Grips, Whips, and Lying Lips

[Heathcliff Staley]

Heathcliff parks at the gas station where he instructed everyone to meet and smiles faintly at Regina as he gets out and fruitlessly tries to draw air into his dead lungs. "I'll discuss my plan in further detail when I see what Priscus Stamford has managed to bring. By the way, I was quite taken with the Invictus court. I wonder, how do so many striking women join your Herds?" He smiles lopsidedly at her and winks one dead, gray eye. "Perhaps, they hope to attain some of your beauty in the Kiss, hmm?" he asks hopefully in that wet, nasal voice.

[Michael Hall]

Michael drove to the gas station, cursing up a storm along the way. This was not the way he had hoped for his night to go and he imagined it would only get worse as the night unfolded

Either way I'm in their pockets now. They view me as incompetent and it's going to be a long fucking time before I can get away from their watchful eye. I'm going to have to work really hard tonight, just to stay above the water and not be viewed as expendable.

He parks his car by the Senechal's and gets out of the car waiting for further instructions.

[Regina Pia]

Regina titters at the Seneschal's compliment, and jests backIt is worse than you think, they clamber over each other to be selected. It becomes a headache trying to manage them all." She smiles at him. "I am glad that you enjoyed the view. I myself look forward to the Lancea's court. I hope it to be exquisite." She studies the car as it approaches, and nods realizing that Hall is in there.

[Victoria Stamford]

Victoria arrives driving a white windowless delivery van with her servant sitting silently in the passenger seat. She sees the other kindred gathering and is not happy about being summoned out to some god forsaken gas station after loading up her van with a sizable portion of her fetish gear in the back. She had about a thousand things to do and none of it involved wasting her evening cleaning up some incompetent fools mistake. It especially did not involve potentially risking her own safety.

The van rolled to a stop near the other vehicles and Victoria got out. She wore a simple pair of bluejeans and a tight white t-shirt. If she was going to respond somewhere she was going to do it in something practical and disposable that won't draw attention. Her servant exited his side of the vehicle wearing a pair of slacks and a button up shirt with a vacant look on his face. He walked toward Victoria and he fell into step behind her as she made her way toward the gathered kindred. She came to a stop at a respectable distance from the others.

"Seneschal, Lady Councilor good evening," Victoria said politely as she nodded to each person in turn at their title.

This had better be fucking important, she thought to herself.

[Fractured]

Heathcliff smiles at Regina and says, "Yes, I quite expect it will be," in such a manner as to suggest that he has no hand in the preparations whatsoever and, in fact, doesn't expect it will be exquisite in the least.

Then Heathcliff sees Madam Victoria in her tight white tee and quite nearly manages to pull of the impossible feat of tripping over one's self while at the same time, standing perfectly still. "This is public enough to dispense with the titles, Victoria," he says as he recovers. "Thank you for coming." He then acknowledges Michael's presence and waves him over to join the discussion.

"I fear Sebastian has been waylaid by traffic again, somehow," the Seneschal croaks. "We shall move along without him." Looking at Victoria, Heathcliff explains, "Taylor McCoy thought so little of the Law as to keep a giant vat of blood in his basement. Police are already on scene. What we have to do is make sure the police don't leak the story to the media, and give our fine officers an explanation for what they've found." Heathcliff grins at his crew as he explains the plot. "The only one I could think of is that we are shooting a small budget fetish-slash-horror film, which is why I've asked Madam Victoria here to bring along," he looks over at her vehicle, "an entire van full of props?" He gives the Ventrue Priscus a very questioning look. Heathcliff liked his ladies, sure enough, but in a rather vanilla way. Lord knew what all Victoria had in that van, and even He probably didn't want to know.

The Nosferatu continues his congested monlogue, "Which is very good. Less is not more, in this case. You three are actors in this film. I am the director. We are waiting on our cameraman, who is unreliable and late. We have no idea who the woman who broke in was. McCoy agreed to rent us his place for our film while he is vacationing in Europe. The tub of blood is a prop for the movie. We want the body removed as soon as possible, so we can begin shooting. And for the officers trouble, we will suggest cash bribes for their silence, since we don't want our competition to hear about our work in production. I have no intention of actually paying them, unless one of you happens to have spare bribe money laying about; just offering it to get it to them. Perhaps, if they're fans of that sort of thing, we could offer them roles in the non-existent movie for which we will call them for when the non-existent cameraman arrives."

Finally, the Seneschal takes a pause, and looks at Michael. "If this was installed into McCoy's basement, there must be a drain of some sort. While we three have the officer's attention, I want you to find the switch, and if there is no one around, activate the drain. Once the officers have finally left, we will arrange for the stone tub to be transported away."

He puts his hands on his hips and looks at his crew. Two pretty ladies; two ugly Haunts. This might work. "Any questions, comments, concerns? Your input is crucial."

[Michael Hall]

Michael listens to the Seneschal's plan after he acknowledges the one named Victoria.

Props? What on earth would she have in the back of that van anyway? Still, somewhat of an unorthodox plan but it'll have to do. Kind of hard to make convincing lies with a pool of blood in the basement. I'm just not sure the cops will be the slasher film type/

"Be careful. That woman I left to drown in the tub was in heavy withdrawal." Michael said to the Seneschal "There is a drain down there I know that much i'm just worried that the officers may have taken some as evidence. It seems that tub has some effects to reduce aging. She was frantically throwing herbs in there before she slipped and fell. I'd try and see if they took any samples of anything out of his home. I can only imagine what substances, illegal or legal, he used in making this mess."

[Regina Pia]

Regina nods at Heathcliff's assertion about the court. Unfortunate indeed. Perhaps she should lend a hand to help.
With the arrival of madam priscuss, Regina gives her a nod, befitting her station. "Madam Stamford, it is pleasant to see you again." It would take far more than Heathcliff's meager and poorly phrased request to get Regina to quit using titles. Even Viscount Twist had failed to have Regina go completely without titles.
His...grandiose plan concerns her, but seems to be crazy enough to work. And worst comes to worst violence did solve problems, and no one would notice a little more blood. "As you require." She called forth the blood to her flesh, forcing it into the spaces and places neccessary to mimic life.

[Victoria Stamford]

Victoria frowned disapprovingly at the use of her given name. "Mister Staley if you are going to dispense of titles in public then you will properly refer to me as Miss Stamford. The two of us are not on intimate terms."

She listened to the Seneschal's plan and found it creative on short notice but found several problems with it. She looked to the unknown kindred as he spoke; her face was hard lacking the friendliness she had with the other two.

"So, you just watched as the woman ran about his haven and then left her to drown? We have you to thank that this is now a sealed homicide investigation and no longer a case of breaking and entering?"

She turned back to the others before she continued, "Because, at this point that is what we are up against. Since the person died with no witnesses standard procedure for law enforcement would be to treat it as a homicide investigation until the cause of death can be determined and until they rule out the possibility of murder. We have a vat of blood and a dead woman. It seems to me all we need to do is find Mister McCoy before the police do and make sure he is never found by them one way or another. Then the police have nothing but another murderous psychopath with a tub full of blood and no leads to tie him to any of the rest of the cities special population. If Mister McCoy never surfaces again then their investigation ends him."

After pausing for a moment she added, "Unless any one here has enough pull with the chief of police to squash a homicide investigation or enough pull with the city coroner and forensics. Any police on scene would have sealed off the scene and radioed in for a team from homicide. So while I do think your plan is very creative and had merit, I don't see it getting us past the police tape until their investigation is concluded, and then we have the police investigating us and why we want to get into a sealed crime scene so badly. I can't rewrite the memories of the entire Sacramento police force or make the police dispatch logs disappear."

[Heathcliff Staley]

The Beast within the Seneschal demands that he show submission to the greater Predator whom he has offended, but the Man is resolute that he look her in the eyes. "Of course, Miss Stamford. My apologies." Then he sighs, out of habit and looks off into the distance. "You make some very good points, I'm afraid," he agrees. Heathcliff still feels rather put out. What was he supposed to do? The Prince told him to handle it. This was the best idea he could come up with, but Victoria...erm, Miss Stanford...was right. So what now? Call his Regent and tell him, I'm sorry, sir, it's become an active homicide investigation, and I don't have the pull to do anything about it? He's going to get himself staked, though it was true.

"The point," he says, nervously drumming his fingers to 'Shave and a Haircut' along his car's hood which he has just sat down on, "is to give the police, and by extension, the media, an explanation for the Blood Tub." Perhaps, a more subtle approach would win out. "What if the story were the same," he says eventually, "but none of us need present ourselves at the crime scene? An address book or personal calendar left by an Obfuscated individual revealing a trip to Europe, set production dates in there, some European phone numbers, and they'll draw the conclusions themselves..." Drifting back to his crew, he says, "Miss Stamford's suggestion that McCoy be found and dealt with is a strong plan." Trying his best to conceal his dread, he croaks, "I will appraise the Prince of the new situation."

[Michael Hall]

Michael almost raises an eyebrow at Miss Stamford...almost but he manages to hold it back.

Is it a requirement for upper class kindred to have the ability to twist around how actual events happened into events that make subordinates look like idiots that inconvenience them? Great, plant an address book in the house. Looks like I can make friends again with Rawhide. If that is the case I know they're going to ask me to do this. God forbid they have to get their nails dirty and step into a blood filled house to drop something off.

He waits quietly as he sees Staley speak to the Prince. Then something occurs to him and he speaks.

I probably shouldn't but I've already achieved record levels of failure in their eyes a little more couldn't hurt.

"If we are concerned with knowledge of Mccoy's tub as well as his wherabouts, we should probably try finding his other "clients" as well. I imagine the woman I bumped into wasn't the only one, and if the others see the police have gotten a hold of it we could have a few more crazies on our hands ranting about this tub."

And verbal lashing in 3....2...1..