The Fire Triangle -- Part II, Oxidizer

The Fire Triangle: Book II - Chapter 6

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The Fire Triangle

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Part Two:

Oxidizer

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Chapter 1—A Rock and a Hard Place
(Continued... Part 6)

Judy Hopps knew better.

According to Vern Rodenberg, the Red Pig was always in at least a somewhat more reasonable state of mind after he finished blowing off steam.

Yes, BUT—the outburst she had just witnessed had served to stoke, rather than vent, the Sahara Square Mob boss's anger. She could see it in the darkening of his ears and the flecks of foam dribbling from the corners of his mouth. What made it doubly frustrating was that it was all due to her presence. 'If there wasn't a cop here,' he'd said to 'The Painter,' and if there hadn't been he might have felt free to 'get it out of his system.' As it was, he'd been obliged to keep a large measure of his fury corked and bottled.

Still...wasn't that better than watching someone get whacked, even a thug like Vinnie Truffalini? Okay, fine...but now where the heck was she supposed to go from here?

The answer came to Judy almost at once; her best course of action right now would be—no course at all; just sit back and let Peccari start talking when he was ready. And so she remained stock still, waiting...silently waiting.

She didn't have to wait for very long...and when the Red Pig finally spoke again, it was no surprise that he came out of his corner with verbal dukes flying.

"Okay, so maybe Vinnie DIDN'T smell that guy Raymond, but my God-Sister Marie got a look at him too, and that was outside and in broad daylight!"

"Then why didn't she say so when the ZPD interviewed her?" Judy asked him, raising an ear. (She already knew, but was going to make him say it; she was rapidly beginning to loathe this angst-fueled javelina.)

Peccari's response was predictable—and also drenched in sarcasm.

"Hah, like Marie would ever tell YOU that! Unlike another family I could name, mine don't snitch!"

Biting her lip, Judy thought and thought hard. However unwittingly, the Red Pig had just touched upon his real issue with Mr. Big. She would get to that in a minute, but right now she had a tightrope to traverse.

Any policemammal will tell you that as reliable sources of evidence go, witness testimony stands at the foot of the heap. It was a fact the doe-bunny knew all too well, and from fursonal experience. One time, in the wake of an Outback Island bank robbery, she'd watched ten different animals give ten different descriptions of the suspects. (They hadn't even been able to agree on the perps' species.)

And those folks had been unbiased witnesses—something that Marie Tichor most definitely was not. She'd been nursing a grudge against Mr. Big since long before her husband's flower-shop had burned. Add to that the fact that Vinnie Truffalini was her flesh and blood brother and Judy would have bet a month's salary on it; Marie had decided it was Raymond she'd seen only after discussing the matter with her sibling.