It was the 1st of december. A cold autumn day in Los Angeles. Cold enough to shake you even at a gently blow of the wind. Even if you were walking down the street wearing a warm (some would say winter) coat, just like Nick. Only a half of a year ago at such a morning time, he was sitting in a classroom in the Los Angeles High School. About 4 year ago, when he was only 15 years old, he moved here, to Los Angeles, with his step parents after a huge tragedy in wich a serial killer killed his real parents. Here he started visiting this school on his step parents wish. Nicholas was actually born in Great Britain, in a smal village Dores, where he lived in a big wealthy house with his parents right next to the famous Lock Ness.

He had detective senses since he was a child, and ever since he actually met with the killer that killed his parents, the wish of finding him pushed him even more into that kind of stuff. Now that he's 18 and he finished high school, he first moved away from his step parents into a smal apartment and employed himself as a seller in a computer store, but his conscience didn't leave him alone. Shortly after, he started cooperating with the police. It happened as coincidence. He found himself on a murder scene and was one of the questioned witnesses, when he heard a talk of two policeman about the case and solved it. Shortly after he also only accidentaly run into an other case and solved it with no problems at all.

It seems as his life was lately made of coincidences, or he is simply a magnet for crime. When the wind in the dark street blew and he shaked again, a yellow crime scene tape started dancing around in the wind only a few meters away from him. A spark lighted in his eyes but at the same time they started reflecting care and pain. A man or more people, that lie somewhere in this house, used to be relatives of someone. And anyway it seems as if the memories of the dead of his parents, stab him right into his heart everytime he sees that yellow crime scene tape.

He slowly entered the quiet family house and he heard footsteps that echoed all over the house. Down the hallway came a man that he already knew. It was the chief of the police wich only stopped and stared at him. How is it possible that Nick is again on a crime scene? Right in that moment of silence a pair of footsteps that came from two cops were becoming every second louder. And those two cops were talking something about that they're never going to solve this case. And when Nick made that self-confident face after those words, the chief knew what Nick was up to. He wanted to solve the case! The chief bent down his head: "Nick, you know I can't officialy include you into any case untill you make the right school for this, right? And you know that if you might solve this case, the report will say that the other cops solved it, right?" "Case up, case down," said Nick while he waved his hand and started walking against the chief. "I don't care about that! I just want to solve this case. Mister-oh-so-smart, you know you are not going to solve this case without me." In the second when he passed the chief, those two cops came around the corner. After the shock of again seeing Nick, he was already around the corner but he could still hear how one cop said to the other that he doesn't like the weird guy that just passed them and the other one agreed with him with the words that he is maybe even the killer that hides the evidence. "Yeah, right," puffed Nick to himself while he was walking against a closed door in the first floor behind wich someone made the biggest mistake of his life!

He couldn't see! The light that was shining through the broken window blinded him. And the wind was blowing the curtains to all directions. When his eyes finaly adjusted to the light he first saw a man in the fifties in a pool of blood that poured out of his neck while he was dieing. Horrifying! "His name is Tylor Myers. He's 52 years old. A husband and father of two," he heard a voice from the door of the room that already closed behind the chief. "The crime happened today around three in the morning. We did not find the murder weapon yet." Nick waved with his head and looked around the room. One side of the bed was made. "Where was the wife?" "She was on a conference in San Francisco. That's why she came back early this morning. And found... her husband dead on the floor," answered the chief. Then the young detective looked closer to the wound on the victim's neck. It looked like the man that layed in front of the bed was killed by a common kitchen knife. On the left site of the body was a suspicious blood stain. It looked just like it came from the neck wound. The killer had to be left-handed. When he turned again to the body, he saw a maple leaf right next to the victim's head. A regular maple leaf. Maple leaf? And then there was this broken window. Accident? Becouse the window was absolutely not broken from the outside. If it were, pieces of glass should be all over the room but they are all outside under the window. The view on the garden with two high trees was beautiful, but that didn't bring Nick nothing further. Maybe the wind blew one of the leafs  from the trees into the house through the broken window. "Were the children sleeping while the murder happened?" "The youngest, eight years old did most definitely sleep. She confirms that herself. The oldest, seventeen years old claims he was in bed, but his friends told us, that he was with them even past midnight," again answered the cheif. "Couldn't they be a little more specific?" The chief looked at him a little weird: "They were drunk, under all kinds of drugs and they barely knew they existed. How much more specific do you want?!" Nick puffed his hair off his face and said something like that there's allmost nothing interesting in that room and that he is going to look around the rest of the house, maybe even talk to the older child...
The house mostly looked normal. Even if you looked closely, there were no traces of any kind of crime. In the dining room sat the wife and both children of the victim. The wife was crying, the little girl asked from time to time why she was crying and because her mother didn't answer, she even asked her brother, who just pushed her away. Nick entered the dining room, introduced him self and asked the oldest son for a privat talk. The boy all poor barely stood up and walked after Nick to the hallway. The first thing he noticed were the shadows under the boys eyes. "What were you doing last night? I know that your story that you were sleeping is false. Some of your friends told us, that you were on a party with then, partying after midnight." The boy answered with no will at all: "They are wrong. They were drunk, druged. Do you think that they even saw the clock? I was home, sleeping." "Then how do you know they were drunk and druged if you weren't with them?" That woke up the kid a little. He got a little less sleepy face and the tiredness disappeared in a second, but then he bend his head back down just as fast as he lifted it and said: "I was sleeping, ok?" Nick thought his, but he didn't have the will to make someone without will realize that he knows the truth. First he asked the boy for a sign. The boy protested for a few seconds, but then he took the pen into his left hand and signed the piece of paper in frond of him. Then he sent the kid back to his family and started walking towards the exit. He almost already stepped outside, when he stood still somewhere in between inside and outside. The house was maybe not that perfect as he tought. He stepped to a pair of male shoes in wich was a maple leaf! A regular maple leaf! The shoes belonged to the boy he just questioned. So the boy must be lieing?

This time Nick didn't stop at the door, but ran right behind the house, direct under the broken window. There was a lot of interesting stuff on the pieces of glass that were lieing on the ground. There was allmost nothing to help Nick further, but one thing. There was something red on the smallest piece of glass. Blood? Who ever broke that window, has to have at least a little scar. Anyways, by now it is safe to say that it was somebody the dead man knew. There was no signs of a fight in the room. Then the wind brought a regular maple leaf right in front of Nicks feet and when the leaf turned to the other side in the wind, there was a red stain! Something that looked like blood just a little to much! A second passed and Nick was already looking at the trees that proudly grew in the middle of the big garden. In a second he was already right at the trees. He was looking at the tree top, to see where the blood from the leaf came from. After a few moments, he ran to the other tree, where he found a big red stain mixed with some other substance on the branch high in the tree top. Somebody threw up on the branch and puked some blood with it! Shortly - someone was drunk and high, when he came home!

When he turned around to walk back into the house, he saw a figure, searching something at the unprocessed glasses under the broken window, and he was certainly not a cop! Nick puffed his hair off his face and run after the mistery guy, but the figure disappeared before he was half way there. Out of breath he stopped at the broken glass and figured, that the glass with the blood on it disappeared. So the killer is that person!

"This case was logic and totally solvable to me all the way from the start," started Nick to explain to the widow, both of the children and a bunch of cops with the chief. "Let me explain it to you all the way from the start. Tylor Myers softly brushed his doughters hair and kissed her for good night yesterday evening, right before she turned off the light in her room. Everything was just right. At least the daughter thought so." "My name is Lisa," said the little girl in doubt with a childrens voice. "Did something happen? Is that why mommy is crying?" "You are quite right, dear Lisa. Something did happen, but your mommy will all explain to you later." He was holding all of his sadness inside, when he nodded her, right before a police officer took her out of the room.

"Yes, Lisa was right! Something did happen! Something that sould not and it's all becouse of drugs!" Everybody looked at him. Even the mother stopped crying and looked at her son. "Does Michael has to do anything with this?" "That's right. This was the easiest case of the century!" Then he puffed his hair of his face and confidently showed on the kid: "The murderer are you, Michael!" Everybody knew exactly what he was going to say, but they still looked at Nick like that didn't expect it. Even Michael decided to say some words: "I told you I was sleeping! I don't even know when my father was killed!" "Dear Michael. Sadly for you, there is everything logic. Your friends confirmed, that you were with them past midnight. Drinks and drugs were in use for sure. Maybe you don't know why and how, but when you came back, you climbed on one of the trees in the garden. Your organism couldn't hold it anymore. On the tree and around it were traces of puke and blood. The DNA test will show that it's yours. When you were up there, you maybe saw something from the tree. You crawled into the house totaly high. You maybe even had a fight with your father before and took a regular kitchen knife from the kitchen, with your left hand. Because we know, your father was finished by a left handed person. And you are left handed. You were maybe hight, but you knew exactly what you were doing. You broke the window in panic, to make the police think, somebody broke in and killed your father, but you made two mistakes. The first one is, that you broke the window from inside out. Then so the pieces fell out of the room, but if someone would really brake in, there would be pieces inside the room. And there was one more mistake. There were no signs of a fight. If someone really broke in, your father would run or fight back. And in this case, he would face the window, from where the murderer came, but he was turned away from the window. And no worries. I do have a proof or two for all this talking. The first one is a scar on your hand, wich you got breaking the window!" Two cops stepped to him and lifted his sleeves. There was actually a big scar on his left hand! "And than there is an other proof. A piece of glass with your blood on it, wich you picked today behind the house, when I saw you. Mihele shaked a little, when two police officers searched his pockets and found a little bloody peace of glass in his left pocket. "The only thing I don't get is why. Why would you kill your father even under drugs?" "Becouse of the stupid disease," came a child voice from the door that just opened. "Because of Aids," repeated Lisa. "Lisa! What are you talking about," screamed the mother to her in crying over the room.

Michael bended his head. "It makes no sence Mom, It was really me. Sorry. Lisa! It is true! I am a drug addict! I'm a junkie and I came back totaly high and puked on the tree. When I know, that I've done something that I shouldn't again, I climb up there. At those moments is it nicer high over the ground. But that's when I saw my father. He just looked out of his window and screamed to get in the house. I know he was just worried, but we got into a heavy fight. He said I was just a big junkie and I really am! It's all my fault, to get this stupid disease! But that time, I was hight. Druged. I was not my self. I ran into the kitchen to calm down, but that's when I saw the knife. I closed my eyes and only imagined, how would it be to do it. To kill him. And when I opened my eyes, he was really lieing there! Dead! I didn't mean to do that." Now even he started crying. "I was panicked, so I broke the window, to make it look like it was a brake in, but I hurt my arm. And about the knife. I hide it in the siceret hole on the floor in my room. I still hope I am only dreaming. Please, somebody tell me I am just dreaming!" "Sorry Micahel, but you are not dreaming." Everybody were just standing there and watching the boy cry. The mother ran to him and hugged him. Lisa stepped to Nick and asked him: "Everything will bi just fine, won't it?" Nick crouched down and whispered to her: "Until marrige, everything will be allright," and smiled at her a little bitter, while the cops were already taking the boy to the hallway.



The wind was still blowing. Nick dissapeared from the crime scene even before the chief tried to tell him anything. While he was quietly walking along that shadow street, like before he saw the yellow tape, a song was playing in his head. Time is running out from papa roach. He did not want money, he did not want fame. He just wanted to find the killer of his parents, who is still out there, free. In that moment he turned around! He got the feeling like somebody was watching him. A dark figure was really waiting for him right behind the corner, but not to hurt him. Why was a person following him? Someone Nick doesn't even know yet. What does somebody wants from him on this day? On the first of december.

(will be continued...)

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