2020-09-07 - Don't Be A Stranger

It's a beautiful summer evening, and it would be hard to stay away from the beach. Many, many tourists feel the same way, even with the rumors of a serial killer about. There's safety in numbers, right? Maybe that's why the bar is thumping when Alexander comes in. He's underslept, but looking oddly cheerful for him - although that goes away when a couple of townies salute him and shout, "Mr. A! Let us buy you a round! We're legal now!" He stares at them in mild horror, then mumbles something about not right now but thank you, and tries to eel his way towards the bar without touching anyone.

There is one noticeable change around the bar: The 'Missing' photo of Easton ('s abs) that was hanging amid the bottles has been removed. Other than that, bustling bodies, raucous noises and spilled drinks are the order of the day. A rather flustered Bennie is busy cleaning up a spill on her hands and knees, the other staff occupied so she stepped in. Huffing a blonde lock out of her face, she spies Alexander and the awkward exchange and now her help is needed some place else. Mainly rescuing her friend. "Alexander!" She tips her head towards the back hallway, tossing the rag she was using into a dish tub as she passes, heading to the office.

Alexander doesn't miss that change. It stops him in his tracks for a moment. He stares at the space where it was, and his shoulders droop for just a moment. Still, the call of his name by one of his favorite people in the town brings a smile to his face, and he dances around a boisterous group of tourists to make his way towards her, and the blessed relative quiet of the back hallway. "Bennie," he calls out as he gets close. "It's good to see you!"

Bennie gives him a cheery smile, as she pops open the door of the office and baps it with her hip to swing it open. "Great to see you too, friend. I need some quiet, wanna hide in the office with me?" After you dump a bunch of crime scene photos on a man, it's likely she figures the conversation would turn from friendly to 'not fit for public consumption'. Wouldn't do to drive the (over) paying customers away with talk of body barbecues.

She must be assuming that Alexander will agree, because she's moving to flop into the chair behind the desk with a boneless splay of limbs. "Phew! Hi!"

"Oh god, yes, please," Alexander says, giving a look back to the crowded bar that is more appropriate for a man fleeing a bloodthirsty mob. He skitters into the office when she opens the door and takes a deep breath. "Hi," he says, and offers her a bright and happy smile. "I got your pictures. Are you handling seeing that okay?" His head tilts to one side as he prowls around the office, but always keeping an eye on her as he moves.

Bennie uses the toe of her tennis shoe to swivel the chair back and forth, "Oh, you know." She gives a little shrug. "I've seen worse on the department. I mean, I usually get there after the fire is out." Her nose wrinkles as she sniffs at a lock of her hair. "Do I still smell like burning flesh and firewood? I used lemon, but I can't tell if the smell is just stuck in my sinus cavity or my hair..."

Alexander wanders close, and gives her a sniff. A shake of his head. "No barbecue corpse smell at all. Just citrus. It's nice. And yes, you're used to the terrible ways people can get mangled. But murder can be a bit different, especially if you arrive too quickly. So I thought I'd ask." He grins. "It's a serial killer. A living one, who as far as I know is not related to me at all. I'm very excited." This is all perfectly sincere.

Bennie's smile beams at Alexander, "Guess I have a date with a Neti Pot then, I hate them. I'm pretty sure it's like a legal form of water boarding yourself." His sort of enthusiasm for serial killers might be off putting to some, but for Bennie, it's just contagious. "I saw him! Er. Well, I saw Byron's brain meat image of an image. He read the gasoline can at the scene before the authorities arrived. He's hot. I mean, creepy for sure, but hot. Did Isabella make any headway on that weird writing? Renata - she was there, we all sort of stumbled on the scene together - said it was some ancient language. Not Alien." Mild disappointment, there. But any mention of having basically stumbled on a murder? Nope.

Alexander makes a face. "Neti Pot? Really? Those things are dangerous. Did you hear of the woman who was using one and flesh-eating bacteria got into her brain? The corpse smell might be preferable. It goes away after a while." He pauses to lean against a wall, his lips twitch with amusement. "Thirty or so, glasses, academic, dark hair?" He nods. "I saw him too. I don't know if I'd call him hot, exactly, but he's not unattractive. But crazy. And the writing is cuneiform. One of, if not the most, ancient form of writing. It's an invocation to a god. He thinks he's sacrificing people who stand out to gods in order to ward off ultimate destruction, or something." A blink. "Renata? The Hilton?"

"So the rumor goes! Is it true, she's really a Hilton? Buying that roach motel? Weird. But so Gray Harbor." She nodded along though to the description of the man. "Definitely gotta be crazeballs to chop off someone's head and make a pyre. I was sort of hoping for a vampire hunter, but alas. Ritualistic sacrifice to some ancient god will have to do." Bennie pulls her feet up into the chair with her, sitting cross legged. "Byron said he felt...justified in band sawing the dude's head off. I guess saving the world from ultimate destruction qualifies. Did you like the photos? Well, I should say like, but you know."

Alexander rubs at his face. "I think I saw it...somewhere. Don't remember. I should go by and get her statement. So, another beheading. Was the head...replaced with anything? Anything other than the body itself that stood out about the--wait. Byron saw the body, too? Just the three of you, or was Lilith there, as well?" He starts to pace again, head down as he thinks. But he flashes her a smile. "Yes. Thank you. They were very useful. I'm sorry he died, and I'm sorry you had to see it. But I'm glad you send me the photos. We have to catch this guy before more people die."

Bennie makes a bit of a face. A thoughtful face. "Renata said something about seeing something on the body, maybe. And if I was willing to share the photo of the writing, she'd tell me about it. Tit for tits, I guess. No harm in that, right?" There is a little bobble of her head. "Just the three of us. Sort of all wandered down, hoping there was a bonfire party, I guess. Oh! And Gunner. But I guess he doesn't really count."

"No harm in that," Alexander murmurs. And mentally moves the interview of the Hilton up in his list, judging by the way his eyebrows go up. "Although the thought of Byron Thorne at a bonfire fire amuses me. Just a little." There's a flicker of that amusement in the twitch of his lips. But the mention of Gunner makes him grunt. "He might. I don't suppose he tried to follow any scents away from the fire? I know it was probably...fairly attractive for him. The corpse. But you all must have arrived only a little while after the murder."

"You should have seen his face when the first responders made him give up his fancy suit in case it had trace evidence on it." Bennie looks one twitch of Alexander's lips shy of her own breaking into a full blown giggle. "And yeah, I thiiink Gunner was more excited by the smell of cooking meat than anything else. His nose was going full blow overtime to probably catch anything else. So the thing with the fire is...it was in sort of a weird place? And totally meant to self destruct with the tide."

Alexander can't help it; he can picture Byron's face, and he laughs softly. "...his tailoring bill must have tripled since coming back to the Harbor. He loses more suits with this crazy shit." A shake of his head. "Ah, well. Can't be helped, then. He's not a trained tracking hound, anyway. He's a magnificent and oversized puppy, but not quite up for tracking a killer." He pauses in his pacing and turns towards her. "Can you tell me everything you remember? From the beginning, leaving nothing out? The placement...anything else you remember."

Bennie's cheeks puff out like a blowfish, the air held within let out in a whoosh. "That's a bit of a tall order." But Bennie shakes out her hands and puts them in a ohm position on her knees, "Alright, you want me just to walk you through it or are going going to make a dive into my squishy brain parts?"

"I know, I'm sorry," Alexander says, and he does sound it. He considers her for a while, then shakes his head. "I'm not going to jump into your head unless I have to. I'd like to hear it from you. It's...that sort of reliving is vivid, but it can also be distracting. And I can't see any more than you do, or did. I have the photos. I'll examine them in more detail, but you never know what you might remember."

"Okay." Bennie gives a little wiggle in her seat before she closes her eyes, trying to concentrate that night. "I had just closed down the Kissing Booth with Gunner. We went to the beach to stretch our legs, and I was tossing a bit of drift wood for him. He was in his Emotional support vest, which I totally had to give to authorities too. I better get it back, I worked hard on making it pretty!" Don't get distracted Bennie, but it's so much easier to do now that's she's not on her medication. "Uh, right. So I saw the fire from the Beach, and was hoping to cop a free beer. Not that I need free beer anymore because I own a bar, but. You know, company, tunes..."

"You were doing a kissing booth?" Alexander says, with a quick grin. "Or was it Gunner who was giving out the kisses?" He doesn't seem to mind her brief side-trip, he listens without impatience; in fact, his expression is fond. Although he does bob his head once when she reorients. "You should contact Cecil Harvey at the police department. He's with forensics. He can probably help you get the vest back once it's been cleared. He's nice. We're friends." There's a peculiar pride to that brief statement. "And there's nothing wrong with looking for a party. Take a moment - do you remember seeing or hearing anyone around the fire? Leaving, perhaps?"

"Gunner of course! People make a donation to the Wounded Veterans fund, and he gives them a big ole sloppy lick. He's way more popular than I'd be. Cecil Harvey." Her eye pops open. "Got it." She nods and then goes back to her memory. "There was Byron, drifting closer with popcorn shrimp and Renata with an ice cream cone. I remember that because Gunner was trying to beg for people food. I think we all had the same idea, Byron even invited Lilith down - it was a nice night on the beach - but then we got closer and there was no music, no partying." Her blonde head shakes in the negative. "No one else, but like I said, it was in an odd place. Close to an axis road though, from the opposite side of where we came. There were no drag marks. So was he able to get the victim to walk out there to the pyre? He didn't look strong enough to carry dead weight. But then, he must've because the head was cut off in a shop. And people aren't like chickens, they don't keep moving after you whack 'em."

Alexander looks a bit skeptical about the relative popularity of Bennie and the dog, but he doesn't say anything. Murder just barely beats out the joy of trying to tease Bennie, and she's getting to the 'good' parts. He watches her with that dark intensity that says he's thinking. "You might be surprised. He almost certainly stands out. He's finding people who stand out. He might be a mover. Be able to 'lighten' the body so he can carry it. Probably not a healer. He uses too many tools. A healer wouldn't necessarily need them." He takes a deep breath. "All right. It was a pyre. Continue?"

There is a little nod of acceptance that the murderer might shine as Bennie continues. "But it wasn't like a Viking pyre. It was more like a Salem Witch trial fire. A post straight up that they must've been tethered to. The minute I saw the body, I told everyone to stop and try and retrace their steps - we were too late to help the person, but we could try to preserve the scene. Byron called 911 and tripped over the gasoline can and did a read. Or was that the other way around? I started taking pictures, but then I saw the writing in one of them, on the other side of the fire. And with the tide coming in, I needed to act quickly. I figured getting a picture of whatever was etched in the sand was more important than footprints that would soon be obscured anyway. You know? Come to think, I think Renata took pictures too."

"You made the right choice. The footprints would have been nice, but," Alexander shakes his head, "the writing confirms that it's a related murder to the other two. Or three, if you count the one in Seattle. And thank you for preserving the scene for the authorities." His smile is warm. "Every little bit of evidence helps. It's interesting that the writing was in the sand. The writing is sort of a performance and justification - he needs the mythology. Previously, he's chosen things that will not fade or be obscured. I wonder if his motivation is becoming more internal. If he doesn't feel he needs the external validation as much...or, if he knew people would find it." He hums to himself.

"That's the thing, right? I mean the fire, sure, might have drawn someone along. But if we hadn't got there precisely then, there is a good chance the scene would have washed completely away. He didn't mean for it to be found, but didn't care if it was either. That wasn't a necessary piece though. By the time the First Responders got there, they were already slogging around in ankle deep water to get the body out. Which. I didn't get to see, we were whisked off the beach, so no way for me to tell if the head was replaced by something else. Were the other...victims...reheaded with something?" Bennie asks, eyes now back open as she walked Alexander through the entire - if brief - experience.

Alexander continues to hum to himself. "It's not impossible that he could have known. If he has my sort of abilities. If he's strong enough, he could even have nudged the nearest minds to notice the fire, to come and see." It's not necessarily an argument - it's more as if he's talking through the situation with himself. A nod at her question. "Unfortunately, yes. A sheep and an octopus. But that might always be something about the performance of it. If he's abandoning the performance aspect..." he clucks his tongue. "That would make things more difficult." He turns to her, and smiles. "Thank you. For telling me."

"Of course!" Bennie chirps. "You're the first person I thought of. When at a murder scene. But that's totally a compliment, I swear! I like working mysteries with you, it's probably my favorite hobby. And the police department is totally great, but when they aren't all Shiny, it's probably to us to figure it out and then just deliver the case all tied up in a bow."

Alexander grins. "There's that. There are some good cops on the force," he says, but his tone implies there are a lot of...not so good one, as well. "And I'm glad I'm the first person you thought of when murder happens. And you are a good partner in mysteries," he adds, with a flash of a grin. "I...actually. You're friendly. People like you. People don't like me. Especially not Hiltons. Maybe, um, you could reach out to Renata. Uh. So she knows I'm not just a creep? And we could talk to her together?" He scuffs a foot on the floor.

Bennie seems alit with the praise, "Oh, boo. I'll always give you the non-creeper seal of Bennie approval to anyone you ever want. I have her number, I'll reach out. But she seems...the sort of tight lipped sort? So just keep that in mind, she's not really the trusting sort. But I'll be happy to set something up. Some place where she'll be comfortable and not so much on her guard."

Alexander grimaces. "And I'm not the sort who inspires trust. But...it's important to have the murder solved. So...thank you." He smiles. "You're a good friend." Then he comes near again, and says, "What about other than murder? How are things? The bar seems to be doing well. How about the paramedics?"

"I trust you!" Bennie assures, and surely she's the only one that matters in this equation. "Oh, everything is fine. I took your advice and didn't quit the department, but I don't really have any other place to be when I'm off shift, so I'm glad I have the bar. And I've started volunteering in Hoquiam once a month at a VFW." She shrugs.

"I'm glad. That you trust me," Alexander says, with a sheepish sort of smile. "And it sounds like you're staying busy. That's good. You haven't had any further trouble with people pestering you, have you?" A pause, as he looks at her very seriously. "And you'd say? If they were? Right now, there are some...unpleasant things going on in the underworld, so..."

"Easton...all of you...worked really, really hard to give me my freedom. Problem is, now that he's gone...I have to figure out what to do with all that spare time." Bennie shrugs again, as if sectioning off all her feelings from it and just stating fact. "Everything is good. Haven't heard a peep from my father or his friends. I guess they figured out it was no longer in their best interest to milk me for my brother's death benefits."

Alexander studies her, then bobs his head. "I can't say what you should do. But I don't...know that you should spend it all in various forms of work. You have friends, you know. So...if you want to hang out. Or if you want to grab the girls and go do something that will make the males of Gray Harbor collectively weep...? I think that'd be a good thing, too." He shrugs. "Just a thought. But I'm glad. That you haven't heard from them. If you do. Or from anyone else, let me know?" He looks out towards the bar, as if he can see through the walls. "And. Uh. Victoria Gray. She works here, right?"

"Oh, I know. I'm not just throwing myself back into working all the time. But I guess hanging out, outside the bar, couldn't hurt. Half the time though, all my friends end up in here! So it's like they make house calls." Bennie's nose wrinkles up with unfamiliarity at the name Victoria before it dawns on her like a full switching the lightbulb on over her head moment. "Oh, Vic! Yeah, she's a shit bartender but a good employee - aside from the zillion personal calls she takes and her propensity to disappear at the drop of a hat. At first I thought she was a phone sex worker, but now I'm thinking maybe she just has a sick relative or something, and she's always on call to go help them out."

"Friends who make house calls are nice," Alexander says. "And it's a nice bar. But getting out sometimes is good, too." So much for not being pushy, or telling her what to do, because there's something about that tone that has a very 'pushy big brother' feel to it. But he does leave it alone after that, and snorts with amusement. "Yeah. I did notice the one time I've caught her on shift. Guess she was an Easton hire?"

"Yeah, she's totally before I inherited the place. I mean, I don't reeeeeally get why she was hired? I mean, I know why I'd hire her, I'm a bleeding heart, I'd give anyone a chance, but I thought Easton would be a little pickier. I dunno. What makes you ask?" Bennie's not really ignoring the pushy advice, but neither is she drawing more attention to it, so she doesn't risk eventually letting him down.

Alexander's really bad at lying. So when Bennie asks that question in return, he clears his throat and looks away and mumbles something that sounds like he's trying for, "No reason," but is more just mrugpph. And then he examines his fingernails like they're fascinating. "As long as she's a good employee, that's fine, right?"

"Uuuuh-huh." Bennie drawls out, not quite believing that one, Mr. Liar Pants. "But if there was a reason, like you know she's a convicted arsonist, you'd warn me right? So if I see her playing with matches or something, I'll at least know to grab a fire extinguisher?"

Alexander squirms in place. "I...don't think she's a convicted arsonist. She saved Itzhak and August's lives. She didn't have to do that," he points out. Then hesitates, and adds, "I just think she has some unpleasant associates, of the sort that it's best you don't inquire too much about. She might be useful. Especially with all the shit coming down, and people making moves on local businesses. Just keep an eye on her, if you can. And if there are unusual patterns of finances during her shifts."

"Uuuh-huh." Bennie says again, her mouth screwing up to the side as she thinks about that. "Yeah, okay. I'll take that ...very little information you've given me into consideration. I think I've endeared myself to her, so I'm not toooo worried?" Yeah it sounds like a question.

"I wouldn't be too worried," Alexander says. "Not unless she starts asking for favors you feel uncomfortable doing for her. Just don't let her know about the basement, okay?" He flashes her a weak sort of smile. "And...I should probably be heading out. I need to grab food to take back to Isabella. She doesn't eat when she gets into something." He hovers close for a moment. "Don't be a stranger, okay? And let me know if Renata is open to a meeting with us?"

Bennie looks up at Alexander, "I won't. Be a stranger. Besides, now I have a mystery to help you Scooby Doo out! Feel free to grab something from the kitchen, if you want. She loves the loaded tots, I think. And the moment I get something set up with Renata, I'll deffo let you know."

"She loves them, but they're carb-heavy, and she makes sounds about wetsuits." Alexander thinks about it. "I'll get her some, anyway. She can always say no." He winks at her. "Don't die, Bennie." And then he's wandering out into the crowded bar.