Judy woke up to the muffled sound of music coming from somewhere upstairs. She sat up on the sofa, blinking, almost instantly awake. Her watch had been lost in the fire that burned her apartment down, and if Nick had ever had a clock in his parlor he had removed it sometime before first abandoning his house. It had to be early in the morning, though, because the sun hadn't even started to rise yet and Nick's parlor was so dark that Judy could hardly see anything.
Judy jumped off the sofa and groped her way along the wall, feeling the slick texture of the wallpaper as she carefully found the stairs and made her way up to the second floor. There was a narrow beam of light coming out of the room full of Nick's records from the gap at the bottom of the door, and she knocked on the door softly. "Nick?" she called, and a moment later she could hear him standing up.
She heard the floorboards creak beneath his weight, still audible even under the sound of the music, and a moment later the door opened. Nick was illuminated from behind, wearing a pair of pajamas almost identical to the ones he had worn the previous night. "I didn't think bunny ears were that good," he said apologetically, and he started walking over to the little table where a record was spinning on a player that had something—a handkerchief, perhaps—stuffed into the horn to muffle the music.
He reached for the tone arm, but before he could stop the playback Judy spoke. "It's fine," she said, and Nick nodded.
"Do you mind?" he asked, gesturing at the wad of fabric in the horn of the record player.
When Judy shook her head, he pulled it out and the sound was instantly louder and the music clearer, although still somewhat tinny. It was something orchestral that Judy didn't recognize, and the title of the album to the side of the player—La création du monde—didn't help. It was sweet, somehow almost mournful and spritely at the same time, and Judy wondered how he had chosen it out of the hundreds of records that lined the walls of the room in neatly organized shelves.
Nick sat in the room's lone chair and pushed the ottoman away from it with one foot, gesturing towards it in a wordless invitation. "Couldn't sleep?" Judy asked as she took a seat on the ottoman facing Nick.
His eyes were somewhat puffy but his gaze was still alert and sharp. The parts of his fur Judy could see beneath his pajamas, including the tuft of creamy white that stuck out at the neckline of the top, was as disheveled as her own probably was. The fur of his cheeks was matted, and under the warm illumination of the electric lights in his music room the half-healed cut under one ear that was his memento of the apartment fire stood out in sharp relief. "Oh, I slept like a kit," Nick replied, leaning back into his overstuffed chair, "And then I woke up."
He wore a little smile as he said it, but Judy could understand. Having woken up herself, she wasn't sure that she'd be able to go back to sleep either. It couldn't have been more than a couple hours before they had to be to the police station to witness Lionheart's arrest, and she felt wide awake and full of energy. "I was thinking," Nick continued, and when he didn't continue to speak Judy prompted him.
"About what?" she asked.
"Purris in the fall," he said simply, and Judy felt her heart sink.
The music suddenly seemed dissonant, a messy doubling of themes that didn't quite fit together. Of course Nick would want to go back to Purris; by her own paw Judy had ensured that Zootopia wasn't safe for him anymore, and no matter what Nick had said the previous night it was no longer any kind of secret that he was still alive. And while Zootopia might be dangerous because of vengeful gangsters, Podunk wasn't likely to be any safer. Judy doubted that Bellwether would give up so easily on her desire to have Nick arrested, so it seemed to her as though fleeing the country might be the only good option for Nick to take. "Oh," Judy said, and she couldn't prevent her ears from drooping.
Nick, though, couldn't see her as he had closed his eyes, seeming lost in the memory. "It doesn't get cold, exactly, but you can feel the chill. It's like every breath is a bite that you have to take. The trees in the parks all turn colors, and it's like you're looking at a watercolor."
He sighed, and Judy could see his eyes moving behind his eyelids as he kept describing the city. "I can remember all of the streets, you know. I can remember where all of the cabarets and restaurants were and the way they looked at night when they really came alive. The way the lights sparkled... The way the music sounded when it was a live band playing... I can walk down every one of those streets in my memory, but when I try to imagine turning around and looking back I can't see anything."
Nick's eyes suddenly opened and he leaned forward and looked directly into Judy's. She had known even before she met him that his eyes were green; it was one of the facts about him blandly recorded in the file that the Bureau of Prohibition had. But neither the words nor the little black-and-white photograph of him, perhaps an inch-and-a-half on a side, that were part of that file could capture just how vividly green they were, or how they absolutely shined when he turned his attention to something and really looked at it. "Why do you think that is?" he asked.
"I— I don't know," Judy stammered, caught completely off guard by the question.
It wasn't fair to Nick, no matter how much she wanted him to stay in the city, to ask him to do so, and she forced her own disappointment down, swallowing an icy lump as thick as tar to force the words out. There was a long moment, the only sound the record as it played on. Nick slumped back into his chair, and the fire was gone from his eyes as suddenly as it had appeared. "I don't regret it," he said at last, speaking each word so slowly that it was as though he was speaking a revelation that he was coming to.
"I don't regret it," he repeated, and Judy was sure that he was talking about his betrayal of Mr. Big.
She had once thought that Nick was a mammal of the very worst sort, one who had only sided against his boss the gang lord out of his own selfish desire to stay out of jail himself. Now, though, she wondered if she would have had the strength to do it, if she had lived the life that he had. In his own way, she was sure that Mr. Big had cared about Nick, and it was obvious that the opposite was true in some way. Seeing Mr. Big unresponsive had clearly been devastating for the fox and Judy wondered if Nick had been hoping that Mr. Big would be undiminished so that he could explain himself. From what Judy had read, and from what Nick had told her, she doubted very much that Mr. Big would have been particularly understanding or forgiving, but maybe that wasn't what Nick had needed. "You did the right thing," Judy offered, but the words sounded hollow even to her own ears.
"I suppose," Nick said, "But what do I do now?"
Once again, Judy was caught off guard by a question, but she couldn't even manage a response. The warring impulses in her mind—asking him to stay, telling him to leave—made it impossible, and her mouth was suddenly dry, her tongue thick and useless.
He was waiting for a response, Judy was sure of it, and if his face was all but expressionless in its usual default she thought she could see just how badly he wanted an answer. She licked her lips, trying to will words to come to them, but before she could even try starting a sentence she was saved by the sudden shrill ringing of an alarm clock.
It was as though a spell had been broken; at the same moment that Judy jerked upright Nick did the same, and he shot her a wry smile. "I guess it's time to get ready," he said as he stood up, and it was all that Judy could do to nod her agreement.
Judy's morning preparations seemed almost dreamlike, as though time were continuously jumping forward whenever she wasn't paying attention, and after she had showered and dressed in another one of the new outfits that Nick had purchased on their shopping trip she found she had no appetite for breakfast. Nick must have felt the same way, as while he had offered to make something for her he didn't make anything for himself when she declined. It seemed to be happening all too soon when they got into the Buchatti, Nick still fussing with the knot of his tie, and Judy took a deep breath and turned to him. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"Are you?" he replied.
Judy flexed her fingers around the steering wheel, considering the question. "No," she admitted, and Nick laughed, not unkindly.
"Chin up, Carrots," he said, "How many police officers do you think could have done this?"
"Well," Judy began, but he cut her off with a waggle of his finger.
"None of them could have done this, even with the help of a certain cunning fox," he said, placing one paw on his chest as he raised his nose in gesture of mock nobility, "So try to enjoy it, would you?"
Judy smiled, and it felt as though her chest might burst. "Thanks, Nick," she said, and he tapped the face of his watch with one claw.
"Speaking of which, we're going to be late if we keep lollygagging. You wouldn't want to miss it, would you?"
"Not for anything," Judy said, and as she turned the car over she realized that it might not be entirely true.
Sitting there, with Nick at her side, it seemed as though there was something she would have gladly traded away the opportunity to see Lionheart being walked into the station for.
The trip to the Precinct One station in the eerie gloom of pre-dawn went by quickly. It was, depending on the perspective, either very late at night or very early in the morning, and there were hardly any other cars on the road lighting up the pavement with their headlights. Virtually all of the stores, and even the restaurants and clubs, were shuttered, their lights off. If it hadn't been for the streetlights, which illuminated the streets but left most of the buildings to disappear into the dark, there would have been almost no light at all, the sky still a rich and empty purple-blue.
At last, though, Judy pulled up to the station and parked the Buchatti. The station, she saw, had a light set up to shine on the verdigris shield set onto the sign out front, and while the patina kept the badge from shining the light made all the details stand out in such sharp relief that it was almost unreal-looking. Nick gently elbowed Judy as he put his hat back on and cocked it at a jaunty angle. "Come on," he said, and when he climbed out of the car Judy hastened to follow.
Inside, the police station was nowhere near as busy as it had been during the day when most mammals were awake and about. Their footsteps echoed in the lobby, which was very nearly empty. The mammal at the front desk, a female warthog with chipped and yellowing tusks, sat up straighter as they approached, but the eyes set into her bumpy face still looked tired. "Good morning," she said, and while she didn't exactly sound chipper her tone was at least respectful, "You must be Agent Hopps and..."
As her massive head turned from Judy to Nick the warthog blinked, looked down at something on her desk, and then back at Nick. "Ah, Mr. Wilde," she finished.
"That's us, darlin'," Nick drawled, seeming completely unconcerned with the warthog's obvious surprise at seeing him.
He leaned against the desk, his tail wagging slowly from side to side, and he gave the receptionist what seemed to Judy like his highest wattage smile. "Oh, yes," the warthog replied, shuffling the papers on her desk; Judy thought she seemed somewhat unnerved, but her tone didn't change, "Chief Bogo told me to expect the two of you. He said you can wait in conference room five."
Nick nodded. "And where would that be?" he asked.
"Just through that door," the warthog said, pointing, "Then up the stairs and down the hall on the right. You can't miss it."
"I'm sure we won't," Nick replied, and pushed himself away from the desk, "Thank you very much."
"Thank you," Judy added, and the warthog nodded.
The conference room was, as the receptionist had said, impossible to miss. All of the rooms in the second floor hallway had brass plaques identifying them centered on the wooden doors, and the conference room had been left unlocked. Inside, it was entirely unremarkable; the room was dominated by a large wooden table, covered with scuffs and rings from mugs of coffee, and it was surrounded by a dozen or so chairs of various heights, the tallest of which looked barely high enough for Judy to be able to comfortably sit at and see over the top of the table. There was a chalkboard that looked as though it had been recently cleaned at one end of the room, although chalk dust looked as though it had become permanently ground into the cheap carpeting underneath it. There were half-a-dozen metal ashtrays spread across the table, and while they were all empty the stale smell of cigarette smoke clung to the room and the ceiling had slightly yellowed to a dingy off-white color from what had to have been years of smoking. Otherwise, the room was completely empty, but what commanded attention were the windows that ran along one entire wall, which overlooked the front entrance of the police station.
Nick claimed one of the chairs and leaned back, resting his feet on the table with his hat in his lap. "You wanted to go on the raid, didn't you?" he asked.
His tone was casual, but he seemed obviously interested in Judy's response. "I did," she admitted, "I hate waiting."
"Hmm," he said, a slow smile spreading across his muzzle, "I wouldn't have guessed it."
Judy looked out the window, which was just high enough off the floor for it to be somewhat awkward for her to see out of, and then back at him. "There's a lot that could go wrong," she said, "What if Lionheart doesn't go quietly? Or what if he was more careful about not holding onto anything incriminating himself? What if the officers—"
"What if you were there?" Nick interrupted, "Would it change any of those things?"
"It..." Judy said, "No, it wouldn't."
She saw the point he was getting at. What Lionheart did was, at this point, entirely out of their control, but that didn't make it any easier to stand by and do nothing. "But it doesn't make waiting easier," Judy said with a sigh.
Nick nodded, and then smoothly eased himself out of his chair to stand next to her by the window. "I can tell," he said, "Your foot's tapping."
Judy hadn't even realized she had been doing it, and forced herself to stop. "Sorry," she said.
"It's not me you should apologize to," Nick said solemnly, "Think about whoever's underneath us."
Judy laughed, and then tried sneaking a glance at Nick's watch. "You could just ask," he said, giving her a sidelong glance, "It's..."
He pushed the sleeve of his suit jacket back with a theatrical flourish. "Not quite three yet," Nick said.
Judy stifled a groan and tried to take her mind off the wait. Compared to when she had been getting ready at Nick's house, the minutes seemed to be ticking past with exceptional slowness, such that she would have sworn that Nick's watch had stopped if she couldn't see the second hand sweeping around its sub-dial. When at first it was fifteen minutes past three, and then half-an-hour past, she was unable to contain her restless energy and paced the conference room, while Nick continued watching from the window. Except for the slow movement of his tail back and forth he could have almost been a statue, and Judy envied his apparent patience. Finally, at nearly a quarter to four, Judy's ears pricked up at the far off sound of a siren and she sprinted to the window and jumped up on the part of the sill that protruded into the conference room.
The sun still hadn't risen, so the view of the city was still mostly dark except for the pools of light around the streetlights. Judy ignored what she could see, though, straining her ears at the sound of the siren, which was unmistakably getting closer. "Do you hear that?" she asked Nick eagerly; he had looked at her with obvious amusement when she had jumped onto the sill, and he shook his head.
"Bunny ears?" he asked, and Judy nodded eagerly.
"I can hear a siren," Judy said.
A few seconds later, Nick nodded. "I hear it too. Look."
He pointed at something that Judy couldn't quite make out, but a moment later she caught sight of a black police van followed by an escort of two police cars with their sirens wailing. "You could really see that?" Judy asked; although as far as she knew she had excellent vision she hadn't been able to distinguish the darkly colored police vehicles or their headlights from the dimly illuminated streets and buildings until they were only a couple blocks away.
"Fox eyes," Nick said with what sounded like no small measure of smugness.
Judy's breath seemed to catch in her throat as all three vehicles stopped in front of the station. From where she was standing on the sill and looking out the view was excellent, the lights around the station making it bright enough for her to see what was going on. Judy saw a kangaroo wearing a blue serge uniform marked with the unmistakable decorations of a police captain step out of one of the two police cars, and even without being able to see the kangaroo's face knew that it had to be Keeshan. The sour captain of Precinct Five was joined by a donkey with shaggy gray fur that Judy didn't recognize, but when he stepped out of the other car Judy saw that his uniform had the same rank markings as Keeshan's.
The two captains opened the thick metal doors at the back of the police van, and the mammal who stepped out after a moment was unmistakable. Leodore Lionheart was wearing a set of brilliantly crimson silk pajamas, his massive paws cuffed behind his back. Bogo stepped out of the van a moment later and began marching the lion towards the station, the two police captains at Lionheart's sides. Lionheart wasn't much taller than Keeshan was, but as powerfully built as the kangaroo was he was still far stronger looking, his enormous shoulders at least three times as wide as hers. The gang lord was icily silent, his features set into a tremendous scowl, and he seemed to be ignoring his escorts as they led him into the station and out of the view of the window.
A powerful sense of relief washed over Judy; the raid had clearly been a success and if there was any justice in the world Lionheart would never walk the streets of Zootopia as a free mammal ever again. "So that's that," Nick said, wonder evident in his voice, "We did it."
Judy looked down at him; standing on the window sill made her taller than him, which was an unusual feeling in and of itself, but as she looked at him, his pride plainly written across his face, her heart leaped in her chest and she acted before she could even think.
Judy kissed Nick.
Almost instantly she pulled back, realizing what she had done, and barely managed to stay standing as she fell off the window sill and back onto the floor of the conference room. "I'm sorry," she said, feeling her ears flush with heat.
"Come again?" Nick said, his voice almost completely empty of emotion.
His surprise was written across his features, his pupils narrowed to mere pinpricks and his tail straight back and bushier than Judy had ever seen it. The words came out of Judy's mouth in an uncontrollable flow, and she couldn't stop herself from crying. She had realized, in the moment after she kissed him, that it wasn't simply a matter of caring about Nick. She loved him, and loved him enough to realize why she couldn't. Why she shouldn't. "I— I shouldn't have done that," she sobbed, "I know you— you're going to go back to P-Purris but I w-want you to s-s-stay but that's so s-selfish of me b-b-because it's not safe and, and, and I j-just want y-you to be h-ha—"
Judy hadn't been able to control the words herself, but she stopped when Nick leaned over and put a single finger against her lips. "Judy," he said softly, "Do you know what I want?"
She shook her head miserably, the tears rolling down her cheeks as her entire body shook. "I want you," he said, and before she could react he kissed her.
When she had kissed him, it had barely been more than a peck, just her lips brushing against his. When he returned the kiss, Judy didn't have the words to describe it. She could feel him as he wrapped his arms around her, wiping at her tears even as he kissed her as she had never been kissed. His lips were warm, almost hungry, his nose a cold and wet pressure against her cheek as he tilted his head to make their mismatched muzzles fit together. The taste of him was somehow primal, and Judy could feel her nose filling with the scent of him, that somehow wonderful and almost floral musk, as her own hunger awoke and sent shocks down her body. It was like grabbing a live wire but with pleasure instead of pain, as from the tips of her ears to her toes her entire world shrunk down to just the fox. Her fox, whose every movement, every bit of contact between them, made her want more as a growing heat formed in her belly.
He broke it off first, pulling his head back as he caught a breath and then simply looked her in the eye. They were so close, their noses almost touching, that Judy had never before seen Nick so well. She had never seen him happier; she had somehow ended up with her paws wrapped around him, and she could feel his tail wagging against them as it moved faster than it ever had before. "You really mean it?" she said, and Nick didn't say anything.
He didn't have to. They had each other, and for the moment nothing else mattered. Everything that would stand before them could wait; there was only the singularly perfect moment in which Judy realized that she had never been happier. Her smile was so wide that it hurt. She nuzzled against his chest, wishing that there weren't the layers of fabric of his suit to separate her from his fur, and squeezed her arms around him tighter.
Time, unfortunately, seemed to have returned to its normal speed, and while Judy wished they could have stayed standing there forever she could hear the heavy tread of hooves approaching the conference room. "Bogo's coming," she said as she gently untangled herself from Nick.
"Petting party's over," he said with a sigh, but he was still smiling as he took one of the seats.
"We're not done yet," Judy promised, and his smile widened a degree.
"How do I look?" Judy asked as she tried to smooth her dress; considering that she had first cried and then been necking with him, she had the sudden worry that she might look completely disheveled in front of the police chief.
"Beautiful," he said simply and with complete sincerity.
Before she could say anything else, the door swung open and Bogo filled the frame. "Agent Hopps, Mr. Wilde," he said, and Judy had never heard him more cheerful.
He actually looked as though he was almost smiling, and his good-humor continued. "I see you didn't sleep well. I understand, of course," he said, and Judy let the remark slide.
Maybe it was his attempt at a joke, or maybe her eyes were still puffy from crying and he had misinterpreted it as tiredness, but Judy didn't mind. In fact, she wished that he would finish whatever it was he was going to say so that she could get back to what she had been doing. The warmth in her midsection had lessened but not gone away, and Judy forced herself not to fidget as she looked at the police chief. "The raid went well?" she asked, surprised her voice sounded as even as it did.
Bogo nodded. "It hardly could have gone better," he said with obvious satisfaction, "I do apologize for making you wait. There will be quite a bit of evidence to go through—it might take weeks to assemble all of the charges against Lionheart."
The buffalo shrugged his massive shoulders. "Your work, however, is done. You have my sincere thanks," he said, and after a moment he turned to Nick, "Both of you."
"What about Medvedeva?" Nick asked suddenly.
All of the evidence that they had collected pointed to the polar bear being framed, and Judy felt herself smile at the obvious show of compassion from Nick. No matter what he might claim or how he might act, she knew his heart was far from hard.
"The charges against Ms. Medvedeva should be dropped shortly," Bogo said, "It should be quite fast."
Nick nodded, and another question popped into Judy's head. "And Quill?" she asked.
"As for Mr. Quill..." Bogo said.
The chief paused a moment. "Now that we have Lionheart, he might be more cooperative. I'll be disappointed if we miss a single charge against the self-proclaimed king of Zootopia."
Bogo started to say something else, but stopped when there was suddenly a knock at the door. The mammal on the other side, a gangly camel, opened it hesitantly. "Chief Bogo, sir?" he said, "There's something— You're needed out here."
The buffalo sighed and pinched the bridge of his muzzle, but he walked out of the room, turning before he closed the door. "I'll be back to discuss your letter of recommendation, Agent Hopps," he said, and then he was gone.
Judy turned to Nick. "What do you think that's about?" she asked.
"You can't hear them?" he teased.
Judy shook her head. "They walked away from the door," she said, and Nick shrugged.
"I guess we wait, then," he said, and he sidled back up to her, "Now, I believe we were in the middle of something. If these lovely ears of yours can give us an early warning, that is."
He stroked one of her ears delicately, and Judy smiled up at him and reluctantly brushed his paw away. "We'll have to wait. I can hear other mammals walking around this floor now," she said, which was the truth; Lionheart's arrest had seemed to coincide with the start of a shift, and the previously quiet second floor was beginning to fill with sound.
"I see," he said, "You know, suddenly I understand why you hate waiting."
Judy laughed. "I'll bet you do," she said, and they lapsed into silence.
There was so much she wanted to talk to him about, so much that they needed to talk about, but it didn't seem like the right time to do so when they could be interrupted at any moment. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before Bogo returned, but his mood had changed entirely, his chin grimly set and his eyes hard. He was followed by three uniformed officers, including the camel who had summoned him, and an anxious-looking koala lugging a wooden case. "Ms. Hopps," Bogo said sharply, "Do you have your revolver?"
"I— Yes," Judy said, "It's in my purse."
Bogo nodded to the camel, who grabbed Judy's purse before she could protest and opened it. He took a clean white handkerchief and pulled the little snub-nosed revolver out. "Get your sample," Bogo said to the koala, who delicately set his case on the table and flipped it open.
The koala took a cotton swab and ran it along the muzzle and handle of the revolver, and then carefully set it aside. "What's this about?" Judy asked, completely confused at the sudden shift in the chief's behavior and his sudden interest in her gun.
Bogo ignored her completely. "Take the revolver to ballistics," he snapped at the camel, "I want a bullet comparison yesterday."
The camel hastily folded the handkerchief around the revolver and sprinted out of the room. "Stockwell," Bogo said to the koala, "Test their paws, too."
Judy was too stunned to protest when the koala ran a fresh swab across both of her paws, but when he set it aside and moved to do the same to Nick, the fox pulled his paws away from the table. "What are you doing?" Nick asked, and there was a note of fear to his words.
Bogo again didn't respond, and he looked to the two officers left in the room, a female bison nearly as tall as Bogo and a male gaur easily larger than both of them. They began moving forward, their faces as grim as the chief's, and for the first time since re-entering the room Bogo addressed Nick directly. "Make this difficult," he seethed, and there was a raw fury in his voice and such obvious hatred in his eyes directed at Nick that Judy could feel her blood chill even just being next to him.
Nick dropped his paws back to the table, and Stockwell took his samples. "Do the test now," Bogo told the koala, his eyes not leaving Nick for a second.
The koala awkwardly climbed up onto a chair and fumbled a number of beakers and little glass bowls out of the case and set them on the table a fair distance away from Nick and Judy. Once he had his tools out, though, he manipulated them with obvious ease, quickly setting up six clear glass bowls. He prepared his three swabs by adding them to test tubes filled halfway with something clear and sharp-smelling, and then split the contents of the test tubes, for each one pouring half into one empty bowl and half into another until all six were full. Stockwell moved from bowl to bowl and added more liquids. The contents of two of the bowls, ones which had the samples from Judy's revolver and Nick's paws, almost instantly turned pink, while both bowls that had the sample from Judy's paws remained clear. "The gun and the fox are both positive for nitrites," the koala said, "You've got your fox."
"What are you talking about?" Nick demanded, but instead of answering Bogo turned to the two grim officers by the door.
"Arrest him," Bogo said, and Judy's confusion refused to resolve itself.
It didn't seem possible that Nick could be arrested, not even when the bison pulled out a pair of fox-sized cuffs and the gaur produced a similarly-sized muzzle. "No," Nick said, and there was no mistaking the panic in his voice, "No, you can't do this! Judy, you can't let them do this!"
Judy tried lunging for him but suddenly couldn't, one of Bogo's massive hooves on her shoulder in an iron grip. Nick tried to squirm away from the two massive officers, begging and pleading all the while, and even when the bison had forced his paws behind his back and cuffed them together he didn't stop fighting as the gaur tried to wrestle the muzzle onto him. "What are you doing?" Judy asked, "Why are you arresting him? Stop!"
Tears were flowing down her cheeks freely again as reality refused to resolve itself into anything other than Nick's arrest. The gaur, in apparent frustration at the fox's continued struggles to escape the muzzle, hit him in the chest hard enough to knock the wind out of him, and Nick wheezed wordlessly, doubled over, until the straps were secured around his muzzle and he was dragged out of the room.
Judy was left alone with Bogo, his grip still punishingly hard as she tried to turn around and face him. "Why did you do that?" she demanded, her voice cracking, "Why?"
Bogo's scowl, if anything, deepened. "I knew Zweihorn and River were crooked," he said harshly, "After they arrested you, Ms. Hopps, I started having them followed when I had officers free."
"What?" Judy asked, still completely lost, "What does that have to do with Nick?"
"They were both murdered late yesterday night," Bogo continued, "I had one officer keeping watch on Zweihorn's house. They saw your fox enter her house."
"No, that couldn't have been Nick," Judy said, "It must have been a different fox. Or... or they were lying. It's Lionheart trying to frame him, it has to be."
She was speaking wildly, just saying whatever came to mind, but Bogo's pitiless gaze and vice-like grip didn't change. "Then explain this," he said, and dropped a folder from his free hoof onto the table.
The folder opened as it hit the table, revealing a glossy photograph. The picture was grainy, the shot poorly illuminated by a streetlight, but it was of a modest looking home with a fox standing on the doorstep, a revolver in one paw. The fox was, unquestionably, Nick, his features grimly set. Judy's protests died in her mouth.
"I'll be very interested in hearing why Wilde killed two officers," Bogo said, and in a single smooth gesture he cuffed Judy's paws behind her back.