Edwin heard the club long before he saw it, jazz trickling like spilt gin into the street. He could not see the club, or much of the street. He had seen very little of Port Townsend since arriving on the four p.m. ferry, for the fog rolled thick off the Sound and crept through the town like a living thing. When the Director had first sent him here, he had been intrigued to hear her pronounce ‘Townsend’ as if it rhymed with ‘poisoned’; he thought this might be down less to her accent and more to their shared tendency to suspect poison everywhere they looked. Later he had been disappointed to discover Port Townsend’s drab spelling, and now the town itself was doing little to dispel his impression of drabness. Still, it seemed a nice enough town to end things in. He straightened his hat and stepped inside.
Port Townsend, 1932: the streets are dark with something more than night. Crystal Palace: a dame with no past—but she does have a dead man in her bedroom. Niko Sasaki: her neighbour—and maybe a little more than that. Edwin Payne, a private investigator with a knack for making trouble his business. Charles Rowland: a homicide detective who joined the police force because he believes in justice—though this case may break him of that habit. Why do Port Townsend’s girls keep disappearing? What’s the deal with the local speakeasy, the Cat’s Pajamas? And whose mean streets are these?
A noir AU for @deadbangdetectives, with the most gorgeous art by @meips-batteries-are-low!
