Above the Casket and the Coast
There was already a crowd when I showed up with four other police cars. Some were more urgent than others to see what the excitement was about. It was 11:25 P.M A late hour in the night. It is a surprise that all these people were lined up behind yellow tape just to see what the big deal was about. It was one of the few first cases I've had so far, and I was hoping it would not look as bad as everyone had made it sound. Around my neck was a Canon camera, given to me to snap photos in case I spotted anything unusual. I was nervous and my hands were shaking as I held the clipboard and notebook in my hands before I got out of the car. I stepped out, my shoes on the pavement, and the sound of closing car doors sounded along with mine mixed with the sound of people conversing about the manor we showed up to. The building was a large, white marble and stone manor with columns and pillars on the outside with dead flowers decorated on the porch railings as if they had been there for awhile.
I turned and gave a look at my co-investigator in the driver's seat.
Carl Hemmings. He was in his 40's, medium length hair with some grey tufts of hair and a look in his eyes of superiority and authority over me every time I got a glance. He was a dark toned man who had about 5 inches over me in height. He knew more than I did about cases like this, since he's been in the field for about 25 years or more.
"Chad Larson, Private Investigator from the N.Y.P.D. Badge 3023. " I said with a stern voice, showing my badge to the state police officer in front of the taped yard..
My partner walked past them with ease. Seems like these guys already know him, after all, he has been on a lot of cases. He seems annoyed with me, but also focused on the building ahead of us.
A police officer let us by and we walked into the complex, stepping through the wooden framework of the door. When I stepped through, a blast of smells and noises filled my senses. The house smelled of a metallic copper scent mixed with rot.
"This is one of the worst cases I have been on. Not the worse worse, but damn close." My partner said, ushering into the main lobby. There were three bodies on the floor. Two males in black suits and one female, looking to be a maid and two butlers.
This was sure to be a nightmare of an investigation.
The whole complex was filled with bodies littered here and there for god knows what reason. It doesn't make sense. What kind of sane minded person would massacre this entire building? What was their motive? I don't understand criminals sometimes... I said to myself, writing down information and notes while walking through and observing everything around me. Upstairs, downstairs, lobby, and basement. Evidence identification cards were scattered everywhere.
"This case will last a long while unless we can find the murderer as soon as possible, There were some survivors... Two maids who were doing laundry at the time hid in some work closets in the basement. A servant who was with the owner of the mansion ran off as soon as he heard the ruckus. Last witness was the mansion owner himself. When questioned by authorities who were here a few minutes before we said that no one saw the suspect. No leads on any of their alibi's yet. That's why we're here. To figure out the whole story. You took notes huh? What ya got newbie?" Carl said, facing me and looking at his own notebook.
"The Coroner met with me in the downstairs lobby and spoke with me, but there wasn't much he could truly tell me until all the bodies are taken to the morgue. Basing it on just looks, the murder weapons where both a blade of some sort and gun." I explained, "I found no traces. Other detectives already scoped the area for fingerprints and evidence. All evidence found was circumstantial. I thought I saw something before we walked in though. Dirt that was recently unearthed from the ground. Might have a weapon buried there."
"What exactly was the dirt that you saw? Show me."
I showed him the photos through the LED screen on the camera and pointed to the area of the lawn.
I pointed out the door and walked out. "You see, I used to be a photographer. I have an eye for off-set scenes. There was definitely something off. I can sense it. It's like I have some power for those things. Happened before. During the time I was inspired to be a Detective." I said, recalling that moment in time.
It was the fall of 2010. My college major had an international field trip to Paris for a class assignment. It was to take photos of the surroundings and to become a "real life tourist". It wasn't all fun and games though.
I had a partner with me at the time. A good friend of mine, a high school familiar, and a room-mate. Another guy I knew as the "Jock" of my grade followed me along with a girl who wasn't always the most talkative. She was antisocial and wanted nothing to do with me. Many things felt cliche back then, except for what happened that night when we decided to venture out.
Just like the slums of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Paris has those areas too. I didn't want anyone getting hurt, so I followed with them to maybe make an excuse that it was for a journalism project and to research the area first hand.
The other members of my "group" had plans to explore the hidden alleyways and underground markets. Which sounds like an awful plan to begin with but I went with it anyway. It was getting dark and our other class members went to a little cafe and my group and I went to the underground catacombs we were told not to go to before we left on the trip.
We kept walking further down the dark tunnel ahead. I remember that there were noises echoing against the walls, a putrid chemical smell, and my heart was racing out of fear. I wanted to leave. I didn't like it. I wanted my friend, Kevin, and I to leave. I blacked out from an overwhelming smell that entered my airways.
When I became conscious, I felt different. I gathered myself up, while feeling dazed with a feeling of being soaked in something. I looked frantically around myself to see my surroundings. I couldn't breathe, feeling as though I was being suffocated. My heart thumped faster and faster. I jumped up, screaming "Kevin" over and over. I felt like I was going slowly insane.
No one replied to my screams and my chest hurt.
Tears swelled up in my eyes, my anxiety was getting worse and worse. My legs felt as if they would give out on me if I started walking.
"Come closer."
A voice said in my ear. I reacted, throwing my hands up in defense and whining a little.
I ventured down the stone, brick tunnel, putting my hand on the wall here and there to keep my balance. It was getting darker the further I ventured in so I kept my hand on the wall to guide me. My feet splashed into the wetness and my hand touched something hard and sharp when I tried catching myself. With no avail, I fell into whatever I just stepped in. I hoped it was water. I flicked open my metal Zippo lighter that was in my shoulder backpack and looked at the puddle. It was a vile red with bones in it. The blood soaked into my white converse shoes. The color of my clothes was stained with the cold deep red liquid. It looked as if I became a sponge soaking up a puddle.
The sight of the mangled mess was nauseating. In the middle of the stone floor in a lit passageway was my friend, or what was left him. It was too hard to tell, but I knew it was him. Eyes were floating in the vile human remains with fingers, hands, and throats ripped out. I turned cold and jumped up out of the twisted mess I so clumsily fell into. The only trace was one of his high top red star tennis-shoes that I bought him for his 20th birthday. Flesh and organs were laid on a sacrificial altar with very small flames from candles surrounding the carnage. Blood was everywhere, staining the rocks, the ceiling. Crimson pools lead to a drain at the bottom of the altar with words carved into the stonework above the table:"Il se lèvera," meaning "he will rise" in french.
"I gave you a gift." A voice chanted, a knife flinging out from the left of me and sticking into the wall near my head. I turned pale.
"I gave you a gift of immortality. How could you deny that."
This voice, it was very familiar.
I bolted out of there, my shoes pounding against the stone while my socks made squishing noises as I fled. Blood poured from my hand and chest onto the concrete sidewalk as I dashed. I was later found passed out on a street where strangers found me and took me to the nearest hospital where I was then flown back to the United States. I had a stab wound in my left side of my chest near my heart as if something wanted to kill me.
Ever since, I quit my dream of wanting to be a freelance photographer for the New York Times. I wanted to be something more than a sorry, no one who couldn't do anything. My case, and my friend's case were never solved and I knew that I had the drive to solve this case myself.
I lead Hemmings to the spot where I saw the unearthed dirt and I put on some gloves. I kneeled down and started to uncover it with my hands. I pulled the suspected murder weapon from the dirt and put it in the evidence bag my mentor was holding. It was rusted and covered in dirt and blood. I stood up and gave my clipboard to a standby officer to hold while I took off my gloves.
"We best give this to the coroner or forensic scientist on duty. They'll know how to process this sort of thing right?" I questioned Hemmings while taking back my clipboard and pen.
"They should. By tomorrow we should know more information. Then, we'll really have a clue on what the hell to do next." he said, lighting a cigarette and walking back to the car.
It started to rain as we headed back to the station to hand in our clues and turn in for the night. The glowing clock numbers on the dashboard read 1:25A.M. I looked at the rain pouring in front of the headlights and the street lights shining on puddles. Rain fell as does teardrops on the cheeks of the victims, witnesses, and the families of the deceased on this night.
No one knows who this murderer is or any substantial description of them. They are still on the loose... I thought to myself. Just like my own case.
I clocked out and walked out of the office to go to my apartment complex that was a few blocks from the station. I kept my hands in my grey cotton trench coat pockets and kept my head down at the sidewalk. Only a few cars were driving at this hour. Most people were either sleeping on this block or arguing about some nonsense. I heard footsteps behind me, and I turned my head for a moment to get a glance for who it was.
I saw no one behind me, but just incase I sped up my walking pace, rounding a turn and jumping the steps of my apartment complex door. I walked in and found my way to the elevator from the lobby. It was eerily silent in the halls as I made my way from the elevator to the hallway and to my room. I took out my keys and dropped them. I sighed and felt a breeze from the window at the end of the hall. I bent over and picked up my keys from the red carpeted floor and stood up straight. Unlocking my door, I stepped in and kicked off my shoes and my jacket. I dressed down and hopped into bed. My lizard, Geico, moved around in his cage trying to eat the food I gave him a few minutes before.
The next morning I woke up with the sun beaming into my face through the shades on my bedroom window. I put a hand in front of my face in order to block out the rays of the sun shining through prisms of dust particles.
9:32A.M. September 16th, 2015. Five years since my second year in college. The trip also took place on this day, five years ago. I hadn't made any progress on finding the murderer or whatever that was that night.
I made breakfast for myself. By breakfast, I mean toasted Pop Tarts from toaster and a cup of pumpkin spice coffee. I grabbed my mail from my doorstep and turned a strange envelope in my hands with a familiar name on it. I went pale and I got dressed in black work pants, shoes, and a black button down shirt and vest. I grabbed my fedora off my coat rack and said goodbye to my lizard before promptly leaving my residence and into the corner of the street.
The weather became cloudy with big Arcus storm clouds off in the distance coming from the south. I forgot to check the weather before I left...
The taxi ride lasted for a half hour before I got to my destination. I stared out the window, up at the sky, and often, the people walking, traffic lights, signs, cars, and public transit busses. We stopped once so that I could buy a set of flowers and a pack of cigarettes.
We headed for the city and to a small nature filled area with trees and grass. The trees showed vivid colors such as reds, browns, and yellows that seemed to form a dome over the road. Piles were everywhere on the side of the road and near their parent. The sky got darker when I hopped out of he yellow eyesore of a vehicle and trotted on over to the big black steel gates in order to open them to get in.
In big fancy font on a stone sign read: "Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira, New York."
I held my offerings in my hands tightly, almost pricing myself with the thorns on the flowers.I took a right turn onto a path and followed the letters on the rows and the mausoleums. I got to the letter G and followed the headstones. I didn't need directions, though. I knew exactly what I was looking for.
I worked my way up a small hill where a barely visible headstone laid in the ground under a willow tree . Kevin Gerald. A loving man and a best friend.
I kneeled and set the flowers near the headstone and I opened the pack of cigarettes. I took out my Zippo lighter and I lit up the cigarette I had fitted between my index and middle. I set it on the headstone close to some other butts that were in a glass ashtray. "Your favorite. Just like the ones we stole off of Ms. Reign at the orphanage when we were teens. That place burned down not too long ago." I paused before going on. " I wonder..." I shake my head. "No. That can't be. Strange thought..." I pressed a cigarette to my own lips and sat in the grass. I flicked the lighter again and no flame came out. I sighed. "guess you finally died too, huh?" I muttered to myself, putting the pack down on the grave and the unlit cigarette into the grass. I put my knees up to my chest and kept my gaze out, overlooking some other tombstones.
A breeze carried a wind through the trees, knocking some dead leaves off the tree and falling near me. I observed the headstone more and opened the envelope. The letter reads:
To Chad,
Who knows if you could even find a murderer. You're only a pawn in this plot made by unseen authorities. I was just like you. Only, I didn't run. I faced what was coming for me. It wasn't death, or life. It was a rebirth of something not known to you yet. You have to find this out. You're becoming a detective, which was a big advancement It helps a lot on your search for me and for what you fled from. Don't get too caught up in your side duties. You can't run forever.
God knows what happened to those people at that poor poor mansion. I know who did it though.
It was me. It was always me. It will always be me. I cannot wash the blood off my hands any longer and soon, if you don't find me, I will find you. You will be the next one.
From your best friend, Kevin Greyhound.
Raindrops fell onto my letter, rippling the ink on the paper. I was shocked. This was very unexpected. It doesn't make sense. I saw his body I saw him. That was him. There was a funeral. There was a funeral, a ceremony, a burial.
I got off the ground and folded the letter back up and put it back into the envelope.
If this letter was true, I needed to find him. I need to know what's going on.
I ran from his headstone and I slid down the little hill it sat on. I ran out of the gates, but the taxi wasn't there.
I eventually made it back and went to the police station, telling my colleagues what just happened and showing them the note. I told them the whole story. Hopefully I would have a case. I just needed to remain calm and think clearly.
One day, I will solve this case.