remember? We played on the ninth and came back to L.A. on the
tenthmember how late it was because of the problems with the van in San
Simeon? Least that’s when he said it happened-the cop. The ninth.
It was the ninth.”
He said, “Yeah, you’re right.”
She looked at me: “We were out of town-playing a festival up north.
Had car trouble, got stuck for a while, and didn’t get back till late
on the tenth-early morning of the eleventh, actually. There was a
cop’s business card in the mailbox with a number to call. Homicide
detective. We didn’t know what to do and didn’t call him, but he
called us. Told us what happened and asked us lots of questions. We
didn’t have anything to tell him. The next day he and a couple of
other guys came by and went through the house. They had a warrant and
everything, but they were okay.”
A glance at Ben. He said, “Not too bad.”
“They just wanted to go through her stuff, see if they could find
anything that might relate. Course they didn’t-that was no surprise.
It didn’t happen here and they told us from the beginning they didn’t
suspect anyone she knew.”
“Why’s that?”
“He-this detective-said it was. . .” She closed her eyes and reached
for a cookie. Managed to find it and ate half.
According to the cop, it was a sick psycho thing,” said Ben.
“He said she was really.
Shaking his head.
A mess,” said Bobby.
“They didn’t find anything here,” said Ben. The two of them looked
shaken.
“What a thing to come home to,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” said Bobby. “It really scared us-to have it be someone we
knew.” She reached for another cookie, even though half of the first
one was still in her hand.
“Was she your roommate?”
“Tenant,” said Bobby. “We own the house.” Saying it with
wonderment.
“We have a spare bedroom, used to use it as a practice room, do some
home recording. Then I lost my job over at the daycare center, so we
decided to rent it out for the money. Put a card up on the bulletin
board at the university cause we figured a student might want just a
room. Dawn was the first to call.”
“How long ago was this?” iuly.”
She ate both cookies. Ben patted her thigh and squeezed it gently.
The soft flesh cottage-cheesed. She sighed.
“What you said before,” he said, “about this medical chart. Was her
taking it uncool?”
“She was supposed to return it.”
They looked at each other.
“Did she have a taking’ problem?” I said.
“Well,” he said, uncomfortably.
“Not at first,” said Bobby. At first she was a great tenantcleaned up
after herself, minded her own business. Actually, we didn’t see her
much because we had our day jobs, and then sometimes we’d go out to
sing at night. When we didn’t, we went to sleep early.
She was out all the time-real night owl. It was a pretty good
arrangement.
“Only problem,” said Ben, “was her coming in at all hours, because
Homer’s a good watchdog and when she came in he used to bark and wake
us up. But we couldn’t very well tell her when to come in and out,
could we? Mostly, she was okay.”
“When did she start taking things?”
“That was later,” he said.
A couple of months after she arrived,” said Bobby. At first we didn’t
put it together. It was just small stuff-pens, guitar picks.
We don’t own anything valuable, except the instruments, and stuff gets
lost, right? Look at all those one-of-a-kind socks, right? Then it
got more obvious. Some cassette tapes, a six-pack of beer-which she
could have had if she’d asked. We’re pretty free with our food, even
though the deal was she was supposed to buy her own. Then some
jewelry-a couple pairs of my earrings. And one of Ben’s bandannas,
plus an antique pair of suspenders he got up in Seattle. Real nice,
heavy leather braces, the kind they don’t make anymore. The last thing
she took was the one that bothered me the most. An old English brooch