Have another chapter! I'm fighting through a mad case of writer's block the last few weeks with this thing, but I think I've got the rest of this planned out to a degree that'll make the final few chapters come much easier.

Or not. I dunno. Anyway, thanks to everyone who keeps reading this thing!

The Redemption of Gideon Grey

Ch. 9

Judy Hopps had never scribbled anything as fast as she was now.

Part of that was because the rabbit, quite unfortunately and in a brief but harrowing lack of judgement, had not stowed the trusty carrot-shaped voice recorder she usually carried on all police-related work, especially since, well, she needed one, plus it fit so snugly into her utility belt, anyway. She had tossed it into her bag last minute before embarking on her trip to Bunnyburrow, certainly, but being in normal clothes on a job for once was a peculiar feeling indeed, and she had not quite grown accustomed to packing everything she might need – her combination pen and digital recorder, which would have helped mightily now, included.

And then there was the fact that, above all, Judy wanted to get everything she could from Carl Pumaski, and to either her benefit or possible downfall, he had much to say.

It had not been easy. At first, the bunny cop felt she had to coax any semblance of a studied response from the panther, locked up for a crime he maintained he did not commit. But Judy had quite the tipping point on her side, and that was being Stu Hopps' daughter – because, as it happened, the Pumaskis held a great respect for the Hopps family, whether due to their camaraderie in the planning of the Bunnyburrow Fall Harvest Festival or otherwise.

But once Judy circled back around to a question she had posed very early on, things, she felt, took a turn for the better.

"So," she said, speaking in a voice halfway to monotonous, interested yet feigning disinterest. "You don't know Travis?"

Carl Pumaski teemed with muscle mass of which Judy could only dream of attaining 10 percent. It rippled under his shirt when he spoke, like another being unto itself, one with its own opinion of the matter and separate motivations. It bulged under the dark suit he still donned – he had only been booked a few hours prior, and the county jail was little more than a few holding cells anyway, so he had yet to pull on the unmistakable orange jumpsuit he might later assume if his case went to trial.

In that way, Judy almost felt less fearful of the predator, who otherwise might have been an imposing figure if looking the part of a prison inmate – even though she had seen much worse during her day job, not that it mattered here anyway. Though it was clear the panther detested his current situation, he was clearly not about to screw things up further for himself by threatening a cop who might be convinced of his innocence.

"I know him," Pumaski offered. "Not well, but I do. Met him a few times, sometimes alone, sometimes with a few others of his ilk from their neck of the woods."

"Which is… where?"

"Out beyond Foxgrove," he said, motioning with his right arm. Judy did not realize at first what he was trying to do, but soon remembered his arms were cuffed behind him; he was trying to point a paw to his right before grasping that, unfortunately, he could not do so. "Little junkyard of a place… I mean that in the best way possible, too; the family scraps old cars. I've taken a few of the used ones from my lot out there, the ones that don't sell after a while."

Judy glanced up from the notepad and pen she had been provided by the precinct. The shackled car salesman was staring right at her; their eyes met, and she felt as though, even when she looked back down, she could still feel his stern gaze lightning hot on her forehead. It had been like this since they began talking.

"What I am to understand, then," he continued, "is that that ferret, with a group of however many other folks, all predators – including the Catstantinos' kid Jarrod – stormed the festival, threatened the townsfolk with baseball bats and lit things on fire? General mayhem?"

"Not exactly, sir," responded Judy, locking her gaze on his. "Yes, Travis led a group of other predators to the festival, where there was a standoff over the rules sheet for vendors, which you've already seen." She clicked the pen she held firmly in her left paw. "But tension was diffused before anything could get out of control."

The panther snorted, and seemed to move both arms as though he was attempting to fold them across his chest, but, with a flicker of exasperation, ceased; Judy could tell he had not quite gotten used to their placement and the subsequent severe lack of movement. "Maybe diffused it now," he growled softly, "but that tension has been growing since the festival went into planning this year – and probably long before then."

Judy did not feel she had to write down any of that, so she was on to the next question in a heartbeat.

"Did you and Travis have any sort of interaction in the days leading up to the festival?"

"Yeah. We did."

"Mind explaining?"

"Surprised you don't know already," sniffed Pumaski. "I oversee a… I suppose you might call it a club, more an outreach mission. Made up of people from around the countryside, but mostly Bunnyburrow. We meet in the schoolhouse. Mostly predators like myself trying to figure out how we can do some good in the community and also make our voices heard."

Judy cocked her head while she wrote. "Why should I know about it?"

"Your parents'll show up sometimes. So will the brother of that fox friend of yours, Gideon Grey. Name's Colton. Colt. Good kid, parents don't know he shows up though."

"Yeah, they never mentioned it," Judy trailed off. "Guess they're way more about improving relations around here than I ever thought they'd be…"

"Suppose you rubbed off on them a little." For the first time since he had sat down, Judy noticed a twinge, a hint of a smile, form at his muzzle.

She tapped the pad of paper with her pen again. "OK, and Travis, he came by."

"A few times."

"Funny. That doesn't sound like his scene after what happened today."

"We'll get folks like him from time to time."

"Specifics, please."

"Confused," shrugged the panther. "Disillusioned. Look, you grew up here, you weren't used to how Zootopia does things when you got there. Bunnyburrow had the desegregated schoolhouse, but the town has otherwise been slow at best to catch up. Some folks are fine with the change. Some aren't. And some… don't really know what to think."

"And he was the latter."

"Family leans toward the middle. You don't see too many rabbits unloading their cars out there, that's for sure."

His eyes still had not left her, burning a hole in the bridge of her nose. "What I can offer you about that ferret is this: he came around once the mayor made the decision to allow our kind into the festival this year. Seemed like he wanted to… it's hard to say for sure, but I got the feeling he didn't think that meant anyone should go, that any predator-operated business should sell."

"So he protested your meetings?" asked Judy.

"Not exactly. Look, I…" For once, his line of sight went elsewhere, directed upward at the faded, tiled ceiling. "How do I put this kindly? It's not like every meeting of ours is, well, passive. Folks share concerns, and they voice them, just like any public forum. And, Miss Hopps, I doubt I have to explain to you the treatment of my kind by yours over the past few generations or more."

Judy gave the panther a quick nod, said nothing further and kept writing.

"So you'll have your folks who want to put the past behind them and move forward," he continued. "Then on the other side, you have your predators who want nothing to do with a rabbit-dominated hamlet where they'll probably never truly fit in, and who don't believe there's any point in even trying otherwise, because the damage from hundreds of seasons is done."

He leaned forward. "But you and I both know things are rarely that black and white."

"And where do you stand?"

The question seemed to surprise the panther somewhat, even though in Judy's mind it was a perfectly reasonable query, and not one with which she was looking to trap him. He was right in arguing that the deep-set feelings a town and its surrounding countryside might have for each other would not necessarily be cut-and-dry – after all, people were different, everyone was, and it was hard to imagine that even she felt the exact same way about every little thing in the world as her parents did.

After a long pause, he spoke: "I allow your parents to attend and voice their own concerns, don't I?"

Judy's shoulder's slumped. That was fair.

"So to recap," said the bunny, running her pen over the pad of paper, "Travis came to some of the meetings but didn't seem all too thrilled with the idea of you letting bygones be bygones and coming out after all."

"Right."

"But his conviction wasn't all there. Like he wasn't totally sure about his own words."

"Which happens. We're working with years and generations of prejudice here. And not just against us."

The rabbit leaned back in her chair, arms crossed but pen still in paw. "OK," she said. "That's interesting… because the standoff earlier today seemed partially about your arrest, not just the vendors' rules."

"You don't say."

"I do. Did you know any of the others in Travis' group?"

"I'd have to know about the others who were with him before I can tell you that."

"Well, there was a fox named Mike Robins."

"Not immediately familiar."

"And Jarrod Catstantino, we've already determined—"

"Lives on the same block. Good family. Preacher's kid. Never saw any of them at our meetings, though."

The bunny pored back over her notes, allowing the feline to fall silent as she dotted a few 'I's almost absently as she considered what she already had. In her mind, there was one thing on which she continued to hang, the very precedent for her arrival at the station to begin with: Travis' stuttering remark, which was never quite completed, to her that Carl Pumaski was not supposed to… supposed to… what?

And then there was the argument before then, when it was just the ferret and Skip Clover, the town constable who opposed the small army of angry predators, stared them down with a deft eye until the mayor's arrival and Judy's subsequent peace offering. The words Travis spoke, almost hushed, a far cry from the shouts and cries that typified his earlier exclamations, resounded in the back of her mind as she thought hard. Him, though? She repeated. Him, though?

There was one more question she had for the salesman, one she was fairly certain had already been leveled at him by Clover or one of the county police, but she wanted to hear it for herself.

"Sir," started the rabbit, "first of all: you maintain you didn't steal the festival stock or have any knowledge of it. That's correct?"

"I stole nothing."

"Then tell me, where were you the night of the theft?"

It was a simple question, one perhaps Judy should have led with. But she felt the need to ask it anyway, because it could provide her a clue on where to go next, who else to speak to. If this inkling in her mind that had not quite left her, the one that was seared into her brain ever since Travis' rushed words to her, held any kind of water, she needed to know. Because it could change everything.

Instead, Judy was crestfallen to hear his response, delivered in a manner that registered barely above a murmur.

"I was there," muttered the panther. "I have no alibi, as much as I'd like to. But I will not lie, especially not to a Hopps. I was on the festival grounds that night."

Judy feverishly scribbled a few more notes. "What for…?"

"I was…" he looked away, his yellow eyes suddenly less pronounced, sunken, reserved. "I…" he stopped again. "I was looking for… trouble."

Her nose twitched. "Trouble?"

"Skip Clover and I, we…" the panther closed his mouth again and straightened against his chair. The shackles that held his paws rattled behind him. "I wanted to see if anything was going wrong. To see if there was anything that could be fixed before today. It wasn't my place, because they never let me on the committee like I asked a hundred times, but… I wanted to see for myself."

"And if… nothing was wrong?"

The panther's eyes were closed, face expressionless like he was in a deep trance. Judy watched him inhale deeply, then exhale. "I will not like to a Hopps," he purred finally. "I owe you that much." When he opened his eyes, Judy was struck by the compunction that shone through. "And I don't think I need to tell you more than that."

The rabbit was writing again, but the words were coming much more slowly than before. The silence within the room was almost distracting, anyway. Judy could hear virtually everything – the scrawl of pen against paper, the ticking of a clock outside the room, the slow breathing of Carl Pumaski mixed with the officer who still stood nearby, plus her own. There was even a slight brushing noise, which Judy soon took for the panther's tail, swishing agitatedly against the back of the chair.

"I need you to know this, Hopps," the panther was speaking again, but his vocal had lost its tenacity, its boldness, its pride. "I didn't do what I'm here for. I didn't even do anything at the festival. I ran into Clover before anything could happen. I don't know who stole the goods, and if I had any idea of who might've, I'd tell you in a heartbeat.

"Just…" he continued, "if you see my family, let them know that. Tell my wife, tell my boys. Tell them… I didn't want this."

xXxXxXx

Nick Wilde sniffed once, disgustedly, and scratched his arm. There was not an itch there; it was a nervous tic more than anything, something to occupy the time and to keep his mind off what was in front of him.

"You'd think they'd give it a rest the day of," the fox muttered to his compatriot, who stood beside him, albeit maybe a step behind, as the pair sauntered up to the entrance of the Fall Harvest Festival.

Gideon Grey shook his head, arms folded across his chest. "You've never had longer than a few-second conversation with a Thumper then, have ya?"

Nick could not argue the point. His only dealing with the family up to then had been with Belle Thumper the day he arrived in Bunnyburrow. It was not a pleasant exchange, and judging by the vigor with which that same bunny currently bellowed some unsavory words about Mayor Cotton and the predators who were setting up their vendor tents within unmistakable earshot of her cries, their next conversation would not be, either.

"Can they even do this?" Gideon asked, watching the dozen-or-so animals who shouted their chants, waved their signs and stole their barbed glances at innocent passersby. "We're right by the entrance."

"Looks like they're just far enough away for it to be legal," remarked Nick. "Right by the main entrance, too. Fun."

The fox whirled to his right, just inside the entrance, where Constable Skip Clover and a member of his team stood watching.

"Gonna have a little chat with our floppy-eared friend…"

"Oh, Nick, c'mon, can't we let 'em be…?"

But Nick was already gone. Clover saw him approach, and there was the briefest flicker of mild annoyance curled across his countenance, one the fox only barely registered. The town law enforcer seemed to have three modes, he decided: exasperation, standoffish aversion and complete and utter apathy. Three qualities the grand marshal of a family-friendly festival full of food, games, rides and contests should clearly have, obviously.

"When's the fun begin?" Nick called, adopting his usual barely-above-a-smirk grin. "Are you the guy I talk to about the fun?"

"The heck do you want, Wilde?" came the constable's lethargic response. His eyes flickered to Nick, and the trailing Gideon, just once before returning to the protesting crowd.

"I just thought these things were supposed to have games, feats of strength, contests, pillow fights. I dunno, whatever you bunnies do out here." The fox grabbed onto Gideon's shoulder and shook it almost violently, causing the baker to stagger back a step uncertainly. "Gideon here's just dying for an arm-wrasslin' contest. But it seems to me like all we're getting is upside-down smiles. What gives?"

Clover shot a look at his underling, a rabbit probably around Judy and Gideon's age, who nodded and stalked off toward the corralled-off enclosure where Belle Thumper was leading a crudely orchestrated poem about how in five years the festival would be overrun with predators – stolen from them, if you will.

He turned back to Nick. "Fun's in two hours," he stated plainly. "'Til then I gotta deal with the mess our mayor brought upon herself."

"Wow, there it is, right out in the open," retored Nick, waving his paws, pads turned upward. "Saying it directly to two preds, though? Goodness, what form."

Firing a hardened glare at the fox, one at which Gideon cowered in spite of himself, he grumbled: "Not sayin' I don't like your kind, if that's what you're gettin' at. Just would've done things different, that's all."

"Regular Fix-It Freddy, this guy."

"Been fixin' this festival for years now, making it go smoothly. It's when the mayor decides to storm in and make this big a change without any sort of plan in place – and then wonders why it's blowin' up in her face."

He sniffed. "Recipe for disaster from the start, the way she did it. Sometimes I wonder if she did it this way on purpose."

His last uttering was not one Nick expected. He cocked his head, paws on his hips.

"Run that by me again…"

"Anyway, doesn't matter," Clover motioned at the vendor area, which was even more active than before, carts of produce pulled from storage sheds and a few merchants standing idly by their booths, speaking with each other or simply waiting for festivities to begin. "Convinced the mayor and the committee we needed those predator guidelines, so they're stayin'. Not that it was a tough sell; when the townsfolk see a few of 'em stormin' in on pickup trucks with mischief in their eyes and baseball bats in their paws…"

"You sure they weren't there for a quick game of baseball?" Nick offered, shrugging. "I've seen the old field here, and boy, does it sing."

The constable sniffed once and spat at the ground. "You probably have somewhere else to be," he grumbled. "The both of you." He aimed a quick glance at Gideon, still standing nearby. "Help us make sure that ferret and his friends don't come back and things're gonna be just fine."

And he was off toward Belle Thumper and her posse of shouting mammals.

Nick stood still for quite a while, nary a fidget nor whispered response under his breath that might have enabled him to get in the last word at the constable. This worried Gideon slightly, or at least it was a far cry from the fox with whom he was at least marginally familiar by now. He lifted a paw and, after another second's thought, rested it on the other's shoulder. "Y'good?"

He barely registered the touch. There were many tenets of Nick Wilde's personality, most of them relating to the jokester con-fox aura he had perfected since his youth. But he thought he was a darn good detective, too, or at least so Judy liked to tell him, and so he now allowed himself to think occasionally, even as a rookie cop and one with a checkered background.

But even in his novelty, there was something that did not sit right with him – just like Judy's hunch with Travis before – and he had an idea of where to go next.

"Say, Gid," he spoke finally. "How much longer before you gotta be at your booth?"

The other fox swallowed. "Soon, but I think Stu and Bonnie have been watchin' it."

"Let's give them a holler," Nick called over his shoulder, already on his way toward Gideon's vendor tent, waving a beckoning arm. "Might need ya for something."

Both Stu and Bonnie Hopps were indeed at the Hopps family's vendor area, the one with the giant sign proclaiming their efficiency in carrot farming as well as other fine delicacies (but, really, mostly carrots; they were not so silly as to hide the thing at which they excelled most). Bonnie was actually on Gideon's side, checking under his table while she laid out an extension cord that connected with an outlet nearby, while Stu was deep in talk with a fellow rabbit Nick did not recognize straight away.

Not wanting to interrupt their conversation, the foxes went to Judy's mother first. "Mrs. Hopps," he greeted. "Long time, no see."

"Nick, good to see you, what's it been, 10 minutes?" came her muffled voice from under the table.

"The fest opens for business in about two hours, right?"

"6 o'clock sharp."

"Then if I told you I was going to borrow my good pal Gideon and his van here for a moment, you'd be able to make sure no sleazy animal – probably another fox, because you know how we are with stealing things – took his stuff?"

Bonnie emerged from beneath the table. A sunflower hat was perched low over her eyes, mostly because she had let it slip there while she rooted around on the ground for an outlet. Adjusting its brim, she looked at Nick, then at Gideon, who merely shrugged.

"The mammals you have to look out for are panthers in suits, I hear," Bonnie pointed out with an eye roll. "But I don't mind as long as you're back in about an hour. I think final check happens around then."

"Where ya off to?" Stu, who had overheard, asked, calling from his conversation with the rabbit, who landed a narrowed gaze at Nick. He recognized him finally as Barney Thumper.

"I, uh… left something back at the house," Nick started, eyes on the ground and then at Judy's parents. "Stupid me, really, guess it was a little too early of a wakeup call this morning."

"Ain't your kind nocturnal anyway?" muttered Barney.

"Aha! Right you are!" Nick sprung to the rabbit's side and tossed an arm around his shoulder; he recoiled at the fox's touch. "This guy gets it. Still not used to the sunlight after all these years."

The elder Thumper clicked his tongue in dripping disapproval. Edging his elbow pointedly out of the fox's lean, he turned his back on the vulpine and faced Stu. "Anyway, I'll be off. Sorry things didn't go your way with the mayor's decision, but…"

"C'mon, Barney, this is the third time you've said it; you're not getting a rise outta me today," Stu said, smiling eagerly, almost phonily. "I'll see ya at opening ceremonies tonight."

Nick could only see the back of Barney Thumper's head at this point, but he discerned the quick nod and heard the tempered response: "Good day, Stu, Bonnie." The rabbit stalked off deeper into the festival, brushing past Gideon on the way. Nick was not sure if Stu and Bonnie could quite overhear his whisper of, "Try not to slip up again," to the fox, with whom he exchanged a look, before stepping off.

Gideon certainly heard; Nick found him with the slightest scowl, not particularly negative-looking but certainly downtrodden.

"All right," the fox announced again, lingering briefly on Gideon before looking back at the two rabbits, "we'll be back to see our favorite carrot farmers in a jiffy. Hour tops."

It was not until they were in the parking lot that Gideon was finally able to get a measurable answer from Nick: "Hey, so, uh, where are we going?"

The fox leaped into the passenger side of the truck Gideon drove around for deliveries and other random errands, still with its display reading "Gideon Grey's Real Good Baked Stuff" on the side that could, frankly, use a new coat of paint, but the fox had had other things to worry about over the past few weeks.

Once Gideon appeared on the driver's side, shutting the door and sticking the key into the ignition, Nick, sunglasses down and elbows against the back padding of his seat, obliged: "Your ol' friend Nick's got a house call to make."

xXxXxXx

They were at the entrance to the Thumpers' driveway, and Gideon was not happy about it.

"I swear to… Nick, ya idiot, I…"

"Words, Gid, words. Sentences. You can do this."

"I should not be here!"

A brief rundown of the history of Gideon Grey and the Thumper family followed, and Nick was nothing if not attentive, nodding along as the apprehensive fox laid all his anxieties out onto the table – or, more fittingly, the small, dirty dashboard of his van – and capped off his tale with a replay of what happened the last time he visited the homestead.

"So," the fox heaved, out of breath from an incredibly lengthy ramble Nick let him embark on, "there's all that."

"Well, I think we should go in."

"You can go in."

"Just me?"

"Yer the cop, pal."

"And the outsider. They know you."

"Nick, I swear to whatever god y'pray to…"

The fox in the passenger side seat refocused his attention on the farmhouse, which looked not unlike the Hopps family's abode, save for a different coat of paint and maybe a few less windows and rooms. "So I just gotta walk?"

"Walk fer all I care."

Nick had his eye on Gideon again, and he was trying to avoid his stare, but it was proving futile, and Gideon never considered himself one with much of a strong will these days anyway, especially when the other fox added that infernal half-lidded grin, like he knew you were going to do what he said you were going to do, whether you knew it or not.

"Ugh, fine."

The time they had spent at the mouth of the Thumpers' driveway had attracted the attention of a few folks who were still inside the home, most of all the rabbit who Nick took to be the patriarch – Benny, his name was, he recalled; his brother had mentioned it in the mayor's office. One of the rabbit's sons was standing next to him on the porch. His arms were crossed.

"That's Blake," mumbled Gideon. "And if you thought Belle was bad news…"

"Then why isn't he out causin' a ruckus with his sister?"

Which was a question Gideon could not answer. The one thing he had noticed in the days leading up to the festival was that Belle was far and away the most vocal of the Thumper clan when it came to decrying predators' inclusion that year. In fact, he was not sure he had even seen any of the rest of them, aside from Barney Thumper of course, but he was a different side of the family entirely.

Once Gideon put his truck into park a few paces from the worn path that led to the front steps, he briefly contemplated staying inside, or perhaps pulling away, making Nick walk the whole way back; he and Judy had originally planned to walk there anyway, so the jaunt was not far. But once he saw the fox, already out the door and on his way in, motioning to him with a wide-eyed grin as he walked across the nose of the truck, he knew he would be powerless to resist.

Nick, meanwhile, was on the lookout for an errant shotgun that might be within reach of one of the two disapproving-looking rabbits that stood waiting for him on the porch, but he did not see one – though he did not quite trust the open windows on the second story. Not that he should have assumed they had shotguns; that was stereotyping, he thought. Probably.

"Howdy, folks." Nick had put on his friendliest of greetings, coupled with a saccharine smile that showed slight deference, despite his intentions. "This the Thumper residence?"

"What's askin'?" Benny Thumper grumbled. "Besides a fox, I mean." Blake's folded arms tightened against his chest.

"Nicholas Wilde, ZPD. Sorry, that stands for Zootopia Police Department." The fox reached into his pocket and produced his badge, which he had brought along despite their plainclothes assignment; never knew when one might need that kind of identification.

"Ah," said Blake plainly. "The fox cop."

"Right you are, pal," Nick grinned toothily, and Gideon noticed the slight twitch of his tail at the words. "Right you are. And I've got a couple questions for you, if you don't mind."

Benny's expression was unchanged. He glanced up at Gideon, who stood a few paces behind, not daring to come closer. "What's he doin' here?"

"Gideon's my chauffeur and a dear, dear friend. I hear you know each other?"

Snorting, the elder rabbit called into the house. "Beatrice. Company."

"Who's it?" a muffled voice from inside the door came through the front screen door.

"You'll recognize one of 'em, maybe both."

Gideon had not seen the Thumpers' mother since he spotted her in the upstairs room the last time he visited, but she looked the same as he remembered her – always that long, flowing white or beige dress, seemingly something that might get in the way of farm work, but she managed anyway. A more solemn look in her eyes, not like her daughter Belle's often fiery disposition – maybe more like Blake, whose face, he recalled even in his youth, always seemed tempered, yet poised for something, whatever that was.

"Ah," said Beatrice, peering at Nick, and then the more familiar Gideon. "Hopps girl's partner."

"Flattered that you know me."

"We have a TV," she said plainly.

"I'm glad. What's your favorite soap? I assume bunnies would be partial to All My Children, since you know, you have so many of them? Right? Am I right?"

"Crowds in Zootopia must be far more forgiving," the rabbit droned, taking a seat at the far porch swing. "So what's the news? Did our daughter do something?"

Nick took a few more steps forward, paws stretched behind his back. "Ah," he said, "recurring theme?"

"I sure as heck should hope not," Benny, sitting down next to his wife, snapped. "She's perfectly within legal reason to say what she says, where she says it."

Taking the unspoken invitation to join them on the porch, Nick trudged up the steps, brushing past Blake, still standing by the door, on his way; the rabbit instead seemed to have eyes only for Gideon, who kicked at the grassy dirt in the front yard absently.

"Oh, of course," replied Nick, planting his paws on the concrete, back straight, small grin on his face. "Your daughter has every right to say all the things she wants to say about the leadership of that festival and its dirty sins letting in us foxes. I won't come here to argue the point."

He took out a small pad of paper he kept in his back pocket – unlike Judy, he came prepared, and if he had known she had not that day, he would never let her hear the end of it – and looked back at the rabbit couple eying him from the porch swing. "I had a few questions about something else… sorry, meant to get here earlier, but traffic, I'll tell ya. What I wanted to talk about was the missing stock case at the festival earlier. Hear of it?"

"Belle mentioned it," said Beatrice. "But she said they caught the perpetrator. Some predator named Carl Pumaski."

"Ain't surprised, either," Benny added with a lofty expression. "Folks like that don't change, and this ain't the first blemish on his record, that's for darn sure."

Nick wondered if Judy, who he knew was visiting the panther around that same moment if she had not already, knew that. "Past criminal record, then?"

"Like I said," the rabbit replied, glaring past Nick at Gideon behind him, "folks like that don't change."

Gideon winced, and Nick noticed him glance back toward his truck.

"Hey, now, keep my ride outta this." He took out a pencil and pointed it at the mother, then the father. "So you two know nothing about it other than what your daughter told you."

"We don't tend to make it out to that festival anymore," Blake chimed in from behind the fox. "'Specially not this year."

"More dunk tank prizes for me, that's fine." Abruptly Nick thought of a text he needed to send, one that would probably help along his questioning a little, and reached into his pocket for it. "And how about your opinion of Skip Clover? What's that enigma of a man really like?"

Nick was lucky Gideon was listening in too, because he missed the first part of the answer. Suddenly, and quite frankly, their answer seemed far less interesting than it should have been, once he glanced down at his phone and saw Judy's name, which he had been successful in avoiding virtually all afternoon, even when around her parents, if he could help it.

But now there it was, and he would have to text her, talk to her, actually communicate, and for Nick Wilde, usually so cool, calm, collected and always one step ahead of the action, he was at a loss for how to start the conversation after the earlier incident.

So instead, he launched right in from the start. "Pumaski's background check," he typed quickly, paws against buttons so fast it was a wonder he did not mistype. "Look into?"

He was surprised to see the mark noting that she was typing a response almost immediately; if she had met with Pumaski by then, she had already finished.

"Sure."

Nick nodded slightly. OK, he thought. Professional. Yes. Good.

He looked back up in time for Benny Thumper to conclude a long, saintly speech about how Constable Clover was one of the best things the town had ever known.

"And he and Pumaski, they hate one another," added Beatrice with a definitive nod. "Which is silly, if you ask me. It's all from Clover's distrust of the guy, but who in their right mind is gonna let someone with that kind of background join the festival planning committee?"

"You don't say." Nick was writing again.

"Anyway," Benny stood from the swing and crossed his arms. "Is there more? Or do y'wanna run down the whole town phonebook with us?"

"Sir, as fun as that sounds with a man of your stature, I think I'll pass," said Nick with a grin larger than he usually managed. "It's been a pleasure, though."

"Hm," grunted the rabbit. "Blake, show our good officer back to his truck."

Nick was, of course, perfectly capable of walking himself back to Gideon's delivery van, but he relished the opportunity to steal a few final moments with Belle's brother.

Except Blake was already gone. Nick whirled around to see him walking back toward the van with Gideon, his arm pressed demoralizingly against the fox's shoulder.

By the time he was within some semblance of worthwhile distance from their hushed conversation, however, the rabbit had turned heel and, with a quick tip of his cap and an impish smirk, brushed past the cope on his way back to the homestead.

Gideon had already started the engine of his truck before Nick even clambered into the passenger seat, but the fox waited until both doors were closed before he asked, "What'd he say?"

The fox behind the steering wheel said nothing at first. He pulled the truck into reverse, backed out of the driveway and onto the road after checking for cars, muttering, "Well, truck's cleaner than the last time I left this place."

"I can imagine. Anyway, Blake."

"Told me he'd see to it my home's windows wouldn't be the only thing busted if I set paw there again."

"Of course he did." Nick was unlocking his phone screen; he thought he might have felt it vibrate from an incoming text or something of the sort. "You don't think it was him who did that, do you?"

"Naw, I'm pretty certain that was Travis. Blake just heard about it and didn't let the opportunity go to waste," he said, drumming his paws against the steering wheel.

"You really must've done a number on this town when you were younger, bud."

Sure enough, there was a text from Judy, and when he saw it, he was conflicted by its words, because what was there was simultaneously a shock and yet also an unmistakable boon to the case as it stood.

"Welp."

"What is it?" Gideon asked, peering over the horizon, where the sun was getting low as evening – and the festival's kickoff – approached.

"It's Judy. Just got Carl Pumaski's record from her. And… well, look, once we get to a stop sign."

And once he did, Gideon understood Nick's reaction completely.

END