A Night in Question
A Night in Question
Episode 4: A Neighbor in Question
The team interviews Bobby Linden, a childhood friend of Ted's and the downstairs neighbor of Paul and Abby. Bobby recounts his and his father's experiences with the strange couple while Kate tells of the strange happenings that continue to plague her apartment.
Hello listeners. And welcome back to a night in question I am your host, Jeremy and joining me as always is my wonderful cohost, Kate. Hello, everyone. And also back with us yet again is my handsome boyfriend, Ted. Hey everybody. I'm very glad to be back. We can't get rid of you. Why wouldn't we want to? No, that's true. It's actually been really nice to have you on here, uh, with all of your firsthand knowledge. Yes. So my polysyllabic words, she thinks she's smart only on Tuesdays. So, uh, Kate, how have you been? How's your week? My week's been good. It's been, it's been raining, um, which listen, listen. Before, before anyone gets on me about complaining about the rain in Washington. Um, it's, it can be a lot when you have just all that cloudy, all of a sudden, cause we had some really nice weather and now it's back to the rain. So, um, I will say, and I don't know, maybe it's because of the rain. I did have something weird happen again. No, I don't know if this is, I mean, I don't know if you can consider the supernatural or not, but it was kind of weird. Is it? Cause he swiped right. Something weird. Always happens when I swipe. Right. That's just the name of the game these days. No. Okay. So, um, Jeremy you've, you've seen my kitchen, right? Yeah. Uh, and, and my not recently right recently, but he helped me. He helped me move in. He helped me set up my kitchen, Ted. You don't let me out of your sight for God's sake. That's true. I've got good security cameras. I don't, I don't need to know this much about your relationship. Better webcam, stop, stop. Kate shape, toll. Kate saved tall, running, running through the wall. Uh, now, um, I have my refrigerator and uh, it has a water so that, you know, you put the cup in the little thing and it, it lets water out into a said cup so you can drink the water into yourself so you can stay hydrated. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. Um, great story. I know I'm such a storyteller. Um, it's like spitting water. Like there's a cup there
Speaker 2:Dripping like actually like show, no,
Speaker 1:Like, like it'll do it spontaneously as though somebody was filling up a cup of water and then stopping. So it's, I mean, forgive this analogy. It is not unlike it is peeing and then stop. So, I mean, that's kind of what's happening.
Speaker 2:Well, that sounds painful, right? It's problem. Like your cat doing some kind of like Indiana Jones thing with your refrigerator, like leaping across your kitchen and hitting your water or something
Speaker 1:Acrobatic. Do you think my cat is I'm smart. Do you think she is because she's cute, but girl's dumb.
Speaker 2:We've had so many, well, you've had so many incidences in your apartment that we, I originally, I thought it couldn't be the cat, but like the, this doesn't have to be a super, super cat to like turn on the stove, make, make water, shoot out of your fridge spontaneously. Like I
Speaker 1:I've watched it happen. Like, you know, I had seen some wet patches on the floor and I thought that, I don't know, maybe I spilled water, the cat knocked her water dish over or something, but I've seen it happen a couple times now. And it's like, somebody is filling up a cup of water, but there's no cup of water there. And it's really weird. And I don't know why it would just do that. I mean, there's probably some kind of, I dunno, it's malfunctioning or something, but I don't know. I, I, the, all of this, the, the centralizing of weird stuff that seems to be happening in the kitchen, I kind of want to know what happens in the kitchen. Then this seems to be a location where all this weird stuff is happening.
Speaker 2:And what do you think that causes? Could it be okay
Speaker 1:Or there's something wrong with my refrigerator?
Speaker 2:I'm sure. Yeah. It's gotta be your refrigerator. Cause I mean that's yeah. I mean, that kind of stuff happens all the time. I mean, I used to have an ice machine on my refrigerator and the ice would keep clumping together before it would like dispense. And um, sometimes I'd have to take like an ice pick and just kind of chop it up and um, then it would sometimes draw a little water out of it. So I'm totally sure it's gotta be just your refrigerator, not working, but then also the stove. And didn't you say some things in your shelves were rearranged?
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe it's, I can't tell how much of it is something actually happening and how much of it is that now that the ideas in my head, I can't stop thinking about it.
Speaker 2:Well, when you first moved into the apartment, did you, did you sense anything, anything weird?
Speaker 1:It's an old building. Like, I mean, you know this, when we, when we lived in the story, we lived in an old building and they always have kind of a weird feel, but that doesn't mean ghost. That just means it's an old building. An old buildings feel like things.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But this is a building where a murder took place and it's a very apartment where a murder took place. Not just any old apartment.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that at the time. So I wasn't thinking, Oh, my place must be haunted. Uh, now that you keep putting the idea in my head. Sure. Maybe, but I don't know
Speaker 2:Jeremy, a little bit of a break here. He's been watching a lot of like miss Marple stuff on streaming. And so she's just so good. He's just seeing Agatha Christie everywhere. He looks,
Speaker 1:This is okay. You need to shut that down, shut it down dead. Or get your own ghost. We'll get like, go buy something haunted. That's how that works. Right. Annabel or something. Isn't that? Isn't that a thing we're going to move that. Oh, you're okay with it. If it's my apartments. Yeah. That's what I'm hearing. I'll come visit the ghost. I just don't want to live with a ghost. Will you, will you come visit the ghost? I've yet to see this. Are you going to come visit the ghost? Ted is Jeremy allowed to come visit the ghost? Um, in about a year? Yeah. So, so I'm just stuck with the supposed ghost and I have to deal with it all by myself. Thank you. Y'all
Speaker 2:I feel so much better. I was just going to say, I have to question the level of entertainment you are getting Kate. If all you're doing is sitting in your apartment, looking, looking at what is happening in your kitchen. Good point.
Speaker 1:I've watched, I think the entirety of Netflix at this point, and he know you can only play with the cats so much, uh, that, you know, I will say the, the cat has been staring at the wall in the bedroom again, like she'd stop for a while. She's back to staring at it again. That is unsettling. Well, cause I keep looking to see like, there's nothing reflecting on it. There's no shadows because she's doing it at the lights on the lights off. Um, yeah, I don't and she just stares at it. Like she doesn't try to chase anything. She just stares kinda having a fit. I mean, she's a cat like cats do what cats do. But it, I, that might be unsettling me more than anything. Cause it's not like her. Uh she's she's not normally, I mean, if that's not typical behavior for her, I mean, she's, she's, she's like 14 years old. She sleeps, she eats and she sleeps and she eats and she sleeps. That's what she does. But now she also stares.
Speaker 2:I mean, normally she's so chatty and she's just so quiet lately.
Speaker 1:Are you sure you're talking about the cat or you're talking about me. She's never
Speaker 2:Quiet. So last week we talked about conspiracy theories and there was some bonkers stuff out there. Uh, what were, what were your favorites guys? Anything that stuck with you?
Speaker 1:I will say I still get a little hung up on the whole idea that Abby faked it all and had been like hoarding her blood away. Um, that that's just a special brand of delightful for so many reasons. But that, that she would then let her kid be raised by somebody else by herself. I mean, yeah, her sister, but still I had that. There's so many ways that that whole thing was ridiculous. So I, that one kind of stuck with me. How about you?
Speaker 2:And then she went to be an actress in LA and no one knew
Speaker 1:She went to be an actress in Lausanne. Like, no, no, no. How you disappear, girl. That's behind you disappear girl,
Speaker 2:Ted. Yeah. I was going to say that one. That one was probably my favorite, but the one that kind of seems the most plausible to me is the one where, uh, Paul kind of manipulated the timeline, right? Like that seems the most plausible, but I also kind of like the idea of, um, of her faking her death and just like storing up like gallons and gallons of her own blood at a secret location.
Speaker 1:Where do you store that? If you have all this blood, just like you can't just put that in the freezer,
Speaker 2:She's missing out on a career in like wedding planning or something. Cause somebody who can anticipate that kind of thing. Like that's incredible now. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Way above our pay grade.
Speaker 1:Did you have a favorite?
Speaker 2:I, that the disappearing was one of my favorites. I just thought that was great. Uh, but the, also the grunge killer. Oh yeah. The Grinnell killer was targeting, targeting different musicians. But Paul come on. He was not that noteworthy to hoard that kind of attention. Sorry, Paul, Courtney love.
Speaker 1:I may have, I may have made that one up. Did I make that one up? I think I made that one up. I think I just wanted that to be true.
Speaker 2:Yeah. She was after all of them. So yeah, last week was crazy conspiracy theories and that, but now it's time that we try to actually dive into what happens, what happened in this case of Paula and Abby stone. So we're going to actually talk to someone who knew the couple. Um, and we have a special guest this week. His name is Bobby Linden and he's a childhood friend of Ted's. Bobby is on the call with us, Bobby. I see you're yawning. Are we, are we boring? You no, you're not boring me. None at all. I'm just
Speaker 1:Night shift. So no worries. Um, hi.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Bobby. Um, it's nice to, nice to be here. I'm happy to help with um, whatever this is and it's, it's really nice to see Ted again. It's been awhile.
Speaker 2:Do you have good dirt on Ted? It's let it, let it out. I need to know. I need to know what was, what was he really like as a little kid?
Speaker 3:I walked in on him in the bathroom once and that was horrifying, but
Speaker 2:Because I was P okay. I was just, I'm so sorry Jeremy. See I'm unphased by that. He leaves the bathroom door open now. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's what happened that time too.
Speaker 2:Do you have closing doors on me? No, I was in a hurry. Okay. I was there. Hurry. I didn't have time for that.
Speaker 3:Have to get this soccer practice so fast
Speaker 2:That closing the door. This is like Kiwi soccer.
Speaker 3:You had to wait for someone to drive you anyhow, like just close the door.
Speaker 2:That's such a little kid logic though that like, I have to save every ounce of time. What will save me really no time, but I should still do leave the bathroom door open.
Speaker 3:He learned to like wash his hands.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's very important. These days, guys, you were a kid. I wash my hands when tired to be fair. I didn't either. Now Bobby's just making up crap. I swear to God. We used to call him
Speaker 3:Dirty hands.
Speaker 2:Bobby. We're keeping you Kim Bobby Khan every episode. So thank you for joining us on our episodes. This is great. This is better than jam.
Speaker 3:No worries. This now, nowadays I'm Bob dirty hands because I work with fish and cutesy. So yeah, it all comes full circle.
Speaker 2:Bobby dirty hands, dirty hands. So Bobby, you, you knew Paul and Abby stone, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean they lived above me, so it was more hearing them than actually seeing them. My dad used to hang out with, um, Abby a lot. Um, so I knew her more and less and less, uh, Paul,
Speaker 2:So Kate and I, we never had any, um, experience with Paula and Abby. What was your first impression of them? How would you characterize these two people individually?
Speaker 3:I thought Paul was pretty cool. Um, just living, living downstairs, a musician, um, in sort of the like heyday day of, of grunge in Seattle. Like that was, I mean, I didn't know it now. I knew it. I know it now. I didn't know it then. Um, but nowadays like, like that's a little piece of history that, you know, I can bring it up at parties And people live for that. People live for that.
Speaker 1:Well, in true, true crime too. People love kind of true crime, anything it's it's yeah,
Speaker 3:It was really nice. I remember she made cookies for us a lot. Um, she bring them over for me and my dad and they were like, she made these really good, um, ginger snaps. Ooh, those sound delicious. Yeah. Did you ever have any Ted?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. My parents may be sat Dylan a few times and a lot of times Abby would just treat us with, with their ginger snaps. They were very good.
Speaker 1:Well, I I'm just curious. I mean, we keep making all these jokes about my apartment being haunted, which it's not, but like, did you ever, I don't know. Did you ever notice anything in your apartment? Like, is it possible it's an
Speaker 2:Old building, maybe some of these ghosts predate
Speaker 1:The murder? Well,
Speaker 3:No. I mean, we had, there were mice once in awhile. Uh, you know, you hear some skittering in the, in the walls and occasional thumping of the really bad water pipes. Like, I don't know if it's the same landlord. I've doubt he's fixed the thing. Um, yeah, just, you know, regular, horrible sounds of the nights. Um, but in, in the city you just sorta get used to it. So, um,
Speaker 2:Like I said, my parents babysat Dylan a few times and I got to see him and, you know, one of the, one of the real sad things about this is once he graduated, um, he moved out or he disappeared and we haven't, we can't find him. Um, and so when we've been talking about a lot of the different things that possibly could have led up to Dylan's sort of disappearance post to the situation, um, cause you know, he went to go live with his, with his aunt, Jennifer, um, Abby's sister. And so I'm really curious because we haven't really, I haven't really talked to you about this in any real depth, but was Dylan ever mistreated in any way that you had seen living in the building with them?
Speaker 3:When you say mistreated, do you mean like, did they beat him,
Speaker 2:Um, or just them in a way that would kind of ring any sort of alarm bells? Like I'm wondering if, if there were, if there were things that were happening, um, to him that maybe we should have gotten involved sooner, I came home one night.
Speaker 4:Um, and, and Dylan was out in the hallway by himself. On our floor. On your floor? Yeah. So, no, I just he's playing with his, uh, like a little train. Um, so, uh, I dunno, I, I helped him up. I mean, it wasn't hurt, but you know, I, I took his hand and I walked him upstairs, um, just to, to check and see if like everything was okay because I mean, we'd have, we'd had break-ins before. Um, and I don't know, the kids get smart. He could have just been home alone and then walked out and been fooling around. But, um, when we got upstairs, the door was ajar. I walked him in sinking that, you know, Abby was probably on my, I called out for her and I didn't hear anything. So, uh, I just, I went further into the apartments. Um, just Soren check the place out, make sure everything was all right. And I heard, I heard Abby, she was, she was mumbling, some things talking to someone in the bedroom. So maybe I thought, I thought it was Paul as Paul and Abby were having like a fight, but it was quiet this time because I guess they just decided to mix it up. So I went over there because the door was open and all wasn't there, but a B was alone just talking to herself in that, in that mirror that my dad and I helped install. I tried to, I tried to like
Speaker 3:Catch your attention. Like I locked eye contact with her in the mirror, but it w it, her eyes were kind of glazed and it looked like she didn't see me. Maybe she was doing self-affirmations or something. I don't know. But, um, so I cleared my throat and I mean, nothing really genes within her, her posture or her, she didn't look at me. She just, she seemed, her focus seemed to shift just a little bit. And she just said for me to, to leave Dylan and, uh, and go, so I left and I locked the door behind me.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think how to react. Okay. Now, um, I just feel like the more we find out, the more, there's just a lot more going on in that apartment. I don't know. Um, and it seems like both Paula and Abby, something is not right with either of them. There's some odd behavior on both sides, because I think up to this far, from what we've heard from Ted Abby was great. Abby's whatever it was wonderful, but now we're hearing maybe she was, but something, something was going on with Abby.
Speaker 3:She just, she acted weird sometimes, especially around my father, like when they were, when they were hanging out, there would just be little moments. Um, not, not again, not sexual moments, but just like, they were acting weird as if they were trying to hide something from, I don't even think it was, they were trying to hide it from me, just from the world as if like there were cameras on them. But,
Speaker 2:Um, I got a random question. So, um, after all these years, Bobby, do you think Paul killed Abbey stone?
Speaker 3:I don't know, man.
Speaker 2:Okay. Fair. I just, I didn't know. After all this time, anything might've popped up in your head?
Speaker 3:Paul Paul after a little while? Um, I think after maybe like a couple of months, Paul started getting less friendly with me. Um, my dad, um, his name is Frank by the way, my dad and Abby were getting more like comfortable with each other. I guess they were hanging out more and Paul was not around a lot. He, he wouldn't be really short man. Cause like, I, I'm not gonna lie. I kind of wanted to be a musician back in that day when I was that kid, you know? Um, and I had questions I had just like, we, you know, how does this guitar work? What's, what's the C minor? What does this amp do? Um, and Paul would sort of shut me down and just sorta, he was kinda, he kind of appeared menacing after awhile. Like always in the shadow. Like when I saw him, for some reason, it was more than often at night or like the power had gone out in our apartments. Um, and he I'd see him like walking up the stairs. Um, I think Ted did, did you and I, we used to like call him shadow man or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think we call it, we called him shadow man. And then we also called him reefer, man.
Speaker 3:It always smell like that. Very powerful feature from the shadow, man. Yeah. You could smell him in the shadows. You wouldn't see him, you just see his beautiful eyes and smell like, gotcha.
Speaker 2:It'd be fair. That's that's kinda just Capitol Hill. And that is also true. Everything vaguely smells like weed. That's something I've noticed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I don't know. I sort of drove it to him, but Abby was always, always nice. You know, she she'd come over and she, uh, she and my dad would go over sort of schoolwork. I, my dad used to be a teacher. Um, and I think it was, he was tutoring her with her college work. Um, I'm not really sure. I don't know. They had, they brought over really big books. Um, that looked like textbooks. I don't, I haven't, I didn't read them. I don't give a flying rat's about that. Um, I had video games to play, uh, but, but they were very enraptured in that, in those, uh, those texts or, or books or whatever. Is it possible anything
Speaker 1:Had been going on between those two or between them like during this or was it just strictly Abby was just lonely and needed somebody,
Speaker 3:You know, there was a moment where my dad told me that he was going up to help her move some furniture. And I heard some shuffling around up there that it sounded, it didn't sound like wood on wood or metal on wood. But, but I know my dad and that's not, I don't think they were having an affair. Was your dad single at the time? Yeah. Your dad's still alive. He is. Um, he's in the house now actually he's taking his dad's there. Yeah. We, I live with, I'd love to hear from him Jack. Could we, could we talk to him? Uh, I don't really think that's a good idea. Okay. When, when you guys asked me to come on, um, I told my dad initially, um, and he got really, he didn't want me to, um, he got really upset what happened in that apartment, but a lot of strain on my father and put him in a position where, uh, I don't think he'll ever be able to cope without me here. I'm really sorry. That's that's really hard. Bobby. Um, how did your father react when the murder initially occurred? The day of the murder there, there was some fighting up upstairs. Um, yeah. Hey, what's up at the door. Does he need me to sign? I'm talking to some friends. Mr. Frank. Good to see you. Yeah. I remember you and your parents. And, and can you, can you sign for the package? I just, I can do that. Okay. I can do that. I can do that. Um, where was I? Um, heard noises, right. Okay. Um, so I think I was sleeping. I think I was sleeping, but I woke up in the middle of the night, uh, uh, 10 30, 11, maybe. There was just, there were heavy footsteps upstairs. Um, and not like the usual calamity from, uh, from Paul's rocking out rehearsals or any of their other fights. It was, they were heavy. It was, if it didn't seem like it was them, like they, like, they felt like they weighed more than Paul does. And I mean, I was young, so maybe I'm just imagining things. But, uh, I know that I was not imagining, uh, the screams that came from upstairs. Uh, you could hear all that. Wow. I get to hear it through, through the walls and most prominently through the heat vents in my room. And then, uh, that, that went on for a little while. And then there was a breaking, there was like a shattering sound like somebody broke a vase or something. And then there was nothing, there was silence. And all I remember is a few minutes after, um, it was red and blue with the police cars and like an ambulance. And my dad told me to stay in my room and, uh, I did.
Speaker 1:Do you know if, uh, if your dad heard the sounds, you were hearing the screaming and the, the noises.
Speaker 3:I mean, he must have, he's not deaf and if I could hear them, he could, his room wasn't that much further from, I guess, under their bedroom, mine was just a little trying to think of the geography here. Uh, I think his was almost directly under their bedroom and mine was a little to the side. So if anything, he could hear it even better than me.
Speaker 1:And he was definitely home and in bed
Speaker 3:That night. Right. I mean, he, he tucked me in. Um, but, uh, that was like a, I I've been wondering
Speaker 1:Actually. Um, and we'll have to see maybe if we can find some of the police records about it, but if, if anyone, if everything was so loud, did, did somebody call the police? Did anybody go upstairs to check? I'm even thinking about where Abby's body. When is it? Is it possible that somebody went upstairs after? I don't know.
Speaker 3:I don't know if my dad called the police, but I know that he, he went to the police like the, the week after. Cause he, the police spoke to him when he spoke to me, um, on that night. What are you talking about? Hey, what's up? How's it going? You shouldn't talk about that.
Speaker 5:None of you should talk about that night
Speaker 3:That I need you to calm down night.
Speaker 5:The man in the moon stars, the man stole my star.
Speaker 3:I need you to calm down. I need you to not get so upset while I'm on this phone.
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry guys. I have to go. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Give it to you, Bobby. It's fine. Um, well thank you for taking this time, Bobby. We really appreciate it. Uh, can you, uh, I'm sorry, can you, can you, um, my dad might listen to this, so I'm really just don't
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Don't use any of those. Okay. Come on dad. Let's let's get ya.
Speaker 5:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:I haven't seen any, I haven't seen him in like 10 years on this. Um, this it's really sad to see Frank like this and um, yeah, for Bobby, this it's it's looks pretty rough for him right now. It's just amazing to me. It seems like even after all these years, the trauma of that night really stuck with both of them. You know? I think you see it in Bobby as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's really hard to say. Um, and I feel like after this conversation with Bobby, I feel like I have so many more questions than answers that I got from this,
Speaker 5:But I mean, we're
Speaker 1:Are we, are we, are we going to use this? Like that's,
Speaker 3:Uh, I'm not sure if we shed you all I'm I'm just, um, I'm not, I do believe
Speaker 2:You need to get your locks changed Kate, but, um, I'm not kidding when I say I'm doing that. As soon as we get off this call, um, when would you, would you just let Bobby know? We appreciate him taking the time and then talking to us even so I will I'll, I'll let him know. I'll give him some time to just kind of process the day and, um, you know, take care of his dad. And I mean, it's just a rough time for everybody anyway. And so I'll give him some time and then I'll, I'll check in with him in the next few days. Okay. Thank you. Well, okay. That was, that was a heavy episode. Um, I wanna, I want to thank Bobby for being our guest and I want to thank you listeners out there for sticking with us during this difficult chat. Um, please join us next week. Uh, we're we'll be diving even further into this ever-changing case of murder. Uh, thanks for listening all you guys want to say, bye. Talk to you next time.
Speaker 5:Bye.
Speaker 2:See you next time on a night in question.