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criminal personality profiles for NCACP, studying the personal hells of mass murderers, serial rapists, “blitz” attackers, sociopaths. People, and houses, who had absolutely nothing in common with the Thorpes.
    He’d come here in search of clues to what had gone wrong. Over the last three days, he had performed what clinicians referred to as a psychological autopsy, conducting discreet interviews with family members, friends, doctors, even a minister. And what had at first seemed like an easy case formulation quickly turned otherwise. There were none of the stressors, the risk factors, normally associated with suicide. No history of prior attempts. No history of psychiatric disorders. Nothing that should have triggered one, let alone two, suicides. On the contrary, the Thorpes had everything to live for. And yet, in this very room, they had written a note, tied dry cleaning bags around their heads, embraced on the carpet, and asphyxiated themselves in front of their infant girl.
    Lash pulled one of the two envelopes toward him, ripped it open with the edge of a finger, and dumped the contents onto the couch: documentary evidence compiled by the Flagstaff police. There was a thin packet of glossy photographs held together with a clip, and he leafed through them—scene-of-crime photos of the husband and wife, together in death, rigid on the beautiful carpet. He put down the eight-by-tens and picked up a photocopy of the suicide note. It read simply, “Please look after our daughter.”
    A thicker document lay nearby: the official police incident report. Lash turned its pages slowly. Neither husband nor wife had left the house since the night before their bodies were discovered. The tapes of the external security cameras revealed nobody else had come to the house in the interim. The silent alarm was triggered only by a curious neighbor the next morning. At the back of the report was a transcript of an interview with this neighbor.
    OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT
    P ROPERTY OF F LAGSTAFF P OLICE D EPARTMENT
    Docket:                            AR-27
    Case No.:                                     04B-2190
    OIC:                                              Det. Michael Guierrez
    Int. Officer:          Sgt. Theodore White
    Subj:                                     Bowman, Maureen A.
    Date / Time:          9/17/04 14:22
    =============================
EZ-Scrip Transcription Follows

=============================
    IO Please make yourself comfortable. My name is Sergeant White, and I’ll be conducting the interview. If you would please state your name for the record.
    S          Maureen Bowman.
    IO Your address, Ms. Bowman?
    S          I live at 409 Cooper Drive.
    IO How long have you known Lewis and Lindsay Thorpe?
    S          Since they moved into the neighborhood. Not all that long, a year and a half, maybe.
    IO Did you see much of them?
    S          Not really. They were very busy, what with the new baby and all.
    IO Did they have many regular visitors?
    S          None that I noticed. There were some people from the lab that Lewis was friendly with. I think they came over for a couple of dinner parties. After the baby was born, the grandparents visited a couple of times. Things like that.
    IO And how did the Thorpes seem?
    S          How do you mean?
    IO As neighbors, as a couple.