Five hours later, after looking into every mention we could dig up and eliminating as many questionable pseudonyms as possible, we had our list of potential members down to four names:
1. Karl Yasserman
2. Darla Chung
3. Carla Yu
4. Trenton Hall
Could one of those four people be the infamous Rabbits player known as Murmur?
All four of the names had been mentioned in connection with the Navidsonians at some point or another, although we couldn’t find anything that connected any of them to Murmur.
We decided to focus on Trenton Hall from Vancouver, British Columbia, and Darla Chung from Tacoma, Washington. Both Chung and Hall were rumored to have taken part in more than one iteration of the game, so there was a bit more speculation online surrounding their participation in Rabbits and potential membership in the Navidsonian group.
We were unable to find any current geographic information on Trenton Hall, but Darla Chung had a Facebook page that included a number of photographs. Darla was slight, about five feet tall with a bright photogenic smile. She was definitely not what I had in mind when I pictured the infamous—potentially murderous—Rabbits player known as Murmur.
* * *
—
As with Hazel—the most famous Rabbits player of all time—nobody really knew all that much about Murmur. There were certain “higher-level” players we’d heard rumors about like Californiac （allegedly billionaire Alan Scarpio）， Vampire Billy （might be a well-known actor from a long-canceled television series）， and Sadie Palomino （rumored to be Silicon Valley venture capital legend Vera Spiotta）。 But Murmur, like Hazel—by design or otherwise—had always been surrounded by an air of mystery and danger.
Everyone seriously interested in the game had heard stories about Murmur. That they had purchased four hundred tickets to a concert rumored to contain a clue, just to make sure nobody else could attend, or that they had turned a close friend in to the police in order to gain an advantage during the ninth iteration.
But the most common （and alarming） rumor by far was that Murmur once threw another player off a nine-story roof to prevent them from finding a clue connected to Rabbits. That player was also, allegedly, Murmur’s spouse.
I was pretty sure Darla Chung wasn’t Murmur. Judging by the photos on her Facebook page, there was no way Darla was capable of throwing anybody off a roof.
* * *
—
A number of Darla’s photos included a close friend named Alison, a real estate agent who’d recently sold a condo that had been featured on Zillow.
Alison’s professional website featured photographs of her sales. Those photos included that condo: a nicely renovated two-bedroom located about fifteen minutes from my place. Alison was smiling in the picture, her arm around the buyer.
The buyer was Darla Chung.
According to everything we’d been able to dig up, the Navidsonians met on Thursdays and Sundays.
It was Wednesday. Chloe and I decided that the two of us would head over to Darla Chung’s condo first thing in the morning.
We were going on a stakeout.
* * *
—
Early the next morning, we parked outside Darla’s building, drank coffee, and rewatched all three episodes of the first season of Sherlock on my laptop as we waited.
Darla finally stepped out of the front door around two p.m.
We got out of the car and followed her on foot.
Darla led us up her street, through Volunteer Park, and into a quiet residential area. After we’d been walking for about fifteen minutes, she stepped off the sidewalk and jogged up the stairs of a midsize craftsman-style house. She knocked, and somebody we couldn’t see clearly from where we were standing opened the door and let her in.
The moment Darla was through the door, Chloe yanked me up the stairs and knocked.
Two seconds later, Darla opened the door. She’d barely had time to step inside.
“Hi,” Chloe said.
“Hi,” Darla replied, surprised. “Who are you?”
“I’m Chloe, and this is K.”
I waved hello.
“We’re playing Rabbits and we need some help,” Chloe said.
“Who is it?” a voice called out from inside the house.
“It’s Chloe and K. They say they’re playing the game.”
There was a long pause and then we heard a woman’s voice.
“Well, don’t just stand in the doorway, take your shoes off and get your asses in here.”
* * *
—
The woman who’d spoken was Easton Paruth. She was South Asian, around fifty years old. She had short gray hair with bangs that reminded me of the window in a prison cell door. She was sitting at the head of a long rectangular table in a narrow dining room. There were four other people sitting around the table with Easton: the Colonel, a man who looked to be about sixty-five with wild white hair and round wire-rimmed glasses; Alberto, a Brazilian who had probably been some kind of athlete a decade ago; and a young married couple from Ireland named Jenny and Hugh. Jenny was aggressively tattooed from her wrists to her neck with bleached-blond pink-tipped hair, and Hugh was thin and pale, with extremely short-cropped red hair and sharp green eyes. The house belonged to the two of them. Chloe and I shared a look.