Kozlowski Case [attn: Alex]

[Kenna]

October 12th, 2015
4:05pm

It's nice in this bar.  Dusty, dingy, but the light was kept at bay.  The only window as toward the front of the place and mercifully tinted, with neon that glowed dull and inoffensive to the senses.  Just like everything else.  Except for this god-awful whiskey.

A few hours had passed since Ihsan had parted ways from Michael and Grace.  The instant she'd learned that the gallery they were at didn't have the portrait they were looking for after all she had turned on her heel and left.  Patted Michael on a square shoulder as she passed and expressed: "You have this.  I'm having a drink."

She'd received a text message some 45-60 minutes later-- better described as a 'wall o' text', if you were to ask her, but this was her old acarya so it wasn't a big surprise.  If anything, he was always thorough.  Through this communication she learned of Victor Kozlowski, his cause and location of death, and the supernaturally suspicious circumstances that surrounded them.  Some back and forth later and she had another name-- Officer Alexander Brandt, as well as a couple of phone numbers to try and reach him by.

It wasn't until another hour and a half had passed that Ihsan finally paid her tab, brought a water in a to-go- cup with her, and stepped outside to place a call.  It went directly to Officer Alexander Brandt's cell phone.

When he answered, the voice on the other end was dark and feminine and heavily accented in something North African (but the English was clear and well-spoken, rest assured).

"Hello, Officer Brandt?  This is Ms. Ghali.  I'm hoping that I could give you a hand with your Kozlowski problem."

[vesta]

Ihsan might have found a nice little gin joint to spend some time, but Alexander has been tied up at the station. Officially, he’s working on administration surrounding an arrest earlier in the day – nothing major in the grand scheme of things, a simple shoplifter with a rather lengthy list of previous offences. But there’s also a lengthy list of I’s to be dotted and T’s to be crossed to avoid the case being thrown out on a technicality.

Unofficially, he’s doing a little extra-curricular investigation. Alexander is no Grace, but he knows enough about using the computer to have a few windows open for different items of interest. One window, the one he spends most time on – especially when people walk close – contains the thrilling administrative work for the booking. Another is being used to dig into a couple of women reported missing in the city.

A third is keeping an eye on the results of the Kozlowski investigation. So far, the information has been slow coming back. Lab reports: Pending. Autopsy: Pending. The pattern continues. The service has been having more than its share of system slowdowns and outages recently.

Alexander is a cautious sort, who tries to keep his two lives separate. Both are important to him, but his mundane life wouldn’t understand half of what appears in the shadows in the city. His colleagues and the judges wouldn’t understand why he had shot at a woman because there was little other option for stopping her, albeit a woman that they would have little chance of stopping themselves. Not without significantly more bloodshed than had already been spilled. How would they cope with vampires? Or Spirits? Nephandi?

So he takes precautions. One of those is having two separate phones. One, a reasonably recent smartphone, is used for ordinary things in the ordinary part of his life. The other is a cheap thing, something easily disposable if it ever became necessary to protect him or the others. Unless Grace or Ihsan have done more digging, it’s the burner phone that rings.

Alexander doesn’t recognise the number when he answers with a simple, “Hello.” He’s absent-mindedly flicking back to the window monitoring the investigation when Ihsan introduces herself. A window that is quickly closed when she mentions Kozlowski.

It’s perhaps unfortunate that Alexander didn’t know of her presence in the city. Had Michael made the call, things would have gone differently. But there had been no mention of Ihsan on Ginger, and Alex hadn’t spoken to any of the others about her presence. It’s also unfortunate that there had been reports of Union agents becoming more active, especially around the police department. Sasha had warned him of a young, sandy-haired man charming his way around the admin staff. But it stands to reason that there would be more of them.

And here’s a woman who knows his name, and knows what he’s most recently been involved in. Possible she knows what he’s been keeping tabs on while he works. The other window – the one about the missing women – gets closed too.

And all Ihsan will hear is a few seconds of the kind of background noise you would find in an office. The seconds it takes Alexander to scan around the office, looking for others on the phone. And then? The call ends. If she calls the number again, it will be out of service and not directing to voicemail. The reason? The SIM will already have met its end in a shredder, and the phone will shortly be meeting a sudden demise under a patrol car tyre.

[Kenna]

Ihsan was met by a breath in the receiver when she stated her intent, and then a dead line.

"Well, that rude bastard."  When she muttered to herself it was not in English, but in her dominant Arabic tongue.  With a furrowed brow, she tried dialing the number again, but only to find that it simply did not work any longer.  No voicemail, no ringing, simply a default error message from the service provider that the number was no longer in service.  At first this had Ihsan scowling even harder down at the screen of her phone, but after a half a dozen seconds of thought her brow smoothed, and instead a smile crept over her lips.

"Tomorrow then."

---------------------

October 13th, 2015
10:50am

The day was set to be clear but still unseasonably warm for this far into fall, and the station where Officer Brandt worked had been open for walk-ins for some time.  The officer at the front desk has probably been on shift for the past few hours, has probably taken their share of reports for stolen goods and even one person insisting their neighbor was practicing polygamy.  It wasn't until the countdown for lunch break was on the horizon that the sound of stilettos filled the lobby.

The woman who walked up to the counter was tall in the sharp white heels that she was wearing, but probably average height without them.  She was wearing a pair of light colored denims that were rolled at the ankles to better show off the shoes, with a deep-necked white tank top on beneath a cropped up black leather jacket.  Her skin was dark, as was her hair and her eyes.  Her hair had been slicked back into a stern ponytail, and her eyebrows were clean-waxed and lined, make-up without a smudge and done by an expert hand.  She smiled pretty with dark plum lips and tapped dark plum fingernails on the counter once when she came up to the front desk.  With an elbow settled on the counter and a hip tossed out as she leaned, she inquired in an exotic accent on a low purr of a voice.

"Hello, I'm looking for Officer Brandt.  Could you call him down for me, please?"  With a wink, she added:  "I'm surprising him, he does not know I'm in town."*

*Ms. Ghali @ 5:22PM
[I'm here to surprise him, you see (don't tell him who's here, thank you):  Appearance 3 + Subterfuge 2]
Roll: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

jamie @ 5:25PM
[WITNESSED]

[vesta]

After that short phone call, Alexander had thought through what little advice he’d been given about dealing with something like this.  Don’t go to the Chantry, and by extension he includes the Warehouse.  Try not to use Ginger?  Well, that’s no longer an issue.  At least until he gets a new phone to use and Grace works her magic on it.  It had crossed his mind that he could avoid heading home, but would that be too much of a giveaway?  Too much of a change in pattern?  Once this current disaster is over, he’d have to put more thought into what he’ll do if this happens again.  Assuming that he survives this disaster.  No, he doesn’t change his pattern that much.  Not yet.
 
-------------------------
 
October 13th
 
Most of the morning had been taken up by paperwork.  Some actual, literal, paper, but a lot more of the electronic variety.  But it was taking an age.  Whatever had been screwing up the network was back with a vengeance, and he’s sat at his desk.  One elbow rests on the desk, the hand resting under his chin and propping up his head.  The other hand?  Its fingers repeatedly drum on the desk while he watches the little hourglass fill up, turn over, fill up, turn over…
 
The excitement is interrupted by the phone calling.  One of the desk officers, asking him to come down.  If he hadn’t been staring at the little hourglass for quite so long, it might have struck him as odd that no reason was given.  If he hadn’t been so bored, the interruption might not have been quite so welcome.  Alexander takes a swig of now-cold coffee from the mug on his desk, locks the PC and heads to the front counter.
 
 

The officer on the desk turns at the sound of Alexander’s appearance behind him, and the two of them exchange nods.  They know of each other, simply acquaintances, but their respective duties mean that they don’t cross each other’s paths often. 
 
A friend of yours came to say hello.
 
The officer introduces the strange woman on the other side of the counter, but it’s not a face that Alexander recognises.  Hell, the sensation of things being torn apart as he walked through the door wasn’t one he recognises, or finds particularly pleasant.  There’s a slight catch as he sees the woman leaning against the desk, one he hopes could be put down to his not recognising this ‘friend’.  It’s too late to about-face now, too late to disappear back into the rear of the station.  Too late to get away from an Awakened who appears to have asked for him by name.  Maybe the woman who called yesterday?  Well, wasn’t that just great.
 
Alexander takes the remaining few steps to his side of the counter, trying hard to put his best poker face on. 
 
“Can I help you?”
 
It quickly becomes obvious to the other officer that this is no acquaintance of Alexander, certainly now out-of-town friend stopping by to catch up.  There’s a quiet throat clearing and he makes himself scarce.
 
 

Officer Brandt @ 12:29AM
[Awareness?]
Roll: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Officer Brandt @ 12:30AM
[And I know what you are, but can I keep a poker face?  So much the WP]
Roll: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
jamie @ 12:31AM
[don't hurt yourself, dude]
jamie @ 12:35AM
[oh right. WITNESSED.]

[Kenna]

As fate and luck would have it, Alexander Brandt had been headed out to the front desk when Ihsan Ghali had rolled up anyways.  She was laying the charm thick and heavy on the officer who was receiving the public when he appeared.  The officer called her a friend of his, but Alexander didn't recognize her and the tension to him gave that away.  With a clearing of the throat, the officer at the front found somewhere else to be for a moment-- there had to be some files to shuffle somewhere.

Can I help you?

Ihsan smiled, and it was an expression that made it look like her teeth were made for tearing.  Of course they weren't actually sharp, that would be silly, but she still gave the impression of somebody about to pounce and rip and tear.

It took some focus to understand her, for her accent was dense, but her words were forward and her English was spot-on, sentences grammatically correct and well structured under the Arabic shroud.

"No.  I'm here to help you."

He recognized her before she'd even spoken up, she was pretty sure, but there was no doubting that she was the Ms. Ghali that called him about Kozlowski yesterday.  You don't come across many Egyptian women in Denver, Colorado.  She adjusted how she was standing, stayed leaned forward against the desk but now had both elbows on the counter, with her face cupped in the palms of her hands and fingertips resting at her temples.  She was enjoying this, and gave the distinct impression of a cat who'd discovered a mouse hole.

"We could discuss this here, but I feel that you are not a man to shit where you eat.  Perhaps you would take a pretty young woman to coffee instead?"

-------------------------

Ms. Ghali @ 1:14PM
[Can I read your poker face? - Perception 2 + Empathy 1]
Roll: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

jamie @ 1:15PM
[poor alexander. 'NESSED.]

[vesta]

No.  I’m here to help you.
 
While the simple, physical appearance of this woman may not have started any alarm bells ringing, her attempts to get around the desk officer and her voice certainly did.  This was, indeed, the woman who had called out of the blue.  The reason he’d cut himself off from easy contact with the other Awakened.  Safe Awakened, at least.  It might have been a little optimistic, maybe naïve, to think that simply becoming un-contactable would be enough to make this little problem go away.  After all, she had addressed him by his title.  She’d known who he was and where he worked.  If this Ms Ghali knew where he worked, it was quite possible that she knew where he lived.  And who the hell knew what else she knew about him.
 
Even without all of that, Alexander isn’t a man who likes being played.  And this woman?  Seemed to be enjoying whatever game she was trying to get him to run through right now.
 
Fuck.
 
Alexander tries to keep a static face, tries to keep back that he knows that this Awakened woman is apparently trying to stalk him.  But he’s tired.  The night of the noise complaint, the hours of statements and reports and everything else that followed.  His battering against the walls of his limitations in the showers.  Something snaps, just for a second.  His voice drops to something only the two of them are likely to hear.  “Look, unless you happen to be a murderer who can vanish into thin air who wants to turn yourself in, I don’t want you, or your shit, anywhere near me.” 
 
He clears his throat, taking a moment to look at the ceiling, before continuing at a more normal volume and with the ghost of a dead smile that doesn't come close to touching his eyes.  “I’m sorry, Madam, this isn’t a dating agency.  Did you wish to report a crime this morning?  Or did you have information relating to one?”
 
 
 ------

Officer Brandt @ 1:56PM
[To start: You playing games with me?  Per+Emp]
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Officer Brandt @ 2:03PM
[Man+Sub: Totally no idea what you're talking about.  How can the Denver PD serve you today?]
Roll: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2) ( botch x 1 )
Officer Brandt @ 2:04PM
Gee, thanks Mr Dice Roller.
jamie @ 2:06PM
HAHAHAHAHA
jamie @ 2:06PM
Ahem. Witnessed.

[Kenna]

Ihsan looked pleased with her little game, like she didn't realize that she was the only one having fun with it. That light of amusement clouded like a storm cloud had passed over its source, and for a moment her brow creased when Alexander had spoken low and told her to step right the fuck off.

When he looked toward the ceiling like it were a reset button and then asked her if she had any crimes to report, Ihsan placed a blunt, stormy looking stare upon him. It could almost be called a sulking expression-- were here lower lip out and her arms folded it certainly would be. But then she echoed the clearing of his throat with her own and pulled a smaller, more narrow-eyed smile up across her face.

"Well, perhaps I had. But you don't want my shit anywhere near you."

Her arms spread out, palms to the ceiling, until she was making the gesture of a big helpless shrug. When her shoulders dropped down from her ears she started walking backward toward the door. Her arms dropped to her sides and her smile broadened just a bit. "This could have been a relay race-- the two of us, gunning for the finish line of this murder mystery together. But it seems I'll race against you instead."

She turned by this point, so she could open the doors to the police station to leave. As she went, she wriggled fingers over her shoulder in farewell. "Competition is the spirit to success."

[vesta]

Where Ihsan had started to move away from the counter, Alexander had grasped his side with both hands as if to lean forward against it.  She wouldn’t be able to see it, but his knuckles turn white with the strength of the grip that he has on the wood.  The faint spirit of a smile fades from his face and the stony neutrality returns to mask whatever might be going through his mind at that moment.  He doesn’t react, doesn’t move, as the woman shrugs and waves and throws her little comments in his direction.  Alexander gets what he wants; he watches the doors swing closed as the woman leaves.  He lets go of the counter, but it’s an effort; his hands have cramped up with the tension of his grip.  With one last glance as the now-still doors, he makes his own exit into the back of the station.
 
It’s not his desk that he returns to, at least not just yet.  It’s the locker room, just as deserted as he’d hoped.  It wasn’t close to any shift changes, so only the occasional straggler needing to shower, change, or retrieve something would be passing through.  Which is fortunate. 
 
Fortunate, because there’s nobody to hear as he punches the front of his locker.  Fortunate, because there’s nobody to hear him shouting at the dented door, “the fucking woman thinks this is some kind of game?!”  The door gets a boot in it, just for good measure, but his temper is fading.  Fading, only to be replaced with yet more worry.  Who was she?  There hadn’t been any mention of her on Ginger before he trashed his phone, and he wasn’t about to start randomly calling up people to ask if they knew the new psycho in town.  Not if there was any chance that his calls were going to be monitored.  Same for trying to dig up anything about her in the systems he had access to here. 
 
But how the hell had she found out about him?   
 
And... What the hell did she know?