Six
Nick woke the next morning to find Judy already gone. On the bedside table was a note stuck to his phone apologizing for her pre-dawn disappearance, but Tundratown was a hassle to get to even in good weather, she wrote, and Commander Stelmaria brooked no excuses when it came to tardiness. She encouraged him to enjoy the warm sunshine for her, and to be safe at work. She had signed it with a drawing of a cartoon carrot blowing a kiss.
Nick set the note down on the table and flopped back onto the bed. Dissatisfaction was like a fat rodent crawling around his gut, gnawing on his insides. He hated this. He knew he should be sucking it up the way Judy was. It was the mature way to go. The only thing they could do right now. But he just couldn't manage to act so optimistically blasé about it the way she could. And what made it all the more frustrating was that he'd used to be so good at that. Not the optimistic part, maybe, but Nick had prided himself on his ability to appear cool and unconcerned regardless of any shock or hurt that came his way. But he was finding that his skills were nothing when it came to his feelings for Judy. They couldn't be quashed. They refused to be hidden. And more and more, going without her was like going without sleep. It made him extremely grumpy and he just knew it wasn't going to be sustainable long term.
He needed his partner back.
He turned his phone on and checked the tracker. The rhino was still in the same spot he'd been in last night. Finally resting after all that walking. He would probably start heading back when he woke up. Nick would need to keep a close eye out today. If luck was on his side, he might have this case cracked within the week. Then he'd have a win big enough that no matter who won the election, the mayor would have no choice but to reinstate him and Judy as partners.
The thought followed him through his morning prep and sat in the empty passenger's seat beside him all the way in to work. It only vanished when Clawhauser greeted him at the front desk with pictures of Howle's new pups. The cat gushed and cooed over his phone screen while Nick helped himself to his box of doughnuts, making noises of agreement when prompted.
"Howle said he might bring them in for us to see next week!" Clawhauser squealed. "Isn't that great?"
"Yeah," said Nick, trying not to think about how Judy wouldn't be around to see them too. "Great."
In the Bull Pen, he sat at his usual seat in the front, feeling exposed without Judy there beside him. He had never been one to sit in the front row back in school. Partly because he'd never wanted to look like he actually cared about what he was learning when most teachers assumed he didn't care at all, but also because it kept the eyes off his back. It felt like every pair in the room were watching him now, either with pity or with smugness. It was like a waking nightmare straight from his teenage years. He half-expected to look down and find he'd forgotten his pants too.
By now they all must know what had happened, even though no official statement had been made. You couldn't keep a secret like this at work for long, especially not from animals who solved mysteries for a living.
Francine patted him on the shoulder with her trunk as she walked by. Nick gritted his teeth and smiled like he appreciated it. He didn't want to take his bad mood out on her. She was one of the few who had gone to Chief Bogo personally to argue on his and Judy's behalf. Clawhauser had confided as much in-between showing him cute puppy pictures.
A shadow fell over Judy's side of the table. Nick looked up to see Delgato glaring down at him. Nick's mood soured further. "You got a problem, cat?"
"Why are you still here?" The question was spit at Nick in anger but also genuine confusion. Apparently someone had missed an update from the rumor mill after all.
Nick made a point of slouching back in his seat, an insolent claiming of the space. He swiped nonexistent dust off the tabletop. "Hoping I'd be gone? Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not that easy to get rid of."
Something that might have been worry flickered in those hard bright eyes. "Hopps wasn't—?"
"Wasn't what?" Was he really being asked to explain this, and to Delgato of all animals?
Behind him some helpful officer supplied, "She took a transfer to Tundratown."
"Tundratown?" The lion made a face. "But why?"
"Why do you think?" snapped Nick. Really, how much of this cat's offensive stupidity was he supposed to take? "Is there a hairball lodged in your brain or something? It's because you had to go and make such a stink about Judy and me dating. Of course they separated us."
Delgato slammed a massive paw down on the table. "You should have been the one to go. Not her."
Nick eyed the giant fuzzball. The statement, while insulting, rang sincere. The cat hadn't wanted to lose Judy. He might be blind when it came to foxes, but at least he could recognize competence in other species when he saw it.
"For the first time ever, I agree with you," said Nick. "But that's not the way things shook out. Tough luck for both of us, huh? Maybe next time when you plot to ruin animals' lives, you'll plan it out better."
The cat hissed, flashing fangs. Nick stayed relaxed in his seat, though several surrounding officers half-rose from theirs.
Chief Bogo entered the room then. Without glancing up from the paperwork he carried, he said, "Everyone to their seats."
The other officers settled back. But Delgato lingered, still staring daggers at Nick.
"Delgato," Bogo barked. "To your seat. Now."
The cat stalked off. Nick added the feeling of his gaze to the dozen others already burning holes in the back of his head.
The morning announcements seemed to take longer than usual. Nick slumped boneless in his seat and let the buffalo's booming voice wash over him like the background bass of a boring song. A couple times, Chief Bogo stopped mid-sentence and looked over at the fox like he expected him to say something, but Nick wasn't in the mood to oblige. Making snarky comments was less fun without Judy there. She always tried so hard to stay professional and not laugh. But even as she was shushing him her lips would be twitching around a smile, her eyes sparkling with amusement. Nick had never thought being reprimanded could be so endearing. Or so attractive.
Nick let his head fall back. He was a self-pitying mess. He needed to go do something. Find a distraction. Why wasn't this meeting over yet?
"And for today's campaign security, we have officers McHorn and Francine, Delgato, and Rhinowitz." Chief Bogo snapped the folder closed. "Mayor Lionheart is asking for extra vigilance after the last rally. Let's make sure we don't let anyone stain his tie this time, got it? The ZPD doesn't have the budget to pay for any more of his dry cleaning."
The four officers made noises of assent and tromped out. That left only Stella and Nick left.
"Uh, sir? I hate to criticize," drawled Nick, "but I think you might have forgotten two."
"As of today you two are no longer on the campaign trail, Wilde. I have a new case for you." He held up another folder. "We had a new missing mammal case come in this morning. Two young mice have gone missing. A brother and sister. Berry and Thistle Blumenthal. Twelve and fourteen respectively. They were supposed to be at a sleepover last night. When they didn't return home this morning like they were supposed to the mother checked in with the family throwing the party. Apparently, the children had decided to leave early the night before. Obviously, they never made it back. Time of abduction is thought to be somewhere between ten and eleven pm."
Nick got up and accepted the folder, Stella joining him up front. This would be the first missing mammal case without Judy. He tried not to think about it as he opened the folder and perused the contents.
He stifled a groan. "Little Rodentia." Out of all the places in the city, it had to be the one in miniature. Getting around there to investigate was going to be a bear.
Stella sighed and headed for the door. "I'll go get my magnifying glass."
"I've been close to the Climate Wall several times," said Judy, her voice sounding oddly muffled in the enclosed space, "but I've never been inside it before."
Officer Fang shot her an expectant grin over his shoulder. "Isn't it spooky? Hope you're not afraid of ghosts, Hopps. I've heard this wall is full of 'em."
"Ghosts, indeed," scoffed officer Dill from behind her. "The only thing haunting about this place is the smell." He gave the air distasteful sniff. "For a building that's essentially a giant air conditioner it really could have better ventilation."
"That smell is from all the bodies buried in the walls," the wolf whispered from ahead of them. "Lost souls who perished while building this place thousands of years ago."
"Zootopia celebrated its bicentennial only twenty years ago," pointed out Judy. "So it can't have been thousands of years."
"Well reasoned," said Dill. "It's a relief to know that at least some of the team uses their heads. Oh, but do mind your paws, officer Hopps. There might not be any bodies here, but some parts of the walls do not like to be touched."
"No worries," said Judy. She had already noticed that the walls were a little… messy, with much of the paneling that would normally protect its inner workings lying forgotten on the floor next to their screws, or missing entirely. It left exposed all manner of delicate wires, pipes, and ductwork. Tiny lights flickered above a myriad of switches and buttons. Judy worried that one bad stumble into the wrong bit of wall and she might cause a flash flood down Reindeer Boulevard.
At least she had some room to work with, being on the smaller side. The hallway was so narrow Fang and Dill were forced to walk single file. Since Judy had never been here before, she stayed tucked in the middle between them, keeping her paws safely away from the walls.
Size, however, did little to help with the strange lighting that increased the claustrophobic feeling of the hallway and made it harder to keep ones bearings. Motion sensor lights lined the grating along the floor, illuminating the way only one step ahead of you before falling dark again shortly after you had passed. And despite knowing you were on solid ground, it was hard to shake the optical illusion it created: that the floor behind you was falling away, with the next step ahead not guaranteed until you made it. Even spry officer Dill, Judy noticed, was walking more carefully than usual. There were additional floodlights hanging from the ceiling, illuminating a narrow second-floor balcony area that stretched perpendicularly with hall, but they were so high up that on the ground floor they only created more shadows than they banished.
"As interesting as this place is," said Judy, "I am a little confused about why we came here. Didn't you say the call was for a mechanical problem? Why is the ZPD needed for that?"
"Because the Climate Wall is one big knot of government red tape," said Fang bluntly.
"For the safety of Zootopia," defended Dill. "As you know, the Climate Wall is what keeps the seasons of Zootopia sustained. Without it, our entire way of life would collapse. This is especially true for Tundratown and the Rainforest District. Therefore, any issues need to be taken with the outmost seriousness. And any problems need to be witnessed and investigated by members of the ZPD in case foul play is involved."
"Like I said—red tape," said Fang.
Behind Judy, the goat sighed heavily.
Another motion sensor light flickered on ahead of them, illuminating a plain, gray door. There was a panel with a speaker box next to it. Fang, being in the lead, hit a button on the panel and said, "Knock, knock."
After a moment, static crackled and a scratchy, high-pitched voice hissed back at them, "Who is it?"
"Don't you mean, 'who's there'?" snickered Fang.
The sigh that followed sounded a lot like officer Dill's. "Wolf cop. Of course. Took the Paw Patrol long enough to show up. I called over an hour ago."
"You know how the roads get in Tundratown, Cuscus. And the scheduled flurry fall we were supposed to get didn't happen, so that only made the road quality worse—"
"Yes, yes, yes, I already know about the failed flurry fall. Of course I know about it. I'm the one who scheduled it."
"Fell asleep on the job, did you? I can sympathize with that."
The response to this was a bunch of angry hissing, sending the speaker into another fit of crackling. "I would never!"
"So you going to let us in or what?"
There was angry pause, then, what felt like to Judy, a grudging beep from the door. The wolf grabbed the thick metal handle and hauled it open, grunting from the weight of it, and waved Judy and Dill through.
The lighting was little better inside. About half the fluorescents in the ceiling were turned off—or burned out. But the area did open up into a proper-sized room. A dozen control panels set up in rows like school desks filled the space. Only one was currently occupied. A possum in a gray jumpsuit sat nervously tapping his claws against the metal arms of his chair. Leaning next to him was a bored looking lemur dressed in tropical colored camo that denoted her as part of the Rainforest District ZPD.
Fang cleared his throat and announced in a loud, prideful tone, "Cuscus, allow me to introduce our newest team member, officer Judy—"
"Yes, yes, nice to meet you. We don't have time for petty introductions. Something's wrong with my system!"
He twirled around in his seat, his pale pink paws pulling at his cheeks as he stared down at his screen in what seemed like agony. "This is the second scheduled weather adjustment that's failed to go through. Something wrong, oh, something's wrong with my precious system."
The lemur straightened off the wall. Dropping a comforting paw onto the possum's shoulder, she said, "It's okay. We're all here now, so you can start working on fixing it."
"Fix it, yes," he said as if she suggested something genius. "I can do that. I'm the only one who can do it." He started tapping out things on his computer, his little paws a blur. Judy didn't understand most of what flashed across the screen. Some type of diagnostics, if she had to guess. Only offer Dill seemed to be following what he was doing with any understanding.
The lemur strode over to them. She looked at Fang cooly. "So. The less incompetent brother wolf came this time, I see."
"I see the less snottier lemur sister is here," responded Fang.
Then they both broke out into grins and fist-bumped each other.
"Indri here has a twin too," Fang told Judy, as if that explained things perfectly.
"Ah," said Judy.
"Well if it isn't the famous officer Hopps," said Indri, her bright yellow eyes sweeping Judy with interest. "What? Was Central not enough of a challenge for you? You decided you needed to test your mettle in that snow-locked wasteland?"
"You just wish you had the skills to get poached by Tundratown," said Fang.
"You wish you had my skills on your team. Period," said Ingrid.
There was a brief intense stare-down, then just as abruptly as before, they smiled and fist bumped again. Judy looked over at Dill for explanation on this exchange, but he just rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Hey, have you heard the rumor about Ortu?" asked Fang.
Indri smirked. "Let me guess, did you precious commander lose him again?"
Fang growled at her. "Commander Stelmaria did everything she could to put him away. It's not her fault he's got so many friends in dirty places."
"Who's Ortu?" asked Judy.
"A musk ox that has been giving your new District the runaround for—what? Five years now?" said Indri. "Every time it looks like he's finally caught—swoosh, he gets off on some technicality. Or buys his way out; the brute's as rich as Mansa Moose ever was. I thought purrrfect kitty Stel-Stel was going to pop a blood vessel the last time he slipped away."
Fang shuddered. "It was a dark few weeks at the precinct, that's for sure."
"So have you caught him again?" asked Indri, in a tone that said she had no doubt the charge wouldn't stick this time either.
"No, actually, that's just it—" The wolf glanced around as if he suspected someone might overhear him, even buried as they were in the center of a Climate Wall bunker. "We've been following his tracks for a while now, waiting for him to make another mistake so we'd have enough evidence to put him away for good. But it turns out someone's already beaten us to it."
Indri and Judy exchanged looks. "How do you mean?"
"He's been robbed." Fang's voice was thick with glee. "Isn't that hilarious? All his secret bank accounts hacked. His secure penthouse in North Pole Towers ransacked. And the coolest part? Whoever pulled it off somehow managed it all on the same night. They say Ortu woke up the next morning in nothing but his long-johns and without a penny to his name." Fang coughed. "The long-john part might have been an exaggeration, though."
"You shouldn't be so happy about it." This came officer Dill. He shot Fang a reproachful look. "It's still a crime, whether it happened to another criminal or not. It's our job to stop things like these from happening."
The young wolf stuck up his nose. "Well I think it's funny. He got what he deserved. And with a little luck, now we'll be able to catch him before he makes enough money back to buy off another judge."
"What I find more interesting is who stole from him," said Indri. "Ortu has his horns stuck in a lot of shady businesses. He's not an ox most would risk ticking off, no matter how much you'd make by stealing from him. I mean, how blinded by greed can you be?"
"Unless it wasn't about money at all," said Judy.
Three pairs of eyes turned to look at her.
"What do you mean?" said Fang.
Cuscus whipped his head around. "Do you animals mind? I am trying to fix one of the most delicate and complex systems in all of Zootopia, and I can't concentrate with you gossiping like chickens behind me!"
All four of them murmured their apologies. Nose quivering, the possum put his back to them once more.
"Cuscus doesn't get out much," whispered Fang. "So his social skills are a little…"
"He's right anyway," said Dill. We should not stand idle like this. Officer Indri, if you would start looking over the security footage? Make sure no one somehow got in here last night to fool with things. I'll see what I can do to help Cuscus. I've been reading up on certain diagnostic procedures lately that I think might be helpful. Officer Fang, take officer Hopps on a circuit of the hallway. See if anything abnormal jumps out at you."
The wolf let out a whine. "Why do I always get stuck with patrol duty?"
"Because the last time you were in charge of reviewing the security feeds you slept through most of it."
"Yeah, but that hallway is creepy as all get-out."
"Scared?" teased Judy.
"O-of course not," Fang said with a cough. "Tundratown officers aren't scared of anything. I'm only worried you might get freaked out, what with it being just the two of us so far down." He huffed at Dill. "That hallway is miles long anyway. How far do you expect us to go?"
"As far as your conscience thinks you need to in order to feel all is well," responded the goat.
The wolf scowled. He stomped off, muttering under his breath. As he hauled the heavy door open and held it for Judy, he snapped back at his teammate, "Don't think your little guilt-trips work on me, you old goat. I'm not that easy to manipulate."
"Of course not," said Dill, catching Judy's eye and giving her a wink.
"I saw that!"
The possum let out a angry hiss. "Would you please just get out already?"
That sent Judy scurrying out into the hall. The lights at the base of the walkway lit up on cue, casting her in a weak yellow glow. Her gaze hooked right, down the stretch of hallway they had yet to investigate.
Several yards ahead, one of the floor lights was on.
Judy watched, mystified, as a second later the one after it lit up as well, then the one after that. No one was there, but they turned on as if someone was walking away from her down the hallway. The third one stayed lit the longest, as if the invisible mammal were standing there, perhaps looking back to watch her. Then the light went out, plunging the rest of the hallway back into darkness.
Fang joined her then, still grumbling. He caught her gazing out at the darkness and did a double-take. "What? You see something already?"
"The lights on the floor were lighting up," said Judy. "But there was no one there."
Fang's eyes flicked to the now-dark hallway and back to her, gauging. He broke into a nervous laugh. "Haha. You almost had me there, Hopps. I didn't take you for the trickster type. Okay, I'll remember that."
"I wasn't trying to trick you," said Judy. "The lights really did turn on."
"Nice try," said Fang, "but I'm onto you now. Besides, ghosts wouldn't trigger the lights. They're incorporeal, duh."
He set off. If nothing else, he appeared less skittish now. Judy followed after him, pausing at the place where she'd seen the anomaly. The lights seemed to be working fine, with no delay or glitching that she could tell. But that only begged the question: what had triggered the lights?
"They should have come home that way."
Mr. Blumenthal pointed towards the main road that wound through the center square of Little Rodentia. From atop Stella's palm, he and Mrs. Blumenthal had a clear view of the entire district. Nick marked the street on the map he had sketched out on a notepad.
Initially, Nick had carried the couple around the district simply searching, hoping a bird's-eye view would allow them to find the children in a way they hadn't been able to on foot. But after an hour and five loops around the area, they were forced to concede that the children had not simply gotten lost or hidden themselves away somewhere. So Nick had brought the parents back to where Stella waited for them at the front gate and proceeded to track the possible routes the children might have taken home instead.
"The Wiskershins live over in Maple Leaf." Mrs. Blumenthal gestured to a clump of residential streets that did indeed resemble the outline of a maple leaf from above. "We live over there, on Fig Circle."
Nick noted the locations. Even allowing for a few different options, it wasn't a long walk, even by mouse standards. The whole trip should have taken ten minutes at most, and more than half of it along main streets that were heavily populated. The siblings had made the trip on their own for years. No one had thought it unsafe. Little Rodentia was a small town in the middle of a large city. The streets were considered some of the safest in Zootopia. The biggest dangers were falling debris from the surrounding metropolis.
When they were done mapping out routes, Stella carefully lowered Mr. and Mrs. Blumenthal back to the safety of the street. Even for such small mammals, they looked extra tiny and helpless to Nick's mind. When they had met Nick and Stella at the front gates, Nick hadn't needed to ask if they were the parents. They both wore the look of mammals who had cried themselves out and now lingered somewhere in that awful realm of numb shock.
Since Stella couldn't navigate Little Rodentia safely due to her size, she remained behind with the parents while Nick went to see the Wiskershins. The couple looked worse for wear, and not just because they were wrapping up an overnight sleepover party with thirteen young mice running around. The guilt was almost a visible weight over both of them, slopping their shoulders and drooping their whiskers.
"We thought they would be safe walking home alone," lamented Mrs. Wiskershins. "We meant to call over to let their parents know, but then a fight broke out over the cheesecake and with all the shouting and tears and the cleanup afterwards we just… forgot."
This was where Judy would have stepped in with some reassuring words, possibly even an absolution for these mice who, arguably, didn't deserve to carry the disappearance of two children on their conscience for the rest of their lives. But Nick was terrible at these things and in the end stuck to a simple and generic, "We'll do our best to find them," before taking his leave and regrouping up with Stella, who had sent the Blumenthal's home with similar platitudes.
"The culprit has to be another rodent," said Nick. "Anything larger than a rat would have been noticed."
"But who would want to kidnap two young mice?" asked Stella. "It's not like they have any particular skills to exploit. And their parents aren't wealthy or powerful. They didn't have enemies." She lowered her voice. "Even if we're dealing with a killer who has more… carnivorous appetites, baby mice would hardly be satisfying enough to be worth the risk."
If there was a monster out there who was that sick, thought Nick, who knew what would be worth it to them? But he didn't want to say that. He hated even thinking it.
"We have no evidence of anything yet," he said instead, a reminder to Stella as well as himself. Best not to jump to the worst possible conclusion—for everyone's sakes.
They split up after that. Stella returned to the station to update Chief Bogo and hopefully gain additional information that might give them a lead. Nick stayed behind. He did another circuit of Little Rodentia, lingering in the shopping area where the children were most likely to have cut through. It was possible they were still hiding in one of the stores or restaurants, but the first action the district had taken was sending out a missing mammal emergency alert on all cell phones, with businesses in the district contacted directly and told to search their premises. Of course, if it was some shady shopkeeper who had snatched the children they were hardly going to come out and admit it.
What they needed was a rodent officer. Someone who could actually go inside the buildings and do a search. But if the ZPD had thought bringing a bunny onto the team was laughable, Nick could only imagine what they would say if he suggested hiring a mouse. Not for the first time, he cursed the police department's short-sightedness. He would bring it up at the next officer's meeting anyway, he decided, and thought Judy would agree with him, were she here.
Nick paused in front of a building that had a closed sign in its window. It was three stories tall and came up to his chin. A wooden sign over the door announced the place as the Small Print Bookstore and Coffee Shop.
A lemming coming from the other direction saw him looking and called out helpfully, "The place is closed."
Nick pointed to the clock tower at the district's center, the only structure taller than he was in the entire area. The clock was five minutes away from striking three. "Weird time for a bookstore to be closed, isn't it?"
"It's been closed for two weeks."
"Did it go out of business?"
The lemming shook its head. "Dunno. Owner just said she was closing for a bit. Haven't seen her since."
"Vacation, maybe?"
"She'd be the fifth one." The lemming waved at the other storefronts, which Nick now saw did have an awful lot of closed signs hanging from their doors and windows.
"Do stores around here often close in groups like this?"
"Not since I've lived here. And I've been here since way back when that hoity-toity restaurant Chez Cheez was still known as the Cheese Barn."
"Have there been financial troubles in the area?"
The rodent stared at him. "Financial troubles? Do I look like a Wall Street lemming to you?"
Nick thanked him for the info then backtracked up the street, this time making note of every business that had a closed sign in its window. He didn't know if it was related. These rodents hadn't gone missing; They had clearly left of their own free will. But it was curious enough that Nick felt it worth looking into.
As he was crossing the bridge that would take him away from the district's center, he spotted another curious thing that made him pause.
It was a drain. But unlike the rest of the drains in Little Rodentia, this one had not been scaled to match the proportions of the rest of the area. Probably there was some architectural reason for this having to do with flooding and drainage and a bunch of other things that Nick had no knowledge of. But the drain was three times as big as anything else surrounded it. Even Nick could have comfortably squeezed inside. The pipe was nestled in the grassy embankment like the dark entrance to an abandoned burrow. The designer had tried to make it look prettier by decorating the grate with intricate swirling patterns in an attempt to make it look more like modern art and less like ugly grating. But a mouse would still fit between the metal if one were small and foolish enough.
Nick pulled out his sketched map, tracing the routes the parents had mentioned. The bridge hadn't been included, but it was only a block away from the most likely route, and Nick could easily imagine a pair of young mice taking the longer way in order to cross the bridge.
He called Stella and gave her a list of all the closed businesses. "See if you can't find out why they closed up shop."
"This isn't much of a lead," she pointed out after he had rattled off all the names. Nick couldn't disagree.
"And what will you be doing while I sit on my tail doing this for hours?" she asked him tartly.
Nick made a face she couldn't see at the oversized drain. "Investigating a sewer. Want to trade?"
"I'll get started on that list," she said and hung up.
Next, Nick called Judy, disappointed when it went straight to voicemail. He sent her a text that he would be working late, then switch over to check on the rhino's tracker.
Still sleeping, as expected.
"Enjoy the rest while you can," said Nick. Then he put his phone away and got back to work.