Inspector Cohan returned to his own office at the station shortly after dropping off the copy of the image that Archibald Walters' security camera had caught to the police. It was a step forward and was something that might finally get the Alice Springs Police some hints as to who the mystery nugget suspect was beyond the face that he had. See if there might be someone in town who might know more about the patch that the man war, because there were just too many unknowns with the suspect as it presently stood and without additional information, it'd run the risk of becoming a cold case and essentially put aside as something they couldn't solve. And on certain levels, some of the lack of hints and clues only left them looking at making it a cold case, though Inspector Cohan was not one to want to give up easily.
As he opened the door to his office space, he heard steps coming toward him and clicking across the floor as they did so. He then looked up to see a lone woman in a grey suit, though he also noted a badge hanging by a chain that indicated she was working for the highest law enforcement agency for Australia as a whole. She seemed to recognize him and looked to him directly as she approached.
"Can I help you with something, Ma'am?" Inspector Cohan asked, "a case you're working on?"
"More like a case YOU'RE working on," the woman answered, "Inspector Rebecca Harold with Federal Police. You're the one that sent in a request to us regarding a security camera image that one of your residents had caught..."
Inspector Cohan could only just keep himself from jumping in some measure of excitement, as that had been one of the first things they'd done once they had the mystery nugget suspect's image. For they had no name, and the worst that they could really hit the man within this case that would stick would be trespassing. That was frustrating, but with no local warrants for the man in Alice Springs and those that had seen the man's face only knew the face and did not know the name. They thus sent formal requests to the Federal Police who might have more facial recognition equipment that might be able to tie the suspect to a name in Australia's database of possible crooks and criminals, if not making contact with law enforcement outside of Australia, in case the man went beyond Australia.
"They sent someone in person!" Inspector Cohan gasped and opened the door wide to let Inspector Rebecca Harold in, "pardon the mess and the cramped space... it's not much, and I've been running myself ragged trying to get anything that might help us find this guy... or at least identify who he is and get the answers to many of the questions that have been there since this gold nugget was found and our local rancher caught the man's face on his security camera."
"I can imagine, particularly when it's generated some mysteries of its own on our end," Inspector Rebecca Harold answered, "it's why it's take us so long to get back to you and your request... and why I'm here personally."
"No bureaucratic red tape?" Inspector Cohan wondered.
"That is always there," Inspector Rebecca Harold answered, "and to a degree that slowed some things down at first... but once we were able to get some clearances, we've found things that have generated questions of our own."
"He's not some serial killer, is he?" Inspector Cohan asked, "and that all that he's done is a set up for some violent killing spree?"
"We found nothing that would indicate that," Inspector Rebecca Harold answered, "more that we've gotten a lot of things that would relate to the base questions I'm sure you already have..."
"That you have a face but no name?" Inspector Cohan asked, his voice becoming a bit depressed at that.
"More that we have a bunch of fake names," Inspector Rebecca Harold answered, "for this guy has shown up at various rallies and meetings around Australia that go back to shortly after Animalia was founded and interest among some residents in becoming Animalians... often to heal injuries and so on... was there. All of this was before the present colonies that are here today."
"A bunch of fake names?" Inspector Cohan asked.
"Yes, all for a series of small sorts of things... nothing that would normally be considered serious and would only require a fine," Inspector Rebecca Harold answered, "and all of it is not something that would be truly serious or confrontational but would represent an uncanny ability to habitually fall into such bad luck situations. Though from the records we've found, he's paid the required fines... in cash... and leaving behind the name in that area. We only found out that these names were fake when the same face came up in different areas and different names came up, often connected with different low-level crimes... littering or something like that. Again, none of it has been super serious."
"Which would be similar to what we've had here, where the only thing we can hit him with is trespassing," Inspector Cohan sighed.
"And he's paid the fines... in cash," Inspector Rebecca Harold commented, "but because he's paid in cash, we can't connect the fines paid for these crimes to any account where we can get the real name... and we've also found that he's also given false addresses in connection with handling the other incidents... though, because they were such low level crimes that could even be written off as something committed without intention of doing so, no one really bothered to deal with this. After all, nothing was done that would indicate a real threat of something truly serious."
She ignored some of the papers that littered Inspector Cohan's desk, largely as she did note some excitement that the Alice Springs detective had had when she voiced that she had some information.
"But the multiple linked names to the face, John Snow in Canberra, Archibald Wavel in Sydny, and Sydny Green in Perth, make us wonder that there might be something else that is involved in all of this," Inspector Rebecca Harold then finished.
"We've gone from no name to many names," Inspector Cohan clinched his fist for a moment, as things like aliases could then be hard to pin down easily with regard to addresses, "particularly when this guy has operated in a way that would suggest that there is something MORE going on than just the low level crimes we can hit him with."
"Not necessarily a bad theory... though we'll still need MORE information on this guy before we can begin seriously looking in that direction," Inspector Rebecca Harold nodded, "particularly when some of the replies came in from some of the other areas he's been seen..."
"Other areas?" Inspector Cohan blinked and looking up to the Federal Police Inspector.
"Yes, as you mentioned in your initial message to us, this guy seems highly interested in Animalians and their colonies, even if he hasn't wished to become an Animalian himself," Inspector Rebecca Harold answered, "so we got in touch with the legal authorities in Animalia and some of their various colonies. And this took time to get an answer from them, likely red tape, but we did ultimately get some information that he's visited Vilcabamba, Maelewano, and New Zerzura and supposedly even got to talk with the colony leaders there. They couldn't fully tell us what was discussed, but they did provide security camera footage form when he arrived, and all of this was years ago, like when these colonies were just started."
"Would make me think he's looking at how these other colonies set up their administration or had success," Inspector Cohan mused, "though... that's also just something I suspect that's also something we can't prove right now... It's just a suspicion, and one centered around the use of this gold nugget as an enticement. It's just a theory, but I think he's wanting to trigger a gold rush onto Archibald Walters' land to speculate for it... possibly giving it to the Animalians."
"Which in a way would fit with Animalia's wealth itself," Inspector Rebecca Harold nodded, "but as of right now, all that is speculation. And while we're still looking into finding out who this guy's name is... speculating doesn't help."
Inspector Cohan nodded.
"And in the three Animalian colonies that we got names from..." Inspector Rebecca Harold continued, "we have Jason Synfyl, Thor Lokison, and Ben Parsons. And in all three spots... there were also cases where minor things that could be taken as "accidents" did occurred."
"And he paid for the damages in cash?" Inspector Cohan asked.
"For everything, including the plane flights," Inspector Rebecca Harold nodded, "which only makes things harder..."