Chapter 2: Onward To Another Investigation
Downtown in the city center Judy and Nick were putting tickets on cars who were left passed the parking limit. They rode around in the meter maid vehicle barely fitting inside as Nick held onto the edge of the roof. Judy, however, was in a good mood; smiling as she placed tickets on the windshield wipers.
A beaver was not pleased to have seen her place one on his vehicle as he came out of a local grocery store dropping all he had bought as he grabbed the ticket waving it angrily in the air, "What are you smiling about? Bet you like making life difficult for others, don't you? DON'T YOU?!" The beaver complained from the sidewalk next to his vehicle saying gibberish aloud.
Judy continued on not having heard the beaver since she was too distracted into her thoughts, skipping as she went to another vehicle, "Today is going to be great, I can't wait when we start looking for an apartment this afternoon. Are you excited?" She said with joy to Nick as she passed the maid vehicle.
Nick looked up from a newspaper he was reading wearing his sunglasses, "I look forward to it."
"You were right about this whole thing Nick, we really should take advantage since we'll have more time and energy to burn. And you can get enough-"
As Judy was about to place another ticket she hears a news report coming from a television on a display window and goes to listen in as Fabienne started the report, "No new information has came in about the missing officers whom disappeared in these past few weeks that were working undercover. ZPD officials have been working hard, but have yet to make a break through in the missing ZPD officers cases along with the ongoing wave of crimes that have been plaguing all around Zootopia's districts."
The camera then switched to Peter, "Mayor Boustines held a conference to try and answer some of the press's questions yesterday in the afternoon to see what actions were going to be taken to try and restore peace in the districts."
Nick got out of the meter maid vehicle and joined Judy as a clip of the conference was shown as the new mayor answered simple questions, but had difficulty on a few about the missing officers and the crime wave.
"Poor Mayor, I hope she knows what she's doing, bad time to have taken the position."
"Well I'm sure she'll do just fine, we just need to get on the case as soon as our punishment is over."
Nick chuckled a bit, "Come on, let's get back to making Zootopia's citizens lives miserable."
The two continued taking turns going out placing tickets and driving.
A police cruiser pulled up on the other side of the road where Nick was waiting in the meter maid vehicle as Judy was typing a ticket. Robert leaped out and the cruiser waited. When Judy was reaching to place a ticket on a vehicle Robert appeared and helped her, "Here, let me get that for you officer." He placed the ticket on the windshield wiper.
Judy looked at her helper and saw him in uniform, "Thanks officer..."
"Lyle, Robert Lyle, I was told I would find you out here."
"Do I know you?"
"No, I'm from out of Zootopia. New transfer from Jungnala, I arrived this morning."
"Oh what are you doing all the way out here in Zootopia?"
"Well I always wanted to serve here and with the disturbances happening in Zootopia, the JPD saw fit to send me up here to help."
Nick saw the two officers talking and walks over to them, "Hey, how's it going?"
"Ah, officer Wilde as expected."
"Yeah, and who are you?"
"Officer Lyle, new transfer from Jungnala."
"He's our new partner Nick, we're being put back on the case." Judy happily informed Nick.
"Really? Guess Chief Bogo wasn't that angry at us huh?"
"Oh no he is still, but since there weren't any other officers available to assist me with my investigation, he assigned you two to me."
"Oh, well, it's better than having to do this." Nick replied rubbing the back of his neck.
"If you say so. I'll see you two at the station; I assume you'll want to jump out of those vests."
"Yes, we'll meet you up there in a bit."
"Good, we'll be off investigating once you do."
"Oh, uhm, you see since our shift was going to be over in the next hour, we have plans for this afternoon. We're going out to look for an apartment for Nick here, so..."
Robert stepped away from the cruiser, "I see, well how's this, we'll go look at some apartments, then we'll start investigating?"
"Well we did have more planned than just looking at apartments."
Robert rubbed his chin as he thought, "Well I'm sorry, but I was put in charge of you two. I don't mean to cut into your plans, but this is serious stuff and I need all hands on deck."
Judy nodded slowly, "Alright, we'll just go looking for an apartment and start investigating."
"Alright glad to be on the same page. So I'll see you two at the station and go from there."
Robert signaled the cruiser to pick him up and he hopped into the back.
As instructed Judy and Nick met with Robert at the front desk where Robert had been talking to Clawhauser as he waited on the duo.
He then spotted them walking towards him, "Ah, there they are good timing."
"So Robert here was telling me you two are going apartment hunting? How exciting."
"Well yeah it's for Nick, he's been needing one for awhile."
"Just for Nick?" Clawhauser teased.
"What do you mean?" Robert unsure of what Clawhauser meant lowering his eyebrows to sort of squint.
"Oh come now just look at our favorite duo, don't they look cute together?"
"No, no, it's for Nick. As you should already know Clawhauser I've already got a place of my own."
"Uhm, we should get moving, wouldn't want to hold back the investigation." Nick insisted.
"Right. Nice talking to you Clawhauser."
The three began to walk away to the exit.
"Alright well best of luck on the investigation as well you guys." Clawhauser said aloud waving at them.
Robert parked the cruiser and they all got out to see there first stop. The apartment had one bedroom, a bathroom and the living room and kitchen were barely divided by a small counter.
"So how this one Nick?" Judy walked around looking at the blank walls in the apartment.
"Looks nice and all, but has a lot of space even for myself."
"OK, well there's nothing with wrong with having extra space, so let's put it in the maybe section."
They all then headed to another complex for an apartment with similar features, but had brown walls and light brown carpeting.
"How's this one? It's not too roomy and the floor is very comfortable to walk on."
Nick placed his index finger and thumb around his chin, "Yeah, but if I had guest over I believe there would be a lack of space getting by each other since the furniture would take up space."
Judy lowered her eyebrows and raised her bottom lip, "Alright, let's go look at another."
They went to three more, but Nick had something to say about them not suiting his needs, which annoyed Judy a bit. Until they arrived at a nice complex.
"Well this one looks nice." Nick watched the building through the window.
"Are you sure it doesn't have the right color on the outside?" Judy said in a sarcastic tone.
"Haha, real funny, let's go check it out. I have a good feeling about this one."
"You two go on ahead, but please do hurry I want to get on with this investigation today."
"It'll be quick, I promise." Judy said still annoyed.
"So here we are." The landlord said as he opened the door and let Judy and Nick in to look around as he waited by the door.
"Wow this is even nicer in person."
"This is real nice Nick." Judy then notices it has an extra bedroom, "Wait, but it has two bedrooms, you don't need the extra one."
"Well, I was thinking and..." Nick hesitated for a moment putting his hands behind him looking at the polished wooden floor, "thought you'd want to be my roommate."
Judy looked at Nick as ears slowly dropped as she twiddled her fingers and didn't know what to say.
"So.. How about it?" He placed his hands in his pockets as he looked at Judy as she still was speechless at the offer.
Then a soft sweet smile grew on Judy's face, "Yes, of course."
She quickly walked over and gave Nick a hug.
After a second or two of looking at each other the landlord coughed to get their attention, "So what do you think?"
"Sir, we'll take it."
"Excellent, I'll get the paper work."
Judy tapped her foot multiple times quickly and let out a small squeal from the excitement, "This is so exciting!"
"Well we should wrap this up and head back to Robert and tell him the good news."
After bidding the landlord farewell they walked down the steps and into the cruiser.
"So judging from your faces this one was the one for you?" Robert asked Nick.
"Oh yeah, it was just as I expected it would be. But any way, onward to our investigation bud."
Back at the same alley they searched even though it was a bit darker since the sun was two hours from setting. They looked around where the criminals had been talking to see if anything was left behind.
Using a small flashlight Robert shined it on a few paw prints left on muddy ground.
"Well I can't tell what animals were here, I doubt we'll find anything around here." Robert looked down and found a piece of a flier, "What's this?"
Nick analyzed it to see if he recognized it, "Looks like a piece of a paper for some sort of event, but I can't tell for what."
"I haven't heard of any upcoming event's." Judy added as she went to see.
"I doubt we'll get anything useful here. We should go interrogate our suspect and see what we can get out of him."
Nick and Judy gave a single nod of agreement and headed back to the cruiser.
Back at the station Gabriel was in an interrogation room with an empty chair and table for small animals waiting for someone to pop in.
"I'll be the bad cop, one of you is gonna have to be the good cop."
"I'll do it, I want to know what he's got to say especially after what happened on the road." Judy said with a stern tone.
"OK then let's go interrogate our Gopher."
"Are you sure Judy, if he sees you he'll probably keep his lips sealed." Nick asked her.
"Oh I'm sure. And if he does I'll unseal them for him." She winked at Nick.
Nick observed the two officers enter the room through the glass. Robert walked next to Gabriel as Judy took the empty chair.
"Alright buster, why were you going to trade that thing you stole for cash? What is it that your buddies wanted with it?" Robert hits the table with the side of his right fist to try and intimidate him.
"You don't scare me copper. Besides I ain't sayin' nothing, especially on the count of Ms. Bad Driver over here." Gabriel crossed his arms.
"But don't you want to be out of here before dinner time? If you tell us what you and your friends were doing I could make that happen." Judy said in a polite voice.
"What? Do you think I was born yesterday? You bunnies sure lack some brain cells, I'm still astonish they let you on the force."
Nick gave a small jolt back having heard that knowing it would really bother Judy.
Judy then squints her eyes at Gabriel for a second and resumes acting nice, "That wasn't very nice. In fact." She slams her paws onto the table as she stood up off the chair, "you just earned yourself another month."
"You can't do that."
"Oh but I just did and if you want to keep this game up then I'll add even more to your time. Now, tell us what you know or it's the big slammer for you." Judy said with an intimidating voice even Robert was surprised.
Gabriel looked at Robert.
"Don't look at me, she's the one in charge."
Gabriel gulped, "Alright, let's settle down, no need for more sentencin'. I needed the money and was told about the job to steal that thing. What they wanted to do with it I don't know, it wasn't on the job description."
"And you're friends, where are they from?"
"I don't know it was my first time meeting them."
"Who gave you word of the job?" Judy sat back down calmly onto the chair.
"It was some squirrel in the swamp district. She told me of the job. Course this is after Mr. Big had refused it."
"Wait Mr. Big, the Mr. Big?" Judy was shocked to hear as she looked towards the glass as Nick on the other side was shocked as well.
"Hopps? What's the matter?"
"I know who Mr. Big is and where to find him. If any one would know what's going on around here, it's him."