About Alternative Investigation Methods

[Dark Passenger]

'After a little wandering around I've found a tiny book, it has some numbers and a set of initials. Because it somehow gives me chills, I take it with me, futher investigation seems needed. Besides, it's such a mess here that Behari can't blaim burglary for the book being lost.' Jessica puts the book in a pocket of the jacket she is wearing.

Then she looks around, was this book the trophy she had been looking for? Can't be.

Ah hell, no one has to know I really believe in movies.

With that thought she walks to the bed, takes a deep breath, and then looks under his pillows. Afterwards she does a step back, breaths again, and goes back to the bed to lift the matress and check if something is beneath it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[Jmiland1]

Jessica's no prude--she's been in a few unfamiliar bedrooms before this one, on the job and off--but everything about this night points to this being one of the creepiest bedroom excursions she's ever undertaken. She half-hopes she won't find anything: the sooner she can get out of here, the better.

Pillows: nothing. Its hard to tell, in the darkness, if the pillowcases are stained or just naturally mottled grey. She puts them back and shifts the mattress, looking beneath; she sees nothing. No--wait--a glint--

Not beneath the mattress itself, but from the vertical brass bars of the headboard. Flat black electrical tape has been wound around one of the bars, wrapped around a holster. From the holster is a handgun (plastic grip, black and silver, a semiautomatic from the shape of things). The grip juts out at just about here Behari, laying in bed, might be able to grab it should someone surprise him in the night.

If Jessica looks for anything else, please roll Wits+Investigation, with a -2 penalty. Penalty can be voided if the lights are turned on, rather than a flashlight.

[Dark Passenger]

Jessica thinks a moment about taking the gun, but then decided that would be missed more easily. She scratches her head while thinking what to do. '3:27, I haven't found a lot of interesting stuff next to the book. So... I'm at the point of possibly making a very stupid decision, I do the lights on and continue my short investigation.'

And she did. Jessica has to blink a couple of times, but then gets a clear view on the room. She looks at the bed, beneath it, in and under some possible closets. After her change of mind in the bedroom she could just as well put a light on in the living room. But what? If someone would see the lights on in a house, it was less suspicious than the moving spot of a flashlight.

So she continues to search for something more useful than the one little book.

Rolls for a second check, with lights on

2011-05-17 10:27:16
Jessica rolls 9 to wits3+inves3 to search for something useful (10 Again, WillPower)
5, 7, 4, 3, 3, 10, 9, 1, 5, 8
3 successes

[Jmiland1]

Jessica gets more intimately familiar with Behari's bed than she had ever desired--checking beneath the sheets, the mattress and springs, the frame. Besides the gun there's nothing else to be found, so she replaces everything and checks out the closet.

Several shirts, most of them dark hues, are hanging up--some are neat and tidy while others seem to have never been acquainted with an iron. Amongst the forest of button-ups Jessica finds a wire hanger holding up an elaborate rig of leather straps: a shoulder holster, empty. Another hanger holds the stiff midnight blue of a Kevlar vest.

Six shoeboxes are stacked at the bottom of the closet next to a folded stepladder, but to Jessica's disappointment that is all they hold: some worn sneakers, several pairs of dress shoes, and a pair of boots (something in the design, the color and cut, suggesting 'military'). Just in case, she checks each shoe, spreading the tongue wide and peering inside. Nothing.

The shelves opposite the shirts are mostly bare except for a thin layer of dust. There's a box of light bulbs; a box of 9 mm rounds, presumably for the bed-gun; several more boxes of ammunition for other firearms Jessica hasn't seen. Standing next to a box of shotgun shells is a single screw, tip skywards. Taking a second look, Jessica sees a Phillips screwdriver behind some of the ammo boxes.

And right above her is a wire grate, covering up some air duct or another, with a dark hole where one of the four screws should be.

[Dark Passenger]

Wonderful, she had found something after all. Or at least some place where something useful could be. She quickly takes a chair from the kitchen (or something else to stand on) and takes the screwdriver in one hand. Jessica climbs up the chair and holds the mag-lite between her shoulder and head.

'3.34 I'm trying to open a wire grate, the sort of thing where you really want to put your secret stuff in.' Jessica chuckles, yeah she had watched enough Detectives to know of such places, oh and she was an agent of course.

With the screwdriver she tries to open the 'dark hole' to look in it later, with the flashlight on if necessary.

[Jmiland1]

Jessica gets the grate off and sets it aside, shining the flashlight into the duct. Inside is a rubber-banded stack of Euros, several inches thick, and an American passport in its blue leatherette case. On top of the stack of cash is a black Ipod with no earbuds. Odd place to put your tunes.

[Dark Passenger]

'3.37 Bingo!' Jessica throws the screwdriver on the bed to get her hands free, then takes everything out of the duct to put it on the bed. One last check if she didn't miss anything, and then she takes the screwdriver to put the grate back on it's place.

When she's done she puts the chair back on it's place, and starts inspecting her loot. From who was the passport? A quick indication of the amount of cash. And the Ipod stays out, it could count as another device after all...

The last thing that needed to be done is a big reorganisation, all her pockets were full. She puts everything on the bed, looks at it and allows herself to smile, then she packed everything in all the pockets. When everything that is important to her is somewhere on her body, she puts all the other stuff she had used back on it's place.

A last check to see if she overlooked something, then she puts the light out. A last check in the living room, and the lights out. 'I'm outta here.' The mag-lite is out, she opens the front door...

and if nothing stops her she'll walk away.

[Jmiland1]

Slightly before 4 AM, Jessica Warren walked out of a house that had hardly any sign of her passage. Her pockets bulged. Along with the maglite and the tape recorder she had come with, she now had an address book and a US passport for "Kurtiz Schein," a man who looked remarkably like Valon Behari. Paper-clipped into the passport were Mr. Schein's driver's license and several other legitimate-looking, if probably-forged, papers. There was also an Ipod. All of this jammed into one pocket.

Her other pocket held a massive wad of purple banknotes, 500 Euro bills; a quick count of the thick stacks put it at around three hundred bills. About 150,000 Euros if she was multiplying right.

Not bad for a night's work.