Chapter Eighty-Seven
A Nice Day Off
As midday hit, the sun touched upon the apex of the sky, lavishing upon the tips of the magnificent skyscrapers the people of Zootopia had built. The city of hope, the city of peace, the city of unity and equality for all. It looked down upon, with the warmth of all hope, upon the city risen tall in touch with its smooth spires now turned glittering emeralds, rubies and sapphires in the sun's selfless smile.
The heat filtered down all throughout the city, expelling the lingering shadows from even the narrowest and most crooked of backstreets and alleys, enveloping all the metropolis in the clean light of day, a light of purity, a light of glory and hopeful satisfaction. It made it hard to even consider the possibility there could ever be anything even slightly 'corrupt' about any part of the city; and the inhabitancy didn't consider it, and never would.
The soul-warming light of the sun shone down upon Tundratown, the snow-covered streets glowing white, while the icicles that hung from every window ledge and power line-shimmering glittered in reflection with minute suns of their own in par.
An icicle leaked, its surface wet, melted by the sun's unblinking gaze. A droplet of ice-cold water fell from its tip, and sailed down many meters from the top of the building on which it once laid… and fell into the gap between the shirt and bare fur of a tiger.
"Harrh—" Officer Jefferson shot, flinching back, wincing from the cold. "Damn cold bloody place, why'd Leo have to send me here?" He refused to acknowledge that it was his own fault he was now walking, in thin trousers and a t-shirt, through snow — his intention being to show everyone how 'cool' he was by wearing an inconveniently small amount of clothing — and continued to blame his now-near-frozen state on his superior.
"Come on ya bitt," he mumbled, checking his phone once again, "you gotta be around here someplace." He stopped suddenly as the GPS changed its mind for the fifth time about which direction the tracking device was at, waited for a few moments as it recalculated his position, grunted, turned and started walking back the way he had shivered.
"You'd better park your car several streets away and walk there," Jefferson mumbled, doing his best impression of the reserved Officer Leopold. "If they spot the ZPD car approaching, they may well get wind of the fact we may be onto them, and abandon the location before we get there. Yeah right ya hundred-year-old sloth," he muttered in his own voice, before quoting his own reply from the conversation he'd previously had.
"So how about I just take an unmarked car? No, Jefferson, we have none available, they're all patrolling high-drug-concentrated areas. Well then I'll just take my car! Your car is not registered as a police vehicle and is, therefore, not permissible for police use. But if the point is they don't know it's a cop car, you old duffer, then what's the frigging point of getting a fluffing car registered for police fluffing…" Jefferson continued muttering the response he 'wished' he'd given at that moment, before, stopping and grunting again as the GPS tracker suddenly decided the track device was in Romalla: a small island he'd never heard of, somewhere six hundred miles north.
"Then screw the car," he muttered, "gimmie a damn helicopter." He turned off the phone with frustration, turning it on again a few moments later and waiting for several minutes, while it booted up again — standing on one leg the whole time, alternating between his one-legs so they didn't have to both be on ice and snow for too long. At least the cold didn't hurt anymore, not now when his feet had gone numb.
The usually carefree and easy-going tiger gestured as though throttling his small piece of electronic denial, his teeth gritting as the loading screen slowly ran through its course of tedium. He flicked it unlocked with a padded finger, logged back onto the GPS, and re-entered the tracking device's twelve-digit code into the searcher.
"Ain't technology a charm," he muttered, watching a 'searching' icon going around and around on the screen. "The future's such a bright place." His gaze rose up to the sky as he waited, looking upon the golden sun as it shone down around him, shining from the dangling spikes of dripping water.
The phone beeped: a proximity alarm. The tiger looked down at the screen, and found the arrow pointing him towards a small, enclosed car park just down the road and over the street. His sense of frustration left him — his mind taking on a professional edge at the knowledge of possible danger being close at paw. A part of him doubted anything was going to be there, and that the GPS would suddenly decide it meant a car park on the other side of Tundratown once he was there, but, he couldn't deny… from what he could see of it from this distance, with the tall walls of concrete surrounding it and the small gate entering it, the premises of this car park would be especially apt for activities one might wish to go 'unnoticed'.
Stopping across the road from the entrance of the car park, Jefferson watched from the corner of his eye, trying to glimpse as much as possible of that enclosed space as he walked past. He saw nothing: some concrete buildings, doors with piles of snow in them which hadn't been opened in days, shuttered windows, snow-covered cars. He pulled his phone out again once past and checked his GPS. It still pointed to that location — the tracking device was close.
Taking a breath, he turned his phone to the 'phone' app and dialed a number. He didn't have his radio, because even on civvies, wearing a police radio on one's belt still looked suspicious.
"Hey, reception? You there, Howlitz? Yeah, it's Jeffers, wanna speak to Leop— orrr, sure, the Chief, if that's what he's asked for."
…
A yellow taxi turned off at a set of traffic lights, the cabby pulling at his collar in the hot tightness — the heavy silence grating on his nerves, due to the hard expressions of the two passengers in the seats behind him.
The buck wore dark blue dungarees and a black jacket over the top; the doe wore a soft-purple shirt with a pair of very sensible trousers. By every account, it was painfully obvious they were country bumpkins, lost in the big bad city; yet… the cabbie was more nervous and cautious around their presence than he had been in the presence of cut-throat businessmemmle and testosterone-pumped bodybuilders.
"How much further," the doe asked, her voice a sharp, cold knife.
"Just— jus' two minutes, ma'am!"
The doe glanced to the buck; he pulled out a small piece of leather and took out the required sum of money. "What're you thinking, Mom? What're we planning?"
"We find out what ignorant stupidity let our little girl go out into danger. Have a nice chat with whoever's responsible. And find out why we didn't find out until it was on the TV."
The taxi pulled to a stop. The driver didn't push for the money, just wanting to get the two rabbits out of his car before they punched him a sunroof — taking whatever money they gave him gladly and driving away with all swiftness.
The rabbits looked about them — about at the tall, skulking buildings and massive institutions of Precinct One. "Come on," Bonnie said, turning upon one of the giants before them, "let's get in there and find whoever's responsible."
…
"When are you going to write-up the paperwork for Officer Jefferson's investigation?"
"I don't write Officer Jefferson's paperwork. Officer Jefferson writes Officer Jefferson's paperwork."
"Officer Jefferson is already frightfully busy furthering his investigation, Harold; as his Chief, you should try and free up his vital time by removing this inconvenience from him."
"Officer Jefferson, Miss Wright, is not the only officer with a heapload of work to be doing."
Director Wright nodded, slowly. "Have you written a public statement yet? Only, it's been several hours and you've been yet to make a public appearance. "
"You don't need to make a point of asking, Wright, you already know that I haven't written one."
"Don't you think you should be getting along with that?"
"Is it so urgent?"
"The population is worried. The people are asking questions. They want to kn—"
"No, I haven't written a public statement yet, and I'm not going to, until I've finished dealing with Mister Black and given him clearance to lea—"
"That mammle can wait. You have a dozen TV crews and hundreds of other civilians waiting to know what happened to Miss Hopps."
"You do know this is my day off, don't you? I mean it is Saturday; it is a legal requirement I have at least one day off a week. I just came in to…" the Chief stopped himself from saying 'he just came in to release Finnick from jail before Blackheath came' and said, instead, "to supervise the transit of criminals to Blackheath."
At last, the red deer turned up from the Chief's desk of paperwork. "This is a day off?"
"I've been asleep for a total of four hours over the past thirty."
"And if you're, legally speaking, 'not here' at the moment, it means you're not getting paid either."
The Chief inhaled, slowly. "No."
"Well done, nice to see you're still dedicated." She turned back to her papers. "A good chief of police doesn't need unnecessary days off. You seem to be operating efficiently at the moment, so it's right of you to get as much work done as you can." Bogo groaned, but didn't allow the sound to be out loud; nor did he allow the mouthed curses to turn into anything more than just mouthings.
"I'll have a word with finance and see if I can get your pay reimbursed for today."
"Thanks."
"In the meantime, why don't you make a start on a public statement?"
Bogo slapped down his paperwork on the desk, a smaller desk than the one he was used to, because Surveyor Wright was still using his. "If it is your command, Miss Wright, then I'll make a start at writing a public statement."
"Thank you," she said, as Bogo pulled over a blank piece of paper and a pen, while she watched him out of the corner of her eye, waiting until juuust the right moment when he'd decided how to start and was about to begin writing before she added… "But first, have a look at this and explain to me your reasonings."
His eyes falling closed; Bogo lowered his pen and put it down, very carefully, very gently, on the desk's surface. "Yes… Miss Wright."
"It's this bit here, this part where you filed, instructing Officer Judy Hopps to—"
"What? That's not in the paperwork I gave—"
"Spot on, it wasn't, but around half way through reading up on the actions and movements of all ZPD staff, I decided upon exacting a change of scenery and the ability to give myself fresh information to examine, and called down to reception, while you were taking that dog to the holding area."
"And what did you ask for?"
"All paperwork directly regarding Officer Judy Hopps since after last night's raid, trying to find exactly what happened there." Bogo relaxed a little, though he knew it was only a stay of justice; he knew it was only a matter of time; before, she started digging into the warrant he was most unconfutable about her looking into — just how he had acquired the evidence to get that warrant.
"It says here," she continued, "that, when reports came in that the harbour was under attack, you immediately scrambled all troops to prepare to respond. Whereupon a mysterious goat appeared in the reception area."
"That is correct, yes."
"And then you instructed Officer Hopps to enter, alone, with no briefing, into an off-limits area of the city quite literally infected with criminals?!"
"We— I mean, it was… I—" Realization hitting him like a smack with a spade, it struck the Chief that no one high up even knew that Jack Savage was remotely involved. This was intentional, he wanted Nick to be investigated as quietly as possible, which is why he'd asked Jack to look into him 'for a favor' rather than 'for a job', which meant…
"Because, dear chap," she said, her sweeping voice brassy and bold, "if you're about to tell me you sent Officer Hopps in there alone and with no possible backup, we can finish this investigation right here and now. And you can hoof your nice, shiny badge over to me for gross negligence and go on a nice long holiday with a government pension."
He knew his dilemma even before Wright had spoken — he couldn't say that Judy had gone on her own, that really would be negligence of the grossest kind. And if he said she was being accompanied by a top agent, Agent One no less, from the MI-Z? Questions, questions and more questions — specifically, questions about what he was brought in to investigate; questions which would bring Evie Wright closer to a topic he wanted to keep her as far away from as possible.
The Chief grunted, his hoof raising to his forehead, covering his eyes as he tried to straighten his thoughts. He was emotionally and physically exhausted. Up early, supervised a raid, had one of his best officers attacked… minimal hours sleep, an evening spent looking at paperwork, which all seemed to incriminate his other best officer… his oldest friend spotted trespassing at the ZPD, Jack close to death, public statements, paperwork, witnesses, victims, a whole damn inquiry that was going to be forcing him to justify every-damn-decision he'd made once Wright was finished reading everything…
"It's my bloody–day–off."
The deer raised a brow, sitting back in the high-backed chair slowly, and touching a hoof upon her brass and ruby necklace. "Perhaps you need a little more than a day off."
The Chief visibly winced, turning his head aside, his expression tightening. "Miss Wright, I do not require—"
His radio buzzed. Taking in a long, deep lungful of air, the Chief pulled it to his mouth, "Speak."
"Erm, it's Ho— Howlitz here, Sir, there is a, erm… wh— well, two things, actually, Jefferson got back in touch and, erh, and he's found the source of that tracking device's beacon. Ah— and…"
"And?" Bogo sighed.
"It's, erm— well, erh, you see… Miss Hopps' ma's here, with a younger rabbit. They were quite, erh… quite upset they hadn't been told about what happened to Officer Hopps. They want to see you 'right away'."
Wright gave him a hard glare; Bogo gritted his teeth. "Very well, I'll be down to talk to them right a—"
"Sir, they're—" the wolf at reception cleared his throat, trying to sound calm and failing miserably. "She's already coming up, they were quite… determined." His head rolling back, Bogo didn't even bother to reply, he just put his radio away again and took the moment's comparative peace he had; before, he was to be faced with a pair of frightened, crying relatives he had to deal with.
"And why have Miss Hopps parents' not been informed yet?"
"Look, I—"
"And another thing: Do all your officers carry advanced tactical tracking equipment with them?"
"Wright, please," he groaned, quietly, "I'm about to have to deal with…" slamming the desk, the Chief's voice took on a sharp edge. "Can't you let up for just five minutes?"
Wright's ear flicked, her head turning towards the door, the quiet sound of small but rapidly falling footsteps getting swiftly closer. "Five minutes," she stated, darkly. "I'll leave you completely to it, for five minutes."
She pushed herself up from her… from Bogo's chair… and paced silently from the room, leaving via the exit and into the bullpen, the Chief watching her with something between relief and annoyance that filled him — glad she was out of his fur at last, but aware it was only so she didn't have to deal with the whinings and frightened sniveling of—
There was a knock at the door. The Chief quickly returned himself to his seat, pulled over the pile of paperwork, picked up a pen and pulled out his radio. "Come in," he called before turning down to the paperwork and pretending to be studying it intently, while speaking softly into the radio, "Yes, I understand, thank you. You're doing your best down there, I'm sure." The door pushed open, the two rabbits pacing quietly inside. "I have every confidence in your efforts, we all have the best people working on this. I'm sure we'll have the issue swiftly resolved. Thank you, goodbye."
He turned up from his paperwork, putting his radio down on the desk and looking up towards… well, down towards the rabbits staring at him with hot, dark eyes. Their expressions froze his standard to-do-list of dealing with traumatized parents, and his sympathetic smile and slow, calm motions chilled at the unwavering glare the femammle in particular was sending him. He cleared his throat, softly. "You must be Misses Hopps. Do sit down."
"We're not here for pleasantries," Bonnie said, moving towards the closest chair and climbing up onto it — managing to sustain deadly eye contact and not even looking slightly comical the whole time. "Our daughter is… she's in a hospital, and we want to know why."
"And I shall be more than happy to explain. But let me start off by stating she's completely safe, she's recovering well, and she's the most vibrant and strong-willed officer I have ever had the privilege to meet." The compliment he'd stated with full sincerity seemed to soften the parent's anger just a touch. The Chief pressed on, "And I promise to you, Misses Hopps, young Master Hopps, that there is no greater thing your magnificent daughter could have done for herself, and for this city, than to have followed the path she has chosen to walk."
Bonnie cleared her throat calmly, then turned towards the young buck in the dark jacket beside her. "Billy, go wait outside."
"No, maah, I'm staying, I want to—"
"Run along, I said, there's a good boy." With a final, long, hot glare in the Chief's direction — to which Bogo smiled, always one to enjoy seeing youngsters in their twenties getting treated like kits — and turned back towards the doe as she cleared her throat once again, still quite sure of his hold on the situation. "I am not interested. In your compliments or your promises. She chose this path?" Bonnie erupted, her tone rising. "For crying out loud, she's in a hospital!"
"I know, I know," he continued, his tone still soft. "However, unfortunately, all that being as it may, it remains true that police work is not, by its very nature, always a safe working environment. There are times in life as an officer, where one must put their own safety second to the safety of the—"
"Don't give me that horsefluff," she shot, as though recognizing the unwritten 'script' Bogo was reciting from; thus, raising and pointing a small finger towards him. "Officers are mortal people underneath, they don't put themselves in harm's way because they want to, it happens when bad management decisions led them there!" Slowly, Bogo's face became stone. "She should've had backup, should've had facts and others watching over her, and escape routes and things."
"Mrs Hopps, there…" Bogo grimaced, gesticulating widely. "There are no definite reports in the papers, the information released on television is sketchy at best and none of my officers have made a public statement. How could you possibly know all this?"
"And don't you even think of giving me that codswallop, that trash about the city before the self. That is not how an effective police station is run."
"Bloody hell. I thought one Evie Wright was stress enough. You're a damn Surveyor too, I guess?"
Bonnie snorted, her head shaking derisively at his sarcasm. "Let me tell you something. An officer does something very brave and silly, risks their life and stops some big crime whatsit. Are they good officers?" Bogo waited with a mistrustful pause. "They're not. It doesn't matter what most people think, taking wild risks like you see on the TV is the last thing an officer should do. Imagine if every officer made a big-hero deed! Most of them wouldn't be lucky enough to get out unharmed. There'd be thousands of police deaths every year in th—"
"I know how policing works!" Bogo shot. "I am chief of police of Precinct One, and you are a farm—"
"My Judy would never put her life in—"
"She would if she had to, if it was the only way to—"
"Then your job is to make sure it's never the 'only way'!"
"The precinct was attacked, damn it," he spat, "held up by a gun-toating—"
"So you sent her into that harbour, no info, no backup, no prep, on a police mission and you let her—"
"How do you know," he demanded, standing.
Bonnie stood too, tiny next to the burly chief before her, but not even flinching at his size or volume. "I guessed."
"Guessed?"
"Figured the stuff out. The TV report didn't let on anything," she huffed. "Same story with the radio reports. But I knew my Judy wouldn't just randomly go somewhere as cold and wet and empty as the harbour. It meant she was on duty, but you PD mammals never patrol there which means she was sent there specifically, and if she was attacked like she was, it meant she had no backup. And if my fastest little sprinter in-the-village couldn't get away, it means she was caged in, unprepared, caged in."
Bogo sat down slowly, a brow raised in silent surprise, perhaps even with a little respect, of the country-hick's words.
Her fists tightened; her knuckles became white beneath her fur, her voice strained with emotion, "So for some emergency reason, my Judy was sent alone to the docks. What I do about it depends on how my Judy is now. I'm gonna let you explain to me later just exactly what was going through your mind when you sent her in there. For now, just explain to me why I wasn't told, why you put me through this blind panic to cross three hundred miles fretting about her!"
"I… I was tired!"
"You were what!?"
"We were all tired, we all needed some downtime, I knew the ZPD would be flooded with callers the moment it got out Hopps had been attacked. I had to make sure Hopps got to the hospital safely, wanted to keep the city calm, while I figured out what to do, had to take care of—"
"And that stopped you telling her mother how!?"
"It slipped my mind," he lamented through gritted teeth. "There, I said it: among the killings at the harbor, the raids, the arrests, the attacks, it slipped my mind to send a message to HQ telling them to phone her parents." The buffalo leaned back far into his wooden chair, his hoof raising to clutch over his brow that was accompanied by a long breath. He then looked back at the rabbit who was stood shaking on the chair before him, and so he uttered a very extraordinary word, "I'm sorry."
Bonnie gritted her teeth and turned away with a moment of reminiscence. But the fists of her paws started to relax, and the shaking of her body reduced. After all her years as a mother, she'd learnt to know a genuine apology when she saw it. She turned back to him, her scowl still in place, "Where's Nick? Isn't he supposed to be the one—"
"Wilde is at the hospital too."
Now the scowl did shift, her face clearing like she'd been slapped. "Not Nick too!"
"He's physically undamaged," Bogo stated. "His emotional state is a different matter entirely, but he's physically unharmed. It's also because of him it slipped my mind to—"
"What happened to her," Hopps demanded, her voice cold, her boiling anger having dropped into icy, fearful rage. "What happened to my Judy?"
"We're still working on that. It's going to take my officers time t—"
"I said… what happened to my Judy? I didn't ask for none of your delaying tricks." Bogo's gaze held with the rabbit's. His brow furrowed. Somehow, he didn't know from where, she seemed to be wise to all his policing tricks. "I deserve to know everything, not a single missing grain!"
Bogo considered for a few, long moments. His mind started drifting just a little, fatigue wearing heavily across him and stress pulling fiber after fiber away from his already-end-reached tether. "Some of it will be very heavy listening. You sure you want to k—"
"Don't-you-dare! Why in tarnation do you think I'm even here? You think I came for soft-fluffing-spoken words and-and reassurances that everything would be okay?" Already stood up though she was, the rabbit managed to look taller still, her back straightening as her gaze lowered to glare upon the Chief.
"You know there's more to my Judy than some fluffy bunny or a country hick, so don't you dare, don't you 'dare', make an assumption about the knowledge and experience I have in my head. You know nothing about me. I'm not going to sit back and accept some 'internal investigation'. I'm not going to be brushed aside and kept 'tactfully in the dark' like some common civilian. I want everything. So tell me, Chief Bogo, every detail, and let me decide if what you did was right or wrong. "
"Mrs Hopps," Bogo said, the last capacity for diplomatic calmness approaching exhaustion, "I really have no intention in keeping you in the dark about this, that is genuinely the last thing on my mind. But what I want to do, is be sure we have all our facts in order before we present them to you, to make sure we don't give you any unnecessary panic over things we're not sure of yet."
"I still want to know what happened."
"Well I think you should tell her now, Harold." The Chief winced with the opening of the door, his five minutes of peace spent. "I think you should tell us, both of us, everything that happened, in your own words, over the past twenty-four hours. You can start by telling us about how you got this warrant to raid Erkin justified. Then tell us a little about the mammle, who died as a result of police brutality during the raid itself. And then move on to telling us precisely why Miss Hopps was sent, alone, into a pit full of danger."
"Without backup," Hopps added, "or even a fluffing map."
"And then, Bogo dear," Evie demeaned sweetly, touching her necklace, "perhaps you could make a start on writing that statement to the public…" her smile dropped to a scowl. "Or perhaps a draft letter of resignation."
Something in the Chief tore open and his mouth formed a grimace, as he pointed a bulky finger at Wright. "Fuck you, bitch."
"Harold Bogo!" Wright exploded in outcry.
"It's my day off, and I refuse to put up with critiques and your arrogance and snide anymore! It's Saturday, a day I'm legally required to rest. But instead of resting I'm going to take Mrs Hopps here to see her daughter, to check up on Wilde and to find out if Jack is still breathing!"
Bogo realized too late the name he'd let slip, but he guessed Wright would be too distracted to notice if he pushed on acting out of her control, so he turned away from her and towards Bonnie, with a cracked-edge smile that took every ounce of his remaining self-control to keep from looking like a scowl. "I'll be very happy to give you a lift, Mrs Hopps," he said, so evenly it was painful. "I'm heading over to Saint Bernard's now, perhaps I could tell you about what happened on the drive over."
"That's very kind of you," Bonnie said, her voice as forcibly calm as Bogo's was. "I'd be delighted."
"Ha— Harold Bogo," Evie stuttered as Bogo stepped past her towards the door. "Harold Bogo, you are in soo very much trouble after that, I—"
"I'm sorry, Miss Wright, I can't talk right now. I'm having a nice day off," Bogo cut off, with a smile that was as much a sneer as a smirk, holding the door open for Bonnie before closing it with a thump behind him.
The deer watched the door in noiselessness for some long tints of time, demanding with all her willpower that it reopened itself and sucked Bogo back inside. She tore her gaze away back towards the two towers of paperwork that sat upon the desk behind her. Her hindquarters moved her back to sitting down on the large chair, where she thumped the next stack of documents on the desk; hence, renewing the scanning of every page, every word for even the vaguest piece of incriminating evidence of misconduct or negligence she could find…
Three seconds later, in the corridor outside, the chief of police buried his head deep into his large hooves and cursed at himself for the very stupid thing he'd just done.
Bonnie and the younger buck shared a glance and started worrying for the Chief's mental health.
Author's notes:
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