Hub and spoke. Audio collective.

This is Rumble Strip, I'm Erica Heilman.

And this is the sound of my mother's house and Lake Champlain in the fall here in Vermont.

I've been living with my mom for a couple months at our camp where I spent whole summers

as a kid. And I've never been here this late in the year. And it's beautiful and it's also sort of

eerie, which in a way was the perfect setting for this conversation with Susan Randall. A couple

weeks ago, Susan came out to visit me here. She's a private

investigator and we've been friends for 30 years. If you know this show, you've already heard about Susan.

I think I've made like five shows with Susan. One show is about a dead owl, which you might want to listen to.

Anyway, every few months, Susan and I get

together and we compare notes on our lives and on what the hell is going on. I think that the

thing that Susan and I share the most is a central question, a central life question, which is what is going on. And so we get together

periodically and we see if we can make any headway on that question. And sometimes I record these

conversations because the sound of friends you've had for over 30 years has a certain sound to it. Susan and I met

in our early 20s in New York City, where she was living a much more exciting life than I was. And

in our late 20s, we failed to make a documentary together. In our 30s, Susan gave me a job as a private investigator.

We had babies around the same time once Susan threw a curtain rod at me.

Anyway, Susan has had a rough year.

She's had medical issues.

There was a death in the family. And of course,

Trump, Trump happened. So she came out and we sat on my mom's screened in porch and we talked.

And here is some of that conversation. Welcome.

...