Shane has one followup question for Braden: "How did you two meet, you and Nilasa?"
Ralf's gaze flicked from the body to his compatriot slipping away to LeBrix and back to the body as he strove to look disinterested, if not downright bored.
Shane. Getting sneaky-sneaky down here. Am having idea. Meff is small, is seeing and hearing and moving under own power. If you are knowing place it can go to snoop or eavesdrop, can send it there and have more eyes, hands undercover.
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Shane, second floor
Shane has one followup question for Braden: "How did you two meet, you and Nilasa?"
Braden smiled ruefully. "At a tavern down by the docks. The Thinking Man's Tavern. It's kind of our spot. Was, I guess."
Shane nodded. "I know the place. What line did you use to get her attention? She had to have guys hitting on her all the time."
Shane, second floor
Braden smiled at Shane, as if recalling a fond memory. "I was arguing with a student who had bought in to your Old Ways too much. He was saying you Risuri should reject your King's alliance with my country and return to the ways of the land. I was asserting the many advantages to be had in allying with Danor. She liked the way I put the boy in his place." He paused for a moment. "Or that's what she said, anyway." Funny- Braden didn't seem that smart. Maybe he had hidden depths.
"Oh, I can imagine!" Aziel agreed. "Especially if your visitor was from Danor! I suppose all manner of paperwork needs to be set in order and schedules checked for that, even though we are at peace with Risur. I am sure your job must be quite hard!"
"Oh, I can imagine!" Aziel agreed. "Especially if your visitor was from Danor! I suppose all manner of paperwork needs to be set in order and schedules checked for that, even though we are at peace with Risur. I am sure your job must be quite hard!"
The secretary shook her head. "Now that you mention it, I don't think I saw him come in. But no, I'm pretty sure he was Risuri. He didn't sound Danoran" She leaned forward and dropped her voice conspiratorially. "What's really strange is that they met in the basement instead of the consular's office. Very high security meeting."
She gestured at Aziel's cigarette case and took one, waiting expectantly for a light.
Shane wondered what was going on. Either everyone was roleplaying as an elaborate cover-up or people were being manipulated to say these strange things. He tried to think of a question that would test whether Braden had even ever been in the Thinking Man's Tavern. He would have liked to have engaged him in some discussions about politics to see if he could really come up with anything so bright as to attract the attentions of smart woman, but decided it might be best to pursue leads outside the consul where he did not have to watch his step so closely.
He thanked Braden and handed him a card with his name on it and the address of the constable office to which letters could be sent or messages delivered. "Let me know if you think of anything else that might help me settle this case."
Then he slapped one of his escorts on the shoulder and said, "Let's get up to the room with the view."
Shane, fourth floor
It occurred to Shane that whether Braden was a great orator or not, if Nilasa had wanted to gain access to the consulate it would have been a good idea for her to act like he was. Braden nodded at the constable and Shane's escorts took him back to the servant's stairs to walk up to the fourth floor.
They emerged onto an elaborately decorated hallway running the length of the building. The rich wood, polished glass and metal, and clearly expensive decorations appeared designed to awe a visitor with Danor's wealth and power. The consular's offices were at one end of the hall, but the escorts took Shane to the other end of the hallway, to the broken window overlooking the gardens out front and the street beyond.
Shane quickly noticed that the rug at the end of the hall had been hastily moved, as it to cover something on the floor.
The secretary shook her head. "Now that you mention it, I don't think I saw him come in. But no, I'm pretty sure he was Risuri. He didn't sound Danoran" She leaned forward and dropped her voice conspiratorially. "What's really strange is that they met in the basement instead of the consular's office. Very high security meeting."
She gestured at Aziel's cigarette case and took one, waiting expectantly for a light.
Aziel obligingly lit a match and held it out for the secretary to light her cigarette with. She shook her head in disbelief, musing, "Just for a local?! C'est incroyable. Who here could be worth all that? There are times I think the bureaucrats would make Jierre himself come hat in hand, and make sure he wipes his feet before coming in."
To anyone listening, she added mentally, Some bigshot Risuri met with the consul in the basement. Maybe just a coincidence, but maybe worth checking out with that... thing of yours, Ralf.
Ralf made a show of continuing to study the body while he thought back at Aziel. Maybe. But am needing distraction or to step away. Either is maybe making LeBrix notice you left. Am thinking better is keeping attention on me for now, send Meff later.
"LeBrix. Am being told before, room was dark when this," he gestured at the body, "happened. You are explaining, maybe?"
Aziel, first floor office
The secretary took a puff of Aziel's cigarette and smirked. "You could be right, but I don't know who it could be. Someone with money? Someone with power? Your guess is as good as mine." She gestured at the ceiling, indicating the crime scene upstairs. "It was around the same time as... that. At least it kept the consular from being upstairs when that woman was there. Who knows what might have happened? Maybe she wasn't a thief at all."
Ralf/Jaelynn, first floor storeroom
LeBrix shook his head. "It was the end of the fourth floor hallway. There's no reason for it to have been dark. Did you get that from a witness? It was just probably hard for them to see, standing out there in the sun and trying to look in a window." He glanced at the door briefly before crossing his arms and looking back at Ralf.
Ralf got the sense from the man's body language that he might have more to say, but was unwilling to say it here in the consulate.
Ralf nodded. "Am thinking is true. Is hard seeing inside from bright outside."
He pondered for a moment. "Later maybe you are escorting outside to confirm this. We look and see, aiwa?"
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Ralf/Jaelynn, first floor storeroom
LeBrix nodded. "You seem done here. We can go out and look at the window from the fence." He gestured toward the door and then visibly re-counted Ralf and LeBrix with a frown. "Where's the tiefling constable?
Aziel, first floor office
The secretary took a puff of Aziel's cigarette and smirked. "You could be right, but I don't know who it could be. Someone with money? Someone with power? Your guess is as good as mine." She gestured at the ceiling, indicating the crime scene upstairs. "It was around the same time as... that. At least it kept the consular from being upstairs when that woman was there. Who knows what might have happened? Maybe she wasn't a thief at all."
Aziel agreed that it could have been a close call, and spent a few more moments chit-chatting with the secretary. Then she sighed, "Well, back to work for me. Ever is it so, n'est ce pas? You may want to save the rest of that for your break - unless they're more lenient with you than with me!" With that lie cheerfully told, she pinched her cigarette's burning end to put it out, wished the secretary a good day, and slipped back into the storeroom unnoticed - or so she had thought.
Ralf/Jaelynn, first floor storeroom
LeBrix nodded. "You seem done here. We can go out and look at the window from the fence." He gestured toward the door and then visibly re-counted Ralf and LeBrix with a frown. "Where's the tiefling constable?
"Right here. I thought I would save you the smoke in this little room, and finish my cigarette outside." Aziel stepped over to the body again, and grimaced down at it.
"She went to the washroom," Jaelynn said, not looking up from her examination of the body. "You don't remember?"
"Aziel, back here, soon! And thank LeBrix for the directions to the loo!" Jaelynn sent her thoughts to the Tiefling.
Then Jaelynn did look up, frowning. "If you can't remember telling her where the loo is, what else are you forgetting?"
Jaelynn finally looked up from her investigation of the body - where she had been paying particular attention to the dead woman's face.
She gave LeBrix a measured look, her eyes narrow.
"We will want to take the body with us, indeed," she said, "For a full and complete investigation. There will be a number of questions to answer." Her tone wasn't threatening, but there was definitely an implication in it... of what, one couldn't be exactly sure, but she had the air of someone who had discovered something, and who knew that her discovery wouldn't mean good things for whoever had been trying to hide whatever it was.
"As it is, I have only one more test I can perform here, and then we can be going." She turned back to the body, wiggling her fingers and whispering words of power.
Aziel/Jaelynn/Ralf, first floor storeroom
LeBrix looked suspiciously at Aziel but didn't protest. He nodded at Jaelynn and watched as she cast her spell. As far as Jaelynn could tell, Nilasa didn't seem to have been poisoned.
The security chief nodded at the door. "Outside, then?"
Shane walked slowly to the window, scanning the room side to side, noticing the rug but not touching anything. He noted where the glass had fallen and how much of the window remained in place. He jotted a few notes and made a quick sketch of the room for the record.
He stood in the window. He scanned the perimeter of the consulate to see if anyone was looking up at the window. If he saw anyone watching, he waved to see if they waved back.
Finally, he inspected the rug set to the side. He looked for glass on the rug and then began to pull it to see what was under it.
As Shane inspected the room, he asked his accompanying guards, "Anything like this happen here recently? Attempts at theft or other crimes by people from the outside, I mean."
Shane, fourth floor
Shane found blood spatter when he moved the rug; it had clearly been repositioned in an attempt to cover the spray. And the pattern looked nothing like the splash from a bullet wound. It looked more like the spray from a slashing weapon or perhaps a claw.
The guards shook their heads. The talkative one said "Not since I've been here." He gestured at the blood and broken window, indicating the now-dead would-be thief. "We've got lots of art and valuables but this place isn't exactly the kind of target that you'd call survivable."
Shane looked down out the window and saw Aziel, Jaelynn, and Ralf with security chief LeBrix standing just inside the tall fence. He waved and they waved back.
Aziel/Jaelynn/Ralf, outside
Security chief LeBrix led the trio of constables outside to the spot where Nilasa Hume had died on the fence. There was blood on the ground- a large puddle of it inside the fence, in fact, that said quite plainly that Hume had been shot from above and behind as she lay impaled on the fence.
Ralf noticed a few stray marks just outside the fence from the man witnesses said had stolen Hume's necklace and papers.
Aziel looked up at the window and saw Shane looking down. She waved and Shane waved back.
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Ralf was able to nonchalantly drop Meff on their way out the front door with no one the wiser. The psicrystal scuttled off into the shadows to look for a way downstairs.
Shane made a sketch of the pattern of the blood spatter. Then he collected a sample of the blood as best he could, dabbing at a wet spot with a clean handkerchief. He looked next for footprints suggesting movement after the blood was spilled. Once he made his notes, he asked the guards for their names and snapped his notebook closed. "Thank you. I'll let you get on with your duties. If you can show me out?"
Through the mental connection, Shane informed the others of what he found. "Looks like Nilasa was stabbed or clawed up here before leaving. The blood is to one side of the window. Looks like she was attacked and then escaped. There is nothing darkening the room as you could tell when you saw me in the window. Something is definitely rotten here. Maybe we can sort it out from outside the compound and their diplomatic immunity."
"Are we even certain that she actually was a thief? Maybe she was somehow an inconvenient employee?"
Shane + Team, outside
The pair of guards nodded. "Of course, sir." Shane's guards led him back downstairs to the storeroom, where they expected to find the other constables and their boss, but it was empty except for the body. After a short conference they took Shane to the office by the front door, where they discovered from the secretary that the rest of Shane's team was outside.
In a few minutes the team was reunited in the gardens with LeBrix standing off to one side, quietly debriefing the two guards.
"Looks like Nilasa was stabbed or clawed up here before leaving. The blood is to one side of the window. Looks like she was attacked and then escaped. There is nothing darkening the room as you could tell when you saw me in the window. Something is definitely rotten here. Maybe we can sort it out from outside the compound and their diplomatic immunity."
Am thinking to leave Meff inside, Ralf thinks back. Is possible he is getting into places we can't.
"Did you have something to share with us?" Jaelynn asked LeBrix, before the group turned to go.
All, consulate grounds
LeBrix frowned at Jaelynn. "What would I have to share with you that I haven't already? Do you feel that I'm holding something back, constable?" The security chief grunted. "If you want to accuse me of something, constable, you can come out and say it or let me go on my way. I'm a very busy man and it's already been a long day. I'm already ready to put my feet up and have a drink at home."
Jaelynn understood the message hidden under LeBrix's combative tone. If they wanted anything more from him they would have to see him at home, not there at the consulate.
Jaelynn nodded, seemingly unfazed by LeBrix's words or tone.
"That's good enough," She said, her tone that of someone who was thoroughly bored, and merely checking boxes off of a list. "We'll leave you to your work. If we have any further official inquiries, we'll make sure to send someone to the embassy here during business hours."
She paused, as if just checking off one last box on her list.
"Of course, we'll need to be taking the body."
Ralf was just about to comment on LeBrix's attitude when something in Jaelynn's tone waved him off. He closed his mouth and let her take the lead without uttering a word, though he still shot LeBrix a disapproving look.
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"He knows something," Jae thought to the group, "Something he's not willing to share here, officially. But we'll have an unofficial chat at his home, after working hours, I think."
All, outside
LeBrix nodded. "Yes, you should. Have your carriage come around to the back; we'll load her in at the delivery entrance." The security chief led the constables back inside to oversee the transfer of Nilasa Hume's body to RHC custody. Ten minutes later the constables were ready to go.
As the transfer of the body was wrapping up, so to speak, Shane said through the mental link, "When I talked to the guards, they all acted somewhat strange, as if they were talking about a poker game or a sports event, rather than the violent death of someone they knew and liked. The rug covering the blood splatter of a sword attack, the darkness no one mentioned, it all smells very bad." He showed the barge deed he found.
All, Precinct
It was well after noon by the time the constables got back to the precinct and started their paperwork. Splitting the duties between them and suffering through a lunch of coffee, cigarettes, and whatever they could salvage off the sandwich cart, they had the work completed by mid-afternoon.
A spirit medium was scheduled to interrogate Nilasa Hume's corpse over the witching hour, meaning one or more of them was going to have a late night. The alchemical lab took over the doctored brigadeiro and potion vial; they called in a favor to get the results the next day.
By dinner time the constables were ready to head back out into the field. They shared a carriage to Bosum Strand, where they split into pairs. Shane and Ralf headed to the dockmaster's office to try to track down the barge while Aziel and Jaelynn headed to the Thinking Man's Tavern by the main docks along the harbor.
Aziel/Jaelynn, Thinking Man's Tavern
The Thinking Man’s Tavern was a few streets from Bosum Strand's main docks, named for the cobbled-together statue that stands by its entrance, an assortment of flotsam and jetsam assembled into the shape of a sitting man deep in thought.
The tavern consisted of a few main sections. First was the bar, with stools for ten and tables for an additional thirty. Second, the common room, with tables to seat sixty on the ground floor and another forty on an upstairs balcony. Each floor had a lavatory with plumbing. Third, a patio outside the building with seating for ten and the titular “thinking man” statue. Fourth, a game room on the ground floor, which seated thirty; there was a pool table and a storage closet that held various game supplies.
The riot room was on the uppermost floor. It had limited dining space, but its chairs were usually claimed by the writers, artists, and philosophers who just wanted to sit in a dormer window, drink, and scribe, sketch, or share their latest thoughts. These artists and philosophers gave the tavern a reputation for being a hotbed of dissent and a rowdy place where a duel was more likely to be with words than with daggers.
The wait staff mostly consisted of female scholars studying at Pardwight University, or occasionally the wives or daughters of professors, who are renowned for being smarter and wittier than their clientele. Aziel and Jaelynn were likely to fit right in.
Aziel left off her attempts to draw amusing conversation out of Jae once the carriage stopped. With a lazy salute to Shane and Ralf, she walked to the Thinking Man's Tavern with Jae.
Taking some liberties here, since you didn't describe the place:
The Thinking Man was exactly the sort of place Aziel loved - a hangout for poets and artists as well as the average working-class person. She waved a greeting to the bartender as she surveyed the room at a glance.
+2 if you'll allow her to use Int to discern if there are rogue chocolatiers around?
Regardless of what she saw, she bellied up to the bar to order a drink - and one for Jae, whom she suspected wouldn't understand the social value of carrying one, if not drinking it. "Lukas! How is your family? Little Janine off to school yet?" she queried the bartender with an engaging smile.
Ralf/Shane, Dockmaster's Office
Ralf and Shane had the much less glamorous task of tracking down the barge listed in the deed they'd found in the alley. The dockmaster's office overlooked the busy docks, a blocky, utilitarian building clearly built for work, not ornament. Flashing their RHC badges got them past the clerks at the front door and directions to the records room.
A few minutes later the constables were standing before the records clerks in a vast room of thousands of shelves and drawers full of charts, deeds, and other records. Though there were dozens of people there, looking over papers of one sort or another, the room was so big and stuffed with records that it was easy to feel like they were the only ones in the records warehouse. One of the clerks turned to them as the person she'd been helping walked away with directions to their records in hand. "How may I help you, sir?"
Knowing better than to deploy his particular brand of "people skills" unless absolutely necessary, Ralf grunted and jerked his thumb at Shane.