Monday Sep 4 - Hudson Street Station

[Gaffer]

As you arrive at the stationhouse, the day is warm for autumn. A strong breeze from the southwest pushes big puffy clouds across the blue skies.

Dex pulls into the curb and opens the passenger door for Delores. He doesn’t see Langdon’s car parked on this block.

The scene inside is less hectic than last Friday evening, but a number of officers and civilians are transacting various business. Summoned by Sergeant Zann, Esposito comes out and ushers Dex and Delores into the same interview room in which you all met with Marlene Hirt. Langdon is a bit late, but no one seems surprised.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex holds open the front door for Delores, and then nods to the rest of the police staff. When Esposito comes over to greet them, Dex offers his hand. "Have a good weekend? Enjoy the time off?" He can't help himself, this guy just rubs him the wrong way. Dex is pretty sure when he was a Prohibition Agent he did more in the first hour of the day then the detective does in the whole day. He follows Esposito and Delores into the interview room. When Langdon walks in, Dex just nods. "So, what have we all learned? I know I have kept in pretty regular touch with Langdon, so we seem on the same page. But before we give over what we know, Delores, Detective Esposito, care to fill us in how your weekends went? Do we know more than we did on Friday about Mr. Hirt or his "sisters"? Or about Mr Hirt's mysterious disappearance?"

[FrankyEsposito]

I don't know what Ford's problem is, but I'm really not in the mood for it. I look at my watch, pointedly. "Glad you could make it. As for my weekend, I had a nice little trip to Rhode Island. A wonderful little talk with an ex-cop name of Malone who just about had a nervous breakdown when I started asking about the hinky things going on down in Red Hook. It was a real ring-ding, I tell you."

Before Ford can open his mouth I go on. "Alright, first things first. I checked on all the John Does including a really ripe floater from the Gowanus canal. No dice there, though I have to say I'm sorry you missed the floater, Dex."

[Delores Brown]

"I spoke to miss Hirt's doorman and he told me she's a blonde, so unless she's taken to wearing a wig, we can be pretty sure we weren't talking to the real Miss Hirt," said Delores. "I also spoke to her squeeze - he's not seen her for a couple of days and he knows she's worried abour her brother."

[Gaffer]

[OOC - Don't wait for Langdon to post, if you want to continue. We'll just assume he's late -- or something. Labor Day is a holiday for city workers, after all. He knows most of what Dex knows and can catch up later on Delores and Franky's information.]

[Dexter Ford]

Dex listens to what they have said, and sighs, pulling out his notes, and hands out copies to all there. "Well, I have to say Langdon and I have been a bit more...concrete in our investigations. I'll let Langdon, whenever he shows up, talk about his dinner with the false Miss Hirt, but he seems to think he may have an inside track on her. He has the opportunity for another date with her. I did some reading into those books that I managed to get copies of, and our missing Mr Hirt seems to have been quite interested in writing some material about these people and some sort of cult or religious organization. What it all has to do with his disappearance, I am not sure, but he has some connections to some odd people. I also talked to the doorman at Hirt's building, and I hadn't seen any sign of the police at all at his building. I did discover, and if you want to arrest me Esposito, go ahead, but I did discover that someone had broken into Hirt's apartment and that there was signs of a struggle. Broken glass panel on the kitchen door allowed entry. There were strange...claw...marks on the floor of the kitchen, signs of a bashed in kitchen door, obvious signs that someone was searching the apartment." Dex shows them the sketches of the marks from the kitchen floor and the measurements he took. He goes into the broken glass in the rear door, the tossed apartment living space, the damage in the kitchen, the strange painting that was discovered, and the otherwise neat office and bedroom. "There are signs he not only has been missing for a while, but there was a struggle in the process. IS that enough 'evidence' for a more formal police investigation into his disappearance should be opened up?"

[FrankyEsposito]

I'm completely silent, totally still. Ford is probably waiting for me to get into him with both feet over his weekend escapades. Instead, I walk out of the interview room without a word. I come back about 90 seconds later with my notebook. I can't see myself but I'm sure I'm white as a Ritz-Carlton sheet. I sit down, open my notebook, and try to hold it together.

"Okay, give me the details on the claw marks and this painting. We'll talk about the books later."

OOC-All,I don't know if you guys have kept up on what the others have been up to or not. I have purposely [i]not[/i] read your threads so that I can experience your story at the same time Franky does.

Gaffer,I've asked for someone to bring up the Suydam case file.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex opens up his notebook, and sits back, closing his eyes as he sees the apartment and begins to recount what they discovered at Hirt's apartment.

"Okay, Hirt is a bit of an oddball. Hall closet full of junk, crammed here and there, but the rest of the apartment seems neat and ordered. Call it an insight into his personality. Picture frame fallen on the book shelves in the living space, along with some knocked over books. Simply furnished, no sign of real money spent on the place. His study was neat and ordered: typewriter, stacked paper, new rug, some paintings, including one rather strange looking one. Nothing much of any importance in the office besides a street directory with a lot of Brooklyn addresses dog eared or marked. Most of the main rooms were pretty neat nothing to say was out of the ordinary. One bedroom appeared to be a guest room, the other Hirt's main bedroom. More books, but this time cheap novels and modern easy reading. The bookshelves were one of the signs that he had visitors looking for something. Neat and orderly rows of books, then haphazard books spilling on shelves. A guy is one or the other, and there was no sign of a roommate and nothing that indicated he was living with anyone else."

Dex glances back down at the notebook, and again closes his eyes, steepling his fingers before his face. "The kitchen was the first sign something was out of the normal. Scrap of cloth, from a tweed jacket, the kitchen door off its hinges, gouge mark on one of the kitchen drawers. Food in the refrigerator going bad and there was a missing knife from the carving block. Probably something fairly big. Broken glass pane on the door, but at face height, which was odd. And then there were the four parallel gouge marks on the floor of the kitchen. Those I have shown you. The only thing I took from the apartment were the drawings and measurements of those gouge marks, and a business card that was being used as a book mark in a copy of the Arabian nights Hirt had on his bedside." He reached into his coat and pulled out a business card for Guy Grenville and leave it on the table top. [SEE Handouts http://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/viewtop ... 574#p86574]

"That's all the concrete info I have gotten. Hirt didn't go willingly, someone has looked over his apartment, but who, I don't know. Frankly, I was planning on talking to this Grenville guy this afternoon, but other than that, I am pretty much at a dead end. Brooklyn seems where we should head next, but this creeping fake Ms Hirt still has me worried. I think she needs to be questioned as to who she really is. Langdon has her number..."

[Gaffer]

OOC,[color=#FF4000]Marlene Hirt is supposed to be meeting with you at Alphonse's apartment Monday afternoon.[/color]

Franky,[color=#FF4000]The Suydam case file is at Central Records at headquarters. There might still be some old files at the Butler Street Station in Brooklyn (if anyone can find them), but there aren't any here at Hudson Street.[/color]

[Delores Brown]

'Claw marks?' Delores shudders. What seemed like a kooky missing persons case was suddenly starting to look a lot more sinister. She pulls out a cigarette to calm her nerves and manages to light it with a trembling hand.

"I... I can check out the agent, see what he knows," she say, exhaling a stream of smoke. She waves a hand in front her to dispel the cloud, "He may know what Hirt was working on. Something must have happened to set things in motion."

[FrankyEsposito]

Franky,[color=#FF4000]The Suydam case file is at Central Records at headquarters. There might still be some old files at the Butler Street Station in Brooklyn (if anyone can find them), but there aren't any here at Hudson Street.[/color]

Gaffer,Any way to have them couriered over? Messenger boy? Pigeon? Byakhee?

[Gaffer]

Franky,[color=#FF4000]The Suydam case file is at Central Records at headquarters. There might still be some old files at the Butler Street Station in Brooklyn (if anyone can find them), but there aren't any here at Hudson Street.[/color]

Gaffer,Any way to have them couriered over? Messenger boy? Pigeon? Byakhee?

Franky,Since you don't have any Bureacracy, it'll cost you a one-point Cop Talk spend and take about a half hour. Zann says he'll get a buddy of his to walk it over.

[Langdon]

Langdon huffs into the station looking for his new-found ... cohort? He catches a glimpse of Dex's back heading down a hall and walks briskly after, only to find an unfamiliar man in a suit similar to one of Dex's. Frustrated and slightly lost, Langdon begins to make his way back to the front desk. Turning down a wrong hallway, he hears familiar voices. He knocks on the glass window of the interview room door, drawing himself up nice and tall and presentable-like.

God I hate being late.

[Gaffer]

OOC - Come on, folks, you all have good stories to tell and good reason to tell them.

[Langdon]

"Sorry I'm late. I suppose you've all discussed everything already? Dex, you told them about the apartment, right? I suppose I'll just add that the man had strange taste: one half of the apartment felt new and expensive, and then the rest was junk. He also had a very bizarre painting - a strange city - quite disturbing, and it didn't really fit in with the hunting prints he had everywhere else. Seemed to be a fan of the Thousand and One Nights - Scheherezade, Ali Baba, the rest."

"I'm sure Dex can catch me up on the rest. I'll just add that I had dinner with Miss Hirt and she seems..." Langdon pauses, looking for the right word, not finding it, "She seems pleasant enough, but her concern for her brother is... well it's odd. She seems worried about him, but she didn't really ask me any questions about what we'd found. Granted, we hadn't found anything yet but... she seemed more interested in arranging another dinner or night dancing with me than she did about finding her brother."

[FrankyEsposito]

OOC,I posted this once already -- not sure what happened.

"Now hold on a minute."

I look at Dex. "I thought you said she wasn't Marlene Hirt?"

[Dexter Ford]

"Hey hey Esposito. I didn't actually see the dame. From what I understood, Langdon met up with the skirt who hired us, the false Miss Hirt. If he actually met the real Miss Hirt, that's news to me."

Glances over at Landgon. "And from what he just said, does that sound like it would be the real Miss Hirt? Not concerned about her brother gone missing? That doesn't strike me as right if she really was Hirt' sister."

[Delores Brown]

"The porter at Miss Hirt's apartment told me she's a blonde," chipped in Delores. She looked across at Langdon. "What colour was your Miss Hirt's hair?" she asked him, "Assuming you managed to get your eyes north of her chassis, that is?" she added dryly.

[Langdon]

Already irritable from being late, Langdon overreacts slightly. "Now look here Miss Brown, I'm not some cad! When we first met Miss Hirt she was wearing a particularly interesting necklace, Egyptian or similar. And you're right, my Miss Hirt - as you insist on refering to her - did not have blonde hair." More calmly, "I don't suppose it's fashionable for women to wear wigs out to dinners and investigations?"

[Dexter Ford]

Okay, so it looks like Langdon met with the fake Miss Hirt. Whose name we still don't know. Has anyone met with the real blonde Miss Hirt at all?