Play@YSDC

The address you got from Pizner for his office takes you to an ordinary three-storey white building in the middle of an ordinary street in the middle of an ordinary day of working activity. It's early afternoon, and the early spring's sun is warm and comfortable. People walk around carrying their coats on their arms, enjoying the pleasant weather after the morning's rain.

Further along the street, a couple of hundred meters away, preparations are underway for a movie shooting. A gregarious crew is hauling equipment around and you can hear them cracking jokes and laughing. That is somewhat reassuring - with these many people around, it's unlikely anyone would be willing to cause troubles.

You drive the car in front of the building on a first pass, then make a turn around the block and park not too far away.

Sense Trouble,[dice]0[/dice]

Clarence gets an uneasy feeling about this situation.

Holly is unaware of any potential trouble.

OOC,Sense Trouble roll (no points spent): [dice]0[/dice]

Perhaps the recent developments have made you nervous, but you are on edge. Is that black car following you? No, it just turned right, false alarm. And that man, watching you from a table in a cafè... is he spying on you? Perhaps it was risky coming here, or perhaps you're just being paranoid.
In the end, after having scanned your surroundings for ten long minutes, you can't pinpoint anything truly suspicious. You think you're safe, and the area is clear. All that's left is going inside and find the office.

carnage_lee,As Cearlan rolled a 6, I'm moving on as I don't think you're going to make a spend. If you wish, though, you can make it and roll. I'll tell you if you find anything strange.

Sense Trouble,I'm not going to spend, iirc Christoper is down to 1 pts in that pool.

Lay of the land,is this like a 'typical' office building, with a lobby? If so, Christopher will loiter in the lobby for a few minutes to make sure no-one is following us. If necessary Christoper can also keep the receptionist (in the lobby) busy, so the others can slip up to the floor that Pizner's office is on.

carnage_lee,You can check your sheet in "The Investigators" thread. Unless I made some mistake, you have 3 points left in Sense Trouble.

The building is a "typical" office building, but doesn't seem to have anyone working as a receptionist, probably to keep rents on the cheap side. As a matter of fact, the building looks like it could use some cleaning. In the lobby there's a large panel on a wall, on which is written a list of all the offices inside, and the relative floor. Pizner Investigations is on the third floor.

"Clarence, I think it's best if you check it out first," says Holly, "in case someone's there. Christopher and I are best off not having been seen here. If there's a secretary or something, you can pretend you want to hire Pizner. If it's clear, you can come get us."

"Yeah, no problem Holly." Clarence says before adding; "Most PI work involves peoples partners straying from home so I'll use that if I need to to arrange an appointment. That way if there's no-one there I can come and get you all."

Clarence gets to the third floor, looking around. There are many offices, mostly white collars and salesmen. After a quick search he finds Pizner's office. Clarence leans on the door as if checking the name, while listening for any noise from inside. There's none. He then knocks on the door, and waits one... two... three seconds. No answer.

Christopher Fontana

Christopher fights the urge to pace up and down and to keep checking his watch, it's only been a matter of minutes but seems like ages since Clarence disappeared up to the third floor. "I hate waiting around" he says to Holly giving in to one urge as he scratches at his arm, "mosquito bite" he adds "itches like the devil."

Clarence tries the door.

OOC:   Is my "attention" of the office door visible from anywhere, other workers or offices for example?

Clarence tries the door, but it's locked.

Cearlan,[ooc]If you want to pass by the door, you'll need to open it either by brute force or by picking the lock, that doesn't seem particularly good. At the moment, the corridor is empty and no one can see you.[/ooc]

I notice that I have lockpicking 4/4 so I think my course of action is plain. I'll spend one of my points I believe.

[dice]0[/dice]

Making sure that the coast is clear, Clarence kneels down and starts to work on the lock with his picks.

"Don't scratch it," says Holly, examining the bite, "you'll only make it worse. Are you okay, Christopher? If you need to talk, I'm here for you. Is that the same spot where you were bitten before?"

OOC,Locksmith is an investigative skill, so it just works without needing to roll. You may need to spend a point, if the Keeper says so. Probably not more than one in this case, though. This isn't Fort Knox.

Clarence kneels in front of the door and takes some simple lockpicking tools out of a pocket - a true PI can never go on his business without. The lock is relatively poor, and picking it is an easy task. Still, Clarence can hear the noise coming from the offices around, and fear that anyone might be coming out at any moment. The seconds pass one after the other, sweat forming on Clarence's brow, then finally there's a click - the door's open.

Christopher Fontana

"It's just a bite, I'll pick up a bottle of calamine lotion later. I'm a bit 'jumpy' I guess, this whole 'thing' seems to get more and more serious as we dig deeper and we've only just scratched the surface! We've already committed 'kidnapping' and now 'breaking and entering' if we're not careful we could have the authorities to worry about too not just the remnants of Echevarria's cult of lunatics. " he says glumly.

Clarence has a quick look round the office to ensure that there is nothing obvious to see. He then slips out of the building before anyone can notice his activities. He gets near to the car and attracts Christopher's attention and then waits a couple of doors down from the lobby where Pizner's office is. When Christopher joins him he leads the way to the office and slides inside - closing the door behind him, having instructed Christopher to do the same if the coast is clear.

The search begins

"I know," says Holly, looking down. "I'm practically a gun moll now. I can't help feeling guilty, but I knew we had to do it. These people play for keeps, and they won't hesitate to kill us if we give them a chance."

OOC,Is the mosquito bite on the same spot as the bite the mental patient gave him in Savannah?

Pizner's office is a small room, with old wallpaper coming loose in the corners and a few cheap pieces of forniture. A lingering smell of tobacco fills your nostrils. You see a single painting on the wall, a stormy blue sea with a lonely ship lost among the waves. A quick look behind it reveals a wall safe - no surprise here, Pizner surely didn't strike you as an art type. On the far side from the door, a simple desk with a phone and a lamp. You see lots of notes, files, folders, pieces of papers everywhere. It's gonna be a long search.

"We'll search faster with all three of us doing it," says Holly, slipping on a pair of surgical gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints and offering two more pairs to her friends. "Let's lock the door behind us so we aren't disturbed."

OOC,Yes, I'll help search.

Christoper Fontana

Christopher takes a pair of gloves with a smile, "Thank you." and puts them on "Right, let's get this over with.." he makes sure that the outer door of the office is closed and locked. After that he moves over to the desk and starts to sort through the files...

After donning the gloves, Clarence heads over to the safe to see if he can open it.

Looking around he looks for a glass to see if he can use it to "listen to the tumblers" of the safe.

You wear your gloves and get to work. It takes you a couple of hours to search through everything, but you do manage to find some interesting stuff.

First, a small dossier composed of only two pages.
The first one is handwritten with a pencil, looks like someone writing down hastily.
"Holly Chastain. Young female. Blonde. Doctor of some kind, most likely alienist.
Flanagan. Man, priest, around his mid-fifties. Skinny, short. Nicotine stains on his hands.
Unknown man. Mid thirties. Well built, wears a suit. Dark hair, clean shaven.
Unknown man. Young, mid twenties. Dark hair, clean shaven.
Unknown man. Middle aged. Dark hair, clean shaven. Old fashioned appearance, bookworm.

Group of possible troublemakers. Heads up from C. at the station. Follow them, assess threat and countermeasures."

Then a second note:

"Two men, followed them at the sunset hotel. The descriptions match, except for the priest. Instead, there seems to be another man. Hard one. Possibly ex-con. Will focus first on the woman, see if I can put some pressure on her".

You also find a folder identified by the label:" Attn: Walker", along with the familiar Pasadena address. It contains information on the jobs completed by Pizner for Walker. Nothing seems to be of particularly intetest to you, but confirms a long working relationship between the two men.

Finally, a list of contact informations. One is identified by "W." and matches the phone number you have. There's no address here though.

OOC:   Opening the safe requires a 1-point Locksmith spend.

OK I shall spend a point of locksmith to open the safe.

OOC:   (probably got nothing in it but you never know )

"It sounds like this information originally came from someone who knew about us from Savannah," says Holly. "Father Flanagan is on the list, but Cameron is not, though Pizner noticed that. C. at the station is most likely Detective Cooper. Pizner thought he could get the better of me, but he didn't know me very well."

Clarence got to work on the safe while the other were looking around. After a few minutes of moving around the knob, straining his ears to hear a response from inside, he finally gets it open. Disappointingly, there's not much in it. A .32 automatic pistol, with two boxes of bullets. Some money, cash, not much more than 150 dollars. And an ID, probably fake, with Pizner's photo and a different name: James Keller.

Christopher Fontana

Christpher nods in agreement, "You're right, someone in Savannah tipped Walker off, as we already suspected. We'd better put all this stuff back as we found it, there's nothing new here ... well confirmation of some of our suspicions. I think we need to move forward with our next task, try and move ahead while Pizner is out of action."

OOC:   I wouldn't take anything from the safe, no need to advertise our burglary.

"Yes, let's leave everything the wa we found it," says Holly, "though we might want to remove the firing pin from that gun as a precaution. He won't notice until he tries to shoot someone."

Cearlan wrote:

OOC:   Wasn't about to steal anything, but as the idea was to search the office I thought that the safe may contain some information. But if you think it would not be beneficial, I'll leave it alone

OOC:   Openning the safe was neccessary, I agree. Was just supplying narrative rationale as to 'our' actions. There may well have been something in there that we would have had to take, as it is we have confirmed links between people who have cropped up in our investigations and the fact that while they are ' on to us' they don't have a whole lot of information. If we make sure that we check out of the hotel then we ought to be able to give them the slip for a while, even better if we can lay a false trail.

Overlord87 wrote:

OOC:   So, it's out to the UCLA now?

OOC:   I think so, after covering our tracks. If Pizner doesn't know his office was ransacked, then so much the better.

You make sure Pizner's gun is useless, and everything is how you found it, then close the door and leave the building. It's time to be on Ayers's trail.

OOC:   Continues here: viewtopic.php?f=352&t=5948