Chapter 11: Unable To Be Saved

August 15th, 2016

"Ok so truck one will have semi-automatics, truck two will be pistols, and three will snipers." Z said, as he was ordering his mammals to ship out the weapons in the cheesecake store to the cheesecake trucks. "Next week, I suggest we do all automatics since our buyers would tend to-"

"Z, Z sir!" A leopard called out.

Z sighed. "What, what is it that's so important Johnny, can't you see I'm trying to sort everything before we ship these weapons out?"

"Sir, Donnie and Sam are dead." Johnny replied.

Z dropped his clipboard, as he was stunned after hearing those words.

"I beg your pardon?" He said silently.

"Here, come and check out the news."

Z went into his office and turned on the television to the news channel.

"In other news, a massive shootout that was told to have happened last night has left two mammals dead and another wounded in the pines valley park. The wounded mammal who is now identified as Benjamin Clawhauser, a dispatch officer from the Zootopia Police Department is currently being treated at the Zootopia general hospital. Earlier today, the chief of police made a news conference about the shooting."

"We are still unsure about the cause of the events that took place, but we do know the armadillo and the tiger were the assailants of this shootout. Officer Clawhauser did what he did to defend himself, so he will not be found guilty of these crimes as it is. But we were surprised from this case right when we heard the call earlier this morning about the discovery, since weapons such as guns are to be only used by the ZPD in extreme cases. So yes, it does seem unusual to find them in this case. We will update you once more when we have finished questioning with officer Clawhauser, but until then no more questions."

"Citizens are asked to come forward if they have any knowledge of what may have caused this event."

Z turned off the TV and walked to his desk where he stood there for a few moments without saying a word.

"S-sir?" Johnny asked.

Z still stayed quiet. He then picked up his lamp and threw it across the room, and swept everything off of his shelves.

"GOD DAMN IT!" Z shouted.

Johnny knew things were starting to get a little too tense in the office. "I'm just gonna….. give you some space since there's no need for me to sta-"

"WAIT." Z said deeply.

"W-what do you need Z?"

"I have a job for you Johnny."

Johnny got concerned as to what the job would be. "You're not going to make me kill all five of those mammals are you?"

"No…." Z replied. "I have a better idea. I want you to find a mammal from off the streets that can deliver a message to the ZPD."

"What for?"

"Just to tell them some addresses, I want to prepare something, no matter how long it takes. I'm gonna show those five little pests just what happens when they think they can mess with my crew."

"And you're sure they got out of the city right?" Judy asked, as she was talking to Nick on the phone in her apartment.

"Well, that's what Amber said when I phoned her a few days ago from one of the booths."

"Where did she say she and the other three were going?"

"Well actually, she said all four of them would be parting ways after sorting everything out and being given new identities and all that. All I know is that Amber said she would be going out somewhere cold like around the Swifts Mountains to lay low for a while before she would go somewhere warm again."

"I know this probably won't happen, but say if Z were to one day see through our trick, you don't think it's possible he would be able to track them down do you?"

"Hmm, that's a tough one to call carrots. Every criminal like Z would probably have their own method of searching for another mammal, even if they're long gone from them so I can't tell."

"Yea it's just, what if they figured out who gave them the fake identities and would be able to track them down with just that or-"

"Oh no…" Nick interrupted, as he was watching the news. "Judy, you need to turn on the news right now."

Judy started feeling uneasy once more. "Why, what happened Nick?"

"Just do it!" Nick shouted.

"Okay, okay, hold on."

Judy turned on her television she finally and conveniently bought for herself just last month. She then heard the story about the incident at the park and how two mammals were killed and Clawhauser having been injured at the scene it took place.

"Sweet cheese and crackers…." She whispered. "Nick, I think we should talk mammal to mammals about this one."

"Sure thing, where do you want to meet?"

"I think I'll just head to your place, my place isn't very soundproof with these walls.

"Well I guess that means I'll be pouring two cups of coffee this morning."

He couldn't feel anything, not even the pain that was going through his arm and leg after being shot. He just laid there, emotionless. He was still shell shocked from the events that happened at the park. Nothing but the thoughts of death were flowing through his mind right now.

The door opened as he saw the doctor and officer Mchorn coming in.

"Good afternoon officer Clawhauser, how have you been feeling?" The Doctor said. "I'm Doctor Neil Moosejaw and I will be treating you until you have recovered. I'm sure you are aware of who officer Mchorn is by now correct?"

Clawhauser stayed silent. Dr Neil and Mchorn became concerned.

"I think I should give you two a moment." Dr. Neil said.

"Thank you Dr. Neil." Mchorn replied.

Neil closed the door behind him as Mchorn pulled up a chair in front of where Clawhauser was laying.

"So… how you holding up Ben?" Mchorn asked.

Clawhauser stayed silent.

"Look, I know what you must be going through right now, but you should know nothing will be put on against you. We knew straight away it was all just to protect yourself. But the thing is, we're still puzzled about why this even happened in the first place. Is it possible you might have ticked someone off or had an old enemy in the past?"

Clawhauser continued to stay silent.

"It's just crazy to believe two mammals would suddenly show up out of nowhere in a typical park and start shooting up the place with actual guns! If you can just tell us even the slightest memory of something that might have led up to this, we could figure it out."

Clawhauser turned his head to look out the window. "Get out." He finally spoke.

"What?" Mchorn said confused. "Come on Clawhauser, you can't even tell us just the slightest piece o-"

"I said get out." Clawhauser interrupted.

Mchorn sighed and nodded. "Okay, I get it. You probably just need a bit more time to relax, we can talk later."

Mchorn left the room closing the door and made his way back to the lobby.

"So, did you get any information from him?" Chief Bogo asked.

"Nope, he still seems to be spaced out at the moment." Mchorn replied.

Bogo opened one of his slots for his radio. "Officer Higgins come in."

"Higgins here, what do you need sir?"

"If what I've heard is true about Clawhuaser receiving a phone call just before the shooting took place, I want you to look into that number and see where it originated."

"Copy that sir, I'll get on it right away."

"It's just too much of a coincidence." Bogo said. "Clawhauser receives a call from an unknown mammal and not even three minutes later does two mammals come into the park to try and kill him."

"So what do you thinks going to happen now?" Nick asked. As he and Judy were talking to each other at his apartment."

"I-I don't know Nick. Worst case scenario is him confessing to the ZPD."

"Oh no."

"But that's not the problem right now Nick!" Judy shouted. "Z probably knows about what happened to his mammals by now and just imagine what he will do by going from a death threat and an innocent killed all because of suspicions on bags, to two of his own dying that one of us five was responsible for."

"But he specifically said we were finished with him and had nothing to worry about anymore. Now he sends two assassins on Clawhauser, like why in hell would he do that?"

"Something tells me he didn't buy our family emergency Clawhauser had to go to story.

"Yea, no kidding." Nick said. "So what's Z's move now, if there's one thing he will be doing, it's retaliating."

"He may possibly try to do it again. He probably thinks he should get to Clawhauser before he opens his mouth to the ZPD."

"This is just such a mess now. How did we go from being completely off the chains to going back into the snake pit?"

"Hey, I'm still trying to figure that out as well Nick. Did you text Danny and Finnick about the incident as well?"

"Yea."

"What'd they say?"

"Well let's just saying their asking the same things as us right now."

"Okay, well before we do anything else, I want to try and talk to Clawhauser about what happened. Maybe he can clear a thing or two up for us."

"Yea, if he wants to talk to us."

"Well we should at least try Nick. Get your uniform on and let's go."

By now, Nick couldn't tell who really won the bet between him and Finnick.

"Was this plan really a good one?" He thought to himself.

By the time they got to the Zootopia General hospital, there was already a crowd of police officers from the ZPD there hoping Clawhauser would still be okay by the end of the day. Turns out there was a lineup of mammals waiting to talk to Clawhauser, but mostly relatives and fellow officers?

"Oh good afternoon officers Wilde and Hopps, I'm guessing you heard about the news as well?" Chief Bogo asked as he was walking by.

"Yea it's, it's crazy to hear about something like this happening. We just figured we may as well say hi while we're on lunch break."

"Well that is very kind of you two. But just make sure you go back on afterwards."

"Will do sir." Nick said.

Eventually, Nick and Judy were the last ones up to talk with him. After the last visitor, they then went into the room and closed the door.

"Well if it isn't the mammals that nearly got me killed yesterday, oh how this brings so much joy to my heart." Clawhauser said sarcastically.

"Can anyone hear us from outside Judy?" Nick asked.

"No, I think we're all clear." Judy replied.

"Ok listen Clawhauser, you just need to hear us out." Nick said. "We just need to know, what exactly was all that yesterday, was it even Z's group?"

"You tell me Nick, because obviously whatever you said to Z the other day didn't exactly give all five of us immunity."

"Well then it must've been if Clawhauser's got no idea." Judy said. "Clawhauser, we tried to tell him that you did help us with that job, but you were unable to join us because you had a family emergency you had to attend."

"Well how could Z have not bought that?" Clawhauser asked.

"Well he said so himself from the start, it doesn't matter what we're in the middle of, once we get that call we immediately do what we're told." Judy explained. "He must've used that to see through what was really going on. That probably made him assume the worst such as you confessing to the ZPD about their business."

"Speaking of calls Clawhauser, we heard in the lineup you received a call right after you talked with Judy to confirm the plan went well." Nick explained. "Is that true?"

"Yea." He said silently.

"It couldn't have been any of us four since none of us ever heard anything about the ambush at the park before we left."

"What, you're telling me one of Z's guys told me about the danger that was coming, why would they do that if they knew it would jeopardize the business?" Clawhauser asked.

"I doubt all of them would agree with every single thing that comes out of Z's mouth Clawhauser." Nick said. "But you should consider yourself lucky you got that phone call, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here right now."

"Nick cut him some slack, he had to kill two mammals which is something nearly everyone would never dare to do in their entire lifetime." Judy stated. "We should just be glad he made it out."

"I know, I know." Nick said. "But still, we would literally need a miracle for Z to not do anything to us later. It's hard to tell what angle he will be looking at in this state."

"Hopefully not the worst one." Judy said.

"What would that even be?" Clawhauser asked.

"Probably silencing all five us and dumping our bodies in the same place we left those other bodies in to make it more convenient. That is, unless you can speak to his conscience and convince him to let our families find our bodies."

"That sure is specific." Judy said.

"Well, it would make sense though." Clawhauser said.

Judy growled. "Look it doesn't matter! Let's just hope it doesn't come to that, period. I mean who knows, maybe Z understands Clawhauser had to do it and can only blame himself.

"I don't think so Judy, he doesn't seem to be that arrogant."

Judy wanted to try to say things that would make Nick and Clawhauser feel more positive, but the more she tried to, the more even she felt less positive herself.

"A-anyways, we should probably be heading back to the ZPD." Judy said. "We should see where that call originated from, we may be able to figure out who phoned Clawhauser before the ZPD can."

"Alright, sure." Nick said. "Just try and get well soon Clawhauser."

"It may take more than soon Nick." Clawhauser replied.

As they went into the ZPD, there were already a crowd of officers nearby the bullpen. Nick and Judy weren't quite sure why there were so many there since they've never seen so many officers crowded there before, so they assumed it must have been important.

"Hey Francine, what's with all the commotion at the bullpen?" Judy asked the elephant.

"What that?" Francine said pointing to the crowd. "Well, Chief Bogo said he would be doing a recap on some of the past cases including the one from just today. It's more of an update on the progress of them if you ask me, but you should probably come since he wanted any available officers to check it out."

"Well, we still have a few more minutes to spare so why not?" Judy said rhetorically.

Nick shrugged and followed Judy and Francine to the bullpen.

Most of the officers in the bullpen were chatting about the cases that happened. Judy and Nick felt like the minority in the group, not only because they were the only fox and rabbit in the room, but because they knew most of the answers with what the officers were questioning. Finally, Chief Bogo came from his office and walked into the room.

"Alright, alright, quiet down now please!" Bogo shouted. "Now then, I have called you all out because there seems to be some suspicious activity that has been happening in the city for the past couple months now."

Nick and Judy looked at each other with concerned faces, but tried to stay calm.

"First we have the Bucky-Oryx Antlerson case." Bogo continued. "Not only has this mammal gone missing, but not a single trace has been found of him from witnesses to evidence in and out of his apartment. This brings us to the eight mammals that went missing only a little more than a week later. Why is this similar you may ask? Because once more, not a single trace was found. But what's interesting about these eight mammals is they were not just all criminals, but a part of the same gang led by Lenard Jarvis, one of the mammals who also went missing."

Bogo hung up all the profiles on the board so the officers could take a look at them.

"It is possible they were involved in some sort of deal, but didn't go so well. What's more, we looked into the system for information about this gang and turns out, there are supposed to be twelve members in the group."

Bogo hung up the other four mammals pictures.

"This fox, antelope, panda and goat were the other four. Earlier today, I asked some officers to drive to their known locations to bring them here for questioning, but none of them have been seen yet today. We don't know if they only drove somewhere else and slept there for the night but if that isn't the case, it means someone wanted these four gone. Moving onto the park incident just yesterday."

Most of the officers in the room were more interested in this case currently than the ones they have already heard about.

"This case happened a whole two months after the report on the eight missing mammals. The supposed assassins in this case is tiger Samuel Roundtail, and armadillo Donnie Drimans. The main part in this investigation involves the weapons at the scene. Two USP pistols and at least seven magazines were found at the scene. We are still unsure how these two mammals were able to get a hold of the weapons, but we are under suspicion that they may be part of a bigger organization."

Some of the officers started whispering to each other about their thoughts, but Nick and Judy knew Bogo was right on the money.

"We also found on Clawhauser's phones an anonymous phone call that was apparently given to him only a few minutes before the shooting. We later found out from the phone database that the call originated from a phone booth at the Kiwi bar in the rainforest district. We asked the owner of the bar for the tape from last night, but apparently he said his tapes went missing earlier today."

Nick and Judy were surprised. "Wow, Z was able to figure it out before Bogo?" Nick thought.

"We will be looking more into that matter throughout the next few days, but I must ask you all to stay on high alert while you're patrolling the city because if we're fearing for the worst here, more mammals will be in danger."

There was a long silence in the room as Bogo was still taking a look at the files.

"The reason for the attack on officer Clawhauser is still unknown. Some of our officers did try to question him about it at the hospital, but as of now he is still unable to give us a clear enough answer. Alright I think that sums it up for now, and don't forget if you haven't picked up your assignments for today, be sure to find them at the front desk."

All the officers exited the bullpen and went back to their normal work. Judy and Nick still felt uncomfortable after the meeting since they knew they were right in the middle of all that Bogo just discussed, but were unable to say it out loud.

Z sat in his office waiting patiently at his desk for a certain mammal to come and talk to him. Finally, the door to his office opened.

"Chip, there you are!" Z said energetically.

"Uh, you wanted to see me Z?" Chip asked.

"Yes, yes, of course! Now come and have a seat."

Chip took a seat in front of Z's desk as Z went to sit back down on his own chair.

"So, what's on your mind today Z?" Chip asked.

"Well, today's been a bit slow for me Chip." Z replied. "I heard about the news today saying that Donnie and Sam were killed by that fricking chubby cheetah they call Clawhauser."

"Oh no, what happened?"

"Well that's the thing Chip. You see, what caused it to happen was from some anonymous call that the cheetah was given just minutes before Donnie and Sam showed up. Apparently that mammal told him about the danger that was coming and since he was aware of it, he ended up being able to kill them both."

"Jeez, that's pretty unfortunate Z."

"Do you think I'm stupid Chip?" Z asked in a deep voice.

Chip started to sweat. "W-what are you talking about?" He chuckled.

"You seemed to be in a little bit of a rush when we came back from looking at the bodies yesterday."

"So?"

"And funny enough, a bit after you left Shane noticed one of the voice changing collars missing."

"What are you implying sir?"

"I'm saying it was you." Z replied. "You stole the voice changing collar from the equipment room, ran to the nearest phone booth as fast as you could, you probably stole the file of Clawhauser from us earlier, but put it back later to find his phone number, and you warned him about the attack that that got Donnie and Sam killed. We even went through the trouble of stealing the video tapes from that bar just clarify it was you."

Chip was speechless, he knew he had been caught. Now was the punishment he was afraid of.

"L-look Z, I-"

"ANDREW, BIGGY!" Z called out.

Andrew the bear and Biggy and came in and each grabbed an arm of Chip's.

"Please Z, I didn't mean for them to get killed I just didn't want anyone else to die!" Chip squealed.

"But because you made that call, two of my most valuable workers died from someone that was a problem to us from the start!"

"But you said so yourself that you didn't have to go to that measure right in front of me, only to find out you actually were behind my back the entire time!"

"Biggy, Andrew, take him to the cells, I don't want to hear anymore garbage coming out of this wolf's mouth." Z ordered. "The thing is Chip, when you're in my business you need to learn that some mammals are just unable to be saved."

Chip started to growl at Z.

"Alright get him out of here." Z ordered once more. "I'll figure out what to do with him later but right now, we got bigger fish to fry."

Next week: Chapter 12, Doing What's Necessary