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Post by Beelzebibble on Feb 5, 2011 21:18:37 GMT -5
"Julia, then. You see..." Williams faltered for a fraction of a second, unable to decide whether he wanted to offer "Perry" in return. He wasn't too sure it would be appropriate to be on a first-name basis with anyone in Saeptum... Anyway, by the time the thought had fully formed in his head, the moment was gone. "You see, several associates and I were examining Mr. Odio's house this afternoon, and we found this among his effects." He was expecting her eyebrows to rise at least a centimeter when he pulled the shampoo bottle out of his pocket, and wasn't disappointed -- but she didn't cut in to ask what was so special about a shampoo bottle the way some assholes would. There was a degree of restraint common to most non-scarf-wearing Saeptum associates he'd met, and he admired this. He handed it to her. "Open it if you like. Take a look. There's a vial in there and I've got no idea what it's supposed to be holding, but it feels very unnatural." OOC: I guess I already exhausted my supply of good RP post for the day. Too bad.
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Mar 2, 2011 17:48:53 GMT -5
~*~*~2:00 PM, Criminal Affairs Bureau Records Room, Winstone~*~*~
Illiana pulled open another drawer, met once again with more files than she could count. Inside the drawer, files on people with surnames beginning with the letter "m". She flipped through in reverse. Miles, Michael, Meek, McDonald, McColl, McAbe, more Mc-names that she flipped straight past. No "Marshall" in this drawer. She slid it shut again, and opened the next. Somewhere nearby, Yoshimitsu was flipping through the "J"s in case someone had messed up and placed the file in the wrong place.
"Why do so many names start with Mac?" Illiana asked, receiving a chuckle from her friend. She continued her hunt.
"Doesn't look like his file's in this one," Yoshimitsu called to Illiana. "People here must really be on the ball with filing."
"With officers like Williams? Not surprised," Illiana replied. She skimmed a few names, her eyes finally resting on the file she was hunting. Marshall, Jacob. Before opening it, she questioned the choices that had lead her to this point. She couldn't decide why, exactly, she was hunting down Marshall's file. She had bluffed her way in, saying that there was a potential link between the murder investigation, but she wasn't being entirely truthful. Now that she had the file in her hands, however, she was hesitant. There was a link. Out of everyone involved in the case so far, Marshall had one thing that no one else did.
Motive.
"What's up?" Yoshimitsu asked, appearing at Illiana's side. He nodded to the file. "Not gonna read it?"
"Marshall... I'm worried," Illiana admitted, her eyes not leaving his name. "I get the feeling that once I open this file, the entire case might change."
"Only one way to find out, I guess," Yoshimitsu encouraged.
Illiana nodded, and pulled back the cord binding the plastic. Inside was a collection of different papers, mostly barely informative data sheets. She skim read a few of them, looking for some information regarding Marshall and Antonio. His career history was interesting enough. A permanent payroll detective, working right here in Winstone up until three years ago when he was let go due to endangering his co-workers. She glanced down the page, her eyes resting on a single line.
Suspect in the burglary of Edward Diamond.[/b]
"Edward Diamond?" Illiana asked, frowning.
"World's largest recorded diamond, it was stolen years ago but no culprit was ever found," Yoshimitsu explained briefly. "Of course, it had to be..."
"Doesn't surprise me," Illiana cut in before Yoshimitsu could say Antonio's name.
"So somehow the blame was pinned on Marshall?" Yoshimitsu asked, though not directing the question at Illiana. "Is there any more about it in there?"
Illiana flipped through the sheets again, finally finding a sheet on light pink paper. It was titled, "Edward Diamond Theft".
"They're not overly imaginative with names, are they?" Illiana commented. Yoshimitsu laughed, and the pair read the sparse information given.
Prime suspect for theft: The Butterfly Secondary suspect: Jacob Marshall Received an anonymous tip regarding Marshall In court, information regarding Marshall's knowledge of The Butterfly was revealed. No conclusive evidence was provided linking Marshall to the Butterfly. Case ended with no one convicted.[/b]
"I knew it," Illiana muttered. "Marshall has the motive to try to link Antonio to the crime. He might be able to link Antonio and The Butterfly too."
Illiana and Yoshimitsu looked at each other, Illiana's troubled expression prominent on her features. She couldn't read Yoshimitsu's expression.
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Post by ch00beh on Mar 5, 2011 22:43:20 GMT -5
Julia didn't bother masking her confusion at the shampoo bottle, but she assumed that a bald man would be carrying one around for business rather than personal use.
"Open it if you like..."
The doctor took the bottle, simultaneously surprised and not that the container didn't feel heavy or unstable enough to be holding a liquid. She unscrewed the top and looked inside to find a wad of paper towel.
"I guess there's more inside?" she wondered aloud. Williams gave a half nod. Julia could see that he wasn't sure if she was talking to him or not.
The doctor used her free hand to unzip her purse and rummaged around inside it, eventually pulling out a white latex glove. She placed the bottle on the ground, gloved up, then gently reached inside the container to pluck out the tissues. After much tearing and sticking to the wet surfaces inside, Julia eventually worked the wad out. Yes, something was inside. She unwrapped it carefully, and before the last layer was undone, she could already tell that the vial was glowing an ethereal blue. As the vial became completely exposed, the doctor felt an odd tingle in her hands and at the back of her mind.
Julia raised an eyebrow as she held the vial up to the light. "Magic. Not sure what, but the blue indicates some kind of power of the mind, I think."
With that, Julia pulled the wrist up of her glove off her hand and surrounding the vial in latex. She tied it off with a quick not then put it in her jacket pocket. "I'll get this back to Saeptum as soon as possible. Thank you for bringing this to us, Commissioner."
The woman smiled and reached out a hand to shake the man's hand again.
She then walked back into the jail cell. Barclay was slouched against a wall playing with a spinning ink splatter that floated in the area. "Are you finished in here?"
"Totes done, babe."
Julia didn't even give him the pleasure of an eye roll. "Then let's go. We have a delivery that needs to be made."
Barclay bounced up to his feet. "Sweet. This place is super boring."
With that, the two walked (well, Julia walked; Barclay did more of a rhythmic strut) back through the long series of corridors to the outside world.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Mar 16, 2011 17:33:21 GMT -5
OOC: Oh yes, that's right. Other RPs exist. I have other commitments beyond Househeld. I'd nearly forgotten. I was in quite the silly old trance just then. Let me attempt to dredge up some measure of creativity not squeezed from the tears shed by my monitor-weary eyes after spending fifty thousand hours reading Homestuck. Mind you, it's not going to be easy. After all, I have basically gone completely off the deep end in every way, as is now painfully obvious to everyone with a brain. “Good afternoon, Commissioner,” hailed a voice, and Williams noticed for the first time a nurse in a white smock standing at the other end of the hall. A middle-aged woman with graying brown hair. Behind her, a security officer who gave the Commissioner a brief salute. Among the adornments on the cart the nurse pushed were: two syringes in a shallow chrome basin; two pills on a plate; a tiny plastic cup of water; two bandaids; a ziplock bag containing a larger cup with a yellow sponge inside. “Afternoon,” said Williams with another glance at the syringes. “You don’t have the flu going around, do you? I need to wash my hands?” The nurse smiled. “Nothing like that. Just a daily injection.” “Who’s the inmate?” asked the Commissioner, nodding to the door where the other two had stopped. “SC4-9140,” the guard promptly answered, with an unhelpful precision that Williams found himself powerless to berate. “Saybolt,” the nurse clarified. “He’s only been with us a couple months – you might have seen it on the news…” In fact, Williams had read it in the Winstone Post (he had little use for news programs on the television; while there was barely much of an argument at this point that the papers were any less diseased with hype, propaganda and sensational reporting than televised newscasts, at least the Post gave him all the time he needed to actually digest a new piece of information and weigh it against his hitherto knowledge). Such-and-such Saybolt, a Power with such-and-such society-breaking ability, arrested on such-and-such counts in the Cianwood area and eventually clapped off to this very penitentiary. He’d lost track of the specifics: as a convict on the loose, Saybolt had been outside Williams’ immediate area of concern. And there was certainly nothing unusual about more hazardous Powers trickling into this facility from the outer reaches of Johto. Still, the Commissioner was easily annoyed with himself by such lapses in memory: he really should have been able to name all the prisoners in Special Confinement as well as their transgressions off the top of his head. They were his true interest, after all. The nurse had correctly interpreted his silence. “Say hello while you’re here? He’s perfectly safe,” she added. “Actually it’ll only be safer with you around, now that I think of it.” Williams nodded. “If you don’t mind.” The officer stepped forward with his ring of keys, and as his boots came down on the concrete floor just outside the door, Williams saw a black shape materialize beneath his feet. A complex, mathematical shape – a ring of angles and points. The dark glow shimmered for an instant before fading away again. The officer, who had taken no notice, turned the key in the lock, rolled the door open and walked into the dark cell. The nurse followed him, her cart rattling; again the inscribed shape appeared momentarily underneath her shoes as she crossed the threshold. The security officer, standing at attention on the other side of the doorway, caught sight of the hesitant Williams and nodded. “It’s okay,” he said. “What matters is it knows who you’re not.” So Commissioner Williams set down both feet firmly on the space in front of the doorway, to allow the caster’s fractal ample time to register and sanction his presence, before he entered the cell. It was a tiny, bare room, empty save for the bed. There, strapped to the mattress at the wrists, waist and ankles, lay a tall, buzz-cut, stocky man of top-heavy build dressed not in the orange scrubs of a prisoner but in a bedrobe. His skin was pale and veiny, his eyes baggy and sunken, and Williams’ first thought was that the man looked as if he belonged in a proper hospital. But that was impossible, of course, or at least unfeasible, because what hospital would knowingly take in a patient whose presence might put the lives of their other dependents at risk? There’d been that one clinic – not in Winstone, thank god, out in Sinnoh somewhere – a decade or so back. Their final inpatient had been a “leveller” – a gravity manipulator. Turned out doping him up on morphine had not had the desired effect of toning down his abilities. All it’d accomplished was to make him lose touch with their extent: He’d been numbed to his own power. One ward got flattened and that hospital had closed its doors. There was the humanitarian argument: institutions with the aim of saving lives wanted no volatile factors, no potential time bombs, within their walls. Too many helpless invalids might suffer unjustly as they had in Sinnoh. There was also, Williams was not too righteously short-sighted to notice, the financial argument. To wit: if the community got wind that St. Adelaide Medical Center & Nursing Home had admitted a woman with a cranial injury and a tendency to start hurricanes around herself whenever she got upset, most sensible citizens’ reaction would be to give old Addie a miss for a while. Enough budgets had been hacked down to size for this very reason to make hospitals wary of taking in Powers even here, let alone throughout the rest of the world. None of which, however, changed the fact that this man Saybolt looked to be in a pretty ugly state. “How’re you feeling today?” the nurse asked, but she received no answer, for as soon as Saybolt noticed Williams, his eyes widened, with a savage shine recalling a cornered animal. His fingers gave a sudden, violent twitch and he pulled back against the straps of the bed. “No no – you don’t need to worry, the Commissioner was just passing through. He’s not here for you.” The prisoner relaxed slightly at that, and the nurse continued in a quieter voice, “Really, are you feeling all right today?” Saybolt mumbled something. “Good! Then we’ll just go ahead and…” With continuing reassurance, the nurse offered him the two pills, pressing them (not gingerly, Williams noticed with appreciation; let no nurse be wishy-washy) onto his dry tongue. Then she poured the water into his mouth. Then she peeled away a pair of bandaids from his bare, shaved arms. His dull expression flickered not at all throughout this routine, nor even when she picked up the first needle and carefully injected it into his left wrist. “What is it?” Williams muttered to the security officer. “Suppresses local motor functions. We don’t want SC4-9140 using his hands. Let him get ahold of anything and he’s a lot harder to contain. They found that out the hard way in Cianwood.” “Did they?” he asked, watching the nurse deliver the second shot. Saybolt’s fingers twitched no more, only dangled limp at the sides of the bed. Only his slightly furrowed eyebrows betrayed the slightest feeling. After she’d cleaned his wrists, she applied the fresh pair of bandaids. That accounted for all the significant items on the cart except for the sponge in the cup. “Oh, you had another accident, didn’t you,” the nurse was groaning, turning over the folds of the southern region of his bedrobe. “And I keep telling the night shift to pace your liquid intake…” “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” said Williams hastily to the guard. Even a Power and a criminal had some dignity. “Keep up the good work, both of you.” And without looking again at the nurse and Saybolt, he raised a quick hand in farewell and stepped out of the cell, Trent's fractal once again shimmering underneath his feet. Sharpe’s quarters back down the hall weren’t nearly so bleak. Still recognizably a prison hold, of course, but the room boasted a modest green armchair and an old wooden desk, neither of which Williams had ever noticed on the premises before. Awfully generous of them, providing furniture, when the Commissioner’d known Powers who could have killed the whole staff and escaped from the penitentiary with nothing in hand but a few broken-off splinters. The teenager was resting one elbow on the desk and writing something in a slow, deliberate script. He’d already filled one page, which dangled off the wooden edge next to the sheet he was now writing on; a third piece of paper lay crumpled into a ball at his elbow. “So how’d you swing the luxury suite?” Williams asked. “Not bribery, I’m sure.”
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Post by Tout-Perd on Apr 10, 2011 2:35:09 GMT -5
~*~*~3:30PM HAST, Fascere Order Headquarters, Hawaii~*~*~ The blinds were lowered, filtering the bold Hawaiian sun into bars that played across the plush green carpet. There was slight movement, a mouse-sized creature gleaming as it darted through the striations of sunshine. It clambered up an ornate steel column, no more concerned by the vertical inclination than it had been by the level floor. It stopped scrambling for a moment, pausing as the desk’s metal transitioned into perfectly carved granite. Half a foot to the creature’s right, there was a single divot in the marbled viridian stone, as if some hooligan had bashed it with a sledgehammer. A well groomed man, his hair more salt than pepper, tapped his silver pen upon the desk. A spreadsheet listing a variety of countries and rows of numbers after each was beneath his left forearm, and a sudoku puzzle printed on glossy paper was to his right. There was a loud knock at the door. And then two more knocks. After a brief respite, the potential guest began hammering away as if he were engaged in a passionate drum solo. The man sighed, set down his pen, and then slipped his hand into his breast pocket. When it emerged, he had a tarnished ring upon his little finger. “Come in, Nopcsa.” The door swung open of its own accord, and revealed a youth. He was attired entirely in white, except for his polished black shoes. A few clear beads embroidered into his dress shirt glimmered in the light. “Mornin’ Mr. Tylor. What’s up?” Nopcsa pulled a chair away from the desk with the toe of his shoe, and then threw himself down on it. The gecko that had been darting about all morning quickly dashed for the cover provided by the sudoku booklet. “Still accessorizing wonderfully, I must admit. Though Giguere certainly had good taste in jewelry, that ring really brings out the grey in your eyes.” “Wouldn’t even think of meeting you without being properly attired…” Auguste raised his fingertip to his temple, and tapped twice, “There’s a reason I keep you gentlemen on a need to know basis.” “And blackmailing you with information about your mistress and bank account information has nothing to do with that?” Nopcsa crossed his legs, and leaned back in his seat. “Former mistresses and former bank account information, naturally. Much harder to hit a moving target, after all. But yes, that may have been some of my incentive for sending you on a suicide mission to retrieve an artifact that worked best against your own abilities.” “Can’t fault a man for trying, can you?” “I certainly could have punished you further, but you know me. I make a point of hiring self-starters. I really should anticipate that the type we recruit here have a tendency towards… Overextending their ambitions.” “I just wanted a new coffee maker in the break room, and a new foosball table. After all, Siboglinum melted the plastic handles off of the blue team, and you really can’t expect us to go risking our lives for you if we have to make do with a naked metal pole when playing the blue guys. Think about the impact that has on morale!” “True, true. I’d placed the order for a new table as of your completion of the L. Doyle delivery, but you know how mundane shipping is…” Auguste’s voice slowed with the last few words, the exasperation evident even under his cultivated tones, “Besides, the whole… blackmail matter. It’s more about the principle of the thing than what you were trying to achieve. Consider it a compliment that I didn’t let Nachoset know about what you were trying to pull.” “I really would, but I already know you’d deal with a half dozen of me before you’d consider calling him back from the field. In your own words,” Nopcsa said with a confident grin. “The man does good work. He… simply works best when he’s not bringing his stab-and-maul policies to a setting more suited for negotiations and pleasantries. He once threatened to vivisect a high ranking politician who was trying to haggle over a certain bauble a few years back…” Auguste sighed again, and raised the puzzle with his fingertips. The gecko, a minute golem hewn from emeralds of varying shades, tentatively climbed up his sleeve. “Needless to say, the man did settle on our price, but you can see how that goes against the image we try to project in civilized society.” “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that I’m pulling a fifty-nine to aught on my ‘people threatening to stab me’ versus ‘me threatening to stab people’ ratio. I think if I can get a few more death threats, I earn a complementary steak knife, right?” Nopcsa raised his fingertips to his cheek, touching the garish scars that marred his otherwise boyish visage. “Indeed, you are certainly a born negotiator…” Tylor’s mustache twitched slightly, “Which I suppose is likely what brings you here.” “You called me, not the other way around. Unless we’ve got another chronal inversion field popping up in the break room. Not like this’d be the first time… or the second. It’s as they say, after all. Time flies backwards when you’re having fun.” “No, no, I did call you here. But in about thirty seconds, you’ll know as much about this assignment as I do.” “Wait, you’re… you’re letting somebody give us an assignment without demanding the full scenario from them?” “Afraid so, Nopcsa. We may have the financial and political clout to dominate even mid-sized nations in negotiations, but…” “Hoo boy. The red, white, and blue must be asking a favor.” “And they’re keeping us on a need to know basis.” “Ah, wonderful. So, what do I need to know?” “A Power was recently apprehended and accused of murder. Though they didn’t tell me the exact circumstances of the case, it seems that Antonio, accomplice to the famous artifact thief known as ‘The Butterfly’, is the one going on trial for a part in the crime. The Butterfly, the one who supposedly committed the murder, is still at large,” Through the last few words, Auguste’s typically sociable veneer seemed to erode, his eyes narrowing even though he maintained his subdued smile. “The Butterfly? Shit, boss! Didn’t he clean out your place once?” “Twice, actually. And yet still, I’m more fortunate than many of his victims. But… Something here seems off to me.” “No kiddin’. I always thought they called him The Butterfly because he was about as likely to harm somebody as one. Murder is a pretty huge step up, unless his modus operandi was stealing a guy’s pacemaker without the fellow noticing.” “It’s not just that, Nopcsa. Though I’m not certain where these orders are coming from, the trial appears to be composed entirely of Powers. The lady who reached me didn’t clarify if this was because The Butterfly was entitled to a jury of his peers, or if the U.S. is simply trying to divorce itself even farther from the government of the Archipelago.” “And they wanted me for jury duty. Got it. Yeesh, even if you change your name and live in a scryproof building, they STILL can track you down for it. On the bright side, I’m pretty sure they’ll be giving out some neat little complementary notepads…” “That’s just it… They didn’t call me up to get somebody for jury duty. They called me, somebody who has every reason in the world to hate the suspect-“ “Yes?” “And they asked me if I could furnish them with a prosecutor,” Auguste pushed his pen to the side with his fingertips. “If I’d so felt, I myself could go and fill the role and do everything within my power to get him convicted. And with my influence and station, that would be a sure thing.” “But instead, you’re sending me, a guy with no real knowledge of the legal system, and even LESS knowledge of the convoluted pseudo-American laws in the Archipelago.” “I am. Don’t worry about it, I’ve arranged for you to sit behind one M. Hajdu on the flight over, so you should be able to brush up for a couple hours. He’s one of the most eminent legal professionals in the entire Archipelago, and just so happened to be on vacation in Hawaii for the past five days.” “’Unfortunately’, one of his clients is having issues dealing with accusations from thirty five women about sexual harassment, and he’s needed to cut his holiday short to come to their aid.” “Thirty five women… or one shapeshifter?” Nopcsa’s catlike grin widened. “Even when you can’t look inside my head, you’re still quite good at following my train of thought,” Auguste steepled his fingers over his desktop, the gecko crossing over to his other sleeve, “So you’ve probably already figured out why I’m putting you on this assignment.” “Yup. You smell a rat, and so you want a man on the ground there who can look in EVERY dark corner. Bonus points for making it look like you’re sending me simply because a mind-reader would make an exceptional prosecutor. Bonus bonus points if I learn the true identity of The Butterfly.” “Exactly. However this scenario plays out, I think it’s prudent that we keep the closest eye possible on this case.” “I most certainly will, boss.” OOC: So, who here can tell I’ve been watching a lot of Ghost in the Shell? I think I’m coming at this plot from a pretty odd angle.
But yeah, I think Nopcsa’s arrival will really be the capstone that leads to things getting totally insane in the next part of the plot.
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Apr 17, 2011 11:52:51 GMT -5
~*~*~ Three Years Ago, Criminal Affairs Bureau, Interrogation Room ~*~*~
Footsteps. Jangling metal with each footfall. The whirling of keys, in a display of power. Jacob Marshall walking down a corridor to meet a suspect or a detainee. It was the same show, and it usually had the same effect on everyone. It usually made them feel inferior, like ants compared to a giant. It was his tried and tested technique. A laid-back officer who knew his place well, and wouldn't fall victim to trickery and lies. Most of the criminals he interrogated were the same, insofar that they feared Jacob Marshall. Rumours circulated around the underworld. They all said the same thing.
Never get caught by Jacob Marshall, or you'll live a sorry life.
He knew the rumours. And he knew what he had done to create them. Jacob Marshall, the detective with more rights than any other on the force. Even if he got a little over-zealous when in action, his ability to contain criminals and make them confess to their crimes was more than enough to instill fear in the hearts of anyone who crossed him.
There was a slight spring in his step today, though. Something was going right, finally. In his years on the force, he had been seeking out a single criminal who had managed to escape his grasp for far too long. All the other detainees who were behind bars because of him were a distraction, or a necessity depending on who was asking. He didn't want to find himself out of the job, after all, but his primary target was still the Butterfly. Finally, in this case, the Butterfly had left a piece of evidence. While it was his forte to leave behind the ace of diamonds, this one was special. A finger print from an index finger, and it matched up perfectly with the man... no, the boy in the interrogation room.
The door swung open, and Marshall saw the child sat inside as he walked around to the opposite side of the desk where two cups of coffee lay in wait. Always have the criminal with their back to the door, so they couldn't see who was walking in. The kid was maybe fifteen, sixteen years old, dressed immaculately in a crisp white shirt and black waistcoat, smooth smart trousers and shiny black shoes. He wore silk gloves that shimmered, even in this sparse light. A bored expression was set firmly on his face. Odd, though. The Butterfly was known to wear a half-butterfly mask on one half of his face. This child had nothing of the sort. The only thing Marshall picked up on was the deceit. No magical interference, but a lie all the same. The mask should have been there.
"Howdy, pardner," Marshall greeted to announce his presence.
"Detective," the child replied in a bored voice, smoothing the creases in his shirt.
"Tell me, boy, the Edward Diamond," Marshall started, leafing through the papers in his hands.
"I have a name," was the immediately response. Almost a knee-jerk reaction, Marshall noted. Kid didn't like to be looked down on, apparently.
"I don't care, pardner," Marshall retorted. "Yeh a criminal, an' yeh deserve the respect that any criminal does. None."
"Come now, Detective, do you really imagine a mere child like myself is capable of such a theft?"
"As a matter of fact, pardner, I do," Marshall replied. He glanced down at a sheet of paper in front of him. Kid's name was Antonio Sharpe. That was a classy name. "I've seen stranger things in my life. A kid robbin' a big diamond? Not surprisin', pardner."
"And you are under the mistaken impression that I stole the diamond, correct?" Antonio queried.
Marshall saw it on the word 'mistaken'. A flash of colour. The kid was lying.
"An' how are yeh so sure I'm mistaken?" Marshall asked, a smug look on his face.
"I assure you, I did not steal the diamond."
Again, a flash of colour. A stronger lie. Antonio's colours, at least through Marshall's sight, warped and flashed into inverse for just a second.
"I'll give yeh an easy question, then," Marshall stated. "Where were yeh on the third of March at aroun' one in the mornin'?"
"I was, naturally, awake and around the city," Antonio responded. Marshall laughed. It wasn't a lie, but a cleverly worded statement.
"An' yeh'll have an alibi for that, will yeh?"
"And associate myself with the intoxicated ruffians who plague the city at that time? Of course not," Antonio retorted, as though Marshall had personally offended him.
"So yeh still the biggest suspect, pardner," Marshall concluded. "Yeh print was on the card, yeh've got no alibi an' a kid like you has the personality for grand-scale thievery. Taste for pricey things, arrogant enough to do it and smart enough to pull it off. Yeh follow the Butterfly's M.O. perfectly, pardner."
"A person of my age is unlikely to have broken into the museum," Antonio retorted.
"It's unlikely, yeh," Marshall agreed. "Unless yeh've got a way in or knowledge of the security systems. Yeh know that's not impossible."
"And I have no such knowledge."
"Yeh lying to me now, pardner? They shoot yeh for that in Texas."
"Detective," Antonio said. There was an unknown quality in his voice now. Was it... triumph? "I can't help but notice, your eyes have an unusual quality."
"Oh they do, do they?" Marshall asked. He knew where this was going, but wasn't sure how to respond. No one had ever questioned the changing colour of his pupils before.
"Whenever I have told you a false statement during this conversation, they have changed from green to yellow," Antonio stated calmly. "The green is unusual enough. The rumours circulating about you. 'Jacob Marshall, the blue-eyed cowboy'. So, why were your eyes green? I was curious."
"An' what did yeh deduce, pardner?" Marshall asked, a challenging tone to his voice. "What did a cocky little brat like yeh make of that?"
"Every time I said a false statement, your eyes would flicker to yellow," Antonio stated calmly. "From the moment you entered the room, I have had a single false fact running through the entire conversation."
"Yeh mask," Marshall breathed. The kid was right. No one had ever picked up on his power. How had this kid managed to completely analyze and deconstruct his truth-detecting sight in the space of only a few minutes.
Antonio did not respond verbally to the comment, but a smug smirk told Marshall that he was right. Clever boy. If the kid had confirmed the mask, the statement could be used in court.
"So, what now, detective?" Antonio asked. "You are obviously in a very delicate position. I will state my terms now."
"Yeh in no position to negotiate, boy," Marshall challenged. His job was more important than his pride. Bringing this cocky punk to justice was more important than maintaining his secret, surely?
"If you insist on detaining me, an innocent victim, I will spread the knowledge of your... technique among the general population," Antonio stated calmly, interlocking his fingers. "Given your superiors, you will lose your job, your pride and any respect among your peers. You will be left jobless, moneyless, defeated and dejected."
"An' the alternative?"
"If you tell your superiors that I was framed, I will let the whole thing slide and put it in the past," Antonio continued. "You will lose a sliver of respect, for not being able to apprehend a culprit to the theft. However, you will keep your standing as a detective."
Marshall swallowed.
What should he do?
~*~*~Present day, 2:00PM, Winstone Penitenary~*~*~
Antonio looked up as the Commissioner addressed him, but quickly looked back down to the sheet of paper in front of him. He was having a little difficulty feigning outrage in a letter of complaint, though it mattered little since he was only half-heartedly writing it in the first place. He had no intention of handing in a letter of complaint. He would probably sue the police force for emotional trauma. Easier, and more embarrassing for the force.
"Hardly, Commissioner," he replied, without looking up again. "It would be common courtesy, I suppose, for your men to supply a more comfortable suite when you are holding me on such ludicrous charges."
Antonio delicately placed the pen on the table, folded up the paper and left it on the desk. He stood up gracefully, smoothing out the folds in his clothes as he approached the bars of the cell. Taking an extra moment, he adjusted the cuffs on his sleeves, pulled his clothes more firmly on to his hands and ran his fingers through his ruffled hair. He finally looked at the Commissioner, his expression peaceful, almost content. It was a good facade, for Antonio actually felt exceptionally smug to be looking at the man who he had so soundly embarrassed. It had reached Antonio's attention that the Commissioner had installed security cameras in his own office after the small theft of his badge. The teenager had enjoyed a quiet laugh over that.
"What brings you to my humble abode, Commissioner?"
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Post by Beelzebibble on Apr 26, 2011 1:03:27 GMT -5
"Can't you guess? Or've you forgotten why we even met in the first place?" Williams growled, stepping in to lean a forearm against the bars of the door. Another dark fractal flickered predictably beneath his shoes. "The terms in your letter specified what would happen if I won. There wasn't anything in there about the deal breaking off just in case you got arrested. And I'm pretty sure that means you still owe me something."
Sharpe tutted softly and let his eyes wander upward.
The Commissioner blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "Am I not being courteous enough to you? Are we imposing on you, here? Wasting your precious time? Well, here's something else you've forgotten: A man was killed yesterday. There, write that one down, maybe it'll sink in. And a few more lives've been torn apart because of it." Williams stared him down, trying to read his face, but the kid was as deadpan as ever. "Now I guess you're too much of a screwed-up little shit to feel sorry for him even if you had nothing to do with the murder. So be it, buddy, it's up to you what to think. But when you bitch and moan about how 'ludicrous' it is that you're here, Sharpe, that doesn't tell me you're an innocent man. All that tells me is that you don't give a rat's ass whether Larry Odio's killer gets brought to justice or not.
"Now--" he went on, before swallowing forcibly: his throat felt dry. "The prize. Tell me what you know about the Butterfly. I hear anything that might be worth our time, we'll come back with a recording crew and put your disclosure in the books. Cut a step or two out of the trial, make things easier on everyone. Well? Are you talking or not?"
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 4, 2011 10:14:44 GMT -5
POHATU SEZ: Half the following flashback written by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . oh forget it you can guess ~*~*~2PM, Outside the Passione Rossa, Winstone~*~*~ Marshall stood outside the bar, unsurprised that it was closed at this time of the day. Not much clientele, he imagined, as he ran his finger over the revolver hanging at his waist. Three years ago, he had been tempted to become one of the base criminals he arrested on a regular basis. A fateful encounter to be sure, and one that left a sour taste in his mouth. Barely hours after he had been forced to cut a deal with a criminal, which nearly destroyed his reputation. Yoon Mangjeol was the woman he had visited that night. He had heard of her too many times. A woman who revolved around information. Her lust for cash was pretty prominent too. She'd taken a month's wages from him that night, and it had only just been worth it. Even now, she was coming close to bankrupting him every month. She wasn't here right now. Away, apparently. In Europe, if he was remembering correctly. Not that it mattered anyway. ~*~*~Three Years Ago, Passione Rossa, Midnight~*~*~ It was cold. Remarkably so, though given a Johto winter it was not overly surprising. Snowflakes drifted down lightly from the sky, a dusting of white on the concrete landscape. There was a regular crunching sound, followed by a light jangle of metal. There was something almost defiant yet dejected about the noise. Jacob Marshall walked the streets, gun firmly placed at his hip and hat tilted low to prevent snow from blinding him. He turned a corner and took a few more steps. A quick glance over his shoulder before he pushed open the door to the bar. The woman he was seeking sat there, in her usual table. Distinctly underdressed for the weather, he thought, but then she’d have been here since before the snowfall picked up this evening. "Howdy, Miss," he greeted casually, a grin coming to his face naturally. “Good evening, sir," Miss Mangjeol replied, a faint smile on her face as her finger circled the rim of her wine glass. "Have a seat, won’t you? Only would you mind hanging your cloak on the rack? I dislike snow encroaching on this space.” "Of course," Marshall agreed, slipping his poncho off to reveal a dark blue shirt, a shiny star-shaped medal affixed to the breast. He ensured it was securely hanging on the rack before taking the seat opposite her. “How about a sip of something to warm you up?” Miss Mangjeol offered, gesturing to a nearby waitress. "Don' mind if I do," he answered. The waitress paused at the table. "Whatever whiskey yeh sellin' here, big a glass as yeh can give me." The waitress hurried off to retrieve the drink. “Now then, sir. How may I help you? Are you here to buy or sell?” Mangjeol asked, her finger still on the glass. The waitress returned with the drink. Marshall handed over a twenty dollar bill, declining any change. "Yeh could say I've got a few questions," he stated, taking a healthy swig of the whiskey. Staying relaxed was key to these situations. “Ah. To buy, then. Very good. Well: state your first subject, and I’ll give you a cost estimate for the most thorough answer I may provide.” "Ah, Miss Mangjeol, mah apologies," Marshall corrected quickly. "What I mean' to say is I have some questions about myself." She cocked her head slightly. “Do you mean, questions to which you already know the answers? You haven’t been struck on the head and contracted amnesia? Your memories haven’t been erased by a psion?” "I know the answers, yeh," Marshall confirmed, ignoring her faintly sardonic tone. "An' if I know the answers, is it fair to charge me?" “Hmm! How unusual…” Miss Mangjeol had finally stopped twirling her wine glass, and sipped it slowly before she continued. “Though, if you were to ask me such a question, I think we can agree that the answer itself wouldn’t be your aim, would it? What you truly want is to find out whether I know the answer as well. That’s a separate line of inquiry altogether, which, I’m afraid, most certainly has a value to you!” She gave a small titter. “But of course it will depend on the question, and I’ll keep my answers as inexpensive as reason permits.” "I see," he said, somewhat quieter than his usual tone. "That's fair, I guess. Alrighty then, who am I?" “Detective Jacob Marshall," she answered at once. "On the house. I’d feel terribly guilty charging you for that one: your accent and attire give you away in an instant.” "An' yeh'll already know that I'm a Power then," he commented. "Can yeh tell me what it is?" “Twenty dollars.” Marshall slipped a note from his pocket across the table. “I believe I can, yes.” "Alrighty then, what is it?" “Twenty dollars.” Again, he handed over the money. “Flight and fire control.” The music overhead wound down, and there was a moment of relative silence in between songs for him to stare at the Asian woman with surprise and indignation. Though his vision flickered, there was no need: this lie was so blatant the waitress could’ve spotted it, if she hadn’t been giving the table such a wide berth since his arrival. He let out a hoarse half-cough of dismissal. "Miss Mangjeol, if yeh not gonna take me seriously, I'm 'fraid you owe me a refund," he stated, drumming his fingers against his revolver. “Just a moment, please!" Miss Mangjeol said quickly, though she did not waver. "That was a test, Detective, nothing more. Allow me one further guess. If my next words fail to ring true, then the money’s yours.” Doubtful, Marshall wagered. If this was how Mangjeol conducted her business, he was disgusted. He had come with a purpose in mind, not to be ridiculed by a woman who’d peddled crumbs of information to murderers and thieves and somehow thought she had the right to turn her nose up at him. Still... Something about her wording put him on guard. "Jes’ hope this guess is better than yer last one," Marshall stated, leaving the threat hanging in the air. “Your power informs you when you hear a lie. I’m not sure how exactly you become aware of it yourself, but I know that your eyes flash yellow every time the power is triggered,” Mangjeol explained, sipping her wine again. The detective was damned if there wasn’t something smug in her expression. Problem was, she was right. And he could tell she knew she was right. There was no lie present in that statement, so his eyes would’ve remained a crystal clear blue. There was no use trying to deny it, either. He sighed, and took another healthy swig of his whiskey. "An' how did yeh find out?" “Sixty dollars.” Pricey, this time. Marshall made a quick note of the money left on him, then slid sixty dollars across the table. They vanished instantly into Mangjeol’s beaded money-purse, and she straightened up in her seat. “Upon reflection, I’m not sure whether you’ll be relieved or disturbed to hear that no one has ever sold me the knowledge of your power. Shall we call it a very well-educated guess instead?” She smiled. “You see I’ve taken quite an interest in you, Detective, and your flawless record in interrogation. I’ve laid down a considerable investment in order to speak with convicts, ex-convicts and suspects whom you’ve ‘put through the wringer’. Not one of them could pinpoint with any certainty what it was that made you so capable. But they noticed the eyes, Detective. Or rather – I shouldn’t imply all of them did. The suspects who’d been found innocent never recalled seeing your eyes change color. Nor did the criminals who’d pled guilty from the start.” Her tone dropped, and her gaze darkened. “In other words, those who’d never felt the need to lie to you, Jacob Marshall… couldn’t even remember what color your eyes had been to begin with. As for the rest… Now what hypothesis do you think I could’ve drawn from this?” "And yeh interested in this because?" Marshall asked, resting his hand on the revolver. "An' don't try to charge me for that one." Mangjeol tittered again, then replied, "Detective, it's almost unheard of. A law-enforcer blessed with the power of breaking down all suspects in a crime and discerning the ultimate truth of the matter? Don’t you realize how interesting people find this?" "Naw, but then I've grown up with it," he replied. "Of course, your colleagues care only for your prowess in your field, not for the techniques you use," she continued. "Short-sighted of them, though, really, don’t you think? If anyone beyond myself figured out exactly what your gift was, I imagine there could follow quite a scandal, wouldn’t you say? Mind, a human polygraph isn’t the worst sort of Power you could find on a Commissioner’s payroll, but at least the ordinary polygraph is a machine. Built by human hands, such a thing may be pieced apart, analyzed, and tested. Whereas the legal minds of Winstone would swoop like vultures upon any supernatural form of lie detection that defied scientific scrutiny! You’d lose your post overnight.” He swallowed uncomfortably, remembering the kid’s words: I can't help but notice, your eyes have an unusual quality… "An' has anyone come sniffin' around?" “One hundred dollars,” she said brightly, at once. Marshall tutted heavily. There was nothing else for it, though – he couldn’t afford not to know. But she’d run through nearly all the money he had on him by this point. He pulled out a few more bills, and handed them over slightly roughly. “Yes,” she went on, “and more than a few, I assure you.” Marshall waited a beat, expecting more of an explanation than that. But she simply smiled politely and held his gaze without another word. "An' are yeh gonna tell me who?" he demanded in a moment. “Dear man, I can already see I’ve carved a deep gouge in your wallet! You can’t really be prepared to go on? The price of giving you even one truthful name will be well beyond our transactions so far.” "Yeh have a point there, I s'pose," the Detective conceded, draining his glass. He probably only had enough money on him for another drink at this rate. "An' if someone comes askin' around now?" Miss Mangjeol blinked. “Isn’t that obvious? What am I here for? I’ll tell them everything I know. That’s assuming they can meet the price, of course. If it’s any comfort, no petty thug off the street could possibly afford to learn your power, and that is a promise. It’ll be much too expensive for them. But the interests, the institutions – the men with real money in their coffers – where they’re concerned, I can’t make any promises.” Marshall considered this for a troubled second. Information surrounding his power could hit the streets in ten minutes, considering his current luck. Even the promise of 'no petty thug' wasn't enough to ease his mind. He pressed on with increasing desperation. “But what if yeh told ‘em somethin’ else? Couldn’ yeh tell ‘em my power works some other way?” He searched for an alternative. “What if… What if yeh told ‘em my power works around fear instead o’ lies? Ah can tell when people are afraid. That’s when my eyes flash. You couldn’ – ?” Mangjeol’s smile vanished completely. The expression that stepped in to fill the void was much colder. If he hadn't stared down worse criminals, Marshall would have pointed his revolver at the woman in front of him. “Oh no,” she said. “No, that’s utterly out of the question. Are you surprised? Perhaps you think it’s a matter of principle? Not quite, Detective, though I’d like to be so virtuous. The stake is my career. I’ve never told a customer a lie – not, that is, within the sphere of our transactions. I never will. All it’d take would be for one swindled patron to prove I’d lied to them, and my life would be over. Literally, I shouldn’t wonder, to judge from some of my clientele.” "An' how about if yeh keep mum about it?" Marshall asked. "Yeh not lyin' that way, so yeh info couldn't be suspect. Course, I'm not askin' yeh to do it for free. Name yeh price." “Ah! There, now you’re thinking! Yes, I’ve made such arrangements before. Regular payments every few months, scaled up or down depending on how many customers have broached the subject since the last payment. Nothing bank-breaking, mind you. Just another bill of sorts," said Miss Mangjeol, a slight tone of glee entering her voice. She had returned to twirling her glass with her finger again. "And, naturally, you may terminate payment anytime if, in the future, you feel more comfortable with your information going public…” “Sure ‘nough,” he agreed, “but what if it goes public without me? Ah mean what if someone else puts two an’ two together without my knowin’?” Miss Manjgeol took another lick of wine and thought about it for a long moment. “I suppose…” she began softly, “on account of my great fondness for money… that I’ll continue charging you for my silence until you’ve worked out for yourself that the situation has changed, at which point of course our arrangement will cease…” Detective Marshall slammed his empty glass onto the table, stood up, and very nearly pulled his revolver on the woman, though he was able to divert his movement at the last second into seizing his poncho off the rack instead. As he swept it over his form, he took a savage joy in watching the half-melted droplets and flakes of snow which, flung off the cloth and across the table, barraged a wilting Mangjeol in her seat. “Now, I’ve offended you and I see that,” she continued, dabbing at her cheeks with her scarf. “But don’t you understand, Detective? If you’ll excuse a cliché, the truth will out! All facts yearn to be known by as many people as possible; that is their one and only aspiration. How do you think I prefer to conduct my business? By allowing information to flow as freely as possible – provided that it always charts a path through this bar, of course! Secrets are dangerous things, Detective, and however one chooses to deal with them, there will always be hazards. Bereaved souls like yourself come to me with secrets, looking to acquire my confidence, to be assured of my silence on the matter, and they always believe that way lies security. Yet I have power only to protect them from the rest of my clientele, not an entire world full of reasoning, discerning minds! Will I swindle you, should it happen that I and not you become aware that your secret was separately leaked? Yes, for as long as I can, and with a smile. But just suppose another critical thinker out there works out your power by a natural process of deduction just as I have, quite unbeknownst to either of us, and lets the secret slip? Then I shall be swindling you innocently, if you continue paying for my silence, and you and I will be equally helpless to correct the error. You see, Detective, that risk will be there forever! Why, why do so many of my clients think that purchasing my silence will give them peace of mind? They’re merely exchanging one set of concerns for another, why don’t more of them understand this? I want to ease their minds, I’d like nothing better, but this can only happen one way – if they have it out, if they expose their secrets to the world! Think of it: at least then you needn’t fret whether this enemy or that one has gotten ahold of the knowledge or not. You simply assume they have access to it, and then proceed appropriately. There, and nowhere else, lies the only true absolution I can offer to those who bear secrets. And so I ask again, Detective: will you purchase my silence, or will you yield your secret of your own volition and on your own terms?” Jacob Marshall, who had stood motionless, transfixed, now made a mighty effort to persuade himself to let it go, that she was welcome to it, and that he would be ready to face the consequences. He thought again of the child he’d met earlier that evening, who’d already threatened to expose the secret, though only as a bargaining chip… Could Antonio Sharpe be trusted to hold his silence as long as Marshall complied with his demands? If you tell your superiors that I was framed, I will let the whole thing slide and put it in the past. You will lose a sliver of respect, for not being able to apprehend a culprit to the theft. However, you will keep your standing as a detective…The child hadn’t been lying when he’d promised this. Marshall’d known that, confound it. Still, there was no reason he couldn’t simply change his mind later on and expose Marshall anyway. Sharpe had certainly demonstrated he was enough of a conniving little upstart that Marshall wouldn’t put it past him. Why, then, should the detective bother investing in Miss Mangjeol’s silence…? But then he envisioned the papers, his name and face plastered all over them. He saw himself disgraced, penniless, barred for life from the only work that meant anything to him. And he knew he had to take every step necessary to prevent that outcome. If there were holes here and there, he couldn’t give up on their account. He’d simply need to cover them over, one by one. Maybe getting rid of the kid was the best way to assure his silence. But he’d worry about that later. “No,” Marshall said slowly. “I can’t… I can’t let it go, Miss Mangjeol. I need yeh to keep it well under. As best as yeh can. I don’t care about the price, I get paid well enough.” “Are you quite sure?” “I’m sure,” he insisted, before muttering: “As if I got a choice, even.” “Fine!” Mangjeol rubbed her thin hands together. “Of course, quite a lot of what I said just now was entirely hypothetical. Addressed to the general bearer of secrets. Yes, cheer up, Detective, I don’t think your particular situation is as bad as all that! It depends on the secret, and in your case... Are you really worried that I might go months on end profiting off meaningless transactions, charging you for silence on a matter I know full well to have already been breached? But, dear man, assuming your secret were leaked, surely you don’t suppose that much time would wear away before you caught on…?” Detective Marshall weighed this in his mind, realized she was quite right, and also realized that this gave him not the least bit of comfort. With a dejected sigh, he hung the poncho on the rack and sank heavily into his seat once more. Miss Mangjeol smiled. “Very good,” she said, “and now let us make arrangements.” ~*~*~2PM, Winstone Penitenary~*~*~ "Of course I care about Odio's killer being brought to justice, Commissioner," Antonio retorted, looking Williams in the eye. "The sooner he is, the sooner I can leave here." "Oh, give me a--" "Your prize, Commissioner," Antonio continued, as though Williams was not about to insult him again. "I'll start with something simple. Why on Earth do you think the Butterfly leaves a calling card at the scene of every theft? To alert the police of who stole the object? To brag? As a sign of conquest?" Williams remained silent, waiting for Antonio to continue. "The Butterfly leaves the card behind as an act of courtesy. If the stolen artifact vanished without a trace, any old suspect may be unjustly called in as I have today and blamed for a crime they did not commit," Antonio said in a bored voice, returning to his nails. He turned and returned to the chair in the cell, resting his hands delicately on the arms. "You see, Commissioner, the Butterfly does not steal objects for monetary value. The profit is a bonus. No, the Butterfly is an artist who obtains items that are difficult or impossible to steal, or as an act of humiliation. If he sees someone who deserves to be put in their place, he has no objections to step in." Antonio interlocked his fingers and waited for the response.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 7, 2011 12:44:09 GMT -5
Commissioner Williams opened his mouth, hesitated, and sighed.
"I was about to ask what exactly you think puts you in a position to make such brassy assumptions about the Butterfly's M.O.," he said, "but then I realized I know exactly what you'd say to that. You're his biggest fan. Oh wait, excuse me, that doesn't sound pretentious enough." Williams' next words issued between the bars in a coarse whisper. "You're his most fervent admirer. You've done all the research, followed all the Butterfly's doings from one crime to the next. You write treatises holding this asshole up as some kind of Robin Hood and sign them with a heart. And at the end of the day, you head upstairs and jerk off into a replica of that queer mask.
"So let's pretend we've already been through that routine, and move ahead a space. Whatever your association with the Butterfly is, you might as well just tell me. We're not looking at the world's cutest coincidence, here. I know damn well he planned this with you."
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 7, 2011 14:18:33 GMT -5
"My dear Commissioner," Antonio answered in a voice that was silky, yet with a slight sting. "Your imagery, delicate though you clearly intended, wounds me. Tell me, what exactly did you think the card was for?"
Antonio paused, half-expecting a response that never came. No matter, Williams was clearly slow to pick up on the point. On any point, in fact. The thought processes of dullards was a mystery to him.
"You clearly know too little about the Butterfly to doubt any information I am about to dispense to you," Antonio continued. "Do you think him some petty criminal? Some thug who happened to take a handbag from an elderly lady in the street? Commissioner, you are deluded if you think you can ignore anything I say. I know about the Butterfly, and that is enough."
Antonio stood up and approached the bars again, staring Williams in the face.
"I am an associate of the Butterfly. I was engaged in a deal with him, which I would have gained quite a profit from," Antonio stated, his face betraying no traces of deception. "He changed his mind at the last moment, however, and I was left with nothing after he fled. As he so clearly chose to ignore his end of the bargain, I feel no need to care for his illusion of anonymity."
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 9, 2011 23:01:13 GMT -5
Williams closed his eyes, occasionally wincing, as the detainee rambled on about the Butterfly and all the marvels he brought to the world. You can take it easy, you know, he mentally informed whomever was up there. He'd already met a couple of Power kids today and come round to admitting that they weren't so bad, at least not Silna. Now the cosmic forces had to rub it in by saddling him with an apparently-normal kid in the exact same age bracket who was a complete asshole. Where'd that fucker the Butterfly get cronies like these? How early did he have to start the brainwashing process, to get them so fluently gibbering his praises? And how many more flunkeys like this one had he cast out there onto the streets?
...as another three teenagers were fined for disturbing the peace at Mossdeep Space Center by donning half-butterfly masks once they'd been allowed entry. This outbreak of copycat misdemeanors has yet to...
Was this a goddamned cult? Or what?
But when Sharpe approached the bars again, his babble reached a more relevant track. The Commissioner nodded along.
"Then you can answer me these," he said when the boy finished. "In exactly what capacity are you an associate of the Butterfly? What service do you provide him," other than sucking his dick every time you mention him? "And what was the nature of the deal? Those are the first ones. I'll hear you out before I go on."
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 13, 2011 13:57:50 GMT -5
"The Butterfly and I had an arrangement, briefly," Antonio stated calmly, locking eyes with Williams. His face was impassive. "A respected client asked for some articles to be retrieved and, given the unlikely protection surrounding these articles, I required the work of an expert thief who has a flawless record." Antonio paused briefly, allowing the knowledge to sink into Williams' thick skull. Antonio detested having to converse with gruff, blatantly rude individuals. There was a reason his usual locations were surrounded by self-proclaimed aristocrats. They were rarely rude to another person's face, and they were at least somewhat intelligent. "The client offered a monetary reward," Antonio continued. "However, it transpired that the Butterfly contacted my client directly and stole the reward from me, if you will forgive the pun." OOC: fun fact - canon! more will be revealed later
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 15, 2011 0:15:04 GMT -5
"That's not a pun," Commissioner Williams pointed out immediately, "but forget it. So between you and your client, that's a count of conspiracy to theft right there on top of what you're already looking at. Now I'm real curious about that whole branch of the story, but we can talk plenty about that later. Let's keep ahold of the Butterfly.
"You approached him to carry out this burglary for you. Fine. How did you make contact with him. I'm assuming you didn't look him up in the phonebook. Unless, of course, you just happen to know the Butterfly's real identity?"
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 15, 2011 8:38:31 GMT -5
OOC - Bit of a time skip here, but it was the only plausible way for this post to work Antonio chuckled lightly. "Of course not, Commissioner," he agreed. "However, I am afraid your trail has found its end. You see, the Butterfly is a very cautious man. It is very unusual for him to make arrangements such as this. He makes his face a mystery and never engages his business partner personally. The real face of the Butterfly is just as hidden to you as it is to me." Antonio paused for a moment, adjusting his waistcoat slightly and smoothing out invisible creases again. "I spread some information around the various clientele of bars similar to the one we engaged our game of poker in," Antonio continued. "It was then that the Butterfly contacted me, through a representative of his. We made our arrangement that way." ~*~*~2:30PM, Winstone Penitenary~*~*~ Illiana wandered down the corridor quietly, almost nervously, glancing into the occasional cell. She didn't mean to keep glancing in, but her eyes seemed to have their own agenda from time to time. It was quiet. It had been quiet the first time she had come here today, but at least she had been escorted by a member of the force to the cell itself. Yoshimitsu was following her, a few steps behind, apparently genuinely intrigued by some of the people held here. "It's amazing, really," he commented, nodding towards the bars. "I mean, these people probably aren't really bad guys as such, but the fact that Williams can contain Powers once he gets a hold of them. These cells could probably keep Araini in. They could probably even hold Alex." "Not bad guys?" Illiana questioned, turning a corner. "Well, obviously they've broken the law," Yoshimitsu elaborated. "But the whole system here treats Powers quite harshly. Some of them deserve to be behind bars, but some of them would probably have been fine with a slap on the wrist and a hefty fine. I guess that's Hooper for you." "The Advising Judge?" Illiana asked, glancing behind at Yoshimitsu. He nodded in confirmation. "She sounds frightening from what you just said." "Couldn't say, never met the woman," Yoshimitsu shrugged. "But the Archipelago's no better off Staudt. The dangerous Powers who deserved the punishment would be free. It's like swinging between two extremes, black and white." "Or Light and Darkness?" Illiana asked, with a slight smile on her face. Yoshimitsu laughed. Up ahead, in front of the cell they were heading for, they saw someone stood, engaged in conversation with the person they wanted to talk to. Illiana immediately recognised the man as Commissioner Williams, which meant that he was obviously trying to get information from Antonio. Illiana refrained from passing judgement, since Antonio was suspicious in himself and the Commissioner had every right. "Are we... interrupting?" she asked hesitantly.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 18, 2011 18:26:58 GMT -5
Williams nodded, taking these new details in. He was about to ask whether Sharpe had gone through an information broker, and if so, when this had occurred. Obviously if he'd approached Yoon Mangjeol it wouldn't have been within the past week or so. There were other informants, the Commissioner knew well, but they were harder to find, burrowed deeper between the rocks and roots of this place: after what had become of Franklin Gaussier a couple of years ago, similar brokers in the greater Winstone area typically preferred to keep their heads down. Ostensibly the field was Mangjeol's. Though with the state the wiseguys had been in this past handful of months, that and all conditions were subject to change.
Unless Sharpe had skipped the brokers altogether and seeded his request another way. Also feasible, just riskier. This wasn't the kind of announcement you put on the bulletin board at Panera...
"Are we interrupting?"
It was Ms. Silna. Mr. Yoshimitsu, behind her. Both looked out of place in this environment, their unnatural hair colors a violent contrast against the sterile hues of the corridor. "You won't be," said Williams by way of greeting, "as long as you give me a minute to finish." He turned back to Sharpe before continuing.
"Did you know the Butterfly had passed you by and gone straight to the source before you originally contacted me, or did you find out afterward? And either way, what's your excuse for arranging the meeting at the exact time and scene of the murder?"
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 18, 2011 18:40:29 GMT -5
"I was aware of the fact before I contacted you," Antonio replied. "In fact, I have been aware for a long time now. However, the time taken to perfectly orchestrate an event in which I could maintain my honour, while allowing the information to flow freely. Don't misjudge, Commissioner, I did not plan a murder. The fact that I have been implicated in this case is due to no fault of my own. Clearly, I was being framed for a crime that has no relation to me."
Antonio paused again, allowing his words to sink in.
"Make no mistake, Commissioner, I am not guilty of any crime you are blaming me for," he stated simply. "The murder is nothing to do with me."
Illiana listened to the conversation, and took a wild guess at what had been said before. She gave Yoshimitsu a significant look, demanding that they discuss it later, which Yoshimitsu nodded to. Antonio was not explicitly lying, she could tell that already. There was something there, though. A certain level of false information. She would have to drag it out of Antonio as soon as possible, without raising the alarm and revealing his identity. For now, she contented herself with leaning against a wall and listening in.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 18, 2011 20:58:17 GMT -5
Commissioner Williams stood silent, distantly aware that his eyes might be wider open than prudence dictated. If he hadn't been thinking very hard and very quickly, he might have rectified the facial expression sooner. But it was a moment before his brow settled again into a glare and he was able to speak.
"So you are sticking with the 'world's cutest coincidence' story," he muttered. "Gonna ride that one all the way through the trial, are you? Oh I hope Hooper gets enough of a word in to land you a heavy sentence. Mildred Hooper -- you know she's your advising judge, right?"
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 18, 2011 21:12:40 GMT -5
"I do not claim that this was coincidence, Commissioner," Antonio said sharply, for the first time his voice seeming harsh. "Someone is aiming to frame me for a crime I never committed. I am not afraid of Mildred Hooper, just as I am not afraid of you."
Antonio rested one hand on his hip and relaxed his stance slightly.
"Commissioner, don't you have other things to be dealing with? You have ceased to be amusing. You are nothing more than tiresome."
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 18, 2011 21:20:04 GMT -5
"You aren't afraid of Mildred Hooper?" Williams repeated. "I guess you must not know that much about her, then. Didn't these two give you the whole scoop on her? No, Ms. Silna?" he asked the young woman.
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 18, 2011 21:34:31 GMT -5
"We... hadn't got around to it yet," Illiana said, somewhat sheepishly. "We only found out that Justice Hooper was the advising judge when we arrived at Mrs. Odio's house."
"That's partially why we're here," Yoshimitsu stepped in. He too a step forward as he said this. Illiana wagered that the move was to make him seem confident, not that he needed the help. "Illiana has a few questions for Antonio, too. I think it's our place to mention, by the way..."
Yoshimitsu glanced at Illiana, who understood.
"Detective Jacob Marshall has his eye on this case, too," she said, stepping away from the wall. "He's been here and at the criminal affairs bureau. We don't know what he wants, as far as we can tell he's just observing everything as it progresses. We just thought you might want to know."
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 18, 2011 22:26:11 GMT -5
"...Damn. That so?" Williams rubbed his neck as he took this latest piece in. His head was about ready to twist off his shoulders.
Jacob Marshall, on the prowl? Williams knew he'd been seen here and there in Winstone even in the time following his public abasement and summary dismissal from the force, but the Commissioner'd never heard of Marshall edging in on any crimes ever since then. Not, at least, in this city. Why should he choose now, this investigation in particular, to come out of the woodwork?
But this was another one to stuff into the ever-increasing file marked QUESTIONS THAT COULD WAIT. "Well, thanks for letting me know. Old Marshall and I are probably due for a few words." Williams straightened up. "Now I'm going to get out of everyone's hair in a minute. But first I'd like to hear you two explain the judge situation to him. If you don't mind? Only because my peace of mind hinges on making sure those detained understand the trial ahead of them."
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 19, 2011 9:39:16 GMT -5
"Of course," Illiana agreed, stepping up to the bars of the cell. A fractal glowed beneath her feet. That was new. It didn't immediately electrocute or decapitate her, so she chose to ignore it for now. "You know already that this is an all-Power court case, which Justice Staudt's wanted to try for a while now. He's the one who authorised me to be your defense attorney, and for Yoshimitsu to be my co-counsel for one day only."
"Ah, Yoshimitsu is present, too?" Antonio asked. To answer, Yoshimitsu stepped forward.
"He's only here for today, and for tomorrow's trial. If it goes on longer, he's not allowed to advise me any further," Illiana explained. "Normally, a co-counsel would be allowed longer, I think?" She looked to Yoshimitsu for confirmation, and he nodded.
Illiana took a breath, pausing to pick her words.
"The judge for the case is Justice Staudt, and Yoshimitsu says he's a good man, if too leniant," she continued. "But since this entire case is so controversial, he had to agree to a compromise. His advising judge, Justice Hooper, was the compromise."
Yoshimitsu took over.
"Hooper's about as far from Staudt as you can get," he stated bluntly. "Staudt's too leniant on any Powers, but Hooper doesn't just throw the book at them. She's had the book made out of some kind of heavy metal with big spikes and barbed wire wrapped around it. She's a genius, and she's got an intuition for Power involvement in any case."
"She is an advising judge," Antonio sneered.
"Don't you get it, Antonio?" Illiana asked. "Justice Staudt can't ignore anything she says, otherwise the entire case gets thrown out. This is a test trial, and if Staudt doesn't conduct himself properly then it gets cancelled, and you get locked up here until another trial comes up. I'd bet anything that, if that happened, you'd be facing Justice Hooper with a defense attorney who can't save you."
Antonio remained silent, looking at Illiana. His expression was unreadable, though Illiana had known for a while that he was nervous when this happened. Dignity at all times was his way. She was at least somewhat happy to see he was finally taking it seriously.
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jun 20, 2011 18:19:48 GMT -5
OOC: Just a short turn to get Williams out of there so Elliot's kids can talk about whatever they need to. But there'll be a longer post from me soon. "Well, that's all I needed to hear," said Commissioner Williams briskly. "Thanks, you two, for the info. Expect to hear from me later on. Sharpe, I'll be back with a recording crew this evening. Keep working on your story." He tapped his temple with a forefinger. "Can't wait to see how it evolves." Then he strode back down the sparsely-decorated hallway, rounded a corner, and left the defense team in SC-4 to their own devices.
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Jun 25, 2011 7:37:33 GMT -5
As Commissioner Williams walked away, Illiana paused to remember just why she had come to Antonio's cell. There were so many unanswered questions, and she had to wait before questioning either Dacten or Mrs. Odio. Since Antonio was a friend, as well as who she had to represent, she was allowed a little more time than most attorneys would be when visiting their clients.
"I've got a few questions, Antonio," Illiana started, glancing at Yoshimitsu. Once again, his face was unreadable. Illiana frowned, but didn't linger.
"Hooper is as bad as you say?" Antonio asked, looking at Yoshimitsu.
"She's probably worse," Yoshimitsu replied. "I've never met the woman, but I've never met Staudt either. There's a good chance you've got a more even playing field in court, but I wouldn't hope too much."
"I see," Antonio said, finally regaining his composure. "Then tell me, what evidence have you found?"
"We looked at the crime scene," Illiana took over, looking over her notes. "There's no blood at the scene, and the murder weapon is too high a caliber for anyone but a trained user to fire. The kickback on it would cause bruising at best, but a dislocated shoulder for most people."
"What caliber gun was it?" Antonio asked, though Illiana got the impression that he knew too little about guns. To be fair, she didn't know a lot either.
"Fourty-five," she answered. "Odio was shot in the heart, so death was immediate. We also found a letter from Charles Dacten to the victim, telling him that..."
"What he was about to do was too risky, and he wasn't thinking about who he could be hurting," Yoshimitsu finished. "Antonio, like Illiana said, we have a few questions."
"Very well, I shall answer to the best of my ability."
"Jacob Marshall," Illiana said, waiting to gauge Antonio's reaction. He laughed, a superior, smug laugh. "I take it you know him then?"
"Detective Marshall is an old rival of mine," The brown haired boy answered, returning to his seat. "It was his life's mission to put the Butterfly behind bars, to a point where he nearly had me convicted. However, a keen eye allowed me to cut a deal with him."
"A keen eye?" Illiana repeated. "And what kind of deal?"
"Illiana, you've noticed it too," Antonio stated. "You always were excellent at detecting Powers. How much attention did you pay to his eyes?"
"You mean..."
"Yes. Detective Jacob Marshall is a Power. He is a walking lie-detector, even to more subtle forms of deception," Antonio explained, his expression slightly smug. Illiana would have been irritated by that, if she wasn't processing the information. "You can tell when he detects a lie by his eyes changing colour. Smaller lies turn his eyes to a light green colour, while a blatant show make them almost golden."
"That explains a lot," Yoshimitsu stated, nodding. He stepped up to the bars, ignoring the fractal that appeared at his feet. "They always said Marshall knew how to get the truth out of someone, it's because he could see the lies."
"After our deal, I heard he went straight to Miss Mangjeol to request her silence," Antonio continued. "I upheld my end of the deal and did not share his secret, and in return he convinced the police that I was framed."
"Yoon mentioned that she couldn't give me any information on Marshall," Yoshimitsu chipped in, speaking to Illiana. "He arranged to have his secret kept, for a cost."
"And this was for the Edward Diamond?" Illiana asked.
"It was," Antonio confirmed.
"Why was Marshall a suspect in that case?" Illiana queried, trying to piece together the information she needed. "If he told the police you were framed..."
"I could not let the humiliation pass me by so politely," Antonio stated bluntly, for the first time appearing offended. "The good detective nearly sent me on a permanent trip to prison. In response, I indicated that Detective Marshall's knowledge of the Butterly was because he was, indeed, none other than the mastermind himself. The reason he was in law enforcement was to remove any rivals from the field, and to have a reputable front in public."
"And the judge believed you?" Yoshimitsu asked skeptically.
"The judge of the case could not deny the possibility, but no evidence could be presented to support my claim. That was not my intention, however," Antonio explained. "The whispers of the court spread far and wide, and Marshall's reputation was destroyed."
"... How old were you at the time, Antonio?" Illiana asked. If she was right...
"I was merely sixteen years old," he answered politely. "A child, who could not allow grievances to pass him by unnoticed. I regret ruining Marshall's career but, as I'm sure you understand, it was a fortuitous move to eradicate an expert detective."
"I understand, but that doesn't mean I like it," Illiana replied, slightly coldly. "Sometimes I wonder why we're friends."
"I don't doubt it," Antonio said with a genuine smile.
Illiana sighed. She had known for a long time that there was no chance in changing Antonio. At the end of the day, he was still self-important and arrogant to a fault. He was definitely not the sort of person she had expected to become one of her better friends. Still, some of the things he said fit together nicely. If everything he said was true, then that could mean only one thing.
"Thanks, Antonio, we'll be back if anything else comes up," Illiana said.
"I'm not going anywhere," Antonio replied in a bored voice. Illiana and Yoshimitsu waved as they walked away, the girl eager to discuss this with Yoshimitsu.
"I know what you're thinking," Yoshimitsu stated with a lopsided grin.
"Marshall has all the motive in the world to frame Antonio and implicate him in the murder," Illiana said quickly as they walked away from the cell, down the corridor. "It'd explain why he's suddenly interested in this case, because he's had a hand in it!"
"Maybe, but don't go setting your entire argument on this," Yoshimitsu warned. "There's every chance we're wrong and he's an unfortunate victim."
"Right..." Illiana agreed vaguely, trying to formulate an argument for the court.
There was one big problem with the entire case so far, though. If Odio had been murdered, how did the murderer transport the body to the Felice Potabile without being noticed?
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Post by Beelzebibble on Jul 3, 2011 20:15:31 GMT -5
Williams emerged from the underground tunnel into the main confinement complex and immediately took a secluded side door, leading him into a tall, narrow passage that would wind around to the Penitentiary's entrance without bringing him within view of any of the ordinary human prisoners' cells. It wasn't that the Commissioner was too cowardly to face the orange-clad masses. Not at all. Only that he anticipated placing a phone call very shortly and their howls and jeers would have made that conversation an entirely unnecessary pain in the ass.
He steadied himself against the white wall as a loose floor tile slid underfoot, barely even aware on a conscious level of the momentary lapse in balance. The conversation in SC-4 had given him too much to think about. Jacob Marshall for a start -- but that was secondary. For investigation later. Sharpe was the one under the lamp. And Williams was beginning to get some funny ideas about Sharpe.
Granted, he was a little disappointed that the Hooper gambit had fallen through. Or, at least, come up short. He'd been hoping to usher Ms. Silna into making some reassuring remark like "...but on the other hand Staudt is really nice to Powers so I bet he'll go easy on you!" Some more definitive tipoff that Sharpe really was a Power and that they weren't wasting their resources keeping him in an SC block. But the young lady had chosen her words carefully, and so had Mr. Yoshimitsu. Assuming, of course, that the Butterfly was a Power, Williams had been unable to find anything in either of their comments to betray that Sharpe might be out of the ordinary as well. Tough luck. At least it meant he didn't have to feel bad about taking advantage of their naivete. Maybe Sharpe had picked Ms. Silna for a reason after all.
But that was yet another QUESTION THAT COULD WAIT, and if Williams sensed himself maybe getting a little overzealous about stuffing things into that worn and sagging file, it was only because the nugget of information he'd really been struggling to digest in the last few minutes deserved his full attention.
"Don't misjudge, Commissioner, I did not plan a murder. The fact that I have been implicated in this case is due to no fault of my own. Clearly, I was being framed for a crime that has no relation to me."
Now what had motivated that particular choice of words?
As Commissioner Williams' bulky brown fingers worked the buttons of his cell phone with deceptive quickness, he wondered whether Sharpe really ought to just let Ms. Silna do the talking from then on.
* * *
"Yeah, but he probably just means he was framed as an accomplice, right?"
"I thought of that, too -- that was the first thing I thought of. But look at his story again. Who do you think could possibly have framed him?"
Inspector Denham Landsvale, who of course did not have the story laid out in full before him to look at again -- who had, in fact, only just now heard the story secondhand from his superior -- nonetheless had a ready answer, and hesitated only to draw in a sudden half-yawn before responding.
"The Butterfly," he said.
The reply came back: "Really?"
"Yeah," said Landsvale, as he spun his office chair gently away from the computer screen and toward the window. "Didn't Sharpe say the Butterfly'd stolen that deal out of his hands? Kind of mad at him after that, wasn't he? Mean, they obviously weren't friends, at that point."
"So you think," the Commissioner said slowly, "that Sharpe was so pissed off about getting cheated out of the deal that he promptly called up the Butterfly and said 'I am going to run crying to Papa Williams and tell him all about you, you big meanie. Here is the exact location and time where our meeting will take place. And there is nothing you can do about it'?"
Landsvale blinked.
"What you're saying is..."
"What I'm saying is, if Sharpe's story is true, there ain't no way the Butterfly framed him, because there's no way he would've told the guy he was planning to meet me in the first place. He's not that stupid. Hell, anyone tried to frame Sharpe, they'd need to know exactly where he was going to be, and when, and why, and plan the whole murder around that. He can't've told the Butterfly, or whoever was acting as a go-between for them. So who else? Why would Sharpe've told anyone at all about the meeting? He'd have to know how vulnerable that would make him. Why in Christ's name wouldn't he keep it between him and me?"
"So Sharpe wasn't framed?"
"Not under that version of the story," said Williams grimly, "not unless he really is the most wretched idiot who ever thought he could look down his nose at me."
"Then he's lying." A bright blue glint in the corner of the window caught the Inspector's eye, but he knew it was just the reflection of his screensaver turning on. "Fine. We kind of figured that anyway, right? Just back to the original story, huh? He was in cahoots with the Butterfly the whole time."
"Yeah... that's one thing I'm thinking."
Inspector Landsvale hesitated. Then he frowned. Next he opened his mouth, but for the second time that day he was interrupted by an arrival. Although this time it wasn't a bunch of guys bustling in with guns but an unintrusive knock on the door. "One sec," he told the Commissioner, and set down the phone.
As he expected, it was one of the boys from downstairs.
"Early verdict?" asked Landsvale.
"It's coming up positive, sir, so far," said the young man. "The length of the signature in the letter matches all the paperwork we have on file for Dacten. We're not turning up anything out of the ordinary as far as pen lifts or ink blots in the rest of the letter. Tremor level is perfectly within bounds, too. Now it's a steadier hand than his usual, but that's to be expected, given the content. If Dacten was the writer, he didn't dash this piece off in a hurry."
"Sure, sure." Landsvale leaned a hand on the doorframe. "You wrapping up, or you want to keep at it?"
"Mrs. Torrez is still pulling more old Dacten material out of the library of records. We figure it'll only help to go further back. If the letter was forged, there's no telling how old the document could be that the offender was using as a basis..."
"But you don't think it was forged?"
The analyst shook his head. "Sir, if you ask me it's the God's honest. But we'll keep you informed."
"Right," said Landsvale, and waved him off. He shut the door and picked up the phone. "Commissioner? Early word from the lab is Dacten's letter looks genuine. Gonna keep working on it though."
"What? Oh." Williams' voice sounded distant, distracted. "Yeah. That's good. Fine."
Landsvale cleared his throat gently, unsure of how to pick the thread back up. "'D I leave you hanging, earlier? Sounded like you were chewing on an idea."
"It was stupid. Forget it."
"Mean, we know Sharpe's not the killer," said the Inspector on a guess, "'less he can fire a gun in the other room with nothing but force of will. Right?"
"That's right," Williams replied, in a placid tone which nonetheless conveyed quite clearly that this wasn't what he'd had in mind at all. Landsvale let out an abrupt disbelieving breath.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Commissioner, you're not telling me you think Sharpe—"
But the other man's deeper voice cut him off. "Oh damn, I was about to forget. Landsvale. Has Jacob Marshall swung by the station?" Hearing Landsvale's hesitant mumble, he added: "Tall, blond, scruffy, mean-looking fucker, and unless he's finally come to grips with reality, probably dressed like he just stepped off a Western set."
This was more than a sufficient reminder. There was no mistaking the fellow who'd approached Miss Silna at the station. Denham Landsvale, who'd served on the force in Cerulean before his transfer to this department, was no stranger to the Archipelago's subcultures and the visual oddities they spawned, but Marshall's antique outfit and demeanor had come as a genuine surprise. "He was here," Landsvale instantly affirmed. "Ran into him around one, right before the kids and I visited Dacten."
"Not still there, is he?"
"Nope."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"Not the foggiest."
"Well, shit," observed Williams. He was silent for a moment, apparently pondering this dilemma. "I tell you what," he eventually continued. "There's someone you need to call. Number's in the phone book. We want to find Marshall and bring him to the station. I'd like to talk to him."
"Who do I call?" Landsvale asked, and Williams told him.
* * *
"Heading out, Commissioner?" asked the reddish-gray-haired fellow at the desk in the lobby.
Williams nodded, but before he could lay a hand on the door, another thought occurred to him. As long as he was going down this path, he could use something more substantial than his own memory for evidence. He approached Ferguson's counter. "You want to do me a favor? Patch me through to the folks running the cameras. I just had a little parley with Sharpe in SC-4 and I want a log of the conversation."
"Sure thing, chief," said the old man. "Now I got to tell you, though, the way they copy the disks, you only get about a half hour's footage out of each camera. But you see everything that happened on the block, that whole half hour. All the different angles, you know. Won't miss a trick."
"Good enough," Williams told him immediately, with an impatient shake of the head.
"All righty," grinned Ferguson. "Course, as my mother was fond of saying, there is such a thing as good enough, but 'good enough' never is." Which would of course prove to be prophetic once Williams realized, a couple of days later, how short-sighted he'd been at this juncture. But since, for the moment, he believed a half hour's worth of footage was all that he needed, the Commissioner made no attempt to refine his order as the old man picked up the cream-colored desk phone and lifted the receiver to his ear.
* * *
A hand dropped the shiny black telephone back onto the hook with perhaps less care than this hand would ordinarily have exacted, but it was uncommon for the hand's owner to conclude a telephone conversation with the level of excitement he now felt. Too often what precipitated and defined his telephone conversations was a bit of bad news: typically notification of some manner of failure on his part, most especially in matters financial. Any shrill, buzzy ring which portended an opportunity rather than an uncomfortable conversation with an accountant was a shrill, buzzy ring which the owner of both hand and telephone positively welcomed into his ears. And here was an opportunity extended by the last organization he ever would have expected to approach him, taking into account their long and storied record of rebuffing his offers of assistance with a singular vigor. Oui, cet apres-midi etait enthousiasmant!
Renard Rouletabille had a murder to solve.
No, no, that wasn't quite right. It was not his business to determine the identity of the culprit. This was not the request which the Winstone Police Department, in the form of his recent friend the Inspector, had just made of him. But Renard had been allocated a task of no mean signification in itself, no matter how small its scope. He hurried out of the kitchen, nearly tripping for the fourth time that day over the massive form of the Caucasian shepherd left temporarily in his care by another recent friend who was currently overseas. The dog let out a contented sigh and scraped with one idle dinner-plate-sized paw at the divide between the tiled floor of the kitchen and the wooden planks of the living room.
"Wake up, wake up, Micmac," urged Renard. "We are off to find a detective!"
No, indeed, the irony had not been lost on the Frenchman. To be perfectly frank it might have struck him as offensant had the Inspector not gone to perceptible lengths to stress the personal knowledge of and investment in the case at hand which this Jacob Marshall possessed. It was these, rather than any generically superior sleuthing talent, which the police sought. And it was Renard's intimate familiarity with the "local haunts", in the evocative words of Mr. Landsvale, which had stirred the police to contact him rather than attempt to guess at Mr. Marshall's whereabouts themselves.
Micmac unloosed a rapturous baillement and rolled over onto his other side.
But Renard made no effort to hurry him along, because Renard was not in point of fact certain that he himself was ready to leave the apartment. A nagging sensation informed him that there was a prudent action he would do well to undertake before setting out to locate this Jacob Marshall. As he looked around the living room and at the bedroom door, he made every effort to fill this mental gap.
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Post by The Evil Biscuit on Jul 8, 2011 0:10:51 GMT -5
~*~*~Winstone Post, 2:40pm~*~*~
'You know what I miss?'
'Hm.'
Editor-in-chief Brat Millsap, all two hundred and eighteen pounds of him, leaned back in his rollaway, tipping the steel-framed chair up on two wheels, ignoring its audacious shriek as the metal flexed violently under his weight. After ten years, he had this particular balancing act perfected. He kicked his feet up onto the hardwood desk, feeling the hollow thump of rubber on oak as they settled into the ever-sinking depression his brogues were slowly working into the desktop. He interlaced his fingers behind his head, careful to avoid the growing bald spot spreading across his graying brown hair and bent the chair further backward, turning his green eyes to the ceiling and beginning the time-honored Post tradition of counting holes in ceiling tiles.
Across from him, Harris Goodman, copy editor, was engrossing himself in the careful study of Foreign Correspondence's latest attempt at feature journalism. He gave a metered sigh and rubbed a meaty hand across his thick salt-and-pepper beard as he scribbled corrections into the binder, already thick with color-coded tags and wrinkled Post-Its, having passed through many hands before reaching him. It would go back to Foreign for one final revision before Brat looked it over and gave it the A-OK.
'What do you miss, Brat?' Harris's voice was rich, and always reminded Millsap of that guy from the Aid Africa commercials. He'd never asked Harris to say 'For the cost of your morning coffee...' but he'd always wanted to.
'What? Oh, you were listening.' The editor-in-chief cocked his head toward Goodman.
''The providence that's in a watchful state knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold.''
Brat chuckled. 'Tempest?'
'Troilus and Cressida'
'Never read it.'
'Think of it as Romeo and Juliet meets The Iliad.'
'Just think, Harris. If they'd have taught us Troilus in school they'd have covered two of our biggest required readings. Think of the efficiency!'
Harris glanced up at Brat, a flat stare that told the editor-in-chief he needed to get to the point.
Millsap looked back up at the ceiling. 'I miss the rumble.'
'The what?' Scribbling. Goodman was already back to work.
Brat sighed. 'You remember, ah, what was it, twenty years ago, we were still running print on typewriters? The old Smith-Coronas. Loudest sumbitches you ever heard in your life.'
'Yes, indeed. You could hear the composing room from three floors up.'
'Not just that, Harris. You could feel it. You'd come in on a Saturday before deadline and it sounded like World War III on the floor. This place was alive. You were down in Printing then, weren't you?'
Harris's beard shuffled as the big man smirked. 'Knee-deep in toner.'
'See, that's what I'm talking about. Remember when we still had toner? We kept a whole crew of inkboys running between presses to keep the rollers filled. Four guys on graveyard shift to clean and oil the printers, and that was their whole job! We all worked to put out a paper then. It took all of us, blood, sweat and tears. What do you think we had in the eighties, two hundred employees?'
'Easily.'
'Now we have sixty-three. Our printing goes out to Kanto now, Chrissakes. They cut our balls off when they subsidized us. Sometimes I feel like we're just pasting Word documents together and calling it a newspaper these days.'
'Hm.'
Millsap closed his eyes. 'The rumble, Harris. You used to feel this place moving. It shook you. It felt like progress. We used to pack our news into thirty-six pages and still had to table half our stories for the next day's edition. Now we can barely pull enough workable material to make one day.'
This time the copy editor did not reply, save for the scritch-scratch of his red ink pen.
Brat reached for the ceiling and clenched his fists.
'Good God, whatever happened to the NEWS in this town?!'
Silence fell over both men, embittered and smoldering. Brat Millsap finished counting holes and began again. Harris Goodman flipped through Foreign's piece and continued annotating.
Five minutes later, Brat Millsap's prayers were answered.
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