Nightmares of Country Music and Curtains

It was a beautiful spring morning, the air still cool with a warm soft breeze. Birds were singing as the sun began to rise. There were not very many people out yet. The radio had been quiet until the silence was broken by the dispatcher, “Bravo two six, be ten eight-four to 1619 Johnson Street S.E. for an unknown medical emergency, code three.”
I flipped on the lights and siren and accelerated toward the call. The adrenaline began to flow, and I became hyper sensitive to my surroundings, my muscles tensed. I hate going to unknown type calls, so hard to prepare yourself.
“Ten four, bravo 26 ten eighty-four, any details?”
“No details known. AAA Ambulance is ten-twenty-three times two. They’re requesting patrol and an investigator code three.”
I was just a few blocks from the house. As I turned the corner, I saw two ambulances with their rear doors open in the front yard of the house. No one was outside; one stretcher was sitting on the ground behind the ambulance nearest the house. Not a good sign, leaving the stretcher outside meant that someone inside was not in a hurry to use it.
“Bravo two six ten twenty-three.” My tires squealed as I stopped my patrol car, flipping off the lights and siren as I exited the car unaware that I was walking into a scene that would create nightmares.
The front door was open; one paramedic was standing just inside the door. I could see her partner sitting on the worn blue flowered couch beside a small dark headed boy still in his pajamas. He was watching cartoons on a silent television that was sitting on a three legged table. The forth side was held up by a blue plastic milk crate that college kids buy for their dorm rooms. All three seemed to be frozen, frowns creasing their foreheads but no words being spoken.
As I walked into the door, I was told that there was a shooting with two victims in the back of the house. I scanned the room and saw the window above the lock on the backdoor broken but there was very little glass on the floor. I crossed the kitchen floor. The stretcher had been left in the kitchen partially blocking the hallway. I walked around it and entered the hallway. The living room, kitchen, and hallway were crowded with furniture and knickknacks. Except for the stretcher taking up what little walking space there was, nothing appeared to be disturbed. Nothing was making sense.
Through the door on the right was a bedroom. From the furnishings, it was the master bedroom. The bed was unmade. Medical gear was scattered over the maroon sheets and plaid comforter. No pillows were on the bed. The room was small and full before the two muscular paramedics had entered it. They had crammed themselves between the sleigh bed and the window. They were squatted working on someone that was on the floor. I could not see the victim. One of the paramedics looked up just long enough to say, “Mother, still alive but barely.”
The room looked lived in but again, I saw nothing that looked out of place other than the medical personnel and gear. The hair tingled on the back of my neck. Something is very strange here, what is it? I thought, no evidence left to process here as I continued down the hall. Three doors were left, one to the left, another one on the right, and the final door at the end or the hall slightly to the left.
I looked in the door on the left. It was a pink tiled bathroom. A white plastic hamper crammed full was in the corner by the bathtub. A cheap plastic curtain with dolphins swimming across it was pulled back revealing a tub full of G. I. Joes in various stages of dress.
I continued down the hallway and looked into the room on the right. Bunk beds stood in the corner between the closet door and the window. Both beds were unmade. The top bunk had white sheets and a comforter with some type of football logo printed across it. The bottom bunk had green sheets. Its comforter had a pattern of balls; footballs, baseballs, soccer balls, and golf balls. Lots of boy type stuff but nothing strange or out of order.
The last door was standing open. I stood in the doorway, unable to enter. To my left was a small open window. The morning breeze was gently blowing the soft lacy curtains out away from the screen. A radio was propped up on the window ledge. A country and western song was playing softly. Stuffed animals were housed in a wooden cradle in the corner as if they were tucked in to sleep for the night. On the far wall, a chest of drawers and a desk were covered with lotions, perfumes, and makeup. The single bed was beside the window. A young girl was lying on her back, her head turned away from the widow. Her pink flowered comforter was pulled up across her chest. It appeared that she wore a cotton nightgown covered in Raggedy Ann and Andy. Her beautiful chestnut colored hair spread out across her pillow. She looked so peaceful. I hated to enter the room, afraid that I would wake her, but at the same time wishing that I could.
I walked up to the side of the bed. A small pink hole parted her hair right behind her right ear. Underneath her head was a pool of red coppery smelling fluid with small bits of grey matter splattered about. My brain could not process the conflicting images that my eyes were seeing. Everything felt so safe, the expression on her face, a young teenager asleep without a care in the world. The coopery smell of the blood and the gore that her head rested on did not belong here.
I left the room, careful not to disturb the scene. The paramedics had the mother on the stretcher and were trying to get her around the cramped space and out of the door. The boy was still sitting woodenly on the couch staring at the silent television. I went into the master bedroom to recover the weapon assuming that I was at a murder suicide. I looked on the bed, under the bed, on and under every surface in the room. No weapon. Mentally going over the whole scene, the only conclusion that I could come up was the murder suicide but there was no weapon. The mother was shot in the head. She could not shoot her daughter, shoot herself in the head, and then get rid of the gun. What’s going on here? The broken window that was broken from the inside, no weapon, what is going on here? What am I missing? Who would shoot a young girl in the head while she slept?