This is a mystery story centering on the main character known only as Detective. I put a lot of effort to describe the main character through his actions and what he says. It also helped to describe the Detective when I wrote about what other characters said about him and how they reacted to his actions. I kept a nice paragraph transition from scene to scene to allow the story to flow nicely. I chose this piece due to its emphasis on the character development of the main character and I enjoyed writing this piece to strengthen my character development skills.
The House on Maple Street
The house on Maple Street was bright and colorful; it lit up the night sky. It was on fire. The roof was engulfed in flames. Fire raged out of the windows. The firefighters struggled to put out the flames. Several of them kept going inside to check for survivors.
Why was I there? Why was a senior detective called to a suburban house fire? One of the firefighters discovered a dead body inside. Once the fire was out my job began.
The name is John Smith. Oh not me, the dead guy. He owned the house and had perished in it. It was funny, his entire front side was charred but his back and especially his back pocket where his wallet was, was completely fine. A little hot, but just fine. In his wallet lay his I.D. badge at a local science facility. He was a physicist.
The fire had burned a hole in the roof, allowing the new light of morning into the charred house. The body was burned to the bone. Few organs remained in his belly, and it was impossible to tell those that remain which were which. The rib cage was intact, but it had a scratch in it. The scratch extended from one rib to the adjacent one, about one inch long. Puncture wound, direct impact to heart and possible lungs, I thought.
Mr. Smith had died in his living room, ironic. On one wall there was a cabinet about waist high surprisingly untouched by the fire. On the top there was a large area for people to display all the pictures of their loved ones. Mr. Smith had many pictures, but they weren’t there. They were all on the floor. They had been pushed off or thrown. There were several scratches on the cabinet indicating that this had happened several times.
“Detective, aren’t you going to check the body some more?” asked a police officer who was curious as to why I was checking out Mr. Smith’s furniture.
“Nope.” I simply replied. I didn’t need to check the body more because I was done with it, I thought. He’s the Coroner’s problem now.
“Okay then.” He said. Or at least that’s what I thought he said. I wasn’t listening to him. I had more important things to do. I continued to look around some more.
The fire did not harm the kitchen very much. Most of the cabinets and drawers lay untouched and very organized. His knife holder was filled with several knives. All kinds of knives were in there, except one. An ordinary cutting knife about an inch wide was missing.
His filing cabinet in his study was also very organized. There was one folder that was very peculiar. It had several applications for NASA inside. And in his trash lay several ripped up letters from NASA. Several denial letters. He had constantly applied for NASA and never got in. He had wanted so badly to work for them but he was always denied.
I had all the information I needed. I went back to the crime lab. There wasn’t much I needed to do there. Others were doing a ton of analysis that I didn’t need. The only thing I needed to do was to chat with the Coroner.
The Coroner’s room was always cold, and it had a smell that you could never figure out. You just knew that it smelled bad. “They don’t care about the smell!” the Coroner had always said. He would also say that, “They like it cold too!”
“Welcome, Detective.” He said formally.
“Hello there, Coroner.” I said jokingly. He looked up at me with a blank face, and then looked right back down at the dead body that lay in front of him. Ten years working together and he still didn’t find it funny.
“Shall we begin?” he asked in his serious manner again.
“Let’s.” I replied in the same serious manner. I was trying to see if he had noticed that I was mocking him. He never did, or at least he didn’t show it.
I walked up to the table where the charred body lay, standing to the body’s left while the Coroner stood at his right.
“What’s the diagnosis, doc?” I asked.
“John K. Smith stood 5 foot 11 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. There are several third degree burns across the front of the body. The back however, does not have significant burns.” He explained as he started his long and descriptive diagnosis.
“So he was probably dead before the fire started. He was on his back and the fire could only burn his front side.” I interrupted.
“Correct. There are no signs showing that the fire killed him. Analysis of his blood shows a high concentration of an unidentified drug in his blood. They’re running diagnostics on it now.”
“So he was drugged?” I asked.
“Yes, but not enough to kill him. It was enough to cause hallucinogens and dehydration, but it was not lethal.”
“So what was the cause of death?” I was getting tired of all these little side things so I just jumped to the conclusion.
“John K. Smith died at 11:42 pm to a knife wound in his chest between the second and third ribs on his right side.” He explained as he pointed out the wound on the body. “The blade was about an inch wide as you can see from the scratches it made on the ribs. The blade penetrated two inches into his body, piercing the lungs. He bled to death within a matter of minutes. But you already know this, don’t you?”
His statement surprised me, for he wasn’t usually upfront about things like this. I answered his question truthfully. “I saw the wound at the crime scene. There was also a knife missing in his kitchen. The man was very organized, so he would not be missing a knife for long.”
“Do the other detectives know about this?” the Coroner asked.
“Well what time is it? About noon? Then they should probably figure it out soon.” I explained.
“Typical.” He said shaking his head.
“What?” I asked with confusion.
“It still surprises me to this day. After working here for nearly thirty years you are the only detective I know who can get a case in the morning and then fully solve it, culprit and all, in time to go home for dinner the very same evening.” He explained.
“I’ve got some chicken prepared. Would you like to join me?”
He chuckled. “No thank you, I have a job to do that actually requires my full attention.”
“Suit yourself. Oh and they’re not called culprits anymore, they’re called suspects.” I said as I left the room. The Coroner went about his business with his clients, the dead bodies.
I was walking down the hall of the crime lab when a police officer stopped me and said, “Detective, we have a suspect in the interrogation room.”
“Why do we have a suspect already?” I asked.
“You told me to take someone in for further questioning if they were acting strange. She was very nervous and could not answer our questions. Her name is Stacey Robinson.”
“Thank you officer.” I said as I took the folder that he gave me. Inside was some basic background on her, mostly useless stuff though.
On my way to the interrogation room, someone from the diagnostics lab came up and began walking with me. “Detective, we found the murder weapon. It’s a…”
“A knife from the kitchen.” I interrupted.
“Uhh… Yes. It was found under the burnt couch.” He said nervously, “But how did you know?”
“That doesn’t matter right now.” I explained, “Right now I have to interrogate my first suspect.”
The diagnostics guy stopped in shock, “How do you already have a suspect?”
He never got an answer. I was already entering the interrogation room. There in the small, gray room sat Stacey at a small table. I sat down across from her and began laying out the folder and its contents. It was just for show, the papers had no useful information whatsoever but it made me look professional and it seemed as if I knew more info than I did. It’s a nice trick to intimidate suspects.
“Robinson, Stacey Robinson?” I asked.
“Yes that is me.” She answered. She was very nervous. Her eyes where never fixed on one point. Her head was tilted down.
“I am the Detective assigned to the case of John K. Smith. How did you know the victim?” I began. I had kept my eyes on the papers.
“We knew each other in college and we work together. We were good friends. How did he die?” She had asked hoping for some answers.
“How would you describe Mr. Smith?” My interrogation was straight to the point.
“He… um… was very hard working and he worked very hard. He always put his best effort into working hard.” It was not difficult to tell that she was uneasy. She was speaking very strangely and biting her lip. Her fingers were also twitching. She was nervous: she was hiding something.
“It says here that you were with the victim for a couple of hours yesterday before the murder. What happened?”
“I just came over to talk. He actually opened a letter from NASA. Another denial letter...”
“Yes it does show that he was applying.” I interrupted while still looking down.
“He started stressing out… I tried to calm him down. He just freaks out sometimes.”
I could see it clearly. A man welcomes a friend into his house. As she comes in he opens his mail. Denied. He has seen it so many times he explodes with rage and anger. He starts breaking things, he throws all of his pictures on the ground. She tries to put some back.
“I tried to calm him down. I got him a glass of water.” She said trembling.
She does get a glass of water, but she puts a drug in it. Probably a pill of some sort, I thought. He gives it to him although he doesn’t know what is in it. She hopes to calm him down.
“He did calm down thankfully, but he was still a little… strange.”
The drugs relax him but he starts acting up again only without fear.
“It was scary… to see him like that.” She added.
She is again frightened by his behavior. She doesn’t know what to do. In an altercation she has to draw the knife from the kitchen on him. She accidently stabs him in the chest and kills him.
“When everything was okay, I left. I heard about the fire later in the evening…”
Trying to hide her tracks she sets the body and house on fire. Once everything was okay she left hoping not to get caught. Everything came full circle.
“Detective?” she asked as I came to my senses. My ‘”vision” had left me with a blank face. Stacey was confused. It did not matter though.
I looked directly into her eyes as I said all that was necessary to say: “It’s over.”
“Okay so I can leave?” she asked, “I can go…”
“You’re under arrest for the murder of John K. Smith.”
A police officer came in to cuff her as I left the room. The day is done. It’s too bad the Coroner can’t join me for supper.
