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Bogo pulled into his driveway shortly after two A.M. He had not intended to be out as late as this, but his conversation with Hank and Lucy had carried on far longer than anticipated. The two mammals were both interesting and he in turn had found himself telling them stories from his days, first as a field supervisor, then watch commander and finally Precinct One Chief. They were stories he couldn't have shared with subordinates, but neither Deputy Butler nor Hank Trotter felt like anything but old friends.

Climbing out of the car, the chief took a few steps and realized that he was slightly buzzed. He normally never drank, so two medium sized beers were enough to put him close to the edge, despite his physical mass. It occurred to him that he was such a light weight even Officer Hopps could, if their drinks were proportional, put him under the table. The thought made him chuckle as he got out his keys and unlocked his front door.

Entering, he locked the door and dropped his keys in a small bowl on a table in the entryway. He picked up the mail from a small box mounted to the mail slot in the door and absent-mindedly began thumbing through it. Three bills, an assortment of junk mail and a letter from his Aunt Bella Bogo was the sum total of his personal correspondence today. He reached for the living room light switch and clicked it on... but nothing happened. Years of instinct and training suddenly kicked in and his buzz instantly vanished as his hand reached into his jacket.

"Please stand where you are, Chief. Keep your hands where I can see them and don't make any sudden moves," said a voice somewhere within the darkened room. Moving carefully, Bogo brought his hand back down to his side, the dart gun still holstered in his jacket.

"I hope you'll forgive me, but I found it necessary to take a few liberties with your fuse box. You'll find I've disabled both your home security system and most of the lights on the first floor of the house. Not to worry though, I left the missing fuses on top of the fuse box in your basement."

"Who exactly are you?" Bogo asked.

"Right now, you can think of me as a concerned citizen. If you look in the chair next to you, you'll find a slightly worn backpack. Most of the money that was in it is gone. I gave it to a couple of homeless shelters in Happytown. What's left are a few marked bills the ZPD was using to trace a numbers racket in Tundra Town. You'll also find some account books that should help work out how money was being collected and distributed by this gang. Don't worry about fingerprints. I was very careful in handling the bag myself, so you should be able to pick up more than a suspect or two with what you find there."

"I'm not sure we can use any of this "evidence" you've provided, if you are who I think you might be. A chain of custody has to be established for it to be legally admissible in court."

"Not to worry. I left something in the bag that will establish your chain of custody. And you don't have to worry about illegally obtained evidence or fruit of the poisoned tree arguments. As long as I function independently from the ZPD or any other police force, I can't be considered an agent of the law. Just a cooperative, private citizen."

"There are a lot of mammals out there who consider you a vigilante."

"Maybe, but there are others who'll disagree. Regardless, I do have a mission and a goal, after which my purpose will be fulfilled, and I can fade back into the night. Something I dare say you are eager to see."

"There's quite a lot I can still forgive, if you give this "mission" of yours up here and now," Bogo said. "I won't be able to make that offer if any innocent civilians get hurt, either by you or by trying to copy your methods."

"Perhaps... but in the long run, I believe you'll find me more help than hindrance."

Straining his eyes, Bogo though he saw something move in the darkness. He took a step forward to block its path, simultaneously drawing his gun. A dart silently flew out of the darkness and struck the chief just above his thick, turtleneck collar. Staggering, he quickly dropped to the floor. A dark clad figure stood above him for a moment, checking to make sure there were no negative effects from the tranq round. He placed a couple of pillows from a nearby couch under the Cape buffalo's head, removed a half dozen tranquilizer rounds from the ZPDs chief, then silently exited the house.

Four hours passed. Light was just beginning to stream in through the windows of his home when Bogo's eyes fluttered open. He winced as the pounding in his head made itself known. Groggily he pushed himself up off the floor and staggered over to the half-bath where he then emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet. It had the effect of making him feel much better, aside from the headache. Reaching into the medicine cabinet he popped a couple of aspirin into his mouth followed by a very large glass of water. He simultaneously plucked out the dart embedded in his neck and studied it. As he suspected, his visitor last night had under dosed him, apparently on purpose. Grumbling, the chief pulled out a small plastic bag from the kitchen and dropped the tranq round into it. At almost the same moment his cell phone began ringing.

He flipped the phone open, noting immediately there were five missed calls, the most recent one less than five minutes ago. He swiped the answer key and brought the phone up to his ear. That was a mistake.

"CHIEF! ARE YOU ALRIGHT!?" asked a frantic Clawhauser.

"I will be when you stop yelling," Bogo replied grimly. "What have you got?"

"Oh! Uh, sorry chief. We've been trying to get ahold of you for a couple of hours. There was another El Kabong sighting about midnight in Tundra Town. Hopps and Wilde have been on the case most of the night now but when they tried to contact you there was no answer."

"Let me guess... it involved a backpack full of money," Bogo replied, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle.

There was a moment's silence. "How did you...?"

"Long story short, I'll tell you later. Meanwhile, I want someone to drive out to my house in the Glades and give me a ride into the precinct. I don't feel much like driving at the moment."

"Already done, chief. When you didn't answer, Judy and Nick volunteered to drive out that way. They should be there any time now."

Almost as if on cue, a ZPD patrol vehicle pulled up in front of the house, the gravel driveway crunching underneath it weight. The doors popped open, and both the bunny and fox alighted from the vehicle, walking cautiously up to the front door.

"I'll get back to you later and don't worry, I'm fine. Just a little pissed off." He clicked the phone shut and opened the front door before either officer could press the doorbell.

"It's about time you got here," Bogo grumbled. He turned and walked into the kitchen and grabbed a fresh trash bag from the pantry. Nick and Judy watched him from the entryway as he then lifted the backpack off the chair and carefully deposited it in white bag, tying it off.

The two smaller officers looked at each other then back to their boss. "Is that...?"

"Maybe. The lab boys should be able to establish a chain of custody once they do a little forensic work. Which reminds me." He pulled out his cell phone once more and dialed Clawhauser. The cheetah answered on the second ring.

"Clawhauser... I want you to dispatch a lab team to my house as soon as possible. Yes, I'll wait here with Hopps and Wilde, just try to get them here in under an hour."

Bogo clicked his phone shut, picked up his keys and patted himself down to make sure he still had everything on him he needed. Pulling out his tranq gun he cursed when he found the magazine empty.

"I'm guessing we both have something to report about last night," observed Nick.

**********

"So let's see if we have this timeline meshed together correctly," said Judy. About midnight last night the elk gang ambushed and killed a serval named Grigori Whitefang who was working as a courier for the 10th Street Numbers gang, taking a backpack with about five hundred thousand in gambling receipts."

Nick typed in the data and added it to their case display board. "Got it."

"It was as they were dumping the body they were surprised by an arctic fox named Ben Northpaw who just happened to be using the alley as a short cut to get home."

"Not really smart," observed Nick, "but totally innocent." He added the information.

"Alright," the bunny continued. "Northpaw gets stabbed once but breaks away, losing his glasses in the scuffle. The gang chases him in order to get rid of a potential witness and that's when El Kabong intervenes."

"Estimated time is about twelve fourteen, based upon the broken watch Northpaw has, which probably was damaged when he was thrown against the wall," Nick read as he typed. "Pity... It looked like a nice watch."

"Don't forget that Mr. Northpaw put up a fight."

"Yeah, I saw pictures of the wound. Who would have guessed someone as mild mannered as he was would have gone so feral?" The fox added the info to the board. "With any luck, the elk will get gangrene."

"Nick!"

"Okay.... I take it back."

"I just don't like you casting aspersions on Mr. Northpaw."

"How was I casting aspersions on him?"

"Well, you hinted that our nice arctic fox never brushed his teeth."

Officer Wilde chuckled. "Got me again...sly bunny."

"Dumb Fox!"

Nick typed in a little score box in the display narrative that read: Carrots - 03, Fox - 02.

"At this point the timeline gets a bit muddled. Our hero..."

"Vigilante," said Bogo, interrupting the bunny.

"El Kabong... proceeds to wipe the alley with the three elk. He then administers first aid to Northpaw, returns the victim's glasses and absconds with the backpack full of money."

"Dispatch has a time stamp of twelve twenty-three for when the call came in," Bogo supplied. Nick dutifully entered the data.

"Units arrive at twelve twenty-seven at which time Mr. Northpaw tells them about his rescue and states that El Kabong was only going to hang around until the police arrived," the bunny added. "So, between about twelve-thirty and twelve fifty-five the responding officers searched the area finding the perps, Whitefang's body, the gang's weapons, some covered in blood, and evidence of the struggle but little physical evidence of the equine's presence and no backpack."

"I arrived home at two-ten to find our vigilante had disabled the home security system and broken into the house, all to deliver a nearly empty backpack to me," Bogo interjected.

"How long did he meet with you?" Judy asked.

"I'd hardly classify what we did as a meeting," the Cape buffalo said, "but it was no more than five minutes at most."

"And it was at this point you tried to stop him from leaving and he tranqed you," Nick stated. Bogo grumbled something in response. "Can I take that as a yes?" the fox grinned.

"Take it however you want," replied the chief, "But if I hear one comment from any mammal about Bedtime for Bogo. I swear you'll wish I'd ONLY given you parking duty. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," both Nick and Judy answered as the vulpine entered the data onto the computer display.

There was a soft knock on the briefing room door and Deputy Sergeant Butler entered carrying an envelope. "I was just on my way out to lunch and the lab boys asked me to drop this off for you." She handed the envelope to Bogo then excused herself and left.

The chief carefully opened the flap and pulled out several sheets of paper which he examined carefully.

"Anything useful?" asked Judy.

"Yes," he replied. "We have a match for six sets of prints found on the backpack and its contents. Two belong to our elk suspects. Three belong to members of the Tenth Street gang... and one set belongs to Officer Judy Hopps."

"WHAT?" the bunny exploded. But I wasn't.... How could..."

"Relax," Bogo said. "Your prints were found on a tranq round that was dropped into the bottom of the backpack by our vigilante."

"It must be one of the rounds he took from us," Nick offered.

"Obviously," the chief replied. "That gives us a chain of custody on the backpack, just as he promised."

"Kind of thin," observed the fox.

"Thin, yes... But still usable if handled properly."

The bunny chuckled in relief. "You really had me going there for a moment, chief." The Cape buffalo didn't reply, though a tiny smile could be seen barely crossing his muzzle.

Off to one side, Nick continued to enter data onto the computer and status board, changing the score card to read: Carrots - 03, Fox - 02, Chief - 01.