Chapter 3 - Get a Room
"Come on Nick! Get those short, foxy legs in gear, we've got bad guys to catch!" Yelled the plush, grey and white rabbit as she literally leapt and bounded across the parking lot. Judy never bothered to look behind her to see that a tall fox wearing the dark blue uniform of the ZPD was right on her tail. All she ever needed was the sound of his bare paws slapping the pavement and the deep huff of his labored breathing to know that her partner was there to cover her backside.
She climbed into their black and white cruiser and gunned the engine forcing it to let out a fierce snarl.
"Easy Officer Gung-ho, I would like to still be alive when we get there!" Nick slammed his door barely in time before the car charged forward. Moments later he flipped on the lights and siren as Judy vaulted into traffic like a starving rabbit chasing after a runaway carrot wagon.
"Come on Nick aren't you the least bit excited?"
"Oh yes, very excited, 100 percent!" The fox exclaimed holding onto the handle above the side window, the sarcasm thick in his smooth russet voice. "As cute as you are when you're in 'Chase Mode,' I don't want to see my lunch a second time today."
The rabbit just scoffed and rolled her eyes at him and let the 'cute' comment slide since she was too busy weaving through the lunchtime traffic at high speed. This was the third time today that he had actually called her cute, not counting the one she cut off before it escaped his lips, and she was going to make sure to pay him back for each and every one.
"There it is, Lime street intersection. And on the corner is Bearstine's Megamart," Judy exclaimed leaning heavily into the turn.
Tires screeched around the sharp corner as the speeding cruiser dove into the huge open parking lot with Nick hanging onto his seat like his life was going to end any second. "It looks like there is some kind of scuffle at the east entrance! Head over there and maybe we can cut them off."
Mere seconds passed before Judy slammed on the breaks outside of the east entrance of the huge megamart and tried to cut off a large grey and white timber wolf who was running as fast as he could away from the building while trying to push a loaded shopping cart. Before the car had even come to a full stop she leapt through the driver side door straight at the wolf.
"Police! Stop right there!" yelled the flying bunny before she suddenly found her small frame slammed into the metal side of a very full shopping cart. The impact knocked her to the ground and left her dazed for a second.
Slowly trying to get back onto her feet, she was once again hit by the heavy cart and thrown several feet through the air to land hard on the unforgiving parking lot pavement with a sharp cry of pain.
At this time Nick was coming around the front side of the vehicle pointing his taser at the wolf and his fully loaded cart. "Freeze! ZPD, you're under arrest!" Nick cried gesturing emphatically with his weapon. "Put your paws in the air."
The scraggly unkempt wolf who looked like he hadn't slept in several days was wearing a torn up t-shirt for some obscure and outdated rock band. A thick chain was wrapped around his messy brown pants but they still looked like they would fall off his butt at any moment, and he kept trying to lift them back up every few seconds. He took one look at the weapon pointed at him and shoved the cart directly at Nick with as much force as he could and took off running the other direction.
Nick dodged the speeding cart only to see it bounce off the police cruiser instead of his body.
In his mad dash to get away from Nick, the wolf ran right past Judy who shouted at the fleeing criminal, "Halt! Police!" 'Why does that never work?' She thought pushing off with her powerful legs and began the pursuit across the parking lot.
The much larger mammal had to dodge and weave between all of the parked cars while the smaller rabbit simply leapt over them giving her the clear advantage in this chase. Despite a slight limp to her sore paw Judy had almost caught up to the fleeing thief when he dodged around a large, oncoming vehicle forcing her to stop and wait. It was a mid sized black and green Tusker SUV made by General Mammals Inc. By the time the SUV had passed, the wolf was well out of sight.
Her first guess proved correct when she spotted the wolf again after leaping around the corner of the huge grocery store. He was quickly approaching the far end of the building still trying to hold up his droopy pants and the small, swift rabbit was hard pressed to catch up. She took a deep breath and put as much force into her powerful hind legs as she could and raced after the quickly escaping suspect.
Before Judy had even made it halfway down the length of the building, the disheveled timber wolf turned the corner. He paused a second to look back at the bunny cop chasing him and let out a loud laugh before jumping around the edge of the building, "Later, Cottontail!"
Judy barely had time to blink before there was a loud snap followed by a long buzz, and she saw the wolf fly back into view with his arms and legs flailing wildly. He landed several feet away on the cold hard pavement with a loud crunch, then lifted his head for a second to look up at a red fox holding a medium sized taser pointed at him. Judy continued running forward and heard Nick say, "And that's for hitting my partner with a shopping cart, scumbag!"
Then the wolf promptly passed out.
"Nick!" the rabbit exclaimed as she rushed forward to give her partner a warm hug.
"That's what partners are for, sweetcheeks! Now let's cuff this scumbag and get him back to the precinct."
"Great! While you do that I will go check on the clerk or who ever it was that phoned this in," she said, heading back around the corner to the front of the store.
"Oof! You are a heavy one," Nick grunted, as he tried to roll the perp over so he could cuff the wolf's paws behind his back. He then slowly dragged the other mammal across the ground to the waiting car. "Come on buddy, let's get you all nice and comfy in the car."
Driving the cruiser back to the east entrance, Nick spotted Judy standing outside and chatting with a ram of average height, dressed up as a hired security guard. The front of the guard's uniform was covered in some kind of yellow-green liquid and he smelled of urine. While the wolf was safely cuffed and locked in the back of the cruiser, Nick left the car and sauntered up to his partner and the security guard that were discussing what had just happened.
"Then he pulled this gun out of his pockets and hit me with the cart again before he started running across the parking lot. That's about when you two showed up. I knew he looked suspicious the whole time, that's why I called the cops before he tried anything funny."
"You said he had a gun, sir?" Judy asked, furiously jotting down everything the ram said.
"Yes, yes! It was this big black job with some kind of fancy gadget on top. I saw it in his pocket when he passed me in the automotive section. That's when I decided I'd better make the call before anything bad happened." The ram claimed, puffing out his chest proudly while he had both thumbs stuck into his belt loops and was rocking back on his hoofs.
"And where is this gun now? It wasn't on the perp when we apprehended him."
"I don't know. Like I said before, ma'am, he pulled it out of his pocket as he was coming out of the store. I tried to stop him but he just hit me with the cart until I fell down. Maybe he threw it away when he saw you flying into the parking lot the way you did. That sure was some fancy driving, ma'am!"
"Ok, we will look around the lot for it then. Nick! Can you ask our friend in the car what he did with the weapon?" Judy yelled to Nick before turning to the contents of the stolen cart.
"Sure thing Bunny-kins! Let me see if he is awake yet!"
Looking into the hard metal cart, Judy again replied to the security guard, "You can keep the stolen items but we need a complete list for evidential purposes." She started making a list in her notebook with a very puzzled expression across her face. The items on the list appeared to be completely random and made absolutely no sense to her.
Back at the car, Nick had managed to wake the unconscious wolf and was questioning him about the gun. "So where did you throw it buddy? The guard said you pulled a gun on him, so we know you had one on you. It will be a lot easier on both of us if you stop lying and just tell us what you did with it."
"I already told you everything! I ain't never shot no guard!"
Nick's sly smirk had returned, "Ok pal, if that's how you're going to be, we can just deal with this back at the station." Slamming the back door of the cruiser, he turned around to find his partner standing by the shopping cart with a very puzzled look on her adorable bunny face.
"What's the matter Fluff? Carrot got your tongue?" He chuckled at his own joke.
"Nick, none of this makes any sense! Why would anyone risk a jail sentence for all this random junk?"
"What do you mean 'junk', Carrots?"
"This stuff," she pointed at the contents of the thief's shopping cart, "It's all junk! Anti-freeze, hard plastic shower tubing, light bulbs, dye-free detergent, a dozen boxes of decongestant, baby formula… and extra strength tampons…" She left the last bit hang in the air for several seconds. "Is he so broke he can't even take care of a wife and cubs or something?"
"Let me see that list again," Nick replied, taking a long look at her miniature notebook. "Ok, I think I know what's got you so confused Fluff!"
"Oh please enlighten me, oh great and wise master of all things cheap and underhanded," her voice rich with sarcasm. "Why does a scruffy looking wolf steal this much random junk?" She punched him sharply in the arm taking back her notebook.
"If my guess is correct, these are all items used in a homemade drug lab. Like the one we saw on the Night Howler case last year. But I have not idea what the fancy light bulbs are for. If he needed glass, there are way cheaper ways to get it."
"I really don't think he was too worried about the costs, Slick, since he obviously wasn't planning on paying for them anyway."
Later they said their good-byes to the guard and Judy took another scout around the parking lot, looking under cars and behind bushes before she climbed back into their cruiser to drive back to the station.
"Still no sign of it?"
"Nope."
"Wonder if he threw it on the roof."
"Well, we will see once the store manager can send us those security tapes."
Judy pulled the car up to the front of Precinct #1 as Nick hauled the larger wolf up the steps, and into the main lobby to hand him over to the large rhinoceros officer waiting for them at the door. "Let's throw him in the box first, I've got some questions I want answered before Hopps and I start the paperwork on this scumbag."
"Sure thing Wilde. We'll have him processed and ready for ya in about 30 minutes." said Rhinowitz as he lead away the pawcuffed timber wolf.
"Thanks, big guy."
Judy waltzed over to Nick and said, "Hey, while we're waiting for our perp to get his pictures taken, want to grab a quick coffee?"
"Naw, but thanks Carrots. I've got some errands I need to take care of real quick." She noticed he had an extra wide smirk on his muzzle and a bright glint in his eyes as he headed towards the back of the station. "I will return once our pal has had some time to cook for awhile."
Judy headed up to her desk, but stopped by Clawhauser's desk to grab all the right forms they were going to need to fill out in order to put their perp away for the maximum sentence.
Roughly an hour later, a large grey and white timber wolf was pawcuffed and chained to a shiny, silver table in the center of an otherwise completely empty room with dull and cracked mirrors on the walls and a single light swinging on a rusty chain from the ceiling. The light felt just a bit too hot for the wolf, and the creak from the rusty chain was making him edgy. His name was Carter Longtooth and he hadn't slept in days, plus, his paws had been shaking for almost as long as he had been in this terrible room. It felt like hours and his throat was very dry.
After several minutes of trying to wet his lips with a long, rough tongue, the only door to the room slammed open with a loud bang, making the wolf jump. The chain holding his paws wasn't long enough for him to stand up, so it quickly pulled him back into his seat painfully.
Through the open door walked a very short and angry looking cop with tall ears carrying an armload of files and a slight limp in her left leg. "Was wondering when they were going to send in the Badge Bunnies," Carter's chuckle was cut off almost immediately as the expression on the rabbit's face turned to pure evil. He had never seen a rabbit cop before today. This one looked downright scary, and he was almost afraid to be in the same room with her.
Following the angry bunny through the door was a completely different kind of mammal. The suave looking fox walked into the room with a completely casual air, and not a single care in the world. It almost felt like he was going on an exotic vacation in the tropics, he even smiled cheerily at the miserable-feeling wolf, chained to the cold, steel table, in that hot and empty room. 'Was he actually whistling?' thought the wolf in doubt of his own senses.
The door closed silently behind the pair and the very angry rabbit climbed up on the chair opposite from Carter and plopped the large folder down on the table in front of her. He didn't know what had made this poor bunny so pissed, but, by the sound of her voice, he could tell she was ready to chew bricks and spit nails. "Ok, Mr. Longtooth you're in a lot of trouble and I am in no mood to hear any sob stories or apologies about why you needed those goods to take care of your family!"
Carter slowly looked up at her, "Um, Ok …"
"Shut Up!" she slammed her paw down on the table with a loud bang. "Armed robbery, resisting arrest, assault and battery, assaulting an officer, injuring said officer when you hit me with that dam cart, and damaging police property when you decided to slam said cart into my patrol car!" she was literally spitting into his face as she said the last bit.
Nick stretched out a gentle paw to calm her down. "Ok, easy Officer Hopps." She slowly sat back down into her chair still glaring daggers at the nervous wolf.
His paws were clearly shaking now and he could feel the chain pulling painfully at his wrists. "I never had a gun," was all he said trying very hard to not look at the furious rabbit.
"The guard at the store disagrees with you, and once we finish looking over the security tapes we'll know for sure. And I'm pretty sure that I already know what we're going to find, Mr. Longtooth! So you might as well come clean and tell us what you needed those goods for."
Carter didn't see that question coming. He thought they would focus entirely on finding a weapon to pin on him, and wasn't really prepared to answer the rabbit yet, besides his throat was really dry now.
"Can I get a glass of water?" he asked, his voice obviously cracking painfully in the heat of the still swinging lamp..
"What?" the smallest cop asked.
"Can I get some water, please?" he said louder but with much more strain in his voice.
"NO!" the evil rabbit slammed her paw down on the table again making Carter jump and pull painfully against his restraints. A slight growl escaped past her long bucked teeth, "Tell us what you were planning on doing with those supplies Mr Longtooth and we'll consider making things a little more comfortable for you."
"You might want to consider doing what she asks, buddy." The fox said to him with a cool, friendly charm as he casually leaned in the corner opposite from the bunny. "She could really make your life a living hell right now if you let her." His voice was so warm and charming that Carter found himself almost wanting to believe what the fox said.
Carter looked up to him with a pained expression in his dark eyes, "Ok, but it's just so very hot in here, I can hardly breath."
The rabbit nodded to her partner, who casually left the room, not before swiping his paw at her ears playfully. After a few minutes the fox returned with a lukewarm glass of water and placed it in front of the police bunny just out of reach of the pawcuffed wolf. He raised his paw to cease the swinging of the lamp before he casually returned to his corner.
"Here is your water Mr. Longtooth," the bunny said, not once taking her eyes off of him. She was obviously waiting for him to speak before actually giving him anything to drink.
"It's for my friend."
"Your friend?" she slowly slid the tall glass of water over to him as he continued speaking.
"Yes, he … he said he needed all that stuff." Taking a long drink of water he almost choked twice, the water felt so good on his dry throat. "He gave me a list of everything he needed and told me to pick it up, and that I could get it all at Bearstine's real cheap. So I … I went there with a few bucks but I saw how much they wanted for everything. I knew I couldn't afford any of it, so I, so I."
His paws were violently shaking now. 'He really needed to get his fix soon.'
"Ok, Mr. Longtooth, please tell us more about your 'friend', why did he need all of those supplies?" Her voice much more calm and reassuring, and the evil glare in her eyes was gone.
"He is a doctor," he told her, "or a professor or just some really smart guy. He, he said he could help me out if I brought him all the stuff tonight."
"And how was he going to help you out tonight?"
"He promised to get me the Fix." His paws shook so badly that the table was vibrating and the bunny's files were spreading all over the top of it. Then Carter started yelling and pulling at his cuffs, "I need my Fix, I need it now!"
The fox immediately moved into action and placed his hands gently on the wolf's shoulder to try to restrain and calm him. "Take it easy buddy, no need to get violent here. Just sit back down and finish answering a few more questions and then we can see about getting you out of here." Somehow the fox's tone never changed through the entire incident, it was just so calm and reassuring that Carter decided to stop snarling at the bunny and sit back down and listen to the rest of what this strange pair had to say.
"Ok, ok. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just really need my fix. What else did you want to know?"
The uniformed rabbit looked back up at her partner questioningly before she turned back to Carter with her next question.
"Can you tell us where your friend is, Mr. Longtooth? Can you tell us where to find his lab?"
The rage immediately returned full force. His eyes narrowed and his muzzle slowly opened into a snarl letting out a low, angry growl.
"NO! I am done talking now! I am not telling you coppers anything else. So lock me up, throw away the dam key, but I'm never gonna rat out the Doc, ya hear!" His growling and snarling continued.
Nick took one look at Judy then walked to the steel door and said, "Ok, I think we're done here." Any hint of his smooth charming tone was completely gone. He was all business now as he opened the door and called for Rhinowitz who had been waiting outside the whole time. "Can you please take this prisoner away and dump him in cell three? I think he would like to spend a little time with Bruiser this evening." Unknown to either the wolf or Judy, Nick quickly winked at the rhino.
The guard gave Nick a puzzled look before asking, "With the polar bear?"
"Yes, that's the one. Just make sure they are nice and cozy, ok?"
Rhinowitz quickly unchained the wolf's cuffs from the table and lead him out of the room with Nick following close behind.
Judy grabbed the pile of files on the table and looked at Carter with a sad expression on her face and her voice full of sincerity. "I am very sorry it had to end this way, Mr. Longtooth, but if you had been more cooperative with us, things might have turned out very differently."
The wolf only gave her a shocked expression as he was being lead away.
Once the wolf was out of earshot Judy turned to Nick with a very puzzled expression on her face, "Nick what the heck are you doing? I know you're up to something again."
"You will see, Carrots. Ah, Clawhauser, right on time!"
Clawhauser was standing right outside the interrogation room door that Rhinowitz and the wolf just went through, he was holding, as usual, a large box of donuts from The Big Donut. When he saw Nick he held out the box. "One dozen anchovy glazed surprize." He stuck out his tongue with a look of disgust, "Eww, who puts anchovies on donuts?"
"Thanks buddy," said the fox as he carefully grabbed the box and dashed after Rhinowitz and his wolf prisoner.
When he caught up to them again he started chatting with the rhino amicably. "So, I heard Bruiser is back again today. Third time this week eh?"
The rhino just snorted and rolled his eyes as Nick continued to babble and the wolf still growling, tried in vain to fight against his restraints.
"What is he in for this time? Oh that's right, Drunken assault and battery. Apparently, he has something against wolves."
After several minutes of this, Rhinowitz finally caught onto what Nick was going on about and quickly tried to cover with a comment, "Something about his sister wasn't it?"
As they neared the cell block Nick started to wrap up his story. "Yeah, yeah, some drunken idiot insulted the bear's sister and then took a swing at him with a piture of beer." Shaking his head, Nick continues, "So what does Bruiser do? He just ripped the poor sod's tail clean off. One swift tug and pop!"
"Ouch," winced Rhinowitz.
"Now the idiot is screaming like a girl so Bruiser shoves the offender's tail right down his throat before beating him senseless. The doctors say the poor guy still might make it, but he's never gonna have a tail again… what a shame."
The three of them stopped in front of a large cell with bars on three walls and a single giant polar bear laying on a bench, wearing a dark black suit with a rip on one sleeve. The smell of expensive, imported beer coming off the large mammal was very strong. He raised his head when the two cops and their prisoner approached.
"You're not throwing me in there, are you?" asked Carter, nervously still shaking due to the withdrawals from his drug addiction.
Rhinowitz began to uncuff the nervous wolf before tossing him into the holding cell with the angry looking polar bear, but Nick shook his head and wagged his finger to indicate 'No, not yet.'
Once the wolf was tossed into the cell, the bear stood up and approached them and at the same time, kept an eye on the box Nick was holding in his paws. The wolf simply yelped in fear and backed away from the bear. He turned to face the bars and yelled at the two cops watching him and yelled, "Wait, officers! You can't leave me in here!" He fearfully glanced over his shoulder at the slow approach of the huge white bear. "This is police brutality! You can't do this to me!"
Nick just looked at Carter through the bars and said sadly, "It's out of my hands now. I'm sure we can find someone to let you out in the morning."
Nick and the rhino turned their backs on the cell and slowly started walking away down the hall. There was a loud clang as the bear threw the wolf against the cell bars. "No no no! Please don't rip off my tail Mr. Nice Bear!"
After turning a corner, Nick heard a loud scream coming from the cell they had just left.
"Alright I'll talk! I will tell you where the lab is! It's at 1221 Hammington Drive… south east Savannah Central! Right on the edge of Happy Town! That's where I was supposed to drop off the goods! Just pleeease don't let him take my precious tail!"
Nick and the rhino quickly returned to see a crying wolf pressed firmly against the bars with the vicious looking polar bear carefully pulling on the smaller mammal's tail.
"Would you mind repeating that in front of my partner?"
"Anything, just get me away from this maniac!"
The fox looked up at Rhinowitz, "Well, let's haul him back to the box again. Maybe he will be a lot more cooperative now." The wolf was nodding frantically in agreement.
After the rhino officer had hauled the crying wolf back down the hall and around the corner Nick held up the box of Big Donuts to the now drooling polar. "Thanks Kenny, you should be able to get out of here in a couple of hours."
"Thanks, Nick," the huge white bear replied.
"Oh, and the bartender was willing to drop the charges and damages, provided you stay out of his bar for awhile."
The bear had a very sad expression on his face then. "I'm really sorry about all that Nicky, it was my favorite place too. It's the only place this side of the siberian tundra to server that brand of vodka. You're not going to tell Mr Big about any of this, are you?"
"Of course not. Just keep your nose clean and stop picking fights with animals bigger than you, ok?" Nick replied, patting the bear on the shoulder. Or as far up the huge mammal as he could reach, which was much closer to the middle of his back.
Back upstairs at the officers cubicles, Nick and Judy finished up their reports on the robbery and possible drug case. Judy signed her last report with a wild flourish and exclaimed to her partner, "Yes, that's all done. Now all we have to do is wait for the security footage to come in and we can close this one up all nice and tight."
"Good job, Carrots! That was some pretty impressive grill work. How did you know he was going to ask for the water?"
"Well it was pretty obvious that he was strung out on something. Besides I sat there in the viewing room watching him slowly degrade for 30 minutes while you were out running errands, and buying stinky, fish covered donuts." She glared at him with the tip of her nose pointed right in his face, her ears pulled back. "Still, I could not have done this without you. I saw what you did back there, Slick Nick!"
Nick gave Judy a look of total shock, "Were you spying on me?"
With a slight wink at her partner Judy replies, "I did kind of peek… just a little."
A loud gasp escapes past the fox's lips, "And I thought you were just a poor, innocent, little bunny!"
"Well, Slick, it was really kind of cute watching you hustle that perp like that."
"Don't call me cute!" Nick winked back at Judy making a poor attempt at a bunny impression.
The rabbit snickered at the ginger fox saying, "Aww! Is the poor wittle foxy afwaid of being called 'cute' by the wittle bitty bunny?"
Placing one paw over his heart and looking completely mortified, Nick exclaimed, "Ma'am, I do have a reputation to uphold, you know!"
Judy couldn't contain her laughter and let out a loud snort. "It is kind of fun to watch you work sometimes. That is when you actually do work around here."
Nick leaned so close to the rabbit that their noses almost touched, "You know, you wouldn't have me any other way, sweetheart."
"Do I know that?" Judy replied, placing one finger to her lips, tapping slowly and lifting her eyes thoughtfully, "Yes, yes I do know that!"
From across the room Sergeant Higgins roared at them in disgust, "Get a room, why dontcha!"
They heard a snicker behind them. Both of them turned around at the same time and spotted Clawhauser holding a small package. "Oh, hey guys! This just came for you, I thought I would bring it up cuz I know how you were really waiting for it and everything, so I brought it as soon as it came in. And, well, here it is!"
Nick took the box from the excessively smiling cheetah. "Thanks, Spots."
Clawhauser just stood there watching them, both his paws pressed against his cheeks in joy.
Nick looked a bit baffled, "Um, we have to get back to work now, buddy."
"Oh right, right… Have fun, you two!" He giggled again heading back to his desk downstairs in the lobby.
Judy heard Higgins snort from across the room in his own cubicle.
"Well, let's open it and see what we got, eh Carrots?"
Judy still a bit dazed by what just happened, looked blankly at Nick, "Oh? Oh! Right! Let's do this!"
Nick opens the small box addressed to them and plugs in the videos.
The first one they decided to watch was the exterior footage, hoping to catch something of the missing weapon, or at least the fight between the security guard and the thief.
After several minutes of fast forwarding, a black and white police cruiser flew by the screen at warp speed. "Whoa! There we go! Back up a bit, Slick," Judy exclaimed.
"Ok, um… there!"
"Yeah there we are, now back up a bit more, to where the thief comes out the door."
Nick rewound the footage to just before the doors opened. On the screen they could both see the sliding doors open with the thief quickly pushing the cart through, only to be stopped by the guard grabbing the cart. The thief pushed hard enough to break the guard's grasp and started to run, but the guard jumped in front of the cart stopping the thief's escape.
"Nick, this angle is really bad. Can you find a better one?" Judy asked while pointing to the blurry images on the screen.
"Oh, sure, let me look." He flipped through the footage from several more cameras before stopping at one mounted on the side of the big building.
"This one looks like it is physically the closest to that door, but it's not pointing in the right direction."
"Wait, it's moving, Nick." Judy pointed out. The camera continued to move till the entrance was just barely in view before it panned back the other direction. "Darn! It didn't cover everything, and didn't stay in view long enough to make anything out." She sighed sadly.
"Let's try another one."
After several attempts, they settled on a view from a tall lamp post. It was high up and still too far away but had the best view of the fight at the entrance. With the camera chosen, they rewound the video and started the footage of the fight over from the beginning.
Again, the doors opened slowly, the guard grabbed the cart, the thief tried to run and was eventually cut off by the guard. Now they could see that the thief indeed did pull something large and black from his pocket and pointed it at the guard, who raised his hands and backed away from the cart.
"Can you zoom in and get a shot of that weapon, Slick?"
"I can try," the fox replied, as the screen zoomed in and both thief and weapon turned into an ugly grey blob. "Darn! The video is just too low-grade for this kind of work!"
"Well, let's just keep going and see what happens," the rabbit suggested.
Nick zoomed back out and they continued watching the fight.
The guard had both hands in the air and was slowly backing away from the thief and his cart. Then the thief rammed his cart into the gut of the guard, causing him to step back even further. The wolf did this several more times before the guard fell to the ground and the thief walked up to the guard sill pointing the black object at him and then made several quick jerky motions with it.
"Did he just shoot the guard?" Judy cried out in shock.
"Hang on, let's see that again," Nick said and rewound the footage back to before the shooting.
With the guard lying on the ground, and the thief once again pointing some kind of blurry black object at him, they started the playback again. Then, as before his hand jerked back three time in rapid succession.
"He did, he shot the guard!" Exclaimed Judy triumphantly.
"No, he is faking it! Watch." Nick then stepped away from the monitor and grabbed a stapler and took several more steps across the room turned and pointed the heavy office tool at his partner. "Pew, pew, pew!" Making hand motions exactly like those in the video and pretended to shoot the poor bunny.
"If you have spent any time at all at the firing range you should know that this is not how a real handgun operates. The weight is just off, and you would break your wrist handling a firearm like that!" he explained.
"Ok, so he is just pretending to shoot the guard? But why? To scare him off, then?"
"I don't know, Fluff. Maybe he was out of bullets. He was robbing the store after all."
"Ok, what does he do next?" Judy asked curiously, anxious to move on.
After shooting the guard, or pretending to shoot the guard, the thief began to run for the parking lot but stopped for a second and looked across the lot with an expression of fear on his muzzle. He then turns and throws the black object as hard as he can across the parking lot and over the fence on the east side of the lot.
Nick immediately picks up the office phone, letting the security footage continue to play on the screen. A few moments pass before he speaks, "Yes, Clawhauser, can you dispatch a patrol car back to Bearstine's Megamart A.S.A.P.? We have located the weapon. Yes, it's over the fence on the east side. Please send someone out there to collect it before some little kits find it. Also, find out who owns that lot and let them know that officers are on they way. Yes. Thank you very much." He hung up the phone just as the fox in the video climbed into the driver's seat of the cruiser and drove around the east side of the megamart.
"Ok, Clawhauser is sending someone to pick up the weapon. So, in about 30 minutes or less, we will know exactly what kind of gun it is and we'll be able to pull the perps prints off of it." Judy just looked at him in shock at his smooth efficient solution to the situation. He chuckled at her, "What? Were you worried you wouldn't get your bonus this month, darlin?"
"That's the third time today that you have surprised me Nick!" She said with a very serious sparkle in her eye.
"Well, I do try to make a habit of surprising dumb bun-Oww!" Nick cried as she fiercely punched him in the arm.
"Why don't we check the footage inside the store next? I'm curious to see this 'suspicious behavior' that caused the guard to call 911."
They plugged in the other video and sped it up till they saw the thief enter the store. He walked right past the guard who took one look at him and began tailing him around the store.
"Seriously!" Nick exclaimed, "that dam guard is profiling."
"What?"
"Look, Fluff," Nick pointed to the guard on the screen. "He is sneaking around, following the wolf like he is some kind of superhero, and not even doing a good job of it. He probably saw a scruffy, unkempt, predator and obviously thought he was up to no good. But look over here." He switched to a second camera where a short, well dressed mountain goat, that looked to be in fairly good shape, was walking towards the door with his hands in his pockets."
"What?"
"Um, you didn't see that Carrots?" So he rewound the footage of the ibex again until they could clearly see the goat walking through the allergy medication isle. Nick hit the slow motion button. As the ibex walked past the shelf a box falls on the floor, the mountain goat, being a good citizen, picks it up to put back on the shelf, but the box never actually makes it back. "That well dressed guy just pocketed those drugs while the dumb guard was playing sneaky sneaky with our wolf."
"You just never cease to amaze me, Slick!" the bunny beamed up at her partner.
"Let's just get back to the case at hand, ok?"
"Sure thing!"
The video continued to play as the two cops watched the security guard follow the wolf around the store as he filled his cart with seemingly random items. About halfway through his shopping list the wolf clearly spots the guard following him and he headed over to the kit's toy aisle and picked up a large black object then headed to the bathroom.
"Sweet Cheese and Crackers! Nick, is that what I think it is? Can you zoom in again?"
"Sure!" He fiddled with the controls again and was able to get a clearer picture than the outside cameras could.
"Yep, it's a toy gun," Judy cried, as she dragged her paw across her face.
After a few minutes in the restroom the wolf headed for the door with his cart full of goods.
"No no no! Don't tell me it's true! Not a toy! Not a TOY!" Judy was pounding her head on the desk with each cry.
The phone rang and Nick quickly put Clawhauser on speaker phone as Judy cried, "Clawhauser! Please say you have some good news for me!"
"Of course, Judy, I have great news! Snarlov and Fangmeyer found the weapon!"
"That's great! What kind of gun was it?"
"I think they said it was a Cub-liminator mark III automatic water pistol! Isn't it great?! That used to be one of my favorite toys! And they said it was full of antifreeze." There was a loud thud from behind Nick as something small hit the floor.
[A/N] I want to thank NightWolf0179 and Mister Smail for taking the time to review this chapter. It has been a lot of work to get everything just right. This was actually the first chapter I wrote in this story so it was filled with lots of mistakes and errors. Since chapters 2 and 3 both take place at roughly the same time I had originally put chapter 2 on top with a brief mention of the break in. But I eventually decided to break the dinner scene out into its own chapter and as suggested by another author ended up making the ransacked house another chapter on it's own. So now I am all caught up to what was originally meant to be the end of chapter 1 and going forward everything will all be new content and hopefully my writing will improve as I go.
A lot of the ideas for this chapter came from the current television series Lethal Weapon. And I find that Nick sort of reminds me of Detective Riggs.