Dear Diary - 10.21.21

Memory is a pain in the ass

Journal Entry - 10.21.21

I do not remember when or how I first heard. 

Thirty five years later my memories are skewed and constructed by things I've since read and learned. But I do remember the FBI coming to the house to speak to my mother.

My parents were separated for a brief period around this time and my Mom had started dating a local dentist, the man who cleaned my teeth. After a missed tennis match, the dentist swung by the chalet of his tardy partner to see if things were okay. There he found the bodies of Roland and his wife Marem. They had been shot over eleven times each at close range. No forced entry and ultimately no real clues to speak of.

This was a rural community. Small and close. My parent's close friend was the investigating state cop. Everyone knew everyone else. My mother would be questioned for background on the dentist. He was first to find them. Crossing t's and dotting i's.

And I cannot remember how I first heard.

It might have been talk on the school playground. It could have been gossip around the ski mountain we all frequented (and where my mother worked). Was I told outright by my mother? Or was it when the FBI showed up at our front door, my mother having to hold back our snarling, protective black labrador by the collar?

Murder is not common in these northern woods. When it does occur it usually comes from drunken, flared emotions, messy with clues and motivation. This one, though, continues to remain present, never solved. No motives among the natives of the small mountain townspeople. All these years later theories still buzz through the local nervous system. Someone has to know something.

As a boy of eleven, I was tugged forward into the bigger, broader world with this news. Ripped out of naive childhood, both thrilled by the intrigue and scared of what this new reality had to offer me.

Now, I just wish I could remember how I first heard the news.