It was such a lovely night in the large city of Zootopia, especially in that of Savanah Central. Clear was the sky with no sign of any overcast for miles, letting the half moon shine its illuminating light brightly down onto the always busy city. It would have been perfect had there not been a slight breeze that sent a chill through your body. The winter season was close, meaning soon the days would get shorter and the nights colder.
On this night, a very well dressed middle-aged female coyote was walking home, as she did every night Monday through Friday for the past ten years. Being high up in a big corporation had her working long hours that forced her to go far into the night. She never did seem to mind, though. The work wasn't all to bad, the pay was decent, and she really didn't live to far from the office. This had just become daily routine for her, so she never really expected anything bad to happen. She'd done it for ten years and nothing had happened yet, so why would it now?
She rounded a corner into an alley that was a shortcut to her house. Usually it was empty at this time of night, the only things being a bunch of junk that was always there, so she was a little startled when she saw a figure about halfway down the alley leaning up against the wall. He immediately seemed to take notice of the coyote and stared her down. But she was unfazed, she didn't get this far in life by getting scared at a little staring. Plus, she always carried around some protection just in case things were to get out of paw. She walked confidently right past the animal without even acknowledging that he was there. She was a little creeped out that he stared her down the whole way, but she thought nothing of it. Just another creep on the streets is all she saw.
She turned out of the alley and walked about another hundred feet before she reached her home. She unlocked her door and walked in, sighing with relief as she closed the door back up. It was always nice to get home and relax after a long day at work. She locked her door back up and proceeded to walk into her kitchen. She went to turn the light on, but all she got was the clicking noise of the switch. She shrugged it off as just a normal power outage, or maybe some faulty wiring. She'd have to call someone about that later. She didn't need it anyway, her natural night vision was good enough to see without the light.
She opened up the fridge and proceeded to pick out a couple of things to eat, since the last meal she had was at lunch and it wasn't all that big, so she was really hungry. When she got what she needed she closed the fridge, but something caught her attention and she suddenly went stiff. Her ears shot up and her fur bristled in alarm. When she heard the sound again, the fear started to settle in. Slowly, she turned herself around and found herself looking up at the home intruder, which happened to be the same animal from the alley. When she got a good look at the animal in front of her, her face dropped and all the color was drained. She knew exactly who this was, and she knew he was someone to fear.
When the animal realized she recognized him, a small smile grew. "Hello again" He growled. She could say nothing, only stand there in paralyzing fear, waiting for what he was going to do. She had only felt this way one other time, and that was the last time she saw him. She had a feeling that this time he would not fail with what he started.
In one swift motion, the animal swiped a six inch long blade across the coyotes throat, cutting deep into the jugular vain and making a streak of blood splash onto anything near. She had no time to react and could only bring her paw up to her neck as she gasped hopelessly for air while she drowned in her own blood. Her last thoughts being that she always suspected that he'd be the death of her. She went to fall, finally dying from the blood loss; but before she could hit the ground, he caught her in his empty arm and forcefully drove the blade into her stomach five more times, each causing more and more blood to flow out of her wounds. When he was finally done with her, satisfied with his work, he just let her lifeless body flop onto the hard ground below her; a pool of blood forming around the body. And just like that, he was gone into the night.
"Another day, another case report" Nick sighed, bored out of his mind as he stared endlessly into his computer screen; just as he's been doing for the past couple of hours. He rubbed the sides of his head, trying to relieve the oncoming headache, but it seemed to no avail. He had just finished filling out the report of their latest case(it being the freshest in his mind) which involved an Pyro-maniac leopard. One of the many cases they had solved in the past few weeks. This is what he gets when he has an overactive bunny for a partner. Always the first animals to pick up a case, and they do as many as they could up to the point Bogo would have to bench them until they got all their reports done. Sometimes his partner really irked him.
"Oh stop whining, it's part of the job" Judy said from the desk next to his. She always knew that Nick was a pessimist when it came to most thing, especially work; but now he was just getting on her nerves with his constant complaining about writing up these reports. They aren't that hard to do anyways.
"I wouldn't be whining so much if we didn't have to have ten of these done by the end of the day," He said with a slight growl. She would always find a way to overwork the two, and it drove him insane. No matter what it was, she had to try and be the best at it and she always had to drag him around with her.
Judy flattened her ears a little when Nick called her out. She must admit, she always did have an act for making them do tons of work in short periods of time. To her it wasn't all that bad, but she knew Nick got bored easily and couldn't stand just sitting around all day.
"Yah, I guess I did kind of mess up with this one, didn't I?" She asked. She heard a muffled grunt and turned to see what he was doing. Nick had his face buried into his paws and looked as though he was about to scream. They had been there all morning and had only gotten three reports done. Now it was around noon and they still had seven more to do. Judy knew she'd have to plan this out better next time.
"I'm sorry I put you here, Nick, but I promise if we get this done early enough, I'll make it up to you" Judy told him. He slightly lifted his head from his paws just enough where he could see me.
"Really?" He asked. She giggled and nodded her head. The one thing that's better than being Nicks partner, was being his girlfriend. Judy never thought it would have happened, never imagined herself and Nick being anymore than friends; but dang was he a persistent fox.
Nick smiled and sighed a bit, "Well, if you put it that way, then I guess I can get back to working." Judy smiled at him a nodded her head in satisfaction. She knew she could always get him to do something with a little offer.
"Good, 'cause I'd rather not be on Bogo's bad side. We always end up with parking duty every time you anger him" Judy accused. Nick raised a brow with interest.
"I'm definitely not the only reason why we get parking duty," He retorted. "Remember when you wouldn't stop bugging him about trying to get on a case?" He pointed out, causing Judy's ears to flop down. "Had to ride in that small piece of crap vehicle for a week."
"Okay, that was one time. But it is mostly you," she pointed out at him. He gave a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders.
"Guess I can't argue with ya there. But it's just so fun to do it, and you know deep down he loves me," He chuckled out.
"Is that so, Wilde?" A gruff voice called from behind them, startling the two. Upon realizing who it was behind them Nick stiffened up a little, but he remained to keep his cool as he turned around to greet the chief.
"Morning Chief, great to see you again so soon," Nick addressed him with his usual cocky smile. Bogo looked at him distastefully, more so than usual. Which meant that it was time for Nick to stop fooling around.
"Cut the shit, Wilde. Its time to get serious for once in your life," He grumbled out. It was obvious to the two that whatever he was about to tell them had him stressed out. Nick nodded and straightened up his posture; he was very professional when he needed to be.
Bogo sighed with discontent, "I'm putting you two on another case," He told them bluntly. Nick and Judy looked at each other, at their computers, then back to Bogo. On the outside they looked concern that there work wasn't going to be done. But in all honesty, they were glad to be able to get away from the confines of a desk and the suffering of paperwork.
"What about the reports?" Judy asked.
"As much as we need them done, I need you on this case more." Again, Nick and Judy looked at each other, this time slightly worried. Bogo usually wasn't one for going back on an order, especially when it concerned desk work. And he only took them away from what they were going to do something that had others lost; because as much as Bogo would hate to say it aloud, his fox and rabbit pair were some of the best he had ever had. Of course he would never tell the two of them that.
"What is it that you need to drag us into it?" Nick asked, a bit intrigued. He always found the cases they were pulled into the most interesting.
"There was a break in last night in Savanah Central. A female coyote was found dead in her home," Bogo began to explain to them, already pinching the bridge of his nose. A sign that he was either mad or annoyed or flustered.
"What's so special about that? There are murders everyday, why not send someone else?" Judy questioned causing Bogo to glare down at her in anger for interrupting him. Judy shrunk back into her chair, retracting her gaze from Bogo and placed it to the ground. Bogo huffed and then continued.
"For starters, nothing was stolen so we know she was specifically targeted by the suspect. Then there's the way she was killed." The way he said that, and how he stopped, Nick and Judy knew they weren't going to like what they heard next. "The victim had one slash across the neck, severing the jugular vain; she died shortly after the cut. Then, postmortem, she was stabbed five more times through the chest and stomach. Its a mess. She's predicted to have been dead around four days and was found two days ago by her maid. And to make it worse, we weren't able to find anything that could get us a lead on a suspect; all we could find was a shattered window in the back. This animal is good at what he does." He sighed. Judy looked at him with disgust, she couldn't believe that anyone would ever do that. Well, she guess she knew that there were messed up animals out there, she just never knew she'd ever have to deal with someone like this.
Nick looked blankly at the chief, he knows he should probably feel some sort of emotion, some sort of remorse for the coyote for being so brutally murdered; but I guess you could say his nerves were dulled a little early in his life. Of course he would never tell anyone that, he didn't want to seem crazy.
"We haven't seen anything like this for awhile. I'd like you two to get down there and see if you can find anything that the others may have missed. And if not, Wilde, I want you to use some of your 'contacts' to see if they have any information you could use," He ordered. Nick always found it amusing that Bogo knew of his 'contacts'. At first he wasn't happy at all that Nick hadn't cut all ties with his old life, but soon looked past it when he used Finnick to catch a perk.
"You can get all the information from Clawhauser on your way out. Dismissed," He said. The two stood up and saluted the chief and the chief returned the gesture, releasing the two. Judy and Nick watched as Bogo left and once he was out of sight both released a sigh of relief.
"I swear, if I had to look into that monitor any longer, I was going to blow my brains out," Nick said, gesturing a gun to the side of his head and acting like he was shooting himself.
Judy rolled her eyes and gave a slight chuckle. " I highly doubt there would be any case where you'd shoot yourself in the head." Nick gave a shrug.
"Firstly, just a figure of speech; also, you never know, things in my life might just go south and then I might become really depressed and one thing will lead to another..." Nick stopped talking when he saw the sickly face Judy was giving him.
"Please, Nick, never talk like that. Its kind of disturbing how nonchalantly you were saying that, and also it makes me shiver thinking I might have to go one day without you," Judy murmured. She knew that Nick could be dark sometimes, it was a side effect of his past life, but it didn't mean she liked when he talked like that.
"Oh, is Judy getting all sentimental with me?" Nick playfully mocked her, sounding like a mother who would talk to her pup. Judy rolled her eyes and gave a hard punch to his shoulder. Nick seethed a little in pain and rubbed his arm.
"You can only wish, you dumb fox," she told him while bounding ahead of him.
"Dumb bunny," He playfully replied.
The two made their ways to the receptionists desk of their favorite pudgy leopard to get the info they needed on the case. When they got their, they found Clawhauser on his phone doing something while stuffing his face with a doughnut. Nick cleared his throat to get his attention causing the oversized predator to look down at the two. When he saw who it was, a bright smile came to his face.
"How's the cutest couple in the ZDP doing today," He nearly squealed. Yah, their relationship with each other wasn't at all as secret as they had hoped it would of been. They had only gotten together a couple of months ago, but the next time they stepped into the department, Clawhauser seemed to know immediately that they had gotten together. Said that he could just feel the difference in atmosphere between the two. He told them that he had been 'shipping' them together ever since Nick came from the Academy, almost two years ago, and was so excited that they had finally gotten together.
"Doing well, just need the file from the case of the murdered coyote," Nick said, smiling up at him. Clawhauser nodded and said he'd get that for them in a jiffy. He rolled out of sight from them to one of his many filing cabinets, this one being labeled as 'open cases'. He peered through them for a second before getting to what he needed. He grabbed the folder with all the essential documents and rolled back over to the partners.
"Here you go, one murder case," He said, handing Nick the file. Nick thanked him as he handed the file over to Judy who immediately started looking into it, trying to get as much detail out of it as possible before they got to the crime scene. Nick always did the exact opposite of this, not liking to get outside sources before he, himself, was able to take a look at it. He always told Judy that it took away the chances of skimming over something, though Judy never understood.
The two waved goodbye to their colleague and left for their cruiser. Clawhauser looked happily at the two with a smile. "Such a great couple, wouldn't doubt if they stayed with each other for the rest of their life's" He giggled a little, before he returned to what he was doing before the two came over; this involved doughnuts and Gazelle.
Nick whistled in awe at the building he saw in front of him. He knew from what Judy told him that the coyote lived in an apartment, but he didn't expect the apartment to be the size of a small mansion. Obviously, Nick thought, whoever this girl is, she was very wealthy. Which made it all the more strange that the killer didn't take anything of value from the house. It made the two wonder what the true motives of this killer were.
Judy and Nick walked up the steps with badges held up so they could be let into the crime scene. When they entered, the first thing that caught their attention was how clean the place was. Usually, with these kinds of cases, there is some sort of struggle, a mess is made, something; but everything seemed to be exactly where it was left when she died. It was just odd.
"Judy, Nick, glad to see you two could finally make it," someone said from off to their side. They looked over and saw Wolford looking tiredly over at them, obviously stressed out.
"Damn man, when the last time you got some sleep?" Nick asked, a little concerned about the wolves well being.
He shrugged, "Probably not for a day... but that's besides the point. This case is really pissing me off," He growled, walking into the room that was next to him. Judy and Nick took this as a sign to follow.
They could smell the blood even before they got there. When they rounded the corner into the room, they found themselves in the kitchen. What they saw made Judy cringe a little. A stain where a giant puddle of blood used to be took up most of the ground, and blood stains streaked across the walls and ceiling. Judy was just glad that she hadn't been here when the body was, or she might have thrown up. Still haven't got the stomach for these kinds of things. Nick, on the other paw, looked curiously at everything seeing if he could spot something among the mess.
"Whoever this animal is, they know what they're doing. I can't find any sort of scent that they would have left behind. This animal is smart and organized, and it's driving me insane." He growled. Since Wolford is a wolf, he has a very heightened sense of smell, as everyone from his species does. So for him to not get anything, it just kind of beats on his pride.
"Look, you've been here a good while; I think it's probably best if you go home and get some sleep. Come back tomorrow refreshed with a clear mind. We'll take care of as much as we can today, but your no use to us if you can barely keep your eyes open," Judy insisted of him. He was going to protest against her advice, but before he could talk he let out a heavy yawn.
"Yah you're right, I need some rest," He agreed with another yawn.
"Great, see you tomorrow," Judy called out as he left.
"You know, you need to take your own advice sometimes," Nick said casually. Judy rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what he meant. He always complained about her overworking herself, but she knew she could take it. A little sleep deprivation once and awhile never hurt anyone.
"I get plenty of sleep. Its you that needs to learn how to get some sleep at night," she shot back. Nick gave a half shrug.
"What can I say, I'm naturally nocturnal." Judy knew this, but still found it annoying when she would hear him up in the middle of the night doing something, like making a snack, or watching TV. But she knew she couldn't blame him for his natural behaviors.
"Let's just get back to work and focus on the task at paw," Judy advised. Nick agreed, and they got back to what they did best.
Nick took a long look around the place, exploring every nook and cranny of the large building, hoping to find anything out of place. The things he did find, he would have to revert back to the case file to make sure it wasn't something they already knew. Judy stayed back and studied the case file intently, memorizing as much as she could about it. She always did this, and was always Nicks reference in cases like these.
After a couple of hours of investigating, Judy and Nick met back up to compare everything that they found. They sat down at the kitchen table and started comparing notes and much to their disappointment, everything they found was already in the original report, nothing new. Nick sighed in frustration, he hated when cases got like this; not being able to find anything. Wolford was right, whoever did this was really smart.
"So, I guess let's just go over what we know," Judy suggested, not knowing really where else to go with this. Nick shrugged and said it wouldn't hurt.
"With the broken window in back, that's obviously how they got in. Since there was food found near her body it can be assumed she had no reason to be startled until the suspect was right next to her; so he probably broke it before she got home," Judy nodded, agreeing with Nick.
"Plus, the power was cut so they had to of known where the power was and when she got home from work. This animal has been following her around for awhile and waited for the perfect time to strike," Judy added. Nick shook his head, this was getting them nowhere and it was utterly frustrating. He stuck his paw out and motioned for the case file, now wanting to see everything since he couldn't find anything new or of importance.
When he opened the file he skimmed past the name, then went straight to the actual report itself. "Wait a minute," Nick thought to himself, looking back over at the name. 'Candice Latrans' seemed really familiar to him. He must have been projecting his shock, because Judy asked him what was wrong.
"I swear I've heard this name before..." He murmured, looking down at the pictures. He examined them and tried to see if he could recognize her, and he did. He got to a picture that showed her face and Nick became wide eyed and his mouth fell agape.
"Do you know her?" Judy questioned, a little intrigued and having curiosity come over her. Nick nodded his head.
"Yah, she was a bitch," He spat out with a little anger. Yes, he knew her and he wish that he had never met her.
Judy looked at him surprised, because he usually never talked like that about anyone; at least, never in a tone like that. It would usually be in a playful or sarcastic voice, but this was full of resentment. It only made the bunny wonder what this coyote did to piss Nick off so much. Nick noticed this and decided it would be best to tell her now, because she would have gotten an answer out of him one way or another.
"I worked with her back when I was still with Mr. Biggs, around ten or so years ago..." He paused for a second, then gave an amused smile. "Holy hell, I'm getting old," He groaned out. Judy couldn't help but laugh at this, because he was, in fact, getting kind of old.
"Anyway, we did a few jobs together and I hated it, which is saying something because there are very few animals that I hate. She was just so arrogant and narcissistic, it drove me completely insane. Then we ran into some trouble and she tried to throw me under the bus. That's when Mr. Biggs forced her to cut ties with us. She's lucky he actually liked her, or else she would have been iced," the way he said that made Judy think that's how he wanted it to go. There's his darker side again.
Nick took a glance around the house and nodded knowingly. "That also explains the house. Last I heard, Candice was embezzling money from some big company," Nick growled, annoyed; Judy didn't know if because she was a criminal or if she had made more than him as a con. She chuckled to herself a little thinking Nick was getting jealous. But that probably wasn't the case, it just made her laugh to think about it that way.
"Wait..." Judy said in realization, "do you think maybe someone caught her and killed her. Maybe somebody high up who found her stealing?" Judy questioned. Nick thought about it for a second, then gave a shrug.
"Its possible, I mean I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I'd be a bit pissed too if I found out someone was stealing money from me," Nick replied. "Though we should probably find some proof before we go storming into wherever it is she works. It'll look mighty suspicious if we just use it as an accusation, be right, yet have no proof to back it up. We don't need the public knowing of my job before I was a cop, the media would have a field day with that."
Judy nodded in understanding, if the media ever found out Nicks job prior to being a cop, let's just say it wouldn't look good for the ZDP. First, Nick would most likely be forced to resign, even if he has earned a pardon from the mayor; citizens just wouldn't be able to trust him anymore. Then there would be an investigation in the Precinct by the federal government for letting a criminal in to work for them. It would just make life hard for the police for a little while, and nobody wanted that. So they kept in on the down low, which was one of the stipulations of Nick becoming a cop.
The first thing Nick suggested to look for was a computer of laptop. He said that she'd probably have somewhere she would store all of her information. You can't steal tons of money and not leave some sort of trail; it may be hard to trace, but there's always a trail.
Judy and Nick decided to split up again in order to cover more ground. This was a big house and it could take quite awhile to find a laptop, especially if she wanted to keep it hidden. Nick figured she'd hide it somewhere where only she could find it, mostly because she didn't want anyone to know what she was up to. He thought it almost certain that it would be hid in a closet, or maybe behind a secret wall kind of like in the movies. Either way, Nick always loved a challenge when it came to these things, it beats working behind a desk all day.
"Found it," Nick suddenly heard Judy call from upstairs. Nick looked up the stairs in unbelief; she couldn't have found it that fast, could she? He furrowed his brow in annoyance as he marched up the stairs grumbling a few things under his breath. He was really looking forward to a challenge.
Nick walked into what be presumed to be the master bedroom and again stood shocked at the sheer size of the place. It was probably the same size a his whole apartment, which made him think...
"I should have embezzled instead of my doing my little pawpcicle stand; I mean, damn, look at this place," He emphasized with out stretched arms, "she must have made quadruple of what I did."
Judy just rolled her eyes and went back to the laptop which was sitting right next to the bedside. She flipped it open and immediately became annoyed when she saw it was password protected. Things could never be simple.
"Probably has some sort of security thing that erases everything if you guess the password wrong too many times," Nick stated. "At least, that's how it is in the movies." Judy couldn't help but chuckle.
"Better send it down to the lab, see if they can open it up," Judy said, closing the laptop.
"Sounds great, we can drop it off and then go to the autopsy lab to see if we can find out anything useful about her death," Nick suggested. Judy agreed and the two left the giant apartment, got in their cruiser and started heading back to the station.
"Never thought I'd see her like this," Nick stated, looking down at the dead coyote who had just recently been sewn back up after being examined. He honestly didn't really care that she ended up this way, in his mind she deserved it; he just never expected to see her again period.
Both the fox and rabbit were now in the lab that was a couple floors below the main lever of the station.
"You knew her?" The medical examiner, who was a middle aged bull elk, asked. Nick nodded slightly. "Well, I'm sorry for your loss, Wilde." Nick shrugged, unfazed.
"Not much of a loss to me," He mumbled out while examining the stab marks made to her chest and stomach areas. The elk looked down a Judy a little confused, but all he got was shrug in response.
"These marks don't seem like they come from a normal knife," Nick pointed out.
"Yes, most knifes leave more of a linear mark through the flesh," The elk responded walking over to the deceased. "But as you can see here, they are more rounded, circular." Nick nodded, taking that as a personal note for later.
"So an unusual knife will help us. We can rule out any house held knifes, which means this one was probably purchased from some sort of weapons shop," Judy concluded.
"I don't think it'll be that easy," the elk said. "These marks are from a knife I've never seen from before. Not only is it rounded, but it's also curved. Plus, it has to have at least one sharp end due to the victims throat being cut and the jugular vain being cut open. In my opinion, I think your dealing with someone who makes their own tools. And as for the shape, to me it's sounding like it looks like a giant fang." Just hearing that sent a shiver down Judy's spine. What kind of sick animal would made a knife to look like a fang and then kill with it. It just creeped her out.
The two thanked the doctor and walked out of the lab. Both were silent for awhile, gathering their own thoughts and trying to make as much sense of this as possible. Judy was trying to get her head around why anyone would do this, while Nick on the other paw found some of this a little to familiar. He couldn't quite remember everything, but a knife that was shaped like a fang sounded kind of familiar to him. Strangely, a lot of things were familiar to him in this case, but he just shrugged it off as coincidence.
Judy and Nick got back to their desks and sat down and sighed in frustration. Most of these things just led to dead ends and didn't help them in any way. Nick thought he may be onto something but he didn't want to jump to any conclusions.
"My guess is we're dealing with a predator," Nick inferred, looking over to Judy for her opinion. She thought about it for a second, but couldn't think of any reason why it would be.
"What makes you so sure?" She questioned him.
"Well I'm not sure, it's just an educated guess. But with the fang knife, either it's a predator or a prey with identity issues," Nick explained. Like Nick, Judy didn't want to jump to any conclusions, but he made a compelling point.
"How's about we talk about this over some dinner at your place. Its quitting time and I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast," Nick said, already making his way towards the front lobby. Judy rolled her eyes and wanted to complain, feeling the need to stay a little later and try to find out more on this case. But, she couldn't find any reason to; they didn't have enough information yet to really do anything. The best thing to do would be to wait until they got the laptop open and then go from there. But right now, she was going to go have dinner with her boyfriend.
"Hurry up Carrots, I don't have all night," she heard him call out to her from the next room. She giggled a little then hopped out of her chair and bounded off after him. She was happy for only one reason when she got off work, and that was because she got to spend her time with Nick. And these past four months of them being together made it all the better.
"I'm cooking this time, just so you know. I always thought that you bunnies were natural cooks," Nick laughed. Judy glared at him for a moment and asked him what that was supposed to mean.
"That you're a terrible cook, obviously," He put bluntly. Let's just say that by the time they got to the garage, Nick was limping.
"Please don't, I'll give you anything you want. Just don't..." And those were the last words of the poor goat before a knife was plunged into the base of his skull, killing him instantly.
"Sorry, I'm not into the whole 'begging' thing," The animal smirked as he pulled the knife from his head. He then picked up the goat who was previously sat in a corner, cowering from him only moments ago. With ease, the goat was lifted with one of the animals arms; then, just like the coyote, he drove the knife into his body five times. After he was done, he stared sadly at the goat he had hanging from his paw.
It wasn't because he felt bad about killing him, because he could care less about any animal; no, it was the reason he was killing that took him to a dark place. But he soon shook that out of his head and remembered he had a goal to achieve, and moping around would do nothing for him. He threw the lifeless body down as if it was just a piece of trash and turned to leave.
"Two down, a few more to go," He mumbled to himself as he walked out of the house and disappeared, again, into the night.