Echo Shore (Chapter 1 - Contest Entry)

Echo Shore, Chapter One: Looking For Clues

Detective Duncan looked at the tab of seltzer briskly dissolving within the glass of water in her grasp. She'd fought hard to assert herself in her line of work. Throughout the years, she had proven her competence and savoir faire time and time again. By all means, she was top of her class. And yet, over time, the lesser spirits of the trade had left their mark on her. And in turn, she had found her comfort in a different kind of spirits.

The ferry slowly drifted along in the rough Atlantic waters, slightly spilling the contents of her glass every now and then. "Spending my night at 169 was a mistake," she thought. And still, she couldn't think of a better place to deal with the news of her transfer. The kitsch-laden maritime atmosphere somewhere between Bikini Bottom, a classic Dive and a mockup of a Cajun restaurant just seemed about right. It was the perfect setting to contemplate the situation she'd found herself in at this point in her life. It had been a spontaneous decision. Now she had to deal with the consequences. She'd rather have remained in the Bronx, but now her expertise was needed elsewhere.

"We'll be arriving in about 5 minutes, Detective."

She groggily nodded and downed her remaining seltzer water in an instant. A quick look out of the window to her lefthand side revealed the ever-samey landmass of northeastern Long Island, surrounded by a fine layer of mist. Of all the places she could have been assigned to, it had to be Echo Shore, NY. A tiny hamlet mostly known for its woven baskets and its generous contribution to the Fulton Fish Market, wedged somewhere in an inlet on the northern Long Island Sound. Why couldn't it have been Fire Island? She would have found some enjoyment there. Or maybe the Hamptons. She wouldn't have minded busting some rich asshole's chops, like Peter Falk in his day. But Echo Shore? Who would ever want to be stuck there?

With the vessel turning, Detective Duncan watched the misty veil slowly dissipate. Her eyes were immediately drawn to lighthouse towering on the horizon. It was bar none the tallest structure on this stretch of land. She started preparing herself mentally for the sickly air of Bucolia that would no doubt await her as soon as she set foot on the island. A simple prank taken too seriously, the village folk all knowing each other by their first names, nothing but the sea and sacharine smiles. But, with the medicine slowly doing its job, it would turn out to be quite a sobering experience. This place harbored secrets.

Upon setting foot on the soil, she was met by local authorities. “Detective Maria Duncan, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful, welcome to Echo Shore, Ms. Duncan. Would you follow me to my car? We’ll fill you in on the details en route.”

“Oh, alright.”

“You can put your luggage in the trunk. Sheesh, first minute on land and already on the job, right? Sorry to rush you like this.”

“It’s alright. I wanted it that way.”

Just before she entered the car, Detective Duncan noticed an odd sound that permeated the ether in uneven intervals. It was like a low, mechanical hum, ebbing and flowing dimly. Two distinctive notes rung out and completed each other, like some malfunctioning machinery heard through thin walls in an office space at a factory. It had a filtered, buzzing quality to it. Yet it also evoked some alarming sentiments– like an emergency siren stuttering away and having dropped quite few keys after years of extended service and no maintenance work.

“What is that sound?”

“We’re not quite sure. It’s been making the rounds ever so slightly since the incident. But nobody has been able to locate its origin. It is most prominent in the vicinity of the lighthouse though.”

“Could the machinery in the tower be in need of maintenance?”

“Oh, I’m certain it could, if it were still in use, that is.”

“Come again?”

“The lighthouse is more of a sheer landmark these days. It’s been in disuse since 2006.”

“It’s looking pretty good to me for a lighthouse that has been abandoned for over a decade.”

“This is Echo Shore. People come here for the scenic views. The upkeep is taken care of, sanctioned by the mayor’s office.”

The shoreline was passing by Maria’s windowside. The road seemed to be just as rough as the waves in the ocean. Little by little, they ascended the cliff leading to the lighthouse. All the while, the sound would flicker in and out of earshot from time to time. A constant companion.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. Officer … “

“Lanneghan. Dwight Lanneghan.”

“So, uh, Officer Lanneghan, that incident … “

“I take it you have been briefed on that matter already?”

“Need to know basis. I’ve been told there has been a distress call of some sorts emanating from the area around the lighthouse a few days ago. One of the voices identified on the recorded file was 18-year-old Marcus Zoller. He has since went missing. This has come at the heel of a series of disapperances, I understand?”

“That is correct. And it includes one of our own: Officer Sebastian Brady. He was the first to respond to the distress call. Last we heard of him was ‘I’m moving in’.”

“Wait, an Echo Shore PD Officer disappeared as well?”

“Yes. I guess they didn’t tell you everything.”

“Hm … “

This information threw her for a loop. Up until that point, she had assumed that this was an elaborate prank by a group of bored teenagers. Most of the disappearances had happened among the same age-group and given that it all occurred within a small community, there was a good chance that they knew each other in some way.

Detective Duncan took a closer look at Officer Lanneghan. He was just the rough-necked, stern-looking person she had thought she would encounter. She wondered whether he was another one of those reactionary types she had seen plenty of during her training and beyond. When she was little, her mother had impressed upon her to be wary of the police. Her father was a bit less aware of the implications. But he would see more and more of them, as Maria grew older. Now she was personally involved in an institution that made her look over her shoulder more often than she could count. Maria wanted to make a difference, but it came at a cost.

“And there’s another thing,” Lanneghan remarked as they reached the top of the cliff. “We found no sign of intrusion. The main entrance of the lighthouse was locked when we initially arrived and there was no indication anyone but the occasional cleaning staff had recently entered the structure.”

“But you have found footprints, haven’t you?”

“Yes, we have. We were able to match one distinctive path to Officer Brady’s shoe-size and model. There are three more belonging to different people. We have yet to determine their origin though. All of them stopped right in front of the entrance of the lighthouse.”

“I see.”

“Have you received the audio-file, Detective?”

“Yes. I listened to it yesterday.”

Detective Duncan noticed a hint trepidation in Officer Lanneghan’s cadence. He picked his words carefully, yet did not quite seem to make sense of what he was about to describe. His eyes slowly collapsing, then refocusing on the rear-view-mirror, he let out a muted sigh before turning to speak again.

“It is … something, isn’t it? Quite odd.”

“Yeah, it struck me as fairly odd. Barely coherent, even.”

“I bet you get that a lot in the city.”

“From time to time. People lead peculiar lives. I’m not one to judge though.”

Lanneghan noticed her clutching her forehead.

“Rough night, huh?”

“Always.”

Upon leaving the car, the noise became omnipresent. It seemed to envelop the entire summit of the cliff they now found themselves on. The closer they got to the lighthouse, the clearer it got.


“So, this is it,” Detective Duncan exclaimed as she sized up the structure in front of her.

“Yes, it is. No sign of B&E. No sign of a struggle or anything.”

“May I look inside?”

“Sure, but we’ve already examined the entire building. Squeaky clean. Left as was by the maintenance crew.”

Detective Duncan examined each room in the lighthouse carefully. It was as the officer had told her. Everything looked clean, untouched. There seemed to be no traces of any untoward engagement, nothing that would suggest anyone having been in there in the last few days. A relic it certainly was, but apart from that, it seemed all but perfectly boring. Under no circumstances could this have been the location of disappearance, she thought to herself. The only thing that seemed to vex her was the standing clock in the anteroom. It was stuck at a quarter to five.

“Has it always been that way?”

“We’re not quite sure. We’ll have to inquire at the mayor’s office.”

“Please do so, ASAP. We’ll have to look for any sign of tampering that might have occurred on the evening of the incident.”

“We’re on it.”

As they were about to leave the tower, Detective Duncan took a moment to stand perfectly still and tilted her head a little.

“It’s not in here.”

“Excuse me?”

“The sound. The building itself is not its source of origin.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m quite good at locating sounds. Came in handy more often than I can count.”

Upon leaving the building, the vastness of the plot of land became evident to the detective. Nothing but grass, soil and the shimmering ocean in the distance.

“And this entire plot is under the jurisdiction of the mayor’s office?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Then I hope he’ll excuse what I’m about to do here.”

“What?”

Detective Duncan turned around, tilting her head slightly and holding her left hand out as if to measure a distance. Then she started walking towards the southern corner of the plot. After about twenty to thirty steps, she stopped.

“H… have you found anything, Detective?”, Lanneghan shouted from afar, slightly confused.

“Shh! I’m trying to concentrate.”, she retorted.

Lanneghan decided to move closer to the detective. To his surprise, she started to stomp onto a patch of grass.

“Wh… what are you doing?”

“Shh. We’re onto something.”

“This is governmental property.”

“We have a search warrant, Officer. Plus, I’m not sure the mayor knows what he's got here.”

The detective stopped her stomping and now progressed to lightly tapping the ground, listening closely.

“This is the point. I’m certain of it.”

She continued tapping the ground, then came to a sudden halt.

“This patch here had been tampered with. This is not real grass. Quite a remarkable mockup, but it’s not the real deal. And, listen … “

Detective Duncan resumed her tapping while Lanneghan listened carefully.

“Doesn’t it sound a bit hollow to you, Officer?”

“Now that you mention it, it does.”

“Give me a hand with this one, will ya!?”

After sliding on a pair of gloves, she lowered herself and placed her hands on the patch, starting to carefully examine its surface. Officer Lanneghan followed suit. After a while, she noticed that there were four subtle dents with a close to exact same proximity to each other hidden in the grass, lined up in a rectangular formation.

“This might sound crazy, but what I want you to do, Officer, is place your thumb, index-and-middle finger in those two dents each. I’ll do the same on my end. On a count of three, we’ll start digging in. You got that?”

“Roger that.”

The two started digging into the soil, trying to grab onto whatever they could find under its surface. After a while, Lanneghan felt something that seemed like thin blanket or a sturdy sheet.

“I think I got something.”

“Yeah, me too. Try to find the edges.”

“Well, uh, where could it … oh! I think I found one.”

“Good. Keep looking.”

After both were able to grab onto the edges of the unidentified object, they started to pull it upwards.

“Don’t be gentle with it, Officer. Remember: Search warrant.”

Having put in quite some muscle-effort, the two were able to pull out the blanket-like object, taking the faux-grass surface with it. It lay on top of the tensile piece of fabric like brick. With it, a few lumps of carefully re-inserted lumps of soil were scattered about. Below the mockup, a hollowed-out, shallow pit appeared. The noise was now louder than it had ever been. Scattered within lay a set of seven pocket watches and what looked to be a scroll of sorts.

“All of them have stopped, by the looks of it.”

“Hm, at different times.”

“And, do you see that?”

“Yeah, it looks like … “

“Dried up blood. There has been a struggle.”

“Goodness.”

Detective Duncan slowly removed the scroll and was just about to put it into an evidence-bag, when something on the outer corner of the sheet caught her eye. In bold letters, it read:

“PLEASED TO MEET YOU, DETECTIVE DUNCAN. GLAD, YOU COULD MAKE IT.”

The noise that had been omnipresent up until that point suddenly came to a stop, leaving the two flabbergasted.

Turning towards Lanneghan, Maria realized that this case would be a lot more complicated than she had initially hoped.

“Do you know a good place to get coffee around here, Officer? I guess I will be needing a hell lot of it.”