Tag: investigative reporter

#Lore24 – Entry #285 – Sentinel City by Night #11 – Frustrating Developments

From the Journal of Sheba O’Rourke, Private Investigator

“Got called into the boss’s office tonight to give an update on the investigation.  Didn’t plan on doing a presentation tonight, pretty sure she wasn’t too pleased with my lack of organization.  My mind works as it does; I have my own system.  Whatever.  She got the info she wanted, seemed happy enough, maybe, once I’d detailed what I’d come up with regarding the killer’s actions and motives. 

Also clued her in on my plan regarding Delia Emmerson.  Showed her copies of the emails the reporter had received thus far and showed her the pushback against her article that had already started as well as some of the false trails I’d started feeding her.  Sokolova seemed pleased with my initiative on the matter, both in trying to keep Emmerson alive while tracing down her source.  Did give me a not-so-subtle warning to prioritize the killer, but to likewise make sure Emmerson didn’t get out of hand.  A little help from her wouldn’t have been amiss, but then again, don’t know her people well enough to really trust them to do the work to my satisfaction.

Whatever.  Just means I’ll not have much in the way of free time for the foreseeable future.  Not that I’d really be doing much else anyway.  What’s a PI without a case to work on?  One this mess was done, I’d start putting out the word I was for hire, start getting a more steady flow of work.  At least Sokolova offered me some compensation for my expenses so far.  Nice of her.

Found a voicemail from Walsh after the meeting that we had another victim go missing last night that seemed to fit the criteria for our mystery killer, another woman named Carly Greer.  I rushed straight from the meeting to meet Walsh at the victim’s apartment, shared by another trio of college kids.  Brakes are starting to squeal on the car now.  Forgot to check on the mechanic.  Better not wait too much longer.  Noted.

Spoke to the roommates; they’d all grabbed some fast food and went to the movies, she’d gone to the bathroom, never came back.  No answer on her cell phone; Walsh had already got the paperwork going for a trace.  I got the address and headed that way while he called his guys on scene to be expecting me.  Surprised me when he handed me a card for a garage and a guy he knew who worked nights.  Guess I’m growing on him.  Imagine that.

Cameras at the movies were a bust, didn’t even have any except those at the concession stand and out front at the ticket office; was one of those places that was older than me, tended to show the classics.  Workers hadn’t paid attention, or at least, didn’t remember seeing her when she came out.  Restrooms were in the middle of the building, behind the concession stands, with doors to access them on either side for each of the two theatres.  Watched one of the workers wheeling out some garbage using one of the emergency exits; turns out that one wasn’t alarmed, led straight out to the alley out back. 

Did my thing with the door this time, got an impression of the victim touching it for just a moment, and someone else.  That someone else made me shiver, however brief the impression was.  Definitely Kindred, shadowy, vague, a ghost in the night.  Like me.  Can’t confirm it with what I managed to get, too many people had touched the door, but suspecting she might even be another Malkavian.  Got just a flash of her from her point of view, think she might’ve been wearing a mask. 

Had to hit the pavement around the theatre, saw several security cameras that might have something useful, but the places were closed and I couldn’t break in with the PD right there, not that I’d want to with the number of cameras around, anyway.  Can’t hide from those, not easily.  Gave the list to the officers on scene for Walsh’s people to deal with getting the footage. 

We had no more than three nights to find Carly Greer intact by my estimates.   Killer kept them alive, probably fed on them, maybe enjoyed the taste of their suffering in the blood.  Speaking of blood, better find a lick myself; starting to feel antsy.”

#Lore24 – Entry #284 – Sentinel City by Night #10 – The Fleshcrafter

From the Journal of Sheba O’Rourke, Private Investigator

“As I would shortly discover, my revelation that there was a Tzimisce in town wasn’t nearly as surprising as I’d originally thought.  I daresay I might’ve been the only one of my (admittedly limited) circle that didn’t know about her.  Should probably socialize more.  Noted.

Her name is Misha Kyle, works as a “plastic surgeon” in her own upscale business downtown, “Lovely Longevity Limited”, real posh clientele; reckon she’s done work on quite a few famous types, though she mostly deals in humans over Kindred.  She’s got a team that handles the little things while she works the real special jobs like my last victim, where there’s some major rearrangement to be done.  Definitely not your typical Fiend, that’s for damn sure.  Apparently, Sokolova approves of her being here, though she’s not a regular at the community meetings.

I setup a meeting with her to discuss the situation regarding Sidney Clark, and she didn’t even try to wiggle out of it, sounded almost saddened by what happened if I read her right over the phone.  Still, maybe she’s just that good a liar; can’t trust a Fiend, right?  That’s the case on the ones I’ve known over my admittedly short unlife, anyway. 

Kyle wasn’t what I was expecting; she looked normal, for one, her beauty seemingly all natural, even acted like a normal person.  None of that alien-looking bullshit with her.  She didn’t hesitate to fill me in on her backstory; got the impression she’d done it so many times it was second nature when meeting a new Kindred.  Sounded solid, didn’t feel like she was feeding me lies.  Reckon she was involved in that mess down in Atlanta back in ’99, one of the Sabbat shovelheads that survived the whole affair and managed to keep her sanity intact somehow, eventually broke free during the chaos that happened all over the place twenty years back.  Been clawing her way back to some semblance of her humanity since, and says she’s dedicated her abilities to helping those who want it, and those who really needed it at a greatly reduced cost.

Sidney Clark was one of the latter cases.  Girl was driving herself crazy between all the bullshit she’d been fed online and in school and the mental state that had come of it.  Reckon she’d had a come-to-Jesus moment and sought help afterward, and was on the way to a full recovery.  She’d been working with a local shrink on improving her self-image, chief head doctor over at the Edgewater Mental Hospital, Jennifer Tempest, and once she had progressed far enough, Misha was brought in to help with getting her physical appearance to match her evolving mental image.  Seems a real humanitarian but call me skeptical.  I’ve heard things about that flesh-warping magic, can’t confirm it, but rumor is it warps minds too, which is why the Fiends are the way they are.  Course, Kyle seems to be an exception.  Suppose anything’s possible.  Reckon she even attends church on the regular, the one ran by that Malkavian preacher I’ve started hearing about.  Not sure that’s a positive or a negative, honestly; haven’t had time to stop by and introduce myself.

Whatever the case, my initial theory that she was somehow involved in the deaths seems to have been shot down.  Couldn’t detect that she was being dishonest, even her aura seemed genuine, though those dark streaks were concerning, even if they were faded, so if she had sucked a vamp dry, it’s been a while.  If she went through that shit in Atlanta, then maybe she couldn’t exactly prevent it.  Whatever; I’ll keep my eye on her, but I’m willing to give her a chance.  Either way, didn’t learn anything useful about the case.  Won’t say it was wasted time, but I might lean that way. 

Till I can find out more about the killer, I’ll busy myself tracking Emmerson’s source.”

#Lore24 – Entry #283 – Sentinel City by Night #9 – Another Victim, Another Clue

From the Journal of Sheba O’Rourke, Private Investigator

“It was a handful of nights later, after I’d hired a Chinese botnet to start the blowback campaign against Emmerson’s article and begun contacting her myself in the guise of a trio of new sources that were emboldened to tell their tales after reading her article to start the feed of misinformation that I got word that another body had been found with the same MO.  As soon as I got Walsh’s call, I rushed to meet PD at the scene, pushing my Taurus as hard as it could stand; not sure what that grinding sound is, or the wobble when I get up to speed.  Really have to get a mechanic to take a look at that; should probably ask Becky if she knows a good one that works late hours and won’t charge an arm and a leg. 

Think Walsh is starting to warm up to me, or he was just too tired to fire up the hatred tonight.  He looked strung out.  Anyway, this was another dump near the Red Light District.  It had occurred to me that with the many waterways in the city, and its proximity to the Great Lakes, there were plenty of better spots to dump a body.  That could indicate that maybe some part of the killer’s psyche was crying out to be stopped, or that the body disposal was simply an afterthought.

Either way, everything tracked with this being another victim and not a copycat, in spite of Emmerson’s article.  This victim, Sidney Clark, hadn’t been reported missing, however, and this was definitely sooner than the previously established timeline had indicated.  The killer was escalating, though I couldn’t say it had anything to do with the article or not; the timing didn’t seem to track.  As I examined the body, Emmerson showed up and had another confrontation with Walsh, this one rather heated.  She kept trying to draw me into the matter, but I ignored her attempts to speak to me.  I had plenty of lines of communication open with her already, didn’t need a face to face.

It was when I examined the victim’s ID to see where they lived that I made a most curious observation.  Though I couldn’t know what her face had looked like before it was removed, her ID showed a woman who was not up to standards for the killer’s appetites.  She looked to have been severely overweight, the deep scowl on her plump, pitted face only marginally distracted from by her bright green and red hair dye and side-shaved cut.  The body couldn’t have been even half the weight listed, even before the pieces were removed.  The ID was barely more than a year and a half old based on the date on it.  Did we have the wrong ID?  Was there perhaps another victim with whom the IDs had been switched?

I knew what I had to do, however much I disliked using that particular ability on a corpse.  Call me old-fashioned, but using my heightened perception to read the psychic echoes on a dead body seemed a bit too invasive, not to mention that it always left my skin crawling for days, even gave me daymares.  Might have been a little selfish of me, but it’s why I hadn’t done so before and had kept to the evidence and proper investigatory techniques till now.  Still, things had escalated to the point that I suppose I had little choice but to give it a try.

I waited for Walsh to shoo Emmerson off before I showed him the discrepancy between the ID and body, then told him that I needed a few minutes alone with the victim.  When he asked what I had planned, I simply told him it was better if he didn’t know the particulars.  Though skeptical, he obliged and pulled his people back.  Once I had readied myself, I removed my gloves and touched the body, peering into its past.

I saw flashes of the victim’s last moments, felt the echoes of the violence she had suffered, saw only a brief impression of the killer themselves, a cold, doll-like face smeared with blood, fangs gleaming as they wielded the scalpel.  Then a much clearer image emerged, one that wasn’t nearly as horrible, though perhaps even more confusing.  I clearly saw a red-headed woman, kind and energetic, showing the victim a computer-generated image of another beautiful woman, a sense of elation and happiness, contentment.  Then there was a sensation of awakening from a deep slumber, of peering into a mirror, the victim seeing the image of the woman that had been on the screen.  As I pulled myself out of the psychic vision, stumbling back as the connection was broken, I realized what it was I had witnessed, why the victim’s ID didn’t match her current appearance.

The red-headed woman had flesh-crafted her!  The red-head was a Tzimisce!”

#Lore24 – Entry #282 – Sentinel City by Night #8 – The Fine Art of Discreditation

From the Journal of Sheba O’Rourke, Private Investigator

“It was easy enough to find Emmerson’s apartment; she didn’t seem to be worried about being followed, not that she would have noticed me anyway.  I lingered outside for some time after she had returned, waited until she had bedded down for the night before I slipped in and had a look around.  Security on her computer was easy to crack, simple logon screen bypass trick I’ve used hundreds of times. 

My hunch had been a good one.  The story that got printed was the watered-down version of the original she’d written which had included some very specific details about a particular vampiric bloodline that must consume flesh instead of blood.  I had dismissed that possibility early on as unlikely, though seeing the notes Emmerson had on the matter made me reconsider the possibility that a rare Nagaraja had come to town, but only briefly.  From what I knew of them, they did ritualistically preserve corpses to maintain a ready food supply, but they wouldn’t keep so little of the flesh and discard the vast majority of it; why waste perfectly good food, after all? 

Diving further into her files revealed that she had been communicating with an unknown contact who had provided that information to her.  I noted the email address, but it was likely a burner account, given the random nature of the username.  Still, the contact with the mysterious source had began sometime after the second victim, and their information had only grown more concise and revealing as further emails had come in.  There were promises of more information to come regarding the “vampiric conspiracy” to rule the city, with mention of an entire council of vampires already being established. 

Without checking Emmerson’s office system for more data, which seemed unlikely, I couldn’t be sure if she might’ve known more already or not.  My instincts told me to just get rid of her now and be done with it, but Sokolova’s command to save killing her as a last resort still stood.  I’d need to track her source down, too, and that would take more time.  So, I resolved to take a different tactic with her.  After I had setup some backdoor access to her system and returned everything to the state I’d found it, I departed with the snoring human completely unaware of my presence, already planning how I’d go about discrediting her work and ruining her reputation.  Not the first time I’d had to do this kind of thing; I’d developed something of a talent for it over the last twenty years.”

#Lore24 – Entry #281 – Sentinel City by Night #7 – Escalation

From the Journal of Sheba O’Rourke, Private Investigator

“Apartment acquired, work area set up, progress made.  I’ve been studying all the notes and crime scene reports, coming up with a proper profile for the serial killer.  The time between the victims would seem to indicate a compulsive need that slowly builds over approximately a month that finally overtakes the killer, forcing them to act, though the fact that the killer keeps the victims alive for some amount of time before they are finally slain would imply a more contemplative mindset.  The lack of commonality amongst the victims, in appearance, lifestyle, background, and locations of residence would indicate that they are selected at random, seemingly when their features trigger a particular preference in the killer’s mind.  The collection of additional sections of the victim’s flesh beyond simply skinning their heads could indicate a ritual of some kind, or perhaps even a cannibalistic need to feed upon the flesh.  There are certain details that are contradictory based on the data I have so far, which may indicate some form of madness in the killer beyond what drives them to kill in the first place.  The lack of evidence thus far in actually obtaining details about how the killer captures the victims could indicate an ability to instill trust in the victims, some way to diminish mental capacity through drugs, or some kind of supernatural compulsion that is not entirely uncommon amongst the Kindred and any number of other supernatural creatures.

As I continued to contemplate the data I had, I received a text from Rebecca Dodgers, linking me to one of the local news sites, and an article recently posted by none other than Delia Emmerson.  Troubling was one word for it.  The article proclaimed “Vampiric Serial Killer Loose in Sentinel City!  SCPD Baffled!”  It was topped by a photo of the most recent crime scene, taken before I arrived and from a distance, though there would be other images, even if they were blurred out, taken from the police files themselves, and from the scene I’d been at; thankfully she didn’t catch me in them, at least the ones she posted, anyway.  She’d leaked a lot of details the police had been keeping under wraps, namely the specifics about what damage the victims had incurred, and the theory that someone was ritualistically sacrificing these people in the name of some vampire cult.  Though the headline definitely made it seem more damning, she at least hadn’t outright proven Kindred involvement, though the accusations were close enough.  Most of her fire was directed at the SCPD, though, for being incompetent and dragging their feet while failing to inform the people of the danger lurking on the streets.  She did mention a private investigator being brought in on the case as the PD couldn’t handle the job themselves while questioning whether the FBI had even been contacted.

I’d barely finished my read through when my phone rang.  It was Sokolova.  She wasn’t happy.  Don’t know what she was expecting; I had only been in town a few days; not like I could magically find the killer.  Wasn’t bold enough to ask if she’d consulted the Tremere chantry about divination on the case, but the thought did cross my mind.  Admittedly I may have been too hyper-focused on studying the killer instead of dealing with the media problem I knew about. 

I was tasked with seeing to Emmerson in addition to finding the killer.  She was adamant that I not simply kill Emmerson if it could be helped, that she should be dissuaded from her current course of investigation, and any sources she may have had found out.  Other Princes would have had the human killed without a second thought, but I suppose her vision of a city where humans and vampires got along came first.  Some would call that a weakness.

Without any additional clues to consider for the moment, I resolved to see what I could do about Emmerson and find out what she knew and from what other sources than the PD’s files.  None of that vampiric cult ritual stuff had come from them, and I got the impression she had to leave some details out because they would have been too far out for the average reader to process.  Fortunately, I’m good at getting into places I shouldn’t go.”

LORE24 ENTRY #47 – Supers Month #16 – Delia Emmerson

 

From the Personal Journal of Jennifer Tempest…

 

Well, after this little present to the family, none of my sisters should complain about me being selfish.  Who am I kidding?  Of course they will, we always do; we succubi are selfish by our very natures, are we not?  Sharing our toys isn’t something we tend to do, but I am not so absorbed by my personal desires that I cannot see when an acquisition would benefit the family more than myself.

Delia Emmerson is quite the catch.  I must admit, I was impressed by the lengths she went through to infiltrate Edgewater during her hunt for information about the fate of Dollface.  Quite impressed, really; she displayed a remarkable amount of initiative and guile for a human, even if she was ultimately unsuccessful in slipping back out.  Not that she had a chance, of course; I was fully aware of her intentions beforehand thanks to the loyal nurse who reported Delia to me, if not the methods she would employ to get inside.  She proved quite adept at assuming the nurse’s identity, and displayed an admirable talent for escape artistry, even managed to slip through some of the facility’s more secure areas confined to a straitjacket.

Star reporter for Channel 9 News, a precious media darling with a record of finding out what was meant to remain hidden, and getting herself into more than a few dangerous situations that she narrowly escaped.  Of course, I could have reported her to the police for trespassing, amongst other charges, but I felt that it was my duty to take her in as a patient and get to the bottom of what drives her to do what she does, without getting the law involved, if for no other reason than an interest in preventing her from further risky behaviors and potential harm that could result.  Sometimes I am simply too kind.

As expected, Miss Emmerson has proven to be quite receptive to the treatment plan I have established for her, not to mention being just as easily influenced by my succubus charms as any normal human.  I could have handled her therapy strictly by my charms alone, really, but the other methods were so much more entertaining.  She’s quite loyal and dedicated to the Tempest family now, whether she realizes it or not thanks to the triggering phrase I’ve installed into her brain.  Given the nature of the work many of my sisters do, having the city’s most influential and famous reporter in our pocket can only be seen as a boon.  Rachel has already enjoyed having some fun with Miss Emmerson, even allowed her to publish something of a story relating to their little playtime, though it read as more of something you’d see in the tabloids than her usual professional level journalism; not all pieces of work can be master level, can they?  After such a successful initiation into the machinations of the Tempests, though, I can only wonder which of my sisters will take up Miss Emmerson’s leash next.  Perhaps Julia (she does enjoy her manipulations of the local politicians, after all), or perhaps Amelia (she does run the most prestigious business in the family, and is never above a good puff piece spouting its virtues).

Amusingly enough, Delia has started keeping records on the Tempest family as well; Bobbi took a look at her personal files and keeps an eye on them for anything too spicy for the public, but so far Ms. Emmerson has only managed the barest of rumors and the official records.  Perhaps in time she’ll manage to discover more, assuming we allow her to do so, that is.  Still, perhaps it would be amusing to lead her along a bit, then pull the rug out from under her in a most humiliating way?  We’ll see.