The face of Ali looked at the policemen with two wide open-eyes and a fixed smile. The coroner putted , delicatley, her body in a black bag and closed the zip. In the other room Littlefoot sobbed incessantly, with his agent that dyied up his tears and stroked lovely his head, trying to comfort him. She's seemed to be very fond of the little long neck, treating him like a son. Eddie Valiant shaked his head, looking at the policemen that lifted the body of Ali, closed in the bag and taked off his cap when they passed near him.
"But what happened to her?..." asked Valiant to Lieutenant Santino. Santino looked at Valiant, dismayed.
"You don't believe that if i tell you...she died of laughter!".
Valiant goggled, looking at Santino. "Died in laughter? What do you mean?".
Santino scratched his chin. "Seems that a cartoon can litterally die if he laugh too much...".
"Absurd..."sayd Eddie Valliant "...this mean that it is virtually a suicide?"
"We don't know yet. May have been his companion to make her laugh to death!"
"Now even make someone laugh has become a crime"muttered bitterly Eddie.
The two men left the room of the couch and stopped for a few second in front of Patricia, the girl who held the sobbing Littlefoot tight to herself. They don't said anything just looked at they. When Valiant and Santino decided to leave they walked out of the room but in front of them appeared a strange and scary figure. The two, don't expecting that, gasped for a moment. Two cleaver eyes staring at the two men behind a pair of glasses.
"You two are trying to hide the murderer from the eyes of the justice?" he asked with a voice colored by an English accent.
"No at all, Judge Doom. Me and Valiant just trying to exit from the room. Really Valiant?"
Eddie looked at the disturbing man that he have in front. He dressed more like an undertaker than as a judge,with his black suit and gloves and a fedora placed on his head. And his cane? It was a skull that one on the top?
"Yeah...we just trying to exit. But i have to say that the police are not convinced that the toon was murdered"
Doom smiled, grinning as a shark.
"You've right Mister Valiant. It was not yet estabilished that in this house ther as been a murder. But Toontown are under my jurisdiction...and it's my duty to judge if a crime has taked place or not!"
"But is the duty of the police to conduct the inquiries..not of a judge..."
The two men looked at each other for a few more seconds. Santino, embarassed, stood in a corner hoping that Valiant not was so stupid as to hinder a man like the Judge. You have to been very brave or very idiot to talk in this way to that spooky bastard. Even only his presence made Santino shudder. But Eddie didn't move from his position.
The facial features of Doom twitched for a moment in an expression of anger but then spreads in a new sharpened smile.
"Well..I think i can wait that the investigations have conducted...before administering justice...But i hope you also leave the crime scena as soon as possible. You aren't a policeman too, really ? "
Doom then nodded to them, slightly lowering the fedora's visor than he turned to go away. But suddendly he turned back looking Valiant up and down again.
"Sooner or later i'd like to show you how we administer justice in Toontown. I think that you wuold particullary appreciate that."
Then finally the judge stepped back and went out the front door of the Littlefoot's House. A black Dodge Humpback waited him and when Doom got into it, the car leaved the perimeter of the Littlefoot's propriety, dissappearing in the streets of Toontown.
"How that vulture became a judge?" asked Valiant, looked dismayed at Santino. Santino, still disconcerted, was about to reply when the girl, Patricia interrupted the two men.
"Sorry if i'm intruding...I seemed to have understood that you believe that Ali was murdered?"
"No, Miss Falsworth...We don't believe anything at the moment" answered Santino "If there was a murder only the investigation will determine this."
"Oh...I understand...". Than the girl approached Valiant. " ...i know you're a good detective. Please i prey you to help me to demonstrate that my lovable Littlefoot is innocent! It's so sweet and tender and..."
But Valiant shooked his head.
"Sorry Miss Falsworth. This is a job for the police and in advance...i don't work for the toons!"
"But..."sobbing Patricia but Eddie Valiant walked toward the exit of the house, followed by Santino that merely give a light pat on the woman's shoulder. Valiant remembered that the lieutenant was in debt of a glass of whiskey due to an old story between them and that they were just going to the bar of Dolores before Santino was urgently called to the Littlefoot's home.
And Valiant don't forgot certainly when someone are in debt of a good glass of whiskey..