Session 6

Player Characters

• SEAMUS
• LOTTIE
• SHELF

End of Previous Day

SHELF Calls PIZZA

SHELF: "I'm worried about LOTTIE. She says she's giving out her cover phone number, I think she's a loose cannon."

PIZZA: "They aren't in the program because they're competent. That's why I have you on this. Complete the mission at all costs."

SHELF: "At all costs. Understood."

LOTTIE Comes Clean

• LOTTIE knocks on SHELF's door, drunk.

  LOTTIE: "I've gotta come clean."

• (comes clean about the call from COSTA)

  SHELF: "this is an unacceptable loose end. thank you for telling me. Remember we're on the same side here: let's deal with it together. I'm glad you trusted me with this. Let's bring in SEAMUS"

• dialog (omitted because I was talking) in which we decide...
  • we'll all give LOTTIE a ride to the DENNYS, and COSTA won't think this is weird because we only have one car anyway and we're on our way to work
  • LOTTIE will improv and try to get COSTA into our car
    • failing that, we'll follow him
  • we want to get whatever info out of him we can before closing the loophole
  • LOTTIE's phone in pocket on silent speaker so we can hear
• SHELF texts PIZZA

Sunday Morning Denny's Operation

Stakeout at DENNYS

• before we've agreed to meet: SHELF scopes out the DENNYS
• 5AM: SHELF privately goes to DENNYS and scopes around to find a good parking spot, entrances, exits, etc; returns to the HOLIDAY INN
• we go to DENNYS and park the SUV; arriving at 7:20
• We notice: two cars have arrived that nobody's gotten out of, we can't see who's in them, one around 7:40, one at 7:47

  SHELF: "SEAMUS, would you run in for a coffee and see if you can get a look in those two cars?"

• SEAMUS tries, but the car is sandwiched between two others and can't get a good look without being obvious; comes back to the SUV
• LOTTIE enters DENNYS, phone rings

  COSTA: "this is Nightlord"

  LOTTIE: "hi COSTA"

  COSTA: "don't say my name. Who's in the car? I told you to come alone"

  LOTTIE: "no you literally didn't"

  COSTA: "whatever. tell them to leave. call me Nightlord"

  LOTTIE: "lol ok fine"

• LOTTIE goes out to the car and tells us what's going on
• SHELF bursts out laughing, "lmao fine whatever", parks on the street next to the DENNYS
• LOTTIE goes in
• COSTA enters, wearing huge sunglasses and a trenchcoat, looks ridiculous

LOTTIE Meets COSTA

LOTTIE: "want some moons over my hammy?"

COSTA: "no, Barbara, let's cut to business. I know you're a secret agent. You don't want your cover blown. The people you don't want to know? I'll tell them."

LOTTIE: "who's that? what are you talking about?"

COSTA: "I know this is weird! what's going on! You sent that boy to the prison!"

LOTTIE: "You literally did that, I didn't do that"

COSTA: "so it's fine if I tell everybody I harmed the boy?"

LOTTIE: "I guess if you want? I mean, it's you that harmed the boy"

COSTA: "dammit, I know you don't want me telling everyone you're Charlotte Watkins"

LOTTIE: "how'd you find that out?"

• COSTA pulls up a facebook photo of LOTTIE at some dog training event, "I'm not dumb enough to tell you. That's a lot of dogs in that photo, Charlotte"

  COSTA: "what I want is simple. I can keep my mouth shut. This doesn't need to get messy. With your connections this is easy. I want you to make me sheriff"

  LOTTIE: "I literally can't do that"

  COSTA: "I think you can. Also, kill my wife."

  LOTTIE: "actually that's much easier than what I thought you'd ask for"

  COSTA: "yeah, she's very not strong. If it makes you feel better about it, she's a liar. She's lying to her attorney. I never touched that girl. Make it look like her boyfriend did it. And make me sheriff."

  LOTTIE: "...give me all the details"

  COSTA: "her name's SARAH COSTA, her boyfriend is PABLO RUIZ"

  LOTTIE: "ooh I have a latinx family as well!"

• COSTA shows no sign of knowing what latinx means

  COSTA: "I just wanna cut a simple deal here. You can kill the boyfriend too. He's a minor league baseball player"

  LOTTIE: "I'm a girl, right? Girls aren't strong. I know you think my friends are scary, but"

  COSTA: "I know women can kill"

  LOTTIE: "I can't do that alone"

  SHELF: "dammit what's LOTTIE doing? get him to the car!"

  COSTA: "Just do it, deertick"

  LOTTIE: "what did you call me?"

  waitress: "so what are you havin?"

  LOTTIE: "moons over my hammy"

  waitress: "sharing?"

  LOTTIE: "yes"

  COSTA: "no. I want a short stack"

  LOTTIE: "and two coffees"

  LOTTIE: "anyway, secret agents like us, just like superheroes, need to work together. We're gonna need to work together on this if you want this thing done. Come see my friends, you can show us where your wife hangs out."

  COSTA: "no"

  LOTTIE: "to do this right, we need you to show us"

• LOTTIE touches COSTA's hand tenderly, he is receptive to the touch.

  LOTTIE: "could you use a drink?"

  COSTA: "it's 8 in the morning"

  LOTTIE: "it sounds like your wife is a real fucking bitch"

  COSTA: "she is"

  LOTTIE: "what we can do, together, is make sure you get what you deserve and she gets what she deserves"

  COSTA: "that's what I want"

  LOTTIE: "will you help us do it? to show how powerful you are?"

  COSTA: "I'm not gonna do any of this, you and your friends are. The boyfriend's at the CHESAPEAKE BAYSOX STADIUM. 48 hours or your cover's blown, Barb."

  LOTTIE: "aren't we friends?"

  COSTA: "no, I'm threatening you. You're gonna kill my wife"

  LOTTIE: "we're holding hands!"

  COSTA: "that's cuz you're a spy, you're trying to be all sexy with your dog training and everything"

  LOTTIE: "do you like dogs?"

  COSTA: "I like a woman that can command. no. Stop. I know what you're doing, you're a femme fatale. I told you what you have to do, or it's over. I'm leaving"

  LOTTIE: "but the food"

• [the food arrives]

  LOTTIE: "I have to tinkle, eat your pancakes"

• LOTTIE goes to the bathroom, puts her phone volume on

Snatch and Phone Call

SHELF: "thanks for trying, on to plan b. SEAMUS you ready?"

• COSTA leaves DENNYS, we immediatly scoop him into the car, guns drawn. we tell LOTTIE to meet us at the HOLIDAY INN. COSTA pissed his pants. we remove his trenchcoat. LOTTIE gets a doggie bag.
• SEAMUS' phone rings

  VELASQUEZ: "are you coming to the site today? I'm sick of being left in the dark. The kids communicating with their minds? I followed up on these russian cults. If you're trying to push this onto State I'm not gonna stand for it"

  SEAMUS: "that's genuinely good work you did there. We're working every angle, you turned up some good stones. Lets meet up in a couple hours and we'll share notes."

  VELASQUEZ: "and this kid hasn't gotten his phone calls yet in county?"

  SEAMUS: "that sounds like a county issue"

  VELASQUEZ: "I'm goin down to county to figure this out. You guys seen COSTA? he said he was 'closing the circle' or some shit. That guy's a moron. You know his wife is fucking a minor league baseball player?"

  SEAMUS: "lol."

  VELASQUEZ: "anyway I'm going to county. The kid's parents are up my ass, and this reporter keeps talking about PUDDING"

Decisions About COSTA

• big convo, we resolve
  • we'll rough COSTA up a little; if he knows too much we kill him, if he doesn't we'll let him go with a message; "that's why you don't blackmail a secret agent you absolute moron"
  • we'll pull VELASQUEZ onto our side with a dead lead -- maybe the house from yesterday (which we expect cops to find anyway) or maybe ELLE GABLE (since we're confident she won't turn up). maybe we even catch her before she makes it to county

Debrief with VELASQUEZ

• we call VELASQUEZ, says there's some kind of protest at county,
• YELENA financial records: russian emigre out of belarus, tied to a russion church in the area, whole town on the Chesapeake burned to the ground. this was 2006. can't find a single record. it's the weirdest thing. no investigation took place. nobody followed up. No records. It's like the records were lost.

  VELASQUEZ: "Also with the murder WEAPONS?! ritualistic murderers show up without WEAPONS and then happen to find them in the maintenance tools?"

  VELASQUEZ: "Also with how they all walked out of the woods at exactly the same time from different directions to coordinatedly capture HOUGHTON?"

  US: "we didn't know this happened, that definitely wasn't in the video you showed us????"

  VELASQUEZ: "what was that?!?"

• ...as two birds smack into the hotel room window and die, little sparrows

  SEAMUS: "what the fuck?"

  VELASQUEZ: "yeah, that's a dirty window, weird that they'd run into it at the same time."

  LOTTIE: "how do you envision us working together?"

  VELASQUEZ: "joint task force; I just want clear open lines of communication"

  LOTTIE: "isn't that great?"

  VELASQUEZ: "I'll go run down that lead on the house. Thanks for your candor." [leaves]

Sparrow Keys

• SEAMUS autopsies the birds. keys in both. not identical. filing cabinet style. each has a number, 4 digits. labeled STATE ARCHIVE Building. (logistical note: it isn't normal to have the key, the employee always unlocks the box for you, showing up with keys does not confer us legitimacy, but also, it's a library, nobody's watching that careful.)
• the birds smell like ROTTING FLESH

Open Leads

• kill OWEN, now that he's on bail
• autopsy one of the MUMMIES / check out the stuff at the storage unit
• STATE ARCHIVE

STATE ARCHIVE Heist

• we decide to go to the STATE ARCHIVE
  • (we can tell VELASQUEZ we tried to sweet-talk em but they didn't give us anything as the records were sealed; we'll come back in two weeks with a warrant)
• we chat with the receptionist
• we follow the signs on the walls to the cabinets indicdated by our keys
• we see that the files we're interested in are all bloody
• we take one manilla at a time to a reading table, read through em, it takes 2 hours.
• nobody looking at the camera feed would know we were doing a crime: cameras in the reading area, but not in the stacks.

Placement Files

• info in the two cabinets we got bird keys for:
  • all the kids from CORNUCOPIA HOUSE in 2001 were placed in one of three facilities in the area
    • 7 went to ARNOLD SPRINGS CHILDRENS HOME
    • 6 went to PEACE LOVE INC and attended public school
      • Dr DIANNE DAUGHTERY from local school district
    • 6 went to MARYS PLACE
      • after 2 months, budget cut, kids sent out of state
        • 3 total ended up in private homes, adopted,
  • LILIA BONDARENKO
    • adopted by the THOMPSONS
    • died at age 15 in 2008, attempting to hop a freight train; body found grizzly, initially investigated as homicide, but toxicology said she was dummy high; struggled with bad behavior and addiction
  • SAMUEL BALL
    • [important] adopted by CLARENCE MCLEOD and BECKY MARSHALL (then Becky McLeod) in 2002 at age 6
    • "unofficially and illegally" returned him to the state in 2005, just dropped off; BECKY MARSHALL is serving time for cheque fraud in GARRETT COUNTY PRISON; prosecuted for reckless abandonment over SAMUEL BALL, they claim SAMUEL BALL tried to kill their daughter ANNE MCLEOD with a kitchen knife, they lost their bio daughter in the case also. "tax records show CLARENCE MCLEOD's last employement was as an oil rigger at GULF QUALITY INC in Mobile"
  • THOMAS PEREZ CUNNINGHAM
    • 3yo in 2001
  • EMIL CUNNINGHAM and SUSAN CUNNINGHAM (we know the rest)
  • none stayed for more than 9 months
    • they all got shipped around
    • all kids diagnosed with a laundry list of stuff
    • symptoms: violent, confrontational, nonverbal, fearful; untreatably feral
• we cameraphone all the files and then put them back where we found them

Interview at GARRETT COUNTY PRISON

• we head to GARRETT COUNTY PRISON to talk to BECKY MARSHALL
• with a loud buzz, the gate opens, BECKY MARSHALL comes in to the talking-to-cops room (like in the movies), orange jumpsuit

  LOTTIE: "we want to talk to you about your experiences as an adoptive mother"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "is this about Sammy? what's he done now?"

  LOTTIE: "nothing, just on background as relevant to an investigation"

• BECKY MARSHALL has a knotty puncture wound to her neck; old

  SEAMUS: "tell us about the day you decided to give up SAMUEL BALL"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "we tried everything for that boy, we really did. the doctor said it was malnutrition. We couldn't talk to him, he wouldn't say anything he just screamed. He was never violent, not until… not until he tried to stab ANNE MCLEOD"

  LOTTIE: "what provoked that?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "he was so calm; why did he do anything? trying to get him dressed he scratched and bit, but that day, I was in the kitchen, I saw him grab a kitchen knife, I followed him, he just calmly walked into ANNE MCLEOD's room. My own daughter. Me and CLARENCE MCLEOD didn't think we could conceive, it was a miracle when ANNE MCLEOD was born. Our own daughter."

  LOTTIE: "where's ANNE MCLEOD now?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "i dunno, she doesn't talk to me anymore."

  SEAMUS: "is that the day you got your injury?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "no, after court and all that, we lost ANNE MCLEOD for a little bit. I went looking for him, for SAMUEL BALL"

  LOTTIE: "why?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "maybe i'd made a mistake, maybe if I did something different, maybe I could have helped him. I found him, in a shelter in MIAMI, 2009, I don't remember the name. Anyway, he was with these other kids, this whole group, all silent, all smiling. I remember the name, it was ST LAWRENCE CHURCH."

  LOTTIE: "how old was he?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "he was an older teenager at this point. I didn't think he recognized me, and then he smiled, and he stabbed me in the chest with an icepick. He kept stabbing. 8 times. I had to get a transfusion. Some homeless people got me to the hospital. You know, that's the first time I ever saw him smile? when he was stabbing me."

  LOTTIE: "you don't seem surprised we're here"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "i mean, one thing after another. You're the first people to try to talk to me about him."

  SHELF: "what did you tell the police after the stabbing?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "I told them, but I don't think they found him. He's not exactly on the books."

  LOTTIE: "what about your husband?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "CLARENCE MCLEOD? he was living on some oil rig in alabama. Living in some trailer. Blew his brains out, last I heard."

  LOTTIE: "sorry to hear that!"

  SHELF: "how'd you end up with SAMUEL BALL? I don't know how the selection process works on this kind of thing"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "I knew he was troubled, autism or something, I had no idea it would turn out the way it did. We knew he had a dark past, but we thought we could help him get over it."

  SEAMUS: "any other troubling moments? any signs that stood out?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "he was difficult, always causing trouble at school."

  LOTTIE: "did he like animals? did you have pets? a family dog?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "now that you mention it, it's the weirdest thing: I'd walk into his room and there'd be this crow on his windowsill. He'd just be staring at it. Not interacting just staring. Eventually it'd fly away. Must have been 10 times I saw that bird. Not really my main concern at the time, remember, SAMUEL BALL was biting me, screaming, causing problems."

  US: "well, thank you for your time i guess. how much longer you in for?"

  BECKY MARSHALL: "honestly, when I get out, I'm probably just gonna kite checks again. Nobody'll hire me. I can't keep a job."

Midnight at the Black Site

MUMMIES

• the leathery tissues of the body are inexplicably sterile. no microbiological cultures can be found among the cells, no bacteria, no mold, no cells at all. It's not decomposing. Stuff that eats dead stuff ("cultures of any microbiological creature that would ingest necrotic tissue") dies on contact. Worms, rats, and vultures want nothing to do with the bodies.
• the organs are in there, and they too are preserved
• the MUMMIES were all white children
• they have the gleal scarring, so deep that it would affect autonomic processes. they died because something made them forget how to live.

PUDDING

• stuff that eats dead stuff loves the PUDDING, thrives
• moves towards human flesh, slow, oozy
• we're all drinkin
• nothing happens when we dip one of the MUMMIES in the PUDDING
• when we put an earthworm in the PUDDING the worm grows a bunch of tumors and dies

VELASQUEZ Update

VELASQUEZ: "we got a situation: a quadruple homicide at the scene. it's the perp's adoptive family. Get this: he was at CORNUCOPIA HOUSE! Maybe he was doing some vengeance thing? I'm gonna be here a while."

SHELF: "sounds like you'll be tied up tomorrow on this?"

VELASQUEZ: "yup"

LOTTIE: "we went to the archive and it didn't pan out, gotta come back with a warrant"

VELASQUEZ: "I wonder if all the perps were at CORNUCOPIA HOUSE..."

SHELF: "yeah, seems plausible"