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Charles: That’s right.
Detective Hardy: There was no one else at home?
Charles: Just her. She said her husband was out of town, but coming back any minute.
Detective Hardy: Did he come back?
Charles: Not while I was there, no. I had the feeling … sometimes, when you’re in a house with a woman who’s on her own, they get a little nervous. So she might have been saying he was going to be back soon even if he wasn’t so I wouldn’t try anything.
Detective Hardy: Try anything?
Charles: You know. Make a pass or something.
Detective Hardy: Is that something you sometimes do? Make a pass at customers?
Charles: Shit, no. Sometimes, well, sometimes it’s the customers that end up coming on to you.
Detective Hardy: Really.
Charles: Been known to happen. I’ve had calls, over the years, a woman didn’t have so much as a spider in her house, but she calls me to check the place out. Some people are lonely, you know. I’m no prize, I get that, but some ladies, they can be on the desperate side, if you know what I mean.
Detective Hardy: How long were you there?
Charles: ’Bout an hour. Didn’t see much evidence of any kind of infestation, although an old house like that, you wouldn’t be surprised to find something. If not mice, termites. Who knows? Lots of ways for the little rodents to find their way inside with an old place. You know mice can actually climb walls? Had them come into one house through the outside vent for the fan over the stove. Mice would have had to climb up an eight-foot brick wall to get to the vent. They’re a very interesting species. Did you know—
Detective Hardy: And when did you return to the house?
Charles: The next morning.
Detective Hardy: What time?
Charles: Just before eleven, guess it was.
Detective Hardy: She had asked you to come back? She called you?
Charles: No, but I think I’d said something about coming back the next day to see if she’d caught anything. I gave her a couple of traps. The kind that don’t kill the mouse, just catch him, so you can take him outside and set him free.
Detective Hardy: Is that the kind you recommend?
Charles: We’re all God’s creatures. I don’t always feel good about what I do, to be honest. Trapping and poisoning things. But we’ve all got to pay the bills, am I right?
Detective Hardy: How did Ms. Mason seem to you?
Charles: You mean on the Sunday? Because she wasn’t there on the Sunday. Neither was her husband.
Detective Hardy: I mean on the Saturday. How was her mood? Anxious? Apprehensive?
Charles: She seemed a little antsy, to be honest with you. But like I said, having a man in the house, that might have made her a titch uneasy. Although I don’t think I come across as threatening. Do you think I do?
Detective Hardy: You seem perfectly charming, Mr. Underwood. Did she talk about her husband? Other than that he was coming home soon?
Charles: That was about it.
Detective Hardy: So, back to the Sunday, the following day. What happened when you returned?
Charles: I knocked on the door, but I got no answer. I figured she was home because the car was in the driveway.
Detective Hardy: Just the one. The one that was there the afternoon before?
