2024.06.28: The McClellan Apartment

A black sedan pulls up to the curb outside the address given to Lizzy. Marcus steps out of the car, his suit looks somewhat duller than usual, and he waits for Balcésar Cruz to join him.

It doesn't take long for the other man to arrive, possibly by Lyft or Uber. Having his car marked once was one too many times! He's also dressed a bit darker than usual; the red shirt tends to stand out.

There is a friendly hand extended, but Marcus' usual drink is absent, and upon closer inspection, a firearm is slung in a shoulder holster under his jacket. His shirt is bulkier than normal.

With a nod, Balcésar grips the man's hand briefly. "So what, exactly, are you wanting to accomplish here, so we're on the same page?" He, too, has a concealed firearm, which he briefly adjusts.

"We're here to have a chat with the surviving Mr. McClaine - and return the funds he gave Ms. McCrory - and try to build the start of a case file on his sibling, and we'll proceed from there. After that, we can stop by the police department." He pauses a moment. "But I have a suspicion that this may not be what it seems - so keep your guard - and Auspex - up. Shall we go and see who might be home?"(edited)

"You don't need to tell the paranoid PI to keep his radar primed." With a tug on his light leather jacket, he nods his agreement with the mission and gestures for Marcus to continue on. "After you."

Marcus leads him to the door of the apartment, and raps sharply on the door.

There is no answer to the knock.

Marcus nods to Balcesar, and puts his right hand under his jacket. "Can you open this?"

"Likely. Give me a minute." The man then steps away from the door, considers it, and then knocks again.  "McCrory sent us." He waits.

There is, at least for the moment, continued silence.

The man 'hmms,' and then takes a knee and pulls out a set of picking tools from his jacket. Inserting the tension wrench into the keyhole, he says, softly, "keep an eye out," and then quietly goes to work. Certainly, a foot to the door would open it, too, but the man obviously prefers to keep their impact limited.

Also, notably, so close to the door, the man keeps his Auspex tuned for sounds on the other side.

Marcus turns away from the crouched detective, one hand on his shoulder to give a squeeze if there is an alarm, eyes scanning the street.

The apartment door is no match for determined lockpicking. There is, eventually, a soft click.

The man nods, and then slowly releases the deadbolt, stowing his tools after and standing. "We're good," he says, gently grasping the door handle and then opening it carefully.

Marcus stands close behind Cruz with his hand under his jacket, and they walk into the apartment quickly - closing the door (and locking it) behind them.

The door catches on the slider chain.

Balcésar simply rolls his eyes and digs in his pocket for a rubber band. Sliding open the door as far as the chain will allow, he loops one end around the chain, and the other end around the internal door handle. He then simply closes the door so the tension will pull the chain out of the slider.

This time, the planned entry works.

The apartment looks as if the Wrath of Doris has descended upon it. Furniture overturned, objects smashed - chaos. There is no evidence of the expected occupant in the main room. Just a localized tornado's devastation.

"Naturally," Bal whispers as he steps into the flat, pulling out a small maglight from what is apparently his toolbox-of-a jacket. "Jason's place was pretty tidy, though, to give the impression of a professional crime scene--this is not that." He steps quietly towards the other rooms to verify they're empty.(edited)

The chaos continues, as if the apartment was tossed on top of a monumental struggle. There is no blood visible, nor are there people - or bodies- present. Just mass devastation.

Marcus looks for any electronics - or security cameras.

There is no good way to tell what is or is not missing in the chaos. It will take careful sorting through of the detritus.

Satisfied that they won't be jumped in the darkness, Bal clicks on his flashlight and begins to sort through the mess, looking for identifying or record documents, pictures, or anything that might suggest what happened.

On instinct, Marcus opens the fridge. Maybe the milk is expired, the vegetables wilted - something to give an approximate last-time someone ate here. Or maybe he'll find something worse.

Nothing horrifying in the refrigerator. Not even a science experiment from expired food. The mess turns up a few family photos, but most of the information is undoubtedly in analyzing how the mess was made.

Eventually a phone turns up. And a power cable for...something...

He puts the phone into his pocket, and follows the power cable to ... whatever it's stuck in

The cable leads to the wall. The device it was powering is gone.

"Let me see that," Bal says, plucking the cable from the floor and gently touching, stroking it's spirit.

He has, for the record, been touching everything with thin leather gloves on.

There is a laptop on the other end of the power cord. Someone large and hulking is smashing the laptop...things are muddled, power cords are not all that smart. There is no clear face, or the face is somehow obscured. Odd.(edited)

"Some brute was smashing a laptop. Couldn't really see his face." The investigator drops the cord and stands again, glancing about. "Reflective surface of some kind might help." Window, TV, glass table or countertop, broken glass?

There are no bits large enough to be useful. Someone hates mirrors something firece.

Marcus hands the phone across to Cruz "I doubt there is much here, but maybe you can pick something up."

The screen is destroyed. What might be available through arcane means remains to be seen.

"I can still get into the hard drive - I'll take this to my lab when we're done."

"Alright, let's see what I can psychic out." He takes the phone and returns to the gentle and tender spirit-snuggles.

The same slightly blurry big dude. Same temper control issue. SMASH SMASH SMASH Mouth moving, talking to someone?

With an exasperated sigh, Bal says, "Same grunt, still smashing, still can't see his face. But he's talking so either there was someone here with him or he was chatting elsewise. He really wanted to ruin this place."

Why, though? "I'm going to check out the bedroom." Which he does, searching against under around the matress, drawers, checking the bathroom cabinet, and so on.

The mirror is wrecked in here, too. And in the bathroom. Drawers are emptied. Searching for something? Dressing a crime scene? Bit of both? Nothing interesting in the medications department. Nothing but the usual under the mattress...wait.

There is a duvet but no sheets.

"No sheets?" He looks quickly under the bed. "Did you see any sheets in the house?"

"Not so far, but I also haven't been acting as a fine purveyor of linens." That said, Bal swaps out his maglight for a small black light instead, sweeping the beam over and under the duvet. Blood, maybe?

A nod, and Marcus opens up the closet.

There are clean sheets tidily folded in the closet on the shelf. There are dubious stains on the duvet. Everything seems normal.

Bal clicks off the black light and scratches his head. "They were pretty thorough in tossing this place. I'll check the normal hidey-holes." Which amounts to shining his maglight in air vents and checking behind items on the walls. Even in the toilet tank. Because who knows.

Ugh. Mildew in the toilet tank. Wonderful. There is dust in the air vents and depressing beige paint behind the pictures still left on the walls, of which there are not many. No indications of any hidden compartments.

The freezer has unlabeled packages in cling wrap stacked tidily inside it.

Any indication of dust?

The apartment is too chaotic to determine dust.

"I'm starting to run out of ideas, Marcus," Bal says, as he steps away from the last wall he was inspecting. "Short of starting to pull out appliances, we're running out of places to look, and the spirits aren't being especially helpful, either." That said, he goes to a window that seems to have the best view of the worst of the damage, and whispers sweet nothings to the spirit within.

A wiry young man and a businesslike middle aged woman. His features are difficult to make out, even in the glass, she is meaningless in her nondescript features. The destruction plays out, part temper and part calculated mayhem. She takes the laptop. He destroys the phone. No evidence of the person who is supposed to be living here.

Marcus looks to the packages in the freezer, withdrawing a small knife and neatly opening the first package.

The package is full of meat. It looks to be  of the "organic free range no additives" variety. There is no label whatsoever to indicate time and date of purchase or what creature the meat is from or...well...anything.

"Everything else is in shambles, but there's fresh meat neatly packed in the freezer..." He wirhdraws the open box, and a random box from the pile. His knife makes quick work of the second box, and he passes the first box to Balcésar. "Mr.Cruz, I apologize for this, but this box was intact. There may be something you can read. I'll be taking a sample to Dr. Marsden."

Bal retrieves his hand from the window thoughtfully. "More images this time. a young man, a middle-aged woman. It appears they were in this together. Don't see anything about the person who lived here, though." Then, he nods to Marcus and takes the package, repeating his reading attempt.

Oh no. This is as free range as meat can ever get. Carved from bones with familiar contours, carefully skinned, wrapped and preserved. Innocuous and simple to overlook...and inadvertently destroy. No screaming, thankfully. Or perhaps horrifying.

The Toreador just frowns and rather quickly tosses the box back to Marcus. "Yeah, Soylent Greens is people." He procures a flask, naturally, from an internal jacket pocket and walks away guzzling.

Marcus takes his own drink out... visibly shaken, he removes the boxes from the freezer, slitting each open in turn to confirm their contents. He calls to Balcésar "Call Dr. Marsden, and tell her to meet us at her lab in 15 minutes."

Eventually, there is a soft knock at the door in pattern.

Balcésar freezes, then hurriedly motions for Marcus to finish. He doesn't say anything, but instead creeps towards the door to peer through the peephole.

On the other side of the door is a grumpy ginger with damp hair and a case. She must have left her fashion sense in her other jacket. At least the bra fits well and is pretty.

After confirming all of the packages contain the mystery meat, Marcus closes them up, and puts them all in a plastic bag for transport as Cruz opens the door.(edited)

Presuming, of course, this is the vaguely tolerable ginger she appears to be, Balcésar carefully opens the door to let her in. "Waiting at the door's super subtle," he jabs gently. "We've got plausible deniability of you being a cheap escort."

"Only the best for you, César..." she growls. Catlike, she oozes past him to the interior. "I was in the bath when I was so rudely summoned."

"Kisses to you, too, lovely," the man retorts in his best British smarm. It's quite good.  Then, back to his Spanish lilt, "There's people-meat in the fridge."(edited)

Marcus strides in from the kitchen, and smiles upon seeing Doris. "Keeper, you brought my case, excellent. There is a bag in the fridge containing human meat.  Mr. Cruz, could you finish tying that up for me. We will be taking them to Dr. Marsden for analysis." He pops the case, looking among the electronics for a small device attached to a trail of wire. He unscrews an electrical socket and, carefully coiling the wire and taping it to the interior box with electrical tape gestures to the others. "Grab the bag, and let's go" Taking his gloves off "This place is bugged now - we'll know if someone comes back."

"I got out of the bath for this?" She has her hands on her hips, studying the chaos. "Did you have to make it look like rookies broke in?"

"Someone tossed the place before we arrived - and also made sure to break every piece of glass in the house. I called you because I needed the bug, and because I felt you would want to hear from Dr. Marsden about organic, free-range human in the fridge."

Her nose wrinkles. "Doctor Marsden knows how to contact me. Broke all of the glass or all of the reflective surfaces?"

"All reflective surfaces."

"I wonder if they were angry at what they saw or what they did not see..." She shrugs. "Are we finished here?"

He looks at Balcésar "Mr. Cruz, have you anything else to check?"

"That or they didn't want someone with my particular talents cavorting with spirits. But no, let's go before we're noticed." He gestures towards the door.

Doris nods once, tightly, and waits to be let out. No gloves. Marcus pulls out his phone, testing the broadcast signal from the bug, and speaking occasionally "Test. Test." From various parts of the house to ensure coverage. He works quickly, and closes his case. He opens the door and nods quietly to the others, and locks the front door behind them as they leave.