Discussions

Who: Brett and December
When: Late Morning
Where: The morgue

Brett headed over to the morgue immediately from Nighthawks. He flat out refused to admit that he’d been putting this off, but yet when he entered the morgue, he didn’t simply stride over to where he needed to be. Whilst he wasn’t exactly hesitant, he was holding back some, reluctant to actually approach the body he knew he was going to have to at least look at. Someone up there, he knew, really didn’t like him. Why the fuck couldn’t he have landed the triple homicide last night? Why the hell did he have to get the corpse that would hit so many of his issues. But, this was the one he had gotten, and Brett wasn’t a personality who would refuse to do what needed to be done.

December was still there. A whole lot of staying after late. She was exhausted, and was drinking coffee by the bucket full. She was sitting on the work top next to Poe when Brett entered, and she looked up from her work. "You pulled this? My condolences." she told him, stifling a yawn and she shook her head, blinking slightly. It was clear she'd been there a bit too long.

“Yeah, well someone had to get it,” Brett said, gruffly, actually taking the condolences. He felt like they were needed. He doubted it had been done deliberately - pretty much, people didn’t connect any more, the amount of damage that had been done to him during the fire a decade ago, and it wasn’t like he broadcast it. Rather, he kept his extensive scarring hidden, his clothing choices made to cover up all but the slight edgings of a burn scar on his neck, that was generally visible above his collar. “So, you wanna just tell me what we’ve got?” he asked wanting to get this over and done with, and with the vague hope that she would just tell him and not have to actually show him.

She eyed him for a moment, noticing that his manner was a little off, but not hugely so. If she had to guess, she'd lay money on the idea that there was the fire thing involved. She remembered seeing him in the hospital, looking like a mummy. It was a very distant memory but one she retained even if a lot of her childhood was hazy sometimes.

Or maybe he was just tired, like she was. Who the fuck knew. She wasn't asking. Not right now, anyways. "A lot." she said. "It's not going to be a short run down, so you know." she said. "I can try and give you the basic timeline, though. Or, the timeline so far as I can see it." She drew in a deep breath, killed the rest of her coffee, then looked at her notes again.

"He was poisoned for starters. Then after that, he was bound up with I'm going to guess wire." She made a bit of a face at her notes. "Here's where it gets creepy." she warned lightly, even if she didn't pause to let him prepare himself or anything. "He was sliced open, and his guts were kind of...let's say 'rearranged'. He lost a lot of blood, but nothing inside was nicked--whoever did it didn't want this guy to bleed out, or to die of any internal damage or whatever, so they were just...careful. Everything was precise. Surgical. The only thing that fucked it up, really was the wrapped up fortune inside." she told him, and she pointed to the unwrapped page on the worktop next to her. "I got that out of his innards. It's a poem. ‘The Tyger’. Yeah, you heard me, someone stuffed a poem into someone who sat around with his guts laying around for a while. Then they stitched him right the hell back up, and apparently deemed it necessary to then set the guy on fire. It's been a long goddamn night."

Brett looked down at the page, but had absolutely no wish to touch it at all, especially given he’d been told where exactly it had been. “How the hell do you do this job?” he asked her, off hand.

December shrugged one shoulder. "Someone has to." she said. "I have internal motivation. ...and a strong stomach." she added. "Also? I don't usually get guys on my slab who've been turned into torched fortune cookies. That helps."

He wondered about the motivation, but now wasn’t the time to be going into that. A conversation for another day, yet another aspect to put off until tomorrow, another reason to be determined that, one day, tomorrow was going to be able to come. “What’s the significance of the poem?” he asked her.

"Honestly?" December said. "I'm gonna go right ahead and say the significance is that the Echo will have a name for the boogeyman. That's about all. It's a poem about darkness, and evil and shit like that. There's a passage about fire in there, but I figure it's going to boil down to someone who has a little too much time on their hands, an appreciation for poetry and the patience to find an old one. I think, anyways, that's an archaic sort of spelling. But that, and they're giving themselves an identity or at least an identifying association."

“So, we have... Fuck - any clue as to whether this psycho is linked to any of the others we have running around right now?” he asked. Basically, was this the same perp as the park, maybe linked to the gallery. The random shootings. And then another thought occurred to him. “We have a country of origin for the poem?” he asked her, thinking of the suggestions that Eric had made.

"I have a rookie running it down at the library, but he's not back yet." December said. "So I'm not sure, I don't know it off the top of my head. As for connections...he's linked the the two other poisoned guys who came in earlier, and they were yanked from Oleg's. So, I'd connect it in with Russian mob, and that guy who came in with a spike through the chest. But that's just a guess, there's no consistency in weapon or anything, which means it's hard to work out. Which sucks, a lot of repeaters get particular about their methods."

Brett pulled out his notebook, jotting that down. His memory was good, but written backup was better, even for small details. Especially for small details. So many times, it was the small details that cracked a case. “Okay, so links there, someone or a group targeting Russians, which probably means the Syndicate as a whole,” he mused, thinking that through. “So, either it’s mafia warfare - with, say, the attack on the Gallery being revenge. It was owed by a woman whose family are rumoured to have links,” he said. Rumours, supposition - there as so very rarely any hard proof when it came to the mob. But, that was the whole point and Brett knew first hand just how hard they worked to ensure that it stayed that way. “Or there’s the other possibility,” he considered.

"Well if it's mafia warfare, they're getting really creative, and in ways I haven't seen before."
December said, not actually discounting it at all, just saying it wasn't in her experience yet. "And what's the other possibility?"

“When the shit happened with the O’Malleys, the Syndicate turned on them, like that,” Brett told her, clicking his fingers. He knew that talking about this would mean edging around how his own involvement went down, something he had managed successfully to avoid until now, but now there was a bigger picture, and there was no avoiding it. “The barest whiff that there was a problem, weakness... Most of the work to take them apart wasn’t done by the cops, it was done by the Syndicate. That’s why they’re dead and buried, not lining up for court cases right now. There’s the chance that we’re seeing something of the same thing. We can’t discount the Syndicate taking out their own just because they’re their own. Hell, the fact the men were Russians would put the question to that, but there are other factions in the Syndicate, tied to the Russians - maybe they’ve decided they want independence,” he suggested.

Listening, December nodded, wondering about Brett's involvement there but she didn't ask. That was the type of thing you discussed when you were far more inebriated than they were right now. "If they're taking out their own, why the elaborate set up here?" she asked. "This to me smacks of display. This is someone wanting to put on a big show, get the cops involved, the press. Maybe it'd be a display for others to see, but it's pretty damn public. Plus what about those guys?" she asked, making a vague gesture towards her shut drawers against the back wall. "They to me come off more as innocent bystanders. They were poisoned, then executed, but they weren't put through the same torture as this guy. Not even close." She shook her head. “If this is the same thing, they should be coming off the same as the O’Malley corpses, yeah? They were all just sort of shot up pretty good. Summary executions, or drive by type stuff. The only message there was ‘it’s a bad day to be Irish’.”

He factored all that in and took on board what she was saying. That was the thing about theories - you could have them, but that didn’t mean they were right. Still, airing them and giving them the chance to be shot down was all part of the process. “Okay - so, someone’s killing Russians and in the most public way they can. You can link this guy to last night, and to some of the previous murders. Here’s the big question - any sign that this can be linked to the park?”

"I can sort of link them to previous murders." December said. "Just a guess, through victims no actual physical evidence. Also, you don't know it's a guy yet." she added, even if she didn't think Brett was specifically saying 'guy' as in 'male', but she wanted to throw that out there. She was quiet for a long moment. "Nothing physical. The only thing that I would say links back to the park is that public display thing. Someone's making a very big name for themselves, and maybe they didn't get enough recognition for the park. Maybe they want people to be fearing 'the tyger' or whatever. But that's a total theory, just an idea."

“I know we don’t know if it’s a guy, or a skirt, or a couple or a whole fucking group - it’s just easier than listing all the options,” Brett pointed out. Keeping it simple made things seem slightly less insurmountable, after all. “And, okay, we’re still stuck with rumour and supposition. Let me ask you this, if that’s all we have linking this to the park, what’s your thoughts on the odds - more likely that they’re the same, or more likely that they’re different?” he asked her.

December considered that. Then she sighed, and put her clip board down. "Let me level with you." she said. "Whoever did that?" she said, making a vague gesture towards Mr. Burnypants, "Is capable of true darkness. I see a lot of shitty things. I see a lot of sick, awful things. But the person who can do what was done to that man? Is either a man on a mission, or a monster. Maybe both. And even if I hate churches and won't set foot in one ever, even I can tell you that you've got to be some special kind of psycho to kill a church group full of families and kids who're praying over loss of life so far away. I can't link these things with evidence. I really, really can't. There's nothing about them that says they're the same person. But I know darkness. And that's the same level. You have to be someone so far down the goddamn rabbit hole that you don't care about the level of horror. I think someone who does that, who wouldn't care about the fact that some poor seven year old hung on for at least five minutes pinned to the fucking ground by a rusty pipe through his abdomen, they could definitely carve a man open, play around with his insides while he was wire-bound and poisoned, then shove something inside him and sew him back up...and just with locations you know that he was brought from one place to another. So that guy had time, likely conscious time, where he had to deal with the mind numbing awful knowledge that there was something inside him that didn't fucking belong there. And then the kicker...being set on fire. Alive. It's just...those two things don't compare to anything else, Brett." she said, giving her honest, totally unfounded point of view. "Those two events, in my mind, are linked just through the level of black sickness laced through them."

“Pity then that there’s a total lack of real evidence,” Brett sighed. He wasn’t the type of cop that would build a case on nothing - whilst he liked tossing around theories, to latch onto one of them without any evidence other than it was a good idea, meant closing off your mind to other theories, and possibly to the truth. He built his cases on hard evidence, he was invested in finding the truth, the real criminal. Even if that was generally a much harder way of going about things.

"Whoever's doing this is playing it about as smart as they can. They're only leaving behind what they want us to have. Like the poem." December said, sighing. "If I find anything, I'll tell you, of course, but so far there's really nothing."

“Nobody’s that smart for that long. Anyone who is is too clever for their own good, and sooner or later, they’ll trip up. It’s just a matter of time,” Brett replied, hoping to hell that it was sooner rather than later - after all, people were dying out there.

December looked at him and opened her mouth--then shut it again. I'd love to agree with you, but I really, really don't. Sometimes the devil just steps back into the shadows, and you never see him again. went through her mind, but she thought better of saying it. Brett already looked like he was just not at all right, she wasn't going to add that nugget onto the already steaming pile here.

Brett caught that, even though she said nothing, but he was a stubbornly determined man and if she doubted him, then that was her call. It didn’t change anything. “I’m going to catch this fucker,” he told her, firmly. “One guy, group, man in the fucking moon. I’m gonna catch him and then they’re gonna lock him up and throw away the fucking key.” He just hoped they could do that before the entire city imploded.

"I hope so." December told him. "I'll give you my full report when I'm done with it. And I'll keep looking for connections between things. Y'know, when I've got five minutes after sleep and the next corpse hits the table." she said, reaching up to twist her hair back with a pencil. "And when the rookie gets back, I'll send him your way too." she added.

“You do that - and get some rest at some point,” Brett advised, even if he didn’t actually take his own advice very often. “They got you making up a bed under one of the gurneys yet?” he added, with wry humour finally showing through.

She smirked at him. "'Course not, I've got a casket in the office that I sleep in during the deadly daylight hours." she said, referencing the fact that a lot of people seemed to believe she might be a vampire. Not that she discouraged that silly little idea. Some of the rookies were just easily spooked, or they were after she was done with them. "I'll have to go crash for a while, keep my strength up. You should get some rest some day too, you look tired." She hummed, eyes gazing up towards the ceiling as she considered. “Think we’ll be clear by next week? That’s a reasonable schedule for rest, right?”

Brett gave her a look, but said nothing. Nobody was getting much rest these days, that was for sure. “Should mention - you and I have got a dinner invitation of sorts from Eric Martens. Did say we were pretty tied up at the moment, bu he put it out there anyway.”

Blinking, she looked surprised. "I--really? Oh...kay...sure, I suppose." she said. "Didn't see that one coming. Not sure I trust that he's got a lot of cooking skills, but I guess he could surprise me. I guess let me know when you wanted to do that?" she said, not used to invitations of any kind, definitely not dinner ones.

“At this rate, not sure we’re gonna be able to - but if you want to make a special point of it, I can try to be available,” Brett said, his turn to be somewhat surprised. If it had been just him, he knew he would have written it off completely, putting his job before everything as he’d been doing for what seemed like so long now. He’d returned to the force for a reason which seemed to be no longer valid, and it had swallowed him whole.

"It'd probably do us both good." December said with a dark look over at the poem on the worktop. "I mean, sometimes something's got to give. I personally don't like it when it's me. sometimes you just have to reset. I went and saw him sometime after the park. It helped." she admitted. She didn't know how Brett knew him, but didn't ask, either. She imagined if they went to dinner with the guy that would come out.

“Then let’s see what tomorrow brings then,” Brett said, not committing any more than that. Strangely, it reminded him of how things used to be with Eris, back when he’d still been working for the O’Malleys. Then he’d never been able to commit to being anywhere, day to day, since he’d never know when he’d be expected by his ‘employers’. But, those days were gone now, yet somehow, some things never changed.

"Okay. Barring another mass murder, we'll see about then." she agreed. "Til then..." she hopped down from the counter, and went back over to the body. "I have to go over things yet again." she told him. She was thorough, that was for certain. She took her job seriously. Someone had to make sure the dead were heard. That was her.

Brett made no move to follow her, especially since it looked like he might get through this whole thing without having to have a first hand look at his worst nightmare. “Then I’ll get out of your hair, leave you to work,” he offered, actually taking a step back with that.

"See you later, I'll get you my full report as soon as possible." she promised, even if 'asap' might still be a while yet. There was a lot to report, and she needed to be sure she didn't miss anything. Some vital clue that didn't seem important but tied everything together. Sure, she was pretty certain she'd not find anything remotely like that, but she had to look. She had to be sure.