Who would mow their lawn at night? I remember it was precisely 11:43pm. Why would someone possibly want to mow their lawn at night? Was this some sort of Country way of doing things that I didn't know about? All of these thoughts raced through my head as I heard that mower cutting grass in the night. Any thought of spiders quickly faded away as I laid down, deep in thought. The mowing stopped about an hour later, and by the time the sun came up I had a few theories:1. Someone has a condition that prohibits him from prolonged exposure to the sun, thus forcing him to mow by moonlight.
2. Someone in the neighborhood works during the weekends and doesn't get the time to mow during the day.
3. Someone wants to appear as if he never mows his lawn, keeping the fact a secret by doing it at night.
4. Someone is having lawn problems that necessitate mowing twice as much as everyone else.
5. Someone is even more annoyed with the sound of the bugs at night than I am.
While all these options seemed logical that morning, after a few days of subtle interrogation and information gathering, I systematically crossed out all but one. I'd seen everyone in the neighborhood out in the sun at some point since moving here, so that took care of my first theory. Having been to almost everyone's home on Sunday evenings, I was pretty sure that theory number two was false, and my third theory was disproved by everyone's gleaming pride in their lawn mower of choice and seeming eagerness to show its capabilities off during the week and weekend. Through my morning walks, I noticed that each lawn seemed extremely healthy, nothing needing the extra care that mowing at night must provide. So it seemed someone was indeed a little crazy in this neighborhood after all.During the next week I tried to stay up each night until the mowing stopped, recording the times down with meticulous detail. For the following three days, the mowing would start anywhere from 11:38pm to 12:04pm and last from 43 minutes to 57 minutes. Each night I would try to peek out my windows to see which lawn was being mowed, but alas, with the extreme darkness that living in The Country entails, all I could see were stars and the occasional porch light. On the fourth night however, the mowing never started. All that sung in the night were those damned bugs. As unexpectedly as the mowing began, it inexplicably ended.After a few days of relative silence, I paid extra special attention to each house as I performed my morning walk. I noticed that the Adelaide's lawn had an abundance of children's toys strewn about. A basketball, a slip n slide, and even a bicycle were all laid out and vacant. I also noticed that Bud Lolis' lawn was absolutely beautiful; by far it was greener than anyone else's lawn. I didn't think too much about it at the time though, because I had met Bud and he was alright. The next day I met Ed Adelaide while he was sprinkling and stopped to make a little chitchat. Of course I had an agenda to ask him about all the toys on the lawn but I couldn't just stop and ask him that right out, so we talked about nothing for a few minutes then I slipped in my question. "Oh..." he said, "Johnny's gone for a while... to see his grandmother... She's sick." Of course I hadn't expected this and I'm afraid I didn't handle it very well. I mean, what do you say to that? I'm sorry? I'm not really sorry because I don't even know her.In any case I didn't get to really thinking about poor Johnny Adelaide's absence until that night, where I'd spent the last twenty-five nights staying up late just in case the mowing began again. I started wondering why Ed or Martha hadn't mentioned a grandmother before, or why Ed was sprinkling, usually a job Martha performs. Needless to say that by the morning, I was prepared to do a bit more investigation.On Monday, after Ed had left for work in the morning, I nonchalantly walked up to the Adelaide's doorstep and rang the bell. My plan was to ask for a Phillips-head screwdriver, saying I had accidentally broken my chair and needed to repair it (of course I actually did break the leg off just in case anyone checked). To my surprise however, no one answered. I crept around and peered into the windows, looking for any sign of Martha to no avail.Bewildered and intrigued, I slowly walked back to the road. Where could she be? What was going on here?It was then that I realized what was going on. There, standing on the walkway to Ed Adelaide's house, something clicked. Bud Lolis' lawn. You see the Adelaide abode was right across the street from the Lolis house, so as I was walking away from the empty Adelaide's, I was confronted with the beauty of the Lolis lawn. A tennis shoe in their trashcan and lots of flies swarming around a certain patch of his lawn proved me right. After a few hours, everything was understood and my mind was at rest.Bud Lolis had killed Martha and Johnny Adelaide, chopped them up, and slowly shredded the evidence of his murders into the Earth with his lawn mower.Chapter Five
