<hr/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/f/f2/Beardycox.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Avery Burnam<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Law Dogs (1)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 18th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Helga’s Wafflehaus<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Charlie Flatbush; CLOSED<br/><hr/><br/>Avery saw Nicodemus to the door, wishing him well, before returning to his office.  Clearing away the glasses and bourbon, he considered the case.  He knew practically nothing about the events in question, only hearsay, and had no reason to expect the local law to be especially cooperative.  Like as not they had settled on hanging this woman to give the town closure.  Some crimes were too vast and monstrous to go without answers, even if the authorities had to fashion them up from whole cloth.   Avery understood this.  His final case, the one that ruined him, he'd read the Yard had solved it shortly after he was dismissed, pinning the murders on a gypsy roustabout he'd already dismissed as a possible suspect.<em>Lies!</em><br/><br/>It wasn't the injustice of it so much as the inaccuracy.  Avery simply hated inaccuracy.  This time he was going to foil the liars though.  Dolores Whateley would not be hung.  Whether or not he could sway a jury, he was not certain, but he suspected he could make her accusers look like fools either way.  He was smarter than anyone in that halfway house full of gunmen and misfits that passed for a police force here.  Of that he had absolutely no doubt.<br/><br/>Lighting the kerosene lamp on his desk, he reached up to snatch the voluminous law dictionaries from the bookshelf, dropping them down with a heavy thump.  It would be several hours before daybreak, but his work would begin now.  Truly working his mind again, after so long…<br/><br/>Exhilarating.<br/><br/>****<br/><br/>It was just shortly past six in the morning, the breaking sun still casting an orangish glow over the town, when he sent a message via one of the boy couriers he'd seen traipsing about Gomorra's streets.  He'd been a useful font of information for a nickel's price, able to tell him the name of the doctor who'd treated Lady Boyle after she was found that terrible night.  In the message, Avery set an appointment for the doc to meet him at his office later on, promising a matter of urgent importance and six dollars for the house call, naturally.<br/><br/>He managed to corral Deputy Flatbush outside Helga's Wafflehaus.  That was a bit of luck but only a bit as he'd already begun to keep track of people's regular movements in town, the people who might be useful to him anyways.  Avery could have just walked down to the sheriff's office of course and started out that way, but Bilton would likely be there, and perhaps Templeton too, and he did not see them meeting his questions with anything but a jaundiced eye.<br/><br/>"Charlie, how do you do?  Buy you a cup of coffee?  I was wondering if you might spare a few minutes time.  I was hoping to find out a little about the night of Lady Boyle's attack and what happened out there at Deadman's Rest."  He flashed a friendly smile, his manner casual.  "Assuming it won't ruin your breakfast of course.  I could use a guide to take me out that way actually, willing to pay for the time.  Doing a bit of research, you might say.  Nothing too serious but…well, it was a peculiar situation all around as I understand it?"