I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.
"Let It Go, It's Happytown"
Chapter Six: Flip
By: Gabriel LaVedier
Sherlock broke into a run, trotters clacking loudly on the uneven pavement, one hoof holding his pipe-burner and the other keeping his canoe-like hat between his horns. His breath huffed in a deep, regular rhythm, calling on his training. He looked calm, keeping his composure as he rushed down the block and sharply took the corner to reach the source of the smoke.
Whipping quickly around the corner brought him to the scene right as the fire engine screamed its way onto the scene, several yellow-clad mammals leaping off the vehicle and working to work with the rusted hydrant, a tiger ranting about the caked, crystalline traces of reeking urine on it.
The building was a fairly ordinary one for the area, largely fronted with brick and concrete, narrow, high, and seemingly abandoned. There were such places all over, too ruined and fetid for the most unscrupulous slumlords to even try and rent. They were architectural corpses, the skeletons of the past picked clean and left to bleach. Fire roared from the boarded-up windows of broken glass and twisted protective iron bars, and also licked like a thousand hungry tongues from the yawning entrance.
The leaping red and yellow flames lit up the increasing darkness, casting a hideous brightness over the street, outdoing the weak or absent streetlights that popped on as the firefighters hit the house with the huge hoses in the hands of several burly mammals who could handle the immense pressure. Those smaller than the ones spraying it down were daring to approach, calling out for anyone within, some holding back the crowd that was starting to appear.
"Sir, please step back, that... unusual substance... is not conducive to safety..." one of the firefighter deer said. "I don't mean to tell you..."
"Spiced incense from my homeland," Sherlock said, cutting off the statement. "You may have smelled the same in Tanukitown."
"Right... Vineland... forgot that there were prey here," the buck said. "Still, keep back, we have enough smoke already."
"Was that 1540 Rathbone?" Sherlock asked, peering at the buildings around the one on fire, the numbers having been faded or knocked off, made worse by the darkness and the inconsistent light of the fire.
"Yes, sir, did you know of anyone living in there?" The buck queried, reaching up to prep the radio attached to his shoulder.
"It's been abandoned for years, but I had heard about someone using it after the landlords abandoned it and left it in limbo. I'm certain there was some kind of activity going on inside, but I don't know how many would have been involved," Sherlock said, holding back the specifics of what he knew. It was illegal activity, the soft kind. Low-grade gambling. Craps, poker, blackjack, a small-scale place to waste money on chances that are stacked to the sky against the gamblers.
"Hey, guys, according to someone from the crowd there may have been squatters inside, unknown number," the buck said into his radio.
"Unknown number? Someone in the crowd? We need better before we risk our lives on this dungheap."
"Sir, if you have any more concrete evidence, that might be helpful..." the buck started.
Sherlock reached into his pocket and pulled out his PI license, which he had in a wallet section that also had his folded letter of reference from Councilor Seedsworth, with his name displayed. "Sherlock Gyag, city licensed Private Investigator. I'm familiar with the area and have good reason to believe the reports I heard of mammals inside are correct."
The buck clicked his radio again, looking carefully at the license and tangentially at the letter. "Guy's city licensed as a PI, says he knows the area. Also looks like he's working for Councilor Seedsworth on something so he's gotta be in the know."
"Read you! Once we knock down the worst of it we'll go in a sweep for anyone trapped!"
"Thank you for the information, Mr... Gyag. I hope we can find those inside alive," the buck said, moving down the perimeter to push back those trying to get a better look at the inferno.
Sherlock pulled back slightly, his position being filled in by curious onlookers watching the firefighters attacking the leaping flames. Sherlock watched with a detached look, unable to really think about the raw destruction. Lives were ruined, in his normal understanding, in small increments. Small chips flaked away from life, a slow death of a thousand cuts in the squalor of Happytown. That much bombastic destruction was abnormal, and horrifying.
An accident, surely. Unregulated gamblers would hardly follow every conventional safety protocol, on every level. No electricity unless they patched it in from somewhere with questionable cables and capabilities. They might use fire if they couldn't scrounge up enough and strong enough battery powered lights. They'd have open alcohol, probably some stronger substances, making them less than responsible with anything they happened to have. Tragic, truly, but it was the way of things living on the margins.
"Sweet silver, that could have been me," a hushed voice in the crowd said, while watching the firefighters pull a body from within.
"What? You've got a home. It's spoor but it's a place," another voice said, equally softly and anonymously.
"No! That's where Fleabite was setting up that floating game of his. Cursed fool, he was doing too good for this..." the first voice said.
"Wonder if that's him," the second voice casually said, while another body was brought out of the building.
"With his luck, he'll live. He cleaned me out plenty," the first voice complained.
"No one's that lucky. Didn't matter. What was the matter? It was just a little game."
"You had no idea. That game was going places. He had the nicest looking girls from off the corners, quality 'bane and 'nip, really classing it up. All our money at least made it fun to lose."
"Poor, stupid cur. Idiot should never have moved to one of these dumps, should have kept renting from the gangs."
Gangs. If he was making money, from the street women and drugs as well as gambling... They would want their cut. They always wanted a cut, big and meaty and enough to hold their gluttonous maws open. They made a good explanation. It probably was that. Not everything needed to be complicated.
A single look at one of the bodies brought out and examined for the potential to resuscitate ended the idea of an accident. The burn pattern was around the neck, with melted material that had to have been some kind of garrotte. Plastic would melt and burn away. But they would never look into that. Gangs were possible, gangs were the answer, never mind that they were too wild to be so methodical. Maybe outside gangs were more methodical and surgical but none of the brute force gangs of Happytown would do that.
The buck was still there, holding back the crowd, and had noticed his small dispensation from Councilor Seedsworth. Moral flexibility was life, sometimes. Mammals still involved in the business of living had the need to live and wanted to help others keep living. Someone needed to make hard choices when there came a very difficult time.
"Sir! Sir!" Sherlock pushed his way back to the front of the crowd, motioning to the firefighter while pulling his wallet back out.
"Yes, did you recall something else? Looks like you were right..." the buck said, sadly shaking his head.
Sherlock pulled out the card Officer Wulfberg had given him, passing it over. "Call the ZPD, immediately. This might get swept under the rug. And it should not. This officer is active in Happytown. Have the examiners note the necks of everyone pulled out. Some or all of them should have melted plastic around their necks and around their heads. There was a murder involving someone suffocated with zip-ties and a plastic bag. And just from what I can see, there may have been zip-ties involved."
The buck was confused for a good, long moment, repeatedly reading the card and looking up at Sherlock. A quick glance at the neck of one of the ones who failed to be resuscitated revealed the charred and melted line of black plastic and the small residual traces of clear plastic. "Guys, somebody call the ZPD. Homicide. Ask for this guy... Officer Louis Wulfberg."
"ZPD? Homicide? We've got a lot of suffocation here, just as we expected, and some burning. That's all."
"Seedsworth's PI got me to look closer. Check the necks. Melted zip-ties. Maybe some plastic bags. Said ZPD homicide is looking at some guy that got killed the same way."
"Ah sweet plenty! You have to tell me to look! Fire did a number on these poor saps, but it didn't eliminate them all. Never would have seen it without looking for it... keep that PI there. We need him."
"Sir, think you can stay around or leave a card?" The buck asked.
"I certainly will stay. This is important. This might be something bigger than you think," Sherlock said boldly, watching the building smolder. Bigger than he thought. Charlie was obvious. A random card game with drugs and eye candy, that was less obvious. But elements connected them together. Like it or not, they were linked by death.
It was an hour or so before the fire had been put out and the scene secured, with the crowd dwindling down to nothing as the excitement and danger waned. Ambulances had been called, to bear away the bodies of those found within, thankfully only a few. They had likely been caught while setting up, before any of the players had shown up. The firefighters remained and were joined by a small number of ZPD officers, including Officer Wulfberg.
The streets were once more filled with wavering light, dome lights form ambulances, the fire engine and a police cruiser washing the scene in a brighter shade of crimson. The various official mammals were talking to each other, taking pictures or writing up reports. One of them stalked right up to Sherlock with a will.
"You! Just what do you think you're doing?!" Louis demanded.
"Making observations and noticing the deaths of my neighbors. I do not know them, but they are that," Sherlock responded, evenly.
"You're making a lot of noise! A lot of very, very unwanted noise!"
"Good, it must be made. But it was never my intention to make it. If it happens it happens because of what I find. It is not my fault," Sherlock mildly retorted.
"You're another Happytowner. That craven rat at City Hall will crush you like a bug and never even care," Louis hissed.
"Never. Councilor Seedsworth would never allow it."
"I heard you used his name. He's going to yank his support. You can't just go around using names like that. You used mine too, and I really, really didn't want that to happen. I had a date tonight, and I wanted it to go... somewhere besides back here to Happytown," Louis huffed.
"Much more important than death," Sherlock quietly said.
Louis was silent for a long while, eyes shifting around while he ground his teeth. "You're done. I don't care how unfair it is. No one cares how unfair it is. Bogo's going to bust me down to meter enforcement until he can figure out how to make me do something even less dignified to make me quit. The Councilor is going to make the city strip you of every shred of dignity until you'll be lucky if you can get a job panhandling. The whole investigation is dead, and it's never coming back."
"Officer Wulfberg?" One of the firefighters that had been involved in recovering the bodies tapped Louis on the shoulder and presented him with a clipboard.
"What? What's this?" Louis asked.
"I called the ME for confirmation about a pattern. He wasn't sure how anyone got his notes but he confirmed it. You're the investigating officer on the case, I need your signature to confirm the facts noted in this report. ZFD arson investigation will come in once we know we might be dealing with some kind of serial killer hiding his tracks."
Louis hesitated, holding onto the clipboard and sightlessly dragging his eyes across the handwritten lines talking about potential melted zip-ties and plastic bags. "Someone must care. Someone has to make the unfairness even out. There may be one who does not, but others do, and you know it."
Though halting and shaky, the signature was put on the papers, and Louis looked shaken by the whole endeavor. "What did I do?"
"You cared," Sherlock said with a resolute nod. "Whatever the cost, how could it be unworthy? This must change. It will change."
o o o
"I never knew eyes could pop out of a skull that far! I realize rodents can have a goggled look but Mousawitz was ready to fire his orbs like taser probes!"
The next day, after a long evening of questions and examinations, Sherlock was sitting behind his desk, talking on the land-line to Councilor Seedsworth. He had expected the call, but not the content. "I didn't realize the mayor would get that upset..."
"Apoplectic! Absolutely apoplectic! He thought he had suppressed everything but he was so gloriously wrong. He was furious with me, more because he knew he could do nothing. The ZFD drew inferences that were not correct but did their jobs admirably and completely. The facade that everything is fine has cracked. If only I could get the media to care. They'll get involved, I promise you."
"I'm glad that my accidental show of your name didn't offend you, sir. I had an estimation that it might not do any harm but there was still some uncertainty..." Sherlock began.
"Mr. Gyag, I gave you a small advance to direct official attention to Happytown and this investigation. Loose as the connection may be, it's unique enough that even our resident intentional obstructionist was forced to begrudgingly admit, through literally griited teeth, there was some smoke to the fire I, and you, see. It's not a lot, and the ZPD are still barred from regarding it as a murder, pending the arson investigation, and the medical examiner's thwarted observations. But it's out there now. That's the base of something significant."
"I certainly hope it is. Meanwhile, there is still an investigation. No matter how alike, I have no clue about why. I understood Charlie. I can grasp the illegal gambling. But they have no obvious connection, beyond the murderer," Sherlock mused.
"I have a reasonable trust in you, Mr. Gayg. A reasoned estimation of expected capability."
"I can appreciate your level and measured words, Mr. Seedsworth. Very few are as enlightened to understand the true value of considered words and contemplation," Sherlock said.
"And I appreciate your response. Everyone wants me to have faith in them. I'm a businessmammal. I don't have faith in anyone, I go by what they have done, and allocate my trust if I have a reason or a proper, instinctual feeling that makes them worthy of it. I... I have faith in my wife, because the heart is an irrational thing. But no one else."
"I wish you were the mayor, Mr. Seedsworth. You are what we need in this time. And for situations like this," Sherlock said with a nod.
"My constituents and the city will determine that at a later date. But thank you for that vote of confidence. I know you don't apportion confidence freely either. Remain vigilant. I'll do what I can in the chamber, and you continue your excellent work. You and I both know there's more to this, and this fire is proof. Good luck, Mr. Gyag."
"Luck favors the studious," Sherlock said, hanging up the phone and looking aside to his stack of papers, some from Louis, some from the firefighter he had interacted with, plus the original copies of things that Nick had given him. Flipping through them offered little in the way of concrete clues, as he expected. It would take more hooves-on-the-ground work to put facts together into something meaningful.
Facts were inert chunks, useless in isolation. They were like bricks or boards. They were fine things to have but of more use if they could be built together, nailed or cemented into a structure that made a solid form. Gathering the facts was tedious busywork. Constructing the facts into that perfect structure was both a science and an art, one that his venerable master had honed and shaped with his own science and art. A beautiful example of the continuity of living and tradition.
A knock sounded out, knuckles rapping solidly on the glass of the door to Sherlock's office. It was Hermione's day off, but he hadn't bothered to turn the sign around saying he was closed. It was a habit to turn the sign when he came down for the day after sadly having to turn away the late Vesper and Night shift mammals. He could take on a visitor without Hermione. "Come in, please."
The door opened up to reveal a lanky, dusky coyote in an open blue-checked flannel work shirt with a white undershirt beneath, a pair of baggy but belted blue jeans on his lower half. "Mr. Sherlock, yes?"
Sherlock looked the coyote over, noting the frequency of his rubbing of his arms and the rake lines in his fur. "And you are the infamous Fleabite. You must be as lucky as I've heard."
"My reputation precedes me, I see," Fleabite said with a nod of his head. "I may have organized a... gathering of interested parties for games of chance, but I don't set them up. I delegate, if you understand me."
"I understand you perfectly," Sherlock said, lightly clacking his hooftips together in front of his face. "I have many speculations about how you found out about me. Are you here to offer insights into why your creation was so thoroughly destroyed?"
"I have speculations, as you might imagine," Fleabite said, sitting at the chair in front of Sherlock's desk. "Gangs come to mind. Renting space is mutually beneficial... so they tell me. Striking out on my own is much more profitable, however..."
Sherlock interrupted with a shake of his head. "Non-starter. No gang would be so finely careful. The brutality of the number of bodies, it seems superficially possible. But the method is too precise. Covering murder with arson is nothing they would do. It also points to a case I'm already working, with the same method of death."
Fleabite nodded slowly, drumming his claws on his arm and absentmindedly scratching at the fur. "Vice is always profit. Vice without law is still a vice that exists. And mammals want their vices at almost any price. It's not endless, but it's very hard to price a mammal out of an addiction they want."
Sherlock twitched, slightly, nodding slowly. "You speak from experience, I can tell. I heard some stories of 'nip and 'bane, and females from corners."
"You know a lot. You hear a lot. Must be why that prey from outside trusts you, how you managed to get the ZPD to care about someone small and harmless, like me," Fleabite said, claws digging into his arms.
"I don't care about your vices, but I care about who has attacked our home. They killed Charlie, and they killed the poor unfortunates that worked for you. I won't say a thing to the ZPD. This is Happytown, we have flexibility for survival. You need answers. We all need answers, not an unneeded investigation."
Fleabite relaxed a touch, drumming his claws again. "I'm glad we can understand each other, as civilized mammals. It would seem that your case has a certain overlap with mine. There would be no conflict of interest in investigating both, would there?"
"I have no absolute proof the cases are linked. But there exists such a strong supposition discovering there is no connection would be a miracle of a semi-religious nature. Working one would not take away from the other, merely send me to separate locations to find the traces of the same trail."
The coyote rose and offered a hand. "Name your up-front, Mr. Sherlock. Even burned out I still have the money that I earned before. Solve one, solve all. I have a powerful need to know and, ideally, have them taken care of in some way. Rotting away in the Sweatbox or the Cooler. Or literally rotting away in Sahara Square or Tundratown. It matters little to me."
Sherlock shook the offered hand, firmly nodding his head. "I have a fixed fee plus expenses, that I will have receipts for." He reached into his desk and pulled out a few sheets of paper, printed with a contract. "It's all right here. Just sign on the dotted line and give me the money indicated within three days."
"You're in a very special position, Mr. Sherlock," Fleabite said, picking up a pen from the desk and signing along the indicated line. "I seldom, if ever, put anything in writing. Ink is a prison. But for this, this is important."
Sherlock took the papers and tore off the top, to separate them, keeping the top sheet and the carbon paper in the middle, passing over the yellow carbon copy to Fleabite. "I will give you all my skill, as I will for Councilor Seedsworth. You will have your answers."
Fleabite looked down at the yellow paper for a long, silent moment, disbelief on his face. He finally broke out into a howling laugh, folding the yellow paper and stuffing it into his pocket. "The old ways still exist. Good. Modern methods are sometimes thrown off by such. Very clever. Well, I'll leave you to your work. The money will be delivered with all due speed. Good day, Mr. Sherlock." With a final nod of his head he left the office and shut the door behind him.
Sherlock sat there for a time, looking at the signed contract while slowly stroking his chin. He picked up his phone and punched the button labeled Hermione.
"Allô? M. Gyag?"
"The plot thickens, Mlle. LaBelle. I'm sure you heard about the fire, and all the sudden interest from the ZFD and the ZPD."
"I was made aware. Hard to not notice such a thing, even with how large and insulated the place is. The notice from those that never cared before seemed to have shocked the sensibilities of my neighbors. Most unusual. Am I to believe that you had some hoof in this whole affair, monsieur?"
"There was a series of inferences and small errors that allowed me to note that those in the fire did not die in it, but were killed the same way as Charlie. With more actions and the intervention of Officer Wulfberg the arson investigators of the ZFD came to the fore. They will perform a detailed analysis. And the ZPD will now have to take seriously the loss of life."
"I was correct when I told C. Wulfberg you had special powers."
"Amusing, Mlle. LaBelle. But it's more than that. The fire was set to cover the killings of those involved with a small gambling den that had been growing larger and successful. The head of it just came to see me because my actions got attention focused on what happened. He just signed a contract to hire me to investigate who killed the ones working for him."
"With pay, monsieur?"
"I feel that I can trust this fellow. For all his making money on vice, he seems to be a businessmammal, much like the esteemed Councilor Seedsworth. It's extra padding. Food in our mouths and roofs over our heads to track two different crimes to a common source. Solve one, solve both."
"I suppose, then, M. Gyag, that I will have to change from this blue swimsuit, leave my tea and book and come down from soaking up the sun on the roof to scamper into the office?"
Sherlock chuckled softly and leaned back in his chair. "Enjoy your day off, Mlle. LaBelle. There is still chaos surrounding all of this. You'll need all the rest you can get, now that new information has come to light indicating how much bigger this whole matter is. I'll see you bright and early tomorrow."
Author's Notes
'Nip and 'Bane- Just in case it wasn't clear, catnip and wolfsbane. Fleabite doesn't discriminate.
A miracle of a semi-religious nature- Just to note this isn't mine. This is a line from james Randi that I love so much I had to put it somewhere.