Dead, Sam thought. She looked dead, but he didn’t want to say that.

“I tried to wake her, but I couldn’t, so I called 911 and started CPR. They came and tried to resuscitate her, but they said… They said she was gone. The, um, medical examiner came and took her.” He glanced at her with ravaged eyes. “I still can’t believe it. She was fine last night, laughing and talking with friends who came over to play cards. The kids… They were hysterical. I just… I don’t know what to do now. What do I do?”

Sam wished she had the answers he needed.

He perked up a bit and glanced at Sam. “Aren’t you a Homicide detective?”

“I am.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. Can you tell me if your wife had any health problems?”

“She had a knee surgery that went very wrong about eighteen months ago.”

Bingo, Sam thought.

“She’s been through hell ever since.”

“How so?”

“Two additional surgeries failed to solve the issue, and her pain level was intense. It totally changed her, diminished her. It’s hard to explain the ordeal we’ve been through.”

“Was she on medication for the pain?”

He nodded. “Oxy for a while, until the doctors cut her off. That’s when things got really bad. She could barely function because she was in so much pain all the time.”

“I’m going to ask you something that might seem outrageous and even offensive, but is it possible that she was acquiring Oxy illegally?”

“What? No, that’s not possible. She’d never do something like that.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes! Mary Alice followed the rules. She was a good person, a wonderful mother and wife. She’d never do that.”

“In the days before she died, did she seem different than she’d been during her ordeal?”

“How so?”

“Was she in less pain than she’d been? Functioning better?”

As he considered that, his entire body went still. “Now that I think about it, she did seem better.”

“Mr. Albright, I need you to consider the possibility that desperation led her to acquire the meds she needed illegally.”

“No,” he said softly. “She’d never do that.”

“If I was in the kind of pain you’ve described, I might be driven to do whatever it took to find relief, too. That wouldn’t make me a bad person, and it doesn’t make her one either.”

Sam paused to give him a second to process that before she added, “If we determine her death was caused by illegally acquired medication, there may be more of it in your home that would put others at risk.”

“She wouldn’t…” His eyes filled with tears. “She’d never endanger our kids or me. She loved us.”

“She wouldn’t have known what she was taking was lethal, Mr. Albright. And we won’t know anything for sure until after the autopsy, but in the meantime, I’d recommend you allow our team to do a full search of your house.”