Good Morning Mr. Dixon

[Camille Desmoulins]

It was a long, complicated process. There was a lot of trickery, a few illusion spells, one horribly misfired duplication spell that had covered one poor detective's desk in bright yellow paper clips and she now had a large bruise forming on her shoulder from getting elbowed while attempting to get by the confusion caused.

However, it had worked, and she was now in the head detective's office waiting for whenever Mr. Dixon decided it suited his fancy to show up. She hoped that it would be soon- it would be really hard to explain how she got in there if someone else decided to walk in. She'd probably get thrown out and have to start all over again.
Imogene was, if nothing else, very persistent.

"Well," she mumbled to herself, "At least I've gotten past the easy part..."

The hard part would be getting Mr. Basil Dixon to listen to what she had to say. She was certain that it would be very difficult, but she was also certain that this thing with Robert Crowley turning up dead after all of the shady, shady things that he'd been up to as well as the timing of it all, was never going to be looked at if she didn't speak with the chief detective directly. Or unless she convinced Mrs. Crowley to shell out a good four grand for her to get the information she needed- which was never going to happen. Mrs. Crowley was a house wife who's husband was now dead and gone with their only source of income.

Imogene paced the floor of the office a few times. She'd actually tried to make herself look professional today. She was even wearing a skirt- something that happened maybe twice a century. White blouse, black vest and black pencil skirt with black knee high boots. In this outfit she felt she looked like the dame in every crime noir movie ever made. Which she wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing. It might give the wrong impression and she also wasn't sure if he was a fan of crime noir- those things very rarely involved police detectives. More of things up her alley. She could assure both herself and Mr. Dixon (whenever he showed up) that she was not going to be sprawling on his desk any time soon though. Or ever for that matter. She wasn't going to be the helpless dame- or the vicious one. In fact she was quite bent on not being the dame at all.

She leaned on the desk idly, looking around the dark office. Even with the light on this place was drab. She fiddled with the string of not-so-authentic pearls on her neck, twisting it around her fingers and changing the colors of the beads as if to assure herself that despite this office's color absorbing abilities that the world had not turned into a black and white movie.
Because if it had, she would have to abandon this- she would not play the dame.
She considered herself much to competent to be helpless.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil's nose was buried in neither file, nor book, although he did happen to have a pink popsicle in his mouth. He couldn't keep it in for too long, because then his mouth would get too cold, and a frozen tongue is something that nobody really wants. Basil, especially, found it very important to keep the inside of his mouth as unfrozen as possible.

Beside him, trotting happily along on the ground, was his ever-faithful Benjamin. Benjamin was receiving some sort of smell in his super-great senses. Perhaps it was the fear from all of the humans in their turmoil, which Basil was currently completely ignoring.

The cat meowed, and Basil nodded. "It's in the office, whatever it is. There's no other reason for someone to come in here. Maybe they're in file-topia, although I hardly believe that they're going to be able to find anything in there. They don't know the order."

He nodded, and stuck the popsicle back into his mouth as he opened up his door. The light, being on, annoyed him, and he shielded his eyes as he slapped the wall where the light switch was. He missed it the first time, but connected with the switch the second time, and laughed triumphantly as he sunk into the darkness, pulling the door closed behind him.

"Take that," he muttered, jogging down the stairs as if he had done so hundreds of times before, which he had. The snake cage's lights were bright enough for him, as was the small lamp on his desk. "So," he said, making his way efficiently towards his desk. He didn't even trip over Benjamin, who skirted around his ankles to hop onto the desk. He was staring at Imogene as Basil was, although Basil wasn't seeming as if he wanted to be petted at the moment.

"He doesn't bite," Basil muttered, still looking at her as he leaned back in his chair. "But I do.
Why did you break into my office?"

[Camille Desmoulins]

Imogene started at the sudden absence of light but had collected her senses by the time that the fabled Basil Dixon was in the office. She watched him, and then looked at the cat who was looking at her. She hadn't brought either of her mice with her, thank god. She didn't have any pockets for them to be hiding in either- so the cat didn't worry her. She was far more afraid of the man sitting behind the desk. Although perhaps afraid was not a good word for it. Intimidated, more like. There wasn't anything really frightening about him.

She turned around to look at him as he sat down in his desk and sighed when he asked his question, "Because," she replied, "They wouldn't allow me in at the door and I'm not going to wait on whatever five year waiting list there is to talk to you. So my only other option was to... come in through less conventional means."
She didn't like to say she broke in. It made her sound like a criminal.

"But, that's not really the answer you were looking for. So I'm going to get to my point," she said, moving on before he could comment on her explanation, "Before you call whomever it is you call that would remove me from your office by force."
"My name is Imogene Braith, I'm a private detective and I am here to convince to you take a case which I'm completely sure that you wouldn't otherwise care about," she explained.

And she hoped to god that was going to be enough to at least get him to hear her out before having her forcibly removed from the premises.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil laughed at her comment. It was a somewhat short, and barking sort of laugh, but it was a laugh nonetheless. "Nobody is stupid enough to try and sneak in here," he said, leaning forward with a smirk of sorts on his face. "They always turn away when the employees upstairs tell them horrifying stories about me. And you opted to...destroy my upper offices, which means that you are either very, very moronic, or you have something which you indeed believe is important. Since you are apparently under the impression that it is the latter, do indeed spell it out for me."

His fingers were steepled together, and he seemed only vaguely interested as Benjamin meowed a bit. "He smells vermin," Basil said, as if to translate for Benjamin who could obviously not speak human. "You must have an infestation of sorts, whether welcome or unwelcome, I would not be able to say."

Now, what the girl would tell him, he supposed, would make him either throw her out of his office, ignore her, or pay actual attention to her. And since she was mentioning that it was something that he might otherwise not care about, he suspected that it must be some sort of trivial thing known only to people not him. "What is it, anyways? Some sort ofthing you wish for me to poke my nose into? Shady dealings? Well, if there was, and they would have come into me, then I suspect I would have read them. Why should I care?"

[Camille Desmoulins]

Imogene glanced at the cat, "I keep two mice. One of them shares a name with you- you should be honored," she explained, running a hand over the cat's back to satisfy it's need for attention. She sighed and collected herself as he commanded her to tell him why she was there. Some how it seemed a lot harder to put it into words now that she was here, standing in front of the terrifying Mr. Dixon.

However, he was much less terrifying then her other option. So she persisted.

"Mr. Peter Crowely, age 52, was found dead a week ago in Frill Lake," she explained, taking a step away from the desk and folding her hands behind her back since otherwise she would start with hand gestures that would make her seem so much less serious, "A week or so previously his wife had hired me to find out what he was up to. It's the type of case I get a lot of- he comes home late. Says he's at meetings every night. Been distant, etcetera and so forth. He wasn't cheating on her though, he was in meetings all the nights he said he was and there was no other women. But there was something definitely going on - all his meetings were long after his office had closed and he was embezzling huge amounts of money which never went home.

"He vanished one day after the murder of Mayor Townsend. His wife called me early in the morning asking if I knew where her husband was and saying he hadn't come home the night before. I'd wrapped up my investigation at that point so I hadn't followed him after he started home and as I told you before, he was found dead in the lake week ago."

She took a deep breath. Good, she'd gotten through all the exposition without trouble. She paused a moment to let the information sink in and to see if he would make any of the connections that she'd made. Though she was prepared to spell them out if he didn't get it, though she would be sorely disappointed.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil leaned back in his chair, his eyes still focused on the girl's as she spoke. "They didn't die in the same way," he said, somewhat thoughtfully, as he pondered the facts that had been given to him. Obviously he was murdered: people hardly drown themselves when they are certain that they are about to come into some money.

It was questionable, however, why he might have been killed. There were the obvious reason of enemies, but if this man had been a part of a somewhat shady organization, then he would be the friend of the usual enemies. And if he was in an organization like this, and he had been embezzling huge amounts of money, then his death was, perhaps, more of an accident than an outright murder.

"So," he said, blinking as he finished his small segment of thought, "Why should I care about Mr. Peter Crowley? There are many people who die in this world, Ms. Something, about this one, insignificant death?

"He was not killed by the same person who killed the late Mayor Townsend, madam, and thus, you leave me no reasons to take this case on myself. I am a very busy man, despite my appearances," this he said in reference to the popsicle which was slowly dwindling in size, "And I do not take on cases lightly. I take them on with the intentions of solving them, and that takes more work than it appears to. Now, if you would either kindly get to your point, or kindly leave my office, I would be much obliged."

[Camille Desmoulins]

Imogene sighed and sat down in one of the chairs in front of Basil's desk, "I can't say I have any proof, none that would hold up in court anyways, but the timing between the two death are far too convenient for it to just be coincidence," she said, crossing her legs and severely regretting her choice in footwear, "Mr. Crowley was killed by the same person, or at the very least someone in the same ring of people as the person who killed the mayor. I am almost certain."

"There in lyes why I'm coming to you," she continued, "You're the police, and you have access to plenty of files and records and various..." she paused, trying to think of what else he had access to that she didn't, she came up short, "Things that I don't have access to. Things that with a bit of digging would make the connection between the two deaths."

Imogene felt like she was going to have to move from the convincing him strategy to the proud begging. If that didn't work she was prepared to get down on her knees and outright beg him to take the case. She didn't want to beg, but sometimes you had to do what you had to do in order to get things done.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil watched as she sat down, and his eyes narrowed slightly. She was serious, then, about convincing him to take this case. But what about it was there to take? It was just another civilian (he felt somewhat callous thinking this, but it was the cold, hard truth) that was dead. So what if he wasn't entirely on the straight and narrow path that involved following all of the laws? He was dead now, and that seemed punishment enough for him, at least.

"Why would there be any connection between the two, aside from the fact that their deaths were somehat suspiciously close together? Perhaps it was just his day to die," Basil said, although he didn't entirely believe his rebuttal. "And I, young lady, am not the police. I may occasionally work in correlation to them, but I am not them. Now, Ms. Braith, was it?"
It wasn't a question as much as it was simply a statement, in order to commente his next sentence.

"I do have access to files. That much of your statement is true. It is not true, however, that the person who killed Mr. Crowley is the same person who killed Mayor Townsend. I know that much, from what you've told me, although they could indeed have run in the same sort of circles."

Having finished his popsicle, he took out a ziploc bag from his desk, and placed it into there with the other ones. After regretfully having put the bag back into his desk, he glanced up at Imogene once more. "Would you happen to like a popsicle? I'm feeling in the mood for lime at the moment, how about you?"

[Camille Desmoulins]

Imogene blinked in surprise, "Uh, sure," she said. She really had not been expecting to be offered a popsicle, to tell the truth. It was not the sort of question she felt like she would have been asked in this sort of meeting, "Cherry, if you have it." She twirled her pearls around her forefinger again, the beads on the necklace shifting colors as she fiddled with them. Illusion spells were second nature to her, and casting them was to her like how some people tap pencils while they think.

"In any case, you're far closer to the police then I'll ever be and you have affirmed that you do indeed have access to the files. Thus my point in still valid," she said, pulling at her beads and turning them all yellow for a moment and looking at the wall as she tried to think of more ways to convince Basil to take this case. She went over all the things she knew and all the things she told him. She looked at the snake in it's cage thoughtfully, why on earth did Mr. Dixon insist on keeping this room so dark?

Oh yeah.

"He was killed by a vampire bite, by the way," she said, letting go of her beads and letting them fall back to white, "Not sure how that would relate, however. But I guess it's good to throw that out there."

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil raised an eyebrow, and stood. "Cherry it is." He walked briskly over towards the refrigerator portion of the basement (which was actually quite a ways off, at least a ways to go in complete darkness: but he didn't stumble at all). He returned with a lime popsicle in his mouth, a freezie in his pocket, and a cherry popsicle in his left hand for Imogene.

"Now, Ms. Braith," he said, after he had dispatched the cherry popsicle, and removed his own popsicle from his mouth, "You said he was killed by a vampire bite? If you did not believe that this information would relate, how could it possibly persuade me to take this case?

"In case you haven't realized, Ms. Braith, we live in a town nearly entirely populated by supernaturals. Why would a vampire killing a human make much of a difference? Sure the vampires in this town are normally good at following the bylaws concerning their sort, but there's the occasional one that gets loose. Do you think that it's suspicious because a vampire killed a potentially bad person?

"I really, right now, don't care much for this case. It seems like all of the other cases that I happen to have, which I send to the people upstairs. What, Ms. Braith, is in it concerning this case, for me?"

[Camille Desmoulins]

Imogene took her popsicle and examined it. One, generally, didn't get a popsicle when they went to try and convince someone terrifyingly to do something they most likely didn't want to do. She wasn't sure if this was a good sign or a bad sign. From what he was saying it was a bad sign. He had no interest in the case. She ticked through her options in her head as she tapped the bright red popsicle against her lips thoughtfully. When he was finished with his points about how he didn't care she did the one thing she could think of to buy herself more time.

"So. Did they mayor actually get shot?" she asked, catching a drop of melting popsicle with her tongue as he ran down the side of the frozen treat, "Because that doesn't seem to make sense. Why would anyone use a gun when murdering someone, especially an important someone, in their own home? They're messy, they're loud, and generally inefficient."

Yes. She was changing the subject and hopefully, maybe, if she was very lucky she would be able to buy herself enough time to come up with a good point to make him take this case.

If not... well. She'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think that I would tell you whether or not the mayor was shot?" he asked, naturally understanding that her mind would jump to the conclusion that he was not shot. "It was said, in the Times, that he was shot, is that not correct? They might write useless slander about some things, Ms. Braith," he said, taking a thoughtful lick of his popsicle. "He was shot, however. Not bitten by some rogue vampire that may or may not be connected to this case. And with that, Ms. Braith, I would kindly ask you to leave my office."

He had grown bored of this frivolous talking. Caden and Jason would most likely want to see the case and examine it before deciding that they should take it, and since they were not in fact in the office at the moment, he would have to wait and show it to them when they were. Or he could hunt them down at their homes, of course.

"I will consider this case of yours, but it will take me longer than the time during which you are permitted to be in here. I will have my subordinates examine it, and we will contact you if we decide that your case is worth taking. I'm sure it won't take longer than a day or two, and if it does, then you may, by all means, hunt my subordinates down.
"However, if you're any kind of detective, you'll be able to find out who they are, and I won't tell you that bit of information. If you cannot even hunt them down, then I suspect if we haven't thrown your case out the window, we certainly will do so at the time. However, if we decide to contact you first, I'm sure you won't have anything to worry about."

He then leaned back in his chair, and gave her a dismissive sort of wave, the sort which usually sent people running helter-skelter out of his office. Everyone except for Caden, Jason, and Gordy, of course.

[Camille Desmoulins]

Imogene sighed as he brushed off her comment. That still didn't still seem right. However, she couldn't get him to confirm it so she let it so. As she was dismissed she weighed the pros and cons of being stubborn. However, there weren't really any pros so she got up and took her popsicle out of her mouth.

"Right then," she said, "If it takes more then a day or two I'll hunt down Caden." She nodded to Basil, "Thank you for your time."

She sighed and put her popsicle back in her mouth as she dug around in the pockets of her skirt, "Ish der a ay hone anyshere near i? (is there a pay phone anywhere nearby?)" she asked as she held the frozen treat between her teeth and finally found the scrap of paper she was looking for and turned it over to look at the phone number written on it.

Oh god. Why was she even thinking of doing this? Why must she be so curious? She was going to have no money for weeks after this. At least she'd already payed her rent. However, she was far too curious to let this sit for even two days and there was always the off chance that she wouldn't have to pay, due to the fact that she couldn't get it. That would tell her more then what she needed to know anyways. Hopefully that was the case. She really did like having money.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil opted to lean back in his chair and close his eyes, instead of standing up and showing Ms. Braith the way out. She had found her way in, and she could find her way out: those were his thoughts on the matter.

He did peek one eye open as she asked him about a pay phone, but he only kept his eye open for a moment. "I'm sure there's one somewhere," he said, rather boredly, his eye already closed by the time he had spoken. "I don't keep track of pay phones. I'm sure you would have been able to ask some of the detectives upstairs for a phone, had you not wreaked havoc on the entire floor.

"Actually, speaking of that, I've got a hundred or so employees to yell at," he said, as if the thought had just occured to him, which it had. He didn't often have the opportunity to yell at them with a real cause. "Come on, Benjamin," Basil said, hopping out of his chair, and hurrying towards the door. He was looking forward to this.

It was a monumental occasion, even. He might have to buy cake later and some candles to celebrate. Or he could just buy some cake, actually.

[Camille Desmoulins]

Imogene watched the head detective leave and took a moment to contemplate getting out. She realized that she had not thought through her exit plan. Walking out as she was would not be the best option- since she was sure people would notice that she'd not come in. After considering a few plans which included a fancy rope work and one in which she realized that inviability spells never worked she settled on her old default plan.

But first.

She waited until Basil had left his office before backing towards his desk and the phone there on. She picked it up quickly and dialed the number on the piece of paper. She listened to it ring twice before whoever was on the other end picked up.
"Oh! Mr. Kazin," she said with a fumbling surprise, she paused the man on the other end spoke, "Oh... of course..... I was wondering if you would still be there in an hour or so?...." She winced and nodded, even though the man on the other end of the phone wouldn't see, "Yes. Alright. I uh... I'll be down there soon. Hopefully I'll catch you..." She hung up the phone quickly and glanced at the door then pulled her hand over her face and through her mess of red curls. When she pulled her hand away the woman standing there was thinner faced, brown haired and a good five years older. She looked at her hands and sighed, walking out of the office and adjusting her walk to a more brisk, authoritative pace more fitting of her current guise as she got up to the ground floor.

The best way to get out was just the way she'd gotten in. As Ms. Taylor, who might have come in to work by now. However that was a risk she'd have to take, if it came to it she could always try invisibility. And if that didn't work...
When in doubt, tap dacne.