"All right, find me a motive. Why make it look like an accident? There was no incentive in his insurance. Million-dollar policy for accidental death; isn't small-change, no, but his coverage'd been in effect for over twenty years. Suicide-exemption clause expired eighteen years ago. No motive there to fake an accident.

"Did he have some kind of horrible disease? If he did he was the only one who knew about it. Family didn't; doctor didn't; none of his friends did either.

"A scandal about to break, he chooses death over disgrace? Possible, I suppose, but we've got no evidence of one.

"His business was in good shape. Nurserymen and people in the landscaping business probably felt it just about the same as everybody else does when the economy was flat, few years ago, but his seems to've come through it okay.

"So the only reason he could possibly've had to do it then would've been chronic, severe depression. Unipolar mental illness.

"You could infer that here, I guess. I suppose in any case of suicide, you almost have to think the poor bastard must've been miserably depressed. Literally out of his mind. But if Hardigrew was that far gone, wouldn't he've shown it in some way? Started drinking too much?

Become withdrawn? You'd think so, but he didn't. He spent years in a bottomless Hell, getting ready to do this unspeakable thing, and during all that time none of the people who knew him and had known him for years: not a single one of them, had the slightest hint of what he was going through?

"It doesn't make sense. So depressed you want to kill yourself, and finally you do it, but not so depressed that anyone who loves you, or sees you every day, even notices?"