Detective Richard Ness sat back in his office chair, reminiscing about the time his coffee was actually hot and he had an idea of what he wanted to do. He fidgeted with his stapler for a few moments while running some ideas through his head on this new case given to him by his superior, whom he simply referred to as "Commander". While waiting for the printer Richard sat back in an old style wooden hard chair that squeaked in odd places and that he really disliked, as it was too small and uncomfortable for him. He made a mental note to put in a request to get it changed. His partner John Ramos, a stout and surly looking beat cop, now promoted to work on this special case with Richard looked at him with tired but inquisitive eyes. They for a few moments sat in silence until the printer to the left of Richard started making noise and printed out a single page of information. Richard grabbed the paper immediately, scanning it over quickly, then somewhat confused looked to John,

" The database came up empty John. She is not in the system. I also checked for any calls involving a missing persons report in the last twenty four hours, and still nothing."

John heaved a big sigh, then as if by cue, so did Richard. John took a long drink of his cold coffee as did Richard and then they both placed their mugs down on the old but functionable battered metal table that Richard was sitting at.  Richard gently placed the printed paper down as if this somehow would reveal more information to him. It did not. Richard looked up at John,

"I think I want to go back to the house and take another look John. Something seemed off to me but I can't explain why yet." John nodded slowly at first then a little more enthusiastically, "Yeah I felt something off when I was there as well. Let's go take another look."

At this point Richard who stood six feet tall, stood up, grabbed his brown blazer off of the back of his old and uncomfortable wooden chair. and he followed John out of the door of the Astoria Police Station. They were off to 1137 Kemper Avenue to determine what clues if any they could find on their new Jane Doe that was found on the porch there. Behind them emblazoned on the door of their office were the letters A.P.S. Simple, and easy for people to understand. It stood for Astoria Police Station. With agrand staff total of seven people including them.

  About twenty minutes after leaving the station they arrived at 1137 Kemper Avenue. The street itself was in disarray as the residence they were at was dilapidated. Overgrown grass that needed tending a long time ago, grew in clumps in wild abandon all over the place. Chunks of the house at this address were strewn over property lines as if a fierce three day storm had rolled through this area. Roof shingles hung down from the roof in a haphazard array most likely set in motion by the strong winds that were common in the area all year around. An off hue faded muted yellow paint dictated the sad state of disrepair that this house was in.

   A large raven was perched awkwardly and could be seen jumping from leg to leg to try and gain a better claw hold of the damaged roof piece clearly dangling from a section of the roof that had given away quite sometime ago.  The men approached slowly as if they were expecting fugitives to be inside.  Smashed large windows off of a somewhat long driveway greeted them upon their arrival to the front door. Police tape with the words "Do Not Cross" were over three windows and across the door. On the ground a yellow chalk out line showing where the body of their Jane Doe was found only 24 hours before. Richard inserted a key turned the knob and gained entry into the house, after removing the tape of course. 

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  The house lay out was odd in that it had a narrow hallway with a small bathroom to the left. The door of that bathroom was barely hanging off its hinges, looking like it could snap off at any moment. Bits of recycled paper and really old newspaper were dispersed throughout the house, indicating at some point most likely a squatter or squatters were holed up here. After the bathroom the narrow hallway led to a small kitchen where the design seemed like a plan B, as if the owners ran out of money to invest in something more grand. It had an off smell somewhere between animal feces and stale dandelions. a heavy musty smell of decay was present throughout the entire house. The scent was strong enough that both Richard and John pulled out kerchiefs and covered their noses. Slightly past the kitchen a living area was situated with old ruined curtains barely hanging on to the wall over two small grimy, filthy windows. Richard imagined even in their original state, they would have done nothing to improve the look of the place. Slightly ahead and to the right of Richard stood John in the middle of the living room where he pointed to the ground using his flashlight and spoke breaking the silence to Richard, his voice echoing in the otherwise empty house.  

" The dust whorls all go in a pattern form from right to left but here they look different, they go left to right."

Richard bent over with a stern look upon the area John was flashing his light over and started nodding his head in agreement.  Richard then breaking his silence said,

"The floor looks slightly raised here John" He reached out his right hand and swept the dust about which revealed a slight lift in the floorboards. In one swift movement he ran his fingers along a barely noticeable ridgeline and pulled up. To his surprise a section of the floor boards came up easily to reveal a set of about fifteen stairs going down to what appeared to be a small maybe four foot wide, and barely five foot high metal door. The door unlike the rest of the house looked new, as if it had been installed days ago. The unusual thing with this oddly new looking door was there was no visible knob or handle or any apparent way to open the door. Stumped, both men tried pushing on the door, with John even leaning his right shoulder fairly heavily into the door. All of it to no avail. It was as if the door seemed to be locked from the other side. They snapped a couple of pictures with their android phones and decided to come back at a later time with with the appropriate hardware to open the door. Upon leaving the house the raven on the roof let out a long and very vocal cry, as if trying to warn them about something urgent. As if on cue from the eerie sound the raven let out, rain started falling and fog common at this time of year whorled around Richard and John as they headed back to their vehicle to head back to the station. It was November in Astoria and darkness always set in early...