2020-08-14 - Sand Snakes

They found a body on the beach.

Some rumours run through a town like a wildfire, drawing crowds of spectators and gossipers; the smaller and quieter the town the more drama. This is Grey Harbor, though, and sure, people shrug and nod and go, 'well, that's not a good thing', but it's probably just some fatcat from Seattle who fell off his yacht after drinking too many wine coolers, or some tourist who swam too far and got caught in the undertow, or maybe it's just that somebody had a heart attack. These things happen and sure, they happen a lot around here, but what can you do.

Life goes on. The coroner's men and the police officers taking statements are packing up to leave the beach. There's a few folks standing around still, most of them out-of-towners craning their necks -- but there's not a lot to see. There was a body but it was in a bag, and now it's gone. There are a number of sand figures, some of them nearly completed, some of them trashed. A Delorean made of sand looks like it would probably have won the sandcastle competition, if the sandcastle competition had not ended a tad prematurely when some New Yorker found the body in his sand pile.

One of the people lingering is the black-clad foreigner who cleans tables at Two if By Sea. He nods at the bored-looking policeman who's finished taking his statement and sort of just drifts off to a side as if he's waiting for somebody. Ravn is; he's doesn't know the town well enough to know who will turn up and take an interest when the rumour makes it to Main Street, but he's adamantly certain that somebody will. Gray Harbor is a hotbed of paranormal activity, and the people in the know -- want to stay in the know. And since he's one of them, and most of them are more in the know than he is, he sticks around.

Alexander has a police radio, and would normally be on the scene of a suspicious death way faster than this - but he sort of got abducted to a hell dimension for suffering, and is still recovering. His right arm still shows the signs of it: it's swollen and black and blue from hand all the way up to the shoulder, and he's put it in a sling to keep from banging it into things. But his legs must still be working, because he's walked down to the shore line as fast as he could make himself.

There's a disappointed wuff of air when he realizes he was too slow to see the body. A few of the townies notice him and edge away with derisive, under-their-breath remarks about crazy people and ghoulish obsessions. Never mind that they're all there for much the same reason. He drifts up to the edge of the police tape, frowning at the sand for a moment. A glance left and right - too many people to just duck under the ribbon, so he instead takes in the bystanders. Ravn is seen, and after a moment, approached. "Hello."

And just like that, someone in the know appears -- and it just happens to be one of the two people everyone else keeps telling Ravn to talk to. He upnods the other man and murmurs, "You look like you ought to be in hospital. Grey Harbor doing its thing again?"

There's something about him even if his name isn't Mary; he's got the blonde part down all right but the something is not at all attractive. It's a whiff of something that's been lying about rotting in the sand for a while. A subtle presence of decomposing, waterlogged flesh. Something that screams, take these gloves and burn them, please.

"I don't like hospitals. And they couldn't do much for me, anyway," Alexander says, once he gets in easy conversational range. There's no answering upnod, just a forthright, even rude, stare as his attention settles on Ravn and doesn't move. "But yes. Gray Harbor did its thing." He leans forward and sniffs the other man, like that's a normal thing normal people do, then frowns. "You smell like death, Ravn. What happened?" He glances back at the scene. "Police radio just said they found a body. Not much direct chatter." He sounds grumpy about that, like it's the cops' job to gossip where he can hear it.

"Well, that happened," Ravn murmurs and nods towards the police officers still packing up to leave. He keeps his voice low enough that not every lingering neck craner needs to hear everything. "Turns out there was some fellow face down inside one of the sand castles. I'm pretty sure Rosencrantz didn't stuff him in there, and he certainly smelled like he'd been there a while. Pretty sure it's one of those Gray Harbor things too, because you'd notice that sort of thing. The smell was awful. I stole his wallet."

Beat. "The dead guy's wallet. Not Rosencrantz'."

"Rosencrantz? Itzhak found him?" Alexander grimaces in sympathy. "That's unpleasant. Discovering a body is traumatic. Itzhak has enough trauma. Doesn't need more." He frowns. "I'll have to text him, and see how he's doing. You said inside a sand castle? Was the sand castle there when you arrived, or was it built on top of the body during...there was a contest here, wasn't there? Cause of death? Distinguishing characteristics?" He doesn't seem to notice or, maybe, care that firing off questions at a poor random bystander about a dead body isn't polite. But he does perk up, visibly, at the last. "Itzhak would never let you steal his wallet. But you got the corpse's? Do you still have it?" He reaches awkwardly into his back jeans pocket and pulls out a pair of thin, black leather gloves, then starts trying to put them on. It involves quiet cursing thanks to the sling.

"There was a contest, yes. It turned up inside Itzhak's sand snake sculpture," Ravn confirms. "I'm not entirely sure if it was under his figure somehow, or it literally magicked itself inside -- he got a little, you know. Flaily."

He's really quite calm and composed about it all. A little curious. A whole lot of casual just getting on with business. "Pretty sure he drowned. Bloated as hell, been in the water for some time maybe -- I'm not in forensics, I'm just making pretty uneducated guesses. I did spot markings on him -- like they'd been slashed into him with a knife. Itzhak's the one who got the good look, of course. And the bloke and lady from the Poorhouse? Geier and Maggie? They snapped a few quick pictures." He pronounces both names wrong but maybe he only heard them in passing. Then the Dane pats his pocket. "Still got it. Haven't looked at it yet, didn't want to draw attention. Let's go find out who he was? Gotta be a driver's license in there, I figure."

"They don't usually," Alexander mutters, although it's a little uncertain. "Bodies. Don't usually just magic themselves inside things. Even in Gray Harbor. But it's hard to say that it couldn't." He studies Ravn. "You're handling this well. Usually, people are less 'steal from the dead' and more 'throw up on the crime scene'." He gestures towards a rocky outcropping that's sheltered from the wind and, perhaps more importantly, the lingering cops and bystanders. "Let's go over there, first. Driver's license would be good. Weird, unless he's a suicide or fell off the pier at the boardwalk. Was he dressed like a tourist, do you remember?"

"Gonna go with park ranger from what I managed to see." Ravn heads towards the outcropping with the other man. "My hands pick things up sometimes. They're usually right about what's important so I don't argue with them about it. Figure I can always hand the wallet over to the police after I've looked at it, tell them I found it. I mean, I live here, just out on that boat there. Wouldn't be odd for me to bump across something in the sand later, and I can certainly pretend to be all upset about it if it makes some officer happy. Park ranger -- other guy, the guy running the contest, not the dead guy -- kind of very pointedly made himself busy a few. I got the feeling he really wanted the shiny people to take a closer look before the paramedics got on scene. So we did."

Alexander frowns as he shuffles to the outcropping and takes up a stance in the shadow of the stone, looking back out over the beach and the ocean. He smiles, just a little. "Handy." A pause. "Pun intended. I don't suppose your hands had gloves on, at the time? Under the environmental circumstances, prints are unlikely to be preserved, especially if the corpse was in the water - but if you turn it in, you'll have to get printed so that your own are on file, and can be eliminated from whatever they might find." The news about the other park ranger deepens his frown. "Did he? Odd. Not normative behavior, finding a dead co-worker on the beach. Not if you didn't already know he was there." He finally manages to get the gloves on his hands, even if it took some pained hissing. "May I see the wallet?"

"I always wear my gloves. I've got some sort of touch disorder. Also, pretty sure the park ranger -- the living guy -- wasn't a local. He had some kind of accent, sounded sort of Australian to me, maybe that gives you an idea who he is."

He dips into his blazer pocket and produces, indeed, a man's wallet that looks like it's been exposed to entirely too much sand and water recently, and spreads out its contents on a conveniently flat-ish rock. There is a driver's license and ID -- Henry Fitzgerald. Aged 52, out of Anacortez, Washington. Some cash, not much. An assortment of loyalty cards, many of which are now smeared with running inks from low-quality stamps. A park ranger ID. A business card for a barber shop in Gray Harbor.

The latter, at least, draws Ravn's attention and he turns it around. There are symbols drawn on the back. "I'm pretty certain these are the same kind of glyphs that was cut into the fellow's body," he murmurs speculatively. "I've never seen anything like it outside of a horror movie."

Alexander shakes his head. "I don't know many of the park rangers. They usually stay out of trouble. At least, town trouble. They might be having orgies in the woods or something, but I wouldn't know about that." On first blush, it's too deadpan to be a joke, but he gives Ravn a sidelong look, and that look holds the amusement that his voice doesn't. He waits for the materials to be spread out on the rock, although he does wince a bit at it. Then his leather-shielded fingers reach out to delicately pick up a couple of things. The driver's license, the ID. He checks the loyalty cards for the date of their stamps, where he can, and then makes a noise at Ravn's information. "You said earlier that there were slashes. Not animal damage, then, but deliberate symbols?" He gets out his phone, and starts taking pictures of both sides of each of the cards, paying close attention to the symbols. "Odd. Unlikely to be accidental, then."

"I'm no forensic," Ravn repeats. "But I'm pretty sure that dogs or bears or wolves, or whatever normal forests have got around here, don't do glyphs. Geier's the one who got actual pictures, and Itzhak definitely got a good, close look. We should hunt either or both down, ask them if the symbols match the card here. You know anything about that barber shop?"

We. Somebody fancies himself part of the investigation, apparently.

Then he looks up at the other man speculatively. "You know. People in this town keep telling me to talk to you and August Roen. About pretty much anything. I don't understand most of what's going on here, but I have picked up on how there's a pattern there. Things happen, people can do... things. And you're one of the two men in town who knows pretty much who's who, and what they can do. So I guess I'm asking if reading things like a morning TV psychic lady with a donation number and a crystal ball is an actual thing because if it is, we might be able to figure out what happened to the guy. Or who happened to him, as it might be."

"Usually, they don't," Alexander agrees, quietly. "We do get some weird 'animal attacks', on occasion, but carving glyphs into their victims would be unusual even for the Harbor." There's an absent nod of agreement to the proposed actions; he seems to find it entirely appropriate that Ravn would be part of the investigation, for certain definitions of appropriate that boil down to 'we're all nosy bastards here'. "I'm not familiar with this particular barber shop, no. I'll become so."

He looks up and blinks, visibly surprised, when he's named as someone to talk to. "Um. Yeah, that's a thing. Not quite with a crystal ball. But if you've got the right abilities, and you're strong enough, you can read emotional impressions off of things, sometimes get a glimpse of events that took place." He breathes out. "Be careful, if you're gonna experiment. Sometimes you feel what happened, rather than see it. Including murder." He licks his lips. "I can reach out to the ME. See if he'll let me read the body. Sometimes get the most direct impression from there." He focuses on Ravn, again. "Can I...could I try to see what it is you do?"

"I can't do something like that," Ravn clarifies. "I just figured -- if somebody somewhere can make money off claiming they can do it, then there's got to be someone in this town who can actually do it. Every time I've named some strange parapsychological ability since I got here, somebody raises a hand and says, 'oh, that's me, hi'. The only thing I do, really, is swipe things out of pockets, or move the walnut from under cup number two to my own pocket and back when I raise all three."

He falls silent a moment; the other man undoubtedly possesses car keys and they are without a doubt in a pocket, because they always are. It's not difficult to reach out, picture them in Alexander's pocket -- and then picture them in his own hand. It's what he does. He's done it many times. Sometimes with his mind, sometimes with his fingers, sometimes both. Except, this is Gray Harbor, Alexander is no unsuspecting stranger, and the keys clink a bit but stay exactly where they are.

With a grin that's almost sheepish, Ravn murmurs, "Well, like that, except, you're not supposed to notice me doing it."

Alexander does not actually have car keys, but he has a wallet, and the wallet is well anchored. He does feel the tug, though, and glances at his pocket, then back to Ravn. "You're a mover, then," he says, then clears his throat. "Psychokinetic. You should definitely talk to Itzhak. He's the strongest one I know, and he explores it more than most." He puts his phone away, before adding, "I'm mostly an empath. I can't read minds, not like telepathy. But I can feel what people are feeling, and make them feel things. I can change their perceptions, too. And I shoot lightning out of my fingertips." That's entirely deadpan. "But I have a little bit of the healing abilities, too. I can fix or break little things, things like that. I can't move things at all. Not even a little bit." There's a touch of wistfulness in his voice, there.

"So don't annoy Mr Taylor on pain of getting Palpatined." Ravn nods with mock seriousness -- and then nods again, less flippantly. "You sort of hinted at the empathy thing, back at the bar. And you do the language thing -- Geier does too, I think. It's all... Well, I'm not going to lie and say this is all normal because to someone who just drifted into town a week or two ago, this is all insane. But if everyone's insane, who gets to decide what insane means? I just want to -- well, know if finding dead blokes on the beach is going to be a regular thing now, and if it is, how to change that. Wouldn't care to be one."

He pauses and backs up a moment, looking from one loyalty card to another (Platinum Cabaret? Is a loyalty card to a strip club even a thing? Must be for the bar). "There's one thing I keep trying to get a straight answer about though -- Roen did it to me, and some others. A kind of stare thing. Roen said something about my Art, whatever that means. Rosencrantz mumbled something about songs. It's... Some kind of seizing people up, isn't it? Finding out what they can do?"

Alexander actually chuckles at that, low and rusty. "Yes. I don't think he would. He seems pretty mild-mannered. But he could, probably. And it is all insane. That's why you've probably had a lot of people encouraging you to leave," he says, with a smile. His gaze turns out to the ocean. "You know, if you read old text from this place, back around the turn of the nineteenth century, people said that sometimes there were so many bodies in the water that they looked like a school of fish swimming in the harbor." A nod towards the Two if by Sea down the coast. "One of the most prolific serial killers in American history drank there, and hid out in the basement, sometimes." A crooked little smile. "He was my great great grandfather. Or great. I forget which."

Then there's a bob of the head. "Healers do that. We can see what you are, and how strong you are, sometimes. Lots of times when you're strong like August. Not as often when you're me. But that's not the whole story. Someone can be really strong, but not realize what they can do, or that they're doing anything at all."

"That makes sense enough. I certainly had no idea how this worked until I got here. I largely figured I probably just imagined it all and that while it clearly worked, I probably shouldn't tell anyone, least of all a therapist." Ravn looks back down to the cards and the license. "And, you know -- anywhere but here, that'd be a neat story to tell at the family dinner. Murderous great-grand-and-so-on. But I'm going to venture a guess and say that's not quite as funny and exciting in Grey Harbor because one person told me already how that mass murderer's grave disappeared right out of the cemetery, after having possessed a man and killed even more people. Compared to that sort of thing, my ancestors just rode around in and thought themselves very important, and most of them -- well, they stay in their graves most of the time." He leaves Erin Addington's name out of it; no need to draw attention to the girl with the haunted eyes.

"Probably wise. Until recently, there was an Asylum where people with abilities ended up and got tortured. Things Over There seem to have...surprisingly good intelligence on things over here, and they don't like the idea that anyone tries to prove their abilities, or make them public to people who don't have them. The Veil protects itself." He starts to gather up the cards and put them gently back into the wallet, double checking each one. "Should definitely turn it in. The cops may be able to find evidence off of it." He offers it over, then nods. "Yeah. Gohl was an asshole. He cut my throat open. Unpleasant. But I think he's gone for good, now - and not all of it was his fault. It's a long, complicated story, and I don't know all of it."

"Think I might keep a few of those cards. They won't be all that important to the police and we need those glyphs. Might go ask a few questions in places he went to." Ravn pockets a few of the cards, the barber shop one included, separately from the wallet. "Then -- give Rosencrantz a chance to take a look at this too, then hand it in. For what it's worth, I'm not a thief. Well, I am a thief, technically, but I don't actually steal. Is there any of this you want to keep?"

The comment about slashed throats does earn a sympathetic wince from the blond fellow, as well as a glance to Alexander's more recent injuries. "Starting to get the feeling one should take out a good health insurance around here. I guess that's the price to pay for being curious instead of doing the smart thing and getting out."

Alexander scowls at Ravn. "Take a picture. Give the evidence to the cops. Let them do what they can of their jobs," he says, sternly. "It's one thing to investigate on your own, but you shouldn't contaminate and steal evidence unless you really have to." He doesn't stop Ravn from doing it, mind you; he just watches. And visibly judges, radiating disapproval.

Ravn mulls, and then nods. "Sure, but then I do need to keep it until somebody's had a chance to read it. I'm new to this sort of thing. Think it's going to make a huge difference if I wait a few hours to hand it in? Hell, it probably does, doesn't it. I'm not used to -- you know. All of this."

Alexander eyes Ravn, and sighs. He looks pained, like he's just realized what it's like for cops having to deal with him. "You mean the evidence that specifically suggests that the mutilation wounds on the body were pre-meditated as opposed to post-mortem and are directly related to the death rather than being incidenta, may have the murderer's handwriting on them, and may be the only evidence suggesting a geographic lead, when most murders are solved within twenty-four hours or not at all?" There's a long, long pause, and a stare like he wants bore a hole into Ravn's skull with his eyes. "Yes, Ravn. I think a few hours are likely to matter. And if you turn them in separately, they have no proof that you didn't just write some shit down on a card, dunk it in the ocean, and hand it in as a prank. And, it makes it clear that you rifled through the evidence, and removed some of it. Could have removed more of it. Can't prove you didn't. I'd get a lawyer, if you're gonna hand it in separately."

Ravn looks... fishy a moment. As in, a gold fish gaping, then shutting its finny little mouth. Then he nods, declaring the lecture valid and taking it to heart. "See, this is the sort of thing I know nothing about. And now that I know a little more, I'm glad I asked instead of just assuming and doing. I'll go hand it in to the last of those officers before they leave." His voice is quiet, matter-of-factly; his empathic output largely consists of an old fashioned MAD magazine cartoon -- his shadow yelling at him that he's a fucking idiot who's going to end up getting himself accused of being a serial killer if he doesn't get his act in gear. "Thanks for... You know. The pep talk."

He picks the various cards and dollar bills up and carefully returns them to the wallet, before looking up with a sparkle of hope in grey eyes. "Although -- if someone can do that reading thing. Do you think it'll work on where they found the body? It's fenced off right now, obviously, but they'll get done with it eventually. And if this is some of Grey Harbor's usual supernatural madness, then maybe it won't matter if it's a day or two."

"Good call," Alexander mutters. But as he watches the other man, he seems to turn contrite. He ducks his head and scuffs his shoe. "Um. It's fine. It's--people, cops, accuse me a lot of fucking up their investigations, interfering, all of that. I don't--well, I do interfere. But I try to be careful about not destroying or changing their evidence, or actually fucking up their investigation. You and I. We can't arrest anyone, yeah? Whatever is found, it has to be found in a way that police can arrest and convict the criminal. Otherwise, you haven't helped anybody. You've just let a murderer go free. So," he clears his throat, "we do the things that they can't, for various reasons, and then make sure they have what they need. As much as we can. Okay?"

"Yes," Ravn says simply. "For what it's worth, I'm trying to not screw things up. I have a long history of screwing myself over, but I don't need to inflict it on everybody else, too. Do you want to go hand this wallet in yourself, build some credit with the cops? I'm not a glory hound. If you can score a few brownie points, it's all yours. Otherwise, I think I should go conveniently find it now, before they've all gotten out of here."

Alexander hastily shakes his head. "Yeah, no. They know me. I'll end up being held in a cell for messing with their crime scene. Nobody will believe I just found it in the sand. You're probably a better liar than me, anyway." He probably doesn't mean that to sound insulting, by the serious expression, but tact and Alexander are only passingly acquainted. "You have fun with that. I'll give you a call if I find something interesting."

"Might go check out some of those places from the loyalty cards. I'll let you know if something comes out of it." Ravn slips the wallet up one sleeve, ready to re-appear at a convenient moment. "Who knows. Maybe six months from now we make a habit of sitting in that cell together. Watch your back and -- you know. Get better." The arm in the sling get one last sympathetic wince.

Then the Dane heads off back towards the beach, walking along the surf much in the fashion of a man who happens to live just over there on a boat at the pier and hence has every reason in the world to be there. He strolls past the last lingering neck craners and police officers, and only when he's a bit past the perimeter they have searched so far does he pause to calculate some sort of angle; if the body was found there, then the tide might have carried it up there, which means that stuff could have fallen out of pockets here... He was born in an archipelago, after all.

Pausing in mid-stride he looks down. Prods at the seaweed a little with a booted toe. Kneels down, careful to only brush his fingertips across it, much like a man looking for amber. When he gets back up he heads determinedly towards one of the policemen by the fenced-off area, holding a wallet in one hand. Idiot foreigner, probably leaving the prints of black kidskin gloves all over it.