Was She Murdered? Part 2

Would the previous owner know anything about Marie's death?
I couldn't remember the name of the woman from whom we bought our house, so I dug through the closing papers for her name and did a very old-fashioned thing: I looked her up in the phone book and called her.

"Hello, Sherry? This is Iris, who bought our house from you 2 years ago. What's the deal with Marie?" Sherry paused a long time then said, "Hang on, let me switch phones." I told her about the private investigator that Marie's parents had hired showing up at our door to take photos of the our shower tile nicks. I had no idea I was in for such a dramatic story.

Yes, she did know a few things:
Sherry told me that she had bought our house from Marie's estate but that she had been acquainted with Marie through mutual friends. According to Sherry, Marie had worked for years for a state legislator who had recently lost his re-election bid and gone back into private law practice. There were rumors that Marie had an affair with him and that she'd recently been caught embezzling from him. Around this same time, Marie bought our house and put a chunk of money into upgrading the kitchen, as well as adding the fence. She also bought a new Mercedes and two Shar Pei puppies around the same time.

According to Sherry, on the day of Marie's death, Marie had a date planned for that evening with someone she'd gone out with several times before. When Marie didn't show up for the date, her date called her and got the answering machine. The date waited a few more hours, calling Marie several more times, leaving more urgent messages for Marie to please call back. By 2:30 a.m., the date decided to grab a friend and go over to Marie's house. They found her dead on her bloody bathroom floor and called the police.

Sherry didn't know details about the police investigation but said that lots of Marie's friends and acquaintances were shocked to hear the police calling it a suicide. There were rumors of a couple of "goons" pounding on the front door earlier in the day on the day of her death. (My neighbor has since told me that her husband had indeed seen a man in a suit with a briefcase knocking on Marie's front door that day.)