“Suicide kit,” Pete says. “She probably learned how to make it on the Internet. There are plenty of sites that explain how to do it, complete with pix. The water in the tub was cool when we got here, but probably warm when she climbed in.”
“Supposed to be soothing,” Izzy puts in, and although she doesn’t say oough, her face tightens in a momentary expression of distaste as she swipes to the next picture: a close-up of Janice Ellerton. The bag had fogged with the condensation of her final breaths, but Hodges can see that her eyes were closed. She also went out looking peaceful.
“The canister contained helium,” Pete says. “You can buy it at any of the big discount stores. You’re supposed to use it to blow up the balloons at little Buster’s birthday party, but it works just as well to kill yourself with, once you have a bag over your head. Dizziness is followed by disorientation, at which point you probably couldn’t get the bag off even if you changed your mind. Next comes unconsciousness, followed by death.”
“Go back to the last one,” Holly says. “The one that shows the whole bathroom.”
“Ah,” Pete says. “Dr. Watson may have seen something.”
Izzy goes back. Hodges leans closer, squinting—his near vision isn’t what it once was. Then he sees what Holly saw. Next to a thin gray power cord plugged into one of the outlets, there’s a Magic Marker. Someone—Ellerton, he presumes, because her daughter’s writing days were long over—drew a single large letter on the counter: Z.
“What do you make of it?” Pete asks.
Hodges considers. “It’s her suicide note,” he says at last. “Z is the final letter of the alphabet. If she’d known Greek, it might have been omega.”
“That’s what I think, too,” Izzy says. “Kind of elegant, when you think of it.”
“Z is also the mark of Zorro,” Holly informs them. “He was a masked Mexican cavalier. There have been a great many Zorro movies, one starring Anthony Hopkins as Don Diego, but it wasn’t very good.”
“Do you find that relevant?” Izzy asks. Her face expresses polite interest, but there’s a barb in her tone.
“There was also a television series,” Holly goes on. She’s looking at the photo as though hypnotized by it. “It was produced by Walt Disney, back in the black-and-white days. Mrs. Ellerton might have watched it when she was a girl.”
“Are you saying she maybe took refuge in childhood memories while she was getting ready to off herself?” Pete sounds dubious, which is how Hodges feels. “I guess it’s possible.”
“Bullshit, more likely,” Izzy says, rolling her eyes.
Holly takes no notice. “Can I look in the bathroom? I won’t touch anything, even with these.” She holds up her small gloved hands.
“Be our guest,” Izzy says at once.
In other words, Hodges thinks, buzz off and let the adults talk. He doesn’t care for Izzy’s ’tude when it comes to Holly, but since it seems to bounce right off her, he sees no reason to make an issue of it. Besides, Holly really is a bit skitzy this morning, going off in all directions. Hodges supposes it was the pictures. Dead people never look more dead than in police photos.