The Effects of Death

Death has an effect on those left behind, ranging from guilt to anger. These situations are difficult when the deaths are from natural causes, but the effects of murder are even more intense, rippling out into a community of people who would not otherwise be affected at all.

As a police officer named Jen Rafferty begins to investigate the possibility that someone is influencing depressed people to commit suicide, she has a conversation with Alexander Mackenzie's mother, Martha. At this point, everyone assumes Alexander committed suicide. Martha has not been in Alexander's room since he died and says she has not been able to dispose of his things even though he died months earlier. At the end of the visit in which Jen takes Alexander's laptop, Martha expresses the family's need for closure, saying it is “as if we're on a giant carousel...