Chapter Two:
Death in a Small Town:
May 28th, 2011.
It was supposed
to be a slow morning. A twenty-eight-year nurse walked up to apartment 218. She
knocked on the door.
“Mr. Garrison,”
the nurse said. “I’m here to check on you. Mr. Garrison. Mr. Garrison!” She
knocked on the door again. No response on the other side. The nurse sighed and
unlocked the door. The small apartment was dark.
“Mr. Garrison?”
she asked. “Are you up yet? Mr. Garrison? Mr. Garrison?” She made her way to the
kitchen. A figure sat at the small round table in the middle of the room.
“Huh?” the nurse
asked. “Mr. Garrison?” She reached over and flipped on the light switch. When
the kitchen lit up, the nurse covered her mouth and gasped. The seventy-year-old
sat in the car with his throat cut. His eyes were wide open. His pajama top was
soaked in blood. The nurse pulled out her phone and dialed 911.
Police swarmed
the apartment complex. Officers questioned the neighbors and nurse.
“And you found
him like this?” one of them asked the nurse.
“Yes,” she said.
“Where were you
last night?”
“Home. I work
the morning shifts.”
“When was the
last time you saw Mr. Garrison?”
“Noon, when my
shift ended.”
“How did Mr.
Garrison seem to you yesterday? Was he worried about anything? Scared? Anything
like that?”
The nurse shook
her head. “No. He seemed okay.”
“Okay?”
“Well, he did
say that he was hurting but other than that he was fine.”
The officer
wrote down all of the information on his notepad. “Does anyone else have a key
to this apartment?”
“No. It’s just
Mr. Garrison, the higher-ups, and myself,” the nurse said.
“Does he have
any next of kin?” the officer asked. The nurse took a moment to think.
“Well, yes…” she
said. “But…”
“But?”
The nurse
clenched her teeth. “They don’t get along too well.” She nodded with unease.
“Yeah…” The officer closed up his notepad.
“Thank you for
your time,” he said. The nurse nodded and walked out of the apartment. The
police officer walked over the detectives and CSI’s near the body.
--------
I was woken up
by the sound of my phone ringing. I grumbled to myself as I reached around for
it on the nightstand.
“Hello?” I
mumbled at last.
“Celeste!” a
woman wailed on the other line. A puzzled look came over my half-asleep face.
“Mom?” I asked.
“Mom, why are you calling me so early? What time is it?”
“Seven,” my mom
said. “You should be up now anyway.”
“Why are you
calling me?” I asked.
“Mr. Garrison
was murdered,” she said. My eyes widened.
“What?!” I
asked. Then she asked me the one thing that I vowed myself that I would never
do.
“We need you to
come back for the funeral,” she said. I felt myself sinking into the mattress.
“Why?” was all I could ask. She gave a bullshit
explanation but it all sounded miles away. No… No… No! Before I knew, I had
agreed to come back. Come back to the hell that I ran away from ten years ago. I
would have to see them again. I would have to see
her again.