2573/Dead Beat

Dead Beat
Date of Scene:	23 July 2020
Location:	Gotham Cemetery
Synopsis:	Gordon is called to a strange crime scene at Gotham Cemetery. Ariah Olivier, who happens to be walking by, turns out to be potentially connected to it...
Cast of Characters:	Jim Gordon, Ariah Olivie

---

Jim Gordon has posed:
TEN MINUTES AGO
"What is it?" Jim Gordon asks groggily into his phone, rubbing his eyes as he sits up in bed. The clock nearby reads 12:07.

He listens and then sighs audibly. "Alright. Alright. Quit apologizing. I'm on my way."


NOW
A number of police cars have assembled inside Gotham Cemetery. A uniformed officer stands at the gate, looking as bored as one might be on midnight gate duty.

Pulling up near a pair of detectives, Gordon steps out of his car and flicks the butt of a cigarette onto the ground. He takes half a moment to ground it out before continuing on. "Okay. Fill me in."

One of the detectives checks her notebook. "So we got a call in that someone had proof vampires exist. Gave us this time and location. As you can see, we /technically/ got some bad intel."

Lying nearby, sprawled over a sarcophagus-style gravestone, is a young woman just over five feet in height. Her body appears to be soaked in water, but it might be all the blood that's poured out from the wooden stake driven into her chest.

Underneath her, obscured by said blood, is some sort of arcane-looking ritualistic diagram.

"Yeah," the detective's partner chuckles. "She's dead, alright. But she ain't undead."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    For the hour, it's not unusual for actual vampires to be up and out and about. Unfortunately for Ariah, it's also well past the hour that most libraries close. A bothersome fact, if she hadn't already checked something out from one of the libraries in Gotham. She finds her way along the walk in front of the cemetery, idly glancing at her phone now and then, brow furrowed.

    It's a mixture of an expression of being lost, and being indifferent. A glance at her screen would see that she's looking for one of those library-sponsored 'take a book, leave a book!' boxes, and there's a map. She has library books with her, a small carry bag slung on her shoulder with a picture of Batman on it, pointing towards the viewer, and one word: READ!

    Bat-merchandise aside, the sights of police flashers near the gate she's approaching makes the short woman slow her steps and eventually move into a full stop a couple of yards from the gate watchman. She blinks, and sniffs the air, catching the scent of what must be fresh blood. She gazes off towards the cemetery depths proper, slowly blinking, drawing the threads together that make her assume some sort of murder had happened.

    A glance at her white hair and short stature might make her out to be the twin sister of the deceased, even down to a similar 'going out' kind of attire.

Jim Gordon has posed:
The officer at the gate, for his part, seems to recognize the woman--but only after a few moments of blinking and squinting.

"Hey..." he begins, raising a hand. "Hold on a minute it there, miss. Just--just stay right there a second."

The officer leans toward his right shoulder, talking into his radio. "Commissioner? Detective? Anybody? This is Robinson. You're not gonna believe this ... but you should come here."

Gordon and the detectives look at one another.

"Should I--" one begins, but Gordon shakes his head. "No. Not worth it. Keep looking through whatever this is. Any of you Googling those weird symbols yet? The last thing we need is another Satanic panic."

He fishes in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and lights another. "Need to stretch my legs anyway."

Then, the commissioner walks toward the gates.

"Alright, officer," he calls out amidst a cloud of exhaled smoke. "What's the big--"

He stops, spotting the woman. "Hmm. Excuse me, but do you have a sister? Maybe a little taller than you?"

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah knows better than to find a meal at a murder scene. The fresh blood is a bit alluring, but the audience isn't. She's no monster, either. So she starts walking, seeing off in the distance, on the next block, the little roofed box with books in it. The object of her desire. It's a really, really odd hour to be doing a book tour of Gotham.

    Then she hears the officer's voice, telling her to stop. She turns her head, looking up at the taller man, blinking owlishly at him. She stays silent, though, and stands still, lowering her phone. She slips it into her pocket, the screen winking out and leaving her in the light of the gate lamps. And she waits.

    Then as the magnificent moustache approaches, she does the same thing. She blinks up at Jim, a blank expression on her face. Slowly, she shakes her head at the question. Her voice comes clear and cool like a winter wind, "...non. Sisters are all dead..." Her voice holds a distinct, thick French accent, and though her head shakes her grey eyes stay locked on the Comissioner's.

Jim Gordon has posed:
"Well ..." Gordon says, looking back at the woman, "then I hope you'll forgive me for asking, but: would you come with me for a minute?" He frowns. "You've happened upon a crime scene where the victim--well, she looks a lot like you. It's a bit unorthodox to perform a recognition here, but there's no reason to draw this out further for you."

Gordon turns and begins walking back toward the scene itself. He waves for the woman to follow.

One of the detectives clears her throat. "Well, would you look at that?"

Her partner looks up from his phone. "I think I might have found something." He looks in Gordon's direction. "I guess you did too, sir."

Adjusting his glasses, Gordon motions toward the victim without even looking back at the woman he'd asked to follow him. "You know her?" he asks, finally turning to see if she had.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah is... completely compliant. She's done nothing wrong and is sure she could evade a bunch of cops if things go south quickly. So she nods and follows silently. As the scent of blood grows stronger, her eyes widen a little, pupils along with them.

    And then there's the body, and the officers, and she's staring at someone who could very easily be mistaken for her. A frown crosses the girl's previously neutral features and she takes in all of the details of the grisly scene.

    First the question, though. It demands answering. "I do not," she states, a simple and clear answer. And yet, she lingers, and stares. Not at the deceased woman's face, but at everything about the scene.

    She appraises the symbol primarily, then looks to the nearest detective. "...why is she wet...?" she asks quietly. "...witches don't melt... rainstorm rituals can be powerful..." she says quietly, gaze turning back to the body again. "...a waste... A stake to kill a human..." she starts to muse aloud. "...cult?"

Jim Gordon has posed:
The male detective laughs. "What do you know?" He shakes his head. "Sorry, Gordon. We shoulda just called this woman for the expert intel."

His partner stares at him. "You're an idiot, sometimes, Dwyer."

Gordon clears his throat. "Are you saying you know something about all this, miss?" he asks quietly.

Dwyer points to his phone. "I was just getting to that! I Wikipedia'd "occult" and there's a lot of stuff here to look through."

Gordon glances up at the female detective. "Bannon, maybe you should take over the research." Then he turns to the younger woman. "So you're saying this isn't just gibberish that looks magical? It's genuine?"

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    "I don't live here..." Ariah seems to off-handedly comment on Dwyer's suggestion that she be called in. Nobody's asked her for her ID to run yet, though, regardless of where she's from! At Gordon's inquiry, she nods, moving closer to get a better look.

    "Yes. No. Do not know the dead. ...she was hunted... water for a witch. Stake for a vampire. The writing..."

    The short woman gets within arm's reach of the corpse, now, "...supposed to seal powers in witches." She frowns, reading what she can that's not soaked in blood. "Not big enough..." she then states.

    Without further though, she extends her arm towards the seal and the blood, fingers outstretched. A brush of a tip on some of the writing, some of the blood, and immediately she puts it in her mouth. Maybe someone never told her to not lick crime scenes?

    There's a thoughtful expression on her face, the frown deepening. Tang. Spice. Heat. "...still fresh. Stake would have killed instantly... torture is possible... Low-grade materials. Blessed silver..." she pulls her finger out of her mouth and stares at the tip, feeling the burning sensation of even that small amount of 'holy artifact' ground up and seeing hints of red as her tongue stings, "...low concentration.."

Jim Gordon has posed:
"What the fu...?"Dwyer blurts out, even as Bannon moves to pull the woman back from the scene.

"Come on!" she scolds. "You can't touch anything at a crime scene! You're contaminating the evidence." Bannon exhales audibly and looks to Gordon. "Sir, I'm sorry, but this is just--"

"--I know," Gordon interjects, frowning. "You know that tasting someone else's blood is a biohazard, too, right?" He rubs at his temple. "Especially, I would imagine, for an apparent witch-vampire-demon-something ritual killing."

"Alright," Gordon continues. "Bannon, you look more into these leads. Maybe there are some other cases with some of these qualities that we can build something on. Dwyer, you make sure there aren't any other bodies in this cemetery that shouldn't be here. And you, miss," he adds, turning to Ariah, "I'm going to have Officer Robinson at the gate take down your information before you leave. My gut tells me this was coincidence, but you never know."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah is.. a lot stronger than she looks. The first tug from the officer on her is... like pulling on a wall. The second though, she lets happen, realizing where she is and acquiescing to the officers' urges.

    She looks up at Jim when he suggests blood tasting is bad, and just gives him this genuine, wide-eyed owl-like stare as if he were speaking utter nonsense. Or grown a second head. For a moment, anyway. Then it's back to aloof neutrality.

    But she still stares at him. Especially when the Commissioner tells her that it was probably a coincidence. She responds, softly, matter-of-factly. "...they thought it was me."

Jim Gordon has posed:
Gordon responds by raising an eyebrow. "Excuse me?" he asks. "Did I hear that right? You believe /you/ were the intended target?"

Glancing to the detectives, Gordon takes a deep breath. "Please. I'd like to hear more. It's ... it's not out of the realm of possibility, given the resemblance."

"But why all this occult stuff?" Dwyer asks with a scowl on his face.

"Perhaps that's something we can discuss further downtown," Gordon offers. "Rather than in a graveyard in the middle of the night."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Another silent, slow nod at Jim's question. She glances around, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. Perhaps she'd said too much. She turns her head and gingerly pulls up her cute Batman book tote. "...Gotham book stop tour..." she fishes into the bag and holds up one of the books. It's probably something by Jim Butcher involving magic and fairies and vampires.

    Whatever the officers take from it, though, she stows the book and re-secures her bag, looking back to Gordon. "Oui... privacy, s'il vous plait..." she says softly, mostly in her home tongue.

    The way she shifts to be closer to Jim makes it seem like the Commissioner is someone she can feel safe near.

Jim Gordon has posed:
"Dwyer," Gordon calls, gesturing for the man to approach him. "Why don't you take down our guest's information so we can bring her in for an interview soon?"

He sighs and smiles softly. "We'd like you to come in in the morning, if you can. The sooner we can get a statement from you on the record, the more helpful it will be for us."

"In the meantime," Gordon adds, "make sure the scene is secured."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah looks up at detective, back to Gordon, and nods. "Can stay in Gotham overnight... books to find..." she nods to her bag. She fishes in a hidden pocket with her free hand and pulls out several cards.

    She hands the pile up to Dwyer. There's a credit card with her name on it. A hyperloop pass. Library cards for Gotham, Metropolis, and New York. And her ID. It states her residence as in New York City. There's also a piece of paper clipped to it that has a phone number on it, and her name. So it's probably her number.

    "Oui," she nods, "tomorrow."