"You see Judy anywhere?" Nick asked the cheetah sitting at the front desk as he strolled in to the station the next morning. She usually waited for him right outside, ready to scold his tardiness. The demeaning remarks were noticeably missing from his entrance today, which was strangely disappointing.
"I thought she was with you," Clawhauser responded with a troubled look. "it's not like Judy to be late."
While Nick was concerned about his partner's whereabouts, something even more important ran through his mind. He was at the station before Judy, which meant lunch was on her today! As the celebration commenced, an out of breath rabbit burst through the front door.
"I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here." She wheezed, practically doubled over.
"Look who finally made it." He called smugly to Judy, who shot him the most adorable death stare ever.
"This is all your fault."
"How so?" Nick grinned at her knowingly.
No response.
"Anyway, lunch today, I was thinking- Oh hey chief," He noticed Bogo approaching the front desk as well, "what do you want for lunch today?"
"He got here before you?" Bogo inquired of the clearly unamused rabbit.
"Don't ask."
"Inspector Fox is looking for you two, her team is using the bullpen as a staging area for now." He got straight to business. Bogo had learned to stay out of whatever Judy and Nick were doing, the two of them had already taken several years off his life.
"Come on Nick, let's go." She sighed, heading towards the meeting. Nick followed behind, knowing she would lighten up in a few, as she always did.
The pair entered the room and were both taken aback by how much it had transformed. Most of the tables had been pushed to the walls, holding up charts and maps, the others sat in a row lining the center, acting as command stations for Carmelita and a few of the other Interpol officers. Files were spread across just about every square foot of open tabletop. At the front of the room, scrawled across the wall was a huge world map, with pins placed in key locations, presumably where events related to the case had occurred. Various mammals were moving about, bringing stacks of paperwork and evidence cases to and fro.
"Excuse me guys." the easily recognizable voice of Carmelita's partner called from behind the two who were currently blocking the doorway.
Nick and Judy stepped to the side to allow the weasel through. He quickly walked past them, holding a cup of coffee and some papers.
"Here you go Ms. Fox." He said kindly, placing the cup down in front of Carmelita, who was seated at the desk heading the row in the center of the room. She barely acknowledged her partner as he moved on to deliver one sheet of paper to everyone in the room. After making the rounds, he came back to the two ZPD officers still taking it all at the door.
"And these are for you," The ever cheery Winthrop stated as he passed the remaining two papers to Nick and Judy, "it's the latest briefing."
The two looked over the official Interpol document that had been handed to them. It was similar in format to the everyday briefings they received from Bogo each morning, but with a whole lot more words.
"Don't worry," The weasel said, seeing the mixture of concern and confusion present on their faces, "Carmelita will go over everything with you in a minute."
He motioned for them to follow him over to the Inspector's desk.
"Inspector Fox," This time she looked up as he addressed her, "Officers Hopps and Wilde are here. Would you care to update them on some of the recent developments?"
The busy fox sighed and put her paperwork aside, getting up and walking over the map at the front of the room.
"Okay so there were five missing mammals originally, right?" Carmelita's irritated tone was only amplified by her accent.
"And we found three of them to start with." She continued without waiting for a response. "Well we got one more last night, a rabbit, picked up at here." She pointed to a red pin on the map going through some place in southern Africa.
Judy was about to speak up when the question was answered for her.
"Dead, same as the others."
"Any more good news, sunshine?" Nick prodded the stern inspector.
"I had my team look into your Mr. Lambert." She proceeded, attempting to ignore him.
"And?" Judy asked, hopeful the lead had somehow payed off over night.
"And he is now missing mammal number six."
"Ha! I told you he was in this thing somehow." Nick said to unamused reactions all around.
Winthrop, who had been standing alongside Carmelita, grabbed Judy's paper, pointing out the box at the bottom of the page to the vixen.
"I know." She said rather harshly, pushing the paper away, which was then returned to the rabbit. "Along with the ram, two more were reported missing, bringing our total up to eight."
"Great." Judy sighed.
This was a lot of news to take in so early in the morning for the two ZPD officers, who stood there blankly, waiting for the inspector to finish.
"And we checked, none of them have any family recorded in your system. It's an interesting connection, I'll give you that." She reluctantly approved of Nick's discovery.
"So what now?" Judy asked Carmelita.
"Now, we are going to dig up some leads to get this investigation off the ground."
"Alright," Judy responded excitedly, "Nick and I can go take a look at the last know locations of some of the mammals, or visit their homes to search for clues, or talk to their-"
She stopped herself when the Inspector put a paw on the eager bunny's shoulder.
"Listen, I like your enthusiasm, it's what makes good cops into great cops, but this is an Interpol investigation."
Judy's heart sank as she knew exactly where this was going.
"My team is more than capable of handling the field work, I am keeping you two involved because I respect the fact that this was your case to start with." Inspector Fox looked from Judy to Nick, begrudgingly.
"If and when we need your help we will call you, but for now let us do the hard work."
Carmelita looked genuinely sympathetic towards the disappointed young rabbit. She gave her a pat on the shoulder as she walked back to her desk, leaving them yet again with her partner.
"Sorry guys," Winthrop said apologetically, "but she does make the rules around here."
He gently pushed the Interpol briefing up into Judy's view.
"I will make sure you two stay up to date, and I'm sure we'll find somewhere two of Zootopia's finest can help out."
"Thanks Oliver." Judy replied disappointedly.
"For now, you are welcome to look over all of our files and try to find some leads here." The weasel suggested optimistically.
"Maybe after the happy inspector over there leaves," Nick replied for his partner, "For now we have some other work to take care of."
Judy glanced over to him, confused for a moment before remembering their other case.
"Okay, well good luck you two, see you later." Winthrop said as they turned to leave.
"Later Oliver." Judy said as the two exited the room.
The pair headed down the hallway towards the garage. As soon as they were a good distance away from everyone else Judy spoke up, albeit quietly.
"Won't Bogo question why we are investigating some completely unrelated incident?"
"What, we are just two cops checking out a vehicle we impounded yesterday, nothing suspicious about that." Nick said confidently, "Besides, Bogo doesn't really care. He's got Interpol to deal with at the moment."
"I guess." Judy said waveringly.
"If you don't like it, then I'll drive." Nick teased.
"Nope, we're good, totally fine, nothing wrong with this." Judy responded instantly, she preferred to live.
The two hopped into a cruiser and headed out. The impound lot was only a few blocks away from the station, so they arrived in no time. It was a large, fenced in parking lot with a small building located at the corner. A series of gates separated the lot from the road, with a security station located along the only way in or out. The lot was mostly empty, only a few vehicles rested in the back corner. Most of the contents were obscured by the cars parked in the visitor lot, which was next to the main building, with the main gate leading off of it. They pulled into the visitor lot and got out to head into the building. Inside was a cramped waiting area and an office, divided by a counter topped with bulletproof glass.
"Al, how's it hanging big guy?" Nick greeted the officer sitting next to the front door.
"Morning Nick, morning Judy" The intimidating rhino welcomed the two in a friendly tone. He may appear mean and tough, but 'Big Al' was one of the nicest guys on the force.
"Is Kari in today?"
"Yup, she's in the office, go right on in." Al smiled as he got up and unlocked the reinforced door leading back to the impound office.
"Thank you my good sir." Nick commented as the two of them passed through the doorway, leaving the empty waiting room behind them.
The office itself was relatively small, there was the front desk where all the daily interactions took place and another desk for Kari behind that. A wall sat between the two stations to keep things private. Kari was the otter in charge of the impound. She kept track of all the inventory and records for each vehicle that arrived, as well as working with the other officers at the ZPD in reference to any relevant cases. Besides her and Al, the only other employee at the impound was Zed. The zebra only worked a couple days a week, moving cars around the lot and performing general maintenance. Nick and Judy walked back to find Kari behind her desk doing some work on her computer.
"Good morning Kari." Nick said in a suave tone, it was obvious he was using his hustling skills in an unsuccessful attempt to win over the otter.
"Nick, Judy, what brings you two here this morning?" Kari responded, slightly confused.
"Remember that van we brought in yesterday?"
"What about that ugly thing?"
"We are going to need the info on who owns it."
"Whatever you say." She responded, not wanting to question the fox's motives.
While she pulled up the info for the vehicle, Nick gave Judy a 'See, no problem' kind of look. She still wasn't convinced.
"Huh, that's odd." The two heard Kari comment from behind her monitor.
"What is it?" Judy asked.
"We don't seem to have a file on that van."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean there is nothing here." The otter spun the screen around to show them the empty database. "Our records show it was dropped off, but that's it."
Judy and Nick shared looks of both concern and curiosity as to what this meant for the van.
"I can run the plate through the system for you two if you give me the number. You did write down the number when you had it towed, right?"
"Please tell me you got the number Nick." Judy looked to her partner, she already knew the answer.
Kari sighed as Nick shrugged.
"It should still be out back, go get me the number." She told the two ZPD officers.
"We'll go take a look." Judy said, disappointed yet again in Nick's performance at simple tasks.
The two exited out the back door and stepped onto the lot. From there they could see all of the cars the impound had at the moment. Taking a quick walk around, they saw a few vans but none of them were the one they were after. Unable to spot the easily identifiable vehicle, Judy spoke up.
"Um Nick, I don't think it's here."
"Yeah, I don't see it either. You know what this means, don't you carrots?"
Judy looked over to her partner, unsure of what he was going to say.
"It means that I was right, and you should really listen to me more often." Nick's smugness was unsurpassed at that moment.
"Come on, lets tell Kari." Judy sighed, not wanting to admit Nick might actually be onto something.
The two reentered the office from the same door they left, finding Kari in the same spot behind her desk. She looked up, ready to give them the information they needed and get them out of there.
"Alright, what's the number?"
"Um, the van's not there." Judy informed the otter, who drew a concerned look at the remark.
"What are you talking about, it has to be there. No one picked it up yet."
"Look for yourself, it's not back there." Nick confirmed.
Kari got up and quickly followed them outside.
"See?" Nick motioned to the lot, and its lack of the blue van.
Without a word, Kari ran back to her desk and began digging through files. After a minute she had the security camera feed on her screen. Rewinding back to the moment the van arrived, she showed Nick and Judy.
"Let's see, here is when it came in." The otter began fast forwarding the video, the van was sitting in the same spot for a few hours. Everything looked normal until the feed suddenly went black.
"What happened?" Judy asked, wondering just what was going on.
"The cameras were acting up last night, I had Zed take a look at system before he left, they should go back up in a second." Sure enough, moving the video forward a few minutes restored the picture from the cameras. Only this time the van was nowhere to be found.
"No way."
"Let me get this straight," Nick drew both of their attention, "the cameras suddenly and inexplicably stop working for a few minutes, conveniently missing the exact moments when our mystery van disappears."
"That seems to be the case." Kari stated to the fox.
"Well thanks for the help, see ya later Kari." Nick said quickly, as he turned to leave.
"Hold on there Wilde," The otter replied sternly, "what's going on here?"
Nick froze, slowly turning around to face his accuser. Buying himself time to formulate a response.
"We're really not sure," Judy spoke, much to Nick's surprise, "but we don't have a lot of time right now"
"Whatever it is, good luck to the both of you." Judy's sincere answer was enough for Kari, who nodded to the two as they left the office.
"Bye Al!" – "Later big guy." They said, passing the rhino on their way out.
"Have a good one you two."
Nick and Judy left the impound building and got back into their cruiser. Nick was torn between the conceit of being right, and how impressed he was at Judy's answer to Kari. They sat in the cruiser for a moment before either one spoke up.
"I'll admit it," Judy acknowledged her partner, "you were right. That van has to be connected to the theft somehow."
"Thank you," Nick replied, "you're not doing too bad yourself."
"Come on, what do you want for lunch." Judy sighed as she started the cruiser and headed towards the center of downtown where they usually stopped for lunch.
"That's my carrots, I was thinking we could try that-" Nick was cut off by Judy who suddenly jerked the cruiser down a road in the opposite direction. "And you say I'm a bad driver."
"Hold on Nick, I got an idea."
"I don't care how good you think that smoothie place is, I get to pick today."
"What? No, you dumb fox, it's about the case."
The car whipped down the road taking a turn here and there as Judy excitedly drove. Of course she was only doing five over the speed limit.
"Can't it wait until after I get my free food?"
Judy ignored her partner's whining, focusing on her idea in hopes it would pay off.
"Can you at least tell me where we are going?" He asked after accepting his lunch would have to wait.
"I had an idea," Judy explained, "yesterday that van parked right in front of us. We were in an alley between apartment buildings, so what if that is where however owns it lives?"
"I guess it's worth a look."
He still wasn't happy, but his partner's logic was sound. It wasn't long before the cruiser pulled onto the road they had been at the previous day. Upon initial inspection, the area by the alley appeared to be lacking the van they were after.
"Alright it's not here, let's go, I'm starving." Nick was quick to judge.
"Hold on." Judy replied, wanting to get a better look before calling it.
The cruiser slowly advanced forward down the road, coming ever closer to the alley. The two watched in anticipation as the entirety of the alleyway and its contents crept into view.
"Ha, I knew it!"
Sitting right in the center of the alley was the blue van, in all its glory.
Done. Well it seems these chapters just keep getting longer and longer. Just an FYI for you all, I have finals coming up soon so I might not have chapter 5 up on schedule. If anything it will be a day or two late, but after that I should be able to start putting more time into this story, and just as it's getting to the good part too. If you absolutely can't wait to read more awesome stories then I would like to point you all towards a buddy of mine, u/7674917/derrandumbthrowaway He is the reason I started writing this story, he definitely deserves some more viewers and some quality reviews. Speaking of reviews, feel free to leave one on this chapter. I really appreciate when you take the time to write your thoughts on what I've written. As always, thanks for reading, chapter 5 will be up...soon-ish.