December 2nd, 1009
Yesterday was just a day of searching and boring paperwork. Nothing worthwhile that required Torsti’s help with. It was only when Torsti got to the station today did he find out the news.
“To!” Lenni came trotting up fast when he noticed Torsti come in. He had been working at his desk, talking to a few other officers nearby, clearly in a rush to get things done. “South Division found it. Our Nooe car. Near the residential living areas next to the harbor. They say they have enough deer themselves to go to the house in the next few hours once they have everything planned out and sorted. We can send a few from here to help though, but since it sounds like they have it handled, no one’s that keen on heading over to get sorted out with them.” Lenni then pointed to Torsti with a hoof.
“But that’s why I’m telling you. Everydeer else here at the station who was working on it knows by now. Just your late ass might find that interesting.”
Torsti reached up and held his hoof against the side of his head for a second while he took in the news. “By Velvet's word.” He shook his head and let a smile grow on his face, “Telling me because I might be the only one who’d go? Well then you’re damn wrong.”
“Wai- Wrong!” Lenni seemed quite concerned that Torsti had answered like that, but he relaxed when Torsti broke out laughing a bit.
“Ha, made you concerned for a moment there now did I?” Torsti reached over and lightly punched Lenni in the side with his hoof, “I’m definitely going over to help out. Nearly a week since this happened and it’s been all I’ve been working on. No way I’ll miss it.”
Lenni let out a sigh of relief, “Thank the gods then. I had said we’d been sending at least one deer over despite their protest.”
“Yeah, well there’s just something I want to learn about this whole case that’s been kind of bugging me. Can’t say much though, but I’m sure we’ll learn about it more once we get this fellow.” Torsti said.
After talking a bit more and getting some quick paperwork done for going over to the other station for staging, Torsti gathered his jacket and headed to the back parking lot.
He would be getting a ride from Mauri to the station. The ride over was like any ride anywhere. Talking, staring out the window, getting a few seconds of sleep before finding out you’re not tired. All that.
When they got to the south station, Mauri pulled into the back of it and let Torsti out. Torsti grabbed his bag from the back of the car and headed inside. There, he joined the group of officers who were preparing that day for the coming hour where they would be heading out to the suspect’s location. Torsti talked with the officers he’d be working with for the day, some he’s seen only, some who he hasn’t. A big city like Vaverfront where there’s over 1 million deer and ponies living requires a large police force.
The waiting finally came to an end once all the officers were called outside to prepare for the ride over. Warrants and other important papers were prepared and ready across a few officers. All that they needed to do now was make their way over.
Torsti loaded into a car with three other deer. The one in the back with him was one of two deer going who had breech-loading issued rifles. Those were rare outside the military as well. Most rifles were taken by the military within the first month of the war to help supply the influx of soldiers coming in. But just like cars, the police had more than any other deer, but they weren’t issued to them like pistols were. Torsti and every other deer going on this operation had revolvers. Those at least weren’t taken by the military as rifles were the issued weapon.
The ride over to the address was the one to the station. Occasional talking and quietness. Besides when they came to a stop a few blocks from the house. Enough to not alert whoever might be home with the convoy of police cars, even with the lack of civilian cars existing.
Torsti and the three deer inside the car all started to get out, keeping watch down the road. Torsti looked around and saw the other deer disembarking the cars, seeing them shuffle around into positions to talk with each other and prepare.
“That’s our car. Down the street, you see. House it’s right in front of. Still matching what was reported. Civilian-looking deer was seen driving it and entering the house last night.” One of the officers who had ridden with Torsti said.
Once every deer was in position for the operation, Torsti along with 7 other deer made their way up to the house through the yards of other homes. Two deer were together inside a car that drove down the street behind the group of eight as they approached the car.
A single deer drove another car behind the first.
As they came into viewing distance of the address of the house, Torsti and the others made their way up to the house, all with weapons drawn.
Once they made it to the house of the suspect, one of the other officers near the front motioned for every other deer following to halt and said, “Just stay near the wall, try not to be seen by the window.” He then tapped the closest deer near him and motioned for him to follow. The leading deer holstered their weapon and waited for the deer he had picked to do the same.
Once both of them were ready, they walked up to the front door and knocked on it loudly a few times.
All while that happened, Torsti along with two other deer found their way around the back of the house and looked around for any windows or doors whoever inside might use and waited.
At the front, the two waiting at the door were greeted to the door being ajar and a deer peeking out. After a second of viewing, the deer opened the door more, just as one of the officer deer was pushing the door open themselves.
Before the deer inside could answer, one of the officers said, “Vaverfront police. We have a warrant to search the property and building, can you please step outside for a momen-”
He was cut off by the deer inside as they quickly started to shut the door, at which both officers went for the door to push it back. A short struggle lasted before the deer inside bolted further in and left the two in the dust. The officers waiting nearby quickly started to move up to join the two at the door before gunshots started ringing out from inside the house, splinters of wood flying as they missed their targets and hit the house itself.
The two deer outside stumbled quickly to the opposite ends of the door, nearly falling as they were going for cover, but Ingolf, who bolted forward at the first sign of struggle was in the doorway themselves now and quickly look inside, gun aimed and fired twice into the building for the first rounds of return fire before also going to the left of the door for cover.
“I saw him drop!” Ingolf yelled to the swarming officers.
Ingolf quickly put himself back into position in the door, covering half his body behind the wall and looking inside with his pistol aimed towards the direction he had fired. The other deer who had bolted to the left joined behind Ingolf with their weapon ready this time, looking in and seeing the deer inside who had fallen.
All the other officers were gathering themselves before one yelled out, “Get ready to enter!”
With that everyone else who was skruffling around quickly got into position and motioned to Ingolf and the deer on the left to enter, and they did. They went straight in towards the deer who laid squirming on the ground inside with the other officers following in behind.
A few of them went around the house to search for any other creature who might be lurking and by the time they got back around Ingolf and the others after finding the rest of the building to be clear, they had found that they had already secured the deer who’d been shot.
Torsti during that time had stayed outside for the duration of the shooting and breaching with one other officer to keep watch on the backyard. They were quickly informed by the other deer who had left them to find out what happened that the scene was secured. They made their way back to the front of the house where the two police cars had driven up, disembarked of their occupants.
From there, the situation was quickly put into control again as the officers inside rushed the cuffed deer out and to one of the police cars, where they were thrown in with three other officers before taking off. The other car quickly was taken occupant again and followed being with only two deer. Leaving the rest of the officers behind to deal with the house.
Torsti found out quickly by other officers that the suspect from inside was being taken to a hospital quickly to be treated for the gunshot wound they had received and that investigation of the house was to happen.
Torsti and a few other officers lingered outside the house for a moment afterward, talking about what had happened before two officers came out of the house and got a few of the officers to go bring up the rest of the cars they had left down the road. Torsti, along with a few other officers were given the task to start searching the house.
Torsti and the others made their way in, finding one officer still inside looking up at a wall. He saw the three deer walking in and said, “Y’all seeing this shit?” They motioned with a hoof to the wall they were facing.
The wall the officer motioned to displayed three skulls. One equipped with a good size pair of antlers and the other two void of any. All three cleaned to the bone.
“What the fuck.” Another officer said.
Torsti was dumbstruck at what he was looking at for a moment before swallowing and saying, “There’s our heads.” He finally got the urge to look away finally, feeling upset in the stomach a bit.
There was a lull of quietness between the four officers before the one who had pointed it out said, “I guess we’re going to need forensics to get here to confirm if these are the murdered individuals, but judging how we had headless corps and now have bodiless heads, I doubt it will take much work to figure it out.”
From there, the four decided to leave the three heads, the first officer taking the task of searching the room the heads were in to spare the others the glare of the dead.
Torsti was given the task to search the bedroom of the house while the other two were to search around the area the suspect had been shot. Two more officers would come in after a bit to investigate the shooting that took place and clean up the blood that was on the floor from the victim.
While in the bedroom, Torsti worked on his search for anything useful. He searched any drawers, closets, clothing he came across. The only useful thing you found so far that would be helpful with the investigation was an Olenian military uniform, which would definitely connect the suspect and the car together even more.
He was nearly done with his search, finding nothing else of immediate value until he came across a small pile of documents under the bed. Torsti pulled them out and put them atop the bed, which was freshly made, fitting to that of deer who’d been in the military.
While laying the documents out on the bed to look at them, Torsti took mind to opening one of the unmarked folders out of curiosity to see what was inside.
The first thing he sees in the chosen folder was a piece of paper that read at the top “MILITARY : TOP SECRET : CLASSIFIED”. If Torsti knew better, he would have stopped reading but the curiosity of such things would be hard for many to avoid so his eyes wandered down below, under the word was in smaller but sizable letters, “OPERATION: OPERATION”.
And it clicked.
Whoever these belonged to, which any deer could easily guess, was obviously someone in a high-ranking position for the military. Who it might be though? Whoever owned the house. The military uniform, military converted car, the occupant who lived here. It was almost as if it could all be connected.
Torsti though, despite reading enough to get himself shot by a military general if they so chose, flipped the page. Everything else on the front page was non-sense to him. But the second page housed the juicy details.
“To protect the future of the country, you, Preben Stina, are tasked with planning the potential need to evacuate Queen Velvet from the country to our harmonic neighbors down south in Equestria.”
That was the first line of the second page and Torsti had read it. He skimmed over it a few times as if trying to make an understanding of it despite it being to the point.
Torsti wasn’t able to continue as another officer walked in, breaking his concentration from the paper, which caused him to let go of the page and let it fall down.
“Nothing besides some ammo, the pistol they dropped, and the heads of our victims.” The officer stopped and looked at Torsti who still stood in front of all the documents laid out on the bed, “Seems you found something though.”
Torsti looked back down at the small mess he made on the bed and said, “I think these are military documents.” He then panned his head back to the other officer, “I believe they belong to the house. Our suspect that is. Found a uniform in the closet.”
The other officer came over to look at the files and documents on the bed, “How do you know it’s military?”
Torsti moved out of the way for the other, “I looked at one for a second.” Torsti openly admitted, “Classified and all…” It was then that he realized the mistake, but he tried to play it off and said, “Didn’t get far into it. Didn’t ready anything important thankfully.”
The officer gave Torsti a concerned look but said, “By the gods man, you need to be more careful. You could be executed for something like that.”
Torsti just gave a nod before collecting all the files into a stack again and said, “Well, just get the uniform from the closet. Nothing else of interest here. Just leave the documents here for now. I’m going to leave this shit for the local base.” After saying that he left the stack alone.
Torsti and the officer made their way downstairs and outside where other officers were loading things into the back of a car.
Torsti told a few others about the documents upstairs, which resulted in Torsti and another poor soul being left to guard the door to the bedroom while word was sent to the nearby military base of the finding.
It would take a little over an hour before an A6 military truck and officer’s car came rolling up to the house.