14
Judy didn't move.
"Don't be like this. You've made your point. The Corsacs know who they're messing with now. There's no need to go this far."
"I haven't gone nearly as far as I could," said Cottontail darkly.
"No?" said Judy. "Terrorizing the Corsacs, stealing their things, ruining their business, putting Craven into a coma, kidnapping them, that's not far enough?"
"No." Cottontail leaned in close. "For stealing my mother away, taking over my home—no, it doesn't feel like nearly enough."
"And Robin Swift?"
Cottontail frowned. "Who?"
"Marian's boyfriend. Another fox who has also gone mysteriously missing. What did he do to deserve being on your list?"
"I don't know who you're talking about."
Judy gaped at him. Was he really trying to play dumb again? After all this?
"And Vixie? Did you forget her too? She's just a kit, and you sent your goon of a raccoon after her. You profess to be so magnanimous. But where's your sense of mercy?"
"What are you talking about?" said Cottontail. "I would never hurt a child of any species! You... Are you trying to blame me for every fox-related crime now? You really do have issues."
"I have issues?"
"Clearly." Cottontail drew himself up, even his ears seeming extra tall. "It seems I have misjudged you entirely, Officer Hopps. All this time I thought you were for animal equality, but you have a secret agenda just like everyone else. Who knew, when you were speaking of sweet smiles and kind words, that you really meant yourself."
"You—" spluttered Judy. "You're trying to twist things."
"You're the one who is doing that," said Cottontail. "Trying to blame me for crimes I didn't commit. I'll see you in court for it, Officer Hopps."
He yanked open the break room door in a clear gesture of dismissal. The sound of the storm roared in, along with three bunnies, a sheep, and a gopher who had all been trying to eavesdrop.
They jumped back at suddenly finding themselves revealed and made a break for it. Judy waited until the tip of the gopher's tail had disappeared behind one of the trucks before speaking again.
"The only one who's going to court is you," she told Cottontail. "Now close the door."
His eyes narrowed, and Judy knew he was debating the repercussions of refusing her.
"Look," she said. "Cooperate with me now, and I promise that when I take you in, it will be done with all the discretion at my disposal. Only your nosiest employees will even know you've been arrested. But refuse, and I'll make a call right now that'll have every major reporter in Zootopia waiting outside to watch me take you in. And this time your name will be in the papers. The choice is yours."
"This isn't proper protocol," said Cottontail. "I could report you for this."
"I know. And you are free to do so. Later. But right now I don't have time to do this properly. Lives are at stake. So make your decision."
On the other side of the warehouse, something metal hit the cement floor with a clatter. She heard whispering behind one of the trucks.
Cottontail looked out at the warehouse, then back at her.
Judy waited.
Cottontail shut the door.
Inwardly, Judy relaxed a fraction. Outwardly, she showed no reaction.
She took a seat back at the table and waved for him to do the same. After a moment, he did, his expression mutinous.
"Now, let's try this again."
She pulled out a slip a paper from her pocket and unfolded it. It was a copy of Peter Hopson's photo that she had taken from his file. It was black and white, heavily creased and damp, but the picture was clear.
She laid it on the table between them. Cottontail wrinkled his nose.
"Peter Hopson. This is you, correct?"
"This isn't legal," said Cottontail. "I don't have to answer any of this." But when she only continued to look at him, he sighed and said, "Yes, that's me."
"And is it true you got into trouble a lot at school as a teenager?"
"Yes."
"And resented the Corsacs for their place in your mother's life?"
"Yes."
"And because of that you ran away from home?"
"No."
Judy stopped and looked at him. "No?"
Cottontail shifted in his chair. He tugged at his tie, gaze falling to a point just to the right of Judy's collarbone. "My mother was the one who told me to go."
"Your mother kicked you out?"
Cottontail was back to fiddling with his remaining cufflink. "She said she couldn't take it any longer. That she'd tried, for years, but that she had had enough. She said I needed to go find myself. Or, barring that, find a place that made me happy. She said if being with only bunnies was so important to me, than that's where I should go. And I was so… so angry, I guess, that I just…" Cottontail picked at the cufflink. Plink, plink. "I agreed. I packed up my stuff that night, borrowed some money from a friend for the ticket, and took that last bunny tram out of Zootopia."
"Is that when you moved to the burrow?" asked Judy.
Cottontail nodded. "I found the most isolated spot I could and they accepted me with open paws. They sympathized with my plight. Took my side when I told them what had been happening at home. For the first time in my life, I felt understood. Vindicated."
"You don't sound like it made you any happier," pointed out Judy.
"Oh, it did. For a time," said Cottontail. "You see, I had always considered myself a traditional bunny at heart. And they hated the Corsacs as much as I did, though for very different reasons. It was only when I started to realize those differences that, well, my satisfaction waned." Plink, plink went his claw against the cufflink.
"You see, I hated the Corsacs with a passion—Marian most of all—but not for being foxes. I had no grudge against foxes in general or any of the other predators that passed through our burrow. In fact, I enjoyed talking with the occasional visitor as much as the rest of the burrow seemed to hate it. I found myself missing Zootopia. Its vibrancy. Its variety. I sat in on monthly burrow meetings and found myself embarrassed by the subjects they discussed."
"Like what?"
"Like how to keep predators out, especially foxes. Or how important it was to stick to tradition, regardless if it made sense or not to do things that way. It got under my fur. I realized what my mother had been trying to say all those years, and knew this wasn't the type of bunny I wanted to be. If I was ever going to be able to face her again, I needed to be better than this burrow I had fled to."
"Is that why you changed your identity?" asked Judy.
"I was starting a new life. Casting off the shameful name of Peter Hopson and becoming Benjamin Cottontail."
"And your appearance?"
Plink, plink.
"I needed to look the part. I bleached my fur, got straightener implants for my ears, and started exercising religiously. I needed to fully embrace the identity of Benjamin Cottontail, the epitome of everything a bunny should be and more."
"And that was?"
"Understanding. Generous. Smart. Proud of his roots but willing to innovate."
"And the burrow didn't have a problem with you doing all this changing?"
He smiled in a way that made Judy remember how charming Cottontail could be when he wanted to. "I find that no animal, bunny or otherwise, likes to admit that they might not be any of these things, even if it is true. A carefully worded conversation and you can get almost anyone to agree with whatever you want them to. And I was clever about it. I made sure the changes I made stuck to the burrow's core values."
"Like farm production?"
"Exactly. Let's just expand a little. Then—a green factory would be better for the environment and make the burrow more money. And a while after that—you know, selling directly to the city would bring in more customers. Five years later, the company was on the map. I moved back to Zootopia a successful bunny and with a burrow that was producing three times as many vegetables as any other."
"And your mother?"
Cottontail's proud smile faltered. "She knew I was back. I'm sure she knew. But I put off going to see her. I kept telling myself: just one more big merger and I would be ready. Just one more successful product and I could go home with my head held high. I continued on like that for over a year."
The cufflink wobbled, the stitching around the hole starting to fray. Still he picked. Plink. Plink.
"And then one morning—a Wednesday, I remember. 5:37am. Marian called me. It was the first time I had spoken to her in almost a decade. And the first words she said to me were, 'we just lost your mother. I'm sorry.'"
Plink, plink. Plink, plink.
"And do you know what my very first thought was, when I realized what she was telling me?" said Cottontail. "It was that I had missed my chance to prove to my mother that I had become greater than the Corsacs."
Plink, plink—ting. His second cufflink fell onto the tabletop. Both bunnies stared at it.
"All those years of hard work," murmured Cottontail. "Of self-reflection. Of telling myself I was better than my narrow-minded neighbors. And really, I hadn't changed at all. Deep down I had still been competing with Marian, still subconsciously plotting how I would win back my mother's affection." He smacked his paw over the cufflink. Judy jumped. "It was all the same. Even now, finally being aware of it, I still hate them. I'm not getting any better. No matter how hard I try, I just can't forgive them."
"Is that why you stole the recipes?" asked Judy.
"I didn't steal them," said Cottontail. "My mother taught Marian a handful of those recipes, but the rest were mine. She left them to me in her will. And Marian handed them over to me with her blessing. I think she felt guilty, as she should."
"And the will going missing?" said Judy. "You're telling me that was just a coincidence?"
Cottontail made a face. "You sound like Reynard. Just going to the restaurant to pick up the recipe books left me feeling sick for days. I want nothing more to do with that place. Marian can have it for all I care. I didn't steal the will, or the pictures, or Todd's first coat shedding, or any of the things the Corsacs came to my office and accused me of taking."
"And the raccoon that was hired to kidnap them?"
"The only one I hired was you," said Cottontail. "And look how well that's turn out for me."
"So you're telling me you've done nothing to the Corsacs?"
Cottontail turned over his paw, staring at the imprint the cufflink had left there. "I can't say with any certainty that I'd feel remorse if they turned up dead somewhere a week from now. But actively trying to ruin them? Or hurt them? No. Even when they started breaking in and throwing accusations at me, all I ever tried to do was make them leave me alone. Nothing more, nothing less. I consider it the least I could do for my mother, who loved those foxes so much more than me."
Judy sat back in her chair and debated. It was possible he was lying to her. He had done it before, and there were certainly enough reasons for it. But the bitterness in his voice made her think he wasn't.
She had encouraged Nick to go back to using his instincts. It was time she started taking her own advice.
Cottontail was slumped in his seat, staring at the printout of his old photograph. Judy noted that while the ears, the form, and the fur color might all have changed, that pouting expression was exactly the same.
"I just have one last question to ask," she told him.
Cottontail waved a resigned paw.
"Who did you loan the truck to?"
Cottontail looked over at her in disbelief. "This again?"
"Yes. This again."
"I told you, a friend has it. What does it have to do with anything?"
"Because I'm almost positive that that truck of yours was used as the getaway vehicle in the Corsac's kidnapping," said Judy. "And the driver of that truck—a raccoon—admitted to being paid a large sum of money in order to play kidnapper. A raccoon who also knew his way around a certain illegal burrow that we know was dug out by a bunny."
Judy leaned in closer and lowered her voice, just in case those nosy employees that had been snooping around outside had decided to return. "You understand what that means, don't you? Either your friend has gotten involved in some very bad activities, or they know the mammal who has. Or it's you, and you're still lying to me."
Cottontail shook his head emphatically. "I'm not lying. I really did loan the truck out. And I haven't dug a burrow since my ears were still floppy. But it doesn't make sense. He would never hurt Marian or her brothers."
"Who is he?"
Cottontail's mouth flattened, his brow falling low over his eyes. He stared down at the cufflink.
"I understand that loyalty is important to you," said Judy. "It's important to me, too. But you're going to have to make a decision here. Are you going to be loyal to the friend who used you to commit these terrible crimes? Or to the Corsacs who only ever wanted to be part of your family?"
Cottontail looked sharply at her. "I never asked for a bigger family. All I ever wanted was for my mother to choose me over those awful foxes." He picked up the cufflink and added it to his pocket. "But now she's gone, and so is my chance to prove anything to her. Tell me, what's the point in being loyal to a ghost?"
Judy held up the battered photocopy of his younger self. "Because that ghost loved this bunny," she told him. "She might not have been able to toss out the children of her dearest late friends in order to make you happy—but she did care. She let you, her only son, leave because she knew she couldn't give you what you needed. She was trying to do right by you, and the Corsacs."
"And yet the foxes came first."
"Did they?" asked Judy. "Your mother left her recipe books to you. Recipes you don't even need. Because they were her's, and she wanted you, her son, to have them. As a safety, or maybe just a good memory. She might have left the Corsac's the restaurant, but that's no guarantee they'll be successful at it. They are going to have to start their business practically from the ground up. New managing, new menu. How can you look at those choices and still think your mother didn't put you first?"
She would have gone on, but from outside came a sudden howling that interrupted both her words and thoughts.
But it wasn't wolves; it was rain.
It rumbled across the roof, audible now even in the break room. Judy fisted her paws under the table and tried not to think about Nick being out alone in this weather.
Cottontail was watching her. "You really believe my friend sent someone after a kit?"
"Yes," said Judy. And Nick could be next unless you help me.
Cottontail gave her the name.
Nick hated the Rainforest District the most. Out of all the districts. Always had.
Everything was perpetually wet, even the air. The walkways were slick, the ground was muddy, and there was a gloom about the place that not even the Rainbow Falls could fully dispel.
And that was during good weather.
The ground level roads had been closed for flooding. Only the canopy level remained traversable. Nick was forced to leave behind his cruiser and hike up—Hiking! In a monsoon!—because the gondolas had also been closed for safety until the winds died down.
Nick didn't run into another living soul as he weaved his way up steep trails and through dense foliage drenched with rain. At least the canopy protected him somewhat from the storm's onslaught. But once in a while a gust a wind would break through, all the more vicious because of how high up he was. It felt like being slammed by a wall made of air. It stung Nick's nose, brought tears to his eyes, and knocked him backwards into bushes, railings, and other, more literal, walls. Twice, he felt his feet leave the ground for a few heart-stopping seconds before being dropped back down where he then clung to the nearest nailed-down thing he could until the gust had passed and he had caught his breath.
Then he'd continue.
The bar, when he finally reached it, look deserted. No lights shone from the windows, and vines hung heavy across the roof, having been untended to for several months, at least. The walls, made from wood planks, bowed outwards, from weight or water damage or both.
Nick made his way to the front entrance. Water ran in rivulets over the gravel path. He didn't knock, but stood to the side as he reached for the handle and pushed open the door.
No shots came. No cries of alarm.
Nick peeked in.
Past the darkened booths and tables—only half of which still retained their chairs—was a bar steeped in shadow. A single mammal sat on the only remaining stool, nursing a drink.
"About time you got back here, Ray," they said. Male, with a higher pitched voice. "I'll assume the storm held you up and not the kit."
He laughed, the sound a bit strangled. He tossed the rest of his drink back and stood, collecting the raincoat that had been draped over the bar next to him and sliding into it.
"The job's done, I hope? We don't have time to make another run out to that godforsaken place before the cops started sniffing around, not in this weather. It's time for us to go underground for a while."
Nick, who had been standing in the doorway, stepped inside a kicked the door closed behind him. "In that case, can we stop off at the Gerbil Mart on the way? I'll need a toothbrush."
He took great satisfaction in watching the other animal go stiff at the sound of his voice.
Then they grabbed the barstool and hurled it at him.
Nick ducked, hissing as it clipped his shoulder, and lunged forward.
But the other animal sprang away, ears flopping, and landed, heavy and graceless, among the many rows of bottles of alcohol lined up behind the bar. They clinked and clanged as he struggled to catch his balance. What little light that made it through the front windows reflected off all the glass and illuminated his face just the slightest bit. But with Nick's keen night vision, it might as well have been a spotlight.
"Hello, Marty."
