The one thing that stands out to Faith is the discovery of a grizzly murder. A family was literally murdered in their beds. No other details were available at the moment, since the police are only now cracking down on the crime scene.
-Posted with Wayfinder
So, guys, what next?
"Scope out the pond, maybe? Do we know exactly where it happened?"
If not he'll agree with Nate.
"Yeah. Scene of the crime's always a good place to start. Should we send somebody to talk to the coroner"?
Streetwise Total of 15
XD
WD
PersuasionTotal of 6
WD1
XD1
Arlo's phone beeps over breakfast. He's received an email from one of his old police buddies.
Man, what are you into now? Screw it. I don't want to know. Word is your guy had some sort of an understanding with a Detective Earl Copenhagen from the Illinois PD. Here's his cell number...
-Posted with Wayfinder
Faith volunteers to see if she can get information from the coroner/ME at the station. She also informs the group of the overnight murder and says she will see if she can find out anything more about that, in case it's related. Maybe Arlo can come with her and check out the lead from his contact. Edit: maybe Arlo can talk to the Detective and arrange for us to talk to the coroner before we go over.
"I'm for staying together if we think we might encounter the killer. But if we're just talking to the police and poking around the old crime scene, I doubt we need the strength of numbers. I'm the rookie, though, so your call."
She'll scan the local news websites for "breaking news" about the new murder and fill any time waiting for the others to finish breakfast (she had hers early, right after her workout) by searching the Internet for anything else on the new crime.
Result = 9
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that we should either visit the pond and/or go to the new crime scene. Chances are detectives and the ME are at the crime scene and won't be available until they've finished the preliminary investigation. Faith can monitor the police band transmissions for developments.
Split up one van to each location, or choose one and all go there: either seems good to her.
Arlo might want to call his detective contact to see if we can get any leads from him before we go either place.
"The *first* time we went 'poking around an old crime scene' we ended up fighting for our lives against a bunch of zombies. So I'm vehemently against splitting up."
Gavril nods at John's comment. "Da. Many zombies. Not expect. Maybe stay together this time is good idea."
"Oh don't be so pessimistic. Let me call a friend on the force, and see if I can get the lowdown. I don't think we need to worry about a zombie attack on every case. It's broad daylight in civilization... what could possibly go wrong".
Arlo dials the contact name given to him.
"Hi is this Earl Copenhagen? Name's Arlo Franco. Hank Peterson gave me your name. Say me and some colleagues are in town working on something, and I wondered if you might have time for a brief chat? Donuts and coffee are on me".
"What could possibly go wrong".
Nate kicks Arlo under the table.
"Idiot."
Faith taps out a quick search on the name "Earl Copenhagen" as Arlo makes his call.
Result = 5.
"Anyone want to place bets on an entire family murdered in their beds has absolutely nothing to do with our case?
"Anyway, it might be the best time to check out the pond, since it's less likely they'll leave cops on a stakeout of an old crime scene when they've got a hot new crime that the public will want them to solve quickly. Folks probably didn't much care about a quirky nut getting cut apart. Families murdered in their sleep will cause them to sit up and take notice."
Faith continues to monitor the police radios real time.
"I don't think we need to worry about a zombie attack on every case."
Faith mutters, "Zombies. We should be so lucky!"
"Oh don't be so pessimistic. Let me call a friend on the force, and see if I can get the lowdown. I don't think we need to worry about a zombie attack on every case. It's broad daylight in civilization... what could possibly go wrong".
Arlo dials the contact name given to him.
"Hi is this Earl Copenhagen? Name's Arlo Franco. Hank Peterson gave me your name. Say me and some colleagues are in town working on something, and I wondered if you might have time for a brief chat? Donuts and coffee are on me".
"Peterson? The Fed? Uh, yeah, sure. Where do you want to meet up?"
"Yeah, I know the place. I can be there in an hour."
"I'm still for sticking together, and personally prefer to work independent of the local LEO's to avoid any embarrassing questions, but if Faith and Arlo really want to talk to the buddy of his buddy and the coroner, maybe the rest of us could check out the old crime scene."
"I'll stay with the group if the rest of you think that's best. But given this new crime, it seems unlikely the perp is still lurking around Carter's place. There may also be surveillance on the old site that will make it tricky to investigate without the cooperation of those local LEOs.
"I'd like to talk with Arlo's contact and see if we can talk him into escorting us to talk with the coroner or with the detectives who were at the crime scene when it was fresh. We can keep in touch and drop everything and join you if you've got something you need help with.
"We might also get some scoops from him about the new crime scene and maybe let us check that out while it's fresh and untrampled."
"Thanks Faith. You were reading my mind. Let's go meet up with old Earl, and see what he's got. Then a visit to the coroner might just be the ticket. I've got everybody's cell number, so let's all just stay in touch. Sound good"?
"Ok, so Faith and Arlo go talk, and Nate, Gavril and I go to the old crime scene."
"Hey guys [Nate & Gavril], do we try to sneak into the house, or talk to the kid who's inherited it? Maybe he'd be friendly if we tell him we're trying to catch Vincent's killer, and let us in. Or if he IS Vincent's killer, we can 'interrogate' him casually and see how he reacts."
Nete considers John's question. "Unless there's some element of surprise we'll be giving up, talking first seems reasonable."
"If nothing else," he adds as he pulls a prescription bottle from his pocket, "the kid might say something that'll give us more to investigate when we sneak into the house later."
He dry-swallows a pill, then gives John an odd look. "You're not thinking a talk with him and sneaking into the house are mutually exclusive, are you?"
Faith types Earl Copenhagen into a search engine. "I printed copies of the map showing the neighborhood around the pond." She tips her head at a large envelope on the breakfast table. "I'll monitor the police band and let you know if anything interesting comes out. Meet up back here at lunch?"
Result = 5, success (for info on Earl Copenhagen)
"I'm thinking if talking to him goes well, we don't have to *sneak* into the house at all, and won't have to worry about B&E/trespassing charges."
Team Donut
Faith finds some local news articles and broadcasts mentioning Earl - he's been involved in some medium-low profile cases (just barely interesting enough to get the media's attention as filler stories).
Faith and Arlo get to the arranged meeting place, and a handsome, in-shape, well-dressed man ($200+ suit that fits him perfectly) gets up and approaches. "You must be Arlo, yeah? I'm Earl. Who's your charming friend?" and he gives Faith a firm handshake, a nice smile, and a wink.
After exchanging ID's, he says "What can I do for a friend of Hank's?"
Team House/Pond
Faith will generally keep quiet and let Arlo do the talking. She'll focus on getting a sense of how trustworthy Earl seems to be, while keeping alert to police scanner chatter and cell phone calls from the team (the signal is being passed to an earbud in one ear, while her other ear has her cell phone handsfree receiver). She has her cell set to make a beep in her ear to indicate an incoming call, so there's no ring-tone or vibrating cell-phone to go off when doing stealthy things.
She sits so Earl can get an eye-full of her curves, just to distract him a little and give him a little extra incentive to help us out.
Arlo greets the man with an enthusiastic handshake and smile. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. When Hank heard I was here, he suggested I speak with you to learn the "lay of the land" so to speak. My partner here is Faith Sierra, and though we've not known each other for long... I trust her".
Arlo looks for a corner booth, away from the crowd. "How about we sit over there, have a bite to eat, and I'll fill you in on why we're here".
Team House/Pond
John, Nate, and Gavril drive to the address they have. It's a nice, quiet, slightly-upscale suburban neighborhood. No suspicious looking black vans or service trucks parked outside Carter's house. As a matter of fact, every car on the block is parked in a driveway.
There's a kid (about 17-ish) shooting hoops in his driveway in the house next to Carter's. He gives you a quick glance as you get out of the car, decides you're all totally unimportant to his world, and goes back to his solo game.
"Well I don't know if Hank told you that I'm not active anymore...had some trouble and had to get my life back together you know. Well it just so happens that there's this group that had a need for my particular skill set."
"It has been brought to our attention that something strange happened here, and another member of our group lost his grip on the Mortal Coil recently. I was hoping you could give me the straight scoop. And, I don't know what kind of pull you have around here, but if me and my guys could snoop around a bit without raising a whole lot of local law enforcement attention... well that would be icing on the cake".
Team Donut
"Yeah, I guess you *could* call that one 'strange'. We're just hoping it's not the first appearance of a serial killer. As it happens, I was involved with that one, but I don't what else I can tell you since you seem pretty well informed. We looked at the neighbor kid who's going to inherit, but he seems to have a pretty good alibi. We're waiting for Carter's sister to get in town, we heard there was bad blood between them, but we don't really expect her to be good for this.
We've seem to hit a dead end, and that case is quickly becoming cold. We've released the house as a crime scene, so if you can get the kid's permission, you can look at it all you want.
Anything else I can help you with?"
Faith has been listening attentively, taking notes, and using body language to try to improve his reaction to our request. She sits with the same posture as Earl (which has been proven in tests to improve someone's opinion of the imitator, who is implicitly assumed to be of a similar mindset as himself). She laughs at any jokes he makes, brushes his hand with hers as she initiates conversation, and gives plenty of eye contact, widening her eyes and raising her eyebrows slightly at any mention of carnage he witnessed, etc.
When Earl asks if there is anything else he can help with, Faith says, "I should tell you that this cases has caught the attention of Homeland Security. We're not federal agents, just consultants, but what we report back will be scrutinized for evidence of terrorist threats. We're not thinking religious extremists from the Middle East, but a different ... breed of extremists, you might say. So any help you give us will also be helping keep our country safe from threats. If you have any aspirations to moving up the law enforcement ladder to something federal, we'd be happy to put in a good word about your cooperation."
Once she's laid this out, she says, "It would really help if we could get a chance to look at the body and perhaps talk to the coroner about cause and time of death, how the body was cut apart, and any evidence suggesting torture or confinement. The other thing we'd be grateful for would be any information on the murders which took place overnight, such as evidence it was committed by the same perp. I have a personal interest in this case, since I handled something similar when I was on the force in L.A."
As she says this last, her face registers a grime and determined set, as she genuinely struggles to keep her memories of those events from causing her to lose her composure.
Charisma bonus: +2
Spending a Benny to re-roll that:
Charisma bonus: +2
result = 6
Nothing was a lie. She doesn't know for sure if anything we consultants recommend to Maggie would help Earl if he decided to apply for a job with the feds, but she believes it should be true. Does that count? She really did have an experience on the force solving a crime that was similar in that the cause of death was unexplained and the case had gone cold and it turned out to be a kind of monster, which we suspect is the case here. [See spoilers in her profile background.]
He is now Friendly disposed towards you (as an unknown friend of a friend, he was Neutral to begin with).
"Well, we'd better hustle if you want to *see* the body, I think the coroner's close to releasing it, and I don't know what the sister will want to do with it. I can take you there right now and introduce you to the coroner."
He seems confused by your mention of the "overnight murders". "I'm not on that case, but from what I've heard so far it doesn't sound like they have anything in common - while everyone *was* stabbed, they weren't stabbed excessively or sliced into ribbons and dismembered like Carter was. As far as I've heard so far.
And bringing you in on that case would be tougher, since I'm not involved and you have no 'official' jurisdiction. But I can ask around and keep you informed of what I find."
Lastly he gives your hand a gentle squeeze (I'm assuming it's within reach because of what you said above) and says with a smile "And in exchange, I *insist* on having dinner with you tonight, to show you all the pleasures of our fair city." Ever-so-slight emphasis on "pleasures".
What's good for the goose is good for the gander :
= 6 +2 (Attractive) = 8 is a Success and a Raise
Arabella, you feel all tingly from the touch of his hand, his smile, and the thought of the "city's pleasures". :) Assuming you were at worst Neutral, you're now Helpfully disposed towards him. Since all he's technically asking for is dinner, I can't think of any reason you wouldn't agree to it (and, he is doing favors for you). What you decide to do after dinner would be up to you, not forced by your attitude.
"So, let's get to the coroner." You all pay your bills (if any), and leave. He'll ask you to follow his car in yours.
Faith appreciates that he's interested in a date and gives him a nod and a smile and agrees. Business before pleasure, of course, but if the case doesn't require my attention, some deep dish Chicago pizza would be great! When his attention is elsewhere, Faith gives Arlo a sly wink.
She expects to drive and tries to observe all the traffic rules if Earl does.
The coroner doesn't have much to add to the preliminary report that y'all got, except to say that the multiple slashings were over a prolonged period of time, and done while the victim was alive. He's puzzled as to why the victim didn't bleed to death sooner.
They did find trace amounts of a substance in a couple of places on his body, it's been sent to CSI for analysis.
The coroner does comment that the flesh of the body seems somehow different, in a way he can't really describe - it just "feels" (somewhat literally) different. They have tried some tests with no results, and are pursuing further tests.
Arlo and Faith - any specific questions for the coroner?
Nate and Gavril - what are you doing?
"Can we see the body?" Faith asks.
If not, can Faith and Arlo see photos of the cuts and make cellphone photos of them?
Some other questions:
"What do you think made the cuts? "
"Was the dismemberment done with surgical precision or was it more of a hatchet job? "
"Was the body cut up post mortem?"
"What is the estimated time of death? "
"What was the cause of death? "
"Were any organs missing? We're the eyes put out or removed?"
"How long was the body in the water? "
"Was the cutting done in Carter's house?"
Faith will also ask Earl, "When was Carter last known to be alive? Have phone records turned any calls that might help you trace his movements prior to the murder? "
Yes, you can see the body. You can't take pictures or get photos, the coroner won't go that far (it's evidence in an ongoing investigation). Faith can vamp him all she wants, he won't allow it unless directly ordered by *his* boss.
Any sharp blade could have made the cuts. They weren't punctures, so no idea the shape of the blade.
The dismemberment was the cause of death, and it looks like his limbs were literally torn from his body. No organs removed.
The body was apparently in the water overnight, and that makes it hard to determine the exact time of death before that.
Earl will tell you that the torture was done in Carter's basement, and Carter was known to be alive *about* 24 hours before the body was found.
Hope that covers everything.