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Conrad straightened his cravat for the third time that night, sighing as he sat down at an empty wooden table in the taverna proper, awarding a baleful suspicion toward the oil lamps that lined the walls - fire hazard, weren't they? Genuine, sure, but smoky and dim and dangerous.

Hanna loved the oil lamps. He loved the swinging barroom doors and the fat barkeep spit-shining (ugh) the glass mugs behind the green wooden counterface; he loved, loved the fact that there was sawdust on the floors and that the dishes were tin and the utensils were wood and that they could only wear cotton or linen or leather cut in the frontier fashion in this dopey re-enactment town. Hanna didn't say he loved these things, out loud, in any obvious fashion - no. But Conrad could tell the man was eating this all up, eyes wide as he drank in their surroundings, voice dipping low in an impressed 'woah, dude'.

Ashton/Winona/Greenfield had been trussed up like Davey Crockett, leather tassle jacket and all, and set into a wooden coffin to pose as a shootout's latest casualty - which meant he was propped up at the head of the taverna, eyes closed over their eerie orange glow, arms crossed over his chest, there to be left after-hours to listen in on any scheming the prop crew might be getting up to. Because, of course, the Inn above the bar was haunted, and Hanna had to scooby-doo eliminate possible plots and/or suspects.

Conrad hadn't been able to join the case until after sunset, and most of the tourists had not yet gone home or retired to their (frankly, overpriced) rooms for the night - which meant he actually had to play along 'for authenticity, bro, like, don't blow our cover'. He had to admit, though, that the fashion of the times suited Hanna - whose build was that of the generation, low and rawboned and most flattered by striped shirts and snug vests and thick-wooled trousers. Conrad himself, as the undertaker, had been put in something high-collared and satin-lined, red and black, with green spectacles in thin wire frames.

Veser, in the pinned sleeves and suspenders of a piano joe, thought Conrad looked 'pimp', even without the silk tophat. Toni had refused the bawdy 'dancer' costume and opted for more of a Calamity Jane look, belted into a plain white longsleeve left untucked over leather chaps. She had dyed her green and blue streaks of hair black, just to be able to volunteer in the small tourist trap, gracefully opposing the stage manager's suggestion that she wear a feathered headdress with all the patience Conrad would have never suffered - being vaguely not-white himself, but did they even have Jews in America back then?

"Dude, yeah," Hanna insisted, eyes wide this time in disbelief. "Haven't you seen Deadwood? The main dude's best friend, like, he became a banker!"

Conrad's nose wrinkled. "Oh good. A stereotype for everyone."

Hanna looked as if he'd been slapped, but the shock slowly turned to suspicion, eyes rolling towards the ceiling in thought. "Yyyyeah..." he drawled, nodding. "Yeah, that show did a pretty good job stepping on all the toes that were being stepped on back then, I guess. You think this is the ghost of a Chinese rail worker, or a mining camp prostitute?"

Conrad dislodges his tinted specs to rub at his face, stomach clenching with another hunger pang - his 'mortuary' was right next to the deli, which also happened to be the town slaughterhouse (slaughter pit more like, ugh) and Conrad had woken up from his roost in the basement with the air full of all that blood smell and only the one cold bag to answer his appetite for the entire night. "I don't know, Mr. Cross. Could just be a publicity stunt to attract more visitors." A stunt that had gone too far, by the emergency room reports.

"But why a paralytic?" Veser grumbled low over his flat plate of stew.

"Since this isn't some, totally like, upset labor union come back to demand better housing, I'd guess whatever poison was used might have been measured to mimic a feeling of possession," Hanna explained, dipping a spoon carefully into Veser's plate to dribble the contents carefully over a rune he'd just drawn on the tabletop. The marker lines glowed a faint blue, then disappeared entirely, and Hanna slumped back, relieved but still perplexed.

Veser paused over his next spoonful of dinner, and gingerly set it back down to the plate.

Conrad tugged a handkerchief out of his sleeve and mopped absently at the bit of stew left on the table. "Are we ready to rule out actual possession, then?" He eyed Hanna carefully, recalling the circumstances under which they'd met Veser Hatch, and Doctor Worth's adamant lecture about ghosts and possessions and the mysterious danger to Hanna's health.

"I guess we'd have to." Hanna waved dismissively. "I mean, five people at once? Even if there was more than one ghost, you hardly ever see cooperation on that scale. Something about how the non-space time flows differently for every lost soul, depending on what level of Limbo in which they happen to get stuck. And besides that, ghosts don't have the emotional maturity required to work together."

Conrad's mouth slanted crooked in a suppressed grin. "Nor the living, usually."

"Hey, good observation. Yeah we're probably looking for a single suspect, here, like I definitely don't get any 'cult' vibes from this case."

Conrad shrugged his shoulders in a tight arc and tossed the soiled handkerchief to the tabletop. "So the asshole manager is the most likely candidate. Motive, opportunity, all that."

"The asshole manager is the one who hired us," Toni countered, not without some regret. "Poisoning is generally bad for business."

Conrad scoffs. "Generally, unless they blame a bad tin of peaches on a dead person instead. Then it's entertainment, and there's no saying we aren't being brought 'round as part of the circus."

Toni leans her chin on her hand, fingers curled around a clay mug of cider. "Are you always this suspicious?"

"Of asshole business owners?"

Toni rolls her eyes. "Of people. It might actually just have been a bad can of peaches, accidentally served. If the show is making money off an accident, could just be coincidence. We were brought 'round to make sure this isn't a ghost, not to bust the production on health code violations."

Conrad sneers, "What a loyal thespian we have."

"Dude," Veser protests. "Don't you think that's a little personal?"

Conrad and Toni share an exasperation that quells their bickering.

Hanna taps his fingertips across the tabletop impatiently. "Okay gang. Who wants to come help me draw tests for poison on peach tins, and who is going to canvas the neighborhood for shenanigans tonight? Conman, you think your nightvision can do us some good? Don't forget we're on the buddy system, here."

Conrad draws back, "I have nightvision?"

"Sure," Hanna insists, but then squints. "Don't you?"

Conrad shrugs.

"I can help him out," Toni volunteers, then, to Conrad - "We can canvas. Maybe get you something to eat so you aren't so bitchy."

Conrad scowls, arms crossed, but doesn't argue.

Hanna and Veser's eyebrows had risen in synch, and they shared a look followed by rising grins quickly hidden behind a cough and a jab, respectively. "Okaaay," Hanna drawls, shoving Veser over so they can exit the table's booth. "I'm gonna see who we can't question while we wait for the kitchen to empty. You two can get canvasing, and meet us back here midnight-ish, maybe? The trouble usually starts around then. Witching hour, yanno."

"Er," Conrad, nervous now, fidgets with a dented fork. "I doubt a perimeter check is going to take us until midnight."

"Dude, no, you're canvassing, not just taking a quick jog through the streets. Be thorough." Hanna steps past Veser, who is then tugged along by the collar mid-suggestive-wink.

Conrad looks as if he's just been thrown into a tank of sharks, sliding his glasses further up his nose and gritting his jaw before gesturing vaguely for Toni to stand so they can, at his grumble, 'get this over with'.