Scene #8766: Sterling Investigations

Owner	Pose
Powerpuff Girls	TOWNSVILLE, CALI. Buttercup rests in a hammock in the perfectly seasonal January weather of 74 degrees and blue skies, strung between two pine trees and low. Dressed in a tank top and a pair of athletic shorts, the hammock-dipping emerald puff holds her phone over her chest with two awkwardly cocked elbows while her thumbs click against the reinforced phone screen. Padre B, > Padre. > I've been thinking. > That a cleaned up girl like me could make the cops twitch. > How a guy like you was who had to be sent. > How a girl like me had to hold that > thing in the woods. It takes her a few minutes, phone on her top, staring up at the blue sky, and the sway of trees. A notification buzzes her device on her chest as she becomes distracted listening to a conversation a few blocks down, and then she feels good enough to resume. > I bet the cops knew. STERLING, CONN. Buttercup arrives in a snap of speed whose decelleration cuts through the otherwise chill air, blowing a gust of warm mist in the emerald Puff's wake down the street where the Sterling PD sits. Buttercup stands through the thinning of her arrival plume, like a jumpscare goth girl in a January evening. Wearing a black/dark grey windbreaker over a green shirt, dark distressed jeans, and black converse, she jams her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker, shoulders high, and then begins by walking straight up through to the door or at least entrance of the Police Department.
Father Berislav	> Do you think so? Berislav's fingers have scarecely left the phone by the time Buttercup arrives in Sterling. > I'm not so sure. > But like most of their peers elsewhere, they're hardly innocent in a general sense. An old man on the street corner in a heavy grey puffer jacket startles at the sight of Buttercup. She can tell that he isn't scared of her, specifically--he might even know who she is, the way his sea-colored eyes regard her. He turns, as the air disturbed by her entrance ruffles his salt-and-pepper hair, and gives a brief nod to someone down the street. > Some of the things I hear are appalling, even by the low standards of police. That someone is a girl about Buttercup's age, her wiry hair tucked away in a black beanie. Her studded punk rock leather jacket looks just as warm, if not warmer, than the old man's puffer jacket. Warm copper skin peeks from holes in the back of her driving gloves, as she crosses the street--into a phonebooth. --- "Hey, Father, I think one of your friends is in town. She just headed into the police station." "Thank you for letting me know, Brenda. Are you sure you're not hungry? I have plenty of food here. And hot chocolate." "Yeah--I mean--" Brenda's cheeks briefly burn. "No! I mean... you're not worried?" "If it's who I think it is, I'm not worried in the slightest. Stephen told me that Michael is doing well?" "Yeah. I don't think the family is gonna press charges." "Good. I think it's safe to say by now that if they had anything on Father Garcia, they would have moved by now. Why don't you and Stephen go home? I'm sure my 'friend' will find something, and she'll be doing it away from the cold." "...okay. Okay, Father." --- Brenda hangs up the phone, then makes a brief little not to 'Stephen' down the street. The two of them go their separate ways, one at a time. > Dropping by for a visit? :) > Let me know what you find. The Sterling police department is about what could be expected. A bored-looking desk officer doesn't bother to sit up straight, not to even acknowledge Buttercup, as if hoping that she'll just leave on her own. Just past the beige wall behind her, on either side, are the usuals; a waiting room for those being processed or interviewed, workspaces with desks and cubicles for detectives on staff, interrogation rooms, and, all the way at the back, the recordkeeping rooms and evidence locker.
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup catches the look outside the Police Station with a side-long glance of emerald, stopping in her slouched walk to look at the 'local'. The zig in her zag doesn't bring her closer to the old man, but she lingers looking At the old man with a clear-through-the-thinning mist directed perceiving. It lasts until he looks back, catching a little 'what's up?' upnod and daggertight smirk on the olive-skinned Powerpuff. Like the most tourist-ass out of towner in Conneticut, the girl in the dark windbreaker stops just inside - courteous enough to let the wood and glass paneled double door close on the cold behind her and stand in the curtain of heat... to get out her phone from her windbreaker's pocket and look down to start thumbtyping into it. > They put two guys in a car for you. > Hours. > Can't keep two guys in a car together for hours. > Unless they share something they love. > And these people love to hate. The sides of her thumbnails make perceptible clicks as she hammers out the texts on her phone. Taking a quick pause, she looks up at the receptionist, flashes a one second fake smile, and lifts a piece of chewing gum to her mouth, popping it in and returning cleared fingers to her phone. > Brenda's cute. The Powerpuff flashes a grimace. > Bet they got a file on her too. Bonus points, right? Tucking her phone in her pocket and stepping up to the sleepy reception like she hadn't been typing away in the heat for a good minute or two before her bubblegum smile, Buttercup looks down at the desk, and then up at the admin-cop on duty. "Hola, Señor." Buttercup drops into, Califluent in Spanish and putting it on a little for effect. "I was hoping you could help me?" Buttercup sinks down a bit, lifts a hand to brush her right bangs behind her ear, and flashes another smile, the expected one. "I am from out of town and am looking for a missing friend? I can look at papers," Just 'at papers', like it'd be totally cool, just show her to the papers. "Yeah?" Buttercup vapidly smiles and asks, pushing her gothy roughness off. "My friend, they were lost in the woods." She further prompts, just to make sure the right reaction-centers were triggered.
Father Berislav	> Look at her. Of course they do. The desk officer looks annoyed to actually have to do her job. "They have to have been missing for more than 48--" She starts, in that really annoying 'speaking loudly as if that makes English understood better' kind of way, until it clicks with her what Buttercup had said. "...in the woods," she repeats. This does not brighten her disposition--but after rubbing her temple, she gives Buttercup the universal 'one second' raised index finger, before using the desk phone before her. While she attempts to cajole a detective to the front, the desk officer nods towards a corkboard on the wall. It's a missing-persons noticeboard the community can maintain. There are several photos pinned to it--more than there ought to be, for a city this size. One of them is assuredly Michael. As fluent as she is in body language, Buttercup can see that the young man's smile is belied by his withdrawn posture; there is something in him that keeps that smile from being entirely sincere, and it probably isn't the demon that she'd helped with. It's in the eyes--something quiet and sad and desperate, asking the onlooker for something he's not sure they can give. "Ma'am?" asks the desk officer, standing up from her desk as a detective enters into the lobby. "This is Detective Fuller," she says, gesturing with a sweep of her hand to an older man with weather-beaten skin. He's a lifer, to look at him--thinning grey hair and all. "Hi there." He offers her a handshake. Buttercup can tell by the way he stands, by the half-hearted grip of his handshake, that he isn't impressed with her. What judgments are being passed, inside his head? Ugly ones, if the look in his brown eyes when they sweep towards the door is any indication. "Is that him, there?" He asks, nodding at the picture of Michael. "Why don't you come with me back to my desk, and you can tell me all about this friend of yours." 'All' is stretched out; the man is overworked, stressed, bitter. His desk, cluttered, tells a similar story. The chair beside it, meant for 'guests' like her, is upholstered in something old and itchy. Though his desk is disheveled, a few things stick out. Among them, a report about some kind of childbirth clinic downtown. Complaints and inquiries are beginning to mount; intra-department sentiment (based on Fuller's annoyed sidebar comments in blue pen) seems to be irritation over being asked to check it out. Sticky notes on the inner side of his cubicle make mention of a 'Candy Store Killer.' An unsent memo lies askew near a primitive computer, complaining of wait times on a background check for a 'Gary Miller.'
Powerpuff Girls	For all of Buttercup's performance, she's clearly not a child and isn't coming in with the haunted-skittish sense of a beaten down local or even the normal for those that had become adults in a world of police power. She plays a bit on the natural reaction to the man at the desk, the not-positive association of 'outsider' and 'associated with the Michael case' to direct the attention to where she wants it. Go ahead and judge, Buttercup challenges, and it is the desk officer's sad desperation that pulls out a flash of something else. The invincible armor, the thumbs-in-waistline elbows out energy of someone not worried about their wingspan, just in what kind of damage their elbows sometimes do... drops a little. Buttercup makes a soft squint of her radioactive greens and tilts her head, as if sensing something (and telegraphing), before curiously asking, soft sotto voice: "Officer, are you... doing alright?" She sounds like she gives a shit. It is because she gives a shit. Then the Detective answers. Buttercup is always fast enough to sneak a note on a table, and in a nearly imperceptible whisk of green, she leaves a post-it in key item Neon Green(ish yellow) with a phone number penned down, and a scribbled ballpoint note beneath: 'If you want to talk.' -BC The handshake is returned with a precisely-controlled grip - serious (normal person) firm, the sort a prospective would give someone they seriously committed to an impression on. Quite a bit tighter than the detective offerered her. Leaving with the detective to his desk, Buttercup settles across in the old itchy chair and takes time to pull off her windbreaker jacket, leaning black-sleeved forearms on the overworked and old ash bitter desk. "That's him." Buttercup nods. Entirely honestly, it's nice to see some confirmation. "Him and a few other people I know have gone missing and I came looking for them. He was hurt, and searching in the dark for something, and I'm afraid he found it, and then..." Buttercup trails off. This is too hard. Bubbles can do this for hours and can get people to just give her things. Just for asking! And Buttercup talks to lifers. Doing the roleplay drags on her. Wasn't she going to push this place over? Put the fear of something they couldn't do anything about in them? Wasn't that 'crime and the forces of evil?' Forces, forcing, evil was in the forcing of it. And wasn't she? No. She was just asking the 'right people' normal questions. About the things she saw, she felt. If they '''turned out''' to be evil she'd just... "Hey, which candy store? How many murderers are in this town, huh? This is worse than inner Citysville."
Father Berislav	Are you doing alright? When Buttercup leaves to speak with fuller, the desk officer, a stocky woman who looks more acclimated to patrol work than sitting around here all day, collapses in her seat and turns the note over in her hand. An expression of soft disbelief is on her face, mingled with something like hope and an undercurrent of reproach. 'Is it that obvious,' mixed with 'who does she think she is.' Him and a few other people I know have gone missing and I came looking for them. "He's safe and sound, as of a few nights ago," says Fuller. "Brought right to his parents, like something out of a movie." The detective doesn't seem to want to mention the others; maybe he doesn't know. But, when Buttercup asks about the candy store, he hardens. "It's not an actual store. More of a nickname for the culvert near Snake Meadow Hill. All the druggies, bums, runaways, fruits and hookers with GRID go there to get away or shoot up. Or both. Nothing you wanna be involved with," he says. It scares him. He wasn't there, for whatever it was--but, whatever it was, it's enough to scare someone who ought to be rather desensitized to this sort of thing, and to indulge in that age-old cop cope of retroactively assigning blame to victims. He remembers the facade of public service, for a moment, and his demeanor softens. "Sorry, but if I were you, I'd hope your other friends weren't the type to slum it in a place like that." The killer must still be at large. "Anyway," Fuller continues, eager to be on a different topic, "Tell me about some of these other friends of yours." Disappearances have been on the rise in Sterling. Some must be related to the 'Candy Store,' to be sure--but the detective clearly will take any lead he can to have less on his plate.
Powerpuff Girls	"Like something out of a moovie." Buttercup rasps in repetition, hitting the o-sound with an indulgent linger. Tell her aaall about it. Like a moovie. Mirroring back, giving aroundabout as good as she got. Falling into the wearied, relaxed state of someone becoming more open and vulnerable towards someone else. For all her goth prickle, Buttercup wants to understand Detective Fuller as much as she wanted to understand the desk cop at the door. But Fuller hardens too, hears words and responds to them. "Detective, my friends might be in awful danger. I'm involved with them, so it doesn't matter if there's candy or worse." Buttercup states, definite and certain. A controlled passion, shoulders straight, eyes unwavering. She has no problem holding gaze at all. She smiles as he softens. "The world's a slum and some people pick up trash and put it where trash goes." Buttercup sounds like she agrees, but the words agree with herself. She knows what he might take of it, and her smile remains tight in the cheeks. "Anyway." Buttercup agrees, leaning forward in her seat and splaying fingers across Fuller's desk and papers. "I'd lllove to. Tell me, Detective Fuller. Do you believe in God? Angels? The Devil HIMself?" The Townsville accent for their particular manifestation of the crabclawed accuser comes in strong, a buzz in the nose. "I've got a friend by the naaame of Jesus Christ, and, Detective, he is strong in Sterling." A lopsided, strikingly joking grin daggers across the green Puff's mouth. "But so is some bad folks, so I don't want to support... crime and the forces of evil." The old line plays cheshire through Buttercup. "Do you want to hear a secret, Detective?" Buttercup leans in deeper. "I'm like a girl from the movies. Do you know the ones? Okay, my turn." Like they're trading questions, and her nonanswer flipped things around. Like an interrogation, but friendly. "Why does the precinct park a car in front of low income housing, but doesn't dispatch someone to help the calls that come from inside? Some of those people needed help." And got it, thanks to Berislav and a little Powerpuff speed-magic in a few corner cases. "But you just wanted to watch that new man of the cloth in town, Detective. Didn't you?" Buttercup leans back, but remains at a near-stand. "Or did I look up the wrong address?"
Father Berislav	Talk of God, and angels, and the devil--on any other day, that kind of talk might get Buttercup a polite wrap-up and request to leave, garbed in the legitimacy of 'thank you for your time.' But perhaps she caught him on the right day, or the wrong day--when he looks up from scribbling on a little notepad to make eye contact with her, the spirit of 'let's get this over with' is no longer in him. With a settling of his jaw, he opens up a file cabinet. Rifling through manila folders hung on plastic hooks, he procures a fax. The seal of the FBI is on it, a striped shield engraved with scales and flanked with branches of laurel. He pushes it towards Buttercup. "That 'new man of the cloth' has a rap sheet a mile long. I've -never- gotten a response from anyone out of state so fast. Hell, I'm still waiting on one for this Miller character, and he's supposed to be a local." The paper details a list of Berislav's involvements. None of it will likely surprise Buttercup--after all, she'd come to the conclusion herself, in a moment of queasy clarity: one day, he'd simply had enough. Of course, the fact that Fuller had thought to show this, and not to answer her initial line of questioning first, is damning in itself. That he'd think to answer only the question about his choice of who to prosecute and punish, and not why he wouldn't think to help. -That- question comes to him later, almost pitifully dawning in his eyes. 'I'm just an old man,' they seem to say. 'What can I do?' "You're Watch, aren't you. Like him." He runs a callused palm over his thinning hair and leans back in his seat, heaving a sigh. The well-used office chair creaks, as it surely has on many a late night. "So you probably already knew all of that." "What do you want me to say?" His posture in the chair could best be called 'defeated.' This is something he tries not to acknowledge, every day. There aren't many other detectives working here. But still, he lowers his voice, to share an open secret. "'Protect and Serve' is the biggest con this country ever pulled. It's a pie on a windowsill, put out to turn suckers into bastards. And that's assuming you weren't already one to begin with." She can tell by the way his eyes shift towards an empty desk that there are plenty of officers here he can think of. Heaving a sigh, he sits up in his desk. "So yeah. You have the wrong address. That's not what we do here. Underneath the flashing lights and the pretty words, there's a stick, and the hope that it's enough to keep the worst of the trash in line. Not because it does the people in that complex any good, but because it helps the ones in better neighborhoods sleep at night." After a short, bitter sigh, Fuller's voice is conversational volume again. "I've heard things. Things about Baumann." The Candy Store Killer. "The men that raided that place took some of it back with them--and they didn't send fresh-faced kids down there. You better hope the Jesus talk isn't a joke, if whatever's in that tunnel gets bored of the dregs. Now..." "Enough bullshit. If there's something else you want, from me, or from this place, then you tell me, and I'll worry about the excuses if I need to make any. Maybe there's still enough sucker in me to think that things can be okay."
Powerpuff Girls	Hanging in near-stand, Buttercup doesn't continue up to her full height, or down to the chair. Hunched, instead, over the desk, staring across papers and the petty holdings of an officer of the law in Conneticut. Even if a detective's salary bought things, the poverty was of the spirit. Emerald eyes fall on bright, crisp manilla and the shield of the FBI, olive finger reaching over to flip the cover over. Yep. It's the Padre. Her eyes flick quickly, fingers turning over the pages before she lingers on certain passages - reading them over several times for comprehension. It becomes 'her turn' to answer a question, and Buttercup is being '''fair'''. "Detective," Her eyes flick around the desk - no family-appearing pictures, no ring on the finger. "I didn't tell you to recite something back to me. I asked a question." A sarcastic, rhetorical question from the slightly judging lips of a young woman who carried herself entirely without fear in a palpable sense. And from that stance, her own voice drops, enough of a swallow-down to coat her rasping dry natural tone with a little smoothing. "Turning suckers into bastards, though..." She follows the glance to another desk - a bastard's desk. A grimace follows, tight on Buttercup's cheeks. "I got the right address." Back to Fuller, the emerald Puff gives a long gaze, reconsidering, and listening through his final, raised-voice information reveal. Enough bullshit. Still enough sucker. "You don't need to hold a stick. Thinking you need to might be what turns bakers to bastards. But you might just need to be a sucker." Reaching into her jacket pocket, Buttercup pulls back out her phone, swiping and typing into a new window quickly. The Detective is largely privy to this, upside down. She's not hiding. Thumbtyping in a sentence to someone whose chat icon is sangria red, she finishes, thumbs the screen to sleep, and places it on the detective's desk. A second reach into pocket pulls out a little black leatherbound chequebook, opening the chain clasp and stealing a pen off the detective's desk. With a quick scribble, she ballpoints down a handful of numbers, draws a quick swoosh of a line, and then endorses with a signature. The check is out to 'Fuller', and the account at the head is titled 'Emerald Ventures LLC III' - clearly absolute bank veil bullshit. She peels the check off her book and places it on the desk at the top of the folder of FBI documents still open, resting her hand on the paper until she pockets her checkbook and discards the pen. Waking phone up with a gesture and swiping through the lock, she spins the screen towards the detective, and sits back. "If you want out but can't make it - I'll fix that for you." The check is made out for fifty thousand dollars. "Just move away. If it's too much, we'll handle it. If you want to help..." The phone screen has an unsent text message in a new group text with Brick and Boomer Jojo. Several messages about the investigation have already been shared, though the most recent picture appears to be 'Buttercup eating pancakes and bacon and looking sour at whomever took the picture', and then: > I'm a detective at the precinct. I want to help the Watch investigation into the supernatural events in Sterling, because what I really want is to make my town a better place. My phone number is And the lit entry line, switched to number entry on the soft keyboard. Buttercup's sotto voice is almost a growl. "You can get out of here, or get past the bullshit, or--" She shrugs. "Start shouting?" She smiles. "I'm not good with computers, Detective. I prefer taking swings at things. So you can definitely help me with that. Even if I've got the wrong address.ans
Rowdyruff Boys	Brick Jojo has a specific dedicated line on his phone. The only people with access to it are the Powerpuff Girls, and select members of the Townsville city government that does not actually include the Mayor, but does include Miss Bellum. A distinctive tone buzzes him and, for once, it does not catch him in the middle of a date. He is simply eating a bowl of legally distinct Reese's Puffs Cereal and talking shit on twitter about Elon Musk's inability to actually mine asteroids. Their universe isn't a bad enough one that Musk actually owns twitter, but he does get blocked summarily. He does not telephone in, pocketing his phone and picking up his bowl. The spoon rattles against the rim as he walks into the police station. "I am a nine foot tall pink platypus. You will be unable to describe me in any other way, and you will erase all camera footage and sabotage back-ups as I know you frequently do when you are caught breaking the public trust. You will do nothing by word or deed to impede or oppose me," Brick's voice thunders, his psychic presence unfurling and forcing itself into the minds of every policeman within not merely the building but the city limits themselves. He sniffs the air, and strolls through the police station, pushing in the door to the Detective's office. Stepping in beside Buttercup, Brick finishes the last few pieces of candy-masquerading-as-breakfast, drains the bowl of milk, and then commands, "Rowdyruff Boys. Jurisdiction encompasses the milky way galaxy and several astronomical units beyond as fits my mood. Quit giving her a hard time. Act otherwise exactly as you normally would."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup thought this whole situation was going to go smartly. She really was being like a girl from the movies. She was going to get through to this man, even in a room of cops. She felt good! This was the process working! Warm pies on windowsills, just thinking about it and lining up the suckers puckered for a slice, a simple enough aesop even for her to spin a simple tune together about it-- Brick Jojo appears and Buttercup just groans and hangs her shoulders, black bangs falling over her eyes before she sits back and really gives him a full roll of the eyes. Buttercup reaches over for the phone on the detective's desk, as the whole Sneaky Occult Procedural crumbles. Really, BC shouldn't have been left to stew alone for this long because she'd get all album length about it. "Seriously, Brick?" Looking forward at Detective Fuller and brushing her eyes clear, Buttercup smiles thinly. "I'm Buttercup Utonium - of the Powerpuff Girls. And he's a lot rowdier than a stick of wood."
Rowdyruff Boys	"You paged me to a police station," Brick says, gazing irritably at the bottom of his bowl. A column of light flashes in and out, and he's no longer holding it. "I only come to police stations to remind them of the social contract. They won't even have to do anything bad if they don't already do the bad thing. Those are the rules."
Father Berislav	I am a nine foot tall pink platypus. Of the few officers that are here, most, aside from Fuller and the desk officer, just leave. The desk officer copes with a cassette player, turned up so loud that Brick can faintly hear the guitars from the main office. "You've got to be shitting me," says Fuller, showing the telltale signs of a stress headache's onset. "What else? You guys are about as subtle as fireworks in a library. Make yourself at home, Mr. Platypus." Act otherwise exactly as you normally would. Detective Fuller sighs. It isn't a flippant gesture; not the gesture of someone who is merely annoyed in the banal kind of way that the desk officer had been. As far as Buttercup can tell, he didn't even particularly think of his interaction with her as 'giving her a hard time,' but that's more a statement on the general helpfulness of police. The sigh is a noise of resignation, which Buttercup can see in his eyes. The check, and what it represents, is tempting. More tempting than a much younger man, lured by the false appeal of 'protect and serve,' could have ever imagined, much less tolerated. But, the resignation in him is a specific kind. The creases in his aging features were worn in not just with the passage of time, but with the weight of furrowed brows and the wear of sleepless nights, fighting off anxieties at rest and telling little lies at work to make the big ones go down easier. That sigh says--'it all lead up to this.' The moment a person faces the choice between difficult, frightening work and cold comfort. The detective takes the phone, and enters his number, perhaps more quickly than Buttercup may have expected, following that sigh. For him, it may have felt like a lifetime. "There," he says, handing it back after a moment's confusion at technology which to him seems like a work of science fiction. "Don't make me regret it." His chair creaks as he shifts and tears off a sheet of notepad paper, a pen hurriedly scrawling across it. Addresses.
Rowdyruff Boys	"You should fire everyone who left," Brick comments, glancing out the office door.
Powerpuff Girls	'You paged me to a police station' "I was..." Shoulders set, tense, the 'hard time' had been and not been Fuller's fault. Buttercup had been drowning in trying to be something she mostly wasn't, but needed to be in the moment to be kind to the glimmer of hope in a man. Still raw from being scoured by the worst the vicious parasites of the soul could conjure, she had wanted a big win in Sterling to make up for the big loss she felt, the hurt that she bore out in service and music. "Okay, I should've guessed pressing send would bring you down. But you're better at computers than me, too." Buttercup protests, and then looks up to watch the room empty. "Yeah. Fire those guys." With the rasp of someone who doesn't expect Fuller to have a choice. Every number that goes in might be easier, or harder, but when it's done... Buttercup slowly reaches over to take her phone back, the futuristic display glowing a strange blue (of normal smartphone screen, but how could he know? A nine foot tall platypus was here.), and pockets it. "It's worth more than a check, to you, Detective." Buttercup comments, while Fuller fills paper with addresses. "What are these addresses to? Places to... search? Places you can't go? There's a real threat to this town, and you've got to live in it so - we're trying to save more than just one day." Buttercup pulls off Fuller's desk to double back to something Brick said earlier. "'Remind them of the social contract?' How often do you go to police stations?"
Rowdyruff Boys	Truth is, after coming in and messing with everyone's minds, Brick doesn't have much left to do here. He regards Buttercup, not critically as he might somebody else, but certainly analytically. It didn't really occur to him that the kind of win he could hand her wasn't really what she was looking for. Nothing to be doing about it now, though. He makes a mental note to simply send Boomer next time; at least his most idiotic brother was personable in a way that would probably advance things in the lane that Buttercup preferred. "Infrequently. Blossom doesn't like it, and the cost-benefit balance is usually poor. I assumed that if you were asking at all you really needed it," he explains, dully.
Father Berislav	"Places we write off," Fuller answers Buttercup. "Places we hear about now and then, send a squad car, poke around, and leave empty-handed." He only half-believes, his tone implies, that the empty-handedness is not for want of trying on the part of the department. "Plus, one or two that are on the radar, lately." He pauses, trying to recall something, snapping his fingers before pulling up an incident report on the flickering screen of his blocky computer. The both of them can tell at least that he's being helpful, for the presence of the Martin house, towards the bottom of the list. Dates are listed next to each entry on the list, plus a number. Most of the numbers besides the dates are just '1.' A few of them have '2,' or '3,' or even '4,' and these are higher up the list, as well--it must be the number of calls they've received. The top of the list is an address for a cemetery, not far from the Martin household. Five calls, in the span of a year and change. "I'd start there and work your way down," he says. "I'm sure you Watch types can handle yourselves, but I'd stick together there anyway. Fog gets real thick this time of year, and if it's not just bums, you don't wanna be alone in that," says Fuller.
Rowdyruff Boys	The moment a graveyard arises as a topic, Brick sighs in exasperation. Slowly, he says, "I need to know if it is a cemetary of ordinary geographical significance, a native sacred site, the former site of an old plantation, that sort of thing. Especially the plantation thing. Don't leave the shit out, you have no fucking idea how cursed those places are and nobody thinks anything about it because..." He spends the next two and a half minutes complaining about lost causers and how much they've sanitized even the occult ramifications of their bullshit.
Father Berislav	Is it the former site of an old plantation or a native sacred site? "Yeah? You deal with that a lot, Mr. Platypus? No--it's a regular cemetery, but..." "Last year there was a triple homicide about a mile off. Like something out of a horror show." Fuller can provide the case file for it, on request, pulled up on his computer. A grisly, ritualistic killing, with symbols carved onto the bodies matching the vandalism on a desecrated tomb found in the cemetery. "Something rubs me the wrong way about the church next to it, too," he says, after silently chewing on the words. "Some of the local guys--" He must not be from here, originally. "They say people disappeared from there, back in the 50s. A nun, plus some kids--it was one of those religious-run orphanage deals." Unfortunately, there aren't any records of that. Fuller seems tiredly unsurprised by this. "It's been shut down, ever since." Other points of note are the Candy Tunnel, second down on the list, marked 'dangerous' and underlined, the aforementioned Martin household, and some kind of fertility clinic. This one has a question mark beside it--Fuller isn't sure at this time if it'd really be helpful or related, but included it for a few recent complaints. "I'm trying to get a line to the Department of Health on that one," he says, un-hopefully.
Rowdyruff Boys	"I have evoked the spirit of John Brown to torment the lingering spirits of slavers, yes," Brick explains, matter-of-factly. //It was one of those religious-run orphanage deals// To this, the red-haired young man looks if anything more incensed. He throws his hands up in exasperation, "A fucking RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL? Are you kidding me right now? Of course there's no records, do you have any idea how many unmarked graves those hellholes have? Jesus fucking christ..." After a moment or two he collects himself and says, "But that's the exact sort of detail I needed, and one that most police would overlook as 'ordinary', so thank you."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup had wanted to be the bad girl, but... She wanted to help this guy a little more. And, being honest: Brick was reliably a much better schemer than her. In the punk arrangements, she was big-hearted muscle. This wasn't just her bitter mission to make right - it was a time for things to get better in Sterling, because the Watch was here now. And they didn't just leave the problem done halfsies. That was the social contract she knew, and had a much higher expectation of it than in cops. Sitting back as she looks over the locations and checking her phone's map tool to check out a general map. Four calls. Calls that they came back empty-handed from. "No wonder you've been having problems." Buttercup murmurs draggingly, fingers moving across the list. "If you could print out what you could, that'd be good. We can take notes, too. If it takes you a bit to get it together, that's... fine." '..., so thank you.' "He means it." A moment passes, and Buttercup cracks a weak smile. "I mean it too. We're here to fight the forces of evil," Buttercup lifts pumps a fist casually. "- no joke."
Father Berislav	It's unclear, how exactly one can look at a towering pink platypus with any more disbelief than is already implied by its sheer existence. Fuller, who is plenty disillusioned with the present, and not at all a student of history, still manages to look askance at Brick. "...yeah, no problem." Fuller's weathered hands pat the seat of his pants briskly, and he stands up. It's the body language of someone eager and willing to help. His hands hunt-and-peck a few commands. With everyone who left, the department is so quiet that Brick and Buttercup can hear the warmup of an ancient (brand new, by this world's standards) printer, even more clearly than their superpowered hearing otherwise would. "I believe you," says the detective, to Buttercup. "It's gonna take a while for that hunk of junk to get working. I'll drop it all off tomorrow, 9 A.M., at the Bluebird." A diner in town, not hard to find. He extends a hand towards her, then towards Brick, with some hesitation, for a handshake.
Rowdyruff Boys	"This isn't actually what I look like," Brick clarifies for Fuller's benefit. Which lines up with the fact that he can shake the man's hand like a human; he just really wanted plenty of plausible (or implausible, as the case may be) deniability. He supposes he'll let his appearance be known at the diner.
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup takes Detective Fuller's hand. Her grip adjusts, and the emerald Puff actually gives him an adult pump of the hand. The sort your father would be proud of giving - and no farther. "I believe you too, Detective. I want to." One more look around out of Buttercup, and then she stands up, shifting the seat behind her and setting the desk chair back in. "Guess I'll see you at the Bluebird." Buttercup slowly slides her hands into the pockets of her jacket, rolls her head to Brick. "And what do you mean, Mr. Platypus? You're beautiful."