2021-12-17 - They Both Think They're Holmes

The police records room reflects the state of Gray Harbor PD: It's tiny, cramped, has to share space with random storage equipment, and reflects a badly underfunded small town police department. The door is locked, of course, with a lovely 'Authorized Personnel Only' sign. But someone (i.e. the Chief) has been foolish enough to authorize Alexander to look at one case.

Which he is being reminded of as a detective leads him downstairs, her entirely expression deeply dubious. "The McNeely case only, Clayton. Don't go crazy in there."

"I won't," Alexander says, although his eyes shine in a way that just makes her sigh and mutter something about how the old Chief never would have allowed this.

"Here. Don't get in trouble." And then she's gone. Alexander takes a few steps into the records room, and grins. It really is the Christmas season, after all. He pulls out a small notebook from his jacket, complete with tiny pencil.

Unfortunately Christmas might be able to be ruined. Because very shortly after there's the sound of conversation approaching. It's the sort of light flirting and joking that is never going to go anywhere but greases the wheels of professional relationships.

"What are you here for, anyway?" That same detective asks as she pushes open the door. "The McNeely case." Benedict answers.

"Oh." She says. "Well, good luck. See you later!" And then the door is closed and she hurries off, leaving the two in there.

At least in the first moment, Alexander turns to Benedict with his smile still intact. "Benedict. Hi. How are you?" He looks over to the detective, but the door is already closing. "I was going to look at the McNeely case. Sounded like you, too." Now his smile starts to fade at the edges, turning a little wary. "I was here first," he points out. By all of...a few seconds.

"I'm good, Alexander. How are you?" Benedict manages to hide his surprise and just smiles back. And uses that natural pause in the conversation to cycle through his various options in reply. "Cold cases like this, usually the DA's office works them in conjunction with an assigned cold case detective if the PD has assigned them. I imagine there's plenty of stuff in the case file. Since someone gave you clearance to get into it, we could just, you know, share."

After a moment, he tries to lighten the mood with a joke. "Am I supposed to be all 'You're hampering my investigation, Clayton.' at this point?'

Alexander thinks about it for a bit, then says, "I'm good. Thank you for asking." There's a stilted quality to the pleasantries, like he's reading them out of a book. He nods slowly. "We could try. And usually cops are." He waves a hand. "All 'you're hampering my investigation', I mean." His expression sets into a disgruntled frown. "Even though I'm a better investigator than them."

He's very modest, too. He turns and starts look at the filing cabinets without hesitation. "It shouldn't be hard to find. Even if it's twenty years old, it was probably accessed when Addison's body was found." He pulls open a filing cabinet and flicks through the files quickly and efficiently...although not without sudden flares of interest in other files. "Uh, here it is." He pulls the file, and frowns at it. "Huh." It's an odd, confused sort of sound, even as he brings the file to the empty table that takes up a good portion of the non-filing space.

"Well fortunately I'm not exactly a cop. Slightly different flavor of law enforcement." Benedict points out, watching Alexander as he digs through the filing cabinet.

"That's...not what I was hoping to hear." He murmurs at the odd confused sound, hurrying over to the table to check on what prompted the noise.

It won't be hard to tell, once the file's on the table. The McNeely case, although technically a missing persons and not a murder in the era it occurred, was a major case - lots of press for the time, enough that Benedict might even remember some of it, and the major search efforts. The file that Alexander puts down on the table is...thin. Certainly more thin than one would expect. Alexander, frowning, returns to the filing cabinet to search through it again. "...that seems all that I can find, unless some of it was misfiled."

He doesn't sound like he believes in misfiles.

"That's....really not a lot." Benedict blinks thoughtfully. "And I don't think it's misfiled."

There's a pause as he gets up and paces around. "Maybe it's because it's a missing persons case. There's less work you can do on those that would make it into a file. But even then...."

"Mm," Alexander says, as he sits down. The room isn't big enough for them both to pace, he seems to feel. He takes his notebook out, puts it to the side, and then starts going through the file, rather methodically. He's careful only to touch the outer edges of the pages - like he thinks they might have cause to ask for the file to be fingerprinted - as he sorts things out into witness statements, scene investigations, initial reports, searches, suspect lists. He reads fast, eyes flicking this way and that as he goes through what's available. "There are items missing. Look." He pushes a paper over to Benedict's side of the table, points at a reference. "That interview isn't in the ones recorded here."

"Well.. that's not good at all. Probably shouldn't touch it anymore....I've got some gloves if you want."

Benedict frowns. "So we have a two suicides. A really clumsy attempt to pin it on the Chief. And a whole bunch of missing evidence. This is starting to feel like one of those cases where someone really important abducts, rapes, and murders a young girl and then pulls strings to cover up. Or it was a cop."

Alexander makes one of those noncommital sounds, but bobs his head to agree to the gloves. He glances at the interview records. "The brother isn't in here. He was interviewed when the girl disappeared. But that interview isn't there. Also," he picks up his own notebook, flips through it. "I've gone back to look at the media of the case. When the girl's body was found, she'd only slightly decomposed, despite 20 years having gone by. In an area that was previously searched. Suggests the body was held somewhere else and then dumped back at that spot when the perpetrator was done with it. That would be plenty of time to ensure the corpse was free of all forensic evidence, but they found Benjamin's DNA on her. Gray hairs. Which he didn't have at eighteen. Probably only barely had at thirty-eight. No mention in the media of sexual assault; I didn't have access to the girl's autopsy report. You probably do."

"I can get it. And I don't know if this case specifically has that. It just feels like one of those cases." Benedict muses.

"So the real question is, if they'd been so successful at hiding it, why dump the body? Either they were under pressure of discovery....or they suddenly needed to frame Benjamin for some reason. But who would have the foresight to obtain and keep a body that long just in case? That doesn't make any sense."

"Could be making good on a blackmail threat," Alexander says, leaning back with a frown. He slips the gloves on. "Maybe Benjamin did kill his sister, but someone made it go away, but kept the body on ice to use as leverage. Kid grew up, eventually got tired of being blackmailed over it, figured that the other guy wouldn't call his bluff. But he did; tainted the corpse with new evidence, then...made that evidence disappear again to frame Javier and get Benjamin off the hook?" Alexander grunts. "That's too fucking convoluted for my tastes. Would have to be someone who thinks they're so goddamned clever they'll never be caught."

He frowns at his notebook. "Might be worth reaching out to Flores, the reporter. She seems to think something was hinky." A pause. "Then again, she hates cops and always thinks they're corrupt. She's not necessarily wrong, but it colors her writing."

"We'll just have to take what we can get in the help and leads department. She's at least worth talking to." Benedict opines. "But you're right. That's an awful lot of steps. I don't think Benjamin killed his sister. But I do think...." He trails off. "You talked about putting bodies somewhere else. I wonder how they decay over there."

"I was thinking something similar," Alexander admits, quietly. "Not the Veil, exactly. But a Dream. Time works differently in Dreams. We've theorized before that someone could be in a Dream for a very long time, but for them, it isn't long at all. It doesn't explain the hair, though," he says. "And the hair is weird. Why gray hair? If it was a Dream construct of her brother, it wouldn't have left hair in the real world. If you're framing someone, why choose hair that doesn't match the victim's hair color?"

"It's very amateur hour." Benedict agrees. "Which I suppose opens up yet another theory. Body reappears, somebody is trying to get a high profile case solved and take credit, and does a bad job with the frame job."

"Maybe," Alexander murmurs. "Some of this definitely looks like panicked covering of tracks. But it still speaks to someone able to convince or intimidate an officer into framing a superior officer and stealing evidence, and also someone capable of executing Benjamin McNeely with a single shot to the chest and then just driving or walking away, without bothering to 'embellish' anything. No taunts to cops, no manifestos to the media. Doesn't say attention seeker, to me. Or even disorganized. Higgins might have been the weak link in whatever this scheme originally was."

He reaches for his phone, pulling it from his jacket, and starting to type something in - all the while muttering filthy curses about the gloves and smart phone.

"It's almost all too much." Benedict frowns. "Maybe something has to be real. One of the suicides maybe..but because all of it looks so dodgy we think all of it dodgy."

He's distracted from going down this route and making his head hurt even more by what Alexander is doing. "What's up?"

"It's definitely dodgy. But dodgy is interesting." There's a certain flash of satisfaction on Alexander's face; on some level, he's enjoying this. But he says, "I saw something on Friendzone; didn't pay any attention to it at the time. Figured it was just a true crime group getting everything wrong." He sniffs, as if considering himself above amateur crime enthusiasts. "But sometimes murderers use those sorts of groups to get their validation fix, right? Like showing up at a wake, but with less risk."

He grunts, clearly having found what he was looking for. "Not...what I was expecting. People claiming to have had conversations with Addison. Not twenty years ago," he adds, dryly. "And I recognize a couple of these names." He pushes over the phone so Benedict can see the screen. One name is Joseph Cavanaugh.

"You know, a few days ago I would have said this was a sick prank of some sort." Benedict peers at the screen "And Cavanaugh was a very level headed guy, back when I knew him anyway."

There's long pause. "I can't believe I'm saying this...but got any ideas on how we can score one of these interviews people are apparently having with our victim?"

Alexander's expression twists at Cavanaugh's name, as if he'd just bitten into a lemon. "Ravn wouldn't play a prank," he says, instead. "But he does see ghosts. Maybe Cavanaugh does, as well. I can reach out to Ravn. Maybe we could meet at my office; get his account of what he saw, and why he thought it was Addison McNeely. Could also track down some of these others."

The last question makes him go quiet. "I...don't know," he says, after a while. "I guess we'd first see how these guys did it. Ghosts aren't my specialty. Someone summoned one for me, once, but he cut my throat. Didn't like being summoned." The faintest flicker of a smile. "Ravn might know more."

"What's wrong with Cavanaugh?" Benedict asks curiously, canting his head at Alexander.

But most of his interest is in the plan that's laid out. "That sounds like a great idea. You, me, and Ravn. Your office. It's a date. And we'll go from there."

"I don't like him," Alexander says, in a tone that suggests he doesn't want to talk about it further. He does add, "A lot of people do, though. You should catch up with him, if you were friends once. And ask him about Addison." Then he moves on, his head bowed over the case paperwork. "Okay. I'll suggest it. My office might try to kill us? But it's okay. We usually survive." He bobs his head, like that's a minor problem, easily solved. "Meantime, can we look at the forensics on Higgins and Benjamin? I...I might be able to read the bodies, too. If I can get in the same room with them."

"Ok." Benedict shrugs. Apparently he can live with that. "I'll track him down, and you handle Ravn. We'll all handle your office."

There's a nod then, quick and decisive. "Yeah. Let's grab the forensic reports. And I can get us into the morgue, that won't be a problem." Which prompts another question.

"Say, I never asked. How did you get them to let you in on the case anyway? Assuming you're willing to tell me."

Alexander blinks at the swiftness of the agreement, then smiles. "Okay. Just let me know when a good time is." The question just has him shake his head. "I'm an investigator. I got hired." A long pause. "Javier hired me, when he took administrative leave. He figured he was being framed, and wanted to know who and why. I was already interested in the case, and I don't like people being framed."

"I'll contact them and get a time slot." Benedict agrees, and then there's a smile of his own. "Good. Me neither. It feels very....personal. Like the one doing the framing is trying to weaponize me and Bennet."

"Could be. Javier isn't always very popular. There was an," Alexander hesitates, "incident. Before you came back. With some corrupt cops. It got ugly. I think a lot of those were fired and prosecuted, but maybe not all of them were caught." He sighs. "But they wouldn't...the frame job might be an additional complication, but the original murder wouldn't be by the same people. That was twenty years ago, after all."

"So maybe that's what makes the most sense. The frame job on the Chief has nothing to do with it. That was just someone trying to take advantage. Still something we need to solve, but probably not part of the main equation." Benedict offers thoughtfully.

"So if we assume for a minute that's true, that leaves us with the body decay issue, the obviously planted gray hairs, and the two suicides."

Alexander thinks about it, then nods. "That was what I was thinking. Can't prove a negative. Can't prove that Javier didn't do something, but if we solve the original murder, and Benjamin's murder, then we'll naturally clear him. Higgins may be a murder, maybe genuinely be a suicide; seems to be mostly about the frame, though, so maybe make him a lower priority." He hums at the case file. "I can try and find a couple of these witnesses with missing interviews, too. It's been twenty years, but they might still remember something, and I can get a read on them."

"Can't hurt. And that's something I can work on too, unless you think these particular witnesses would react better to you than a suit with a badge." Benedict muses . "Although I guess since I also can't read people that way we lose that if I track any of them down."

"No one reacts well to me," Alexander says, his voice wry and dry. "Sometimes people tell me things to make me go away, though." But he falls silent, thoughtful. "You're charming and official, though. We could go together. You could ask questions, I can read them, tell you if they seem to be hiding something. That sort of thing?" It's offered tentative, and he doesn't look at Benedict. Just starts putting the case file materials away, careful to make sure that everything that came out goes in.

"Well, that's kind of you to say." Benedict murmurs, of Alexander calling him charming. He's silent for a moment, mulling it over in his head. "Yeah. That could work." He finally says out loud, looking over at Alexander. "That could really work."

"No. Just an observation. You're handsome and rich and you smile at people and they like you. Charming. It's useful." Alexander's voice is flat. He watches in silence as Benedict mulls it over, but the positive response teases another of those brief smiles from him. "Good. I usually work alone. But it's better when people want to talk. More efficient." He closes the file, looks back at the shelves and filing cabinets with a deeply wistful sort of expression.

Benedict just grins as Alexander so methodically breaks down what he originally took as a compliment. "Well this'll be a new experience for both of us, then. I've never worked with someone..." He struggles to find the right word for a moment "... Talented, before."

He doesn't interrupt the silent communing with the files. He gets that.

Alexander's gaze flicks back to Benedict at that pause to find the word; his expression is braced, expecting some euphemism for crazy, clearly enough. The actual word chosen makes him blink. "I try not to use it too much. Unless pressed for time, or can't find other leads. But in this case, when the original crime is so old, we might need to prompt people for things they barely remember. And I don't know how much we can trust any of the forensics; not if someone was using them to try and frame people. My readings...are unlikely to be faked. I've only known one person who could do that."

"We'll have a better idea when we look at it." Benedict says of the forensics. "But I do think, yes, as much as possible we need to be doing our own work from scratch. Obviously forensics and autopsies are out of our ability to do that with, but everything else..."

Alexander nods. "Good." He stands up, takes the file back to its place, hums to himself as he puts it away; a Christmas carol: Joy to the World. Then he wanders back, still looking a bit hunched and uncertain. "Um. You have my phone number. Call me if anything comes up. I'll do the same. Anything else you think we need to put on the to do list?"

"Yeah. You've got my number, so we're good there." Benedict agrees, before shaking his head. "I think we've got more than enough to be going on with, and a plan of attack. Especially since both of us have caseloads...as much as we'd like to literally do nothing but this till it's solved, we don't have that luxury. So the old thing about how you eat an elephant, you know?"

Alexander just gives Benedict a blank look at don't have that luxury. Eventually, he makes a wordless noise. It's that weird sort of noise where you want to acknowledge someone has said something, and you're hoping they take it as agreement, but it's really not. Then he says, "One bite at a time. Sure," like he totally wouldn't obsess over a case and not eat, sleep, or do anything else until it's solved. He looks at the door. "Don't die." Then he's letting himself out without another word.

Benedict does seem to take it as an agreement. "You too." He replies, watching Alexander go. He watches the door for a moment, thoughtfully, then turns back to browse some of the other case files he needs to check on while he's here.