When the house around the corner exploded, Richard Katschke and his wife, Karen, were reading scripture. The retired pair looked up from the pages and froze. In another room, a plastic light cover clattered to the floor.
It was a warm Wednesday. Mid-July 2016, about 8 p.m. Outside, a boy rode his bike near South Fifth Street. A man started a lawn mower.
The Katschkes were seated on a brown leather couch in a room they'd added onto their Panaca, Nevada, house years earlier for Richard's elderly mother — both he and Karen called her “Mom.” She lived there until the Katschkes made her more comfortable at the nearby hospital in her final days, where a quiet nurse would rub her feet with cream and stay by her side, watching the old woman's eyes for a sign she was ready to be with God.
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