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Cop Craft Volume 4 Chapter 4 Part 3

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“Translator: ClefRunner”

“Editor: Weasalopes”

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「Wait, stop that, Tilarna! Now is not the time to be doing something like that, is it?!」
「Unyaa—!!」

Even after pulling her away, Tilarna (the cat) kept struggling and wriggling in Cecil’s hands, completely unwilling to stop her attack on the woman. An angry, yelling woman freaking out, and a screeching black cat. Cecil ultimately got caught up between the two of them.

What was she even doing there in the first place…?

Only two hours ago she had been thoroughly inspecting a dead body that had lost half its head. But now she was at the environmental office, painfully watching a scuffle between a middle aged woman and a black cat. Had she perhaps happened to walk into a completely different life in a completely different reality by any chance?

Just as she was thinking that, a man walked out of the office.

「Hey, what’s with all this commotion? Maggie, what are you doing?」
「Ah… Scott, just listen to this. This woman set out her rabid black cat on me. Look at it, look at my wounds! I’m going to sue her! You better be ready, you filthy witch!」
「Stop that, Maggie, just calm down. You know you shouldn’t be here in the first place, right?」

The man named Scott replied to her.

「Now Scott, don’t say things like that. I had my hands free, so I decided to answer the door for you, that’s all」
「I appreciate the feeling, but you’re supposed to be working in the other factory’s office. Don’t come around here doing as you please」
「I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad. In any case, Scott…」
「Just leave it. Anyways, what’s going on?」

The man named Scott frowned at Maggie, and then asked Cecil directly

「Eh… I called this office a little earlier and…」
「She was screaming at me, telling me to call some guy named Gordon or something. I’m sure it was all nonsense, though」

Maggie opened her mouth.

「Gordon? That would be me」
「Ah, was that so?」
「Yeah… come on Maggie… Anyways, I’ll talk to you later. But just get out of here right now!」

Mr. Scott Gordon pushed Maggie out of the office while looking surprisingly irritated. He violently closed the door behind her, looked back at Cecil and shrugged.

「No, I am so sorry. That woman is a little insane. Anytime I lower my guard she will take the chance to get in my office and start pretending to do my job. Then, she will… wait a second, are you by any chance the investigator?」
「That’s right. I’m Cecil Epps. This is my identification」

She hurriedly reached into her bag, and quickly pulled out her ID.

「Hm… everything seems to be in order. Well, it’s my first time seeing a real one anyways… In any case, what’s with the cat?」
「Ah, no… that’s just my pet」
「Oh, I see…」

Tilarna (the cat) immediately let out a discontent cry. Cecil very quietly whispered in her ear.

「There was no other way. Were you expecting me to introduce you as an “Investigator working with the police department”?」
「Nya…」

Gordon paid no mind to the interaction taking place before him, and instead took out his tablet and started looking at some data on the screen.

「In that case, Ms. Epps. What’s your address?」
「Eh?」
「The place where the garbage was picked up at. I just want to know the street number and route of the garbage truck」
「Ah, that’s right… Eh… Caster Street No. 172」

She whispered in Tilarna’s ear again “was that correct?”, and the black cat replied with a “nyaa” in agreement.

「Alright then. Caster Street, right? Hum… Then that area would probably be under Hunter Collection, right…? Ah, here it is, here it is. It’s probably truck number three right there」
「Please call out to them. Can you check where they are right now?」
「Yeah, wait a second, I’m calling them right away」

Gordon called garbage truck number three on the phone.

「… Ah, hey, it’s me. There was a bit of trouble. You just passed by Caster Street, right? An investigator came by and she says she wants to check the contents of the garbage that you picked up but… what? Hey hey, wait a second. Then where are you? No, no, I’m not saying that you’re slacking off. I’m serious…」

Gordon’s manner of speaking was incredibly slow and carefree. Cecil almost felt like jumping at him and taking the phone from him, but she simply kept waiting while trying to remain patient. However, as Gordon’s talk on the phone started turning towards the San Teresa Wizards (a local baseball team) and their finishing moves, she couldn’t resist knocking on the desk with her knuckles a few times, and clearing her own throat to get his attention.

「Oh, I’m sorry… in any case, you’re at the WCT right now, right? Okay, then just wait right there, please. Okay, bye」

Gordon hung up the phone

「What happened then?!」
「Eh, they’re at the WCT right now. I told them to stop and wait right there…」
「Wait, what’s the WCT?」
「It’s a garbage collection terminal. Look, right there」

He pointed out the office’s window. Looking outside, Cecil could see several garbage trucks lined up, dumping their contents into a large opening one by one.

「This is bad」

Cecil turned pale. While she was dozing off looking at the garbage trucks, the exact truck they had called earlier passed right in front of the office, went straight ahead, seemingly ready to dump its contents into the incinerator.

「Huh? I told them to stop and wait. That’s odd…」
「Make them stop! Hurry!」

And just with that, Cecil held Tilarna (the cat) firmly in her arms and stormed off out of the office. As she violently opened the door, she bumped into Maggie who apparently was trying to listen in on their conversation, but she had no time to worry about that. She could hear her insulting her from behind, but wasn’t even able to make out what she was saying.

The distance from the office to the terminal must have been around a hundred yards. However, it was particularly difficult to spring in the pumps she was wearing. She even briefly thought about taking them off and running barefoot, but she hesitated at the thought of walking barefoot in front of a garbage dump. Well, compared to ancient times, even modern garbage dumps were probably a lot cleaner than some of the stuff they walked on, but… at any rate, she couldn’t force herself to do it.

「Unyaa! Nyaa nyaa!」

The black cat let out a piercing cry. It probably meant something like “hurry up!”, Cecil thought.

「I know. I’m hurrying」

After running about halfway there, she suddenly thought about raising her voice.

「Wait! Stop! Please stop!」

The garbage disposal did not stop. The workers doing it probably didn’t even notice. Since the sound of the garbage trucks dumping plastic bags and trash into the container was already quite loud, they were not able to hear a thing.

Once she got closer, she was immediately able to tell which one was truck number three. Right next to the truck’s company name and logo, a large number three was written on its side. And then, garbage truck number three’s back compartment started raising, changing its position from horizontal to vertical, about to dump its contents into the large opening.

「Aah…!」
「Nyaa…!」

Cecil was breathing roughly, but she pressed on until she reached the side of the truck on which the worker dumping the garbage was sitting, and she grabbed onto his arm.

「Stop! Hey, can you hear me?! Right now… ah, stop! Stop doing that, please!」
「Eh? What?」

The worker calmly looked to the side, and pressed the truck’s “STOP” button. The loud noise suddenly stopped, and the other worker sitting on the driver’s seat started shouting.

「Hey, stop! Stop! Gordon called earlier, and it seems like there’s some important stuff mixed in with the garbage…」

Too late. They were too late.

The truck’s cargo had been emptied almost completely. Cecil rushed over to the oversized opening, and peeked inside it. She started coughing at the extremely thick dust mixed in with a putrid smell, but apparently the ventilation equipment was quite powerful, and it managed to suck in all the dust within seconds.

The garbage dumping facility consisted of a large hole, within which an extremely large crane, resembling one from a crane game, was moving, picking garbage up, and carrying it to the back. Then, the garbage would get carried over to a facility where it would be separated, sorted and promptly carried over to the incinerator.

「Ah… Tilarna, I’m so sorry. There’s nothing we can do now…」
「Nyaa!!」

Tilarna (the cat) jumped out of Cecil’s arms. Despite not being used to her body, she did so with surprising agility.

「Tilarna?!」

The black cat then jumped straight into the garbage dump, lightly diving into a steep slope of filth, and eventually getting lost into the immense amount of garbage.

~o~O~o~

Fortunately, the dominatrix queen had not frozen to death. Matoba roughly woke her up, showed her a picture of the man, and at least managed to get a more reliable testimony than O’Neill’s, after which he immediately took his phone and called Boss Zimmer. He had to make some annoying preparations, but then he got in his car, and rushed straight towards the Farguard Port district. On his way there, he called Officer Hernandez from the CBP, and arranged an appointment to meet him at a nearby burger joint. The place where he had lunch earlier that day.

After arriving at the joint and waiting for a short while, Hernandez arrived as well. Matoba expected as much, but Hernandez arrived in an incredibly foul mood.

「So? Did you manage to retrieve the item?」
「Yeah. It’s in my car.」

That was of course a lie. However, Hernandez was getting even further irritated by Matoba’s carefree attitude.

「In that case let’s just take it over to the warehouse. Do you think you’re in a position to start wasting time right here?」
「Don’t say that. Besides, there’s a lot of stuff that I want to know before we do that.」
「What?」
「It’s about the case from yesterday. You know how we were the ones that originally found the lead and reported it, right? And well, I happened to check a lot of stuff afterwards, you see…」
「You sure beat around the bush. Get to the point」
「Are you sure? It’s not very good news, just so you know…」

Hernandez immediately fixed his glasses, and tightened his lips into what could only be described as a straight horizontal line. That was an expression that Matoba knew very well. It was the face of an uneasy, yet resolved person.

「Well then. Are you a collaborator of the smugglers from yesterday?」
「……..」
「No, I guess calling you a collaborator sounds off. I looked into your records, and they are pretty clean. You’ve been working quite diligently. Admirable, really」

Hernandez frowned straight at Matoba

「What do you want?」
「Working completely diligently」

He wasn’t fooling around anymore. Matoba looked at Hernandez straight in the eye, with an incredibly serious expression.

「I know everything. You met up with the smugglers in a Seven Miles nightclub, huh? I showed your picture to our informant. I don’t know what you were talking about… but I think I can figure it out. You’re being coerced by them」
「I don’t know what you’re talking about」
「Ah, I see. In that case, no problem. However, this will be the end of it then」

Matoba didn’t know what his weakness was, but he was certain that Hernandez was being threatened by someone. Based on his research, a very bizarre ineptitude had been plaguing customs authorities for the past half year. Something going wrong with confiscated items, or letting certain people they had to catch get away. Small incidents that nobody would pay any attention to normally, but that anybody would notice after reading the contents of the most recent reports consecutively.

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