Welcome to Night Vale - Unlicensed S2 E1: "We're Listening"

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

From the creators of Welcome to Night Vale, Alice Isn’t Dead, and Within The Wires comes the return of Unlicensed, their critically acclaimed Audible Original. Out in the far reaches of Los Angeles County, where the glamor of Hollywood fades into the long empty of the desert, two unlicensed private detectives are about to face a case that is larger and more complicated then any they’ve faced before. A ghost-hunting influencer disappears in the middle of a live stream. A beekeeper is murdered after telling his friends that he has come across a dangerous secret. It is up to unlicensed PIs Lou Rosen and Molly Hatch to put together the pieces, as the powerful elite of California try to stop them. Even if they solve the case, can they come out the other side unscathed? From the dusty citrus groves of Redlands to the wealthy enclaves of Monterey, season two of Unlicensed is the kind of grand California noir they just don’t make anymore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy y'all. It is Jeffrey Craneer. I'm not sure which episode of Welcome to Nightville you're listening to, but I am speaking to you from April of 2026. And I'm here to tell you we're going to be in Europe. If you want to see Nightville live and you're going to be in Europe, come check us out at the end of May. We're going to be in Edinburgh on May the 27th. We will be in Manchester on the 28th, London on the 29th, and Amsterdam on May the 30th. Just go to Welcome to Nightville.com slash live to see the show dates and to get your tickets. This is. our newest Nightville live show Murder Night in Blood Forest. It is so much fun. Please come check it out. Also, coming up this month here in April, it is the return of Alice Isn't Dead, brand new episodes of our other crazy hit podcast. This is written by Joseph Fink, produced and with music by Dysperition and starring Jacique and Nicole. So make sure you are still subscribed to Alice Isn't Dead and go get those on April the 13th as new episodes come out. Finally, speaking of other shows, do you want to hear us talk about other things? things. We have three other really great chat shows. First of all, there's Good Morning Nightvale for all of your Nightvale needs. You can hear Hal, Meg, and Symphony talk about every single

episode in order of Welcome to Nightvale. Also, we have Random Horror Number Nine. That is me and Nightville star Cecil Baldwin talking about horror movies one at a time in a random order. And then Joseph and Meg do best, worst, which is a really fun podcast where they look at hit TV shows and they review the best rated on IMDB, the worst rated on IMDB, and if you're a Patreon member, they will review the middleest rated on IMDB. So check out all of those at nightfallpresents.com or just wherever you get your podcast. And hey, thanks. Hi, I'm going to keep this short. Unlicensed, our LA Detective Audible show is back right now for a second season, and this season is a doozy. It's a big complex mystery that takes us from

dusty almond fields and the inland empire, all the way to luxury coastal condos in Monterey, and everywhere in between, a mystery with a ton of twists where every little piece ends up mattering. What you are about to hear is the first episode of that season. If you would like to hear the whole thing, it is available right now on Audible, and you can just sign up for a free trial and listen to it right away. The first season is also up there, so that free trial would also get you that. This is the best thing Jeffrey and I have ever written. I really believe that. So please Please enjoy episode one of season two of Unlicensed, and listen to the rest on Audible. Audible Originals presents Unlicensed, created by Joseph Think and Jeffrey Craneer.

This is FX Rivera. FX Rivera will accept to collect a collect call from inmate Lou Rosen. Lou Roeson. Zen. Lou, nice to meet you. Grady's told me all about your case. Well, technically they can't hold you for longer than 72 hours without filing charges, but this is the state of California here.

But the good news is it only took them two months to... Okay, six months to bring you up on... Let's see. Insurance fraud, accessory after the fact to murder, destruction of evidence and practicing private investigation without a license. The judge will have bail posted this afternoon, and Grady will pick you up. I'm confident we can take their case apart. I'm familiar with how the DA thinks from when I was still working in their office.

Do you have any questions for me? Send that to my assistant. That too. Uh-huh. Assistant. Anything else? No? Great. Look forward to working with you.

Unlicensed. Episode 1. We're listening. If you were a drop of water that fell in last winter's atmospheric river, you might splash onto the seamy hills and then seep down to Kanoga Park, the headwaters of a local paradox, the Los Angeles River. When the river was younger and still wild, the Tongva people molded their lives around the rhythm of its dramatic flood.

and summer dry spells. But the city of Los Angeles long ago learned to pave anything that could not be obedient. The riverbed is now incarcerated in 51 miles of concrete, flowing alongside its colleague, the 101 freeway, past Sherman Oaks to Glendale, where it turns south around Lincoln Park to keep company with a five.

The L.A. River is neither wild nor tamed. A billion droplets make white caps and whirlpools by the trunks of aspens, furs, pines, willows, hemlock, palms, but also around shopping carts, tents, ladders. Herons and mallards and cranes and egress fish alongside Angelinos for the invasive but delicious and possibly safe to eat, darkly speckled carp. The water is diverted into treatment plants, or taken underground, percolating through water tables, refreshing aquifers. Some of the water floats in a culvert past the main county jail downtown, where Lou Rosen has been detained for six arduous months. For purely bureaucratic reasons. Of course. People say it's hard to find friends in Los Angeles.

Clearly none of these people have been to jail. I had women ready to be my friends for life. A coven. It helps if you're in jail for the right reasons. I was a private detective who was, they all saw the news, there for protecting a woman who might have allegedly, allegedly murdered her abusive husband.

You really aren't supposed to ask questions in jail, but when women heard who I was, they wanted to ask me all kinds of things. They wanted advice on their cases, how to find out if their boyfriends were cheating, how to fight back against the monsters in their lives. Mostly, they just wanted someone who'd seen a thing or two to pay attention to what they were saying. And in exchange, they taught me how to play hearts when the deck was incomplete. I learned a lot about real football. They taught me about TikTok, which seemed innocuous at first, but it gets out of hand quickly.

I got my fortune read more than once, and they always told me things would work out for me. That feeling was great, and it lasted a while. But one thing you can't really learn in jail is how long a while is going to be. There's a right to a speedy trial, they say, but they say a lot of things. After a while, maybe 90% of my familiar friends had cycled out, but I hadn't, and I started to stare down a deep and grim uncertainty. 72 hours turned into 172 days as the governor deliberately delayed my release. I can only assume it was the governor, or his fixer Chuck Nixon.

I ruined their high-speed rail project. Of course, what I actually ruined were his office's corrupt dealings with a murderous realtor and a wellness grifter. Unfortunately, the governor tied his high-speed rail to them, and the whole thing went under. With more than a little time left to my own thoughts, it made me, wonder whether it had been worth it going up against people this powerful who were genuinely motivated to use that power against me. It was my friends who kept me afloat. Molly Hatch, my new assistant, who went through the strange and dangerous high-speed rail case right alongside me. She worked tirelessly to get me out of jail, all while keeping my

our business aflo. And Grady Lamb, my longtime friend and one of the top guys at the biggest PI firm downtown, who has been using all his considerable sway to help me, while feeding Molly any case he could spare. He even hired me a lawyer, the best money can buy, though I'm unimpressed so far. Still, it's good to have friends on the outside. And on the inside, too. I had become the den mother of the cell block,

helping women who were too drunk, too high, too angry, too scared, talking to them about overcoming, and in return, they told me I could overcome too. Time will tell if they're right or not, because after six months, there's an officer telling me to follow him, bail is set and paid. I am free.

I am happy. I am no longer sure of myself, though. I'm feeling more scared of being on the outside than I was on the inside. It's been two weeks since Lou got home. Grady and I meet right outside Lou's office in the strip mall in Azusa. He and I have gotten to know each other a little professionally. I've been handling cases on my own for him the last few months, nothing that takes genius-level lateral thinking like Luz,

more like one foot in front of the other, like doing a Monday crossword. But it's keeping the office rent paid. It's a weekend, so most of the other tenants in the strip mall are closed, besides the Tamale place. Grady wants to meet me alone first. His ask was three minutes.

And so we stand outside the storefront that used to be called Bel Air Dry Cleaners, even though we're in Azusa. He always looks out of place this far east. He should be at a sushi restaurant in Santa Monica that has valet. He asks if I know why we're meeting. I tell him, sure, it's about assessing what the governor is going to throw at Lou. Grady nods in a way that means no.

He needs my help to get Lou to cooperate with her attorney. Lou's shaken, he says. Understandable, given what she should. She's been through, but she's not returning the attorney's calls or doing the work to help him help her case. When I go in, Luz at her desk, which is piled with boxes and papers. At desk, I had organized and kept pristine while she was in jail. And in just two weeks, she's returned it to its natural state of chaos. Grady sits down and says, ready for more?

He means paperwork, subpoenas, document production, depositions. But first, he hands her a stuffed animal. It's a teddy bear with a little sweatshirt that has the California flag on it. It's very fat and very cute. Grady asks Lou to keep the bear on her desk. He says, remember Lou, do not, under any circumstances, poke the bear. Again. Lou laughs.

It's not one of her hearty laughs. It's a cautious laugh. Grady then sets up his tablet to start a Zoom, and a few seconds later, he and FX Rivera are trading quick but not extensive hellos. FX is $1,200 an hour normally. But Grady was the best man at both of FX's weddings. If you're skeptical about who deserves $1,200 an hour, The answer is FX Rivera. He's engaged, charming, knows all the facts of the case,

and assures Lou he has some tactics to get her out of this. It'll be bloody, but he likes bloody, and he hopes she does too. Lou nods. She says unenthusiastically. Sure, thanks. Then FX describes a strategy to put the state back on its heels. He's so confident I want FX Rivera to pick me up,

pat me on the back, and put a cool towel on my forehead. When we're off the call, Grady asks Lou what she thinks. If he was any slicker, his image wouldn't stick to the screen. I don't know. He's a great lawyer, I can tell.

There's a whole system in place for fighting. Well, the system. And clearly he is part of, the system. I don't know. I'm not even sure what it is that I don't know, just that I don't know it. Gravey asks me if I'm okay to work. I say I don't have a choice. I need to make some money, but that doesn't sell it. Grady can tell when I'm not at my best. Maybe find a hobby, he says, something soothing. I feel both cared for and condescended to,

like a mental patient, which maybe I am right now. Or maybe meditation can help, Gradyads. Molly asks, do you still have liminal referring to the meditation app made by a cult leader we tangled with a few months ago? Dexter Hawley, the cult leader, was released because of lack of evidence and has since pivoted to generative AI.

But tech never lets a questionable idea die if it seems profitable. So his liminal app got bought up by venture capitalists and is apparently now 100% evil-free that we know of. Either way, I'm more of a nap person than a meditation person. Grady hands a stack of files to Molly. He pulls one case file, something labeled Unitarian Universalist Church, Bell Gardens, off the top. This is the one you should pursue first, he says, whatever you ends up meaning. He says, take care of yourself, Lou, okay?

And leaves. Molly watches him go. It's your call, Lou. It might be good for you to get back out there and worry about someone else's problems. I'm not ready to take Aunt Kay says, but you should. Okay. Yeah, I got this one. Take all the time you need, but know that we're happy to have you back whenever you're ready.

Try to quiet your mind. It's hard to quiet my mind with a pile of paperwork to fill out for FX Rivera. But still, I sit this one out. Only two weeks back home, and I can't focus on any one thing for longer than a couple of minutes. When I use the meditation guides on the liminal app, I find myself doing other things on my phone at the same time. Which is how I ended up on TikTok? The women in jail were always quoting videos they saw on TikTok, funny videos, Smart videos, advice videos, wildly conspiratorial videos.

It's now, as I scroll screen after screen, that I understand why my friends there were so obsessed with it. I search one word, meditation. And after I swipe past a few boring meditation videos, it takes me to guided meditation. Then guided meditation. natural tours, then guided supernatural tours, then to the place that makes me glad to be alive on earth right here and right now, ghost talk. Ghost talk is a community of TikTokers

investigating ghosts. Who doesn't love a ghost story? And even if I don't believe in ghosts, I love that people want to believe in them. They're so devoted, and they're using deductive and inductive reasoning. They have equipment. They have reports they fill out. They're adamant about the difference between hauntings, apparitions, spirits, and poltergeists, none of which, you know, exist. It's like detective work.

Only no one in the whole field has ever solved a case. The first video I watch is two cousins. In fact, they'd made sweatshirts that said cousins on them, visiting an abandoned chemical factory in New Jersey, shining lights into corners. Then they stop, and then one of them asks the other, and then they both scream and run away. Then there's a cut and they're breathing hard, saying they were lucky to get out alive,

and then a link to buy cousin sweatshirts. A lot of the ghost talk videos add scary music and sound effects just to drum up excitement, since there's never going to be an actual ghost. And then, five other people stitch the video that just got posted and add themselves commenting on it. Honestly, diminishing returns. Time to move on. But it's TikTok, and I can't stop swiping up. Then I discover a user named Ouija Bird, like Ouija Board, but B-Y-R-D.

She's a very solid 19-year-old who understands good storytelling. She never looks sweaty or startled, no running, no special effects or over-the-top narration, She takes this all very seriously without putting her thumb on the scales. Her production is a little rough. You can tell she's just a kid with a camera. But that makes it endearing when she suddenly becomes serious as a news anchor. In the first video of hers I saw, she spells out the history, haunted and otherwise, of the Salton Sea,

suggesting without being explicit, a link between ghosts and how Southern California smashes your dreams. Even her response videos to other TikTok users are above sniping and arguing. She's inclusive and insightful. I make the mistake of clicking on the comments button. Someone named its hocus bogus is the first commenter. They write, You never find any actual ghosts. What a dick.

But immediately, Ouija Bird replies in the thread. I'm not trying to find ghosts. I only want to share the stories of our history. Thanks for watching, Hocus. She puts three exclamation points and a heart emoji on it. This girl's pretty amazing. I spent 30 minutes scrolling her feet and that's 30 minutes, I'm not thinking about the entire apparatus of the state of California trying to destroy me.

I tell all this to Molly. In fact, I say some of it more than once. I'm not sure she understands, so I hand her my phone and tell her to go on and watch Ouija Bird. I'm on my way out to follow up on Grady's case, and Lou stops me to show me a video of some kid talking about ghosts. TikTok seems to me to be the opposite of relaxation. And I know if I had that app, I'd never be able to stop scrolling, which is why I don't have it. But Lou is into it, so I watched this kid, Ouija Bird, for about a minute. I can see why this kind of content is so addictive.

There's something about this girl's eyes. She seems smart and sincere. I don't want Lou melting her brain on social media, but I also don't mind that it's at least helping to distract her from the trial. I hand her back the phone. Keep showing me videos. Sure. But for now, I'm off to the Unitarian Universalist Church.

I watch Molly leave, wondering if I should have gone with her, or asked her to stay with me. I'm not sure what to do with myself other than scroll videos all. afternoon. That's when I see it, or him rather. Standing against his car in the parking lot is Chuck Nixon, the governor's fixer. The man who's responsible for keeping me in jail for six months without charges. The man who has been sent by the governor himself to make sure I pay him. the price for interrupting their corruption. There he is only a few feet away, a two large man in a

two small suit, eating a tamale and staring right into my office. I lay down on the couch out of his sight. A minute later, Chuck Swaggers in, blocking out the sun with his shoulders. He congratulates me on my tough new lawyer, FX Rivera. He says they went to boarding school together, last saw each other on a cruise back in March. So great, Chuck says, that you trust FX. I don't acknowledge his intimidation. Instead, I ask if he's ever gotten into ghost hunters on TikTok, their delightful group of storytellers and adventures.

Honestly, I think a lot of them are just in it for the likes, but it's heartening to see people form communities around one of the greatest mysteries throughout all of human civilization. And in the middle of my rambling, Chuck turns to leave and I say, Hold on, Chuck, I'm not done telling you about ghost talk. He doesn't respond. He just walks back to his car. But for a moment, he pauses ever so slightly and I see it. It happens with Chuck, like everyone else.

There's this fire that goes out of their eyes. when they realize, I'm not an idiot. Parked outside the Unitarian Church. Windows up, AC on, in the afternoon glare, looking at the file. Why, yes. Yes, there is classical music on the radio, because I am secretly 104 years old. I live alone, have been working alone for months,

and will be working alone for the foreseeable future. When Lou was in jail, I wondered who I could turn to if I was in a crisis. And not even crisis. Who can I complain about work to? I think to myself, it's hard to make friends in Los Angeles. And I start laughing because it's like saying water is wet. Cancelling coffee dates is part of the social bedrock here.

I don't take classes. I don't go to bars. I don't even go to church. I stare at the church and parked in front of. It's teal stucco, humble, surrounded by a large parking lot. Most of the farthest spaces are choked with weeds. That means they have fewer members now than when they built the church. I am a detective, such good detectiving.

I brush up on the case in the folder before heading in. During last winter's atmospheric river, it took just a few hours of a once-in-a-century storm to force water up through the floor of the Bell Gardens Unitarian Universalist Church Basement. And then the second, once in a century storm, the next night meant that the water inundating the soil spilled through the patched cinder block walls that had shifted back in the 1994 earthquake. Rain sprayed through the acoustic tile ceilings. Like most Angelinos, ill-prepared for flooding, the ministry of the church were shocked by the

damages, but they called in their insurers. It took weeks for an adjuster working through hundreds of similar claims to finally arrive. She found high-end electronics, which she flagged as unusual. It turned out, the basement was sublet to a non-profit with corporate backing, not a church group. There was a brief question about whether the policy should still pay out. It would. But when the adjuster went back, she found that the basement, still moldering and now stinking like a barnyard, was emptied of everything. Not an office chair nor a coat rack. The non-profits contact email bounced back, and their corporate address turned out to be a mailboxes et cetera in Alhambra. No one to take the check. Payees don't generally disappear, so the adjuster called Grady Lamb at McGovern

security and research, who then brought a folder to Molly. Inside, the church is six pews in an empty daycare center. Minister Whitney Johnson is in his 50s. He offers Mia LaCroix from a dorm fridge. He's from Bell Gardens, born and raised. He asks where I'm from, and when I tell him, he grins and says, Mormon, but now you're here. We are honored, truly.

I almost blush. Whitney says he sublet the church basement to a toll-free crisis intervention line called We're Listening. They took calls 24-7. Whitney volunteered too. He loved doing it, a direct way to help traumatized people. He asks to see the insurance check and shakes his head and whistles at the idea of someone walking away from that kind of money. He asks, what kind of insurer needs a payout cash? It's a good question. I tell him, If McGovern can't find the payee, the unclaimed money goes to the state, which will confuse their internal balance sheet data.

It's a bookkeeping mission, basically. Johnson is sad. The crisis line is gone. The callers had drug issues or problems with parents, or they just needed a place to vent. The point was, having an anonymous person on the other end of the line, someone non-judgmental, is enough to puncture taboos. removed the stigma of talking about trauma. He even dealt once or twice with callers who were suicidal,

and just the act of talking was enough to give them relief. We like to think we're empathetic, Whitney says, but actually asking someone, are you thinking of harming yourself, is really hard. When you finally get it out, though, it's like letting air out of a balloon. Then he asks me to try asking him the question. And I can't do it.

He's right. It's hard. Whitney says it was part of the script. Some of it was difficult. Some of it was basic questions, like if they had health insurance. Huh. Why? They asked about insurance if the helpline was free.

He says he doesn't know. If someone had insurance, the script told them to escalate the call to the manager. Whitney recalls one guy who had insurance, and the helpline manager immediately took over asking more specifically for the provider and a plan name. Whitney remembers the caller's name because it was such a deep, vulnerable conversation. He can't tell me who the caller was, confidentiality, but he promises to look into it. He can tell me the name of the former helpline manager, Philip Tibodeau. When I get back to my car, I think that, of course, it's hard to ask someone if they're thinking of harming themselves.

It's awkward enough when you ask, how are you? And instead of saying, I'm fine, someone tells you the truth. It makes me feel a little lonely. So I decide to call Lou to tell her about the case. I call her and... Sounds like the case is going well. Nothing to add from me. So I immediately jumped to telling Molly about Ouija Bird,

who has a live stream coming up. I'm trying to send the link while Molly is trying to talk and it's all very chaotic. There's a teaser video, maybe 30 seconds. Ouija Bird is standing in front of an abandoned farm. All these dilapidated buildings behind her, and she has a faint smile when she says it's somewhere in Southern California, but doesn't get more specific.

She says several farm workers died on this land in the early 70s. It's a tease for her live stream tonight where she'll spill details of a story no one has ever reported. She says this ghost story is personal, and I pause here for Molly to be excited and all Molly says is. Great. She thinks I'm cracking up. I have been on TikTok for nearly three hours.

I take a breath. Tell me more about the Universalist Church case. Can I be of any help? Of course, I'd rather fill that part of my brain with... Ectoplasm? Exactly. I'm self... What is it?

Self-soothing? Self-soothing. I tell her, I'm just checking in on her. It sounds like she's doing... Fine. After we hang up, Minister Johnson approaches my car. He tells me that the caller with the good insurance checked into a fancy inpatient facility in Northern California called Monarch Gardens, like only kings and the prettiest butterflies live there. Do you think his good insurance covered his treatment? I ask. Whitney doesn't know. I drive off to meet with Philip Tibodeau,

the We're Listening Manager. He lives behind him. a 1970 shopping complex in Pico Rivera by the Marshall's outlet. He answers the door with an apology because he's got an eBay auction running on his laptop. He's selling Knott's Berry Farm memorabilia, and there's some last-minute bidding he needs to monitor. I don't get three questions in before he wants to tell me the whole story. At first, his eyes ping pong between me and the auction, but then he turns the laptop away. He's angry. His bosses were running a scam, he says.

He suspected it, but was hoping the call center did more good than bad. 95% of the calls were simple counseling. But if someone had good enough insurance, instead of genuinely helpful treatment, they were taken to an expensive treatment facility where they were kept as long as possible, given as many tests as could be given provided with all the covered therapies. After the flood, Philip called his bosses to see where and how they'd reestablish we're listening. They told him, and he looks right at me to see if I can believe this, that it was all depending on ROI.

Return on investment? On a crisis line? I thought we're listening was a non-profit. He says, that just means the, Company can't profit, but the people who run it can. Philip tells me the whole setup, including the Monterey inpatient care, isn't illegal. Just slimy. And now, a lot of people in crisis are no longer being served, and he's selling stuff on eBay to make ends meet.

I thank him for his time and wish him luck on his auctions. As I'm leaving, Philip hands me a jelly jar from Knott's Berry Farm. It didn't make reserve. I think I know what to do here, but I call Lou with a small procedural question. She doesn't answer. This is for the best, I think. Please leave your message. And I call Grady instead.

Ouija Bird's live stream is starting. She's prompt. She promised a 6 p.m. launch and at 6 p.m. exactly she goes live. There's a wooden fence post and a field and the lighting is a little harsh. She walks in front of the camera and centers herself on screen. She's placed herself so that she, the fence post, and the buildings behind her make a little triangle. And I think great composition. She says in the early 1970s on this farm here in the town of, then she stops.

She sees something off camera or something. Someone. Ouija bird looks confused. And then another emotion that is harder to read. Surprise, maybe? Fear? Then? The stream stops dead.

I think it's my connection. It's not. I think maybe the stream will restart. It doesn't. I refresh and refresh, and then I check. her page, and I see the phrase, this account has been deleted. After a clarifying conversation with Grady, I go back to the Universalist Church. It's late, but Whitney is still there.

He's repairing a broken divider on one of the small pews when I come in. I tell him what Philip told me about we're listening. Whitney lets out a breathy sigh. I was trying to shepherd the flock, he says, and I delivered them to wolves. I tell him, we have to trust that on balance, when we extend ourselves, it does good in the world. We make connections and we learn things. He nods, still unsatisfied. I open my bag and pull out the $8,000 check.

It turns out that the sublet agreement means the landlord should collect all property insurance payments. At least, that's how I interpreted the situation. And Grady had agreed with me. Whitney puts on his reading glasses to look at the check. He makes a circle with his finger and says, It's not a teaching in my church. But I've noticed, unofficially, that what goes around comes around.

He knows of a legitimate national crisis line looking for regional affiliates, and this might just be enough for his church to set up to help people again. A few mornings later, I hear Molly in the office. I didn't even see her come in. It's early. I can tell she's surprised I'm here already

and that I've cleaned off my desk for work. She asks what I've got going on, and then she sees I have two laptops, and a tablet open. There are subreddit discussions going on. I'm now on some kind of forum called Discord. I've read that Twitch is a great place for ghost hunters, too, and I've got TikTok open on my phone.

I'll even start a slack account if I need to. I take a sip of my second cup of coffee and tell Molly, I don't have a case now exactly, but Ouija Bird is missing, and I'm going to find her. Not quite what I had in mind, but whatever. It's wonderful to see Lou investigating something again. Ouija Bird has super fans from all over. On Reddit, someone posted stills from her live stream to the Geogessor subreddit.

Geogessor is a game where you're dropped into Google Street View somewhere in the world, and you have to guess where, using context clues like street signs and car models. The best geogessers can determine which region of which country they're in just by the lines on the road or the shape of power poles or even by the color of the dirt. None of the high-level geogessers are on Reddit right now, though, but plenty of folks are offering hopeful attempts to help. They're analyzing the angle of the sun, the species of trees,

the type of grass and weeds. Someone else asks, if the patchy colors in the photo could be a kind of spirit radiation, and I realize that the ghost talk people have flooded the page. That's when I see a familiar name. It's hocus bogus, who tells them to get lost unless they're here to talk about geogessing. A user named Omnispector says the glass casings on the power lines are from the 1930s and used only in a few counties in California.

And hocus bogus replies, She already said she was in California. This is unhelpful. Mali walks past me to refill her water bottle. She doesn't say anything, but I think she's glad to see me busy. I keep returning to a blur at the edge of the screen grab from Ouija Bird's live stream.

It's a metal sign. no words, but a weird shape. I ask the others in the chat, what is that shape? And someone writes, an orange? Question mark, with wings on it,

question mark. And they add, LOL, the way a military pilot might say over. And I know I've driven past a sign like this. I can't remember where, but my gut tells me, Riverside?

Question mark. Sam Bernardino? Question mark. L.O.L. I'll just do it by brute force. And so I dropped myself into Google Street View somewhere on the 10 and start moving up and down the highway. It takes me an hour, but I find a sign that has an orange. No wings, but leaves that look like wings.

I take a screen grab and post it. to the subreddit along with the word Redlands? I add the question mark, but I know I'm right. I feel a ridiculous kind of pride when I get showered with emojis. There's this sort of upswell of people commenting to each other. Redlands is a ghost-heavy spot, lots of high strangeness, maybe four people at once type PCPC. I have to ask what it stands for.

and a user with the very straightforward name, Shelby Haneda, responds privately via chat. We're the Pacific Coast Paranormal Commission, she says. We're ghost hunters and we're based in Redlands. She invites me to join their Discord. Over at the PCPC Discord, Shelby has shared my Google Street View image and has added an overhead satellite view of her own. She says she can't stop thinking about one particular plot of old farmland. It's circled on her map.

But she points out that when you try to use street view there, the property is blurred out. But I bet you could go there in person, I write. Already on it. Shelby replies. I sit back at my chair and stretch and crack my knuckles and notice Molly is looking at me. What?

Nothing. I just haven't seen you happy in a while. I'm not happy. Just feeling useful. It's nice to be right about something again. For a brief time, the search on Loo's end at least, pauses. She glances at her laptop and her tablet for updates, then looks away and pretends to be more interested in filing papers that she doesn't know how to file.

But the communities on her devices beck in, so she checks them again. There is no new information, just members chewing on the old news until it's no longer recognizable or even information. Reddit, Discord, Slack, Twitch streams, the chats and the liminal pathways, and all the rest are useful tools for communication, but after a rush of emotion, in this case adrenaline. They're like trapdoors that can't bear the weight of someone needing solace, or closure, or actual community. Lou knows this. She also knows that she needs to know what happens next. Finally, a ping on her phone. The Pacific Coast paranormal commission

is live streaming. Here are a pair of merrill sneakers patting along the shoulder by a cracked asphalt road. And here is Shelby Haneda saying, no promises, nothing yet, don't get excited. But this piece of land

does look like a good match. Mali, check this out. Hang on, I'm on the phone with Grady. Shelby found the field, and she's walking across it, So is another guy, and he's streaming too. Is that a person? Did they find a...

No, that's a sawhorse. He wants to know if you emailed those documents to FX Rivera. I fired that lawyer. What? Yeah, I can't owe Grady like that. I'll just represent myself. You're going to what? Molly, look at what's happening!

Shelby Haneda's live stream, which has been Image Stabilizer Smooth so far, suddenly goes chaotic. The camera points to the air, then to her companion, Benjamin, who is also filming his own stream. Benjamin is muttering, oh my God, oh my God. Then Shelby's camera aims straight at the ground, and Shelby covers up the lens with her palm. Benjamin is panicking, and Shelby is trying to calm him down as well as herself. There are dozens of question marks popping up in the comets, demanding to know what's going on.

Finally, the chaos subsides, and Shelby lifts her camera back to her face. This is definitely the farm where Bertie went missing. We can see the glass casings on the power lines and the orange redlands sign near the road, just like in her last live stream. She shows her viewers these points of interest, then adds, but we found something else. Shelby points her camera toward Benjamin, who is turning his own camera towards something just out of Shelby's view. Benjamin starts to focus in on a pair of legs sprawled on the ground before Shelby says,

No, don't show that. The ghost hunters of the PCPC have finally found something. It's not a ghost. It's a dead body. Hi, I'm here to tell you about Good Morning Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale's official recap show and unofficial best friend food podcast. Join me, Meg Bashwinner and fellow try hosts, Hal Lublin and Symphony Sanders, as we dissect all of the cool, squishy, and slimy bits of every episode of Welcome to Nightvale.

Come for the insightful and hilarious commentary and stay for all of the weird and wild behind-the-scenes stories. Good morning, Night Vale, with new episodes every other Thursday. Get it wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, even there.