Case 36: Courter in Yellow

Change of Plains(23)

Dipper POV

The world around me moved in slow motion. Why, why was this man so suddenly centering himself in my life. What did I do the warrant the man I was getting used to liking suddenly being named as a possible thief and possible mass murder.

I stared at the screens around me barely hearing the two of them try and explain themselves. 2036 West and First Street bought by Bill Cipher 6/01/23. 2874 North and Tenth Street bought by Bill Cipher 7/24/23. Information for the purchase of a car and phone.

"What do you two plan to do with all this information?" Saying every word slow and pronounced as my brain still worked to take in every bit of information around me.

They both fumed again with the deer in headlights look on their faces, "Nothing, right now at least, that's why we didn't want to bring any of this to you yet." Robbie started closing some of the tabs on his screen, Wendy was quickly gathering the files from the ground around her and jumping to her feet.

"I'm sorry for not telling you about this yesterday. This was all my idea and I forgot all about boundaries." Barely listening I forced myself to focus on her face, she hadn't slept and probably hasn't eaten since lunch yesterday, her hair was a mess with free strands sticking to her face from the heat of the room beating down on her.

They were both working so hard on this, simply because of my body language yesterday for a single moment.

The reason I had even come to the office today suddenly hit me like a brick, shaken I forced myself out of the small closet space.

Wendy stumbled out with me, concern written all over her face.

"I have a lunch meeting, I just needed to grab a change of clothes from my office," I said raising my hand to stop her from speaking.

"Did you not go home last night?" Robbie asked me, slinking slowly from his cave like a wired animal.

"No, and where I was is none of your business. I wouldn't be surprised if you bugged my car, would you like my help doing so?" I hissed continuing to back away, the pit in my stomach grew the longer I was anywhere near that room.

"No- No we would never, we were just working off a hunch. We wouldn't have done anything more than just research without you." Wendy said sounding taking back, well I don't care if she found that snappy, she spent hours digging into my life and the lives of people I've known and even just met.

"He's a mass murder, he's brutalized and burglarized over 200 people. We can't take this lightly or overlook someone just because of personal connections to them." Robbie crossed his arms over his chest, straightening his back against the wall.

"He is an unidentified man, not my sister's girlfriend's brother. I don't care if you follow a lead, it's part of the job. Next time, inform me before tiring into my life for the case, I could have saved you a lot of time." Quickly leaving for my office, never had I wanted so badly to be out of a station before.

In my previous places when I would be sent to assist in a case that had been open for too long the teams I would join have been... less than inviting. I would get yelled at or chewed out for doing my job, I would get accused of rising in ranks through other means than just simply being good at my job, of course, most of those accusations would only come shortly after being out in some shape or form. This is no different than any other team I've worked with before, they don't believe I can solve this case simply because I'm an outsider.

I don't care. I don't care what they think, I am going to do my job because I'm good at it and it pays well. When I'm done here, I will move to a different town.