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The debrief was going a lot slower than anticipated. It was already 8:22 A.M. and Judy was on her sixth cup of coffee. Nick, having completed his report was leaning back in his chair snoring lightly. Being Judy's partner, he wouldn't leave until she was done. Both Fangmeyer and Wolfard were still hunched over their laptops working up their own reports. Clawhauser entered the conference room and dropped a pair of sealed envelopes on the table in front of the bunny.

"This just arrived by courier from Zootopia General. The other one's from the lab."

"Thanks Ben." The cheetah smiled as he headed back to the front desk. Judy quickly ripped open the envelopes and pulled out about 8 sheets of paper. She shuffled through them briefly before raising both eyebrows. "This is interesting," Judy muttered.

Fangmeyer and Wolfard turned toward the bunny and Nick stopped snoring and opened one lazy eye. Chief Bogo, who preferred writing his reports longhand before giving it to his secretary to type looked up from the legal pad in front of him. "What's interesting Officer Hopps?"

"The doctors who treated our would-be train robbers say they all were knocked unconscious by blunt force trauma to the upper, external cranium."

"In other words," Nick observed drily, "someone hit them on the head."

"I'm not finished... additionally, two of the perps were disarmed when our hero..."

"Vigilante!" Bogo interrupted.

"Shot them very precisely in the hands in which they held their weapons."

"Did he use silver bullets?" asked the fox.

"No... Cap and ball... 36 caliber to be exact. The lab says their best guess is that our mysterious benefactor..."

"Vigilante," repeated Bogo.

"...used an 1861 Navy Colt."

Fangmeyer chuckled. "An equine avenger armed with a colt... go figure."

Bogo grumbled. Officer Wilde, for all his skill in working the streets and solving cases was definitely having a negative impact on how seriously the Precinct One officers approached law enforcement. "A VIGILANTE." Bogo snorted, glaring at both Fangmeyer and Wilde. "Not an avenging equine, or a hero, or a mysterious anything. He's some deranged civilian taking the law into his own hands."

"This has really got your shorts in a bind," observed Nick. "No one was hurt and our vigilante friend saved us hours of what would have been a very intense stand-off."

"I'll remind you, Officer Wilde, that the ZPD was created to avoid the kind of street justice that leads to anarchy. If we allow civilians to usurp our authority in any way we weaken the laws we are here to support."

"Rule of Law, etc.?"

"Precisely," growled the cape-buffalo.

"In my experience, the exception proves the law. It needs an occasional challenge to help mammals remember why it exists in the first place."

"You believe that, do you?" asked Bogo. Nick simply gave the chief his patented, sideways grin. The larger mammal grunted. "Not surprising, considering how many times you broke that law, before becoming a cop."

"Tweaked, bent, twisted, yes... but never broken. If I had, you never would have endorsed my application to the academy."

"Well, at least the type of weapon he used should be easy enough to trace," Judy offered. "I mean, how many mammals have working versions of a Navy Colt?"

"One thousand, one hundred fifty-seven, at least of the ones legally registered within a 100 mile radius of the city," replied Wolfard after a quick computer search. The others stared at him for a moment. "Hey... what can I say? It's a collectable, and it's very popular on the antique sport-firing circuit."

"Sounds like you're a collector yourself," chided Nick.

"No... But I know a few mammals who are into antique firearms," the wolf replied. "As a matter of fact, we have one working in this very building."

"Let me guess... the armory sergeant?" asked Fangmeyer.

"No, he means Deputy Butler. She's our liaison with the sheriff's department," Judy said. A little spark seemed to pop up in the bunny's eye. "Why don't we call her in here? I bet there a lot she can tell us about the gun that was used."

Bogo nodded and reached for his cell. When he put it down a few minutes later he looked over at the others. "She's down at the range. Hopps... Wilde... You two look like you could use a break. Why don't you stroll down to the gun range and bring Butler back with you... Say in about fifteen minutes?" Both mammals slid off their chairs and headed for the door, Nick giving the chief a quick salute that barely qualified as being respectful as he closed the door behind them.

Bogo glared at the door before continuing. "What do we know so far about the broken guitar found on scene?"

"It was a custom made job, reinforced with copper sheathing in the resonance box to give it a higher than average durability," Fangmeyer reported. "We should probably have some of our detectives scope out specialty music stores."

"I wonder how that affected the sound quality," Wolfard queried.

"Probably gave it a little more resonance. The softer metal would create a kind of echo effect."

The Cape buffalo snorted. "Thick enough to stop bullets?"

"Light caliber, perhaps. Standard velocity .22s or .38s, nothing heavier."

"It wouldn't stop what our perps had on them," Wolfard observed.

"No, so our vigilante wasn't prepared for anything as big as a train robbery. Yet he still felt compelled to go in and risk the lives of those civilians on the train," Bogo huffed.

"As well as his own," Fangmeyer reminded the chief.

The buffalo grumbled something unintelligible, then went back to writing. The two officers looked at each other and went back to their own reports. Five minutes later there was a soft knock on the door.

Nick and Judy entered, in company with Deputy Butler. Bogo looked up and was taken slightly aback by the slim, and obviously female equine who entered with them. She was a hinny who stood almost as tall as the chief with soft white fur and a well quaffed black mane. She wore a tan and green deputy sheriff's uniform with sergeant's stripes and was rather curvy, though not well endowed. Her left leg was encased in a metal brace that went from just above her hoof and disappeared into the barely kneed-length skirt of her uniform. She leaned casually against a light colored mahogany cane that matched her attire.

Bogo rose without realizing it and reached out to gently shake the deputy's hand. "Sergeant Butler?"

The hinny smiled. "It's nice to finally meet you, Chief Bogo. You were on leave when I first reported several months ago and didn't have the opportunity for a formal meet and greet until now."

"Captain Fastbinder keeping you busy?"

She nickered lightly. "Between him and Sheriff Osorio I've been hopping back and forth between departments." Butler noticed the Chief was looking at her leg. "I've been thinking of having it gold plated."

"Excuse me?"

"The brace. Souvenir of a very wild pursuit."

"Sorry... I didn't mean to stare," Bogo muttered.

"No offense taken. I still caught the perp."

"Good to hear," the chief replied. "Perhaps you might be able to help us catch one of ours."

"What have you got?" Butler asked. Bogo handed her the forensic reports which she quietly examined for several minutes before looking up and handing the file back to him. "I think I'm missing something here. The report says all your would-be train robbers are in jail. Who exactly do you want caught?"

"We still have a vigilante on the loose who needs to be brought to heel."

"Our fearless leader has a burr in his hoof about letting ordinary citizens help the police."

Bogo glared at the fox. "Shut it, Wilde!"

The hinny raised one eyebrow nickering slightly at the exchange. She had heard about the todd's acerbic wit and the often humorous conversations it drew out between himself and the chief. "Technically, you're both wrong," Butler replied.

"How so?" Bogo asked.

"First of all, he is definitely no ordinary citizen. He obviously has had some kind of martial training along with a significant skill in handling weapons."

"Granted," the buffalo replied, "But..."

"He also ISN'T a vigilante. Not in the true sense of the word," she continued. "If he were, none of those perps would have been left alive," the deputy finished.

"Didn't he take the law into his own hands?" asked Hopps.

The deputy shook her head. "A true vigilante almost never works alone and never exercises the kind of precise control he applied in last night's robbery. More often than not, vigilantes see themselves as judge, jury and executioner. He, however, used the minimum force necessary to contain and resolve a situation in which he was clearly outnumbered."

"A situation into which he should never have placed himself," Bogo grumbled. "Not when there are highly skilled and qualified police officers who are paid to serve the public by taking those risks themselves."

"You're undoubtedly right," Butler replied. "Vigilante justice seldom occurs except where the police are either non-existent or ineffectual. Such is not the case in Zootopia."

The chief grunted in agreement, his scowl turning into a more satisfied look.

"So what about his use of the guitar, and that old gun?" Fangmeyer asked.

"The gun's possibly a message, or a personal memento that has some meaning to our lone hero. The guitar?" the deputy paused for a moment. "I haven't a clue about."

"Maybe that was his way of trying to balance the scales of justice?" quipped Nick, a grin formed on his muzzle. The whole room groaned and Judy reached over and punched him in the arm.

"OW! Come on carrots, that wasn't all that bad."

"No," the bunny replied. "It was worse."

Openly chuckling, Deputy Butler looked at Bogo, her eyes shining with humor. "Anything else I can do for you Chief?"

"I'll let you know, Deputy. Thank-you for your insight," the Cape buffalo said, his voice less gravely than normal. Smiling, she nodded and left. Even with the cane, the hinny walked with a syncopated gate that had the all the males, the chief included, watching until she had disappeared from sight.

Bogo turned back to his officers and saw them all grinning at him. He scooped up his own legal pad. "I'm going to finish this in my office. Have your reports on my desk in twenty minutes, then go home and get some sleep," he growled as he left the room.

To Be Continued...