Departure of Reason

Nate can’t remember how many pills he gave his dying wife Jennie as she lay in their bed, pleading with him to make the pain go away. When Jennie ends up dead, Detective Stone has no empathy for the eighty-two-year-old widower. Mercy killing or not, Nate could be called up on murder charges, since he was the only one home at the time of Jennie’s death.

However, the investigation soon turns up a strand of hair near the bed and unfamiliar fingerprints that prove someone else was in Nate and Jennie’s house. Stone admits there might be another suspect. Following Jennie’s funeral, Nate suffers a stroke that leaves him hardly able to walk. Nate’s son, Tom, arrives to take advantage of the situation and moves his father into an assisted living facility.