[Izzy Montoya] It’s 21 degrees outside, and she’s standing outside. Not only is she standing outside, she’s leaning against the hood of her car, lighting a cigarette. She looks exhausted, but it seems to be her default look these days. While the hubbub and craziness of the holidays has died down, there are still cases to solve, new things that crop up, and a Detective who’s insomnia is reaching epic proportions in the deep dark cold of January.
Cigarette lit, first drag taken, and she tucks away the lighter before dragging her fingers through dark hair. Her lights are not on -her car is not even running – it’s just her, the remains of the crime scene, and her cigarette.
A bottle of whiskey would make it perfect.
There’s nothing about her that doesn’t scream Cop – even without the overwhelming evidence of an ‘unmarked car’ that does nothing to hide the lights in the back window or the fact it’s trying very hard to blend in, but only serves to stand out more. Not to mention the crime scene behind her – fluttering yellow tape in a store front where the crime itself will be all too quickly forgotten. Her dress is business casual, tailored but not ultra expensive, under a leather coat that is both warm and functional. Her hair is down, falling in dark waves, her features strong, her blood screaming of the heroes of her tribe, though she makes no sound.
Just another day in Chicago.
[Quinn] Sunday, Quinn’s night off from The Winchester. It’s supposed to be her day for relaxation, to kick back, unwind, and just exist for a few hours of the day. Usually, she spends it at The Brotherhood, locked in her room or out on the sectional or down at the bar, letting someone else serve her the drinks for once.
Today, though, has been anything but relaxing.
So now she’s out, looking for a certain book store, hoping to get something to read herself into unconsciousness tonight, something old and tattered and…
There’s tap in the window, the yellow kind that cautions POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. Quinn stops just the other side of the cop car with the policewoman smoking nearby. She doesn’t stand out, not really, doesn’t have any physical trait that screams out that she’s a bartender, or that somewhere in her bloodline her family was Irish or Scottish or something. She’s just an ordinary woman in a leather coat, jeans, and boots, brown hair spilling over her shoulders from beneath a blue and white knit cap.
The kinswoman is not easily given to swearing, and yet the first words Izzy Montoya hears Quinn say are, “Fuck my life.”
[Patrick Llewelyn] Just another day in Chicago, but the night prior to it had been alternately one of the best and worst of Patrick Llewelyn’s life. And he’d only been around for twenty-three years so you know it can’t have been great.
He looks it, too. Looks like he’d had a big evening the moment that Quinn sees him bundled up for a change against the cold.
He’s wearing a heavy black overcoat, and it’s clearly a new addition to his wardrobe. There’s a hood attached to it, but the Galliard doesn’t have it drawn up over his head presently, as it interferes with the cigarette he’s been nursing; slowly, seemingly aimlessly. Patrick’s blue eyes are bloodshot, and there’s dark, dark circles beneath them. His jaw is covered in a fine layer pale bristle as he’d apparently neglected to shave that morning.
All in all, when Quinn sees Patrick, and she will, as he is making no bid to conceal himself, standing across the street from Izzy Montoya and her crime scene, she can see a wasted man. Hungover, is the most likely synopsis for his state, for his bedraggled hair and the way when he begins to walk toward them, he all but shuffles like a condemned man. The Detective is smoking, so there’s no need for him to ditch his as he approaches.
Takes a long drag, breathes it out into the night.
“My general sentiments exactly,” he calls in a rough undertone, with the scratched vocals of one who had been yelling too hard; too long.
[Izzy Montoya] The kinswoman that Izzy doesn’t know stops at the crime scene and swears, and Izzy simply arches a brow. Seconds later, a very bundled up Patrick joins Quinn, and agrees. Izzy, for her part, likely agrees as well, but she chooses not to voice it – at least not at the moment. No, this moment is reserved for inhaling, doing her best to poison herself with cigarette smoke though she knows it will be something far more sinister that gets the best of Izzy Montoya when her time comes.
Quinn was looking for a book, it seems, and Izzy glances back at the scene, and to the others. “Sorry. They’re closed.”
Ah, captain obvious. She must be tired.
[Quinn] Patrick sees Quinn, likely senses her and the Fenrir kinswoman long before either of them notice him coming up the street. They see him. For the first time since he’s known her, Quinn doesn’t look at the Galliard and greet him with a warm smile. Her blue eyes drop to the snow-wet sidewalk, and her lips tighten. It seems tonight they all share a bit of Patrick’s gloomy attitude.
Rather than pointing out that Izzy’s statement is completely obvious, Quinn turns to the stranger, and that’s where her smile, more sideways quirk than anything, gets directed. A huff of a laugh through her nose, a sign that she takes the comment as a joke.
Quinn sighs. “Well that’s fantastic. Do either of you know if there’s another old book store around here? Or did Borders take over this neighborhood already?”
[Patrick Llewelyn] “What happened?”
He asks; after a cursory glance, and attempt at a smile toward his Kinswoman. Patrick keeps one of his hands firmly in a pocket, but the one holding his cigarette trembles very minutely, and the knuckles are scraped raw in patches. The blood is already clotted, and the wounds will be gone by the time the night is done.
Patrick licks away ash, and rids it from his tongue, a hand pushing back through his untamed scalp as Quinn asks after another old book store. “I think there’s one a couple streets over that stays open late.” Then his eyes, still blue, still vibrantly despite his quiet mood, despite that they are red rimmed.
Someone might mistake him for a junkie, if he looked this wrecked most days.
“Was it natural?” Of course not, he knows better. He asks anyway.
[Patrick Llewelyn] [ahem. Finish sentence fragments, jacqui. “swing back to Izzy”.]
[Izzy Montoya] The quirk at the side of her lips when Quinn decides to take her comment as a joke confirms that it was, indeed, intended that way. She holds her hand out to the side, flips the ashes off the end of her cigarette, even as she shakes her head when Patrick mentions the one a couple streets down. “Not this late. They roll the fuckin sidewalks up round 7 on Sundays.”
As for what happened, and if it was natural, she snorts. “Nothing’s natural about shit that drags my happy ass out on my day off. Just another case of an argument gone very very wrong.”
At least it wasn’t mutant wurms this time. That was fuckin’ disgusting.
[Quinn] Patrick mentions another shop a couple blocks over, Izzy reminds her that at this time of night, everything’s closed. Quinn’s knees bend, her eyes close, her head tips up toward the heavens, and she groans. As far as shit-days go, today doesn’t even rank, but it’s the little things that make it seem worse than it really is. So the earlier hubbub had her leaving The Brotherhood to stalk Chicago’s streets like a vagabond later than usual. So she can’t get a book from the store she wanted to go to, not for a while by the looks of it. She’s suffered worse things.
Even so, it still sucks.
A more thoughtful and considerate kin would look at Patrick, at his shivering and his red-rimmed eyes, at the bruises on his knuckles, and ask him what’s up. Quinn thinks about it, and she decides she’s better off not knowing. The less she knows about Caldera, the better off her life will be.
Instead she looks between the two of them and asks her own obvious question, “You two know each other?”
[Patrick Llewelyn] Patrick lifts a broad shoulder at the news that a) the store was well and truly shut by now and b) that there was nothing natural about the shit that dragged Izzy out of bed on a Sunday. He’s not a frequent smoker, Patrick. He doesn’t always do it, goes for months on end without ever lighting up and then, often quite randomly, picks the habit back up like a book fallen from a shelf he remembered he enjoyed and blows the dust off to read again.
Quinn notices he’s in bad shape, but she doesn’t want to know about it.
She’s a smarter woman than she gives herself credit for, not to press.
She really doesn’t want to know.
“Yeah,” Patrick says, smiling over at the Detective with a curved, crooked little smile that’s equal parts mirth and sarcasm. “You could say we fell outta the sky on her once.” A beat, he leans over, and delicately nudges Quinn. “In Howard’s case, literally. He jumped off a fire escape.”
The Galliard’s eyes wander past the Detective, to the fluttering crime scene tape.
“You need help cleaning up in there, or is this the post-crime scene clean up cigarette?”
[Izzy Montoya] She snorts, as Patrick tells the other woman how they met. She doesn’t seem to have anything to add to it either, choosing to scan the street instead. She does, however, add dryly. “And how is Mr. Ivers. Recovered sufficiently?”
She remembers to call him what he requested, despite the fact that he will forever be branded the idiot twat who jumped off the balcony. In her head, anyway. As for the scene…
“It’s cleaned up. I’ve just got to make one more sweep in case anything was missed.” A beat. “Appreciate the offer though.”
[Quinn] “Ah,” she says, nodding once with raised eyebrows in a How enlightening way. They know each other, but it seems no introductions are offered on behalf of the kinswomen. When Howard’s name is mentioned, Quinn’s face closes up about as much as could be expected, which is to say that anyone with eyes can see that she’s tense. At least by now she’s calmed down from I’m going to kill him to what is apparently the default setting for most of the people who know Howard: irritated.
“I’m Quinn,” she offers, feeling like the third wheel making herself known to the crowd again. “I run The Winchester in Cabrini. You should stop in for a post-clean-up drink sometime.”
[Bridget Geroux] Who knows what drives the wanderlust of kinfolk, other than the heaviness of things. The streets of Chicago are lonesome and dark tonight. A solo Fianna kinfolk takes one of her marathon walks. Maybe she’s headed to one of the two packhouses she knows of in the area, or maybe she has other reasons. In any case, she’s not in any hurry to be anywhere.
The young woman is wearing a Calgary Flames hoodie beneath her studded leather jacket; stovepipe jeans and boots that actually look warm. Something from Kristiana’s hoarde of shopping carnage. A set of headphones (yes, headphones) pins her hair from her face. She’s smoking a cigarette as she winds around the corner. Her hand is out as if keeping her balance, but on second glance it looks like she’s in something of a trance. Her head bobs slowly while her hands move in small, slight waving movements. The soles of her boots provide sufficient precussion to her step to give the impression she’s listening to something quite mellow.
“I hold sto-ries of lands and bones, shrouded like the way they go-oh-oh-oh.”
[Patrick Llewelyn] “Yeah,” a vague noise of humor notched from his throat. “He’s fine. Right as rain.”
Well, to ask Patrick to introduce yourself is always a risky endeavor. You’re just as likely to end up with a strange concoction of Ums, Yeahs and Whatevers as you are anything remotely useful to the identification of the person he’s trying to introduce. So, Quinn takes care of herself.
Probably wise, all told.
Especially given the rasp to Prayers to Broken Stone’s voice; he sounded as if he’d been screaming half the night away — no doubt the cigarette smoke is doing wonders to aid him. There’s a sniff, and then the lilting chorus of song is drifting toward the trio out front of a crime scene.
Patrick turns, and when he catches sight of Bridget, there’s a flicker of — what — something, before he twists back, finishing up his cigarette and glancing askew at the Fianna Kin beside him. “Maybe we should go get a nightcap. You wanna tag along?”
This, to Izzy. “Too cold to stand out here, flapping our gums.”
[Quinn] [empatheee what what]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] She notes the tightness that comes when Howard’s name is mentioned, but without a frame of reference, she doesn’t mention it. She simply notes it, and lifts her cigarette to her lips for another drag.
She chuckles, briefly. “I am always up for a post-clean-up drink. I’ll do that.” a beat, then. “Detective Izzy Montoya, CPD Homicide.” There’s a sense there that she is proud of the name, of the position, and the underlying expectation that it’s what she should be called – some form of that name. And not – like earlier – ‘sugartits’ or something just as vulgar.
She flicks the butt of her cigarette into the gutter to die a slow death, and nods. “I gotta do one more sweep inside. I may join you in a bit if the offer stands.” Unless another call comes in.
[Quinn] Izzy offers up her full name, Quinn just goes by Quinn, no other names or titles are offered. She smiles, though, impressed by the title. Here, then, is a woman who has done something important with her life outside of the Nation. Not that Quinn isn’t proud of her own lot in life. If she didn’t work in a bar, she doesn’t know what she’d do with her life. She wouldn’t dream of calling Izzy sugartits, or babe, or anything remotely vulgar. Just the thought that someone would, and in a way that the detective did not take as a term of endearment, would probably make her frown at least.
There’s a flicker of something on Patrick’s face when he sees Bridget? If there is, it goes unnoticed by his kinswoman, whose attention has also been drawn by the singing voice drifting down the street. Quinn looks around at Bridget, is about to call out a greeting to the younger woman when Patrick suggests a nightcap. Quinn’s eyes flit to him, and her brow tenses. Breathing in, she scrunches her nose and takes a step back. Away.
“Yeaaah, I think I’m going to pass,” she says, taking another step. “I’ll see you around, though. Nice meeting you, Detective,” she says, nodding to Izzy. Another step backward, and Quinn pivots to start walking away.
[Bridget Geroux] The Fianna kin across the street finishes her cigarette before twisting the ember under her boot. Movement catches her eye, or maybe it’s Izzy’s car? The Canadian blinks a few times across the street. One hand reaches up to remove her headphones.
The chit blinks a few more times, then crosses the street to approach them.
“Heya.”
[Patrick Llewelyn] On another night, Patrick might have wondered harder if Quinn was stepping away for some greater reason than the fact that she simply wasn’t in the mood for a drink. On another night he’d have caught more on her face when Howard’s name was brought up, and held onto it to ask of later.
On another night he might have felt worse about his Rage, and it being brought front and center among all these Kinfolk. Any other time, Patrick’s expression might have darkened, drawn inward at the refusal; at the tensed brow.
But he’s still too raw, too wrought from whatever the fuck happened to him the night before. So, Izzy has to do another sweep before she might join them if the offer still stands — if they’re still around. Bridget is closing in on them to say hello and Quinn is stepping away; pivoting to walk on. Patrick does hesitate, his breath casting a cloud before him for a moment, his own brows drawn together.
The chill has warmed his skin, and his handsome face is pinker than normal.
“Hey, Quinn.” He calls, then sees Bridget. His battered hand rubs over his nose. “… night.” Which is not the natural conclusion to that begun thought.
[Izzy Montoya] She nods, slightly, and lifts her hand as Quinn takes her leave. She then shoves it back into her pocket, and looks at Bridget as she joins them, lifts her chin in greeting, then pushes from the car. “I’d better get that sweep done – then if you’re still looking for a nightcap partner, I’m in.”
She stretches, slightly, then turns to head into the building, ducking under the police tape with the confidence and grace of someone who’s done it more times than she could possibly count. Time to do the real work.
– If they watch her through the window, they would see the oddest sweep. Sure, she walks about the room, but then Izzy sinks to a crouch, favoring her left ankle a bit, and then goes very very still. It looks like, for all the world, that she’s simply listening to something no one else can hear. Or that she’s losing her marbles. Either one works, really, and she wouldn’t care either way.
After a bit, she stands, and pulls out her phone to make a calls. While she does, she pulls on a pair of blue latex gloves. She moves to a door frame, and runs her fingers over it, her brow furrowed. She’s still talking, when a look of triumph passes over her face, and she pulls something from the wood. She pulls an evidence bag from her jacket pocket, and tucks it away inside, before she paces about the room in some pattern only she can see, dictating it to the person on the phone.
They never know how she knows what she knows. According to them – well, she’s simply a natural talent, the best of the best. That’s all they’ll ever know. –
And, when she returns, sometime later, if Patrick is still there, she asks for a raincheck. If he is not, she assumes she’ll get one anyway. She has more work to do. Always, more work to do.
[have to go – gotta work in the morning and 5am comes WAY early. Sorry to ditch again!]