"... then we followed him where we believe he would keep his stash. Well… sort of. Howell tracked his smell." Clawson picked up his cellphone. "It was on apartment 42."
The old dingo stared at them both for a moment. He then proceeded to once again go through the images in the camera he held. "Good." He muttered.
"Are you sure of that Howell?" Asked Lieutenant Noggum after another moment of pause.
"Yes sir, my snout never misses." Danielle quickly replied.
"Good." He answered again. "And who is this fennec?"
"We don't know sir, we still hadn't a chance to meet." Clawson smiled.
The Lieutenant glared at him, Clawson wilted, his ears pointing back. "Still, a good job. You two are dismissed for the day, go get some rest."
"Thank you, sir." Danielle saluted the Lieutenant and took her leave. Clawson soon followed behind her, walking through the now bustling office.
"'We still hadn't a chance to meet.' Really?" Danielle glanced to him, heading towards the main exit of the building.
"Just trying to break the ice." Clawson waited for her go through the push door and went right after. "Are you not taking your car?"
"I'm almost falling asleep Clawson, how am I to drive?" Danielle covered her eyes from the sun. Way too bright for this time of the day… "Besides, I live only two blocks from here."
Clawson held her sleeve. "Wait, really? And were you walking the entire day with that coffee stain?"
"Oh! Wow!" Danielle held her hands up. "Someone call the fashion police!"
She started to head to her house. A block later she noticed that Clawson was still at her side.
"Peter… aren't you going home?" Danielle stopped and turned to him, her tired eyes hurt from all the light and his golden fur didn't help a lot with that.
"Sure! I'll catch a cab. I'm just… you know." Clawson nodded his head towards her way.
"Walking me home?" Danielle lifted an eyebrow. "Really Peter?
"No Howell, I want to know where the hell you live! We've worked together for three years already and I don't know a whole lot about you. That's… weird, you know?"
"Oh…" Danielle scratched her head. "I... " She looked around trying to find something to distract herself with, but the streets were an uninteresting sight. She sighed. "Look Peter… I… I'm not good with people."
"Really? Never noticed." Clawson muffled a laugh.
"No, I mean it. I'm not good on… this kind of stuff. Personal stuff!" She crossed her arms and backed a step away from him. "I… Look, you are a great partner. Even a friend, and you know I don't throw this word around. But..."
"Wow Danielle, calm down." Peter took a step forward and pressed her shoulder. "I'm just messing with you. Just don't turn down the next time I invite you to eat at my home, my mom cooks very well and all." He smiled reassuringly and took his hand out of her shoulder. "Just… relax, ok?"
"Yeah… relax…" Danielle looked down to her feet and then up to the sky, evading his eyes.
"Ok, ok. I'm going. I won't follow you to your cave." Clawson waved for a passing cab and walked towards it. "Just be a good wolf and woof if you need me." He stepped in the taxi and vanished into the low traffic.
Danielle stood there for a second, trying to calm herself down. She liked her colleagues at ZPD and more and more people tried to approach her, but she still wasn't ready for that. You are almost forty Danielle, are you waiting a parade or something? It was Peter's voice in her head, she really had got used to having him around.
She started to walk back to her home. Here and there someone waved towards her and she would nod to one or another person. They were her neighbors or storeowners that she would run into everyday since she moved there eight years ago. So much happened in that meantime… I'm too tired to be thinking about all this… I just have to sleep this all off…
She got to her doorstep: her small house over a florist's store. She climbed the ladder and opened the door, but only the noise of a turned on television in her father's room could be heard, no voice there to receive.
Danielle closed the door and walked into her living room. Should she change before going to sleep? She looked at her reflection in the television screen in the middle of the room and saw the stain in her pink shirt. Yeah… let me put on something lighter… and cleaner.
She walked along her kitchen and into her small laundry room, her small wardrobe stood there. She opened it's door and and looked at herself in the dressing mirror. She opened her mouth and pulled her cheeks, looking at her teeth. Everything seemed fine, so she started to unbutton her shirt. In the mid of it a pair of strong arms hugged her from behind.
"Danielle! Finally you are home! So how was work?"
Danielle turned to look the old coyote lady in the eyes, her brown fur mixing with the old wooden boards of the floor. She couldn't help but smile. "Oh… hi Rosa, how are things here?"
"Everything is under control Danny, you don't have to worry!" Rosa looked at her from top to bottom. "Oh, you are a mess young lady!"
"Yeah… it was a… long night." Danielle turned back to her wardrobe and resumed undoing her shirt, which she carelessly threw over the washing machine. She took off her pants and picked a light nightdress she liked, throwing it over her body and feeling as the soft tissue slipped through her fur. She relaxed with the touch of the dress and leaned against the wall.
Danielle took a deep breath and could finally feel the weight of her arms and how tense her shoulders were. With the same breath came in the smell of toast and her stomach rumbled. She followed the smell to the kitchen where Rosa was setting a plate of toasts with margarine.
Danielle sat at a stool close to the counter and started to pick at the toasts, too tired to do anything more. Rosa glanced at her wristwatch and took off her green apron, shoving it inside her backpack. She sat at Danielle's side and caressed her left ear.
"Rita hasn't arrived yet to take over my shift, want me to wait a bit more?" Rosa asked the gray wolf.
"Oh… no Rosa… go to your home, I can hold things here in the meantime. She should be here in…" Danielle glanced at a wallclock over the fridge. "Half an hour or so."
"But you are so tired Danielle…" Rosa shuffled in her white dress, crossing her legs.
The coyote's brownish face became a blur for a moment. "Danielle. Danielle! Danielle!" She heard from afar. She opened her eyes again and Rosa was pulling her arm, away from the kitchen counter.
"Rosa… what are you…" Danielle mumbled.
"I'm putting you on your sofa. You need to sleep Danielle, look at your eyes!" Rosa pulled her towards the sofa and pushed her blanket away from the middle of it. "Here, lay down, I'll stay a bit more, you don't have to worry."
"But… your family…" Danielle laid on the sofa and Rosa pulled the blanket over her. She thought on trying to protest, but her body felt so… light.
"You don't worry silly head I…" Rosa spoke, but her voice sounded far, far away.
Danielle dreamed dreams of a past long forgotten. She saw a stethoscope being thrown to a wall and how the metal sound ringed when it hit the stone floor. She saw her brothers and sisters walking away from her, ever more far from reach. She tried to follow them, but they vanished in mist. Suddenly she was on the streets of Tundratown, walking alone amidst the falling snow. In an alley her father waited, sat in his old armchair. The snow accumulated over his arms and head, his eyes were closed, his expression hard as rock. Suddenly, his eyes opened and shone an orange fire, painting the snow around him. His mouth opened, but a woman's voice sounded.
"... breaks loose as protesters confronted in the docks this afternoon. Thirteen were arrested and property damage can be as high as half a million dollars." The voice sounded.
Danielle blinked to the image of masked mammals wrestling in the streets with stick and stone. Suddenly what seemed to be a canid of some kind threw a molotov and it hit a white house. The fire quickly spread along the roof and the green garden.
"These shocking images are only a new event on the escalade of violence that we've witnessed as more progressive agendas are pushed in Congress. One have to wonder what our congressmen…" Danielle muted the television. She looked around the room, the sun seemed to be setting and a female wolf knitted, sat on her father's armchair. She wore a pink dress over her black fur, a pair of glasses hanging from her snout magnifying her grayeyes..
"Good morning Danny." Sounded the wolf, without taking her eyes of her knitting.
"Morning Rita." Danielle rubbed her eyes and sat up. "What time is it?"
Rita laid down her crochet and looked to the wall clock. "5PM. How was work today?"
"Tiresome…" Danielle stretched her back, making a few pops. "How is dad?"
"Jochen is fine, I checked on him an hour ago." She went back to her knitting but looked up for a moment, remembering something. "Oh! That's right! A friend of yours called! As you were sleeping I picked it up for you. Hope you don't mind."
"Well… No reason to cry over spilled milk." Danielle walked towards the fridge and opened it up. A small assortment of fruits stood in the vegetables drawer. She reached for an apple and started to chew. "Say." Danielle took another bite, the apple was very sweet and it crunched under her jaws. "Which friend?"
"Some Peter. Sounded like a cat. Are you going out with cats now?" Rita worked robotically with her threads, green and yellow interlocking and forming a fabric. "Well… it's none of my business, really. But he sounded distressed, you should call him."
Danielle held the half eaten apple in her mouth and went inside the washing room. She fiddled through her pants looking for her cellphone.
"Your cellphone is here Danny!" Rita shouted from the living room.
She blinked and threw her pants back to the ground. Danielle skipped back to the living room and grabbed the cellphone from her aunt's extended paw. She threw herself back at the sofa and unlocked her phone, looking at the call history. There she saw that Peter had been calling her since 2PM. Hell Peter, where's the fire? Eight calls in 2 hours? She took another bite from the apple and munched, pondering for a moment. She swallowed and called him.
"Howell, what the hell? Were you dead or something?" Spoke Clawson through the cell phone. He then made a surprised expression. "Wait. Are you wearing a dress?"
"What do you want Clawson?" Danielle nibbled at the remains of her apple.
"Oh no! We will not gloss over that. You have dresses? Really?!" His eyes were wide open, a smile growing at the edge of his mouth.
"It's a nightgown and a very bland one at that. And what do you mean by that? Of course I have… one dress, at least?" Danielle looked at her aunt, she shrugged.
"Oh, I always took your for a more… you know. Truck driver type." His smile widened, like a child that had just managed to fool her parents.
Danielle lifted an eyebrow. "You are an ass."
"By the gods Howell, quit being speciesist! You can't say stuff like that!" Clawson laughed over the phone, Danielle rolled her eyes.
"Peter, were you calling just to pester me or did you have anything important to say?" Danielle stood up and went for the trash, discarding the apple core.
"Oh! Yeah! While you were having your beauty sleep the city started going insane again and something very curious happened." Peter laid the phone on something and backed off from it, getting out of camera.
"I woke up with it on the news, just the usual nonsense." Danielle picked her teeth with her index claw. Rita glanced at her and shaked her head.
"Well, not quite." The cellphone's camera turned to the screen of a computer, the frozen image of a half scorched house stood in the screen.
"That's the house that was damaged in the protests." Danielle grabbed her phone with her two paws.
"Yes, but look at these images." The tapping of a keyboard sounded, the video progressed but in reverse. The flames erupted and the water from the firemen went back from the house. The plumes of smoke went inside the walls, which turned from black to white. A few more taps and the front yard of the house rebuilt it self, now some protesters were appearing in screen. "The house was empty when it happened, so there was no need to evacuate."
"That's where Gabor caught his supply." Danielle stood up, her right paw strumming her right thigh.
"And what's the protocol in fires this big?" Clawson's yellow head showed up again in the screen, he looked to Danielle with a content smile.
"Evacuate the building until Civil Defense deems it safe and isolate the area." Danielle's ears stood up, alert. She dashed to her wardrobe and started to search for a clean shirt.
"Now, now. Who would be guarding the place somewhere around… I don't know, 8 PM?"
"Absolutely no one." Danielle threw the cellphone over the washing machine and took her nightgown off. With a single move she went inside a purple shirt and started to button it up. "You know that it's a huge break in protocol, right?"
"Only if they catch us." The phone sounded.
Danielle picked up her phone and looked at Peter, he was still wearing a green tank top. "Aren't you changing?"
"It's... like 6PM. Why rush?" Clawson held his phone to his left side and typed on his computer, glancing now and then towards Danielle.
"Well, don't you want a lift around town to this little misadventure of ours?" Danielle asked.
"Hey, I came up with this fantastic idea. Indulge me a bit, pick me up here." The jaguar looked from his screen towards her, a slight smile in this face.
"Aren't you a lazy cat?" Danielle smiled towards her friend, she should've expected that.
"Just on my day-offs." Peter yawned a short yawn, trying to cover his fangs.