Teardrops on the Asphalt

Case one: Sleep Tight
At first glance she looked like a saint: Dorothea Puente rented out rooms to the elderly and disabled in Sacramento, California, in the 1980s. But then her boarders started to vanish. Seven bodies where found buried in the garden, and traces of prescription sleeping pills where found in the remains, through forensic toxicology analysis. Puente was charged with murdering her renters to get their pension checks and for her plastic surgery. While serving her sentence she published a book called Cooking with a Serial Killer.

Emma's POV:
Everywhere I look there where signs of a struggle. The mail has been scattered all over the kitchen floor; the stools are over turned. The phone has been knocked off its pedestal, it's battery pack hanging down from an umbilicus of wires. There's one single faint footprint leaning to the dead body of my son, Jacob.

He is sprawled out like a starfish in front of the fireplace. Blood covers his temple and his hands. For a moment I can't move, I can't even breath.
Suddenly he sits up. "Mom," Jacob says "you're not even TRYING."

-This isn't real- I remind myself and watch him reassume his position. "um. There was a fight..."

Jacobs mouth barely moves. "And?"

"You where hit in the head." I get down on my knees, like he's told me to do a thousand times and notice the crystal clock that usually sits on the mantle is peeking out from under the couch. I gingerly pick it up and see the blood on the corner. With my pinky, I touch the liquid and then taste it. "Oh, Jacob, don't tell me you used up all my corn syrup again-"

"Mom! Focus!"

I sink down onto the couch cradling the clock in my hands. "Robbers came in, and you fought them off."

Jacob sits up and sighs. The food dye and corn syrup mixture his dark hair, his eyes are shining even though they don't meet mine. "Do you seriously think I'd execute the same crime scene twice?" He unfolds a fist and for the first time I see a tuft of corn silk hair. Jacobs father is a towhead - or at least he was when he walked out on us fifteen years ago. Leaving me with Jacob and Theo, his brand new, blonde, baby brother.


 

Nobody read this. Sadface

 

I'll post again after practice

 

Bump. Sorry this is just so I can update it tomorrow night.