Sunderance: Chapter 21 - Weighing of The Heart (Part 1)

   It was only by grace of the arrival of customers that Judy was able to escape the clutches of the tiny, perverted fox. She had known who Finnick was from the moment she had compiled her list of possible means of protection and, because of his business, she had left him as the absolute last on her list of mammals to call. Paying for protection with sexual favors had not been a price she was willing to pay, as she had discussed with Nick, and given his business, it seemed likely to her that it might have been a part of whatever price the last pimp in Zootopia would want. And given his behavior so far, her thoughts seemed justified.

   She sat in front of the computer in the sound-proof side office that he had ‘graciously’ provided her when it came time for customers to start arriving, but only after reminding her that there would be questions as soon as everything on the floor had settled down enough. It was obvious that he thought she wouldn’t be able to handle what went on in a brothel of this size, and for once she was grateful for his attitude. Or maybe he was heeding Nick’s warning about keeping the males away from her? Either way, it had worked to her benefit as she flipped through the various files Flash had sent to her again.

   With the various text documents and legal files bringing nothing new to light, she turned her attention to the many images. While she and Nick had looked through them the first time, many of them had seemed pointless and many more had gone unseen after the discovery of receipt lead. Now she took her time, examining each image with equal intensity to see if there was anything any of them could do to support her case. She created a few secondary folders within the main, allowing her to sort images by possible leads, most likely junk, and obviously important. The number of items that were going into the most likely junk folder was not surprising, though after the first few minutes it did become disheartening.

   In the end, of the hundreds of images, only twenty of them were possible leads and five were obviously important. No new information in any of them but they could still be used to help build her case, though she wouldn’t be able to show them in court. That meant she would need to go over the legal case files again to see how much of it could be verified with forensic photos.

   Not knowing how much time she had, she turned her attention to the videos that remained un-played. The dim lighting in the room and the utter silence provided by the soundproof walls that kept her separate from the music worked along with the dull and generally unimportant videos to cause her attention and mind to wander. Leaving the player on autoplay she watched one after the other for fifteen minutes, most of them short news clips already available online. It became so monotonous that she had to force herself to focus, blinking rapidly to keep her eyes from getting heavy.

   Then the fifteenth video clip started, the pitch-black image and noise of the shot drew her full attention again. Ears perked forward as she realized that she heard voices, though at first they were indistinct and impossible to understand. The stern tone of one voice and the passive one that replied had her raising her ears and straining to understand. Just as she started to get frustrated, the stern tone went silent and all that was left was the sound of a door sliding closed and shuffling for a moment before whatever had been covering the camera was removed.

   The scene she was greeted with made a wince curl her muzzle.

   The room was brightly lit, though there was a feeling of stillness within. It was an expansive office with a very Spartan, almost military feel to it. It only took her a moment to understand why when the camera panned around until she was given a view of a large desk, and the old blood that ran down and pooled at the foot of it. She knew then that she was looking at the crime scene where General Valter had been murdered, something that had never reached the media because of the top-secret nature of Maleperduis.

   “Are you out of your mind?” a voice hissed, causing whoever was holding the camera to turn it to face the speaker. The jerky motion, lack of quality, and the odd point of view had her quickly understanding that it wasn’t being held: it was on his shoulder or chest, which explained how he had managed to get it into the military base. Something that the male kudu seemed aware was a bad idea if his expression, halfway between frightened and annoyed, was any indication.

   “We’re here to do a job, so keep it down,” the cameramammal said, keeping his voice low enough so that she had to turn the volume up to hear it, the camera jerking when he shrugged before he turned his attention to the desk again. “Think this is what he’s after?”

   “How should I know?” came the terse reply as the camera moved closer to the desk. “We’re just here to clean up, remember.”

   “Shut up,” came the quick, angry reply, “I know that!”

   “No, you shut up!”

   “No, you shut up!”

   She rolled her eyes at the sudden argument and tuned them out as they went back and forth until the deep growl of a voice from outside told them both to shut up. Instead, her frown deepened slightly at the blood stains on the surface of the desk. One was clearly just a puddle of old, brownish red blood. It was the other that had her attention, and clearly the attention of the ‘cleaning crew’ as the camera zoomed in for a closer look.

   “What do you think it means, Pronk?”

   “Not sure,” was the reply, this time in a lower, even-tempered tone that was obviously just a result of the warning just received, “but we’re not here to understand it.”

   The camera circled the desk for a full 360-degree view of the pattern. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It was smeared and unclear, the drying of the blood making the pattern less obvious that it might have been in the mind of the male who had written it. It wasn’t until the angle had the gruesome drawing upside down that it dawned on her. It was like an indistinct face with two eyes staring, surrounded on three sides by nine markings. How Valter had managed to include such detail while bleeding to death was beyond her. But it was clear that she had seen this symbol before.

   It was the same as the one engraved on Nick’s baton.