The Meat of the Matter

PROLOGUE

The chief of police, Lola Fischer, walked along the path of overgrown weeds near the water's edge, her hair was pushing back in the cold lake winds. Her flashlight lit up the clearing around her, and up ahead there was a massive mansion. "Mr. Herscovici?" A smaller and scrawnier man with olive skin and curly black hair stood motionless at the beginning of the path, not controlling his fear. "Y-Yes, Fischer?" He asked, cautiously stepping onto the Cleetwood Cove trail next to Crater Lake.

"Was this formation built by the Civilian Conservation Corps?" Fischer queried, turning her pale head back to Herscovici. The man looked into his notes and flipped to his sketches of this path earlier in the day of camping here to investigate a recent murder case, the murder of Timari Harrington, a young woman from Los Angeles coming here for a vacation but was suddenly intercepted and thrown into a deep gorge while eating her dinner. 

"Duncan?" Fischer looked at him, Duncan refocused on his assessment and saw the sketch he had done of the Cleetwood Cove trail a few years back. "Er...no, it wasn't even here in 2017..." his voice was deep and hesitant, Fischer's eyes softened as she heard the fear in Duncan's tone and saw it on his disclosure. 

"Then we ought to investigate it," an impatient man, Werner Widmer, pushed Duncan aside, and he traipsed behind the man. He was shaking, and his palms were sweating harshly as he followed Fischer and Werner to the strangely massive mansion. Fischer opened the door and got her gun out of her holster and hoisted forward, Duncan and Werner copying her moves. There was a light switch at the right side of the room, it hung precariously from the wall through a few frayed wires. 

Fischer put her hand out for Duncan and Werner to back up, and they did her orders, she stuck the light switch back into the wall and turned on a flickering lightbulb, which was also hanging from a chewed-up cord, the parts where fringes were had wires sticking out and some broken in half. 

There was not much to see, only a small kitchen with a big pot on the stove, and an old tea kettle which rusted years ago. At the left side of the room there was a lowboy table, which also had a dangling light at the top that needed to be turned on, there was an ancient, lonesome faldstool, and straight ahead of it was a TV that had broken. The walls were a bright yellow, quite cheery for an old and lonely house, and there was no window in sight, at the far end were rows upon rows of trundle beds with gray comforters and fluffy blue pillows. 

Everything was decorated in mixed styles, a lot of it was Türkiye-styled, but some of it was also wickerwork. "Nothing much to see here," Fischer looked around a few times more before declaring the investigation done. "If you see anything suspicious, come and tell me first," she specifically glared at Werner, who spilled the tea on Duncan to tell Fischer. "Okay, okay, I get it." Werner rolled his eyes and the three of them walked back up to their campsite.