In this episode, which originally aired on May 11, 1967, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon investigate a reported suicide at a woman’s house. She tells the officers that her estranged husband came by to visit, locked himself in a room, and killed himself with a gun.
But the clues don’t add up that way. It turns out that the slug pulled from the man’s body doesn’t match the gun he was holding. Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon return to the woman’s house and go through her vacuum cleaner filter, as she has already cleaned the room where her estranged husband died. In it, they find the shell casing for the bullet that killed him. They talk with the woman’s mother, who answered the door when the husband came by, and they come to find out that she shot him—because he shot her Bible.
The lesson, I think, is that we tend to be protective of the people and things we care about. It’s easy to understand why.
In lieu of writing a letter of complaint, which I’ve decided to swear off, I break down my filing cabinet and box up my green office folders full of letters. I am tempted to count the number of letters I have written, but I resist the urge. If I’m not going to write them anymore, the number doesn’t matter. I will box up the letter files and stack them up in the garage tomorrow. They can wait there for a while, until I decide what do with them. Perhaps I will eventually move them back into the house, unable to swear off writing the letters, after all. I hope that’s not the case, but I just don’t know. Anything along those lines is just conjecture, and I prefer facts. Facts are the most reliable things in the world. On that, Sergeant Joe Friday and I agree.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6
I am not sure where we are. It’s a flat, treeless, straight stretch of highway surrounded by fallow fields. We are in the Cadillac—I in the driver’s seat, my father riding shotgun.
“Rides nice, doesn’t she?” my father says, grinning at me from behind sunglasses.
“Real nice.”
“You know why, right?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re driving a goddamned Cadillac, that’s why!” He lets out a belly laugh.
“But where are we going?” I ask.
“Anywhere you want, Edward. But first, don’t you think you ought to go to…”
The grocery store. That’s what I’m thinking when my eyes flutter open at 7:38 a.m.
A man needs a good breakfast on a day like today, and I am a man, but I have no breakfast. Skipping the grocery store on Tuesday showed that I can be bold and impulsive, but it doesn’t help me today, when I am out of food. If not for the tuna sandwich my mother made me for lunch and my leftover pizza for dinner, I might have remembered to go yesterday. But I did not. That failure is my fault.
I pull on clothes in the dark of my bedroom and then hustle out the door. I can remember 7:38 a.m. After all, I have awoken at that time 229 times in 311 days this year (because it’s a leap year). If I couldn’t remember that, I would have to have my head examined, which I don’t want to do.
I can ensure that my data is complete when I get back home.
It is dark and cold this early in the morning. The late-fall sky is a deep gray, like a gun barrel, and I would guess that it won’t get much above freezing today. I would guess, but I don’t like to. Guesses are conjecture. I prefer facts.
Inside the Albertsons on Thirteenth Street W. and Grand Avenue, though, it’s light and airy, and I enjoy walking the aisles, picking up the groceries I need.
I have decided to try again with different kinds of food. I realize that changing my grocery list didn’t have anything to do with what happened to my father; it was a coincidence. I still would like to see if I can learn how to cook a steak, and so I buy a package of two New York strip steaks, in case my first attempt goes poorly.
I also get corn flakes, as per usual (I love the phrase “as per usual”), and the makings of spaghetti, which remains my favorite food even though I said I felt like I was in a rut. A lot has changed since I said that.
I do try some of the Lean Cuisine meals, but I think it’s OK to get a few Banquet dinners as well, because I like Banquet dinners. I make similar decisions on ice cream and pizza. I get the Dreyer’s vanilla and the DiGiorno pepperoni because I like them. It’s OK to get the things you like. It doesn’t mean that you’re slavish to convention.
I think Dr. Buckley would agree with me on that.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here this early.” The woman at the checkout stand is talking to me.
“What?”
“You’re early. Don’t you usually come in later in the day?”
“Yes. On Tuesdays. I didn’t this week, though.”
“Forgot?”
“No. I chose not to.”
“Yeah, going to the store can be a real pain sometimes.” She continues sweeping my items across the electronic price reader.
“My father died. It sort of jumbled up my schedule.”
She looks crestfallen. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK.”
“Well,” she says, holding up the Dreyer’s, “ice cream makes excellent comfort food.”
“Yes.”
She finishes ringing up my items.
“OK, that will be fifty-four dollars and seventy-eight cents,” she says.
I swipe my card through the electronic reader, hit the credit option, and wait for the receipt to come up. When it does, I sign my name.
“Thanks so much. It was good to see you,” the woman at the checkout stand says. “Take care.”
I tell her good-bye.
As I’m walking back to the Cadillac, I think it’s interesting that I’ve never before had a conversation at the grocery store. That was fun.
For what it’s worth—and that’s not much, until I get the actual facts tomorrow—the weather forecast in the Billings Herald-Gleaner agrees with me: It’s going to be a cold one today, with a high of thirty-six and a low of twenty-two. It’s all just conjecture at this point, and I prefer the facts. Here are two: Yesterday’s high temperature was forty-eight, and the low was thirty-four. I record these things in my notebook, and my data is complete. I then finish off the last few bites of my corn flakes and chase my fluoxetine with orange juice, and my breakfast is complete, too.
Mr. Withers didn’t say how I should dress for our meeting today, so I am going to err on the side of formality and wear my George Foreman suit and shirt with blue stripes. I wore the same thing on my date with Joy-Annette, which momentarily gives me pause. But I have known Mr. Withers for a long time, and I have no anxiety that he will wig out on me like Joy-Annette did. I think it will be OK. That I’m wearing the same outfit is just coincidence. It doesn’t mean anything.
I head for the shower. I must keep moving so I am clean and dressed and at the Billings Herald-Gleaner by 10:00 a.m. sharp.
The woman at the front desk has a kind, cheerful face. “Can I help you?”
“Mr. Withers, please.”
“Is he expecting you?”
“Yes.”
“Your name?”
“Edward Stanton.”
She picks up the phone and punches in a number. “There’s an Edward Stanton here to see you. Yes, OK.” She hangs up.
“He’ll be right down.”
I glance around the foyer of the Herald-Gleaner. The woman I’ve been talking to is behind a big glass wall, and through it, I can see dozens of cubicles, with people in them typing away on computers or looking down at paperwork. Along the wall to the left, on the north side of the building, are glass offices. In the middle of the big room beyond the glass wall is a small table in a small pit surrounded by what appear to be trees. I can’t tell if the trees are real, though. They look real; some of the leaves are withering. But I also know that manufacturers have gotten very good at making fake things look real. I will have to ask Mr. Withers about this.