Chapter 4: The Interview.
"Here we are Robby, you ready to take your first interview?" Robby and Jessy were sat in the cruiser, Robby was full of adrenaline, heart thumping a mile a minute but Jess was cool and collected, she'd already been through the process a thousand times over and it was near enough second nature to her, but she remembered her first time of having to question a suspect and thought about how much she was struggling to keep calm during the whole thing, she knew Robby would be feeling the same thing so she tried to talk it over with him before they went in.
"Yeah, I'm ready, I was born ready, this is gonna be easy", Robby's breathing picked up, as if he was coming close to having a panic attack, which for Robby was strange, he barely ever let his emotions get in the way of his work, never mind be so obvious in his paniced state.
"You ok Robby? You seem agitated."
"Yeah I'm good, I just need some air before we go in", Robby rolled down the window to let in the freezing winter air in.
"You're gonna be fine, he's in our custody and about to go into wit-pro, he's not gonna try anything". Robby wasn't worried about being attacked, in-fact he welcomed it, he knew he was great at hand-to-hand combat and could take down a mammal three times his size with ease, no, he was worried about screwing up the questioning, he was always top of his class with everything in the academy, but barely scraped a pass when doing anything related to questioning or speaking to other mammals in general, because he had no idea what signs to look out for if someone is going to break down crying or attack to shank him, due to the way he grew up he'd never really learned how to interact properly with others, even going so far as to not even be able to introduce himself to strangers, but now was the time when he had no choice, he had to take the reins on this one or look weak to his new partner, and that was the last thing he wanted.
"I'm not worried, lets get in there and do this", Robby rolled the window back up and opened the cruiser door, he proceeded to jump out and slam it behind him, after Jessy had also jumped out she locked the door and started to walk around, she pointed to the door that they were heading too and Robby started walking into its direction. Once they reached the door Jessy pushed a large metal button underneath a small speaker, this made a loud buzzing sound and once it stopped they heard a voice from the other end, "Who is it?" the voice shouted.
"Snowball Alpha Bravo" Jessy replied, as she does Robby gives her a strange look, she noticed his look and explained herself, "It's todays code, without it he wouldn't know if it was actually us", with that Robby made a face as if he'd just discovered fire, and then felt silly because it seemed so obvious.
"Of course, I knew that", He lied. After he said that another loud buzz rang through the speaker, this time a pleasant click on the large metal door to the side of it accompanied it, signifying that the door was unlocked.
"You first officer", Jessy put her hoof up to gesture Robby to open up and walk in the door, and with the gesture he did, and jessy then followed behind him, "Up the stairs first door on the right Robby", Robby walked up the stairs, unusually large for a mammal his size, more fitting for a larger animal like a bull or a rhino, but he had no issue taking them 1 at a time.
As the two officers approached the door that contained Dougs safe house, Jessy tapped Robby on the shoulder to make sure he'd be ok with questioning Doug, she knew it could be stressful and she was too kind-hearted to let him go in there without feeling good about the situation, "You gonna be cool with this? I can handle the questioning if you'd like and you take the next one".
"I'm good, I told you, this isn't gonna be a problem", Robby straightened out his outfit and rubbed his eyes, he then knocked on the door, unexpectant of how the Ram that he'd been reading about for the past hour was going to react to the questioning of his former accomplice, who is also the reason he's stuck in a safe house and more than likely wants him dead, but no amount of thinking could prepare him for having to actually speak to him.
The door opened from the inside, and out poked a a large head, covered in fluffy wool, this was definitely a ram, "mornin' officers, how can I help you today?"
"You can start by letting us in Doug", Jessy commanded, and just as she ordered him he opened the door and gestured the two officers to come in. As they walked in they couldn't help but notice the amount of garbage laying around on the floor, "You not been keeping the place very clean have ya doug?", jessy walked over to the couch with Robby, Robby was busy taking in the environment, the room was very plain, and when not covered in garbage would feel very empty, a dark leather couch was the main piece of furniture in the room, with a generically branded flatscreen TV in the corner, on top of a small TV stand and book holder.
the room was only kept alight by the ceiling lamp which didn't even have a lapshade, and if it wasn't for that the room would be pitch black due to the shut-out blinds on the window, the walls were grey and dingey, with not even a painting in sight, this was definitely a safe house. "Mr Ramses I'd like to ask you a few questions relating to your former associate Dawn Bellwether, would you like to take a seat?" Robby gestured towards the couch.
Doug closed the door, he'd kept it open in hope they'd leave quickly but he knew that wasn't happening, so he slammed it shut and walked over to the two officer, took a seat on his couch and nodded his head in a gesture to signify that they could start asking questions.
"Ok, first of all would you prefer to be called Doug or Mr Ramses?",
"Doug is fine"
"Ok doug, my name is officer Elmore, I'm gonna go through a couple of easy questions with you, the faster and more precise your answers the quicker we can get this over with and leave you be, I'm sure you'd much rather be doing anything other than talking to me right now so I'll try and be as quick and consice as possible also, is this ok with you?", Doug nodded in agreement, "Ok good, now the questions I'll be asking you are in reference to your ex-accomplice Dawn Bellwether, does this cause any issues for you?"
"No officer, anything to make sure that loon doesn't find out where I am is good with me"
"Ok good, now for the questions", Robby removes his notepad and pen from his chest pocket and prepares to take notes, "First question, When was the last time you were in contact with Dawn Bellwether?"
"Last time?" Doug seemed puzzled by the question, but Robby gave him a reassuring nod to make sure his answer was as accurate as possible. "Last time I spoke to her during our trial, when I testified against her to get time off my sentence, as you probably know officer"
"It was in your file yes, but just incase she had contacted you after this incident it was worth asking to be sure. Second question, what do you know about the recent prison break involving Dawn Bellwether? Please don't spare the details, we need everything we can get here."
"Jailbreak? Hah, I know less than you, all I know is whats on the TV, don't even get wifi in this place so if its not on the news I haven't heard about it"
"Well you have access to a phone, surely someone you know must have talked to you about it?" doug seemed to get angry from this accusation.
"Listen buddy, I don't talk to no one because all my calls are monitored and I don't want some creep listening in on everything I say, so instead, I speak to no one, so no officer, I know nothing about this jailbreak and if I did why would I ever think to tell you?"
"Fair enough, your past is evidence enough you wouldn't succumb to a guilty conscience", Doug became visibly angry with Robby's last remark, but he kept cool because he knew being insulted was better than being in jail, especially after snitching on someone, it was practically a death sentence. "Question three, Doug, if Dawn Bellwether was going to try and hide somewhere in Tundra Town what would be the most likely place she'd go?"
"Wait what did you just say?"
"I said if Dawn bell…"
"Yeah yeah yeah I heard that, did you just say she's here? In Tundra Town?"
"It is very heavily suspect that she is currently in Tundra Town, Which is why we came to see you first" Jessy butted into the conversation.
"You being near to the donut store also helped with that issue" Robby gave her a snide look for interupting him.
"Nevertheless, we need to get on top of this situation now, so if you know where she might be hiding, you'd be doing us, and yourself a huge favour" Doug quickly grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.
"Can I borrow your pen?" Robby passes his pen to Doug, and as he reaches his arm out doug snatches it as fast as he can and starts writing furiously on the small piece of paper, "Here, these are the only two places she would go, you better get her because if you don't she'll be coming for me and I'll be as good as dead, you understand?" Doug hands the piece of paper back to Robby, it contained two sloppily written addresses, this filled robby with a huge relief because it was almost too good to be true, that on his first case, on his first day would be solved within 2 hours of starting, he knew he'd gain a reputation around the office and it would actually be good.
"That's great, thank you doug, you've done a good thing today."
"Yeah yeah, just take her down, she is insane, and be careful, she was one of the few people who knew how to create the extremely potent night howler formula, and you being, well, you, you're not likely to be spared the feral treatment" What doug said sent a huge shock of fear down Robby's spine, just as it seemed too good to be true the reality sunk in, if he screwed up even a little bit not only will he be reduced to metre maid service for the rest of his career, but he could be drugged with the night howelrs or worse, killed.
"Trust me Doug, we'll take get her and send her back where she belongs, the two best officers on the force are on the job", Robby closed his notepad "I think that'll be enough questions Doug, thank you very much for your co-operation and if you have anything else to tell us feel free to call the station and either ask for me or officer Willow here."
"I will do officers, now we're done right?" Jessy patted Doug on the shoulder.
"Yeah, we're done dougy boy, enjoy your day", Robby put his notepad back in his pocket, forgetting about the pen he just left it with doug.
"Yes that will be everything Doug, we'll be leaving now", Robby stood up and made for the door, officer willow was already standing there with it wide open and ready to leave, "Thank you once again doug you were a big help" Robby walked out the door and waited for Jessy to also leave.
"You better be a good boy doug, would hate to have to come back here with a less fun reason" Doug walked over to the door to make sure it was shut properly after the two officers.
"Don't worry, I don't expect to be here much longer", Jessy walked out of the apartment and gave Doug a quick salute. As she does Doug slammed the door on her, Jessy put her arms back to her side and walked towards the stairs, down which Robby was waiting.
"You two met before this?" Robby inquired.
"Yeah, I was the first officer designated to his protection, I annoyed the chief and had to do it for a month before getting back to normal duty"
"Must have been exhilarating" Robby opened the large metal door that lead back outside.
"I can happily say officer Elmore, I would rather eat those disgusting curry crickets you mentioned before for and entire year straight than spend a single day with him again"
"I'll take you up on that one day" Robby and Jessy headed back to the cruiser as quickly as they could, they were both used to the cold but even for Tundra Town it was particularly chilly.
"Hey, at least theres a chance we can have this case done by today" Robby said excitedly as he waited for Jessy to unlock the door.
"Today? Hah, yeah right, make tommorow at best, we gotta get a warrant for both buildings, which would usually take at least two weeks, but in this case I'm sure we can get it rushed throught due to the urgency of the situation, and we need to have someone get eyes on the building to see who's going in or out once we do, so give it two days at best, five days at worst". Jessy unlocked the door and both officers jumped into the cruiser.
"So you're telling me we just have to wait around for up to five days?"
"Well, we could always go back to destiny's" Robby slammed his head against the dashboard of the cruiser.
"This is going to be a very long week".
These chapters are getting bigger and bigger, but it seems under 2500, over 2200 is my new mark, I feel like this story has been pretty dialogue heavy these past two chapters which isn't bad, in fact I'm loving writing this dialogue, its really fun, but I want to stretch my descriptive muscles, so next chapter I'm going to try and kick it up a gear, at this point I have two options, option one is go through the original plan of multiple chapters a day of Robby and Jessy just waiting around or, skip to the day where they're ready to take bellwether down, or at least the day before and do the build up too it, because once this case is over I'm going to be going into the larger overall story, I may add another shorter case inbetween this arc and the Judy and Nick arc I'll be doing, but either way hopefully within 3-4 chapters we will get the first lines of dialogue from Nick and Judy, which is also when the main story kicks in.
Anyway, thank you all once again for reading, I appreaciate every follow and favourite, and as usual reviews are very much appreciated, I'm hoping I've gotten to a point where it actually feels like I have enough work on the fic to critique.
And as usual the next chapter will be out within 2 days, however the amount I'm getting out at such fast rates I may change that to a day, because honestly I think I got this chapter written in just over 24 hours, I don't want to limit my self to 1 day though just incase I get a block or something important comes up that stops me.