Chapter 14: The Morning After
Chief Adrian Bogo scanned the report for what had to be the fifth time, his expression darkening further with each line he read. Three mammals stood before him, with two of the previous night's team notably absent, which irritated him even further. Though in all honesty, he wasn't sure why Miss Vox had even insisted that she be in the room for debriefing. She wasn't one of his officers, and he'd been doing this long enough to know that no one would volunteer to stand there, not after what had brought them there.
A low rumble issued from deep in the cape buffalo's chest as he set the file down and brought a hoof up to rub the throbbing part of his brow. "What am I going to do with you three?" he groaned in a way that made the officers cast nervous glances at each other and made the PI tremble slightly. He figured he'd start with her. "Miss Vox, I believe that this is now firmly a police matter. I highly recommend you leave now."
Nelle blinked a few times, and cast a worried glance at Nick. The red fox caught her look, and gave a faint, almost imperceptible nod. The vixen reached out and gave his paw a soft squeeze before turning and heading out the door.
"As for you two..." he grumbled once the door had shut. "Your mission was to watch the sight and take note of anything that happened, and to identify and tail the truck in an effort to discern its destination without breaking cover. That, Officer Wilde, is what was supposed to happen. What did happen was that two of my officers got caught in a firefight that left one in the hospital, and the other two, along with a civilian consultant, engaged in a high-speed pursuit that took them well beyond this precinct's jurisdiction. Officer Hopps, does that about some it up?" His voice was dangerously low as his gaze turned on the bunny.
"I, uhm… Yes, Sir, that seems-"
"Officer Hopps had nothing to do with our breach in jurisdiction or with my actions in pursuing the truck, Sir," Nick cut in. The buffalo's furious glare and the bunny's surprised stare turned on him simultaneously. "When the target left city limits, Officer Hopps urged me to break off pursuit and call it in. I refused. All blame lies with me."
The silence that followed dragged on far longer than Nick was comfortable with. He could see gears grinding and mashing together behind the Chief's dark eyes, and the bunny next to him was at a complete loss for words. No one did or said anything for what felt like a very long time. Finally, the massive, horned head of Adrian Bogo swiveled to once more face Judy, and he growled out, "Officer Hopps, I'm placing you on desk duty for a week. You may go."
"Y-yes Sir," Judy saluted, then turned to the door. Before she left, she took a glance at Nick. She could see a bead of sweat rolling down the fur on the back of his neck. She gulped, and stepped out of the office.
When the door closed, Nick didn't wait for the Chief to address him. He stepped up to the desk, pulled out his badge and set it down in front of the buffalo. After a moment's surprise, Bogo recovered his wrathful glare, staring down at the gleaming brass the fox had placed before him. "Wilde," he growled out at last, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I know my mistake, Sir," Nick stated. This was, by far, the most somber Chief Bogo had ever seen this fox act. "The mission was a complete failure, and I'm to blame. I broke jurisdiction in pursuit of the target, broke cover as soon as I heard Delgato was down, ignored the orders of two of my superiors, and broke protocol when I turned off the radio. The mission was a complete failure, and because of my rash decisions, we have nothing to show for it."
Listening to Wilde's account, Bogo closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He picked the badge up off the table, ran his eyes over it. The brass shield that he'd known for close to two decades now, this one engraved with the name 'Nicholas Wilde'. He had personally pinned it on the fox's chest barely two months ago. He looked up at the fox, still standing at attention before his desk, and threw the badge back at him. "Your resignation is not accepted, Officer Wilde."
"Sir?" Nick asked in surprise. So much had gone wrong last night that he'd been sure if he didn't turn in his badge himself the Chief would've demanded it anyway. He'd chosen to save his dignity. Had he guessed wrong?
"Your saving grace, Wilde, is that last night's mission was not a complete failure. We've seized the warehouse in the Nocturnal District, and Precinct Four is combing through it. From the office, they've pulled some files that seem to contain very valuable information. What's more, the mammals who ambushed Delgato and King have been apprehended. It seems Officer King got a few shots off, and the driver of the car hadn't realized he'd been hit with a tranq until he fell asleep at the wheel and hit a telephone pole. We had them subdued in a matter of minutes. And as for your pursuit..." Chief Bogo waited for the fox to meet his gaze, then let the faintest hint of a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth. "You did exactly what I'd have done in your place. Jurisdiction be damned if it means getting us closer to catching the criminals. Now, I've got four mammals in interrogation, and I want answers. Am I clear?"
"Sir!" Nick saluted, then turned and left the office, replacing his badge as he left. Once he was out in the hall, he quickly pulled out his phone and typed out a text.
The steady beep of the EKG heart monitor echoed off the plain white walls. Draped in a hospital gown and covered chest-high with a thin blue sheet, David Delgato slept, unmoving apart from the faint rise and fall of his chest, silent save for the soft rasp of his breath. His paws lay out to his sides, one empty, the other clasped between both paws of Arianna King.
Ari still wore her tactical division uniform, minus the ballistic vest. Her clothes were disheveled, her knees bore dark marks where she'd knelt in the blood on the van's floor, her mascara had run during a night filled with tears. She was tired. When the paramedics had told her she could meet him at the hospital, she'd told the ox driving the ambulance that they'd need to prepare another bed if they expected her to let them take him there alone. She'd sat in the hall the whole time he was in surgery, her eyes glued to the light above his door. When the light turned green, indicating the patient was in the clear, she'd felt like the whole world had been pulled off her shoulders. Since they'd told her she could go in, she hadn't left his side. She still hadn't slept.
She heard a faint swoosh sound. It played in her mind, wandered around for something to connect to, but took a whole three minutes for her to register what it was. When she did, she took one paw away from Delgato's and reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone.
She had a text from Nick. 'How is he?'
Arianna took a moment to look down at the sleeping lion, to listen to the machine keeping track of his heart rate. With one paw, she typed out a reply. 'Better. Took 4 hits. Right side. 2 arm 1 shoulder 1 neck. Surgery success. Say he should recover.' She hit send, and a similar swoosh indicated the message going out. A moment later, another message came. It read, 'Send a picture.' She frowned, confused, but then a third message read, 'It's important.' With a shrug, she opened the camera on her phone and snapped a picture of the sleeping lion, and sent it to Nick. She set her phone down on the bedside table, and reached up to gently brush her claws through his mane. She'd lost track of how many times that night she'd thought of what she'd do if she lost him. It was almost unthinkable, but it was the one thought she couldn't get away from.
She'd fallen for him… When? How long ago had she realized she needed this lion in her life? She knew they'd made a definite collection at the Academy, when he'd supervised those field training exercises for them… But she figured it hadn't quite been concrete yet. Then on the overnight pass… She'd asked him to go for drinks. He'd told her he'd pick her up, but when he did, instead of going to a bar he took her to the pier. They'd played games, he'd won her a stuffed animal, a little lion cub that she affectionately called 'Davy'. They'd rode the teacups together, and when he dropped her back off, he'd ended the night with a kiss on the cheek. The entirety of her remaining time at the academy, she'd gone to sleep every night with the thought that she wanted more than just that kiss.
Then had come graduation night. The new rookies were given a single address to go to that night, without being told why. She'd been skeptical at first, but when David saw she wasn't sure about it, he told her he'd throw her over his shoulder and carry her there himself if he had to. She'd been very tempted to take him up on that.
The address, it turned out, was a bar. The sign was shaped like a ZPD shield and read 'The Blue Line'. It turned out they had a 'Rookie Special', where they gave all new graduates a fancy glass mug with a pewter shield on it. They could get that mug filled with whatever they wanted for $3 the whole night. And they got to keep the mug at the end. Nick was already there when she arrived, and everyone was buying the Valedictorian drinks. He was special, he got all the attention, but she didn't mind, because David paid for all her drinks that night. When she could barely stand, he got her in a cab and took her back to her apartment. He walked her to the door, and when she asked him to come in, he simply shook his head, and gave her what had to have been the best kiss of her life before he left. She recalled being bitter about spending that night alone, but the next day when she'd thought about it, she realized how incredibly sweet he'd been about it all. That was it, she decided. That was when she'd fallen for him.
Her thoughts were interrupted again, this time by a very loud commotion out in the hall. "Get the hell out of my way!" a female voice shouted. "Where's David, damnit? You are not keeping me from my partner!"
Arianna's lips drew back in a snarl, and her grip on Delgato's paw tightened. What female thought they should be entitled to see her lion, and how dare they have the gall to call him their partner?
When the door burst open, though, Arianna's expression immediately turned from anger and spite to surprise, then understanding. The tigress standing in the doorway was literally David's partner, on the force, and had been for close to three years. "Sasha," the lioness greeted softly.
The tigress seemed just as surprised to see the lioness there. "Arianna?" she asked, as if unsure of her identity. "What are you…? No, wait, I get it. Thanks for taking care of him. I can take it from here, so you can go home."
Arianna let out a low growl, and shook her head. Fangmeyer was the second mammal that morning to try to get her to leave the room. The growl seemed to shock the tigress even more, and gave her cause to take a closer look. Given more than a brief once-over, she noticed the paw holding David's, and the tear tracks beneath Arianna's eyes. Sasha went wide-eyed for a moment, then her smile spread into a grin. "So it's you!" she declared.
Caught completely off-guard, the lioness frowned and shook her head. "I don't… What's 'me'?"
The tigress laughed, and crossed the room, placing a paw on Arianna's shoulders. "Rumor's been going around for weeks that Delgato was dating someone in Tac. No one was able to figure out exactly who, though, since you guys apparently kept it so hush-hush. Shit..." she grabbed out her phone and, before Arianna even realized what she was doing, snapped a picture of the lioness holding paws with the sleeping lion. While Arianna sat there dumbfounded, Sasha put the picture in a message and sent it out, then quickly made a call. "Hey, Ben. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Got the message? Yeah, that's King and Delgato. Betting's closed on that one. I know. There's always next time."
When Arianna's inquisitive stare persisted, the tigress chuckled and said, "There's been an office pool building up concerning who it was from Tac that David here's been dating. It actually got pretty big, too. Ben says this one goes to Francine, Wolfard and Hopps. They all bet on you, I guess."
Arianna frowned, looked down at her lion, then back up at Sasha. "You didn't bet on me?"
"Hey, I would've, but partners are always the last to know about these things, right? By the time I heard bets were in on this one, you already had more than anyone else."
"And… 'There's always next time'," Arianna echoed. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the tigress "You lost, so… Who'd you bet on?"
Sasha froze then, looked around the room, trying to avoid Arianna's gaze. Seeing no way out, she looked down and murmured softly, "Simone?"
"The Spotted Bitch!?" Arianna exclaimed. The tigress' fearful gaze lifted to meet her friend's stare. They both sat there for a while, completely silent, completely still, not even blinking. Then they both burst out laughing.
As soon as he sent the third text out to Arianna, Nick tucked his phone in his pocket and stepped into the interrogation room. In the single chair sat a brown ferret, the driver of the car that had been used to ambush Delgato and King last night.
"Hey, I'll be damned," the ferret remarked, "they are letting foxes on the force!"
Neck remained silent. He closed the door and stepped in front of the table, arms crossed, and simply stared at the mammal.
"Quiet type, huh? How's that workin' out for ya?"
Nick met snark with silence.
"C'mon, ain't ya supposed to ask me questions? Shake me down for tips? They not teach you how this stuff works? I can't help ya if I don't know what ya wanna know."
A swoosh sound came from Nick's pocket, and the fox grinned. He pulled out his phone and looked at the picture, then set it down in front of the ferret. "Recognize this lion?"
The ferret took a long moment to look at the picture, then shrugged and shook his head. "Can't say I do."
"You should. You and your buddies put him in the hospital last night. Now, you're right, you can't help me if you don't know what I wanna know. But you know, attempted murder, assault on an officer, assault with a deadly weapon… I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you already know what I wanna know, so maybe you should just keep talking. And if I don't like what you say..." He grabbed his phone back up and pulled open Fuzzbook, pulled up Arianna's page and flipped through her photos before setting the phone back down for the ferret to see. The picture he'd chosen was of the lioness, climbing the infamous ice wall by power of sheer ferocity, claws digging deep into the frozen surface to haul herself up. "Well, I'd hate to be you if his girlfriend catches you."
An hour later, Nick was back in Bogo's office. He'd used the exact same method with all four mammals, each time to immensely satisfying results. The shit-eating grin he'd had almost every time previously talking to the Chief had returned in grand fashion. "We didn't get the truck's destination, all four say they never worked that side of the job, but we got four other addresses inside the city. They claim there was only one being used to hold mammals, but these others are all vital parts of this 'Mister H's operation. In addition, we got almost two-dozen other names of mammals to round up."
The cape buffalo held a copy of the interrogation transcript before him, his eyes scanning over it. There was some very good information here. It may not be enough to close the case, but it was definitely a leap in the right direction. And while he wouldn't admit it, he had to admire the fox's methods. It was elegant, creative, and above all, effective. He definitely couldn't argue with the results. "Good job, Wilde. You've done more than we could've asked. Now..." He set down the transcript and locked eyes with the fox. "Parking duty. Two weeks."
Nick's eyes widened in shock. He opened his mouth to object, but the buffalo held up a hand to silence him, and simply pointed to the door. The fox dejectedly murmured, "Yes, sir," before turning to head out the door.
Before he could step out, though, the buffalo called out, "Wilde!"
Nick turned to face the Chief, and asked, "Yes, sir?"
"If you ever try to hand in your badge without my permission again, I'll make you eat it."
Post A/N; Holy hand grenade, what possessed me to write two big updates in one day? I mean, yeah, you're welcome, I know you love me for it, but damn! If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna take a few days to clear the debris left where my brain should be!
-VV