Chapter 8: Things Go Bump In The Night
It was a calm summer night of late. The streets were silent with hardly any cars driving around as well as little to no nocturnal animals walking about. At the ZPD station almost all the police vehicles were back, only a few were out for the night patrol. Inside the ZPD, the lights were dim and the only light shining brightly was to an office in the back of the station. Clawhauser had stayed after hours logging in the information from the current situation in the swamp district into the servers. He was in a main office for any officer to use for their investigation should they need it. He had a few more documents to type up and other things as picture and video recordings. He had a soda cup with a straw in it on the side of the keyboard in case he got thirsty. He hummed a little tune as he quickly typed.
Clawhauser took a little break popping his fingers as he stretched his arms and legs out, "Phew! Just two more pages and I'll be heading home." He joyfully told himself.
He resumed to type and uploaded files from a flash drive.
Outside the station, three suspicious characters were up to no good as they looked around the area as they approached the station. Tapirs dressed in black suits, with small tools attached to there belt and sashes, entered quietly one with a satchel holding the door. Once inside they looked around to see which way would lead to the evidence room. They looked separately in the offices, searching for the evidence room that contained the device confiscated from Gabriel. Clawhauser had been unaware as he was busy finishing up entering the report. Until he had heard a nearby door shut loudly. He got off the chair to see if there were any officers from the night shift coming in.
He peeked out the door and saw one of the intruders checking the office next door to him, "Trespassers, what are they doing in the station? Oh no what am I going to do?" He asked himself in a low tone voice to avoid being heard.
Clawhauser switches off the light and puts the computer into sleep mode to turn off the monitor. As he heads back to the door one of the tapir's silhouette appears on the blurry glass as it approached. The door knob slowly turns and Clawhauser gets nervous trying to figure out what to do.
"Ben, look over there." One of the tapirs called out.
The tapir stopped opening the door leaving a crack of light shining through the dark room. Clawhauser was relieved at the sight as he wiped off pretend sweat from his brows. The three tapirs gather around the door with evidence locker on the glass, at the end of the hallway was a window. Clawhauser peeked through the opening of the door giving him sight straight ahead to view the tapirs.
"Here it is, now let's get the device and head on out of here. The boss man sure is going to reward us for this." The tapir spoke to his friends in an Australian accent.
Clawhauser knew what device they were talking about and knew he had to stop them from stealing the evidence. The trio of tapirs entered and Clawhauser stepped out quietly to avoid being detected. The tapirs left the door opened and Clawhauser took a quick look inside as the tapirs where busy searching the racks and drawers for their device. Clawhauser pressed his back to the wall. He couldn't call for back up, otherwise the tapirs would hear his walky-talky beep as he called the officers. He lets out a breath and toughened up quenching his fists and revealed himself at the door frame.
"I don't believe your suppose to be in here."
The tapirs quickly turned their heads to the door and saw Clawhauser. They looked at each other with a blank look then smiled at each other not taking Clawhauser as any kind of threat.
"Look you plumped cat, there are three of us and one of you. Now how about you run on back home so tomorrow you can solve the case of the missing box of doughnuts." The tapir with the Australian accent mocked Clawhauser.
"Good one Tommy." Ben laughed with his other fellow tapir.
Clawhauser was a bit hurt from it, but he went back to his confident pose, "I may be a flabby doughnut eating cop." He whips out one of his handcuffs from his belt, "But I am still a cop."
The tapirs quickly fell silent seeing Clawhauser meant business looking at Tommy.
"Alright, I see this kitty cat is indeed a need to be taught a lesson now." Tommy puts down plastic bags of evidence he had in his hands and walks on over to Clawhauser still in his pose. Tommy swung his left fist, but to a swift move Clawhauser dodges it. He places a cuff on Tommy as he charges at Tommy lifting him as he yelled. He slams him to the wall at the opposite end of the room. The other tapirs shocked then go to restrain Clawhauser. They each grab onto his arms as he tries to break free. Tommy gets up with a real nasty angry look on his face, "That was good, never suspected a round kitty like yourself was capable of moving that quick." He approaches Clawhauser still being held by the tapirs.
Right when Tommy was going to punch him again Clawhauser uses the two tapirs to lift himself off the ground and kicks Tommy back to the wall. Coming down he swings Ben on his left arm onto the other tapir causing them to let go of Clawhauser as they collided. Tommy gets up and charges at Clawhauser picking him up, but couldn't do so for long; he fell on the floor with Clawhauser onto of him. Clawhauser got up as quickly as he could since Ben was charging at him. They grab onto each other twirling around the room bumping into the racks knocking evidence over. The other tapir grabbed Clawhauser and lunged him to a locker. It had opened revealing the part of the device they came for behind the doors. Clawhauser had the wind knocked out of him, he stayed on the ground wrapping his right arm around his belly as he tried to catch his breath. Tommy walked on over and shoved Clawhauser with his right foot to keep him from getting up again. He then reaches into the locker taking the device for the win.
"Catch Willy!" He tosses it to the tapir whom proceeds to place it in his satchel. He looks back at closer still trying to recuperate, "Looks like we won little kitten. Thanks for making the snatch fun."
Clawhauser then got up trying to keep his balance and address Tommy whom had just turned his back, "You're not going anywhere." He throws himself on Tommy who didn't get the chance to turn all the way both crashing into a rack knocking it over. Clawhauser grabs the hand cuffs by the free one that was still on Tommy and cuffs the other one onto the evidence rack. The other tapirs took no chances and break the window in the hallway next to the evidence room and escape. Clawhauser came to and grabbed his walky-talky and headed out the room, "This is Clawhauser, if anyone can hear this, the station has been attacked. I caught one of the thieves. I need someone to come back..." Clawhauser then fainted falling right outside the evidence with an officer trying to get him to respond on the walky-talky.
The sun shined beautifully in the morning as the city awakened again as any other day. The train arrived and the station was starting to become full of life. The shops inside opened and our two officers disembarked.
Nick took a deep breath of the air, "Here we are back again, the city's center."
"We should hurry on down to the station and get chewed out by Chief Bogo." Judy added.
"Ugh, don't remind me." Nick played along. As they began to walk on the sidewalk they felt something a bit off and surely their feeling was right. A police cruiser spotted the duo and stopped on the side of the rode next to them.
"Wilde! Hopps!" Officer McHorn called out to them as he stood next to the driver side door.
"Well here we go. Hey Officer MrHorn great to see ya." Nick and Judy approach the cruiser.
"You need to come with me quick something went down at the station." He eagerly told them as he went back inside the cruiser.
Judy and Nick looked at each other wondering what it was about and climbed into the cruiser.
They arrived at the station swarming with officers and pedestrians that were kept behind yellow tape. The three officers proceeded going under the tape and into the station. Nick and Judy then went to the crime scene of the messy evidence locker.
Judy was in shock with her paws just under her bottom lip. Nick as well couldn't believe the scenery with an open mouth not knowing what to say.
"Is… Is he OK? What happened?"
"A group of vandals came in and stole the device you two had confiscated. He managed to catch one of them, but the other two escaped along with the device." McHorn gave them the details, "He's currently being held in the hospital with minor injuries. You should go visit him."
Nick nodded, "Thanks for telling us. We'll do that right now."
At the hospital Clawhauser was in bed wearing a patient's white garb. The two officers went in and were happy to see Clawhauser awake, as Clawhauser was happy to see them as well.
"Hey buddy, how are you doing?" Nick asked smiling as Judy ran and hugged him.
"I'm so happy you're OK." She embraced her friend and got back down next to Nick.
"It's so great to see you two. How have have been? What have you been up to?"
"A lot let me tell you. It's been a crazy time since we left to investigate the swamp district." Nick rubbed the back of his neck.
"Is that so? I would like to hear all about it as well." Chief Bogo said from behind standing at the doorway with crossed arms.
Nick and Judy were startled knowing it was the chief. They lowered their ears and looked at the ground waiting to be scolded and possibly fired.
"Look Chief-" Nick was halted as Chief Bogo raised his hand to let him know to stop talking. He walked into the room in front of the two officers looking up at him with worrisome eyes.
"I know you two were at that factory that is ashes now and I want to hear what is it you found?"
Clawhauser in the back was also worried this was the end of his two friends' careers staying silent as he watched.
"We were there Chief." Judy admitted.
"And?" Chief Bogo waited for more details.
"We know who some of the culprits are. We can give you all the details..." Nick paused looking at Chief Bogo, "This is the end for us isn't it?"
Chief Bogo responded by looking like he didn't know what Nick meant by it, "What are you talking about? Officer Lyle told me all the details on our way over here." Chief Bogo stepped aside so Nick and Judy could see Robert leaning on the door frame and Loren standing by him, smiling as they were happy to see Nick And Judy.
"What did I tell ya?"
Judy laughed as she tried to hold back tears of joy seeing her friends did make it out of the factory.
"Oh gosh, you're not going to cry over us are you Hopps?" Robert poked fun to make sure she didn't as he and Loren approached their friends. She giggled a bit as she wiped her tears away.
"So, what did you all uncover at the site?"
"There definitely is a criminal organization at work, but it's bigger than we thought. But thanks to a friend we know where they'll be meeting with the head of it all."
"Do you have a plan on how you all are going to finally catch him and put an end to this?" Chief Bogo placed his hands on his hips awaiting an answer.
"We're going to be working on it. But it'll require more than just us four sir."
"Back up? Are you sure? You two seem to get everything under control by yourselves." Chief Bogo poked fun at them keeping a straight face.
Judy and Nick laughed a little at it, "Yes, we'll need it and we'll be sure to wait for it to arrive before we make a move."
Chief Bogo smiled, "Good. That's what I like to hear." He reached into his pocket taking out Judy's badge, "Don't go losing it again Hopps."
She stepped up and claimed it smiling up at Chief Bogo, "Thank you sir."
"Right, now, onward to planning." The chief instructed.