Detective stories of Mason Armstrong first case

Story by RabiesPrincess on SoFurry

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#2 of Mason Armstrong Detective Novel

The next segment of the series and Mason Armstrong's first case.


It was an early morning and I was the first one to come in and open the office today, We've been dead for about a week so I had Sara work on advertisements for the office and set things up while we wait for client's. I got a coffee from the machine downstairs and Sara came in and Nicholas 10 minutes after her. As we were listening to the radio Ryan came in with a Older wolf couple behind him, he told me the couple were looking for their son who went missing and that they went to the police already but want an additional group looking and are willing to pay for the extra set of eyes and ears. The older wolf man told me that their son went missing last night and never came home and since he's an adult the police said they would have to wait 24 hours before they could open up a police investigation but they didn't want to wait. I asked if i could ask some questions about their son and they agreed to questioning.

"Does your son usually stay out late at night or is this a one off?" I asked. "He used to always be home by 6 at the latest but lately he's been coming home later than usual and he has been acting differently than he usually does" his mother said. The father then spoke up "he's been acting paranoid and constantly checking our apartment peephole, at least 5 times a day and when he leaves the house he says it's work but he would be working quite a bit if that's what he's doing". "May I have the address to this apartment and have permission to look around as well as in his room?" "yes, whatever you can do to help find our son" the mother says as Sara gives the father some paper he writes down the address and gives it to me.

"Thank you and can you tell me your names as well as your sons name for our records?" The father's name is Jacobo Fraga, Mother's is Jazmin Fraga, and their son Rafael Fraga, all wolves but Rafael is their only child. "Can you tell me how old your son is and does he have anybody he hangs out with that he might be staying with?" I ask. "Nobody that we know of, he may have work friends at his job at the garage he works at and he is 22" his father said and wrote down that address as well for me. I then ask "how long have you noticed a change in your son's behavior, do you know about when that started?". "About a month ago, you don't think he got mixed up with some bad people do you?" his mother asked.

"Well until I start my investigation I won't know for certain but I will let you know of any new developments or if I have any other questions". I give them my number and tell them I will get in touch the moment I know anything and that we will follow them to their apartment. Me and my partner Nicholas get ready and we head down to our car and follow the wolf couple to their apartment in the Market district and we follow them up. When we get in I ask to go to their son's room and they take me to it, me and my partner have a look around. While looking around we look through everything in the son's room and we don't really find anything until we search one of the drawers and find a bunch of hidden notes along with a 38. snub nose revolver, clean and never been fired from the looks of it.

"I wonder if they knew their son had a gun" I say and Nicholas hands me the notes. The notes seem to be about a loan and not from a bank but from rather shady characters and the notes seem to be him and his mysterious loan shark talking about how to handle the debt and interest he seems to have acquired with the last note having the more chilling details in it than all of the others, a note from the loan shark about clearing all his debt by using the gun they gave him and kill another guy that owes them money with the guys address and photo of a platypus guy on it. We do one last look around but come up empty handed and we ask the parents if they would be willing do answers more questions for us and they agree. "Has your son came home with quite a bit of money recently by any chance?'. "No, why?" the mother asks, "well has he mentioned about borrowing or needing money lately?" I ask.

"No, he has mostly kept to himself about his life lately. Why, what has he done?" the father asks. My partner hands them the notes to read over, including the last note "I think he may have borrowed money for some reason from some not so nice people, Has your son always had a gun?". "No he doesn't really like violence" the mother says worried. "Well we found a brand new .38 caliber revolver in his room along with the notes" I then hand them the photo of the platypus "Do either of you recognize this man in the picture?" I ask them. "unfortunately yes, that's Mr. Patterson, he lives down the street and has a bit a an alcohol and gambling problem and it only got worse when his wife divorced him" the father said.

The father gave me the address to Mr. Patterson's apartment and we collect what evidence we have gathered and get ready to leave to speak with this Mr. Patterson and maybe find out who this mysterious loan shark is or where they operate in the city. As we leave the Fraga's apartment my partner puts the evidence in the car and we drive down the street to the apartment building of the Platypus and our next lead. We find his apartment door and knock and this dirty looking Platypus opens the door wearing nothing but his boxers and a stained wife beater, reeking of old booze and we ask to step in and tell him we're private detectives. He hesitantly agrees and his lazy demeanor shifts to a bit anxious, we step in and ask him if he has an addiction or borrowed any money before. "I don't know where my life and choices are the interest of two private dicks, now if you want the door is right there, you have my permission to get the hell out and leave me alone" he says angrily.

"we meant no offense but we have something that might get you talking, show him Nick" I say as Nicholas hands him the last note and a picture of him in front of a store in the neighborhood and he looks at it and reads the note in shock. "I didn't think they would ask someone to kill me, holy shit. I gotta hide." "we'll help in exchange you help us with a related investigation, do we have a deal?" I say. He pauses and then agrees "I don't have a lot of options here, what did you wanna know and why two private di- I mean fine gentleman have an interest in warning me?" he asks. "Who is the fur you borrowed money from and where do they hang out?" I ask and he says "I'm not really sure who the fur is that actually loans the money, I just borrowed from one of their men here in the Market district and his crew. The main guy is Dingo with tan fur and usually always has a Leopard who never talks with him, they are in a basement in a alley on a side street down near the little spanish store on W 30 st. you'll need a password to get in though to know that one of the guys they have advertising sent you, it's Barkwood." "Do you know a Rafael Fraga?" I ask him.

"No I don't, should I?" he asks and I tell him "No, probably not, well thank you for answering our questions, see a friend of mine named Ryan Burton, he can help you get away until things get settled here but I suggest you leave as soon as possible.". We leave and head to the address of the supposed loan sharks and go to the back door, each of us packing a gun in our coats just in case and knock on the door and the eye slit slides open on this rusty metal door. "Can I elp you?" the doorman asks, "we're here to see about a loan" I say. "Password" and I respond "Barkwood" and the door opens with a Fox with a scar on his snout "come on in then" he says with a scratchy British accent and Nicholas and I step inside. The fox tries to pat us down for weapons but I pull my badge and tell him I'm keeping my gun "Oi, you a copper then, you bes-" before he could finish Nicholas says "Don't worry, we just wanna have a chat with the guy in charge around here.". "Is that roight, well bes not keep em waitin' but just know I got moy eyes on you, one wrong step and I get to redecorate ye faces" he takes us to two guys at a desk, the Dingo and Leopard.

"Oi boss, got two pigs sniffin about wantin some words with you" the fox says "Thank you Frankie, now what can I do for you two today?" "we just have some questions to ask you about a young wolf guy named Rafael Fraga, we know he has some kind of connection to this place and I wanna know what is, that something you think you can help with?" I say. "Hm depends, what do me and the fellas get out of helping a couple of cops out?" he asks "I'll inform you if the department is planning any future raids and make sure you guys don't end up on that list" I tell him. "heh alright, I'll tell ya where he's hiding out but you keep us off that list and erase any dirt you may already have on us" "Deal" I say. "Okay, he's hiding out at an old warehouse near the tracks in the south of the market district, he said he had gotten into deep water with some bad people and needed protection so we got him there with two of our guys". I was confused and wondering if the bad people after him wasn't this gang then who was he really hiding from?

Me and my partner headed out to the car but made a call to Sara to tell her what we had so far and we drove to the railyard in the Market district to the warehouse that seemed pretty desolate and Nicholas said "Doesn't really seem like anyones here bossman, you sure we got the right place?" We get out and go inside the warehouse to investigate with guns out as we make our way up to the second floor and as we go in the office we see a Sergal tied to a chair covered in blood and tortured to death. As me and my partner investigate and get ready to phone the police a bullet breaks the window and whizzes past Nick's head hitting the wall and we dive for cover as multiple guns start shooting towards the office. I peek over the indoor windowsill and see a Panda firing a shotgun across from us and a Jaguar firing a thompson from the ground floor keeping us pinned down with no way to call for help. I fire 3 blindshots in the Panda's direction as he takes cover giving Nick time to aim and fire at the panda.

missing on the first shot and hitting him in the head on the second, leaving just the Jaguar with the submachine gun on the first floor to deal with. He runs up the stairs calling for his Panda friend and we both take aim at the stairs, he came up the stairs guns blazing and we both fire about 4 shots each and hit him a total of 5 times killing him. Me and Nick examine the bodies but don't find anything of interest and we notice a third guy, a Beaver looking in with a little revolver and we run down after him but he starts shooting as soon as we try to go out the door and he runs to his car and we chase after him and Nick fires off a shot at his car before getting in. We chase after him and Nick reloads his gun and he tells me to get in close and he'll try and pop his tires or I could try and run him off the road. We chase him for at least 10-15 minutes through alleyways before he finally crashes into a delivery truck on the street and we stop to get out and run to his car and pull him out and tell him to tell us where his boss is and where a wolf named Rafael is. He starts stuttering "The boss was at the den the whole time and he called us to warn us you were coming as we were gonna g-get rid of the wolf's friend who thought they would borrow money and his friend tried to skip town, He's b-buried near the lake, t-that's all I know man please don't kill me, I just drive the boss around". We bind his wrists and bring him to the police station then head to the den and knock on the door, the Fox opens the eye slot "Ello" and starts to open the door when Nick Pops a shot through the eyeslot and the door creaks open as the fox is dead on the ground and we storm inside the den and the leopard opens the door and I fire 3 shots but miss and he takes cover drawing his own gun from it's holster.

Me and Nick both hide in the large room and wait for the leopard to come searching for us and he passes by Nick and he tries to detain him but the leopard saw him just before he was able to get a grip on him and they struggle for the gun I aim and shoot the leopard in the back of his leg and Nick took his gun and knock him unconscious with a pistol whip and binds his wrists as I go to the desk room to find a big Salamander sitting at the desk with a semi auto pistol pointed at the door and I get hit over the head from behind with the butt stock of a tommy gun and I dropped my gun and the dingo says "I'm gonna go look for his partner, he's gotta be around here somewhere" and leaves the room and his boss puts the gun to my head and says to me "Did you really think your fake charades posing as a cop would really fool us? Don't worry you'll be joining your wolf friend real soon". Then he hears submachine gun fire and a couple handgun shots and the dingo comes back hunched over losing blood before falling over dead. While he was distracted I leaped up and grabbed him from behind and start biting him and grabbing his gun before he managed to slam me against a wall Nick came in and used a bat to knock the gun out of his hand and knock him over the head with the bat and then binding his wrists. Not much longer the cops came and we were greeted as Nick went to call them and they took the salamander and leopard into custody and with proper cuffs and get the coroner to take the bodies and this officer a bear comes over "are you the guys the detectives that brought the beaver in? He gave us the gravesite of your supposed victim near the lake." "Take us to him" and we get in his squad car and we drive a good distance to the lake where we search for almost 2 hours before we finally found the grave and the corpse was freshly buried and matched the description of our victim, he had been tortured similarly to his friend from the warehouse. now came the hard part, telling the parents that we found their son's remains.

We got back to our car and accompanied the police back to the Fraga's apartment where when they answered the door and we informed them that we believe we found their son's remains and I could feel the devastation that they felt hearing the news about their son. The next morning we received the payment for the job plus a tip for solving the case and finding the killers. I poured a glass of bourbon and just sat at home looking out the window with mixed emotions of bittersweet about the case, on the one hand we caught the killers but on the other we were too late to save the boy's life. It's cases like this that make you wonder where people messed up in life somewhere. As I drifted off to sleep I wondered what the next case would bring.

The End.