Author's Note: My thanks to "Nnnrg" for the links and info provided. Hopefully this will fix some of the plot holes...
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Officer Barnes and I took down a list of everything that the man said was stolen from him by these burglars and placed that in the front seat of our car. There wasn't much else that we could do at the house other then check for fingerprints and perhaps ask some of the man's neighbors if they had seen anything. That portion would be a big part of the present investigation since as far as I could tell, the burglars had been Animal People who had become some rodent species, and possibly a species of rat. And there were many different species of rats in the world, with the Black and Brown Rats being the most successful... but there could be multiple looks they could have.
The Gen-U-Tech worker, Michelle had become a Brown Rat, but based off of Brown Rats that had long been domesticated for sale as pets and for scientific use. As a result, she had a coat that was two colors, brown and white and was in a way that the wild version of the same species didn't resemble. The wild version of the Brown Rat was completely brown when it came to its color. We'd need some information on that so we knew what we were looking for. Because otherwise, all we had was a scent, and people, even Animal People would probably become uneasy to have five hundred fifty five pound tiger come up and check their scent to see if it matched the scent the thieves had left behind. We'd need some other clue.
"Say, George," Officer Barnes commented as we began to collect the supplies needed to check the doors and maybe some of the other sites in the house for fingerprints, "is Molly still looking to renew her driver's license?"
"Yeah, we intend to go over that tomorrow during lunch," I shrugged, "the plan is that I'll drive in to work tomorrow and then when it's lunchtime, we'll spend the hour dealing with the driver's testing and all that."
"It may take you a bit more then that," Officer Barnes sighed, "I checked over a few things in a moment of spare time... and you were right to suppose that a resident would need a state issued license... I've been been here awhile, and I don't think I've ever pulled over someone that was in violation of those codes... and it must have slipped my mind."
"Neither of us were probably thinking all that well," I sighed, "I should have remembered that from the academy... Molly checked a lot of that stuff up online."
"So you know...?" Officer Barnes wondered.
"Yeah," I nodded, "I'm going to wonder how they will respond to the fact that Molly didn't apply for a state license within sixty days of declaring residency..."
"She was already a tiger person when you two moved here, and she couldn't drive," Officer Barnes commented, "you may have to take it as a "special assignment" as I'm sure this will go over your lunch hour. They may respond to that more easily... and hopefully the school can get a sub for your wife."
"Hopefully," I shrugged, "I still wonder how that will go."
"Hopefully well," Officer Barnes sighed, "and again, sorry for having a bit of a brain fart on all of this."
I nodded and began to follow Officer Barnes back toward the house. Molly's license was one of the various mundane issues that were left to be solved now that Beauregard, R.A.M. and all of the things that went with it were gone. And the actual process itself wasn't too hard, the main issue with that was that Molly and I were somewhat confused over differences between Montana and Illinois and the string of rough cases that had been "thrown" at me had done enough that the exact laws related to getting Molly's license renewed slipped my mind. And Officer Barnes, had apparently never pulled someone over that had violated those laws, and as a result, he hadn't thought of them explicitly and they slipped his mind too. Upon checking over things, and seeing those rules, I had felt like beating myself over the head for forgetting something so basic, and I was sure Officer Barnes probably felt the same way.
But still, Molly and I did everything we needed to renew her license, including the money to pay for it. Of course, there would probably be a fine related to the fact that Molly didn't apply for the license within sixty days of moving to Montana, but there might have been some exception. When Molly and I had moved to Columbia Falls, the new vehicles being built for Animal People, such as the Transit we'd bought, Toyota's HiAce, GM's Furtopia hadn't existed yet. And at the same time, Molly was too big to effectively drive the vehicles available. As a result, Molly hadn't intended on driving anywhere and figured she wouldn't be able to drive again, and so, we hadn't bothered to renew her license so that the state that issued it was the state she was living in... after all, why would someone who would never drive a vehicle need a driver's license. But things had since changed, and we would need to go through that process, but that was something to be looked at later. For the moment, Officer Barnes and I still had things to do that related to investigation of the burglary of that had been committed some time earlier in the day... by rather brazen thieves, given that it was done in broad daylight.
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"What is all that?" the homeowner asked Officer Barnes and I went back through the house and began to dust the back door for fingerprints that the burglars might have left behind.
"A specialized dust used to see if your thieves left any prints behind," Officer Barnes answered, "if they left prints behind, we can run them against the profiles on both the State and Federal registries."
And that was one key thing to figuring out who our crooks were. It wouldn't give us a description of what they looked like, but if the prints proved to be a match on any of the databases of known criminals or people nn "most wanted" lists, we'd at least have a name to put on the reports on the burglary. Much of this work was fairly delicate and for the speed of the work, I left that to Officer Barnes rather then trying to fumble with my much larger fingers. I could manage it, obviously, but it would take me longer then it would Officer Barnes to do it.
"If they don't match anything already on file or on a database, we'd open it as a new file and a new case with a "John Doe" as the suspect name until we get more information in that way," I added, "We shouldn't be in your way... or at least not too much."
"Will it help catch whoever did this?" the man wondered.
"It'll help us be able to prove who did this before a judge," Officer Barnes answered, "finding them will require some other steps... but we must do this to make sure we have evidence. The more evidence we have, the more likely we'll be able to get a conviction."
"If it helps get those thieves, I don't care if you're in my way," the man replied, "I want my things back."
"We'll do our best to do that," I promised him, "but we can't guarantee that we'll be able to recover your things. The only thing we can guarantee is that the man who robbed you will be brought to justice."
Officer Barnes continued his work in dusting for whatever fingerprints the thieves might have left behind. If they had, there was an easy way to prove which where theres and which were the prints belonging to the man and his family that owned the house. The Animatrix Serum didn't remove human fingerprints. Molly and I still had ours on the pads underneath our fingers, toes, and even the larger pads on our hands and feet. But because of the size of our fingers and the way they were shaped to form our paw-like hands, our prints wouldn't resemble a human's fingerprints when opening things like doors and other things. Even though the crooks who had burgled the home were some species of rat, their prints would be much the same way. Altered in a way that would betray their species, but the exact line of the prints themselves would match the human prints they'd had before. But because of the alterations in the form of the print because of the Animatrix Serum we would be able to tell who's prints were the thieves and who's prints were the home owner's.
And so far, that was fairly easily collected. We collected one set of "rat prints" on the back door handles. That would likely identify one of the two burglars, as we could tell there were two of them based on the footprints left in the snow. But it was clear that the thieves had left prints behind. We then repeated the process again at the various sites in the house where things were stolen by the two thieves. We collected the same prints as those left on the back door in one of them and we got a second set of prints in the other places and on the front door as we finished up the portion where we were checking for prints.
"Why do you think they din't wear gloves at all?" the man asked as we finished the process on the front door.
He had quietly followed us as we did our work. He stayed back enough that he wasn't interfering with the investigation, but it was clear that he was interested in it.
"Probably related to the fact that the the thieves are Animal People," I commented. All I had was a guess, but I figured it was a good guess, "mundane animals do not have prints the way humans have prints. You can't identify an individual dog by its prints. You might identify the species, Domestic Dog, and the exact breed but not an individual. Among mundane animals, it's commonly some marking on the body that one can use to identify an individual. Among mundane tigers for example, no two tigers have stripes that are exactly alike, even among family members and I'd bet that the thieves are thinking they as Animal People now fall into that sort of category. They only way they could be identified by some external marking in their fur or by their scent."
"But Animal People don't lose their finger prints?" the man wondered.
"No Animal that has become a mammal has lost their human fingerprints," I answered, "My wife and I haven't lost ours, and you can even see them in our pads... I don't know about those that have become birds, reptiles, and amphibians... the scales on reptiles and feathers on birds might either cover up the prints or remove them... that I don't know for sure."
"Seems like these guys are fairly stupid then," the man commented.
"Most crooks usually are," Officer Barnes commented, "that's why they're crooks."
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The last part of our investigation of the burglary that we could do was to ask a few of the neighbors to see if they had seen anything. That was the big thing that had to be done, as we had no physical description of the thieves, and we would need one to identify the exact species of rat they had become and if they had any markings that would allow us to identify them when found. And it was entirely possible that someone had seen them in the course of their burglary. Not everyone worked during the day, or went to school the way the victims of the burglary did, and considering what was taken from the home, unless they lumped it all into a large sack, the thieves would have had to make multiple trips in and out. And then of course, the was the obvious fact that if we had a witness, we'd know how they got into the house in the first place and in what direction they went after they burgled the home. It wasn't much, but it was the best that we could start with.
Given that there were a few houses in the area, and it appeared that both thieves had come in through the back door after going through the backyard of the burglary victim, there was a fair amount of ground to cover. To cover it, Officer Barnes and I decided to split up. I'd ask around some of the neighboring houses and see if the residents there had seen anything while Officer Barnes would go around the block to see if anyone had noticed any suspicious activity. When we'd completed all of that, we'd regroup and carry what we had collected back to the station.
At first, I'd had no real luck. At two of the nearby homes, no one was home. At the other, a woman was home, but she had only just returned home and hadn't seen anything at all during the time frame that Officer Barnes and I suspected the burglary had taken place. I advised her to keep a lookout in case the two burglars decided to go over this specific area again. I then made my way toward the final home in the area from which someone could have easily seen what had happened in the course of the burglary. I hoped whoever lived there had seen something that would be of use. Because if not, the best we could do was put out an advisory that there were a pair of rat people burglarizing the area and that everyone should be on the alert for any signs of them.
Some of that would probably be put out anyway, but without an exact description of what they looked like, there would be the risk of other problems being born out of it. Small towns didn't have a lot of these things and and incident like this would create some fear of it becoming rampant. Solving the case wouldn't be an easy proposition, but I was sure that whoever these thieves were, they would be caught. Having people go overboard because someone had been burgled would be a definite problem on some level.
I arrived at the last home and rang the doorbell and waited for an answer. I was soon rewarded with loud mutterings coming from inside the home.
"Damn thing's not workin' and now someone's at the door!" came an irritated growl, which changed to a call to me, "Hang on, I'm coming!"
The voice sounded like an elderly male. And it turned out it was an elderly man who opened the door while trying to figure out some cell-phone in his other hand.
"An officer..." he spoke slowly.
"Yes," I nodded, "I'm..."
"How'd you get here already?" the man demanded, "this damn thing won't work and I haven't been able to call anyone yet!"
He then waved the cell-phone up in my face.
"I can see your phone, fine sir," I told him, "No need to do that."
"Why isn't it working?" he wondered and then handed me the phone of all things.
I glanced at it and saw he had been trying to call the police station directly. Unfortunately the phone was configured to be able to do Internet searches and Email in addition to normal phone conversations and he was hitting a "select" button that was for the web features on the phone rather then the "enter" button that would actually place the call.
"You were hitting the wrong button, sir, you needed to hit this one to place the call," I explained while holding the phone up and pointing to the appropriate buttons, "but it would appear that you were trying to call the station, so since I am here, there is no need for you to do that."
The elderly man took the phone, looked at and then grumbled, "Darn small buttons. Can't even read all the little things without my reading glasses."
He then placed the phone in his pocket and I sighed.
"I'm here, sir to ask a few questions about a burglary that occurred next door," I explained, "did you see anything? Is that why you were trying to call the station?"
"Darn right that's why I was callin'," the man said firmly, "saw two of them come out of the alley and into my neighbor's house. They went in carrying a big ol' backpack and then walked out the other door and strolled down the street like it was their house!"
"Could you see how they got in?" I asked, "or what they looked like? Were they Animal People? Like me."
"They were a bit fuzzy, but not like you," the old man answered, "both male, about six foot tall, maybe a little shorter... all covered in black fur..."
"Were they rats?" I asked, trying to confirm what I smelled earlier.
"I think so," the man commented, "didn't get much of a look at them other then seeing them go in and then seeing them go out. Looked fairly slender. Like you could eat 'em in a couple of bites."
"I have no interest in eating them, sir," I commented.
"Why not? Dirty rats burgled the area!"
"I've heard that criminals taste nasty," I quipped, "besides, tigers prey on deer, wild pigs, and other large mammals."
"You'll still catch them, though, right?" the elderly man asked.
"Try to," I nodded, "was their anything that stood out on them? Or..."
"Other then being rats? I don't know," the elderly man replied.
I slowly sighed. The man had seen them go in and out, but other then identifying them as Rat People, he couldn't see anything explicit. But what he gave me would probably be enough to identify the species. The two men were likely Black Rats. I thanked the man for his help and advised him to be careful and then made my way back out to see that Officer Barnes was returning from his series questioning.
"How'd you do?" he asked as we made our way back to our car.
"Relatively well," I shrugged, "a neighbor saw them go in and go out. The two thieves are Animal People, and based off of his description, they're male Black Rats. How'd you do?"
"About the same," Officer Barnes sighed, "only one guy was home, saw two black furred Rat People walking along an alley behind their house toward the victim's backyard. He never reported it because he thought they were local high schoolers having a "skip day"..."
"Do you think it could have been?" I wondered.
"Maybe," Officer Barnes shrugged, "Gen-U-Tech doesn't call police stations to let them know who's bought the Serum. So some High School Senior other the Amos and Marcella could have bought the Serum."
"So, I guess we go down to the High School tomorrow morning and ask Marcella or Amos or the secretaries if there are any other students that have come to school a bit furrier lately..." I commented.
"Tomorrow morning," Officer Barnes nodded, "before your special assignment."