Majoring in Murder

Chapter 33

The following day, my parents both took the day off. My mom stayed with my sisters at the hotel. She said she didn't want them out of her sight after what had happened at our house. I didn't blame her. My dad and I both went back to our house to gather enough clothes to last everyone at least a week. In our driveway, my dad turned off the ignition and we got out of the car. It still looked like home but didn't feel the same, not with the sense of security missing.

My dad must've felt it too, or, he was thinking about the news crews who had been here after hearing about the shooting. Either way, there was something different in the air and we both paused, just staring at the house after we shut the car doors. My dad put his hands on his hips, exhaled deeply, and looked from our yard to the neighbors' yards.

We walked up onto the front porch and hesitated again. Two lengths of police crime scene tape crisscrossed the door. My dad pulled them down and before opening the door, said, "I'm not looking forward to moving." Then, he clarified, "I mean the actual act of moving any furniture."

"I know what you mean. I hate manual labor too. What can I say? I'm lazy."

My dad twisted the key in the lock and pushed the door open. Before stepping inside, he turned to me and said, "I can't say I'll miss Chuck Richardson, though." He winked and entered the house. I guess that was his way of dealing with the weirdness we found ourselves in.

Of course, he was referring to our elderly next-door neighbor, Charles Richardson. Chuck—a nickname the old man hated—was retired from the railroad and spent most of his free time manicuring his lawn and pampering his flowerbeds. Mr. Richardson often thumbed his nose at us for being unlike him in that regard. What can I say? Yard work was never our strong suit. Now, he had another reason to look down his nose at us.

Standing at the front door, everything appeared as it always had. It smelled like home, but underneath was the faint odor of spent gunpowder, and...blood? Maybe that was just me, because I had been here when it happened. But, still, for me at least, there was that overwhelming feeling of violation. My dad proceeded cautiously into the living room, scrutinizing the surroundings as he went.

"Where'd you shoot the—" he started to ask, and then, nearing the dining room, said, "Oh, I see."

I joined him in the living room and looked at the place where the forensics team had worked, examining the bodies, gathering evidence, and removing squares of linoleum and a large section of sheetrock where the men's blood had splattered.

"Did the police remove that piece of floor and wall?"

"Yeah," I said, my hands stuffed into my back pockets. "They said it was a biological hazard and that our homeowner's insurance should cover the repairs."

My dad went to the area of bare floor and raked the tip of his shoe across the wood. Just as he looked into the kitchen, there was a knock at the front door. My heart stuttered and my breath caught in my throat.

We looked at each other, my dad's eyes wide with surprise. He was probably asking himself the same thing I was: whether the person at the door was there to kill us.

I looked around for something to protect myself. The police had taken my dad's pistol as evidence and I no longer had any of my own weapons from the previous meeting. The only thing nearby was a large black-handled chef's knife resting in the butcher block on the kitchen counter. I pulled out the knife and tiptoed to the front door. My dad followed me.

I stopped, straightened—I had been crouching as though I was sneaking up to the door. Another knock rapped on the wood. I whispered to my dad, "I doubt anyone looking to hurt us would bother knocking like that." But then, I remembered that the man I'd shot also knocked before trying the knob. As far as I knew, whoever was knocking hadn't tried the doorknob.