2019-10-07 - Three May Keep a Secret If Two of Them Are Dead

So this is a little weird. But Alexander suggests a time to meet on the Boardwalk when there's pretty much no one around, and most of the stores and food places are closed. It's dark, with only the flickering lights over the boardwalk itself providing illumination. The sky, as it often is in Gray Harbor, is overcast, with the clouds hanging heavy, threatening to dump yet more rain. At this moment, though, it's dry. The wind coming off the sea is a bit brisk, tasting of salt and seaweed, and this one of the few times that the area is quiet enough that you can really hear the slap slap slap of the water against the piers.

Well, that, and the sound of the homeless people who spend the nights under the boardwalk quarreling quietly over who has to sleep in the wetter sand. It's all wet, but some of it is wetter, and that's a real problem. Alexander is sitting on the far end of one of the piers, his legs dangling over the sides, looking out at the water. He's thinner than he was last time they met; this flu really was a beast. And he's nervous, even just sitting - his hands tap out a rhythm on his thighs, then the rough wood of the pier, then his thighs again. Something with a strong drum beat, clearly.

Having earlier purchased an ice cold horchata from Fried Fish on the boardwalk, then stuck it in her motel mini fridge until her rendezvous tonight, a tall, tattooed Love wanders along with an eye toward the sea, sipping her bev and keeping an eye out for a certain unlicensed PI. She wears her long hair pulled up in a knot atop her head, several pins used to keep it there. Her clothing is simple, per usual: skinny jeans, Chucks, a tight black tank top, and a cropped, hand-knit sweater in a charcoal grey — almost an acknowledgement of the cooler weather.

If she found the request of evening, no one around, and boardwalk to be strange, she didn't say so, and so here she is. Love is also slightly thinner than when they last met, but she's doing her best to put it back on with sweets. She takes a turn down the pier, her Chucks scraping lightly on the sun-bleached boards as she approaches whom she thinks is Alexander. Her head bounces slightly to the rhythm of his hand-drumming when she moves closer, and she says, "Nice night for a drum circle on the beach. Could do with a bonfire, though. Aloha, Alexander."

"Aloha?" Alexander turns to look up at her, confused. Not that he doesn't understand the word - it's just clearly not one he expected to hear casually used here in the Pacific Northwest. But he offers that odd, not-quite a smile, and waves at the pier beside him. "Good evening, Miss Liven. It's nice to see you looking hale. Sit?" His shoulders are a bit rounded, not quite hunched, although his clothing is warm enough for the weather - sweats with an Addington High logo, although they look far too new to be from his high school days. "A fire might be nice. And drums. Those usually happen further up the beach. There are some fire pits."

"Hello/Goodbye. I lost my virginity in Hawaii." Love drops down to sit next to Alexander, companionably close without actually touching him, though she's close enough to do so. "It forever holds a special place in my heart." She sips her drink through the straw. "My best friend is Hawaiian too, so I never lose the language though I moved away."

"Thanks." A belated reply to the offer to sit, which she's done at his prompting. "I know. I've made use of a few. I spend a lot of time out here." She smiles, an easy, warm one. "You look like you're still recovering, but I'm happy to see there's a little color in your cheeks." She glances down at the logo on his clothing. "Borrowed clothes?" Obviously. "Or school spirit?"

Alexander tenses a little at the closeness, although he doesn't object. There's something like a chuckle, under his breath. "I lost mine in a Holiday Inn. Maybe I should figure out their slogan," he says, a touch dry. "But Hawaii is probably better. Certainly better lighting."

He looks down at the sweats, blankly. "What? Oh. They're just clothes. My father used to teach at the high school. He had some extras a few years ago." A shrug. "They're easy to put on, and I've been staying with a friend for the last few days." He looks back at her. "And yes. Recovering well. Thank you." A long, awkward sort of pause while he stares at her. "I hope you don't mind a verbal report. I usually deliver reports in writing, but considering the nature of the investigation, and the scarcity of hard evidence, I thought it best to not keep many records. But if you prefer, I can write."

There's a snort regarding Holiday Inn. "That's kind of sweet. So every where you go around the country, a little reminder." She laughs. "Hawaii is better, but not everyone's lucky enough to live there." She crosses her legs, kicking one foot lightly.

"That they are. Sweats are great. Your pop's a teacher, huh?" She glances over again, so she's watching him when he looks at her. Well, stares. She stares right back, silver eyes intent on the man's face for a few beats. "I don't mind. I like you. You're polite and give excellent advice." She slurps from the straw tucked into the corner of her mouth. "People make you a little uncomfortable, hm? That's ok with me, sweetpea. I get along with everybody. You do you." She watches him a moment more, and then turns her gaze back to the black waves.

"This town is kind of growing on me. I hated it here when I was a kid."

"I haven't gone many places around the country," Alexander admits. "But if I ever do, I'll try to think of it that way." A flicker of a smile. Then he nods. "Yes. Or, he was. Retired, now. My mother was a nurse. Also retired."

His stare doesn't waver; it doesn't have the impression of trying to fight for dominance by making her look away. It's just sort of like - he's thinking about her, and she's there, so he's staring at her. Never mind that most people look away at some point, and he doesn't. "Are you sure you're talking about me, Ms. Liven? Most people do not believe either of those things." There's a faint shrug. "Right now, yes. People make me uncomfortable." A longer pause. "Most of the time, actually. But more, now."

When she turns to look at the waves, he follows her gaze, as if there might be something to see out there. "Oh? You must have been a smart kid. Why is it growing on you? There are better places. Like Hawaii."

"A nurse and a teacher." Love falls silent for another little bit, thinking about it. "I can see why you care so much about your town and the people in it." Yes, he's doing this for money, it's a job, but she seems to be under the impression Alexander really cares for people. Right or wrong, it's what she thinks. Her

Love's gaze is considering, like she's casually noting the way the moonlight falls across his face. She's an artist with a keen sense of spatial relationships, and she does tend to stare herself, but it's an aesthetic appraisal. "What other people think is of little matter. I have to trust my feelings, or what do I have? Even if you're a secret renfield & you have an unhealthy obsession with cutting instruments, you've been decent and kind to me." She sips again. "Interpersonal relationships are complicated and people are stupid."

"I love people, but they hold grudges and misunderstand and blame others for it, and you're from here. You have a lifetime of petty bullshit following you around. That doesn't mean that's who you are."

She thinks a while before she answers Alexander, sometimes her pauses stretching on for a minute or more. That makes some people uncomfortable too, and they scramble to fill the silence. Maybe not Alexander, though. "My parents fought all the time. I used to go to this one kid's house and have cookies. I can't remember his name. A bunch of us went. Kind of like a club for misfit toys." She pauses again, and toys with the straw in her cup. "I don't remember a lot from that time, but that as a nice memory. And then I went away and lived a lot places, and got older, and came back kind of against my will, but it turns out there will always be nice people, no matter how colored a place is by bad memories. I found some friends here."

Alexander arches an eyebrow at the linking of his parents' professions to whatever he might feel for the town. He doesn't argue with it, but under the moonlight, his expression is perhaps a bit skeptical. Then thoughtful. As if he's never considered it before. There is, though, the slightest up turn of the corners of his mouth at her assessment and judgment. "Interpersonal relationships are very complicated," is as far as he's willing to go with any agreements, there.

And he seems quite comfortable with silence. His eyes flick to her, every once in a while when one stretches particularly long, like he's just checking to see if he missed some cue. But whatever he reads in her face doesn't spur him into impulsive speech. Not until he has something to say. Which, as it starts, is, "Mrs. Gilford. Tobin Gilford's mother. She did that a lot. Had a big heart." He points down the beach, towards the docks. "Gilford still lives here. He runs boat tours. You should say hi - he's a nice kid." A hesitation, before he nods. After a long pause of his own, he says, "I'm glad. You found friends. There are a lot of good people here."

Then he frowns, out at the sea. "About your case. As I told you before, the victim was a man named Lukas Collins. He was involved in organized crime, running gambling and illegal fight under the radar. Although I'll never have the evidence needed to prove this in any court of law, he ran afoul of his boss, and was killed for it. The location of the body dump was a coincidence. There are no plans to move against your holdings, and it wasn't meant to be any sort of a message. Just bad luck." And right after he was talking about good people, too!

"Interpersonal relationships are the best and worst thing about being human-shaped." Love agrees, smiling a little at that, after watching him mull over her suggestion about his his parents' compassion may have affected his placement in the tapestry of a kooky little town called Gray Harbor. Her eyebrows twitch when he mentions Tobin's name. Little frown lines appear between her eyebrows while she tries to catch on to a slippery memory. "... Did he sometimes go by Toby?"

That sounds familiar. "It was a sweet mama baking for us, I remember that, and playing in the woods. I think there was a little fort or..."

The nostalgia clears from her eyes when Alexander brings up the case again , and she makes an effort to drag her mind back to the present. "So you're saying I won the body dump lottery." She nods. "Good. I don't know what Silas was into, and my tenants are twitchy about the outsider owning their little shop. It doesn't matter who my pop is. Apparently I look like an outsider." She smirks at that, then thinks for another moment and asks, "Who was Collins' boss?"

"Maybe?" Alexander shrugs. "But that isn't his name. His name is Tobin." He's way more forceful about that than anyone needs to be, although he has the grace to look a little abashed afterwards, when he hears how it sounds in his own ears. He clears his throat, runs one hand through his hair. "Sorry. I don't, uh, really like nicknames. I don't know if he had one."

The rest gets a brief chuckle of amusement. "Ah. Yes. Jackpot." A pause. "Maybe not jackpot, because there were only a few body parts. Jackpot would be a whole body. I think. Yes." He shakes his head, before he starts calculating out how much a given body percentage represents in lottery terms. "Um. Yes. You don't really look like you're from around here," he admits, with a shrug. Her final question makes him draw a breath. "Officially? Nobody. Unofficially? Guy named Monaghan. Local business owner, crime lord, so on and so forth. Leave him be, don't poke at him, don't get tangled up in debts or drugs, or spreading his name around, and you should be fine."

Love watches Alexander. "I got that. I'll try not to give you one." Nicknames are a preference, but convenience should never come before the comfort of another person, unless they're an asshole. "Tobin." She smiles, locking that one in there. Tobin. Got it.

"Right, so less of a jackpot more of a $2 scratcher. Vaguely disappointing, but still a win." Or a lose, depending on how you look at dismembered parts. "Monaghan. I think I've heard or seen that name before." She's going to be really annoyed if it's in Silas' paperwork. "I like to know where the bears are so I can avoid them. I like my fingers unbroken and my kneecaps in place. I make an effort to work around them, not tiptoe through their tulips." Love's not that kind of girl. "Debt won't be a problem, and I only smoke a little weed now and then, and they have perfectly legal dispensaries for that."

"Thank you, Alexander." She slides an envelope out of her pocket, a #6 coin envelope painted with little swirls and stars all over it in gouache. It's full of cash, of course, the agreed upon rate for the outstanding balance for what he did before they both fell ill. She holds it out to him, envelope clasped between her fingers, long, glossy nails just pinching the edges. "There's a little extra in there. I may ask your advice, have a few questions. Sort of a fee for errata, if you don't mind a text now and then."

Alexander looks vaguely alarmed by the idea of being assigned a nickname, giving her a wary but grateful nod when she agrees not to do that. That terrible and wretched thing. The alarm clears as they move on, replaced by a slightly mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "If you're truly desperate for there to be a full body dropped off somewhere on your property, I am depressingly certain that it could be arranged." He's joking! ...probably.

Monaghan's not a joking matter, though, so he watches her very carefully when she talks about it, and relaxes only when she assures him that she's not going to stray into any dubious legal areas. "You're a wise woman, Miss Liven. Although if you do happen to hear or see the name in other contexts, I wouldn't mind the occasional head's up. I also like to keep an eye on the local bear population - preferably a close one." His voice is dry, as if he acknowledges that it might be too close for comfort, sometimes. "Only if you feel comfortable doing so, of course."

He stares at the envelope for a moment, then grins brightly. It's only partially the cash. "That's the fanciest envelope I believe I've ever been paid with." He takes it, careful not to touch her hand, and removes the cash, counting it briefly. His eyebrows go up when it comes out more than expected, but he accepts the explanation with a nod. The money is placed in his own wallet, and the envelope handed back to her. "Wouldn't want to deprive you of something so starry," he says, playfully. "And that's fine. I'm happy to be of service, Miss Liven. Ask whatever, whenever you need. And if you ever have something else I can look into for you..."

Love sips from her drink, watching the waves, and she doesn't look at Alexander until he mentions being certain arrangements could be made for an intact, or mostly intact corpse. She flicks her gaze askance, and tongues the straw out of her mouth. Silencio. Mm. "Okay, so maybe for Halloween?"

Joking, probably.

Ha. Maybe.

"I'm happy to share information with you so long as we both keep a lid on where it's coming from and where it's going. You've answered every question I've asked of you, so I trust you to be honest with me. Thank you for that. Some... people wouldn't be so thorough." Of course she has no idea if he's keeping things from her, but she has no sense that he is, which is just the same until proven otherwise.

"I like to add a little something extra to my transactions, and I'm staying with a local artist while we do some work for Byron Thorne. There's a masquerade coming up and we're doing some costumes for the Cabaret. Goblin ball is our theme. It's going to be pretty fantastic." So long as the masks don't transform their wearers into gobbos or something typically Gray Harbor like that. She takes the envelope back, folds it, and slides it back into her pocket. She'll reuse that, probably to tip out someone at work. "Alexander, if I ever have a question that needs an answer, or a mystery solved, I know exactly whom to query. If you ever find yourself in need of a painting or a drink, you know where to find me."

Alexander laughs. "That would be a conversation starter and something to trick the trick-or-treaters with, I suppose." Her condition is met with an easy nod. "Lying to my clients, or getting them killed, is generally considered bad for business. Might end up a ghost, but I've yet to see a ghost with a bank account." His expression goes briefly blank. "Although I suppose it's not impossible. Odd thought to contemplate." He shrugs. "And it was an interesting investigation. I was happy to undertake it."

His interest grows sharper when she mentions the masquerade, and Byron's name. "Thorne's festival. Yes. I've heard of it. That sounds interesting." He considers her. "I can't say I'm an expert on goblins or those sorts of fairy tales, but if there's something I can add, you have only to say." Although he seems a little uneasy about the festival itself - probably because it IS Gray Harbor, and people transforming into beasties is not out of the question. "And I will, Ms. Liven." He moves to stand up, then, careful not to brush against her as he rises. "It has been a pleasure working for you. Don't die." He turns without another word, and starts walking back towards shore.

Love's only response to his observations is a little smile, the weight of that curious gaze at some of the commentary he imparts, and, at the last, a reciprocal, "Stay alive." She lingers at the pier a while longer, legs kicking over the edge, finishing her horchata, watching the moon ride higher and higher over crashing black waves.

"Well, dumpster body," she says when Alexander's departed out of what she thinks is easy hearing range, "Rest in peace, my friend. I hope you make better choices in the next life."

She stares at the flat water farther out, just for a while, then shakes herself. "Stop thinking about sharks." Love rises, her Chucks scraping over the boards of the pier, and she dumps her empty cup in a waste bin before heading back the way Alexander left, destination, herself heading back to the Sea View Suites, thinking about what a dude named Collins must have done to a dude called Monaghan to end up in pieces all over town. She doesn't think about it too long, though, because that way lies Trouble.

Instead, she takes her phone out of her back pocket, and sends off a text: hey, how to you feel about salted caramel popcorn balls?