"Cool! Glad to have you, Mr. Aarons."

"And I can ask around with his neighbors, does anyone want to join me doing that? Uh, unless we think it's a terrible idea."

"I think I'll help with the spying, since the neighbors will absolutely recognize me. And I am better with watching people than talking to them."

They divide up into groups and Mordred and Carrie go off to investigate the neighbors.

Mordred employs of mixture of strategies, most notably "acting like this is an absolutely 100% normal thing to be doing and he is totally supposed to be here, even though in fact this is not a normal thing to be doing and he is not totally supposed to be here." He has built his entire career on this skill and is, by this point, pretty good at it.

Pasadena is a community of households almost pathologically concerned with their own individual business. This isn’t a community so much as a collection of side-by-side outposts of the other Southern California communities from whence their owners have recently moved.

A refreshing breeze reminds them that the weather’s been gorgeous all day, a trend that looks like it’ll continue into the evening.

They run into the gardener of Samson's next-door neighbor. He's weeding the yard.

Oh, good, someone plausibly less pathologically invested in minding their own business than the rich people.

"Hello!"
 
 
 

"Hello! What brings you here?" He seems like he's looking for an excuse to skip work.

Even Better. "I'm Jamison Brown," (this is the same name he's given everybody else he's asked questions of), "and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions?"

"Sure!"

He has a couple of innocuous questions about the area in general, which he doesn't really care about the answers to.

Genial answers them thoughtfully.

Then, after a couple minutes of this, "And what are the people here like?"

"Oh, they're mostly distant. Don't talk to the likes of me much. I work for John and Mary Saunders and they barely even live here. They're usually out of the country."

Vague 'rich people' sound. "Makes sense, I guess. The yard looks lovely." Pause. "Ah, do you happen to know anything about --" and I gesture toward Samson Trammel's house -- "whoever lives there?"

Genial blanches. "They're weird folk who live there, if you don't mind my saying so. Lot of bums and hobos going through the front door. Not the sort of folk people round here spend much time with, if you get my meaning."

"Huh." Probably if Mordred asked him if they came back out he'd get spooked and then he would not have a person to ask questions of. "Have you seen anything else weird?"

"Lot of Mexicans talking to Captain Walker at the back door. And." He pauses.

Interested noise.

"At the beginning, it was just strange people. Didn't seem worth troubling myself with. Then I saw what must have been a body being carried out. And Samson Trammel walking around covered in something. Like blood."

"Good god."

"I’d have probably called somebody, then… But I saw some cops talking to Walker and so I figured they’re all paid up. Only get myself in trouble. And then there was the other thing… But that’s just crazy and I don’t really believe it myself.”

"Oh?"

Genial shakes his head. "It's nothing."

"Even if it's nothing I'm still interested. And if it's not..."