“Now what?” Bob, asked.
“Let’s call my friend the Realtor and go from there.”
When I bought my house, I used a Realtor who was the father of a guy I went to high school with. His name was Steve Fagan. He was short with gray hair and blue eyes and he worked twenty-four hours a day. Although he spent a good portion of his day in a bar or tavern he was always by a phone. He also knew everything there was to know about real estate and a lot more.
Steve answered on the first ring. I could hear the sounds of music and conversation in the background as well as the occasional clink of glasses. He was surprised at my plans to buy an apartment building, and I could tell from the tone of his voice he wanted to know if I had won the Lotto. I also told him I was interested in the building that housed the bookstore and the apartments above it. Even though the building was not for sale, he agreed to try and find out the owner of the property. We tentatively set a meeting for the next day at noon to see the property, but first he had to get a hold of the owner.
“Hey, there is nothing more we can do today. Why don’t we go to my house and watch a movie?”
“Sure, but I want to look up something on the Internet. Can I do that at your house?”
“What are you looking for?”
“A pharmaceutical company called, Schlangenol Pharmaceuticals.”
“I’ll give you a hand.”
When we got to Bob’s house he picked up the paper. I looked at the front page. Apparently Mark’s death had occurred too late in the day to make the paper. Oddly Thomas’s death had also failed to qualify as news.
Bob opened the front door, then turned to me and put a finger to his lips in the universal sign for “shut the fuck up.” I did what I was told. He tiptoed into his house, heading first for his bedroom. He came out with a small semi-automatic pistol. The gun was black, with black rubber grips. He signaled for me to sit down and then, brandishing the gun, he proceeded to go through each room. Afterwards he went back into his bedroom and returned with the wand he used to search my house for bugging devices. He returned ten minutes later.
“Am I missing something?”
“I don’t leave my house unlocked ... ever.”
“Is anything missing?”
“Not that I can tell, but let’s check the disc.”
“The disc?”
In ten minutes Bob had the disc playing. First it showed a man dressed all in black on his front porch. He had rubber gloves and a lock pick set. This was clearly a professional. He kept his face down so the camera could not pick up who he was, but his movements were familiar. The second disc was of the living room.
“Shit,” I said, “I always wait to pick my nose till you leave the room! Why didn’t you tell me I was being recorded?”
Bob held his finger to his lips, “Shh ....”.
The second disc showed the man nosing around. Then he looked up .... Officer Frank Jones stared into the camera. I must have made a noise because Bob asked if he looked familiar. I informed him that Officer Frank Jones was with the Sheriff’s Department and investigating Thomas’s murder.
“Can he come into my home without permission?”
“Not unless he has a warrant, and my guess—based on his outfit and the fact that he was alone—is that he didn’t.”
What followed showed what Frank was looking for—a videotape or a computer disc. I don’t think he was prepared for Bob to have thousands of each. He played various tapes and discs for an hour on Bob’s equipment and then left when the doorbell rang, sneaking out the back door.
“I’m calling the authorities!” Bob was angry.
“He is one of the authorities.”
“Then what do I do?”
“I would tell you to call the State’s Attorney—she has always been honest—but then again they were the ones to get a search warrant for my house.”
The current State’s Attorney was a woman I had known for a long time. I had gone to law school with her. I liked her, but I wasn’t prepared to bet my life on her, not after that warrant.
“Then let’s confront Frank Jones personally,” Bob suggested. “Let’s get to the bottom of this!”
“Wait, let me think. First, though, let’s make copies of these discs and start mailing them out. I don’t want the only copy to disappear.”
Bob made ten copies of the break-in, gave me one and kept the rest. In the morning he would put one in his safety-deposit box. We decided to send a copy to a local newspaper reporter I knew with a letter explaining how the break-in had occurred. The letter also included the address where Bob lived and the fact that the break-in occurred there. The remaining discs were addressed to friends and relatives, each with a letter requesting that they keep them in a safe place. We put them in a mailbox and returned to Bob’s house.
I had already had enough excitement for one night, so I told Bob I needed to get some rest. He drove me home, informing me that he planned to spend the rest of the night watching conspiracy films. “Do you want to borrow a gun?” he suggested.
“No, I don’t have a FOID card and the police are looking for an excuse to charge me with something.”
“Then take this.” He handed me a blue rabbit’s foot.
“Are you kidding? This didn’t bring the rabbit any luck and he had four of them. For all your hippie crap, why do you have a gun?”
“I am against arming the man, but if he has guns, I want one, too,” Bob replied.
At home I made myself a sandwich. I had been tempted to skip the meal in fear of finding another head in my refrigerator but decided to risk it. I was hungry. I had a mental picture of seeing a psychologist to treat my fridge-o-phobia. “So how long have you been afraid of your refrigerator? Do any other appliances cause you distress? If I offered to get you a cold drink, would that scare you?”
I guessed I would just have to get over my psychological affliction on my own. I remembered leaving an eggplant in the crisper bin for most of 1988. Despite the green hairs and white spots all over the purple skin, I am still able to eat eggplant.
I locked all the doors and windows and grabbed a baseball bat from the garage. I watched part of an episode of Hogan’s Heroes on the sofa and ate my sandwich.
Then I put my head down.