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bluraaven · 7 years ago

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Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 3

"What a shithole."

Reynauld put down the bag that contained their collected 'evidence' and followed Guyot's gaze. He wasn't sure if his friend was referring to the condition of the room before or after they'd been through it, or to the motel as a whole. Somehow it was impossible to imagine that it had ever seen better times. It was a shabby place, where electric outings were the norm, and where the rooms were in worse shape than most of the prison cells he had seen.

Through the grimy windows and broken shutters only a little light managed to find its way to illuminate the sad pile that were their meagre findings.

On the upside, the prosecution had sanctioned the raid almost as soon as they could pinpoint a location. On the downside, it was only a partial success. They had some of Dismas' belongings now, but they did not have the man himself. The Chief had wanted a bust, and now all they had to show for it was a duffel bag full of clothes and a few toiletries.

"What do we have here?" Despite her being hidden behind the sofa, there was no mistaking the excitement in Lin's voice. She laughed, then held up a flat object, waving it around triumphantly.

"What's that?" Guyot asked, his eyes narrowing in an attempt to make out what it was their colleague had found.

"A notebook." Lin said, climbing back to her feet with a huge grin.

"Good work!" Reynauld praised with a smile of his own. This had to be the best find yet. Trust the sniper to find something good. "Is that everything?"

"Yes," Lin confirmed. "I was hoping to find a data stick too, or a CD, but no. Only the laptop, and of course it would be hidden in the last place left," she huffed. "So what do we do now?"

So far they had checked under the rug for hidey holes, they'd moved all the furnishings to check the spaces behind them; and finally they had taken apart some of the furniture. There wasn't an inch left that had not had at least two police officers check it for something that might help their case.

"Bag it," Reynauld decided with a nod at the notebook, "And let's wrap this up."

"On it," Lin answered. "I'll tell the others we're all done." She pulled out her radio and disappeared through the doorway. Reynauld nodded absent-mindedly, taking one last look at the room. There was no telling that there had been a squad digging through it. Everything was back in its place, and the room looked exactly as it had when they had arrived – minus any trace of its former occupant.

"Think he'll come back?" Guyot asked quietly.

"He would be stupid if he did," Reynauld responded, not at all alarmed by Guyot's mind-reading abilities. After being friends for as many years as they had been, he had learned to live with Guyot's occasional bouts of clairvoyance. "And we have been told he's anything but."

There was no point in waiting around. Reynauld closed the door, and made for the staircase. They would discreetly station a few police officers here, but Dismas had proven himself to be good enough at evading the authorities that there was not much hope of him returning to this place after their less-than-subtle approach.

"I guess the Chief makes mistakes too," Guyot dared to speak up when they were halfway down to the lobby.

"It wouldn't have hurt him to listen to me," Reynauld growled. He refrained from hitting the rail, because it might actually come undone and kill someone on the ground floor. Which would mean even more work for him. "We could have had Paixdecoeur behind bars by now! Why put me in charge if he was going to- ," he paused and made a vague motion in the air with his hand, "fuck it all up anyway." Reynauld's shoulders slumped, most of the anger gone now.

He had opposed the raid from the start. If he'd had a choice, Reynauld would have dealt with the matter the exact same way they did most undercover work. Take the time to prepare and to verify their target was here. And then strike before they guy knew what hit him.

"Hey," Guyot said, giving Reynauld's shoulder a pat. "We'll get him. He can't run forever."

Unless he had another hideout somewhere. The one thing they had not found was money. That meant that Dismas was not only smart enough not to trust the cleaning staff, it also meant he may have prepared for this very case. If he packed up and left the country, they had no chance of picking up the trail.

"Meanwhile," Guyot lifted the bag that contained the notebook Lin had found, "What do you think we'll find?" he asked with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows.

"I'll let you find out," Reynauld sighed.

Back at the station, Dismas' clothing was searched for weapons or illegal substances, of which neither was found. It was merely old and worn, but not making him guilty of any crime other than a bad sense of fashion. Forensics identified Dismas' toiletries as soap and toothpaste – the latter being Wintry Spearmint by Dentacare, as one of Paracelsus' lab assistants was happy to inform Reynauld before asking if he wanted a spit sample (they'd already ran an unauthorized DNA test for reasons unbeknownst to any mortal).

Reynauld thanked him, declined the kind offer, and then backed out of the office without dropping eye contact until he was safe behind the doorsill.

From there on it was back to his office via a detour by the coffee machine, and then on to where Guyot was sitting bent over the notebook. An old, scratched animal rights sticker that Reynauld had not noticed before indicated that the computer may not always have belonged to Dismas.

"What have you found so far?" he asked, leaning against the desk.

Guyot cast him a dark look, and Reynauld found his spirits lifting marginally. There was nothing quite as good at improving one's mood as putting someone else in a bad one.

"A lot of steamy guy on guy action," Guyot replied, "and I have to look through every goddamn file, just in case there's something hidden there."

Reynauld hummed and took a sip of his coffee. "Have fun."

"Ain't that more up your alley?" Guyot snapped, so Reynauld flipped him off, and left him to his work.

It was a couple of hours later when Reynauld decided to make another round to see what progress had been made. The sun was rising, streaking the black sky with ribbons of orange and pink, but except for those who had been on the raid or worked the night shift the bureau was still mostly deserted.

That excluded forensics and IT of course, but the current belief was those guys never slept anyway.

Lin, Ros and Stanley handed in their reports, and this time, instead of giving his attitude, Guyot looked at Reynauld with the woeful eyes of a suffering puppy. So Reynauld took pity and grabbed an empty seat, deciding to keep his friend some company.

"Anything new?"

"Who even names their porn folder 'PORN'?" Guyot complained, but apparently he had found nothing incriminating.

Reynauld shrugged and looked at the screen where two guys were having a quick tumble in the shower. And by quick he meant quick, because the video was playing at triple speed, which made it rather amusing to watch.

Guyot told him about his plans to move together with Lucy, his girlfriend of two years, and Reynauld listened, making the appropriate noises at the appropriate time, and stealing a discreet look at the screen every now and then.

Secretly – because he would die if that thought was ever spoken aloud – he had to admit that Dismas didn't have the worst taste in erotica. At least all the couples seemed to be genuinely enjoying what they were doing.

Eventually, Guyot sighed and rubbed his temples, and then hit the pause button. He snorted at the frozen image of one of the actor's private area and slapped the laptop shut.

Reynauld just hoped that sometime before he had made sure that it was not password protected, or they'd have to take it to IT.

They decided to grab a coffee, even though it was a terrible idea because night shift was almost over, and Reynauld rather looked forward to going home and falling into bed face-first.

As it turned out, they were not the first ones to arrive at the kitchen.

"Hey, Lin," Guyot said, waiting until she ha d refilled the coffee machine before brewing a cup for Reynauld and for himself. "What's up, Para?"

Paracelsus worked in forensics, and was officially forbidden to come within thirty feet of the kitchen without a police officer accompanying her. There had been one too many cases of someone taking a spontaneous nap after having a cup of coffee, and it had taken the entire PD and a restraint order to convince her to keep her experiments to the inmates.

The doctor with her white lab coat always looked a bit out of place. She had a slight hunch and large eyes, amplified by her glasses which gave her the appearance of a giant bird.

Reynauld was happy to sit down on the worn but comfy couch and to sip his coffee. It tasted burned. He waved off Para's offer of yellow and blue pills ("harmless stimulants, I swear!") and zoned out, letting Guyot and Lin do most of the talking.

"Hey doc, that girlfriend of yours isn't she – " Lin asked suddenly, and Reynauld realized he had long since stopped following the conversation.

"A critically acclaimed archaeology professor?" Para interrupted, wringing her hands. "Yes! Yes, she is."

"Is that a mugshot?" Guyot asked, stretching to see something Paracelsus was holding, and while doing so he jostled Reynauld, who only narrowly avoided spilling his coffee into his lap. It had grown cold, and he put the practically full mug away.

"No!" Para squealed, pulling away her precious photograph from curious hands and prying eyes. "It's a driver's licence picture."

"Okay," Guyot laughed. "Easy there, doc. Ain't my business whom you date."

"What time is it?" Lin yawned.

"Two minutes past five," Para answered, after checking a silver wristwatch. Reynauld had never seen her wear one before, but then maybe it had been hidden by the floppy lab coat.

"One more hour," Guyot moaned. "Someone shoot me please. No thanks, Para."

"It's just something to induce a harmless coma-like state that is perfectly revertible with a shot of –," Paracelsus broke off as no one was listening to her anyway and pocketed the tiny and innocent-looking pink pill with obvious disappointment.

Most the hour passed in a stupor that ended abruptly when they received a paged message from downstairs that the first officers of the day shift had arrived, Mallory amongst them. That gave them roughly a minute and a half to clear out the area, remove the evidence of any coffee breaks, and to return to their desks.

Guyot fell into his chair with a groan, and opened Dismas' notebook with an expression of intense pain upon his face. It had just booted, when–

"Special agent Reynauld," A voice from behind them called out. Reynauld and Guyot both turned to see Mallory approach – at least until she stopped dead in her tracks. "... is that a penis!?" Mallory's voice rose high enough that even Ros and Marci stuck their heads out of their cubicles, a curious look on their faces.

"It's part of the investigation," Reynauld managed to force out, while next to him Guyot turned a shade that made his freckles indistinguishable from his skin. At least the sound was off.

Mallory shook her head, and left, muttering something under her breath.

"Sometimes I hate my life," Guyot mumbled. He still looked like he wanted to melt into the floor. Reynauld snorted and leaned back, kicking up his feet to rest on the corner of the desk. He checked the watch. Twenty more minutes.

But then all thoughts of going home were driven from his mind when next to him Guyot shot upright.

"I found something!" Guyot shouted and tapped the screen. "There's a text file in here, I knew it!"

Reynauld too sat more upright, feeling awake all of a sudden. Would they really find something? Contacts, numbers, maybe a location? Something to link Paixdecoeur to the Grave Robber, or something to prove he had worked for the Wolf? Information on El Abuelo, even?

The file took an insultingly long amount of time to load. Guyot was drumming his fingers on the table, but stopped when a white document opened. Black on white, in a neat cursive script, there appeared four lines of text:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Feds are pigs–

Joke's on you.

Reynauld had one look at Guyot's flabbergast face, and he managed to hold on to his composure for all of three seconds before he burst out laughing.

"Charming," Guyot said flatly and threw a pen at Reynauld that harmlessly bounced off his chest. "This isn't funny, you know?" But, as if to belie his words, he too was cracking up. "What an arsehole," he hiccupped, "what a complete and utter dickbiscuit."

"Do you want to report your findings to the Chief?" Reynauld asked once the first fit had subsided, triggering another salve of laughter.

"You do realize we have zero proof of... anything," Guyot asked a moment later, putting a dampener on their newfound good mood.

"But we do know Paixdecoeur is a wanted man in the North," Reynauld reasoned. "Even if we don't find anything else, there are arrest warrants for him in five City-States, and that's only the ones we know about because they are cooperating with us."

"Then this was utterly pointless anyway," Guyot decided, stood up and stretched. He worked the kinks out of his back, muttering, "I'm sending this in. Maybe there's hidden files or what the fuck ever. I hope they're full of dicks too."

Reynauld had to grin at the temper tantrum. "They're IT, they've seen weirder shit."

Guyot hmphed. His finger was already hovering over the notebook's on-off button, when the machine made a plopping sound and a little blinking window alerted them they had just received a new message.

Guyot looked at Reynauld with his best 'what did I just do?' face.

Reynauld raised a brow. "Aren't you going to check that?"

"Looks like a certain 'Sweetheart' has cancelled his or her appointment with our guy," Guyot said a moment later and turned the laptop so that Reynauld could see for himself.

Hey... so something came up and I'm afraid I can't make it to Jubie's tonight. Pls don't be mad?

Love ya, xoxo

"Tonight," Reynauld said, giving Guyot a pointed look.

"Come on, you don't mean to – " his friend began, then shook his head. "Of course you do. Does 'Jubie's' even ring a bell?"

"Yeah," Reynauld replied, surprising himself and Guyot, both. He shrugged, but the name did sound familiar. "Open the chat log," he commanded.

Guyot pulled up the log for the past couple of years and once it had loaded, he scrolled up a bit. They found a blurry but recent picture that looked like it had been taken on a phone, by a very drunk person. Despite its poor quality, it was unmistakably their guy in the parking lot of what Reynauld guessed to be a bar. Unfortunately, the neon lights in the back were too unfocused to make out what they said.

Reynauld suddenly felt wide awake. "Go through everything," he instructed his friend, tapping the laptop with his index finger. "I will tell the others to get searching, now."

It may be by accident, but they were on to something. He could feel it.

"Everything?" Guyot repeated with audible reluctance.

Reynauld nodded, and left him to gather the rest of the team for a briefing. A while later Guyot found him in his office, pacing.

"Rey. Marci's got something. Jubert's Taphouse."

Of course there was a chance that it wasn't the right place, or that the message was a code for something else, but it was their only solid lead. They had to follow it.

"What about the notebook? Reynauld wanted to know, recalling that his friend had a task to perform.

"I gave it to Ros," Guyot replied, waving the matter away.

"Excellent." Reynauld grabbed the keys to his locker out of his desk drawer. "Let's go."

"You want to go there?" Guyot asked. "Now?" He looked at the clock. "It's seven. My shift's been over for an hour."

Reynauld gave him a pat on the back, which they both agreed was better than a boot in the arse, and they jogged downstairs to change into their normal day clothes. This morning's trouble meant that they did not have to borrow an unmarked car, they could just take Reynauld's.

Jubert's taphouse was not easy to find. It was a squat one-story pub sitting between much larger and more modern buildings. Fifth Square was just one street in the labyrinth that was the old industrial district. Except for some breweries and the one or other atelier most of the factories had shut down. Now expensive loft apartments could be encountered right next to brick and glass warehouses which had been turned into clubs.

Barques were dropping people off at the nearby pier, and restaurants were popping up left and right. Everywhere advertisements reminded you that the huge empty halls could be rented for a party.

Amidst all that, Jubert's taphouse seemed to be stuck in the last century – if one could look past the electric lighting. Reynauld looked over at the passenger seat, where Guyot was watching the establishment with his chin propped up in his hand.

"Shall we?"

Behind the counter, a bored looking woman with too much eye makeup barely made the effort of lifting her painted eyelids when they entered.

"Where's the – ?" Reynauld did not get any further before she pointed down the corridor. He nodded and followed in the direction her neon orange nail pointed. The pretext of having to use the restroom gave him the opportunity to get somewhat familiar with the layout of the bar. The kitchen area was closed off, as was a back entrance into a high-walled courtyard. If he had to guess, Reynauld would say it hid an illegal fighting ring. But that wasn't why they were here.

He only had a few minutes before he had to make his way back. The waitress was nowhere to be seen, and Guyot was waiting for him back at the car. He remembered why the name of the bar was familiar. Not a year ago they had taken down a drug ring just two streets further.

"Here," Guyot handed Reynauld the pack of cigs he had apparently just purchased and effectively ripped him out of his thoughts.

Reynauld stared at the small package that landed in his lap. "I quit."

"Yeah, well." Guyot shrugged. "I never started, so keep them." A moment of silence, then, "You're thinking."

"Hm?"

"You got your thinkin' face on," Guyot remarked snickered, and then added, "and nothing good's ever come of that."

"Thanks," Reynauld replied drily, but decided to share his thoughts with his best friend and partner. "You won't like it," he decided.

"The last time you said that we were in a stolen tank in Tipolis."

"Heh." Reynauld had to chuckle. He might grow old and forget where he lived or what his name was, but he knew Guyot would never let him forget that. "It wasn't so bad."

"They were firing mortars at us!" Guyot recalled.

"Look," Reynauld interrupted the tirade that he knew was coming. "We don't know much about Paixdecoeur, but we've seen enough to be sure of one thing: he likes men, and uniforms. And... I still got some of my old army stuff."

"You're right," Guyot replied. "I don't like this." A pause, then, "Has it occurred to you that he might have downloaded this stuff just to mess with us? That poem was no coincidence."

"No, I am utterly naive and it's never crossed my mind," Reynauld retorted. He thought it was highly unlikely their guy had gone through all the bother of actually picking thematically matching videos just to potentially prank some law enforcement officer.

"But... why?" Guyot asked. "Why not just... stick to the plan?"

"We don't have a plan," Reynauld reminded him.

"If that Dismas guy is there, we can arrest him straightaway," Guyot suggested.

"I don't want to find out how many of those patrons own illegal weapons," Reynauld countered, "Do you?"

He knew by the defeated sigh that he had just won the argument. "If I can get him out without raising suspicion, I will do that. If it doesn't work, we do it the hard way."

"So, what? You just walk up to the guy and chat him up?"

Reynauld shrugged. "That's usually how it goes, yeah."

"Fine!" Guyot threw up his arms in surrender. "Just tell me this; how do you plan to convince the Chief?"

"I... don't," Reynauld answered after a moment's consideration. "I'll ask Mallory"

"Good fucking luck."

"Thank you," Reynauld said. And just because it seemed necessary to point it out, "You're coming with me."

Guyot's contribution to that conversation that happened twenty minutes later, was to furiously wave his arms every time Reynauld had said 'we', whilst pointing his thumb at Reynauld, who could actually see his every move out of the corner of his eyes.

"Did I understand you correctly," Mallory clarified after Reynauld had finished describing their plan. "That you are asking me for permission to seduce your target?"

AN: you cann find the whole story here

#blu's corner #fanfiction #writing #darkest dungeon #dismas #reynauld #Reymas

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