“First up, we’re going to need more eyes on Patricia’s place. Puppy, Ace get on that.” Shining paused in his orders, and then added, “Skydancer, you go too.”
The three named ponies grabbed radios and coffee before heading out. The sun was beginning to set, and each of them probably knew that they wouldn’t be getting much sleep that night. Still, Shining felt that he had better send more than just a pair in case the pirates decided to try anything else.
“Next, we need to lean on the police to help us out. Since they’ve got a significant interest in the case now, that will help. We’ll need to take full advantage.”
Shining decided, “I’ll work on that myself. Mag, I'd like you to come with me.”
“Our next priority is learning more about that shed. Soft, I want you to find out what’s inside from Stormwren. If he won’t tell you or you don’t believe him, somepony will have to go see if the door is unlocked.”
Shining made sure to put enough emphasis on his sentence to make sure his point was understood. Breaking in was not following the rules, but the pirates stepping up the game to include assault changed things. He decided that it was more important to get the job done and quickly.
He assigned Rough, Airborne, and Pikop to go with Soft. Shining considered going to talk to Stormwren himself. Maybe they could strike up some common ground with weapons or something. While Stormwren was an expatriate of Equestria, maybe he would be impressed by Shining’s royalty status.
Shining shook his head. And if Stormwren wouldn’t cooperate, Shining would probably get frustrated and that wouldn’t help the situation at all. Better to let Soft, the expert, handle it.
He had decided to suspend watching the casino. Nothing had been turned up there and the budget would support sending ponies there forever.
Shining and Mag set off to make the short walk to the police station. Shining kept his eyes moving, alert to danger from the street and the skies. Mag observed his Captain and did the same.
The police chief had left for the day, but Shining was able to sit down with the night sergeant and discuss a few details of the case.
It was mostly just a refresher, but that was better than nothing. The police had been cooperative enough to send out requests for records around the Griffon Kingdom to see if suspects had popped up in other cities.
And there was a piece of good news. By morning, there should be a new officer assigned to the Guards.
Shining left contact information for the new officer and encouraged them to visit the ship as early as possible. He already had a few ideas on where he wanted to start as soon as there was a police presence again.
While Shining was in the meeting, Mag had been busy talking to the police evidence griffons. He’d discovered something interesting. The griffon named Abernathy hadn’t been seen in a few days and mail was piling up in his box. With a little cajoling, he had convinced the police to make a stop by his house under the guise of a safety checkup.
Leaving the station, Shining, Mag, and two police officers who weren’t doing anything else that night headed for Abernathy’s house a few blocks away.
Sure enough, it looked like his mailbox contained a few days of post. The house was dark and still. The lights were on next door, however, and one of the police officers asked the neighbor if Abernathy had been seen recently. He had not.
The two ponies and two griffons pounded on Abernathy’s door, but no one answered. They took a look around his property, but there was nothing noteworthy and the house still stood silent.
Mag paused near the back door. He sniffed the air, his mouth opening slightly. “Does anyone smell that?”
Shining also tested the air. There was a sour note, like decay. “Yeah. Smells bad.”
“I don’t smell anything,” one of the cops said. He laid a talon on his beak and shrugged.
“Do you think he could be dead?” Mag asked. “You officers have permission to enter a house if you think the occupant is in trouble, right?”
“Well yes, but I don’t think a smell constitutes a solid suspicion.”
“He smells dead to me,” said Shining. He tried the back door, and to his surprise it was unlocked.
The odor that escaped the house as the door opened was strong enough that the griffons caught it. They suddenly looked worried, and completely forgot that Shining had just entered the house against their wishes.
Mag grimly followed Shining into the darkened house, his eyes squinting against the smell. Shining was regretting making light about Abernathy being dead. He was one less suspect to interrogate, if nothing else.
The griffon they found in the front room, however, was all brown and not fitting Abernathy’s description. Upon finding the body, the police told the Guards to leave the house so they could report the death. This was something they weren’t willing to be lenient on.
It was unfortunate they were not allowed to hang around, even if Shining did appreciate the fresh air. The team would have to wait for information on the dead griffon.
After a quick debrief at the police station, Shining and Mag headed back to the ship, hoping that the coroner and the Port Talon forensics team would have the victim processed quickly. Shining made sure the duty sergeant wrote a note to the investigators that the Guards would be happy to contribute help if it would make the process go faster.
Soft and her escorts returned from up north with news. “I got Stormwren to admit that he sold a large amount of flares to the pirates. He seemed pretty sure that they were in the shed. However, when we got there and had a look for ourselves, the shed was empty. We did find a few marks in the dirt floor that could indicate that a crate of flares had been there recently.”
Shining thought that over. Flares could be useful for martime safety, but he couldn’t figure out why the pirates would buy so many at once. Still, it might be important.
Mag laid out the information learned from going to Abernathy’s house. “While we have no proof and may not get any for a while, I believe the dead griffon might be Ganymeade, based on physical description. There didn’t look like much struggle had taken place, and the wound appeared to be a single deep stab wound. I take this to mean that he knew his attacker and the murder was planned. Considering that Abernathy hasn’t been seen recently, he looks like a top suspect.”
It was an interesting conclusion. Ganymeade was supposedly one of Hookbeak's top Lieutenants. Why had he been killed? Did he know too much? What was so important?
It was something to ponder. Shining said, “All right everypony, get some rest. We’ll start again fresh in the morning.”
After a reasonable night’s sleep, the new police officer showed up in the morning. He was a young griffon named Wiz. Shining didn’t observe anything particularly fitting of the name, but as Báistí had explained, that was not really uncommon for griffons. Báistí herself appeared shortly after, refreshed and ready to get back to the case. All of them gathered in the ship’s central meeting room where the map and evidence log were kept.
Wiz received a rundown on the case so far. He nodded. “Okay, cool, it sounds like you guys know what you’re doing.”
His attitude was so incredibly different from Stormfeather that it gave Shining pause. Still, a cop was a cop and they needed someone with local authority. He continued on, introducing Wiz to the team and their contributions so far.
Wiz seemed impressed and sympathetic to Flash. “You’re so brave, fighting that hostage-taking criminal.”
More than just Shining’s eyebrows went up at that, but nopony commented. Báistí broke the awkward silence. “So Captain, what are we doing today?”
By her own admission, Báistí wasn’t practiced at investigation, but he couldn’t help but admire her enthusiasm.
Shining addressed the room. “Here’s the plan.”
Wow,our first murder victim. At least we know these pirates don't mess around because I'll admit I was a little skeptical when one of our first pieces of evidence was a candy wrapper. I also don't like Wiz already. His first mistake was sympathizing with Flash.
Anyways,first thing to do is to look for Abanerthy. This can be done by asking around town or interrogating one of our prisoned griffons. He's a prime suspect because he's been missing for so long,the body was found in his house, and killing Ganymeade could boost him in the ranks. I also wonder what Ace, Puppy, and Skydancer found at Patricia's house.
I hope Stormfeather will be alright...
Perhaps we could ask Gregory to confirm if the body is Ganymeade's by either showing him a photograph, the actual body, or just asking when their last conversation was.
A flare has a few combat uses, such as ignition of flammable substances, or just as a burning weapon. An entire crate in an organized crime syndicate could be bad news. Adding corn's possible usage as oil could be an arson fire waiting to happen, but that's just a theory.
We should probably get some kind of investigation into Abernathy's place, maybe there's evidence either to a motive or where he is now.
I'm not entirely sure there's anything left to do at Gaston's "house", but we really need to know what's going on at Patricia's.
Aside from that I got nothing.
Flares burn very well and are common fare. It'd be easy for the pirates to torch a compromised asset like a warehouse or a ship with one, maybe even with an inconvenient person like a pony guard or one of their collaborators inside, and pass it off as an accident due to a malfunctioning one going off.
And like someone said below, if they have access to corn oil, it gets even easier.
Interrogation of Gregory by Soft next, I think. Try to find out where he picked up his orders in general since he apparently never met Hookbeak, and since he was the one who identified Ganymede as being one of the lieutenants, he shouldn't have any objections to identifying the body found at Abernathy's if it is Ganymede. Also try to find out where he heard about nosy investigators poking around his business that led to him attacking them.
Keeping watch on Patricia and determining if she's passing on orders to her visitors is important. The group doing that will want Wiz along so that they can arrest Gaston if he turns up. If they find anyone bringing orders for Patricia to pass on, they would also be a good candidate to arrest to find out where the orders are coming from.
Other than that, I'll have to get into stringing some clues together:
Ganymede was apparently killed several days ago if the piled up mail is anything to go by. Since the investigation has only been going on for several days, it's a reasonable guess that the murder is either related to the presence of the investigators or to our first clue, the semi-sunken boat, which we're still unaware of the reason for attempting to sink. It would be awfully coincidental if that wasn't the case.
Since we're currently looking at one dead lieutenant, one imprisoned lieutenant and one identified but not yet captured lieutenant, the pirate operations seem to be getting rolled up pretty well, but we've got two out of three lieutenants now who can definitely not identify Hookbeak, and I'm going to guess Gaston will turn out likewise.
So.. I'm thinking Hookbeak may be setting the organisation up to be taken down all at once, but with nothing to point to his or her identity and no way to track where the profits taken by Hookbeak have been hidden away, Hookbeak will then be able to walk away from the aftermath a rich griffon. (This also gives a way for the story to have a Bad End where the pirates are stopped, but the leader escapes with all the money made from pirating.)
Of the identified characters, Eddy, Gudgeon and Patricia seem to fit this profile best. Eddy and Gudgeon both gave away a lot of information on the pirates' identities. Eddy is in a position to launder a lot of money. Gudgeon is a former sailor who has set himself up as mayor and moved away from business dealings to ensure there is no appearance of corruption. Patricia is in a position where she could pass orders supposedly from Hookbeak, and quite possibly has managed to be heavily involved with the pirate organisation without doing more than passing messages which might make it difficult to prosecute her if nobody actually knew she was Hookbeak, meaning she might walk away from the wholesale arrest of the pirates with no more than a warning. It's also possible more than one of them are working together like this as well.
Of those, I think I like Gudgeon's reasons best and Patricia's a close second. I'm not sure Eddy really needs the money, but Gudgeon has obviously made money and is now making a show of getting out of business which fits perfectly with my proposed Hookbeak who is letting his pirates be arrested while he strolls off as a rich pillar of the community.
If Soft has time after Gregory, re-interrogate Gilgamesh and see if she can find out how he came up with the idea of selling the corn and keeping the money for himself (mostly if it was suggested by someone else). Also worth asking him what Eddy said when he came to visit (could probably provoke him by suggesting Eddy doesn't seem as inclined to avenge him as Gil claimed), and what he knows about Patricia.
3545270 Alternately, the missing Abernathy is Hookbeak, killing the only one of his lieutenants who could identify him. That said, I agree with your reasoning on Gudgeon and Patricia. The problem with the latter is that aside from her place being used as a dead drop, there's nothing tying her to the pirates. I'm less sure about Eddy - even though casinos are ideal for laundering money, that doesn't mean he's involved with the pirates, and all the observation to date has turned up nothing. If he's Hookbeak, he's really good.
My money is on Abernathy or Gudgeon. Also, I agree with you that Wiz is not a suitable replacement.
3545409 and 3545270 are the best lines of thinking I could ever give, so I'm seconding their plans.
Let's see if that dead Griffon matches any of our potential suspects or was involved in something of intrest to them. We should also see if corn was onboard the ships Hookbeak attacked in the past.
Finally we need to consider setting up a new HQ on land somewhere in case we come under attack, one flare could easily set our ship ablaze.
I'm... not sure where I think we should go from here, honestly. I do think that Soft should spend some time getting to know Wiz though-- I'm suspicious of him. The pirates know we're looking for them, and if they have ANY sway in the bureaucracy (and I think they do) they could have had a mole appointed to the case. Even if it's just putting Wiz on whatever detail Soft happens to be assigned to and then asking her to try and get to know him, I think it should happen. Still, Wiz might be needed in other places to make arrests happen, in which case I think that should probably have a higher priority.
...That seems a bit counter-intuitive though, now that I think about it. Generally I advocate going into potentially violent situations only after we've checked out all the unknowns in the party... I guess this is just a risk we'll have to take though. The longer we give the pirates to recuperated and reorganize their command structure (on the off-chance that we have, in fact, taken/forced into hiding some key members), the more difficult this operation will get. Best to keep them off-guard. If we had the authority for shock-and-awe, I'd probably advocate something like that, but I think the griffons would get a bit pissed with us if we tried that.
Well, if the budget is infinite, I don't see the harm
Anyway, have we really not disguised the ship yet? If not, its probably already been noticed by the pirates. A second base should be set up, but where exactly I don't know. I get the feeling those flares are going to be used to burn that thing down.
Also, Abernathy, Gudgeon, and Eddy are my top three suspects for being Hookbeak.