2019-11-10 - The Escaped

Even in the cold, Detective Quintanilla needs to work out. And so he is along the boardwalk this morning, among the tourists and locals with their coffees, jogging. He's got on some track pants and a 'Gray Harbor Police Department' heather gray sweatshirt, but no earbuds in. Just running and looking at the water. And, perhaps, spotting a certain someone on a bench nearby.

That certain someone is a local and she's busy pacing around the bench; much like Gabriel, this morning finds Isabella Reede in workout clothes - a fitted runner's hoodie pulled over a tanktop and neon-green sports bra, yoga leggings and running shoes; the ever-present white gold chain of her pendant is tucked somewhere securely against her clavicle. Her hair is pulled back, though the run has pushed wisps of dark hair from it, clinging to her cheeks and neck in damp tendrils. Bluetooth headphones wink their flickering lights against her ears as she jogs in place in an attempt to lower her heart rate, but not too much.

Espying Gabriel nearby, surprise flits over that sunkissed, expressive mien. But there's a smile and a wave, before she pushes off the bench with a foot, and starts jogging towards him.

"Detective," she greets, cheeks flushed with the chill and exercise. "It's only November but you'd think it's December already. How are you?"

Gabriel, too, seems surprised to see someone who he knows on his run. But he pauses up when Isabella runs towards him, holding up his jog and trying to catch his breath a little bit. He's fit, but this is still cardio!

"Ms. Reede," he says, greeting the researcher with a flash of a grin. "I think we've run into each other stuff now that you can call me Gabe instead of Detective. I'm not interrogating you anymore."

He gestures to the boardwalk in front of him. "Up for a little farther, or are you just wrapping up?"

She laughs. "Gabe it is, but only if you call me Isabella. Just catching my breath. I'll jog with you for a few more."

The archaeologist takes up the space next to him and follows his pace - able, at least, to keep up with his longer legs. The brisk air is refreshing, however, rejuvenated by the feel of it stinging her ruddy cheeks, body moving in a quick clip with him. Her breathing is even - while she prefers the water, she's practiced here, too, well-inured with the necessity to keep in a certain degree of shape considering the demands of her profession, and while Academia's rigors are decidedly less severe than police work, she has never been one to do anything by the halves.

"How are things going?" she asks, green eyes finding the man's profile. "You guys ready to shut down Foster yet?"

Isabella may say that, but the reality is that except for the Department-mandate physical fitness test, homicide detective work isn't a lot of chasing perps through alleys. It is, instead, a lot of staring at bodies and papers and questioning people and chasing techs for lab results and ...

All of that stuff.

"Isabella it is," he agrees, readily, keeping an amiable pace at which the two of them can still talk. "Things are going well. Not ready to shut down Foster yet, but ready to chase every lead wherever it goes." There is an 'I wish' tone behind that. "You have a good Halloween?"

She jogs in a pace that allows her to keep her heart rate elevated while speaking, though every syllable leaves her in swirls of mist and breathless puffs. Isabella largely keeps her eyes forward as she moves with him, though, drawn to the nearby waterfront as they move, their shadows lengthening across old, salted wood that frame the Boardwalk.

Perceptive as she is, she catches the tone. "Does that mean you guys have scores of leads to follow, or a complete dearth of it?" she wonders. Mention of Halloween has her frowning visibly. "No," she mutters. "Though honestly, I'm not sure why I thought differently. When I was growing up here, my twin brother used to tell me that the summers are the safest, and it gets more dangerous the darker and colder it becomes." She glances over at him. "What about you?

Gabe is happy to have a conversation that goes with them looking forward, at the water, and occasionally on each other. A small smile when the question of leads comes up. "We're chasing every one we've got. I'm confident we'll close it." That's sort of a non-answer answer, but there is perhaps a flash of concern on his faces that suggests he is more concerned about a lack of leads rather than a bevvy of them.

On her response about Halloween, he nods. "It was nice," he says. "Gave out candy. Dressed up for once, as Holmes. Got invited to a college party thrown by some of my neighbors. Even dropped by the Platinum Cabaret's thing, which is someplace I've never been before. But I heard there were some -- oddities." He leaves that open.

"You haven't talked to Alexander Clayton to see what else he could've found out in the interim?" Isabella wonders, huffing softly as running sneakers take up a quick trot along the pavement, their shadows shortening as the day starts to turn towards the bright and crisp. She takes a deep, appreciative whiff of the briny air when the two of them hit the Boardwalk, and keep running. "He could help if you let him." Further evidence, it seems, that in spite of her status as a helpful civilian, the young woman is at the very least relatively well-informed of what happens in the city.

Her discovery, and the revelation, that Gabriel actually had a nice Halloween has her spearing a look of abject relief towards the side of his face, though she doesn't turn her head completely to regard him. "I'm glad you had fun - as Holmes, huh? Does that mean you had the deer stalker's cap and the pipe and everything? Who came as your Watson?" She seems appreciative of his choice of costume. "I've actually never been to the Cabaret, though it's not like I'm opposed to a good time at a strip club. I just haven't had the time." Brows lift as she tilts her head at him. "Well, there were oddities everywhere. But you'd have to be more specific."

"Yeah. Well, Mr. Clayton has been helpful, in fact. He's gotten us as far as we have, honestly, in part." Gabriel may be slightly annoyed by the semi-professional copbotherer, but he can't disagree that Alexander has gotten them this far. "But we need to take it from here. We'll figure it out. Just need to be -- cautious -- in how we approach things."

Gabe seems to appreciate the salt air as it hits their nostrils. "And yes, I did! Just a trench coat and hat and pipe, and I didn't round up a Watson -- I sort of did it late -- but it was fun. But yeah. I'm not sure I know the specifics. Just. Halloween, right?" As if that sums up everything.

"I suppose you'll need to make sure everything you find will actually be admissible," Isabella says with a small laugh. "Ugh, what a pain. I'm so glad I'm not a detective, it must be ridiculously frustrating sometimes. It seems you like your job, though, despite everything." It's a guess, but the silent query is there, those glittering eyes sliding to the corners to regard the vague shape of his profile as they run.

Just Halloween. There's a quiet, grousing noise. "Well, you'll probably get even busier the closer we get into Winter," she tells him quietly. "This is just that kind of place."

"Sure. It's frustrating. Everybody lies. Some cases never close and you can't give some mom or dad or husband or wife closure about what happened to their son or daughter or spouse." Gabriel seems used to talking about the problems of the job now. Do it long enough and even murders can become routine. "But it's rewarding. You speak for the people who can't speak for themselves. You get the bad guys and you hold people accountable for the stuff they do. So." Yeah. He likes it.

"How is your research going, though?" Gabe asks, shifting the attention from himself. "What have you been working on?"

"It's probably the kind of job where you feel like it's high stakes all the time, but I guess it takes a certain sort of personality that drives you to take on that kind of work in the first place. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be, sometimes. Same with doctors." Isabella's expression takes on a more contemplative bent at her words, her eyes somewhat far away as she imagines it.

She shakes her head. "So what made you decide to do this, then?" she asks. "Be a detective?" Was it completely an altruistic desire? A career path he had accidentally fallen into? She searches through her memories and finds, in the end, that despite their amicable relationship that she knows next to nothing about the detective. It bears correcting, she decides.

Asked about her research, there's a quiet, playful groan. "In the middle of dissertation writing on top of everything else." Though she doesn't clarify what everything else could be. "I think I'm at sixty-thousand or so words out of the eighty-thousand I have to write for my would-be peers in Oxford, but it's going at a good clip. Should give me time to revise it a few times before I send in all my application materials just in time for my viva voce early next year. Maybe you should have interrogated me for two more hours as opposed to the half hour you gave me, Gabe." She winks at him. "I could have used the practice."

"God. I don't know I have the self-introspection to answer that," says Gabriel, before he then proceeds to answer just that. "Part of it? The detective part? I hate unanswered questions. I've got to know. Need to know." A beat. "But the murder part of it? Well, I'm Catholic. Like, really Catholic, not Easter-and-Christmas Catholic. And I think that every person -- even the scummiest scumbag dealer -- has inherent worth, dignity that God gave you and that no one's got the right to take away. And if someone does, then they should have to answer for that. And that's where I step in."

A beat.

"I'm not some avenging angel or anything like that. But I stand up for people's dignity. And that's satisfying." Then there is the talk of her dissertation. "I maybe understood sixty percent of those words. But I hope you get there. Getting distracted with side projects?" He leaves it vague, to let her answer as she pleases.

"So just answer from your gut," Isabella says, the words leaving her in those misty puffs again as they round the bend, both pairs of sneakers hitting the docks. "Sometimes it's more truthful or honest that way, when you just reply without thinking." She pivots, so she could jog backwards, her smile so mischievous that it leaves her looking younger than her twenty-seven years. "Think of it as an existential Rorschach test."

He tries, and she listens, twisting back around again if not just to prevent herself from an embarrassing accident of tripping over a piece of debris because she isn't watching where she's going. The background on Catholicism doesn't surprise her - it's the fact that he continues to worship that does, in spite of his profession. "I hear it can go either way, sometimes," she confesses. "That sometimes the kind of job you have drives you away from God, or brings you even closer to Him." Her voice slips into a more distant note, as if remembering something in recent memory. Lights in the darkness. "I hope you never lose that, Gabe."

About her side-projects, the look of her becomes more arch, her sideways glance a touch more sly. "I have plenty of side projects," she confirms. "It's a very roundabout sleep therapy, for me. I don't get the good night's sleep I need unless I tire myself out physically and up here." She taps her temple. "Otherwise, I'll just lie awake at night staring at the ceiling, letting everything else turn, turn, turn. It's difficult to shut down. But it could be worse, I suppose. I could be having persistent night terrors."

Gabriel lifts his shoulders in a bit of a shrug. "You can't ever be driven away from God, Isabella. I mean, how can you ever hide from someone omnipotent? He's always there, waiting for you, with infinite forgiveness and infinite love." He says it in the same tone as everything else. Not proselytizing, just stating what is, for him, a fact.

But then there is the statement about her side protects, and he nods his head. "Good to keep busy. Anything you can talk about?" His question is an idle one, about what else she has on her plate.

"I thought you were supposed to ask for absolution before he takes you back?" Isabella wonders. She, herself, is more agnostic than anything, but it's rare that something ever stops her from conversation or debate. But the decisive way he holds onto his conviction, his faith, earns him a smile.

She slows down when they get to more familiar quarters, if not just because she needs a break. She keeps bouncing on the balls of her feet in place, pulling her small water bottle from the runner's belt slung low on her hips to take a drink. Brows lift faintly at his last query, and there's a smile - both impish and cryptic in its bent. "Save for the project that originally sent me here that I have had to sign an NDA for?" she wonders. "I can talk about said side projects, I'm not exactly bound by the rules you are. But the question is whether I want to." She gestures at him with a water bottle, her smile broadening into a grin. "Quid pro quo, Gabe."

She leans against one of the Boardwalk's railings, to stretch out a calf. "How are things with you and Erin? The two of you still seeing one another?"

"Sure. You need to be sorry for what you've done. But He's always there, ready to give it if you ask. No preconditions. Nothing you can do is capable of not being forgiven." Gabriel continues with that small smile. "You've got to take the Earthly consequences. If you kill someone, you're going away. But the Kingdom of Heaven is still there for you if you truly repent." Something of a contradiction, the absolution for the people he catches and puts away. But there you go.

At the question about Erin, he shrugs. "It was a good first date, but it didn't pan out. Not sure we wanted the same things at the same time, you know? But it was friendly. And still can be, I think. Sometimes dates don't go on to be more things." He is sanguine about it.

It is a contradiction, but after a lifetime spent reading and studying history and ancient cultures - and no matter what other people believe, the Bible is still, in many ways, a standing historical record - Isabella is not at all surprised by it. "I've been told before that in order to keep a friendship, one shouldn't talk about Politics or Religion," she says with a laugh, turning her eyes to Gabriel. "Thankfully, I'm a scholar. No subject is taboo."

When Gabriel comes clean on that, brows lift upwards - though that does explain a few things, why Erin hasn't updated her on that end. "That's too bad, but sometimes it is what it is," she tells him. "It's better when that kind of thing just falls on your lap without you actively looking, anyway."

Her mischief surfaces again. "So what do you want?" she wonders. "Now that you've mentioned it. With that."

"Yeah," says Gabriel with a shrug of his shoulders at Isabella's thoughts on love and how it all works. "But Erin's pretty cool, so I know she'll end up with someone excellent." As he said, all quite amicable.

"So is that sufficient gossip to satisfy you for some quo in return for my quid? Or do you require even more?" he asks, a certain arch to his detective brow as he looks at her.

"I don't even know why you're asking me what I'm up to," Isabella laughs, a furrowed brow tilted Gabriel's way as she pushes away from the railing as she takes her jog back up again. "I mean, it made sense that you would ask me about the Foster case, but my side-projects? Who have you been talking to, exactly? Is there anything specific outside of the gazillion murder cases on your desk that you're looking for?"

Gabriel laughs at that and shrugs his shoulders. "I'm just making conversation! You make your side projects sound so mysterious and interesting, and so I'm just trying to not talk about dead bodies the whole time." He seems to suggest that if she wants to let it go, he will let it go. He picks up the pace again.

"That's definitely fair," Isabella tells Gabriel gamely as she starts jogging down the street. "Though honestly, I don't know whether that speaks poorly of me or you. Me, because I can't let go of anything so I have to dive into something to engage me in all hours of the day, or you, because the first half of this conversation was basically taken up by God, potentially dirty money and dead bodies." She winks at the detective at that.

"Anyway, I wouldn't call this a side-project but..." She pauses. "Just to warn you because you might be looking at a flood of crazy people attempting to disturb the peace, but there was a Paranormal Society meeting the other day that got disrupted by an escapee from a mental asylum who suggested that he was forced to release other people just like him. He was agitated and nobody calmed him down, so I don't know how much of it was real or how much of it was inside his head, and he ran off before anyone can get his full name or number, but if you're on the look out for things to be careful about and watch out for, that's one that happened very recently."

"Interesting," says Gabriel after a long moment of thinking about it. "I stumbled across, and I literally mean stumbled across, because her shoes weren't tied and she practically flew into me, a woman who had also just been released from being institutionalized. The story sounds similar." He bites his lip. "Not as severe, but ..."

There's a blink. Isabella lifts her head at Gabriel and furrows her brows. "Wait, what do you mean?" she asks. She suddenly, and abruptly, stops from her run, reaching out with a hand because she's unable to help it and stay the detective from his job. Her expression is suddenly tight with tension. "What happened in your case?"

"What do you mean?" asks Gabriel as he has to come to a stuttering top when Isabella so suddenly stops on her run. "I mean, that's all there is to it. A sort of odd woman who was talking about how her parents sent her to an asylum upstate and that she just signed herself out because she had reached the age of majority." He furrows his brow, as if not really sure what else she might mean.

"A little different from my case, then," Isabella says, lowering her hand. "It sounds like she left the Asylum voluntarily." And that they allowed her, which throws a completely different light to how things work over there. "Did you get her name?"

She rubs the side of her face with one hand and sighs. "I mean, it could be nothing, since nothing bad's actually happened yet." But it probably will, the whisper insists, somewhere at the back of her head. "I don't know a lot about it myself."

There is a long pause as Gabriel riffles through his mental databanks for the name of the woman that nearly sent him to the ground in the Pourhouse. Thankfully, given his line of work, a talent for names is something that comes with the territory. "Kassandra. Kassandra Hughes. She goes by Kass, though. I didn't get a number or anything." He probably just thought she was a garden-variety crazy. "And yeah. Me neither. But seems weird. I haven't heard of another de-institutionalization push or anything."

"And she just happened to mention that she came from an asylum?" Isabella wonders with a laugh, and a curious cast of a glance Gabriel's way before she continues running again. "Not exactly the first thing I would say to a man after colliding into him, but I guess it takes all kinds. I would definitely keep an eye out for those, though. If you ever come across others who mention that they escaped, or were set free, could you let me know?"

"She was acting pretty weird. It's more understandable when you realize she was looking like she was off her meds and I was concerned." Sort of? Makes more sense that is. "But yeah. I'll let you know if I come across anyone." He then gestures up ahead of them. "My off is up here, where my car is. But it was good running alongside you, Isabella." He uses the first name, of course. "And catching up. Talk soon, yeah?"