In Tacoma, Washington, Arnie Price, 39, died of a heart attack in the driver’s seat of his blue 1998 Honda Accord while the car alarm sounded for eleven minutes outside the apartment of his girlfriend, Tessa Lowe.

The Honda’s alarm had been malfunctioning since July. It went off in heat, rain, wind, fog, and once, according to neighbors, during a cloudless afternoon when a squirrel looked at it “with intent.” Arnie meant to fix it. He had priced a new sensor. He had watched a video. He had removed one fuse and replaced it after discovering that the same fuse controlled something else he could not identify.

Neighbors learned to ignore the alarm.

Tessa learned to sleep through it.

At 1:42 this morning, Arnie pulled up outside her building after finishing a kitchen shift at the Silver Net Diner. The alarm began as he parked. He reached toward the dash, possibly to silence it. That is where he was found.