Sleeping at the crime scene

What a dark morning, perfect for our purposes! I have my coffee and I am ready to tell today's spooky story, in keeping with our October tradition. Here is what happened at my apartment complex in California. Not only in my apartment complex, but in my apartment!

Yesterday I explained how when I went out to California to be with Leonard Pennario, I got a discount on an apartment because somebody died there. At first I thought that was too yucky but when I called Pennario from Buffalo and told him about it, he said, "That sounds like a wonderful deal!" So I took it. I slept OK there on Halloween night, my first night, so I figured whatever had happened there, it probably had not been too bad.

But then I found out what did happen. And it was bad!

One evening when I wanted to clear my head after working long hours on my book on Leonard Pennario, I did what I usually did, and went to lounge around in the hot tub. I was joined there by this woman and her 6-year-old daughter. We got talking, and they told me what happened. The 6-year-old seemed to know all about it and was very forthcoming. I also liked how she admired my Goodwill bathing suit. This was a very nice bathing suit with big '70s flowers. I bought it at the San Diego Goodwill.

Back to this murder. What happened was, the woman who had lived in my apartment before I had had had an ex-boyfriend by the name of Larry King. Like the talk show host, only it was Larry Kermit King.

Look at all those "hads" in that sentence! I love sentences like that.

This is Unit 65 we are talking about, of the Archstone University Town Center. The paper did not put that, but I will. One night this woman came home from work very late, and she found Larry King in her apartment. She had a restraining order against him, but there he was anyway. He threatened her and she ran outside screaming for help.

Larry King ran after her. With which, the couple upstairs came out on their porch and opened fire. Both of them were soldiers so they had guns. The guy upstairs was 23and his wife was 22. They shot Larry King in front of my apartment and then, from what I understand, he dragged himself into what was now my living room, and died there. Right where I was sleeping on Halloween night! I slept on a foam mattress in the living room.

And I wondered why I didn't sleep very soundly, even though I was so tired!

You can read the story for yourself here.

Now so we all calm down after reading that terrible story of crime, check out today's slideshow. I did a search for "Archstone San Diego" and that is pretty much what my apartment looked like!

Also find time to click on that Pennario link above. Here it is again if you're too lazy to go back and look for it. I posted it the other day, and then I sat mesmerized, listening to it. So today I thought we should listen to it again just because that performance Pennario gave of Debussy's "Claire de Lune," it is just so beautiful. That ending!

So many pianists play "Claire de Lune," but there is only one Pennario.