The party seemed to be going well at the Verdon residence.  Several of Bob and Tina's friends were there.  Marcus and Brad from the school, Marcus's wife, Bob's friend John (or "Frind" as he called him), and several neighbors and other aquaintances as well.  Tina seemed to be having  a pretty good time, though she looked tired.  There were pretty obvious bags under her eyes, despite the makeup she applied over them.  The drinks flowed freely, and several of the guests, including Marcus and Frind, found themselves to be just this side of drunk, but pleasantly so.

A spilled drink across the room suddenly gets Tina's attention.  She grabs a bar towel and hurries across the room to clean it up.  As she kneels down and begins dabbing the stain, while calling for "Club soda!  Quick!", the bird in the nearby cage begins to twitter frantically.  It flutters around the cage, bouncing off one wall and into another, leaving bloody feathers matted against the bars.  Tina suddenly stands up, startled, and runs into one of the back rooms, crying.  Bob, of course, runs after her.  As soon as she leaves, the bird calms again.  While tousled and a bit bloody, it seems to be ok.

Outside ther Verdon home, private detective Jimmy Franks sat in his car, watching events unfold through a pair of binoculars.  He couldn't tell what had happened exactly, but it looked like Mrs. Verdon's canary had thrown a fit and this had upset her quite a bit.  As he puts down the binoculars for a moment to rub the bridge of his nose, he notices a man outside the house that he hadn't before.  The man stands there on the sidewalk, looking up the hill that led to the home.  He simply stands, unmoving, for quite a while, just out of the range of the nearby streetlight.