Homicide: Fill the Blanks

This is another in the series of ongoing posts of my solo RPG using the Mythic GM Emulator, starring Evan Stacy as a police detective investigating a murder. I've started adding the pages to the site index here. I'll try to update each post in the series with links to previous and next posts as I go.

When we left our investigator, he and his partner had just discovered signs of hasty flight in Michelle Allen's apartment. She owns the car that appears to have been the actual murder scene, so her fleeing seems suspicious at best. Here's the current game context, per Mythic GM rules. Things are getting a little more complex so I've added some notes to help track things. I've also split out our detective's personal characters / threads from the main list so we can keep things moving on the investigation when choosing characters at random. Focus!



Chaos: 6
Evan's Personal Characters
Jeff Long, Evan's partner on the force
Evan's Rabbi on the force
Evan's family
Evan's estranged wife
Evan's professional contact

Jeff's Personal Characters
Jeff's relative in trouble

Characters
The victim, an adult male
- Found in a very clean garden apartment
- Dead approximately two days
- The apartment was not the crime scene
The anonymous tipster
The forensics team
The shooter
The rental office staff
Michelle Allen, a person of interest in the murder investigation
- Owner of the damaged SUV found near the crime scene
- Car has blood and a gun in the passenger compartment
- Appears to have been the scene of the actual murder
- Allen's apartment shows signs of a hasty departure

Personal Threads
Jeff has a relative in trouble
Evan is on the road to divorce

Threads
Who killed the victim
Rental records for the murder scene are missing
Who owns the murder weapon
Where is Michelle Allen

The crime scene tech team is working over both the apartment where the body was found and the car. That'll take some time so we'll press on with other forms of investigation. It seems like we should hit the rental office now, find out what's up with the records, and press for access to Allen's apartment. The fact that her car is a murder scene, there's a gun on the front seat, and her apartment looks like she fled are probably enough cause for a warrant, at least in police-drama world, but maybe the apartment manager will just let us in. With that in mind, we frame the scene as a visit to the rental office to confront the staff. Let's see what Mythic says:

• The scene has been altered (roll 5).

Altered implies we get to the rental office, but things don't go as planned. Time to find out why. By this time Evan and Jeff are convinced something odd is up with the rental office. I'm going to go with a base of 50/50 for most of these questions to see what Mythic comes up with.

• Q1: Is the office open? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes
• Q2: Is the property manager in? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes
• Q3: Does he have an explanation for why there are no rental records? (likely)
• Answer: No
• Q4: Is there anyone else in the office? (50/50)
• Answer: Extreme yes
• Event: Focus: NPC negative. Meaning: Befriend death.

Aha. This reads to me like someone knows either our victim or the killer, and they're here right now. Let's see who we have. I'm leaning toward knows the victim, since if they know the killer that might resolve things too quickly. It also sounds like the property manager, now known as Mike Lewis, is in the dark about the rental records. We'll follow up that too.

• Q5: Is the extra person part of the rental staff? (likely)
• Answer: No
• Q6: Are they friends with the victim? (very likely)
• Answer: Yes
• Q7: Are there any signs the missing records were stolen? (likely)
• Answer: Yes
• Q8: Did the extra person here steal them? (very unlikely)
• Answer: No
• Q9: Does the property manager have any explanation for who might want to steal the records? (likely)
• Answer: Yes

Well, that's something at least. Now we know the records were stolen, and the property manager knows why that might happen. *I* don't have any ideas here so we'll continue to play out this scene, leaving the interview with our mystery guest as a new scene. 

To my mind there are three likely reasons someone would mess with rental records: tenant vs. tenant conflicts, tenant vs. property management conflicts, or property management vs. outside forces conflicts. I'll assign some quick probabilities: 30%, 50%, and 20% respectively, and let the dice figure it out. The result on a d100 is 10%, so this is a tenant vs. tenant conflict. Given the direct link to the body, it seems near a sure thing that one of the tenants in the conflict is our victim.

• Q10: Was our victim involved in the conflict that lead to record theft? (near sure thing)
• Answer: Yes
• Q11: Did the victim steal the records? (likely)
• Answer: No

Time for some let's pretend. Given this is a college town, and the apartments are used by college students, I'm going to declare the conflict here is about a shared apartment and rent. The dice tell me there are three roommates. One of them is probably our victim, our stranger is probably one of the others, and the third may be our thief (and / or our murderer).

• Q12: Is our stranger one of the roommates? (likely)
• Answer: Extreme no
• Q13: Can the property manager provide names for some /all the three roommates? (very likely)
• Answer: Yes
• Q14: Is there more staff to the rental office? (likely)
• Answer: Yes
• Q15: Is a picture of the victim available to establish ID? (50/50)
• Answer: No

Well now we know more. Evan and Jeff may not know the victim is one of the roommates yet, but it's likely they will soon. The dice tell us that Mike Lewis, the property manager, can provide the names for all three roommates, and using those, plus driving records and student records at the university, we should be able to tie faces to names. The three names we get are: Scott Marin, Rose Marie Orr, and Albert Burns. Hmm. My police drama watching mind is sensing a love triangle in the making.

We also know there are more staff members working the property. Since it's summer and slow, we'll randomly decide on two people, Tina Mallory, a general administrator, and Jacob Anderson, maintenance and grounds. We'll worry about them later.

At this point we've probably gotten all we can from Lewis concerning the mystery apartment and victim. Let's find out about Michelle Allen.

• Q16: Are the records for Allen's apartment available? (very likely)
• Answer: Yes
• Q17: Given what we have on Allen, will Lewis let us in to check out her apartment? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes
• Q18: Does Lewis know of any relationship between Allen and the trio of roommates? (unlikely)
• Answer: No
• Q19: Do the records include a place of work? (near sure thing)
• Answer: Extreme yes
• Event:  Focus: Move toward a thread. Meaning: Carelessness ambush.
• Q20: Did Lewis notice Allen around the site within the last two days? (50/50)
• Answer: No
• Q21: Did Lewis notice any of the three roommates around the site within the last two days? (50/50)
• Answer: Extreme no
• Q22: Has Lewis been on site in the last two days? (unlikely)
• Answer: No

The dice say the thread involved in this event is the missing rental records. Since we're poking around the rental office and we are detectives, it seems like we detect something! I'm going to declare we find some physical evidence that will lead to our thief. A die result gives up a 11 / 100 result for strength of evidence, not to good. Hmm, let's say we find the entry point to the office, a crawlspace access with a broken lock. There's a discarded soda can nearby that may have prints. Lewis provides some additional answers, but nothing of major importance. He also explains he has been on vacation for the last few days, covering why he doesn't have much information.

With that I think it's time to move on. Two scenes suggest themselves for next time, interviewing the mystery guest in the rental office and investigating Allen's apartment. Before I close Evan will go ahead and make some checks against student and driver's license records to see if he can put pictures to names and possibly ID the shooting victim. I'll do this roommate by roommate.

• Scott Marin: Average, Good results for student/BMV records.
• Rose Marie Orr: Great, Superb results for student/BMV records.
• Albert Burns: Good, Epic results for student/BMV records.

Those results tell me we have at least a BMV photo for everyone, and can ID the victim. Since we know the victim is male, a 50/50 roll reveals... Scott Marin is our dead guy.

Time to clean up our context, updating threads and characters and close for now. Here's where we are:

Chaos: 6

Evan's Personal Characters

Jeff Long, Evan's partner on the force

Evan's Rabbi on the force

Evan's family

Evan's estranged wife

Evan's professional contact

Jeff's Personal Characters

Jeff's relative in trouble

Characters

Scott Marin

- The victim, an adult male

- Found in a very clean garden apartment

- Dead approximately two days

- The apartment was not the crime scene

- One of three roommates involved in a dispute concerning rent.

Rose Marie Orr

- One of three roommates involved in a dispute concerning rent.

Albert Burns

- One of three roommates involved in a dispute concerning rent.

The anonymous tipster

The forensics team

The shooter

Mike Lewis, property manager

- Lewis agrees to provide access to Allen's apartment

- Probably has an alibi for the murder (vacation)

Tina Mallory, property administrator

Jacob Anderson, maintenance and grounds

The stranger in the rental office

- Friends of the victim (though our detectives don't know that)

- Didn't steal the records

- Not a roommate

Michelle Allen, a person of interest in the murder investigation

- Owner of the damaged SUV found near the crime scene

- Car has blood and a gun in the passenger compartment

- Appears to have been the scene of the actual murder

- Allen's apartment shows signs of a hasty departure

Personal Threads

Jeff has a relative in trouble

Evan is on the road to divorce

Threads

Who killed the victim

Rental records for the murder scene are missing

- The records were stolen

- The thief broke in through a crawlspace

- They may have left fingerprints on a soda can nearby

Who owns the murder weapon

Where is Michelle Allen

And on that note... cue credits.

• The next post in the series.