Chapter Fourteen – All Too Easy

Floyd Williams' Farm – Thursday – 1142

There were thousands upon thousands of Night Howler plants in the barn – far and away more than Bellwether had been able to procure. Nick walked further into the barn, staring in awe. Nick counted two dozen rows of plants stretching back about fifty yards. The air was thick with condensation – mister hoses snaked through the building, quenching the plants. It was also quite hot – there were large sunlamps hanging above the Night Howlers ever few feet. The combined humming noise of the lamps reminded Nick strongly of a large swarm of bees.

He continued walking down one of the rows, finally reaching an open space at the back of the barn, only to be surprised once again. There were fifteen pegs driven deep into the dirt here. The pegs were large and metal – definitely old railroad pegs. Each had a thick chain attached to it, ending in an adjustable manacle not unlike the ones on Nick's handcuffs. The fox tugged at one of the stakes, trying to lift it out of the ground to no avail. Nick looked around, and spied a large plastic crate leaning against the back wall of the barn. He pried it open and felt a wave of rage and revulsion sweep over him.

The crate was full of muzzles.

Given Nick's history, he loathed muzzles. There were only two uses for them in Zootopia: the first was violent criminals, which Nick understood. Lots of predators still had very sharp teeth, and if a suspect was feeling particularly violent, he or she could easily main or kill and officer or a bystander. Nick typically preferred to just use cuffs. The second use of muzzles was for young, teething predator infants – though those were more along the lines of pacifiers than real muzzles, and could be easily removed by the wearer.

But these were of the former variety, and, like the one that had been forced on Nick as a child, had no place in the hands of a civilian. The fox looked again at the chained stakes, and fought a rising wave of nausea. Time to go.

He walked quickly out of the barn, blinking in the sudden light. He found his way back to Judy, who was standing over Williams, who was unconscious on the ground. Nick looked at Judy and raised an eyebrow.

"He started flailing, and I had to dose him. He was going to hurt himself, Nick."

Nick nodded absentmindedly.

"That extra barn is full of Night Howlers. Thousands of 'em. There's also something really weird in the back that you'll want to see."

Judy nodded.

"Okay. We need to cuff this idiot to something first."

They decided on a beam supporting the veranda on the back of the house. It was fairly sturdy and provided Williams with some shade.

Once the detectives secured the hare, Nick led Judy through the barn. When the rabbit saw the pegs, chains, and muzzles, she balked.

Nick was watching her carefully.

"What do you make of this, Carrots?"

Judy shook her head.

"I… I really don't know, Nick."

She looked at him, brow furrowed.

"Jorgenson and Bogo will probably have some ideas, though. Let's call it in. It'll be a few hours, but they'll get people out here. Until then, we can call Highway Patrol and have them secure the scene for us."

Nick nodded.

"Sounds good to me."

-

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. The highway patrol officers did their job efficiently, and Bogo sent out a large team of CSIs as soon as he received the call from Nick and Judy. The detectives themselves were relived by Jorgenson and took the soonest train possible back to Zootopia. They arrived in the late afternoon, and made straight for the ZPD.

Williams had been flown to the city almost immediately. As soon as he awoke, he had been booked by another officer – the hare had been left in an interrogation room while he recovered from his tranquilizer-induced haze.

A text from Jorgenson gave Judy the okay to go in and talk to him. Nick gave her a quick hug before she entered.

"Be careful, Carrots" he said warmly.

She opened the door and strode in confidently. Williams looked up at her blankly.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Williams," she said as she sat down across from him. "I'm Detective Judy Hopps. We met earlier today."

No response. Judy continued.

"It looks like you've been quite the busy man. Thousands of illegal plants in your barn, plus some very suspicious looking muzzles… things don't look so hot for you right now."

Williams leaned over the table.

"I want a lawyer."

Judy nodded brightly.

"Of course! You have that right. You don't have to say a word, and that's fine. But I'm just going to lay this out for you, so you can think about it. You know, of course, that we're going to throw the book at you. You're looking at three years in prison for grand theft of the night howlers, another three for grand theft of water due to your illegal siphoning of the lake, six months for possession of an unregistered handgun, and three months for each and every one of those fifteen muzzles we found in your barn. I'll sum that up for you, in case you've lost count. That's ten years and three months of prison time. And that's not even considering the inevitable drug trafficking and possession charges."

Williams' ears, already at half mast, drooped throughout Judy's monologue and were now firmly planted against his back. He stared at the ground, offering no response.

Judy shuffled the papers in front of her.

"However…"

Williams' ears perked up, and his eyes rose slowly to meet Judy's.

"The District Attorney may be willing to cut you a deal."

Williams spoke, his voice hoarse.

"What kind of deal?"

Judy continued to stare the hare down.

"If you give us the name of everyone involved in your little enterprise, those felonies will be dropped to misdemeanors. You'll be looking at three years, max. Oh, and we'd also like to know why you have so many muzzles and chains in your barn. You might imagine how something like that excites our curiosity."

Williams let our a sour laugh that was completely devoid of humor.

"What you're offering me is a death sentence, rabbit. You have no idea what the fuck kind of people you're dealing with. If I roll, I'm dead. Your deal ain't shit."

He leaned back in his chair, staring stubbornly at the two-way mirror behind Judy.

Shit, Judy thought. We're so close, I can't lose him now.

"We can offer you protective custody."

Williams rolled his eyes.

"The hell you can."

Judy ignored him.

"We can offer you protective custody. We can get you into witness protection, and you can serve your sentence under house arrest."

"I want to hear it from the D.A.", Williams growled. But his body language betrayed his excitement. As soon as Judy mentioned witness protection, Williams' ears perked back up and his eyes brightened.

Got him! Thought Judy excitedly.

"Well, Mr. Williams", she sighed, "the D.A. will be in court all day today. But I can bring the assistant D.A. and they can make the deal with you today, should you choose to waive your right to counsel."

She got up and calmly left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She was immediately set upon by Nick, Jorgenson, and Chief Bogo.

Nick and Jorgenson were grinning excitedly, but Bogo's expression was indecipherable (as per usual). Nick spoke first.

"Nice going, Carrots! He's going to roll for sure."

Jorgenson shook her paw.

"What your partner said. Well done in there, he almost clammed up on us."

Judy grinned.

"Thanks, Captain."

She turned to Bogo.

"Sir?"

Bogo looked down at her, and Judy was reminded once again how painfully small she was compared to the Chief. She felt like an ant under a magnifying glass.

"Hopps", he grumbled, "making deals without consulting with the District Attorney first makes my life extremely difficult. I'm assuming you know that, since you seem to go out of your way to do it on every case."

Judy assumed a chastised look, but her excitement couldn't be dampened.

"Yes sir. I'm sorry sir."

Bogo snorted.

"No you're not. Sorry is what you're going to be if this doesn't pan out."

He turned to Nick and Jorgenson.

"If you gentlemammals will excuse me, I have to go grovel before the D.A."

He shot Judy a venomous look, but it bounced right off of her beaming face.

Jorgenson smiled wide, revealing his razor-sharp teeth.

"Hey, you're the one that wanted to be the Chief. You don't get to complain now."

Bogo stamped off without responding – Jorgenson called after him.

"You know you miss being a Captain!"

A door slammed and Bogo vanished. Jorgenson turned back to his detectives, his smile still present.

"I'm heading back to my office. Well done, you two. Take the rest of the day and come back in the morning – I want to start interrogating Williams at 0900." Judy and Nick nodded their assent, and Jorgenson left.

The partners slowly started walking toward the front of the station. Nick draped a paw around Judy's shoulders – not too personal, but not exactly professional, either.

"Well Carrots, I guess we're not going to beat our speed record after all. Too bad, I would have liked to upped the stakes a little bit."

Judy smiled and leaned into Nick's side. She breathed in, catching a faint echo of his scent.

"I can live with that. It looks like we got our guy, and soon we'll flush out the rest of them. And then we do it all over again."

After a long and quiet walk, they finally reached Judy's apartment and began to change out of their work clothes. Judy froze as she was pulling her shirt over her head.

"Oh God."

"What?"

"Nick, we haven't told my parents anything about what happened today. They still think we're on vacation in the burrows. They're going to completely freak out on us!"

Judy grew more hysterical as she spoke. Nick never understood how she could get so emotional about easily rectifiable problems, but could easily maintain her cool under insane amounts of on-the-job stress.

Secrets of the Universe, he mused. Judy was already dialing her mother.

It wasn't a comfortable conversation. Bonnie wasn't pleased that she had been misled, and gave both Nick and her daughter a thorough brow-beating. It ended with Judy and Nick promising to spend some real time off at the Hopps burrow – no investigations allowed. The call finally ended and Nick breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"I see where you get it from now."

"Get what from, Nick?"

"Your ability to make everyone around you feel guilty."

Judy smiled.

"I might be the black sheep in my family, but there are some things that just run in the family."

They had been sitting on the couch while on the phone with Bonnie. Judy scooted over to Nick and leaned heavily against him as he wrapped a long arm around her.

"Nick, it's been a long day."

He sighed contentedly.

"I know. But a good one."

There was a tired pause.

"Hey, Nick?"

"Mmm?"

"I know that wasn't easy for you earlier. With the muzzles and… stuff."

Nick's stomach turned. He had almost forgotten about that. When he was alone with Judy, it was easy to forget that the world wasn't always so… perfect. He forced himself to speak jauntily. He didn't want to ruin a nice evening.

"Oh, no big deal. Nothing to be worried about, I had a big strong bunny with me."

He gave her a tickle and she giggled, apparently forgetting the subject. Thank God.

"What do you say we watch a movie, Carrots? I've been wanting to see Mad Max for a while now."

Judy looked up at him and nodded.

-

They were only twenty minutes in when Nick started gently rubbing Judy's shoulders. Which turned into rubbing her back. He eventually let his claws out – it drove Judy absolutely nuts, and Nick loved that.

Judy moaned softly as Nick's claws gently combed her belly. She leaned back against him, looking up into his muzzle.

"Nick, I don't think I would have lasted the entire week."

Nick's paw descended a bit farther past her belly, and she yipped in pleasure. The fox grinned hungrily.

"Likewise. Bedroom."

"Bedroom," said Judy breathlessly.