2019-09-26 - Chasing Leads

It may be Friday, but it's early in the morning yet for most stoners, and so Green Harbor is mostly empty so far today. A bored-looking Greg leans his head on his hands behind the sales counter, watching traffic pass by through the barred glass door. Beside him, permanently-anxious cashier Karl is at the register ringing out the only sale so far today, a hacky sack.

Guess who does not need to jump through all the usual hoops to get access? Charlie. It takes a flashing of her badge and a few well placed words before she can get in, but when she does she spots who she is looking for rather easily. "Mr. Sumpter? I'm Detective Morgan, you got a minute?"

Greg groans softly as he watches Charlie walk up and flash her badge to security. "Go fuck off, Karl," he tells the cashier, who wanders just out of earshot to do nothing more productive than have a panic attack about what he should be doing. Greg drums his fingers on the countertop, staring at Charlie. "Detective, huh?" he asks with a grin. "Wow, I'm honored. Listen, I thought we were done with this shit the last time. Like I told the dipshit beat cop you sent before, I have all my licenses in order. This is a legal business. If you don't like it then fuckin'... get politically active, I guess. This shit is tiresome." While he gripes, though, he starts pulling out all the paperwork for his business from a filing cabinet behind the counter.

"I'm sure that all your paperwork is in order, Mr. Sumpter. But that isn't why I'm here." Charlie moves over to the counter, leaning her hip on it before she reaches into the pocket of her suit jacket, pulling out a few photos before she slides them onto the countertop in front of him, right over the paperwork that he's pulling out to show her, "I'm here about a homicide. Do you know who these two are?"

The photographs are of Karl and Pam Kruger, and they look...well. Dead.

Greg looks at the photos, and swallows hard, his fingers clenching on the business space lease agreement in his hands. "Why the fuck would you show me that nasty shit?" he asks Charlie, his gaze narrowing as it rises to her. "Those are Elise's parents, right? The Krugers?" He shrugs, still looking pale as he starts putting the papers away. "She's Graham's girl. He's the bartender at the Firefly. I'm a part-time janitor there, so I bullshit with Graham sometimes." His brows lower like looming thunderclouds as he glances back down at the photo. "I never met 'em. Gotta say, I hope they were prettier alive."

"That is correct." Charlie doesn't provide reasons for why she showed him the photos, maybe the reason is exactly for what happened. An honest reaction to them. But she doesn't leave them out, either, instead she picks them up and tucks them back into the pocket of her jacket. "You've never seen either of them around the club, or heard about them maybe calling and leaving messages?"

Greg slowly shakes his head, frowning as he takes the rest of the papers, now that the pictures have moved. "Nah dude. I ain't really been working there long, and now that I have this, I don't do many hours there anyway." He shrugs, closing the cabinet, and steps up onto his skateboard behind the counter to fidget around with it with his feet. "I sure wouldn't know about any messages. That would go to Felix's office, right? He don't fuckin' like me." Greg's sense of mirth and merriment seems much restored with the pictures put away; this one is obviously not the hardened thug of the crew. Just the mouthy one, maybe. "I always thought Elise was a real nice girl. Two fuckin' parents, family still together and shit. I don't know too many people like that." He shrugs again. "It's just too bad, ya know?"

"It is too bad, yeah." Charlie agrees with a sympathetic smile, even if he might not known them personally. "So tell me about this Graham, you said that he works for Monaghan as a bartender, and is Miss Kruger's boyfriend?" It's probably a good bet that she's already aware of those two things.

Greg nods agreeably. "Yep... and that's about the end of what I know about him." Greg flashes a bright, dimply grin, shifting his weight around on the board. "He's a chill enough dude or whatever, but we don't, like, bro down. Like I said, I don't really spend a lot of time around the club." He shrugs. "Not really my scene, cleaning bathrooms and shit. Fuckin' miss me with that trash. Nasty. I never heard of anybody that made a million dollars mopping floors."

"I'm pretty sure there are success stories where someone, somewhere, has worked their way up from cleaning bathrooms to being businessmen." Charlie glances around the shop, then back to him with a very pointed look, "Such as your accomplishments here." She taps a finger against the countertop, then smiles, "Well, I guess if you don't have anything else about the boyfriend or anything, I won't keep you, Mr. Sumpter." She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a card to hold out towards him, "But if you think of anything new, you'll give me a call, right?"

Greg takes the card, examining it for a moment before tucking it into his pocket. He snags one of his own cards and holds it out to her. "Only if you promise you'll call me if you need to get stoned, Detective." He flashes his very best charming grin. "They let you poor fuckers smoke yet? If it's legal for the people, it should be legal for you!"

Charlie takes the card when it's held out, and a crack of amusement passes over her face, "I'm afraid they don't. Something about carrying guns and having to hold the lives of the citizens in our hands." She tucks the card into her pocket, anyways. "But if they ever change department rules, I'll let you know."

Greg snorts. "I mean, don't you ever get to clock out? Just be a citizen, with normal rights and shit?" He shakes his head with a sympathetic expression. "That really sounds like shit, girl - Detective. That's exactly how you fuckin' break people. Nobody can just be RoboCop twenty-four hours a day like the goddamn Terminator and not pay for it somewhere." He shrugs, shaking his head again. "It's just simple math. Everybody needs some time to be nobody."

"Public service, sadly that is an entirely different realm. Like.." Charlie probably should be going on her way to do her job, right? Instead she's taking this moment to break down the entire thing about why she never gets to turn off, clock out. Have fun. "Even out of uniform people still recognize me for who I am. What would you think if you saw your congressman, or the mayor, getting really trashed and driving crazy down the street?"

Greg grins a slow, wise-ass grin, and surely Charlie has dealt with enough smartasses by now to know something stupid is coming. "I would think damn, somebody should've encouraged that dude to take a break, smoke a joint, and blow off some fuckin' steam before he decided to act like a fuckin' dipshit and get caught up." He shakes his head, frowning. "We've come far enough now that we can understand we all need to do it. Why the fuck can't we extend that to our leaders and public servants? It's just fuckin' ignorant."

"It might be, but those are the rules, and the law, in some cases. So we have to follow those rules, even if we don't always want to." Charlie offers an amused smile at that, like she might just be in agreement, even if her own opinions don't matter and she's instead bound by the rules. "How's business, though?"

Greg shakes his head again, more forcefully. "I just don't think it's right to hold people up to these elevated expectations. It's just not decent. With everything we understand these days about how human mental health works, you'd really think the State and the Feds would take better care of their people. For fuck's sake, even I give my employees paid time off and health insurance. You can smoke all the weed you want if you work here." He grins, waggling his brows. "So let me know if you want to engage with a new line of work, right?" His grin holds as he looks around the store. "You wouldn't know it this morning, but it's pretty good. People in this town have a serious need for my medicine, and I'm happy to provide it."

"Glad that it is legal now." Even if not federally, yet. "Makes it so we don't have to waste time and valuable resources hassling people just for smoking pot." She knocks her knuckles against the countertop before she straightens up, "But if I ever want to retire, I'll let you know, Mr. Sumpter. You take care, though, and if you think of anything else, give me a call. Alright?"

Greg grins and nods. "Oh, absolutely. But like, I won't, though.... nothing to think of." He flashes his best disarming grin. "If you ever decide to live a little bit, we'll be right here!"

"I'll keep you in mind." Charlie assures him before she offers a smile, then she glances towards the anxiety ridden worker, studying him for a split second before she points out, "You might want to give him a day off." With that she starts to head towards the door, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

Greg glares towards Karl. "Oh, I'd like to give him a lot of days off," he mutters darkly. Then he starts yelling. "Karl! You stupid dick, how many fuckin' times..."