The Meat of the Matter

1

Fear washed over Duncan, and as Fischer was pouring coffee from the pitcher into her metal mug, Duncan figured he couldn't sit still on the folding chair and went out to the entrance of the Cleetwood Cove trail, a smooth stone was at the beginning, and downward was a sloping grassland with a massive pine beside the path to mark it. And there was the dark red roof of the mansion. His blood went cold, and he backed away, trying not to make a scene as he speedwalked to his chair and sat down stiffly.

"Do you want coffee?" Fischer asked, Duncan nodded swiftly, perhaps warm and uplifting coffee would calm him down. It was black coffee, but he preferred the bitterness over the sweetness. Werner started some conversation, talking about the mansion, "something was a little fishy about it, what do you think, Lo?" 

Fischer scratched the back of her neck with one hand and shrugged, "next morning, we'll investigate further," she reassured Werner. Werner looked to one side from his cup of coffee and shifted in his seat. "I don't know, I just find something strange about the house. Why was it built there? What is its purpose? Why-"

"No more questions, if you want answers, you go down there yourself and look if you'd like, but I advise you, for your own safety that you don't go down there because there's a gnarly storm up west, and storms to the west are always no good," Fischer explained, taking another hefty gulp of her coffee before asking, "you know why?"

"West is Pacific City, which has the ocean, of course," Werner, in a stubborn tone, told his chief. Duncan had already downed the entire cup of coffee and raised his metal mug, "could you pass me the pitcher?" He felt stupid, asking a woman a few decades older than him to fill his cup like a toddler asking for more juice into his sippy cup, but it was reducing his paranoia strongly, and he was feeling calmer already, calm and energized, ready for a new day of hiking and taking a break from investigations.

Fischer handed him the pitcher and said, "be sure not to drink too much,"

"Don't worry, Fischer," Duncan nodded slowly, "I'll be fine." Werner continued arguing with the chief, but he was allowed to, they had been coworkers since Fischer started her job, he was the only one who could call her by her first name, Lola, even going so far as to call her Lo as a nickname. They were close, and their relationship was immeasurable to what Duncan could achieve. 

He struggled with loneliness, ever since he left his family to pursue being a detective in Klamath Falls, he'd felt so empty without them, he frequently called them and texted them to ask if they were okay, but it didn't feel like enough. Duncan could hardly make friends, he was terrible at it, either it was considered small-talk or oversharing. He was skittish and jittery if he didn't have alcohol or coffee in the night and morning, he called it his daily doses.

"So, what do you say we go hiking on the ridges?" Fischer suggested, and Duncan looked at Werner, who was nodding, "phenomenal, I wonder what they're called?"

Duncan sat at his seat for a minute before following Fischer and Werner through the rocky slopes of Crater Lake. Fischer and Werner were talking ahead while Duncan walked behind, deep in focus and still drinking his coffee with a shaky hand, two cups were enough to send him to jitteriness afterward of the relaxing sensation, but he could keep his pace while sauntering with Fischer and Werner. 

They made it up into the boundaries of the national park, and onto Raven Ridge. By the time they made it, it was noon, the sun was at its highest point in the sky, shining over the ridiculously deep blue lake, Wizard Island was even more enchanting, the trees were showing so well, and Duncan almost forgot about the mansion till his traveling gaze fixed upon it. Its haunting dark red roof, the chipping maroon paint on the outside, and the old overgrown garden in the backyard that Duncan and his team had not yet explored. 

It looked abandoned, but Duncan had the sense that someone was nearby. "Herscovici, Herscovici!" Fischer was on her tiptoes trying to talk to him, and Duncan blinked twice before looking at her, "look at that hot air balloon. Rare sight to see,"

Duncan followed Fischer's stare at the hot air balloon, it too looked just as abandoned as the house. On the envelope was chipped paint peeling off it, it was dark red, like the house, and on the front had the faded words, "Jim's Pizza".

His heart skipped a beat, and his throat went dry, face flushing and he froze in place. "Wait, we ought to follow it," Duncan said, suddenly out of time-stop. Fischer glanced at him, "what's the matter, Herscovici?"

Duncan swiftly spun around to where the house was, and sure enough, to his gut feeling's dismay, the hot air balloon landed, it was massive, the house was not even a quarter of its size, as the forms in the hot air balloon fell onto the land, the balloon rippled from skirt up to its crown, and finally the fire was put out, the balloon flattening onto the surface of Crater Lake's land.

"Good eye, Herscovici," Fischer complimented before ushering Werner and Duncan to the bottom of the ridge, their campsite. "Keep a low profile, we don't know if these people are hostile or not."

They, with prowess in sneaking, walked back to their campsite and pitched the tent, by now the sun was setting below the mountains, "tomorrow, we will spy on them," Fischer said, "see what they're up to, and in a few days, perhaps approach them and see what they're like, if not we report them to the rest so we can raid."

Duncan was sleeping on the far end of the tent, frozen from fear, he was cowardly, since he'd only dealt with small cases with lawyers and authorities, but he was alone on this, he was the only detective alongside Werner, but he only searched fingerprints. He was truly alone now, with no one to contact, no one to come to when he needed help. He needed to figure this out himself.