2019-10-08 - Cops Hang-Out Here

Among the smattering of uniformed officers on the night beat who frequent this establishment is also one member of the DA's office - the newest prosecutor in town - who has been saddled this week with the 24/7 on-call homicide pager.

Cassidy sits at an otherwise empty booth. Before her is a short mug of coffee. Behind that is a pot of coffee. Beside those is a pack of cigarettes with a light resting on top, a note pad, and a simple ball point. She is typing rapidly into her phone with thumbs flying at the touchscreen like well tuned manufacturing tools.

A blonde enters the Grizzly Den Diner looking entirely too lost to be here. Sure, she wears a simple navy blue t-shirt under her leather jacket, but that is one expensive, flattering leather jacket, with just the right amount of extemporaneous zippers attached to it. The jeans probably cost more than the usual $30 pair at Target, the sneakers are bright and brand new, and the Mercedes parked outside isn't bought on the typical cop's salary.

But as she pushes her expensive sunglasses up away from her nose and into her hair, Detective Sarah Stevens smiles wide, flashing her Hollywood grin at a pair of uniforms she recognizes and giving a waggle of her fingers. Of course she recognizes ALL the uniforms, because it's a small department. But some are more favored than others.

Poor, unfortunate soul Cassidy has her evening piece startlingly interrupted by Detective Hollywood leaing into her booth. Yes, jumping, placing a hand on the table and the other on the back of the booth seat, and then hopping backwards to land on her ass. She drums her fingers across the table, her legs stretched out over her side of the booth as Sarah begins to shrug out of her jacket.

"Well, well, look at you, still looking good while burning the midnight oil. What IS your secret, Bennet? Wait, lemme guess..." She lifts a finger, then cocks it into a gun aimed at the cigarettes. "It's those, right? That keep you looking young and energized?"

With her jacket off, the shoulder harness that holds her semi-automatic is visible, as is the badge at her belt as she casually reaches over to swipe the pack of cancer sticks and the lighter, shaking one out. "Can I?" She asks with a teasing smirk even as she's already pilfering.

"Coffee and cigarette diet. It's how I lost 40 pounds in law school and keep them off." Cassidy says. She sits back in her booth and sets her phone, screen down, on the table. She waves to the pack, "Take one, but no smoking indoors." ... "Unfortunately."

The blonde reaches for her mug and takes a healthy sip, only possible since its cooled to a little better than room temperature by now.

The state's attorney is dressed neatly. Hair hangs perectly to frame her face which is neatly made up. She has on a fitted light salmon blouse and pressed light gray pants and black pumps with at least 3 inches of heel and red soles.

"Coffee and cig diet. I can dig it. Except for the cigarette part, which I've never been partial to." Of course, Sarah says this even as she places the butt end between her lips and extricates it from the pack wth a little pull. She slides the rest of them across the counter, then looks over her shoulder at the eating uniforms. "Who's gonna tell, Bennet? You think any of them have the balls to come over here and tell you where to smoke a cigarette?"

Unlike the picturesque ADA, Sarah looks like she walked out a J-Crew or Calvin Klein ad. Minus wearing nothing but underwear. She pulls the sunglasses out of her hair and runs a hand through it instead, the entire mess a wild mane that only gets messier the more each day drags on. A sure sign she prefers to drive her car around with the top down.

Still, she doesn't light the cigarette, toying with the lighter instead as she gauges the other woman's reaction to her teasing. So far, she hasn't risen to it. She slides the lighter back across the table and the cancer stick is tucked back behind an ear. "Maybe we can take a smoke break later."

When the waitress comes by to take the detective's order, she flashes a dimple-baring smile at the woman, ordering a cup of hot tea. Stevens was a known health nut, among other things, around the precint. Her lone weakness, and guilty pleasure, being bearclaws. Also known as 'Hollywood bait' due to her penchant for showing up whenever one came within her detection radius.

"So you don't look super happy tonight. They got you on Death Watch?" Sarah eyes the pager. "That sucks. But at least with our solve rate, you get plenty of time off, right? That's gotta be nice."

"You know I ran across someone fishing out of Gray's Pond a while back? Guy didn't even know how many bodies come out of there in a given year."

Cassidy places her elbow on the table and rests her temple against two fingers as she regards the other woman. "GHPD's solve rate is responsible for my elevated blood pressure," she murmurs before blowing a strand of hair out of her face. "I would much rather round up a grand jury and work on a few murder cases than spend my day pleaing out a docket full of pretty crime and minor felonies."

"The PD does enjoy sushi, though, so there's that. And the judge has one of those Dyson fans in her chambers," she imparts thoughtfully.

"What can I say? We do the best we can with what we got." Sarah's lopsided grin at her quip lessens only somewhat as she looks over the back of her side of the booth at the other cops that fill the joint. As if she were speculatively judging them on their ability to help solve cases or not based solely on eating habits.

Then there's a scoff, those baby blues rolling as she turns aroud to face Cassidy once again. "You and I have very, very different ideas of 'fun'." Sarah shakes her head, flicking her fingers out towards the notepad. "I mean, give me a nice Vice case anyday. Strung out crack addicts and meth heads I can relate to! Homicide? Neither exciting, nor new. Mostly just a bunch of gross floaters."

The smile comes back, reaching up to slide her sunglasses off her head and onto the table. "Good sushi, or that cheap gas station crap? I ate some stuff from the 7-11 one time and I swear to God, I didn't shit right for a week." Eyes narrow just a bit at the mention of the fan. "That... that a good thing or a bad thing?"

The hot tea arrives, and an abbreviated 'thanks' is given to the waitress, along with a bright grin, pulling the mug in close. Her fingers catch the ned of the string and dip it a few times, steeping the bag. "At least you have silver linings, right?"

"So what does an A-D-A do for fun in this town, anyway? All I see is you working yourself to an early grave."

"Fun is a foreign concept at the moment. Let me land a high profile case - then I'll think about going to Disney Land, or something." Cassidy says a bit snidely. She seems to have a thought and picks up the ballpoint.
While jotting something down, "I'm assuming you have relaxation ideas for me? I'll write them here next to the ones the midnight receptionist gave me yesterday."

"Foreign concept, she says!" Stevens laughs as she plucks up her tea, one finger keeping the string out of the way she blows softly over the rim of the mug. She takes a long drink, after judging it cool enough. No sugar, no creamer. Health nut. Just plain old hot black tea. Blech.

"Honey, life is more than work. You work so you can live, not the other way around. Your career isn't going anywhere. Your natural hair color will when it all turns gray and you get stress lines."

"Yeah, I got one." The blonde swings around, her feet touching the floor for the first time to face Cassidy. She leans over, slapping a hand down on top of the note pad to interrupt her writing, trying to catch her gaze. "'Go see the ocean.' Take twenty four hours off, call in sick, and go see the ocean. Listen to it, touch it, but don't swim in it."

"It's autumn, so it's really fucking cold."

Her wisdom imparted, the blonde takes her hand back, fishing a few bills out of her wallet. She leaves a ten on tabletop, draining what is left of the liquid in her mug before settling it down on top to keep it in place. "It always calms me down, at least. You have a good night, Bennet. Try not to work yourself blind."

Gathering her jacket in hand, Detective Stevens goes to bother the uniforms, departing with a wink and the flash of a smile.

The departing detective leaves the DA with a ten dollar bill, half drunk tea and Cassidy's own coffee. She pushes the tea to the edge of the table for easy collection and leaves the 10 there for the waitress.

Cassidy finishes what she was writing and then slides her notepad off the table and makes it vanish into her purse. She scratches the side of her head through thick golden locks and takes another sip of coffee.

A text from Gabriel to ask where Cassidy is and a cryptic statement that they could use her help on the Sea View Motel murders later, Gabe and Charlie are coming through the door, the former holding the door for the latter and making a beeline for the ADA's table. "Hey. How are the pancakes? I can use some second breakfast. How about you, Charlie?" This is what passes for smalltalk as he slides into a seat at the table across from the ADA.

"I could use more coffee, and a hard boiled egg." No pancakes. Charlie is clearly a weird health nut that doesn't eat normal people food if she can resist the smells here. Either way, she settles herself at Cassidy's table, offering her a quick smile of greeting, "Hope we're not interrupting."

"Second breakfast..." Cassidy crains her neck a bit to check her phone on the table, hitting the lock button so it just lights up the time and her lock screen: a picture of her car (a Kia Rio). "...at 2:30 am? When did you eat /first/ breakfast." She grins back at Gabriel and then release her phone.

The DA's blue eyes find Charlie and she returns the smile and reaches out her hand, "Hi, I'm state's attorney Cassidy." A shake of the head. "Not interrupting." She settles a look back to Gabriel, "So?" and lifts her shoulders "What's the news?"

"It's always Second Breakfast somewhere," says Gabe, cheerily, as he waves down the waitress and orders two cups of coffee, a hard boiled egg, and a short stack of pancakes for himself. "Anyway. We had a very productive interview with a local marine conservationist. It's starting to seem like the murders are related to the legal case you told me about the other day, Cassidy. The one with the casino owner against the waterfront property owner."

And then Gabe dropped what is, in his mind, the bombshell. "We figured out why the Krugers were looking to meet with environmental lawyers. They were going to be witnesses in favor of the environmental side of things. But now that they're dead, the casino owner's filed a motion to dismiss the entire case."

Charlie reaches over to take the offered hand, "Detective Charlie Morgan." She offers, giving it a firm shake before she releases it. Then she leans back in her seat, hands tucking into the pockets of her jacket. "It is starting to seem like the murders might be related." She corrects, just in case they are all barking up that wrong tree. Got to protect reputations, after all. "So we're wanting to check into him...without tipping him off and shutting everything down too fast."

"No shit!" Cassidy says in an excited whisper. This is certainly the happiest she's seemed in weeks, if anyone has been paying attention.

She's produced that notepad again and starts scribbling details on it. Hers is a loopy, flowy handwriting with big and legible bubbly cursive. "How did you find this out?" She looks at what Charlie says and nods her emphatic agreement.

"When we heard that the Krugers were talking to environmental lawyers, we started asking around local conservation groups, seeing who it might have been. We couldn't figure out the lawyers, because they're buttoned-up tight. But." And here, Gabe is pleased with this, as he looks over at Charlie. "We got told that there was a local marine diver working on the case, Isabella Reede. She is possibly going to be an expert witness for the environmentalist side of the case. And she had heard that the Krugers would be witnesses, too, as part of that."

"Which...she seems certain that the testimony of the Krugers was going to carry more legal weight than her own testimony." Charlie adds, pausing to accept the coffee when the drinks are dropped off, "So we figure if we start looking into Foster's financials, things like that...we might get a lead. Of course, that's making the big assumption that he had something more directly to do with the deaths than just opportunistically filing for dismissal of the case."

"We won't get a warrant for that..." Cassidy says with a frown at the mention of financials. "But you will want to put a beat cop on Ms Reede..." Just in case.

Cassidy is giddy and looks at Gabriel and Charlie like they are the best things to ever happen to her. "Reach out to Pulsey's people. They likely have some discovery and can turn it over without a subpeona. We need a copy of that witness list, at least, plus any out of work vendors and contractors on the building estimates would be a resource for alternative suspects." She takes a deep breath, "We want to keep the heat on this but not obvious who we're looking at. If the injunction gets tossed it's less likely we can catch any mista--- OH I KNOW!" Cassidy leans over her notepad and hastily scribbles some shorthand. "This will definitely buy you two some time, AND cover..."

"You think they'll share it?" asks Gabe, arching a brow at Cassidy. "I didn't think lawyers were in the habit of sharing their trial strategy, though maybe the client will. If he thinks we'll sic ourselves on his adversary and help his case. But then again, if this is some sort of reverse psychology --" The detective is trying to figure every angle at this point. "But what else?"

Charlie shrugs at Gabriel, "I imagine that witness lists and stuff are public record, right?" She hasn't a clue, honestly. She isn't one of those cops secretly going to law school, yet. Maybe this is a sign she should pay more attention!

"They'll share discovery from the other side: building plans, estimates, vendor bids... And they should share their witness list as well. Just tell them there are concerns since two of them were murdered." Cassidy suggests. "If not we can probably subpeona the witness list based on concerns, but we won't get the discovery."

She looks down at her phone and talks low while she googles something. "I will anonymously send some newspaper clippings about the poor trout, the murders and a copy of said witness list to the State Department of Ecology in Spokane." She looks back up, "Well...not me...I can't address the envelope or put it in the mail myself. But if a detective were to do that...." ladeeda.... "...They'll have this project tied up for some months while they 'assess habitats based on concerns'." She slaps her phone down, "That will buy you time to find and chase leads - which will be very difficult once that injunction gets tossed. Which it probably will. So we need that witness list. And a highlighter." She reaches for her coffee. "Witness lists for a pre-trial injunction hearing won't be public record, no. Unfortunately."

"All right. So we need to figure out a way to get the witness list out of them. I am sure that the environmental side will be cooperative if they hear we want to bring the might of the Gray Harbor PD on their adversaries." Or so Gabe hopes. "But I wonder if that is going to tip off Foster and he's going to lawyer up and start destroying any evidence he left behind of hiring the hit. Is there any way we can start hoovering his phone and financial records without him knowing?"

"Or at least protect the witnesses." In case, well, the bad guys are using that as a different kind of list. Charlie takes a sip from her coffee as she leans back, looking curious and impressed by Cassidy's idea, but doesn't say anything about it.

"I can't tell you how to conduct your investigation." Cassidy answers. She is very careful in how she words the next part, "You know how sometimes the press finds out about aspects of an investigation to the 'consternation' (air quotes) of law enforcement." She shrugs, "Some times good people who work for bad people read those stories. Start noticing things a bit differently. Send in a tip or two. Accountants. Maids. Gardeners."

Gabriel is quiet for a long moment, taking that in. "All right," he says finally. "So there's like, no, I don't know. Secret subpoenas we can be sending for bank and phone records?" At this point, Gabriel is a bit lost. He's not the lawyer here. "I just figure if you can own a casino, you've got lawyers who are going to try to counter anything we do in the investigation."

"If it was a bank and we were the SEC (and had more proof), sure. But alas..." Cassidy shakes her head.

Cassidy says, "But maybe you know a hacker."

Charlie takes a swallow from the coffee, then puts it down in front of her, "Right. Well. That certainly gives us the start of things." She is so not going to acknowledge the comment about a hacker. Nope.

"For sure. Always good to have the knowledge of our legal betters to guide the investigation," says Gabriel with a nod of his head. "All right. Well." He looks over at Charlie. "I think this opens up some new frontiers for us. We'll keep you posted where things go, yeah?"

Cassidy puts a preemptive cigarette in her mouth and clears her belongings into her purse. "Thanks guys. You two are a real shot in the arm! Keep up the good sluething." She winks over to both of them and slides out of her booth to leave.

"We'll get the bad guys for you, Cassidy," says Gabe with a little grin and a toss of his head towards the departing assistant district attorney. "Then it's up to you." He then digs out some bills from his wallet to pay for Second (First?) Breakfast for him and Charlie.

"Thanks for the help, and the not-advice." Charlie offers Cassidy a smile, then she reaches for her coffee to finish it off, "Alright, back to the grind, Detective. Let's go. No rest for the weary."