos. I thought of Earlene Skipper and wondered how much she charged to ruin a man’s pants.

Oil paintings leaned against a wall, unsigned. I counted seven. I assumed Tim had painted them. Jung said he was an artist. I pulled each canvas out for a closer look. Lighthouses. Lighthouses on craggy hills, lighthouses on wave-swept outcroppings, big lighthouses, little lighthouses. They were evocative, haunting, mildly entrancing. I didn’t know much about art, but they didn’t look half-bad.

I went back the way I came, but before I hit the steps again, I checked out the gleaming bathroom, letting out an appreciative whistle. Tim had obviously spent some money here. The compact shower stall was fronted by glass with the image of a preening peacock etched into it. Every fixture was stainless steel. Even the little soaps sitting in the dishes pulled their weight, taking on the shape of dainty fish and clamshells; they smelled delicious, like peaches and cream and gold bullion. Pulling my eyes away from all the glitter and snap, I eased open the medicine cabinet and found at least a dozen medicine bottles inside, a sobering reminder of Tim’s dire prognosis. This was the overflow Marta had mentioned. The cops had taken the duplicate bottles. He wouldn’t have had to go far to find the means to his eventual end. Had the meds dulled his senses just enough to give him the courage to jump, or had they impaired him just enough so that he lost his footing and slipped?

Had it all just gotten too much for him—the waiting to die, the regimen, the winding down of the clock? Going out his way would have been a last grab at control. I thought of Tim’s neighbors. Cap was likely right, as much as it burned me to admit it. They’d probably have papered Tim head to toe in injunctions and lawsuits and petitions, but would any of them have risked everything by resorting to murder? If they had, would any one of them have had the wherewithal and presence of mind to remove every single sign that he or she had been on board the Safe Passage? I didn’t think so. Leaving a crime scene that squeaky clean took experience; it screamed pro.