Sunderance: Chapter 17 - Enoch and the Watcher (Part 1) (Patreon)

    The guards that patted him down even after a pass through the metal detector quickly noticed that he still wore his holsters. The lion, who had been forced to get down on one knee to easily reach the smaller mammals, subjected Nick to what he considered a very intrusive paw presses over every inch of his body. Including between his legs as if they didn’t believe his sheath was really his sheath. It was the nervous glance that the predator gave the other guards in the room when his fingers fell on the empty holsters that almost had the otherwise stoic fox releasing an annoyed sigh.

    “I wasn’t told that you turned any arms over to the steward,” the guard said evenly, looking about as uncomfortable but wary as a lion standing in front of a fox one fifth his size would look.

    “My weapons are not city property,” Nick stated firmly, ignoring the slanted glance that Judy shot him out of the corner of her eyes as she was similarly patted down by a far more feminine and less intrusive pig with a nametag that read Swineton. “And in the interest of not giving your steward the chance to lose them, I didn’t bring them with me.”

    “But you’re still wearing your shoulder holsters?” the guard commented, taking up the clipboard and writing notes as he drew himself to his full height. Nick imagined that this little move might have worked wonders at making most mammals nervous, maybe even slip up a bit in their attempts to slip contraband into the prison.

    “It is a considerable pain in the ass to take off,” he said without the slightest change in tone. “Is there a regulation against carrying empty holsters?”

    “Not as such,” the guard commented, giving a nod to the pig as she backed away from Judy without comment. “As long as you don’t try to strangle someone with the straps, I think you’re good to go.”

    “Should the need to strangle someone arise,” Nick said as they were waved through, his tail gently swaying in time with his steps as they were escorted down a short hallway that ended with a glass door, “my tie would be easier to take off.”

    “Nick, don’t tease the guards of this maximum-security prison while I’m working, please,” Judy commented, his voice as smooth and calm as she tended to be when she applied her lawyer face in full force.

    He followed the bunny, who herself followed the lion through the bullet resistant glass doors leading into the private visitation rooms. Rooms meant for lawyers and representatives, where paperwork was allowed without paperclips and everything was monitored by the watchful red eye of the cameras that covered every brightly lit corner of the hallway. Unsurprisingly, the air was kept sterile and scent neutral to the best of their ability. It would have been hard enough to manage so many mammals crammed into a tight space without the option to leave but allowing the territorial scents of hundreds of males to linger would only increase aggression. Mildly surprised when he realized he was wondering what the ventilation system in a building this size cost the city to run 365 days a year cost the taxpayers, he decided he must have been bored and dismissed it when the lion stopped at one solid white, unimpressive door out of five.

    When the door was opened by a loud mechanical buzz, he could see the otter. Wearing the typical orange jumpsuit as he sat at the solid metal table with his paws folded and cuffed to the table top. His expression was what Nick would have called forced equanimity, one that was made hard to believe given the haggard look of the small male. He had bags under his eyes that were so dark that it would be seen even under his fur and thick glasses, his fur was ruffled and unkempt, and his eyes occasionally darted from one side of the room to the next. He had the looks of a male who was somewhere and didn’t fully comprehend where he was yet. As if, reality has he knew it had shifted far too quickly, by no action of his own.

    It was an expression Nick knew all too well.

    “The prisoner is to remain seated at all times,” the guard began, speaking as though this was something he said every day. Which is likely was. Judy herself also seemed familiar with the process, standing at the door without a complaint as the rules were spelled out. “Nothing aside from paper is to be passed to the prisoner, in which case you will slide the paper across the table rather than handing it to him directly.  Making direct contact with the prisoner is prohibited for your own safety. Do not accept anything from the prisoner that you did not bring into the room yourself. In such cases, the prisoner is expected to slide the item across the table. The prisoner is restrained. If the prisoner becomes aggressive, simply move away from the table and a guard will arrive to let you out. The room is visually monitored. The guards monitoring cannot hear your conversation, but it is being recorded. This recording is kept at a separate security company. A copy of this recording can be requested if desired.”

    “I understand,” she said simply, and he followed her as they stepped past the guard when he waved them into the room.

    “You have thirty minutes,” he finished, before drawing the door closed behind them. Nick’s ear twitched slightly, a little tingle sliding down the back of his neck for a moment before it faded at the unconcerned look on Judy’s face.

    “Mr. Otterton, as I’m sure you know, I’m Judy Hopps,” she began as she crossed the room towards him. The instant reflex to offer her hand to her client was seen in the jerk of her arm before he relaxed at her side again as she took her seat at the small table. Nick took this moment to stand off to the side of the table, something that drew an uneasy glance from the smaller predator. “I have been assigned to handle your final appeal in… Your case.”

    “You can say it,” the long-whiskered mammal said after her hesitation. He looked across the table with about as much emotion as the table itself, with brown eyes that seemed dulled by months in prison. “The murder of my wife.”

    “Yes,” she continued, reaching into her jacket pocket to withdraw her notepad and carrot pen. He wasn’t sure which of these amused him more. One, because he had been sure that she would be walking around the city with more than a simple notepad. And two, because the carrot pen looked very unusual in the paw of such a sharp-tongued and obviously intelligent bunny. “The murder of your wife. I have made some progress in finding discrepancies in the official reports but not enough at this point to ensure that the appeal would be a success. I have some more information that I need to go through before I can decide how to proceed and I need you to clear some things up for me.”

    There was a long moment of silence. Silence broken only by the light sound of her fingers moving over paper as she flipped through the notepad to review her notes. He could see the curious look in the eyes of the otter, though that curiosity was focused on Judy rather than the notebook itself.

    “You’re not going to offer sympathy or claim to understand the death of my mate, Mrs. Hopps?” Otterton asked suddenly, causing Judy to glance up from the page she had been focused on for a moment. “Ask me how I am doing? How prison is treating me?”

    “Given your popularity in Zootopia before the murder,” she began, turning another page in the notebook before she set it in front of her and raised her eyes to focus on him, “I am sure you’ve received your share of both empty or sincere well wishes and platitudes. I doubt you really want me to add to them.”

    “A fair assumption,” he replied, the first ghost of a smile coming to his muzzle. Though it was only a ghost before the haunted expression returned just before he turned his eyes to his paws. Paws that were currently cuffed and chained to the bolt on the table. “And a correct one. You say you have more information to go through?”

    “Yes, but it is not something that I am willing to get into until I have reviewed it,” she explained, allowing the otherwise silence fox to understand exactly what information she was referring to. “Once it has been reviewed, if anything of value comes from it, I will be sure to bring it to your attention.”

    “If not to review something new, why are you here? And who is your silent friend?”

    “Nick,” he replied before she could, his gaze hardly wavering from the otter as he stood with his arms folded over his chest.

    “He’s my bodyguard while I’m in Zootopia,” Judy explained and looked ready to continue on before the next question had her pausing.

    “The Administrator sent someone to guard you?”

    “He doesn’t work for the Administrator any more than I do,” she replied, keeping her eyes level on the male across the table. “He works for me. No one else.”

    Being mostly sure that she believed that now, it was still good to hear her express it to someone else aloud. It caused his ears to flick slightly as he watched the otter really relax for the first time since they had come into the room.

    “I don’t know how much help you expect me to be,” he said, his tone sullen but no longer as reserved. “I gave my statement and my statement was ignored. Having it again certainly isn’t going to change the minds of the courts that put me in here to begin with. If I could even blame the courts for that.”

    “You think someone else was involved?” Judy asked, her pen poised above the paper. When it was obvious that no answer was forthcoming, she leaned forward slightly until the otter met her gaze. “You’re not the only one who thinks that. The basis of my case is the fact that you were arrested, tried, and convicted with minimal evidence. Given your activities in the city prior to the murder, it goes without saying that you had to have some enemies.”

    “And now you’re looking for something to tip the scales in the appeal,” he said, a statement rather than a question as he spread his paws outward. “That is no small task, given the time that has passed, Miss Hopps. And the fact that, yes, I believe someone else was involved.”

    “Do you have any suspicion of who that ‘someone’ might be?”

    “None,” was his simple reply, though it was followed by a sigh as he tilted his head back to look at the bare white ceiling. “But that you would ask also means that you have no idea yourself. That is unfortunate.”

    “But not something I intend to dismiss,” she assured him, causing his bushy brows to raise as he returned his gaze to her. “But right now, I want to focus on making sure that the facts of this case come to the surface. Once we have answers, once you are a free mammal, then I will do everything in my power to make sure the case is reopened.”

    There was a flicker of something in the otter’s eyes then. A spark that broke through what had been a dull, hopeless gaze from the moment they had walked into the room. Eagerness. A willingness to cooperate, Nick had no doubt. He had not seemed overly interested in being cleared of his wife’s murder, but the first mention of looking beyond that had his round ears perking towards Judy as he leaned across the table as far as he could.

    “Then ask me your questions, Mrs. Hopps,” Otterton said, obviously more focused and willing now that he saw the potential future.