SCAM WAVE. Part 10

REVELATIONS PART 1

When the predator-masks were taken off and the crooks' true faces and the identities revealed to Judy, Nick and Bogo, all tree ZPD officers realized that the crooks weren't predators at all.

Their con artist-friends were in fact a pair of teen IMPALAS! One male and one female.

However, from all three officers, Nick was even more surprised as the one realization dawned on him.

"Wait for minute, I've seen you guys before!" Nick said loudly, recognizing the impalas immediately.

Judy and Bogo shared a confused looks with each other before turning to Nick.

""Seen these guys before"? What do you mean, Nick?" Judy questioned.

Nick turned to Judy and pulled out from his ZPD uniform's pocket a picture to show it to Judy. It didn't took long for the rabbit cot to recognize it as Ralph's family picture what Nick had showed her in Ralph's office in his theater. However, this prompted her to scowl Nick with a scolding look in her eyes when she realized that Nick had snatched it from Raph's table when they left from his theater after they had finished their investigation back in there.

"I don't know how did you get this, Slicky, but I'm definitely gonna have a talk with you about that "kleptomania" issues of yours, Slicky." Judy lectured her partner.

"Fair enough, fluff." Nick grinned, before his expression turned into serious. "But listen my point, Judy. Back in Ralph's theater when I was investigating Ralph's office, I noticed his family picture on his office's table, that showed that that sourpuss impala had two children, and on the basis of their appearance in the picture, here they are!" Nick explained pointing at the impalas in front of them.

Judy eyed the impalas in front of them and then two Ralph's children in the picture: Despite the fact that the impalas in front of her and in the picture had age difference of five years, they still had the same physical characteristics, though with a few minor differences. The female one, even in the cheetah-costume, had a thin waist and large hips, and she had dyed her fur to the shiny golden-brown. And just like Gazelle, she had a blond hair, which she had tied behind of her head into a ponytail. And the male impala here, his doctor jacket and the wolf-costume was torn enough to reveal a sharp-toothed piranha tattoo in his chest to "show some toughness", just like with the picture's boy impala. And in addition of that, he was wearing under the jacket and the costume a rap necklace: a gold dollar symbol on golden chain around his neck. And what comes to the small spiraling horns the picture's impala boy had, this teen impala had only small stubs in the place of the horns, hinting the fact that he had probably sawed them off so that the mask could fit perfectly to his head.

The realization started to dawn on Judy as well.

"Oh, sweet cheese and crackers!" Judy exclaimed as her eyes returned back to the teen impalas in front of them. "You two are Ralph Melampus' kids?!"

The impalas in front of her nodded their heads. "

Yes, we're twins, Alex and Selma Melampus." the female antelope called Selma confessed.

"Well, that then explains these masks." Nick remarked, lifting up the masks of cheetah and wolf he was still holding in his paw.

Chief Bogo then stood forward and glared down at the teen impalas darkly.

"So, you two hooligans are responsible for the recently happened scams and thefts?! May I ask why?" the buffalo questioned coldly.

Both impalas stared at the large and angry buffalo in front of them with the nervous looks on their faces, before both of them let out the sigh in defeat and relented, knowing that the game was over for them.

"Well, to our own defense, we're not doing this because of money, if that was your first guess." Selma explained.

"We're doing this just for fun." Alex added. "You see, we two are competing with each other."

This revelation confused Judy, Nick and Bogo once again.

"Competition? Is that what this is all about?" Judy asked with a strict and lecturing voice, to which the impalas nodded proudly.

"Yes. We two were competing that which one of us does better to trick the most famous, richest and notable mammals of Zootopia." Selma confessed with the wide and proud smirk in her lips.

"Without being caught, of course." Alex finished smugly.

Both of the impalas then, especially Selma, burst into laughter.

"HAH! Mr. Sullivan did not suspect anything when he hired me as a new secretary. I just needed to act the sweet and charming in order to wipe out all that old wolf's suspects out of his mind and my pretty gazelle-costume did the rest of the job." Selma confessed while giggled at that job.

"Well, that wasn't nothing yet." Alex boasted. "I got the lead with my otter cook and female pig cleaner."

This revelation confused the officers and their minds were filled with a one question: A female pig cleaner is one thing, but if Alex was that backstabber otter cook who caused Mr. Po'anda Chinakiro the food poisoning and stole his Lionscars, and that the otters are in reality about three times smaller than impalas, then how in the fur he was able to fit into the otter-costume without arousing suspicion? That was still the mystery.

"Well, I managed to catch you up with my hippo girl to trick from that Lisa Cougar her precious saxophone from under of her nose… and after that, I got the lead with my female rhino girlfriend for that lovesick tough guy, Rhinocerotidae." Selma boasted proudly as she giggled even more at her memories of her scams.

Judy frowned in anger after hearing that Selma confessed having cruelly tricked Mr. Rhinocerotidae in love relationship and stolen from Lisa Cougar her saxophone. Judy was even further disgusted at Selma laughing at the poor cougar's emotional pain and sorrow as if it was a funny game to steal something which is a very valuable object for her.

Taking a note of Judy's angry look in her face, Selma attempted nervously hold back her laughter.

"Yeah. Well, okay. I'll admit if those two jobs with Lisa Cougar and that Rhinocerotidae were a quite raw. But what you can do? In the war and competition, there is no room for remorse nor emotional feelings. Besides, our competition was more important." Selma boasted, making Judy growl angrily at this.

"Well, then came the moment when we both got stuck in the draw for a few days forward after I had tricked Gazelle to hire me as her new gardener, thus enabling me to steal all of her shiny dancing dresses and jewelry under her nose." Alex explained.

This revelation of the theft on Gazelle kind of prompted Bogo to glare down at Alex even more angry.

"Yeah, we did. I tried for the next three days to come up with a new scam to take the lead again." Selma explained, until she turned to Bogo with the taunting grin on her lips, ready to reveal her a little secret to the Chief of ZPD. "Until I finally got an perfect, crooked and backstabbing idea to dupe Chief Bogo himself as newszebra... Zelda the Zebra."

This revelation of course shocked Bogo.

"Oh, no! It was you all the time?!" the buffalo roared in anger.

"Yes, and I was so close to success in my plan… until my idiotic brother happened to appear to the scene in that wolf costume and mask... and especially in that ridiculous doctor's jacket while carrying and empty medical bag with him." Selma explained while turning her angry face at her brother as the twins slowly rose back to their feet.

"Well, because I saw you running away from the window, dear sister." Alex said with the smug grin.

Alex's claim merely angered Selma to the point that she kicked her brother hard and rather painfully to his ankle, making Alex to wince in pain.

"DID NOT, you hornless jerk! I just went to change the disguise and the mask!" Selma angrily denied.

Then Judy threw herself in between of the arguing and fighting siblings and pushed them away from each other. The rabbit officer's strength in keeping two vast larger animal away from each other, for the rabbit, surprised Nick, Bogo and the impalas totally.

"Does your father know what you're doing? And if he does, was that robbery in his theater part of your plan to not get caught?" Judy questioned.

Both impalas immediately shook their heads.

"Well, he doesn't know what we're doing. And if he does, it could mean once again the bath of stench." Alex said with the crooked look on his face.

"Ew, I hate those baths. Two weeks and the scent is still attached on my fur." Selma complained with the disgusted expression on her face too.

"A bath of stench, eh? Two weeks, eh?" Nick coolly muttered, recalling the moments when he had felt a strange yet disgusting stench back in ZPD Headquarters when the fake newszebra had paid the visit to chief Bogo.

Nick also recalled the victims' given information of the strange and disgusting scent in the crime scenes after the scams... and that started to remind the fox officer about the band of skunks outside of Ralph's theater, especially that what they did to him during of his and Judy's visit in there.

"Is this so-called "the bath of stench" some sort of bath of the skunk's stench in which your father forces you two to bath?" Nick questioned, suspecting initially some sort of abuse from Ralph towards his children, until the another question came into his mind. "Or is it because of three local skunks, who sometimes pays a visit to you to spray their stench on you two?"

"Well, if we two behave badly, like arguing or fighting with each other or break something, father makes us to clean up the theater's outside walls." Axel responded.

"And that's the perfect moment for those irritating punks to come to spray their disgusting stench on us to our annoyance! EWWW!" Selma almost yelled in disgust.

"What are you up to with that, Nick?" Judy asked, not getting what Nick meant with his questions for Alex and Selma.

"As I've said earlier, I did smell something strange and rather awful in the air at the headquarters when so-called false Zelda the newszebra paid the visit. Also, some of the victims of the latest scams have also said that they did catch an awful smell at their homes afterwards of the scams, and I did caught the same stench back in Ralph's theater and here. At first I suspected our con artists to be a pack of skunks in disguises... but now they turned out to be the pair of impala siblings who seriously reek like the punch of skunks." Nick theorized eagerly.

"You knew this and you didn't tell us?!" Bogo said with the scolding tone.

"Well, honestly, I first believed that someone let out the fart back in the headquarters when I caught the stench for the first time. It wasn't till later I realized that that what kind of animal the stench belonged to, but we were too busy in our newest case that I had not time to tell Judy about it. Not 'til we arrived here and captured our skunk-reeking friends."

Judy then shook her hands at Nick, gesturing him to stop. "I think me and Bogo get it, Nick. Besides, that doesn't matter anymore now when we have them."

Judy then turned back to the impalas.

"What about the robbery in your father's theater?" the rabbit officer questioned, before she started to explain the reason for her question. "There was a report of lost disguises from Ralph's theater, about two weeks before the scams. However, as stubborn as he was, Ralph didn't deny it but claimed that it wasn't a big deal, and that the thieves were just a desperate mammals had the cold and they just wanted some warm to dress for the cold nights. Any desperate mammal may turn to burglary to get what they need. However, contrary to the report, there was no trace of the burglary, yet my partner, as he already said, happened to catch a strange smell from the supposed "crime scene" as we were investigating there. And because the two of you reek of the skunks, according to my partner, you two must be aware of the whole thing."

Judy then paused to catch her breath after her long explanation.

"So, I'm gonna ask you... was that report of the apparent false burglary your plan to draw away from you two as much attention as possible, or does that mean that your father is involved in these scams and he's trying to cover your tracks?" the rabbit officer questioned.

Alex nodded to Judy's former guess "Well yes, we set the whole theater robbery in the first place. You see, we needed a cover crime to lead the ZPD officers to the wrong trails."

"Explain that." Judy demanded.

Alex prepared himself for the long explanation for a moment, before the impala boy opened his mouth to speak.

"Two weeks ago before our competition, me and Selma snatched the several disguises and mask from father's theater and feigned with father's phone number the crime report so that the authorities would view it as a robbery and focus on it. We led our father to believe that the burglars were after nothing else but the some worn coats to dress warmly for the cold nights, and along with the fact that there was no any property damage during the supposed burglary, which we took care of, father considered it to be no big deal. We also benefited from the knowledge that our father has not been on good spirits with the ZPD, which is why father does not allow the cops to investigate the supposed "crime scene". It was supposed to protect the origin of our disguises, if any eyewitness had happened to identify the disguise under the false identity." Alex explained.

"Yeah. That was the one thing we feared to happen during of our competition. However, after our test run, we assumed that no one in society would recognize the disguises under the fake identity... not even the cops, if we keep switching the disguises and masks after each scam we perform." Selma added.

"Test run?" Judy and Nick said both in unison, confused of this revelation.

"We trained ourselves as a con artists for two weeks and tested different costumes and masks. And a month before our competition, we decided to go through the week lasting test run by infiltrating with the audience at each performance, disguised as teen mammals with the various masks and fake identities. We pretended to be a friendly and open to some mammals, tricked them to let their guard down, before we secretly stole their wallets from their pockets during the night's performance and none of them realized their wallets missing, not till outside of the theater, back in their homes or much later. And on the basis of our achievements, as we managed to gain $4,500 within week, if I remember correctly, and avoid being caught in the act, we declared our test run successful." Selma said boastfully.

Judy, Nick's and Bogo's eyes widened a bit when something dawned on them.

"A week-lasting crime wave in form of the pocket theft in Ralph's theater about a month ago." Nick eventually said in realization.

"Hmmm... I guess that we just hit the jackpot by capturing the conspirators of both the pocket theft and these recent scams." Judy added with the victorious smirk.

Bogo nodded with the proud smile, until it faded away as the chief of ZPD resumed his serious look.

"I have heard enough. Officers Hopps and Wilde, Call the backup to take these two away."

Both Judy and Nick turned to Bogo, both a bit surprised of the fact that they had totally forgotten the backup while trying to restrain these two lawbreakers.

"Actually, sir, we already did when we were on our way here." Nick replied, 'till the fox officer suddenly noticed that the long ago called backup was still in absence, much to his confusion.

"You did?" Bogo questioned, until the buffalo noticed their long-lasting absence as well. "But then they should've been here a long time ago."

"Agree." Judy nodded. "What's taking them so long?"

It was the moment when Selma opened her mouth to speak again.

"Let us say, before I arrived to the scene as police officer, I used ZPD's walkie talkie to set up the false alarm in order to turn the backup to the another direction to buy myself more time, though not before ensuring that Cat in the Fat that I got the situation under control." Selma revealed, while giggling at that.

Judy immediately shot daggers into Selma in anger for that brat insulting Clawhauser by calling him Cat in the Fat. The rabbit officer's fiercely burning glare immediately shut the cheeky impala's boastful mouth.

"Alex and Selma Melampus, you two are under arrest for pocket theft, conspiracy and countless thefts." Judy declared. "You two have the right to remain silent." she added.

"Yeah, anything you say can and will be used as evidence against you in a court of law… despite the fact, you've already told us everything we wanted to hear." Nick said with the cocky smirk as he put his sun glasses on his nose and boastfully showed the impalas his officer badge.

However, Nick earned with his cocky smirk and boastful attitude a punch to his right arm from Judy.

"Knock it off, Slick."

To be continued...