2020-08-18 - Birds of a Feather

Navigating Gray Harbor is still a challenge to the new kid in town but this is what cell phones are for -- not to mention, Ubers. Ravn doesn't know the area but what he does recognise is the importance of touching base with the other people who were there that day on the beach. Aidan, who seems to mostly be doing fine. Itzhak, who honestly isn't but also makes it clear that there is no force on the planet that's going to make him admit to this. Which leaves the park ranger who lead the event and the two people he meet at the Poor -- frantic backspace -- Pourhouse -- the locksmith, Geier, and the bartender, Maggie. Did he get the names right? Possibly not -- he'll find out. What's more important is that like himself, they stuck around when the manure hit the fan -- they've both got that special feeling to them that Ravn is starting to associate quite strongly with gifted people here in Gray Harbor. Also, Geier took pictures and there may be glyphs he hasn't identified yet.

He knocks on the door at the appointed time -- a few minutes early, in fact, because in his home culture, being invited at 8 means you turn up at 7:50 (but definitely not before, and 8:10 means you're deliberately trying to snub the person who invited you, it's all very complicated).

It took Leon a moment, his head turning, brow furrowing. He reaches to tap his phone, the camera doorbell app popping up the image of Ravn. Leon again tosses a glance at the open garage door. Shaking his head with briefly shut eyes like he was having to physically banish the confusion, Leon figures it had to be some sort of strange European politeness or something. He steps out onto the driveway and peers over at the stoop Ravn was standing on, an amicable grin on his face as he calls, "Hey man! Glad you found the place alright." Leon approaches up the short sidewalk, extending a hand to the man.

Ravn's handshake is firm but not in the 'let's see who can crush whose fingers' way. "I knocked on the wrong door, didn't I," the man murmurs in recognition of his mistake but not looking particularly troubled about it. He looks around with the interest of someone who may have travelled on American soil for some time but hasn't actually spent a lot of time in American homes -- because oddly enough, most people don't think to open their house to some random busker at the bus stop or a hitch-hiker just happening to be heading in the same direction. Then he looks back at Leon and asks, "How are you holding up? I mean, that was... not the best day of the beach season, I figure."

“To be fair,” Leon begins with a joking grin on his face, “If you knocked on my garage door while it was open, I’d be a little weirded out.” Leon’s grip was about the same. He makes an open palmed gesture to the actual front door, because good hosting was still a thing regardless of where you’re from. He opens it up and leads the way into the living room. A big grey sectional dominates the space, curved around a coffee table that already has a small spread of photos on it, though turned face down. The question, however takes contemplation. There’s more to what he might have said, but the answer was, “Oh, I’m fine. You need anything to drink? Coffee, juice, soda... bourbon?” The last offer accompanied the brief look to the face-down photos, and he might be saying it so he can go get one himself.

It's possible that the other man picks up on the tone of voice; or that he just wants to steel his own stomach before looking at pictures of bloated, incapacitated corpses full of cuneiform grafitti. Either way he nods and says, "I think I could go for bourbon, actually. It's been a bit of a day already."

The polite thing to do now, at least by Ravn's standards, would be to wander around and compliment the house but the truth of the matter is, he's gravitating towards those pictures with the intent air of a highway cop to a five car pile-up. "I talked to Rosencrantz, and Clayton turned on the scene shortly after you'd left. Said he's going to try to get access to the body at the coroner."

Leon briefly moves through the opening to the kitchen, returning a few moments later with a pair of tumblers and a crystal decanter of amber liquid. He pours them both about two fingers and sets it down again in easy reach. He doesn't comment about Ravn looking at his pictures. Though he hangs them, he was not a braggart, or even one that thought he had much talent. They were just ones he wanted to hang.

"Good for Clayton." Leon muses, an edge to his voice that told Alexander was likely welcome to the experience. He takes a seat on one facing side of the sectional, taking up his glass, but refraining from drinking until his guest had a seat or picked up his glass. People had their own codes of politeness. "I've developed these, and Maggi's had a chance to look at them..." His mouth looks like it would open for an 'and', but closes again.

Ravn fortunately seems to have a similar cultural background on that account. He accepts the glass and glances at the sectional in the fashion that suggests he's going to sit now and please cue him in if that's the wrong move. When no such cue does indeed appear, he settles and glances at the pictures on the table. "Are these the beach pictures? May I look at them? Did Maggie learn something? I am... not really keen on decomposing bodies but it turns out the markings had a lot of meaning, and I need to know if I missed any." He's still getting the name wrong although this time, the -e is less pronounced. It seems he is at least trying, foreign accent and all.

The thing about nicknames is the spelling isn’t always self-evident, and the addition or subtraction of an E doesn’t mean much. Couple that with the fact Leon actually subconsciously absorbs a lot of communication through whatever mental or emotional leeching he’s capable of, and he likely had not even noticed the difference. And won’t. He motions with his glass hand.

“Yup, those are the ones. I’m ah... not the biggest on them either.” Take or leave his military history, if Ravn was keen enough to notice. “If she learned something, she hasn’t filled me in yet. She likes to make sure she has all the right answers before she shares.”

"Academics world wide could learn a thing or two from her on that," Ravn murmurs and reaches a tentative, gloved hand out to pick at the photographs. He winces at the visual reminder of the scene; the smell, in particular, was horrifying, and it clung to him because of that bloody wallet. Taking out his cell he taps up an image that's clearly a very cleaned up version of the most prominent glyph and compares it to those visible on the dead man's flesh, looking for cues that any other glyphs were missed.

"I sent these to a friend at Copenhagen University," he explains. "They sent this back -- apparently, these are Sumerian cuneiform. It translates to 'Kur' -- the realm of the dead, or the personification of death, depending on whom you ask. I find it quite possible that someone just googled something random but... In this place, can we rule out that it's something more deliberate? I thought the whole sudden appearing inside a sand figure indicated that it's not just some D&D player who read too much Lovecraft and went berserk."

One wonders how Leon got through developing these pictures with the queasy way her looks at them, but bring no stranger to soldiering on, he sips his bourbon and thinks. He sure wasn't an academic, but he had some practical knowledge.

"Sand isn't exactly the best at keeping bodies hidden. Rosencrantz building his castle there was wrong place wrong time. The water would have revealed it soon enough." He seems to absorb the rest though with confusion, but draws an ancestral link, "Is it something like putting coins on the eyes or under the tongue? Wanting them to pass over?"

"I'm not certain," Ravn murmurs, noting the other man's discomfort and deciding against poking sleeping dogs with sticks. Feeling uncomfortable with dead bodies is not a bad character trait in his book by far; the people who would be casual about that sort of thing are the people that would worry him a lot more. "I can't help feel that the whole... head removal... indicates something more ominous. This is a lot of effort to go to, just to get rid of a dead body. I am thinking that the killer wanted it to be found. That all of this -- the cuneiform, the missing head, the octopus -- it's a message of some kind. Which I guess it's up to us to dechipher -- or well, up to the police, but the park ranger in charge clearly figured we'd have a better shot at it. You noticed too, didn't you? The way he... hesitated."

"The ranger was like us." Leon makes a hand gesture between their bodies, "So he would know how this town works. I get the feeling this man was also like us." It wasn't a terrible leap of logic. The town of Gray Harbor was chock full of people with Glimmer. Leon waves at the photos, but does not look at them. "If something like this happens, the unknowing at the police department aren't going to be able to really solve this. It'll be 'mysterious animal attack'. Meanwhile the real crazy or whatever it is could potentially harm others."

"Which is why we butt in, even if one's not really supposed to be interfering with policework." Ravn sips his bourbon and looks away from the gruesome display; he certainly takes no pleasure in looking at those photographs. "I just... want to figure this out, before he kills again. Because my gut feeling, for what little that is worth, tells me that he will. Did you know that there is a prominent conspiracy theory out there, among the tinfoil hat wearers, that some of the demons of Sumerian legend are aliens from outer space, trying to colonise Earth? You know that that is insane and I know that it is insane, but does this guy?"

As Leon noticed they both had little interest in the photos, he neatly rearranges them face down. "I believe in telepathy, tele-, electro-, and pyromancy, so... I'm not gonna go all judgemental on what people believe." He jokes, giving Ravn a slight grin. Normally, this would be the part where you relax and sit back. Leon remains bent forward, elbows on his knees, both hands fingering the woven cuts design etched in the tumblers. His eyes where on those white backs of the pictures. Now came the admission,

"I also can draw and read emotions and memories from things." His eyes drop shut for a moment, reaching back into that tangle he had inherited, pulling at the threads that had come loose.

Ravn takes this information in, having heard others speak of such abilities but having yet to see them demonstrated. "That must be -- extremely unpleasant at times," is his eventual conclusion. "Useful, definitely. But I hope for your sake that you can turn it off at will because there are definitely things and places I would very much not want to read, if I had that ability." My boat for one. "Have you -- tried to read these? Or would you need access to the actual physical body?"

Leon makes a face, part guilt, part pain, part thought, trying to find the words, “I read the body. Already.” He continues to think of a way to try to explain, his hands moving in an almost cyclical motion, “So... Death is probably the most emotional thing you’ll ever experience.” He swallows hard, then realizes he had a drink to do that with, takes another sip, sets the empty tumbler down. “The victim, the witnesses, even the killer. Pain, fear, obvious.” He makes a moment like his hands around a ball and clamping down on it, “Emotions are what are bound into things, and... sometimes when they’re too intense, it’s like trying to get a cup of water from a firehose.”

Ravn winces. "I do not envy you this power. At all." Nor does he pressure the other man, letting him take the time he needs.

“It’s not all bad. One time there was a teddy bear that just told me how much a little girl loved her father.” Leon makes a motion like pushing something away, getting rid of the tangent. “Anyways, I have some things, and I have no idea if they’re going to help or if they’ll just come up over the course of things, and I don’t know if I’ll communicate them all well. But I have them.”

"Have you told -- the police?" Ravn asks gently. "We need to keep them posted. I told... Itzhak my findings. He is a close friend of the police captain. I thought that might be a better way to go about it than wander into the police station as a foreign tourist and start lecturing them on Sumerian legends." He pauses briefly to look at the golden liquid in his tumbler and then adds, "If you want to tell me -- I do want to hear it. But you don't owe it to me. I'm not an official investigator in any capacity. Just a very nosy tourist, indeed."

Leon raises an eyebrow, looking across at Ravn skeptically, “Have I told the police about the visions I absorbed while standing over the body?” There’s a faint grin on his face as he says it. “There’s a few Shiner cops. De la Vega, but he’s the Chief now. Wilkinson, Williams. Far as I know, they aren’t the ones working the case, but I can go to them if they are.”

"That's why I told Itzhak. I figured that anything passed to him would indeed be passed on to the Captain. And de la Vega presumably knows whom to pass the buck on to from there, even if he's not working this case personally." Ravn nods. "Or we can indeed go to Itzhak again. Might be better -- not drawing official police attention."

“I mean... yeah, I can just talk to De la Vega. It’s not like I don’t work with the cops enough.” Leon says wistfully, though his leg seems to hop every so often, like he was a man itching to do something, fix something. He breaks into a grin as he realizes it. “Anyhow, if anyone else needs to see these, let em know how to find me. Not really thinking letting them float around is gonna be a great idea.”

"I can't quite sort out whether Alexander Clayton is another option," Ravn murmurs thoughtfully. "He is not a policeman. From his own words, the police roll their eyes at him. But most other people in this town who have that special feeling about them keep talking about him and August Røn as if they are community leaders in all but name -- to tell them everything, let them make the decisions." He pronounces Roen's name in a decidedly Scandinavian fashion. "They are both very intense people -- though I have not spoken nearly enough with either to pass much judgement on them apart from that. I am fairly certain, however, that information given to them eventually will reach its proper destination. But going to de la Vega directly probably will save time."

"I'll gladly give the police anything I can find on the Sumerian stuff," he adds. "I just suspect they might find most of it irrelevant? If I can pin down why this fellow is killing, or when he intends to kill again -- then it's relevant. Otherwise, it's just academical babble and conspiracy theories. I am certainly going to keep on looking but -- there's a lot of completely irrelevant information to filter."

And then, quietly, "Can you tell me what you learned from the body? Or would you rather not? It's important that the police get any vital clues -- not so much me, not on that account."

“Nail on the head. If it’s weird, usually those two are involved.” Leon smirks, then shrugs, “I mean, I can tell you what I saw, um...” he shuts his eyes, dipping his head as he thinks, unravels. “There’s a barbershop. It’s calm there, but also... worrisome? Foreboding? I dunno, I felt worried.” More thought, brows furrowed. “He was dragged... through the woods, damp moss. Henry.” Leon had not been made privy to his name by anyone, so it was safe to assume he got the name from the reading. “Scared. Cut up all over. Arms, legs, lower back.” Leon can be seen inhaling through his nose, “And there’s a smell. Engine oil. A machine starts, and he’s so, so scared.”

Then Leon opens his eyes, and his posture relaxes, tension he wasn’t sure when began, “That’s what I got. I dunno. I can tell Rosencrantz and De la Vega too. I’ll probably just show Maggi.”

"Goodness. That poor man." Ravn may sound very British at times, almost parodically so -- but the sentiment is clearly genuine as he tries to picture to his mind's eye what the unfortunate man must have gone through.

Then he calls up another note on his cell and hands it over. "The man's name is Henry Fitzgerald. He carried loyalty cards to several places -- one of them was a barbershop. That one is where I saw the cuneiform script first. I er..." he hesitates slightly, then decides to plounge in. "I stole his wallet. And took pictures of everything in it before handing it in to the police."

“Oh nice.” Leon says lightly, clearly not of the same judgmental opinion as some around here. It’s not like Henry needed it anymore, and evidence had made its way to police just fine. He starts to look through the pictures, “Has anyone been to that barbershop?” He asks, peering at Ravn for a moment after eyeing the symbol and the card. The Cabaret card gave him a snort. Did he and Maggi ever use that VIP lounge gift? Probably expired by now.

"I've been, but no one there knew him. However, they did say to come back Saturday because there are students who give discounts on haircuts on Saturday, and they might know him." Ravn taps his lip with one gloved finger. "And knowing what you just told me -- they were either lying through their teeth, or our Mr Fitzgerald ended up paying far too much for trying to scrimp on a hair cut and a shave. With what you felt -- I think we can definitely conclude that that barbershop is the place. And you should probably tell de la Vega that as well."

Maggi comes down from upstairs where she had been doing orders for the bar. Despite the time, she is in a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and a plain black tank. Her hair is piled atop her head in an almost dread like manner. "Oh thank Satan, we are all getting haircuts." She says this halfway down the steps. Seeing the bourbon is out she makes grabby hands towards it and looks at Leon with a pout. "You may actually be the first live person we have had over Ravn, that speaks terribly of our social prowess. Though to be fair, I get my fill of people at the bar." Was she not using the bar's name on purpose? Yes it avoided argument to just say 'the bar'. "When we going?"

"This is Gray Harbor," Ravn murmurs. "Do I want to ask how many dead persons you've had over?" Oh god, he's a punster.

"How are you holding up?" The Dane looks a bit more serious and glances at the photographs; they're all face down, not displaying their gruesome topic. "We're sort of comparing notes. I think we have a few cues to work with -- but it's also important to recognise that we saw something terrible." Thus speaks a man who is new to Gray Harbor's madness himself, yet apparently unbothered, at least by decomposing bodies. Fear not, Ravn -- They will find your weak spot soon enough.

Leon snorts at Ravn’s pun. At least one of them would enjoy the joke. Leon finishes his drink, pours two fingers for Maggi and passes it off. “I mean, I could use a clean-up. Not used to having my hair this long.” He rubs the sides of his head, which were already on the shorter side, but not even close by military standards, which he was oft to observe on the backs and sides. Leon doesn’t look when Ravn does, just looking to his wife, the admiration for her, pajama clad or not, overpowering the will to think about the triggering murder.

"Does dead inside count?" Maggi asks flatly, taking the tumbler from Leon. She takes a sip or two and then grins at Ravn's concern. "I acknowledge that it's interesting. Are we assuming sacrifice here? Did we want to see it we could piece together anymore rune type delios from the photos. Do we think the barbershop is full of cultists? What's the significance of the squid-head?" It was like everything she had been thinking for days decided to come spilling out at once. She knew Ravn had been doing some more investigating and may have more answers. Maggi wanted to help but had been stuck at work mostly. "I can help research!" Oh God, she had only been out of school a few months and she missed it.

"I have... not the first idea about the squid unless we assume that Lovecraft is involved. In which case, we're all about to get eaten by old gods." Ravn doesn't appear to think that theory carries a lot of actual weight though. "My thinking is sacrifice or ritual murder, yes. But I'm not a detective -- it may just be my imagination running wild. I just think it's a hell of a lot of effort to go to, from the killer. Abducting a man, doing all this to him, burying him in the exact place the competition will be, replacing his head -- there is so much empty land around this town that if he just wanted to dump a body we'd never find it."

That gleam in the woman's eyes, so very familiar. Ravn sees it in his own reflection in the window panes whenever he sits in a library, a book store, anywhere that's a repository of human knowledge. "I think," he says carefully, "that we are dealing with someone who wants -- or wants us to think that he wants -- to call up something occult. There is a prominent conspiracy theory -- that aliens visit Earth to control our evolution for some reason or other, I'm sure you've heard this crap before on the Discovery Channel. Building the Pyramids, that sort of thing. The demons of the Sumerian underworld is one of the guises of these supposed aliens. I mean, this may be a tangent, but it may also be some crazy person in a tinfoil hat. I'd say you have to be pretty crazy to do something like this."

Now that it was the academic minds meeting, and ancient aliens, Sumerian demons, and death cultists were coming out, Leon’s side-shifting gaze make it seem like he was just looking for a convenient point to exit strange right. Oh sure, he was playing polite host, but this ephemeral subject matter was Maggi’s bread and butter. Leon just needed a solid target to throw lightning at.

“I’m gonna let you two, or whoever else, figure that out. I think approaching the human angle is where I’m gonna focus.” There’s a quick measuring gaze made on both of them before he comments, “Maybe we should invite Rosencrantz as well.” Since then there would be at least one more actually intimidating presence along to loosen tongues. Leon looks to be getting up, thinking to, and looking like, he were about to head to the kitchen, “I should make some grub or something, Ravn, you eaten?”

Maggi takes another lip smacking gulp of her drink in an attempt not to snicker at Leon’s discomfort. “I’m pretty sure Ravn is a professional chef Leon, saw it somewhere like buzzfeed or something.” This wasn’t a dig, Leon was an excellent cook. He was also not quite Michelin star level.

“I’d go veil before aliens, but both are solid theories. Are we betting he was easy or meaningful as a target. Also ya, grab the cheater. We can be a barbershop quartet. I don’t think Aidan would let anyone touch his hair. He’s far too pretty.” Maggi winks at Leon and has a seat near the pictures, looking through them as well, but angling them away from Leon.

"I may have forgotten," Ravn admits with the guilty look of someone who probably often does. Maybe that's why he's on the lean side. "I don't want to impose, though." Then he circles back and agrees, "I think bringing Aidan and Itzhak in is a very good idea. And we do need to keep in mind that the point here isn't to prove whether Sumerian underworlds or aliens exist, but whether somebody thinks they do. If our man is some kind of crazy cultist, knowing what he believes in may tell us where he strikes next. Until then, though, we need to visit that barber shop and to be honest -- if it's full of crazy knife wielding cultists, having more people along may not be a bad idea at all. I'm... pretty useless in a scuffle."

He looks up at Maggi's words about chefs though, and winces, hard. "I'm really not. I mean, I'm really not. I have no idea why they think I am a Swedish chef. I'm not even Swedish. You don't want me to cook for you if you want to live."

Another amused sound from Leon as he’s on his feet,, circling around the sectional and briefly dipping so he can place a kiss atop Maggi’s... well, maybe not atop, he seems to consider with all that hair piled up there. He angles around to peck the side of her head, then continues, “More the merrier, long as we don’t spook up by showing up in force. If we find nothing, at least we get shorn and snazzy.” Oh yeah, the knife comment, “By barber’s tools.” He adds with a wink to Ravn.

“No imposition at all.” Leon is quick to assure Ravn, grinning. He didn’t get to cook for people besides Maggi often, and well... She thought Pringles were bougie, so... He’s on his feet and heading into the kitchen, “I’m not sure about all these wild stories people are telling, but you’re gonna have a meal with us before you’re heading off.” Soon enough, Leon is back out of sight, the sounds of a refridgerator door opening and stuff tossed on the counter, then the light clanging of pots and pans as he prepares the three of them a protein-centric, yet simple lunch.

Simple was best when you kept looking at pictures of dead bodies, after all.