The Valor Cases

Case No. One

By GreatAngemon

Herein lay the case files of one Link Valor, presiding detective in the Martown Police Department from the year 1995 to the year 2005. He has since retired from the Police Force, and his case files have been released for public viewing.

The file you are about to read is a completely true and accurately detailed case file of one of Detective Link's earliest, yet most prominent cases.

1996, August 2 15:25:17

The wind blew past her, playfully pulling at her hair as she ran through the neighborhood, hurrying to her destination; lunch with her sister and her sister's friend. Skipping and jumping over the fences, the young eight year old girl had one thing between her and the other side.

Looking around, her sister was nowhere to be found. A sly smile on her face, she could go across without worrying about being yelled at for crossing by herself. She was practically a grown up in a little body anyway.

Running across the street, the little girl didn't look both ways. The sound of a truck horn blared through the air and tires shrilled on the pavement, causing the little girl to scream in terror.

An inch from the child's back, the truck came to a loud, shrieking stop.

"Whad'dya think yer doin' out in da middle of der street?" a deep, husky voice called from the truck's window. The young girl looked up at the rotund man who was climbing out of the cab.

"I'm sorry, mister," she called. "I didn't mean to. I was just in a rush. My big sister told me that I need to hurry!" With a smile on her slightly wary face, her big blue eyes seemed to be unclear on what she had done so wrong.

"I don't care!" the man shouted. "Yeh shouldn't be playin' in der street!"

"I'm sorry," she said in a sing-song voice, hurrying the rest of the way across the street. The bald man watched her as she skipped along the sidewalk.

1996, August 3 08:15:52

Link rang the doorbell of the modest two-story house, just outside the Martown gates. "Link, do you think-"

"Sheik, don't ask me if there's anything to this case," Link said. "I don't know if it has any merit, but I do know that it's our duty to investigate." Sheik sighed, but nodded.

A moment later, the door swung open, and a tall, young, redheaded woman was standing there, looking harried. "Yes, can I help you?"

"Head Detective Link Valor," Link said, holding up his badge. "This is my partner, Junior Detective Sheik Impaz, from the Martown Police Department. Are you Miss Cremia?"

"Oh, yes." The woman stepped back. "Come in, please." Link and Sheik stepped over the threshold and followed Cremia into the sitting room, each taking a seat upon a chair. "Can I get you anything? A drink? Some snacks?"

"No, thank you, ma'am," Link said, looking around. "We're here because-"

"Because Romani disappeared." It wasn't a question. She was making a statement, and Link heard a note of both panic and anguish in her voice.

"Er, yes, because Romani disappeared." Link was feeling uncomfortable now. He fidgeted at her tone. There was a lump in his throat, the same lump he got whenever he had to talk to a victim's family. "Until she's been missing for forty-eight hours, we can't treat this as anything other than a runaway child case, which means no unnecessary manpower."

"You think she ran away?" Cremia cried. "She's eight years old! She wouldn't even know where to go! I'm all she has! She wouldn't run away from home, or from me!" Her eyes were moist like she had been holding in tears.

"I'm not saying that she 'did' run away. I'm saying that we legally have to treat it as a runaway case. If she still hasn't returned by tomorrow, then we can begin investigati-" Even as the words came out of his mouth, there was a false security in them that he couldn't avoid or fake. Forty-eight hours gone, while it kept the law from going crazy for no reason, it was also plenty of time for criminals to get away.

That wait, he imagined, would have to be the longest forty-eight hours that this woman would have in her entire life.

"Come in, all available units!" Radio static broke up the voice of the dispatch operator. "Come in, all available units! All units converge on Death Mountain Trail! A body has been-"

Link turned down the volume dial on his radio, cutting off the rest of the message as the tall redhead's face became lined with worry.

"Ma'am, we'll be heading off now," Sheik said as the two men rose from their seats. "We'll come back tomorrow to see if Romani has come back."

As they hurried back through the front door, they heard her call after them, "Please, detectives, find her. She's all I have. Find her!"

"Car number three-one-one-seven, en route to Death Mountain Trail," Sheik said into the car radio as Link blasted the sirens and threw the vehicle into drive. Peeling around, they drove at top speed towards the dormant volcano in the north of Hyrule.

"Dispatch, please repeat," Link said, taking the receiver from Sheik, "what was the description of the body found? Repeat, what was the description of the body?"

"Female, red hair, blue eyes, approximately eight to ten years old." Link looked at Sheik, who glanced back edgily. Placing the receiver back onto the CV unit, Link floored the accelerator.

When they reached the yellow police line, Link finally slammed on the brakes, causing the car to come to a squealing stop. He jumped out, ducked under the police line and ran toward the place where he saw the medical examiners and crime scene techs walking around.

"Hey doc," Link said, squatting down beside the chief medical examiner. "Have you gotten identification on the body yet?"

"Fingerprints were useless," the medical examiner said. "She's eight, so, really, it's all but impossible for her to have a criminal record. That also rules out DNA. So, we'll have to take dental imprints back at autopsy."

"Can you give me a time of death?"

"Luckily, she was wearing a watch," the doctor said, holding up the young girls wrist for Link to examine. "Even luckier, the watch hit the ground hard, knocking out the battery. Time of death is approximately four-fifteen yesterday afternoon."

"Call me when you get an ID," Link said. He stood up and motioned to a crime scene tech. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Well, the girl didn't die here," the tech said. "She was killed somewhere else and then the body was dumped here."

"How can you tell?" Link asked.

"There's no pooling of blood here; only splattered drops around her from when the killer dropped her off."

"How did the killer get her here?"

"Best guess? He took his car. Look over here," he said, pointing at tire tracks leading away from the body. "I took molds of the tread, and I'm going to send those to the national database once we get back to the precinct."

"Alright." Link began walking away, but the tech called him back.

"There's one more thing," he said, motioning for Link to follow him. They walked a short distance away, where they found a sleeveless, button-down purple shirt lying on the ground.

"A shirt?" Link asked.

"Not just a shirt," the tech replied. He picked up the shirt, showing blood spots on the front. "Good guess that this blood belongs to the victim, or even the killer."

"Alright, thanks," Link said, pulling an evidence bag out of his pocket. "I'll take that back with me to see if it matches the girl."

When Link got back to his car, he beckoned Sheik towards him. "I'm going back to the station. Are you coming with me?"

"I'll ride back with the crime scene guys," Sheik said. "I want to keep looking around here."

Link pulled his door closed and pulled the car around. As he drove back down the path, he thought of something. "Dispatch, can you please send a unit to bring in Miss Cremia Stead."

"Copy, sending units to bring in Cremia Stead."

1996, August 3 08:32:48

"Detective!" Cremia said as Link walked into the interrogation room. "What am I doing here? Did you find Romani? Where is she?" Her questions shot like rapidfire.

"Miss Stead, we have new evidence about your sister's disappearance, so we've decided to treat it as suspicious."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we discovered a body on Death Mountain Trail of a young girl," Link said, feeling a tightening in his stomach. "While we haven't yet received identification, we have reason to believe that it is your sister." He always hated this part.

'"You think it's Romani?" Cremia asked, her hands flying up to her mouth and tears forming in her eyes.

"Well-" Link began, but was cut off as his phone began buzzing in his pocket. He pulled the phone out and flipped it open. "Valor."

"Detective, we've managed to get an ID on the body. Can you come down to autopsy?"

"I'll be right down," Link said. Closing his phone, he knocked twice on the mirror on the wall. "Miss Cremia, my partner is coming in to give you some of the personal effects we found on the body. If you recognize any of them, we need you to let him know."

"I-I-I'll try," Cremia said, brushing tears out of her eyes. Link opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

"Sheik, get in there with the items found on the body," he said, jabbing his thumb behind him towards the window into the interrogation room. "I'm going to the doc's office to get the ID on the girl."

"Alright," Sheik said, picking up an evidence box filled with clothes. "But Link-"

"Save it," Link said. "I'll be back after I talk to Bandam. Tell me then."

Link walked to the elevator and pushed the down button. When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, the blonde detective stepped inside. Pressing the 'B' button, he watched the doors close. As the elevator slid down the shaft to the morgue, he began feeling nauseated. A child's death, that was something that he couldn't get used to; they said that after awhile he'd just become numb to it, but he'd been on the force for years, and he was still sickened each time it happened, still waiting for the numbing. No child deserved this kind of fate.

His vision began to blur and waver, and a ringing in his ears began to irritate his head. Pulling a pill bottle out of his pocket, he popped off the cap and tapped the bottle on his hand to get out a couple of pills. He snapped the cap back on the bottle and threw the pills into his mouth.

Just then the doors slid open again and Link stepped out. A wizened old man with white hair stood next to an autopsy table with a sheet on it, scribbling on a clipboard. "Doc," Link said. The old man said nothing. "Doc!" Link repeated. Nothing. "Doctor Bandam!"

The old man jumped and spun around. "Link," he said, placing one hand over his chest. "There's no need to scream, boy. I'm not that old." Link rolled his eyes.

"You said you got an ID on the girl from the trail?"

"Oh, yes," said Doc Bandam. He began fumbling with the papers on his clipboard. "We sent in her dental records to every dentist around Martown. Doctor Borville sent me her records. Her name is Romani Stead."

'Damn.'

Alright everyone, tell me what you think! I'm looking forward to this story.