Murder On Worthy Hill

It's Making Sense Now

The stars were still out, and the moon was full when Aaron awoke. An alarm went off in the kitchen, and he went downstairs to stop it. "Why? I'm so tired." he walked down, passed the bathroom, and passed the living room to the kitchen. The oven had a timer, and was beeping constantly for five minutes, giving him a headache. He was finally in the kitchen, and pressed 'off' on the timer. It stopped and created tranquil silence. When he walked back to the living room, he saw someone, sitting on the couch. "Umm, hello? What are you doing in my house?" the man sat there, static and silent. "Can you get out, please. I will call the police!" his voice grew louder, and more stern. Aaron walked over to his phone that was charging on the counter top. He was ready to dial 9-1-1. Suddenly, the man that was sitting jumped up, and grabbed Aaron. He was struggling to get out of the man's grasp. The man was reaching for something in his back pocket, a knife. "Is that.. the murder weapon?!" Aaron asked, completely shocked. The man, holding the knife, moved it to Aaron. He was holding the man's arms back, trying not to get stabbed.

The man held the knife against Aaron's neck, and whispered, "Hail the L.A!"

"Ah!" Aaron clamored. He was awake, sitting up in a chair, in his living room. "It was all a horrible nightmare!" he said, sitting back. He squinted forward and saw Abby, sleeping peacefully. He reached out, and placed his hand on her cheek. She was cold. He wrapped the blanket that was folded up next to her around her body, then sat back in his seat. "I'll just go back to sleep." he whispered to himself, and he closed his eyes.

In the morning...

"Morning, Aaron!" Abby said joyfully. He was writing about the nightmare he had in Abby's journal, and eventually grabbed the radio and spoke to her.

"Finally, I've been waiting for you to call me back. Where are you?"

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that." Abby said.

"What are you talking about? I need to tell you what happened last night. Remember?"

"Of course I remember, silly."

"Why are you acting like this? You know that we're-"

"Yes, I am aware. Umm... Do you have my.. my notebook with you, by chance?"

"Yeah, what are you doing?"

"Flip to the last page, and read it."

He flipped to the last page in the notebook, "Okay, it says-"

"No. I don't need to know, silly. Just go there and, yeah, see you then."

"...Oh, okay. I'll be there." Aaron finally caught onto what Abby was trying to do. If she told Aaron her location, the people on the radio would hear her where abouts and go there themselves.

Aaron left the room, and hurried downstairs. He walked outside and got in his car. "So, she wants me to meet her in the offices. Apparently, there was a piece of evidence missing?" he said to himself. "I thought we looked at all of the evidence." Aaron opened the glove compartment and grabbed a CD. He played some music, instrumental acoustics, then began driving to the offices.

He finally arrived, and entered the building. Abby was there, waiting for him at the elevator. "So, what's this missing piece of evidence?" Aaron walked inside the elevator with Abby, and pressed eight to go to the eighth floor.

"I assure you, you will be surprised, and happy with this find."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes." she said. The elevator provided music, and played it softly. They walked out of the elevator and to Aaron's cubicle.

"Now, I really want to see this evidence." Aaron said, anxiously waiting to see what it was.

"Okay... There it is." Abby threw a folder of a single document on his desk.

Aaron opened it, and read the large, bolded text on the front page, "Transcript of Originally Recorded Dialogue."

"There's a link on the bottom.." Abby pointed out.

"Oh." he said. He signed into his computer, and typed in the link. It brought him to a page. He read the title of this website, "Transcript of Originally Recorded Dialogue, here we go!" Aaron said, excited. He read the paragraph below the title, "Mr. Hensworth had been video chatting with his wife, Lauren Hensworth, through use of his cellular device. Mrs. Hensworth was taking a small trip to San Francisco with some of her employees when the perpetrators broke into the Hensworth Mansion. It appeared that he had lowered the volume of his cellular device, and hid it under a thin towel. The video chatting app recorded every word that had been spoken that night. The below lines of text is the conversation between Mr. Hensworth and the two perpetrators." Aaron looked at Abby, "Wow! This is some good evidence so far!"

"I know, right!" Abby said happily.

Aaron looked at the conversation between Hensworth and the perpetrators, and began reading, "Hensworth: What are you doing here?

Perpetrator 1: You know why we're here.

Perpetrator 2: Where's the money?

Hensworth: I don't owe you anything.

Perpetrator 2: Oh yeah?

The perpetrators began beating Hensworth.

Hensworth: Okay, Okay. I'll talk.

Perpetrator 2: Where's the money?

Hensworth: It's in the backyard, under the grill. It's all in an envelope.

Perpetrator 1: See, that wasn't so hard.

Hensworth: Now let me go. Leave me be.

Perpetrator 1: Nah. We aren't finished yet.

Hensworth: If you are going to kill me, I promise you that you are making a big mistake.

Perpetrator 2: Making mistakes is a big part of growth; you would know a lot about that, wouldn't you?

Hensworth: You're right...

Perpetrator 1: Of course we are.. Hail the L.A!

Hensworth was stabbed eighteen times in the chest with a kitchen knife."

Aaron looked at Abby, and she looked at him. They said, "Wow!"

Abby started to speak, "So, what did you think?"

"That.. was good evidence." he said. "But there was something, big, I didn't know prior to this."

"And what was that?"

"Well, Hensworth apparently owed them money."

"Yeah. What do you think the money was supposed to be for?"

"I don't really know. It could be anything." Aaron looked at the document she gave him. Well, we can conclude that the perpetrators and Hensworth had some sort of history with each other."

"Definitely." Abby agreed. "It wasn't just a murder out of the blue.. there was a reason for it."

"Yeah, and the fact that they said 'the' L.A. provides some extra info."

"Wait! What if the L.A. is a thing rather than a place!"

"How so?"

"It could be an acronym. The letter 'L' stands for one word, and 'A' stands for another."

"That makes sense." They thought for a bit, "Should we get back home. We can further investigate this evidence."

"Sure thing."