Whiplash
Chapter 1 "Whenever, Wherever"
By DragonMan1997
Zootopia © Disney
"You have no idea." Nick Wilde sat in the passenger seat of the ZPD interceptor with his partner, Judy Hopps, driving the car as they headed down the road to Sahara Square. "A bunny like yourself would never understand the concept of an evil ex."
"Nick, come on, was your ex-girlfriend really that bad?" Judy always questioned everything Nick told her. It wasn't the fact that he was a fox, she'd already gotten over that, it was the fact that he was a former con-artist. And, he tended to stretch the truth at times.
"That bad? Yes! She's that bad." Nick laughed to himself. He was always amused by Judy's endeavor to find good in everyone; it was one of the reasons he enjoyed being her partner on the police force.
Judy shook her head at Nick. "Have you ever thought that your judge of character might be wrong?"
Nick raised a brow in disbelief. "This coming from the rookie cop who trusted the very sheep that turned out to be a criminal mastermind?"
Judy frowned at that just as they entered the gateway to Sahara Square. "Nick, sometimes I hate you."
"But, you know you love me," Nick laughed as Judy struggled not to smile, "and besides, you can always feel free to feel morally superior, given the fact of my questionable past."
Judy smiled without restraint. "This is our stop coming up."
Judy drove the interceptor up to the side of a small warehouse. The tan building barely stood out against the desert landscape of Sahara Square. Other ZPD interceptors were parked along the warehouse. Several officers were taking notes from witnesses that were around the area.
Judy walked up to an officer who kept shaking his head as he went over his notes. "How's the investigation going?"
"Not good, Hopps. The witnesses would have been a better help if we had gotten here sooner. The robbery happened last night." The officer closed his notebook and tucked it away. "That's probably why Chief Bogo called you down here."
"Wait, Bogo is here?" That was strange to Judy since Chief Bogo never really attended crime scenes in person often.
"Yep," the officer walked back to his interceptor, "he's waiting inside for you."
"Thanks." Judy turned to Nick. "Nick we need to… Nick?"
Nick was bent over, looking at the ground. "That's strange." He took off his aviator sunglasses to get a better look. "These are footprints, but they have no discernible marks. They're flat."
Judy walked over to see the peculiar footprints. "Huh. Do think they might be covering their feet somehow?"
"I can only speculate," Nick tilted his head as he visually followed the path of the footprints which disappeared at the edge of the street. "I can't shake the feeling that this looks oddly familiar. It's like I've seen this be-"
"Hopps, Wilde!" The booming voice of Chief Bogo, a massive cape buffalo, alerted Nick and Judy. "This way."
They followed Bogo into the warehouse.
"Wow," Nick silently chuckled to himself. "Must have been some wild party animals in here."
All around, the warehouse was in disarray. Shelves were tipped over, glass was shattered, and lights were flickering on and off.
"The air in here is pretty good for its location in Sahara Square." Judy looked around and noticed the photographers taking pictures of evidence, and where it was placed, before bagging and tagging it.
"Advanced air conditioning was installed so that this facility could maintain a specific temperature." Bogo gestured to the industrial vents that were strategically placed around the interior of the warehouse.
"Whoever owns this place must have been storing something pretty sensitive to the elements. That's what the plastic along the walls is for, right?" Nick pointed out the shredded mess of clear thick plastic that was still clinging to the walls.
Bogo smirked. "A good observation Wilde."
"Sir, what exactly was being kept here?" Judy looked up at Bogo.
"Art, Miss Hopps. This warehouse was full of art. There were 151 paintings being stored in this facility. I received the tip, from a former colleague, about the robbery. My colleague insisted that I take up the case." Bogo groaned as he shook his head. "But, I can't make heads or tails of this case. And quite frankly, I'm busy with another case that's more urgent."
Nick nodded a bit. "Life or death situation, I'm guessing."
"I can't reveal all the details as this is a more sensitive case, but yes, it is a priority case for me right now. So, that's why I'm asking you two to look into this case for me." Bogo started for the exit. "After your great success with the savage animals case, I expect good results from your investigation here. Good luck." With that, Chief Bogo left Nick and Judy with their new case.
Nick let out an awkward whistle. "He seemed, nicer."
Judy looked curiously at Nick. "How do you mean?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe his case is just getting to him." Nick sighed. "Speaking of cases. How in the world are we gonna start on this one?"
Judy put her paw on her hip as she laughed. "You don't exactly sound as confident as usual."
"That's because half of our success with that first case we did was pure dumb luck." Nick shook his head until he eyeballed a security camera in the corner. "It was lucky that you even caught that glimpse of me in that photo of Otterton."
Judy noticed Nick staring at the security camera. "Maybe we'll get lucky again with the security footage from the time of the robbery."
Nick and Judy made their way to the little room that was annexed to the side of the warehouse. Above the door was a plain white sign with blue letters that read, "Surveillance." Bars protected the windows that were tinted black. Judy hopped up and knocked on the door.
A loud crash from in the surveillance room followed along with a series of angry growls. "If you ain't the coppers, then go away! I'm sleeping."
Judy composed herself before reciting, "This is Officer Hopps and Officer Wilde, ZPD."
There was an audible spit take. "Wait, the Miss Hopps? The fuzzy little rabbit that joined the fuzz?"
"The very same, sir," Nick added.
The door to the surveillance office slammed open, revealing an older Skunk wearing curlers. "I'm a woman." This made Nick's eyes grow behind his shades.
"Yes ma'am," Judy, with her unbiased attitude, thought nothing of it, "we need to take a look at the security footage from last night. Please."
The skunk smiled at Judy. "Alright deary. Come right in." Judy smiled and walked in through the door. The skunk stopped Nick briefly and pointed in his face. "I got my eyes on you foo'."
Judy looked at the desk and noticed a mug with the word "flower" written on it. "Flower?"
"My friends call me Flower." The skunk whipped around, facing Nick. "You may call me Miss Pourri."
Nick smirked. "Miss huh? You're still single?"
"Why?" Flower glared at Nick. "You checking me out?"
Nick waved his paws frantically. "No I didn't mean it like that!"
"Good! Cause I ain't into that whole mixin' species thing you freak." Flower whipped back towards Judy and sat in the chair at the desk. Nick murmured where he stood as Judy quietly laughed at him. "So, let's take it back to about 12:07 when the guy showed up."
Judy and Nick watched as Flower pulled up the footage. It was night. They could see the outside of the warehouse being lit by a single lamp above the door. A single figure rode up on a motorcycle. The figure acted fast and disappeared behind the warehouse. Then the screen went blank.
Judy raised her brow, confused. "What happened?"
"Who ever it was, they knew what they were doing." Flower moved to a different video file. "They cut the power, but I have backup cameras that run on a separate generator. They're equipped with night vision, so we can still see what's going on in the dark." She played the footage.
"What's that?" The voices of the guards were audible. "Over there!" It was too late for the guards. By the time they had drawn their tasers, the intruder had pulled out a strange object that resembled a rope with a handle.
CRACK, CRACK.
The intruder used the strange rope to disarm the guards and knocked them unconscious. The footage stopped. Judy looked over at Flower. "Why did you stop it?"
"Because," Flower pulled a flashdrive out of the desk and plugged it into the computer, "the footage stops after he turns around and takes out the rest of my cameras with that rope thing of his. Here, I'll give you a copy of all the footage."
"His? You think it was a male?" Judy quickly pulled out her notebook and began writing.
"Yep. I could smell it." Flower snorted a bit.
Nick's usual smirk floated back onto his face. "Yeah, I bet you did Miss Pourri."
Flower tensely twisted her neck towards nick. "And what would you know about smell, mister hasn't showered in two days."
Nick furrowed his brow but slowly lifted his arm to take a cringe worthy wiff. "Oh, yeah. That's about right."
Judy stared at Nick, mouth agape. "You said it was because you bumped into a sewage plant worker."
Nick waved Judy off. "Let's just get the footage and go. Please?"
With a few snarky comments from Flower and some patience, Judy and Nick got the footage they needed and headed back into the central part of the warehouse. Judy looked around, hoping to find some kind of clue. Taking a deep breath, she noticed something.
"I smell something." Judy continued to sniff the air.
Nick rolled his eyes. "Okay, I get it! I'll take a shower in the locker room as soon as we get back to the station."
"No, Nick. Come here. Smell the air right here." Judy pulled Nick into the spot where she had just been standing.
Nick sniffed at the air. He was surprised to actual smell a different sweeter aroma. "Apples and cinnamon?" Nick sniffed at it again. "Ah. I see."
"What? What is it?" Judy got excited when she thought Nick was on to something.
"Yeah!" Nick smiled, "Furbreze!" Nick's smile slowly died down as he noticed Judy put her paws on her hips in disapproval.
"They wouldn't have air fresheners in a warehouse storing rare and expensive artwork, Nick." Judy thought for a moment. "Let's review some of the basic facts. One of our witnesses, Flower, has identified the perpetrator as a male. We'll assume that the perpetrator is a male, but for the sake of our investigation we'll keep it open to a female."
"Our perpetrator was careful enough not to harm any of the guards seriously, he only incapacitated them." Nick chuckled a bit to himself. "And, whoever he is, he left a trace of air freshener!"
Judy gave Nick a glare that clearly showed that she was not amused. "Nick, hundreds of animals buy air freshener. We can't exactly make suspects out of any animals that happened to buy apple and cinnamon air freshener."
"Oh, I suppose you're right." Nick still smiled, but put his mind back to work. He knew there was a time and place to crack jokes, and he didn't want to get on Judy's nerves too much. He looked around until he noticed a pig still dressed in his security uniform. Nick walked over to the pig who was fiddling with a bandage. "Couldn't be a cop, huh?"
The pig finished replacing the bandage on his wrist and cocked his brow as a suave smile spread on his snout. "Nah, the cop scene just wasn't for me. I found that my true talent was better suited for a more humbler job."
Nick found himself entertained by the pig's strange charisma. "So, you chose security."
The pig laughed as he pulled out a candy bar. "It's more like security chose me. Though, I've been getting some bad vibrations from this job. I'll probably go back to working security at the mall downtown."
"I see," Nick noticed the bandage on the pig's wrist again. "That's quite the injury you got there."
"Oh, this?" The pig waved at the air. "Don't worry about it, it's not that bad. It's just normal wear and tear in the rough life of security work."
"Was it from the perpetrator's weapon?"
The pig nodded his head awkwardly. "Yeah, I'll admit it hurt more at the time when he whipped my taser from my grasp."
Nick furrowed his brow in confusion. "Whipped?"
"Yeah, whipped," the pig repeated, "because he used a whip. It was a pretty cool use of old school weaponry."
"I see," Nick looked back to Judy, "excuse me, uh, what was your name?"
"My friends call me Paul," said the pig with another suave smile.
"Right, Paul. Well, if you'll excuse me Paul, I have to get back to my partner now." Nick walked back over to Judy with a smug look on his face. He knew that Judy liked seeing that look on his face; she knew that look meant good news.
"So? What did the security guard say?" Judy looked back and forth between Nick and Paul with anticipation.
"I got an ID on our perpetrator's weapon." Nick took a small amount of pleasure in seeing Judy's frown turn upside down. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone who's an expert on whips, would you?"
"Not exactly." A bigger smile spread across Judy's face. "But, I might know someone who does."