LiveBayside, 1947Descriptive

Pier Nine

A reporter's job ends at the byline. Yours doesn't. Pin the right name before dawn — you only get to say it once.

About this game

Sal Donato washed up at Pier 9 with a notebook full of names and a tag on his toe. You're Frankie Cole — night-desk reporter, friend, rival — and you've got until dawn to beat the cops to the killer. Three suspects, one accusation, and every word out of their mouths is a half-lie.

Opening scenario

Pier 9, 2:14 AM

A friend pulled from the harbor, three suspects in the harbormaster's shack, and one notebook page Sal mailed you the day before he died.

Where you start

Your setup

It is 2:14 AM on a Wednesday in October 1947. Fog off Bayside harbor is thick enough to taste — diesel, brine, wet rope. [YOUR NAME] plays FRANKIE COLE, night-desk reporter at the Bayside Ledger, mid-thirties, byline by trade and gumshoe by obsession — the kind who follows a story long past the point where the editor stops paying for it. Forty minutes ago, a call came from the city desk: SAL DONATO — Frankie's friend, drinking partner, occasional rival on the crime beat — was pulled out of the water at PIER 9. Tag on his toe reads JOHN DOE because his press pass was missing.

In Frankie's coat pocket: a notebook page Sal mailed yesterday. It's covered in Sal's cramped shorthand — names, dollar amounts, a sketch of a cargo crate, and the words "if anything happens, you finish it." Frankie has not finished decoding it.

Pier 9 dockside, present moment: Sal's body is laid out under a wool blanket beside a coil of mooring line. Two uniformed cops are smoking by a squad car. DET. MARGARET HARE — homicide, mid-forties, sharp, owes Frankie exactly one favor from the Carpenter case last spring — is leaning on the harbormaster's shack door. Inside the shack, three people have been pulled in for questioning and have not yet been formally interviewed:

MAREK "OX" VOLKOV, 50s, stevedore boss for Pier 9 and 11. Built heavy, calm in a way that reads worse than angry. Sal was writing about cargo that wasn't on any manifest. Volkov says he was at the union hall until midnight; the hall closes at eleven.
LT. RAYMOND HESSLER, 40s, vice cop. Page three of Sal's notebook has his name and a phone number. Hessler taught half the interrogation tricks Frankie knows. Says he was off-shift at home; can't say who saw him there.
ELENA MARSH, 30s, war widow (Anzio). Sal's source for three months. Says she came to the pier at 1:40 to meet Sal and he was already gone. Hands won't stop shaking. Has been selling something — neither she nor Sal ever said what — to keep the lights on.

The game's culprit is RANDOMIZED at session start (one of Volkov / Hessler / Marsh, equal odds) and stored in culprit. The narrator commits to that choice and threads consistent evidence to it; the other two have real motives and near-airtight alibis that collapse on close inspection in non-fatal ways.