Authors: Kim Goldman
His Name Is Ron (2 page)
Messages left on Ron Goldman's answering machine:
Sunday, June 12, 1994.
⦠Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron. Hey bonehead, it's almost ten. I'm debating whether I'm just going to head over to your house or not. I want to get movin' here. I'll probably give it about ten ⦠fifteen minutes. Call me. Later.
⦠Hey Ron, what's up? It's Eric. It's twenty after ten. Wake up, Ron, you bum. What are you doing? Ahh man. I'm just going to finish watching this show then I'll probably head over. Call me. Later.
⦠Ron where are you at, boy? It is eleven. Oh man. Call me. Page me as soon as you get up. Think I'm gonna start headin' over there in a little bit. All right? Later.
Monday, June 13, 1994.
⦠Hey Ron, this is Stuart. It's about ten-forty-five, I just was curious if you wanted to come to work today? So, talk to you later. Bye.
⦠Hi Ron, it's Patty. I know you're at work so I'll just leave a message, and it's twelve and I know it's probably really busy ⦠but don't forget to come visit ⦠that would be great. Thanks, bye.
⦠Hi Ron, this is Shawna. I'm just calling from the bank. Just give me a call here if you get a chance, it's no big rush. Just wanted to talk with you, or you can stop by. So, um, hope everything is okay and going well, just give me a call when you get a chance. Bye.
⦠Ron, it's Patty. I just talked to Jeff, um, I-I-I-I-I-I, um, need to talk to you and I'm not sure if what I'm hearing is right. So, um, Andrea is coming home tomorrow, um, I don't know if they're playing a joke 'cause you have the car and the keys and everything. But, call me, I'm gonna try paging you.
⦠Ron, this is Jeffrey. If you're dead, man, you'll hear from me up above. I love you, man. I just heard on the news right now. My fingers are crossed and I'm hopin' it's not you. Rumor went around town like fast, wildfire. Tryin' to get ahold of your parents. Love you, man, take care.
⦠Hey Ron, this is Todd callin', how you doin'? Hope you're doin' well because I was watchin' the news and they said they found, found somebody dead named Ron Goldman over in Brentwood on Bundy and I'm just like, fuck, I hope that's not you. So I hope it's not you. And if you feel like calling me back; let me know you're okay. I hope you're still alive and doin' well, man. Later.
⦠Hey Ronnie, this is Dave, um, I don't know if you're ever gonna get this or not, oh man. Please call me, let me know what's goin' on, if the name is a coincidence or if it's not, obviously.
⦠Ron, it's Trish. I was just calling you back and just wanted to see if you're okay. Okay, bye.
⦠Ron, this is Todd calling again and, uh, I just talked to your boss and he's confirming what we all hoped not to be true and, uh, I'm still praying that something is wrong with the information. But if it's true I'm sure you're hearing this and we all love you very much and we just hope that everything for the better or whatever and, uh, if anybody gets this message tonight which is, uh, what is tonight, uh, it'd be Monday night if
you could call and let me know exactly what might be happening. Talk to you later. Bye.
⦠Hi Ron, this is Kelly, can you call me? We heard something on the news I just want to make sure it's not you. Call me, bye. As soon as possible, anytime tonight, okay? Bye.
⦠Ron, this is Kymberly, it's Monday night, I haven't talked to you in a while. Heather Burk just called me and said something happened to you. If something didn't happen to you, call me back ⦠I need to talk to you. Bye.
⦠Hey Ron, just wanted to hear your voice one more time and, uh, hope everything works out for you. Goodbye, Ron.
As she prepared to leave work, Patti scrawled a brief shopping list: salad greens, pasta, cottage cheese, sliced deli turkey, and bananas. Bananas were always on her list.
Rather than plan menus and shop once a week, Patti often waits until the last minute, picking and choosing as the mood strikes. Our family was beginning to turn up its collective nose at red meat, but everyone was tired of chicken. And Patti needed something that would hold until Lauren arrived home; this was the big day of her class trip to Disneyland.
Patti's part-time position at the Right Start catalog company in West-lake Village kept her busy only three days a week, leaving plenty of time for what she liked bestâbeing a momâwith a few extra hours for tennis. Orchestrating a dinnertime ritual was one of the benefits of her schedule. Dinner was a special event for our family, a chance for each of us to catch up on the events of the day. We continued the custom, even as the numbers around the table had dwindled from seven to four. My son Ron, now just a few weeks shy of his twenty-sixth birthday, was living in an apartment in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. My twenty-two-year-old daughter, Kim, was in college in San Francisco, majoring in psychology and working part time at a branch of Wells Fargo Bank. Patti's eldest son, Brian, was a freshman at the University of Hartford, in Connecticut. Her two younger children were still at home with us. Michael was a sophomore at Oak Park High School, and Lauren was two days away from her junior high graduation. Children grow up so fast. We savored our time with them.
It was 4:30
P.M.
on Monday, June 13, 1994, when Patti left her office and squinted at the bright blue, cloudless sky. She climbed into her 1991 antique white Toyota Previa bearing the license plate that described her so well: RUNGODO.
Our family moved to the San Fernando Valley only three days after Patti and I were married. That was seven years earlier, but Patti still missed Chicago sometimes. On the plus side, the gentle California climate allowed her to play tennis year round. But she worried about earthquakes and brushfires. The crime rate in and around L.A. was always a concern. Patti had decided that one either falls in love with California or never quite gets used to it.
She selected the groceries quickly and, making sure that she did not have too many items, breezed through the express checkout line. Tossing her shopping list inside the bag, she headed back to her car.
From Vons grocery store it is an easy five-minute drive to our home in a quiet, meticulously cared-for section of Agoura. Smooth green lawns with built-in sprinkler systems were manicured to perfection. Flowers of every variety and color were in bloom. Patti made the left turn onto our street and saw Michael's black Jeep Wrangler parked in front of the house. As she entered the house from the garage, she noticed that the security system was not turned on, so she assumed that Michael was inside.
From the foyer Patti called out, “Michael, are you home?” There was no response, and she thought that he might be upstairs, talking on his phoneâor perhaps he had gone out with a friend and forgotten to set the alarm, which sometimes happened.
She set the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and greeted the pets. Riley, the cat, brushed against her leg. Lucy, a black Labrador mix, wagged her tail and bounded around the room. Pitzel, our aging West Highland terrier, growled with her customary displeasure at Lucy's very existence, but allowed herself to be petted. Patti scooted the dogs outside to their run and then returned to the kitchen to put the perishables into the refrigerator. Then she headed upstairs to check the answering machine in our bedroom.
The light was flashing, informing her that several messages awaited. She pushed the
PLAY
button and heard a man's voice announce, “Hi. This is John DuBello from Mezzaluna. As soon as someone gets home, would you please call us? It's very important.” His tone conveyed a sense of urgency. Alarmed, Patti quickly jotted down the telephone number.
Mezzaluna? she thought. That's the restaurant where Ron works. Why are they calling here? Her pulse quickened. Mothers do not like mysterious phone messages. The upstairs phone had not been working properly, so,
ignoring the other messages on the machine, she went back downstairs to the wall phone in the kitchen and punched in the number. It was just after 5:00
P.M.
“Is John DuBello there?” Patti asked.
“This is John DuBello.”
“This is Patti Goldman. You called?”
“Do you know where Ron is?”
Patti was confused and a little bit annoyed. Why didn't the man just leave a message on Ron's machine? She demanded, “Why are you asking
me
where Ron is?”
“Because he was supposed to call in for his schedule and he didn't call in,” DuBello explained.
“But why are you calling here? Ron doesn't live here. He lives in Brentwood in his own apartment.”
“Well, this is the phone number he had on his application,” DuBello responded.
There was a catch in the man's voice that deepened Patti's anxiety. “I have no idea where Ron is, and how dare you call our house and leave such a pressing, urgent message. I thought something had, God forbid, happened to Ron. Don't ever do that to us again!”
DuBello apologized. “I'm really sorry. I just thought maybe you knew where he was.”
Patti hung up the telephone, aware that her hands were shaking.
She stared through the glass patio doors at the sight of a backyard that was vintage California. A built-in barbecue stood just outside, with the swimming pool behind. A tall privacy wall surrounded the yard, with lush, trailing, pink and red ivy geraniums festooning the perimeter. Directly to her right, an atrium with a huge cactus housed a hummingbird feeder that the tiny birds frequently enjoyed. Wind chimes rang softly in the breeze, but at the moment Patti did not find them soothing. Something was going on. She could feel it.
A scant thirty seconds passed before the phone rang. The caller was a woman whom Patti did not know but would never forget.
“Hello, is this Mrs. Goldman?”
“Yes.”
“I'm Claudia Ratcliff from the coroner's office.”
Patti knew what a coroner's office was, of course, but the import of this information did not immediately register.
The woman added quickly, “If you don't believe that this is who I am, I'll give you a phone number and you can call me back.”
“What are you talking about?” Patti responded.
“Did you hear that Nicole Brown, O. J. Simpson's ex-wife, was murdered?”
“No, I don't know what you are talking about.” Patti's voice rose in pitch and volume as she repeated, “I have no idea what you're talking about!”
Patti thought: O. J. Simpson? Who the
hell
is O. J. Simpson?
Monday was just like any other workday. I was a salesman for Reliable Container, a company that manufactures corrugated displays and packaging. Sometime during the day, as I visited customers and made my phone calls, I heard on the radio that Nicole Brown Simpson, ex-wife of O. J. Simpson, had been found murdered, along with someone else. I like football, but I am not an avid fan, so the news meant little to me. Unfortunately, such crimes are not that uncommon, especially in large cities, and L.A. is no exception. There was no reason to pay particular attention to the story, other than to note that the victim had been married to someone I considered a has-been sports star.
I rarely arrive home before 6:00
P.M.
, but on this day I seized the opportunity to leave the office early. My mood was good as I drove the Ventura Freeway north, keeping a heavy foot on the accelerator. The week ahead was a busy one, a good one, highlighted by Lauren's junior high graduation ceremony on Wednesday evening. Our family always used every holiday or special occasion to come together and celebrate. Kim was flying down from San Francisco, and when we had spoken with Ron on the phone a few days earlier, he assured us that he would find a ride or bum a car from someone. Nothing would keep him from “Squirt's” big evening. Squirt was a nickname he had always used for his sister Kim, and he had bestowed it on Lauren as well.