* * *
“No,” I tell the officer, “I don’t know anyone named Rita. When are you going to be able to tell me what’s in the bag?”
“We’ve got to run some tests,” the officer says dismissively. “Have you recently made enemies with anyone?”
“No more than usual,” I tell him.
“What does that mean?” he asks.
“Just bad reviews in the press,” I tell him. “Nothing I’d really worry about.”
“Were any of them threatening, violent?” the officer asks.
“Nothing like that,” I tell him.
There was one op-ed that called for my crucifixion because, in my last movie, my character wore a hat with a star on it the writer of the piece apparently mistook for a symbol of Baphomet, and she thought that I was trying to send a secret message that children should start worshipping Satan.
One of the many gripes I have with the whole “hidden messages” conspiracy nonsense is where exactly do these people think kids learn these secret codes it would take to interpret the messages they’re accusing me of hiding in my performances?
If I’m wearing a star on my hat, hell, it could be a hat sporting the goat’s head in the middle of the inverted pentagram with the Hebrew letters for Leviathan around the edges and I’m willing to bet you a million dollars that not one single kid would see that and think it’s time to take up Satanism.
How many kids did they really think were playing Judas Priest albums backward to look for secret commands, and even if they put the words “do it” backward in a song, just how the fuck would kids know what it was they were supposed to do?
Idiots!
Sorry. It’s a pet peeve of mine.
Anyway, I’m not worried that the woman that wrote the article is plotting to kill me or even go any farther than she did in the article.
“All right,” the officer questioning me says, “well, I’ll give you over to Detective Tompkins here. He’s got a few more questions for you.”
I answer everything the man asks, but there’s nothing I can really give him to point him in the right direction.
You know, as I think about it, being stalked, especially by someone who’s this willing to get right in there close—I mean, she got past my gate with a bag full of what looked like chopped up meat, after all—is kind of its own form of adulation.
“Sir?” the detective asks.
“Yeah,” I answer, shaking myself out of my thoughts.
“Was it you that found the bag or did someone else find it?” the detective asks.
“My sister,” I tell him, “Danna. She’s the one that found it.”
“All right,” he says. “We’ll give you a call when we find out more. Until then,” he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a business card, “give me a
call if you can think of anything else that might be relevant or if you receive anything else from this individual.”
I take the card and say, “Thank you. By the way,” I add. “Nobody calls me Dami. I mean absolutely nobody I know has ever called me that.”
“We’ll keep you posted,” the detective nods, and walks away.
Danna’s on the other side of the driveway, talking to another cop when the detective walks up to her, and I’m starting to think I’ve jumped ship and lost my mind: I actually find it kind of flattering that I have a stalker.
I’ve really got to start dating again.
Chapter Five
The Guru