CHAPTER ONE: Murray's Journey: Following

[Laraqua]

There's a Robbie Rabbit stuffed animal, three show bags from the Lakeside Amusement Park, and the camera bag. The show bags each have a tag attached to them, like you do when you're giving people presents.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray looks at the tags to see if there are any names in them. He peeks in the show bags to see what's inside, careful not to move them from their positions nor to disturb their contents. Then he looks inside the camera bag, hoping to find a USB connector.

[Laraqua]

There's an envelope in each show bag alongside the normal assortments. One has Murray's name. The other two are for her husband and daughter. The tags match the envelope labels that are written in Mrs. Ashby's smooth, clear handwriting. The camera bag, at least, contains what he's looking for. The USB connector. At least he can download the contents of her camera now.

[Mr. Handy]

Taking care to note exactly where he found it as always, Murray uses the USB connector to hook up the camera to his smartphone and starts downloading copies of all the pictures taken on it. While that is going on, he can continue his search of the room.

OOC,Are the envelopes sealed?

[Laraqua]

The envelopes are all sealed but its easy enough to note where they are and then download copies of the pictures onto his phone. The suitcases on the couch contain a few sets of clothing from what he can see on the top of the pile without disturbing anything. Some of it is so new they still have price tags on them. Obviously, she spent a bit while she was here.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray returns the suitcases back the way they were and looks inside the chest of drawers next.

[Laraqua]

The first drawer slides out with a dull creak, revealing a battered Bible and sixteen dead flies, all covered in a layer of dust. The sickly green interior lining of the drawer is peeled and flaking in places as though the chest of drawers is must older than it appears. The second drawer is empty with a rotting interior harboring several writhing maggots that almost seem to be feeding off the very wood itself. The third drawer is almost gutted with rot and white ants but it contains a pale red ring box with a dusty, velvet exterior.

[Mr. Handy]

Being sure not to alter its position (it looks like it hasn't been moved in years) and to disturb the dust as little as possible, Murray opens the ring box just enough to see inside.

[Laraqua]

It's impossible not to smudge the dust with his fingers when he opens it and, unless he wants to bend himself at a ridiculous angle to peek inside a box in a drawer, he is forced to open it fully. Inside is a beautiful navy blue blue with a diamond ring and a gold ring sitting together in the little embedded ridge. His memory could be wrong, but it does look an awful lot like Mrs. Ashby's engagement ring. He'd noticed it most when she'd been wearing it while having her fling. Most married women don't do that. They hide their rings. But she'd still been wearing it. It looks like now she's taken it off.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray cautiously closes the ring box back up and replaces it in its original position, trying to keep the dust as smooth as possible. He is relieved that at least his gloves mean that he won't be leaving fingerprints in the dust. Then he shuts the drawers and looks into the bathroom.

[Laraqua]

The bathroom is an old-fashioned tiled masterpiece with a claw-footed bath tub and an ornate brass-edged mirror over the sink. A make-up bag sits on the edge of the sink with a mascara bottle sitting on top of it. The three interesting details would have to be an old-fashioned shaving razor, a lipstick-stained wine glass, and two empty champagne bottles sitting on the small cabinet next to the bath.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray looks at the items with interest, and he also looks on the sink to see how many toothbrushes there are, which is a good way to tell how many people are staying in the room. No matter how intimate people are with each other, they seldom share toothbrushes.

[Laraqua]

There's only one toothbrush. A bright red electronic toothbrush that looks to be quite expensive.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray returns to the bedroom and double checks that everything is back exactly as he found it and to see if there's anything he hasn't examined while he waits for his phone to finish downloading the pictures from the camera. Cara Ashby has clearly been spending a lot of money, and he doubts it all came from the credit card, which would have hit its limit before she could have bought everything. Whoever she is with probably has money too. When the download is complete, he disconnects the USB connector, shuts down the camera and leaves it in its exact spot, pockets his phone, returns the USB connector to precisely where he got it in the camera bag, closes the bag, and then closes the wardrobe. He takes one last look around the room before tiptoeing to the door and peeking out through the peephole to see if the coast is clear.

[Laraqua]

There doesn't appear to be anyone in the corridor. He can't hear anyone either. He should be good to go.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray quietly opens the door, returns the "Do Not Disturb" sign back where he found it, and just as silently shuts the door. Then he removes his gloves and puts them in the pockets of his coat and walks back to his own room to review the pictures he took of the article and the photos he downloaded to his phone.

[Laraqua]

Murray finds his way easily enough to his hotel room and zooms in to view the photographs. Most of them are of the town, the amusement park, the lake, and other beautiful sights. She seemed to have a penchant for dusk and dawn photographs as well. A few of the later photographs of people show her and a dark-haired woman sitting in the cafe or out in front of the lake or out on the pier. She obviously wasn't the one taking the pictures. There's also a couple taken at the Amusement Park that show a young girl of around 6 or 7 with long blond hair pulled into a ponytail that obviously wasn't her daughter. One of the pictures shows the dark-haired woman and the girl hugging in front of a queue for the rollercoaster.

The article extolls the town's virtues as being a lovely, peaceful town with a majestic lake, beautiful forested hill-side, and elegant, small-town architecture that never forgets its roots. It talks about the town as being the perfect place to come to unwind, de-stress and forget about all of the world's hardships. It then discusses the merits of the new Lakeview Hotel and how it is basically a reconstruction of the original Lakeview Hotel. The architect and purchaser, Samuel Campbell, used to dream about the place and feels that certain buildings 'desire to be renewed' and 'always have existed and should simply be there'. After all, 'Silent Hill needs Lakeview Hotel. It needs something majestic to overlook the great beauty that is Toluca Lake and that it would be a grevious sin to allow such a gem to be destroyed by nature's elements'.

It later goes on to detail that Lakeview Hotel burned down when a heater that was known to reach 'troubling degrees' was left too close to a room curtain.

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,By the way, I locked the door to Room 305 behind me before I left. I forgot to explicitly state that I did it in that post, but I would have. If that's a problem, I can always go back there now and make sure it's locked.

Murray leaves his room and heads downstairs to get back to his car. It's time to follow up some of the leads in town. It doesn't seem all that likely that Cara would go back to the amusement park, which is right down the road from the motel, and if she did he might not even find her there. However, Annie's Bar wasn't that much further and seemed a likely place for her to visit multiple times. It would be small enough that he'd see her if she were there. Even if she weren't, people there might remember her.

[Laraqua]

Hide,No that makes sense. The only reason I'd make you retro it is if there were much of a chance of someone coming by, but no, there's not that many rooms down there so its highly unlikely that someone would be leaving / coming at the time.

Annie's Bar is easily enough found. It's just down the road in fact and not far from the lake. The trouble becomes obvious when he passes the entrance. The lights are off - including the neon sign - and the front door is marked with Crime Scene tape. It looks like something's happened here. Something big, and likely illegal, otherwise they probably wouldn't have bothered with the tape. Only murder scenes generally garner this much interest.

[Mr. Handy]

Murray parks near the bar and gets out to look over the scene, curious about what might have happened here. He looks around to see if anyone is there and peeks into the entrance to see if anyone is inside.