Left alone in the interrogation room, Judy's thoughts immediately went to trying to figure out how Nick had been framed. She felt strangely detached from her body, the sensation of the cold metal cuffs around her wrists and the uncomfortable chair she sat on receding as she tried to focus on anything other than on how badly she had failed him.
The Nick that only lived in her head hadn't returned after Moulmein's departure, not to offer up any further words of encouragement or to condemn her. It was comforting to imagine that the real Nick would understand, that he might even forgive her for failing to keep her promise. If you do what I say, I promise I'll keep you safe.
It seemed as though it had been a lifetime ago when she had made that vow. It had been before she really knew Nick, before she had given him any reason to trust her or risk his own life by leaving Podunk. She had meant the words, though, even when she had thought that Nick was nothing more than a self-serving criminal who had talked his way out of the punishment he deserved, even before…
Unbidden, Judy's paw went to her lips. She barely felt her fingers, the memory of the way that Nick's lips had felt against hers rising in her mind. She remembered the way he had looked, when all of the barriers he placed between himself and the world had fallen away and she had been the only thing that mattered to him. Judy blinked, but her eyes were dry and she pushed the memory aside. She had already cried her tears, and while Nick's absence ate at her heart like nothing she had ever experienced, there was a job that only she could do. Moulmein was right about one thing: Nick was almost certainly sitting in a room in the county jail very similar to the one that she was in, but he wasn't likely to be alone.
She was, though, and with nothing but time she tried to put the details she knew into some semblance of order. The chain of events that Nick was accused of had to have a weak link somewhere; it was just a matter of finding it. Judy thought about what the case against Nick must entail. The police must have believed that Nick had visited two addresses late the previous night, addresses that he had no logical reason to know. Judy distinctly remembered Nick telling her that he had never met either Zweihorn or River before running into them at the Precinct One police station, and while it wasn't anything rock solid it did seem like something of a useful foothold because of what it implied. For it to even be physically possible for Nick to murder the officers and Zweihorn's husband he would have had to know where their homes were, go to them and commit the murders, and then get back to his own house before Judy had woken up. That, in turn, meant that he would have had to steal her gun out of her purse and sneak out of the house without waking her up. Neither seemed possible; she had slept with her purse next to the sofa, and she doubted that he could have opened the garage door, let alone turned the Buchatti's noisy engine over, without waking her up. Besides, while the limp that Nick had walked with ever since the beam had fallen on his leg during the fire at her apartment had been gradually getting better, it wasn't gone yet. Judy wasn't sure that he could have driven the car even if he had wanted to, and without a car it didn't seem likely that he could have gotten around quickly enough to commit two murders and get back.
The next link in the chain was the photograph that showed Nick on Zweihorn's doorstep, a revolver identical to her own clearly visible in his paws. How did the police think Nick had gotten into the house? Judy didn't know where the bodies had been found, but she couldn't imagine that either officer would have just opened their door for a fox holding a gun. Even if they had, both were so much taller than Nick that he wouldn't have been able to do much—Judy's revolver was too low of a caliber to hurt a rhinoceros or a hippopotamus unless it was perfectly aimed at extremely close range.
That brought her to the next part of the problem; if Nick had stood on an officer's doorstop and shot them in plain view of whoever had taken the picture of him standing there, why hadn't they done anything when they saw it happen? Bogo had said that it was an officer who had been watching Zweihorn's house, an officer who could have at least tried to arrest Nick. Even if Zweihorn had answered the door and been immediately shot, her husband had ended up dead too, which suggested that the murderer would have had to have gone into the house.
Somehow, though, Nick's paws had ended up covered in nitrites, as had her gun, which she hadn't fired in weeks. Judy had visited a gun range once, almost immediately after getting her revolver, but the Bureau of Prohibition (or at least Director Bellwether) was too cheap to pay for any ammunition unless it was to replace bullets used in the course of a prohibition agent's duty. On Judy's meager pay, it hadn't seemed worth it to practice much. Judy didn't know how long the residue of firing a gun could stay on a gun, or on the paws of the mammal who fired it, but it was another potential weakness in the official story.
The conclusion that Judy kept coming to, though, was that Lionheart had even more influence in the ZPD than Bogo suspected. The photograph and the test for gunshot residue must have been faked somehow, and Judy suspected that when a comparison was done of a bullet fired from her gun to the ones recovered from the bodies of River and the Zweihorns it would be a perfect match. How many mammals would have to be involved to tamper with so much evidence? Judy knew, both from River and Zweihorn and from what Bogo himself had said, that there were corrupt officers within the ZPD, but to her it seemed as though each different source must have had at least one officer involved to frame Nick. At least three, then, or possibly more.
Judy frowned as she looked down at the surface of the table she was connected to, which despite being made of unpainted stainless steel was far too scratched for her reflection to show up as anything other than a vaguely bunny-shaped blob. The mammal (Stockwell, Judy thought) who had performed the gunshot residue test on Nick had seemed particularly nervous. Had he been coerced into doctoring the results? Judy made a mental note to herself to follow up with him as soon as she could, trying to think of her release as something that simply had to happen.
Judy was so lost in her thoughts that she missed the squeal of the hinges of the door to the interrogation room open, and it wasn't until she heard an incredibly deep cough coming from behind her that she realized she was no longer alone. She turned her head around as much as she could; there wasn't quite enough slack in the chain connecting her paws to the table for her to turn around and look without twisting her neck at an awkward angle. Detective Moulmein stood there, nearly filling the frame of the door, and standing in front of him was a significantly smaller mammal. "Judy," Moulmein said, "Allow me to introduce Mrs. Darnielle."
There was something different about Moulmein, although Judy couldn't quite put a finger on it. There seemed to be more tension in the way he held himself, his expression carefully neutral and his words unnaturally flat. Maybe Bogo hadn't liked the way that the elephant had conducted his initial interrogation and had had words with him, or maybe Moulmein was trying to conceal dislike for the mammal standing in front of him. Judy certainly couldn't tell, but she filed the detail away nonetheless, wondering what had resulted in the change.
If Moulmein did dislike Mrs. Darnielle, Judy didn't see an obvious reason why; Darnielle was a mountain goat, her thick white fur trimmed short in what was likely a concession to the temperature outside of the coldest parts of the city. She was middle-aged and dressed in a way that almost reminded Judy of a schoolteacher—a conservative and plain dress that didn't do anything to flatter her somewhat pudgy figure and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched near the end of her broad black nose. The one touch that set Darnielle apart from any teacher Judy had ever had were the earrings she wore, which glittered and sparkled too much even in the harsh light of the interrogation room to be anything but diamonds.
"She's an attorney who works pro bono for, ah, indigent clients," Moulmein continued, and in his brief moment of hesitation Judy thought he had substituted a different word than the one he intended to use.
His face remained carefully neutral, though, and the mountain goat simply beamed up at him.
"Thank you, Detective Moulmein," Darnielle said, and her voice made her seem even more like a teacher; she spoke in the same slow and carefully enunciated tones as someone who spent most of their time with young mammals, and she sounded almost painfully cheerful, "It's very important that everyone gets a lawyer, isn't it?"
Moulmein didn't look away, but he didn't look at her either. "As you say," he said finally, and then stepped back and shut the door.
Judy found herself liking Darnielle already, and the mountain goat was all smiles as she walked over to where Judy sat, her hooves clicking against the cheap linoleum of the floor, and introduced herself directly. "Jane Darnielle," she said, "I heard from Chief Bogo that you wanted to speak to a lawyer."
"Judy Hopps," Judy introduced herself, and offered a paw to shake.
From the introduction, Judy guessed that perhaps she had been right about Bogo taking exception to how Moulmein had interrogated her, and suspected that the chief might have pulled some strings to get the mountain goat to show up. Judy wouldn't have ever thought of herself as indigent, but as she had perhaps ten dollars left to her name (and that in the bank) after her apartment had burned down, she found herself suddenly grateful for the lawyer's appearance.
Darnielle gave her paw a single brisk pump and then made her way around to the chair that Moulmein had sat in, setting a manila folder onto the table. "I hear that you're a prohi," Darnielle continued, "I've never heard of a bunny becoming one. Your parents must be very proud."
Darnielle's enthusiasm didn't seem to have an off switch, her words coming out in the same bright tone as everything else she had said so far. Judy struggled for a moment to come up with the proper response, as "proud" certainly wasn't the word that she would have picked for her parents' feelings about her job, and she settled on making a polite noise of agreement before starting her own line of questioning. "Can you find out if Nick is alright? Can you get me a copy of all of the police reports about his arrest? Can you—"
"Judy, Judy, Judy," Darnielle interrupted, a laugh audible in her voice as she held up her hooves as though she was trying to block Judy's words, "Hold on just a minute, please. "
"But Nick—" Judy began desperately, and Darnielle held up her hooves again.
"Judy," she said, and there was that slight laugh in the word again, "I'm here as your legal counsel, OK? I can help you, but you have to listen first, OK?"
Judy took a deep breath and nodded, not trusting herself to speak without asking more questions. "That's it," Darnielle said, "Now, you know you don't have to answer any questions the police ask without me being there, right?"
"Yes, yes," Judy said impatiently, "But—"
"Now, Chief Bogo doesn't think you had any kind of involvement in the murders, which is a wonderful start, it really is," Darnielle plowed on as though Judy hadn't spoken, "I'm sure this can all be wrapped up and you can put all this behind you."
Darnielle waved her arms vaguely to take in the interrogation room. "But what about Nick?" Judy asked.
Darnielle's smile faded a degree. "I'm very sorry, Judy, but he looks guilty."
"That doesn't mean that it's true," Judy replied instantly, but an awful sort of sympathy had taken hold of Darnielle's features.
"Of course not," Darnielle said soothingly, "But you really ought to take a look through these files."
She slid the manila folder over to Judy and then stood up, pulling at the front of her dress to smooth out the creases. "I'll have someone check on Mr. Wilde, I promise," the lawyer said, "I don't think the police will have any more questions for you, though, so just keep your chin up, OK? I'm sure this is all very frightening for you, but it'll be over soon."
"I'm not frightened," Judy said.
Her frustration with the way the mountain goat spoke to her had reached a boiling point and Judy had nearly spat out the words. It was as though the lawyer thought she was a helpless kit who needed to be guided and prodded and not a fully grown bunny. "I'm worried about Nick."
"Of course you are," Darnielle said, "Just remember, I'll be here if you need me."
The mountain goat had given absolutely no indication that she had noticed Judy's outburst, and she simply nodded in Judy's direction. "It was nice to meet you," she said, and then she was gone.
Moulmein entered the room an instant later, but Judy's focus had turned to the manila folder that Darnielle had left her, and she was barely paying any attention to the elephant as he undid the chain connecting her to the table and escorted her out of the interrogation room.
Judy had ended up in the exact same cell that she had spent the night in after River and Zweihorn had arrested her. She had wondered briefly if it had been deliberate on the part of the officers who had escorted her from the interrogation room to the holding cells, or if it was simply coincidence, but the thought had been an idle one and she set it aside to examine the papers that Darnielle had left her.
There was no question in her mind that the files were incomplete, with certain details excluded, but from what was present Judy understood the lawyer's lack of faith in Nick's innocence. As Judy had feared, the ballistic comparison of a bullet from her gun had been a perfect match for the ones at the crime scenes. Although there were no autopsy resulted included in the file, there was a brief summary indicating that all three mammals had been shot through the eye, with the Zweihorns found at their dining room table and River found in his bed. Whatever else Nick might be accused of, Judy doubted anyone would seriously suggest that he had been able to move the corpses; the lightest of the three had to weigh about a hundred times more than the fox did.
There wasn't any information on the officer who had taken the picture of Nick at the Zweihorn's doorstep, or even a copy of the picture itself, but there was a brief extract from what had to have been the report that the officer wrote. Judy had puzzled over the simple sentences, trying to tease out what they implied. The fox was let into the house by Angela Zweihorn at approximately 11:30 PM and was still in the house when surveillance ended at 12:30 AM. No disturbances were noted.
Was it important that Nick was referred to only as "the fox?" It might mean that the officer hadn't been able to identify Nick by themselves, or it might simply mean that they had been unaware of who Nick was. Judy found it awfully convenient, though, that the officer hadn't heard any gunshots or bothered to keep the house under surveillance until "the fox" had left.
The piece of evidence referenced in the slim file that made Judy understand why Bogo didn't suspect her of having any involvement wasn't included, only described, but Judy wished that she could have seen it herself. It had been part of the listing of items Nick had had on his body at the time of his arrest, and beyond the items Judy had known would be included, like his hat and his wallet, was what had been included on the list as a typewritten memo. The text of the memo had been included on a subsequent page: There can still be a seat at the table for you. The rabbit has a tool you'll need to borrow.
Underneath the sentences had been the addresses for Zweihorn and River, but while Judy knew that the memo had to be the major reason the police thought she wasn't involved she couldn't understand why they had fallen for it. It did have some similarities to the notes that she and Nick had found, which Lionheart himself had written and given to the mammals in his employ. However, the memo supposedly found in Nick's pocket had been typewritten, which made Judy suspect that Lionheart had intended to make it look like one of his rivals had hired Nick to kill the two crooked cops after they had outlived their usefulness.
It didn't make any kind of sense to her, though, that someone could believe that Nick would simultaneously work to arrest Lionheart and do a job for him, or that he could be so sloppy as to not dispose of the incriminating memo.
Judy wasn't sure how much time she had spent, reading through the files over and over again until she felt as though she almost had them memorized, until a voice interrupted her concentration. "Excuse me?" the voice, which was vaguely familiar, said, "Were you not hungry?"
Judy tore her eyes away and looked up from where she sat on the thin cot to look out to the cell's entrance. There was a small opening set into the thick iron bars that formed one wall of the cell, an opening too small for even a bunny to squeeze through, but just inside her cell was a metal tray with a metal cup and bowl on it. The cup was full of water and the bowl with what could generously be described as a salad, as the leaves and vegetables that made it up were wilted and browning at their edges.
Judy realized, with a quick glance over her shoulder at the one window in the cell that had a view outside, that it was already nighttime and she had missed that dinner had been served. The mammal who had spoken, a fat cheetah in a police uniform, had his paws on a small cart that had the remains of a few other meals on it and Judy realized that he must have been cleaning up. It took her a moment to place the cheetah's name, and she still wasn't sure if she had remembered it right until she spoke. "It's Ben, right?" she asked, "You called the Bureau of Prohibition for me."
The cheetah's chubby face, which had been set into an expression of polite inquiry, suddenly brightened. "It's you! The bunny prohi!" he just about squealed, his voice nearly girlish in his excitement.
His face suddenly took on an expression of almost comical puzzlement. "What are you doing back in one of these cells?"
Judy sighed. "It's a long story," she said.
"I've got the time, if you want to tell it," Ben replied.
Judy considered the offer for a moment. Mrs. Darnielle had told her she didn't have to talk to the police, but talking to a bored jail guard wasn't quite the same. She pushed herself off the cot and started walking towards the bars that separated her from Ben and the tray of food. "Do you mind?" Judy asked, pointing at the tray.
She hadn't eaten anything all day, and despite herself, the bowl of wilted greens suddenly looked like a meal fit for a king. Ben waved her concern away, taking a seat on the floor of the corridor and propping his head up on both paws. "Be my guest," he said cheerfully, and Judy took a seat herself, pulling the tray into her lap.
"There was a lot that happened after I got out of jail last time," Judy began, and she saw that she had the guard's complete attention.
Ben turned out to be an excellent listener, and while Judy didn't think that she was much of a storyteller he had reacted as though she was. Even with all the details she had left out (most of all, what she and Nick had done only moments before his arrest) and her tendency to jump around, he had still listened, wide-eyed, occasionally gasping or making little noises of sympathy. By the time she had finished both her story and the salad, the cheetah's eyes were visibly wet. "That poor fox!" he said.
"And you, too," he hastily added.
It didn't feel better, exactly, to have told someone else everything that had happened, but it was almost as though a load that Judy hadn't realized she had been carrying had been removed. "It's just not right," Ben continued, and his indignation on her behalf filled her with a sort of warmth that made her blink her eyes.
"That's a matter for the courts, I think," Bellwether interrupted and Ben shot to his feet so quickly it was as though someone had dropped a red-hot poker in his lap.
Judy hadn't heard the ewe approach, she had been so focused on recalling the details of the investigation and trying to put them into a way that made some sort of sense, and it was clear that Ben hadn't been aware of Bellwether's presence either. She had just enough time to wonder how long her boss had been standing near her cell, listening, before Ben starting speaking in a rapid burst of words. "Director Bellwether! What a surprise it is to see you here again! I didn't think—"
"Obviously not," Bellwether interrupted, a small and placid smile on her face, "Would you give us a moment?"
She spoke slowly, gesturing at Judy in an exaggerated way, and Ben's head bobbled up and down with such an intensity that Judy thought it would about come off, his chubby cheeks and belly jiggling like gelatin. "Of course, of course," Ben said, and then he was off with a speed that was surprising for a cheetah, even a fat one, leaving behind his cart.
"Such a simple, sweet little mind," Bellwether observed, seemingly idly, "You really must be careful about what you say to a predator."
Judy stood up slowly, looking through the bars at her boss. Judy didn't know what time it was, but Bellwether certainly didn't look tired. In fact, the sheep looked more cheerful than Judy had ever seen her before. "Director Bellwether," Judy said, doing her best for a level tone.
"You lied to me, Agen —Ms. Hopps," Bellwether said, with a deliberately and exaggeratedly fake slip of the tongue, "I did have to fire you, of course."
"Of course," Judy replied.
Somehow, Judy had known that it was coming, but she had expected to feel something more than a mild annoyance at the little game Bellwether was feeling. "You could have avoided all of this if you had just been honest with me," Bellwether continued, and Judy thought she saw a flicker of disappointment cross the sheep's face that her carefully careless firing hadn't produced a reaction, "You really were quite far along in your investigation, weren't you? Can you imagine how I felt when I got the call from Bogo that they had arrested Lionheart? The surprise I felt?"
Bellwether's tone was light, but her eyes behind her glasses were hard. Judy shook her head. "I can't."
"But when I heard that Wilde had been arrested for murder…" Bellwether said, trailing off the words deliberately, "That wasn't a surprise. It was inevitable, really. Don't you see why I wanted you to arrest him before he could do something like that?"
Bellwether's words sounded almost plaintive, as though she was frustrated that Judy couldn't see what she did. "Nick didn't kill anyone," Judy replied, and Bellwether shook her head.
"Judy, you need to think with your head," she said, "It's what makes us better than predators, you know. All the evidence says that he's guilty. I've looked at it myself. I've spoken to Bogo."
Bellwether leaned in, her face inches from the bars that separated them. "I've spoken to Wilde," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Judy all but threw herself at the bars, but Bellwether simply took a step back. "He's not nearly as smug as he used to be," Bellwether said, "He's guilty as sin."
"What did you tell him?" Judy asked, and her voice had a furious intensity that surprised even herself.
"That's really none of your concern now," Bellwether said, "Now listen to me, Judy. You really did do a wonderful job catching Lionheart. But you lied to me. You bent the rules and kept a dangerous fox on the streets, and when he did what predators are built to do, those deaths are your responsibility in everything but the legal sense."
Bellwether sighed. "If I had my way, you'd never work for the government ever again. But now that Bogo's had the chance to calm down a little and think, he's still willing to uphold his end of the deal he made with you."
"The deal?" Judy replied numbly.
She had been too busy thinking of what Bellwether might have said or done to Nick to really follow the thread of her words any further. "To admit you to the police academy, of course," Bellwether said, smiling slightly, "He's much more forgiving than I am, I admit. He seems to think that you couldn't have seen Wilde's betrayal coming."
Bellwether spread her hooves. "Of course, if you had known about what Wilde was doing, it would throw everything related to Lionheart's arrest into question, wouldn't it? I can't say that I enjoy it, but for the good of the case I had no choice but to take responsibility for the investigation."
Judy suddenly realized the point that Bellwether had been driving at all along and her reason for visiting. "Do you mean credit?" Judy asked, and was rewarded by a hurt look that almost appeared genuine.
"They're close enough, I think. Still, everyone wins. Lionheart has been arrested, you'll get to become a police officer, and J. Edgar Hooves himself is coming to meet me next week."
Bellwether seemed particularly pleased with herself as she name-dropped the head of the Bureau of Investigation, and in that instant Judy didn't think she had ever hated a mammal more than she did Bellwether. "Nick doesn't win," Judy said, and Bellwether laughed.
"He's getting exactly what he deserves," she said, "Why would you give up your own victory for him?"
"I wouldn't," Judy said, and Bellwether nodded approvingly.
"Then you'll be out of this cell tomorrow morning," Bellwether said, and she walked away without so much as a goodbye.
It wasn't the first time that Judy had lied to Bellwether, but as she sat back down on her cot and started flipping through the case file again, she thought that it might end up being the most satisfying.
Author's Notes:
The title of this chapter, "Without You, Sweetheart," comes from a 1927 Vincent Lopez song. I probably don't even need to explain this one, do I? It seemed appropriate for Judy without Nick.
If you've ever watched an episode of any of the many, many police procedurals set in the US, you're probably familiar with the part of the Miranda rights that goes along the lines of "You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you." If you're an American, that's a crucial part of the current understanding of your Sixth Amendment rights, but it wasn't always the case.
In 1932 the Supreme Court determined, in their ruling on Powell v. Alabama, that defendants in cases in which the death penalty could be applied were entitled to free legal counsel, although it wasn't until the Supreme Court's decision in the 1963 case of Gideon v. Wainwright that defendants in any case always had the right to legal counsel regardless of their ability to pay for it. What this means, in practical terms, is that in 1927 Nick and Judy would both have the right to an attorney but only if they could pay for it. Of course, even before the ruling on Gideon v. Wainwright there were lawyers who worked pro bono as a public service to the poor, but the police had no legal obligation to provide information on this.
This probably sounds horribly unfair, and it was. Competent legal counsel makes an enormous difference in the outcome of cases, and things used to be even worse for poor people accused of crimes.
Nick did tell Judy, in chapter 20, that he had never met either River or Zweihorn prior to their encounter at the police station, although he did know them by reputation. Judy made her promise to Nick all the way back in chapter 6, and in this chapter she did remember the wording exactly right.
The mountain goat lawyer, Mrs. Darnielle, takes her last name from the lead singer of the American band the Mountain Goats.
This is the second appearance that Clawhauser makes in this story, having first appeared as a night guard for the cells in the station back in chapter 4.
Gelatin desserts were actually pretty popular in the 1920s, as more advanced production techniques converted it from being a food that only the rich could afford to something anyone could. The idea that gelatin was once expensive may seem somewhat odd, considering that Jell-O can be purchased extremely cheaply, but prior to the 19th century it was time-consuming and difficult to make. With the development of a method for making powdered gelatin and an aggressive advertising push that used the pioneering technique of distributing free cookbooks, Jell-O quickly became popular in the early 20th century. Although gelatin is typically thought to be made out of hooves (which are certainly a viable source of the necessary collagen), it can also be made out of the bones of fish and chickens, thus making it viable as something that could exist in the world of Zootopia.
J. Edgar Hooves is a reference to J. Edgar Hoover, the first head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1927 he was in charge of the Bureau of Investigation, the bureau that would eventually become the FBI, and was certainly a powerful player in US law enforcement.
As always, thanks for reading! As always, I'd love to know what you thought!