My life changed last Friday. First thing I noticed when I opened my eyes that morning was the cold, even with the loud rumble of my Black & Decker space heater on full blast. Then I noticed that Neeraj, my roommate, was not in his bed.

I love that space heater, it oscillates and works like a charm, even if it does tend to imitate the sound of a broken microwave. Stretching and rubbing my eyes, I headed over to my desk to see if any interesting e-mail awaited me.

“Fuck,” I muttered. I never get any good e-mail, just porno e-mails and cheesy questionable offers of credit cards. Glancing at the time, 10:17 AM, I calculated that I had about an hour before I had to be at work. I work at Instructional Computing, the on-campus computer facility. It’s mostly a glorified computer lab manned by Consultants, generally run as a sweatshop complete with low wages and evil bastards as managers.

“Heh,” I chuckled to myself. My job at IC was to be the evil bastard that made sure the other evil bastards were doing their jobs. IC called my position the Principal Consultant position, and the other evil bastards the Senior Consultants. Sighing, I got up and headed towards the bathroom, sleepy thoughts of a warm shower dancing through my head.

Again noticing that the other bed was decidedly empty, I wondered where Neeraj was. He did not work on Friday mornings, and it was too damn early for him to be up already. “Maybe he got up to watch 90210,” I thought. Neeraj works as a Senior Consultant at IC as well; I do his work scheduling. Neeraj was a unique individual. He always has a story or a bad joke for you, but a tendency to ignore the truth when it confronts him. With his quirky sense of humor, it made Neeraj both an interesting guy to live with and a pain in the ass. He was also extremely fond of old 90210 episodes, which I teased him about endlessly when he got up early to watch them on FX.

Gathering my bath robe around me, I headed out into the living room of our 1 room apartment. “Good old Cordoba,” we called it. In reality there was nothing good about our apartment. Thin walls, bad heating in the winter and poor ventilation in the summer, leaky faucets, and faulty wiring made our paying $900 bucks a month for the place a joke. Isla Vista is a shithole, and it’s sad that our apartment is probably one of the best ones around. Entering the hall/living room/kitchen, I saw Neeraj was sitting in the couch watching TV in the dark. Briefly I wondered why he was sitting so far from the remote control, and why the TV was still on MTV instead of FX. Neeraj hated MTV.

“Sup Fool?” I called out to him. No reply. I didn’t mind, he usually doesn’t talk much in the morning. I turned around and headed back, this time to the bathroom and that nice warm shower. The shower was perfect. I mentally ran through my plans for the day. As soon as I was out and dressed, I’d call up my girlfriend, Christina, and say good morning, then head into work. It was going to be a longer day then usual as it was payroll day, and that takes a lot of my time. I stepped out of the shower and pulled back on my bathrobe.

“I really need to shave,” I thought, glancing at myself in the mirror. I walked out towards the bedroom, humming along to the Brittany Spears video emanating from the living room. After dressing, I headed into the kitchen to see if there was anything good to eat before work.

“What happened to 90210 Fridge? Too boring for ya? Seen the episode 12 times already?” Silence. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Something was wrong. Neeraj was quiet in the morning, but not this quiet. Maybe he was mad at me for teasing him.

“Hey! You asleep? Pissed off? HEY!?” I slowly approached the couch, finally noticing a damp red stain on the couch behind his head. Feeling queasy, I walked around to stand in front of the TV, blocking his view. Fully nauseated, I realized that he hadn’t responded because he was dead. His vacant eyes stared at the floor, seemingly staring at the blood that had soaked into his clothes. My souvenir obsidian knife, a present from Christina while she studied abroad in Mexico, lay on the couch next to him; blood streaked across the blade.

I called the police.

After the police had left, taking Neeraj’s cold body and my souvenir knife with them, I shakily went back into the bedroom. The cops had really drilled me and I knew that I was prime suspect #1. My calling the police had given them a certain measure for believing I had nothing to do with his death; a killer doesn’t normally call the cops after murdering someone. I realized my time was short, and I knew in certainty that I would be called back again, most likely to book me and attempt to get a confession out of me. Cops all work around the same narrow minded premises, but even I knew that my story sounded weak. I recalled what I had told the officer.

“When I went to bed around 1:30 AM last night, Neeraj was watching TV in the living room alone. It’s really cold in our room, so I turned on the heater and went to bed. I didn’t hear anything all night, and when I woke up this morning he was just like you see him now.”

“You didn’t have an argument with him? Maybe about rent? Maybe something that ended up with you threatening him with this knife?” Officer Kent, the name on his badge, was a real dick. I could easily tell he didn’t give a rats’ ass what I was telling him. He had already figured it out, and nothing I could say would change his mind.

Shaking my head sadly, I realized that I could very well spend the rest of my life in jail for a crime I was innocent of; clearly I was going to have to find the killer myself. I sat down and thought about who might have wanted to kill Neeraj. I determined that whoever it was had intimate knowledge that we never lock our door, in addition to a motive that would drive someone to murder. My list was narrowed down to our circle of friends both from work and outside of work. I determined to start at Christina’s place. I didn’t know what I would do if she was the killer, but I needed to make sure she wasn’t. Neeraj had constantly teased her by saying “Christina likes beans,” as a way of greeting, and she had grown to hate that phrase. Perhaps she had come over to end it once and for all. Typing a quick e-mail to work saying I would be in a bit later than usual, I hopped on my bike and pedaled towards Santa Ynez.

“It’s early.” Christina greeted me at the door with a kiss and a sleepy grin. Shorter than me by a head, with beautiful black hair, and a body that effected me in ways I can’t describe, she had been my better half for years. I brushed past her into the house, demanding to know where she had been the night before. Immediately she was on the defensive.

“Why do you care? You’re not my mom.”

“Look,” I said, “I’m serious. I need to know where you were last night. Just tell me.”

“Whatever. I was with Julia at Déjà vu. I was hungry. If you don’t believe me, ask Julia. Or even Justin, I saw him there too.” Justin was a friend of ours from work. “Partyman” or “J$” we called him; he was the biggest player I knew. Girls just loved him, and he wasn’t stingy, or discriminate, in returning that love. Late night munchies were common to him, and it didn’t surprise me that Christina had seen him at “the Vu.”

“Ok, ok, I believe you. It’s just… well… shit, I don’t know how to say this but Neeraj is fucking dead. Stabbed in the back of the neck with that knife from Mexico you gave me. I found him this morning.” I watched her expression change from annoyance to shock.

“Jesus Mark… you thought I had something to do with it…?”

“I just had to be sure.” I pulled her into a hug and we stood still, silently drawing strength from one another. “I have to figure this thing out, baby. I didn’t hear a thing last night, and the cops don’t believe me. I have a feeling they’ll be coming back to arrest me pretty soon.”

Twenty minutes later I left her apartment and headed towards my next suspect, Cristina Smoot. Cristina, or just “Smoot” as we called her, was a brown-haired Hawaiian girl. I was always trying to imitate her accent, but it never sounded right. I knew that she had a grudge against Neeraj for always saying, “Hey Smoot! If you take the ‘s’ and the ‘t’ off your name, it spells Moo!” Neeraj loved to hear his own jokes. Smoot had been complaining about him a few days before, and I had always sensed a steel hidden beneath her nice exterior. Besides, she was a bio major, and her added knowledge of human anatomy would have helped in a murder. Arriving at her apartment, located a few blocks down from my own, I knocked and waited. She opened the door holding a knife.

“Holy shit!” I screamed as I backed away from her.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, looking at the knife. “Did I scare you? Sorry… I was cutting off some cheese for lunch.” She offered me a slice of cheddar.

“Um, yeah, sorry about that. Look, how about you put that knife away and I come in?” Smoot turned around and put the knife back in a drawer, and offered me the cheddar slice again. I took it and decided to go for a subtle method of questioning.

“So, I hear you had a great time last night. How was it?”

“Oh yeah, watching movies and being bored is so much fun.” She sighed and indicated her small TV set. “Christina called me last night asking if I wanted to go grab some food, but I didn’t have any money. I should have gone anyway though. Oh well. What did you do last night?”

“Nothing, fell asleep early. Look, I just dropped by to say hello on my way to work. I think you should know, Neeraj was murdered last night. Stabbed in the back of the neck with a knife. That’s why I was surprised when you opened the door with a knife. No, I didn’t do it.” I watched her reaction. She looked surprised, but not shocked as Christina had been.

“Doesn’t that upset you at all?” I asked, hoping to provoke some sort of reaction out of her. I knew she hadn’t been getting along with Neeraj recently, maybe she would slip up.

“You know what, that really sucks, but he deserved it. He was annoying and impossible to talk to. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Now get out and stop hinting that I had something to do with it.”

I left. I figured that Julia’s and Christina’s stories were valid, given that Smoot had been called to go with them. I would also check out with Justin at work. Smoot’s story, however, was fishy. She lived close to my apartment, was familiar with our door locking habits, and had a grudge. I thought about how she might have executed it while biking to IC. I arrived at the bike rack just as I concluded that Smoot was definitely my prime suspect. Motive, opportunity, ability… it all fit.

I walked into the office, and saw Justin at the SC On-Duty station looking at the computer screen.

“Sup JaMoney?” I asked, walking towards the desk.

“Wha…?” He looked up at me, apparently surprised to see me. “Hey, sorry, you startled me bro. How’s it going?”

“I’m alright. Hey, I hear you saw Christina at Déjà vu last night. Get the munchies again?” I ruefully smiled at him, fully aware that he would deny the munchies aspect.

“Yeah, I saw her there. I was dropping by there to, uh, play some pool with the homies. Asked about you, but she said you were home sleeping or some shit. Sleep is overrated, you know that! Should have come out. There were some damn fine hoes there last night, I ended up showing a couple of them a good time.” He gave me his winning smile and a high-five.

“Hey, I need to talk to you about something, but not here in the office. It’s important, can we go to the seminar room for a bit?” I didn’t want to discuss Neeraj’s death in front of the whole office, and I knew Justin was another person with a grudge against Neeraj. The year before we had shown up to Justin’s house preparing to give him a bottle of Old English 800, the most ghetto malt liqueur in the world, for his 21^st birthday. He was hung over, as he had drank 750 ml of Vodka the night before. Neeraj made him drink it anyway, with Justin cussing him out the entire time. I thought he had gotten over it, but Justin seemed to be one of those types who never forgot or forgave.

“Sure, let me go on rounds first, I’ll meet you there in 10 minutes.” He walked out the door, briefly pausing to open the door for Alex Sanchez, my boss. Alex was a tall, large Hispanic man who was designated to oversee myself, the Senior Consultants, and all the Consultants. He was a good guy, but had quite a temper. I remembered back to a few days before when Alex had been looking for Neeraj, only to find him asleep under the SC Station. Alex had yelled at Neeraj for 5 minutes straight, and then sent him home for the day. Later Alex had apologized to me, claiming that his anger had gotten the best of him.

“He’s just so damn lazy!” Alex complained. Neeraj was a lazy guy, but I knew that Neeraj had been up late the night before doing a project.

I approached Alex, scanning for any unusual actions out of him.

“Can I talk to you for a minute please?” I walked towards his office, following him and closing the door as he sat down.

“Look, this sounds awkward, but where were you last night?”

“Um… what? Why?”

“Well,” I quickly thought of an excuse, “One of the SC’s told me they tried to call you last night for an emergency question and you didn’t answer your phone.” A strange look crossed his face.

“That’s odd. I was teaching a class in Gaviota Lab last night until 11 PM. Why would James have called me when he knew I was teaching?”

“Oh, it was after that, closer to 1 AM. It was an alarm problem.” I mentally congratulated myself on thinking up a good story. His expression shifted to a guarded look.

“Well, at that point I was probably driving home. I don’t get much of a signal on the freeway. What was wrong with the alarms?” He searched my face for an answer, nervously playing with a pen from the desk.

I changed the subject, hoping a shift in topic might slip him up if he was hiding something. “Neeraj won’t be in to work anymore. He’s dead. He was murdered last night.” Alex stared incredulously at me.

“Ha ha, very funny Mark. You had me going there.”

“I’m serious. Call the police if you don’t believe me.” His eyes shifted towards the phone.

“No… I don’t believe I will be doing that. I believe you. This is horrible. Why would someone want to kill Neeraj?” I could tell he was trying to look sad and upset, but it wasn’t working. His fingers were twitching much more now, and I started to feel a bit nervous being in the office with the door closed.

“Anyway, I wanted you to know. I’ll get back to you as the Police figure out more details about the case.” I opened the door and quickly walked towards the seminar room. Deep in thought I entered the Seminar Room, and looked up just in time to see Justin throw a monitor at me. I dodged, mind whirling, and yelled, “Hey! What the hell are you doing Justin?” He started walking towards me, muttering to himself and cracking his knuckles. “JUSTIN? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?” I yelled, backing away from him, realizing that something was definitely entirely wrong.

“It should have been you… I didn’t realize it was Neeraj until it was too late…” A crazy light had entered Justin’s eyes. The expression “lights are on, but nobody’s home” briefly worked its way up from my subconscious. Suddenly it clicked. Justin had talked to Christina and discovered that I was at home, probably asleep. Deciding to strike, he left Déjà vu and headed to Cordoba. When he entered dark apartment, and saw MTV on the TV, he assumed it was me watching, as he knew Neeraj hated MTV. He grabbed my knife and struck… only realizing too late that it was Neeraj and not me. Losing confidence and drive, he turned and ran. It all made sense. All except for a motive. Why me? I decided to see if I could provoke him into telling me why he was attempting to kill me.

“Yeah, that’s right, you killed the wrong guy, moron! Can’t do anything right can you?!” I attempted to express forcefully. It seemed to work, as Justin did a double-take and stopped short.

“You stupid bitch. That’s why you have to die. Always telling me what to do. Not cutting me any slack if I don’t do things immediately. Teasing me about being lazy and about my personal habits. I can’t take it anymore, and now it’s time to die motherfucker.” He grabbed a mouse from a nearby computer and pulled it taught, like a garrote wire. I was in trouble. I was backed up against the conference table as he began to strangle me with the mouse cable.

“This… *gack*… isn’t the way… *gack* … to deal with criticism Justin… *gack*…” Struggling to think coherently, I reached behind me to find something, anything, to use for protection. I connected with a keyboard, and quickly slammed it into the side of Justin’s head. The keyboard burst into many electronic bits, but it had served its purpose. Justin folded like an accordion, knocked out. I called the cops, and then grabbed some more mice and tied his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t be able to escape before the police came. Just as I finished, he came to, snarling and demanding to be let free.

“Neeraj died because of you Mark. Had you been out in the living room instead of Neeraj, he would still be alive. You killed him. When the cops show up, I’m going to claim that you jumped me, you piece of shit. I will have my revenge!”

“I doubt that.” Officer Kent walked in the door. “I was going to open the door when I heard you yelling. I stood and listened to every word. You’re going to be taking a trip with me downtown Justin.” Officer Kent began reading Justin his rights as I relaxed for the first time that day. Somehow I had managed to successfully prove my innocence and crack a murder case.

“Thanks Mark, you should probably get some ice for that garrote bruise on your neck.” Officer Kent jerked Justin to his feet. “Sorry if I seemed uptight or disbelieving when you told me your story this morning. My apologizes.” He started walking a subdued Justin out the door. “Ever give any thought to detective work on the police force?” He winked at me, and left, dragging Justin towards his squad car.

I vowed to never forget that Friday. I lost a roommate and friend, discovered I had an enemy whom I had thought was my friend, and almost been killed; all in one day! I sighed, shook my head, and picked up the SC On-Duty clipboard and continued to do Justin’s rounds for him.