The ride through Sahara Square to Precinct Four was not a long one, but to Judy, in the "perp seat" in back of the police car with Nick and Simon, the silent ride seemed to stretch on for hours. Nick, on one side of her, stared out the window, and Simon, on the other, looked alternately down at his lap and over at her. She wanted to tell him it was going to be okay, that he wasn't going to get in trouble, but the only time one of them talked, when Simon said, "Excuse me," to the rhino, he was told to keep quiet. So they stayed quiet and watched the sandstone buildings go by under the cloud-dotted blue sky, and Judy thought about what a waste of time this had been. At least Freddy was safe.

The one thing that nagged at her was that the office had belonged to Horatio Sand. There were undoubtedly a lot of Sands in Sahara Square, but what if he was related to the councilor? How could she find that out? And if he was, what did that mean? Was Councilor Sand involved in the theft of the money? But why would she allocate it to the school only to turn around and have it stolen?

At the Precinct, the rhino and tiger marched them into the front office, and thank goodness Rainy was behind the desk. His eyes widened as he saw them come in. "Hopps? Wilde?"

"Hi, Rainy," Nick said. "Catch that last Pestworld episode?"

"What are you guys doing here?" the jaguar asked. His eyes went up to the rhino and tiger.

"B&E," the rhino said. "They claim they were on an investigation. Roarey wants to see them."

"Oh, good," Nick said in a lower voice. "I was worried we weren't going to get yelled at."

"Nick," Judy hissed, and elbowed him.

"What," he said, "you think we're going to get in more trouble?"

"I think you can always make it worse."

He glared at her but shut up.

Rainy, meanwhile, asked the rhino if he wanted Roarey paged, but the rhino said that he'd been told to just bring them to the Lieutenant's office, so they were marched past Rainy's desk, the jaguar watching them with big sympathetic eyes all the way. If there were some way to tell him to call Chief Bogo…well, why not?

Judy stopped just at Rainy's desk. "Do you two mind if I call my chief?" she asked. "He doesn't know where I am right now and I'd like to tell him." Even though she was addressing the officers, she looked right at the jaguar as she said it.

"You can call him after the Lieutenant talks to you," the rhino rumbled. "Maybe he'll call your chief for you."

Judy gave Rainy another look, and the jaguar raised his eyebrows and then nodded minutely. Satisfied that he'd call Bogo for her, Judy allowed the officers to march her with Nick and Simon up two flights of stairs to a hallway that smelled old and stale and of lion and rhino and other large mammals. The rhino shoved Nick in the back, and Nick said, "No need for that. I know the way."

They were pushed into an office about half the size of Horatio Sand's, with an old, much less fancy desk and no portrait on the wall, though there was a framed certificate of graduation from the police academy, just like Judy had on her wall at home. And behind the desk was a lion, his mane trimmed down in front but hanging down between his shoulders in the back.

He was leaning back in his chair, apparently waiting for them, and he laced his paws behind his head as they entered, his tail lashing. "Thank you, Stone and…"

"Briggs, sir," the tiger said.

"Right." Roarey waved them away. "Close the door on your way out."

The slam of the heavy door made Simon jump, next to Judy. "Don't worry," she whispered to him.

The lion leaned across his desk to look at them. "Kindly climb up on the chair," he said. "And if you want my advice," he added, facing Simon, "I think you should worry."

The three of them climbed up onto the chair facing his desk, the one made for larger mammals. "I'm especially disappointed in you, Wilde," he said. "I'd been told that foxes at least had street smarts, but even after being warned off of an active investigation, you came back and stuck your nose into it. Not smart no matter which way you look at it."

"Technically," Nick said, "I was there in a civilian capacity as a subject matter expert on consultation with a difficult CI."

Simon looked confused at that abbreviation, so Judy whispered to him, "Confidential Informant."

"So you're saying that the blame for this incident rests entirely with your partner, Officer Hopps?" The lion turned his gaze on Judy.

"I wouldn't say 'entirely,'" Nick said. "A lot of it has to rest on the criminals we're chasing, too."

The lion leveled a finger at him. "You," he said, "are not supposed to be chasing these criminals."

"Excuse me, sir," Judy said, "but Captain Whitehorn did assign us this case and our investigation did lead us to the Sahara Square Arts Foundation."

"Of course it did," Roarey sneered. "So let me see the search warrant you have to enter the premises."

Judy sighed. "We got a provisional warrant to search the offices. There was evidence that someone was trying to interfere with our investigation."

Nick's tail curled around and tapped her back warningly, but Judy kept staring forward. Roarey's ears perked and he inclined his head. "Oh? And who was that?"

"We don't know," Judy said. "But someone was threatening our CI, who was scared for their life."

The lion's paw tap-tapped on his desk. "And what did you do about that?"

"We moved them to a secure location," Judy said.

"What location?"

"If we told you," Nick said, "it wouldn't be secure anymore."

Roarey's ears flattened and his lips drew back in a snarl. "What exactly are you saying?"

"It's standard procedure," Judy said. "When there's a threat to a civilian and we take action to protect them, the details of that action are communicated to as few people as possible."

"Does he know?" The lion jabbed a claw toward Simon, who flinched back.

"No. He waited on a nearby corner as a lookout," Judy said quickly before the other bunny could answer.

Roarey's eyes narrowed, fixing Simon, who was trying bravely to recover from his flinching. "Captain Whitehorn wants to see you two," the lion said, pointing to Judy and Nick without taking his eyes from Simon. "And you, bunny, I'd like you to stay and answer some more questions."

Simon gulped. Under her breath, Judy said, "Ask if you're under arrest."

He blinked, looking confused at first, and then his ears came up and he looked more confident. "Am I under arrest?" he asked.

"We're asking you to assist us with an inquiry," Roarey said, his frown deepening and a growl coming into his voice. "Your help would be greatly appreciated. Your refusal to help would be noted."

"Am I under arrest?" Simon repeated. There was a little quaver in his voice, but Judy wasn't sure that anyone who didn't know him would notice it.

Roarey sighed and pressed a paw to his face. "Hopps, Wilde, go next door," he said. "You, other bunny, get out of here, and you better hope I don't see you again."

They jumped down from the chair and went out into the hall. "Are you guys going to be okay?" Simon asked.

"We'll be fine," Nick said.

"Maybe not 'fine' fine, but we'll be okay. Wait for us outside?" Judy said.

"Yeah. I still have to tell you—"

Judy and Nick both shook their heads warningly. Simon rolled his eyes and kept going. "—something interesting. Sheesh, I wasn't going to say anything. Good luck, you guys," he said, and made his way to the stairs.

Judy looked at Nick, who gave her a smile. "Worst she can do is fire us," he said.

"That's a pretty bad 'worst.'"

He grinned. "We've seen worse."

"True," she said. "All right, let's go in."

Captain Whitehorn's office looked just as precisely organized as when Judy had been there last, except for the rhino's desk, which was marred by scattered papers and folders. When they opened the door, the rhino looked up and glared at them. "Shut the door behind you," she said.

Nick eased the door closed while Judy climbed up onto the chair opposite Whitehorn. Nick joined her a moment later. "So," the rhino said, "let me see if I have all the details here of what you've been doing since I asked you to look into a robbery. You've harassed the victim of the robbery multiple times. You've bothered our most prominent city councilor. You've interfered with another investigation, been suspended, and violated that suspension to continue interfering with another CI, and also to break into a theater office. Have I left anything out?"

"When you put it all together like that, sure it sounds bad," Nick said.

"We had a provisional warrant to search the theater office," Judy pointed out tentatively.

"How would you put it so that it doesn't sound bad?" Whitehorn demanded acidly of Nick.

"Well," Judy said, "we suspected that Jenny Scar might have been complicit in the robbery. That's reasonable, right? So we talked to her a few times. And she's Councilor Sand's assistant, so we couldn't very well not talk to the councilor, could we?"

"And I didn't know I was interfering in another investigation when I was talking to a person of interest in this one," Nick added. "Roarey still hasn't told me what investigation that was. When I was suspended, our friend called me because Officer Hopps was in Happytown and needed a fox's perspective, just like when I helped her out before I was an officer myself. Nobody told me that was wrong, so I assumed it would be okay again this time."

Whitehorn looked between the two of them as they spoke, and for a moment, Judy held out hope that she'd take their side. But as she finished, the rhino shook her head. "You've always done exemplary work for us in the past," she said. "And that's why I'm not going to pursue disciplinary action. It's clear to me that you just got over-enthusiastic in your hope to bring home a big win."

"What?" Judy exclaimed.

"It's been a while since Mayor Bellwether, hasn't it?" Whitehorn said. "Nothing quite that big, nothing that grabs headlines, since then."

"No," Judy said, "but—"

"So you're dragging a reporter around with you—"

"He asked to come with us!" Nick protested.

"—and you figure you want him to get a really good story. I get it, I do. Once you've had the spotlight on you, you start wanting it. It becomes like an addiction."

"That is not what's going on," Judy said.

The rhino slammed a fist down on her desk, making them both jump. "That is the most charitable explanation of what's going on," she said. "I suggest you take it and go back to Precinct One with it, where Chief Bogo is obviously more accustomed to dealing with your exuberance than I am. You're off this case."

Both of them sat still for a moment, and then both started talking at the same time. "It's not fair—" "You can't—"

Whitehorn raised her voice over both of them. "You are off this case. That's my final word." When they opened their mouths again, she said, "If you persist, I can be talked into a more severe punishment."

Nick's tail was all bristled up. Judy grabbed his wrist. "Come on, Nick," she said. "Let's go."

They made for the door, but as they got there, Nick turned and said, "Thanks for letting us off easy, cap. Hope I can repay the favor one day."

"What?" Whitehorn bellowed, and Nick scooted out the door, Judy running after him.

"Nick," Judy scolded as they walked down the pale green linoleum stairs in the flickering fluorescent light.

"I know, I know, Carrots," he said. "But that self-righteous act really gets under my fur. All that stuff we did was to solve this case, which was what she asked us to do! And she acts like we pantsed Jenny and graffitied Sand's office. 'Go easy on us.' Ha. We were doing our jobs."

"I know," she said, "but you're not making anything better by antagonizing her."

"You're probably right." He grinned toothily. "But it made me feel better."

"She can still have us arrested before we get out of the building."

Nick's grin disappeared, and he began taking the stairs two at a time.

Fortunately they made it to the outside without getting arrested. Simon wasn't in sight from where they were, but they spotted him at the end of the block near a food truck. He waved, and Nick and Judy started to head toward him.

"If Jenny Scar planned it," Judy said, "and Sand told her to, then why would Sand be stealing the money from herself?"

"She's not stealing it from herself," Nick said. "She's stealing it from the town."

"She doesn't look like she needs money, and there must be better ways to do it," Judy argued.

"What if she's not stealing it for herself?" Nick asked. "Maybe I was looking at it the wrong way. I thought that if this was a standard payment thing it would be more likely to be stolen because this school couldn't follow up. It was a special payment, but they still stole it, and that seems a little odd because there'd be more attention around it. But maybe that was the point. They had to give the money to the Sunshine School in cash, so it's easier to steal."

"I get that," Judy said. "And Roarey's involved somehow."

"Whitehorn too."

"I…" She sighed. "I don't want to believe that, but…Sand did call her when we showed up and told her to get rid of us."

"She might not know all the details, but she's for sure doing what Sand asks her to do."

Judy scratched her ears. "Then why put us on the case?"

"Clearly," Nick said, buffing his claws on his chest, "she does not believe that we are as good as we are."

"Maybe." Judy thought about it. "But I think it might be more that…we've done work for them and it would look suspicious if she didn't?"

"Or maybe," Nick said, his ears coming up, "she wants to get out of doing whatever it is she's doing with Sand, and she's hoping we'll take that camel down."

"Maybe," Judy said. "Then why throw us off the case now?"

"She knows that won't stop us," Nick grinned as they approached Simon, who was eating a veggie-filled pita and dripping dressing on the sidewalk.

"I guess, maybe. Then she does want us to keep going?" Judy shook her head. "This is so confusing."

"Not really," Nick said. "It doesn't matter what she wants. We're gonna do what we do, and what we do is solve cases."

"You guys want a Veggie Pita?" Simon asked. "My treat."

"Sure," Nick said, and examined the food cart menu. "Whichever one has less lettuce."

"Thanks," Judy said, "yeah."

Simon ordered two of them and then turned back. "So what happened?"

"We got kicked off the case," Judy told him.

"But it sounds like you're still going to investigate?"

"I think so," Nick said.

Judy grinned. "Yeah, Blueberries, we're going to see this through."

"Good!" Simon said. "Because I found something interesting."

He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, a page folded several times that was as big as Judy's coat when they finally got it all unfolded. The lined paper had several appointments written on it in the same flowery, looping writing, and most of them had a name, a number, and a company: "Grace Pride, Pride Land Ventures," for example, with a number beside it, in the 10 am slot, and "Derrick Paw, Northern Traders," in the 3 pm slot. But opposite 12:30, there was just the name "Julian," no company, no number, but a dollar sign after it.

That's what Simon pointed at. "This is the day after the robbery, right? I checked a few days in his book before and after and all the rest of his appointments have a lot more information on them, but then there's this one, just a name. And the dollar sign! That's got to be something, right?"

Judy looked at Nick, who seemed dubious. "It's thin," he said.

"But it's something." Simon pointed at the dollar sign.

"Okay," Judy said, "but who is this 'Julian'?"

"C'mon, Carrots." Nick got out his phone. "First of all, let's see if this Horatio Sand is related to Councilor Sand. That would be a big connection."

Simon held his phone out. "I already checked that. He's her husband."

Judy's ears perked. "Are you sure?" She took the phone and read the article, a biography of Horatio Sand. Patron of the arts, member of the Sahara Square Drama Guild, blah blah blah, there it was: "His wife is noted Councilor Edwina Sand." She gave the phone back to Simon. "Edwina?"

Nick took the phone before Simon could and scanned it, then gave the phone back to the bunny. "No wonder she doesn't put her first name on anything."

"So he's connected to her. Now who's Julian?"

Nick held his phone up. "Here we go. A Zoogle search on 'Horatio Sand and Julian' comes up with this ibex, Julian Ibexa."

"Who's that?" Simon typed into his phone, but Nick had already clicked through.

"Julian Ibexa, treasurer of the Serengeti School. Sand—Horatio—is on the board of the school." He glared down at his phone.

"The Serengeti School?" Judy asked. "I've heard of it."

"It's the super-fancy school where all the rich people send their cubs," Nick said. "We used to make fun of them, because, you know, if you can't beat them, make fun of them. When we ran into them at camps or all-school events, stuff like that, sometimes there'd be fights, which we always won, or we'd just laugh at them and they'd say 'when we grow up we'll be your bosses' and stomp off in a huff." He turned his phone off. "If they sent the money for the Sunshine School to Private Snothead Academy, I'm going to be really mad."

"It looks like that's what happened, though," Judy said.

Simon cleared his throat. "Uh, I don't want to make you really mad," he said, "but, uh." He held his phone out to Nick.

Judy craned her neck to see the article. "This is dated yesterday," Simon said.

The headline read, "Serengeti School Announces Expanded Theater Department," and after the bit where the principal announced that the theater department was going to be able to put on two extra shows to meet the demand of parents, there was this paragraph:

"We held a fundraiser, but came up a little short," Principal Grayback said. "Fortunately, an anonymous donor gave a very generous donation in the last few days that has allowed us to ensure we will be able to give each of our drama students a chance to realize their dreams, and all the parents a chance to see their cubs' boundless talents."

Nick growled. "What do you think the chances are that that anonymous donation was fifty thousand dollars in cash?"

"Pretty high," Simon said.

Judy rocked back on her heels. "It seems convincing, but we don't have any physical evidence. The case wasn't in the office."

"We've got Freddy's testimony." Simon pocketed his phone. "That counts for something."

"A convicted burglar?" Nick said. "And a fox? Not likely."

"What about Jenny?" Judy asked. "If we could convince her to testify, that might be enough."

"If." Nick rolled his eyes. "She doesn't strike me as someone who's about to risk her fancy job just to do the right thing."

"You never know what people will do until you push them," Judy said. "Right?"

"Besides," Simon said, "you could always threaten her with abetting a burglary, right? She told Freddy when they'd be out."

Judy and Nick exchanged looks. "We could," Judy said, "but I'd prefer to leave that as a last resort."

"Not sure we actually have anything to threaten her with," Nick explained. "She might not know that, but it's riskier to go to someone and say 'if you don't help us, we'll throw you in prison,' if you're not sure you can actually throw them in prison."

"The problem we keep coming back to is that it relies on Freddy's testimony," Judy said.

"Which is why we need to get hers," Nick said. He started walking on down the sidewalk, and Judy and Simon followed. "Until we come up with a better idea."

They walked for a little way, and then Simon said, "What if we broke into Ibexa's place and looked for the empty case?"

"Ah," Judy said, "that's really creative, but—"

"I know we've given you the impression that we just break into places," Nick said, "and sometimes we do, but we actually did have a warrant for the theater place. It'll be a lot harder to get one for this ibex."

"But good thinking," Judy said.

There was a long walk to the car, and they were only halfway there when Simon spoke up again. Judy was afraid he was going to have another impractical or illegal idea, but he just said, "I'm really impressed that you're not giving up on the case. I mean, the other police told you to lay off, suspended you, and all that. But you're not giving up."

Again, Judy and Nick shared a look. "Giving up isn't our style," Nick said.

"If they really stole money from a poor school to give to a rich school," Judy said, "that's a crime, and I wouldn't feel right just letting it go. There's still a few things we can do, and we're going to try to do them."

"I get that," Simon said. "I'm just impressed by it, that's all."

They sent Simon back to his hotel to write up what they'd gone through, promising they would catch up with him when they'd gotten Jenny's testimony. He protested but finally acknowledged that it was better for him to split off. Judy put him on a bus that would take him back to the center of town and his hotel, and told him to text her when he got there.

It was just after 12:30 when Judy and Nick got to the car, so they took the chance that they might be able to catch Jenny on her way back from lunch, assuming she actually left the building to go to lunch. Nick called Councilor Sand's office while they drove over and got a recorded message telling him they were out for lunch, so they took that as a positive sign.

In the meantime, Judy and Nick talked about what angle to take with her. Nick thought they should lean on the illegal part of it, but Judy remembered how devoted Jenny had been to her cub and thought it might work better to play on her sympathies for other cubs. "I don't know," Nick said. "A lot of those types, they say 'I got mine' and they don't look back."

"I know, I know." Judy navigated into the parking lot outside the Town Hall. "But I really think it'll get to her. Anyway, if it doesn't work we can lean on the illegal part after, okay?"

"Okay, fine," Nick said. He adjusted the mirror on the car to watch the sidewalk behind them while Judy kept an eye on the front.

Right at 12:55, there came the coyote along the sidewalk toward Town Hall. Staring down at her phone, she bumped into a tall camel, who snorted at her, and then in an attempt to avoid a gazelle, Jenny crashed into a newspaper box.

"Come on." Judy opened the door. Her nose twitched with excitement, not only because she was hoping to break the case with this interview, but also because she knew this was dangerous and she and Nick might be making a lot of people angry. But this was the right thing to do; she felt it in her bones as certainly as she'd known that there was something fishy about this whole business. Money had been taken away from this school and that was wrong, just wrong, and the people who did it would have to be arrested.

They met Jenny half a block from the Town Hall stairs, and she didn't register who they were at first. "Excuse me," she said absently, side-stepping Judy, and then smacked right into Nick, knocking him back a step.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, and looked up, and then she recognized them. Her ears went back and she tottered backwards away from them. "I have to get back to work," she said. "I'll be late."

"We'll only take a few minutes of your time," Judy said, "and I'm sure Councilor Sand will understand that you were just trying to help out the ZPD in our investigation."

She tried to get around Nick, but the fox was quicker on his feet, even if he was shorter. Finally Jenny folded her arms and said, "Can we do this in my office?"

Her flattened ears and twitching tail belied the confidence in her folded arms. "I'm afraid not," Nick said, guiding her into a little out-of-the-way alcove, "because we think your boss is involved in the robbery."

Jenny's eyes widened. "We're pretty sure of it, actually," Judy said. "Seeing as how the thief left the money in her husband's office and he took it to the Serengeti School."

"Ah," Jenny said. "I don't know…what you're talking about."

Her body language said differently. "Your cub goes to the Serengeti School, doesn't she?" Judy asked.

"Wh-what does Prissy have to do with this?" Jenny's ears came up and her determination felt more real now.

"She's going to benefit from that money," Nick said. "The money that you helped steal from the school you grew up in."

"I…"

"I went to the Sunshine School too," he went on. "I know how much that money would've meant to the school. You know they didn't have class last week because they couldn't afford to pay the teachers?"

Jenny shook her head. "Those cubs," Judy took over from Nick, "just want to get an education. That money could've given them another week—another few months!—of classes. Instead it's going to a rich school to, what, let them put on another play? Is Prissy in one of those plays? Is that why you did it?"

"No," Jenny whispered.

"Was it just because your boss told you to?" Nick asked. "She just said, take this money from that dumpy middle school, they don't use it properly anyway, and let's give it to the school your cub goes to so they can have a proper theater season?" He said the last words with a mock-posh accent.

"No," Jenny said faintly. "I'm telling you, I don't…" She looked around as though hoping someone would come save her.

"Listen," Judy said. "We're close to proving everything. Your boss is going to go to jail, but you don't have to. Prissy would rather you be around, right? It sounds like you didn't do anything but pass information along, so if you decide to help the ZPD and tell us everything you know, I'm sure we'll be able to get you probation or community service or something. No jail, no time away from your cub."

Jenny looked out to the street again. "Can I be anonymous?" she asked.

"I don't know," Nick said. "How would anonymous testimony work?"

"No," Judy cut in before Jenny could answer. "But we can try to have your testimony sealed so it isn't public record."

"But listen," Nick argued, "you can't hide the fact that you've testified. If we prosecute the Sands and you don't go to jail, people will know that you talked to us. I'm not threatening you or anything, I just want you to understand this. I don't want you to say afterwards that we promised you something and then went back on it. People are going to know. Rich people might not want you to be their secretary anymore."

"But." Judy rested a paw on Jenny's wrist. The coyote flinched but didn't pull away. "When you come home to Prissy, you'll be able to tell her that her mom did the right thing in the world. You can teach her what's right, not only in books, but by example."

The coyote's eyes grew shiny and then filled with tears, and she pulled away from Judy to wipe her muzzle. "I thought I was doing the right thing," she said.

Judy fumbled for her recorder, but she'd left it in the car. "Can you come with us to the station and make a statement?" she asked.

"I'd done things for her before, but it was always just small stuff," Jenny went on, not hearing.

Judy tried to tug Jenny to the car, but Nick stopped her. "Let her get it out," he murmured under his breath, and then, to Jenny, "How do you know Freddy?"

The coyote fumbled for a tissue in her purse, said, "Excuse me," and blew her nose. She wadded up the tissue, looked for somewhere to throw it, looked at Nick and Judy, and then stuffed it back in her purse. "I knew him from school. We were friends, used to get in trouble together. Then I moved up to Sahara Square and he stayed behind in Happytown, and we kept in touch a little, but not a whole lot.

"A few years ago Councilor Sand was talking about wanting to know more about Happytown and since I came from there, she asked if I knew anyone who might know the area. I said I did and did she want me to introduce her to him, but she said no, she just wanted to know more about a particular neighborhood. So I talked to Freddy and he went around and told me about the people who lived there."

"What neighborhood was that?" Nick asked.

"It was right at Fortune and Spruce."

He thought for a second and then his ears went up. "Where the new bank is?"

"Yes."

"Where they tore down a whole block of apartments."

She nodded.

Judy turned from Jenny to Nick. "You think they had Freddy spying on the people in the apartments?"

"To know where to make complaints and who to target? Old people, poor people? Yeah, I think they were."

They both turned to Jenny, whose eyes widened. "I don't know," she said. "Councilor Sand just asked me to find out from Freddy who lived there and what their habits were. Sometimes he broke into their apartments but I never asked him to do that."

"And this happened again at the Hood Street Apartments?" Nick asked.

"And others, too."

"Didn't you see a pattern?" he insisted. "Didn't you notice that when you sent Freddy to spy on a place, it got demolished later?"

"It didn't happen right away," she snapped back. "It was like a year later and I didn't think about it until Freddy said something earlier this year. He didn't like doing it and I told him that I'd tell the Councilor that he didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't want to do it either."

"But the robbery was okay," Judy said.

"This was going to be the last thing. They told him he'd get two thousand dollars out of it, which was enough for him to live on for a while, and we worked out that when it was done he was going to disappear and I'd just tell the Councilor that I couldn't find him anymore. But then…" She wiped her eyes again. "You two showed up and started asking questions, and the Councilor said we couldn't pay Freddy just yet because you'd notice. But he was getting impatient and I was caught in between the two of them and then the Councilor said she was going to get you pulled off the case."

"Great," Judy said. "Will you sign a statement to that effect down at the station?"

"Carrots," Nick said.

"Sure." Jenny sniffed and gave a weak smile. "You know, it feels good—"

"Carrots!" Nick grabbed at the sleeve of her uniform.

"—to tell the truth about this. It's been bothering me—what's going on?" Jenny stared at them, bewildered, as Nick dragged Judy out onto the sidewalk.

Only then did Judy see the ZPD van parked down the street and the three burly officers—Lieutenant Roarey, flanked by the tiger and rhino—hurrying down the street toward them as the crowd parted to make way. "Thank you!" she yelled back to Jenny. "We gotta run but go to Precinct One and ask for Chief Bogo and make your statement to him bye!"

Nick dragged her out into the street and held her up like a stop sign, which she was about to object to until she realized she was the only one of them in uniform. Cars honked but stopped as she held her paw up and out, and Nick hustled across the street with her. She looked back to see if the officers were following them; the tiger was trying to halt traffic but having worse luck because he couldn't dodge between the cars as easily, while Roarey and the rhino—

"Oh no," Judy said.

Nick, still running, said, "What?"

"They're arresting Jenny. She's not going to get to Bogo now."

"We were so close," he growled, and then, "Whoops, no," and changed direction quickly.

"What? Nick, you can put me down."

He lowered her to the sidewalk in mid-stride. "Come on," he said. "They had someone by our car. We gotta go on foot. Follow me."

She kept close on his tail as he ducked through an alley, jumped through a hole in a fence, climbed down into a vacant lot, sprinted across it and climbed up another fence. At the top of the fence, Judy looked back and saw the tiger just dropping into the lot behind them.

"Still after us," she said.

"Not for long," Nick called back as he darted across the street, avoiding cars. Judy steeled herself and followed him.

For as much as he made fun of her driving, when Nick wanted to make his way through crowds and traffic, he was a terror to follow. There were underpasses for small mammals to cross, but the nearest one was at the end of the block and Judy could see he didn't want to go out of his way to it. There weren't that many cars, after all, and they were moving slowly enough for her to avoid. She only got honked at once before she made it to the other side.

Across the street, the tiger had just crested the fence. "Still there," she called to Nick, who'd taken off for the corner. The people on the street here were larger: camels, gazelles, lions. Judy's ears caught the tiger yelling, but she could barely make out the words—she assumed he was calling for the pedestrians to stop them, which, good luck there. She and Nick darted nimbly around large, lumbering mammals, and as they rounded the corner, the crowds thinned out.

At another alley, Nick paused, checking something, and as Judy caught up, he muttered, "Must be the next one."

"What must be—"

But he'd already taken off again. Judy checked behind them—no tiger yet—but even as she was feeling some relief, a police siren cut through the crowd noise.

She caught up to Nick at the next alley. "They're sending a car," she said.

"I know." He knelt down to pry at a small basement window. "Was Stripeytail following us?"

"I didn't see him." Judy peeked cautiously around the corner of the building. "Still clear. How long is that going to take?"

"Not…" He grunted. "If I had my tools…ah. There we go." There was a click and the window tilted inward. "Come on."

He stuck his feet into the window and slid down into the room beyond. Judy hesitated only a moment and then followed.