FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Nick and Judy both felt like they had a rather unproductive day of investigation, however with the Cat's Meow opening soon, and Judy with a warrant in hand, they figured they might just have some luck yet before they called it a night. As they headed towards the door, Judy glanced down the alleyway. It looked incredibly clean compared to the previous night, still some dark red stains against the concrete that hadn't washed out, but no more obvious gore.

The two headed to the main entrance to the club, knocking heavily on the old steel door. From inside a deep voiced answered

"We're closed! Come back in an hour!"

"ZPD!" Judy quickly replied "We have a warrant to go over your security tapes, open up!"

The sound of a lock being undone was followed by the door sliding open, a large grey rhino pulling himself out of a chair to be able to fully open it.

"Yeah, yeah, alright, should have seen this coming. Just show me the warrant."

Sliding in front of Nick, Judy slipped out the signed and approved warrant, showing it to the rhino, who quickly read it over.

"Just have permission to look over the tapes then. Alright, seems fair. Follow me to the basement, the tapes'n'stuff are all down in the security room."

He slid aside to let the two cops in, shutting the door behind them, locking it again before cautiously stepping around the officers, heading into the club proper.

Inside the club was a series of circular stages of all different sizes, each having their own proportionally sized pole sticking out of them and connecting to the ceiling. At the centre of the bar was a much larger stage with two poles. Lounging around the room was a lot of girls. Most of them cats, all of them predators of some kind. They were in various states of dress, some just sitting around chatting in their underwear, although some were still fully, albeit scantily dressed.

"Nick..." Just started, trying not to stare at any of the girls "Do I want to know why you knew this was a strip club?"

"I told you when I first met you, Carrots. I know everyone."

He gave a little wave and grin to one of the few fox girls sitting around, and she waved back at him. Judy looked between them, not wanting to think about what that could mean, trying to keep her head down until they were at the stairs. The rhino unlocked the door for them and led them down.

"I imagine you'll be most interested in the camera pointed at the alleyway. Already took a look at it myself. Camera 9, file should be labelled with date and time in the computer."

They quickly found the file they were looking for, holding the footage from camera 9 the previous night. They fast forwarded through the first few hours, looking for when the bodies appeared. It wasn't hard to spot. A large white, windowless van pulled into the alleyway, and Judy quickly stopped the footage.

Two masked hippos quickly jumped from the back, started just tossing pieces of dead animal from the back, trying to unload them as quick as possible. It seemed like they weren't quite finished though when the side door opened, the tail and back end of a raccoon sticking out of it, although he was still facing inwards. As soon as they realized someone else was there though, the hippos stopped dumping, closing the van doors and peeling off down the alleyway. They were gone just in time for the raccoon to turn around and react in horror to the scene on the ground.

The two rewatched the scene a couple of times, Judy feeling nauseous just from seeing it over and over, but she was able to keep herself in control. Finally figuring they weren't going to get any more, Judy leaned back into a wall, closing her eyes and sighing.

"You going to be alright there, Carrots?"

She opened her eyes, nodding a little. "Going to be fine. Back up a little, see if you can get a screengrab that should the license plate well enough to read."

Nick reword the footage frame by frame, waiting to see if there would be a clear shot, and luckily, he managed to find one. Zooming in on the footage, it was pixelated, but clear enough to get what they thought were the digits off of it.

"Great work Nick. Keep looking through different footage, see if you can't get a better picture, I'm going to head upstairs, see if I can't get a clear radio signal to control and run the plate."

"You're the boss, Carrots."

Running upstairs, she opened the door to the basement, holding it upon. The soundcheck was going on in the background, but that was quiet enough that she was still able to chat to control. After the previous night she had started wearing her personal radio, unhooking it from hewr shoulder, she called in.

"Control, this is Hotel 85421"

"Hotel 8541, this is control, go ahead."

"I need ownership details on a license plate."

"Hold one second."

She had the chance to look around the room again as she waited for control to get the system up for running the plate. The same fox girl that Nick had waved to earlier gave her a little wave, and she was about to give an uncertain wave back when her radio crackled to life again.

"Go ahead, Hotel 8541"

"Plate number is Zulu, Yankee, Lima, Kilo, Fower, Seven, Fower."

"That's Zulu, Yankee, Lima, Kilo, Fower, Seven, Fower?"

"Correct."

"The vehicle is listed as a white van, owner Michael Tapiri, was reported as stolen two weeks ago, turned up destroyed early this morning. Burned to nothing but a frame. Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you control. Hotel 85421 Clear."

"Control Clear."

She groaned, bumping the back of her head against the metal door. Because of course, if they were almost caught, they would have gotten rid of the van. Of course that would leave them with basically no leads. A female voice, suddenly interrupted her thoughts.

"Umm... excuse me officer, but are you okay?"

Already in a bad mood, she couldn't help but snap at the person, eyes still closed.

"I'm fine! Why does everybody keep asking me that? I am fine. I am will be fine. I am fine."

Looking over at who asked the question, it was the same scantily clad fox girl that had just waved at her.

"Hey, sorry, just wanted to make sure. There's still some time before I have to be backstage. Figured I would come say hi to Nick's partner in crime- or the exact opposite these days I suppose."

She offered a hand over to Judy.

"I'm Carmina Volpe, but you'll probably just hear me called 'Vixxen' around here. It's stupid, but it sells."

Judy grabbed the offered hand, still slightly confused as to where this was coming from.

"Judy Hopps, ZPD, clearly. How exactly did you meet Nick?"

"Oh, Nick's just the kind of guy that everyone seems to know, you know what I mean? He lives in the same apartment block as me, and we've chatted a few times. He's shown up here once or twice, but he never seemed much into it, honestly. It was usually with Finnick."

Judy couldn't help feel a little relieved. What Nick did in his spare time was really his own business, but she would have been a little... disturbed? No, that wasn't quite right. Annoyed perhaps, that her partner was the kind of man who regularly attended strip clubs.

"Anyways," The fox interrupted her train of thought "It seems like you two are real busy, so I am going to let you get back to it. Besides, I need to head backstage soon. The doors are going to start opening any minute."

A quick goodbye followed, and Judy headed back down the stairs to find Nick going through camera after camera, looking for any angle that might help them, but seeming to turn up nothing of use. She took a seat in the chair next to his.

"Hey Fluff, that took a while, Control tell you anything good?"

"Well, we know where the van went. Unfortunately it was found this morning, nothing but a burned out husk."

"M-hmm, that wouldn't have taken as long as it did to find out. What else is there?"

"Well, I may have gotten into a quick little conversation with a friend of yours." It was Judy's turn to be able to put on a little grin.

"Ah. Carmina. She didn't tell you any embarrassing stories about me, did she?"

"Hmm? You, Nick Wilde, the suave fox, having embarrassing stories about your past? Shocking."

"Oh shush, Carrots." He gave her chair a little shove, sending it rolling down the little room. "Look, I'm just about done here, and if we've run out of leads, then it might just be best to copy the footage we have here and call it a night."

"Sounds like that might be for the best. Bogo did tell us to get a good night's sleep, and the van will be considered a crime scene already. We'll just let them know what we came up with."

As the two were packing up, they heard music, faint coming down the stairs, but surely plenty loud, coming from the main bar room, signaling that the night had started. Apparently, they really weren't going to take a night off just because a gruesome murder had turned up next to their club. Not on what could be a busy Saturday. Judy let out a little groan as she heard it

"What, a little bit of nudity still going to bother you, Carrots?"

Slightly annoyed that she didn't have a good comeback, he was right after all, she just walked upstairs and pushed the door open, Nick right on her heels, chuckling. Getting her back for talking with Carmina she assumed.

She couldn't totally help but look up occasionally though, mostly to navigate, but she did glance over briefly towards the main stage, where she saw none other than Carmina, halfway through a dance, already topless. She felt her face heating up, flinching slightly when she heard Nick whistle jokingly as she made her way out the door.

They quickly got back into the truck, Judy rolling the passenger window down, wanting the breeze, leaning back into her seat and closing her eyes again. It took a few moments, but she realized that Nick wasn't starting the car.

"Hey Judy?"

That got her attention, it was rare that he used her real name.

"Yeah Nick?"

"Well, I was wondering if you might want to come over tonight. Have a drink before you head home. Honestly I know I could use one."

She looked over and saw his drooping façade. He looked tired all of a sudden, his grin long gone. She wondered if maybe he just didn't want to be alone for a little while, off the job. She kind of felt that same way in truth, and she had no idea how much sleep she would be able to get anyways. She gave Nick as good a smile as she could.

"Sure thing! That sounds like a great idea."

Giving a weak smile back, Nick started the car.