4. Interrogations

"HOW ELSE CAN THE DAMNED LOCK BE OPENED OTHER THAN A COMBINATION!? TELL US NOW!"

Horace (the inventor of the vault where the Arganan heirlooms were kept) looked like he was about to pee his pants as Syrenne and Mirania walked in, ready to interrogate Horace themselves when they noticed the Gurak brothers doing EXACTLY what they planned to do.

And Syrenne didn't quite like that, so she fake-coughed loudly to get their attention.

Zesha and Zepha looked up at Mirania and Syrenne, the four kind of staring at each other.

"Hello." Zesha managed.

"Hey." Syrenne responded.

Mirania stared at the twins. "What are you two doing here?"

Zepha stared right back at her. "What are you two doing here?"

Syrenne glared at him. "Quit copying my girlfriend!" She snapped.

"Quit copying my girlfriend!" Zesha crowed mockingly, just before Syrenne backhanded him in the face. "OW!" He groaned, putting a hand to his face. "Brother, she slapped me!"

Syrenne glared back at him, tempted to slap him again but Mirania was attempting to restrain her. "You were mocking my girlfriend, you git!" She snapped.

Zepha slapped his own forehead. "Are you two just going to act like children...?" He muttered.

"WE DO NOT ACT LIKE CHILDREN!" Syrenne and Zesha yelled at once.

Mirania gasped. "Ah, wait! Settle down!"

Eventually everyone else did calm down (after being kicked out of Horace's shop) and they figured that fighting wasn't quite going to help, so they went to go discuss the case. Currently Mirania was now chomping into her third sandwich while Zesha was just kind of watching, intrigued. Syrenne and Zepha were only the real ones actually talking.

"So..." Zepha trailed off awkwardly. "Have you found anything yet?"

Syrenne shook her head. "Not much. You?"

"Nothing."

There was silence before Zepha spoke up.

"You wanna team up?"

Syrenne gave him a look. "Why should I?"

Zepha chuckled a little. "I'll give you and your girlfriend half the reward if my brother and I solve the case first."

Syrenne gave him an even more serious look. "You're sure about it? You're going to go through it if we team up?"

Zepha nodded, grinning. "Yeah. But if you and your girlfriend solve it first, you split with us. Sounds good?"

Syrenne seemed to analyze him, before she chuckled. "Yeah. Sounds good!"

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"What about now?"

"No, Zael."

Dagran sighed as he looked to Zael. Sometimes he wondered who was the more impatient between the two of them—Zael with his constant asking or Dagran himself with his lack of putting up with it for too long.

Thankfully, the two would be saved when they noticed something.

"That's Therius!" Zael pointed. "He's right there..."

"And Asthar with him." Dagran responded to Zael. "But..." He peered closer through the window of the taxi. "Who's that guy with them? Wait—that's Zoran!"

"Zoran? You mean your old friend from highschool."

"Yeah."

Dagran barely waited for the taxi to park before he rushed out of the car, rushing over to them. "Hey!" He shouted, panting a bit. "What's going on here?"

Zael gasped, getting out of his seat (after paying the taxi driver) and rushing after him. Zoran was an old friend of Dagran's, as far as Zael knew, and that was it, but they must have been pretty good friends.

Zoran chuckled as he saw them. "Well, if it isn't Pretty Boy." He spoke, grinning as he saw Dagran. "Surprised to find you here. What are you doing, helping out with the case?"

Dagran nodded. "Uh, yeah. Money's been tight this month and we kind of had no other choice."

Therius frowned, looking to Dagran. "Pardon me, but Officer Asthar and I were interrogating him."

Asthar looked to Therius, then to Dagran and Zael, then to Therius again. "It's fine, Therius. They are helping us with the case. Now," He looked to Zoran, "Would you tell us what you were doing on the night the heirlooms were stolen?"

Zoran nodded. "Yeah, I can. I was one of the security guards on shift for that night, guarding the outside the building. I saw that thief dropping a rope out the window, and I got my gun out, yelling at him to stop whatever the hell he was doing! I thought, I dunno, that maybe he went and attacked someone in there."

Asthar frowned, motioning for Therius to take out some paper and write this stuff down. "What happened next?"

"So I yelled, told him to stop what he was doing and state why he was here and stuff. But then he went down the rope and I tried to aim for his shoulder...and broke the window. They're taking the cost of damages outta my paycheck now because of that. So he got down the rope, I tried chase him and restrain him 'cause I realized I'd been on my last bullet when I first shot at him, but we got into a fist fight and I got the black eye. He escaped." He winced. "Still hurts even now, honestly."

"I see." Therius then looked to Zoran after writing it all down. "Did you get a good look at the face of the person you tried to catch?"

Zoran shook his head. "Nah, I didn't. He was wearing a hood and a ski mask underneath, so I couldn't even see his hair or anything. But I'm pretty sure that guy was definitely a guy..."

"Hmm..." Zael looked to Dagran. "Dagran, maybe we should check out the cameras that showed this area of the Town Hall's grounds. We might find something interesting."

Dagran nodded. "Yeah. Sounds good..."

"MAFIA!"

"POLICE!"

"MAFIA!"

"POLICE!"

Therius stared. Asthar also stared. The two had been on the way back to their car when they found none other than Calista and Jirall fighting.

"Um..." Therius trailed off awkwardly. "What are you two doing?"

Jirall groaned, turning to face Asthar and Therius. "Arguing over what connections to use to catch the thief so we can get all the spoils."

Calista facepalmed herself. "Jirall, don't give it all away!" She groaned.

Jirall blushed, embarrassed. "S-sorry..."

Asthar chuckled sheepishly. "It's fine, really."

Therius blinked. "Uhh...what connections are you talking about using, if you don't mind telling us?"

Calista sighed. "It's either we run to you police people or the mafia to try to track down the crminal through such sources..."

"And it's more than obvious that we should use mafia connections," Jirall interjected, "Because then we won't bring the attention of it too much to the public."

Calista frowned. "But it'lll put you in more danger, Jirall. Do you really want that?"

"Well no, but it's better than making the crminal think that he's won by the paparazzi getting info from the police somehow and then publishing tabloids making him think he's won!"

Therius winced, watching them. "Sh-should we stop them...?"

Asthar watched carefully, shaking his head. "No, Therius. As they say, 'hell hath fury like a woman scorned' or something like that. She'll win this argument hands down."

That was when Calista glared at him, before slapping him hard in the face.

"BOSH AND TOSH! JIRALL YOU CAN BE SUCH A NINNY AT TIMES! Your life matters more than the criminal's own!" She screamed, before turning and starting to rush away.

"Huh...?" Jirall blinked, putting one hand to his face, before gasping. "Calista? Calista, wait! WAAAIITTT!" He screamed, rushing after her. "Honey, it's okay, we can use police connections...I understand how you feel."

Calista gasped, looking to him, hugging him. "R-really?" She whispered.

Jirall smiled awkwardly, hugging her in return. "Yes, dearest. Really." He responded quietly, soothingly. "I would never want you to be left alone because of something stupid I did..."

Calista smiled, giving him a peck on the lips. "Thank you, Jirall...I love you so much!"

Jirall kissed her back in response, hugging her happily. "I love you, too!"

Therius and Asthar were mentally cheering while trying to keep stoic faces at the sight of the lovey-dovey couple. Asthar was tempted to break into a happy dance, but decided against it to save himself from public embarrassment.

SCORE ONE FOR POLICE CONNECTIONS!

Lowell and Yurick walked through the city quietly, Yurick flipping through bunches of photos they took.

"See anything interesting?" Lowell asked, looking around.

Yurick shook his head, looking up at him. "Nope. Nothing yet besides the marks that Asthar pointed out on the windowsil...wait." He quickly flipped through more pages. "See that badge on the ground? Doesn't that belong to a security officer?"

Lowell nodded. "Yeah, it does..." He sighed. "That means a security guard was probably in there. But they shouldn't necessarily know the way to get in the safe, though. Only the Mayor and his niece would know, probably."

"True..." He then flipped to another photo. "I took some photos of the mayor's office. See how this one drawer is opened? I took a few photos of what was in the drawer, and it looks like things were messed with in there. I have a feeling that the thief dressed up as a security guard, went into the mayor's office via picking the lock, found the password to the safe in there and then went straight to the room where the heirlooms were to use the password. It's not just the heirlooms in the room by themselves—besides being a place to store them, it's also a storage room for general use, so anyone in security and other staff would have access to opening the storage room. They'd be able to get everything in the room if they wanted except for the heirlooms because of them being in the safe."

"Oh. I see..." He grinned. "So you think it's an employee who did it?" He frowned. "But...why risk their job to steal some heirlooms? How much are they even worth, anyway?"

"Probably a lot," The younger one responded, shrugging. "I wouldn't be surprised that someone would actually steal them. I bet they could make thousands off them. I think we should investigate all the staff and figure out their histories—"

"Who could have done it, then? Any ideas, Zangurak?" The two looked up to see Arganan and Zangurak walking in the opposite direction towards them, but not noticing Yurick and Lowell quite yet. Arganan and Zangurak appeared to be in deep conversation about the mystery also. On instinct, Lowell dragged Yurick into the nearby bushes to watch them.

"Well," Zangurak mused, looking around as he'd seen the blur of movement but hadn't quite seen Yurick and Lowell, "There could be people posing as detectives that actually stole the heirlooms and would 'find' them and return them to look good."

Arganan looked to Zangurak. "You...actually think so?"

Zangurak nodded. "Well, I've seen other mafia do it. Why not regular people?"

Lowell gasped, looking to Yurick. "Partner, he knows."

Yurick blinked, staring at him. "Knows about what?"

"About us!" Lowell grabbed him by the shoulders tightly. "He knows we're con artists and he's gonna pin the blame on us!"

Yurick winced. "Uhhh...that...can't be good."

"Of course it isn't!" Lowell was shaking his friend wildly by now. "At this rate if the mayor really suspects us he's going to drive us out of town if not throw us in jail! We'll be ruined!"

That was when they would hear Arganan speak up.

"Zangurak, I had security check all their credentials, including yours. As far as I can figure out, they're all clean..."

Zangurak groaned. "Are you sure that none of them are fake?"

Arganan gave him a look. "Yes."

Lowell and Yurick looked to each other, wide-eyed before they silently heaved relieved breaths.

Now they just had to solve the case before anyone found out that they were con artists.