40
Rudolph drove back to the Bates Motel in complete shock.
He walked into Cabin 1 and sat on the bed, head in hands. He walked over to the desk, sat down, and booted up his laptop. He started up the internet and logged on to the websites for the local newspapers for Fairvale and for his hometown.
At this point, Megan came in.
She asked, "Hey, what are you doing?"
"I'm doing a bit of side research for our case. Do you still have my dad's death certificate?"
"I thought you had it since you found it," she said.
"Oh, yeah. You're right."
As the pages on the computer loaded, he flipped through some papers on the desk.
"What are you looking for?" Megan asked.
"I talked to my dad again earlier. He said Duane Duke murdered him. I'm thinking if we can find the will, we can also find something to prove it, since I was too young to be considered the only witness."
"Witness? What?!"
The webpage for the Sonoma newspaper loaded. Rudolph glanced up at it.
"Look," he said. "This article is dated December 8th, 1991: 'Former Psychiatric Patient Found Dead'."
They read through the article.
"The killer was never found," Rudolph said. "Of course he didn't want to be found. He's supposed to be dead!"
He looked down at the papers he was looking through.
"Oh. There it is," he said, picking up the death certificate.
"What does it say?" asked Megan.
"Oh, no. It's true. Dad… he died protecting me."
