Beckoning from the Stars: Chapter 1
- Shannon Smith
- 1 hour ago
- 9 min read
Hello Dreamers.
Below is the first chaptrer of Beckoning from the Stars. Beckoning from the Stars is still a WIP so this is subject to change, however the soul of the chapter shouldn't change that drastically.
Enjoy:
Chapter 1
Detective Frances Clark had never seen anything like this: blood everywhere.
The body of a middle-aged man laid on the hardwood floor, covered in blood and stabbed beyond recognition.
“The victim’s Walter Keller.” Constable Gregory Durem said, visibly lifting his chest up and down through the navy Toronto Police Services uniform he wore. “Fifty-three. Stock broker on Bay St. Lived alone. We arrived on scene after the fire department discovered the body at nine fifty-five pm.”
“There was a fire?” Detective Clark asked, her eyebrow raised.
“On the balcony.” He replied, ushering her to the sliding glass that lead outside.
Char marks and soot laid on the concrete floor. Detective Clark squatted down to get a better look. Upon seeing some black, shiny, beads stuck to the concrete next to a clip-on fastener she remarked “Looks like a backpack.”
She stood back up. Noting a few fibres within the soot. Then the glint of something metallic. With a gloved hand she pointed to it while CSI Vivian McMahon took a photo. Detective Clark then lifted the artifact, learning, in fact, it once had been a chef’s knife. Soot covered and missing the handle.
“Thinking that’s the murder weapon.” CSI McMahon said.
“Clothing might have been in this too.” Detective Clark replied.
“This is odd.” Constable Durem called out. “The tub’s wet!”
“Other then where he bled, he wasn’t wet.” said the CSI.
“Yeah...” Detective Clark shook her head.
She walked back into the apartment and looked at the door. The chain meant to keep the door from being pushed in had broken off.
“Forced entry.” Detective Clark remarked.
“There is no other damage to the door thought.” Constable Durem spoke.
“I think... Keller answered a knock on the door, and the perpetrator pushed their way in.” Detective Clark noted.
“He had to have been strong.” Constable Durem added. “I mean, that chain is meant to prevent people from doing exactly that. The fact they ripped it off the wall so easily.”
Within the den, not far from the body laid a red recliner facing a flat screen TV hanging on the wall. An end-table sat, positioned next to the chair, where a black late-model iPhone sat, undisturbed and plugged into a USB-C charger.
“Poor man couldn’t call for help.” Durem mused as his eyes fell on the phone.
“By where the body is and how he fell... he wasn’t even trying to reach for his phone.” Clark noted outloud. “That, or didn’t have a chance to.”
The kitchenette overlooked the scene in all its marble and stainless steel glory. From there two doors: one leading to a bathroom and one to a bedroom. Bare footprints painted with a diluted layer of blood lead from the body to the bathroom. More footprints stained by water lead from the bathroom to the bedroom.
Detective Clark turned to Constable Durem. “Is anything missing?”
“Doesn’t appear so.” He replied. “Nothing appears to be out of place or rummaged through.”
“Huh.” Her eyebrow frowed and her mouth hung agap. “So, the perpetrator knocks... barges in... brutally murders him with a weapon they brought... then washed and burned as much of the evidence as possible before fleeing the scene?”
“I somehow doubt it was some junkie looking for a snatch and grab.” Durem said.
“Agreed.” Detective Clark nodded. “This is obvious premeditated. Canvas the neighbourhood. Someone had to have seen something.”
Constable Durem and a few other police officers walked out. “Let me know if you find anything.” Detective Clark went on. “Anything from the fire?”
“Still investigating.” the CSI said. “Though based on my experience, by how localized the burn marks and fire was, I suspect the fire had been deliberately set.”
“Of course.” Detective Clark looked to her shoes. “We should also question anyone at the firm he worked for. Maybe he made some enemies.”
She took one more look around. Strange, esoteric, works of art hung upon the walls. Bizarre looking trinkets decorated tables and shelves. One work stood out as a spiral superimposed on an eyeball. A brief glance at it sent chills up her spine. Within the room she could swear she heard the wind whisper “Stars in the Abyss...” She shook her head like she was scaring away a fly and held her eyes closed.
Durem gave a look at her. “Detective, are you ok?” He simply asked.
“Just tired.” She replied. “We should get to it!”
Clark took a peek inside the bedroom. Clean with a made bed and clutter all over the shelves. Most appeared esoteric, some looked expensive. The twin bed made with a grey blanket, the wardrobe and closet doors closed. She opened the wardrobe and saw mostly socks and underwear. Just as she was about to close it she saw a black piece of plastic sticking out from between boxer-briefs. Clark reached for it, her hands slow and steady just in case it was evidence. Once out she gave it a closer look, discovering that it was a plain, black, smartphone.
“Found this in the wardrobe.” Clark remarked, waving it before the others in the apartment.
“A second phone.” Durem nodded. “Looks charged too.”
“Forensics should definitely look over the phones... this one and that one.” Clark pointed to the iPhone on the end table.
McMahon took the phone from Clark and bagged it. “Unless there are other surprises, we got blood.” The CSI said. “Its really hard to stab someone like this without knicking yourself too.”
“And the murder weapon is a chef’s knife.” Clark added. “Its not designed to kill or stab.”
With that the detective left the scene to the CSIs, knowing that if they found anything further she would be made abreast of the findings. Ducking under yellow police tap and making her way down the halls, down the elevator, and outside. At 11:45PM cars, lights, and the neon of business and residents lit the streets and not the sun. The cold February air ran its wet chill down upon her, narrowly penetrating the Toronto Police Service standard coat meant for such conditions. The slushy ice desecrating road, lawn, and sidewalk alike as she rounded the street to enter her unmarked, black charger to drive along streets still congested despite the late night.
That had to be the most brutal crime-scene I had ever seen. Clark thought to herself. It pales to the guy that had been pushed off a balcony.
She knew better than to give into disgust, hysteria, terror, and sorrow. Her face remained neutral as she concentrated on the road ahead of her. A road of cars and trucks all around her, cramped in two lanes, with street people, partiers and shift-workers alike mingling in the sidewalks.
Several turns later she pulled into the parking lot of Fifty-First Division. The old building of red brick and curved windows loomed over the street. Frances parked her vehicle and walked into the building, fob in hand, as she navigated the halls to her office. There, upon a desk with papers loosely held by file folders she took a seat and huffed.
Within the dim, but clean, lighting of the station Clark leaned in her chair. Her rust coloured skin held onto goosebumps from the February night. Almost blankly, her mind processing what she saw that night, her blue eyes regarded the papers on the desk more out of a need for a focus than anything else. Jet-black hair held up in a bun that tried to unwind itself throughout the course of the day let strains hang unevenly. Her worn pants suit, brown and faded, hugged a fit form slowly giving into inertia.
“What has the city come to?” Clark mused to no one in particular.
“To be fair, last year we had seventy-three murders.” Detective Robert Darenger replied. An older, more senior detective looking over a board with photos, news clippings, and strings held on by tacs connecting one article to another. ”Do you know how many Chicago had? Six hundred and twenty-one!”
“Isn’t Chicago much bigger than Toronto?”
“Actually no, we’re bigger. Toronto is about three million. Chicago is closer to two point seven million.”
She wrote some notes down, detailing what she had seen so far. In the morning there should be people to interview, leads to chase. She thought while noting the state of the apartment. The suspect broke in and stabbed the victim. There is no way it could have been a hired hit - crime scene too messy. The apartment wasn’t ransacked, so robbery wasn’t the motive. They had time to shower and burn evidence before fleeing.
She looked over these notes on her desk. I’ll have to wait to see if anything is to come from this. She thought. Right now, we don’t even have forensics.
She closed her eyes and gave them a shake before she stepped out of the office. One in the damn morning. Clark stepped out of the precinct and to her personal vehicle, a grey Honda Civic, where she started to journey home. She let her focus go onto the darkened roads - thinner but still busy with stumbling drunks and headlight glare.
As she got further from the Downtown and closer to Scarborough the roads thinned out of people, cars, and buildings. Within this quiet place where houses where just cheap enough to afford on a cop’s salary. Once on her sleepy street she pulled her personal vehicle into the driveway of her townhouse and stepped out, wearing the standard Toronto Police Service coat over her blouse and dresspants. Home, she went up along the walkway, stepped into her house in Scarborough a distance from the downtown where she worked. After placing her purse by the stair railing she approached her mandated gun safe where she took her side arm off, unloaded it, and placed it inside. Once closed she put the bullets away and grabbed a metal tube on a tripod - a telescope.
A hobbiest grade, painted in white with a second, smaller, tube for pointing the contraption in the general direction before staring into the telescope proper to actually see something worthwhile. In her arm she walked outside to the back deck. There she just looked up at the sky. Even with the light pollution the nighttime still glowed with a thousand little lights. Lights that were, in fact, large nuclear explosions a distance much farther than the surface area of the Earth. She just looked for a bit before she positioned the telescope on her deck and aimed it at the sky.
Through the smaller lens she peeked around at the sky, at first pointing it at the waxing crescent moon. Next she moved it about, thinking that there might be a planet in the sky, or a star group worth peeking at. Anything to keep her focus off the sight of a man covered in multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood and towards the icky blackness and their little beacons shining in the dark.
As she looked, there was a grouping of stars that looked a bit off. Their shine appeared to be bright for stars in a sky and off by a shade. I don’t think they’re dwarfs, she thought as she positioned the finding lens in its general area, then looked into the telescope. She aimed, adjusted, and aimed, trying to focus and gaze on the strange phenomenon before her. Then, an image took hold. From the stars she saw what appeared to be a figure staring out. At first fuzzy, but then the image became clear.
That of a woman. She appeared to be in her thirties, dressed in a thick coat. The grayscale image of white on navy looked out onto the distance as colour slowly seeped into the visage. This woman had brown hair, green eyes, a broken life-jacket with a rubber raincoat underneath.
Frances pulled away from the telescope and rubbed her eyes. There is no way! She thought. How am I seeing something like that?
She looked back into the telescope. The image made in starlight shifted. Instead of looking in the distance the depicted woman was looking at her! Startled, Frances jumped from the telescope, pushing it away from its general direction. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths.
“Am I insane.” Frances repeated to herself. “I am not... insane. I didn’t just see that.”
“Ok, maybe I am. I... I should go to bed. Yeah. Bed. I’m seeing things!”
She picked up the telescope, stepped back into the house, set it back down, and bee-lined it for her bedroom, marching up stairs along the way. Once in the bedroom she set the alarm on her phone to beep at seven A.M. She approached the bed and collapsed on the mattress. Once rem claimed her a strange vision formed. One of staring into a spiral leading down into a building made of green stone. A place surrounded by robed people wandering as they looked up back at her. Within the pitch a voice of a young woman whispered “I see you.”
