Participants:
| Scene Title | Foot In The Door |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Detective Shelby gets a written statement from Abigail to provide to the District Attorney to get things moving towards the arrest of John Logan and associates. |
| Date | March 13, 2009 |
The New York Police Department Head Quarters is an old stone building, renovated many times over the years. The plaster walls are not as cracked and in need of repair as the various Precinct buildings around the city. The fluorescent lights give the room a rather sterile glow. Old posters, civic reminders, duty rosters and newspaper clippings are tacked up on the walls, rustling every time one of the doors opens. A high, wooden desk sits on the north wall, manned by two clerks, who records all visitors and arrests.
The way out to the street lies to the south, while doors to the offices of the Head Quarters lie to the northwest.
Detective Shelby returns to his would-be office sometime after Rebecca Nakano has left, carrying two glass bottles of sparkling green tea root beer and a legal sized college-rule notepad. "Sorry to make you wait so long, Miss Beauchamp," he says, closing the door half-way. He takes his seat at the table and sets the notepad aside after setting the two bottles down. He slides a pen off of the notepad, where it had been clipped to. Then he opens both root beer bottles with a hard twist of their beer-bottle-like caps. "I'm afraid Officer Harrison is still occupied elsewhere." He takes a drink from his root beer and slides the other bottle towards Abigail. "Something with a bit more punch than water. A bit of sugar and caffeine shouldn't kill you. A spot healthier than the coffee they make around here, unless you're an engine, then it probably hits the spot."
No, but caffeine might do god knows what to her right now, but a little wouldn't hurt. "I used to drink about… eight.. red bulls a day. On top of coffee. I've had the coffee here. It's not as bad as some I've had" Funny that. She was going to try and see if she could do without so much caffeine now. "Elisabeth hasn't forgotten me. She won't" She never did. Her fingers close around the rootbeer bottle, the fruit and nut energy bar is gone, as is most of the sandwich that Rebecca brought her.
"Oh, I don't think she has. She's just occupied. I saw the sketches, and I see you've been rather productive since I left you earlier. Hopefully there's not too much more we'll have to put you through," Detective Shelby says. He takes the notepad and turns it around for Abigail, then sets the pen down alongside it. "We need a full written statement of everything you can remember, starting with the most pertinent information, that being where you were held and what you recall of the spaces you were held in. You can get to the rest after that, but we need that information now. The sketches are being prepared for circulation. We're going to put out an all points bulletin, and once we have the written statement, we can take it to a judge and see about securing arrest warrants for John Logan, this Muldoon character, and the third unknown, along with search and seizure warrants for both the Happy Dagger and this warehouse. I'm sure given your statements here that they should be sufficient to acquire at least the search and seizure warrants."
"They're full of evolved. Both places" Which translates to be damned careful. It's Staten island regardless. After a moment of two though, she takes up both, a large rectangle that takes up most of the top sheet. The layout of the warehouse it becomes evident enough. Long rectangles delineate the various shipping containers that were their cells. She doesn't know their names, and some she won't tell save for Magnes's. So each box gets their powers, how she came to know them all. The pyro there, the super strength there. Negator there, Ethan, the word Unevolved over his cell. Magnes is beside her cell. Even down to where the guards all sat and played their cards. She puts as much detail into it as possible before she rips it off, sliding the yellow piece of paper towards him.
The next sheet the same treatment. The dagger, Where it is on the island, trying to draw a map of the path that she took daily to go heal the fights. It joins it's mate in front of Coren. She's still fresh on her anxiety pill but that doesn't stop the emotions from flitting across her face. Loathing, fear, disgust. Now and then she has to stop, breath, then start again. The layout of the basement of the dagger as best she knew. The names of the hookers who visited her. They're separated into two. Those who were cruel, those who weren't. Descriptions of them. Committing everything to paper.
Detective Shelby looks each of the sheets over, committing them to his own memory, eyes flitting from one part of the diagram to the other, then reading the names. He doesn't say anything, as he doesn't want to interrupt the flow, even if it has the potential to ease Abigail's tension, if only slightly. It's best she gets it all over with so she can finally crash later and not have to deal with it anymore. It goes without saying that he, or whoever might actually go to investigate either place, will go in force.
The diagrams are done, so now Abby starts in on her life, from the time they took her, trying to pour it all out, every detail no matter how small, onto the paper. The sound in the room narrowed down to just the scratch of the pen on the paper as it fills out line after line. The time, that she remembered being taken, Magnes with her. Her jacket, her luggage with it's rough contents, the bible with her name on it and the inscription on the inside that was in the front cover. How she'd been offered the chance to heal for muldoon, but had turned it aside, refusing to go willingly and had been given to Logan instead and Magnes had tried to barter for her safety. Each time Logan had touched her with his ability, the times that people came, what times she could tell that the brothel was active from the sounds. Cally being dumped on her bed, and then the other woman being taken away after she tried to escape. Maya, the woman who was there because he had her brother, and he promised a cure for her ability. Her curse. The man who'd been caught, brought to the room next to her with supposedly his eye cut out.
Mu-Qian, the healer. Partner of John Logan's that had witnessed the escape of the man in the next room. How Logan had come down, the smell of alcohol on him, and had been trying to interrogate her, hit her, she'd responded in her panic and the events that followed. She'd gone unconscious a few moments after jack had started to cut her tongue. Straight razor, not even cleaned. It's here that she stops again, needing to stop, the back of her hand to her mouth.
Coren looks down, sadness in his eyes. He knows, from a great deal of experience, that most words are worthless in situations such as these, if there really is anything comparable to what Abigail has been through. He tips his head back up and offers few words: "You're safe here."
"Everyone says that. But, there's people who walk through walls, and they move things with their mind. They can stand a hundred feet away and make you feel like the devil is breathing down your back. They can shatter windows with just a word. So I'm not safe here. I thought I was safe in a hospital. I thought I was safe at work and yet.. they walked right in and sat down and I served them beer, and I cut up apple for their monkey. I heal anyone that asks, all they have to do is ask. God gives me this ability, this gift, and it's purpose is right there, right there and… they take it. They took it, and he took.. he tried to take Him away from me" Abigail stares at the paper with its words, each page having been torn off when she was finished for him to look over. "I want to take.. a shovel to his head and I want to cut out his tongue and see if he can scream for help. I want.." Abigail pushes the chair away from the table, needing that foot of space between her and that pad of paper.
Detective Shelby tips his head to the side. "Something else happened there…. something you haven't told me." He leans forward, "You don't have to say it, you don't have to tell me. But if it's a crime, you need to report it. The more we have on John Logan and his goons, the more we can assure they never see the light of day again."
"I'm giving you everything" Her hands come up to her face, rubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes. "It's like… rape. Only it's not my body. It's my gift. My ability. Use it or else. Do it or we'll hurt your boss. Do it or we'll hurt your friend. Do it or else. And I do it, because I don't want them to hurt Isabelle, I don't want them to hurt Magnes, or hurt me. I don't want to be like the healer who was in the room before me. I don't have a choice and I pray, and I heal, and I fix them up, and everything goes dark because I don't have anything else to give them. I was consuming myself just to keep their fighters alive, because if I don't keep then alive, then they die. If I don't heal.. then.. I'm useless to them. I just wanted to go home"
"That perspective explains a lot. I'm sorry," Coren says. Idiot. How could he not have thought of that—put what she went through into that perspective. He slides his own chair back slightly and stands, "You can take a break if you want. I am going to get what you have here thus far and have copies sent to the District Attorney's office. Hopefully we can nail these bastards to the wall."
"Stop saying you're sorry. You didn't do it to me. They did it. And they're not sorry. They're sorry I'm gone, that someone broke me out. They'll be sorry that I saw so much and can tell so much that there's a chance they're going to be in trouble" She's not kidding herself. It's staten island. "I can't.. take another sorry, from someone else who isn't at fault" As he stands, she slides her chair back in, picking up the pen so she can start the rest of the process. "I'll be here"
"I was actually apologizing for possibly sound accusatory towards you. I'm afraid I am more experienced in interviewing criminals than victims," Coren says as he heads towards the door. "Make no mistake, they're in trouble. It's not chance that they're in trouble at this point, it's chance as to how much trouble. At worst, they'll think twice before pulling this sort of thing again." At best, hopefully charges will come forward from a state that still has the death penalty. Naturally, he doesn't say that. He could get in a spot of trouble if he did. But that doesn't mean he can't think it.
"You said it yourself, their lawyers will make what you said seem like peanuts compared to what they'll question me with" Abby looks away from Coren, back to the paper, taking up her pen again. "A few more pages. I'll add what I can, about being broken out of there" Though the pen is poised over the page, she's not quite ready to lay it all into words again, written on the paper. Make the nightmare reality. In her head, she could still, in some fragmented corner of her mind, think it was all a nightmare. But putting it to paper, made it real, acknowledged that they did this to her. To others. How many countless others?
"That's what our search of the Happy Dagger and the warehouse will be for. Make sure there's evidence to bury them with," Coren says at last, as he exits the room, leaving the door open half-way.
 March 13th: The Great Vision |
 March 13th: Victory Dance |