DISCLAIMER: I was walking to drop my bid to own Zootopia in the mailbox, and I slipped and fell into the Elephant Graveyard. Those crazy hyenas chased me off, and I ended up leaving my bid on the ground somewhere back there. So still no owning Zootopia for me!

Thanks to my very special editors, GusTheBear and TheoreticallyEva! You guys are fantastic!

Longtooth and Rivers stared across the table at the lion. Finally awake from the tranquilizer, he seemed almost…cold. Uncaring. He'd even waived his right to a lawyer. Rivers opened the feline's file. "Brandon Gibbs, a.k.a. 'The Roar', thirty-six years old, arrested three and a half years ago. In for felony drug and weapons trafficking, ties to the 57th street crew, sentenced to five years. Now murder. What happened?"

Gibbs stared at the elk detective, his cold glare threatening to freeze the interrogation room's concrete walls. "He deserved it." At least he was lucid.

"Deserved it, how?" Rivers decided to see where that line of questioning would go.

"He deserved it after what he did to my little girl and my wife." The lion's look was hard.

Rivers shuffled through the file, pointing out the relevant entry to Longtooth. "Ah, yes, married ten years, and your little girl is comin' up on her eleventh birthday, that about right?"

"Was."

"Was?"

"They're both dead."

Rivers and Longtooth looked at each other. Somehow, that hadn't been relayed to them in the prison's inmate file, nor the info dump they'd gotten from the precinct. It was something a lot of the officers had noticed—much of the intelligence they'd been given lately was incomplete. Complaints had been lodged, but with the backlog still being processed and filed by the academy cadets that had been sent over, no one expected it to clear up any time soon.

"How did they die?"

The lion inmate glared at the two detectives. "Because you people didn't do your job. The way I hear it, you guys just waited until they murdered thousands before you moved it. My wife and daughter included."

Longtooth growled dangerously at the accusation but quieted at a warning glance from her partner. Rivers wasn't any better though, his mouth set in a thin line.

"They were killed when those monsters gassed the districts. Wife went savage and killed my daughter, and then died of starvation before you guys ever found her. I found out, and my blood demands that he pay for his transgression." The lion glared squarely at Longtooth. "He attacked my pride, and he had to pay."

Longtooth immediately knew that he wasn't referring to his pride in the emotional sense of the term. Some lions, particularly more traditionalist groups, referred to their immediate families and other close-knit kin as their pride. For most outsiders, this amounted to little more than a fancy word used instead of the more common term of 'family', but some of the traditionalist groups still observed some of the old ways, especially in the homeland. The extent varied, but sometimes, it ended up clashing with the law. She'd had a few lion perps like that, and occasionally, they threw the word 'traitor' at her.

Rivers, meanwhile, scratched his chin. "And what made you believe this mammal was the one responsible for your family's death?"

The inmate gave Rivers a withering look. "It's all over the news, what happened out there. It wasn't hard to figure out that at least some of the new meat was that group you rounded up too late. I just didn't know who. Then I got word that Amelia and Ginny had been murdered, but still didn't know who. I finally figured out he was one of the ringleaders, though. Doesn't matter how. Made my weapon, distracted his guard, and here I am." He crossed his arms. "I just saved the city the cost of a trial. You should be thanking me."

Rivers' eyebrows went up. "Well, maybe. But now a lot of others won't get their fair share of justice. And the city now has to pay for another trial for you." The elk neglected to mention the lawsuits that would no doubt be hurled the city's way, especially by whatever remaining family Hornby had left. The city was already being buried under lawsuits filed by victims' groups and property owners' groups, and this was just another one waiting to happen.

"That may be so, but this was personal for me."

The elk sighed. "OK, I can see you're quite adamant about that fact. What about the guard? How did you distract him?"

"Oh, that was easy. Two other inmates, starting a fight, right around the corner. The idiot couldn't resist."

Rivers bristled at that, but he knew he'd have to talk to the guard anyway. This would just be another topic to discuss with the mammal when he did. "And the cameras?"

"The ones in the shower hallway don't work right now, everyone knows that. Made it easy to get in and do what had to be done."

Hmmm, and yet another thing to talk about, Rivers thought.

"Do you really not care? That you've denied thousands of people their shot at justice?" Longtooth hissed at the other feline, ears pinned back, leaning over the table. She backed down again when she felt her partner's hoof on her shoulder.

The lion across from the detectives just shrugged. "You want me to say I'm sorry? I'm not sorry at all. He deserved every bit of it."

Well, that really set the tone. "Thank you, that will be all, Mr. Gibbs." Rivers gestured to the guard to have the lion taken back to isolation.

"Sorry, that guy got under my skin. Nice guy. Drug trafficker, weapons trafficker, murderer. I can see why his wife married him." Nolwazi's tone dripped with sarcasm.

Rivers snorted but made a mental note to ask her what happened later. "It's actually not that surprising. I once had a husband/wife team of drug producers. And you know Big has the whole family thing going on. Lots of other families involved with his crime syndicate."

"That's true. I'm actually surprised the old shrew's still around."

"Heard he had a granddaughter recently, too. Not much intelligence about her, though. Hey, do we know the guard that was supposed to be on duty guarding the showers for Hornby?"

Longtooth nodded. "They're looking for him now. A buck deer named Sam Westfall. Been working here about a year."

That took Rivers by surprise. "Only a year? What other employment has he had?"

"Not sure. His file hasn't come from the department yet." Longtooth sighed, annoyed by the delays in processing information and requests.

"I'm actually surprised they have to track him down. You'd think a place like this would have a way to keep track of all that."

"More support from the international community, Mr. Mayor. This one is an offer for security forces to, and I quote, 'help establish meaningful and lawful enforcement of peace'," Tundratown interim councilor Adriana Whitepaw intoned.

"So, a police state? That's what we've had for more than two months now, and the ZPD has been doing an admirable job of balancing everything. Accepting something like this would just be asking that foreign power to impose their own word of law on us. The first step towards a so-called peaceful takeover. No way." Caren Fisher crossed her arms.

"We've voted down every offer of assistance so far. At this rate, we're headed straight for financial default," the white wolf Tundratown representative argued.

"We're doing better than we were a month ago, now that trade has resumed, but we relied heavily on tourism before the attack, and that's nowhere to be seen right now. You know that the biggest countries in the world are publicly discouraging travel here, too? One even called us a terrorist state." Savannah central's Kamanyi Mahamat pointed out.

"We can't do anything about that. The only thing we can do there is show the world we have things under control, and that we are open for business and visitors." Caren Fisher looked sour.

"Which we have been doing, to no effect. Even beyond tourism, economic investment has crashed."

"So, what do we do? Bailouts will only go so far, and eventually, you know the banks will call those due." That question came from Canyonlands councilor Trudy Almbauer. Her district, while smaller and less affected than the rest of the city, was still suffering.

Peter Clawheed spoke up. "What about economic incentives and tax breaks? Build here, we'll give you a better return for your money. Medical research, technology, things like that."

"Medical research might not be the best choice, especially with the threat of our largest medical research firm closing up shop. They've already put some of their non-Night Howler related assets up for sale. No buyers, or even offers, from what I hear." James de Havilland shrugged, looking at his Rainforest District counterpart.

"Not to mention they've put thousands of staff on leave in the last two weeks. Almost half, from what I understand." Councilor Garcia shuddered. "I've got my constituents yapping at my tree for help smoothing out the unemployment application process and getting their homes and businesses opened up again." He sighed. "I doubt the latter will happen any time soon."

Mayor Clawheed nodded. "Now that we've accepted the bid for the preliminary analysis of the districts, it'll be a few months before we get results. Beyond that, we don't have the data yet to plan."

Councilor Pablo Garcia frowned. "We need to find a place to permanently house my constituents and give them a break for the property they can no longer occupy."

"I have people up my tail about their property values, too, councilor," the Savannah Central giraffe remarked. "All along the coastline, we have mammals experiencing health effects from the decay and rot of fish stocks that have died in the rivers in your and Councilor de Havilland's district and washed up in mine."

"That's something that can be cleaned up relatively easily, Councilor Mahamat. Not like our districts, where the very soil is a health risk," Garcia pointed out.

Mayor Clawheed raised his arms. "You both make very good points, Councilors. You both have very real health risks to consider. Councilor Mahamat's risk, though, is much more immediate. I propose we divert resources to cleaning that up immediately, so we can focus on the long-term goal of rehabilitating the Rainforest and Canal Districts. Current estimates are only ten million dollars to clean and dispose of the affected fauna, and the city crews can handle it directly. If we have ten districts open for business and tourism. We can use the tax income to address the other two. But, if we ignore the health concerns in Savannah Central, we'll have a much bigger district with a major problem."

Adriana Whitepaw raised her paw. "I second that. Deal with the issues in Savannah Central before tackling the other two."

The mayor bear nodded "OK, motion to allocate ten million dollars to city crews for Savannah Central cleanup, proposed by Mayor Clawheed, with support from Councilor Mahamat and seconded by Councilor Whitepaw. All in favour?"

All but the Downtown councilor raised their paws, though the councilors for the Rainforest and Canals District only did so reluctantly.

"Opposed?"

Beatrice Marchment, the old hedgehog from the Downtown District raised her paw. "I feel it's premature to approve or even propose such an action, Mr. Mayor. There hasn't even been a suggestion for a volunteer cleanup by the citizens."

Councilor Mahamat shook his head. "Civilians? It's not like you can just shovel the fish into a garbage can, Councilor Marchment. Most civilians wouldn't know how to properly decontaminate. This is a biological hazard, Councilor, not a city park litter cleanup."

"Regardless, Councilor Mahamat, Councilor Marchment makes a valid point. A civilian cleanup with proper training could still be organized. Given that, is there any among you who would like to retract your votes?" Mayor Clawheed looked over the other ten councilors.

Both the Rainforest and Canals District councilors raised their paws, along with the Nocturnal and Canyonlands councilors. That gave a final vote of seven to five. "Passed. Thank you for your honesty, Councilors."

"Next order of business—Edalta Oilfield Services has submitted a preliminary plan for their Rainforest and Canal District assessment process for our approval, along with the breakdown of their budget to do so." The Mayor gestured to a huge binder that had been distributed to everyone prior to the meeting. "It's a breakdown of all of the proposed steps for analysis, testing and recommendations for getting our two abandoned districts habitable again."

All twelve councilors opened the binder, not at all daunted by its two hundred and fifty pages.

Chuck Bunson stared down the ibex in front of him, as much as a bunny could stare down a mammal much larger than him.

The ibex chuckled. "You think you freaks have a right to be here? They are killing machines, and you are a sick freak for willingly being near one!"

"That's not true! They are mammals, just like you and me! Besides, who I choose to love is none of your business!"

The ibex laughed at Chuck and the female vampire bat at his side, Cindy. "You coming out in public and holding paws like you were makes it my business! It's disgusting, really! You mammals should be sent to a shrink or something, 'cuz something ain't right in your head. Go home and get professional help, little kid. You aren't welcome here."

Chuck looked around. "I'm standing in Zootopia Central Park. I don't see any signs anywhere that say 'rabbits and bats aren't allowed'."

"They don't have to, punk. Everybody knows predators are killers."

"Then maybe you should go home and look up Mustang Sally. Or do it on your phone, I don't care. Just stop bothering us." Chuck turned to go.

"I'm trying to help you, kid!" The ibex grabbed the bunny's shoulder.

"Listen, sir, I didn't ask for your help, nor do I want it. As for being a kid, I happen to think I'm acting more mature than you are right now! And get your hoof off my shoulder!"

"Why, you—" Whatever the ibex was about to say was interrupted.

"Is everything OK here?"

The bunny, his vampire bat girlfriend, and the ibex turned toward the voice, as did several of the gathered onlookers. Officers Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps stood at the edge of the crowd.

"I'm sure nothing's going on here, right, everyone? I mean, we're all getting along? No one deciding that someone doesn't belong on public property?" The fox officer smirked as he spoke. Chuck Bunson almost laughed at the way the fox officer called out the ibex for exactly what he'd been doing. "After all, everyone is welcome in a public park, unless they are causing a public disturbance, right Officer Hopps?"

The police doe nodded, a mirror smirk on her face. "That's right. And if they were causing a public disturbance, we might be required to step in, or even remove the offenders from the park. No one wants that, though, right?"

"No one wants degenerates in the park, either, yet not only are these two here, but you two as well! Everyone knows what you two get up to when you're not forcing your will on others!" The ibex turned to face the bunny with what he hoped was an intimidating look on his face.

It didn't work. Judy met his eyes. "Sir, stand down. I don't want to have to remove you from the park, but I can and will if I have to."

The ibex sized her up. "I know that you'll just call your fellow bullies if I say anything against you, so I'm just going to find a place that doesn't allow degenerates to hang out at. You guys are all sick." The ungulate turned and stomped off, leaving the two officers and the rabbit and bat whom he had accosted earlier, along with the gaggle of onlookers who had gathered.

Judy turned to the other interspecies couple. "You two OK?"

Chuck nodded. "We're fine, Officer, thanks for asking."

The female vampire bat nodded. "Not that we don't appreciate the save, but what are you two doing here?"

"Actually, we were just on our break when Officer Hopps here overheard the commotion. Seems like nothing gets past those ears of hers."

The gathered mammals, seeing the show was over, started to disperse. However, a cheetah paused as she passed by, leaning down to speak with the four. "Don't let anyone tell you who you can and can't have in your life. That's for you and you alone to decide." She gave a warm smile.

Cindy smiled at the cheetah. "Thanks ma'am. That means a lot to us."

The cheetah left, too, and the four were left to their own devices. Judy turned to the pair of civilians. "What are you two up to?"

Chuck cleared his throat. "Well, I just got a job at the shake shack in the station… Been looking for one for a while, but the job market hasn't been all that great. I'll take what I can get, though."

Cindy nodded. "Normally, I'm not out in the daylight," she commented, blinking at the bright sunlight, "but I kind of came to celebrate with Chuck, and we decided to take a walk in the park. I got a job at a club down in the Nocturnal District, so at least we both have work. We're looking at renting an apartment and getting out of my parents' place."

Nick smiled. "You know, when I was your age, I couldn't wait to get out of the house, either. And Hopps here was so eager, she moved more than two hundred miles from home the first chance she got."

Judy glared at Nick.

Cindy cocked her head. "Two hundreds miles, huh? That would be Bunnyburrow, I'm guessing?"

At the smallest officer's nod, Chuck grinned. "Cindy was top of our class in geography. She could probably name all of the countries and capitals of every state and province on the continent if you asked her to," he boasted proudly.

Cindy dipped her head, no doubt flattered at the praise. "Chuck here is better with creative stuff. He's an artist, but that doesn't really pay the bills right now, you know."

Nick looked at Judy, who shook her head. "Artists have to build up a pretty big portfolio in order to make a living off their work. I have a few siblings trying to get into that world." She sighed. "And a few who have given up."

A chime sounded from Cindy's pocket. "Hey, we'd better scram. We have a chance to look at an apartment in half an hour. Nice meeting up with you guys again!"

The four bade each other goodbye and headed their separate ways—Chuck and Cindy to the subway station and Nick and Judy back to the precinct.

Longtooth stared across the table at the buck deer in front of her. Rivers had gone to check the security cameras, so leaving her with a uniformed officer, the guard who had been responsible for the showers, and his lawyer, a badger by the name of Desmond Stripetail, in the room. "Sam Westfall. Workin' for Zootopia Correctional for a year. You were the one on solitary shower guard duty, that about right?"

The buck deer across from her looked at his lawyer, who nodded. "Yes, that's me."

"Why don't you tell me what happened?"

The lawyer pointed at the folder in front of the lioness. "You have the details right in front of you, Detective."

Longtooth rolled her eyes. "I know, sir, but I'd like to hear what happened from him."

"You already have the culprit. Harassing my client won't change that."

The lioness sighed. "I'm not looking to change anythin', but your client was assigned to guard the showers where a murder took place. I have to find out exactly what happened. You know the drill."

The lawyer thought for a moment, then gestured to the buck deer.

"I was stationed outside the showers. We do try to afford some privacy, even to solitaries, when it comes to that kind of stuff. We searched him before he entered. All he had was the allowed packets of liquid soap and shampoo. There was one cloth and one towel in the room for his use. Nothing more."

"What about escape attempts?"

The guard shook his head. "The drains are way too small, and the windows too high up and reinforced."

The lawyer spoke up. "I'd like to point out that there hasn't been a successful escape attempt from that prison in thirty years, Detective."

Longtooth shook her head. "I am aware of that, sir, but I'm also aware of the accusations of inmate abuse that have been going on there. Far higher than normal, I might add."

The badger lawyer narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Are you suggesting something, Detective Longtooth?"

"Just making an observation, Mr. Stripetail. Please continue, Mr. Westfall."

The deer glanced at his lawyer again before doing just that. "I was at my post for about six minutes when I heard a commotion. Dispatch came on the radio and sent me off to help deal with it. I came back and found the lion inmate in the shower room and the bull dead on the floor, called for backup, and dragged the lion down to solitary. The captain tranquilized him there."

Longtooth's frown deepened. "That seems disconcertingly out of order. Why was he not tranquilized beforehand?"

The guard shrugged. "That was the captain's decision. He was also the one that sent me to break up the fight."

Longtooth's eyebrows went up. "I thought you said it was your dispatch?"

"Dispatch relayed the order to me from him."

That was unusual. The guard captain waiting until they got to solitary to put a killer to sleep? Ordering the lone shower guard to break up a prison fight? It seemed suspicious to her, but she couldn't decide if it was because she thought the guard was lying, or that the guard might be telling the truth, meaning the captain was the suspicious one. The story seemed ridiculous no matter which way she looked at it. She decided to try a different angle. "What's normal procedure for something like this?"

"Umm… Well, usually there's another guard available to break up the fights. I don't know about the rest. I've not been trained on or had to deal with that before."

More unusual revelations. It seemed that, if the guard's statement was to be believed, there was more to this than one guard's misconduct. "Was that all?"

The guard thought. "That's all until you guys got there."

Longtooth rubbed her temples. "OK, thank you. You may go." The lioness barely noticed as the guard and his lawyer got up to leave. It figured. Every time they thought things were all buttoned up, a curveball came and clobbered them in the temple.

In another part of the prison, Shawn Dancing Rivers stared at the wall of TV monitors. Cameras covered every corner and square inch of the prison's inmate common areas, except the showers. And apparently the shower hallway, true to the suspect's word. The feeds for those cameras just broadcasted snow.

"What's going on with these cameras?" The elk pointed out the faulty cameras to the security tech.

"The receiver box isn't working. It's been out of order for just about two months now. We ordered a replacement, but it's stuck in shipping thanks to the lockdown," the camera guard, a pygmy hippo, commented.

"Wonderful," the elk grumbled. "Do the cameras have onboard storage?"

"No, sir. They are fairly old cameras. We were lucky to be able to get a digital receiver for them at all.

The detective had to acknowledge the point. High tech security cameras were a luxury for Zootopia's prisons since the budget cuts forced them to pinch pennies, and if the old security cameras worked, why bother upgrading? Of course, that didn't change the fact that he didn't have any footage or eyewitnesses of their suspect actually entering the shower room.

"OK, back up to the time of the incident and play from there." There was something else Rivers wanted to see.

As they watched, a fight broke out between two equine inmates, one shoving the other. There was no audio, so he couldn't hear any words exchanged, but the effect was immediate: The one who got shoved clocked the other with his hoof. A minute later, the guard who was supposed to be watching the shower room came running into the frame, along with another two guards from other directions. The fight was broken up fairly quickly, the offending inmates sent to their cells, and the guards went about their duties.

Backing up again, the two scanned through the rest of the camera feeds until they found their suspect lion. They retraced his actions in reverse, going back to a surprising meeting with one of the two fighting equines, then back further, to the cafeteria, and eventually to his cell.

Jumping forward, there wasn't a lot of activity for a while, the shower guard returning to his post in the camera deadzone with a few minutes of nothing. Then a surge of armed guards headed into the shower hallway deadzone. More minutes of nothing followed, before some of the guards reappeared, escorting their lion suspect away, down through the maze of corridors to the underground solitary confinement cells.

To River's surprise, the lion appeared to be alert, though perhaps catatonic from his expression, seemingly not acknowledging what was going on. How interesting. He'd been completely unrepentant earlier.

"Do you have any recordings of the radio transmissions to or from the guards?"

The pygmy hippo nodded. "Right over here, sir." He led the detective to another computer console. "What can I pull up for you?"

"For now, start two minutes before the fight, and go until I say so."

The hippo clicked through some menus, and the sound of radio chatter blasted from the small speakers next to the console.

"Solitary guest is in the showers. Westfall is on station." Rivers assumed that was the voice of the shower guard.

"Copy that, Westfall." The second voice was one that Rivers didn't recognize.

"Who was that?"

The hippo shrugged. "Oh, that was the dispatcher at the front security desk."

The next minute was quiet until the pygmy hippo spoke. "Right about now, I spotted the fight on the cameras and called Captain Tony on the secure radio. That took about twenty-one seconds."

Rivers nodded. There was a brief moment of more silence before the dispatcher's voice came on. "Westfall, Grazum, Phillips, and Hornston, inmate fight in Section C common area. Please respond."

"Grazum, on my way."

"Hornston here, I'm beating hooves down there."

"Philips answering, I'm on my way but it'll take me a bit."

"Westfall here, I'm on solitary watch, I can't—"

"Westfall, the orders come from Captain Tony."

"I can't just leave—"

A new voice came over the radio. "Westfall, this is Captain Tony. I have ordered you to respond to the fight in your section. Go now, or are you disobeying a direct order?"

"… No, sir."

"Then get your ass over to Section C and break up the fight."

"Yes, sir."

"Nice guy," Rivers commented sardonically.

The pygmy hippo snorted. "You have no idea. He'll chew out anyone for breaking regs, and he'll chew you out for questioning an order to break regs."

"Sheesh. What about backup for Westfall? Why wasn't any sent in to cover the showers?" More and more, it seemed that Rivers needed to talk to that captain.

"I don't know, Detective. I just work this security desk. Usually, I don't even get outside this room for around eight hours. Under a lockdown, I act as a sort of mission control and feed intel to the ground teams and dispatcher."

Rivers thought about that. "Did you see the inmate slipping into the showers?"

At that, the pygmy hippo blushed. "No, sir, I was watching the fight, making sure it didn't escalate."

The elk detective nodded. "That's fine." He looked around. "I'm not sure I could keep my eye on thirty-six monitors all at the same time, either."

"We used to have three mammals on duty at all times in here, but management cut the positions." A frantic call from the radio recording drew both the attention of mammals' back to it.

"Dispatch, dispatch, Code 60! Code 60 in the Section C shower rooms! Attacker is still in there!"

Shawn Dancing Rivers raised his eyebrows. "Code 60?"

"Inmate medical emergency. That was your dead body," the pygmy hippo explained.

"Gotcha."

The rest of the recording had few useful bits of evidence, but in the end, Rivers had the whole thing secured for ZPD evidence. "Where is this Captain Tony?"

The captain in question rubbed his temples. It wasn't supposed to go this way. Gibbs was supposed to get in and get out while Westfall was distracted. Now, not only did the ZPD have direct access to the culprit, there may even be a way to trace this back to him beyond the security recordings. He'd been careful to avoid all contact with Gibbs, just a few rumors planted in the general population and some news given to the lion about his family, but nothing more. It had been a gamble from the start, but he knew if it bore fruit, it'd be a better solution than if he did the deed directly.

However, what angered him the most was the fact that the foolish feline had all but signing a guilty verdict, rather than sneaking out and back to his cell like he was supposed to. He'd just stood there, and in the confusion, the wolf captain had slipped up, delaying tranquilization, despite the questioning of his colleagues.

Still, no one had expressed suspicion, so maybe he was safe. Even if he wasn't, he knew the family would take care of him. Family always took care of family, and family never let a blatant attack against them go unpunished. Doing it discreetly with the mammals in jail, though, was a challenge. Certainly not the way the boss preferred to deal with mammals.

A knock on the door drew his attention. "Come in."

A/N

An open-and-shut case? Looks like it!

Happy Good Friday everyone, even if you don't celebrate it or Easter Sunday! Hope you all have an awesome weekend!

No references found again! Can you find any in this chapter?

Coming up on April 16: Down the Spiral!

Questions? Critiques? Did the hyena trio run off with your steak dinner? Leave a comment!