Twenty-four hours after he’d committed murder, the first waves of Rob’s act began to wash into our lives. It was the morning after our bender with him in New Russian Hall, and we were still drinking our coffee and massaging our pounding temples when the phone calls began to arrive, many of them mentioning that “something’s up with Rob.” They were from friends of friends who knew people who knew people. As the afternoon deepened, the calls turned more specific, and ominous. They were from someone’s cousin who was a stringer for the AP who said there was a “buzz” about Rob. They were from a distant relative of the state police who had heard “bad stuff” about “that writer guy.” On the local afternoon news, the lead anchor opened with a quick national roundup, and then said, “A breaking story apparently involving one of Monarch’s own, the writer Rob Castor. Monarch police chief Dick Striebel will be holding a press conference this afternoon, at four thirty, to be carried live, on this station.”
