Christopher Sorrentino - Trance

Acquaintances in law enforcement agree with a California homeowner: It is a curious inquiry. Curious and suspicious (if those aren’t really and truly the same thing). Acquaintances in law enforcement affirm that such an inquiry suggests the possibility that the garage will be used for some nefarious purpose. The stripping of stolen cars, for example. The setting up of a buzz saw to divide innocent damsels in twain. Not that a California homeowner should get his hopes up or anything.

Still, a California homeowner does tend to get his hopes up. That’s a portion of what leads him to enter the fraternal bonds of homeownership to begin with: optimism, of a kind. Fortunately a homeowner’s suspicions are substantiated when the woman turns up five days later, accompanied by a long-haired male friend (!), who drives a second vehicle, to park “Mother’s” car. And how many kind, patient, applecheeked mothers drive Pontiac Firebirds? a California homeowner might ask, rhetorically, though appositely, from behind the curtains where he watches. Where he has been watching — a California homeowner has kept his eyes open since the day Janet White first appeared, April 9. A California homeowner who is on top of things writes down license numbers. Time to make another call.

Acquaintances in law enforcement are apologetic, but there is very little to be done at the moment, even if it does turn out that the license number matches that of a Firebird stolen recently while its owner attended a party in Berkeley (!). A California homeowner should himself do nothing. Acquaintances in law enforcement are discouragingly firm on this point. The thing to do is to wait for law enforcement to handle it. Law enforcement, due to problems of resource allocation, can only put the location involved in the Strange Case of the Stolen Firebird under what is termed periodic, or loose, surveillance. This is indeed disappointing, but fortunately a California homeowner can see to it himself that the garage is under constant, fixed surveillance! A California homeowner has a thermos full of coffee, some salty snacks, a book of crossword puzzles, a transistor radio, a working telephone. All the necessary tools.

And yet. Even a California homeowner is obliged, at times, to leave his post. Salty snacks and plenty of coffee can do that to you. That such an event is foreseeable does not make it any less necessary when it occurs. And in that necessary and foreseeable event, a California homeowner may happen to miss a suspicious person or persons entering the garage and driving away in the Firebird, removing the suspicious vehicle to another, unknown location. This is precisely what occurs on April 20.

Now a California homeowner’s thoughts turn to the next act in this drama. A California homeowner may wish to inquire of acquaintances in law enforcement as to whether a California homeowner should preserve the scene for any investigation law enforcement chooses to conduct. A California homeowner is always more than happy to see to it that nothing is disturbed. A California homeowner may also choose to poll friends and neighbors who are members of the real estate or legal communities: Does a California homeowner have an obligation to assume that there exists a binding contract with Janet White, or can the garage be made available for rent again? A California homeowner doesn’t rent out a garage for fun, you know.

FEW CLUES TO BANK ROBBER I.D.’S

by Dylan Mantini

BEE STAFF WRITER

(April 22) Sheriff’s deputies are no closer to identifying the members of a gang which killed a female customer during yesterday’s $15,000 robbery of a Crocker Bank branch in suburban Carmichael.

Mrs. Myrna Lee Opsahl, 42, was fatally wounded by a blast from a shotgun wielded by one of the robbers. Witnesses stated that Mrs. Opsahl, who had come to the bank with two other women to deposit collection receipts from the Carmichael Seventh Day Adventist Church, had provided her assailant with no provocation. She died later at American River Hospital. Her husband, Dr. Trygve Opsahl, a physician there, was at her side. In addition to Dr. Opsahl, Mrs. Opsahl is survived by four children ages 13 to 19.

The robbery began shortly after the bank opened its doors at 9:00 a.m. Three heavily armed men and a woman, wearing winter clothing and ski masks, entered and announced the robbery, ordering patrons and employees to the floor. It was at this point that Mrs. Opsahl was shot, and investigators speculate that she may have moved too slowly when ordered to lie down. The robbery then continued while Mrs. Opsahl lay dying. Witnesses reported that the female robber monitored her wristwatch throughout the operation, calling out the time to the others as they removed money from the teller’s drawers. After approximately five minutes she announced that it was time to flee, and the robbers exited through a rear door, escaping through a fence to a Pontiac Firebird parked behind the bank.

A spokesman for Crocker Bank, Darren Cumberbatch, described the bank’s losses as slightly over $15,000. He added, “Our financial losses, of course, are inconsequential compared with the loss of life suffered in this tragic situation. Our heart goes out to the family of Mrs. Opsahl during this difficult time, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement authorities in their efforts to apprehend and bring these killers to justice.”

MYRNA HAS ABOUT THIRTY — EIGHT seconds before someone’s clock radio goes off, and then there they’ll all be, standing around the kitchen together, a spill of containers and packages, dirty knives and smears of butter, spread across the countertops, the happy clamor of up and at ’em. This is all well and good; ordinarily she is pleased to help her husband and her four children get into the swing of things, feeding them and such, handing them multivitamins and clean socks, until they are of a mind to consider for themselves the day gathering around them. Today, though, she has to lend a hand with the collection receipts from Saturday services. Usually this takes place on Sunday; she and Rochelle and Mary gather in the low-ceilinged church office to prepare the weekly deposit. But yesterday Rochelle visited her mother, and Mary said that since she is finally seeing something of her husband with tax season over and done with, she’d like to take advantage of it, if that’s OK with everybody, so they postponed it until today.

It probably is not a three-person job, but they have a good time. They spend an hour or two working, with coffee cake or strudel. Only Mary actually drinks coffee, though not in the church office. They talk: husbands and children, television and radio. Who is trying to grow rockrose and wild lilac because they can withstand drought. What is the name of, can anyone remember what that chicken casserole is called, the one with cream of mushroom soup and green chiles?

It is always interesting. They add up the cash and checks. They roll the coins. Some people leave postage stamps in the plate, despite Pastor Robert’s veiled entreaties against the practice, and for this what they do is they take money out of petty cash and swap it for the stamps. Probably an auditor would raise issues, but Mary’s Jim is a CPA, and she generally just shrugs. One time Myrna found an old Liberty Head dime among the coins, and they spent a little while discussing do they simply deposit it or hold it back and find out how much it was worth. And in that event, should they try to find out who contributed it? Finally they called Larry Darling, who is something of a numismatist, which is a coin collector, and asked him did he think it was worth anything. Without missing a beat, he said, “About seven cents.” Then he’d laughed. Another time she found an old ten-dollar silver certificate. This Myrna just went ahead and replaced with a regular ten-dollar bill from her pocketbook. She figured it had educational value.