The suspendered man came back a few minutes later, smiling as if he'd run into the Messiah. Carrying a pale-blue plate. Cookies and muffins.
He nodded. That and his smile relaxed the woman. The dogs began wagging their tails.
I waited for someone to ask me to dance.
'Get this, Bob,' he said to the woman. 'This boy's her main squeeze.'
'Small world,' said the woman, finally smiling. I remembered her singing voice from the album, high and clear, with a subtle vibrato.
Her speaking voice was nice too. She could have made money delivering phone sex.
'That's a terrific woman you've got there,' she said, still checking me out. 'Do you appreciate her?'
'Every day.'
She nodded, stuck out her hand, and said, 'Bobby Murtaugh.
This is Ben. You've already been introduced to these characters.'
Greetings all around. I petted the dogs and Ben passed the plate. The three of us took muffins and ate. It felt like a tribal ritual.
But even as they chewed, they looked worried.
Bobby finished her muffin first, ate a cookie, then another, chewing nonstop. Crumbs settled atop her breasts. She brushed them off and said, 'Let's go inside.'
The dogs followed us in and kept going, into the kitchen. A moment later I heard them slurping. The front room was flat-ceilinged and darkened by drawn shades. It smelled of Crisco and sugar and wet canine. Tan walls, pine floor in need of finishing, odd-sized homemade bookshelves, several instrument cases where a coffee table would have been. A music stand in the corner was stacked with sheet music. The furniture was heavy Depression- era stuff thrift-shop treasures. On the walls were a Vienna Regulator that had stopped at two o'clock, a framed and glassed Martin guitar poster, and several handbills commemorating the Topanga Fiddle and Banjo Contest.
Ben said, 'Have a seat.'
Before I could comply, he said, 'Sorry to tell you this, friend, but Dawn's dead. Someone killed her. That's why we got freaked out when you mentioned her name, and the other murder. I'm sorry.
He looked down at the muffin plate and shook his head.
'We still haven't gotten it out of our heads,' said Bobby. 'You can still sit down. If you want to.'
She sank into a tired green sofa. Ben sat next to her, balancing the plate on one bony knee.
I lowered myself to a needlepoint chair and said, 'When did it happen?'
A couple of months ago,' said Bobby. 'March. It was on a weekend-middle of the month, the tenth, I think. No, the ninth.'
Looking at Ben.
'Something like that,' he said.
'I'm pretty sure it was the ninth, babe. It was the weekend of Sonoma, 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
