Play@YSDC

David Rittenhouse Laboratory, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
3:30 PM - Thursday, July 17, 1969
Detective Jim Hendricks sat behind the wheel of his unmarked car in the parking lot outside the David Rittenhouse Laboratory on the campus of the University of Pennslyvania with his partner, Detective Gus Stoker. The younger man, who wasn't quite thirty yet, still had the eagerness of his youth and never seemed to be bored on stakeouts like this one. He had only recently made Detective, of course. He would learn, as Jim had, that stakeouts were dull as dishwater. Jim's older brother Dave was a sergeant working at the firing range at the police academy, which still had to be more interesting than this. Sergeant Charlie Rawlings had assigned the two of them to follow Brian Anderson, who had somehow managed to get released on bail this morning. After Brian had left City Hall, he had gotten on a bus that took him west across the Schuylkill River to University City in West Philadelphia. From there he had gone to his frat house for a while, then to a morning class, then to the cafeteria for lunch, and finally to afternoon classes. They had managed to get a listing of the classes he took, and this was his last class of the day, a chemistry course. It was due to let out any minute now.

“In my day Stoker,” Hendricks says to his partner, as they waited for Anderson to come out of his class, “We'd have rousted a couple of the Candyman's frat brothers. We'd have got something from them on the perp. How the Hell he got let free I don't understand?” Hendricks spits out the car window in disgust. “I wonder what happened to those guys busted up near his daddy's house?”

After a pause he continues, “The guy takes a chemistry class. Probably mixing up drugs right now...” Grousing had always been his way of getting through the boredom of a stakeout – and if it annoyed his partner, all the better. "We'd better be prepared in case he's mixing up any surprises..."

Stoker nodded. "We got the guy dead to rights," he said. "All the evidence we need to put him away was on him. I don't get how he got bail either." He shook his head. "Too many bleeding hearts in the justice system, I guess. They're so worried about the rights of criminals that they don't think about the right of everyone else to be safe from them. And those two out-of-towners outside his old man's place...well, there's nothing to stop them from leaving town. Of course, whatever they're up to here could entice them to stay, if there's enough money in it for them."

Remy Leblanc and Markus Fletcher had also been released on bail this morning, which wasn't much of a surprise. However, Sergeant Charlie Rawlings had announced an APB on them shortly after they'd already been turned loose. He had finally gotten a response from the National Crime Information Center - too late - that Leblanc was wanted for fraud in Louisiana, from where he had no doubt come. His bail had been revoked, but finding him wouldn't be easy. As far as Jim Hendricks knew, he was still at large.

"Here he comes," said Stoker, nodding again. Sure enough, Brian Anderson was walking out of the front door of the lab building.

OOC,[b]Jim[/b], please roll Spot Hidden.

Jim looked closely as Anderson came through the door.

Link to roll,[url]http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3033333/[/url]

For just a second, Jim saw Brian turn and look directly at him before walking away down the street.

Jim says, "We've been made! We'll follow - keep pressure on the guy. He knows we're here, so he might panic and do something stupid - if he does, we can bust him again."

OOC,Do we need to follow on foot, or can we follow in the car?

Jim starts the car and they drive, slowly (and keeping a about 25 yards distance behind) Brian Anderson. He is ready to gun the engine to catch up quickly and get out if necessary.

Jim drove slowly, following Brian. He didn't need to accelerate, as there is no way that the youth could outrun his car even at a sedate pace, nor did he even try. He walked back to the frat house and went inside.

Jim says, "Stay here and watch, I'll go round back - I bet he's gonna go straight out that way. Hoot the horn if he comes out this way - he already knows we're here so it won't matter."

With that he gets out of the car and heads round to the other side of the frat house.

Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity House, University of Pennsylvania
3:45 PM - Thursday, July 17, 1969

Jim walked around the Alpha Episilon Pi house, which was a three-story building with ivy-coated brick walls and double front doors. In the back there was a smaller, single door. Nobody was around.

Jim waited, watching. Hopefully Stoker was competent enough to be alone at the front... They would have to wait the punk out - without a good cause he couldn't just go in there like they would have done in the old days.

Jim settled down and started waiting. Nothing happened for fifteen minutes. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of the car's horn from the other side of the frat house.

"Damn!" Jim muttered as he ran around to the front of the building to join his partner.

When Jim got back to the front of the frat house, Gus was waiting for him in the passenger seat of the car, having leaned across to tap the horn. "There he goes!" he said, pointing to the west. A distant figure was walking away briskly about half a block in that direction.

Jim got back into the car, started it, and resumed the slow shadowing of the target.

He peered ahead to see if Anderson was carrying anything, while asking Gus, "He bring anything with him when he came out?"

"Nope," said Gus. "The only thing I could see that's different is that he's now wearing a Phillies cap."

Gus had left the engine running, so they were able to get moving faster. As Jim slowly followed the young man through campus he could see that he had a red baseball cap on his head.

OOC,[b]Jim[/b], please roll Spot Hidden.

Jim continued to observe Anderson, looking to see if he had anything with him, or if there was anything else unusual about him.

OOC,[url]http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3045947/[/url]

Jim drove after the young man, but couldn't detect anything unusual about him. It was Gus who noticed something off. "That's not Anderson!" he said. "He's wearing the same clothes, but it's not him! This guy's a few inches shorter, and I can see dark hair poking out from that baseball cap. Our guy is blond."

Jim pulled a fast U-turn and sped back to the frat house. No point in busting the decoy - he'd have plenty of time to mess with the frat boys later... They had some hard times coming!

Jim knew the stakeout had gone bad... He should have just gone in and got Anderson by the scruff. He knew the perp was probably lost.

OOC,[url]http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3051332/[/url]

OOC,Thanks for telling me about your first roll. I managed to find it [url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3051324/]here[/url] by doing a search on your character's name.

By the time Jim turned around and reached the frat house again, there was no sign of Brian Anderson.

"He's on foot," said Gus, "so he can't have gotten too far yet. Maybe we can still track him down, or we can try to figure out where he might be going."

OOC,[b]Jim[/b], if you want to try to find [b]Brian[/b]'s trail, roll Track.

Jim looked around for some kind of clue as to if the perp had left, or maybe if he could see him.

OOC,NP Didn't want to cheat - spoils the game. Track roll [url]http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3054845/[/url]

"I have no idea which way he's gone," said Gus. "For all I know, he could still be inside, but I doubt it."

"We'll wait a bit. If he' gone, we missed him," Jim said. "They went out of their way to decoy us away, so there's a chance he's still in there."

Jim and Gus waited for fifteen minutes, but there was no sign of any activity.

Not having much choice Jim decided to wait a little longer... Sometimes it could be ages before anything happened on a stakeout. And if the bird had flown already, it was too late to do anything about it.

More time passed, and still there was no activity.

"Maybe we should radio in and report that we've probably lost him," said Gus.

"Fair enough," Jim admitted. He took the mike and called in, "Looks like we lost Anderson. They decoyed us. We're not certain he left the frat house, but it's likely... So unless we can get a probable cause to get in there and see for sure..."

The dispatcher connected Jim to Sergeant Charlie Rawlings, who sighed when he heard the news. "Understood, Hendricks," he said. "We'll send out a couple of guys from the swing shift to relieve you. Even if he's not at the frat house now, he'll probably come back to it eventually and they can keep an eye on him then. Once they get there, you might as well come back to the office and call it a day. Your shift ended a little while ago. Hell, so did mine."

"Okay," Jim replied, "We'll head back as soon as the relief shows up."

"Before you leave campus," added the sergeant, "swing by the Biomedical Library and pick up Sergeant Bill Johns. He'll need a ride back here, and he should be done his research by now. We can all compare notes when you get back."

Once the relief arrived Jim started up the car and drove over to the biomed lab. He pulled up there and looked for Bill Johns.

OOC,[b]Jim[/b] is moving to the thread linked below.

Shadow Man