(no subject)
Once again, we decided to split up. Enoki opted to go visit the Delibird Post Office, while Aycee and I headed over to city hall to check out Mayor Leopold's office. Aycee's position as prison guard gave her clearance to request the autopsy report and Casey and Kanei's records from Mayor Leopold, and I... well, I had friends in the right places. It never hurt to have a backup plan, after all.
And it's a good thing we did; Mayor Leopold was just stepping out of his office when we arrived. There was no missing him; Arcanines generally tended to be very large, and the way Mayor Leopold carried himself simply demanded your attention. To say he had a big presence would be an understatement; he owned a room when he walked into it. Even fearless Aycee made sure to mind her manners when she moved to intercept him. "Mayor! Sorry to bother you, but do you think we could ask a quick favour of you? It's about the murder investigation."
"Investigation?" Mayor Leopold chuckled. "Miss Decii, what's left to investigate? The culprit is already behind bars."
"Well, that's the thing. The team's not too sure about a few facts. Do you think we could take a peek at Father Hough's autopsy report and a few of the townspeople's criminal records?"
Mayor Leopold looked surprised at that. "Criminal records? Whatever for? That Mothim isn't a citizen of Northvale. We haven't got a file on him yet."
"It's... actually not the Mothim we're investigating," Aycee confessed, looking over to me. "We don't have proof yet, but we think somebody in Northvale might have been... involved."
Leopold looked as if we'd accused him. "Miss Decii! I'm shocked! Northvale is a good town, full of wholesome people! It's simply not possible that any of our citizens would dirty their hands with something like that. We've already got more than enough proof to get that Mothim convinced. I see no reason for you to be poking around town records, especially when you ought to be hard at work guarding the jail. I would advise for you and Mr. Blackwell to put these ludicrous notions out of your heads. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got business to attend to. Quidnunc, let any visitors know I'll be out for most of the day, won't you?" And with that, Mayor Leopold bustled past us, positively bristling with indignation.
"That... didn't go too well. So much for temporary guard authority, huh?" Aycee sighed heavily.
I wasn't that easily dissuaded, though. After all, this was exactly the reason I'd come along. I gave Aycee a comforting pat on the shoulder, shot her a smile, and made my way up to the receptionist's desk in front of Mayor Leopold's office. Funny how the mayor hadn't quite noticed, but the Chatot seated on the desk was fast asleep, his head neatly tucked under one wing. "Hey, Quid. Rise and shine." ...Nothing. So I slammed both sets of claws down on the desk. That definitely got his attention; Quidnunc snapped awake with a loud squawk.
"Eh? Whuzzat?!" He looked around in puzzlement before he noticed me grinning at him. Once he spotted me, though, he was quick to start berating me, tiny feet kicking uselessly at my claws. "Ah, cripes! Thierry, you lopsided bastard! You just about scared the feathers right off of me! What'd you have to go and do that for, anyway? Scaring a Chatot senseless and interrupting his beauty rest like that. Handling official government business is tiring work, y'know!"
"I'm sure it is, Quidnunc." I couldn't help rolling my eyes at that. Official government business? He was the secretary to a mayor in a tiny little village. And he'd only been at it for about a month. Of course, for Quid, that was probably a personal best. For as long as I'd known him, Quid had been a useless layabout. He claimed to be hard at work excavating for gold, but it was common knowledge that all the veins up here had been bled dry. That, and nobody had actually ever seen him leaving town to do said excavating. It was a bit of a running joke around town that Quid was hoping he'd find his gold at the bottom of a saloon glass. It was a marvel he'd lasted this long doing honest work. Of course, the job did suit him well; if there was one thing Quidnunc had a knack for, it was gossip; he could always be trusted to know the inside scoop. Working in the mayor's office, where all the important decisions were made, probably made him privy to a lot of juicy information.
Which was why, for all his flaws, Quid was a very useful friend to have. "Forgive me, Quid, but I need a little help." I shook off his futile attempts to boot my claws into submission, nodding towards the closed door that led to Mayor Leopold's office. "Aycee and I have some rescue team paperwork to get done, but the mayor seems to have stepped out. You're the closest thing we've got to a second-in-command around here, so I figured you could help us out. We need a look at Father Hough's autopsy report, as well as the criminal records."
Quidnunc puffed his chest out, obviously pleased with the idea of being compared to a vice-mayor. "You came to the right bird, Sneasel. You just leave everything to old Quid. Criminal records are all in that big stuffy filing cabinet. It's kept locked, though. Good thing I've got keys, huh?" He let out an ear-splitting laugh, then pulled open a desk drawer with some difficulty. Quid vanished into the draw briefly, reappearing a moment later with a keyring dangling from his beak. This didn't deter him from jabbering away in that scratchy voice of his, of course. "Bet this is about that Mothim, isn't it? The whole town's been talking about him. Seems like they haven't had anything on their minds but old man Hough. You'd think nobody here's ever heard of a murder before. Ah, that's what I like about the small town life, though. It's so innocent up here. Don't think I've even heard of anything worse than a bar fight before this -- and yours truly was likely responsible for half of those. Hah! There you go, sweetheart, middle drawer's the one you want -- you go ahead and take a peek in those records. Just mind that you don't go reading mind. There are things on there to make your ears curl. Whoops, too late, haha. S'a joke. Get it?"
Neither of us were amused. Aycee simply shot Quid an unimpressed look and shooed him away from the drawer, digging into the files with relish.
Quid, meanwhile, was not deterred in the slightest. He simply cackled and swaggered towards Mayor Leopold's door. "Relax, I'm only pulling your leg. You won't be finding anything there. Old Quid'll share any secrets you like, except for his own. Looks like you've got yourself nice and settled in, so I'll leave this autopsy thing to Thierry. C'mon, longear. Leopold's been keeping the report in his office, so we'll have to step inside for that. I'm sure he won't mind. Just don't go snooping around too much, got it? You're too curious for your own good, Thierry. Maybe this rescue team business will straighten you out, though. Give you something to do instead of just thinking all the time. You've definitely had your hands full with this, I bet. Poor Leopold's been running around like a headless Pidgey ever since that body was found. He's been trying to keep nasty rumours from spreading, but a messy affair like this... there's just no stopping people from talking, you know what I mean? You should have heard the ugly things they were saying about you back when you were the main suspect..."
The interior of Mayor Leopold's study was immaculately neat. The plant in the corner was precisely pruned and obviously watered like clockwork. The walls were full of newspaper clippings and pictures of his accomplishments -- right from his childhood awards up to cutting the ribbon on our old Abomasnow's shiny new clinic. The desk was immaculate and completely devoid of clutter... except for a small fishbowl which contained nothing but fine pale violet sand and a lonely little stick of coral.
"--Saying it's in your blood, going on about how they all knew you were bad news from the moment you hatched... people up here really don't know how to handle crime, do they? Bet their had egg on their face once they figured out that Mothim was the one who did it. You oughta try playing up the outrage a little more, Thierry. Maybe sue for defamation of character. Better do it soon, too. This little one-Ponyta town doesn't even have a judge. Mayor Leopold's arranging to have one brought up from Frostview special for the Mothim's case. Oh, got your eye on the fishbowl, huh?" Admittedly, I'd already started tuning Quid out. He perched on the rim of the bowl, bringing my attention back to him. "Kinda funny-looking, isn't it? A fishbowl without even a bit of water in it. Leopold's into fish now, I guess. Wants something to liven up the office, if you ask me, but he's way too gung-ho about it. He went all the way to Frostview just to get the thing. That sand and the little shell? I'm willing to bet they were made custom for him. You can't find purple dirt around here, that's for sure. But he forgot to get himself a fishie! Came back with just an empty bowl! Weird, isn't it? Ol' Skogkatter Leopold's sharper than a tack, and he can't even remember the most important part of getting a pet. I don't know why he's even displaying the bowl without anything to stick in it."
"Yes, well, you said it yourself. He's been stressed lately," I mumbled distractedly. Frankly, I was more interested in finding that autopsy report.
Quid caught on to what I was after, apparently. He pointed to one of the desk drawers. Sure enough, there it was, clearly labelled and resting on top of the drawer. "Sure, I guess that'd be an alright excuse. But this happened before that Hough business. About two weeks before it, actually. You must have noticed he went outta town, right? Must have been worthy of front-page news. Nobody ever visits this little armpit of a town, and nobody ever leaves. Must be that small-town charm. Boy, it was hilarious, though. While he was out, I... well, you know me. I'd been taking things easy. The birds will play while the cat's away, y'know? And when Leopold showed up and found me at Miltank's Saloon for a quick mid-afternoon pick-me-up, he just about chewed my ear off about keeping an organized head and not letting myself slip. And of course, the whole time he's doing that, he's carrying this fishbowl without any fish! Took everything I had not to laugh myself silly."
Mew almighty, there was just no shutting Quid up once he got started. I couldn't have cared less about Mayor Leopold's empty bowl. I kept myself busy with the autopsy. The time of death... it was about an hour and a half after Ms. Aves had last spotted Father Hough. He'd definitely been dead for a while before we arrived on the scene. But that was strange... it took about 45 minutes to reach the mine. It had probably taken Father Hough even longer -- Walreins were ungainly on land, Father Hough was old, and the path was dark and uneven. Even if you said it only took an hour, that left only thirty minutes for the poison to kill him. Could Poisonpowder take effect that quickly?
...Apparently not. Reading a little further into the report turned up something interesting. The forensic Xatus might not have been able to identify what species of Pokemon the toxin had come from, but they'd identifyied something that Mayor Leopold had neglected to mention -- it wasn't Poisonpowder at all. The toxin found in his bloodstream was far too potent -- it would be more consistent with a Toxic attack than Poisonpowder.
This changed everything. Basil didn't know Toxic. Most Pokemon couldn't even use that unless they had a TM. This was proof he was innocent. But... why had Mayor Leopold lied? Was there more to his refusal to let us look at records than taking offense to our suspicious towards Northvale citizens? Wide-eyed, I took the report back out to the reception area, where Aycee was engrossed in files.
"Aycee..." I began, but she chimed in first.
"Thierry! I think I've got something here. I think Casey and Kanei knew each other before they came to Northvale. They've both got crimes on their record from a place called Central Square. Kanei was involved in some kind of smuggling racket, and Casey was part of a rescue team. Get this, though... there's a newspaper article attached to his record that explains how he was a mole! He actually worked for the same smugglers! That team was assigned to track the ring down, but he'd keep the group updated on the team's leads so they could always stay a step ahead. His team figured him out, but he ran for it before they could take him down. It looks like the smugglers fell apart after that. They've both got wanted posters attached to their files, but there's nothing here about an arrest being made. I think they're both still wanted!"
And it's a good thing we did; Mayor Leopold was just stepping out of his office when we arrived. There was no missing him; Arcanines generally tended to be very large, and the way Mayor Leopold carried himself simply demanded your attention. To say he had a big presence would be an understatement; he owned a room when he walked into it. Even fearless Aycee made sure to mind her manners when she moved to intercept him. "Mayor! Sorry to bother you, but do you think we could ask a quick favour of you? It's about the murder investigation."
"Investigation?" Mayor Leopold chuckled. "Miss Decii, what's left to investigate? The culprit is already behind bars."
"Well, that's the thing. The team's not too sure about a few facts. Do you think we could take a peek at Father Hough's autopsy report and a few of the townspeople's criminal records?"
Mayor Leopold looked surprised at that. "Criminal records? Whatever for? That Mothim isn't a citizen of Northvale. We haven't got a file on him yet."
"It's... actually not the Mothim we're investigating," Aycee confessed, looking over to me. "We don't have proof yet, but we think somebody in Northvale might have been... involved."
Leopold looked as if we'd accused him. "Miss Decii! I'm shocked! Northvale is a good town, full of wholesome people! It's simply not possible that any of our citizens would dirty their hands with something like that. We've already got more than enough proof to get that Mothim convinced. I see no reason for you to be poking around town records, especially when you ought to be hard at work guarding the jail. I would advise for you and Mr. Blackwell to put these ludicrous notions out of your heads. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got business to attend to. Quidnunc, let any visitors know I'll be out for most of the day, won't you?" And with that, Mayor Leopold bustled past us, positively bristling with indignation.
"That... didn't go too well. So much for temporary guard authority, huh?" Aycee sighed heavily.
I wasn't that easily dissuaded, though. After all, this was exactly the reason I'd come along. I gave Aycee a comforting pat on the shoulder, shot her a smile, and made my way up to the receptionist's desk in front of Mayor Leopold's office. Funny how the mayor hadn't quite noticed, but the Chatot seated on the desk was fast asleep, his head neatly tucked under one wing. "Hey, Quid. Rise and shine." ...Nothing. So I slammed both sets of claws down on the desk. That definitely got his attention; Quidnunc snapped awake with a loud squawk.
"Eh? Whuzzat?!" He looked around in puzzlement before he noticed me grinning at him. Once he spotted me, though, he was quick to start berating me, tiny feet kicking uselessly at my claws. "Ah, cripes! Thierry, you lopsided bastard! You just about scared the feathers right off of me! What'd you have to go and do that for, anyway? Scaring a Chatot senseless and interrupting his beauty rest like that. Handling official government business is tiring work, y'know!"
"I'm sure it is, Quidnunc." I couldn't help rolling my eyes at that. Official government business? He was the secretary to a mayor in a tiny little village. And he'd only been at it for about a month. Of course, for Quid, that was probably a personal best. For as long as I'd known him, Quid had been a useless layabout. He claimed to be hard at work excavating for gold, but it was common knowledge that all the veins up here had been bled dry. That, and nobody had actually ever seen him leaving town to do said excavating. It was a bit of a running joke around town that Quid was hoping he'd find his gold at the bottom of a saloon glass. It was a marvel he'd lasted this long doing honest work. Of course, the job did suit him well; if there was one thing Quidnunc had a knack for, it was gossip; he could always be trusted to know the inside scoop. Working in the mayor's office, where all the important decisions were made, probably made him privy to a lot of juicy information.
Which was why, for all his flaws, Quid was a very useful friend to have. "Forgive me, Quid, but I need a little help." I shook off his futile attempts to boot my claws into submission, nodding towards the closed door that led to Mayor Leopold's office. "Aycee and I have some rescue team paperwork to get done, but the mayor seems to have stepped out. You're the closest thing we've got to a second-in-command around here, so I figured you could help us out. We need a look at Father Hough's autopsy report, as well as the criminal records."
Quidnunc puffed his chest out, obviously pleased with the idea of being compared to a vice-mayor. "You came to the right bird, Sneasel. You just leave everything to old Quid. Criminal records are all in that big stuffy filing cabinet. It's kept locked, though. Good thing I've got keys, huh?" He let out an ear-splitting laugh, then pulled open a desk drawer with some difficulty. Quid vanished into the draw briefly, reappearing a moment later with a keyring dangling from his beak. This didn't deter him from jabbering away in that scratchy voice of his, of course. "Bet this is about that Mothim, isn't it? The whole town's been talking about him. Seems like they haven't had anything on their minds but old man Hough. You'd think nobody here's ever heard of a murder before. Ah, that's what I like about the small town life, though. It's so innocent up here. Don't think I've even heard of anything worse than a bar fight before this -- and yours truly was likely responsible for half of those. Hah! There you go, sweetheart, middle drawer's the one you want -- you go ahead and take a peek in those records. Just mind that you don't go reading mind. There are things on there to make your ears curl. Whoops, too late, haha. S'a joke. Get it?"
Neither of us were amused. Aycee simply shot Quid an unimpressed look and shooed him away from the drawer, digging into the files with relish.
Quid, meanwhile, was not deterred in the slightest. He simply cackled and swaggered towards Mayor Leopold's door. "Relax, I'm only pulling your leg. You won't be finding anything there. Old Quid'll share any secrets you like, except for his own. Looks like you've got yourself nice and settled in, so I'll leave this autopsy thing to Thierry. C'mon, longear. Leopold's been keeping the report in his office, so we'll have to step inside for that. I'm sure he won't mind. Just don't go snooping around too much, got it? You're too curious for your own good, Thierry. Maybe this rescue team business will straighten you out, though. Give you something to do instead of just thinking all the time. You've definitely had your hands full with this, I bet. Poor Leopold's been running around like a headless Pidgey ever since that body was found. He's been trying to keep nasty rumours from spreading, but a messy affair like this... there's just no stopping people from talking, you know what I mean? You should have heard the ugly things they were saying about you back when you were the main suspect..."
The interior of Mayor Leopold's study was immaculately neat. The plant in the corner was precisely pruned and obviously watered like clockwork. The walls were full of newspaper clippings and pictures of his accomplishments -- right from his childhood awards up to cutting the ribbon on our old Abomasnow's shiny new clinic. The desk was immaculate and completely devoid of clutter... except for a small fishbowl which contained nothing but fine pale violet sand and a lonely little stick of coral.
"--Saying it's in your blood, going on about how they all knew you were bad news from the moment you hatched... people up here really don't know how to handle crime, do they? Bet their had egg on their face once they figured out that Mothim was the one who did it. You oughta try playing up the outrage a little more, Thierry. Maybe sue for defamation of character. Better do it soon, too. This little one-Ponyta town doesn't even have a judge. Mayor Leopold's arranging to have one brought up from Frostview special for the Mothim's case. Oh, got your eye on the fishbowl, huh?" Admittedly, I'd already started tuning Quid out. He perched on the rim of the bowl, bringing my attention back to him. "Kinda funny-looking, isn't it? A fishbowl without even a bit of water in it. Leopold's into fish now, I guess. Wants something to liven up the office, if you ask me, but he's way too gung-ho about it. He went all the way to Frostview just to get the thing. That sand and the little shell? I'm willing to bet they were made custom for him. You can't find purple dirt around here, that's for sure. But he forgot to get himself a fishie! Came back with just an empty bowl! Weird, isn't it? Ol' Skogkatter Leopold's sharper than a tack, and he can't even remember the most important part of getting a pet. I don't know why he's even displaying the bowl without anything to stick in it."
"Yes, well, you said it yourself. He's been stressed lately," I mumbled distractedly. Frankly, I was more interested in finding that autopsy report.
Quid caught on to what I was after, apparently. He pointed to one of the desk drawers. Sure enough, there it was, clearly labelled and resting on top of the drawer. "Sure, I guess that'd be an alright excuse. But this happened before that Hough business. About two weeks before it, actually. You must have noticed he went outta town, right? Must have been worthy of front-page news. Nobody ever visits this little armpit of a town, and nobody ever leaves. Must be that small-town charm. Boy, it was hilarious, though. While he was out, I... well, you know me. I'd been taking things easy. The birds will play while the cat's away, y'know? And when Leopold showed up and found me at Miltank's Saloon for a quick mid-afternoon pick-me-up, he just about chewed my ear off about keeping an organized head and not letting myself slip. And of course, the whole time he's doing that, he's carrying this fishbowl without any fish! Took everything I had not to laugh myself silly."
Mew almighty, there was just no shutting Quid up once he got started. I couldn't have cared less about Mayor Leopold's empty bowl. I kept myself busy with the autopsy. The time of death... it was about an hour and a half after Ms. Aves had last spotted Father Hough. He'd definitely been dead for a while before we arrived on the scene. But that was strange... it took about 45 minutes to reach the mine. It had probably taken Father Hough even longer -- Walreins were ungainly on land, Father Hough was old, and the path was dark and uneven. Even if you said it only took an hour, that left only thirty minutes for the poison to kill him. Could Poisonpowder take effect that quickly?
...Apparently not. Reading a little further into the report turned up something interesting. The forensic Xatus might not have been able to identify what species of Pokemon the toxin had come from, but they'd identifyied something that Mayor Leopold had neglected to mention -- it wasn't Poisonpowder at all. The toxin found in his bloodstream was far too potent -- it would be more consistent with a Toxic attack than Poisonpowder.
This changed everything. Basil didn't know Toxic. Most Pokemon couldn't even use that unless they had a TM. This was proof he was innocent. But... why had Mayor Leopold lied? Was there more to his refusal to let us look at records than taking offense to our suspicious towards Northvale citizens? Wide-eyed, I took the report back out to the reception area, where Aycee was engrossed in files.
"Aycee..." I began, but she chimed in first.
"Thierry! I think I've got something here. I think Casey and Kanei knew each other before they came to Northvale. They've both got crimes on their record from a place called Central Square. Kanei was involved in some kind of smuggling racket, and Casey was part of a rescue team. Get this, though... there's a newspaper article attached to his record that explains how he was a mole! He actually worked for the same smugglers! That team was assigned to track the ring down, but he'd keep the group updated on the team's leads so they could always stay a step ahead. His team figured him out, but he ran for it before they could take him down. It looks like the smugglers fell apart after that. They've both got wanted posters attached to their files, but there's nothing here about an arrest being made. I think they're both still wanted!"