2020-08-16 - Subtlety: Not a Gray Harbor Trait

August has been scarce around Branch & Bole, and while it'd be easy to assume that's because of the pending wedding, the reality is everyone knows he was stabbed in St. Mary's during a tour of the statuary on loan from Germany. What with the wedding apparently off, rumor has it the knife-wielder was a former lover of Eleanor who was enraged August hurt her so.

Except, of course, the wedding isn't off, and the guy who stabbed him was...well, some guy, and seems to have been a case of wrong place wrong time. Additionally, the real reason he's been scarce is evident the second anyone gets a look at him: he's pale, with patches of odd, vein-like bruising along his neck and arms. And that's why, today at Branch & Bole, he's available by appointment only, and in his private greenhouse.

(It's not the only real reason; if one more person asks him how he and Eleanor could break up he's going to lose his fucking mind. He's already given up correcting anyone, he just gives them an ugly look until they go away.)

His left arm's still in a sling, but it's not full time anymore; for the moment it's been set aside so he can reach out and touch a plant with his left hand here and there. The main shop employees are happy to direct folks to him in the greenhouse...once it's clear this isn't someone coming to deliver a dead plant in Eleanor's name.

"Christ," murmurs Niall upon seeing August in his state. As soon as the expletive is past his lips, he's regretting it. "Sorry. You all right, mate? Looking a little rough, there." He's in his civvies rather than his ranger getup. Which means board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt in a floral pattern. "I can come back another time?" He thumbs back the way he came.

August glances up from the bougainvillea he was coaxing back to life. (This has been his middle finger to whatever is causing everyone to bring him dead plants: reviving them. Someone suggested he take them to Espresso Yourself; that's likely what he'll do.) He smiles at Niall, tired but glad to see him. "Nah, it's fine. I couldn't sit in the cabin anymore, I was getting stir crazy." He shifts so he can settles against the center work table. He's in his lounging clothes; black commuter pants and a dark blue tee, and since he doesn't want people gawking at the bruising on his arms, a black and white camp shirt. "How's things?"

Niall opens mouth, closes. "I was going to say they're fine, but that would be a lie," he says wryly. "Did you hear about the body on the beach?" Normally he'd just assume August heard, but being badly injured sort of takes you out of the loop of local gossip.

August huffs a dry laugh. "Yeah, it would, wouldn't it." He frowns a little; it sounds familiar, like something that popped up on his newsfeed in passing. "Yeah--something about the sand sculpture event, right?" He makes a face. Leave it to Gray Harbor to interrupt a fundraiser with a body.

"Yip. My sand sculpture event. Well, the Park's, but it was my initiative." Niall bites his lower lip, eyebrows arching. "And it wasn't just a normal body, if those are such a thing. It was the body of a colleague of mine, and he wasn't just murdered. I have a very strong suspicion there's something non-mundane going on. And I was looking for a little advice."

August blinks. Not at it being Niall's initiative--that's hardly a surprise. But the rest... "Jesus, I'm sorry." He rubs the back of his neck. A Park Service employee showing up dead on the beach makes him uneasy. "Advice I can do. And uh...how non-mundane are we talking here. Like, weird animal marks, or..." It's telling, that 'not normal animal marks' is the low end of this spectrum for August.

Niall settles hands in his pocket and rocks a little on his heel. "I don't know enough about the creepy stuff to know for sure, but the bit where he was found face-down with an octopus where his head should've been. And some strange marks cut into his body." His expression tightens. He shakes his head. "Christ. Poor Henry."

August swallows, straighens up from the table he's been leaning against. "Henry," he repeats. Octopus head and weird symbols are both bad, yes, but the name. The name's worse. "Henry who." He asks it with the air of a man not wanting to hear a specific surname.

Niall hesitates when he sees August's reaction to that first name. But after a moment's pause, he adds, "Fitzgerald. Transferred from Olympia a few months ago. On my request, actually."

August turns away on a sharp curse, one hand curling into a fist. A handful of empty, ceramic pots stacked in a corner rattle precariously, though nothing breaks. The whole greenhouse seems to hold its breath, waiting.

"Fuck," he whispers. "Fuck this fucking place." He sags, sighing, and the brittle tension in the building fades. "I ah, knew him. From when I was stationed up at," he waves a hand, "Hoh."

Niall tenses, rubs his forehead, clenches his jaw. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, aware of how hollow those words sound. "He was a good man. Great with the young Rangers. They're all pretty gutted right now." He eyes the rattling vases, then back to August. "I've been...trying to leave crumbs for people not the police, because they aren't going to look beyond the mundane. But I'm not sure who to trust with it."

"Yeah," August murmurs, eyes scanning the floor. He's not seeing the concrete slab; he's thinking back to those years up in the rain forest, days spent alone out in the forest. That was something he understood about Henry that other people didn't, the need to not be inside a building much. "He has a couple of daughters." August puts a hand on his face for a second. Fuck Them, says his posture.

He shakes off that brief bit of grieving, turns back to Niall. "Aside from de la Vega himself, most of the cops won't notice the weird shit," he says by way of agreement. "And if de la Vega wasn't swamped with a current situation I'd suggest him. But...he is." And, if August is being fair, Ruiz has never been particularly entangled with the weird shit. He'd be better off assisting someone. Like... "Eleanor, my fiance, is pretty heavy into this stuff. So's Ignacio de Santos, who works for me. Alexander Clayton's...not a licensed investigator, but basically is one. And his girl, Isabella Reed, looks into these things too." He wants to fold his arms, but can't. Shoulder's not good for that just yet. So he fidgets a little. "Were the symbols anything you recognized?" he asks, one eyebrows raised hopefully.

Niall's tone and posture have gotten a bit gentler in deference to August's personal relationship with Henry. "Yeah, he brought his girls to one of the first events after he started with me."

He lets silence sit a moment before breathing in and saying, "Clayton came to see me. I had heard he was weird but he just...outright asked me if I killed him. It was then I began to wonder if I could trust him to be tactful and strategic about any information I did give him. Part of what I wanted to ask you is if he's trustworthy." As to the symbols, he pauses, "I didn't know what they were...but I have seen them before. In the woods."

Coughing a laugh, August says, "Strategic, yeah. Tactful..." He sighs, smiling fondly and ruefully. "I love him but he has no sense of tact whatsoever. He won't be a stealthy investigator in the social sense. Not at all. Trustworthy, yes. Subtle?" He winces, as apologetic to the absent Alexander as he is to Niall. "Sorry you had to, ah, meet him like that. You can trust him to get answers, but," he thinks of the literal bar brawl at the Pourhouse (yes, the POURHOUSE), "not quietly." He runs a hand over his mouth. "Look, though, if you'd rather, Isabella and Eleanor would be good alternatives. I mean, if you don't want to...interface with him."

The notion of the forest being involved has August grimacing. "Where-at? Like, carved into things?"

"I can handle odd people. I mean, I deal with the public all day," Niall grins a little. "I just...I worry that I might share something sensitive with him and he'll blurt it out to the wrong person and get me in trouble or hurt the investigation. Is that a worry?"

He pauses to roll over the next question, reaching out to touch a leaf of a nearby plant. "Carved into trees. Started seeing them a few months ago. Just thought it was kids, you know? But now..."

August turns that concern over in his head. "No. If you tell him something is sensitive and could get you in trouble, he'll keep it confident. But," his expression tightens, "there's a catch: he's not a good judge of character. So he doesn't always know who he should say shit to." Which is slightly different than 'complete dumbass about secrecy'. But, only slightly. He lifts his right shoulder in a helpless gesture. "Eleanor and Ignacio are safer bets. Same for Isabella. And they're all capable people, who know other capable people."

He grunts about the carvings being in trees. Trees in Firefly aren't normal trees, of this August is wholly convinced. "Reasonable to assume at the time," he assures Niall. "Any kind of specific location, or just all over?" He pauses. "We could get out a map and you could mark where they were, if it'd help."

"I've been staring at their location on a map for the past two hours," says Niall as he rubs his forehead. "I can't see any pattern. They're not close to paths or popular spots. Some are more overgrown than others. I've got a map back at my office. I can send you a photo. Maybe you'll be able to see something I'm missing."

August mmms, scratches at his beard. "Yeah, send one along when you have a chance." He licks his lips, eyes looking at various spots in the Greenhouse as he considers things. "Get any pictures of them? It's fine if not, I can go take some, but if you've got any, might help."

"I was going to tell Clayton about it, but then he got a little..." weird. Niall reaches for his phone and starts to flip through. He stops, "Oh, wow. That was longer ago than I thought. This one was six months ago?" He turns the phone around. There are fresh gouge marks in a Spruce tree. They are not simple marks in the tree, but a series of gouges going vertically. Someone would have needed to climb or get a stepladder to reach the highest mark. The marks are geometric in shape, with lots of lines and triangular shapes.

August leans in to peer at the phone. (Someone uses reading glasses...) "Looks almost like a...math symbol of some kind." He's not as interested in that, though--he's more interested in the placement on the tree, the gouging pattern itself. He straightens, makes a low sound. "I'll probably walk out to look at a couple." To see if they're still there, because this is Firefly they're talking about. "Might, ah, check the other side, too. In case this is really weird."

He dredges up a wry smile for Alexander's Alexanderness. "Yeah he can be off-putting if you don't know him. But it's fine if it'd be easier for one of us to play intermediary for you, if you want." He considers the symbol. "Might be able to make a line-drawing of that and drop it into Google Image Search."

"I tried, but the gouging is uneven enough that it doesn't work. Either that or I'm just real bad at drawing." Niall half-shrugs, conceding that might be the issue. "Parts of it were a bit overgrown even though I spotted this one what feels like soon after. But you know how quickly moss grows on stuff in our forests."

August rests his chin in one hand, considering the symbol. "Someone had to climb that tree to do that. Or they used the," he rubs a his fingers, "Art to do it. Could use movement to wield a knife, or just shaping." Eventually he says, "You know what it reminds me of? A pictogram. Like Chinese characters. Or, something older, like Egyptian." He's quiet a little longer. Then, "Six months. And you said some had been overgrown, but you could still see them. So that maybe means this isn't a Veil symbol. It's something mundane. Human. Otherwise," he gestures at it, "it wouldn't even be there anymore, it would have degraded. Now," he opens his hands, "doesn't mean someone didn't do it under the influence of the Veil. But the imagery there itself, is probably from the Real. That's why it stayed."

"That's a good thing, right? Means we might just be dealing with a human and not a Veil beast or spirit or something?" Niall is a newbie to a lot of these things, but he has an open mind. "I'll tell my Rangers to take pictures of any other marked trees they see. It'll be easy enough to just say we're cataologuing vandalism. Maybe we'll get lucky and one will be clear enough for us to do an image search on. Or," he murmurs, "...maybe a better artist than me should just try to interpret the picture."

"Yeah, claiming it's vandalism is also maybe a way to get other people looking for them quietly. Then," August dips his head, "you might get random folks reporting more, see a better pattern of where they are." He snaps his fingers. "And if you find anything at one of these trees? Something that might have done the cutting, but really anything out of the ordinary? Let me know. We've got some powerful readers who might be able to see who did it." Which is the kind of sentence that can only make sense in Gray Harbor.

On the question of it being a 'good' thing, August wrinkles his nose. "It's...better than if it was obviously a Veil creature." Not a lot better. But better.

"At least in this case, the cops won't be totally useless and out of their depth." Which sounds mean to cops, but how are they supposed to hunt a Banshee or the like? Niall frowns down at his phone. "I wish I had taken more photos but I really did think it was just kids screwing around. And not much you can do to stop them hacking a few marks in a tree."

He nods to the comment about finding anything at the scene. "I'll keep my eyes peeled. Is it important that no one else has touched it? I can ask the Rangers to use gloves but that might be harder to sell."

August nods about the cops being out of their depth. "Yeah, except for the acting chief, most of them wouldn't have any idea. So, this makes it easier." The question about the gloves, though, that gets a shake of his head. "No, it takes a bit of high emotion and exposure to imprint on an object. Unless they happen to hold it and get attacked, or attack someone," and what does it mean that he even has to outline these as possibilities, "should be fine."

He sighs, looks out over the Greenhouse. His mind is shifting back to thinking about Fitzgerald. He wants to say 'we're gonna find who did this' but that's not a promise he can make. It might not even make sense once they've sorted it out. So instead, he says, "I'll let Eleanor know to talk to you when she has a second, if you want. She's up on local conspiracy theories and stuff, might be able to dig something up."

"I'd appreciate any help you could give. And..." Niall folds his arms across his chest and dips his head. "I want to apologize. If I knew you knew Henry..." He would have approached this differently and perhaps not come at all. "I didn't know him well, but you never want to see anyone like that, let alone someone you knew."

August looks at Niall again, surprised, shakes his head. "No, it's--it's okay, I'd rather find out like this, than..." Than in the damned news. Than by running into one of his daughters and having her need to tell him. No, this was better.

He nods, ducks his head. "Yeah. Sorry you had to...see that." That anyone had to, really. (They were going to find who did this.) He clears his throat. "Anyways. I'll let you know if I see anymore of those, what I find when I go look at the ones out there."

"When you're feeling up to going into the woods, let me know. I get the feeling no one should be wandering round by themselves right now. Ranger protocol is already to go in pairs." That isn't the case in all parks, but it just seems like good sense near Gray Harbor. Niall looks at August's injuries with concern. "But don't push yourself, okay? I can bring evidence to you. Hell, I could live-stream a video."

August's eyes widen and he holds up a hand, winces as the sudden motion makes his arm complain. "I won't go out alone--I can't open a door back reliably." He takes a second, lowering his arm carefully. "And, yeah, if nothing else I'll send someone with you, and you can bring me back pictures and samples." He gives Niall a tired, apologetic smile. "Sorry this place is so much itself lately."

"I was responsible for bringing Henry here. The least I can do is try to figure out who killed him." A darker look settles onto Niall's face - and his is a face not predisposed to darkness. He then remembers something and looks back to August. "At the competition, there were people I let look over the scene before I called the police because they..." he waggles his fingers to indicate Glimmer. "Which may have been a mistake but I didn't know if anyone would get access to evidence after the fact and I didn't think the police could solve it on their own. I didn't recognize most of them, but one was the New York mechanic." Because Itzhak stands out in a small town almost as much as Niall himself.

If August can relate to anything, it's that feeling of 'I am in some way responsible'. Even if, realistically, none of them have the tiniest bit of control over the craziness that is Gray Harbor. He narrows his eyes about allowing some of the Glimmer set a look, relaxes to hear one of them is Itzhak. "Honestly, it's probably fine. Like you said--what will the cops even find?" He shrugs. "If it's something to do with Over There, not much. And...I guess it might not be. But." At the very least, it seems informed by, or influenced by, Over There. Which is enough, in August's book. "I'll get him up to speed on it when I see him next."

"The body was em," Niall shifts, "...under his sandcastle. So if he's a friend, you might want to check on him?" Octopus headed corpses under your art when you were just trying to enjoy the afternoon? Kinda rough. "Anyway, you rest up, yeah? I know it's hard in this town, but you're no good to anyone if you stay busted." And he has pointedly not asked how August got injured. Not his business.

"Oh. Christ." August sighs heavily. "Yeah, I will. Thanks for the head's up." He grunts an acknowledgement about resting up. "No good for the world if I stay busted. I'm having a stag party and saying my vows and stepping on a damned glass or so help me." He's only half-joking about the 'so help me' part, from the look on his face. And, well, not asking about one's weird injuries is par for the course in Gray Harbor. As August offers no warning, it was probably self-acquired in some way. Best not to ask. "Thanks, Niall. See you around."