2020-09-08 - Mirror Mirror Murderer

Gray Harbor's combined fire station and police department has a receptionist. This is definitely a good thing because without her, Ravn Abildgaard would probably have managed to lose himself somewhere in the building and only realised he was in the wrong place when he came face to face with the red trucks. As it happens, however, asking for Homicide Detective Wilkinson gets him directed right instead of left, and the Dane wanders in the indicated direction, looking for desks or doors with the right sign and generally trying to not be in anyone's way.

The last part is the hard part. Police stations are per definition full of interesting things. Particularly in a town full of secrets. Ravn keeps his hands firmly in his jeans pockets, causing him to slouch a little -- but better that than risk them picking up something exciting on their own, only to find himself face to face with a grumpy detective or patrol officer. There are places to be curious. The police department might not be one of them.

With Ruiz reorganizing her caseload, and taking a break from overnight shifts, Esme's in a slightly better mood than the last time Ravn encountered her. The receptionist had notified her she was about to have a visitor and so, she's just waiting patiently. She wanted to try talking to the Dane anyhow. Just hadn't gotten around to digging up his contact information again. Her computer is running some kind of search parameters while she rifles through a few files on her desk. Her desk at first glance might look like a mess, but there's a careful sort of organization to it. Nothing really personal sitting out on it. All business.

Esme looks up now and then to keep an eye out for Ravn and spots him. Lifting her hand to wave him over. "Hey there, Ravn right?" She offers him a smile. "Please tell me you haven't found another crazy serial killer that needs my attention." Teasing...mostly.

"Ravn Abildgaard, yes." The Dane takes his hands out of his pockets in some semblance of manners and offers one gloved such over for a handshake. "And I think I'm fairly safe in that regard -- although this town being what it is, you wouldn't even be all that surprised if I did tell you I'd found another few, would you?"

There's something slightly -- excited is the wrong word. He is excited, absolutely, but not in the happy expectant way of someone who looks forward to something delightful happening. More in the manner of someone who knows something but isn't sure whether it's just him being silly. It's probably a look a police detective has encountered fairly often, from Karen Karenson thinking she's caught a retail manager cheating with the weight of the pumpkins, to actually real cases and clues.

"May I join you?" he asks and glances around for a chair that isn't occupied by binders, papers, or for that matter, delinquents.

"Good to meet you, again. With more of my wits about me." Esme looks around a moment and he can sense ever so slightly a bit of distrust. Not towards him, but towards the office itself. "Let's go talk in one of the interrogation rooms." She gathers up her files and leads him past the desks, into another area of the precinct, leading him towards an available room. "Here. More room to spread out if we need and more private." She fiddles with something or other to make sure the microphone is turned off because that is definitely a thing! Esme motions for Ravn to sit in one of the seats as she sets her files down on the table. "I'm glad you stopped by, because I wanted to talk to you anyways but," A brief pause as she looks up at him. "First things first. What did you come to talk about?"

Ravn has watched enough Hollywood movies to glance about curiously -- and indeed, with suspicion for any wall-sized mirrors. He reminds himself that this is real and settles where appointed, putting his gloved hands in his lap where he can see them and they absolutely can't get up to trouble on their own. "The fellow who murdered someone on the beach. And a bloke in Spokane, and someone in the woods. I think we know what he looks like. I mean, in a town of eighteen thousand, there can only be a handful of people who look like that, and it must be possible to find out if anyone them were in Spokane last year. I don't know the first thing about policework, detective, but I thought that this might be -- you know, important. Just in case you don't know what he looks like already."

Esme had a lot of information, but a description of the potential killer was not one of them. "A description would be amazingly helpful." She sat down in the other free chair, studying the Dane intently. "How did you come to put a description together? Also, you don't happen to know of a pattern with the gods he is sacrificing to, do you?" She sounds a tiny bit hopeful but also like she won't be too awfully let down if he doesn't. "It could be useful in getting a step ahead of him and trying to track him down as well."

"Sumerian underworld," Ravn replies to the latter. "But, the Sumerian underworld has several thousand deities. I think he is looking into death and resurrection, but I base that pretty much off the leech goddess that he sacrificed the fellow in Spokane to. She's associated with both. It's... far too vague, though, to tell us anything about where he might strike the next time."

The Dane dips into a blazer pocket for a cell phone homed in a sparkly pink Hello Kitty cover and taps up a few images. They are somewhat grainy photos of a business card from a barber shop salon downtown; a business card that has been scribbled on in cuneiform script, one that currently sits somewhere in an evidence locker -- heaven alone knows how Ravn got his hands on that. "You are -- you know how things work for some people in this town, yes? The -- whatever people call it, the Art, the sparkle, the shine. The thing. I can feel it in you -- I wouldn't be saying any of this if I couldn't, because honestly, this is far into tinfoil hat territory. You know how some people in Gray Harbor can do things, yes?"

"Sumerian underworld." Esme repeated and then sighed. She had no idea what that even meant. But she shakes it off and refocuses. Her brow raises briefly at the Hello Kitty phone cover but doesn't comment on it. "Well...we'll see I guess. Hopefully we can get him before he strikes again." She leans over slightly to look at the picture. "...Why do you have that?" Is the first question. "More so. How." She looks up to him again, eyeing him a beat and then nodded. "Yeah. I got it, don't worry, I know you're not crazy. I can see it on you too." She shrugged. "Well, sort of. Mostly you just look a little faded- like a ghost might look against real people? Anyyyy way. So what? You used some of that to learn what he looks like?" Sounds curious at least.

"I'm told I'm a pretty dim bulb compared to some of the furnaces in this town," Ravn offers, perhaps as an explanation as to why his shine really isn't all that and a bag of chips -- a few chips at the bottom of the bag, perhaps. "And how is really one of those questions I wish I didn't have to answer, but this is no game and I will: I nicked the wallet of the guy on the beach and took pictures of its contents before handing it in to your colleagues. Because I felt that -- this was something to do with this whole Gray Harbor phenomenon. What's more important though, is the card itself. I know a bloke -- Leon Gyre, a locksmith. He reads things -- by touching them. Crazy as it sounds but again -- Gray Harbor."

"I went down to that shop myself pretty much right away, to ask if Fitzgerald was a regular or something like that. He wasn't, but they told me that he might have been in touch with some of their students who only come in on specific days. So Gyre went down there to talk to the students and try to do -- that thing he does. And that paid off. Gyre's adamant that Fitzgerald exchanged phone numbers with the killer -- that they got to know each other right there, in the salon. But what's really important there is that the barber student said the bloke Fitzgerald talked to was a nondescript fellow in his early thirties who looked kind of 'academic' and wore glasses. No one you'd look at twice except he was all sweaty and seemed twitchy like he was on something."

"Well or me, the stronger the glimmer the more...ghost like people look? I don't fully understand it but, I just roll with it." Esme mused before falling quiet to listen closely. She doesn't seem too upset about the delay of wallet stuff. Especially if it means she's one step closer to bringing someone in. "So what exactly did he get off reading the card?" Was her first question. The second being, "What does the cuneiform day? Do you know?" Trying to prioritize her questions.

She plucks the pen up that's been resting on her ear and starts writing down the description he rattled off. "Nondescript, early 30s, glasses. Still sounds like half the people in this town. But, male. Twitchy, sweaty might narrow it down. Caucasian?" She asked, glancing back up towards him. "Maybe I'll look in to if the others also went to that same barber shop. Did they mention seeing this guy in the shop before? Talking to any of the other two victims we have here?" She lists off the names of the Forest body and the Gas Station attendant. Her player's brain is tired and doesn't remember them!

"Yes, Caucasian," Ravn confirms. "I went to the library pretty quickly -- I think I said, I'm a folklorist. I went to brush up on my Sumerian legends and myths and, well, translate the cuneiform script. It refers to Kur, the land of the dead. But the thing that grabbed my attention when Gyre told me about the fellow at the barbership was -- there was a fellow at the library, looking into the same things. An assistant librarian noticed him, a little more than a month ago. Thought it was funny that the guy came in right after there'd been a documentary on Sumerian and Babylonian myths on TV. He remembered this fellow because he took notes like an academic -- in MLA format, like a researcher, not just someone who thought dragons looked like his Dungeons and Dragons game. I talked to Miss Price about this since the assistant librarians are her employees -- and according to her employee, this other person is tall, thin, about thirty years old and looks a lot like me, except wearing glasses. So -- we do know what he looks like, at least roughly. Miss Price's employee thought it was interesting that two fellows looked so much alike, and were after the same topic of interest. Bloke wasn't from town, although I suspect we'd know if he had a European accent too, so let's assume that we're not alike in that regard, at least."

Esme seems to scrutinize Ravn for a closer moment as he explains that the killer and himself must look somewhat similar. She makes a few extra notes. More information is best. She also may have made an extra note to make sure Ravn doesn't get picked up with the APB she's going to put out later. If he is the killer, she'd rather keep him close...but also he doesn't quite strike her as a crazy serial killer. "So he's an outsider himself. I wonder if he has the extra stuff too." She pondered. "I'll get an APB out for a man matching his description today. " She makes a few final notes and then sighs, looking up at Ravn and summoning a smile. "This whole thing is so...strange. You don't happen to know what documentary that was do you? I wonder if that might add some explanation as well."

"Miss Price told me her employee said it was a documentary on Sumerian gods. I'm guessing it inspired him? Or maybe it was just the final push a crazy man needed, I don't know -- maybe he only killed once, in Spokane, and then got inspired to start over again. Serial killers and criminal psychology -- I've watched a few CSI episodes, that's about it." Ravn looks a little sheepish. "But from what I can tell -- yes, pretty much someone like me, but without the accent. Of course, 'looks like me' is a wide term -- but let's go with tall, not too muscular, around thirty and Caucasian, acts and talks like an academic. It's not much, I know, but again -- town of eighteen thousand, there can't be a hundred people matching this description. And even if there is, you might be able to pin him on Spokane. A year and a half ago, I was somewhere in Europe -- probably France, still."

"Oh, I meant more like a specific name so I could watch the documentary myself. But if it was recently on I'm sure I can pilfer a couple TV Guides and look through them to find it. "Esme mused. "Regardless, this is extremely helpful and invaluable information." Esme made a couple final notes and set the pen down for the moment. "You're right. There aren't too many people in town who fit that description. At least, I don't think there should be so. We'll see what it dredges up." Esme nodded. "And don't worry. I'll make sure you don't get dragged in." She laughed at the thought. "I'll keep you in the loop on anything I might find out, so long as you keep me in the loop too."

"I'll be very happy to," Ravn agrees and then smiles slightly. "I'm not worried for myself, detective. Unless the Veil decides to frame me directly, my passport and visa both firmly place me in Europe at the time of the Spokane murder. And if the Veil does decide to frame me -- then nothing I can do or say about it will change that. It's got the town convinced I'm Swedish without much effort, after all."

"Wait. You're not Swedish?" Esme feigned shock before smiling again. She rose to her feet. "Oh, just in case you see them before I do...and you can pass word to the others to. I'd like to have a quick chat with any or all of the people who stumbled the latest body. The gas station attendant. " Esme checked a couple papers. "Byron Thorne, Bennie Oakes, or Renata Shaw." Nodding, mostly to herself before look up to him. "Unfortunately I don't have much more news on my end aside what you already know. But hopefully your description of the killer will bring some more info our way."

"The -- oh. There has been a fourth murder, then." Ravn fails to look all that surprised at this new information. "I thought at first that tall, thin looks-like-me bloke would be a fourth victim and we'd find him eventually, but from Gyre's reading he's obviously not. I'm sorry to hear that yet another man died. We need to stop this bloke because he's very obviously not going to stop on his own. I think I put that in that research file somewhere -- we're looking at someone who either thinks he's summoning ancient gods and won't stop until they turn up, or someone who thinks he's keeping them at bay. You know the joke about the man who sits up in a tree with a shotgun, telling another man he's keeping the tigers out of Copenhagen? The other man replies that there are no tigers in Copenhagen, and the first man just goes -- yes, I know, that's how good at my job I am. Our killer's that guy, keeping the Babylonian gods out of Washington State."

"I work for Bennie at the Two if By Sea -- I can tell her that you'd like a chat? Shaw runs the murder -- the Seaview motel, I believe? I went there to see the place a few days back, find out if Fitzgerald stayed there. This mixed-up identity business has her propped up to be a Hilton come to town to invest in the vacation industry." He does not mention Thorne -- but finding the man who, according to hearsay, owns the half of town that the Addingtons don't, can't be much of a challenge to anyone with a phone directory.

Ravn stands as well and offers a gloved hand for a handshake. "Thank you for listening. I do realise just how crazy all of this sounds. Solving homicides by reading objects and having visions. I don't know how this will ever hold up in court but if it means that our man stops killing, mission accomplished."

"We'll see what transpires." Esme pulls out a couple business cards. "And yes, please. Here, give one of these to Bennie and tell her to call me any time. We can set up a time to chat." She gives Ravn a firm handshake. "So long as we can find real, solid proof that this guy is who we're looking for? Then it won't matter how we obtained our 'hunches'. It's easy enough to spin into something real rather then this crazy stuff we've got happening in town." She smiled. Esme gathered up her folders and then would lead Ravn back out and even escort him down to the first floor, main area where he'd come in. "I'm glad we talked. Be safe Ravn, and don't hesitate to call me if anything else comes up."