[dini house investigation]

[jcrane]

The rest of the day passes in the usual haze of preparation. Crane makes sure the interns have some idea of what they'll be doing in the basement tonight. Mellark is obnoxious and dim, but he can follow directions and hold a camera. Jonathan entrusts the EVP recorder to Lichfield, thank you very much. She actually seems to understand multi-syllable words. He has Quinzel give them the relevant background information on the house, and corners Lichfield later in the day to ask what sorts of questions she has planned. He likes the answers he gets. Satisfied that the interns know what they're meant to be doing, he checks on the rest of the crew. He hardly needs to; as far from their chosen professions as most of them are, they all do their jobs well. And they've been at this a little while.

In the final swirl of activity before the lockdown begins, Crane wolfs down another sandwich in between filming the last of the introductory stuff in front of the house. And then promptly ditches his tie, undoes a couple of buttons, and rolls his sleeves up. Even if Gotham heat isn't anything next to Georgia, it's still August and warm enough to make Jonathan idly wish he were the sort of person to leave the house in more casual attire from time to time. He gathers his personal set of equipment and sends out some last minute instructions and reminders to the crew. Time to get started.

Comments

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline's actually awake enough now to start on her McGriddle or whatever it's called and her side of hashbrowns. Which is really a singular hashbrown. McDonald's, you make no sense. When they pull up into the completely silent parking lot, she gets out as quietly as she can. They might still be filming, and it's... just not the kind of quiet you want to break, really. But maybe she's being silly. She slowly follows Eddie to the tech van, taking another bite out of her breakfast. The van's empty, which seems a little odd.

"Oh, sure!" She goes to climb into the van after Nygma, but has to set her stuff down first. She's still not particularly steady on her feet. Caroline clambers awkwardly up into the van and scoops up her breakfast.

[confound]

Eddie settles into his normal spot, scooting over far enough that Caroline could fit behind him and actually see on the monitors. There's another set of post-it nots on his laptop, with the timestaps of the beginning, end, and apparent actual activity during the interns' ill-fated evp session. He'll have to that Murphy for that later.

He digs one of those parfait cup things out of the bag of food, thoughtfully picking at it while starting the playback of the segment Murphy's helpfully cut for him. It starts off just as Mellark and Lichfield enter the basement, before they even begin.

...And by the time it's over, Eddie's gone very quiet. His lips are pressed in a thin, pale, angry line, and his dumb breakfast thing is momentarily forgotten. "Well," He clicks his tongue and inhales sharply. "It looks like that went..."

He can't quite figure out what to end that with. Eddie's never been much of a believer, so the idea of taunting a ghost isn't something he finds particularly objectionable on principle alone. But that Ghost Adventures bullshit is not the sort of show Crane is running, and frankly, Eddie would not work for them if it was. It's surprising how quickly and deeply angry Eddie is for this. Footage maybe ruined. An intern, a competent intern, injured - Harv's likely going to be very far from happy about that. Oh, boy, and he's still likely got to explain things to Crane and Quinzel.

Joy.

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline has to lean on Nygma's chair a bit, but she tries to stay out of his personal space. The footage is... surprisingly tough to watch. Partially because of the weirdness in seeing herself on film, but watching Mellark trot out the Bagans antagonistic bullshit is even more infuriating when she knows what's coming. She almost drops her juice when she watches herself choke on air. And then... yep, there it is. Nothing really visible but blood soaking through her shirt suddenly.

"Yeah, it sure did," Caroline says belatedly. It's occurring to her again that she's unlikely to be invited back after this... fiasco. She couldn't work around Mellark and she ended up injured badly enough to pull the tech guy away for most of the night while he babysat her in the emergency room. That's... she'd be hard pressed to think of more ways to mess up at this point. Well, she could have fallen down the basement stairs or something, she supposes.

[confound]

Eddie scratches at his chin for a moment, eyeing the frame he'd paused it on. He rewinds and rewatches the injury again, giving it a close enough examination that he's...fairly sure they might have something worth showing, Mellark's stupidity aside. And Mellark will be dealt with.

"We've got something for Crane, at least." He furrows his brow and picks at his yogurt cup thing again, trying to at least sound considerably less angry than he still is. He's not angry at her, after all.

[jcrane]

The Dini house investigation has been... unusual. Not the house itself particularly, but crew members ending up in the emergency room isn't exactly the norm. Which is good, because Dent would throw a fit if it were. In fact, he'll probably throw a fit about this anyway.

Once they finally wrap up and leave the house, Crane notes immediately that Murphy's car is back. He makes a beeline for the tech van, hoping to get some answers out of Nygma. He's single-minded enough right now to forget to knock first. Jonathan just pulls open the van doors and, sure enough, there are Edward and Lichfield. "Do you now?" he asks, climbing into the van in his usual vaguely arachnid way.

Lichfield startles and turns to look at him, and Crane gives her a once over. She's pale, looks very tired and somewhat unsteady on her feet, and is still wearing a shirt soaked in a surprising amount of blood. "All right Nygma, what the hell happened?"

[confound]

It's both fitting and fittingly eerie that Crane more or less appear when Eddie mentions his name, as if summoned. Fortunately for Eddie, he's been around the good doctor long enough that this doesn't really unsettle him anymore. He barely even looks up from his computer or his food.

"I do," He answers without missing a beat. "Footage and breakfast."

Eddie pauses to pat poor Lichfield on the shoulder. She's had a very long night.

"Mellark botched the evp session." Eddie starts, chewing a bit on his plastic spoon. "Zak Bagans-style, antagonizing frat boy bullshit. Once he got going though something happened to Lichfield. Some kind of contact, I don't know - that's your particular purview, not mine - but she ended up with three deep cuts down her side."

And then, Nygma's helpful enough to swivel his laptop around to give Crane a good view before starting up the footage for him.

[jcrane]

Breakfast, eh? Jonathan spots the McDonald's bag and reaches in, pulling out a... something. It's a breakfast sandwich of some kind, which he unwraps and digs into as Nygma explains. He glances at Lichfield, who looks distinctly unhappy. Crane raises a hand before she can add anything. "It can wait," he says shortly. "Eat something." She looks down at the half eaten sandwich in her hand with dull surprise, then nods and takes a bite.

Edward's sharp enough to have the footage ready to go for him, and Jonathan watches with interest. Sure enough, Mellark completely fucks up the EVP session, as much as Lichfield tries to keep him on track. And then she's just... suddenly bleeding. And she's not near anything that could have injured her. He's a little disappointed that she's unlikely to come back after this. A competent intern that might even attract supernatural occurrences would be a blessing.

Crane turns back to the very weary looking intern and raises an eyebrow at her. "Anything to add?"

Lichfield nods and takes a deep breath. "Right before, uh," she glances down at her side, "right before I started bleeding, it got very cold."

"Cold?" It's August, anything less than sweltering is impressive.

She nods again. "Freezing. And the air got really heavy. Um, you can see on the tape that I can't breathe for a moment there. I was just... choking on air." She fidgets and sips at whatever she's drinking. Crane tilts his head just enough to see that it's orange juice. Good.

Well that is certainly very interesting. Hopefully she can be coaxed into retelling that on camera. Crane turns to Nygma and raises an eyebrow expectantly. Well? Edward always has something to add.

[confound]

Eddie chews on his thoughts while Crane talks things over with Lichfield. Ghost stuff... is really not his forte. He's there to make sure what they document is usable and, more importantly, debunk things as they pop up. When a piece of evidence does actually manage to stump him, well... that's a rare thing. And that's exactly what's happening right now.

"I can't unquestionably prove she was definitively attacked by some kind of entity with what we've got. But," he adds, raising a finger. "The thermal cam verifies a temperature drop in the room. Keep in mind, this is a very old basement, part of which was used to cold storage, at one point. The sudden temp drop is interesting but not really abnormal on its own. And the wounds... that's more dramatic, if more problematic because of it. Those things combined with the fact she was very clearly neither injured or in a position to by injured by anything else in the room, I think what we have is good enough to show it wasn't staged."

That's about as close it 'it's a ghost' as Nygma can say, really. He's not done though. "I want to dismiss Mellark. Personally." He pauses long enough to finish off his food before continuing on, frowning. "As much as the injury and the dick-swinging makes for good tv, he very nearly killed the investigation. And I want to tell him to hit the road myself."

[jcrane]

Crane listens to Edward's analysis, mostly filing it away for later. He's sure they'll be reviewing everything very thoroughly, even moreso than usual. The remarks about the other intern, however, get his more immediate attention. And Lichfield's too, he notices. "I believe that can be arranged," he replies, smirking.

Lichfield perks up at that. "Can I watch?"

Jonathan raises an eyebrow at her. "You and half the crew, I don't doubt."

She giggles briefly, but the good humor drains out of her quickly. Lichfield looks very subdued, beyond just the exhaustion. Crane could cheerfully strangle Mellark at this point. The first competent intern they get, and the other intern goes and ruins everything. Great.

[confound]

"Of course," Eddie grins, turning his gaze back over to Lichfield - and she looks... worn out doesn't quite cover it. He furrows his brows. "For the love of god, Lichfield, sit down before you fall over."

It's not a second later that Harley suddenly bounds into the van, and energetically enough one would hardly guess she's missed a night of sleep. Eddie's used to Harleen enough that he doesn't startle much.

"So are we firin Mellark yet?" She chirps brightly, digging into the McDonald's bag until she catches sight of Lichfield. Harley's eyes go a bit wide. "Holy--! You alright?"

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline is mostly focused on not falling over, so she startles a little when Nygma addresses her. Oh right. She looks around, but doesn't see anywhere to sit really, other than on the floor of the van maybe. Well, she could go sit in the back door, she supposes. She glances at Dr. Crane briefly, but he just nods in a vaguely impatient and dismissive manner. Okay.

She's just turning to make her way over to the door when Dr. Quinzel comes bounding in. Caroline almost drops her orange juice. She blinks kind of stupidly at the question for a moment. "Um, yeah. I'm- I'm fine."

[confound]

"I saw how many stitches you got," Eddie says with an incredulous look over at Lichfield. He's fairly sure fine is not a thing she is, right now.

Harley doesn't look entirely convinced, either. She frowns very intently at the blood on Lichfield still. "I'll get ya another shirt, toots, I think I've got a spare in the car."

[sweet_caroline]

Caroline just shrugs kind of sheepishly at Eddie. She's okay, really. Just tired and a little depressed at the moment. She smiles a little at Dr. Quinzel. "Oh uh, thanks, but you don't have to..." She trails off awkwardly and finally goes and sits down, dangling her feet out of the back of the van.

She twists back around in time to see Crane eyeing her thoughtfully. "Would you be willing to wear that," he gestures at her bloody shirt, "on camera? To retell what you just told me."

"Oh! Of course." Caroline is pleasantly surprised at being asked to do anything else after ending up in the ER trying to do her first actual assignment.