Zootopia: ZPD Mysteries: Case #4: The Curse of The Pirate's Eye

Chapter 5: The Legend of the Pirate's Eye

"Well, then," Judy said, eyeing the vandalized fishing boat with a slightly disturbed eye, "that's... that's a lot of graffiti."

Forest Hills Marina wasn't exactly the most elaborate of facilities; rather, it was a public place to dock your boat and not have to worry about getting a ticket. It was a very simple series of wooden piers and shacks for registration, sticking out of a natural harbor like a spindly wooden thumb. Or, more accurately, thumbs, since there were well over a dozen piers. Several dozen boats were moored there for most of the day, ranging from tiny mouse-size dinghies to huge elephant fisher boats, each hooked to their own size pier as they bobbed in the waves of the Sound. Just beyond this series of wooden wharfs was a corduroy of small, rolling green hills, acting as thrones to a neighborhood of white-and-grey lake houses that adorned the harbor like a series of enormous teeth. These hills blended into the background of Forest Hills and the Emerald Mountains with a perfection hard to come by in nature. Also perfect was the unmolested view of the Zootopia Sound and into the Great East Ocean beyond to the midafternoon horizon.

On one of these piers, Judy, Nick and Skye stood next to a large, burly, middle-aged polar bear as they inspected his sabotaged fishing trawler, the Paddy. It was a sorry sight—spray-painted with that same creepy eye graffiti tag. But then, it was a sorry sight to begin with, with rusting rivets and half-cracked glass all along its cabin. It was a dragnet boat, so it merely required a small but powerful engine as it dragged its three-hundred-foot-wide fishing nets through the ocean blue behind itself.

"Aye, lassie," the polar bear was telling Judy, "the last time I saw that much graffiti, I was at a fisher's convention in Kleinwald. Some vandals had blundered aboard this one fisher's ship and sprayed foul language all over it."

The boat's owner, Flynn "Silver" Ursine, appeared to have great fun rambling on in his Irish accent. As Judy, Skye and Nick had noted earlier, Silver was a tall, heavy-set, middle-aged polar bear, dressed in voluminous pants and a red-and-blue striped shirt long since faded to pink and grey. It was apparent that the shirt had a hard time keeping itself over his enormous belly, as its material was so deeply stretched that every fur on his belly was visible. His baggy canvas pants flopped about his round, furry legs, and his eyes held a mysterious, infectious energy, as if he were about to break into a jig at any moment.

Judy had to admit, he was a likeable fellow, but she knew that they had to stay on track.

"Sir," she said, causing the bear to stop his rambling, "did you have anything aboard the ship that was stolen? We believe we may be dealing with pirates, and the last place they hit was covered in identical graffiti."

At the mention of the pirates, Silver's eyebrows shot up.

"To answer your first question, Officer," he said, his voice now very grave, "I triple-checked me boat, and nothing was stolen. It seems like a clear-cut case of vandalism."

It was then that Nick jumped in, for he had taken up the writing-down of this incident (he and Judy had flipped a coin for the job).

"Mr. Ursine," Nick said, "do you suspect who might have done this?"

The bear shook his head. "Not a clue," he replied, "but whoever did it is certainly daft, to be usin' the Pirate's Eye."

Judy and Nick both looked confused. When Silver saw that they were confused, his mouth dropped open a few inches.

"Are you leading me to believe that ye've never even heard the tale of James Shale and the Curse o' the Pirate's Eye?"

Judy and Nick shook their heads.