nevegallus | (no subject)

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She strides into the precinct with a newspaper tucked under one arm and her snake-head parasol draped over that same wrist. The ash hasn't fallen since the day of the festival, but she isn't going to take any chances, if she's honest. She steps up to the front desk and says, "Detective Daniel Sousa please."

She takes in the surroundings as the young man behind the counter picks up a desk phone — something much thicker and clunkier than the one that was in her packet — and speaks into it. She's never been in a place quite like this, but if she's honest, it feels like a Templar's quarters even if it doesn't look like one. None of them are wearing armor, but there are plenty of uniformed officers as well as people dressed in finer, if equally monochrome, suits. Neve stands out even over here in her teal and gold and white ensemble. And like the Templars, they all seem to have jobs to do. It's curious, how something can be so similar to what she knows, and yet so different.

Like Daniel himself, actually. Speaking of...

"Go ahead and take a seat," the man behind the desk says to her. "He'll be out shortly."

"Sure," she says, and she turns to the row of chairs not too far away. She settles into one... and then stands again, opting instead to look around at the framed portraits. She's sat in less comfortable chairs, but barely.

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The desk sergeant had called back to Daniel's office while he was in the middle of reading a detailed report of a stakeout. He wasn't just reading, of course -- he was also making notes to himself and others.

"There's a woman here with a snake head umbrella? And a snake on her leg?"

It sounded like the desk sergeant was asking Daniel rather than telling him, and he didn't miss that the sergeant hadn't gotten a name, either. They'd be discussing that later, once Ms. Gallus was gone.

"Thanks. I'll be up there in a couple of minutes," he told the sergeant, and put the receiver down. He wanted to finish his notes on this paragraph while he was thinking about it.

Once that was done, he tidied away anything that shouldn't be seen by someone outside the department. His office was always tidy in general, down to his hat and wool overcoat being on a coat tree in the corner instead of being draped over the guest chair in a messy heap.

He went up front and pushed open the door to the lobby, where Ms. Gallus was looking at one of the portraits of former police chiefs. There was some interesting facial hair on some of those chiefs.

"Ms. Gallus," he said easily. "How can I help you?"

She turns, a professional smile coming to her face when she sees him. "Daniel," she greets, and then corrects, "Neve. Do you have an office? We should really talk there." She pulls the paper out from under her arm and says, "Have you seen the papers?"

He nodded to the correction to call her by her first name, but also to her question about whether he had an office.

"I do. It's about as big as a closet, but it's got a door and a chair, which is all I really need," he shrugged. "Sergeant Woodward, please make a note that Ms. Neve Gallus came to see me and that I signed her in at 10:34 am."

The sergeant nodded and Daniel held the door open so Neve could precede him into the controlled parts of the precinct. There were closed doors and open office areas with those things they called cubes on both sides of the hall, but before long they got to a door that had a sign next to it that said Senior Detective Daniel Sousa.

He held this door open for her too and motioned her to the guest chair. He would wait to sit down until she did, of course.

"I read the papers every day. What about them did you want to discuss?"

She sits down, graceful as a model, and opens the paper with practiced efficiency to the page she wants. It isn't front page news, of course. The important cases rarely are.

"The ash on Valentine's Day? I think it might be something after all. One half of a pair of lovers was discovered on the day, and the other, what was left, was found later. I suspect you already knew about that — word travels — but what I want to know is if your people are connecting the dots."

She settled into the chair like it wasn't a basic padded chair that the precinct probably bought by the pallet. She carried herself with a grace and ... class was probably the right word ... that he appreciated. It reminded him of Peggy in the best ways. He, in turn, sat down behind his desk and pulled out a steno pad and a pen in case he needed to take notes. He was picky about his pens, so it was a modern fountain pen with a cartridge inside.

She got right to business too, which he also appreciated. He could do small talk, but she was busy and so was she, he was sure.

"Why do you think there are any dots to connect?" he asked curiously. Sure, there could be, but it was a big enough city that things did just happen.

"Maybe because I'm expecting there to be," she says, "or maybe because I don't believe in coincidences. Ash falls from the sky and he shows up, injured and talking about monsters, if the paper's to be believed." She offers it over to Daniel, where she's used a pen to underline words and phrases, where she's scrawled in the margin in her cramped handwriting, making connections that the papers either didn't or simply didn't acknowledge. "And then she's found, too? Only I can't talk to the dead, can you?"

He took the paper from her and glanced at her notes. Her handwriting was a little small and a little messy, but he had read reports and statements for years. He could decipher nearly any handwriting at this point, at least if it was in English.

"Wish I could sometimes, but no," he agreed. There were plenty of dead people he would like to be able to talk to one last time, and not one of them that he would be able to.

"You don't think he killed her, injured himself for cover, and then made up the story?"

He didn't particularly think that had happened either, if only because of the placement of the wounds on them both, but he was curious about her reasoning.

"The thought occurred to me, of course," she says, "and without seeing him for myself, talking to him, I couldn't entirely discount the idea. But no, I don't think he did. That would be simple, wouldn't it? I don't think Darrow goes in for 'simple' very often." That could be a dangerous line of thinking, could encourage her to overlook something crucial, but something tells her it really isn't as simple as a jilted lover's revenge.

He chuckled a little wryly, because she was not wrong about Darrow not being a simple place, not even by a little bit. That old idea about hoofbeats and horses didn't work. In Darrow it was just as likely to be a flying unicorn.

"Alright, I can't argue with that logic," he said, so she knew he wasn't laughing at her so much as the situation.

"So you think that the ash cloud ... indicated that we've got some new visitors here? Ones that we'd rather not have?"

"According to my research into Darrow's past, it tracks," she says. "I only went back a few years and I've seen everything from water monsters to walking cookies. I'm not sure how much to believe, but one thing's for sure: when Darrow goes big, it goes big." And the ash? That had been pretty big.

"My question is, how do we learn more about what this is? You said you've been in Darrow eight years. Do you have any contacts who have been here longer? Transplants like us, that is, who might have seen something like this before."

"Probably not too many, honestly. Most people don't stay as long that long or it might be the second or third version of themselves, so they wouldn't remember anything," he replied, which wasn't a no. It was just a statement that it wouldn't be easy to find someone who had been here that long.

"I might be able to look it up in the city records if someone's been living in the same place the whole time. I don't know how many people have done that, though."

He hadn't, but he also wouldn't be mentioning that he'd moved or why.

"I don't think I've lived in the same place more than five years at a stretch," Neve notes, "but it's worth looking into all the same. The city records: are they public? Could be I take the pressure off you, and you could look into your own files instead."

She doubts those are open to the public, after all. They could come at it from two angles. If someone nine, ten, eleven years ago reported monsters or attacks similar to this one, they might narrow down their options quicker.

Daniel thought a lot of people probably moved out of the apartments the city gave them pretty quick. The apartments weren't bad and he'd liked his well enough, but they could be inconvenient to whatever job or life people started building.

"Ownership is public, but renting isn't. You could try talking to the landlords of the apartment buildings new residents are usually assigned to. Do you have a list of those?"

There was nothing private about knowing where the city assigned people to live. She could find it out by talking to people at the grocery store, probably, but this would be faster. He had no idea if any of the landlords would talk to her, but that was her lookout.

"Should be easy enough to get one," Neve notes. "I've developed a good rapport with the attendants at the welcome desk." He doesn't need to know why, but she doubts he'll ask. They're a lot alike: ask the questions that are relevant to the conversation, save the ones that aren't for a better time. She already knows she can safely assume that Dimera is where one of them is, at least, since that's where she was assigned when she opened her packet. Shion is living at a place called the Bramford, so there's one, too, like as not.

He would bet that the welcome desk staff didn't get a whole lot of people asking about them. If someone did ask and genuinely seemed interested, he could imagine them making friends pretty fast, or at least being friendly. It wasn't the same thing and they both knew that.

"I have it if you want it," he offered. "But if you prefer getting the information yourself, I respect that."

He wasn't sure yet what else she wanted out of this conversation, but information was certainly one of the things.

"I don't mind the legwork," she says, "but if you've got it handy, I won't turn down the extra help." It'd be easy to expect an angle for this, and if Daniel weren't so obviously a good person, she might prepare herself for him to come asking for a favor repaid. But she doesn't think she has to worry about that.

Daniel knew the names of the apartment buildings, mostly because there were only six that were specifically designated as new arrival locations. He still wasn't completely clear on how an apartment building and a specific apartment in that. building were chosen for the new arrivals. He'd tried asking, but the city housing authority had been less than helpful. Since they'd assigned him to an accessible apartment, there had to be some logic involved somewhere, but no one had been willing or able to explain it.

He quickly (but still neatly) wrote the six names down on a piece of paper and passed it over to her.

"The closest two buildings to this precinct are Chelsea Cloisters and The Bramford. We get a fair number of calls about The Bramford. Some people say it's haunted. I've never seen a ghost there, though."

Neve takes the note and looks it over as he speaks. "Your handwriting is better than mine," she notes with amusement. "Glad to know we have more than the one obvious difference, despite all our similarities."

"Haunted, you say? I have a friend that lives there. I'll have to ask about it. Ghosts aren't real where I'm from. Plenty of other things are, but not those."

She wasn't the first person to comment on his handwriting and she probably wouldn't be the last, but at least she'd done it with humor instead of acting like his neat handwriting was a criticism of someone else's not very neat handwriting.

Privately, he did judge extremely messy handwriting a little bit, if only because he could do his job better if he wasn't essentially deciphering a code while trying to read a phone message, but he wouldn't say so.

"Same for me. I won't say I've never seen anything unexplainable, but ghosts aren't one of those things."

Working with the SSR and then SHIELD had certainly given him a list of things that were hard to explain.

Neve chuckles. "I know the feeling," she says. She folds the paper with the list of apartment buildings and tucks it into her pocket. "Thanks for the list. I'll let you know if anything comes of it." She can't be certain anything will, but she's hopeful all the same. If this is something, she wants to get ahead of it, and if it's nothing, well, she'll find that out sooner than later, won't she?

"I'd appreciate that," Daniel replied. They were looking at things from different angles, but he didn't see a reason they couldn't collaborate as far as possible. He knew not every private investigator thought so, especially that fella Edwin.

He pulled a business card out of the holder on his desk and handed it over. The holder was polished wood with nothing engraved on it, or at least nothing engraved on the top or sides. The bottom surface had the words Safe Harbor etched in very small letters, though.

"I can't say I'm good with the texting, but I try to answer phone calls or emails as soon as I can, or you can come by. If I have time to see you, I'll do it."

She gives it a once-over, then adds it to the same pocket. She smiles, small and a little wry, at the comment about texting.

"We didn't have phones or computers where I'm from, Daniel," she points out, though she hasn't actually told him very much about where she's from. There hasn't been much chance to, but she probably wouldn't have even if they'd sat down for drinks since the first time they'd met. "You'll see me again."

He'd learned not to assume anything about anyone's world, since some places were real advanced and others were way behind him. But now he had confirmation that Neve hadn't been in a place with phones or computers, and he was pretty sure she wasn't just talking about the kind of phones or computers he'd been used to.

"I'm sure I will," he agreed. He stood up, since she seemed like she was getting ready to leave and he still stood when a lady stood. Old-fashioned, maybe, but he wasn't ready to not do that.

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