The junkyard was technically located in the Meadowlands District, but it was so far out of the way that it may as well have been outside of Zootopia altogether. Nick even joked as they drove up that it was big enough to be its own district.
"The Junk Yard District. Think about it. Doesn't it have a certain ring to it?"
"Let it go, Elsa," Judy retorted.
Nick's joking aside, the junkyard was rather large. It had three separate entrances, each a mile apart from each other. Judy had already called ahead, so the workers were expecting them, and she knew to drive up to the farthest entrance. The junkyard was on the left side of the road, so Nick had to lean over Judy's head in order to get a good look at it. Judy herself took quick glances out the window every once in a while, gaping at the sheer size of the place.
The junkyard not only had cars, which already came in every shape and size to accommodate the various mammals of Zootopia, but also had other home appliances and machinery. Refrigerators, ovens, and air conditioning units were just the start of things they saw. Animal-specific units—like a water pump for hippos and a hairball recycling unit for lions—were but a handful of examples they saw fly by as they drove past.
At some point, Nick grew bored of looking at all the junk, and instead skimmed over the official investigation report again, which he had been doing off and on since they had left the ZPD. As he had feared, it was definitely written by a lawyer; the document was littered with long words and a multitude of adjectives. In an effort to avoid overloading his brain, he tried memorizing some key words to be on the lookout for when comparing the report to the car once they found it.
"Burnt to a crisp," he read out loud. "Everything under the hood destroyed beyond recognition. Roof flattened by several inches. Rear fender suggests evidence of—"
"I was there, Nick," Judy interrupted. "I know what happened to it."
Nick shrugged, waving innocently at the folder in his paw. "Well, I'm glad Mr. Haas agrees with your assessment of the vehicle in question, Officer Hopps." He continued scanning the document, stopping at one section that caused him to raise an eyebrow. "The seat belt was bitten in half?"
"That was me," Judy replied, a hint of embarrassment in her voice. "I couldn't get it to unbuckle and that was the only thing I could think of doing."
Nick snickered. "Why, Carrots, I had no idea you had such a talented mouth."
His punishment came instantly; they had reached their turn into the junkyard and Judy took it a bit too sharply. Nick's head bumped against the window, and he let out an involuntary yelp.
Judy glanced over and, to Nick's chagrin, gave him a half-lidded smile, identical to the ones he was well-known for. "You got any more jokes about me, Slick?" she challenged.
Nick stared at her, unamused, but reluctantly slouched in his seat. "No, ma'am," he responded in defeat.
It wasn't long before they reached the offices for the junk yard. It was pretty much exactly how Nick had imagined; a shack of a place, made out of sheet metal and held together with rivets. It was also small; normally, buildings throughout Zootopia were large, so as to accommodate the sizes of all different animals. This one appeared to be barely big enough for Nick to walk inside without having to duck his head.
Judy parked outside the office and turned to Nick. "Be ready," she warned.
Nick raised an eyebrow. "Ready for what? A really cranky junkyard employee who hates that he ended up here instead of—"
Judy opened her door, just a crack. Instantly, a smell swept into the cruiser the likes of which Nick had never encountered before. It was a putrid stench—the result of millions of tons of garbage piling up for the past several decades. Rusting appliances, old oil and gasoline, and food that had rotten away years ago combined together to create something that he could only describe as a crime against his sense of smell.
Nick scrambled to cover his nose with his paws. "Oh my God!" he squealed.
Judy shrugged. "Told you." She opened her door the rest of the way and hopped outside.
Nick stared at her in disbelief. "I don't believe you," he retorted before she could close her door. "You could have given me more than three seconds' warning, you…" His voice came to a stop as he realized something. "Wait a minute. How come this ungodly odor isn't affecting you?"
The very edges of Judy's mouth pulled upward. "A bunny's sense of smell isn't as good as a fox's," she replied. She started closing the door, but stopped herself long enough to add, "Oh, and also, I'm not breathing in through my nose." Nick saw her produce a clothespin from her pocket and attach it to her nostrils just as she finally shut the door.
He, of course, did not have one of his own, so he was forced to cover his nose with the collar of his shirt as the two walked to the front office. He managed to find a way to do so with one paw while simultaneously holding the folder under his other arm, but he could still smell most of the stench through the cotton.
"Let's agree to make this a fast trip, okay, Carrots?" he pleaded, his voice muffled by his shirt.
Judy seemed to slow her stride upon his suggestion. "We'll take as long as we need to, Officer Wilde," she replied, her voice sounding slightly nasally with her nostrils sealed shut.
Luckily for him, it only took a few seconds for them to reach the open doorway. After stepping inside, the odor almost immediately went away, kept outside the office. Obviously, for however cheaply the building was made, they had spared no expense in climate control.
The office was populated only by three computer desks, one of which was currently occupied by a skunk, wearing a short-sleeved button-up white shirt and brown slacks, clacking away at his keyboard. Nick breathed a sigh of relief, welcoming the scent of pine and vanilla air freshener. Judy took her clothespin off, tucked it inside a pocket on her belt, and approached the skunk. "Excuse me?"
The skunk stopped his typing and looked up. "Yes?" A second later, he realized who he was talking to and he jumped out of his seat. "Oh, yes! Officers! I was told you were coming."
Nick smiled in greeting. "Yes, I believe you have a toasted car for us to check out." He patted his envelope. "Nothing to worry about, standard procedure, we're just making sure everything is—"
"Arnold Stinkavich?"
Nick stopped talking and turned to Judy, annoyed at the sudden interruption. She was staring at the name plate on the skunk's desk, a look of surprise on her face. Actually, it was a look of surprise mixed with…
Was that dread?
The skunk nodded. "That's right," he concurred.
Judy paused for a few moments to think about her next words. "Mr. Stinkavich, I'm Judy Hopps. I'm the one who called you about Victor Bruin."
Stinkavich's face quickly changed to one of recognition. "Oh, Officer Hopps!" He approached her and shook her paw fervently. "Thank you so much for helping Victor. He doesn't deserve to be locked up."
Nick's eyes darted back and forth between the bunny and the skunk. He quickly surmised how the two of them knew each other, and guessed this was only their second time ever interacting. He gently cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to say, sir," he interjected, "but Victor Bruin hasn't been released yet."
To his surprise, Stinkavich jumped away from Judy and grabbed his paw, shaking it just as fervently. "I know, but you two are helping to fix that! Both Officer Hopps and you, Officer…"
Nick smiled uneasily and pulled his paw away from the eager skunk. "Wilde, Officer Wilde."
"You two are doing so much good for Victor, and I can't thank you enough!"
Nick was touched by the skunk's enthusiasm, but didn't have a good response. He turned to Judy, silently begging her to say something.
She obliged. "We're doing everything we can, Mr. Stinkavich," she assured him. "In fact, that's part of the reason we're here. Did the ZPD tell you about the car we came to look at?"
Stinkavich enthusiastically nodded. "Yes, the totaled Furrari." He led the two taller mammals to the door. "Follow me, it's not that far away."
Nick preemptively covered his snout with his shirt collar, and Judy once again placed the clothespin on her tiny nose. Maybe it was a placebo effect, but the odor outside the office didn't feel as bad as it did the first time. True to his word, Stinkavich only took a few seconds to lead the two officers to the Furrari. It sat in a heap, barely a shell of its former self, exactly as the investigation report had detailed.
"Please take your time, and if there's anything I can do, please let me know," Stinkavich said, before turning around and heading back to his office.
Nick looked over the car for a second. He couldn't even tell what the original color might have been. The front was completely gone, from the grill to the steering wheel; undoubtedly, what pieces were left were elsewhere in the junkyard, charred and warped beyond recognition. The back seat and trunk appeared to be in surprisingly good condition; some of the leather was even intact. However, the roof of the car was smashed in on itself—the result of it landing upside-down after a 20-foot fall.
"There's no way I'm gonna fit inside," he observed.
"I didn't expect you to," Judy replied, already approaching the vehicle. "Just read off the bullet points to me, okay?"
Nick hesitated. "You do realize that means I'll leave my nose exposed to the elements, right, Carrots?"
Judy rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, it's not like you've never gotten down and dirty before."
"Little do you know, rabbit," Nick responded, before giving in and opening the file. He did his best to breathe exclusively with his mouth for the next few minutes, but even so, the stink was hard to ignore. He waited until Judy had opened the driver's door—what was left of it, anyway—before starting. "Seat belt buckled in, but chewed in half?"
"Check," Judy called.
Nick began absent-mindedly walking around the car as he talked. "Dashboard burnt beyond recognition?"
"Check."
"Lion fur all over the interior?"
"Check."
"Driver's seat and front passenger's seat intact but deep fried like my Aunt Millie's Southern Veggies?" He might have ad-libbed that last part.
Judy sighed loudly. "Yes, Nick."
He flipped over the page. "Everything under the hood nowhere to be seen?" He happened to be walking past the front of the car at the moment, so he nodded to himself. "Check. Claw marks visible on the steering wheel?"
"Hard to tell, it's charred so much. But probably."
"Glove box empty? And the center compartment between the front seats?"
"Check."
Nick came to a stop at the passenger's window. "And, finally, all windows gone, all tires melted, and no casualties."
Judy climbed into the passenger's seat and sat down. "Check, check, and check." She sighed and crossed her arms. "Okay, so we see what Mr. Haas saw. No difference."
Nick checked the list twice, briefly likening himself to Santa Paws at the thought, and slouched. "So we've got nothing. Nothing at all to clue us in on Roark's behavior that day."
Judy motioned for Nick to hand her the folder, which he did. She looked over it again on her own. "There's got to be something here we missed," she mumbled. "I saw it in his eyes: he had no memory of what he did while he was driving."
"Have you interrogated him yet?" Nick inquired. She simply shook her head in response. "Well, there's another possibility." He leaned on the empty window frame, resting his feet. "Maybe Mr. Haas—or his boss, Mr. Timothy Fields, attorney at law, our dear friend and comrade—hid whatever evidence once existed in here."
"I've thought of that," Judy admitted. "It's possible, but right now that's nothing more than a suggestion. We can't pursue anything without probable cause."
"Probable cause, huh?" Nick smirked. "I can always go crawling around suspects' properties again. You seemed to like that for probable cause, as I recall."
"Har har."
They both sighed, wondering what to do next. Nick looked around the interior of the Furrari once again. This had been their lead, and now it seemed to be coming up dry. They had scoured every inch of the car and hadn't found anything.
Every inch…
Nick found his gaze not falling down to the floor or the seats, but up to the roof. There was one compartment left that the investigation had not touched on.
"Carrots, did you check the sunglasses holder?"
Judy didn't even bother looking while she pressed up at the box. "Yeah, it's empty." No sooner did she finish talking, than the box popped open, and out dropped a small container, which fell to the floor between Judy's feet with a sharp sound.
Judy's attention was caught, as was Nick's, and both of them leaned their heads down to take a better look. It was a pill box, small enough to fit even in Judy's palm with ease. It had been horribly burnt in the fire, but it was still in one piece and part of the label was still visible.
"Pat Roark," they both read out loud. Judy quickly reached down and picked it up, rolling it around in her paws to get more information. Unfortunately, that was all that was left of the label, and the bottle was completely empty.
"Maybe the lab can trace whatever was inside?" Nick suggested.
Judy shook her head. "The fire will have tainted that." She placed the pill box back inside the sunglasses compartment and closed it. "It's not worth bringing back. Tampering with evidence and all that."
She quickly exited the car and handed Nick back the folder before walking back to the cruiser, fox close behind. "So what does all this mean?" Nick asked.
"It means that Roark was under the influence of something," Judy responded. "And also, either Haas didn't find the pill box or he intentionally didn't report it. Either way, he rushed through this investigation, which means there's a lot more being hidden from us than we thought."
They reached the cruiser and hopped in. Nick welcomed the air freshener hitting his nostrils and hoped never to smell the junkyard ever again. "Okay, so what's our next move?"
Judy started the car and checked the time on the dashboard. "Eh, it's getting late." She tapped her thumb against the steering wheel rapidly as she thought. "I wish we could keep this work up today, but I don't think there's much more we can do." She began driving toward the junkyard exit. "Plus, my background check on Bruin and Stripes won't be done until tomorrow morning anyway—not to mention my interrogation on Roark. Maybe you can help me with that."
Nick remembered what he had planned for the next morning and groaned. "Sorry, Carrots, but the good Dr. Wood has a follow-up appointment with me tomorrow morning. I'd love to ditch that and solve crimes with you but there's no getting out of it."
Judy was silent for a brief moment. "A follow-up appointment?" she repeated. "Wasn't the original one just to clear you for active duty?"
"Yep, but apparently he has something else he'd like to talk to me about. And per our new assistant mayor's prerogative, I cannot say no." Nick slouched in his seat, very unhappy at the thought. "I can't wait for this to all be over and we can go back to normal."
Judy turned onto the highway, heading back in the direction of Precinct 1. "And what do you consider normal?" she asked, curious.
Nick pointed at his shock collar. "Not having to wear this, for one." He crossed his arms. "And going back to the usual cop stuff. Speeding tickets, house arrest checkups, bailiff duty…" He looked out the window, staring absently at the mountains of junk as they streaked past. "Anything that doesn't actively remind me that predators are always looked down on just because of how they look."
Unable to take her eyes off the road, Judy instead leaned over and rested a paw on his shoulder. "I don't look down on you, Nick."
Nick smiled. The reassurance did help him feel a bit better. "Thanks, Carrots." He went back to looking out the window. "Hopefully someday the rest of this town will feel the same way."
"Hopefully," Judy agreed. "And hopefully solving this case will help make that day come a bit sooner."