Perplexing Circumstances by Dasha Korol

Habitually, dad gave every important woman

in his life flowers every year on the first day of spring. It is a tradition John intends on keeping now that his dad’s getting older.

On the drive over to his parent's house, he stopped by the flower shop to pick up mom's favorite ones, roses. Today was the first day of spring and, obviously, he couldn’t wait to see Mom's face light up with joy when she greeted him on the front porch. As John pulled into the driveway he noticed the front door was open, which was strange considering they were always so paranoid about their safety. Still, he took the flowers in one hand and hopped out of his car rushing to the door. It didn’t take long for him to realize something was truly wrong, and at this point, his heart was pounding violently. As he approached the porch he could hear the alarm system beeping sending him into a panic state.

He didn’t even bother to close the door behind him, he just started calling out for them and rushing from room to room. “Where are you? Mom, dad!” John shouted, but only heard the alarm system beeping in return. As he approached the kitchen he felt his heart drop. There they were, laying in a pool of their own blood. The roses fell from John’s hand as he saw their bodies on the floor. Dad had a gun in hand and mom had scratches on her arm as if she had fought her attacker. Yet still, it wasn’t enough. John stood there in shock as he came to the realization that this was really happening.

He picked up the phone and immediately called the police, but he couldn’t form any words as the operator tried to get his attention. “They're dead. My parents, I f-found them dead. P-please help. This can’t be happening” I couldn’t seem to find the right words, then I heard it. Footsteps. “Oh god! Someone’s still here!” I yelled quietly into the phone. “Please get out of the house, I have dispatched officers to your house. Stay out of sight” the operator responded calmly.

He quickly mshed to his car, set his phone down on the passenger seat beside, and locked himself in. Oh, god! The killer must have heard him calling for his parents. Then, John thought about pulling out of the driveway and driving down to the police station where he couldn’t be hurt, but it felt wrong. He couldn’t just leave his parents there, he had to wait. All his thoughts were quickly disrupted by a man walking out of the house with a gun. He hastily grabbed his phone and pulled up the camera to get a picture of him, so the police could identify him. As he was exiting the house he closed the door behind him and looked out over to John’s car. He must have noticed the camera because he stopped and did the most unexpected thing, he smiled and waved. Obviously, John was petrified. He felt frozen in place and couldn’t bring himself to put the phone down or drive away. John was just frozen. In the background, you could hear voice sirens getting closer, and the man waved again and began jogging down the street where he hopped into a car and drove off.

Once his car was out of sight John ran back into the house. He ran up the old wooden staircase and was careful not to touch anything, so he wouldn’t mess up any fingerprints or anything that might be useful to the police investigation. Once up the steps, John noticed that the only room that was disrupted was their office. Parents usually shared an office at home for when they had to grade papers. Since he was a little boy they told him the story of how they met on their first day of work and fell in love. They would teach high school and spend their lunch breaks together, and soon began dating and moved into this house together. Looking at the room now and how books and files were thrown all over the floor, it broke John’s heart. What on earth would someone want to kill his parents for? And most importantly why would they go through his parent's office?

Carefully he began looking around as to not mess anything up. Everything was so out of place the only logical thing to do was to start by looking at the things that were in place. The chairs and desks were still in their place, the bookshelves that lined the walls were still there, but the books were thrown on the floor. The only empty wall was the back wall. The back wall had a huge family portrait of the parents and John, as well as smaller pictures of us on family trips, diplomas framing the windows. The family portrait was hung at an angle, which drew his attention to it over everything else. John stepped over all the papers and carefully lifted the picture off the wall. The guy was shocked to see a safe there. Although, he knew his parents were always paranoid, he never imagined seeing this. The parents had safes located on the bookshelves but what was so important that it needed to be hidden from the other. They usually used important dates as codes for safes, so John figured he would try some of them out. He tried his birthday, his mom's birthday, then dad's birthday, parent's wedding anniversary, and John’s graduation date, yet none of them worked. He decided to try the date that they met, it was a long shot, and he wasn’t sure if he remembered the date right, they only mentioned it once. He typed in the number as quickly as he could. The police sirens were getting louder and louder they sounded like they were seconds away. John hit enter and the light beeped green! Quickly he opened the safe, grabbed everything that was there, closed it up, and put the picture back in place. He ran down to his car and stuffed the contents in his backpack just as the police pulled up to the street.

One of the officers stepped up to John’s car and tapped on the window. “Good evening, my name is officer Smith, is the suspect still inside?” “No” John responded, “He walked out and got in a car just a moment ago”. John’s hands were shaking as he began to process everything that just happened. His parents were murdered. He saw the murderer. He stole potential evidence. It didn’t feel real at all. “Please stay in the car while we handle the investigation, an officer will pass by soon to take your statement” noted the officer, then the head to the house.

John pulled out what he had taken from the safe and started going through everything. He didn’t know what to expect but what he found certainly was the last thing that would have crossed his mind.

The first thing in the stack was a flash drive. He pulled out his laptop and plugged it in. The files had a passcode for protection, so John decided to use the anniversary date of when his parents met, and it worked again. There were very few files, but the first one was a video. John clicked on it and his parents popped on to the screen. “Hi Johnny, it’s mom and dad. If you’re seeing this it means something happened to us, and it’s time you learned the truth.” At this point, tears were rolling down his face. For him, it felt strange hearing their voices but knowing he would never see them again. “The next few files will explain everything. We want you to know that we love you, and we never planned on you having to find out or for us to stay in this field for so long. Be safe sweetie and whatever you do, don’t let anyone else see these files.” Those were the last words he would ever hear from them, and it’s about a secret! What did they mean by staying in this field? They were teachers, there isn’t anything all too secretive about that. But with everything, John just had a feeling they weren’t just teachers.

The next few files revealed everything. Being teachers was just their day job, a cover for their real lives. His mom and dad, the most cautious and boring people ever, were hitmen. From what John gathered, they worked for an agency called Morte eterna, a group of professional hitmen all working for one common boss.

The paper files were reports of all the cases they worked on, and the digital files were notes that they scanned. Most of the notes were about trying to discover who the leader was. The last note scanned was a warning from one of the agents that a hitman was hired to kill them, and it was someone from the company.

As John looked up he saw an officer approaching his car and quickly closed his computer and stuffed the files in the bag. “Excuse me, we are ready to take your statement now.” He quickly told her about the flowers, the opened door, calling out for them, making the call, hearing footsteps, running back to his car, but then he got to the part he knew he had to he about. He decided to show the officer the picture that he took of the killer and tell her how he had waved at him, but then I lied. “After that, I just stayed in my car waiting for you to arrive, I’m sorry I’m no help I’m just still trying to process everything that happened,” John remarked. “I understand” the officer replied, “you did your best under the circumstances. You can go home, well call you if we have anything pertaining to the investigation”.

Riding back home John was blinded by grief and rage. He had only one thing in mind, he was going to find the killer himself.