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| Scene Title | It's Been 24 Hours |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The Hunters go to the police to follow up on the disappearance of their daughter. |
| Date | August 15, 2009 |
'I want to talk to someone. It's been 24 hours and she's still missing" Comes a masculine voice from the front desk. It's staurday, and the requisite 24 hours had passed since at least Wendy Hunter had been reported missing. But they needed 24 hours before paperwork could be filled due to the woman's age and her history. "she's missing. She always shows up for the business meeting. Even when she was deep in her drug habit, she always showed up for board meetings, so don't sell me any story about needing to wait a few more hours. She's Wendy Hunter. She's worth money and even though we haven't gotten a ransom call yet, she's not just walked off"
Technically, it's 72 hours, but given the history, disappearances such as these ought to be taken seriously. If only there were enough investigators to look into missing persons. Hell, they have a whole department of them, if only it were say, a hundred times larger, it might actually be able to get to a tenth of them. Of course, as Coren walks by and hears something about a person being worth money and hasn't just walked off, two things spring to mind. The first is an intense fear that another girl has disappeared, and the second reminds him of another time he ran into someone of money, and that didn't end particularly well either. It's for those two reasons that he approaches the Desk Sergeant and the parents of Wendy Hunter with a look of both remarkable concern and curiosity.
"I've got this one Frank," he says to the sergeant before rifling through a few drawers to find the requisite paperwork. "If you two will kindly follow me to an interview room I will be happy to assist you in any way that I can. The first thing I'll need is a photograph." He needs a photograph to see if the girl is blonde.
'Thank you!" The woman manages to say, looking barely composed. She's blonde, but her husband is dark haired, silver at the temples. "Yes Detective. Anything to get this moving. The sooner it will get her home" This just earns a glare from the sergeant, but he happily passes it over to the detective. Around the counter they come, clutching a red patent clutch that looks off from either of them. "Wendy Olivia Hunter" The mother is pulling a normal sized photograph from an leather folio, presenting it to Coren. A portrait it seems, of a woman in her late 20's with ink black hair and features that oddly work for her.
"She was last seen at Old Lucy's Thursday evening. She was with another girl they say, a Peyton Whitney. They said that Wendy just went down, like she was on drugs but that wasn't it" How they know it wasn't it, they're not saying so far. "Her purse was left at the bar and someone ran it to her apartment building. The doorman gave it to us when we went to check on her" Fluttery delicate hands flit over the picture. "Was take two months ago"
Old Lucy's. That can't be a coincidence, but this Wendy character has black hair…. Coren audible hrms as he looks the photograph over and carries it with the file of documents into the interview room, tapping a uniform on the shoulder before entering, "Get me any files we might have on a Wendy Hunter and a Peyton Whitney, then I want you to grab another uniform and go and canvass everyone at Old Lucy's. Get their credit card receipts, find out everyone who was there that night. I want eyewitness accounts from everyone." Because frankly, if this is that bastard screwing around with him, he'll be really pissed off. He's not taking any chances, either.
Coren carries the file folder into the interview room as the uniform goes off to do the job Coren asked of him. Not that he has the authority to do so, but he has managed to garner some respect over the years from both the uniforms and his superiors. His word can go a bit of a way. He takes a seat. "If I understand correctly," he says, pulling out a notepad and jotting a few things down, "Your daughter was last seen in Greenwich Village Thursday evening, if I had to guess, around nine? She was with Peyton Whitney when she collapsed as though on a narcotic substance, and then wasn't seen." He sighs for a moment. Cassidy, I want you to go and find an address for Peyton Whitney and go and see if anyone's seen her in the last twenty-four hours.
"I suppose, and this is a question I absolutely must ask, was her collapse due to or not due to drugs? If not, what was it from then?"
"She was not on drugs" Spoken with the conviction of parents who know their daughter. Or think they know their daughter. "She's evolved. She can detect other evolveds. When there's too many around her she just stops, and acts like they say she did at the bar when we asked. Our little girl was not on drugs" The father bristles a bit at that thought. "She's been clean three years. We're very proud of her"
Coren only nods at the response. Well, that complicates things. He jots something down, including the fact that Wendy apparently had a drug problem three years ago, although his notes aren't visible to the parents. Of course, he knows that statistics are against her as far as drug-use is concerned. "Well, I'm afraid there's not much I can do from here. I will be taking a personal look into this and I will get back to you on that," he says, pulling out the forms and two pens from the file folder and setting them before the parents, along with two pads. "Write down everything you know, fill out the forms, and then give them to the desk sergeant who will get them to me. In the mean time, I'm going to be making some phone calls."
This answer, it seems, is unsatisfactory with the Hunter Family. Fill out paperwork. Fill out paperwork. The father seems more inclined to fill out the paperwork but Patricia, the mother just shoots daggers. But wisely, she keeps her mouth shut unlike some other high society mavens that certain detectives have met.
"Don't spare any details," Coren says as he reaches the doorway. He turns to look at them once more and catches some of those daggers. "You never know what tiny piece of information, however seemingly irrelevant it is at the time, will be the most useful. I have some phone calls to make and an entire bar full of patrons to interview, so if you will kindly excuse me, I will get onto this matter immediately." Which is what he intended to do anyway. Why Patricia is in such a huff he'll never quite get. He can understand the whole sitting on their thumbs writing thing, but really, what more can he have them do?
