Sam Crane's Log of Happenings

Case 1- Old Bronze Statue

The woman approached me at the bar, glass of gin in hand, lilac cocktail dress hugging her figure tightly as she sat on the wooden barstool besides me.
"You come here often, sugar?" she asked, leaning on the bar as I sipped on my tomato and vodka flavoured cocktail, savouring the taste and the buzz.
"Frankly, I've never stepped into this bar in my life," I flatly replied, putting down my glass, "and to be honest, this is my first time in this town, too."
"On holiday, sweetie?" she asked, shuffling closer as I took another sip and swirled it around my mouth, feeling the kick and the strange flavour as I finally swallowed.
"Business, actually." I clarified. "See there's this statue in a local temple, bronze, that some of the more spiritual locals say pools blood around its feet once per month. Someone in the area's hired me to look into it, so I'm here."
"So you're a private investigator, honey?" the woman asked, looking me dead in the eye with eyes half open and fluttering as I took another sip, blank faced.
"Not really." I sighed. "I'm just really a guy that goes around investigating various local legends. I don't really have much of a reputation that precedes me but, hey, I've got a website, and very little opposition in the field, you know?"

The woman looked at me, blank faced, as I continued.
"I'm pretty much always on the move, of course? I go wherever there's something for me to solve; there's normally about one case every month and, with some clever budgeting, that's normally enough for me to keep afloat until the next case. Of course, you don't have much stability, but that's part of the trade."
The woman leaned again on the bar, her arm now directly in front of me.
"Well in that case... how do you feel about getting a ride to my place for the night?"
I stared back at her, unflinchingly, as I finished off the cocktail.
"Ma'am, I have exactly fifty seven cents in my bank account right now. I've got a pre-paid motel about a ten minutes walk away, and I need to be here for tomorrow. God hope this goes well or I'm gonna be sleeping on the side of the road again. Anyway, great talk, I gotta go."
I walked out from the bar into the cold night air, and began to make my way to my lodgings. Sighing as my phone buzzed to tell me it was about to die, I pulled the charger from my pocket for when I got there. I wasn't expecting much, of course, but I'd at least hope it would have a socket to charge my phone. I'd definitely need it for tomorrow; it was going to be a long day.

Lying on the hard bed and feeling the coiled springs press into my delicate back, phone charging on the dusty table besides me, I thought about this case, and one before. On the surface, the brief sounded similar to the case I'd taken in Arizona where water was pooling every night around an old stone statue. Except that one ended up being a broken sewage pipe leaking toilet water under the statue, and this one was leaking blood. I hated that toilet water incident; not only was it a boring answer, the cheapskates didn't pay me full price for solving it. Still, that led me to taking the Missing Grain Case very shortly after to make enough money for the month, which was...

Apparently I had drifted off before I'd finished that thought last night, waking up before the sun did to an alarm that I had set extremely quietly out of respect to my neighbours behind the thin walls. Unfortunately, I still had no ideas for what was causing the pool of blood, something I always liked to have before investigating in person. That could mean that it was something unexplainable, or supernatural, of course, but I really hoped it wasn't. When it's your job to fix these sorts of things, even if it's a bandage fix, you really start to hate the supernatural cases that don't have a simple solution.

Leaving the motel, I was glad to see that my bike was still exactly where I chained it- outside the bar, as apparently I responsibly decided not to ride it to my lodgings after drinking. Unlocking it, I saddled up, and began the trip through the peaceful town to the temple I'd be investigating. Already I'd called ahead to make sure that I'd be greeted by someone who spoke English, since travelling around, I'd become a Jack of some trades, master of none when it comes to the languages I've picked up. I knew the essentials for each language, of course, I knew my 'je ne parle pas espagnol' and my 'ima tsuyoi sake o nomanai to taore-sō', and really what else was there to know?