I can't name one specific thing that made me decide to play amateur detective, but it was no doubt a decision mostly made by the ordinariness of the apartment. I had gathered together all of Mary's belongings for packing and return to her family. Nowhere did I see any evidence of depression or intention to commit suicide. Not that I was any expert on such things, but there was always that nag that something wasn't quite right about all this. I decided to do some investigating.

I began with Perry.
"Jen, you only have to look at the woman's paintings to see she was weird inside," Perry shouted when I complained for the thousandth time that Mary didn't seem suicidal. In the week's following Mary's death, Perry assisted me with packing and shipping Mary's things. We had become friends from our mutual and sad task. I also wanted to investigate this guy. I read somewhere that in cases like this to always suspect the boyfriend. Not that Perry was her boyfriend or anything. Or so he says. He was the last male in her life and he liked her enough to give her his painting.
"I don't know anything about painting, Perry. Yeah, I know the rats and snake-skeleton are weird, but Mary was kind of weird like that. The first time I met her she told me she was a witch. And the way she always wore black. All I do know about painting is that painters are usually weird."
I started to light up a cigarette after this invective but thought better as Perry shot me a dirty look. It was no mind that this was now MY apartment, to smoke a cigarette in the company of Perry was torture worse than nicotine withdrawal. He panted and fanned and in general made an ostentatious nuisance of himself.
"Jen, Mary's gone. There's nothing you can do about it. You need to just get on with your life. What say we go get a pizza?"
We did go get a pizza that evening. We shared many more over the next few months. And also dinners and walks in the park and afternoons in my bed. I fell hopelessly in love with the artistic Perry and former love-interest of my deceased roommate. Mary's paintings had been packed and returned to her family. I kept the clown painting done by Perry because, really, he was my boyfriend now and Mary's family had no attachment to it. I forgot all about my investigation and assumed Mary's death to be a bona fide suicide. It was Perry that resurrected the issue and this time he seemed convinced that Mary's death was now suspect.