Participants:
| Scene Title | Those Meddling Grays |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Gabriel answers a call from Agent Hanson regarding Eileen's activities last month. |
| Date | July 14, 2010 |
Audrey's Office
Look up. Look waaaaaaaaay up past the cement steps of Federal Plaza. Somewhere up there, high above the city in a building that reaches for the thunder clouds that reign above the city, Eileen is being escorted to an office this rainy dreary summer day that is a break from the heat and responsible for the dark blue rain slicker hanging up in the corner of her office and umbrella leaning against the desk.
The gloomy cityscape matches the general mood in Audrey's windowless office with it's frosted glass wall, sprawling desk and shelves replete with the covered walls. Gabriel Gray the guest of honor on one side, pictures of his victims leading all the way back to even before she showed up in Matthew Parkmans life to deal with him. Kitty corner to that, is his father, a sketch from the police artist who worked with Rebecca the first few times, and one pulled from the DMV that was older.
Maps adorn each wall, both with a NY and area map, the other with a US map, pushpins marking confirmed and potentials deaths attributed to their respective Gray family member. Audrey has long since been a busy girl. Warned that Eileen was present and coming up, she's got out the file of information gathered from the scene and from the post-cognitive visit, eagerly awaiting the avian telepath.
At the door, Eileen is as familiar a presence as ever, for what little Audrey has seen her. Her wide, palely grey eyes are roaming around the room with aloof curiousity, and come to rest upon the wall that's papered with the man that both women make a career out of — because dating him sort of is like that, without the pay. Her features are pinched but unyielding of any information save for a small tick of an eyebrow upwards in vgaue amusement, and when she steps inside, it's towards what the man behind this mask might call a ~shrine~.
A jacket is folded up in her arms, which are bare from the racerback grey shirt she wears, hanging loose over jeans of a similar colour and darker tone, boots that carry her inside. There are touches of makeup to her face, a bare minimum kind of effort, her dark hair pulled and bound back. One hand, her left, is wrapped in the kind of bandaging designed to restrict movement to a sprain or break.
"Miss Spurling" Audrey sits for the moment, palms on the desk with the file folder in front of her, aligned just so with the edge of the desk, studying Eileen, a look from head to toe as if to assess how she seems. In one piece? Does she look like she's shot? Two weeks or more would be enough for someone to be back up and running around.
"You're looking relatively… unharmed" Except for the hand of course. "Familiar face?" The heel of her left palm remains on the desk, but the fingers lift and gesture in the direction of the 'shrine;.
Her movements are slow, at least — it could hark to injury, covered beneath cotton, although not everything. The mass sprawl of tattoo ink comes into view quickly due to Audrey's keen eye and the fact that her shoulderblades are exposed enough. Mostly obscured, a tree tattoo extends as far as the nape of her neck and out towards her shoulders, and who knows how low on her back. New, old, who knows? "You know it is," she says, accent pitch perfect to the agent's ears. "And I'm— "
She glances towards the other brunette, hesitating. Rather than vocalise an assessment of herself, she only firms up her mouth a little in a smile that isn't really, eyes bright before they lower towards her own bandaged hand.
"What can I do for you, Agent Hanson?"
"You can take a seat Miss Spurling and tell me about Central Park. I'm just dying to know what went down there, given the mass clusterfuck that that was, not to mention" A flick of one hand towards Samson's picture. "We got evidence that he was at the scene, and what about those birds huh? So many of them. Take a seat spurling, and while your sitting, why don't you take a load off your mind and tell me about what went down at Central park" Her hands lift in a 'who knows' gesture, fingers splayed outwards, shoulders lifting a fraction in her simple suit.
Without hesitation, Eileen turns a shoulder to the Gray Display, sitting down opposite Audrey and folding her jacket over her lap, back ramrod straight. "Birds in Central Park?" she asks, her tone wry with sarcastic query, mild in its mock disbelief before she lifts one shoulder in a small shrug. "If I didn't know what you were talking about, would you tell me why you think this has anything to do with me? Besides, you know." Her eyes widen a little, relax again. "The birds."
"Because we have a witness, Miss Spurling, that places you at the scene. Care to tell me what went on. I know the birds came after, shame what happened to them. Don't worry Spurling, I'm not going to arrest you. I just want to know what happened, in your words, by that fountain in the park. If you co-operate, all the better, if you don't… " There's another shrug of shoulders beneath the jack and a grim smile. "well, you're no stranger to what happens if you don't co-operate"
The look Audrey gets across the desk is narrow and assessing, the kind poker players might trade save for the fact that Gabriel is allowing such an expression to write across Eileen's face. Seconds tick by, before an assessment is reached. "I was shot," she starts, hesitates, then keeps her focused look on the agent and she goes on with; "By no one I know. I didn't see their faces — it was raining heavily and I was in a lot of pain. The next thing I know, they're dead, and someone is helping me survive. In this city. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter."
"Do you know the name of your savior?" If she says Jesus, Audrey doesn't know quite what she'll do. "My witness states that the individuals who attacked you, passed you a piece of paper before shooting you. What was on the piece of paper?" Audrey leans forward, a grim line to her mouth as her elbows and fore arms rest on the desk top.
"Why didn't you come in and report a crime, or when you saw the news in the paper. Far as I know, there's no hospital reports and gut shots are fairly nasty things spurling. Did the person who saved you patch you up?" A questioning look, prodding the woman. In truth, Eileen was the victim here, though the perpetrators it seems, are all dead.
There's a half-smile at the word witness at paint-touched lips, but Eileen doesn't pry. She shows her profile to the woman, towards the wall of murders, but her eyes are down rather than looking towards it for some form of inspiration or even indication. "Samson Gray took me against my will," she says, without apology. "He kept me on Staten Island for a little more than two weeks, I think. He treated my injuries and when the time was right— he let me go."
A little be of embellishing, but as far as anyone can tell, Eileen Spurling is cooperating. "You won't find him. He cleared out everything he owned down there. Not a trace left."
His god damned hidey hole was on Staten Island? Christ. Jersey, now staten. Where next, was he gonna show up on roosevelt island? Maybe Ellis Island, holed up beneath lady liberty. "From what we were told, he came to your rescue after you were shot, as a large bird was attacking one of your attackers" The file is flipped open, tipped up so that Audrey could read it comfortably. "Pretty impressive display of abilities that he used to set about to killing the individuals who had hurt you, before absconding with you via one of his abilities"
Grey green eye's flick over to Eileen, right hand fingers drumming on the table top before back to the papers.
"THis to me, SPurling, indicates that he was following you. I don't think it's a co-incidence that he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Why did he take you? Every other evolved he's made a run for, save for one, hasn't survived an attack. Yet, he turned you loose, didn't crack open that pretty head of yours and make a pass for your grey matter"
"I'm fucking his son." Eileen's head tips to the left, and whatever smile she might have alongside that common doesn't make it to her mouth — just warms her eyes, almost feline. "Perhaps the old man has restraint when it counts. As for how he knew to be there…" Her gaze drops again, and her angular jaw tenses for a moment, molars grinding together and a swallow briefly shifting the skin at her neck. She shakes her head. "Your guess is as good as mine, Agent Hanson."
"So now you're fucking him?" Audrey's hand lifts, palm making small circles in the air as she digests what Eileen just said. "See, when last we spoke.. what was it.. right, to him you were just a warm body and a-" She snaps her fingers three times as if trying to jog her memory. "RIght, warm body and a soft mouth. Nothing more, nothing less. Of no worth to him"
"SO he keeps you for two weeks locked up in his little hole, doesn't do anything but patch you up after four people thought to try and see if they could give you a few more holes in your body. From the sounds of it spurling, you did know the two people who walked right up to you and gave you that paper. My witness, my witness is pretty accurate in what they saw. I want the address of where he had you. I don't care if you say that he's cleaned out, I still want the address"
Eileen's eyes briefly scan Audrey's desk, before hesitantly reaching out for a pen and paperpad. She takes her time to scrawl out the information, head at a cant as she watches her own handwriting — it's a little difficult, a little painful. She seems to write with her left hand, which is still recovering from its sprain. "You don't think a warm body and a soft mouth have sexual connotations, Agent Hanson?" she asks. "Sexual connotations can be meaningless, too, except perhaps to sentimental old men with the wrong idea. Or bitchy HomeSec agents."
The pad is slid towards her. "Your witness is shit. No one else was there that night, so that tells me you either know way too much for your own good— I doubt it— or you're using methods that won't ever stand up in a court of law as actual evidence. Who shot me has nothing to do with the Grays, and it's none of your concern."
"ooooh you called me bitchy. Pretty tame there spurling. Glad to know you patched things up with your boyfriend and are back to seeing each other. Mind telling me where he is, since until I hear otherwise, he's still right up there on my list of people to see my handcuffs in a non-sexual way? It'd be a shame to have you arrested for hindering an investigation and obstruction of justice, not to mention aiding and abetting" There's a pained look on Audrey's face that is all too fake.
"It would really suck to have gotten that pardon" Audrey's lips press together, shaking her head as she takes the pad back to glance at the address and make for her phone. "To only turn around and get right back in shit all the way up to your neck. Aren't you on probation of some sort." She starts punching in numbers on the phone, lifting the handset to her ear.
"Hey, Arlington, I got an address for you, can you get a team and head on down to it, start securing it. If there's anyone on Staten Island, get them there, they'll be closer. No one goes in, be careful in case there's someone still in there. Purported hidey hole of the elder Gray" The address is rattled off in front of Eileen.
Sitting back in her chair, Eileen could be a figurine made of stone and porcelain for that she's almost deadly still — expression neutral as she watches Audrey give away the address, seeming unphased by this exchange of information. However, her demeanor is ice cold. Butter unmeltable. Tension is a current that runs beneath the surface, and though it might takes a few moments and some words to pick up on, it's likely detectable.
"I didn't patch up anything with anyone," she says, after Audrey is done with her phone. "I think you're leaping to some conclusions. And as far as I know, it's not a crime to get shot in a park. As for the piece of paper, they were just giving me their number in case I was looking for a good time.
"I told them no."
"No, not a crime to be shot. If it was, I would have had the police at your door and we wouldn't be having this conversation in here, but in a far less friendlier location and there would sure as hell be camera's. Lets get back to sentimental old men with the wrong idea. What idea was Mister Gray Senior wrong about?" The phone is hung up, put back on the hook after a reply that is satisfactory heard on the other end.
Clear fingernails picking distractedly at the bandaging on her left wrist, Eileen allows another small, subtle shrug. "That his son would give a damn about what Samson did for me," she says. "That his son gives a damn about anyone. I haven't seen him in a long time."
"So he took you, hoping to use you as bait for his son, convenient when he came across you, hurt, he with the skills to patch you up." Forefinger on her right hand taps at the desk top, Other palm up cupping her chin in thought. "When he didn't show up, he turned the bait loose" Rumination really, verbally instead of mentally. "Do you wish to lodge a charge against Mister Gray Senior for kidnapping plus.. anything else we could pin on him?"
Eileen's eyebrows go up but there's nothing in her expression that conveys protest for the tale that Audrey is spinning. Silent confirmation would be a better inference to make. "I think you have enough against the man to make yourself a stella case, agent. Besides, he saved me." Her hands brace against the arms of the chair, and she eases herself up to stand, going lightly on that left arm. "And I've told you about everything I know."
Aggrieved sigh lowering of her shoulders before there's a sharp shooing motion with her hand. It was worth a try, whatever she had managed to glean off of Eileen, at least she knew the woman was alive, albeit hurt, and not dead in a ditch somewhere. Surely someone was gnashing their teeth at the prospect. Curses, foiled again, if it wasn't for you pesky Gray's! She's pretty sure half of what the woman just told her wasn't quite true. "If I have any more questions, I'll be sure to call Spurling. If you see Gray Junior, be sure to call me, so we can come pick him up" As if she's actually do such, but it does bear repeating.
"Please do, Hanson," Eileen encourages, with a mild enough form as sincerity that it almost comes across honest, save for that sardonic emphasis. Over tattooed shoulders, she pulls her jacket, already turned away from the desk as pale skin and black branches are obscured by blue denim, the tailored lines hugging her slender form. Her right hand snags on the edge of the doorway, and with a rare kind of smile, for Eileen, one that shows teeth. "It was nice to see you again." And with that, she's gone, heading out the way she came with a shimmering swing of brunette ponytail.
"Sooner than you think" Is muttered between her teeth, waiting till Eileen's out of view, picking up the phone and dialing down. "Hey, set someone on spurling, track her will you. I wanna see where she goes the moment she leaves this place. DOn't care if she gets in a taxi, takes a bus, whatever. I want her tailed for a bit" The smile creeped her out. Forefinger taps on the desk again, glancing behind her to the Samson wall and the cluster of push pins on central park. "Where the hell are you now Samson Gray" Audrey tears her gaze away. "No, no, that wasn't for you. Keep me apprised of where she goes, I have to go to a crime scene, I'll be on staten, forward my calls to my cell"