(O is for octagonal)

From the outside, the two-story twin was no different from its other half – the wrought-iron porch railing, the neatly painted trim, a cheery pot of geraniums on the step – but inside, the mood was somber. Detective Mike O’Neill sighed and shook his head. Another senseless death, another young man who might have been saved if he’d only reach out for help. The coroner confirmed what he already knew – suicide. A neighbor, an older man who lived next door, had called police at two-fifteen a.m. to report hearing a single gunshot.
“Any note?” the coroner asked. He finished examining the body – Hugh Palmer, according to his driver’s license – as it lay, slumped over a desk, the wood stained with blood, a handgun on the floor. He nodded to his assistant to move the body onto the gurney and out of the house.
Mike sighed again. “Not that we can find. They don’t always leave one.” He and his partner had carefully searched the house, but turned up nothing except the odd fact that most of the rooms had at least one mirror and that all of the mirrors were covered with black fabric.
The body had been gone only a few minutes when a young woman shoved open the front door. Mike and Tom, his partner, were making one more sweep of the house to look for a suicide note.
“Where is he?” The woman was crying, her mascara streaked down her face.
Mike broke off his search and took out his badge. “Police, miss.” He blocked her way. “We’re conducting an investigation. And you are–?”
She dug in her handbag for a tissue and wiped her nose. “Renee Palmer. Where’s Hugh?” She grew agitated again and tried to slip past Mike.
He gently guided her to a chair off the foyer. “Please sit, Miss Palmer. Hugh Palmer is related to you?”
“He’s my brother,” she sobbed. “He called me last night, late. He was distraught. He said he had a gun. I begged him—“ She stopped, unable for a few moments to go on.
“Your brother threatened to harm himself?” Mike took notes.
“I told him to stop talking nonsense. I told him I loved him. But he goes through these spells when life seems unbearable.”
“Did you call anyone after you spoke with him?” Mike said. “The police? 911?”
The young woman covered her face with her hands. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Tom came in the room then, and held out a small, folded paper to Mike. “This might be it. I found it in the mirror, the octagonal mirror, in the bedroom.”
Mike unfolded the paper. It was a half sheet, with an inked scrawl in two short lines. The lines ran on a downward arc, as though the writer had been in a hurry.
Renee Palmer jerked the paper from Mike’s fingers. “From Hugh?” She studied the paper, then held it to her cheek, in a caress, moaning in grief.
Tom caught Mike’s eye and raised his eyebrow in a silent question.
“The words to a song,” Mike shrugged.
Just walk away, Renee,
You're not to blame.