2019-07-26 - Detective File: Winslow, Lilith

It's been a couple of days since the hangings at the bridge, and likely no surprise that it's been the talk of the ward. Time is measured in hours between dressings changes and reruns of Friends on the shitty little television mounted on the wall opposite each bed. Some of them work, some of them don't, according to the shrug the nurse gives when asked why the remote control does nothing.

Lilith gets a visitor midway through the second day. She might spot him through the window that looks out to the desk, if she's awake. An ID badge is flashed; a tallish Hispanic looking fellow in a dark suit who waits to be joined by a lawyer in a nicer suit, before shouldering the door open and prowling into the room. He looks vaguely annoyed, for reasons that may be obvious.

Lilith looks annoyed as well, seated there against pillows and upright. Her room has been plowed with Lily of the Valley bundles and ridiculously expensive saffron crocuses close to hourly today. The scent is amazing, the flowers are gorgeous, she's... you know, if she wasn't haunted looking and plain sulky, besides, she'd be lovely too. But right now, that's all backseat. The nurses have pulled back her drugs. She's somewhat pale with shadows under her eyes. The noose marks and scuffs are still around her neck. It'd be too suspect if it wasn't there, afterall, visible like that. Her hand and one finger is bulkily bandaged, and there's other unseen bandaging left intact under her gown.

Other than being a little pissy looking, though, and through the wringer in general, she's lucid. She has showered, she has had her hair combed through with her good hand. And she knows Ruiz is due based on the way they've been pulling back her medication. She's not actually all that physically uncomfortable overall because she had a very good doctor and people don't really realize, but the bandages are to keep up the facade of show at this point until discharge. They do try to keep some semblance of normality around Gray Harbor, afterall.

When Ruiz comes in, she pushes to straighten up more and puts the borrowed laptop aside from where it's streaming a show from the Science channel. Her lips don't quite pull in smile, but she at least stops with the hint of glower that's perpetual on her while she watches the laptop screen and side-eyes the flowers. She expects the lawyer to pop in at any time. Her room isn't far from Byron's.

"Hello." The woman's words are somewhat hoarse and raw in quiet state, but calm, "Excuse the perfume."

She's probably indicating the heady scent in the room, which she's currently fighting the urge to be sickened by on the sly.

It is possible that the timing is just too perfect for the lawyer to not have been out in the hallway, or have some alert system set up. But really, it's just perfect timing that sends the man into the room a few moments after Ruiz. The man is older, in his fifties, and has a very slick look to him. Expensive suits, but downplayed to not be flashy, a gold Rolex, brief case in hand, and the serious look of a trial lawyer. This man has seen things. In a court room.

Ruiz raises a brow at the sheer quantity of flora that's been carted in, though doesn't let it deter him from the task at hand. Which is to make his way toward the solitary visitor's chair situated near the woman's bed, and settle in slowly. He moves like an animal accustomed to hunting for food; and from the moment he's stepped in, his eyes have been on his quarry.

"Miss Winslow." Fairly strong accent. Mexican Spanish, with the abruptness of a drill sergeant. He flashes his ID and offers his hand. The backs of his fingers are inked; letters and odd, stylized symbols, and more intricate work that vanishes under the sleeve of his suit. "Captain de la Vega with the GHPD. May I speak with you for a few minutes." It isn't quite a question. Mr. Slick and Expensive is ignored for the time being. He'll probably make his presence known whether the cop wants him to or not.

"I'm certainly not busy." Lilith tells Ruiz, vaguely tinged with resign despite the quiet hoarseness stealing some of the expressiveness her tones usually tend to carry. It might be that she's a little just flat or empty sounding other than that, but it's a little hard to tell without personal experience of the woman. Might just be cautioning from the lawyer keeping her on pullback. After shaking the offered hand in quick and efficient brisk fashion, there's a quiet sigh and knock of good hand back through her hair to knock stray falling away from her face, she shifts a bit to better angle the visitor chair he lowers to, facilitating conversation (questioning).

Ah, there's the lawyer. Lilith looks back and nods a little bit to signify yes, she remembers the drill from their brief consult. Answer what's asked. That's it. But... when the brunette looks back at Ruiz, her head kind of tilts and her eyes seem to focus on him not just physically, but on a distracted level before she blinks and smiles just a touch. Something about her eases just a little, after, for some reason.

Catching the man's name Mr. Slick and Expensive moves to offer his hand, "Mr. Baldwin, I'm Miss Winslow's lawyer." Gentle reminders made, subtle, unspoken ones really. As soon as the handshake is traded he moves to set the brief case to the side, stepping up to the bed but remaining out of the way. The smile that he offers to Lilith is gentle, encouraging. But undercut with the ferocity of a shark just waiting to scent blood in the water and go on the attack.

No, of course she isn't busy. The cop has the grace to smile ever so slightly at that, but it's brief and lacks warmth. The file folder he'd brought in is set down on the little table beside Lilith's bed, and a pen and notepad extracted from an inner pocket of his suit jacket. "Mr. Baldwin. Un placer conocerte." The handshake is returned. His grip is firm, and the gesture brisk and almost military; a sentiment that's echoed in much of what the man does.

"I'd like you to tell me what happened." It's about as open-ended as questions get, but maybe he's just feeling the woman out to start. Whatever it is that she's noticed about him, his eyes tick toward hers for a long moment like he's noticed the noticing. Then back to his pad of paper as he scribbles something at the top.

Lilith knits her brows a little bit at the sheer broadness of the question, then looks at the lawyer. But it's probably not just because there's a lawyer here and he's a detective. After that look, she looks at her lap and visibly lapses into thought as if she's trying to piece out how to really even start with that kind of intro to things. Does he mean at the bridge? Of course he does. Does he mean before that? Everything matters before that. It all started weeks ago. And it's so thick and complicated and mad and wrong.

Her teeth take hold of her bottom lip and she's already having to fight being overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to start. She hears gunfire, she hears the snaps of necks, she sees moonlight, she feels... (Stop it, Lilith.)

There is that bobble of vague overwhelm and general lost look before her eyes take the drop for composure. Then she steels herself and there's sudden iron in her spine with slow flex of upright positioning, "When I arrived at the bridge that night, both men were standing there with nooses around their necks."

Start with a fact. Give him something to branch.

Of course it's intended to throw her off a little. Shove her into the deep end, see whether she treads water or fights it. Watch her body language, pay attention to what facts her mind grasps for first, and go from there. Fluid, organic.

"What brought you to the bridge, Miss Winslow?" The cop's voice is low and slightly rough around the edges; too much smoking, one presumes, in his fourty-something years of life. He lacks the lawyer's pretense of caring; his is a deliberate and cultivated obdurateness.

"I was camping in the woods. I had stripped down because... I was going to go to the edge of the pond and swim." Lilith starts a little slow with her recollection, head tilting a bit as she looks at (no, through) Ruiz. She gives it in pieces. To be fair, it feels like pieces to her. No, that's not right. It feels like... doesn't matter.

"When I got there, I saw the bridge. They were standing on the edge. I went up there to them. There was another rope." Here, she pauses again and looks at Ruiz fully, not hazily through him during her pieced out recollection. She looks right dead at him. She needs him to know she's not crazy. It's a weighted pause and she keeps that solid posture in her spine while she tells him, "When Hank handed me the rope, I put it on. He tightened it. It was just us three, at first. And Jack Michaels jumped first. He said it was his time, that the... cycle ended with him." But not for her.

Most people, listening to a story like this, would be starting to show some signs of distress right about now. The visual Lilith conjures is a grotesque one, and he should be starting to show some anxiety. But isn't. He was one of the officers who found them, of course. Noosed and bleeding and still, like broken dolls. But he did his job, and he does it now. And one wonders what else he's seen, to be able to look her right back in the eye when she gazes at him, and not flinch even a little.

And then, in the dregs of the silence that follows, his question; repeated just a little softer. But with an edge that's anything but. "What brought you. To the bridge. Miss Winslow?"

Mr. Baldwin continues to stand there, being mostly moral support for Lilith, ready to step in if Ruiz pushes to far, or if she decides that she'd rather not answer a question. But as long as she is comfortable answering, so far, he seems comfortable letting her answer.

"Have you ever had a delusion, Captain? They're tricky. They twist and turn until they fit like puzzle pieces with the outside anchors. You can smile. You can work. You can even fuck. You can fool everyone. You can carry on. The delusion incubates and learns to grow. It's all overlapped at that point, so it's real easy when it starts. It spreads. It's seamless. It's the most dangerous thing in the world to believe so much in something that no one else can perceive."

Is Lilith painting herself an insanity defense? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she's just defending the fact that she took a rope to put around her neck and she really is crazy and meant to hang herself too. But after that prelude, she defines: "Delusion brought me to that bridge. I thought I would complete the circle. I told myself there was power in threes. They were there. They were waiting for me. I thought I was saving everything. Everyone. I just had to jump when it was my turn." She leaves out the ring. Maybe she just wants to see how he responds to crazy, first.

"Byron had tracked me down." She doesn't remember a lot clearly, really, about that, but she knows it happened and he was there first, as far as outside parties.

There is a question posed to him, but it isn't answered. The captain's dark eyes are fixed on Lilith when she asks it; they're a washed out, gunmetal grey in the wan lighting of the hospital room, and creased at the corners with what could be skepticism. But she must know that he understands. Even if he doesn't want to, he understands. His gaze is lowered to his notepad and he scribbles something down, then consults some notes inside the folder beside him.

"What happened when Mr. Thorne arrived?" is what he asks next, voice low and even and rich with that sloping accent. It's clear he's perusing Lilith's medical records, whatever HIPAA regulations would have permitted him access to.

"It gets hard from here. I was upset. I knew he wanted to stop me, but I didn't want to be stopped. I kind of remember him yelling at me." It was impossible then, even with Lilith full delusion and mad, impossible for Byron's voice not to pinch her somewhere, even if the effect was nil. She pauses, "I think he was far away. I think he was..."

Oh, she has an idea what he was at that moment, but settles with, "Confused. Hank had been helping me with the rope on my neck. I heard gunfire. Warning shot, probably. My attention wasn't right. It was desperate. But things went bad. I saw blood. I almost fell. Hank helped me balance." A pause. He knows she was shot, but not quite by whom, perhaps, "I don't know if other people were there too, at that point. It happened fast and I wasn't much... recognizing others or even taking the time to see who they were. I learned who else was there in full when we got to the hospital and I was awake."

She knows who shot her and why, really, but... Byron. Byron. Byron. Nope.

"In the middle of it, Hank jumped before anyone could stop him." Lilith presses her lips flat. Every cop in town knows Hank Winslow was a lifer troublemaker and notable drunk, a Pourhouse fixture, the old Pawn owner before she came back, same as his father before him. There's old records of DHS calls for negligence about fifteen times during Lilith's childhood, but somehow she kept slipping through the cracks and she was taught to cover cover cover. No kid wants to get taken away with the policeman at the door.

None of that keeps Lilith from looking gutted when she says that part aloud. She even looks like she hears the snap. Her fine, haunted features are ill.

There is a distinct clearing of Mr. Baldwin's throat, nothing more than a reminder that he's here should someone need him.

Ruiz is busy writing while Lilith provides, in fragmented detail, the specifics of what happened after Byron showed up. His eyes tick up when she pauses to consider whether Byron was, "Confused." It's repeated quietly, with a pause like he knows full well she wanted to say something else. Then a breath, and the page is flipped in his notebook.

"Who shot you." Just that. Like he isn't even moved by the recounting of watching her own father hang to death. He eases back in the creaky little chair to watch the woman across from him, his bulky frame overlarge for it. The motion makes it obvious he's got a gun holstered against his ribs, when his suit jacket slips wide.

"I didn't see who fired and I don't know how many shots were fired." Lilith says immediately, and that, at least seems true and likely if the confusion of the moment and delusion was what it was. She didn't see if she was the one being aimed at, she just knew she was hit. But she also knows the guy isn't an idiot, "I don't know who all had a gun. But when I looked and saw Byron, he had one, probably because he didn't know what was going on or what to do. So I hurt him. Then I hurt everyone else trying to stop me. It was..." She pauses, "I just wanted to jump too. I kept trying even after... I was yanked down. I didn't understand. I wanted the delusion. I wanted it so badly." She pauses, she looks at Ruiz again, dead solid, "I'll tell you right now, that's how everyone else got hurt."

Okay, so. Looking at Lilith seated there, she rebounds from the grief fine enough like a tough little cookie that doesn't want to dwell. It's not dismissive, she's clearly plowing through because she takes a moment to clear her throat and grit her teeth before talking in that dire, hoarse calm. And she's obviously trying to legally protect Byron's gun-toting status. But she was the one shot, so that might be odd. It also might be odd that she's sitting here, physically and deceptively looking like a little life-beaten doll when she says she hurt THREE people trying to stop her, three people that Ruiz has seen with their own shine, at least two of which masculinely outsize her considerably. She could, in theory, be a danger to society, all details aside. But is that likely?

With her sitting here suddenly looking at him like she silently is begging him to understand what she's not saying... maybe not. It clearly guts her that she did. Why would she just up and say that? The lawyer might be having an internal fit. But Lilith knows one very real thing from the middle of all that.

They were there to help her and ain't none of them pressing charges. She can take a little responsibility, damnit. For her own sake. She needs to.

The cop says nothing to that. He simply watches Lilith for a long, long while in utter silence while her mind reels again over what happened, like a bout of mental whiplash. For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. "Where is the item now?" His line of questioning jumps the tracks completely. Either her believes her not a whit about what she's just said, or accepts it as unassailable truth; the answer isn't in his eyes, or the hard line of his jaw.

Ah hah. She doesn't know who Ruiz has questioned first, if at all. Lilith doesn't know this cop like others might and she knows there might be limits to the amount of madness he can actually handle or accept. She knows it's easier in the long run to imply herself as 'touched' and let him draw the conclusions. Just because he shines some doesn't mean he's fully exposed to these kinds of things, and even if he is, how do you make someone understand it? People -wanted- that ring and stone, they still might. Do you tell them about the thing that will twist their desires and send them on a hunt? After what it did to her for WEEKS? After what it's wrought?

You'd think she'd look a little shocked that he brings up the 'item'. No. Lilith looks at Ruiz for a long moment with her eyes narrowed a bit, gaze cut through her lashes for her own moment of hard assessing. Then she plays hardball. Because suddenly this isn't about her. It's about him.

"Why? Do you want to touch it, Captain?"

It's not a cute question. It's not dry with sarcasm or humor. It's not taunting. It's very dire serious, just as much as her confession on hurting everyone else. She wants to know if he's touched too and she's suddenly watching him like a hawk that knows how to discern the madness. She knows the hard way.

Ruiz looks up from his note-taking at the question that's posed. Just a tick of his eyes that isn't matched by even a smidge of movement from his head. He watches the woman seated across from him for a while, then checks his watch and returns to his writing. "I will be asking the questions here, Miss Winslow." There's a twitch of his lips that might have been a smile, if it didn't look more like an animal baring its teeth for the blink of an eye. "This.. delusion. When did it begin? When did it start to.. eat at you."

Lilith relaxes when the detective moves on. It's odd. She's staring at Ruiz like just as much as a little hardass there out of the middle of nowhere when he brings up the item. If things weren't so dire, the way she suddenly digs in like a bulldog might even be sassy cute as hell. But it wasn't that. And it's not gem obsession either, she clearly didn't want to talk about it and her tone of voice implies no one should know the answer to that specific question.

When he doesn't press where the 'item' is, specifically, she stops that after all her gauging and leans back against the pillows in melt. Her good hand lifts to rise and rub at one side of her bruised neck under her hair, considering calm once more with a tinge of relief for whatever reasoning, "About three weeks ago, I had first contact with the item. I was the only one made to touch it. After that, I kept it because... I had to. That's how it started. I immediately grew ill. Hollowed from the inside and weak. And for a week straight, everything went wrong and just about everything in the world tried to kill me."

"But..." Lilith goes on a bit delicately from there, not with hesitation, but because... she has yet to talk about what happened after with anyone. The way it progressed. "Then I was better. All the terrible stopped. I still needed to keep it, though. It had to be safe. I went about things. I was fine for a week after a week of awful. But part of me still felt..." She pauses, "Inhabited. Like I wasn't alone. It didn't matter where I was, I could sleep elsewhere, it was like the touch got inside me. I -beat- what would have driven another woman insane. But it was still there afterwards. Just quiet."

Lilith has to stop and think because she cuts her profile to Ruiz to think and try to count, "The box was opened again to take pictures for investigation. I didn't want to do it, I tried to warn them off, but... I allowed it because I wanted to see it again." Pause again, "I can't even say how many days ago. From that moment on, my thoughts are... not entirely my own, even though it seemed so outwardly to others for a part of that time."

"You were inhabited. Possessed. May I call it possessed?" The captain's brows furrow slightly, and it could be he's mocking her. It could be, but it isn't. He's as serious as she is, and she's caught glimpses of his shine. It's tenuous, like a candle about to be snuffed out at any moment. Tenuous yet hungry; as if, with enough fuel, it would be not a slip of light in the dark. But a raging inferno.

"Do you think that the item.. took hold of you? Do you think that it wanted you, and that it tried to take you?" Are you a man who takes what he wants, Javier? And, I will be asking the questions here.

"If you want. At first, when I touched the item, I was definitely in thrall, fully and completely. I had no choice and they weren't quick enough to keep me from it when I lunged. But it was more like... having a parasite that grew, in a way, because of the way it took a hold of me and manipulated the very outside world around me to throw everything and anything right at me." Lilith answers Ruiz with a tiny rise and fall of her shoulders, tongue briefly pushing and working the point of one of her eyeteeth as she thinks how to explain before the actual explanation.

"Then it was dormant, but I knew I was connected to it still. I think being around the box again accelerated what was probably a more eventual process. It was whispers. But after the investigation, it was a roar I couldn't ignore. When I finally decided it was time to wear it myself... that's when I lost all wits. But I-- I can't tell you what it actually wanted, Captain." Lilith's eyes finally come directly back to him instead of down or around with recollection and natural wander while in that state.

Her hoarse, quiet words drop to just above a whisper, "I just know what it was telling me at the end. And none of it is rational enough to begin to make a guess."

There's a furious spate of writing from the captain. Pen scratching paper until it runs dry. He scribbles a few circles as if to make sure it's really dead, then blows an agitated sigh out his nose. After a fruitless search for a replacement, he glances up and informs Lilith that, "Our time is up anyway, Miss Winslow. Mr. Baldwin." He's probably not lying about that; the pen running out was simply an unfortunate bit of bad luck. Hopefully he's got a good memory for what he missed noting down. The cop pushes to his feet, firearm disappearing under the sweep of his jacket; papers collected into file folder; file folder into hand. "I will be in touch if I have any further questions for you." Which he almost certainly will. "Thank you for your time."

"... of course." Lilith tells Ruiz quietly after watching him for a moment, but after a quiet sigh to herself, she looks away with reach to pull the discarded laptop her way and sets up with distraction once more, giving her accidental flower view the stinkeye on principle. But as he's back out and nearly into the corridor she calls after him with concern, "Hey. Captain. Be careful. Sometimes we don't really want as many answers as we think we do. I mean. Look at me."

Lilith's lips pull in a vague semblance of self-deprecating half-smile like she's a precautionary tale. Then that's all she can do. She may not have told him what she saw happen to the ring. But someone else might. And that might be an answer he never wants at all.

Ruiz pauses a moment in the doorway when Lilith offers those parting words. He doesn't acknowledge what was said, and he doesn't look back at her. Merely shoulders his way through, narrowly misses wearing a nurse's coffee on his nice shirt and tie, and prowls on out like a wolf trying his very best not to spook the sheep.

"Captain." Mr. Baldwin states, moving to pick up the briefcase while waiting for Ruiz to leave the room before he moves closer to Lilith, a hand reaching out to pat her on the shoulder, "Don't worry, we're going to get this taken care of. If he comes back up here, call me." Then he moves out of the room as well, making sure everyone is minding their P's and Q's.