Chapter 26: Interrogation (Part II)

"How's that for your house?" Asked a still surprised Judy as they entered the glass skyscraper. Once they were in the stairwell and had entered the lift Nick sighed heavily and turned towards Judy.

"Ekh...I don't know and I honestly wouldn't want to know. Are you seriously that curious about my family?" Asked Nick as the lift started up. The person they were going to visit lived on the 8th floor, so there was no point in trudging up the stairs when a lift was available.

"You're my boyfriend so yes, I'm curious about your family," replied Judy to Nick's accusations.

"Believe me, there's not much interesting about it" replied Nick coolly. Judy did not reply. Talking to Fox about his family always ended the same way, so she didn't feel like continuing the dialogue. Internally she felt a little resentful, as a partner she felt that Nick should be open about all topics, even if they were quite embarrassing.

When the lift stopped on the 8th floor, they both found themselves in a snowy white decorated corridor. The condition of the staircase was much better than in the previous block, the corridor itself was warm and cosy, the flowers placed in the recesses in the walls caused a warm and fresh feeling. The only downside of this place were the lamps that emitted, white, cold colours.

Bratt, the person they were to go to lived at number 233, the brown door was on the right side of the corridor from the lift. Nick was the first to approach the door, knocking on it and introducing himself.

"Good evening, Nick Wilde, police, please open" Communicated the fox while knocking. After a few moments, the sound of the lock on the door being opened spread through the corridor, which was immediately followed by the door being opened. In the threshold stood a tall fox, with a dressing gown over his body and slippers on his feet. In his right paw he held a transparent cup, the contents in it looking like wine.

"Please come in," invited the fox as he entered his house. The flat looked remarkably good, the entrance was connected immediately to a large living room where a large white couch stood in the middle, a glass bench in front of it. Against the wall opposite stood a lit cooker, and above it was suspended a plasma TV. The right side of the living room was replaced by a large window that allowed the view of the fox district from several tens of meters above the ground. There was a kitchen island in front of the couch, and a staircase was mounted on the railing by the couch.

"Please sit down," said Bratt pointing to the couch. Nick and Judy, after a quick look around the flat, sat down on the couch waiting for the host himself to do so, who poured himself some wine in his glass at that time. He pointed the dark blue bottle in the direction of the policemen and asked them if they wanted a drink, but they both refused, explaining that they were on duty.

"Ah yes," sighed Bratt sitting down across from his partners. Judy took out her notebook with a pencil and Nick a dictaphone which he placed on the glass bench.

"Okay then Mr Bratt Gun, tell us when did you last see the missing man?" Nick asked, after firing up the voice recorder, which started flashing red every second.

"The last time I saw Cady was less than a week ago, she was wearing a red jacket, long navy blue jeans, and black and white shoes, I don't know where she was last, I heard she was somewhere around Riverstreet, but I don't know what she might have been doing there"

"Riverstreet again" thought Judy with intrigue. For the second time the missing person was roaming around the same area. By this time Nick saw Bratt looking at Judy for most of the speech. His gaze moved from him to Judy, and stayed on her. Fox could read from Bratt's gaze a kind of surprise, a hint of surprise. Nick was sure of it when Bratt's gaze flickered to Nick for a moment, then jumped to the rabbit.

"And any distinguishing marks? An earring or something?" Nick inquired.

"No, Cady doesn't like that kind of accessory...I could tell she had beautiful blue eyes," Bratt added with a sigh.

"Okay...anything else you want to add?"

"No...that's pretty much it" replied Bratt setting down his empty cup which contained the drink.

"Do you happen to have a picture of the woman? It will help in solving the case" Nick asked. Bratt nodded with a movement of his head, took a leather wallet from his dressing gown pocket, and handed over a bent photograph showing him and the missing woman. Nick accepted the photo, then handed it over for Judy.

"Okay, well, I think we've got everything right Judy?"

"Yes, that's it," the rabbit confirmed.

"Thank you then for telling us this information, and one more thing...please don't drink so much" pointed out the fox. He and Judy rose from the couch, switched off the recorder and both headed for the exit of the flat. At one point Bratt accosted Nick, which surprised him.

"That rabbit is a policeman?" The fox asked, which surprised Nick.

"Yeah..."

"Ekh...sorry for the stupid question, you're a fox so you probably know what it's like in the fox district" said Bratt.

"I know..." Nick replied, then walked out of the flat catching up with Judy.

When they left the flat, they didn't exchange a single sentence between them. Nick could see in Judy's eyes that she wasn't happy, she was even upset with him, and he expected that. He didn't want to irritate her further, but he knew that sooner or later he would lose this psychological battle. He didn't want to show it, but he felt remorseful that the rabbit was clearly angry. He expected why, but he still had a barrier inside him that he had to overcome at some point though.

When they got into the car Judy packed the photos into a file folder for the case, then turned towards the window gazing out at the snowy street. It was clear that she wasn't about to start any conversation with the fox about anything.

"Hey Judy," began Nick. The rabbit's ears automatically flickered towards the fox, which meant she responded to his voice.

"No need to be nervous, when we get home I'll explain everything to you" said the fox calmly. Judy didn't reply for a moment, the fox had the impression that she was wondering if this game was worth continuing.

"That's not the point Nick" sighed Judy after a few moments, which surprised the fox.

"Then what is it about?"

"We're together...you know what I mean...we should be open to each other, we can't hide anything, it can only make things worse in the future" pointed out Judy. Although Nick knew he wasn't hiding anything other than family topics, he knew what was at stake for the girl.

"Okay, we'll explain all this at home, but for now, let's focus on the current issue, okay ?" Nick asked. A slight smile appeared on Judy's face, the fox guessed that it had at least partially succeeded in calming the rabbit, who said nothing and nodded with a movement of his head.

The next person they were to go to was someone named Sophia Williams, who was registered at 88 Greenbelt Street. As the fox read into that name, something told him it wasn't a very good place, but he couldn't recall why. Judy, on the other hand, didn't say anything, she kept thinking about the fox's words saying that he would explain everything when they were home. It intrigued her, she wanted to know why she was so keen to hide her family, she already knew what had happened that made her hate this place so much, but she also wanted to know something more about it. Her train of thought was stopped by the sudden braking of the car, which would have sent Judy flying forward violently had it not been for her seatbelt. She was about to ask Nick what had happened when her gaze was caught by a crowd of people standing in front of them marching through the streets with flares in their hands.

"I thought so, it's somewhere around here," sighed Nick with disappointment. The name of the street reminded him of something, he just couldn't remember what. Now he knew, it was one of the main streets in the city.

"We can't go any further, we have to walk" Nick communicated.

"Well, let's walk if we have to," replied Judy bravely as she got out of the car. The crowd of protesters had managed to compact enough of the snow lying carelessly in the street that Judy no longer had any trouble walking on the now icy road. When they both got out of the car they could hear the shouts and the uproar that prevailed in the city. Shouts were spreading literally everywhere, all kinds of slogans or vulgarities. It would also seem that the sky had turned an even bloodier colour, which did not promise to be good.

Judy was the first to start walking towards town when she was stopped by Nick, who grabbed her arm and gave her a caring look.

"Judy, you'd better follow me" Nick communicated, which perplexed the rabbit.

"But what for?"

"Well, as you can see they are not happy, and foxes...they are not very friendly to others...I hope you know what I mean" replied Nick, but he expected Judy to want to put on a front.

"I'm a police officer Nick, I'm not scared" replied Judy with confidence in her voice.

"It's really not a good idea if they notice you..."

"It'll be fine Nick, and anyway you know I'm very resourceful"

"Ekh... if you prefer...I'll cover you from behind" replied the fox. Judy nodded with a motion of her head, then they both moved towards the angry crowd.

Walking towards the crowd, Nick wondered why Judy had so much courage and heroism. By nature rabbits are very skittish and afraid of practically everything, and he had come across a very special specimen who was practically unafraid of anything. On the one hand he appreciated this very much, but on the other he could not understand it logically. He was a little ashamed to admit that he himself was afraid of the crowd in front of them, and Judy wanted to go there without any problems.

After a few moments Nick and Judy were behind the crowd of foxes and they made their way through the groups of people trying not to draw their attention to themselves. Nick had even taken his police badge off his chest in secret from Judy to put it in his uniform pocket. Even though he was supposed to be shielding her, he got the impression that he was more afraid than she was. To distract himself from his stress, Nick's eyes searched for the block numbered 88. Thanks to the flares and lights that illuminated the area, the block numbers were visible, which reassured the fox. Their walk through the crowd continued quietly for quite a while, until Judy was spotted by two tall foxes who happened to be stopped on the side of the road looking around. Their gaze immediately focused on a rabbit that walked past them

"Hey, the rabbit police is here!" Shouted one of them. For a moment Nick thought his heart stopped in his throat. Then again, Judy had a similar feeling. They both stopped to see what was happening. They weren't in the best position, they saw the foxes nearby stop and stare at the two policemen.

"Run!" Shouted Nick as they both started running ahead. They turned off the road onto a snowy pavement, Nick turned behind him as they ran, he noticed several foxes running right behind them. Nick continued to look at the block numbers as he ran, he noticed they were close, one of the blocks was number 80. Judy on the other hand ran ahead as much as she could. Her energy was quickly running out mainly due to the large layer of snow which meant that she had to use a lot more strength than normal to run. She used her trained, strong legs, but she knew she could not run at this pace all the time. She stopped when the sound of breaking glass behind her caught her attention. She turned and stopped abruptly when she saw her partner chained to the snowy car.

"Nick!" Judy shouted as she saw a group of foxes approaching Nick, who was already pinned to the car by one of the chasing foxes.

"Keep running!" Nick managed to exclaim as he was squeezed tighter against the windscreen. Judy wanted to go help for her partner, but her plans changed when she saw another handful of foxes running towards her. Judy started to keep running, even though her lungs were already starting to run out of air. She took in breaths as hard as she could, from the cold air, she began to feel pain in her chest.

Soon she spotted the number 88 on one of the blocks, she turned behind her to see several foxes chasing her further. She sped up as fast as she could hoping to get far enough away for them to be able to ring the intercom and enter the secure stairwell. When she was at the stairs to the entrance she ran up them as fast as she could, as she walked up them she saw a woman in the corridor of the block holding the door open.

"Faster, faster!" Shouted the woman in Judy's direction. Rabbit jumped up the last step, using the last strength in her legs she ran into the corridor where the woman stood running past the threshold of the door. Immediately after Judy ran into the hall, the woman closed the door in front of the five foxes preventing them from chasing any further. After showing some rude signs, the foxes stood by the door for a few moments. It might have seemed that they were planning to break down the door, but when the woman showed a mysterious white vial, the chasers gave up, turned around and then went on their march

At this time Judy fell to the floor of the corridor leaning against the cold wall taking the deepest possible breaths. Her lungs were running out of air and the pain in her legs was unbearable, but that wasn't the most important thing.

"Are you okay?" The woman asked, kneeling beside Judy.

"Nick's there...they stopped him!" sighed a half conscious Judy between deep breaths.