The Murder Next Door

I think there is a dead body next door.

In the building next to us, in the apartment that parallels ours, there lives a very loud, scary family. The mom routinely screams the F-Bomb to who I think is her husband/boyfriend/ex-husband/boyfriend/(insert here) over the phone for hours into the wee hours of the night. Her bedroom window is right next to our bedroom window. And then they smoke out on the balcony, allowing it to all blow lovingly into our apartment through our back door. It can go unsaid that we did not visit them on a regular basis to borrow a cup of sugar.

Well, the other day I was toodling around in our house, and I looked outside our living room window, which looks into their living room window. Their blinds were closed, but their window was open, with a screen. To my horror, I realized there were hundreds of flies swarming on the inside of the window, either directly on the blinds or between the screen and the window. They were undoubtedly inside the house, as well. I had never seen anything like it. I began to think about it, and realized I had not had heard any noise from that apartment for at least a week. I thought maybe they moved out, but I saw that the windows still had pictures taped to them. I waited for them to come home, because my first thought when I saw those flies was, "A DEAD BODY."

School has now started, and we have still not heard anything from the apartment. They had school-aged kids, so we assumed they would be back by now. But they are not.

At church today I was talking with the missionaries. They were knocking doors in our apartment complex and told us that they went up some stairs and there was a trail of blood going up them. I stopped, cold. Which building was it, I asked them. They said they thought it was the one right next to us, up to the top floor. My jaw dropped, and I told them about the flies. They started freaking out a little bit, as did I. I was now more convinced than ever that there was a dead body in there. Either that, or they killed a deer and dragged it up to their apartment to make beef jerky.

So here I sit, not sure of what to do. We may just send an email to management to tell them about the fly building, hoping that they look into it. Tyler suggested we say, "Dear management, there is a trail of blood up our neighbor's stairs, and their window is infested with flies. Please look into it. Thank you." I may just note the flies....

But we will keep you posted on this ongoing murder mystery. Because I am, after all, sure that that is what it is.

The crime scene is inside.