571 CH44 (566), Police (14)

Dave, the now ex-crime boss, glared at us, though I felt like the glare aimed at me went on a bit longer than the one aimed at Detective Monroe which was not all that surprising. I mean, he wouldn't have ordered a hit on me, if he did not know that I was a major part of why things went south for him and his troupe.

Nonetheless, I ignored him and impassively watched him as he took a seat across from us. Once he had settled down, Detective Monroe took the folder from the table and began the usual spiel.

"Dave Afillin, 42 years old, born in Lime City. Grew up in the by-now closed-down Citro Orphanage until you went out on your journey as a trainer at 15. Due to rather average results at the trainer school you had to choose a starter from the common starter pool provided by Lime City.

Following your debut as an official trainer it took you over 2 years to become a Junior Trainer, where you struggled for the next 12 years before finally ranking up to the Senior Class. After 4 years as a Senior Class trainer, you decided to give up the struggle and retire, due to seeing no real chance at becoming an Expert Class trainer, at least not the usual way.

You used the experience you gathered as a result of your struggles during your journey of two decades to establish yourself in the criminal world, gathering some reliable underlings to form the core of your gang before recruiting some desperate people to act as minions/underlings.

Your gang based itself in your hometown Lime City, from where you operated for the last 6 years before you decided to move on to a bigger place, Celadon City." Detective Monroe read before closing the folder and throwing it on the table. The sound of the folder hitting the table made Dave reflexively flinch.

There were two main reasons why Detective Monroe did that whole show. Firstly, it was to intimidate the criminal, here that was Dave, by showing him that we had dug up his past and already "knew everything" we needed to know about him.

The second, more practical reason was that the summary subconsciously prepped Dave's mind and memories for my intrusion. Doing this made it easier for me to find relevant stuff since the "reading" gave Dave's mind a focus, making it less chaotic.

The targeted question that would then follow during the interrogation would then make use of this to push the related memories to the forefront, or at least make it easier for me to find them.

"You think you know me," Dave snorted following his flinch. "You know nothing, Detective. This isn't over yet," he spat out before reclining on his seat, showing that he was not planning to cooperate.

Thankfully, we did not really need his cooperation. Dave only needed to hear and understand the inquiries Detective Monroe was going to make. As long as he understood those, I would have an easier time finding relevant information in his mind, whether he wanted it or not. I did not believe that Dave had the necessary training to ignore this approach.

"We know enough to put you away for a long long time. In fact, seeing the extent of your gang's operations, you as the boss might not simply get locked away, but be assigned an even harder sentence. If you don't want to experience the worst possible outcome, you better help us fill in any gaps, in exchange for a lighter sentence. Being simply locked away is still better than the alternative that most likely awaits you if you don't," Detective Monroe ignored Dave's attitude and gave off another intimidation before she began asking questions.

I began to dive into Dave's mind, and what I saw, more than anything, confirmed that he knew his mind was going to be read. I came face-to-face with Dave's attempt at blocking me from going over his thoughts.

I heard him thinking that he had to ignore everything and only remember all the women he slept with. Hence, Dave's mind was mostly preoccupied with memories of him sleeping with various women. I honestly could have done without seeing that, and using lustful thoughts to distract/safeguard himself was actually quite clever since these kinds of memories were not only distracting but also strong/intense due to the emotions linked to them.

Unfortunately for Dave, I was a good enough telepath to not only ignore the debauched memories he pushed to the forefront but to also capture and follow the case-relevant memories that briefly surfaced when he heard Detective Monroe's inquiries.

Still, I had to admit that his strategy was disturbing my work to some degree, making it harder than usual. I had to prompt Detective Monroe to repeat certain questions, which she did. She kept going through our list even though Dave remained uncooperative. The man answered none of our questions and did his best to ignore us.

Still, despite his attempts, I did manage to get the answers we were looking for, and roughly 15 minutes in, I found out something that explained his attitude at the beginning, along with why he was so adamant about making my job so hard. I quickly did another check to make sure that I had not misunderstood anything, which I unfortunately didn't.

I briefly considered telling Detective Monroe about it first, but I decided that I'd rather not repeat what I found since I would definitely have to tell Detective Loneson about it, so instead, I stretched my senses a bit and contacted one of the officers outside the interrogation room.

I told him to act as if the Chief had called both Detective Monroe and myself over since I had found some information that had to be discussed without Dave's notice. The Officer nodded, even though we were separated by a literal wall, and moments later there was a knock on the the door.

"Please excuse the interruption," the officer began. "The Chief wants to talk to you two, so could you please step out for a minute," he notified us, and I told Detective Monroe telepathically to go along with the request.

"Well, it seems we'll have to leave you alone for a minute or two. You better think things through and decide to work with us by the time we are back," Detective Monroe advised Dave, before leaving the room with me.

"Alright, what's going on," she asked looking between me and Officer Modnar. "No idea, it was him who told me to call you two out. I'm curious why he did that myself," he directly admitted and both stared at me waiting for an answer.

"Let's move to the viewing room before I answer that. Detective Loneson needs to hear it as well." That I would rather not repeat myself was left unsaid but tactically implied. The two nodded, and we moved on to the viewing room.

"I was about to go out and look for you," Detective Loneson said as soon as we stepped through the door. "Why did you interrupt the interrogation? I know for a fact that the Chief did not call for you two," he said while calling attention to the presence of the Chief in the room.

"I'm curious as well," Chief Junsa spoke up. "Who can tell me what was so important for you to use me as an excuse," he asked sternly, and both Detective Monroe and Officer Modnar looked at me, pointing me out as the cause of all this.

"Chief, I just managed to uncover some information that could not wait. Dave Afillin was never the true boss of the criminal gang. He was just the stand-in for the true boss," I dropped a truth bomb that took everyone present off guard.

"If Afillin is not the true boss then who is?" The chief questioned, with everyone else mirroring his curiosity. "It's his right-hand woman. She is actually the true boss, but she chose to push her most trusted man to the role of the gang boss and lead the gang as his right hand instead. The two of them, along with the enforcer who escaped with her are the only ones who know this," I disclosed and they showed varying degrees of surprise, though I knew that all of them were astonished by the news.

"Wait a minute, I can understand why Dave would agree to play the role of the gang boss, but why is he still insisting on keeping up the charade? He should know that his sentence will be less severe if he admits to being a fake boss," Detective Loneson asked, and the others nodded since it was true.

"Stella saved Dave's life a couple of times, so he feels indebted to her. That she has/had a lot of dirt on him probably helped as well. Either way, he won't sell her out unless his life is at stake," I shared, indirectly pointing out that he might have done so if his life had been in imminent danger.

I then proceeded to share the things I had learned about Stella with them, such as the fact that she was an Expert-Class trainer, which was another reason Dave went along with her plans. I also mentioned that Stella and the enforcer had probably already vacated Celadon City since according to Dave's thoughts the current situation had already exceeded Stella's bottom line. In his mind, Stella should have immediately left the city as soon as she escaped from the raid.

If it had been the only that, then I would have considered the matter closed, at least for us since she would have left our jurisdiction. However, Dave was pretty certain that Stella would put out a bounty/hit on me. At least that was what I managed to conclude from the vindictive thoughts against me that I managed to unearth underneath all his dirty thoughts.

Since there was such a risk, I decided to directly bring up the matter of continually keeping Hades/Gengar inside my shadow, and taking the situation at hand into account, Chief Junsa agreed to my request.

From now on, I would be allowed to carry around Hades inside my shadow wherever I went, unannounced I might add. Chief Junsa assured me that he would clear the matter with the Alliance HQ, so that I could do the same in any other official alliance facility, such as the PokeCenter.

Seeing how I had received the permission, I brought Hades out right away so that he could directly start his job. However, instead of immediately diving into my shadow as I had expected him to, Hades briefly froze before he began to scrutinize the area.

Seemingly finding nothing, he gave me a thumbs up and the others a nod, before slowly sinking into my shadow. I knew he could jump inside instantly, so he was doing the slow part on purpose to act cool, but I wanted to know what just happened so that was fine.

"Hades, wait a moment," I stopped his "dramatic" exit, and he threw me a questioning look. "Why did you react like that just now?" I asked and he awkwardly scratched the side of his face. "I thought I felt something in the shadows, but after taking a look, I saw that there was nothing there. Sorry for worrying you," he said sheepishly, before jumping inside my shadow.

I was not so sure if he simply had a misconception or not, but either way there was nothing there now. Besides, nothing harmful happened up until this moment, and with Hades chilling in the shadows from now on, I would not have to worry about anything happening in the future, so I let the matter rest.

Not that I could have done anything about it even if I wanted since I did not know if anything had been in the shadows or not, or if there had been something, where it came from, and why it was there. The only thing I could think of was that it might have been a secret tail/protector sent by the order or alliance, though my protectors/tail had supposedly been withdrawn, so there was that.

Anyway, once Hades vanished, the Chief told me to dig up anything I could on Stella from Dave, while they would do the same through the alliance network. With those orders, Detective Monroe and I moved back to the interrogation room, intent on learning more about Stella.

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