The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 55

Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

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The Fire Triangle-A Zootopia Fanfiction

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Part One:

Fuel

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Chapter 6-Nick's Story

(Continued...Pt. 5)

Judy Hopps's ears were reaching straight up, towards the ceiling; her nose was twitching like a divining rod and her body was quivering as though a low-voltage current was passing through it.

She had known, almost from the beginning of his story, that somewhere along the line, Nick Wilde had stumbled; she'd begun readying herself for the big reveal almost as soon as she'd heard of the red fox's promise to his beloved vixen, "I'm done with hustling Robyn, it's over, I swear."

But nothing could have prepared her for the news that her partner's fall from grace had taken place right at his moment of triumph. "Never let them see that they get to you," he was always saying. Only, how could Judy fail to be affected by something like this? Even now, she could feel her eyes getting hot and moist.

Life, you're a jerk!

And there was something even worse for Judy. She had also never imagined that her partner's downfall might have come as a catastrophic failure; she'd assumed from the start that it had been a long, slow slide into darkness, not a precipitous drop into oblivion. Nick Wilde...on top of the world one day, bottom of the heap the next? That was almost too painful to contemplate, especially in light of everything she'd heard so far.

What the heck could have happened? How had Wild Times-and Nick Wilde-been brought down so swiftly?

Judy wasn't sure that she wanted to know, but at the same time, she had to know. At that moment she was a moth circling a candle flame...a particularly apt analogy, as she was about to find out for herself.

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"Finnick's call came in at about one o'clock in the morning; it was Monday, two days after Halloween."

"It had been our biggest weekend since the end of summer-and we'd been ready for it; after all, who doesn't want to get scared on Halloween? We'd laid it on huge for the occasion, adding spooky props to all the rides, holding contests for the scariest and most creative costumes, selling Halloween treats at all the concession stands and booking 'Nothing to Fear', an Oinko Boinko tribute band to play the stage. (Meffy Newsome found them for us.) What made it an especially great time was that we were finally able to keep the profits from a holiday weekend for ourselves; we didn't have to fork it all over to our backers."

"I can still remember the first thing I said to Finnick when I picked up the phone. 'This had better be good, Mini-Me.'"

"It wasn't good-it was the WORST. In two seconds, I was fully awake and throwing on my clothes; this was the first and only time I had ever heard Finnick getting all choked up."

"Nick," he was almost sobbing, "Nick, you gotta get down here. Wild Times, it's on FIRE!"

"Before I made it to within even a mile of the park, I knew that this was no small dumpster fire; the flames were so intense, I could have turned off my headlights and it wouldn't have made any difference. And that's not even mentioning the smoke, a big, thick column of smoke that seemed to stretch all the way upwards to infinity and beyond; I found out later that they'd had to close the Tusker Bridge because of it; the smoke was that dense.

"When I finally made it to Wild Times, there was almost nothing left of the place; only a burning, blackened skeleton. Ever seen any of those old movies of the Horndenburg going up? That's what it looked like. The Furries Wheel and the Skydance ride had already fallen into the water, and the pier was sagging in the middle like an old, swaybacked couch; it never did collapse though, heaven only knows why."

"They'd tried, Carrots, the Zootopia Fire Department had really tried to save Wild Times, I have to give them that. They sent fire trucks, fireboats; they even dropped a load of fire-retardant on the park from an air tanker. It was no use. Wild Times was doomed even before the first alarm was called in. I found out why later on."

"It took me a good 20 minutes to argue my way through the police line. It wasn't the cops' fault; by that time, at least three other animals had shown up, claiming to be me. (Why, I still don't know.) I might never have gotten through at all if Finnick had spotted me from the other side and told them to let me in. When I finally caught up with him, he filled me in on what had happened."

"By either good luck or bad, Finnick lived right near Wild Times; he could almost see the Furries Wheel from his front window. He'd been up, fixing himself a late-night snack when he happened to notice that the street lights outside his window seemed unusually bright this evening...and why were they some weird, greenish color? That was when he caught the first whiff of smoke."

"Finnick may have trouble controlling his temper sometimes Carrots, but he never gives in to panic; he called 9-1-1 first, and THEN ran to check on the park. When he got there, he found out someone else had called it in ten minutes before he did, but it was still the right thing to do."

"He told me, 'by the time I got here, the whole place was already on fire, Nick. The ZFD was on the scene, but even something like ten fire trucks, an' two fire-boats, it was like trying to put on a bonfire with a squirt-gun. That's when I called you.'"

"What really stunned me, Judy was that I hadn't been on the road for even half an hour before I got there and Wild Times was already a total loss; it had gone up that fast?"

""Yes, you're right Carrots. That was my first thought too, but I'll get to that in a minute."

"By now, the press corps had started to arrive; it took less than half a minute for a reporter to recognize me, and then the next thing I knew, there were TV cameras all over me and flashes popping everywhere...at least until the cops ordered the media to get back behind the line. Good thing, too...Finnick was halfway ready to bite the next animal that flipped off a camera in his face. Then I felt a paw on my shoulder, and when I spun around, it was Robyn. How she'd gotten through the police cordon without being stopped, I had no idea, but I had never needed her more than I did right then...although I didn't realize it at first."

"'Sorry Red, it's for your own good,' she told me, and then she slapped me across the face. I was so surprised, I almost fell over backwards."

"'Wh-What did you do that f-for?' I asked her, and that was as far as I got before it hit me; all my work, all my hopes, all my dreams-gone, just like that."

"I started to cry, I couldn't help it. I don't think I'd cried so hard since the night those other kids put a muzzle on me. But this time it was different; this time, someone was there for me. Never let them see that they get to you...but that didn't apply to Robyn; with her I could be vulnerable. When I felt my knees starting give way, she caught me and held me up."

"'That's it Red, don't try to hold it in; it'll just hurt even more if you try keep it all inside; let it out Nick, let it go.' And then she started crying too, 'Oh Nick, I'm so sorry!'"

"I remember the two us sinking to our knees, just holding each other and crying like cubs. No words passed between us, but I had never felt closer to her than I did at that moment."

"The rest of that night-excuse me, morning-is a blur to me. Robyn took me home and put me to bed, that's the only thing I remember."

"The next day, the ZFD confirmed what Finnick and I had suspected all along; the fire at Wild Times had been deliberately set, there'd been traces of accelerant all over the water beneath the pier, a mixture of gasoline and polyfoam , what the fire captain referred to as 'Poor Mammal's Napalm.' (The polyfoam was what had given flames that greenish tint.)"

"We'll be turning it over to the ZPD from here on out, Mr. Wilde." he told me, "But there's no doubt, in my mind at least, that this is a case of arson."

"When Finnick heard that, he was ready to explode; I had to get him away from there fast before he said something that could bring us even more trouble. He knew who was responsible for that fire, we both did-The Prey Species Preservation Society."

"No, no Carrots, that's not what I mean; no, they didn't go out and hire anybody to burn down Wild Times, of course not. What we thought had happened-what we were certain had happened-was that some militant, anti-predator nutjobs had been 'inspired' by The Society's campaign against to the point where they'd decided to take matters into their own paws. Finnick and I didn't dare say so publicly of course; we'd have had an anti-defamation suit on our paws, on top of everything else. That was why I had to practically drag the little guy away from there, before he could start spouting off."

"We went to the Dockside Diner-there were no Snarlbuck's in that part of town back then-and I tried to put the best face on things."

"'Thank goodness we upgraded our insurance last month, little guy. No way are we not covered for an arson-fire. We'll be back in business before we know it, don't you worry.'"

"Finnick-rhymes-with-cynic-wasn't reassured. 'IF our insurance company don't find some excuse not to pay then claim,' he reminded me, 'You still a fox, Nick...and so am I, don't ever forget that.'"

"That was true, Carrots...but so was something else."

"'I don't know Finnick; it's going to be awfully hard for them to deny our claim after all those fire inspections the City of Zootopia laid on us, especially that last one, where we got a clean bill of health. Uh, are you going to drink that coffee or just keep stirring it?"

"Finnick slammed down his mocha in a single gulp and just glowered at me for minute."

"When he finally spoke up, he said, 'Speaking of which, you did call the insurance company, right?'"

"Oh-kayyyy, now it was MY turn to lay my ears back."

"'No, I'm waiting for them to call ME,' I snapped, "Yeah, I called them! I've got a meeting with an adjuster, later this afternoon.'"

"Okay, yes, I admit it; I was probably a little too snippy with Finnick. But after everything else that had happened, I didn't need to have my intelligence insulted, too."

"The adjuster turned out to be the typical insurance animal, long on assurances, and short on any promises of recompense. Nothing unusual there, but I was still nervous. Finding an insurance company to underwrite Wild Times had been almost as difficult as getting financing for the place. At the end of the day Finnick had been right; it was still an amusement park for predators, and I was still a fox. Because of that, we'd had to settle for an insurer that was anything but the most reputable firm on the planet."

It didn't help much either that the animal the insurance company sent turned out to be a lemming. No, not because I was a fox again...although you're right Carrots, that didn't help the situation either. No, it was because there's no animal anywhere that follows the company line more closely than a lemming; everything he told me sounded as if he was reading it off a teleprompter. 'We really need to have a look at that pier before we start quoting figures, Mr. Wilde....blah, blah, blah...'"

"Wha..? Hee-hee, ha-ha Haw, Haw, Haw! Yeah, you're right Judy; it's too bad I wasn't running the pawpsicle hustle back then."

"For the next two days, Finnick and I were in limbo. It took 48 hours for the Wild Times pier to cool down enough so that anyone could venture out onto it. And when the Arson Squad finally..."

"Mrrrf...never, ever tell yourself, 'There's nothing that can shock me worse than this,' Carrots; that one's right up there with 'The check's in the mail.'"

"Wilde Times had been completely gutted-the only time I went out there before the arson investigators showed up, I had to leave before I started crying again. There was nothing left but a pile of black and a few jutting ribs; everything else was gone. Even so, the ZPD's Arson Squad was able to make two big discoveries. The first one was...the closest thing to an undamaged area in the park was where my office had been. And when the investigators finally located it, the first thing they saw was that the door to my office safe had been left hanging open...and there was nothing inside, not even a thimble-full of ashes. That told them that this was no mere firebombing, we'd been robbed first. Later on, they were able to determine that all the cashboxes in the concessions stands had been emptied too... and all the food and whatnot in the supply barn had been also been stolen. The arsonists had even made off with my office computer-but not for the reasons I thought. They hadn't taken it in order to sell it; in fact, they'd gotten everything they wanted out of it before they even came to the park. They had grabbed it simply to cover their tracks, but the arson investigators didn't figure that out until later. When they did it told them that whoever had torched the park had come equipped with some serious computer savvy. An amateur would have just left my computer for the fire to destroy. Not these animals; they knew how far computer forensics had come in the past few years."

"And that leads me to the Arson Squad's other big discovery, Carrots. The animals who'd torched Wild Times hadn't been any revenge-minded militia types; they'd been professionals, experts who'd known exactly what they were doing, 'probably had at least some military training,' is what the lead investigator told me."

"Why? Because the incendiary device they'd used had been far, far too sophisticated to have been the work of an amateur; it'd had 'expert construction job' practically stamped all over it."

"First of all, the arsonists-the cops were certain there had been more than one of them-had constructed their firebomb out of readily available materials, stuff you can find almost anywhere, things that absolutely couldn't be traced. They had even 'borrowed' a few items from the park to build the device-and they'd used it to create something only a professional arsonist would know how to put together."

"Okay Carrots, it gets a little technical here, but I'll try to keep it simple. What the arsonists did was...first they snagged one of the big, 75-gallon wastebaskets from out by the exit and set it in the middle of the floor. Then they gathered up all the dust and from our two big shop vacs and the sweeper we used to clean the parking lot. Next, they packed half of the dust and sweepings around six pounds of Sodium Azide, and six pounds of gunpowder, put it inside the trash bin, and dumped the rest of floor-dust on top of it. Gunpowder, as you know, is the easiest thing in the world to find; you can pick it up at any gun shop, no ID or waiting period required. As for Sodium Azide, it's the propellant used to inflate the air-safety bags in older model cars; you can find all you want in just about any automobile junkyard. Takes a lot to set it off, but it's got one heckuva fast expansion rate; that's why the arsonists used it."

"I'm getting to that Carrots, hang on, okay? Last, but not least, they wired the device to a disposable cell phone, and spread that homemade napalm all around the park; that was their insurance policy, in case the fire bomb didn't finish the job. Then they left and called the cell phone from a safe distance"

"Here's how it worked. When the bomb activated, the first thing to detonate was the Sodium Azide; what that did was electrify the dust and propel it into every corner of the building. Then the gunpowder, a much slower explosive, went off, causing the dust itself to ignite...and whoompf, Wilde Times was on fire from one end to the other."

"A grain-elevator explosion...? Mmmm. I never heard of anything like that before Carrots, but I'll take your word for it. Anyway, when the napalm caught, Wild Times was as good as finished; the only thing the ZFD could do was try to prevent the blaze from spreading to any of the surrounding buildings."

"I was stunned, Carrots. This had been a professional job? Who the heck would go to the trouble of hiring experts to take down my park? Even the most militant prey species in Zootopia didn't hate Wild Times THAT much. During our clashes with the Prey Species Preservation Society, I had always tried to keep a low profile and avoid offending anybody as much as possible. But the further the investigation went, the more it looked like the fire had been set by a team of experts. They'd known exactly where to place the napalm in order to cause the most damage; they'd known precisely how to disable Wild Times's alarm system; they'd even clocked out the schedule of the security patrol we'd hired. (Waste of money, their guys never saw, heard, or smelled a thing...or that's what they told the ZPD anyway.")

"One other thing that episode taught me never to say to myself is, 'Well, at least thing can't get any worse. Less than a week after the fire, a check I'd written on Wilde Time's account came back marked, 'insufficient funds'. The arsonists had hacked into our savings and checking accounts and emptied them both. At first I thought they must have used the computer they'd taken from my office, but I was soon disabused of that notion. Three days after that, I received a phone-call from Aaravark, the food supply warehouse that serviced Wild Times. 'When are you going to make good on your outstanding account?' they asked me. 'What outstanding account?' I said, 'We're all paid up through November.' 'Not according to our records' the animal on the other end told me, and that was when I found out that the arsonists had been inside our computer database long before the fire. They'd been ordering large quantities of food and beverages on our account and had it delivered to our warehouse up in the Meadowlands. Fine, except we didn't HAVE a warehouse in the Meadowlands. By the time the cops got there, the place had been cleaned out. But even before then... As soon as I got off the phone with Aaravark, I started checking up on our other accounts and found that it hadn't been just them; the arsonists had made all kinds of bogus purchases in the name of Wild Times. They bought cleaning supplies, electrical supplies, fuel, anything they could unload quickly; they'd even managed to purchase two 'company' cars for the park and everything had been bought on credit; we were not only broke, we were six figures in the hole...and now I understood what had really happened; we hadn't just been robbed and had our business burned down, someone had busted us out, one of the oldest rackets in the book."

"No Carrots, I never suspected Mr. Big. He'd been known to bust out businesses in the past...but only if the owner had tried to get cute with him. Me, I'd been up front with the Big Shrew from our very first meeting; for him to have busted out Wild Times after that would have been a thoroughly dishonorable act-and this was an animal that lived, breathed, ate, drank, and slept honor. Just the same, I asked to see him; only to find out that he was away, doing six months for contempt in Llamapoc Pentitentiary. I went down to talk to him anyway; this kind of situation was way over my head. When I got there, I was escorted to the Captain's office and left alone for nearly an hour. Then one of the trustees came in, not a polar bear but a big musk ox. He set Mr. Big down on the desktop and left us alone."

"For once, the Big Shrew wasn't in the mood for small talk; he skipped the greetings and got right down to business."

"'You need to go on the lam Nick, you need to get out of town and right now!'"

"What, was he crazy? I wasn't going anywhere, not if it meant leaving Robyn behind, (and it would have.) I never said any of this to him, of course. But I did ask why he thought I needed to skip town. Before answering me, I saw him grind his teeth a few times. And then he said, 'Whoever torched your place had someone on the inside, Nick-and if I know that, then so do the cops. And the next place they're going to go is that the inside animal was you.'"

"Me?' I said. Oh no, he couldn't be serious."

"He was. "Shut up and listen fox; you're in serious trouble here. When have you ever seen a joint get busted out where the owner wasn't in on it? Or they at least where they knew what was happening, even if they couldn't do anything to stop it."

"I felt my heart fall into the floor. Mr. Big was right and I knew it. And in fact it was worse than he said. I owned Wild Times, lock, stock, and barrel; I could never make the claim that I'd been coerced into busting it out. AND I was fox, a fox who managed to make an enemy out of practically the entire Prey Species, Preservation Society; it wouldn't be long before they came looking for some payback. Even so, I tried to make a half-hearted protest. "Mr. Big, I didn't do it, someone hacked into my computer, and..."

"He just leaned forward in his chair, 'Can you PROVE that, Nick?'"

"No, I couldn't; I got out of there fast and headed straight back to Zootopia to get packed."

"But it was already too late, when I pulled up into my driveway, two police cruisers pulled in behind me, blocking any escape. The next thing I knew I had a pair uniforms drawing down on me with tazers. 'All right, out of the car and keep your paws where we can see them.'"

"I got out, and was immediately put on the ground and cuffed. When they stood me up again there was Detective Lieutenant Sammy Maines, the lion who'd been the lead investigator on the Wild Times arson-fire. Up until then, he'd been treating my with a little sympathy; now he looked like he wanted to ducktape me to a wall and use me for target practice."

"Nicholas Piberius Wilde, you are under arrest, for fraud and accessory to arson. Carbo, read him his rights."

"I'll skip over what happened next, Carrots. We've taken enough suspects into custody ourselves to know. When they got me down to the precinct..."

"Yes Judy, I did put on my application to the ZPD that I'd never been arrested; I lied. But didn't I warn you? Didn't I say when we started this, that part of what I had to tell you could get me kicked off the force? Well, this is that part. And think for a second; you're hearing it from me, not from anybody else. At least wait until you get the whole story before you pass judgement...please?"

"Thanks Carrots. So...they brought me down to the precinct, this was the old Precinct 3, before it closed, and the first thing I saw was that they had Finnick in custody too. They let us see each other but not talk to each other, and you know why, I think."

"Right, exactly. Next, they brought me down to interrogation and let me sweat for a little while. And then finally, Detective Maines came in with a big smile on his face. The first thing he said was, 'Finnick already told us everything Wilde, so you might as well come clean too."

"As IF! I looked at him and said, "Without a lawyer present? Sorry. Finnick's a little smarter than that ...and by the way, I'm not saying anything either until I get an attorney.' That wiped the smile off his chops in a big hurry."

"Yes, I know, but I was still in some serious trouble, Carrots. Like the old saying goes, lawyers don't come cheap, and they don't come at all if they don't get what they want. And thanks to the robbery I didn't have two pennies to rub together; I'd have to make do with a public defender. The animal assigned to me was a leopard cat named Dale Flowers. Smart kid...but I do mean 'kid', only two years out of law school and as green as an algae bloom. Still, the city had fulfilled their obligation, and now the questioning could begin."

"They used all the standard tricks, Carrots; good cop/bad cop, we already have you dead to rights, you're only making it tougher on yourself...do I really need to share all the details?"

"Didn't think so; well, after about two hours of this runaround-it felt like fifty-someone knocked on the door and a caribou in plainclothes came in. I made him right away; with that perfectly pressed suit and that silk tie in a Windsor knot, he could only have come from the DA's office...uh, this was before it became the Office of the Attorney General. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. One thing I did understand right away was that this was a mammal that knew his game; neither friendly nor hostile, he was all, strictly business."

"After introducing himself-Clark Muskegg, Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the City of Zootopia-he began reading off the list of charges I was facing; accessory to arson, reckless endangerment, fraud, insurance fraud... It must have taken him ten minutes to finish that recital. When he got done with that, he started going over the penalties that each of the charges carried. Then he said to me, 'There are two ways this can go Nick, you can either try to cut a plea deal; the Mammals are willing to negotiate but only up to a certain point, or you can continue to waste everyone's time by stonewalling, in which case I intend to ask for the maximum on each and every one of these charges. Either way, if I were you, I wouldn't make any plans for the next few years.'"

"He stopped to let that sink in for a second. When I glanced over at my attorney, I saw him sitting with his pawlms turned upwards, as if he were praying for me to take the plea deal. But before either one of us could say anything, Muskegg leaned in close and lowered his voice..."

"'Or, there's a third option, Wilde. Help us out and we'll put you in the program; you'll do a year tops in minimum security.'"

"It took me exactly three seconds to figure out what he meant, and then everything fell into place; it wasn't ME they wanted, it was Mr. Big-and The Big Shrew had known it; that was why he'd been so eager for me to get out of town. I was a pawn in this game, nothing more."

"Carrots, I never had to work so hard not to bare my fangs. I told him, "I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Prosecutor...except that you've arrested an innocent fox."

"He leaned in close again, "That's right Wilde...a fox. And what was it they used to call an arson-job, back in the old days? There's no way I won't get a conviction on you if we go to trial, count on it." He said this while looking at my attorney, a small reminder of how little I had in the bag. "And when I do, you can kiss your freedom buh-bye...for a long, long time.'"

"He got up and walked out and they took me to a holding cell."

"No Carrots, I never considered his offer, not even for a second. It would have meant pleading guilty to something I hadn't done for one thing. For another it would have cost me something even more precious to me than my freedom; it would have cost me Robyn. If I said that I'd had anything at all to do with that fire, it would have been tantamount to admitting that Wilde Times had been nothing but a hustle all along, the biggest I'd ever pulled-and Robyn would have been gone in a flash. Besides, by then I was completely certain than I'd that Mr. Big hadn't had anything to do with the fire either-and not just for the reasons I already mentioned. Whoever had busted out Wild Times had owned some pretty darn serious hacking skills, and that wasn't how the Big Shrew worked, not at all. He hated computers, wouldn't have one around and no one in the gang was allowed to mess with them either. He wouldn't even let Fru-Fru have one. 'A computer is an indictment waiting to happen,' is how he always described them. And now, for the first time, I was beginning to understand what he meant."

"And even if I hadn't been so sure Mr. Big wasn't involved, there was nothing I could have given the D.A. on him anyway...not without lying, and that was a line I wouldn't have crossed with ANYBODY, not just him. I still had some pride left."

"Hummm, I'll answer your second question first. No, Robyn stuck by me, all the way; she never stopped believing for an instant that I was innocent. Looking back, I think that having her in my corner was what got me the through that time. As for Mr. Big, yes, I'll admit it; I was worried that he might try to silence me, just to play it safe. Show me a mob boss who ISN'T paranoid and I'll show you an animal sleeping with the fishes. I didn't need to fret though; my second week in jail, I was sitting in the yard with Finnick, when a black bear I didn't recognize came up to us."

"'Mind if I sit down?' he asked. (In the slam, you never take a seat without asking first.) Finnick and I nodded, and he took the bench seat next to mine. After that, he didn't waste words."

"'The big guy knows you two been a pair of stand-up foxes,' he said, 'and he appreciates it. There's nothing he can do for you right now, you understand, but he knows and he'll remember.'"

"And then he got up and left without another word. I was relieved, but I was also disappointed. Mr. Big wasn't going to ice me, but he couldn't help me either, not with the DA gunning for him; I knew that much if nothing else. Still...it hit me hard. I needed all the help I could get right then; my court-appointed attorney was turning out to be worse than useless. He'd showed up nearly an hour late for my arraignment and then nearly had a melt-down when I pleaded not guilty to all the charges. At my bail hearing, the judge practically laughed him out of the courtroom. 'Set bail for a FOX? Why don't we just buy him a plane ticket, while we're at it? Motion denied!' It wasn't entirely Flowers' fault Carrots, I was one of something like ten different cases he'd been assigned to handle; par for the course for a public defender, or at least it was back in those days."

"And that was only one three strikes against me. If I hadn't been stuck with a Public Defender for an attorney, if the prosecutor hadn't been hoping to boost his career by convicting me, (meaning he was going to use every resource at his disposal to put me away,) and if-I'll say it again-if I hadn't been a fox, I might have had a chance at beating the case, or that's what I thought at the time. The Mammals had plenty of evidence against me and at least three witnesses to back it up, but all of their evidence was circumstantial, and at least two of their witnesses were felons who'd agreed to testify in exchange for reduced sentences. "

"No Carrots, there wasn't any forensic evidence, but this was an arson case remember? Most of the time in an arson fire there's no forensic evidence anyway, it just burns up along with everything else-and juries know to expect that."

"All right, let's start with the circumstantial evidence. First of all, the arsonists had known exactly where to spread their homemade napalm. I'd been aware of that, but what I hadn't known was that the pattern had corresponded almost exactly with the ZFD's last inspection of Wild Times. Where their report had said we were most at risk was where the arsonists had dumped the napalm ...and the cops found a copy of it when they searched my apartment. "

"Oh, you know why Carrots; those reports are supposed to be confidential. Except for Finnick and myself, no one outside of the Zootopia Fire Department was supposed to have had access to it."

"Moving right along...like I said, the arsonists had also known how to disable our alarm system, and the ZPD had found the schematics for Wilde Time's alarm set up on my laptop at home...fully encrypted, and only I knew the password."

"Yes Carrots, they had one more piece of circumstantial evidence. And I already told you; I was a fox. Back in the old days, if you wanted someone to burn down a property, you hired a member of my species for the job. The practice was so commonplace that cop-slang for an arson job in those days was foxfire...as Mr. Muskegg had reminded me during our Q-and-A."

"Ahhh sorry, I still get a little bitter when I think about it sometimes. As for the witnesses, they had two park employees, one of whom claimed to have seen me emptying my office safe before I left for the night, and another who said he'd seen me scoping out the area where the 'dust-bomb' had been planted. There was also a park patron who said she'd seen me leaving with a duffel bag slung over my shoulder after the park closed. Yes, I had but the only thing in there was few changes of clothes, not the money from my office safe. The most damaging witness though, was...remember that chop-shop, the one I tricked Lanny Braunwald into backing? Well, one of their ex 'employees' swore under oath that two weeks before the fire, I had purchased fifty automotive air-bags from them...all of them for large-mammal vehicles, and all of them from older model cars, the kind that used Sodium Azide for a propellant."

"I don't know Carrots; to this day, I have no idea whether it was revenge or just a coincidence. What I DO know is that the raccoon who gave that testimony got his sentence cut in half because of it."

"There was more to the case, but those were the City of Zootopia's biggest points against Finnick and me; any decent defense attorney could have turned it into a lace curtain, but all I had was Good-Deed Dale, the busy little Ranger Scout. Even before our trial date came up-they'd decided to try Finnick and me together-I was preparing for the worst. I told Robyn not to wait for me if the Judge threw the book. She told me to go get lost; she was staying right HERE, no matter what."

"Finally the day of our trial came. I knew I was in trouble from the minute Clark Muskegg walked into the courtroom. Today he was wearing a lapel pin, and even from a distance I recognized it immediately; how could I not after having had it practically shoved in my face for the past few months-a paw-print, over a hoof-print, intersected by a broken arrow, the emblem of the Prey Species Preservation Society. I had been wrong about that caribou, Judy. He wasn't just hoping to convict me in order to burnish his career; THIS was fursonal."

"One thing I had to give him; he was a real smoothie. In his opening remarks, without ever once mentioning the word, 'fox' Clark Muskegg managed to paint Finnick and me as members of the slimiest, most despicable species ever to walk the planet...and it only got worse from there."

"When he called his first witnesses, we found out very quickly that we'd drawn just about worst possible judge we could have had, a mountain goat by the name of Evelyn Ranier. She sustained almost every objection the prosecution raised, and overruled practically all of ours. We never had a chance with her presiding; she even refused to let our attorney attack the credibility of the prosecution's star witness, never mind that he had a record as long as a giraffe's neck. When Flowers tried to bring it up a second time, she even scolded him."

"The real capper came when Clark Muskegg called a surprise witness, a muskrat he described as a Confidential Informant. He was the one who broke the news that it had been Mr. Big who'd lent me most of the money I'd used to start Wild Times."

"Yes Carrots, I know...it proved nothing, but try telling that to the jury; they ate it up like candied blueberries."

"No...no, our attorney didn't try to raise an objection; by that time he was so completely cowed, the prosecution could have put Beelzebuck on the witness stand and he would have let it pass."

"When Muskegg finally rested, our attorney informed us that he had decided to have me testify after all. He... I know, right? I was so mad I tried to fire him, but the court refused to consider it. Not that it would have made any difference; Muskegg destroyed every single one of our witnesses, (with a little help from the judge.) and the jury was out for only two hours before they came back with a verdict: Guilty on all counts."

"I had asked both my mother and Robyn not to come to court that day, and both of them had complied, but when they saw me in jail afterwards the two of them completely lost it...and so did I. I went so far off the deep end I nearly ended up in a straitjacket. (When Muskegg heard about it, he thought I was pulling a 'bug-act.'")

"Why? Think about it, Carrots. For as long as I could remember, I'd been a street hustler, always living on the edge, always keeping one step ahead of the law. Now here I was, on my way to prison, and why was this happening?"

"Because, for once in my life I'd attempted to play it straight; as irony goes, that was a wrecking ball."

"The rest of the month dragged on for years as Finnick and I waited on the day of our sentencing. We had nothing to distract us. We couldn't even put our affairs in order; we didn't HAVE any affairs to put in order, they had all gone up with the park. The nonstop taunts from some of the guards didn't help much either. I told my mother not to sell any of my belongings, I'd be wanting them again soon enough, but that was just me trying to put the best face on things. Robyn wanted to marry me before I went away, but I told her no, that we could wait until after I got out. Big mistake, she ran from the room in tears; she knew the truth, even if my mother didn't, I was going away for nearly ever. Though I still wouldn't agree to marry her, at the same time I could never quite bring myself to tell Robyn to forget about me and move on with her life."

"Finally the big day arrived. Finnick was sentenced first; the judge gave him ten years-and I nearly lost the breakfast I hadn't eaten all over the defendant's table. Ten years for a first offense...and Finnick had been only charged as an accomplice. If that was HIS sentence, what could I expect?"

"When the judge told me to rise, I caught a glimpse of Robyn in the gallery. I had asked her and my mother not to come again, but this time they'd been unable stay away."

"I don't know how it happened, Carrots, but something about the look on her face gave me a courage I hadn't felt since the opening of our trial. No...I wasn't going to just stand up and take whatever the judge threw at me; if I was going out, I was going out fighting."

"Mr. Wilde, do you have anything to say before I pronounce sentence?" she asked me.

"Yes, Your Honor I do," I told her, "Bottom line, you've convicted an innocent mammal...no, make that two innocent mammals. I did NOT order the destruction of Wild Times, and I didn't bust it out, either. I never tried to deceive my insurance company, and whatever my arrangements with Mr. Big may have been, they are in no way relevant to this case. That's my story and I'm sticking to it; no matter what anyone else might say, I did nothing wrong."

"Talk about hearing between the lines Carrots, here's what she said when I finished."

"By your remarks Mr. Wilde, it becomes obvious to the court that you feel no remorse for your crimes. Very well, perhaps this will make you think twice about your actions. I hereby sentence you to twenty-five years in the Penitentiary."

"When they heard my sentence, my mother fainted and Robyn burst into tears. Half the animals in the gallery gasped when they heard...and I felt like crying too; twenty-five years! That meant ten years at least before I'd be eligible for parole, (and given my species I knew how unlikely it was that I'd make it on the first go-around.) My only consolation was that the judge hadn't fooled me with that 'no remorse' line. I could have fallen on my knees, pleading for mercy and she still would have given me the big two five."

"As you know Carrots, the wheels of justice don't turn quickly. I languished in the city jail for almost a month before they finally transferred me to the pen. Now that I knew my sentence, I was finally able to tell Robyn to forget about me and move on, but of course, she wouldn't hear of it. She came to see me every visiting day, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep myself from going to meet her, resistance was futile."

"From the moment of my sentencing, she began fighting to get me a new trial; she even started a Goph-und-me campaign to get me a new attorney. For the first week she made exactly $22.00...and all but two bucks of that came from my mother. And it only went downhill from there. "

"When the day finally came, it came without warning. I had just gotten into the chow line when one of the guards, a lion whose name I forget, put his paw on my shoulder and said, 'Let's go, Wilde.' They cuffed me and bundled me straight onto a bus. I didn't even have time to pack my things. 'They'll be sent along later,' I was told. They weren't; I never saw any of them again."

"It wasn't until we were on the road that I found out where we were headed, when the tiger in charge of our trip-a real comedian-stood up and got on the PA."

"'Congratulations boys, you have all just won a state-expense paid trip to...Lemmingworth!'"

"Lemmingworth Penitentiary, aka the Greenhouse, in those days it was the toughest prison in the Zootopia Penal System."

"'I'm dead,' I thought, 'stick a fork in me, I'm done.'"

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Easter Eggs:

A quite obvious reference to Toy Story and a more obscure one to a an old Terry Toons character.