The measure of a good detective is where she gets her information... [OTA|MTW]

[meanttocare]

There are still police barricades up around the mayor's house, and a cop on patrol around the block. Dunham's been sitting in her car for the past hour or two, getting a feel for the pattern of his patrol, and getting more and more restless the longer she waits. This time after he passes, she gets out of the car, hat pulled low over her eyes and

Comments

[modernholmes]

Over on the other side of the house, Conan had had a very similar idea. Only instead of waiting for the patrol car to pass by, he had slipped through a hole in the back fence and crawled under the bushes until he could enter the house without being seen.

Being this short was occasionally useful.

He warily makes his way into the house, one hand clutching a large flashlight. He doesn't turn it on. Not yet. Better to wait until he absolutely needed to use it.

[meanttocare]

In a house this quiet, even someone as small as Conan is bound to make enough noise to be noticeable, no matter how careful he is about it. Dunham hears floorboards creaking and the faint sound of rustling cloth, and freezes immediately, all but holding her breath.

After a moment, she reaches slowly to pull her gun from her shoulder holster, and proceeds toward the source of the noise, one careful step after another. Whoever it is, they're going to hear her coming - that much is unavoidable - but at least she's armed and ready for them.

wrong weapon, but couldn't resist matching icons

[modernholmes]

A footstep?

Conan freezes as he hears the sound of someone approaching. He brings his watch up into a firing position and backs up carefully towards the wall. Best to insure that no one could sneak up on him from behind.

[meanttocare]

Olivia doesn't step straight into the room - she stops in the hallway, at an angle to the door so she can see inside without putting herself directly in the line of fire of anyone inside. It doesn't allow her to see the whole room... but it's enough to spot the source of the noise, and she lowers her gun immediately when she sees the boy there.

"What're you doing in here?" she asks quietly, and much more gently than she would with anyone any older than he is.

[no_onebetter]

Lute is out on a mission. It is restricted to intelligent people, which, out of their little group, means her only because Celice and Leaf are boys, and boys, frankly, are stupid. Besides, both of them are the gung-ho, starry-eyed types who would royally ruin this sort of secretive, dirty business, so she's ordered them both to work on their abdominals while she handles the information aspect of their little operation.

None of this is very appropriate for a girl, but since when has she been appropriate? She's gone so far as to dabble in the occult already; assisting a bunch of would-be heroes is nothing.

In any case, the detective she's been carefully tailing has seen fit to leave her patrol car right when Lute needs to speak to her most, so of course the best plan of action is to march in after her. Besides, snooping around the scene of the crime won't hurt much either: the more information - the more direct information she has, the better

[meanttocare]

Dunham's already down the hall by the time Lute makes it to the door, but she hears it swinging open, and goes still, glancing back over her shoulder. There's no beam of a flashlight that she can see, which means it's not likely to be the cop following her in... but that leaves a lot of other possibilities, most of them unpleasant.

She considers calling out, but whoever it is might not know she's here at all - and some people have a habit of shooting when they get startled trespassing on crime scenes. For the moment, she figures she's best staying still and silent, and waiting to see what's up.

[no_onebetter]

Lute hmm's quietly to herself as she slips in, gently closing the door behind her. Then, she fumbles for a bit with the bag at her side before coming up with a flashlight which she flicks on. The light isn't very good, to be honest, but it'll have to do; it was the only one she could find in her grandmother's house.

Now, time to find that detective - or maybe it's better to stay in the shadows? Actually, that might be a bad idea. She followed the woman in here; she doesn't want to give her the wrong impression and end up shot on accident. Frowning, Lute aims the beam down the hallways that split off from the foyer of the house.

[meanttocare]

Dunham parks herself in a nicely shadowed corner of the hallway and waits, one hand on her gun without actually drawing it, for whoever it is to come around the corner and into view.

The flashlight the girl's carrying helps - it reflects enough light back off the highly polished floor to see her face, and Dunham relaxes almost immediately when she sees it's just a teenage girl. That's no guarantee she's not dangerous, but it makes it a lot more unlikely, and she's not obviously armed either.

She takes a chance, and steps out of the shadows, not quite into the beam of the flashlight, but close enough to be seen. "Aren't you a little young to be sneaking into crime scenes?"