Hello Neighbor [Montoya]

[Victor Fries]

513 East 18th Street was a small townhouse in a sea of small townhouses and apartments. It was owned by a woman named Julia Wu, which was really quite unfortunate for Victor because she'd been found dead. Neither he nor his men had anything to do with it - most likely it was her estranged husband, or at least that was the leading theory. The man denied it, however, and the reason why that became a problem for Victor was that his current residence was 511 East 18th Street. This meant that the police were literally next door, turning the place over, looking for any evidence.

They'd also asked the neighbors, though that alone wasn't a problem. He'd very purposefully kept the exterior, entryway, and the view through the first story window of the townhouse very normal-looking, so it wasn't an issue for him to simply have Kelvin talk to the police. The man had pretended to be renting the place and said that he didn't really pay much attention to the neighbors so he didn't really know anything - a story so bland that it wasn't really worth looking into. Especially since Kelvin was one of his men most prone to actually spend a lot of time about the place so he actually could answer questions about the neighborhood as well as any resident. But that part was easy.

What was difficult was keeping a low profile otherwise. Victor was planning on moving his lab to a better location within days, so he'd already had the difficult problem of moving out all his equipment without anyone noticing anything suspicious - a task made much more difficult with police, who were presumably more observant than most, so close at hand. An obvious step to take was to schedule most of the work visible to the outside to take place at off-hours, though the absolute middle of the night was also a bad idea because the odds are that someone would be awake and people moving things in the middle of the night was suspicious by itself - late evenings were the best time as a result.

Other measures also had to be taken. Not visible from the outside was the fact that his building was swaddled in a thick layer of insulation and soundproofing. This kept his cold rooms cold and the sounds leaking out to a minimum, but the section of the first floor that wasn't cold for the comfort of his men wasn't so insulated so he'd had to give them strict instructions about keeping the noise down. He didn't want the police to start to wonder why so many different men liked to hang out there. For that matter, he also restricted their comings and goings when the police were present so that they didn't start noticing that someone different was coming or going every time they looked.

He also went so far as to ensure that he kept his own noise to a minimum - the soundproofing ensured that any noise that made it out would be quiet enough to not cause the neighbors to complain, but some of his equipment and such made sounds that were... unusual. And again, he suspected that the police were more observant than most. For the same reason, though he also had been planning on going personally to the new place to ensure that the equipment being moved was placed how he liked it, he canceled those plans - though they had a method for getting him into a van parked outside without being seen by a casual observer, it wasn't entirely unsuspicious and this seemed like a terrible time to gamble. If the new place turned out to be a mess because his men hadn't done their job properly it was better to sort that out later.

In fact, he wasn't sure if all of this was a reason to rush the move or, alternatively, if this was a reason to delay it. Either way, the need for caution was hampering his efforts. Too often he found himself watching the police's movements from his security cameras instead of doing actual work, but it was a very real concern and it was better to be too cautious than it was to attract their attention.

[Deleted]

Earlier in the day, detectives Renee Montoya, Paul Krause and the rest of the homicide squad investigated a townhouse where there lay a body belonging to a woman identified as Julia Wu, no immediate cause of death, but Renee's insight was that it's murder by pillow suffocation, however until the autopsy results come back, there's no saying for certain - regardless, her estranged husband has already denied all allegations, but they have advised him to stay in town as they'll likely have more questions to ask when they find out more information - it seems like a pretty open and shut case, but too many details are bothering Renee.

Why didn't any of the neighbours see anyone come or go? It's a street, isolated away from main roads and highways, knowing the activity of your neighbours isn't entirely an out of the ordinary thing in places like those. The fact every neighbour denied hearing anything is what makes her suspicious, it's almost as if it's a perfect crime - usually there's at least someone pretending to know something, but they didn't even get that. She has to have missed something, and she can't help but feel frustrated at the fact she has to wait days to find out the autopsy results.

Renee sits in Buster's Diner, the darkness of the skies and the emptiness of her surroundings telling her that it has gotten late - she checks her watch, seeing that it's 10PM on the dot. Normally she'd making preparations and winding down for bed around this time, but instead she's hunched over a counter with a piping hot black coffee in front of her. "I just don't get it, y'know?" The waitress and owner of the diner perks up at the sound of Montoya's voice, she's been wiping the place down as usually they're closing at this time, the middle aged woman glances over to the off-duty detective. "You still goin' on about that? Can't y'all wait until the results get back?"

Montoya sips her coffee and shakes her head. "No, I can't. I know I missed something in that damn townhouse. What I missed, can't tell ya - but I feel like there's too many questions left unanswered...even after the cases I worked after it, that one still wouldn't get outta my head." She finishes off her coffee and digs her hand into her pocket, putting the spare change on the counter with a slight tip as she stands up from her seat. "That ya headin' home for the night? Hope you enjoyed the coffee!" The detective doesn't respond, instead she heads out of the diner, the door opening with a ding of the bell and shutting behind her as she makes her way to her Kawasaki Vulcan S motorcycle, lifting her leg over it and slipping her helmet on as she revs is up.

She contemplates going home for a brief moment, before deciding against it as she accelerates towards East 18th Street - she's going to get her questions answered, no matter the cost. Her motorcycle speeds through the streets of Gotham City just under the speed limit, there's not as much traffic as during the day but the streets aren't deserted either - it's possible that she has already passed several dozen crime scenes on the way to her destination, but that's a problem for someone else to deal with or for her to deal with tomorrow - right now, she only cares about this case, and she wants answers.

It only takes her around a half hour before she approaches East 18th Street, she slows down until her motorcycle isn't heard as loudly as she stops at the end of the street to park far from the townhouse before shutting off the engine and pulling her helmet off of her head. She sits on her bike for a couple of minutes, peeling her gloves off of her hands as she looks out for any suspicious activity - there's a good chance the husband might show up to clean up anything left behind, and she wants to be the first to catch him in the act. Montoya pulls out her cell phone which has a 108 megapixel resolution - one of the latest models, she then lifts the camera, pinching with her two thumbs to zoom closer to the town house, watching the area closely as she secludes herself in the darkness, away from the streetlights - she'll wait for hours if she has to, but she will get something tonight - someone will slip up, she just feels it.

[Victor Fries]

When evening came and the police left, there was a collective sigh of relief from many of those who had hidden themselves next door. Not all of them, however, as some of Victor's men weren't overly concerned about the police investigation and were instead at least vaguely bothered by their departure because it meant it was time for them to get to work. There was a lot of equipment to move, and it needed to be done quickly and discreetly.

By 10 pm, they'd been at the task for a few hours. But though the neighbors almost certainly noticed that a group of men was taking things out of the townhouse next door to the one the police were investigating and probably thought that the hour was a bit late, it wasn't the sort of thing to naturally draw that much attention. Some of the men moving things had familiar faces and they didn't appear to be trying to be sneaky about it so it didn't look like a burglary, and though it was late it was easy enough to assume that the task was being done at that time because they were busy people so that was the time they could do it.

But that was only what the casual, uninterested observer might notice. A trained police officer looking out for suspicious activity, on the other hand, might notice a few things. Though the townhouse that she was there to observe remained quiet and dark, if anything the tedious task of keeping an eye on it when there was nothing to see only made the activity next door all the more noticeable.

Nothing would seem to be amiss at first, but... Exactly how many different men were participating in this moving of equipment? Only a handful was ever outside at the same time, but the steady trickle in and out of the townhouse wasn't the same four men over and over again, but more on the order of a dozen or so. And the exact nature of the items being moved was unknown because much of it was in boxes and the larger items had a blanket thrown over them. This wasn't outright unusual because a blanket could protect a fragile piece of furniture that was being transported, but it was every single item and whatever was beneath the blankets were not the expected boxy shapes of a dresser or a coffee table, but some unidentifiable mass. All of which were very fragile, at least to judge by how much care was being given to them by the men loading them into the van.

And then there was the van - no markings, windowless in the back. A common, boring vehicle of utility. Also somewhat small for the number of things being moved, as it only took so long for it to be filled up even though the men were making an effort to squeeze as much as possible into the back. When it was filled they shut the doors and it drove off, only to return several minutes later. Except... it wasn't the same vehicle - only the license plates and a different driver made it possible to tell the difference between the two otherwise identical vehicles.

What made this even more suspicious was that, though they weren't being obvious about it, many of the men were keeping an eye on their surroundings - one of them being the man named Kelvin who had been briefly interviewed by the police earlier in the day. None of them seemed to notice that they were being observed, but if someone in a marked police vehicle or wearing a police uniform showed up they'd have noticed instantly. They'd have probably noticed a woman with her cellphone out if she hadn't carefully used the darkness to her advantage.

Of course, nothing she could observe was illegal. After all moving things, covered or not, was perfectly legal at any hour assuming the owner was okay with it. Nothing illegal about the number of people, having multiple identical vans, or anything else. They could very well have been up to something perfectly ordinary and legal. But it was certainly suspicious, especially since it was next door to a crime scene even though there wasn't any indication that the two things may be connected aside from the proximity.

[Deleted]

Scouting out crime scenes isn't anything new to Renee, she has been reprimanded on several occasions due to her tenancy to try and take things into her own hands, and she has been scolded by multiple people that are higher up in the ranks than her for things being "too dangerous", but they almost always take back their negative comments when she cracks the case with her initiative. Tonight is no different, she knows deep down that she'll find something that will blow this case wide open, and still believes that the culprit will return to the scene to get rid of some kind of evidence, or at least make sure the place is clean, especially because the murder seemed like a very amateur job.

It isn't long before Renee begins to notice a lot of movement, too much for her to ignore - but the movement doesn't appear to relate to the townhouse that the murder took place in, but the one next to it - she thinks she should ignore it at first as it isn't relevant for her reasons for being here. The homicide detective moves her phone to aim it up at the townhouse windows, specifically the room where Julia Wu's life was taken - the light is still out, so unless the person is rummaging around in the darkness, nobody has returned to the property as of yet.

She watches the townhouse for around five more minutes until the movement from the next townhouse over becomes too distracting for her and continues to pique her curiosity - she feels like she needs to know what's going on, even if it isn't any of her business. Her first inkling could be that someone is moving in or out, but people normally do that during the day when all the vans for hire are available - the unmarked van may not seem out of the ordinary for anyone in the neighbourhood, but Montoya has seen enough shady activity in her career thus far to know something stinks about this situation.

Her first guess is they're moving drug equipment - this is not something she knows too much about herself outside of murders from deals gone bad, but it's the most likely scenario at this time of night. It could simply be that the occupant is actually moving and is simply a night owl, but it's surprising that they got so many people to agree to pick up the stuff at this hour, especially considering it isn't a company, or if it is, it's one of those shady cash-in-hand companies. Renee shakes her head and thinks that she must just be getting bored of watching the same town house to form crazy theories in her head, she goes back to watching her target townhouse for a while longer.

That's when the van leaves, and is replaced with another van that looks exactly the same - the license plate has changed, this is the first thing Renee notices. She can't exactly make out the driver but she can tell the hair looks a bit different - this is a different van, but it looks the exact same. Still unmarked - most van for hires without a company name would only have one driver with one van, this isn't a company, this much is becoming obvious to Renee. She decides that this might be more important than the possibility of someone returning to the scene of the crime, she begins to focus on the men transporting the covered items, recognising their body language from the amount of busts she has done, it's as if they're making sure they're not caught in the act.

Just what are they transporting? She isn't entirely sure of the best approach to a situation like this, she can't just waltz up to them and ask what they're doing, that would blow her cover and ruin the entire purpose for coming here - and they're not leaving much of an opening for her to snoop around either as there's too many men, she'd definitely be outnumbered and would only be able to take down maybe six of them before it became too much. She figures the best approach is to just wait things out, until the men are gone and the coast is clear - she feels around her waist area with one hand while holding up the phone with the other, she's making sure she has her gun with her...which she does. She doesn't want to charge in unless it's the only option, but she's ready to confront whoever is inside.

[Victor Fries]

Especially to someone who was unfamiliar with what the actual equipment to make drugs looked like, what the unseen detective was watching definitely looked like it could be that. Or, again, it could be something innocent - not all paranoid people are criminals, after all.

Whatever they were doing, they were in a hurry. Though handling the items with care and not going so far as to be too obviously rushed in their movements, they worked with a certain efficiency - though the equipment coming out of the townhouse seemed to do so at a trickle, it was a very constant trickle and in seemingly no time the second van was filled. It pulled away, only to be replaced by the first vehicle again, now empty and ready for a new load.

The process continued until exactly 11 pm, at which point approximately half of the men that had been participating jumped into the partially loaded van, which left with them. Did they happen to finish the entire task on the hour or had they simply stopped for the night? That was unclear, and unlike the previous times, the van's twin did not reappear after it left. This in spite of the fact that the watching detective would know that there were at least a half dozen men still in the townhouse, apparently content to be there rather than leaving.

The street was now the quiet place one expects Gotham to be late at night, at least away from the 24/7 buzz around those parts of the city that are hubs of nightlife. But unlike the townhouse that the detective came to see, its neighbor still had lights on the bottom floor - not surprising, perhaps, because she knew that there were people awake inside. Yet without the distraction of the men moving equipment, another subtle oddity could more easily be noticed: there were lights visible on the ground floor, but the windows of all four stories above it were completely dark - not a single one of them emitting even a little light. So either all activity by the remaining men in the building was taking place on the ground floor, without a single person accidently leaving a light on upstairs, or the windows were intentionally darkened so that no light would escape - a sign that something was being hidden. Once again it wasn't anything conclusive but it was definitely... off.

The townhouse was sandwiched between two other townhouses with no alleyway in between, the walls to either side being shared with its neighbors. However, the detective might remember when she'd been in investigating the murder that there was a small alleyway behind both townhouses - containing little but the fire escapes of not only them but many of the other surrounding buildings and the normal debris that Gotham's alleyways tend to accumulate, but it was another possible way to approach the building.