"I... see... O... kay..." (It feels like he's taking notes, either writing things down or typing them into some devices...) "I also wanted to ask you about a young woman who was found in your hotel room, a Miss Violet Wells...?"

... "found"?  That sounded ominous.

"I never heard of any Violet, there was nobody in the room when I left.  Who's she?"

"That's what I'd like to know. Miss Wells claims that another homeless girl called her and said that a woman said she was leaving the hotel early, and gave her her room key. Did you give anyone your room key?"

"Yeah, but that girl was called Astrid.  Just some girl I ran into on the corner while I was waiting for my Uber."

"Astrid? That's the first time I've heard that name... Maybe it was a fake name." Lucy knows it wasn't a fake name, because telepathy, but on the other hand, "Violet Wells" could be a fake name... "What did Astrid look like?"

(Astrid looked more or less like the portrait I used for her.

Do you describe her?)

[I thought we established that "Astrid" definitely was a fake name, and that her real name was Kate?]

"Skinny blonde white girl," is as much as Lucy offers by way of painting a portrait.

"Uh, no, the girl claiming to be Violet Wells is a redhead, built like a... uh, like a tank. Doesn't look like her hair's been dyed lately, either. I don't think we're talking about the same person. And she says that the girl who gave her the roomkey was a black girl. I'm starting to get the feeling that your roomkey was traded around who knows how many times..."

"Maybe."  The mostly indifferent shrug is audible in her voice over the phone.  "Why do the cops care who slept in a hotel room, anyways?"

"Because suddenly the witness to a murder was magically replaced by a homeless girl who knew nothing about it-- and the hotel knew nothing of the replacement. It made me very curious to try to understand it." Delaney is keeping irritation from entering his tone, but he's doing a less-than-perfect job of it.

... fucking cabrón cop wants to get all huffy with me?!  Lucy was sorely tempted to tell Delancy exactly where and how deeply he could shove his curiosity.  But she hadn't gotten all the information she wanted.  She took a breath, informed herself that this was a time for calm.

"Well now you understand it.  Hey, who was the shot guy, anyway?  He owe money to the mob or something?"

[Can Lucy psychically nudge someone over the phone?]

"I'm afraid that's not information we're releasing at this time, Miss Lopez. Ah, let's see, I... Where are you right now?"




(I'm gonna say it comes with an extra penalty. Since she's never met him in person, I'm gonna say -2.)

... yeah, like she's going to tell the cops where she is.  "I'm at the Tropicana."

If they weren't releasing the information, that meant there was information she probably wanted to know.  (Or so it seemed to someone naturally suspicious of cops, whose entire knowledge of police procedure came from TV.)  She'll try to give the cop just the gentlest little nudge in her favor: Miss Lopez deserves to know.

05:56, Today: Lucy Lopez rolled 8 using 2d6-1 ((6,3)).

"Come on, I could have almost got shot, don't you think I deserve an explanation?"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:38, Fri 14 Aug 2020.

"I... Look, I... I shouldn't be... Look, this is a big case. It's very important. I don't really understand myself why the victim was so important, so I'll leave it to you to use your imagination about why, but-- this guy, who didn't seem to matter to anyone, does, to someone, a lot. There's a lot of pressure on handling this investigation carefully, and I-- look, when can I meet with you face-to-face? Are you staying at the Tropicana, or are you just playing at their casino?"

"Why do you even want to talk to me?  I already told you everything I saw, I don't have anything more than the cameras or the waitresses could tell you."

"The only camera inside the restaurant was up above, near the ceiling, and pointing at the cashier's station--and unlike what they show on TV, I can't really magically get them to zoom in on people's faces for details. The waitresses weren't paying that much attention to the situation. You're the best witness there is, or certainly the best I've found."

Another dilemma.

Lucy definitely wanted an answer on why the World's Only Other Psychic^TM had been murdered.  And she wasn't likely to be able to get it herself.  Which meant talking to the cops.  Which wouldn't have been her favorite idea just on general principle, even aside from the fact of her own flagrant and repeated criminal activities over the past few years.  But the fact was that she probably could help Delancy's investigation in one respect: she could tell him where else to look.  She knew what poker table both the murderer and the victim had been playing at for an hour before the game broke up.  And those tables all had cameras recording every deal, every pot, every bet.

Of course, Lucy herself would show up on that recording too.  But by the time Delancy got around to discovering that, she'd be poof, in the wind.

Maybe she could just nudge him along, without getting any more deeply involved?

"Come on, it's a casino, Delancy.  There's more cameras in a casino than an airport.  You're telling me none of the other cameras in the entire building caught her going into the restaurant, coming out of it, at the slots, at the poker tables, at the front desk of the hotel, nothing?  If she's honestly that cagey then nothing I could tell you is going to make your job any easier.  And anyways, if the one camera that saw the shooting couldn't make out any details, how did you know to look for me?"

"Huh," says Delaney. "Huh. You've got something there. I should have 'em check the cameras in the..." He trails off, lost in thought.




(Do a Charming roll, please...)

[Am I understanding your rules correctly?  The default roll is 2d6+1, and Lucy is +2 Charming, for 2d6+3 total?]

11:31, Today: Lucy Lopez rolled 5 using 1d6 with rolls of 5.
11:30, Today: Lucy Lopez rolled 9 using 1d6+3 with rolls of 6.  Lucy is Charming!

(No, the default is just 2d6 if one is not using psychic powers.

So, 5 plus 6 plus 2 is 13. Lucy is still super charming!

Now, before I go on, as for how Delaney knew it was her-- wouldn't the meal at the hotelcasino restaurant have been charged to Lucy's room...?

And even if not, hadn't she been there for a while? Long enough for the staff to maybe (with someone to put pressure on them) figure out that she was associate with a given room?)

[Aha, gotcha re: the rules.

First question, maybe or maybe not?  Lucy is making all reasonable efforts to go incognito, paying cash for things as much as possible.  But second question though, maybe more likely?  As much as she wouldn't enjoy admitting it, her appearance makes her at least somewhat distinctive.  Someone on the hotel staff might have been able to tell Delancy about "the tiny blue-eyed Hispanic girl."]

(Yeah... if you don't mind, I think I'm gonna just say ooc like this that in-character, Delany explains this to Lucy. tl;dr: Lucy is a little more memorable than she would prefer to be (at least in Atlantic City casinos. In El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, probably not so much.))

[Ok by me!]

In Texas the Hispanics were more likely to be Mexicans; it would be Miami where Lucy would be more likely to fit in.  Or perhaps New York City.  Which was not coincidentally where the bus ticket in her hands was ready to take her.  Not that she was about to tell the cop any of that, of course.

"Yeah, try the gaming floor cameras, there's hundreds of those things," Lucy suggests.  "And anyways, I got places to be, so.  Beuna suerte finding your killer, Detective."

(Yeah, but white people can't tell.)




"No wait, I have to talk to you, when can we meet--?!"

But by then Lucy has already ended the call, and a few seconds after that, the phone is ditched into a garbage can completely.  (She's got the detective's name, she can get back in touch with him if she wants to.)

And her bus should be boarding any minute now.  Her plan is to get to NYC, find a cheap hotel, and start to work on putting together a new life.

Nothing interferes with Lucy arriving in NYC... Soon she's downtown, just a few blocks southwest of Times Square...