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

[abrightboy]

"A figurative map, maybe," Malcolm suggested. He stayed a little behind Raylan as they approached the room; he was used to Gil's insistence on it. He hung back, but stayed close enough that he could see inside the door when it was opened. And get shot in the face if anyone inside decided to fire on whoever opened the door.

Maybe a receipt and a that partial is enough for them to go back to the office? Dark is coming?

[tinstar]

As they came up to it, the door was technically already open, cracked and silent beyond. Raylan glanced at Malcolm with a surprised little shrug of his eyebrows before he was pressing against the door frame and using his boot to slowly push in the door. Just as slowly, he slid forward and peeked around the door.

It was clear. Oddly clear. The room had been half trashed - a struggle had happened. Malcolm would note the claw marks on the headboard of one of the two twin beds, both slept in. One foot in front of the other led Raylan in, muzzle swinging up to the ready as he checked the bathroom with the same skillful caution.

"Clear," he called, going far enough to check the single closet as well, just in case. "If they were here, they're gone now," he sighed, lowering his weapon.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm stepped into the room behind him, moving past him, looking around.

"They were here," Malcolm said, nodding towards the scratched headboard. He glanced around, pulling on a paid of nitrile gloves from his pocket. He opened a couple of drawers, then picked up the knocked over waste basket and riffled through it.

"A receipt from the hardware store for a circular saw, duct tape, some garage door opener chain..." He looked at Raylan. "Well, we know what he did with the circular saw," he remarked, continuing to glance around. "If you have scene of crime people, they might be able to lift prints off of some of this," he said, gesturing to the furniture strewn and broken around the room.

[tinstar]

"Which means you were right. He did want her to see. He made sure she saw." Raylan sucked his teeth, eyes brighter than they were before as he glanced around, face a little vicious with purpose as the proof settled things in his head.

"How long you think he'll take to find another look alike and set up a new twisted display room?"

[abrightboy]

"That depends on whether he's already targeted someone or if he still has to find her. But he'll have his last intended victim with him until then. Which means they need someplace more discreet than this motel to stay until then."

He looked at Raylan. "Any idea where we should start looking? Anyone you can send to cover more ground?"

[tinstar]

"There's about a hundred of 'em in a 6 mile radius," he replied, sucking his teeth again in irritation. He needed to regroup. He needed more leads.

"Short answer, no." Without much explanation, Raylan holstered his gun and strode out of the room, making short work of the stairs to get back down to the front desk.

"What'd he look like," Raylan demanded as he brust back into the front office. "What do you remember about this guy," he asked, busy furious hands flipping open the login book open and turning it around, tapping on the page with an thinly veiled intensity.

The kid stammered and spilled what he could - a guy, mid 30's, white, New York type accent. Rough looking and a tattoo crawling up his neck.

[abrightboy]

"I don't suppose you noticed a woman in his company? Maybe he brought her back here late? Maybe she seemed to be passed out drunk from the bar?" Malcolm asked. "Did anyone report any noise complaints from the room?"

[tinstar]

The kid shook his head. "Came in alone, paid in cash. We're kinda light on business this time of year," he explained nervously.

Raylan sucked his teeth again and nodded, lifting his finger towards the security room. "We're gonna have to take those tapes. That gonna be a problem?"

The kid shook his head and Raylan nodded at Malcolm. "I'll call the room in, you get the tape and we'll head over to Arlo's for the night, unless you feel like a 3 hour drive back, only to come back tomorrow."

He pulled out his phone and headed out the door to get Rachel and Tim on the line.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm fetched the tape while Raylan was on the phone, but his anxiety was ramping up. When Raylan was off the phone, he had to clarify.

"...You mean... sleep? At-at Arlo's? For the night? I... need some things from my hotel room," he said with a frown.

[tinstar]

"Yeah," Raylan replied, confused once again by the oddities of the man he'd found himself saddled with. "That thing people do most of the time when the sun ain't up."

Sliding into the driver's seat of his car, he closed the door and adjusted his hat as Malcolm slid in next to him, sighing.

"Need some things," he echoed, though with his accent it came out a bit like 'thangs' as his hazel mixed eyes gauge Malcolm. "And it's things you absolutely can't do without for one night," he half questioned, half stated.

[abrightboy]

"...I didn't know we weren't going back," he said, which wasn't really an answer to the question. "Did you know we weren't going back?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

[tinstar]

"No, but that's why God made Motels and government paid rooms," Raylan returned just as conversationally. "Lemme ask you this, what is it, exactly that you need? Harlan ain't good for much but we got.. most of what everyone else has got. You need a special neck pillow or something?"

[abrightboy]

"No. ...No, nothing like that. I have..." What? What wasn't weird and also plausible? "Medication that I'm taking." Ah. Not weird and even true. But also concerning. Mitigate, mitigate..... "But I can just take it in the afternoon. When we get back. No big deal." He glanced at Raylan. Convincing, right?

[tinstar]

"Medication." To rhythm with 'uh-huh' in its cadence. He wasn't gunna ask. "Nothing that the Marshall's service can do to..." He gestured uselessly over his steering wheel. "We got CVS's and shit."

He wasn't sure if he should ask what it was for. "You sure?"

[abrightboy]

"It's prescription," he said. "It's fine. What's 'Arlo's place'?"

[tinstar]

"My daddy's house," he replied, turning over the engine so he could roll down the window. He wanted to wait to see Tim's SUV pull up before he pulled away. "I grew up here in Harlan. The Givens have been here for some 3 generations, least til I went down to Miami."

There was Tim. Raylan raised a hand and nodded before putting the car into reverse and getting them on the road again.

"Gives me a place to stay when I'm down here workin' on something. At least til I get it off the market. You ever sold a house before?"

[abrightboy]

"... No. When I worked in DC, I rented a place." A beat. "I still rent a place." From his mother. "In New York."

He looked over at Raylan. "Do your dad still live there?"

[tinstar]

"Damn." Clearly, he was hoping for some pointers.

Raylan kept his eyes on the road, face unchanging as he answered. "Yeah, in the grave plots out front. You'll see 'em - hellva lawn decoration. I think that's why the place won't sell. No one wants generational land with people already in its dirt."

But moving Arlo and his mother and Helen was.. well, unthinkable.

[abrightboy]

"...There are graves in the front?"

Malcolm grew up in a generational home, but the Miltons were not buried in the yard of the posh townhouse.

"That's... personal. Why do you want to sell it?"

Somewhere, 'You'll never leave Harlan Alive' is playing

[tinstar]

"Three full and one waiting with my name on it.. Literally." Not exactly the friendliest reminder that life was short and he'd be in the ground sooner than he meant to be.

Raylan glanced over from his driving for a half second as he answered.

"Because it's personal. And I'm not using the land, or the house. Don't want it, never did. Once it sells and I get finished with some.. cases down here-" Namely Boyd Crowder- "I'm getting on with my life."

Raylan continued. "You got anything in New York besides your rented apartment?"

[abrightboy]

"My family lives there," he said distractedly, watching the line of Raylan's jaw; the tension in his face. "You didn't want to come back here. Something happened that made you. Something personal or something professional? ... Something professional. You had some sort of setback at work that sent you here. Personal came after. When you get rid of the house, where will you go?"

Sorry, Raylan, he can't always shut it off.

[tinstar]

His jaw was telling, tensing subtly in all the right moments as Malcolm pieced him together. He'd told Malcolm about his shooting people, the idea that he'd been pushed out into a more tolerant or a more controlled situation, as Art mighta put it, wasn't a hard leap to get to.

If Raylan was stupider, it might have seemed like magic, but magic was one of those things Raylan didn't believe in either.

"Back to Miami. They got just as many fugitives there." And with less personal history.

They turned off the main road onto a smaller one with just enough dirt across and in it that one might thing it wasn't paved somewhere underneath all of that, and pulled up to an equally unimpressive house. It might have been impressive once but now..

"Ain't a soul around for a good half mile," Raylan sighed, not exactly with a thrilled tone. "Come on, I think there's still beer in the fridge."

He hauled himself out of the car, adjusting his hat as he stared for a second too long at the headstones that would greet them on the sidewalk before striding that way and nonchalantly past them.

[abrightboy]

Nobody around for half a mile and the two of them in a very big house. Maybe he'd survive the night without causing an incident after all.

He looked up at the house after following Raylan's glance to the headstones.

"This is... grand," he noted. He raised a finger. "You know, the gravestones might not be the problem. It might sell faster if you put in a little... cosmetic work. What do they call it? Curb appeal. Power wash the siding. Plant some flowers. That sort of thing." He looked at Raylan, because the man had to know it looked like something from a movie about people getting lost in the woods and murdered at a creepy old house. "Do you really want to sell it?" he asked, watching for the same telling tension in the man's face.

[tinstar]

"Might be worth more if I just razed the place to the ground. I'm not down here long enough to do that kinda thing, and you already see the state of our windows. Small town assholes with shit else to do but break into an old house and tear the copper out of my walls. Almost got that one fixed," he replied as he pulled the screen door open and unlocked the door, flipping on the porch light and the inner lights as he glanced around.

"Yeah, I do. Truth is, I never much liked this place. Arlo didn't make me love it either. Make yourself comfortable."

Moving right, through the sitting room, one might call it - a couple of couches and a coffee table that had seen better years, and into the open kitchen. Malcolm was right - the house was fairly grand. For all the dirt and age on the outside, the inside was open and cozy. Not poorly decorated, though the touches were scant in some places, and definitely decorated by someone other than Arlo or Raylan.

[abrightboy]

"You never liked it because of the problems in your relationship with your dad, or is it more than that?" Malcolm asked, looking around. Everyone's adult self was made in their childhood home. Of course, it didn't take a skilled profiler and an introduction to that home to guess Raylan's relationship with his father was strained. He called the man by his name, not 'dad'. Malcolm did that too. It was dissociative.

He turned and looked at Raylan as something else in that equation occurred to him. "There are two women buried out front. One more recently than the other. Which one was your mother?"