The Gardens, mid-afternoon, Icene and Alec (Closed)
If there was one thing Icene was sure of, it was that Alec would come down to the gardens with his dog, Faith, and spend at least a good twenty minutes out there, at least twice a day. She'd missed him at breakfast, and spent a while cursing herself for oversleeping while pounding the punchbag in the gym. Then she'd gone back to her apartment to shower and change, gathering her notes again and heading down to the Mocha for coffee and a light snack. Since then she'd haunted the conservatory, the ballroom, and the Mocha in fairly equal amounts, watching for him. She was just coming back from the Mocha and a coffee run when she saw him head out into the garden. She grabbed her folder of notes, and her coffee and headed out to join him. Catching him up was more a matter of walking purposefully while he strolled, and she called out before she reached him, "Mr Reyes? Wait up a moment?"
He'd known he was being followed from the moment she'd stepped out into the garden. He'd just been hoping that if he ignored her, she'd get the hint and go away.
Apparently...No such luck.
"What is it, Ms. Callan?" he asked without turning around, without stopping.
"I have some new information, I was hoping you might want to know what it was," if not where she got it, that could be problematic in and of itself, "after all, you're still thinking about the case right?"
She did catch up, and matched her stride to his, "Can I still get your help, advice? I'm not asking for anything else after all."
He resisted the urge to pick up his pace. "Depends on what you have, Ms. Callan. There's no guarantee I can help you after all."
"Mr Reyes, you can call me Icene, really you can, I'm not exactly a stranger and this is hardly someplace official to be talking." She was keeping up easily, but showing him notes was going to be out of the question. She wished she'd copied him a set. "Look, I realise the dog needs exercising, but, could we at least stop and talk about this? I'd rather not drop my notes all over the gardens."
She smiled, "I'm hoping this piece of information might mean something, spark up some good stuff? Please?"
"I prefer Ms. Callan," he said flatly.
For a few moments he kept walking and it didn't look like he was going to stop, but then he did, nodding toward a bench. "Let's get this over with."
Well if he was going to stick to formal, she wasn't going to argue with him. At least, not now. she managed to hold back a sigh of relief when he stopped, and headed over to the bench he'd indicated. Sitting down she set the folder of notes on her lap. She supposed he was going to have to know how she got the new stuff. "I was doing my laundry yesterday, thinking random thoughts when someone waved a hand in front of my face. It was Emma."
She looked at him, "I certainly did not interrogate her, we just, talked, about how her life was back to normal mostly, and she said something that just lit up in my head. About her colleague Sadie. I was only there for like, five, ten minutes tops, and I only asked her how she was doing, and how come she was still juggling schedules."
She paused, giving him time to say something, but she kept her expression cool and directed her gaze to the folder.
But he didn't have anything to say. Nothing out loud anyway. He did frown at the mention of Emma.
Before the silence became oppressive Icene opened up the folder and took out the page she'd written out just yesterday. "I wrote this down after I left Emma, hopefully I got it word for word, but in case I didn't, you might want to talk to her about it. Sadie apparently asked her to swap shifts, this was not a planned work day for Emma." Icene paused, "It was the bit that Emma said, about Sadie missing a "second shooting" that really made me curious, if the gallery was the second, which one was the first?"
With an arched brow Alec responded before he'd even really stopped to think about it.
"The school," he suggested.
Icene looked at him, "Now I was wondering which of the other current crop of shootings it might have been. Was she supposed to be out shopping, at the post office, the nightclub? The school was a couple of years ago. Why go back to that?"
He hadn't thought of those, but he stuck to his guns. "If she'd been involved with the other sniper shootings don't you think she'd have said so by now? Either through gossip with Emma or by coming forward?" He shrugged. "As for the other-how many shootings can a teenager be involved in? The school shooting was a big deal. And it wasn't that long ago."
"True, so I should check into the school shooting again, see if that provides a link that's closer than just, they all went to the same school?" Icene shook her head, "I thought that had been looked into, but maybe there's something else?"
"What makes you think the school shooting is of any importance?" he asked. "A lot of kids attended Andover that year."
"Yes, but if Sadie missed the first shooting, maybe that's the link? I need the police to check attendance records if that's the case, find out if the other victims, or intended victims were in school or out of it that day?" Icene was feeling kind of excited, as if they had already found it, the vital missing link. She just had to prove that that was the case, and to do that, she needed Chad. "Thank you Mr Reyes, you've been most helpful, perhaps I should leave you to your walk now, I'll let you know how this pans out?"
He wanted to ask her what exactly she'd needed him for. He hadn't done anything. But he didn't. He just shrugged.
It was a bit like staring at one of those pictures made up of several pictures, you couldn't see the individual images for the larger one... Icene might have seen that point sooner or later, but talking to Mr Reyes was faster, and speed was of the essence. There was a good chance the shooter was gearing up for his next kill, and she still intended to stop him making it. Somehow. "Well, you have a good day, and if you do talk to Emma, and if she says anything else about Sadie, would you let me know? It might help."
Icene stood up, "And thanks again. A pleasure talking to you Mr Reyes, as always." She turned away from the bench and made her way back to the Manor, finally taking a sip of her coffee as she went. Tomorrow she'd call Chad, this was officially business after all.