An Eye for an Eye

They found Sadie Smith stuffed into the old dusty rug where Mack had left her lifeless body, not fine like her family had so diligently prayed. More sophisticated investigators may have taken care in preserving the foot prints in the thick dust coating the floor, but this was small town Iowa after all. Homicides were no more frequent than once a year. The conditions for murder were ripe for the reaping, whether by a clever cultivator or by an opportunistic psychotic, it didn’t really matter. The facts were the facts, a girl of six was dead, murdered, and left like a discarded doll in a deserted old house. No fancy video cameras would reveal suspicious cars or activity at the local gas station, no specialized CSI technicians would seal off the scene, dispensing a sticky hairspray like preservative over the footprints so that they could be cast. The steady hum of latent evidence vacuums would not compliment the sounds of chaos as they searched for hair and fibers to be analyzed later in a lab. An uncomfortably yet familiar routine would play out: Hearts would break for the family, vigils would be held, prayers would be said, time would pass, and he would watch it all unfold. The ending predictable from the beginning... for is it?