The Lengths That I Would Go To

[abrightboy]

The killer was moving around the country. Malcolm Bright could see the pattern, but he wasn't working for the FBI these days and they weren't exactly taking his calls. Short sighted of them, but they did fire him on suspicion of being crazy. The NYPD's jurisdiction was New York. With the killer beyond its borders, they handed it upwards and left it at that.

Let it go, Bright, had been Gil's sage advice. You can't catch every killer in America single-handedly.

Challenge accepted, some part of him retorted, though he'd only nodded mutely and forced a smile. Gil knew he hadn't simply let it go, but he wasn't going to have him followed to stop him doing anything stupid, either. He didn't have the will or the resources to keep tabs on Malcolm Bright 24/7 and Malcolm Bright knew it.

His mother, on the other hand, had extensive resources, so he simply didn't tell her he was leaving town. He did arrange for Ainsley to feed his bird, so the truth would come out eventually, but he'd be several states away by then.

He rode the bus. There was something oddly comforting about the anonymity of being in a crowd of strangers who had no interest in him whatsoever. He stared out the window and watched the country go by. When he stepped off the Greyhound in Lexington, Kentucky, he walked to a nearby hotel and checked in, then headed straight to the US Marshals office. There was no point in trying to talk to the FBI. If he was going to stop a killer from killing again, he needed someone in law enforcement to listen to him. The pattern suggested the next murder would happen in one of the rural communities around Lexington and it would be precipitated by a young woman's disappearance. He needed law enforcement with local knowledge, specifically.

He wandered into the Marshals' offices in a tidy three piece suit, charcoal grey with a burgundy tie perfectly knotted at his collar. He got a few suspicious sidelong glances but nobody asked if they could help him. He cleared his throat.

"Um, hello? I'm wondering if there's anyone here I can talk to about murder." He held up his hands. "Stopping murder, specifically, not... like... smalltalk."

Comments

[tinstar]

It was a quiet day in the office - one of the very rare ones when Harlan County wasn't on fire, Boyd Crowder wasn't blowing anything up and the case Art had just dropped on his desk didn't have anything to do with Arlo Givens. Not that Raylan would be surprised if that fact happened to change, as they tended to do around here.

Quiet that was, until a new suit walked in and pronounced himself, earning an exchanged glance to Tim on his right and Rachel on his left in a silent exchange. Tim shakes his head. "All you buddy, I got the last walk-in and I'm not gonna be late for my hair appointment."

Raylan smirks and sighs, adjusting his hat a little as he stands up, one hand propping lazily on his gun out of habit as the other moved to his waist and then up into a similarly lazily pointed finger that was pointed at.. well, nothing, really. Yeah, they had a little fun here.

"Stoppin' a murder, huh? You know we mostly do fugitives around here," Raylan said, one finger swirling like he was stirring a cup of coffee. "Got one of those to go with it? Otherwise, the FBI's got an office on the other side of the building, two floors up. I'm sure they'd be delighted to help."

It was country smalltalk at it's finest - not small talk at all, despite it's tone and the way it was carried. Friendly was the message Raylan tried to give new people, least til they earned something nastier.

[abrightboy]

"Yeeeaaaaah that's... that's not going to work. They don't really... take my calls," he noted, and continued skimming right past that point to quickly add "but there's a certain amount of urgency here and this killer has already crossed multiple state lines and I know - I know - he's going to kill around here because his pattern is... it's impressive in its complexity, really, but that also makes it hard to explain. That's how he wants it. This killer needs to prove he's the smartest guy in the room. Anyway. Three young women are going to get murdered in the rural areas outside of town if someone with some federal jurisdiction doesn't take this seriously, so. How about it? Ready to step outside the box and save some lives or what?" he asked, looking at the man in the cowboy hat expectantly.

[tinstar]

Raylan glanced over his shoulder at Tim. Excitable fellow. "Alright, take it easy," he said, hand shifting again to 'whoa' him down before gesturing him along to follow Raylan towards the conference room across from the front doors.

"I'd offer you coffee but it might kill you instead. Why don't we start with something simple, like say - your name."

Gesturing towards one of the chairs, Raylan pulled out one of his own. "And how you're so sure that this involves my rural."

[abrightboy]

"Bright," Malcolm told him as they stepped into the conference room. He didn't sit yet. "Malcolm Bright. I'm a profiler. I've been working with the NYPD. Do you have a map?" he asked, tracing a square in the air with his two index fingers. "Like, of the whole country? Deputy....?" he left the blank for the other man to fill, raising his eyebrows.

[tinstar]

NYPD. Raylan gave a non-commital grunt and pushed back to his feet to turn and walk around the oval table to pull a white board away from the wall and turn it over to show a map of the US, the edges littered with a few notifications of rule changes - leftovers from the last time it was used.

"Raylan Givens," he replied with a little nod of his head as he steps back to lean on the tables edge. "Normally we only see NYPD when it's got to do with gangs. Your guy a thug or gunrunner or something?"

This might be the country, but they had active criminals - not quite gangs in the way Malcolm might understand them, but just as dangerous and stupid in some of their life choices.

[abrightboy]

"Uh no. 'My guy' is a serial killer, actually. A meticulous one. His first twelve victims were thought to be accidents, but he was already leaving clues."

Malcolm moved to gesture to the map. "His starting point was Abbeville, Louisiana. At first I thought it must have a personal significance for him, but it turns out that Abbeville is the first city in the United States alphabetically. That's how he chose it as a place to begin."

He expanded his hands to make a sweeping circular gesture around the map. "Then he moved in what, at first glance seems random and at second glance seems almost like concentric circles but turns out to be concentric hexagons, where each 'side' of the hexagon is a hexagonal number bigger than the last in miles."

He turned to look at Raylan to see if he was following.

"Um... the hexagonal numbers thing is the part the FBI claims not to be 'buying'," he clarified helpfully.

[tinstar]

"Like a honeycomb pattern," Raylan said, nodding a little with his bare understanding. "I don't know about hexagonal numbers, but-" He sighed as he pushed off the table, adjusting his hat back on his head a little. "Crazy will do what it wants, regardless of how much sense it makes to the rest of us. So I assume that you're thinking he's come around these parts now."

The FBI was uptight and he was hard pressed to find one of them that didn't have some kind of stick up their ass. He didn't doubt the story about that.

"You said he's gonna target young women - you got anything more than that or does he just go around.. looking for pretty girls." Which wasn't out of the question either - Crazy would do crazy. "Picture? Name?"

[abrightboy]

"Actually, the resemblance the women have to each other was the first tip off that something more was going on here than a series of accidents. When he got to New York, two women who looked so similar, just outside of the city, falling victim to gruesome accidents within a week of each other.... it was already suspicious, and then there was a third. So we widened our search for other incidents that matched the same basic MO and they're all over the country. Young white women with dark hair that falls to between their shoulder blades. Brown eyes. Curvy. They don't have to be objectively 'pretty'; he's looking for these features. And he leaves a signature that nobody realized was a signature at first, but these women are always found wearing a red silk scarf. Remember that these were all being investigated in rural areas in different jurisdictions by different law enforcement offices at different levels all over the country. Many investigators thought it was just one of their personal effects but.... all of them? The same scarf?" He gave Raylan a significant look. "It's not a coincidence. It's a pattern."

[tinstar]

"Paperwork does fall through the cracks all the time, especially when you get into the country, widespread areas. Hell, we had two hundred thousand dollars down in evidence from a robbery in '86 that was supposed to get sent back and never was."

And hell had broken loose in the department when their attention was drawn back to it. If something as highly valued as money, doubly so in these poorer counties, could fall through, a few murders was nothing.

Raylan raised a finger to the sky, dropping it down to point at Malcolm as he spoke. "Before I go start looking - you got someone at the NYPD that can vouch for you?" The finger turned into an out-turned palm, a 'can you blame me' kind of expression. "Just 'cause you're a profiler doesn't mean you've got the actual backing of an agency and my boss, Art, is real picky about pro-bono work. You understand."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm huffed a laugh. "I thought you were the boss here," he noted, gesturing to Raylan's hat and then to the rest of him. "You have the bearing of a man in charge."

[tinstar]

Raylan glanced up at his hat before huffing a half laughed sound and shaking his head modestly, one eye squinting a little. "Nah, just found it one day. It fit," he shrugged, mouth curling at the edges. "The bearing keeps assholes from bothering me about it."

[abrightboy]

There was something in that body language that hit Malcolm's trained (and personally experienced) eye as the sword and shield of a man who had held his head high on a walk of shame when he'd been sent to slink there in disgrace.

For once in his life, he didn't immediately voice that observation.

"Lieutenant Gil Arroyo," Malcolm said instead. "But be forewarned that he isn't going to be happy about the, um, initiative I've taken." He spread his hands expansively. "But I'm only a consultant."

[tinstar]

"Only a consultant," Raylan echoed with a dubious look. "That come with credentials?"

The Hat comes to the Big Apple

[tinstar]

This was not what Raylan had expected. Standing on 4th Avenue uptown, Raylan felt a little like the great city of New York was threatening to eat him alive with the oppressive loom of it's buildings alone. It was a concrete jungle that Raylan couldn't help but feel out of place and uncomfortable in.

But when 'Charles' of the Bronx went back home after causing far too much chaos in the simpler, slower lives of those in Kentucky, the US Marshal's service followed.

Which left one down home country boy way out of his element.

While the department had already contacted the NYPD about the person of interest, Raylan found himself staring at a number that had been put in his phone months before hand. Malcolm Bright.

If anyone could piece out and understand the way the Big Apple worked, it was a native. Raylan took a deep breath and hit 'call' on the number he'd been given, not sure who or what would answer.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm Bright answered Malcolm Bright's phone. More often than not, he let calls go to voicemail, but when he saw Raylan Givens' name come up, he had to answer.

Bright had just left his therapist's office when the call came in and he was also on a busy New York street. He grinned widely when he picked it up.

"Raylan! Hi!"

[tinstar]

Raylan chuckled. Malcolm was probably the only person to ever sound that happy to be getting a call from him. There were plenty of people who were, at one point, but they didn't have quite as much bounce in their greetings.

"Hey. Wasn't sure you'd still have my number saved." It had been several months and some people went through phones like underwear. "You'll never guess where I am," he continued, peering up at what felt like an impossibly tall building.

[abrightboy]

"You are not in New York!" Malcolm exclaimed. "Where are you staying? Do you want me to meet you? Or I can text you my address and you can take a cab? I'm just heading home right now."

[tinstar]

"I haven't found a motel yet." For what he felt were obvious reasons. "But yeah, I seem to be here." Meeting anyone in this place also felt sort of impossible. "I can do a cab, so long as you don't mind my travel bag coming with me til I find a place to crash. Feel like it might run away if I leave it in the towncar."

[abrightboy]

"Bring anything you like! I'll text you the address. Just wave a cab down. They'll know where it is. I can find you somewhere to stay if you want."

Wait, how do you go somewhere without arranging that in advance?

"...You're not on vacation, are you?"

[tinstar]

"Sounds good." He knew how cabs worked, Malcolm.

The question made him scoff out a laugh. "Hell no. To be completely honest, this call is half business." But only half. "But I figure you owe me for showing you around the sights of Harlan," he said, grinning.

[abrightboy]

"Absolutely. I'll see you shortly. If you have crime scene photos, I'll pour you an extra large glass of scotch."

[tinstar]

"You're way to happy about that," he accused. "See you in a few."

'A Few' turned out to be almost 30 minutes and Raylan had almost tried to walk at least four times before better sense reminded him that he had no idea where in the good hell he was really going. But soon enough he was dropped out onto a sidewalk and, after checking the address again, found a button to hit, buzzing upstairs.

"Um.. Hello," he said into it, perhaps a little more close than was strictly necessary.

[abrightboy]

"Raylan? Come on up," said Malcolm's voice from the speaker, followed by a buzz that unlocked the outside door.

There was a set of stairs up, which lead to a small landing with a bizarre mural on one wall and a door opposite the top step. The door was slightly ajar. Beyond the door was a sprawling open concept loft apartment, with the living room at one end, dominated by two massive cases displaying medieval weapons on a background of red velvet and the bedroom at the other end, a large half circle window dominating the wall and a set of leather restraints just laying on top of the neatly made bed. Malcolm was at the kitchen island, right in between the two rooms, pouring two fingers of scotch into a crystal tumbler. Another set of steps just inside the front door led to a closed door at the top.

[tinstar]

With a glance up at the half-moon window before a glance around at the neighbourhood, Raylan opened the door and worked his way up the stairs, pulling off his baseball cap to slide into his back pocket as he came up to the landing. It wasn't unwelcoming, just strange and strangely caging a stairwell. Nudging the door open, Raylan glanced around again before seeing Malcolm.

"Hey. Nice place," he praised, eyeing the birdcage as he came around it. "Somehow didn't imagine a giant wall of medieval weapons in it though, that come standard?"

He hadn't gotten around to looking at the other half of the apartment yet.

[abrightboy]

Sunshine chirped at Raylan as he passed her cage. Malcolm glanced at the weapons collection, then laughed. "That took a lot of work to collect, actually," he admitted. He pushed the glass towards Raylan and picked up his mug of tea.