Shining considered his options and came up with a plan of action. “We’ll need somepony to go to Patricia’s place and relieve Ace, Puppy, and Skydancer. During the daytime I feel more comfortable just sending two.”
“Do you mind if I go?” Báistí asked. “I could help, like if I saw someone I knew going into Patrica’s house.”
Shining nodded. “Good idea. Rough, Airborne, go with her.”
He turned to the rest of his team. “At the moment we don’t have enough evidence to proceed with an arrest. We haven’t checked into Ganymede yet. We might be able to find something in the courthouse archives even if he is dead. Mag, Dim, Soft, get on that. Afterwards, go over to the police station and see if you can get anything else out of the griffons that have been arrested so far or from the police evidence.”
Addressing the faces that still remained, Shining said, “Now that we’re beginning to attract more attention, we need to think more about protecting ourselves. I don’t know why the pirates have flares, but one of them could do serious damage to the ship. We need to have guards on deck at all times. Flash, while you recover you would be a good candidate to sit around and keep watch. I’d prefer somepony else to stay with you. Cyrus, there’s still some money left in the gambling fund. I’d like you to use it towards camouflaging the ship.”
Shining paused. He didn’t have jobs for the rest of his team for the moment, and until he did it seemed wise to just order them to help Cyrus.
“Wiz, can I have a word with you?” Shining nodded to the police officer. The two of them left the room and went up on deck. Flash had already positioned himself nearby, poised to watch the ship.
“I think you’re doing well,” the griffon said. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Can you bring some help?” Shining asked. “If we start making arrests, we might need more badges.”
“I don’t know,” Wiz admitted. “I don’t really have the pull with the Chief that Stormfeather does. I’ll try.”
“How about getting us set up somewhere else? As you heard, this ship is both an obvious and vulnerable HQ.”
“Well…maybe we could let you set up in one of the houses where you’ve arrested someone.” Wiz frowned. “I don’t know if that would be an improvement, though, as those houses are obviously well known to the pirates.”
Shining nodded, knowing he would have to make a decision on that. Changing the subject, he said, “I also had an idea. Is there any way we could let Gilgamesh out of prison on bail or something? Maybe we could follow him to his bosses. Either he’ll find them or they’ll find him.”
“That’s an interesting thought.” Wiz bobbed his head. “I’ll see if I can make it happen.”
“Thank you.” Shining said goodbye to him and went back below deck.
He spent some time working out. It helped with the boredom and gave him some time to think. The ponies who had been watching Patricia’s house got back. They hadn’t seen anything they could act on, just more griffons coming and going.
After finishing his workout, Shining had a shower and sat down at his desk. He sifted through his paperwork to see if anything came up that could refresh his memory or reveal something he hadn’t considered before.
The flares came across Shining’s mind again. The pirates might have a few on their vessels for basic safety, but why would one of them buy a whole crate? The only thing Shining could think of was starting fires, and if they were trying to attack the Guard ship, it certainly wouldn’t take that many.
His thoughts drifted to the large scale corn thefts. What was the endgame? Was Hookbeak trying to manipulate the economy? Checking his case files revealed that while corn was far from the only thing the pirates were taking, they still had taken a significant amount. Gilgamesh had been caught trying to sell some, but it was hard to say if the rest of the pirates were slowly selling their haul of grain or holding on to it. If they had been stockpiling, the sum total could be several large silos’ worth, significantly more than Mr. Thrift had.
Getting help from the Port Talon police would help. Hopefully the Intelligence staff returned from the station with something interesting. Shining thought he might get Soft to spend some time with Wiz and find out a little more about him. The biggest thing on his mind, however, was getting more officers. Hopefully Stormfeather would return soon.
Shining heard a few ponies arriving and went to see who it was. Mag, Dim, and Soft had come back, and it looked like they might have something very interesting.
“Ganymede was confirmed as the dead griffon,” said Mag, getting straight to the point. “We have a list of evidence regarding him.”
Dim consulted her notebook. “We got his address and checked out his house. We found his diary. He was having second thoughts about the piracy. He also thought that Abernathy might be eyeing his position.”
“Are we thinking that Abernathy killed him, then?” Shining asked.
“We’ve got the list of evidence from the scene at Abernathy’s house,” Dim replied. “We’ve got a few business papers, a radio, money, and some love letters from Silver to Abernathy.”
“Silver of Silver’s Sweets?”
“Right, they’re dating. The letters mentioned some strange ponies came into her shop asking questions. She told Abernathy about it. I’m guessing he decided it was as good a time as any to eliminate Ganymede.”
Shining frowned. If they hadn’t sent ponies to talk to Silver, Ganymede might still be alive. Alternately, if they had interrogated Silver more thoroughly, it might have been discovered that her boyfriend Abernathy was a pirate much sooner. But there was no way Shining could have known the consequences, and feeling bad about it wouldn’t help.
As if reading his thoughts, Soft began speaking to distract Shining. “Gregory reacted negatively to the news that Ganymede was dead. He was a bit of a hothead about it, of course. Apparently if he didn’t get out of jail soon he was going to send his helper, Yong, after Abernathy. Yong was the griffon who was with Gregory when he attacked. Anyway, we also learned a few other interesting things.”
Soft checked her notes. “Gregory said that Abernathy might have gone out east. He didn’t know where, but had heard something about that. The two of them did speak a few times. Through that, plus watching us investigate a few locations, Gregory managed to figure out we were sticking our noses in and attacked. I don’t think he or any of the pirates realize who we actually are, though.”
While looking at the map, Shining thought about how to act on the new evidence. He might send Soft and somepony to protect her to talk to Silver. However, Silver would probably guess who they were. Better to have Wiz with them to pressure Silver for being connected to a suspected murderer. Hopefully Wiz was busy at the police station getting the help Shining had requested of him.
Flash came in, asking on of the other team members to take over his job for a little while. He came over to Shining, a troubled look on his face. “Captain, can I talk to you?”
The two of them went into Shining’s office and closed the door. Flash fidgeted a bit and said, “I’d like to report a conflict of interest.”
“Oh really? What’s that?” It was important for Guards to be honest and report these things, but Shining silently prayed that it wasn’t something that would break the case.
“Sir, after you finished talking with Officer Wiz and went below, he chatted with me for a little while before going to the station.” Flash paused and then said, “I think he’s interested in me.”
“Oh.” Shining blinked. “I can tell him to knock it off if you want.”
“Well, that’s the thing…” Flash swallowed hard. “I kind of like him. This is kind of embarrassing sir, but I know that I should tell you because he’s working this case.”
Well, Shining no longer had to worry about his sister hanging around Flash. He nodded to the younger Guard. “Thank you for being honest. Just keep it professional, okay?”
Flash nodded and left the office. Shining let out a breath and shook his head at the new wrinkle in things. Still, better to find out now rather than later.
Before he could contemplate the junior Guard’s relationship status any further, the radio on his desk buzzed. The voice was scratchy but sounded like Airborne. “Captain Armor? We’ve got a situation here. A griffon matching Gaston’s description just went into Patricia’s house. Ms. Báistí thinks it’s him.”
Shining grabbed the radio. “How long do we have to nab him? Do you know if he’s staying long?”
“No idea, sir. It could be a few minutes, it could be half an hour.”
It was a golden opportunity, but one that could easily be lost. Plus, Shining remembered all the other tasks to accomplish that had just been shoved to secondary priority since this call had come in.
“Er, can we try stalling him until Wiz arrives?” Airborne asked. “What are we authorized to do, sir?”
