File 5.5 - Chasing Leads

“Was it really a good idea to send those two, Cap’n?” inquired Sheila, sitting in their rental.

The morning left quickly with Fin getting things set up. There was a significant amount of information to crawl over and leads to track down. It took until the late afternoon to start actually acting on any of it. He sent off Sam and Nate as part of the investigation. “Ya worried?”

“’course I am! Those two idiots wouldn’t know how tah ask for directions to get across tha street!”

Fin laughed a bit at the exaggeration. “Prolly, but it ain’t like I gave them something hard. I just want them talking to people, get things moving on the streets.”

“Still a bad idea.”

He shrugged back to her. More pressing matters were at hand for them. Most of the leads, or what should have been leads dried up fast. It became clear quickly to Fin why the police were having trouble. Staring at the chart of hit warehouses didn’t help him any. “These guys are very good or very lucky.”

“The security in place wherev’r they go always happens to have malfunctions. Convenient for them, no cameras or charged fences.”

Nodding, he looked out of the car at one of the warehouses. “Yea, they’re knocking out security and taking off with whatever they want.” He had some hope just looking at the scenes would give him something. They were a clean and efficient team, whatever they were doing.

A lot of it still didn’t make a lot of sense to him. He flipped through the reported stolen items. “Most of these ain’t that valuable, comparatively anyway. There were better things to steal. Still bugs me.” His finger tapped on the screen trying to find the pattern. All of the locations were random, so there had to be an answer elsewhere.

Sheila pulled the computer back over to her lap. “There’s som’fin here, I think.”

The rough treatment sent a bit of a frustrated look over at Sheila. However, he had his curiosity at what she might have discovered. He leaned over. It was the same list of stolen items. “See a pattern?” Fin wondered what she saw that he missed before.

“Ain’t all of this a little odd?” She raised the pad to show it to him.

“Well ya, I’ve been sayin’ that already.”

“No, the things stolen. They’re all ship parts or equipment that could also be used for ships.”

“Eh?” He narrowed his eyes and leaned in to check it over. Surprised took over his face for a moment. He couldn’t believe he missed it. They were all things that he should have been very familiar with. They ordered many of them for the Niph. “Still doesn’t make alotta sense.” He scratched his head trying to understand the reason for stealing such parts. “I could understand if it was black market, but they ain’t stealin’ quantities of this stuff.”

Dropping the pad back into her lap, she stared at it for a while. Her fingers partly flipped through mindlessly. Most of her focus was away from the screen. “Somefin’ like this looks like they’re buildin’ a ship.”

“Or repairin’ it,” Fin suggested, as Sheila came up with the idea. They both looked at each liking the direction that they reached. It was a stronger lead.

“Think the cops figured that much out?”

“Prolly, they ain’t dumb nor blind. How’ver, they’re lost now, meanin’ they prolly got stuck here. There’s no leads left they could follow.” Fin rubbed his chin in thought. He didn’t like the situation he found themselves in now. They hardly had the connections for the type of investigation needed. “They’ve prolly already checked the port, but it’s the only place to start. Though we’ve got the ‘vantage of bein’ able to look into the shadier side of the port without drawing as much ‘tention.”

Sheila had a bit of an idea where he might be heading. “Cap’n?” It wasn’t something that she was thrilled to be partaking in later, even if it was for a job.

Fin flipped the switch on the car starting it back up. The chill of the outside started to leak in a little. “Sheila it’s time to put on your best smile!”

She sank into her seat a little. “Afraid you’d say that…”