"I'm sure, but it's like you said yesterday to my brothers," Amy commented, "Moon Lake has plans to deal with these sorts of situations. It's partially why we have so many laws about when and where we can transform..."
Tad nodded for a moment, remembering what he'd learned from his mother and the handbook that Samantha Twist had left at the house for Tad to familiarize himself on Moon Lake's ordinances regarding when and where a were could be in their animal form. Even though Moon Lake was a were sanctuary, weres couldn't transform in public until after dark, likely to make sure that if any Normal just happening to drive through the town from outside Moon Lake wouldn't get a clear image of a were in their were-form. Weres couldn't transform on private land, such as the farms and ranches along the outskirts of the town's city limits, without permission by the owner, so as to keep livestock from panicking and creating bigger problems.
It made sense that Moon Lake would have measures and means to either protect its secret or handle revealing weres to the world in such a way that the worst negatives would be avoided. That didn't mean that the overall situation still wasn't a "weird" one. Even if there were means to protect the secret, that didn't mean having to use them was easy or wasn't frustrating.
"I'm sure," Tad nodded, "hopefully though no one really gets upset over what will have to be done."
"No one will blame you or your mom," Amy assured him, "I've heard some of the rumors too. They are all blaming Ulysses."
To that, Tad nodded.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile, in Seattle, Tom the reporter drove from his newspaper's offices to the warehouse district where the police and FBI had found and tried to catch Lionel Ulysses. Despite the fact that the area included now what could be labeled as a "crime scene" the region was rather quiet. Tom drove along until he found a small crowd gathering around one particular warehouse, and one that had yellow police tape blocking off the doors that indicated that it was the warehouse were Lionel Ulysses had been operating out of or perhaps even living in when he was in Seattle. He saw a fair bit of action towards the center of the crowd, and figured this was the guy that had supposedly found the "tail."
"Has to be the place," Tom commented and pulled his car over to a side near the entrance of another warehouse that was nearby, though he hoped he was out of the way of both the workers going in and out of the warehouses and any other vehicles that were bringing new shipments in.
Tom emerged from his car and slowly walked toward the crowd where he could hear a few hushed comments of amazement and a rather excited voice claiming to have found it in a gutter. Tom quietly made his way forward to find a rather dirty looking man standing at the center of the crowd and holding what looked like a modest sized cardboard box. A few people noticed him and stepped aside, but Tom didn't try to force his way through. After a few moments the man holding the box took notice of him and stopped displaying the box for the others and stood face him directly.
"So, mister, you come to see the tail too?" the man said with a smile.
"In a way," Tom answered, "Tom Herald, I'm a reporter with the Seattle Times and have been looking into the details behind the arrest, capture, and ultimately murder of the criminal Lionel Ulysses. I've found a lot of things that the FBI and the police gave in their statement that doesn't fully add up what was shown in footage presented on the arrest of Lionel Ulysses. Perhaps, you might be able help make things a bit clearer."
The man gave a very toothy smile.
"Then you came to the right place, for I found the tail that everyone's been looking for!" the man smiled.
The crowd began to part as Tom came further forward and as the man presented the box to him. He looked into the box to see a long narrow "tail" laying coiled in the bottom of the box. It was pinkish in color with the sort of parallel lines that seemed to mark the individual sections of a rat's tail, but did carry the image of it being a costume piece, as there was no sign of hair or blood in the box, which would be there if it was a biological appendage. As if it were a real appendage and had been cut off, fur from the area where a rat's tail joined the body of a rat would be present when the tail is cut off, not to mention that even Brown and Black Rats didn't have completely hairless tails. Not to mention the fact that if it was a real tail there would be some blood present because of the amputation of a limb. The fact that no hair or blood was present would give some indication that the tail was a costume piece.
"So you found this?" Tom asked.
The man nodded eagerly.
"Care to tell me how you found it?" Tom asked.
"Sure," the man nodded, and then pointed out in a diagonal direction from where they presently were, "I was hanging out behind one of the dumpsters back over that way."
Tom paused and looked in that direction, "So you were here when the FBI and the police launched their raid?"
"Yeah," the man nodded quickly, almost too quickly, "though I didn't necessarily see the start of it. I was asleep when I heard a huge boom in the distance. It woke me up..."
"The booby trap that Ulysses had laid woke you up?" Tom asked.
"Yeah," the man nodded, "though by the time that I could reach a corner to see what was going on... I could only see him running off with the tail trailing behind him."
"So... he ran off," Tom mused.
"Yeah, but the officers paused to check on their officers and what was the fate of the rest of the gang," the man continued, "so when I followed along behind where the Ulysses was and saw him toss the tail when he came to the fence..."
"And you retrieved the tail?" Tom asked.
"Yeah... the officers all went by it when they went to pursue Ulysses, so why not collect the tail?" the man retorted, "it is a big trophy from the biggest gun-fight Seattle's ever had! And it is not like the tail proves Ulysses' guilt or innocence."
Tom slowly nodded. There was some sense in that, as the police and FBI were already after Lionel Ulysses and stated they had the evidence to convict him of at least the murder of US Marine Corps officer Major Jeff Decker. Having the tail wouldn't have added to Ulysses guilt or proved him innocent. However, to Tom, that tail was important to deal with the oddness that came about after the body camera footage was shown.
"So... you say you followed Ulysses... did any of the officers see you?" Tom asked.
"Well... I didn't follow him," the man admitted, "I merely moved to another corner of the buildings I was near so that I could watch him run to the fence and discard the tail there. And no the officers didn't see me. I didn't go and retrieve the tail until after they'd gone by."
"And when you saw Ulysses run... how did the tail hang? How fast did he seem to run?" Tom asked.
"He ran about as fast as anyone else would," the man commented, "but the tail seemed to flail out behind him... like for balance."
Tom's eyes narrowed slightly. A loose costume tail would hang out based on the momentum of something wearing it, but it would take a great deal of speed in order to do that. A human being couldn't naturally run fast enough for that to fly up, the weight of tail would be too much for that. It might bounce up, but that would be after a foot or a leg kicked it and wouldn't look as though the tail was to help balance things out. That was something that a natural animal tail or a more advanced "mechanical" tail would do, but since the tail looked more like rope covered in rubber to look like a costume tail it was unlikely that it was the sort of tail would give Ulysses some balance. This meant that the man was likely only trying to gain attention from something that was big in the news or was simply crazy.
"I'd probably still need get proof from a biologist and a physicist..." Tom thought, "just to demonstrate how an animal would use its tail and how fast a person would need to run in order for a rubber tail to flail out like an animal's tail at a full sprint. I can probably get that done today... just to prove to the editor that this guy's story is completely made up."
"That is quite a tale to tell," Tom commented politely after a moment. He didn't believe the man, but he didn't want to provoke an argument before he could prove his case.
"It is, and all true," the man smiled.
"Sure," Tom commented.
"Will this be in the paper?" the man asked.
"It may... once I get all the facts together," Tom replied, "have a good day."
With that, Tom walked quietly back to his car. He didn't believe the man, but given his editor's demand on facts, he would need to do some things to be able to prove the man's stories as false, which would mean heading back to his office to check some phone numbers to get in touch with some experts. He'd need an expert on animals, who could explain how animals used their tails for balance, which he could get from the local zoo. He'd also need an engineering expert to explain how a rope and rubber tail would work and whether or not such a tail could act to balance out a man running, and how fast the man would need to run in order to do so. He was also tempted to find a scientist who had studied physics and knew about momentum and related sciences to provide additional proof on whether or not a human man wearing a rubber tail could run fast enough to have the rubber tail held out in the air as though it were an animal's tail. Tom wasn't an expert in these areas, but he was fairly certain that the answers he'd get would disprove what the man claimed.