After the reporter* left his editor's office, the first thing he did was go back to his computer and download a copy of the Seattle Police vest cam footage to his cellphone. He had looked at it from every possible angle on his computer, but still couldn't figure out what that tail Lionel Ulysses wore was made of.
Provided it was a fake.
Then, with downloaded pictures of Ulysses and the other members of "The Rat Pack", he set off to work.
His first stop was the scene of the gang's down fall.
The warehouse where the Rat Pack was holed up (apt term? he wondered) was still an active crime scene with no admittance except by authorities, but the reporter's objective was actually to gather background information from anyone working and/or living within the surrounding properties.
Within an hour he had a good picture of what the "neighbors" thought.
The general consensus was Those no good punks came and went at all hours, doing who knows what. Good riddance!
With that line of inquiry pretty much a dead end, the reporter then turned to the other reason he came to this particular location.
While the authorities had the crime scene secured, they did NOT have Lionel Ulysses' escape route from the building to where he was arrested declared off limits!
Taking the long way around to where Ulysses was first recorded with his tail literally between his legs as he ran, the reporter began painstakingly retracing every step Ulysses took from the moment he was shot and the tail briefly appeared, until the suspect was arrested.
Walking every square inch of the street, the reporter looked under parked cars. He searched the curb side gutters. He tried looking inside every culvert, even to the point of taking photos through the open drain covers in hopes of catching a glimpse of something. Anything.
Part of him wished he did find something, just to say all his hard work wasn't for nothing, even though that would mean his editor was right and the tail issue truly was a non-story.
But the longer the search continued and provided no evidence of a tail, costumed or otherwise, the more the reporter thought about what might actually be the truth.
Lionel Ulysses truly was a two legged rat!
Despite being tired, the reporter continued his search for a good ten feet past where Lionel Ulysses was arrested, to allow for the present wind currents, but still came up empty handed.
Yet the reporter also knew that just because he found nothing didn't mean the tail was real.
For all he knew, the police could have found the fake appendage and never said anything. Yet wouldn't they want to prove the tail was fake and get nosy reporters like him out of their hair?
Or it could have been stuck to the interior of Ulysses' pants and was now somewhere in the hospital with the rest of his physical possessions, and no one there realized what they had.
Either way, no evidence of a tail didn't mean there wasn't a story to cover.
Undaunted, the reporter made his way back to his car and decided to head to the hospital where Lionel Ulysses was treated and murdered.
Who killed the rat, and why?
But as the reporter left, he was totally unaware that he had been observed during his entire search by someone who now entered their own car and started to discreetly follow him.
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*A friendly reminder. As mentioned in my previous contribution to this thread ("What Story?"), since CYOC.net wisely does not allow fan fiction, calling the lead character "The Reporter" is the closest we shall ever get to honoring a classic TV show of the 1970s.—tmw.