Author's Note:
I've been gone for a while, so here is the second part, and I will repay everyone who takes the time to help with it. I try and pay back more.
Whispers of the Forgotten
Chapter 2
Exit 12 runs into Pearle Avenue. Turning left, heads towards downtown Roston, while turning right, leads to the low-income housing and gang-ridden neighborhoods. The further south traveled, the worse the neighborhoods.
Following the dissipating cloud of smoke overhead, Ryan eventually found his way to Eighth Street and approached Johnson Avenue. He noticed three people standing around Marcus Nordman’s car parked on the corner, and recognized one of them as Marcus. With his six and a half foot, two hundred sixty-pound frame, he was easy to spot in any crowd. His mother was Puerto Rican and his father was of German descent, which gave him the best of both worlds; He was big and appeared tanned all year round.
Ryan parked his car on the adjacent street and walked towards the group. One of them he recognized as Joe Stallings, a State Fire Marshall, and the other was a paramedic who walked away as Ryan approached.
“Good. You’re here,” Joe said, extending a hand in greeting. “We were just about to take a look inside.”
Marcus briefed Ryan as they walked towards the front entrance. “Dispatch received a call around midnight concerning a fire. By the time the fire department arrived, the second and third stories were already engulfed in flames. You can see where the outer structure collapsed.” He extended his arm, pointing towards the right side of the building closest to the corner.
Ryan noticed the black soot covering the outer brick walls, and figured the intense heat had weakened the mortar. The weight of the roof proved too much for the sixty-year-old wall. He stopped to look at what remained of the building. “Is it safe to enter?”
“Yes,” Joe said, “the second and third floors are not accessible, but the first floor is still structurally sound.”
The three men stepped under the caution tape, and climbed three steps to the front door, moving aside a disheveled screen door that blocked the entrance. Marcus pointed to an outdated box with apartment numbers on it. Faded white buttons were next to each of the room listings.
“Should we see if anyone is home?” Joe asked, smiling as the other two men softly chuckled.
Joe turned the doorknob, finding the double doors stuck together. With a gentle kick at the bottom, they broke free, knocking out the remaining shattered and melted glass onto the floor. “So much for sneaking up on anyone,” He said to no one in particular.
The foyer of the building was small, roughly ten feet wide, and extended towards the back alley. A set of stairs, which would have led to the upper levels, had collapsed in a heap of twisted metal near the back. In the center of the room were two hallways leading to either side. To the left, the rooms numbered one through eleven, and to the right were the rooms numbered twelve through twenty-three.
“They found the body in room seventeen,” Joe said, and started walking towards hallway to the right.
"Whoops!" Ryan said, as he slipped on a broken tile and noted the poor upkeep of the building. The walls, covered in pinstriped wallpaper, had either curled or been torn in numerous places. There was an old plaid chair with springs poking out the backrest that sat in the corner, and alongside it was a cheap end table with countless scuffmarks, giving it an almost rustic look.
“Watch your step!” Marcus yelled, his voice echoed down the hallway.
Ryan had been busy surveying the foyer. He didn’t notice how far ahead of him the other two men were. Quickening his pace to catch the men, he glanced about the narrow hallway. Sections that had caught fire left the wood framing charred and feathered, and its lingering odor made Ryan’s lungs tingle from the salty tang. Paint that had once given a light green, calming appeal was now bubbled and split from the intense heat that had roared around it.
There were five doors on each side of the hallway, with one room at the end. Ryan figured that it was a suite and his suspicions proved true as he stepped through the doorway. Most of the room was littered with the remains of the top two floors, but the kitchen, where Marcus and Joe were now standing, was still intact.
Ryan could hear the two men talking to each other and as he approached, Marcus set a black duffel bag on the table, retrieving a digital camera. Joe wandered off to one of the back rooms, using a flashlight to scan the walls.
“Well, they didn’t die in this room,” Marcus said, taking a series of photographs as he encircled the body.
Ryan could see a black smear on the floor where the body had skidded along the linoleum. “So, they died higher up, and when the floor gave way, they landed here.”
“Yep.” Joe confirmed, as he returned to the kitchen. “And whoever did this used a lot of accelerant.” He handed Ryan a piece of charred wood. “There are traces of it on every piece of wood in that pile back there.”
“Do you think this person started it?” Marcus asked, looking up over the camera.
Ryan felt someone standing behind him, but when he turned around, no one was there.
“Ryan,” Marcus said, “what do you think?”
“Well,” Ryan started, “do you see any signs of foul play?”
“I can’t even tell you if this person is male of female. Just look at them. I mean…if there had been foul play, well, then we’ll have to wait for the autopsy to tell us anything. This is just one…” Marcus was having a difficult time finding the right words. “Just one solid slab without arms or legs.”
“I think this person started the fire, and didn’t have time to get out before it…” Ryan trailed off, feeling someone breathing behind him, just beside his left ear. He turned to look, but the room behind him was still empty.
“Are you okay?” Joe asked. “You seem a bit nervous.”
“I’m fine.” Ryan said. “As I was saying - they didn’t have time to get out before-“
“Murder.” Ryan heard whispered in his ear.
“Who said that?!” He demanded, turning around and looking about the room.
“Said what?” Marcus asked.
“Murder!” Ryan barked.
Joe and Marcus looked at each other with confused expressions on their face. Before Ryan could say anything more, two technicians from the State Crime Lab entered the room. “We got it from here boys,” one of them declared.
As the three men were leaving the room, Ryan felt a whirlwind circle around his head, but his hair didn’t move.
“Murder!” Another long drawn out whisper took place of the wind.
Ryan stopped and turned to face the technicians, “I think they might have been murdered.”
