Jon’s dad had ordered an autopsy, and it’d revealed no trace of alcohol in his system, but there was evidence of a synthetic drug called Selzucaine. Though I’d heard of it, I wasn’t too familiar with its effects. However, a little research told me that it was a party drug with the street name of Silver High. It lowered inhibition and made you more open to suggestion. Though having similar effects to cocaine, it was more of a hallucinogenic and more difficult to detect in the field and at border crossings, tougher even for drug dogs to sniff out.

Being under the influence of the drug could’ve accounted for Jon’s inexplicable behavior but not the methodical way he went about his suicide, why he filmed it, or who the observer was.

I had my notes spread across the kitchen table when Tessa appeared in the hallway. I quickly slid them into a single pile and flipped it over so she wouldn’t see anything related to the investigation.

She’d been crying the last time I spoke with her. At least today she didn’t look upset.

“Morning,” I said.

“You know how sometimes you wake up with eye scabs?” she replied sleepily. She was wearing gray sweatpants and her favorite lounge-around-the-apartment T-shirt of House of Blood, one of her go-to screamer bands.

“I don’t think they’re called eye scabs.”

“Gritties? Crunchies?”

“Crunchies?”

“I’m just saying.” She yawned.

“I think most people just call it getting sand in your eyes.”

“It’s not sand, though. I mean, did you ever taste ’em?”

“You—wait. You ate eye scabs?”

“I thought they weren’t called that?”

“We’ll go with it for now. You ate them?”

“Back when I was a kid, sure. Kids eat boogers too. What’s worse—nose boogers or eye scabs?”

Now that was a question I never would’ve thought I’d be asked.

“Well?” she said.

“I have a strict policy never to eat anything that comes out of my body.”

“Probably a good idea.” She yawned again. “So are we gonna go to church?”

“Do you want to go to church?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“But Mom would want me to.”

“Is that your way of asking me to take you?”

“No.”

“So you don’t want to go and you’re not asking me to take you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are we gonna go?”

I looked at her over the screen of my laptop. “Listen, there’s a lot going on with this case right now. I have nothing against you going—us going—but it shouldn’t be just because someone else wants us to.”

“She’s my mom. She’s your wife.”

I almost asked Tessa if maybe she could just read the Bible a little here at home or listen to a podcast of a sermon, but that didn’t seem to be a very understanding response.