Chapter 49: Death

"To all units, I repeat to all units! A person has been found dead under the south exit bridge from the Fox District, most likely a suicide, but we are not sure. We ask everyone to report and come to the scene!"

On a cold morning the bad news was already being heard as police patrolled around the investigation area. A few days after Judy had been taken to hospital it emerged that someone had most likely committed suicide, with the result that the police had to split their forces in part to be able to indentify the figure who had done this. First of all, they had to drive to the scene Bogo, who on entering his office met Caroline, who had been waiting for him for a good few minutes. The commandant looked in the direction of the vixen with a slight embarrassment not knowing what she wanted from him.

"You must come with me to the north bridge of the Fox District," Caroline began in a grim tone.

"What for? Don't you know we're conducting an important investigation for all of Zootopia? We don't have time..."

"It's suicide," interjected Caroline. Bogo immediately understood the situation, he sighed heavily nodding with a movement of his head. For a moment he didn't know what to say, he hadn't expected such a fact. It was obvious that he had agreed to the inspection.

"Alright then. If necessary, let's go," agreed the commandant after a moment's consideration.

The morose air was making its presence known first thing in the morning. The low temperature together with the light dusting of snow made it really unpleasant outside, and it didn't look like it was going to get any better over the next twelve hours. A light pinchy wind was blowing, which was especially hard on anyone not wearing headgear. Although it seemed that spring was getting closer, it was still only a false illusion, which was abruptly interrupted by successive snow storms. In such weather it was hard to think, let alone intervene in a matter that required more thinking, but there was no other way, it was necessary to go to the place as soon as possible so that the media did not find out about it. The less they know the better. They had already made matters worse once, when they publicised the issue of the missing foxes and the fact that the police were most simply not up to the task that was assigned to them, although officially they never admitted this.

After 30 minutes of driving, Commander Bogo and Caroline in the foxes' private car arrived at the scene. Two police cars were already standing under the bridge, which was empty; the officers were already surveying the area where the tragedy happened. Seeing the black car, the two officers approached it, they knocked on the window to communicate that this was not the area they should be in, but they quickly changed their intentions when they saw the two commanders coming out of the police cars.

"What do we have here?" Asked one of Bogo's officers as he stepped out of the car. He stretched and looked around the area where the incident had happened. The place under the bridge was, as expected, empty, nothing of interest except a rubbish pail and the graffiti that had been painted on the wall of the bridge. From a distance, the commander could already see the slight outline of a pool of blood inside a square marked with yellow and black police tape.

"The fox, most likely, jumped off the bridge. We do not yet know who he is, where he came from or why he did it. " replied the officer. The three of them approached other police officers who were working on the corpse taking close-up photos and collecting the evidence they found. The sight of the fallen fox in a pool of blood sent a slight shiver through Caroline and Bogo's body. It had been a long time since they had seen such a drastic image that would stay in their minds for a long time. Commander Bogo, on quick reflection, couldn't tell when they had last received a report of a suicide, it was quite a rare occurrence in and around Zootopia.

"Well...is it known how long he's been here?" Bogo asked.

"We don't know. We found him less than 2 hours ago when we were doing a patrol. " The officer replied. In fact by the red marks one could tell that the plasma had already had time to be absorbed into the soil a bit, to dry out, which didn't surprise anyone too much, after such a hit and such cold it could happen very quickly. Apart from the two policemen who were taking pictures, the rest stared at him trying to maintain a semblance of calm, although inwardly each of them felt disgust at seeing a corpse. It was not a sight one wanted to see.

"So what do we do with him boss?" Asked one of the officers with embarrassment.

"Call an ambulance, have them take him away and get him verified. Give me the photos, I'll need them. And make sure no media finds out about this." replied the commandant.

"What will I need them for?" Caroline asked curiously. She was the first to decide to cover her eyes a tad at this sight. Although she was a fairly tough commander, she intuitively squinted at the first eye contact with the sight before her. She could manage to look at it, but she needed the most time to do so of all.

"I'll send them for our top officer."

"Which is?"

"Judy Hopps" replied Bogo confidently. After a brief observation, he and Caroline retreated from the scene to the car.

The day also started quite early for Judy. Sleep problems since the late night conversation with her sister had caused the doe to start having strange dreams for the last two nights, which for some unknown reason she associated with the fox case. Additionally, talking to Suzanne rather than helping her would work in reverse - every time the sisters passed each other Judy saw a gleam in her sister's eye that betrayed that she wanted to find out as much as possible about Nick. Judy wasn't too surprised, she would have eventually done so if it hadn't been for Bonnie, who had entered the room too soon interrupting her pronouncements at practically the most important moment for her. From then on Judy didn't talk to Suzanne, or rather avoided it as much as she could.

After her breakfast Judy relaxed on the sofa watching the morning news, she always liked to know what was going on in the world. To her relief there was nothing about the missing foxes, the recent news had been all about that and they were mostly inconsolable. Next to her sat two younger brothers, who, playing with their toys, from time to time turned their attention to the television and the news that was being broadcast there. But they were not interested, they preferred to play and Judy was not surprised - if she had known that one could fall into such a hopeless situation as she did, she would have preferred to play too. After the news was over, Judy put down the remote for her brothers to take over the controls of the TV and closed her eyes herself to relax a little more. Her interrupted sleep wasn't giving her as much rest as she would have liked, and she wanted to rest after all. From what she reckoned she was already at home for the 4th day, and soon she should be back to work.

She was quickly pulled out of her brief relaxation by her mother, who came in with a tray containing tea with honey and lemon and Judy's phone, which surprised its owner slightly.

"Someone called you," Bonnie said. She placed the phone in her daughter's hands, quickly Judy noticed that it was Bogo calling her.

"Bogo? Why would he call me..." Judy asked in astonishment.

"Well...maybe he has some news for you...in the meantime drink your tea, you need to drink a lot of warm drinks" replied Bonnie. She took the trays, then retreated to the kitchen.

'I'll call him later' thought Judy. She didn't want to bother talking to Bogo, she immediately expected him not to dialogue about her condition - if he wanted to talk about it he would call later. He knew that the doe needed a lot of rest and he rather did not want to wake her up first thing in the morning just to ask how she was feeling. A phone call first thing in the morning meant he already wanted something, the question was what? That was what Judy feared he would ask her, something that required thinking and she didn't want to do that. Although she was starting to miss the vibe of crime and policing she wanted a bit more of a break from that.

A few hours later

After lunch, when it was getting slightly darker, Judy continued her reading, which she read regularly every day, a few dozen pages a day. The book was so interesting and engaging that she could sit at it for a good two hours without moving from her seat. She had a very good reading environment - a warm cooker behind her back to keep her warm, a warm white blanket on top of her, a glass of warm sweet tea beside her, and the TV playing quietly in the background making it more enjoyable to read. All of this meant that Judy would often only finish reading by dinner time, or someone would snap her out of her reading trance. She was a little discouraged by the fact that she also had two, even longer parts ahead of her, but if she read the next parts with such passion, it wouldn't take long for her.

While reading the book, her phone rang again - since the morning when she had found out that the commandant had called her, she had kept her mobile with her, in case he was to do it again. Usually the phone lay on her dresser in her room, there were times when she didn't use it, preferring to watch TV or talk to someone. Just as Judy had assumed, Bogo called her once more, or rather tried to call her. This time the doe answered the phone listening to what her boss had to say. Just in case for her siblings, she showed with a hand gesture for them to leave the room so as not to disturb her.

"Good morning Commander," Judy greeted as always.

"Good morning Hopps. How are you feeling?" Asked the commandant in his low tone sounding or at least trying to sound friendly. Even when he didn't want to his voice usually made him sound quite sullen.

"Better now. Much better. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I have to rest I'd be back on command" replied Judy.

"Ah...yes...you probably heard on the news what they said about us last time?" Bogo asked. Judy quickly recalled the news reports that claimed the police were failing to deal with a kidnapper who was kidnapping more people without resistance. Rumours were growing in the town that it was only a matter of time when the police would give up investigating and everything would be played out at the mercy of the kidnapper.

"Yeah...it's hard to hear anything positive from the media. All they do is complain all the time," Judy countered, to which the Commander quietly laughed.

"Heh...yes that's a fact...you can probably guess I'm calling about something else?"

"Yes, I expect so," replied Judy.

"Well. This morning we found a dead body under the north bridge of the Fox Quarter, you know where that is right?" Bogo asked.

"Yes, I do. How did you find the dead body there? Murder or suicide?" Repeated Judy more quietly. She didn't want any of her younger siblings to hear it, but the news of such a crash had stirred her emotions quite a bit.

"Most likely a suicide, but we can't indetify the victim. You are good at analysing, maybe we missed something. You need to verify the suicide. I'll send you all the photos we managed to take at the scene. Do you have them to display on?" Bogo asked. Judy didn't answer for a moment.

'My laptop was left in the flat' thought Judy with application. Her computer always came in handy after work when she didn't have time to get something done on site, now without the device not very much she could do. Thinking about a device on which she could display photos she saw Suzanne in the other room using her laptop. Unfortunately it appeared that she was the only one currently able to donate the equipment, but there was no other choice.

"I have something to display the photos on" confirmed Judy.

"Great! I'll send you to your mail in a moment. Let me know if you find anything in these photographs, it's mostly in you that the hope is pinned" the commandant replied. Judy smiled slightly at this news, after all it's not every day you hear words like that.

"I'll do my best."

"I understand. Have a good night, good night," replied Bogo, then hung up. Judy reluctantly got up from her cosy corner where she had been sitting for the last two hours reading a book, then went to Suzanne who, with headphones on her ears, paid no attention to her sister who approached her. It wasn't until a few moments later that she realised she was beside her. She quickly removed the headphones from her ears then moved away on the couch making room for her.

"Something wrong?" Suzanne asked.

"I need your help."