Zootopia: ZPD Mysteries - Case #1: The Blackout at Steel Mountain Manor

Chapter 9: Nefarious Reasons

Dr. Killdeer was surprisingly strong for such a long-limbed, lanky elk. It was also surprising just how much thick, black wiring he was in possession of, left over from the renovations. Holding each of the hostages with Clawhauser's gun to their backs to ensure they didn't escape, he tightly tied the wires around their arms and their feet, lining them all up against the wall of cubbyholes like fugitives before a firing squad.

"There," he said, finishing tightening the bonds of Felicity Pryde, "how's that? Tight enough?"

Felicity shrugged. "I actually think it's a little loose—AIGH!"

This last part of Felicity's sentence was because Killdeer suddenly tightened her bonds to the point where her blood flow was quite constricted.

"How's that?" Killdeer asked with an evil grin.

Felicity tried not to think about how numb her paws and feet would get as she nodded.

After re-tying up the other hostages, Nick and Judy were the last ones on his list. Nick bore the process without any sort of protest (knowing that if he defied Killdeer, it would probably cost him his life), but as the mysterious kidnapper was re-bonding, Judy, without turning her head, she asked a question she knew was on everyone's mind.

"Why are you doing this, Dr. Killdeer?" she asked. "Why are you kidnapping animals and throwing them in your basement?"

Dr. Killdeer chuckled.

"You know," he said with a smile, "I envy you, Lieutenant Hopps."

Judy was confused.

"You... you envy me?" she asked, a little alarmed at the prospect.

"Yes," Killdeer answered, "you probably never had to go through the humiliation I went through. You probably grew up the pride of your family. You probably had a loving family that stuck with your choice of career no matter what they may have thought at first."

Judy recalled her family's support of her becoming a cop, moving to Zootopia, training to fight crime and defend justice. Admittedly, it had been less than enthusiastic.

"Actually..." she was about to explain when Killdeer cut her off.

"Well, if you grew up with that life, then that's fine," he said with a despising sneer. "Even though I'm the firstborn in my family, I grew up as the runt of my parents' brood, and I was born with a few... mental impairments. I physically cannot process stress or things related to office work without succumbing to panic attacks. It's a brain dysfunction called..."

He seemed thoughtful for a second as he finished knotting Judy's wrists in the thick black wire.

"Well, I don't remember its name," he admitted, "but the name doesn't matter. I know I was born with it. It was only discovered within the last few years, so my parents had no knowledge anything was wrong with their son other than his legacy. My parents didn't understand, particularly my windbag, alcoholic father who never gave his own son any sort of thought or free will. All he would talk about was the glory I would bring to Killdeer Steel. But when he found out my excellence in college was in mechanical engineering and athletics, not in business or in mathematics, he claimed I was unfit to rule the Killdeer estate. And then, as the ultimate form of humiliation—snap!"

He gestured to his ugly, broken stubs that had once been his fine antlers.

"And," Killdeer went on, "after my career in athletics was brought to nothing by my slip-ups at the Free Lands Olympics a number of years ago, I had nothing left to do. My father had already disowned me and disinherited me from what was rightfully mine! This house belongs to me by birthright, and my father decided to defy me by telling all his buddies at the banks to close his account to me only. As soon as I got the deed once more, I knew I had to put in all the I had just to fix up this rotting old hunk of stone and timber."