Chapter 36: Agent Longears Meets Dewey

"Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing" – Miles Davis

Agent Savage and Agent Longears visit the library and Lisa is bested by every school child's old nemesis.

Present Day

The vixen weaved the motorcycle down the trash and rubble strewn street towards what was once the town's thriving business center. Empty shells of the long defunct wool mills lined the river, their sandy tan limestone walls were now crumbling into the waters below, but their presence reminded them of better times. Above them, the once grand mansions were also remnants of that wealthier boom time before the Great Depression, but now they brooded dark and empty in the afternoon sun. However, the railroad tracks that once divided the town, separating the prey from the predator, were still well maintained and gleaming from their constant use as trains full of their precious cargo and passengers had, until recently, traveled daily up and down them . It had been several generations since a train had stopped at the now ramshackle station, a more modern subway platform stood nearby and it too was also now sitting empty since the community was quarantined from the remainder of the city.

As they rode along, the vixen could feel Jessie's paws on her waist and smiled to herself when she realized that it had been a long time since she had felt a male fox's touch. Shaking her head, she admonished herself for allowing her mind to ponder such thoughts. You're an agent on a mission, act professional, forget the distractions, and get your mind back in the game, she thought to herself. This is a real assignment, life and death stuff. She had to concentrate as she maneuvered the motorcycle, trying to avoid the larger potholes in the asphalt as she keep a vigilant eye on what was around her at all times.

Inside the uncomfortable sidecar, Jack glanced first at Agent Longears and then at their passenger, before he returned to scanning the vacant buildings around them for any danger. The vixen had impressed him with how she had played the foxes and wolves at the barricade, using them to get her way. He allowed himself a fond smile as he recalled his late wife's ability to flatter and flirt with others to get what she wanted. He knew from personal experience that a vixen's charm was hard to ignore.

Main Street was much like the area around it, abandoned with only a pawful of businesses struggling to survive. Liquor stores, thrift stores, pawn shops, and a few small mom and pop grocery stores languished among the mostly abandoned buildings. "That used to be the Buckthorne Inn!" Jessie called out over the roar of the engine. "The gangster Al Catpone once lived there!" Jack nodded back to the fox as he warily watched the boarded up windows of the now seemingly abandoned building.

Beyond Main Street, the tod directed them down a few side streets towards a small park. This part of the town was surprisingly clean and well maintained, there was no trash or street mammals hanging around. Instead, the houses had been repaired and there were even several businesses in a small commercial area across from the park. A bistro had a few patrons sitting outside, who watched them with interest. There was also a groomer, a gift card shop and bookstore, and even a trendy clothing store in the little strip mall. "Our Community Association has worked hard on this part of the town and they even got a community revitalization grant under Mayor Lionheart," the tod proudly proclaimed. "We were cleaning up our streets, until Bellwether came along and pulled the financial plug."

Lisa blinked when she saw an old large granite memorial in the center of the square with a brass statue on top of it of a fox in a priest's robe pointing skyward as if he was silently preaching to a flock of pigeons. "Piberius!" Jessie answered her unasked question and she knowingly nodded. The vixen knew that this was the hometown of the great fox.

She pulled the motorcycle into the parking lot of the old library. It had been built in the early seventies as a way to placate the local community after the civil rights protests of the sixties. The ugly looking building was a cheap glass, steel and reinforced concrete modernistic creation which gaudily contrasted with the charm of the older buildings around it. "It's been locked up for months, ever since city hall had it shut down as a precaution," the grey fox sighed. "They claimed that they were afraid one of us preds might suddenly go bonkers inside."

"Well I brought the key!" the vixen sweetly chuckled as she dismounted and stripped her black jacket off. With a sigh of relief, she wiggled her tail from of the confines of the strap and allowed it to wag back and forth for a few moments as she adjusted her black blazer.

Jack tried not to smile as he watched as the tod just stared at the vixen with admiration, she was playing with the poor fox again. Jessie didn't know it, but the vixen had him wrapped around her claw and no matter what she wanted, he'd try to get it. The jackrabbit finally gave a small smile because he knew the male fox's predicament too well, he had been there himself. His good paw reached up and touched the white handkerchief in his black suit jacket pocket. Yes, he knew what it was like to be a willing victim of a vixen's tender manipulations.

"You got the key?" Jessie asked in a perplexed manner, blinking and then blushing with embarrassment as Lisa looked at him with a grin. His eyes were not staring at her's, but other parts of her body as his tail flicked and wagged with interest.

"I've got the key," she giggled as she pulled out her badge. "This and my trusty lock pick set."

"Some help would be appreciated!" Jack snapped from where he still sat inside the sidecar. He was stuck, pinned by the satchel in his lap and he couldn't get enough leverage because of his broken arm. "You could at least get this damn bag off of me!"

"Sorry Agent Savage," the vixen answered as she ran over and grabbed the satchel before the tod could reach for it. "Jessie can you help this poor old geezer out of the sidecar?" she sweetly asked before she returned to the front door and looked the padlock over.

"I'm not that old!" Jack protested as he slowly crawled out of the sidecar, slapping the grey fox's paws away from him. "Don't call me a geezer!"

Lisa didn't answer, but concentrated for a few moments and then deftly picked the padlock. She quickly followed up by picking the front door lock. As she pushed the door open, she peeked inside before calling out to her two male companions, "There's no alarm, why doesn't this place have an alarm?"

"Why would it?" Jessie answered as he joined her at the doorway. "Who would want to steal books?"

Lisa pressed herself against the inside wall, cautiously looking around the room before she reached over and flicked the light switch, "The power's off!" she cursed. Instead of reaching for a flashlight, she allowed her eyes to focus in the semidarkness as she slowly moved from the safety of the wall. She paused as she heard Jessie behind her, but then relaxed when the tod walked by her and looked around before he gave an aggravated sigh.

"What's wrong?" the vixen asked as she joined him in the center of the room.

"They took away all the computers," the tod complained. "So even if we got the power back on, how can we find anything?"

"There's an old card catalog to your left, it's that wooden box with small drawers," Jack called out from the doorway.

A few moments later, the vixen cleared her throat and tentatively called back in a rather embarrassed tone, "Agent Savage…ah…sir…ah, do you know how these cards work?"

He turned to face the two foxes with a dumbfounded look. They were both holding manila cards in their paws and looking at them with their heads tilted in confusion. "Are you telling me that neither one of you know how to use the Dewey Decimal Classification System?" he asked, trying not to laugh at them because of the baffled looks on their faces. "Haven't you been to a library before?"

"Not since elementary school," the vixen huffed out in agitation. "We didn't have a library in either my middle or high school, because the city didn't want to waste funds on a bunch of intercity predators. We only had hand me downs from the mostly suburban prey schools in my class rooms and I just download my reading materials nowadays."

"Gods above!" the hare chuckled as he turned to join them and then he froze when he heard something outside. Slipping back into the shadows near the doorway, he drew his pistol as he glanced down the sidewalk. "We've got company, it looks like an elderly female stout with a cane is approaching."

"That would be Miss Betty!" Jessie almost whimpered with concern. "We're going to catch hell now! She was the librarian here for most her life, before she was forced to retire."

"Maybe she knows how to use these damn cards," Lisa dryly exclaimed. The hare glanced her way as he slipped his pistol into the sling over his broken arm, it was more convenient hidden there than his having to fumble around trying to get it into its holster behind his back. The vixen was standing next to the card cabinet with a card in one paw and her smart phone in the other. She was obviously still trying to figure out the filing system and very displeased with her online search.

Jessie joined Jack at the door and watched as the thin white furred stout in a flowery red dress hobbled up the sidewalk towards the door. "Jessie!" she called out in a very no nonsense tone as she commandingly pounded the tip of her cane on the concrete walkway. "What are you and your friends doing inside the library without adult supervision? You know that isn't allowed young tod, you better not be messing the place up again!"

"No ma'am we aren't doing that," the grey fox meekly replied, his ears were flat on his forehead as if he was expecting to be scolded. "These two are from the government and they want to look in the town's old records."

"You're with the government?" Miss Betty snapped as she stared at the hare trying to hide in the shadows. "If you two are with the city, then you need to turn the power back on and reopen the building! There is no reason for the city to deprive the young minds around…"

"Excuse me," Jack replied as he stepped out of the shadows with his badge held out towards her as he spoke. "You misunderstand ma'am, we are with the federal government and not the city. I assure you that we will put everything away when we are finished and lock the building back up."

The stout frowned at him and then she gave a look of curiosity as she watched the vixen in the background. "She doesn't know what she's doing with those cards does she?" she asked as she shoved herself between the fox and the hare. "Here dearie, let me show you! What are they teaching you nowadays in school? Your teachers should have taught you how to use the Dewey Decimal System the first year you were in junior high school, if not sooner young girl!"

"My teachers?" Lisa asked in confusion and then she realized that the elderly stout thought she was still in high school. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I'm a twenty-four year old kit fox!"

"Lordy, that makes it even worse little lady!" Miss Betty fussed. Jack wanted to snicker, because the bossy little stout was much smaller than the fox. "Just tell me which book you are looking for and I help you find it."

Before she answered, Lisa glanced over at Jack and the hare slightly nodded. "We are looking for the town's old burial records from the nineteen twenties."

"The Catpone Era," the stout chuckled. "There are boxes and boxes of those records in the backroom. A lot of folks died during those years. Why between the last distemper outbreak, the gangsters, and then the riot…well let's just say you will have paws full searching those records. Is there anyone in particular you are looking for?"

The vixen looked over at the hare and Jack nodded again. "We are trying to find if someone named Judy Hopps might be buried in one of the cemeteries?"

"Judith Lavern Hopps," Miss Betty sadly replied as she looked out the window as if remembering something. "I know that name well, little lady. Back when I first started working here, a fox named Nicholas Wilde came by looking for the records. He was the Nicholas Wilde, you know the red fox who founded FoxCon, and he told me that he was once accused of her murder. Anyways, the two of us went through all the records looking for her and we found her interred in the old potter's field on Meadowlark Lane. All the graves were unmarked, but we had a list of grave numbers and he used it to find where she buried. Her spot will now be easy to find, Mister Wilde wanted to make sure she wasn't forgotten and so he had a nice tombstone placed over her grave. Every year he came by about this time of the month to put fresh flowers on her grave and he would also bring new books for the library. I think he loved her and grieved her death until the day he died." She gave a small sniffle as she looked around. "My goodness this place is a mess! Look at all the dust!"

Jack glanced at the stout and then the vixen, before he turned to the grey fox. "Jessie, do you know how to get over there?" he asked. The fox nodded as he sadly watched the elderly stout fussing as she wiped at the dust. "Then Agent Longears, let's lock this place and get going." Turning towards the stout, he smiled as he added, "Thank you ma'am, you've been a great help."

The stout didn't answer, but ran her paw across a row of dusty books. "Go ahead, I've got the key and I will lock up the place up myself," she finally replied. "Libraries are like living souls and they need to be nurtured and loved. This place has been locked up too long, I think it's time to clean her up and reopen even if there's no power. I'm sure that the city won't mind, do you Mister Savage?"

"I'm sure they won't even know," the hare replied with a smile as he holstered his gun and began towards the door.

The old cemetery wasn't that far from the library and at first glance, it was just another weed chocked field near an abandoned burnt down warehouse along the railroad tracks. But, to one side of the seemingly empty lot was a single almost pure white marble tombstone and also a bench made from the same stone. "We're going to have to park the motorcycle here!" Lisa Longears called out to the grey fox behind her and the jackrabbit in the sidecar. She had put back on her black canvas riding jacket, but for the short ride, she had left her tail unbound and it sat comfortably in the lap of the tod who was lightly grasping her waist while sitting on the seat behind her. The kit vixen gave the tod named Jessie a grin as he dismounted and pulled off her jacket, the tod blushed.

Jack rolled his eyes, because the vixen was obviously enjoying seducing the poor male fox. "Ahem!" he cleared his throat in an effort to get either one of the foxes attention. "Would someone please get this bag out of my lap?"

Lisa giggled as she snatched up the bag up and carried it with her as she gingerly picked her way through the weeds toward the lone white stone. Jessie seemed to have forgotten the jackrabbit as he followed right behind the vixen. With a curse, Jack wiggled himself free and carefully climbed out of the sidecar, before he adjusted the black sling holding his throbbing left arm in its cast. Looking around, he slowly drew his pistol from its holster and slipped it inside the sling.

"What an odd inscription?" Lisa said as she sat her bag on the stone bench and read the carved message on the grave:

JUDTH LAVERN HOPPS

She Died Before Her Time

While Trying To Make The World A Better Place

"She died before her time, I wonder what that is supposed to mean?" Jessie asked as he squatted by the stone and read it out loud. Neither the vixen nor the hare answered his question.

"So we need to dig her up," Jack simply stated as he sat down on the bench. "Agent Longears, did you bring a shovel?"

"We can't dig up a dead body!" Jessie objected with a look of revulsion. "Why would you want to do that anyways?"

"Of course we can," the vixen answered as she gave the tod a sweet smile. "We need to see if she got buried with something very important. Come on sweetie, there was a backhoe about a block back. I've never hotwired an industrial machine before, this should be fun!"

"I think your idea of fun and mine are not the same!" the tod replied as he hurried to catch up to the other fox as she walked through the weeds towards the road.

Jack sat on the bench and looked around. Something just wasn't right but he couldn't put his paw on it yet. Then he saw someone stalking down the railroad tracks and frowned, there were two fellow agents in their black suits trying to sneak up on them!

The Dewey Decimal System has been the standard filing system for years, but there are questions about it's survival into the 21st Century. The growing proliferation of on-line books and a push for small community libraries to adopt the trendy "customer friendly" book store set up, have possibly begun to render it obsolete. (Just don't tell Miss Betty I may have wrote this, but she scares me and I'm the author!).