In Poor Taste (SCPD)

April 3rd, 2015 - 10:23 AM
3485 Maple Grove Avenue
Cascade Heights

Derek yawned as he stepped out of his car, looking up to the house with an expression somewhere between bored and annoyed. There were plenty of reasons he had never liked coming up to Cascade Heights, whether it was during his days as a beat cop or in Homicide... and most of those had to do with the press van that had already beaten him to the scene. Thankfully the unis had stopped them from blocking him from getting there, but still...

"Detective Maddox! Detective Maddox!"

Kiera Sarkeesian, Local Four news - he didn't even need to let her finish her sentence. Letting out a heavy sigh, he pulled a toothpick from his pocket and put it in his mouth, turning to look back at her. She knew his name pretty well... after all, she was the sort to chase murder stories, and he'd spent an awfully long time in Homicide not to be on a name basis with the vultures. Plus, as one had explained to him once upon a time, he was good television. A tall, generally earnest Marine turned cop, with his laconic delivery and old school tan coat. He looked like a detective was supposed to. Wasn't totally intentional, but... well he'd always liked cop shows. Especially Miami Vice, though Crockett was a little colorful for him and white suits only worked in Miami. "Christ, lady, you want to actually let me inspect the scene before you go peppering me with questions?"

"I'm just looking for a statement on-"

"I haven't been INSIDE yet." Derek interrupted, spreading his hands out plaintively, his tone exasperated and more than a little amused. "Maybe you'll find out what we know when we, you know, actually know something." She tried to ask something else, but he moved his hands up, covering his ears as he turned on his heel and walked toward the house, casually ducking under the POLICE LINE tape as he went.

The house wasn't quite a mansion, though given the size and the neighborhood, plus the near-perfect landscaping job, he had to imagine it was an easy seven figures. Probably five bedrooms, at least four baths, two car garage, huge plate glass windows all over. There were a few sculptures in the front, framing the driveway and the path to the front door. Sort of tasteful, he supposed, if you were into that sort of thing. He'd certainly seen more garish homes in this neighborhood.

He strode up the driveway and hopped up the steps to the front door, tipping an imaginary hat to the uniform on guard, who grinned a bit in reply. The entryway inside was similarly tasteful, if one excluded the fountain in the main room. It was a depiction of an old Greek myth about Zeus turning into a swan, if he wasn't mistaken... Hell... What was that lady's name? He started at it for a moment before shaking his head a bit and giving up, then following the trail of CSI tags and equipment into the living room, where...

"Well. Shit." he muttered, tilting his head slightly as he looked at the spectacle. The dead man was in the center of the room. Which wasn't that unusual. He was naked, in his late thirties or early forties and in the sort of shape that went with a fitness obsession and probably a hell of a lot of kale. What was more unusual, and also explained the reason Derek was back on homicide detail from his Supernatural post, was that he was standing up.

He was also frozen solid. Fog rolled slowly off him, and the jagged ice formation at his feet. He'd been posed before he was frozen - looked like Michelangelo's David in a way. Derek glanced around the room, noting a few other small (and real) sculptures, before he looked back to the new centerpiece.

"Boy. Do I ever love a killer with a sense of irony." he deadpanned, lips twisting in a wince.

"Rem, what do you think?"

Amelia Remington had only arrived a few moments ago. She had been called out for the fact that this was not only a supernatural crime but also because they needed her abilities. Remington was very good at what she did because of those abilities. She could see things that most people couldn't. Crimes were solved much more easily when she was involved.

After the whole fiasco with Wesley at the hospital the other day, Remy had taken to focusing on her job even more so. She had not been taking his calls. She knew eventually when he had time he would probably stop over but for now she just needed her space. To cool off, and to just try to figure out what it had all been about.

"I'm not sure yet." she told the CSI who had been flagging some of the things that were easily gotten by the layman. Remy's hair was tied back tightly, she usually did that before she stepped into a crime scene she couldn't be flagging her own hair. Remy slipped on a pair of gloves while she looked at the statue and stepped closer to it. The man had been knocked out before he was carefully placed in a certain way. Then he was frozen over. He had died from sufforcation. But, incapable of moving if you didn't look close enough you could miss the telltale signs.

"He was frozen alive." she said firmly, there was a Detective on the way, she would have to repeat herself anyway but it helped her to talk and think outloud sometimes when she was figuring things out. She wore a simple pair of black slacks and a cobalt blue blouse tucked in. Remy was one of those people that always did her best to look put together. She wore fine clothes mostly out of necessity. It had to be good quality. Something that wouldn't chafe against her skin.

She heard someone approaching but she wasn't paying as much attention as she usually did since she was actually using her eyes mostly at the moment. Remy heard the comment though and blinked returning her abilities to an even state. She looked over at the man that entered and she grinned. She had heard of and worked along side Derick a few times. it was good to see someone she knew here.

"Maddox." she said with a bit of a grin. "Good to see you. I just got here a few moments ago. But so far, I can tell you the man was still alive before he was frozen. He died encased in ice." she told him as her eyes took in the other statues. She looked closely again. There it was again, the pattern of waves right over the nose. Showing that warmth was pulled against it several times before it eventually stopped. "These all were too. I think he was knocked out before he was frozen." she said turning to the Detective.

"Who called this in?" she asked curiously as she knelt down and reached into her pack that sat close by getting out apair of tweezers and a small evidence bag and put a piece of hair into it.

He glanced over Amelia's way when she said his name, flashing a brief smile. "Rem. Same." He took a breath - it was actually pleasant in here for a crime scene... usually they got there a lot longer after the man had been killed, and they were generally not refrigerated to cut down on the horrifying smell of rotting human flesh. So, as far as crime scenes went, this was actually pretty good.

"I hope that's the case. Because to keep him in this pose, he probably would have had to be frozen gradually. So he could be posed before each step. If he was awake..." He shook his head slightly at that. Not a good way to go. At least, he had to imagine. Freezing overall, maybe you just drifted off. But having limbs frozen solid, that had to hurt like hell. So while the crime scene might have been nice and clean. He didn't know about the death.

He took another breath, closing his eyes, and held it for a few seconds. When he opened them there was a faint blue glow behind the irises, and at least for him, the room had changed drastically. Superficially, it was the same - the same dimensions anyway, there was still furniture... but the entire room was clad in solid marble. It was elegant, beautiful, but completely cold and devoid of warmth. Everything was like the sculptures. Perfectly in its place, like an exhibit more than a home. Frost encrusted the floor entirely... whatever power had been here had saturated this place. He saw it like a glittering cloud, wrapped most tightly over the man himself, but it trailed into the kitchen, into the bathroom. He turned slowly, trying not to overload his Sight, then let the breath he'd been holding out and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, they were back to normal. "Dammit..." he muttered, rubbing at his temples. He tried to limit his use of Sight to the time he could hold his breath, since time tended to flow... differently when he was using it. Sometimes the breath seemed to last hours, other times it was only a few seconds. He didn't understand it well, in truth. But it was helpful, even if it did contribute to a painful headache problem.

"Definitely magic. Not liquid nitrogen. I was kind of hoping." he said, speaking up again finally before he turned from the body, beginning to step carefully around the room to avoid the evidence tags that were set up. "Dispatch said it was the maid. She's back at the station, apparently she refused to come back into this building. And the unis, smartly, weren't about to let the vultures pick at her. I'll have a talk with her myself when I get back." He went quiet again at that point, walking a circle around the room once and then started toward the kitchen. He moved with a very slow, deliberate step, his footfalls as soft and silent on the tile as they were on the rug. They weren't particularly straight... he almost meandered, taking his time until he was into the kitchen, pulling a set of latex gloves on from his pocket as he did.

"Killer spent some time here." he said finally. "Find any ID on the vic? He the owner of the place?"

Maddox spaced out.

Remy figured that he was using his abilities. She wasn't sure exactly what it did but she knew that he had something going on for him. But then most of the people she worked with had no idea what she did either. Her own abilities were something that weren't easily explained. She had learned a lot of how to control it over time since it had awakened. However, it was still overwhelming at times.

Maddox confirmed what she had been speculating. It was magic. She nodded in affirmation.

Apparently, the maid had called it in. She was back at the station answering questions and the like. Amelia's eyes cast around the room an looked at all the different statues. There were several. Some of them had once been alive as well she could tell with her sharp vision.

"It's strange, you would think if the killer was to create a menagerie that he would do it in his own home and not in someone elses." she said softly musing more to herself than anyone else but she knew that Maddox was close enough that he would hear her. She wondered if she could unfreeze him somehow. But, with magic .. she wasn't sure that he would thaw in the conventional way.

Amelia tried to gather information through the ice.

"He knew the killer, I think. There is no extra skin underneath the fingernails. He was also cleaned before frozen. Looks like he had probably stepped out of the shower and then the attack began." she chewed on her lower lip, a habit she had formed in her childhood when she was deep in thought. She knelt down in front of his package. She could almost hear the nasty jokes going through the minds of the men in the room but she wasn't worried about any of them.

"It's hard to tell if he had sex before the shower." she said. "Not without him being thawed. So we do not know yet if it's male or female." she said standing up and heading into the bathroom to see if she could find any signs of the house guest that had obviously been here for a while.

"Do we have anyone that can thaw him?" she asked from the bathroom as she was careful not to touch anything but took everything she could in. She swabbed the drain in the shower and pulled out a hair putting it into the evidence bag.

Derek stopped by the kitchen sink, tilting his head a bit as he looked at it, then carefully moving a couple other things, opening a cupboard here and there, the dishwasher, always carefully putting it back as it had been. CSI should already have photographed everything at least.

"So sure it was a guy that did it?" he asked, still looking around. His tone was light, inquiring, not giving any hint as to his own leaning - though he was certainly questioning her assertion. "And that's sort of what I meant by irony. Look at the pictures." He pointed toward the wall. There were only a few, it seemed the man had been single, but the photos showed him with a series of different people, none repeated. Parents probably, family - there were two that had taken place at the house though, and there were always marble statues in the background.

"Guy liked statues. Someone turned him into one. So, either he got somehow well known for this, or the killer was someone who knew him and his predilication, thought this treatment might be particularly piquant." He laughed grimly at her comment.

"Magic defroster? Not in my rolodex. Chances are we'll have to leave the guy on one of Riona's tables and be patient, but if there aren't any defensive wounds, I suppose we're not going to get much." He walked over to the bathroom, leaning on the doorframe and looking in at her.

"Are you noticing how fucking spotless this place is? I mean, I know the guy has a maid, but look at it all. The arrangement of the furniture, the stuff in here, the kitchen - the fucking spice rack looks like it came out of Martha Stewart's house. The whole place is a monument to OCD, and that's without the maid having touched it today. There's not even a single dish in the dishwasher. I bet if we get a ruler, all the original sculptures are spaced exactly the same around the room to the inch. Dollars to donuts, we find the stuff that's just a little out of place, we find what the killer touched."