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Day 225 - Monday, August 3rd
[The house is still standing, none of the immediately visible windows are broken. The door's unlocked, but the lock, if Ash checks when he gets in, is completely functional and unbroken. Max isn't waiting there to greet him, isn't there to notice or complain that Ash is late, nor to appreciate that he is (more or less) on time. But he has left him something of a present. Ash never cared much for Max's stylized writing. In prison, he'd encouraged him to stick to the word-count limited articles that didn't really allow for much style, aside from how well one could compress information down to what was really important, or at least what supported a main point. But here, Max Glenreed-Lobo, columnist in more than three papers that span from world matters to local issues on both coasts, award winning and internationally renowned journalist, has tried to combine that minimalism with a less clear focus, a mystery rather than a tell all. The state of the house serves as the prose to detail his own weekend exploits.
The first character to appear is himself an elusive figure, but a fine introductory mascot and side-kick to Ash's detective. Asher peers from about a corner, quickly running off once he notices Ash. From him, it's almost a greeting; if Ash does decide to try to find him, he takes to darting to new hiding places, having learned the house well enough to be quite good at knowing where human eyes can't easily survey, knowing where humans might look when entering a room and where their blindspots will be to escape said room. He even knows to try after that to hide in rooms that have already been looked in. It's more effort than he usually puts into looking not interested in anyone's attention.
If Ash does look through the various rooms, whether for a cat, for Max, or just to have a nice stroll, the house isn't wrecked, especially. The bed is unmade, but there are no piled up dishes in the kitchen. The kitchen even seems unused, with nothing at all in the kitchen trash; it must have been taken out at some point. Maybe it's a good thing; there are no empty liquor bottles or caps there. What there is is Max's phone, locked and on the charger.
The refrigerator wouldn't have food going bad in just two days, but in one of the recreation rooms is a steak bone, much like one would expect a dog to have in a very generous household. Only, there is still some meat on it, which is surely no longer fit for human consumption, but not old enough to be attracting bugs in an otherwise sprayed and kept house.
The bathroom light is on. He may expect to find Max in there, but instead there is only a sink full of water, which is good and clean water. Which is a good thing, given Kuroneko is calmly lapping from it as if it were their water bowl (their water bowls also have water). But it still leaves leaves the question of what the faint odor coming out of the room is. The newest character to appear offers no answers, though he is eager to ride on Ash's head or shoulder, a prominent love interest if ever there were one, perhaps a little too jejune for the more hard boiled tale being told here, though. Lifting the toilet seat will show a wonderful splatter painting that it seems Max put both ends into creating, swirled, clearly having refused to flush after several tries. But the part that likely gets his attention the most, despite being the less showy piece in Max Lobo's Detective Theater, an experimental story telling format which lets Ash put together a narrative from the various clues left behind, is sure to be the blood. It isn't as if it's a crime scene. But Ash is too savvy to miss the small single-toe blood daub of pawprint just off the edge of the counter, or a drop or two at the bottom of the toothbrush cup. The toothbrushes are missing. There's also notably no opened razor, despite Max not being the type to bother throwing a bad one away until he notices it's bad enough when using it to need another.
If Ash decides to reach out to any of his gang, he had talked to Alex on Saturday and seemed fine, a routine check up on publication matters and checking if he had anyone he had to follow up with in his position, regarding press inquiries. He hadn't been out to the bar over the weekend, but that was hardly unusual, Max wasn't a regular there without Ash, while still too crippled to be of much use.]
The first character to appear is himself an elusive figure, but a fine introductory mascot and side-kick to Ash's detective. Asher peers from about a corner, quickly running off once he notices Ash. From him, it's almost a greeting; if Ash does decide to try to find him, he takes to darting to new hiding places, having learned the house well enough to be quite good at knowing where human eyes can't easily survey, knowing where humans might look when entering a room and where their blindspots will be to escape said room. He even knows to try after that to hide in rooms that have already been looked in. It's more effort than he usually puts into looking not interested in anyone's attention.
If Ash does look through the various rooms, whether for a cat, for Max, or just to have a nice stroll, the house isn't wrecked, especially. The bed is unmade, but there are no piled up dishes in the kitchen. The kitchen even seems unused, with nothing at all in the kitchen trash; it must have been taken out at some point. Maybe it's a good thing; there are no empty liquor bottles or caps there. What there is is Max's phone, locked and on the charger.
The refrigerator wouldn't have food going bad in just two days, but in one of the recreation rooms is a steak bone, much like one would expect a dog to have in a very generous household. Only, there is still some meat on it, which is surely no longer fit for human consumption, but not old enough to be attracting bugs in an otherwise sprayed and kept house.
The bathroom light is on. He may expect to find Max in there, but instead there is only a sink full of water, which is good and clean water. Which is a good thing, given Kuroneko is calmly lapping from it as if it were their water bowl (their water bowls also have water). But it still leaves leaves the question of what the faint odor coming out of the room is. The newest character to appear offers no answers, though he is eager to ride on Ash's head or shoulder, a prominent love interest if ever there were one, perhaps a little too jejune for the more hard boiled tale being told here, though. Lifting the toilet seat will show a wonderful splatter painting that it seems Max put both ends into creating, swirled, clearly having refused to flush after several tries. But the part that likely gets his attention the most, despite being the less showy piece in Max Lobo's Detective Theater, an experimental story telling format which lets Ash put together a narrative from the various clues left behind, is sure to be the blood. It isn't as if it's a crime scene. But Ash is too savvy to miss the small single-toe blood daub of pawprint just off the edge of the counter, or a drop or two at the bottom of the toothbrush cup. The toothbrushes are missing. There's also notably no opened razor, despite Max not being the type to bother throwing a bad one away until he notices it's bad enough when using it to need another.
If Ash decides to reach out to any of his gang, he had talked to Alex on Saturday and seemed fine, a routine check up on publication matters and checking if he had anyone he had to follow up with in his position, regarding press inquiries. He hadn't been out to the bar over the weekend, but that was hardly unusual, Max wasn't a regular there without Ash, while still too crippled to be of much use.]