Homicide - Long Time, No Body

It's been a while since we've checked in on our detectives. I blame Diablo 3. Let's dive back in and get things moving!

When we left, Detectives Stacy and Long had just found Michelle Allen dead in her own apartment; an unexpected twist, since the pair were beginning to suspect she was was Scott Marin's murderer. The fact that she's dead doesn't mean she isn't, but a dead murderer isn't very satisfying. We'll press on.

The situation on site is now pretty confused. We have quite a few things going on:
Scott Marin, killed in Michelle Allen's car, then moved to his old apartment.

• Michelle Allen, shot in her own apartment, possibly suicide.
• A bloody gun with fingerprints.
• Fingerprints in Marin's apartment.
• Signs of theft in Allen's apartment.
• The apartment office thief suspect, Kevin Woods, in custody.
• Albert Burns, one of Marin's former roommates and part of a dispute with the deceased, in custody.

Man I don't even know where to being with this. Most of the legwork on site is now in the hands of forensics, so our detectives should probably focus on other things and let them do their jobs. We have two suspects to deal with, Woods and Burns. Let's leave the physical scene behind and head to the station for an interview with our thief. He's possibly a suspect for the murders, and he was apprehended with stolen records from the rental office in hand, so let's see why he was stealing them. Our scene is the interrogation of Kevin Woods. Scene evaluation by Mythic tells us the scene is altered. Ah well, more chaos to the game. The evaluation helpfully offers up the suggestion of:

• Move away from a thread.
• Failure tension.

No, that's not standard Mythic, but I often use an event to inspire changes. I pick a random thread (the prints on the gun being traced), and try to figure out how interrogating Woods is going to move us away from that. Hmmm. Uhhh. Well, I really don't like that thread choice. Being a solo game, I can cheat! Rolling again (various wanted / flagged people and vehicles), and that's ... hrm, just as bad.

You know what? I'm going to ignore those results. We'll go with Woods's interrogation and alter it with our own selection: Woods has already asked for a lawyer, and gotten a fairly competent one, Cindy Bosley, so he's not talking. We'll do this anyhow, after all, the lawyer is expecting a robbery case, not homicide.

• Q1: Will Woods answer any questions about why he was beneath the office? (very unlikely)
• Answer: No
• Event: Focus: Ambiguous. Meaning: Struggle illusions.

Apparently we're not doing very well on the whole interrogation thing. The lawyer susses out that we're gaming his client and intervenes. Time to lay out the real crime we're interested in. Let's lead in with questions about the people first:

• Q2: Does Woods know any of the three roommates? (50/50)
• Answer: No
• Q3: Does Woods know Gabe Babbett? (50/50
• Answer: Yes
• Q4: Does Woods know Michelle Allen? (50/50)
• Answer: Extreme yes (the woman knows everyone!)
• Q5: Does Woods have an alibi for Marin's murder (June 7 midnight through the early AM of the 8th) (50/50)
• Answer: No

OK, Woods is shaping up to be suspicious. Let's go ahead and force the issue by confronting Woods with the potential murder charge. Jeff will play bad cop and confront Woods, while Evan will play good cop and try to wheedle something out of the suspect. The dice give us a -4 and a +4 roll, meaning Jeff failed horribly, but Evan succeeded brilliantly.

Great.

Jeff fumbles his way through the murder explanation for a few minutes before Evan cuts in "The point here, Kevin, in case it's getting lost on you, is that you're potentially in deep shit. Serious prison time deep shit. Two murders, you on the scene with stolen goods, a break-in at once scene, fingerprints floating around. Well, you're screwed. Your best bet is to come clean, tell us who put you up to the theft and what you know about Babbett and Allen."

With such a high result for Evan, Woods will probably share:

• Q6: Does Woods spill the beans? (likely)
• Answer: Extreme yes

Now the hard part, what exactly does he know? It seems obvious that someone set him up to rob the office. Let's find out who that was with a die roll. The result is Babbett. More bad news for our ex-con. Let's also find out more about the relationship he has with Allen and Babbett.

• Q7: Does Woods have a positive relationship with Babbett? (50/50
• Answer: Yes
• Q8: Does Woods have a positive relationship with Allen? ) (50/50)
• Answer: No
• Q9: Did Babbett participate in the theft? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes

So Woods is on good terms with our ex-con and did the theft at his behest. Babbett also participated in the theft, but a die roll (6 on a d100) shows minimal direct involvement. Still, that's enough to violate his ass back here if he's found and hold him. Woods, well he's still a suspect, so we'll hold him for 24 hours just in case. Before we leave, let's find out if he knows anything about the two murders we're facing:

• Q10: Does Woods know anything further about Marin's murder? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes
• Q11: Does Woods know anything further about Allen's murder? (likely)
• Answer: Yes

Font of knowledge now, isn't he? A random thread result says he knows what was taken from Allen's apartment, and I'll rule it's related to both murders. Given there was some sort of religion-based friction between the two dead people, I'll go with 'religious item' as the stolen property.

So that's about a wrap for now with Woods. He's pretty much copped to the theft, but that's minor so I smell a deal cooking if he cooperates with the murder investigations. We'll close out the scene on that note and move on.

We have quite a few open questions left, so next time I think I'll try to clear the air a bit and close off some minor stuff if we can. We'll stage the scene as: Doing the office detail.

Tune in again, same bat time, same bat channel!

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