[SquirrelDude]

"Well, let's go see the officer. Hopefully he'll have had time to put the pot of soykaf on. I'll introduce everyone."

Slobbertooth flipped up his jacket's collar to brace it against the wind, checked that his pistol was where he left it, and lead on towards the old man in the house by the sea.

[Jack_Spade]

The storm had gained in fierceness, lightning flickered across the sky, illuminating briefly the scenery around them.

Slobbertooth pressed the old fashioned bell-button and heard a little melody of "shave and a haircut" that would probably stay in his ear for a while.

It took a few moments until the door opened just wide enough behind a solid looking chain to admit one peering eye and the glint of gun metal:

"Ah, the concerned citizen and his friends." He paused. "Where did you leave the dwarf?"

[SquirrelDude]

Slobbertooth chuckled at the comment he assumed to be about their diversity, "He's seeing his 6 cousins for one of their holidays.

"May we come in."

[Jack_Spade]

"Eh, what the hell. If you wanted to rob me you probably should have waited for better weather. Come in."
The door closed and the chain was removed.
The man had close cropped grey and white hair, a weather beaten face and seemed to be quite fit despite moving a bit stiffly.
"Soykaf? Help yourself." He indicated towards a sota food processor and then walked back to the illuminated room to sit in a high comfort chair. For the team there was just enough room on the two matching couches.
"So, you got questions about that double murder. May I ask why you are interested in this, especially why now?"

[Sabato Kuroi]

[spoiler]I don't think I have to roll every time I go outside , but please presume  that Torrent always goes to meetings in disguise, resembling obscure characters from old films.My average number of hits is 6(for Disguise+Impersonation checks), and If I have to buy hits then it's 4.[/spoiler]


Torrent made himself comfortable but didn't touch the food.He suspected the old man wasn't a fan of gluten-free diet.

[SquirrelDude]

"Thank you." Slobbertooth removed his respirator and shuffled into the warmth of the home

Slobbertooth went over and poured himself a cup of soykaf. He held up the pot in the direction of Krestov and bnc, indicating he would pour them a cup if so desired. After pouring the soykaf, he took his time surveying the apartment before heading into the sitting room.

"Turns out the couple had a child, and he hired us to do some independent work. We've been working on it for a while. It's been hard to track down any leads on the case.

"This is a nice place for a retired police officer."

[Volker]

bnc didn't like this weather at all. For once, she didn't like anything at all that's uncomfortable. Moreoever, it meant that they would have to stay the night at some god-forsaken island in the middle of nowhere - at a heavily armed place where Lone Star is highly present. She felt nervous and itchy. She cuddled herself to Krestov. "I'm cold", she explained. She damn sure was cold - but this alone wasn't the reason. She was afraid.

At the island, she quickly searched for hidden icons. She didn't like the presence of so many drones.


bnc enters the building shivering. She even manages a shy smile and an almost voiceless "hello", before she shuffles in and walks, hesitantly over to the food processor, where she nods to Slobbertooth to make her a hot soykaf (without cream). She then takes place next to Krestov and listens to the conversation.

[spoiler]Of course, inside she, too, checks for hidden and non-hidden potentially dangerous items. What kind of commlink does he have? Is he armed?

[Jack_Spade]

As far as bnc can see, there are no hidden icons around - or very well hidden ones indeed.
The old man's shotgun is a throwback as far as she can see. He does carry a taser with a laser sight and somewhere in the house is a weapons locker with a wireless active security, slaved to a Lonestar host.
Whatever else this man is, but he takes gun safety serious.

Within 100m there is no other wireless signal than the house and its devices.

Wilcox looked up sharply at Slobbertooths answer, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the adept:
"So, the missing kid has surfaced then. It always nagged me that we couldn't find him - or rather that we didn't get time to search properly.

I guess it won't do harm to tell you about it - the case is closed after all. I imagine you come to me because you found the official version a bit... lacking. I did file an other report, but that was downgraded to personal annotations.

I see, you got your hands on those, didn't you? I still stand by it. The whole thing wasn't a random break in of humanis thugs. Someone entered the house silently, probably with an autopicker to the back door. The lock smelled of graphite lube. The parents where executed from a very short distance yet there were no scorch marks. Probably a suppressor and sub sonic ammunition. The neighbors didn't hear anything - but they always say that.
The mother was the first victim I believe. She had scorch marks on her neck consistent with a shock glove. A clean shot to the back of the head - she was ironing in the bedroom and the iron was turned off on a slightly scorched trouser, leading me to believe that it was the killer who turned it off. Probably didn't want the father to smell something.
The father was ambushed on the toilet while relieving himself. Just a shot to the head.

Now, this could have still been a hate crime - just a more subtle one. But one thing that didn't make it into the file was: The whole apartment had been sterilized. Not one piece of foreign DNA to be found - or indigenous for that matter. The blood on the floor was totally useless. I'm pretty sure whoever did this was a mage or an adept and a professional killer. The destroyed interior, the graffiti and the abuse of the corpses happened all after the deaths. The killer kicked a door in that hadn't the bolts locked - leading me to believe that it wasn't locked at all.

Any questions?"

[Volker]

bnc wraps her hands around the cup of soykaf as she listens to the story. She whistles softly when the man finished his report. Her immediate unease about her being unable to pull off anything remotely usefull, is  mended by the fact that he seems to be cooperative and shows no sign of immediate threat.

bnc pauses for a moment, then speaks up.
"I do.
Is there any material left? Like, are they camera recordings or something? Protocols, witness interviews, photographs of the corpses?

Then another question: You said, it has been downgraded to "personal annotations" and that one fact "didn't make it into the file" Who exactly is responsible for these decisions?

Do we know whether it was a usual habit that they didn't lock the door? Or is there reason to assume that they were either victims of Control magic or knew the killer (or thought so)?"

[Jack_Spade]

"Probably. But all that is archived with Lonestar's Seattle Prime Host. You'd need to ask someone from the clerks to fetch them up for you. Here, I'll give you a contact: Phil Rainier. He should still be working there. I'll give him a call to prepare him for you.

Yeah, I wondered that myself. Turns out these changes were ordered by my then chief Edmont Verres.
It might have been a problem with our quotas. More profit in closing the case fast.
Only problem is, that a possible magic connection always rates additional funds. So it was probably political or financial pressure that caused this decision.

No, no reason to assume that.
As I said: The killer most likely opened the locked back door, he killed the pair and opened the front door from the inside, just to go outside and kick it in so it would look like a home invasion.
There is no indication that they knew their killer or that they even saw them."

[Sabato Kuroi]

"You seem convinced there was only one perpetrator.Unless I'm wrong, Humanis thugs don't work solo.Anyway, do you know if there was a Humanis cell active near the area at the time?"

[Volker]

"I assume there are no suspects, enemies, yadda yadda you-know-what-I-mean?"

[SquirrelDude]

Slobbertooth leaned back, thought on the details and then spoke again.

"A couple, actually.

"What motive did you discover that would implicate this being more than an unusually brutal hate crime? The couple didn't seem to be particularly noteworthy in any way we could discover, besides being employed.

"Did ballistics turn up any information on the weapons used?

"You got a couple of spare blankets? It would appear we caught the last ferry into this place until the morning, and the inquisitive young woman wouldn't last more than an hour out in this weather at night."

[Volker]

bnc shoots Slobbertooth a glance, but then admits before herself, that he's totally right and instead turns her eyes, hopefully, at Mr. Wilcox.

[Jack_Spade]

"Yeah, only one type of foot prints, precise executions, no stolen possessions, no spelling errors in the graffiti.
I'm pretty sure that it was only one person and that he or she didn't do it out of hate but for money.

About the motive I have no idea. Both seemed to be pretty ordinary. The only thing funny was that they both didn't exist eight years prior to their murder. But that could easily have been the result of the matrix crash back then. Quite a few identities were lost - on purpose or by accident.

Ballistics did find caseless, subsonic ammunition was used. Heavy pistol, probably severely modded.

Because there is another piece that never made it into any files: A little dwarf boy told me that he had seen an Elf Pirat walking down the street. Now it could have been the over active imagination of a five year old and I didn't make the connection then, but if true, there might have been an elf with an eye-patch around the scene.
Now why does someone not compensate for a lost eye with cyberware? Someone with magic talent maybe?"

To the question with the blankets he said:
"Seems like I got myself some guests. You really need to work on your charm, though. You can use the couch. For your girl I have a guest room."