It's about 9pm, Tues February 4th, by the time you arrive at the house where your dad died. It's pretty obvious where the shootout occurred, as it's still blocked off by police tape.
The house is three stories, two main floors, and what is likely an attic. You're also pretty sure there's a basement. Most of the front windows are either broken or boarded up, but oddly there's also police tape across the door, which has clearly been kicked in or otherwise destroyed.
Tonight, Jason probably looks like a runaway. A teenager in a Doctor Who T-shirt probably stands out in this neighbourhood, but he carries a large backpack on his back - though, it's a bright orange with white sections and decorated with the Phoenix symbol of the Rebel Alliance, very clearly themed in the style of a rebel flight suit from Star Wars - bulging as if it contained everything he might need to live on his own.
Of course, that's not what's in his pack today. It's full of his father's ghost hunting supplies.
As he comes across the location of the shootout, he just stops, staring at the spot for a long few moments. Finally, he reaches back to pull the backpack off, opening it and reaching inside for a smaller nightvision video camera.
Looking around as he picks his bag up again, he steps around the taped off area until he finds a spot that isn't too obvious, where he can set up the camera to watch where the shooting took place, and hits the button to start recording.
That complete, he steps up towards the front door. "Dad, if you're here, I'll find you."
Taking a deep, nervous breath, Jason ducks past the police tape to step inside.
Walking around the first floor, it's obvious to you that while this house was long ago abandoned, it wasn't uninhabited. Oh sure, nobody was there now, but there's plenty of evidence that wasn't always the case. Empty food containers, beer, and soda bottles, were strewn everywhere. Sleeping bags, and blankets lay on the ground, or on somewhat broken down beds. Appliances looked recently used, and the refrigerator/freezer still had some food in them.
Whoever was here didn't leave all that long ago, and you guess there was probably a fair amount in residence.
At first, Jason is more interested in the layout, his mind already running through the ideas on the best places to put cameras.
It's only when there is a loud clatter as his foot hits a beer can - a sound that makes him jump - that he actually looks down at the floor. Digging into his bag, he pulls out a camera, starting to record what he's seeing.
"I don't know why I didn't expect this," he says, as he swings the camera around, examining the sleeping bags and the debris. "The shootout had to happen here for a reason. The suspect he was after," he continues, refusing to say the name of the killer even to himself, "must have been living here, and it looks like he wasn't alone. A gang, maybe?"
He looks in the fridge, and then says, "I should go. I know I should go. But I can't, this might be my only chance."
Quiet for a moment, he finally says, "I don't hear anybody. I think I'm alone, but I have to make sure. Any noise someone makes could be mistaken for something when I review the evidence. I have to know if alone."
Taking a breath, and still pointing his camera ahead of him, he starts up the stairs.
Walking around the upper level, you encounter much of the same evidence of inhabitants as you did downstairs. As you continue you're search, several things are readily clear.
One, it's likely there was at least a dozen people staying here. There's too much debris, too much litter, too much stuff, to be any less than that.
Also, you're pretty sure whoever was staying here wasn't some sort of overly violent gang. You see no signs of weapons, no empty shells, no rounds of live ammo. Of course, that all could have been packed up before they left, but if so, they were incredibly thorough in the cleanup. On top of this lack of weaponry, you note that it doesn't appear that any sort of fighting took place inside. You find nothing broken, knocked over, tossed out of place, etc.
"What could have made your dad come here?" You think, as it's pretty obvious criminals weren't staying here, at least not the type your dad would be after.
You poke your head into another bedroom, and spot something odd. On the nightstand next to the bed is a copy of the book you last saw Michael reading. Could be a coincidence, but you long ago learned those don't really exist.
Jason continues the search, documenting everything. "This doesn't make sense," he tells the camera after a while. "This is looking more like house crashers than criminals."
Jason's scientific-ish approach falters, though, as he spots that book. Every other room, he angled the camera around to get a good look before he stepped inside. This time? He walks right in. Right over to the book, and he blurts out, "What the *&#@? Michael?" He spends a moment examining it, checking to see if it's the same copy of the book, then looking around for other signs of his brother having been in the room.
There's no way to really tell if the book belongs to your brother, as neither has any identifying marks.
As you try to find something else that might prove Michael was indeed here, you don't really see anything of his. Just as you're about to leave, you spot a receipt from a local convenient store, for a bottle of Code Red Mountain Dew and a bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos, his favorite junk food.
Jason is silent as he searches the room, momentarily forgetting his father's lessons in documenting an investigation.
He ends up sitting down, right there on the floor as he reads the receipt. "Why would Michael be here?" he's quiet for a few moments, again, and then says, "What if dad wasn't here investigating a murder, what if he was looking for Michael? But why would he be here? If it was a house party or something, he probably wouldn't be reading. And how would dad have gotten shot? And if Michael was there, why wouldn't he say anything to me?"
After another few moments of thought, he puts the receipt into his pocket, and put the book away as well. Then, he starts to do a more thorough search of the room, looking for any clues now. If he doesn't find anything, he continues his original search again, once again thorough but now even more emotionally invested in solving this.
There's nothing else in the room of interest, and in fact, there's not a whole lot in the rest of the house.
You could attempt the attic or basement.
"I'm starting to be pretty sure that the house is clear," Jason says, continuing to narrate the video he's recording. "Dad might've already said something that I'll find in the recording. Or, the camera might've caught something I didn't see. I want to do a proper EVP session before I go home and talk to Michael, but have to make absolutely sure there are no sources of noise that might interfere. I'm already on the upper floor, so I'm going to check the attic, and then the basement."
Making his way to wherever he saw the attic access, he starts climbing up, leading with his camera.
As you reach the top of the stairs and open the door to the attic, one thing is immediately clear: Nobody has been up here in quite awhile. It's dusty, there's cobwebs everywhere, and the door creaks as you open it.
Flicking on the lone light, you see boxes, old furniture, some busted appliances, which leads you to believe that it's all the belongings of whoever originally owned the house.
Jason coughs as the dust stirs up in his face, and he waves his hand a bit clear the cobwebs immediately around him. Stepping fully into the attic and turning on the light, he pans the camera around, taking everything in.
"Yeah, nobody's been up here in a while. I wonder if I'm going to find an old Book of Shadows up here," he jokes, but he does take a look around. He's far too curious not to take a good look, though he doesn't dig deep without a good reason.
As you're looking around, you notice a panel of the wall that seems ever so slightly out of place. You pry it off, and discover something rather interesting: What is basically a tiny shrine, filled with old black and white photos, medals from WWII, a diary in what appears to be Italian, and some other remnants of bygone life. None of it is covered in dust or cobwebs. You also spot a small a hole in the floor, about six inches across, that is obviously man-made. Peering down it, you see that it likely goes all the way down to the basement.
"Yeah, there doesn't seem to be - wait a sec.," Jason says to the camera, as he looks around the attic. He steps over, prying open the odd-looking panel and then says, "Whoa. This is so cool. But why isn't it dusty? How can someone even look at it without stirring up the rest of the dust?"
He makes sure the camera gets a good look at all the pictures and the medals. The diary makes him pause. Setting down the camera on a box, to face himself, he digs out his phone. "There has to be some kind of app... Yes! Here it is. Scan and Translate Plus." Tapping his phone to download the app, he looks up at the camera, and says, "I'm just going to take a look. I'm not going to steal it, I wouldn't do that. I don't think anybody's living here anymore, but it still wouldn't feel right. But maybe the diary will give me a clue on who lived here. Which might be a clue to why my dad died here."
If the app downloads successfully, he runs it to start scanning the diary, in the hopes the app will translate it. Even as he starts to do that, mainly while waiting for results, he looks down that hole, and says, "Weird, why would anybody want a hole going down to the basement? Pipes, maybe? As soon as I scan a few pages, I'm going to check out down there."
Frustratingly, there's no signal. In fact, the only thing your phone will allow you to do is make emergency calls. No wifi either.
Looking down the hole, you don't see any piping. Of course, that doesn't mean there's none at all, but you get the feeling this hole wasn't made to access pipes.
Swearing under his breath, Jason instead snaps pictures of a few pages to translate later, then puts the book back. "Oh well, I'll figure that out eventually. Now, downstairs to the basement."
Making his way downstairs, down to the main floor, he returns to the basement door, turning the light on on his camera as he descends.
At the bottom of the stairs is a massive steel reinforced wooden door, the kind you might see in a medieval castle. Trying to push open it, it holds fast, and there doesn't appear to be any handle, or lock for that matter. Very strange.
"I don't get it," Jason says to the camera after pushing at the door, "Who would build something like this? Some kind of weird bomb shelter? Or is it something like dad's secret room?"
Thinking for a moment, Jason grins and runs up the stairs. He goes all the way back up to the attic, taking off his backpack once he gets back up there, he starts digging around for some rope, or a very long extension cable.
If he successfully finds any, he wraps one end around the small portable camera he's been recording with, making sure it's still recording, and starts to lower it down the hole.
Finding a rope, you lower your camera down, spinning it around slowly a few times, and pull it back up a couple minutes later. Watching the play back, the first thing you notice is it's incredibly dark down there. Literally zero lighting and no windows. Which means it's rather difficult to make things out, as there isn't any ambient lighting.
However, based on the few things you can see, you guess that it's some sort of living space. There's what appears to be a sleeping bag on the floor, a beat up recliner, and a bearskin rug. It's pretty hard to see much else.
"Whoa! Someone was living down there. Maybe someone is living down there? Maybe this hole is here for air. But they can't be down there right now, they'd have heard me for sure."
Considering for a moment, Jason stops the recording, opens the camera and pulls out the SD card. Pocketing it, he puts in a new one, then starts recording again, but keeping the camera away from his face. "I'm about to do something kind of crazy. If there is someone down there, I might be about to make them mad. If you're the person down there watching this, I mean no offence. I'm just trying to solve a mystery."
Flipping on the camera's light, a feature that hasn't been put too much use since his father bought the camera, he lowers it back down the hole. If all goes well, he pulls it up again after spinning it around a couple of times.
On the other hand, if he feels that something is grabbing the camera, his intention is to run.
You don't really see much else, just more evidence of it being some sort living space. If somebody currently resides down there, they aren't home right now.
Jason pulls the camera back up, looking over the recording. "Oh." Starting the recording again, he unties the rope and takes the camera back downstairs. "I'm suddenly really not feeling safe here. Dad, if you're here, please let me know."
If he doesn't hear anything in about 30 seconds, he says, "Okay, I'm going home. I need to review my recordings, and ask Michael why he was here." Quickly, he starts to pack up to do just that.
You get no response from your dad. Crestfallen and dejected, you pack everything up, and make your back home.
As you review the camera footage from outside, you see with absolute clarity, your dad. He doesn't notice the recorder at first, but when he spots it, he waves and gives a thumbs up.
It's late when Jason gets home, sneaking back into the house, but too wound up to sleep (and it being too late at night to talk to his brother), he settles in to watch his recordings. He started to grow tired, but when he sees his father he jumps up so fast his chair goes clattering. "Dad!"
He ends up watching that segment of video on repeat until he finally falls asleep.
You wake up the sound of the front door slamming closed. Looking at your cellphone, you see it's 8:15am. You hear Michael shout "With my friends, who take care of me!"
Jason blinks a few times, then quickly moves to close up the laptop he was viewing the video on, and stands up to go downstairs. As he enters the front room, he asks, "What's going on?"
By the time you get downstairs, Michael's gone. Your grandfather is sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper. "Michael was out all night with his 'new friends'. He's in a gang, if you ask me."
Jason swears, though before he can be reprimanded he says, "Sorry, grandpa." He quickly steps to the door, looking out to see if he can spot Michael, though expecting he won't. If he does spot his brother, he'll chase after.
Assuming he doesn't, he turns around and goes back upstairs, repacking his backpack for school, though keeping his brother's book in the bag, then changing his clothes as quickly as he can.
Going back downstairs, he says, "I'm going to see if I can catch up to him."
As you duck outside, you see a car across the street speed off. While you didn't actually see Michael, you're fairly positive he was inside. You're able to catch a glimpse of the license plate, and the letters MSA, but you can't see the rest.
Heading back in, your grandfather says "He's been skipping school the last few weeks. Sometimes the whole day, but usually just getting there late or leaving early." He's obviously very worried and concerned about your younger brother.
Jason steps back inside, and says, "Grandpa, do you still have friends who could look up a partial plate? Whoever his friends are, they have a car." He describes it as well, and gives the letters he saw. Of course, he has his ways of finding that information as well, but it would take longer. So, he has to at least try asking.
"I do, but I'm not going to call them without reason. Skipping school is bad, but not criminal."
Reluctantly, Jason nods, and says, "I'm just worried." If they have a car, one of them has to be at least 18. Or they actually are breaking the law.
After a moment, Jason grabs his stuff (including his laptop) again and says, "See you tonight, grandpa." He gets on his bike, but doesn't go to school. He makes his way to the house where his father died. He has a hunch that's where his brother is.
As you near the abandoned house, you see that several police cars are parked outside. You also note that the car Michael was in, is not there.
Perhaps they saw the cops, and took off, or maybe they haven't come back to the house yet. Thinking back on it, you're pretty sure nobdoy's been to the house in the last week or so.
Pulling his bike to a stop, Jason looks at the police for a moment. Then, he turns the bike around, heading for school.
I can run the prediction algorithms after school. Maybe I'll get lucky and Michael will show up.
About half way through the day, just before lunch, the principal calls you to his office. When you get there, you see two cops as well. The woman asks "Would you like to tell us what you were up to last night young man?"
Jason blinks as he hears the message to go to the office, but does so. When he walks in, he stops in his tracks as he sees the police officers. There's a flash of fear on his face, but perhaps not the kind of fear they expect. Michael?
So, when he's asked that question, he lets out a breath of relief. His one such bad news reveal was one too many. He straightens back up after a moment, and says, "You wouldn't be asking if you didn't already know. I was investigating my father's death."
She motions him into the office, and shuts the door behind them. "What you did was disturb an active crime scene. Which is a pretty serious offense. Especially since you wandered all over the house"
That throws Jason just a bit. He owes a bit pale as he takes those steps inside. "I thought you'd have cleared the scene by now." Trespassing, he was willing to take that. This? It's worse than he thought.
Not that he actually really thought about it all that much before doing it.
"We have, but since the killer hasn't be found, we're still considering it an active crime scene. Especially considering it's a popular hangout for a local biker gang." The male officer responds.
Jason's trust of the police becomes evident, as he doesn't get defensive or try to deny much of anything, but says, speaking fast, not really giving anybody a chance to say anything for a moment, "But that's what doesn't make sense. If it looked like a biker gang hideout, I probably wouldn't have done much more than stick my head in. But it didn't. There were beer bottles and cans, yeah, but a lot more pop and chips. And there wasn't any sign of drugs or weapons. I mean, I know you would've taken that stuff, but there wasn't even any sign of there having been any there. It looked more like normal kids were there, than a gang."
He doesn't, however, mention the evidence of his brother's attendance.
"And there was that shrine to the World War II soldier, there's no way a gang would've left out alone. And there is that secure room in the basement, with that big hole going all the way up to the attic right by that shrine. None of it makes sense for a gang."
The woman officer replies "That's enough back talk young man. We have you on police camera repeatedly crossing and violating police restricted areas. We're taking you down to the station. As you're a Warren, you know your rights. Turn around so I can put the cuffs on."
Jason obediently turns, shutting up. He's worried and knows he screwed up, but he doesn't try to fight or argue in the least. Even his 'backtalk' was, in tone, more an attempt to share information rather than argue. Nor does he show any anger or sullen-ness. It's more like he takes her comment as perhaps backhanded advice to keep his right to silence, rather than any kind of threat.
He's just not wired to see cops (especially the local precinct cops) as bad guys.
The ride to the station is quiet and uneventful. Upon arriving, you're booked and given your one phone call. For some odd reason, you're grandfather doesn't pick up, which is very weird.
As you're waiting around to be processed, a rather attractive young lady, wearing a black pantsuit and her hair pulled back in a severe bun, comes into the room. She looks directly at the officer handling you, and say "Release him, he's innocent." The man looks slightly dumbfounded at first, but quickly nods his head. "Yes ma'am."
She crooks her finger at you "Come with me."
Jason is starting to get more worried, as the phone rings and rings with no response. He hangs up, biting his lower lip.
When the woman arrives short time later, he just looks confused. Happy, but confused. "Yes, ma'am." he does, indeed, follow after her. A moment later, he asks, "Who are you? Are you the detective in charge of the investigation?"
"I'm the person getting you out of this colossal screw up." She replies simply.
Jason is quiet for just a second, and then he says, "Works for me. Thanks."
As you step outside, she directs you to get into a black sedan. If you argue, she shoots you a look that cuts you off mid sentence.
Jason does open his mouth to say something, but at the look he shuts up again and get into the car.
She gets into the car next you, and it pulls off. "You were reckless, and stupid. Be more careful." Is all she says at first.
Looking out the window, you thankfully note that you're being taken home.
Though he relaxes just a little on seeing that they're headed towards his home, he looks back and nods quite quickly, "I will, I promise. I… I wasn't thinking, except about finding out what happened. Won't happen again."