Premeditated

Foreword: This is a short story I wrote for my Creative Writing class. The only requirement was to write a story with certain guidelines about each sentence. For example, sentence 1 had to be short, having 5 words or less. Sentence 2 had to be long, with 15 words or more, etc. I found this a challenging, but really interesting story to write. Happy reading dear reader!

            Who did it? 

            I looked around the room, which displayed a ruthless crime scene, and while I searched for answers, I only received more questions. 
            Was it him? 
            The rookie officer had responded to the call eerily fast, as if he had been near the building when the crime happened, so I questioned him. 
           “It wasn’t me,” he whined.  

 “Why not?” I responded.  

 “I live a couple houses down and was walking my dog when I heard a gunshot not too far away, and I was about to enter my house when I got the call from dispatch, and because of my close proximity, I was able to be the first responder to the scene,” was his hurried reply. 
            Too hurried. 
            I walked into the kitchen. 
            The floor was muddy. 
            This shouldn’t be, the victim was a neat freak who could never allow mud to be tracked through his house. 
            Who had muddy shoes? 
            Superstitiously, I glanced at every officers’ shoes and found all but one to be pristinely clean. 
            “Hey you,” I motioned to the officer in question, “where have you been that you ended up with such muddy shoes?”  

“It was raining.”  

“Was it?”  

“I believe so, sir.”  

“But you’re not confident.” 

It never rained. 
            The victim had been extraordinarily particular about the quality of his front lawn, and made great pains to ensure it was always green and always watered; sometimes, it was muddy. 
            Everything was falling into place, as I saw the scene play in my head: two officers, corrupted by money, worked together to murder this innocent man, and got away with their crimes by being on the job the day they killed him. 
            It was genius. 
            I pocketed my notebook. 
            I looked up. 
            I sat at my desk, staring at my wretched neighbor who frantically dusted his house, and I realized I had concocted the perfect plan to kill him.