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Tate · 12-18-2019, 05:14 PM

Previously on the Chronicles of Knox Booth:
Chapter 1 - First Article
Chapter 2 - The SMJHL Draft Approaches
Chapter 3 - The Losses Mount
Chapter 4 - Draft Day (SMJHL)
Chapter 5 - Collect $200 when you Pass Go
Chapter 6 - Best Served Cold
Chapter 7 - Lucky Guy
Chapter 8 - The Mid-Day Move

Chapter 9

The Day the Earth Stood Still

“How long will you be gone for?” She asked what was starting to become a common question. Knox’s mother had been on edge ever since she took off on a whim and followed Knox to Los Angeles. Knox had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and that was one of freedom.

Freedom from an abusive relationship, and an opportunity to start over again.

“Shouldn’t be longer than an hour,” Knox told her, and it was a guess at best. It was the holiday season and Knox had been dating a girl he met locally while out on the town with the boys, her name was Sandra and she was a blonde bombshell who also happened to work at the pub Knox was in that night. Knox didn’t mind that she was a bartender who was regularly well compensated in her tip jar, and from the time they had spent together he was beginning to trust her more and more. In a lot of ways Sandra reminded Knox of his mother, she was kind and empathetic, and most of all she paid attention to the things he said and often surprised him with the things she would remember.

“You’re not still planning to get her those earrings?” Knox’s mother asked him while knowing full well that that was indeed his plan, “They’re a bit expensive for only being a month in.”

“She didn’t ask for them,” Knox reminded his mother, “And I think they’d look great on her.”

“But,” his mother began to say.

“I can afford it,” Knox cut her off, but he wasn’t curt about it, he was merely stating the facts and that was after all, a fact. Knox was making real money now that he was the starter for the Panthers and by the way the season was going, he wasn’t going to have to worry about losing his job. Maybe next season, when McMahon made the jump, but for now Knox was certain that he would own the Panthers net for the rest of the year.

His mother began to say something she had said to him his whole life, “Just because you can doesn’t mean-“

“I should,” Knox smiled at his mother, “I know that Mom, but I want to.” Knox grabbed his car keys and stopped at his front door as he opened it, he looked back at his mother, “Did you want to come? The offer is still on the table.”

She shook her head, “No, that’s okay, I’d rather stay back for now. I’ve never been one for crowds.”

He nodded at her before he smiled softly, “See you in an hour.”

***

Ninety-six minutes later Knox returned to his house, parking in the same spot as always and not noticing the 2004 Oldsmobile parked on the street outside his entry gate. Knox placed his vehicle in park and as he shut off the engine, he could see that his front door was slightly ajar. This caught Knox by surprise, he couldn’t see his mother anywhere outside his home nor in his front yard, so she must have left the door open when she went back inside. Knox stepped out of his car with the silver earrings he had just purchased in his hand and walked with a steady pace to the front door of his house.

Knox pushed the door open, “Mom!” He called out and waited for her to respond but there was nothing but silence. Knox had a strange feeling wash over him and instinctively he placed the silver earrings in his pocket and edged his way slowly up the stairs of his house to the main floor. “Mom!?” Knox called out again, this time with an air of uncertainty to the tone of his voice, “Mom!” Knox shouted once more.

Silence.

Once Knox reached the main floor, he could see the shadow of a person who was seated in the dining room of his home. The dining room was just out of view from the top of the stairs, but the hot Los Angeles sun was bright enough that it cast the shadow of the person across his tiled floor. The shadow was motionless and judging the figure’s shape Knox could tell instantly that the shadow did not belong to his mother. Thoughts raced though his mind as to what to do, and instead of Knox confronting the mysterious person outright, he took a detour through his kitchen and quietly fetched a carving knife from its holder. The blade was long and sharp enough to do damage to whomever it was that had come into his home and Knox knew that if the person had any other weapon on them that he might be at a disadvantage. However, Knox could not ignore the fact that he had already made his presence known and if this was in fact an intruder, why would they have remained seated in his dining room?

“Hello?” Knox asked aloud as he slowly walked toward the opening in his kitchen that led to his dining room, “Who are you?” Knox asked but he received no answer. Knox approached the opening to the dining room and could not see clearly who the figure was that was sitting at his dining room table, “Dad?” Knox was surprised, but at the same time, not surprised. Knox had expected a visit from his father at some point, but he had not expected it to occur in this manner. “What are you doing here?” Knox asked his father, but his Dad did not respond, nor did he move in Knox’s direction. Instead, his father remained still and from where Knox was standing, he could see that his Dad’s eyes were open and that he was looking out the dining room window at Knox’s back yard. Knox’s grip on his carving knife tightened and he steadied himself, he wasn’t sure what his Dad was going to do once he got closer to him and he wanted to be ready in case his Dad attacked. “I want you to leave,” Knox told him, “If you leave right now, I won’t call the cops.”

Silence.

“Get up,” Knox commanded.

Silence.

“Get out of here!” Knox shouted.

Silence.

Suddenly, Knox was nervous. This was unlike his father, and Knox would have expected his old man to have gotten up and confronted him by now, but instead he remained motionless. It was then that Knox noticed that his father wasn’t moving at all, and when he watched him closely, his father wasn’t even blinking. “Dad?” Knox asked as he edged closer to his father, “What are you-“ as soon as Knox reached his father’s side he saw a trail of blood. The blood went from the side of his Dad’s temple, down his face and had pooled onto his shirt, “No,” it came as a whisper as Knox dropped the carving knife and the blade barely missed his foot as it sailed to the floor.

Silence.

Knox then saw the handgun that rested on the table in his father’s left hand, and where the trail had of blood had begun on his father’s head, he saw the bullet hole. “No!” Knox screamed as he touched his father and his Dad’s body slumped forward, revealing an exit wound on the opposite side of his head and confirming for Knox that his father was no longer alive. Knox screamed again as he realized the gravity of what had occurred and he instantly turned away from his dead father and shouted once more at the top of his lungs, “MOM!”

Silence.

Knox raced upstairs toward his mother’s bedroom and flung it open, it was empty. He went through every room in his house until he stopped in front of his own bedroom, with his bedroom door slightly ajar, in the same fashion that his front door had been left open. Knox was shaking as he forced himself to move forward and he could barely grip the handle of his door as he opened it up. The moment he saw his mother’s body he screamed again and collapsed to the ground, he knew that she was dead, and on the ground beside her body was another pool of blood. Knox vomited before he flung his body up off the ground and fumbled his way toward his bed where his deceased mother now lay. His hand was now covered in so much sweat he could hardly hold his cellphone, and after he dialed 911 he made hardly no sense at all as he shouted incoherently into the receiver- all he could say was the same thing over and over again, “She’s dead! He killed her! She’s dead! She’s dead! SHE’S DEAD!!!”

***

“So, you were gone for about an hour?” The Detective asked Knox as he sat with him in the interrogation room back at Police Headquarters.

“What?” Knox asked him, still in a daze, and barely present in the conversation.

“You said you went shopping for an hour?” The Detective repeated his question.

Knox nodded as he looked down and away, “Maybe a bit longer, I don’t know,” Knox was frazzled, “I don’t know when I left.”

“How long was your Mom living with you?” The Detective asked him.

“Maybe a month,” Knox said with his head in his hands, “Maybe a bit longer.”

“Did you see your father at all during that period?”

“No.”

“What about before?”

“Before what?” Knox asked him as he lifted his eyes from the floor to the Detective.

“Before she lived with you,” the Detective clarified, “When did you last see your father?”

Knox flashed back to his last encounter, it had been a physical altercation where Knox had escorted his mother away from his childhood home and brought her with him to Los Angeles. “When I went home to get my Mom, maybe a month ago.”

“You said you had some kind of fight, is that right?”

“Yes,” Knox looked away again, his mind was all over the place, “It was always an altercation with him,” Knox told the Detective and his statement wasn’t far from the truth.

“Was it physical?”

“Most of the time,” Knox said.

“What about the last time?” The Detective asked.

Knox nodded, “Yes.”

“Were you aware that your father had flown to Los Angeles?”

“No.”

“Did he call you beforehand at all?”

“No.”

“So, the last time you saw him you two had an altercation over your Mom coming to live with you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know if your mother had had any contact with him?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

The Detective was watching Knox, studying his reactions and assessing whether or not Knox had played a role in what they had suspected as a murder-suicide. But based off what the Detective had observed he believed what Knox was telling him, as he could see the devastation in his eyes and feel the tremendous amount of sorrow that Knox was giving off, “Are you thirsty?” The Detective asked, “Hungry? Do you need anything?”

Knox shook his head no before he said, “Water,” he paused, “I could use a glass of water.”

From the moment the Detective stood up to leave to the moment he returned to the room, time passed in a blur. Knox was going over the details of the day in mind endlessly, and all he could fixate on was the last time he spoke to his mother. Would she have told him if she was talking to his Dad? Had she wanted to leave? She didn’t seem unhappy, in fact, Knox had believed the opposite.

Was there something going on that he didn’t know about?

“Your father,” the Detective began his sentence before he trailed off, looking down at the file folder he held in his hands, “He was known to police in Canada.”

“Yes.”

“We’re waiting for some information to be sent in, but I wanted to ask you about one of his associates, does the name Daniel Murphy sound familiar to you?”

Knox shook his head, “No,” he began to say before he stopped himself, “Murphy?” Knox asked as he lifted his eyes again to the Detective, searching in his mind for any recollection of that name.

“Daniel Murphy,” the Detective repeated, “We have a record of an altercation that occurred between Daniel Murphy and your father roughly two months ago. Do you know him? Did you ever hear your father bring up his name?”

Knox tried to find anything in his mind that he could offer but all he was drawing was blanks, “No,” he finally said again before he looked back down and away, “No, I haven’t.”

The Detective felt an urge to reach over and pat Knox on the shoulder, but he resisted, “This has been a tough day Knox. I’m sorry that this has happened,” the Detective was sincere when he said it, “I appreciate you coming here to talk with us. Your house is still under investigation, so we got you some accommodations at the Holiday Inn down the road from here, did you want a ride back?”

Knox shook his head, “No,” he paused, “I’ll walk.”

“There’s no need for that, we can call you a cab.”

“No,” Knox looked up at him, “I want to walk.”

The Detective nodded, “I understand, did you have any questions for me at this time?”

“No.”

The Detective then produced a business card from his pocket, “I want you to call me if you think of anything. We’ll be following up with you with respect to your home and when you can return to it.”

“Thank you.”

“If you need anything,” the Detective was again very sincere, “Anything at all, you call me.”

“Thank you.”

Knox was escorted to the front of the police station and as he stepped outside into the hot blaring sun, he stopped at the top of the stairs and closed his eyes. Knox took in a deep breath and as he exhaled, he focused on the warm wind that was brushing against the skin on his face.

I can’t believe she’s gone.

Knox took in another deep breath, this time he focused on keeping his legs steady, and as he started to walk down the stairs, he took everything in him to remain on his feet.

2389 words

***Graders: Please let this breath and grade for the Dec 28th weekend, thank you advance!

Blastmeaway · 12-19-2019, 12:12 PM

Damn booth writing his memoir while still playing. Smart, give him the best odds of remembering everything

Shout out to ml002, schultzy, slashacm, tedward!
[Image: blastmeaway.gif]

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09-05-2018, 10:04 PMBeaver Wrote: Wow look what the PT affiliation has done to our pristine league.

12-19-2018, 12:31 AMBeaver Wrote: I personally blame the PT affiliation for handing out massive amounts of free TPE to all these players, inflating the TPE they're at when they get called up.