I moved on, a whisper of dread roiling in my gut.

In the kitchenette, the back door stood open and all of the cabinet doors yawned, though the contents hadn’t been displaced. As it turned out, I hadn’t left the coffee machine on at all. Someone had filled the apparatus with an inch of water and then run a brewing cycle. The result was a layer of heat-laminated sludge in the bottom of the glass carafe that must have sat on the burner for hours. I flipped the button to the Off position. I’d probably have to toss the carafe, as there was no way I’d ever scrub it clean. The roll of paper toweling had been removed from the holder and now rested in the sink, where the hot water faucet had been turned on to a trickle. I turned the water off, wondering how much my water bill would jump in consequence.

I removed the plastic wastebasket from under the sink, intending to toss in the sodden roll of paper towels. As usual, I’d lined the waste bin with a plastic bag to simplify trash removal. A small gray mouse leaped ineffectually up the sides of the bag, frantic to escape, but unable to achieve sufficient purchase. This was made all the more problematic by the fact that the same man who’d gone to such lengths to touch everything I owned had also defecated in the bin.

17

I took the wastebasket out the back door, laid it on its side, and watched as the mouse skittered off and disappeared into a patch of grass behind the bungalow. Gingerly, I removed the plastic bag and deposited both the bag and its unsavory contents in the rolling garbage bin. I returned to the kitchenette and locked the door, using the hem of my T-shirt to preserve any latent prints the intruder had probably been too smart to leave behind. I went into my inner office and sat down.

This was the long and short of it, at least in my analysis: The mouse was free, so good news on that score. If I notified the police—a decision I hadn’t arrived at yet—it would not be because I expected anyone to be charged with breaking and entering, vandalism, or malicious mischief. Shitting on a mouse is not expressly forbidden under California law. A nice officer would arrive in response to my 9-1-1 call and he’d write up an incident report, much as the nice officers had done when Ruthie made a similar call. No APB would result. A forensic specialist would not perform a DNA analysis on the turd left in the wastebasket, nor would the turd data be entered into the National Crime Information Center database for comparison to criminal turds nationwide. Whether I called the cops or not, I’d have to have my locks changed and an alarm system installed. I had no doubt my intruder and Ruthie’s were the same man. Prove it, I could not, which meant I had no recourse. I was royally pissed off.