[Janis Ian] There’s a barely a moon in the sky, the stars are hidden by an overcast of clouds that illuminate with a dull orange glow from the city lights below. The Cabrini is darker, the lights aren’t as bright here. It’s still cold, you can smell the moisture in the wind, as if it promised rain. The house is empty, a two-story unit that’s clustered together with six other buildings on a desolate stretch of avenue. Most of the homes are vacant, save for the few people that still cling to some semblance of life.
It’s murder. A double homicide. Children were involved….
No family lives here any longer. Detective Montoya sifts through the remains, looks behind the yellow caution tape, listening for whispers… It’s how she does things. It’s how she always did. A sensation of rage washes across the room, it beats like a heatwave against the cool breeze that flows through the broken window – a fire in the shadows.
Izzy knows this feeling.
[Detective Montoya] Izzy is tired. Exhausted, really. The month spent at the precinct 13 was a month too long. The case there still weighs on her mind, as she awaits more information from careful inquiries. The work load here at home has not eased at all. And now there’s a murder, a double homicide – involving children.
She hates these cases. More than any other – she hates these.
She crouches at the edge of the scene, listening – always listening – and closes her eyes briefly. The room tells her what it will tell, just moments before rage washes across her senses. Her spine stiffens, her jaw sets, her mouth firms.
She opens her eyes, and turns toward the feeling, unflinching.
[just for GPs – echo echo, does she hear an echo?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Janis Ian] Daddy No! Daddy Please… Not that! DADDY!! a cacophony of tiny voices, screeching at the top of their lungs. The room becomes ice cold as the wind whistles shrewdly through the broken glass it echoes the children’s ghostly cries against her ears, along her cheeks – the barest of touch that felt like icy fingers tickling down her spine.
They didn’t have suspect when they found the two children – a set of twins – with multiple stab wounds throughout their bodies. The mother found them that way when she came home from work. Money was missing from her top dresser drawer, the window broken to make it look like a robbery.
The rage makes the feeling worse. Izzy opens her eyes, she can see a shadow pull across the window, blotting out the light from outside for a second as a woman takes shape. Her clothes black to meld in with the darkness, her skin as pale as moonlight, and her hair as red as fire, dancing along her shoulders in a tangled mess. She wears a visceral twisted primal mask over her features.
“Detective Montoya, I presume?” The faint hiss of a brogue echoes in a growling voice, the threat is an predator riding just under the human’s skin. The Rotagar steps more fully into the kin’s view, towering over her by two inches or so. A small pewter stone dangling from a string of twine.
[Detective Montoya] Detective, Montoya, I presume?
Izzy watches her, taking in the hint of brogue, the red hair, even the small stone dangling from the twine. She pushes to stand, brushing her hands across her thighs, before she simply clasps them behind her back.
“You do, do you.” Presume, that is. A lift of her chin confirms it, though.
The Trueborn is taller than Izzy, though – despite her lack of rage, or perhaps because of it – the Detective has a definitive presence that makes her seem bigger, broader. There are many a man larger than Izzy who have cowed before her intensity. A lot of it is in the eyes – which Izzy directs on Janis, without flinching, without lowering, with the determination she’s been oft damned for…
[Janis Ian] So many new faces. In and out of Chicago. It was difficult to tell who was the new Garou were. They didn’t stay long or they died to fucking quickly. Janis meets the Detective’s gaze, her eyes seem to hold a amber hue when the light strikes them – it is unnatural.
She senses the strength in the kin, the way she holds herself to appear bigger, broader than the Garou. Izzy has cowed men with her intensity, the female Garou doesn’t seem to waver. She does incline her head in a bow of respect and greeting to the Detective.
“If ye are she, I’m Janis Ian, Fenrir and soon-to-be of Last Watch. I ‘eard through idle conversations we possessed a kin of yer status. Which, I’m ‘oping ye could assist me with a bit of information. I don’t know the ways of police work, only ‘ow to create the messes that give ye ‘eadaches.”
[Detective Montoya] A quirk of a brow, at that. Another one of Kora’s it seems, and it’s only a force of will that has Izzy not asking just what Janis had heard her status was. The question flickers deep in dark eyes, though, before it’s pushed aside, away, and forgotten.
The last bit, earns the Rotagar a smirk. Briefly amused. Some say that a smirk is always rude. Izzy doesn’t care either way, it simply is her default expression.
“What do you need to know.” Careful, still.
[Janis Ian] “When one of our own – kin or Garou – falls into the ‘ands of the police, is there a way to erase their records? Make the incident that they were involved in – disappear?”
She looks around at the furnishings of the living room, twitching her nose slightly, head canted up to sniff the air. She huffs out, returning her gaze to Izzy.
[Detective Montoya] Izzy lifts a hand, and runs fingers through her hair, holding it briefly at the top of her head before letting go. If only it were that easy. Her life? Would be so much less complicated. She chews the inside of her cheek briefly, before she starts to search her pockets – the ritual any smoker knows, the search for her pack and lighter.
Maybe it helps her think. Maybe she’s simply addicted. Either way, she searches her pockets.
“Not easily, no. There’s the files, than the electronic copies, the officers themselves, so on and so forth. Individually things can be done, perhaps, but as a whole – someone always remembers, always knows. A coordinated effort on all fronts might get it relatively erased, but rarely completely. A lot of it depends on the timing.”
Not easy, not completely impossible. “Why.”
[Janis Ian] She tells Janis it isn’t so easy. She explains it and the Rotagar is hanging on every word. Her red brows drawn into a deep furrow that makes her features seem more animal-like. She starts to pace, her voice rumbling in irritation, quick steps carry her back and forth in a straight line before the window.
Janis stops in mid-stride when Izzy asks why.
“Monday, a kin and I wound up in the same place – a gentleman’s club that carries on illegal acts behind closed doors. The kin was making an unknown delivery to a woman there who turned into a fomor. We dealt with the situation and left – apparently without covering our tracks.”
She sucks in a deep breath, her voice growing shallow “We took refuge for the night outside the city, some roadside motel just north, near Elk Grove. We got paid a visit by the employer of the woman we killed – ‘e tracked us that far. A Spiral and a gunman died, the employer made off with one of the things that the kin confiscated from the safe. A small bag of red crystalline powder. We assumed it was cocaine – a designer drug, but it smelled like blood.”
She looks towards the windows, “The bodies and weapons were ‘idden, but the kin was still taken in, they could only find him in a room full of blood.”
[Detective Montoya] She listens, and there is little reaction to be seen as she does. She really listens, too – hears everything. What is said, what is glossed over, what is left covered by blithe statements of what – for them – are every day happenings. What, to others, are horror stories beyond imagining.
Apparently without covering their tracks, she says, and that gets a huff of breath from the Detective. Amusement, maybe, or simple frustration. In her experienceGarou all too often forget to cover their tracks.
She takes a breath, holds it, and lets it go, slowly. Finally locating her cigarettes, she lights up and takes a drag off that too, before she answers.
“Gimme his name, an’ that of any involved. They have any evidence other than his being there?”
[Janis Ian] “Elijah Booker is the kin. From what I saw peeking through, they took samples the blood, yelled at ‘im for answers to where the bodies were at. ‘e says they can’t ‘old ‘im if there’s no evidence to pin to ‘im. Long ‘e’ll spend is a couple of days in jail, maybe?”
In the haste of things, the Garou made the bigger messes, left open the gaps and the trails of blood and body parts. This seems to frustrate the Rotagar more, she pivots her frame towards the window, continuing to glance out of it and then swings her eyes to Izzy.
“What can I do next time to prevent something like this, Detective? I’m coming to ye for advise.”
[Detective Montoya] She notes the name with a simple nod. She lets the smoke trail from her lips, than takes another drag before she answers.
First, that briefly amused huff. What can she do next time? “Don’t be there when th’cops get there. Cover your tracks. If that ain’t work, ya could incite delerium, though that’s risky too. Create a diversion, get time to escape, all things that look smart in hindsight, but ain’t easy to do in the moment, I know.”
And she does know. Had her fair share of fuckups, Izzy.
Then, she relents a little. “There isn’t a clearcut answer. We’re city bound, and do the best we can. You can call me, though, next time. I’ll get you the number, and if I can get there first, I have a slim chance of edging the investigations the way we want them to go.”
A slight nod. “Without evidence, they can only hold him 48 hours. He’ll be watched closely for at least a couple weeks, off and on after that. I’ll see if I can’t get in to see him, and get some more info for you too. He should be fine as long as nothing ties him to the investigation aside from being there.”
[Janis Ian] Janis gives a nod of affirmation. She tilts her head to the side, thinking, counting back to the days.
“It was Tuesday they took ‘im in. ‘Tis Thursday now, he should be out or least getting out. Which means I can’t bring ‘im back to the Church if ‘e’s being watched like ye say.”
Janis huffs out again, rolling her eyes closed. She nods her head, “I’ll remember that for next time.”
[Detective Montoya] Izzy digs into her pocket for her card holder, pulls one out and hands it to the Rotagar.
Then, after a moment. “He need a place to stay, then?”
[Janis Ian] Janis reaches for it, plucking out the card from Izzy’s hands. She flips it between her fingers, tilting it up to hold it to the light to read the name and number. Her eyes skip back to the Detective.
“Not sure, yet, depends on who else he contacts to ‘elp ‘im.”
[Detective Montoya] She nods, slightly. “Alright. If there’s no place, call that number. It’s my cell, and private. We’ll go from there.”
She cups her hand around her cigarette, so that the ashes don’t fall into the scene, and starts toward the door so that she can flick it away properly.
Once she’s stuck her hand outside the door to do so, she looks back at Janis. “anything else?”
[Janis Ian] “Nay, Detective.”
She watches the burning ember on the tip of Izzy’s cigarette for a second, shakes her head as her focus returns to the scene around them. She lifts the card up to touch it to her temple in a salute.
“Thank ye, Izzy, I’ll be in touch.”
With that, she leaves the Detective to her work, taking with her everything the kin has told her.