Chapter Fifteen
Insider Information
Judy Hopps leaned forwards, cleared her throat, and flicked on the tape recorder.
"Officers Judy Hopps and Nicholas Wilde recording. Interrogation of the fennec fox, Finnick, commencing at..." Realizing she had no means with which to tell the time, she looked over to Nick for support.
Nick glanced at his watch. "Well gosh darn it, Hopps," he drew out with a jesting voice of surprise, "would you believe it, my watch has been stolen!"
"Nick," she replied coldly, "you don't wear a watch; this is official now, no mucking about."
"Sorry, Carrots," he shrugged.
"What did I just say?"
Nick was genuinely perplexed. "What?"
"Don't call me Carrots, Nick, this is going on file! Call me Officer Hopps."
"Yes, Sir! Time is quarter past eleven, Officer Hopps, Sir!" Judy made a low grumbling sound with the back of her throat, sat back with a huff, and then documented the time into the tape recorder. Okay,the interrogation room was the inside of a ZPD cruiser with Judy in the driver's seat, Nick in the front passenger seat and Finnick in pawcuffs in the back — parked in the confines of a blind alley for privacy — and okay,the tape recorder resembled a carrot in appearance, and its primary function was transferring ink onto paper... but that didn't mean they could just forget about the formalities.
"Interrogation begins: eleven-fifteen. Finnick," Judy asked, her voice as calm as it was professional. "For the purposes of legal procedure, will you please divulge your full name?"
"Finnick Doghouse Marlowe," grinned Finnick from his place in the back seat... his smile dropped, however, at Nick's correction.
"It's Finnegan Viola Dipesto."
"Well— well Nickey's middle name's Piberius!" Finnick shot back.
"I know," Judy replied coolly, "and mine is Laverne; so can we all please stop with this pointless argument and get back to the matter at paw...?" She looked to Nick, asking him more than she was Finnick.
"What, don't look at me, he started it!" said Nick, indignant.
"And I'm ending it, sweetie." Nick's reply to her unordinary one was a simple casual shrug and a lazy smile... accompanied with a build-up of heat around his neck that made him want to tug at his collar from being called sweetie by someone who, not ten minutes ago, he had actually kissed at very long last. "So, Finnegan Viola Depesdo," she failed to contain the snort that escaped her, "first question: For what reason were you at the condemned factory Ladders and Ladders and Co.?"
"I wuz never at dat place, an' you can't say that I wuz!"
"Well, Officer Wilde seems to think you were, and seeing how he is a fox of exceptional nasal capacity, and also a close friend of yours—" Finnick made a spitting sound, and Nick threw him a sharp look.
"— seeing how Wilde was a close friend of yours," she corrected, "we can take it for granted that you were, in fact, there." Finnick still seemed reluctant.
"I know you scent better than anyone," Nick said, "and that fact that you bolted as soon as we mentioned 'Ladders' suggests to me you have something to do with the murder."
"Wait," Finnick said as he sat up on the seat, "there really iz a murder?"
"Yes," affirmed Judy, "why do you think we'd say so if there wasn't?"
"Wh— what species?"
"A fennec fox."
"A fenn... no!" From shouting and angry in one second, Finnick fell to quiet and remorseful the next. "Oh, godz no." He gazed out of the window, his face a mix of both disdain and sadness.
Nick and Judy shared a concerned glance. Did they imagine the small sniffling sound?
"Was— an— an how did he die?"
"Execution," answered Nick, watching with interest as the 'thought-to-be infallible' fox ears dropped and his eyes shut tight, pounding a small dejected fist into the upholstery. "The victim was shot through the back of the head at close range by small arms. Most likely a pistol. And then they were buried beneath a pile of wood before being set in flames along with the rest of the factory."
Finnick was silent for a long time — both Nick and Judy listening with fascination at the hitching of his breath.
"Finnick," Judy said at length, "were you close to the victim?"
"He— he was my brother." A stunned silence smothered the air. But after a moment, Nick reached with his paw and touched the metal grate in an attempt to try and reach Finnick physically in comfort, despite the impossibility of the attempt, yet Finnick caught sight of his gesture and bared his teeth with a flinch back. "Screw ya, Copper," he snapped, the sense of betrayal clear in his slightly tremulous voice.
The red fox slowly withdrew his paw. "Finnick," he said, "you need to answer our questions. If the victim really is your brother, isn't it in your interest to help us find his murderer?"
"Yeah," Finnick gave in, "I get you."
"Thank you." Nick sat back in his seat. "I realize this must be distressing for you, Finnick, but you never mentioned you had any other family relations. Did you get on well with... I'm sorry, what was his name?"
"Frank," Finnick replied airily, regaining control over his emotions, visibly at least, "and nah, we never really got on. He was about az much of a brother to me as your dad was to you before he overdo—"
"Finnick!" Nick's firm gaze held Finnick's for a moment, then the small fox glanced to the rabbit, back to Nick, and carried on as before.
"Before… your dad passed on," he paused for a few seconds in thought, then continued, "I haven't seen Frankfurt for nearly four years. He wuz jus' az crooked as I remembered him. He turned up out of the blue a couple of dayz ago, drunk out of his skull, high on drugz, an asking if he could borrow a couple'a grand to get his paw in major a drugs-trafficking operation going down."
"At Ladders?" Nick asked.
"Yeah, at Ladders s'why I bolted when I heard the name, I thought he'd been caught and blabbed my name. So anyway, when he asked me for cash, I guessed I could kinda trust him. We've never been on 'good terms' per say, but we've always helped each other out when we really needed it."
"But still, handing out over a thousand pounds?" Judy asked, disbelieving what she was hearing, "from what Officer Wilde has told me, that's not like you. What was your motive?" The fox grunted, crossing his cuffed paws over his chest to stare at the brick wall, which surrounded the front, left and right of the car, keeping them mostly from the eyes of the public, as he answered, an air of annoyance about his voice, as he knew what he was admitting to could get him into legal trouble if handled incorrectly.
"Frank said to me: There's a huge shipment of puff commin' in, crates of the stuff, and not just cocaine: ketamine, heroine, speed and even a few really rare kinds that you never really come across, apart from in the Far East."
"God," Judy breathed, unable to hold in the shocked comment, even if this was going on official records, "you mean that's the scale of this drug spree? A whole warehouse of the stuff?"
"Das it exactly— you know, you're not as dumb as you look, being a rabbit. Deez guyz, whoever they are, ain't interested in selling by the gram, making a little cash here and there on the street. They be treating this like a major operation, selling it cheap by the crate to dealers like my brother, who then sells it off 'emselves. They keep their paws cleaner too. Just a little, but it makes 'em just a little more untouchable."
Both officers listened in stunned silence, never even having considered the problem was so extensive, until now.
"Anyway," Finnick continued, "he said dat he was broke — well that was no surprise, I've never known him not to be broke — but dat if he could borrow two or three thousand, he could buy a heap of puff on the cheap and sell it for something like eighty percent profit... and that I, in return, could share in that profit."
"So the dealers selling loose eighty percent of their revenue?" Judy asked, "how can that work? Surely that can't be profitable in any way."
"Unless..." Nick answered, half turning to Judy as he spoke, "unless these drugs are made outside of these parts, not just out of Zootopia but, like, out of the country: in foreign places where the climate is much higher and illegal drugs will grow naturally without all the expensive equipment, which makes it hard to do here in Zootopia. I think," he continued, his voice rising as the pieces fell into place, turning fully to Judy with a touch of satisfaction from figuring it out.
"I think these drugs must be grown real cheap in another country and then shipped over into Zootopia where it's far more expensive. Usually it's not profitable because of the expense of fuel for the boat and for hiring a crew and shipping rights and stuff, but if it was shipped in large enough quantities. Say, one of those massive tankards, probably unmarked so it couldn't be tracked even if they were found out. Then we are talking a serious amount of illegal substance."
"How much?" Came Judy's exasperated reply.
"Carrots," Nick said, his voice edged with concern, "one of those things could carry two hundred thousand tons easy, possibly even more, right into our docks… and we wouldn't even know."
After a moment, the rabbit opened her mouth, "Oh shi—"
"Ship?" Nick corrected before Judy could swear on tape.
"Nick, we have to tell Bogo!" Doing all in seconds, she clicked her seatbelt on, revved the car into life and reversed out of the blind alley.
"Hey, hay, hay!" Finn yelled, tugging at the handle of the locked door in the now-moving car, "we had a deal remember? I tell you what I know and you let me off scot-free!"
"I'm sorry, Finnick," Judy said sincerely, "but this is way bigger than—"
"Nick," Finnick interrupted, shouting, "stop her and let me go, or I tell Hopps here about you an' Scarlett!"
Nick's eyes, wide with horror, shot around to look at Finnick. "You wouldn't."
"I would."
"Finn, you swore!"
"And your piece of fluff," he muttered, "promised to let me go if I answered your questions! Anyway, there are plenty of other interesting stories that Hoppsey here might be interested to hear— I don't even need to mention Scarlett." Nick turned to face the rabbit — Judy glancing at Nick out of the corner of her eye whilst driving — and then turned back to Finnick, a stoic expression on his face. The red fox appeared indicative about what to do, so Finnick helped him decide.
"When Nick was seventeen," he let his speech pour out in a hurried rush of information without pauses, making it nice and clear to Nick that he had no intention of stopping unless the car did, "he came back from a party late one night, and found his dad dead on the kitchen floor from a drug overdose an' foaming from the mouth wit—"
"Shut UP!" Nick yelled, "Judy, STOP the car!"
"Nick," Judy said, "I—"
"Stop this car. Now!" After a moment, Judy slowed the car to a stop. She glanced at Nick as the last of the forwards momentum subsided, and the vehicle became motionless. He was sat in his seat, staring straight ahead, his ears were neither up nor really down, his expression was impassive and statue-like, he acknowledged neither Judy nor Finnick as he continued to sit there, motionless, like he had been petrified... only the heavy rise and fall of his chest, and clenched knuckles portrayed any signs of his true ire.
When Nick didn't speak, Judy spoke for him.
"Okay, Finnick, you're free to go." She clicked a button on the dashboard, and the auto-locks clicked off.
"Err, hey," Finnick said mockingly, "dumb bunny? You forgot der keys!"
"I didn't forget, dumber fox. But if you want the key, you have to answer a few more questions... particularly after the mean stunt you just pulled on my friend and partner." Finnick made an angry noise in the back of his throat... a response Judy smugly took to mean 'yes'. "Okay, just to get things clear, why was your scent caught at Ladders and Ladders when me and Nick—"
"It wasn't my scent," Finnick interrupted, "it was the scent of my brother. I thought that wuz obvious, but I forgot how dumb your kind are. Look, rabbit, foxes of the same litter always smell very alike, understand, capiche?"
Judy's face twitched at the 'your kind' comment, just like she had at 'you're not as dumb as you look being a rabbit'. And, had she and Nick not been in dire need of his information, Finnick would have currently found himself face-down on the floor with a foot pressing into the back of his neck, and his arms held in a lock behind him... Judy didn't care how much of a good fighter he was, she could take him in a second! Instead, she turned to Nick, hoping to have Finnick's claim either confirmed or denied. "What do you think, Nick, could the scent have been Finnick's brother?"
His gaze didn't move, his ear didn't flick, his muzzle didn't twitch; Judy turned back to Finnick.
"Right... we'll take that as a given truth for now. Next question, why do you think this, Frank, was killed by the people wanting to sell their wares to him?"
"How do I know? Could have been an argument about the price, they could have been attacked by a rival gang, could have been the whole thing was a set-up done by someone with a grudge against Frank personally. I, don't, know."
Judy took in this information, considering — this information was all good, but they didn't have any leads to follow — so she asked a third question, hoping to attain one, "What address was the deceased living at most recently."
"He don't live anywhere," Finnick answered, just a little too quickly to be the truth.
He and Nick had one thing very much in common, Judy realized — they were both good liars — but, having learnt how to lie from one another, they both lied in exactly the same way. Because of this, Judy found she could read Finnick almost as easily as she could read Nick, and she knew he was lying. It was because of how quick he had answered that had given it away — she had spotted the lie about Nick's booking of a table at Joe's Place in the same way — because he had preempted the question before it had came, and formulated an answer in advance... stating the answer before a natural, truthful, answer would have had time to form.
"I don't believe that for a second, Finnick," Judy said, "you're not seriously telling me that your brother was planning to conceal and sell a crate of illegal substances, while living on the street. He must have lived somewhere, otherwise he would surely have—"
"Okay!" The tan fox snapped at her, "sure, fine, yeah whatever. He lives at twenty-two Richter Street. It's on the southeast side of Zootopia. Room seven."
"Thank you, Viola Depesto," she said, chucking the pawcuff keys through the cage and onto the cushioned seat, "your help has been most useful."
"Viola Depesto," he muttered, bitterly, under his breath, probably too quiet for Nick to hear, but just on the verge of hearing for the rabbit. "I'll give you Viola-bloody-Depesto, you slutty little bitc—"
"Finnish that sentence, Finn, and I'll taser you." The car was silent for a second, while Judy and Finnick stared at the still-motionless form of Nick who had spoken. Then — a look of panic and surprise across his muzzle — Finnick rushed to undo the second cuff, open the door, mutter a goodbye to Nick, slam the door and rush away. Judy watched Finnick as he made his way off. The air hung heavy with deafness. Judy could feel the dark mood of her partner beside her, while Finnick disappeared around a corner.
Judy looked to him, licked her lips nervously, and spoke, "Thanks." He didn't so much as blink in reply. She took in a slow lungful of air, reached out to her carrot pen, which had worked as a tape recorder for the interview, and picked it up quietly. "Interrogation terminated at..."
"Twenty-two minutes past," came his hollow reply.
"At eleven twenty-two…" She sat back, flicked off the record button and put the device in her pocket before speaking again. "We don't have to put the bit about your dad on file. We can wipe it out with a few seconds of static if you like. No one would suspect. And even if they did, there'd be no way of getting it back." Impassive silence was his only response. "Nick?"
Judy looked at the fox beside her — the moody, motionless form. She gazed at his blank expression, expecting his eyes to at least flicker towards her for a moment, but they didn't, Nick merely stared out at the street. Judy raised a paw from the gear stick and slid it across to Nick's paw. She had hoped that when her 'small soft paw' — which she knew her partner liked the feel of a great deal — took Nick's that he would hold hers in return... but he did no such thing.
She didn't let go of his paw, however, as she spoke next.
"Nick?"
"Twenty-two Richter Street, southeast Zootopia. Drive on." His voice was cold, distant. It frightened Judy to hear Nick sounding so icy, and a part of her wanted to drop the subject and drive on — it was what Nick wanted, after all — but Judy knew she had to press on. It may not have been what Nick wanted, but it was what he needed. This was Nick's emotional pain-barrier, and like the pain-barrier in exercise, the only way to beat it, was to press on through it.
"Not yet," she said softly, keeping his unmoving paw in hers, "soon, but first I think we should talk about this, this is far more important."
"Drive on."
"I've said to you before 'what happened in the past shouldn't affect your future.' That was dumb of me, of course what happened in the past affects you, you'd have to be a robot to go through what you've been through without coming out scarred."
"Judy, drive on."
"But trying to ignore it and pretend it never happened isn't gonna fix it! I know you don't like talking about this kind of things, but believe me, talking about it will help. If you carry on ignoring it like you have been, it'll just eat away inside you, but if you open up about it, if you let me in rather than lock me out, then I can help you. I want to help you."
"Please, drive on."
"No," she persisted, determination building within her. "This is important. This is about you moving on from the horrors of your old life, so you can enjoy what we have now." She took his other paw in hers, leaning closer to him, both of his paws held in both hers.
"This is about enjoying the future we have together. You and me: us. We have the whole of the rest of our lives to live, Nick..." Judy's eyes sparkled with what she was trying to convey in her next words, "And, if you like, I'd be more than happy to spend it all of it with you. Together"
Nick glanced at Judy — his ears high and his eyes wide with pleasant surprise — at the subtle implication of marriage, which he must of picked up on, but if Nick allowed the dizzy kind of bliss, which shot through his veins at the thought, to show on his face for too long... then the pain he was feeling beneath would show through as well and so — though he hated himself for it deeply — Nick made the glance fleeting, forced his face back into a neutral expression and, as he spoke again, kept his voice a tone darker than it had been.
"Drop it. Drive on."
She sat in silence for a moment — Nick was becoming moody. She had to talk him down, calm him, make him see that she only wanted to help him. From holding his paw, Judy moved her paws up — rubbing them softly on his chest as they moved up — to slip around Nick's neck. Her paws enclosing Nick's neck in what she hoped was a soothing motion, she stood and pressed her head against his, her nose rubbing softly against Nick's cheek, while Nick continued to stare blankly out of the front window just as he had been.
"What I'm trying to say to you, Nick, is that I'm here for you. I've always been here for you and I always will be. That's what it means to be partners. Let me help you, I want to help you, because if we're going to fix this, we need to do it together, like we do everything together." He still made no reaction. Judy started to lose heart. She sighed and then pulled herself away, standing up on the driver's seat to watch him as she spoke.
"Nick," she asked, her speech as patient and caring as it had been from the start, "are you listening to me?" Her voice rose in pitch as she spoke — pleading in the dark confines of the car, "Nick...? Nick? Nic—"
"Drive, on!"
Her expression turned ashamed, but then grew into an angry glower. "Fine," she gave in, sitting and restarting the engine, "if you want to be like that Mr 'Don't let them see that they get to you' then be like that!" With an aggressive thunk, she pulled the car into gear, before pulling away down the road.
"Just don't expect any offers of help from me in the future," she blabbed, her words slurred with emotion and tears stinging her eyes, before bitterly shouting, "because you won't get it!"
She revved the engine high and tore away down the street in angry silence beckoned. Nothing more was said between the two as Judy drove on.
Slowly, Nick turned his head away from the window. He stared out at the passing buildings and public, and then, after a moment, brought his paw up to his face. Judy was staring fixedly at the road; Nick was glad of this, because if Judy did glance over at him — she might have noticed the deft tears that were streaking his face... tears of his past and, more painfully, tears of what a terrible mammle he was being to the wonderful rabbit he never in a million years deserved.
…
Author's notes:
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Grooms decision thus chosen blind.
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