Here you go my pretties, chapter 3. I was thinking there wasn't enough fluff going on between our two favorite characters so I augmented it a bit. It still isn't a "fluff chapter" tought, thats the next one. There is some thoughts narration in the chapter, they are writtenlike this. Without further ado here you go enjoy!
"Blablabla bla blabla bla…"
Nick was walking down the precinct's corridor a coffee cup in his paw and a blabbing rabbit by his side. He was way too tired to pay any real attention to what she was saying at this time of the day. Last night had been a short one, Nick had been unable to find sleep. Every time he would come close, a detail of the case seemed to pop out wanting his attention. Of course this had lead nowhere. This case made no sense whatsoever.
"Hellooo! Earth to Nick are you there?"
With a grunt he turned his head to the little ball of fur and energy that walked next to him. With his eyes still weighted down by the lack of sleep he asked her with the most interested look he could manage, which was not much:
"Mmh what?"
The bunny looked offended by his answer. She stopped in her track glared at him. Her foot started tapping as she put her paw on the sides of her waist. Her ears were perked up and her nose was twitching.
"You weren't listening were you."
"Whaaaaat! Me? Of course I was carrots, what kind of friend do you think I am?" He replied with a large grin before taking a sip of his coffee.
"Fine then. What was the name of the guy I went on a date with last night?"
Nick's heart stopped beating for a moment as his stomach just dropped. His coffee wasn't welcome in his mouth any more and so he spat it out on the floor.
"WAIT YOU HAD A DATE!?"
Judy looked way too satisfied with herself. She was smiling and Nick could see something shining in her amethyst eyes. He knew that he had walked straight into the trap.
"If you were listening you would know that that's not true."
"Sly bunny."
"Dumb fox."
Well that was a relief he thought.
Wait why is this a relief?
He didn't have the time to ponder at it any longer, the little ball of fur all but dragged him through the corridor.
"Common we don't have all day, we have bad guys to catch."
Bogo had asked them to continue working as investigators on this case. Normally he would have recalled them as soon as anything new came up, but the guys had told him that they found their help useful and since this was a high priority case…
When they entered the office they could see both Coon and Porkins slouched over their desk. Nick guessed that they too had a bad night sleep. The three guys were all exhausted trying to trade sleep time spent trying to figure what the hell was going on for a surplus of caffeine.
The bunny on the other hand… The bunny was uncontrollable.
"So guys where do we begin?"
"Maybe by a nap." Joked Porkins.
It got a laughter from all the three exhausted mammal, but only an annoyed smile from the bunny cop. When Nick and judy came back from the ZMB headquarter, Coon and Porkins were still at 's apartment. Which was strange thinking about it since it wasn't to far apart from his workplace, it should have taken them roughly the same time. Seeing it was late and they were exhausted, Judy and Nick simply wrote a report for the two detectives and went home. Thus they had not the occasion to really discuss their findings and try to make any sense of it.
"Sigh. I guess we could start on your side. What did you guys find." Said Coon.
Judy started seeing she was the only one here actually awake.
"Well for starters, everyone of his colleagues seemed to like him a lot, apart from his boss who just didn't seem to care."
"So no office feud or jealous colleagues?"
"Not any that I could see. He also didn't seem to be the kind of wolf to go out and do something other than anything work related."
"Wait, that doesn't make sense." Said Nick. "In his recycling bin I found a shit load of receipt from a fancy bar not far from his office. There was one for almost every day for the past two weeks."
Porkins stood up and went to a shelf where a box containing the evidences and the discussion transcript Hopps and Wilde had collected yesterday. He took out a plastic bag from the box, with all the receipts in it. He read one, dropped it and read another and another.
"They are all for one drink only." He said frowning.
"Why would he go there only for one drink every night?" Asked Judy.
"Maybe he didn't go there for the drinks. He simply didn't want to be booted out for longing." Coon said with a perplexed shrug.
"Then why for?" Said Nick.
The room fell silent. All for mammals were thinking to themselves.
~That bar is for elites isn't it? Why would he go there?
~Everything breathed was in relation to his work… So how does this bar come in?
~They don't know do they? They can't know, not this fast?
~Why was it a relief? WHY WAS IT A RELIEF?
"Oh well, we'll have the time to go around and ask questions later." Said Coon. "Did you found anything else?"
"Well there was this strange notebook in one of his desk's drawer. It was locked and I had to force it open. What is the weirdest is that it seems to be only containing scribbles and note, but it was still locked."
Coon took the said notebook from the evidence box. When he opened it he looked shock for a moment. That quickly faded away as he adopted a more indifferent expression. He closed the book and tossed it aside as if it was of a total unimportance.
"We'll have a look at it later. Anything else?"
"Not really." Said Judy a bit taken aback by his nonchalance. "A few more details but nothing of major importance. If you want the full of it we did write a report for a reason. And what about you, any luck on your side."
Porkins jumped on the occasion.
"This reminds me, the autopsy report came in this morning. Want us to fill you in?"
"Hum… Yeah I guess."
The two officers were weirded out by Coon and Porkins' attitude. However they just shrugged it off to a side effect of the lack of sleep and surplus of caffeine.
Porkins started reading the autopsy report.
"The time of death was about 1:00am. There is no fur or anything that could allow us to run a DNA scan, under the victim's claw or in his mouth. The killing blow was delivered in the back of the neck with… Great strength." Porkins took a pause in the last part to underline how strangely powerful the blow must have been. "There is other stuff on here but they are all technical and none of them really matter."
"Wait, hold on! Where did you said was the killing blow?" Asked Nick.
"About here." Said Coon while pointing the left side of the back of his neck. Nick took a moment to think.
"Okay. Carrots would you be kind enough to participate in a demonstration with me?"
"Sure what do you want me to do?" Said the shrugging rabbit.
"Try to hit me in the same spot on the neck."
"I could do that any day!" She said smiling.
But try as she might, every time she tried to circle him to hit the back of his neck, he would simply rotate and face her in a combat stence.
"I can't reach you when you are facing me like that!"
"Which means…" Nick added with a large grin proving how satisfied he was of himself.
"Which means the killer attacked him from the back!" Exclaimed Porkins.
"Now carrots, you that were the top of your class at the academy…" Judy blushed "When would you turn your back to your adversary?"
"Never. He might have been running away though."
"Which would explain why we didn't find the killer's DNA under his claw." Said Coon in a moment of revelation. "He didn't fight."
"Not only that." said Nick "but if the wound was particularly deep in comparison to the others that means he did it using his strong paw…"
Judy now understanding, jumped on the band-wagon.
"And since the wound was on the left side of his neck that means our killer is left-pawed!"
Nick smiled obviously proud of himself.
"That represents only 10% of zootopia's population! We just reduced our suspect pool by 90%"
"How the hell do you know that Porkins?" Said Coon.
The pig simply shrugged. "I know stuff, it's what I do."
"Wait something's not right." Said Coon. "If the killer got him from behind, why is there marks on the front of the body?"
"Yeah?" Added Judy "A hit there would probably be one of if not the first hit the assailant would give. Then how come there is so many claw marks."
Silence fell in the room as they thought of a possible answer.
"I think he might just be trying to throw us off. He did move the bodies and took the time to make sure he wouldn't shed."
Judy had a flash when Coon talked about moving the bodies. She all but screamed.
"Wait! When did you say was the estimated time of death Coon?"
"Hum… About 1h in the morning. Why?"
"And when did central recieved the call telling the someone had broke in?"
"Let me check." Said Porkins
He turned to his computer and started typing on his keyboard. After a few second he answered.
"They got the call at 1:32."
"Okay so that gave him 32min to move the body to the crime scene. Considering that the average speed of a car in this area is 30 miles an hour. So that makes…"
She started counting on the fingers of her paws while mumbling to herself.
"I need a map!"
"What?"
"A map of zootopia, do you have one?"
"Hum yeah over there by the door."
Nick looked at the over excited ball of fur that served as his partner. He smiled and took a sip of his coffee as he watched her take the large map of the city and spread it over the table to the dismay of Porkins who had all his stuff cast aside. Judy took a marker and drew a dot at the place they had found the body. She then popped up her head and proceeded to look around the room searching for something. Her sight stopped at Nick who was starting to worry. She started to close the distance between them with a determination. When she reached him she grabbed his tie and pulled him down so that his head was at her level.
"Hum what are you doing carrots?"
She didn't bother to answer as she put her paws around his neck. Her face was very close to his and he could smell her scent clearly from where he stood.
She smelled good.
Nick looked at her but she, however was looking behind him. She was fiddling with something but he couldn't exactly tell what, he was way to distracted by her. Then as suddenly as she pulled him down, the force that was holding him to her level disapered and he could now see that she was walking away with his tie.
She had stolen his tie...
And he didn't even noticed it until now.
She walked back to the table she had left with her new possession. It's only then that Nick realised his mouth was still hanging open… And Coon and Porkins were staring at him… Shit.
Judy carefully measured the tie against the scale of the map, and at one point she rolled it around the end of the marker. She then pinned the other end on the point which represented the place they had found the body. She used the tie to draw a perfect circle around the point with the radius she had so carefully measured. She then stood back and looked proudly at her creation.
"Crime scene should be somewhere in this area."
She looked around to meet the gazes of her co-workers however they were all too dumbstruck by her idea to express any reaction. Nick on his side was also still trying to recover from something else.
"It simple guys I just calculated how far they could have gone in the lapse of time they had to move the body. That gave me the radius of the circle which means the crime scene is somewhere in this area. Jezz guys c'mon this isn't rocket science."
Nick managed to regain himself just enough to speak.
"Could we do the same for Po?"
"Nah!" Replied Coon. "We found his body too late to have a precise time of death plus we discovered him days after he died."
"Well this is nice and all, but this is just an approximation." Said Porkins. "It assumes that he was always traveling at the same speed and in a straight line."
"We might be able to get one of the guys in the computer lab to transform a traffic map into a better approximation." Said Coon.
"Even then, there are hundreds of places the crime scene could be. We can't just search every building." Said Nick. "Did you guys find any more clues at 's apartment?"
Coon responded particularly quickly at that one.
"Oh you know, nicks and nacks, nothing really important."
There was a silence.
"Tell you what. You and Judy can go to that bar, if he was a regular customer maybe people there will know him. Meanwhile, me and Porkins are going to get that map made and we'll look through that notebook see if we can make anything out if it."
"Yeah fine I guess…" was the only response from the duo.
The two teams went their way as Judy and Nick got out of the office. When they were sure they couldn't hear them any more, Porkins turned to his friend.
"Maybe we should just tell them."
"If we do that we might never know the truth. No they cannot know, not right now."
"Well, I'll go and ask the computer guys to make that map, you can start cross referencing the notebook with what we found yesterday."
Porkins went on his way while Coon was already getting busy.
On their sides, Nick and Judy had already reached their parked SUV.
"Is it just me or were the guys acting a bit weird?"
Judy shrugged "Maybe they were just tired. I think they came back from work late last night."
"And they were in the first responders to the scene so that would make sense." He added.
However Nick had a feeling that he was just trying to convince himself.
"So…" He continued "Are you excited for this weekend's game?"
"I am always excited to win a bet."
"Don't be so sure of yourself carrots. You never know what could happen."
"Speak all you want, as soon as the Snows will win I am going to call you up just to mock you."
"Yeah hum about that…" Nick trailed off is smile disappearing. Suddenly he seemed very unsure of himself which wasn't normal for him.
"What is it? Are you afraid you're going to lose and want to call the bet off?" Judy said with a smile. However she was starting to get worried. It wasn't like Nick at all to just call something like that off, he had way too much pride.
"I was wondering… Well, you told me once that you watched the games on your phone since there was no tv in your apartment and… I hum… I thought maybe that you would like to come over to my place and watch it with me." He almost whispered the last part.
Nick had to stop himself from panting since foxes didn't get rid of heat by sweating and it was really hot right now.
"You know, so you can watch it on a real tv." He added rapidly while he scratched his back.
On her side the world seemed to stop.
~Did he really said that?
~No he asked if you liked macaroni. Of course he did stupid.
~What do I say? Is this a date?
~Watching a game is a totally normal thing to do between friends. Why would it need to be a date?
~Do I want it to be a date?
~Yes! Wait, no! Maybe? I don't know!
Nick was now staring at the fixed bunny.
"Hum carrots are you alright?"
~Shit! What do I do?
~Answer the damn question you stupid bunny!
~By what?
"If you have something else plan carrots it's okay you don't have to feel bad."
"WAIT NO! Hum… I mean... I'll think about it."
Nick turned his attention back to the road looking a bit disappointed. Judy couldn't help but feel she had hurt him.
~Good job genius, a "I'll think about it" means no everyone knows that.
~But I don't want to say no.
~Then why didn't you say yes?
Judy was defeated by the logic of the voice in her head. Which thinking about it probably shouldn't exist.
"Hum Judy speed…" Nick said still looking in front of him.
When she looked down at the speed dial she noticed that she was going 20 mi/h over the limit. She hadn't noticed that her foot had pushed on the accelerator so much while she was debating with herself in her head.
The rest of the travel to the bar was made in silence. When they arrived there they had to take the elevator to the top floor since it was on the rooftop. In front of them stood a large well dressed bull that served as bouncer although he also looked like a waiter in a fancy restaurant.
The two of them showed their badge to the bouncer.
"Officer hopps, and this is officer Wilde. We would like to talk to some of the employees and clients of this establishment."
"What for?" Came the short and snappy response from the imposing bull.
"We are investigating a murder and we have proof that our victim was a regular customer."
"Do you have a warrant?"
"What? For asking questions? No that doesn't really exi…"
"Then fuck off! We don't want cops making customers uneasy here."
"Actually sir…" Interrupted Nick "You will find that only the owner of the propriety can refuse or grant access to law enforcement. So if you would please be kind enough to fetch the owner, Officer hopps and myself will be waiting here."
The angry bull look back and forth between the two small mammals in uniform that were in front of him.
"Fine, you stay where you are I'll go get him."
The bull left leaving Judy and Nick alone.
"I must say I'm impressed Nick."
"Yeah I bet you didn't think I listened at the academy did you."
"Well you were certainly texting me a whole lot when you should have been studying."
"Hey what can I say. It's not my fault if the classes were boring. And after all, I did graduate no?"
"Yeah, but not first of your class."
"Pfff! That is so you. Passing isn't enough, you have to be the best."
He said that however with a smile. While some people could see her overachieving personality as somewhat annoying, Nick found it one of her most likable personality trait.
"I grew up with 275 siblings, that makes me a competitive bunny."
"And a cute one at that."
The bouncer came back with an angry looking badger. Their appearance saved Judy from Nick watching her turn a crimson red under her fur.
"I'm here what do you want!" He snapped at them.
"Sir one of your regular client was murdered recently and we would…"
Juddy didn't have the time to finish her sentence, the badger hushed her frantically making signs with his paws.
"Shhh! Quiet it down bunny! Not where my customers could hear you. Come with me we'll talk in my office."
Judy chose to simply ignore the offensive remarque and followed the angry owner. They entered the club but only to quickly turn the corner and end up in an employee only area. This however gave just enough time for Nick to get a good look at the kind of people that frequented this bar. He had always been good at judging people on first sight. It was a talent sought after for good con man. It was also a weapon of mass destruction in the matter of psychological warfare. He had used it against Judy when he first met her, but he had failed to see how stubborn she was at the time. What he had seen of the customer reeked wealth and superficiality. Most of them looked like animals way past the age to go in a club that just wanted to feel young again. While could afford coming here if he didn't spend too much on drinks, Nick didn't saw why he would. He had not seemed from what he could tell from the interviews with his colleagues like the type of mammal who would like to hang out here.
They followed the badger up some stairs that lead to a small office overlooking the bar. He sat down in his office chair without offering a seat to them or even acknowledging them.
"What do you want officers?" he said with an annoyed look on his face.
"One of your recurrent customer died yesterday morning. His name was James and we…"
"Don't know him." Cut the badger.
"Ok… And we would like to ask questions to your personnel and customers."
"No. Get out."
"What?"
"I sat down, I listen to you, and now I choose to ignore you. I do believe I can refuse you access to my propriety if I so desire."
Judy was about to complain but Nick stopped her with a movement of his paw.
"Fine sir. We respect your rights as a owner. If you change your mind we'll just be outside the limits of your property stopping everyone coming here to ask them questions." He said with a grin. "Alright Judy come on let's go."
"Wait no you don't have the rights..."
"Of asking people questions on a public propriety. Of course we do."
"Wait! Fine I'll let you talk to my employees, but only to them. If I hear you've been asking questions to clients I'm kicking you out. Do we have a deal?"
"Yes sir. Thank you for your generosity we won't be long." He said with a fake smile.
They both got out of the office and as soon as they closed the door Nick spoke his mind.
"Asshole." he muttered.
It solicited a short laughter from Judy which proceeded to make Nick smile.
"So where do we start?" Asked Judy.
"Well if I know something from my extensive knowledge about bars, is that the barmaid is the best animal to talk to for information on people. You wouldn't believe how much people open up when they are drunk, especially if the barmaid is attractive."
"What do you mean by 'extensive'?"
"That my dear… Is a story for another time."
They both looked at each other smiling. When they arrived at the counter, they were lucky enough for it to be no other customers that needed attention at the moment. The barmaid, a young looking fashionable horse, greeted them. With a smile.
"Hi officers! What can I do for you?"
"Would you happen to know this mammal?" Judy showed her a picture of the late wolf. "He was a regular customer."
"Oh yeah that's James. Why do you want to know?"
"Well miss, was found dead by the ZPD yesterday morning. And we hoped you could give us some information."
"Oh my god this is horrible! Poor man, I am afraid I won't be of much help taugh."
"Why is that?"
"Well you see, James wasn't really the social animal, sweet old thing. He usually liked to hang out in the corner right over there by himself. Something about the view he said, he even brought his camera a few times to take picture. But other wise he didn't really mingled much. The only reason the owner didn't kick him out was because he always bought at least one drink and he came here almost every day."
"Thank you miss you gave us more information than we could have hoped." Said Nick
He walked away from the counter towards the area she said their victim used to hang out. Judy didn't understand why Nick said she had gave them much information. She herself thought it wasn't much to work on. But she trusted her partner and he had this smile on his face that told her he had a plan.
"So is she one of those attractive barmaid you were talking about?"
"Meh, she seems nice and all but she's not my type."
"So what is your type then?"
"Wouldn't you want to know hen?"
She actually did, but she would never admit it. So instead she settled on a smile.
"Level with me here big boy. I know that face what are you thinking about?"
"Well certainly didn't come here for the people, not that I see why anyone would. He also didn't come here for the drinks since he always only bought the minimal not to get kicked. So why did he come here?"
"I don't know, why?"
"For the location, more precisely for this corner. There must be something there that pushed him to come back here and I intend on finding what it is."
They arrived at the set corner of the rooftop bar. From there they had quite an impressive view of the city. Fortunately for them, it was a remote point of the bar and nobody was there except them. Nick started searching under the outside benches that were scattered here and there.
"Hey Nick."
"Hmm?" He replied still busy looking around for something, he had no clue what.
"I have been thinking about what you said in the car and…"
"Listen carrots if you don't want to come it's okay, you don't have to feel bad for it."
"No but I do want to come."
"Really?" Nick's head perked up, his ears rising.
"Yeah!" She said with a smile. " It'll be fun. Two friends watching a game together you know."
"Gr… Great!"
He was obviously quite happy to hear her change her mind. This in turn made Judy smiled. While she was coming down from the excitement, she leaned over the rail and took a good look at the city. From here she could see all the major district. Although she couldn't see it directly, she could guess the location of the police station. The view also gave her a close look at the major towers of the city center, like the ZTV headquarters, and the ZMB tower, and… Wait.
From here she could clearly observe the the ZMB siege where worked. More importantly, the bar was directly facing the glass wall that gave to the CEO's office.
"Nick look at this."
She pointed her paw at the office building and at the top floor.
"You can see inside Clawson's office from here." He said.
"Yeah but it is a bit far away from here. You would something to be able to clearly see inside."
"Something with a zoom maybe…" Said Nick. "Like a camera."
They both looked at eachother for an instant before saying at the same time:
"Arfur was surveying his boss!"
…
The two investigators were walking down the corridor of a decrepitated apartment complex in chinatown. It was extremely late at night which made the landlady furious when they asked for the keys to the abandoned apartment.
"I thought you had finished with the search weeks ago!" Said the grumpy old lady
"Something new came up in the case. So you have the keys?"
She grumbled and gave the keys to the officers who immediately turned away towards the apartment in question.
They had came directly from Arfur's apartment complex after they had finished searching it. Normally they should have been at the police station by now, but the discoverie that they had made there was too much to simply ignore. They didn't want to mess around, they had been up since the crack of dawn and they knew that this would take a few more hours. Hell it might technically be a new day when they would punch out.
They unceremoniously opened the apartment's front door and entered. They looked around the small room, this time looking for indications they weren't the first time they had come here. The back wall of the closet is what hooked Coon's attention. It seemed to stand out from the other walls like it wasn't made at the same time. He knocked on it and found that the sound echoed. He then took out and extended is measuring band he had brought with them and proceeded to measure the distance between the suspicious wall and the door. Then he measured the distance between the door of the apartment and the door of the one next to it on the same side as the closet.
He knocked loudly on the neighbor's door, possibly waking up half a dozen other resident. The door open slightly, still blocked by a chain. The visage of a large white tiger appeared through the opening.
"What do you want?" he said angrily.
Coon flashed his badge. "Hi sir could we come in?"
"No."
The tiger moved to close the door but Coon stopped it by wedging his paw in. He then proceeded to get a 100$ bill from his pocket and wiggled it under the tiger's nose.
"Alright but be quick."
The door closed only to reopen again this time letting the officers walk in. Porkins gave the tiger the money while his partner immediately proceeded to measure the wall from the door to the back of the closet on the other side.
A quick bit of math told him that the wall of the closet was about three foot too large. He tank the tiger and got out leaving him to admire the bill in his paw.
Back in po's apartment, Coon took the first large heavy object he could find which was the metal leg of a broken table. He took a good swing and made a hole in the wall. It came crashing down on the plaster with a loud bangn. Only a few moments later, the landlady had came running.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Miss this is an investigation scene I am going to need you to get out please." Said Porkins.
"What are you doing to my apartments you maniack. I want you out now!"
"I'm afraid this won't be possible miss now if you'll please stand back while we are doing our jobs."
BANG!
Coon gave the las strike against the wall which now allowed him to see what was behind it. The fake wall covered an other one that had picture pinned all over it in the same fashion as in 's apartment. The landlady had stopped screaming when she saw this.
"Po wasn't a nobody." Said Coon. "He was paranoid."
"Well it's not paranoia if it's real." Replied Porkins.
Both of them quickly looked over the photos on the wall. They were both searching for photo similar to the one that almost gave them a heart attack a few hours ago.
And sure enough it was there.
On the wall was a couple photos all depicting the same familiar thing.
"Shit!"
In the next chapter of… Bunny and Wilde. *speaks with a very low narrating voice* Our two cop duo will finally know who will win between the Snow Warriors and the Sand Boggies. Who will win the bet? What are Coon and Porkins hiding? Find out next time… Seriously though the next chapter will be the first real fluff chapter and hopefully things will start accelerating from there in that domain since I find that it has been a bit left on the side until now. Let me know what you think, and I would be curious to see who do you think will win the bet in the comments. Oh well cia.
