Dresden Files RP - A1E1 - Weed Killer

The suspects were, for some odd reason, determined to stay still. The bodyguard known as Huddsey tool the chance to overtly look them over - he saw no weapons, drawn or otherwise. In fact, could have just been innocent bystanders. But, Kaeden (Huddsey mentally enunciated the name, in place of the more casual ‘the brat’) asked them to move, and they didn’t. Therefore, they were problems.

Huddsey briefly made an assessment of the situation - Two of them were clearly finishing their drinks and would probably come quietly, while the third just had a lip on her.
“We’re not in any hurry, lass,” he offered, aiming his words at the young woman with the notepad. Then he straightened before continuing. “Of course, when the coppers do show up, you’re the ones who are behind the solid cover, if you get me.” He grinned.

Across the room, Huddsey’s companion motioned to the girl with the gloves (gloves in this weather? Suspicious, that) to stay where he was. The other individual (terrified, trying to hide under her hair after being singled out, inarticulate… Probably not the target, but the boss wanted her upstairs anyway) was clearly not moving. Impatiently he held out his right hand to the still hiding woman.



While the others were being gathered up downstairs, Kaeden made his way to the stairs. The guard who was waiting there had now moved up to the staircase’s midway point, where the flight took a right hand turn and a wardrobe-sized room lay directly ahead.

As the walked up, the heavy retreated a little into the room. It might well have been designed as an airing cupboard, but it was currently serving as a cloakroom and armoury. The guard stopped when his feet reached a tray littered with kitchen knives.
“Well?” Kaeden said, his voice a fraction softer than the situation might have required.

The heavy was a study in unhurried, unaffected calmness - to look at him, he was quite sure he’d done his job to perfection, and so had nothing to fear.
“I searched everyone, Kaeden. Pat downs, jackets, bags, and I damn near went for the rubber gloves on a couple.” The young capo glanced up the stairs, where another bodyguard studiously avoided pointing her long-barrelled hunting shotgun at her boss.
“He’s right. I checked on him.” Kaeden held her gaze a little longer while he thought.
“Good,” he muttered. The guard below didn’t move, but the one above relaxed in a brief rustle of jacket on kevlar. Kaeden passed him.

With the suspects still to follow him, the Noble child made his way into the function room. He took his first glance around - Everyone still alive up there was hired muscle for one side or the other. Their respective employers were in the middle of a circle, one face-up and the other sprawled face-down. Their blood had spread far enough to mingle and form a single, slowly spreading pool from which the respective mercenaries were slowly backing.

Kaeden took a glance at the oddly vacant, almost bovine expressions of the bodyguards and turned away from the room. He had more important things to do - for one thing, he needed to check up on the guards he’d placed in the streets and the back alley, in case the killer got in that way.

He’d wait for his five best suspects to arrive before he’d try to venture into that stuffy abattoir.

Catherine

Please, why would she flush the mood even further down? These people aren't going to let us walk away just by saying no, did she have something to hide or is she just plain stupid?

"Well, let's get this over with. Where's this Mr Noble, and what business he may have with someone like me?"

If he want my number he should go ask for it himself... Maybe better not to say that. My guts say he won't appreciate the joke.

She slowly noticed the man holding his hand out to her, and pulled her hair gently from her face to get a better look. It was painfully clear that she couldn't stay there forever, 'lest it might cause more problems for her and possibly the others. Better to just...do as they say, and hope for the absolute best case scenario. Hesitantly, she took the man's hand and slowly stood up, gripping at the fabric of her dress out of nervousness. She kept her head moderately lowered, glancing anywhere except for the man who urged her out of hiding.

Eventually, and with various degrees of cooperation, Kaeden’s suspects found themselves moving up the stairs and into the door of the function room. The shotgun-toting guard stepped back to let them pass, and no effort was made to search them.

In the room, the small crowd of henchmen were still staring blankly into space, shuffling back a few millimetres every time the blood got a little closer to their relative perches. There were a few rounded oak tables in the room, pushed to the far edges to be retrieved for a party or other event, but most of the henchmen had taken to sitting on them to avoid the slowing pool of claret. the air was thick with a plethora of discrete smells, none of them pleasant.

Kaeden had found a chair, manhandled it into the centre of the room, and was now sitting at one shore of the blood. He invited the suspects to arrange themselves in front of the room’s only entrance, and waited patiently until they appeared ready. The murderous tableau framed him, and any of the captives who looked at him would also be looking at the bodies behind. Kaeden's normally open smile was distant, and his body thrummed with unspent tension.

“So,” he said, his eyes constantly flicking between his guests, “Which one of you was in on this?”

Catherine


The thick smell. It's repulsing. I feel faint... Cold sweat? What's wrong with me?!

-- ripped limbs. Severed heads. Room painted in red... and a thing coated with blackness. --

"Urgh..!!!"

Calm down. Hold on to the wall. Calm down. Don't look at the body. Breath from my mouth.

Almost discharged my dinner right here. What the hell was that?! The victims invoked a trauma of some sort... I'll have to write this down.

...my head hurts.

The suspect with the book reacted… strongly.

Kaeden wasn’t sure if it was the gore and bodies, or the air in the room, or the naked reality that she was now mixed up in a matter of life and death. The specifics didn’t entirely matter. What did matter was that no supposed accomplice would fight so clearly to keep their last meal inside them, on viewing a successful mission. He mentally checked her from his list of suspects.

Then again, the notebook intrigued him. Kaeden glanced over at her, clocking the open page, and saw a few scattered notes. One was his own family’s name, circled. His immediate guess - a journalist, or something in that vein.

The others had yet to react, at least in a way that would let him read their intentions.
“Well?”

The young man was holding together. That was something.

The other three were less promising. The one with the gloves was holding one hand over her mouth as her eyes bulged, the girl with the ribbon and the greenish dress stood mutely but was clearly terrified, and the young woman in the hood recoiled half a step.

On further inspection, he was sure the man wasn’t the suspect either. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but, it wasn’t how he expected an accomplice to react. He’d come up with some reason by the time he’d have to report to his parents…

For now, Kaeden just needed to find the killer. Or rather, find someone to find the killer. Time to delegate.

“Alreeght,” he growled. “Maybe none of you did this. Or maybe your friend did it, and you're good actors. Honestly, I don’t care.” He took a breath., before fishing in his jacket pockets for a card. “Here’s the number for one of my old phones. If you know who did it, text me their identity. If you don’t know, find out.”

The capo checked his watch for a long moment. It was about 9 in the evening. “If I don’t get to know who did it by… seven, I’ll give your descriptions to my bosses. We’ll find you and we’ll kill you, and the whole case is closed. Understand?”

With that Kaeden stood and began to make his way out of the room. “And hurry up, yeah? You’ve got about ten minutes before the Fuzz show up. They’ll ask even less questions than we do.” He threw a momentary grin, and then left.

All that was left in the room now were the victims, the five suspects, and a crowd of still staring bodyguards.

Catherine

Noble's phone number written down, with large "TEXT ONLY" below it. As the guy went out of the room I immediately flipped the diary from behind, skimming through several rough sketch, until the first blank page. Then I retrace what I saw in my vision. Just roughly, I'll know it when I see it again.

Now then, the scene. Is it just me or the smell is way more repulsing than usual..? Damn, can't concentrate. There is no sign of resistance -- obviously, the two shot was fatal enough to prevent that --. Is that it? Either I'm having a bad day or it's just very cleanly executed.

Doesn't matter, the cops' coming soon. I'd rather be downstairs.

Note to myself, write down what I found AFTER I get done with the police.

"Say, anyone's joining me to find the criminal? We only have ten hours. Minus what the police will take."

KAIRO
There's an expression involving a certain creek and having no paddle with which a person can traverse said creek. Kairo wasn't entirely convinced he'd started his journey up the creek with a boat and had instead dived head first off this particular creek's only jetty. He was, after all, now a prime suspect in a murder. However, he was totally innocent with another unknown figure threatening to kill him. So far, it had been such a good day. For now though, he expelled thoughts of decapitation or bullets to the brain in favor of taking a look at the corpses and started making mental notes: Bad smell, two dead guys, two gunshots and two bullet holes in one guy. That last part was off.

Kairo looked around at the others before he began. They were a hodgepodge of the clueless and apparently clued in but if he knew anything, all of them were equally motivated to catch a killer. "Right" he began "We've got two dead guys here but something's off" his right index finger tapped his nose and he continued "The smell is just wrong, it isn't any blood I've ever smelt so we're either looking at chemicals or something freaky and that has me worried" his eyes scanned each of his fellow suspects before he gestured to the corpses. "One of these guys has two bullet holes in 'em but that accounts for both shots we heard..so what the heck killed the other guy? Somebody check him for holes because if he's got any we've either got an unaccounted gunshot here or a clean through-and-through on Two-shot here" he pointed with his feet at the doublely wounded dead man before he finished on one final point "If it's a through-and-through, what the hell was he shot with?" Kairo looked on at the group, waiting for an answer.

Catherine

Two bullet hole on one of the guy? How the hell did I missed that?! Even the casings are obviously sitting there!

...ergh, calm down. Think. That doesn't make sense. Did the gunner have another gun, and simply shoot it together to mask the noise? But then why would he double-tap only one guy? Or maybe that one survived the shot, but a second person use a silenced gun to kill him for good?

Or... magic?

I really wish we can take the ballistic on the bullet. Doubt any of my friend is high enough to leak that though - not like I'm important enough to receive that info.

Can't ask for what's outside my reach. I'll whisk for some magical residue first, be subtle Cat.

.....

Nevermind, headache intensifies. Not gonna find anything. I'll just take a closer look... yeah, definitely no resistance. Probably died almost instantly, given how they look. That'd make the second bullet hole even more suspicious, is that even possible?

Let's ask the witnesses first. These guys were here, wasn't they?

"So, could anyone recall how exactly this mess went? It's rather difficult to explain the three wounds --say, there WERE two shots sounded, right?--, what kind of gun fired that? How does the culprit looks like?"

Turnbull Enforcer
The thug turned to look at Catherine. His eyes focused on her, albeit slowly. There was barely any scent of alcohol on his breath, but he appeared not to react at all - he only stared at, or through, the ectomancer. His breathing was slow and deep, as if sleeping.

From the doorway, one of the armed guards appeared.
“You want to be gone in… five minutes, in there. We don’t want forensics chasing you after a shoeprint, you know?”

She caught Catherine’s expression, and then noticed her proximity to the still staring failed bodyguard.
“Yeah, they’ve been like that since the other guys died.” She grimaced, leaning jauntily on her shotgun. “I guess if you get a security man who turns up for work like that, you get bad security…”

Catherine

Shell-shocked? Just my luck. Won't get anything from these guys, and I suppose getting taken in by the cops will take all my time. Guess I'll need to get the others to work together, we are in the same boat after all.

"Let's leave this place, for now. We can discuss it somewhere... calmer."

Get the hint, people. I would very much like to stay in here --not like I'd have trouble disappearing--. I just get a lead on my memory, I'm going to pursue this as soon as I am able to.

KAIRO
The young man nodded. He had no plans to get arrested over two dead men plus the prospect of being trapped in a cell waiting for Noble and his flunkies to make good on their promise held no appeal. And yet nobody moved, the reality of the situation was bearing down on them all. He shook it off first.

"Well?" He demanded. "You heard her. Get the heck out of dodge people!" His words came out harsher than he had wanted but it sparked life into the statues around him. They all made a move for the door.