Judy, fully dressed in her skirt and blouse from earlier in the day, stood behind Yax he carefully opened the lock of the locker that had been used by Ukweli. Nick moved up behind the chocolate-toned bunny, having fully dressed as well. Judy looked back at him and nodded in acknowledgement.
"Call it in yet?" she asked.
"Yep. They are sending officers to cover the hotel, but they are waiting for Detective Pawlander to get there before they head in. We will meet them in a little bit. I arranged for a ride." Nick stated.
"Makes sense... we aren't detectives yet, after all." Judy said. "It feels like we did the real legwork here, though." She sighed. It felt good to have some good information already, however.
Nick put a paw on Judy's shoulder and said, "It feels like we did the legwork, but you know how detective work goes. We may have just carried their bags to the starting line for them and little else," he laughed. Yax opened the locker and stepped back to let the officers inspect the things that had been left behind when Ukweli inexplicably left in the buff.
The seemingly carefree yak stated casually, "Not sure what's goin' on, but I hope this helps." Nick pulled the bundle of clothing out of the locker and put it on the table in the center of the locker room. It was a pretty ordinary looking bundle of clothing. The fabric was light-fitting and colorful which was not unusual for distant border towns out near the interior. However, as he put it down there was a noticeable clunk. Judy and Nick both perked their ears at that and Nick used his claw tips to carefully move the clothing aside. The bright gleam of mirror polished metal gleamed back at them under the fluorescent lighting.
"Woah. That... That is totally uncool." Yax said in a tone that reflected the dread in Judy's heart as Nick revealed the object. Her eyes widened and she froze. A nearly comically large gun lay on the table.
Firearms had been made illegal in Zootopia and the surrounding burrows around the time of the last war, something Judy's grandfather clearly recalled. The tendency for the weapons to be misused disastrously in both the right and wrong paws had compelled such heavy punishments for possession of them that even most of the organized criminals in Zootopia opted to avoid them outright.
Judy and Nick had been trained to fire an actual gun but it was much, much smaller and likely less powerful than this shining metal brick with ivory handle that lay on the table. Judy had never seen a gun like that one outside of a movie. The bunny was shaken out of her reverie by Nick's voice.
"Wolfard, make sure whoever's on scene knows we are gonna be adding class A firearms charges. Proceed with serious caution, guys." Judy was happy with her partner's immediate response being to communicate to the other officers. The gun had nearly completely derailed her and Nick's professionalism where it counted encouraged her. The fox regarded the implement of death on the table a moment longer before blowing out a long heavy breath. "That... looks like it belongs mounted on the side of a pirate ship, not in some lycaon's paws. Where was he even carrying it before it went in the locker?" Nick took a plastic baggie out of the evidence kit that he'd picked up from the bungalow and used one of the garments to hold the gun down while very carefully making sure the safety was all the way engaged. He then used the sleeve of that shirt to put the gun into the bag and picked it up along with the clothes before placing it into the evidence kit.
"That looks way different from the guns we were shown at the academy." Judy stated. "Military maybe?" She felt more relaxed with the gun put away. With the size of a weapon like that, she would likely fare no better on the firing side of that weapon as the muzzle side of it. The recoil would probably tear her arms off.
Nick answered. "I suspect so. I don't think they ever had something like this for civilian use. I mean... Judy, if you fired that thing at the ground, we'd probably have to call MASA to get you back down!" Nick laughed with an obvious tone of nervousness and then nodded to Yax. "And you say he just left his stuff here? I wonder why he wouldn't have taken this with him... I'd not want to have someone find this and link it to me."
