“It’s getting harder to believe that people need a licence to drive.” Lisa said to herself, parking in front of the Bird’s Eye Inc. building. She had to give Adelar some credit, he had spared no expense renovating, the unsightly cracks and fallen off plaster on the walls were gone, and it got a proper paint job as well. She thought it made it look less like a slightly run-down small corporate building and more like a perfectly ordinary small corporate building.
Annoyed at people in general, Lisa got out of her car and with the sound of her cane’s tap tap tap following her every other step, walked up to the front door.
On the inside, the burn marks from the floor and wall were finally gone, not just hidden by a carpet and whatever furniture happened to be put there. It too got a new coat of paint. Still as grey as ever, but she didn’t mind it the least.
“You’re late.” Adelar remarked with his hands put together, sitting in his chair as Lisa stepped into the meeting room.
“Can’t exactly control traffic, now can I?” She retorted with a frown and went to open the window. That was one of her favourite changes to the building, the window no longer creaked.
Right as she sat down at the round table, the phone started ringing.
“Not a second too late if ya ask me.” The wolf said with a smirk.
Without a response, Adelar picked up the phone.
“Bird’s Eye Inc. How can I help you?” He said into the phone. There was a response, but Lisa couldn’t make it out.
“Certainly. We have just the person for that.” He tapped the table with his talons. “Give me an address and I’ll send her over ASAP.”
Lisa was immediately interested.
“Got it, thank you. She’s on her way as we speak! Bye.” Adelar hung up. “Client is a police cadet requesting backup, he asked specifically for a canine if possible.”
“Well he’s in luck.” Lisa stood up as Adelar wrote down the address he was given and handed it over to her. “Harris?” She read the name of the settlement. “Never even heard of the place.”
“A nearby village.” The eagle explained. “About 400 people live there, it should be a quick and easy job.”
“Right.” Said Lisa, pocketing the paper. “We’ll see about that.”
“Come back when you’re finished unless I tell you otherwise.” Adelar added.
“You don’t have to say that every time, you know.” Lisa frowned, stepping outside the main room.
“Repetition is how you master a craft!” Adelar said a little louder as Lisa waved him goodbye. “Be careful out there!”
“Harris, huh… At least it sounds more serious than what we used to do.”
Lisa got in her car and put the address into the GPS, expecting a real case. “Please don’t be about a wild cat stuck in a tree or somethin’.”
After a 15-minute drive from the edge of Lanolow, Lisa pulled up to the house in question where a few people were gathered around a single police officer. A serval of small build, couldn’t have been older than 25. He looked visibly anxious.
She opened the car door and her ears were immediately drawn to the house, or rather, the noise that was coming from inside. A woman was inside, hysterical, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“What the hell are you waitin’ for, cadet?” She berated the serval as she jogged up to him.
“People say she’s alone in there!” He snapped his head around to look at her, somewhat relieved to have some backup. “She was at this for half an hour before I arrived, so I’m told!”
All of a sudden, Lisa didn’t like the situation at all. No wonder the cadet didn’t want to go in alone, he looked all too inexperienced to handle a situation like this.
“Please help her!” One of the people around, who happened to be a rat, begged. “She just… Had a horrible week.”
“Well then let’s get going, before she hurts herself.” She said to the serval and they ran up to the front door of the house. The building itself looked new, likely belonging to a more wealthy resident of the village, relatively speaking.
“Sorry… I-it’s my first real case!” Said the serval, confirming Lisa’s suspicions.
“No matter.” She reassured him as she put her hand on the door handle. “I’m here to help.” Those two sentences alone caused him to light up with confidence. “Still not what investigators are supposed to do, but whatever.”
They entered the house, the screaming inside was near-deafening, despite coming from a different area of the house. There was no mistaking which room she was in.
A quick look around the living room, which was joined with the kitchen, was enough to tell that she had been in a fight, most likely with herself. The place was a complete mess: the furniture, all torn up, the frames of paintings, splintered, there were holes on the walls. Even many of the kitchen tiles were broken to pieces. All of that, along with the banshee-like shrieking of a deeply distraught woman.
“A bad week, huh?” Lisa felt a sense of deja-vu.
The cadet’s confidence faded completely as he took in the scene. Lisa pitied him, to have this be the very first real case to work on… It would get to anyone.
“There’s a good chance we’ll need to restrain her.” She said to him, quietly enough that the woman couldn’t possibly hear it over her own screams.
“O-o-okay…” He nodded, slightly shaking. “Poor lad.”
“I can handle that if you-” Lisa was about to suggest, but the serval shook his head.
“I signed up for this to help people.” He gulped, trying his best to look brave. “Let’s go then…!”
Lisa nodded, taking one more good look at the destruction that the woman had caused. She didn’t even spare the potted plants.
They walked up to the room where the screaming woman was, only to find out that the door was locked.
“Miss!” The serval shouted after taking a deep breath, knocking on the door. “Open the door, miss, we’re here to help!”
They were met with no response from the woman.
“Please, miss!” He went on, voice slightly breaking as he made an attempt at sounding more assertive. “If you don’t open the door, we’ll be forced to come in!”
Nothing. Nothing, other than the sound of thunderous shrieking, no sign of acknowledgement in the slightest.
“Be careful, we don’t know what she might do.” Lisa advised as she took a stance before the door. She brought her right leg forward and kicked the door near the lock. She stumbled back after, but she felt that it would give in after another.
“We could just-” The cadet said as Lisa forcefully kicked the door again, which swung open in an instant.
Inside was a bathroom, more tiles smashed, the sink and the bathtub taps both running in a failed attempt at flooding the room, only resulting in the floor being covered with a thin layer of water. In the corner was the woman in question, another rat, facing a wall, cradling something in her hands as she screamed into the sky before bringing her face down and banging her bloody forehead on the wall, tinting the water around her.
“Miss!” The cadet heaved, stepping into the room, putting on a brave face. “Let us help you!”
“Careful!” Said Lisa, staying outside the bathroom, ready to tear the woman off of the cadet if need be.
The woman suddenly turned around, blood and tears running down her face as she looked straight at the cadet, downright manic. She ceased her screaming as Lisa heard the sound of an audible snap akin to that of pliers.
“P-please calm down, miss, we’ll help you!” The serval tried his best to remain calm, which proved useless as the rat woman revealed what she had been cradling: the end of a frayed wire connected to an electrical socket.
“Cadet!” Lisa shouted and ran in as the woman stood up, and without a word, dropped the wire. She screamed no more as her muscles tensed up and convulsed, resulting in her falling face first into the shallow water, twitching.
Lisa had no idea what could possibly cause someone to end up like that. That got to her more than the woman’s death itself, for as morbid as it may sound, she was almost used to the sight of an electrocution. There, standing in the middle of the room in the electrified water, Lisa was looking at the horrible scene along with the young serval in her arms, holding him far enough above the deadly electricity. He panted, his arms firmly held around the wolf, watching a sight that will no doubt be burned into his mind.
“Don’t look.” Lisa said as she turned around and brought the serval out of the bathroom, to safety. Once on the ground, he leaned forward and gagged through laboured breaths. The event evidently shook him to his core. It reminded Lisa of Solomon to an extent, she never could get over the idea of death or murder. Lisa, on the other hand… One could say that she’d grown desensitised to it ever since the Lion’s Den incident. If it’s a choice between letting her or an attacker live, she would always choose herself.
Lisa quickly went outside and looked for an electrical box, which sure enough, was close to the entrance. She opened it and promptly turned all the switches off, cutting power to the house. Too little too late. Over 200 volts, more than enough to kill someone. She felt like she could have done more to help, to turn off the power beforehand just in case, but how could she have known that it would end up like this?
“Is she okay?” The other rat questioned with hope, which all disappeared due to Lisa’s grim expression.
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“I’m sorry.” She said, stepping back inside to somehow deal with the scene. The cadet was on his hands and knees in no better condition. “Please stay out.” She ordered and closed the door before the clearly bereaved people could say anything.
“Cadet?” She said, getting down on one knee next to the serval. Shaking his head, he stood up on his knees and eyed Lisa.
“...how?” He finally said weakly, looking her up and down.
“What?” She raised an eyebrow before coming to a realisation. “This’ll be a pain in the arse to explain.”
“H-how are you alive?” He went on, seemingly questioning his own reality. “Think fast…”
“Rubber shoes, mate.” Lisa smiled, helping the cadet stand up. It only seemed to make him more confused when he looked down at her visibly not rubber shoes.
“They don’t look like rubber…” He remarked, causing the wolf to slightly panic internally.
“That’s the idea.” She rebutted, more on instinct than anything. “You have to be prepared for anything, yeah?”
“Oooh!” The serval’s eyes lit up in adoration. “You think so far ahead?” The way he looked up to her reminded Lisa of how a child would look up to their hero.
“Just some precautions.” She lied. “Comes with this line of work, ya know. Nerves of steel, shoes of rubber, so they say.” She herself hardly believed how she could come up with something so stupid on the spot. She felt bad about lying to him, but sometimes, a beautiful lie is better than the harsh truth.
“Amazing!” He said, albeit still distressed about the events. “I’ll have to get a pair of those.” He turned and looked at the bathroom door, it was clear that he wasn’t looking forward to inspecting the body. “Maybe… Maybe there’s a chance she’s still alive?”
Lisa could smell the stench of burned flesh and fur even from the living room, there was no chance of that. Worse than that, she smelled… Smoke.
“I’ll go check.” Lisa suggested, already on her way there. “You take a look around and try to figure out why she might have done that, yeah?”
The serval nodded. That was all Lisa needed.
When she peeked inside the bathroom, she saw that the otherwise dry back of the rat had somehow caught on fire due to the shock.
“Fuckin’ hell!” Lisa exclaimed as she went to put it out by putting a wet towel on it. Smoke still leaked from underneath for a few moments. After making sure the small fire was out, she turned off the running taps and went to inspect the body. No pulse. No breathing. She wasn’t sure how effective her electricity would be as an attempt at restarting the woman’s heart, especially a victim of electrocution, but she could still give it a try.
She looked back at the door to check and was extremely glad that she did because she saw the cadet reluctantly looking into the room.
“She’s gone.” She said solemnly.
The serval then nodded with a sniffle and having heard enough, disappeared from in front of the door. Lisa heard him talk on the phone, most likely to call an ambulance or perhaps more backup. “There goes that idea.” Realistically, there was very little chance of saving her, defibrillators aren’t normally used in these situations. Not to mention, it would be terribly hard to explain how she just seemingly came back to life when the cadet wasn’t looking. That would only raise his suspicions and that was the last thing she needed. Opting to let the woman finally rest, she got up and went to check on her impromptu partner in the case.
“I noticed something about the tiles.” The cadet said as he looked around the kitchen area. “You see how the broken tiles all have hearts on them?”
Lisa took a quick glance and surmised that he was right, all the tiles that had once been on the wall or floor and had hearts on them were broken to pieces. Or at least an attempt was made to break them.
“Hold on.” Lisa said and went back to check the bathroom, the serval followed. There, too, all the broken tiles had hearts on them.
“That’s a start. Good lad!” She remarked with a warm smile, which seemed to encourage the cadet. “Let’s check the rest of the house.”
With one more resolute nod from him, they went to a closed door directly opposite to the bathroom. The door swung open and revealed a bedroom for two. It had a great window at the eastern side of the room, brightly painted walls, ornate wooden furniture that Lisa was almost envious of, a TV and a computer connected to a printer.
“Blimey…” Said the cadet. “That’s a nice room.”
Lisa walked up to the computer to maybe find some info, and saw sheets of paper that had been printed. As she turned them over and inspected them, she began to understand.
Divorce papers. Every single one, all reading the details: Marygold Rosalind, once married to Roland H. Norman. The wolf had seen bad divorces before, but this one topped all of them.
“What do you make of this?” She asked and gave one sheet to the cadet.
“I’ve heard his name before!” The serval exclaimed, having a “eureka” moment. “I remember a Roland H. Norman mentioned just the other day!”
As he went on, Lisa noticed that the printer was still on, requesting that more paper be put into it. She saw the progress it had made before running out: 37/99 papers printed.
She then noticed that her partner had stopped talking.
“Go on.” Said Lisa, looking for more clues on the computer in the meantime. There were hardly any files of interest on it, a car insurance document that had been downloaded twice, a CV, and presumably a wedding photo of Marygold and Roland. The former was unrecognisable, looking quite happy along with her husband.
“Two officers…” He continued, seeing that he is, in fact, not being ignored. “Two were sent out to look into his disappearance. Might be related to this.”
“Sounds like a solid guess.” Lisa stated.
“Forget-me-nots!” He exclaimed, looking at the bed. “Although… Doesn’t really count as evidence, huh?”
Turning her head, Lisa saw upon the pristine white bed lay a bouquet of flowers. She herself wouldn’t have been able to tell what they were if not for the cadet. Though she was certain Solomon could have told her that too if she were there.
“Better than nothing.” Lisa scratched at her chin. “Anything else on that Roland H?”
“I… I only heard about it.” The serval admitted, looking down at the floor before snapping back up. “But I’m sure my colleagues know more!”
“Come to think of it…” She said, causing him to raise an ear and an eyebrow. “How come you requested a canine?”
“Oh!” He chuckled awkwardly. “I just thought because you had… Like… A good nose, it could help?”
Lisa had to agree. She could tell that he was a bright kid, but definitely needed experience.
“Well…” She sniffed the air. Nothing other than what she had already sniffed out, burned flesh and residual smoke. No hint of anything suspicious. “Can’t blame ya. But there’s nothing more here than what we’ve seen, far as my nose can tell. I’d still like to have a look around though, just in case.”
“W-what’s your name, by the way?” The cadet asked, seemingly out of the blue. “I-I just thought that maybe… We could work together more in the future? I-it’s just that y-you seem like a professional, with your foresight, shoes, nose… A-and I could really use some h-help…” He said with a shrug and an awkward smile. Lisa felt almost flattered.
“Lisa Luminescence.” She replied casually, tipping her hat.
“Okaaay!” He chuckled, pointing finger guns at her. “You can tell me your actual name then…!”
Lisa’s smile faded as she took out her driving licence and had the cadet take a look at it. The sheer embarrassment on him was so palpable, she could almost feel it herself. With a grin and a wink, she put it away.
“I-I-I’m so sorry! I was told that the seniors like to pull pranks-” He began.
“S’alright.” Lisa shrugged it off. “What’s your name?”
“Milo.” Said the serval, calming down as best as he could. “Milo Goddard.”
Now, that caught Lisa’s attention.
“Goddard?” She inquired, secretly excited at the possibility.
“Y-yes.” He replied with a little nod.
There was a chance for something truly incredible, a shot in the dark, but she had to be sure.
“You wouldn’t happen to be the son of Henry Goddard?” She asked, eager to find out if this was who she thought it was.
“Uhm… I am.” Said Milo.
“Son of William Goddard?” She went on, visibly giddy with excitement.
“...yeah.” He said after a pause.
“No way!” Lisa exclaimed, overjoyed with the discovery, her wild guess turning out to be true. “You’re the legendary detective’s grandson!”
“I guess my family still precedes me.” Milo shrugged with a slight smile. “This job made sense for me, given our history.” Lisa never would have figured the scrawny, skinny cadet to be related to such a person in anything other than species. To say that she was thrilled would be an understatement, she was practically shaking.
“Listen, mate.” Lisa patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve already got the reputation, you just need the skills!” His eyes positively shone at her words. “You’ve got potential, kid. Keep at it and you’ll go far!”
“Thank you, thank you! I don’t think I can… Outdo what my family did though.” He admitted, more to himself than to Lisa. “Grandpa did shut down the guys who ran Hilton.”
“Small world we live in.”
“Well…” She took out her phone to take a personal note, tail wagging. “I’ll let boss know that if you call, he should try to send me, yeah?”
Milo gasped and nodded enthusiastically.
“It would be an honour!” His tail wagged vigorously, along with Lisa’s.
“Bruv, I should be saying that!” She chuckled, briefly forgetting that they are in the middle of a crime scene. She cleared her throat and put on a serious face. “Anyway, we should return to this.”
“I can take it from here with the others!” Milo argued. “I already called for help.”
“Really now? More eyes see more. You sure?” Lisa remarked with a smirk, trusting in his abilities. If she told him how to do everything, he would never learn. Then again, she wouldn’t say no to working with him.
“O-oh, I just mean I could make the report while you can go do more important business!” He explained, looking as if he was hiding behind his own tail. “I… Assume an investigator like you would have other places to be. Also, where’d you get those rubber shoes?”
“Here we go again.”
“You’d be correct!” She said and took a moment to come up with a good enough lie. “Custom-made. ‘Fraid they’re out of business now.”
“Ah, what a shame!” He complained, swaying anxiously. “The boys should be here soon enough. Thanks for everything! …but I’ll try to handle this.”
“We could still have a look-around ‘til they arrive.” She suggested.
“I mean… Yes, that would be good.” He then went to the doorway and beckoned Lisa. “You’ll make your grandad proud one day, kid.”
Following Milo, and her nose, Lisa went through the rest of the house: a proper look at the kitchen, a pantry filled with ingredients and spices, a utility closet for a wood-fueled furnace, even a terribly dusty attic, but found nothing suspicious or anything that could be considered as evidence.
“Alright, I’ll be on my way then.” Lisa dusted off her coat and closed the door to the attic. “Good luck, cadet!” She winked at him.
“I’ll make you proud, Miss Luminescence!” He responded with a salute.
“Just call me Lisa.” She went to the entrance with Milo, taking another sniff, which confirmed to her that there was nothing more she could find there, at least not that easily.
“Thanks Lisa!” Milo said with one more wave of goodbye as she left the building. She smiled back at him before looking at the increasingly larger crowd.
“Nothing to see here, people. Move along.” She announced gruffly as she walked past them and got into her car, way too many things on her mind.
“Alright, two people to report to.” She said to herself, looking through her list of contacts. “Adelar’s one, but first…” Looking at the time, she guessed that it’d still be a short while before Solomon arrived at the HQ, so she called her right away. Not something she would normally do, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Yes, dear?” Solomon’s voice came through, still a bit sleepy.
“OH. MY. GOSH. ROXY!” Said the wolf, sounding more like an excited girl than an adult with magic and responsibilities. Whatever noise her girlfriend made as a reaction told her that she properly woke up. “You’ll NEVER guess who I met today!”
“You’re right, I probably won’t.” The feline teased in a sassy tone.
“Oh, you.” Lisa furrowed her brows, albeit with a smile. “I was out on a job and wouldn’t you know it, the guy who needed help was the grandson of William bloody Goddard!”
“Très bien!” Solomon replied with a chuckle. “I know how much you adore that guy, what’s his grandson like?”
“You couldn’t tell it was him just by lookin’.” She put the key in the ignition, noticing that someone in the crowd was eyeing her almost suspiciously. “I’ll tell ya aaaaall about it later, gotta go report to boss, I just HAD to talk about it!”
“Looking forward to it, love.” Solomon said, followed by a soft giggle. “Bye now!”
“Byeee!” Lisa hung up and immediately went to text Adelar.
“Job’s done. Going back to base.”
The eagle replied with a thumbs up emoticon not long after.
“Well that was easy enough.” Lisa started the car and began driving back to Lanolow.