Tonight Alex is apparently running the bar. At the very least she is handling the tables, deftly delivering drinks and food to smiling patrons and greeting them with smiles of her own. She seems to know quite a few of the people in the bar, even if she doesn't greet them by name. Waves, grins, and body language are all quite familiar. She collects her tip and nimbly circles the table tto take one more order before breaking away. It's not overly busy tonight, especially as a party of six is just now departing.
Alex is now taking a seat at the bar, adjusting her black 'Cyclone' t-shirt and blue jeans as she lsides up onto a stool toward the middle of the bar where she can look right at the door. The handful of patrons still in the room seem to be content and the blonde girl seems to have found bliss in a glass of fizzing coca-cola.
Strix has been at the bar for a time, just long enough to settle in at a table with persnickety regard yet not long enough to have ordered himself anything to drink. He sets down a small stack of newspapers bound with three rubber bands (quite possible around an item) from the look of it to create a sort of package. The parcel is conveniently at hand but he isn't looking at, instead craning his neck in a swivel as he examined the scene for waitstaff.
Strix's eyes soon fall on Alex and he watches her for a time, tracking her movements through the sea of patrons until she caught his eye and then he nods and raises a hand with polite intent. "Evening," The birdish man calls to her approach, instead of shouting out his order, as he waits patiently to be helped.
So much for taking a break. Another woman, this one a brunette who is both taller than Alex and a couple years older, is nearby but she responds to Stirx's call with a bright smile and a nod.. Immediately she slides to her feet and makes her way through the people between herself and Strix with careful strides. "Evening," ALex responds, nodding once. The smile she wears is almost incandescent, more striking by the contrast between white teeth, her skin, and glossed pink lips.
"How may I help you?" The girl asks, reaching down to pull a pen from her pocket alongside a notepad. Never travel without a means of taking notes. The coke fizzes behind her and Alex ignores it completely. "I'm sorry you've been waiting so long to be served!" She seems to mean it too. Wide eyes are intent the birdish man's face now.
"Its perfectly alright, I tend to go unnoticed when folks aren't looking for me.." The strange fellow responds with a genial grin on his expressive features. Strix looks up and over at her with his smile slowly adopting a sheepish cast in an otherwise friendly expression. His left eye trails a few seconds behind his right giving the impression of a disability centered on that side of his face. He attempts to angle his face away from her on that side as if it were a natural preposition in his body language.
"Just a coffee please, little shot of Bailey's in there if ya have it." The odd fellow's accent is Yankee, a New Englander from Maine if there anyone with a talented ear around to hear it.
Alex nods at that. Her gaze follows the attempt to turn his face away from her but she quickly corrects her gaze to foucs where he seems to be aiming it. At least Alex is attentive to the man's preferences. She has her pad out and quickly notes down the order, pen writing in a rather untidy scrawl that she can hopefully understand herself.
The girl replies in the typical local accent, "Sure thing. Coffee's fresh right now and I'm pretty sure we've got plenty of Bailey's... No problem." Nodding, Alex is moving away from the table awith that pronouncement, dropping her notepad into a pocket. "Back in just a second!" She's fast as well as agile and it really is only seconds before the girl is back, coffee in hand. "Creamer, sugar, substitutes...?" There's a little basket she's carrying that contains all of the above. Just in case. Alex bobs as she walks, like she might be dancing to some unheard song.
Strix gives little other outward reaction to her stare, it is his face after all and one can only hide so much in sidelong glances without adopting a mask. He had become accustomed to stares a long time ago and he doesn't flinch when he receives them. He has a patient grin as he waits for his coffee and when it arrives he raises a hand to deny the basket. "Just the coffee, thank you."
There is something stoic about Strix in the way he maintains a placid expression above his pert plastic smile with a rehearsed effervescence. There is something scripted in his demeanor and he clearly doesn't seem to expect the waitress to linger once she's dropped off his drink. His gaze falls to the tabletop in an awkward silence and then he fills /that/ with a sip of coffee.
"If you need anything else I'll be right at the bar," Alex responds to this quiet dismissal. She takes a deep breath, nods once, and then walks away, basket still in hand. It is tucked behind the counter and then the young woman herself is sliding up onto a stool with her drink.
Alex surveys the room with a thoughtful frown, scrutinizing her surroundings with a great deal of gentle care. Strix is noted again, observed, and filed away further. She isn't likely to disturb him, at least for a moment or two. She might watch a little bit. It's part of her job, after all, as well as a means of fulfilling curiosity.
Some owls are better with mice than Strix is with people, especially females, the fellow sets the coffee back in its saucer before wiping his long fingers on his hoodie with a mild frown. Once his hands are 'clean' enough to takes the bound newsprint parcel he brought with him and begins to pop off the rubber bands making quiet work of opening it with three sharp snaps and a loud crinkle. Inside is what /appears/ to be a woman's wallet and he turns it over without opening it before setting it gingerly on the tabletop.
"Huh." The birdish Strix chirps with a hollow musing as he continues to study the outside of the 'wallet' set before him on the table. His expressive brows still on the item as he takes a distracted sip of coffee... if she's watching very closely Alex /may/ catch how his glass eye swivels to look up at her mere seconds before the rest of his face turns to join. The smile takes a second to load on cold features, "Pardon me." Drawing her back again with a gesture...
Alex is not watching closely enough to see the way Strix's eye moves. Why would she believe it if she had? Still, when the man beckons her over once more the young blonde waitress has already picked up a small staack of napkins and started in his direction. She quickly weaves between the tables and presents the small white clothes to the man, setting them on the edge of the table.
"How can I help?" There's that smile again, cheerful and effervescent. She wears it well, like it's a part of her or at least a large part of the 'her' she chooses to display to the room. Slender fingers splay on the edge of Strix's table while she awaits his request. She notes the wallet as well, though only out of the corner of her eye.
"You seem the fashion savvy sort." Strix opines openly, not that he can especially tell in her work uniform but he might just mean because she's female and relatively young. "If I may be so bold as to remark on such.." The fellow keeps a rigid posture even as he attempts his 'genial' smile again, clearing his throat, gesturing to the wallet on the table, "I suppose I could google it but I far prefer practical investigation in my research..." He glances up sidelong from the wallet to look at her more fully with his odd eyes, "Would you happen to recognize that symbol?" He points to the designer logo on the wallet but it is nothing found in a neiman marcus.
"It doesn't look any design I've ever seen, I mean..." The blue-eyed waitress is frowning a the wallet in question, then looking up at Strix before turning her gaze back to the imprinted logo set on the item. "Nothing that I see at the mall or in an yof the outlets, anyway." Alex shrugs, rolling her shoulders slightly as she does so. "I'm sorry I don't know more. Does this belong to your girlfriend?" Though softspoken it seem that the young woman is at least sufficiently skilled with people to act comfortable and friendly while she stands beside the owl and continues to study the wallet. "It almost reminds me of that one greek thing, scaly dude eating his tail. Geh, I mean..."
"I was afraid of as much..." The narrow shouldered fellow mmrs softly and he moves to quickly wrap the wallet back in the newsprint out of sight. The second the dark almost black maroon leather with its strange woven symbol is covered he looks back up at Alex with a nod. "An ouroboros." The know-it-all has an unforgiving way of sharing information. He sounds a bit like he's talking down to the woman, oh terrible mansplaining, "No. Not my girlfriend's. .." He goes quiet, "A client's. The woman who owned that wallet is missing and the police long since let the case go cold. I am working with the family." Dour, Strix makes no apologies and he goes to take another sip of coffee. "I appreciate the help."
-> >> Alex to Here << <-==============================================
Rolled 3 Successes
< 2 5 7 8 8 9 >
=============================-> >> Wits + Empathy - 2 [No Flags] << <-
Alex reaches up and runs her hands throug hehr thick, blonde curls, pulling them away from her face. Blue eyes watch Strix intently for a long moment and then the girl tilts her head sligthly to the left. A faint rown follows as she adds, "An ouroboros. Right. Snake biting off his own tail..." She seems familiar with the concept, at least. "Missing person, hm? Well, I know more about the area around here than most people. If you want I can look at what you have and tell you if I notice anything off, if you're stuck already? What's her, um, name?"
"Madeline." Strix narrows his eyes with an uncertain edge and he gestures to the seat across the table with colloquial, "If you can sit while you're working... or should I meet you after?" His cheeky grin is earnest enough yet when he turns his gaze back down to the wallet the left eye trails behind the right as it lingers on her face a few seconds too long. It was odd but not unheard of behavior for a false eye.
"I wouldn't say that I am stuck, the wallet is just the most recent piece in the puzzle and it arrived in my P.O. box this afternoon." He bobs his head with a sharp birdish manner, tossing his shoulder, "The police seem to think she took off five years ago on a vacation she didn't want to return from but.. I have other suspicions."
"Well. I was on my break when I came over to bring you this, actually. I've got twenty minutes." There's a lazy grin that accompanies this pronouncement from Alex who slides easily into the booth seat across from Strix. She watches him for a second, studying the eye in particular, and
then glances down at a small charm bracelet on her left wrist before adding, "My name is Alex. And okay, not stuck. But what is this theory you have?" She asks, tilting herh ead slightly as she does so. "And the contents of the, um, wallet. Did they come with?" The girl tilts herh ead just a little farther as she considers this question for a second before giving a light shrug of her shoulders.
"It has been far too long for much in the way of physical evidence on the wallet." Strix slides it across the table to her still wrapped in the newsprint. "I'm hesitant to talk about my theories though. I've been doing this for a very long time and I am not sure how you'll help but I am ever curious where it concerns the insight of others." Even if its just to pick it apart and eviscerate the logic therein- is the unspoken end to that sentence.
The wallet has money, cards, all the usual wallet things at first glance when its finally opened. "It was left on the seat of her car with her purse, her phone and everything else but because there was no struggle the police claimed she staged a runaway." Strix gives a considered half shrug, "Over bearing single mother, twenty two year old athlete, it might make sense from the outside but I don't like the way the facts stacked up." He is prone to another one of his Owlish shoulder shuffles that looks so like he's puffing up his unseen feathers.
"The contents of the wallet would be for creating a picture. Could speak to her frame of mind or intentions... Not anything to do with physical evidence beyond that, but it's good to know what was present, right?" Alex is watching the man intently as he speaks, nodding when he makes a point and briefly arching a brow at some of his more pointed remarks. She seems to be game to challenge his presumed intellectual superiority by presenting her own thoughts. Even if she did fail to name 'Ouroboros' a moment ago. "Okay, so no struggle .All her things were left behind and nothing was disturbed. Maybe she stepped away for a moment and then was grabbed? Like if she ran into someone she knew..." There's a beat before Alex adds, "Of course I'm going to get things wrong if you don't share what the theories are. Who am I going to tell, the kidnapper or whatever?" There's a certain frank amusement to her tone.
Strix draws his thin lips back into a wide face illuminating grin, "My theories are mine, I want to hear yours... why don't I give you the facts instead and watch you form some?" His broad grin falters back to a tight lipped cast as he considers his next sentence carefully, "Her car was on the edge of the forest two hours drive from here on the side of a little used thruway. Door was found open, contents on the seat as I mentioned but only twenty three dollars in her wallet. Her bank account had been cleaned out that morning which means exactly 675 dollars were the only unaccounted for belongings." He preens in posture alone as he sits up and squares his shoulders to take another sip from his coffee cup.
"No finger prints, no evidence of kidnapping or struggle.." The private investigator bobs his head again, going on conversationally despite macabre subject matter, "She disappeared in the late fall and they swept the forest on and off for three weeks until the first snow and then again in the spring. No body was ever found."
"So, the contents of her bank account disappeared with her but not the money in her wallet. I suppose the police would've said she left it there in order to make the disappearing act look more convincing, right?" Alex seems to be chewing on the facts, her eyes bright as she takes in every word and considers it with a certain amount of care and enthusiasm. "Girl would need to be pretty desperate to just leave her car and all her stuff in the woods then run away into the night," the small wooman muses after a moment.
Fingers splayed on the edge of the tableshe shifts her weight slightly, leaning back into the seat behind her. "Okay. So let's say she was grabbed. The question is why all her stuff was out on the seat but none of it was taken. If she was grabbed away from the car you'd expect she'd've taken her wallet with her. The missing money, at least, is easy to explain away. If she didn't have it in her wallet but in an envelope or something it could have been on her person when she vanished.
"That really leaves two questions. Was she lured away from the car? How? A friend or loved one would make sense for osmething like that,and if they said they only needed her for a second she might have left her stuff sitting out. No one was there to take them. And if not, well. Assuming you don't leave of your own free will how many ways arethere to disappear? Falling into a- um, into the... water... or something is out. I'm guessing they checked out any unidentified bodies that came outof the water even sort of nearby. Um..."
Strix listens to her and he slows nods, "No bodies of water in relative walking distance save for a few small creeks. The forests extend for acres in every direction." He is taking a full accounting of her answer in its entirety before he offers more insight, "Her mother was already heavily medicated for depression before the disappearance but she claims that her daughter was her rock and she still pours thousands of dollars every year into trying to find her." Strix clicks consideringly in the back of his throat like the clacking of a beak, "You don't put that kinda cash into someone you don't want around. I don't believe the mother drove her off like the police..."
Strix takes a sip of coffee and gestures conversationally with his cup before he states, "More like you, I think something may have lured her away and off into the forest. Mothers in their right mind don't usually come to me for help though. My theories are open to some..." His smirk curls in the corner with a cruel turn, "Fantastical interpretations."
"Fantastic interpretations, hm?" Alex asks, arching a brow slightly as she does. She shifts her weight back in the seat, nodding slowly while she listens to Strix's words. "I mean, the mom could have but why would you leave a car to convince someone you didn't run away? I get not wanting to hurt mom that much when you take off but if all you had was $675 I am guessing yo ucant' really afford transportation." She shrugs her shoulders then, taking a deep breath as she does so. "So a fantastical interpretation is as good as anything else," Alex finishes, shaking her head. "The whole thing doesn't really add up to much." There's a vague frustration in the way Alex speaks, a competent mind vexed by its inability to grasp what seems like it should be a simple solution.
"Do you enjoy the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?" Strix wonders as he pivots the subject with a conversational prowess that belies his naturally awkward demeanor. "I've always found in my life that when the solution seems impossible the proper application of logic has just yet to be applied." He keeps both his eyes on here and they look charming when they manage to sit level and not wheel off creepily in other direction. Grinning over the rim of the cup before he took a sip he bade, "More things on heaven and earth..." He trails off into an introduction. "My name's Strixton, by the by, Mr. Nebulosa if you're feeling formal."
"I've always been a fan of mysteries you can solve. Not whatever random thing that... tweed wearing, pipe smoking heroin addict superhero can come up with," Alex responds, gesturing vaguely to help cover up the sligth pause when she comes to the name of the person she intends to speak of. She rolls her shoulders lightly then before adding, "I get what you mean, though. Strixton, huh?" She skips a beat, bobbing her head slightly as she does before asking, "So.. What logic am I missing right now?"
"The sort better left for fever dreams..." Strix said in a wry deadpan as he set his empty cup back down in the saucer and rolls his wrist in a foppish gesture. Thoughtful, he opines, "You've been very helpful but I fear to tell you more would be to endanger your..." He attempts a wane smile as his eyes dip off around the room moving out of time from one another in that jarring disjointed rhythm. "Charmed existence." The man shifts a bit to pull a wallet out of his back pocket.
"Charmed existence?" Alex rolls her eyes at this before taking a deep breath and giving a quick nod. "Well, I'll be here most nights if you have other things to throw out anyway," she states in a dry tone, though her expression and manner are both upbeat and friendly enough. "Hopefully you solve this one. Good luck. I do need to go back to actually working though." With that alex slips out of her seat and starts toward the counter at the front. "Need anything else? More coffee, check...?"
Strix leaves a twenty on the table and collects his parcel, "No, you have a wonderful evening." The words are in a scripted lilt that suggests his manners are performed rather than sincere but manners they are! The owlish fellow slips out into the night.
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