Chapter 10 Summary
Hugo show up at the door at Cliffside only to be shown the door by Swinton. Kicked out like a stray cat, he goes back to see his boss. Donny pulls in extra help in the form of ZPD's first fox police officer, Nick Wilde!
13 years ago at Cliffside Psych Ward: A Cold Wind Blows
The day had dawned clear and cold, with just a whisper of autumn winds rustling the dying summer leaves as they danced down through the broad leaf trees clinging to the alpine slopes. Hugo shivered as he stood at the bus stop, contemplating life and the cold air nibbling on his tail. If he had been his mother, he would have taken the morning's cold weather as a sign of bad luck, and performed some ritual or another to appease Karma, maybe even light a candle. But he wasn't superstitious, certainly not anymore, not since he was a child. No, he was a mammal of science and medicine, trained in the scientific method and rigorous testing. A professional! He didn't believe in bad luck and bad karma.
He probably should have lit that candle.
The beginning of the morning had been fine. He had woken up on time, groggy and scratching his way to the shower, letting the blast of steaming water batter his foggy brain into a semi-state of clarity. He dressed without catching his belly fur in the zipper, grabbed his coffee without spilling it on himself, even found his keys right where they should have been, hanging on the hook next to the kitchen door.
The day had been going so well, he thought. Traffic was light, speeds were great, and the bus had even arrived right on time. In fact, everything was going just fine, sailing right along, right up until he tried to walk through the front lobby door at Cliffside. He swiped his security badge against the door pad and nothing happened. The little red lights on the pad stayed red. Not even a flicker.
He swiped again. Nothing. The lights just stared back at him, mocking him, again. What was it, the third time this month, that these damn things stopped working? It must be the cold air, making the electronic slow or maybe the door stick. He didn't understand how these things worked. He held the card up to the pad and waited. The pad buzzed for a second, but the lights stayed red and the door stayed locked.
He stalked over to the white courtesy phone in it's little kiosk, and called the security desk to ask for some mammal to please come and admit him into the building, like he was somehow too feeble brained to make a simple swipe and go security pad work. He waited outside, his whiskers and tail twitching in annoyance, for one of the wolf security guards to take pity on him and let him in.
"Yo, Doc." One of the security wolves, it looked like Steelhair, held the door open for him, "Your card not working again?" He held out his paw to Hugo.
"Yes. The thing hates me today." Hugo handed him the badge, scowling.
"Probably just the cold, causing the moisture in the air to condense on the electronics. We'll check it out." Steelhair walked back over to his circular security desk, while Hugo followed behind him.
He ran the card through his reader, but the security pad just bleated at him. That was certainly strange, so he checked the computer screen for an error message. "Not Valid? That's weird." He clicked past the error message, and pulled up Hugo's security profile. The authorization check boxes were all grayed out, and he couldn't clear them. "Hang on, Doc, I gotta call up on this one." Steelhair picked up his phone and called upstairs for assistance.
"Revoked? What do you mean, revoked? He's from ZMHW, he can't be revoked!" Steelhair tried to argue with the voice on other end. Hugo was watching him with increasing concern. Something was not right here. A motion out of the corner of his eye caught his attention; ah, it was Swinton, striding towards the security desk. Steelhair, hearing her coming with his other ear, turned and put the phone to his chest, "Administrator Swinton, Doctor Wiedii…."
She didn't let him finish. She held up a finger to silence him, and then pointed it at Hugo. Angrily, she bit out, "You were only here to observe and make recommendations, NOT to interfere with our operations! I want you GONE!" She fixed her hot eyes on Steelhair, who tried to submissively shrink back into his desk, "You are to escort this mammal off of the Cliffside facility grounds immediately. If he resists, you are authorized to tranq him and carry him off in a stretcher!" She flashed her eyes back to Hugo and snarled, "If you ever try to come back here again, I will have you arrested for trespassing!" With that threat delivered, she spun on her hoof and strode back across the lobby.
Hugo just stood there, his jaw hanging down. He had no idea what that was all about. Steelhair watched Swinton disappear down the hall, and with a sigh he hung up the phone. He turned back to Hugo and offered, "Come on, Doc. I'll give you a ride down to the bus stop." He put his paw behind Hugo's back, and gently steered him through the lobby doors and out to the security cart. Hugo numbly climbed into the passenger seat while the wolf, sympathy clearly etched in his eyes, slid into the driver's side. The ride down the lane was completed in silence, as neither had an explanation to offer the other.
Steelhair left Hugo just outside the gates at the little bus shelter, and drove away. Hugo watched him go, still trying to process what had just happened. He was upset, as just yesterday Swinton had grudgingly admitted that he was making real progress with his patients. He didn't know what could have possible changed her mind this morning.
The bus wouldn't be back for another hour, and it would take another hour-long bus ride after that for Hugo to get back to the ZMHW department and talk to his boss.
Hugo had until then to figure out what had gone so very wrong.
Two hours of stewing hadn't helped. Hugo had come up with wilder and wilder theories for his dismissal, but he had to discard them all as nothing made any sense. Nor did he have anything he could defend himself with if Donny chose to take issue with him on this. Hugo had left all of his notes by Donny's desk, and his backup copies were back in his classroom at Cliffside.
Filled with a sense of trepidation and dread, he slowly opened the door to the Director's office. Helen looked up from her computer where she was typing to see him, and she held up a paw as he started to speak. She turned her head and pointed to her head set. Ah, she's on a conference call, Hugo realized. She gestured to the waiting room, and turned her attention back to the computer.
Hugo, at a loss as to what do next, numbly turned and started to walk to the back of the waiting room. Staring down at his feet, he missed the other mammal that was already sitting in the back. Brought up by a quite cough, Hugo looked up and saw a red fox dressed in blue, maybe a head taller than him, sitting in the chair that Hugo had been aiming for. Hugo mumbled an apology, and being that he didn't really want to be alone with his own thoughts right now, he climbed up in the next chair over.
"Wow. You make that look easy. I had to jump to get up here. I swear these things were made for polar bears." The fox turned to Hugo and extended his paw, "Officer Nick Wilde, ZPD. Pleased to meet you, Mr…?" he left the question hanging.
Hugo took his paw and shook it, replying "Doctor Hugo Wiedii, ZMHW. A pleasure to meet you, Officer Wilde." A red fox? In a blue officer's uniform? Hugo was a bit surprised, as most of the ZPD officers he had seen had been large, tough mammals. He had certainly not seen any small officers before. As for the foxes' popular reputation in Zootopia as being sly and untrustworthy mammals, Hugo wasn't really surprised to see one as a police officer. Hugo, being biased by the rampant government corruption from his home country, considered all police officers to be untrustworthy, regardless of species. He hoped it was different here, but he would reserve his judgment on that.
Officer Wilde pulled back, and cocked his head. "Do I know you? Have we met before? Maybe had a discussion about a parking ticket or two? Yelled at me over a wheel boot?"
Hugo, who's day had already been one giant mystery, couldn't fathom how, "I am sorry, Officer Wilde, I don't believe so? I have never talked to any ZPD law enforcement officers before, other the Custom and Immigration officers at the airport when I travel. I don't see how you could know me."
"Please, call me Nick, Doctor." Nick could tell that this mammal was nervous. Taking his accent and species into account, he figured that the cat had to be from Amazonia. He knew that as bad as a cop's reputation could be in Zootopia, it was far worse down there. The civil unrest and constant corruption made trust of authority figures a tenuous thing.
"No, I've met you before. I'm sure of it. I never forget a face." Nick squinted as he tried to remember. Hugo squinted back. Suddenly Nick had it! "Wait a second! Have you ever worn a green tropical shirt with shorts before? Maybe as a bartender or a waiter?"
Taken aback, Hugo replied, "Well, yes, I was a bartender at a casino bar at the Palms Resort a few years ago, in between semesters at medical school. The tacky shirt and shorts were part of the Palm's uniform for bartenders. Why, Were you employed there? I certainly don't remember you specifically. I am sure I had served quite a lot of foxes during that time." Hugo scowled, and then stared at Nick again. He tried to imagine the officer dress, not in a blue uniform, but in something more appropriate for a casino. Perhaps a tuxedo?
Nick chuckled, "It was about 4 years ago. I was at the casino for a friend's wedding reception. It was late, and the staff had packed up the wet bar in the room to make room for the band and a dancing floor, so I went looking for a drink elsewhere. I found your bar over behind the atrium, and what can I say? You make a really good coffee."
"Coffee? Of course I do, it's traditional Maracaibo's coffee, from my father's family coffee plantations on the Orinoco Delta. Wait, I only served coffee to the drunks, the designated drivers, and underage mammals." He stared back at Nick, "Wait a minute, I think I do remember you. You were that young Tod with the fake ID that I confiscated since it was peeling apart. What would a police officer be doing with a fake ID? Were you trying to do some sort of set up?" His opinion of this police officer was dropping lower and lower.
Nick waved his hand back and forth in denial, "No, No… sorry. No, I wasn't a cop yet, and it wasn't a sting operation. I was just a college student and thought I could use it to get a drink." Nick smiled, "I wasn't very successful, it seemed."
"Hugo?" Donny stuck his head out his office door, "Where is he?" He asked Helen. She just pointed to the back.
"I'm here, sir." Hugo replied to Donny's call. He scowled at the officer one last time before he slide off the chair, and walked to the Directors office.
"Take a seat," Donny gestured for Hugo. Hugo did as he was directed, taking a moment to take in the settings before him. This might be the last time he would in this office. He didn't know if Donny would kick him out of the post-doc research program because of what happened at Cliffside. If that happened, Hugo didn't know what he would do next. He saw that his box of notes was right where he left it yesterday, but it was completely empty. Half of the files that had been in it seem to be spread randomly across Donny's desk, open and spilling their contents across the space. Standing on the desk, reading one of the pages was a small white field mouse dressed in a gray pant-suit.
Donny walked behind his desk and sat down on his stool. He began with, "Hugo, this Roxanne Field, the departmental lawyer. She's not with the District Attorney's office; she's a private lawyer. Ms. Field, please meet Doctor Hugo Wiedii. Hugo, Ms. Field." Donny gesture to both of them.
"I am pleased to meet you, Doctor," she squeaked. Hugo just nodded, "Ma'am." He turned to Donny, "A private lawyer?" Why would Donny keep a private lawyer on the payroll.
Donny set his arms on the desk and clasped his paws together before explaining, "We like to keep a lawyer on staff who isn't going to pipeline our private conversations up the city command chain. One of the problems we have with the our patients is that some of their behaviors could be considered to be illegal, and we were concerned that if we used a lawyer from the DA's office for help, it might result in arrest warrants for those patients before we can help them. Hence the need for an outside opinion on the law – Ms. Field here."
Hugo nodded. That did make sense, in that it helped to prevent a conflict of interest between the missions of the two departments.
"Anyway, Ms. Field and I just got off a very interesting conference call with Administrator Swinton and her Horizons' senior management. Very interesting. So on that note, Hugo, could you please tell me what happened this morning? From your point of view." Donny waited for Hugo to respond.
Hugo took a deep breath, and he was sudden struck by an observation: Donny wasn't angry. He didn't act angry, he didn't smell angry, and he didn't sound angry. If anything, he was acting like he was pleased with himself. As if some joke that only he understood had just been played, and he could barely contain the laughter. This has been a very strange day, Hugo thought. Well, best to be honest and direct, especially if he's not angry.
"Sir, it had been an unremarkable morning in almost all respects, right up until I tried to get in the front door. My badge didn't work, which was the third time this month that had happened, so I called the security desk for help. The watch-wolf, Steelhair, let me in and he tried to fix my badge. The system kept beeping at him and telling him that my badge was invalid. He called upstairs for help, and he was told that my clearances had been revoked. While he was arguing with who ever was on the other end, Administrator Swinton came storming up and starting yelling at us both. She accused me of interfering in her operations when I was only supposed to be observing, and that she wanted me thrown out of Cliffside, which she ordered Steelhair to do. If I resisted he was to tranquilize me, and if I tried to come back she would have me arrested. Then Steelhair just drove me back down the the bus stop where I had to wait for the bus to come back. Then I can here. I don't understand why she thought I was interfering? The only thing I had been doing was observing and making recommendations." Hugo threw his paws up in the air, "She had admitted yesterday, grudgingly, that I was making progress and that I should continue. I don't understand why she felt differently this morning."
Donny ducked his head down to conceal a little smile before looking up at Hugo, "There was interference, Hugo, just not on your part." Hugo cocked his head at that admission, his attention now trained on Donny. "I was the one who interfered. I went ahead and transferred those 15 patients that you recommended out and put them over in the Savannah Central psych-ward for evaluation."
That confused Hugo so he questioned Donny, "Isn't that what we were supposed to be doing? I'm fairly certain that Swinton understood that was what was supposed to happen – move viable patients out of Cliffside."
"Ah, yeah… I transferred them out this morning, very early. 2 am to be precise." Donny was smiling now.
Plainly something was going on, and Hugo wasn't in on the joke. He fired back with, "2 am? Why so early?"
"I didn't want any last minute interference from Swinton or her corporate overlords, so I had them moved when everybody who say no was soundly asleep." Danny was quite pleased now.
"What? Why?" Hugo felt like he was completely in the dark, lost in a cave.
Donny chortled then sighed, "It's okay Hugo. I did it because I didn't want to give them a chance to stuff their inconvenient witnesses in a hole somewhere. You remember that report I was reading yesterday while you were talking, right? Here, take a look at it, and tell me what you think." Donny pulled the Horizons' quarterly patient report from the pile on his desk and pawed it over to Hugo, which Hugo took with a frown to his ears.
Donny leaned over to his phone, and pressed the intercom button as he spoke, "Helen, could you send in the ZPD officer, please?" As he let go of the button, he also tapped another button on his phone which changed from red to green.
They waited for a few moments for the officer to arrive, the only sound being from the report Hugo was flipping through.
The door clicked open and Office Nick Wilde strode in. Donny directed him to the other chair in front of his desk, next to a concerned looking Hugo.
Roxanne turned to Donny, and put her little paws on her tiny hips, "A fox?" She clearly didn't approve.
Donny just smiled and replied, "Yes, a fox. I think he will be perfect for this. I had asked for a small junior officer, and I think Captain Bogo took my request quiet literally."
Nick spoke up, "You know my Captain, Sir?"
"Bogo? Yes, I do the crisis prevention training for his department over in the Meadowlands." He cocked his head and asked Nick, "Speaking of training, just how junior are you?" He knew the answer of course, having talked to Bogo last night, but the other three didn't.
Taken a bit aback, Nick responded with, "Um… Well, I've been on parking duty for the past year out at the Meadowlands. Bogo was making noises that I might just be worth a trainee billet, but nothing's happened yet. And at the briefing this morning, he waited to the last minute like he normally does before telling me where to go, but instead of parking duty again, he sent me here. Said something about somebody stealing pencils or something, and told me to go look into it. So, here I am."
"Parking Duty. Your sole qualification is a year on Parking Duty?" Roxanne just stared at Nick, and then spun back to Donny, "This is your idea of a perfect officer for this problem?"
"Absolutely. Tell me, Officer Wilde, what did you think about said Parking Duty?" Donny slightly emphasized the words, just like Roxanne had, "And please be honest. This isn't the ZPD, you don't have to defend your opinions here."
Hugo perked his head back up at Donny's choice of words, putting the Horizons report back down in his lap.
"Ugh..." Nick put his head back before leaning forward and continuing with, "It was awful. Out on the streets all day, by my self with nobody to talk to, except for all the really wonderful, usually very angry, mammals I got to give tickets too. Everybody hated me. It was a joy." He shrugged, "I eventually learned to wait until they were inside a shop or something before slipping the tickets on to their windshield. Cause if I didn't, and I got caught doing it, I would have to talk really fast to keep my tail from getting creamed by some irate mammal." Nick made little squishing motions with his paws like he was crumpling up a piece of trash before throwing it away.
Donny nodded, "So, there you were, alone and without backup, in a hostile situation where you had to think tactically about the environment, and when presented with aggression you had to de-escalate the confrontation to maintain control of the situation." He held his paw out to Nick, "Does that sound about right?"
"Um, yeah," Nick raised an eyebrow, "How….?"
"Who do you think created that program with Bogo? I told you I did crisis prevention training with him."
"But… Why parking duty?" Nick was at a loss.
"Captain Bogo had a problem. He knew that there was going to be a need for smaller officers on the force, both as a representation of the greater public population, and for the advantages that they presented to both investigations and tactical situations. But as they couldn't depend on their size or ferocity to intimidate a large hostile mammal, they would instead need some other edge. So before he started to accept new academy graduates, he needed a training program designed especially for them to learn those needed skills. A program where by he could monitor them in a hostile training environment, without them in turn thinking they were being trained or watched. Mammals tend to behave differently when they are being observed then when they're not, so he needed a real world situation that was safe for the officer, realistic enough that the officers didn't believe it was training exercise, and close enough to his office that he could personally monitor them via discreet surveillance and provide backup if needed. Parking duty is what we came up with."
"Is that what was going on? I thought he just hated me." Nick looked down at his paws.
"Oh, Bogo doesn't like anybody, and the jury is still out on whether or not Bogo likes Bogo. But he respects the badge, and the mammals who wear that badge. Remember that. He's not going to put you into a situation that he doesn't think you are ready for yet. Not because he wants to hold you back, but because he wants you to succeed, as an officer. As for why he kept you on it for a year, I suspect it's because he doesn't have any officer your size to pair you up with yet. You were the first fox officer, after all." Donny gently reminded him.
Roxanne piped up, "You knew all this already?"
Donny nodded, "Yup. Okay, back to business." He smacked his paws back on the desk and turned to Hugo. "What do you think of that report there, Doctor?" He pointed to the papers Hugo held.
"This is a bizarre report. It lists a series of continuous problems with the Cliffside patients that I certainly didn't see, and not just with the patients I was dealing with directly. I would say that half of these patients aren't getting the pharmaceuticals that the report says they are, nor are the patients nearly as dangerous as Swinton says they are. I'm sorry, I can't reconcile this report with my personal observations." Hugo held out his paws in disbelief.
"I don't think Swinton wrote that report. Or if she did, she's being a moron who wants to be caught in a lie by putting her signature on it. I might not put that past her." Donny shook his head, and turned to back to Nick. "You thought you were being sent out to investigate petty theft, and you are right, it's just not petty."
Donny swept his paw over the files spread on the desk, "Roxanne and I have been going over the reports that Swinton submitted over the past year this morning and we've comparing them to the invoices that Horizon sends every month for payment to this department, and we believe we might be seeing a pattern of medical fraud and potentially even patient abuse. That pattern may indeed be rampant through out the entire Cliffside facility. But we are going to need an inside investigator to go in and verify this pattern we are seeing."
Hugo sat up and raised his paw, "I'll go, Sir! I know exactly what to look for."
"Not a snowball's chance in hell, Hugo. I'm sorry." He waved Hugo's paw down, "And before you start arguing with me, remember they just kicked you out. They don't trust you, and I think they worked hard to keep you in the dark about these reports. The other thing is that they've tried to anticipate you potentially being sent back in as an inspector. That conference call this morning with Swinton and Horizons was chock full of enough allegations and innuendo about your professional behavior at Cliffside that their implied meaning was crystal clear. If I try to start an investigation about Cliffside with you at the center of it all, they would turn it into a legal shell game of you-said/they-said. They even threatened to pursue a counter investigation into your ethics, which could in turn endanger your medical license. You looses that, you loose your H1 visa card, and you get shipped back home. And they will have wrapped up a loose end all neat and tidy, completely legally while making me look like an absolute idiot, further discrediting me."
"No, I need you as far away from Cliffside and any related fallout as is mammally possible. I want them to think they won this little round, that you are exiled in disgrace, and I am a cowed little bureaucrat afraid to take them on. No, for the next step of this investigations we need something completely different. An outsider, some mammal they haven't gotten to yet." He turned to point at Nick. "That would be you."
Nick started upright. He hadn't expected this.
Donny carried on, "We're going to conduct a quiet little investigation right here in my own department to see why this game was never caught. Horizons can't possible object to that. I need to know who was getting paid, who was just being lazy, and who was committing crimes. And if we can figure that all of that out, we could put the squeeze on those mammals, and see what pops out the other side. But we can't do that legally, as we have no enforcement powers to investigate ourselves. It's not in our charter to do so nor do I have the budget for it and Horizons knows that, so we are going to need use the ZPD. Discreetly."
"The ZPD has a dedicated anti-corruption unit back at District One. Why not put them on this? This is certainly their bread and margarine." Nick asked.
"We may have to, except that I don't have anything right now but suspicions. And besides, that unit is designed to take a department like mine apart looking for internal corruption, which isn't what I want. We're barely functional as it. Imagine what happens to all of our outreach programs and shelters if we get shutdown for an investigation? Who will take up the slack? Housing and Urban Development? Law enforcement? Hell no. Nobody wants to own the homeless or mental illness problems that Zootopia has, and they want to fund them even less, which is how something like this kind of corruption can grow unseen."
"No, I want that unit to go after Horizons and Cliffside themselves, but that's not going to happen even if I scream at the top of my little lungs right now. Horizons has tied up at least two of the city council mammals, the two that got the Horizons contract renewed last year for both Cliffside and the prisons. If I go up the internal government ladder for help, those two politicians will get word of it, and rig a vote to shut me down. The city council put me in this office and they can take me out." Donny made a throw away gesture with his paw, like somebody just throwing lint away.
He steeple his paws and leaned forward on his desk, "I need Horizons to do something stupid, something criminal, that will justify sending that anti-corruption unit after them. That corporation's has got plenty of money to throw around, having bought at least two of the council mammals, and probably bought off my predecessor too. He had to know; he approved all of their reports and invoices. If he wasn't reading them, he was an incompetent idiot. But since he died of advanced liver failure, we can't ask the polar bear what the hell he was doing."
"What we need is for them to do something stupid, like try to bribe our investigator. They don't need to bribe me; the council can just shut me down with a vote. They don't need to bribe Hugo; they can get him kicked out of Zootopia. And we don't want them bribing Roxanne, because that's not a crime."
"Objection! I resent the implications that I don't have the ethics to resist being bribed by scumbags!" She snapped at him.
"Fine, Sustained. I will withdraw the statement. Does that make the counsel happy?" He gazed over his glasses at her.
"Humph!" She pouted.
He turned back to Nick and said, "That leaves us with you, Officer Wilde. We need to figure out a way to get Horizons to try to bribe you, at which point we will have a way into their corporation that the city council can't stop. We need you to visibly help us with our internal investigation, running around delivering subpoenas, shuttling documents, and arresting just enough two-bit players that you gain their attention. Mind you, not enough attention for them to fear your competence, rather just enough for them to feel you out for greediness, you being a sly and untrustworthy fox and all."
Nick looked a little sick at the implications, "Sir, I've worked hard to over come that reputation, and I don't feel comfortable at all using that same reputation to set myself up as the stalking goat in this little adventure of yours. Bogo would have my hide if I agreed to what you were planning. That's an unsanctioned undercover operation, without backup, and I could loose my badge if he found out."
"Really? Well, lets ask him." Donny turned to his phone and turned up the speaker volume. "What do you think about all of this, Captain Bogo?"
Bogo's voice rumbled out over the speaker, "What do I think? I think that you make an economic professor delivering a lecture on governmental fiscal policy look like the epitome of brevity and clarity. Good God, mammal, don't you know when to shut it? Briefings are supposed to be short and sweet, so that they can leave and I can get back to my coffee without distractions!"
"I'm a shrink, Bogo. I'm paid to talk." Donny just laughed.
"And talk, and talk, and talk. I don't care. WILDE!" Bogo roared over the phone.
"Sir!?" Wilde responded. Why the hell did I just sit up straight in the chair? Bogo wasn't here, he wondered to himself.
"The director and I need you to play a crooked junior cop, looking for a payout. It's not undercover, because you will be wearing your uniform at all times, but the mission will be undercover. Can I trust you to be a conniving, tricky, con-mammal in uniform?" Bogo demanded.
"Yes, sir!" Well, this was certainly a change of pace from parking duty, he thought.
"Good! I know it will be an act, because I have been watching you for the past year, and I've not seen you slip up once. And as for the backup you just requested, I'll ask to have Officer Wolford transferred over from Precinct One. His partner is out on maternity leave, so he is temporarily available. Try to get along with him!"
"I'll try, sir. Thank you."
"He's a good enough actor to play the dumb wolf, but it remains to be seen if you can play the con-mammal convincingly."
"I won't let you down there, sir." Nick promised, a giant grin on his face that he was glad Bogo couldn't see, and the rest of the mammals wouldn't understand.
"I'll brief IA on this investigation later this afternoon, which will cover your tail and mine. Anything else, Director?"
"No, I think that about covers it." Donny smirked at the phone.
"Good! You see, that is how a briefing is supposed to be handled. Short, sweet, and to the point!" Bogo pontificated.
"I'll try to remember the additional bit about the yelling..."
"Whatever." With a click, Bogo hung up.
Danny held the receiver in his paw, "I swear, that mammal must be deaf or something, he yells so much."
"Actually sir, I think he just likes to hear himself yell. Makes him feel that he's the big dominant bull in the room." Nick snarked, and then he suddenly looked fearful. "Did he hang up?"
"Yes, Officer Wilde, he's gone. Your snark is safe with us. And you might be right too, about the dominance games." Donny hung up the phone.
"What is the next step in this investigation?" Hugo asked him.
"The next step? The next step is that you're not involved; that's what the next step is." Donny held up his paw to stay Hugo's response. "Hugo, I meant it when I said I want you to stay the hell away from this. You're vulnerable, and Horizons knows it. And I know that I still need you and your ideas in my department, so while the three of us discuss what to do next, you will be going down to the Youth Diversion Center to meet a mammal."
"YDC? Youth counseling?" Hugo handed the Horizons report back to Danny, since he wouldn't be needing it anymore.
"Yes, we recently hired a youth counselor down there, an older fellow, who has some good ideas, I think. He's got the street experience but not the scientific background. You've shown me that you work well with disadvantaged youth and that you can successfully implement a program structured around their needs. I was hoping you could go down there and help him set up his program. It would still be in keeping with your post-doc proposal of using non-mainstream techniques to reach disadvantaged and marginalized youth. Would you be willing to do that for me?" Donny gently steered him away from the disappointing experience at Cliffside he just had, and onto something more positive and productive. He wanted to keep this cat, because Donny knew he could make a difference and was willing to do the job.
"Yes, sir. I would be delighted to." Hugo took a breath and asked, "What about my Cliffside patients, the fifteen you got out this morning? Will I be able to see them?"
Donny counseled patience on that request, "Let's let them settle in there new home for a couple of weeks before you go knocking on their door. The added downtime will help convince Horizons that you are no longer actively involved with Cliffside, and have instead been shuffled of to a desk job somewhere."
"Okay. And my sixteenth patient?"
"Did you find her a home?" His boss asked him.
Hugo just shook his head, "No, I tried over twenty different programs that could take her case, but no mammal wanted to touch it."
Danny turned his paws up, "Then I am sorry, Hugo, she's stuck there. Maybe, when this investigation is over, we can do something about that, but for right now she stays."
"Yes sir. I am sorry too. I don't like to fail." Hugo hung his head.
"I know that, but it is going to happen. Actually, I think the fellow you are going to see might know a thing or two about failure. You could talk to him about it and see what he has to say."
"I will, sir. What is his name, by the way?" Hugo took his phone out to take down notes.
"Mr. Zerda, and his office is A113 in the YD building downtown. Do you know how to get there?"
"Yes sir, and if I don't my phone will." Hugo assured him, but distracted a bit by Nick, who appeared to be having a seizure. "Are you alright?" he asked the fox.
Nick laughed and exclaimed, "Fennick? You hired Fennick? Oh this is too good!"
"Yes, I believed that was the name that he preferred to be called. Do you know him?" Donny ask the laughing fox.
Nick nodded emphatically, "Yeah, I know him. I used to run with him and a bunch of other troublemakers back in my youth. He taught me everything I know about being a sly conniving fox. He's gonna be perfect for you."
That statement left Donny with some doubt expressed on his face, "Officer Wilde, you are not filling me with confidence, either about my hiring him or including you in this investigation."
"Nah, we weren't criminals. If I was, I would have never made it past the background checks to get into the Academy. We were just stupid kids doing stupid things is all." Nick smiled at the memories, "And I mean it, about him being perfect. He knows what it's like to live and sleep on the street, and still come out of it caring about other mammals. You'll see." Nick assured him.
Donny eyed him doubtfully, and then turned to Hugo, "You know where you are going?"
"Yes, sir."
"Okay then, I'll give you a call tonight to see how things go."
"Sounds good, sir." Hugo rose, and shook the directors paw. He nodded to the lawyer and the police officer, and took his leave of them, striding out the office door and closing it behind himself.
As the door clicked behind him, he heard the fox ask, "Was Captain Bogo on the phone the whole time?"