Jamal Shabal's home was nestled within an acre of well-kept, neatly landscaped property. It was set well away from the street he lived on, as were most of the houses in the Delta Rio neighborhood of Sahara Square. The driveway was long, but happily it was not itself gated like the community was, so they didn't have to grapple with announcing their presence before even getting to the house itself. Which, when they arrived, seemed a fortunate happenstance. From inside, there came a shriek of grief and rage, followed by glass shattering and furniture crashing to the floor. Nick and Judy both left the cruiser at a crouch and drew their side arms as they stalked up to the entrance in perfect sync. No words were spoken between them as they moved; this was a dance that they'd shared enough times that their movements were hard-wired into them.

The sound of their approach was covered by the distressed caterwauling from inside the home. They stacked beside the door. At a tap from his partner, Nick hammered his fist on it. "Mr. Shabal? Police!"

The activity from inside halted. After a short pause, a ragged voice called out, "Go away!"

"We just want to talk, sir," Judy called from Nick's side.

There was another pause, then Judy's ears perked up at the sound of someone padding heavily towards the door. There was a click, and the aperture swung inward slightly. Nick holstered his weapon and cautiously entered, trusting in Judy's faster reflexes to ward off any danger. They took in the scene: one vase lay in pieces in a puddle of Tiger Lilies and water, while something that could have been an Ottoman was shredded and strewn about the room.

The hunched and distraught figure of Jamal Shabal stood just off to one side of the door. He was a middle-aged caracal with honey toned eyes and broad set shoulders wearing a trendy Mandarin-collared Hoggo-Boss shirt and expensive Owlex watch. He wasn't much taller than Nick, but the subtle outlines beneath his sleeves alluded to a strength that he would prefer not to grapple with.

"Please watch your step just there," Jamal said as he closed the door behind Judy and pointed at the broken glass from a picture frame by the wall. "I… am not having a good morning." He then picked up a whisk broom and dust pan and began listlessly cleaning the detritus.

Judy and Nick exchanged glances as they carefully sidestepped around the debris. Judy, not about to assume anything of what he knew or didn't, said warily, "Receive some bad news recently, Mr. Shabal?"

He glanced back at her with a weary and impatient expression. "Don't take me for some naive simpleton. I know why you're here."

"Do you?" Judy asked, and her paw hovered again over her sidearm. "And what do you think we're here for, sir?"

"About what happened to…" His voice cracked, and he paused with a hard gulp before he finished. "What happened to Bridget." He picked up a tablet from the coffee table and contemptuously tossed it at their feet. On the screen was a picture of Bridget's corpse and a headline that read, 'But is it Art?', under the title The Sun-Bearer.

Both officers stared at the image in alarm, as they could be seen in the foreground. Judy rallied first. "Yes, sir. On behalf of the ZPD, we wish to extend to you our sincerest condolences in this trying time."

"Thank you." He picked up an overturned chair and placed it back up by a long table before he set himself down. He indicated the disarray. "Apologies for the state of my home. I'm afraid I'm not handling this… well."

"That's quite alright, sir." Judy said. "This isn't the sort of thing mammals typically handle well."

"No, I suppose not." Jamal scrubbed his paws over his face and brought them to rest folded on the table. "If there is anything I can do to help find whoever did this," he left the statement hanging as he gritted his teeth.

Judy and Nick exchanged a subtle look, and she took out her notepad as she moved out of his line of sight and let Nick come around in front.

"Well, now that you say that," Nick began as he sat in the chair directly opposite Jamal, mirroring his posture, "we do have a number of questions regarding Ms. Carcallie's whereabouts during the last 24 hours. Who she contacted or interacted with, any planned outings or last-minute changes to them, any unusual communications she may have received, especially any threatening letters or such."

Jamal turned his eyes down to search the table. "It was a regular Thursday, as far as I know. We keep Fridays available to spend time together from our typical schedules. Thursdays were set aside for 'Me' time. A mental reset, so we didn't bring work-related stress with us when we wanted to be… to be…"

"Intimate?" Judy suggested.

"Yes… as you say." He shifted, his paws gripping together tightly. "She has a group of friends she regularly goes out with. I have their contact information."

Nick nodded as he scribbled notes. "And for your 'Me-time'?" He made a point of looking Jamal in the eyes as he asked. Years of experience had taught him how defensive mammals got at the question, 'Where were you when…?' It seemed to help if the mammal he asked could see his eyes and read his intent.

Jamal's muzzle twisted up in anger at the question, but he quickly gathered his frayed composure and grabbed something out of his pocket. "I was at the Canine's Film Festival. Bridget can't stand Indie..." Jamal's whole frame shuddered for a moment as his voice broke, looking at the receipt in his paw, "couldn't stand Indie films. I'd tease her about it all the time."

"We understand that this is difficult, sir, and thank you for your cooperation," Judy said, coming around from her position next to Nick to give him a sincere expression. "If you could provide that list of contacts for us when you feel you're able to, we would appreciate it. And if you don't mind, there's just one last question I wanted to ask."

"And that is?"

"That online article." Judy pointed at the cracked tablet that was now blank on the floor. "How did you come across it? You don't seem the type to regularly peruse the sleaze journalism of The Sun-Bearer."

He snorted in contempt. "I don't subscribe, but I do have my Tweeter and Muzzlebook accounts linked to about a dozen such rags so I'm updated to any articles with mine or Bridget's names, or anything we're associated with. When you're in a position of public visibility it's a good idea to know when public opinion is shifting, and who's shifting it."

"Bridget was identified in the article?"

"No," he scratched at the table. "The headline; it's my catchphrase. I almost always use it somewhere in my reviews… it's expected now and… and they used it... for the headline…"

The caracal's tenuous composure collapsed and he put his head down in his arms on the table, drawing shaky and shallow breaths in through soft sobs. Nick nodded at Judy and stood. He put a calling card on the table in front of Jamal, and placed a paw on his shoulder.

"I have to advise you to please stay in the city while this all resolves," he said, his voice uncharacteristically somber. "And if you think of anything else, don't hesitate to call us."

Jamal nodded into his arms and Nick gave his shoulder a commiserative pat. Then he and Judy picked their way carefully back to the entrance. They left the broken-hearted mammal to mourn and closed the door quietly behind them.

"I can be fooled by other mammals' acting on occasion, but that felt, smelt, and sounded like genuine grief back there." Nick tucked his notebook away as they walked to the cruiser.

Judy nodded as she climbed into the driver's seat. "We'll mark him as 'low probability' on our suspect list. The tabloid angle though?"

Nick started typing on the Mobile Data Terminal. "Let's see, The Sun-Bearer, owned by 'News Zootopia, LLC'; nothing sticking out as far as antagonism, but they carried a piece on him and Bridget from four years ago and he filed a 'Cease-and-Desist' while threatening an 'anti-defamation suit'."

"Hmm." Judy put the car into gear and started to maneuver back down the long driveway. "Any indication in the article of who took that photograph?"

"No, but I bet Abby down in Digital Forensics could figure out where they were when they took it. With the number of cameras that are situated around that casino, we'd be able to get a look at the photographer before we go nosing into the newspaper that published it."

Judy nodded, and pulled into traffic. Nick reached for the radio to patch a call in through dispatch when his cell phone rang first. He picked it up.

"Y'ello." He listened for a moment and then switched the call to speaker and held it between him and Judy. "Hey there, Doc, I got you on speaker."

Good morning, Detectives, came the lightly accented voice of Dr. Furiakin. I hope your morning has been less interesting than mine has with this body you two brought me.

Judy's ears popped up. "Something else came up during your examination, Doctor?"

I'd say so, yes. There was some static on the other end. I hadn't gotten a chance to begin the internal examination when Detective Wilde came by this morning, but I have now and I wanted to advise you both immediately of a very concerning initial finding.

Judy and Nick shared a concerned look. "Which is?"

The paperwork that accompanied this body bag specified that the number of deceased mammals was one, but in fact… there are two.

Judy pulled over and hit the normal emergency blinkers. "An explanation, please." There was a slight waver in her voice. "Was Ms. Carcallie-?"

No, my dear, she wasn't pregnant. Judy slumped against the steering wheel in relief. The deceased feline's stomach organ had been obviously tampered with. Sliced into, specifically, and an additional body was within it. A small rodent… I will tentatively say a field mouse, but the body has been extensively deteriorated by the chemical composition of the stomach, so additional tests would be needed. It was posed strangely, like the feline's was. The position was kept fairly intact with that same resin the caracal was coated in. A small blade was glued between both paws.

Nick set the phone down on the center console. "Just to make sure I understand this right: a mouse was surgically implanted in her stomach, with a weapon in its paws?"

Based on what I can tentatively observe. There would have been damage-well, a different kind of damage-to the esophagus if he or she had been consumed while wielding a blade defensively.

Judy looked at her partner in concern. "I don't know whether to consider that better or worse."

There was a moment of hesitation from Nick. "Objectively, it's better." He looked her in the eyes as she balked. "More data-points will help us narrow things down. If Bridget had eaten the mouse, we'd have a whole slew of suspects and new reasons."

Dr. Furiakin hummed his agreement. As grotesque as it sounds, Nicholas is right. With an additional victim so carefully prepared, we can be certain these two unfortunates were the victims of the same depraved individual… or group.

Judy heaved a breath and leaned back in her seat. "Right. It's still the same crime, rather than two potentially unrelated crimes. We can look for the correlation between the two and hopefully narrow down how they were selected."

Nick set a paw on her shoulder. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but we're going to make the world a better place..."

Judy reached up to squeeze his paw. "By finding this animal and getting them off the streets."

I will compile as much as I can for you both today on Ms. Carcallie. This surprise victim will require additional tests that will take more time to complete, but you will have those results and hopefully a name to work with as soon as possible. I will alert you immediately as I know more.

Nick nodded at Judy. "Alright, Doc. We've got some other leads to run down, so we'll keep out of your fur for the rest of the morning." He hung up and glanced over. "Well, that was a gross little addition to this case. Care to see what the good mammals at The Sun-Bearer have to say about their oh-so-conveniently timed photographs of our crime scene?"

"Well, it's the closest thing we've got to motive so far." She pulled into traffic. "Let's touch base with Abby first for some more ammo, then head out and see what they have to say."

Nick reached out for the radio to call in their movements to Clawhauser. "In that case, swing by Buy-n-Large for me? I need to grab a Jumbo-Slurp before we head back to the station."

Judy scrunched her nose. "Please don't."

He smiled. "Sorry Carrots, but it's a small price to pay for express service." He leaned over and gave a faux scared expression. "And have you ever seen Abby off the stuff? I have. Trust me: you don't want to."

Judy heaved an aggravated groan.

...

Judy's ears were all but pinned against her back as she and Nick descended into 'The Pit'. It wasn't the dark confines that bothered her, as those were similar to a rabbit warren. It wasn't the smell of caustic soaps and sterilizing agents, though they were mildly irritating. It was the driving rhythm she felt more than heard. It set her on edge and made her want to bolt as each thudding beat landed. Next to her was Nick, holding a Wolf-sized plastic jug of carbonated sugar-water slurry and ice. Judy could feel her heart race just a little faster standing near it, much less drinking any of it.

They rounded a corner and came into the Digital Forensics Lab. Nick delicately took the straw in his claws, and squeaked it in the lid. "Oh no, I seem to have an extra large, extra cold, extra blue slushie that I cannot possibly finish. Curse my folly. Whoever will help me with this conundrum I have created for myself?"

A computer chair swung around to reveal a rabbit dressed in a riotous mass of fluorescent colors and floral print beneath her white lab coat. The doe surged forward with a manic grin. "NickyNickyNickyNicky!"

Abigail Scutto, a bayou rabbit born and raised in the Canal District of Zootopia, did not have the kind of appearance that one would expect of a Police Technician. Dark fur was etched with intricate white liquid nitrogen fur tattoos, designs that varied from quotes to celestial bodies to skulls. Offsetting her bright and vivid clothes were black, knee high military style platform boots with all manner of buckles and straps on them. Though also a rabbit and maybe only as tall as Judy normally, these raised her height to almost as tall as Nick.

"Ah ah ah ah!" Nick lifted the drink up slightly as Abby threw her arms wide. "No hugs while I have the drink in paw. I don't relish wearing this stuff again."

The exuberant rabbit hopped up and snatched the liquid confection instead. "Knowell's two doors down; he could give you a 'County Intake' shower." She took a deep slurp of the unnaturally colored drink and smacked her lips. "You'd be clean again in less than a minute."

Judy winced inwardly. It wasn't so much that she disliked Abby; on the contrary, the doe was brilliant and delivered exceptional results at a speed that rivaled colleagues twice her age. Judy respected her ability, and her consistent work ethic. No, it was more an inability to quite see how she could put up with being so weighed down by so much extra… stuff. To relinquish the ability to feel the ground beneath her feet in lieu of fully enclosed boots was bad enough, but what she'd done to her ears had Judy baffled. Piercings lined both of her now drooping ears; a half-healed hole at the base of them from a gauge that had gone horribly wrong ruined the muscle there and left Abby unable to raise or swivel her ears anymore. It made Judy shudder to think about. How could any rabbit get along without full use of such a fundamental facet of rabbit-kind?

Abby swung a now slightly blued smile at her and said, "Mornin' Juuuuuuuuuudy."

"Good morning, Abbs," Judy managed to reply over the music, ears popping up and then immediately flattening back again. "Think you could dial it back to a nine or so?" She glanced at the speakers on the desk.

"Heh, of course!"

Abby bounded in perfect precision up to the top of her oversized speakers, flicked the dial just so, and landed without losing a drop of her drink. Blessed pseudo quiet drove the previous cacophony away. Judy gave a relieved sigh.

"Much appreciated."

"No problem. So," she settled into her seat, looking at the fellow lapine, "you braved 'The Pit', and Nick brought a bribe drink. What is it you two need fast-tracked?"

"We just got scooped by The Sun-Bearer on the case we were assigned not three hours ago," Nick said, tapping away at his phone screen for a few seconds. An old timey 'You've Got Mail!' alert chimed from the computer station just behind Abby, and she spun about at the sound. "That's a copy of the photo that's up on their site right now."

"The timing couldn't be worse," Judy added as Abby opened the image and blew it up on the enormous monitor. "We need to triangulate this and figure out where it was taken from so we can cross reference it against the casino traffic cameras and ID the photographer."

Abby gave a faux pout. "Awww, is that all? Barely any fun, boo." She pulled up a map of the gardens surrounding the casino, then glanced at the photo again at normal size. "Huh, that looks like Triumph."

Nick frowned slightly. "Yeah, they tangled her up in it like-"

"Not the metal junk." The swamp rabbit opened a search window and started typing. "Triumph is a surrealist oil on canvas by John Thimbul. You can almost make out the inner warrior escaping from the confines of species conformity here." Her search finished and a picture came up. The similarities were striking.

Judy was aghast and her eyes darted from Abby to the screen to Nick as she asked, "How does someone even paint something like that?!"

"I know, right?" Abby said in a voice that sounded almost reverent. "It's so expressive, has so much passion to it, the composition, the lines, how it draws your focus right here even with so much else going on around it, it's just… guh, it's incredible. I wish I could paint something like that."

Judy's jaw could have hit the floor, but she took a second to recompose herself before she spoke again. When she did, it was with the barely contained, overly neutral voice of one laboring to speak her mind in a less explosive way than she was feeling inside. "Paintings are supposed to be pleasant to look at. Things you hang on the wall of the kitchen and look at on rainy days when the sun isn't out. Decor that's nice and comfortable."

Abby wrinkled her nose. "Ick, comfortable art is so lifeless. What's the point? If it doesn't make you feel something, it's not doing its job."

Nick chuckled at Judy's distress. "Come on, Hopps… haven't you ever seen a Salvadore Dholey before?"

She shot him an annoyed glare. "I have, and I don't know why they exist, to be honest. Why would someone create something so grotesque to lay eyes on that it kicks you in the gut?"

"Same reason there's Stomp-Metal and poems about dead kits," Nick absently commented. "They're upset and need to express it somehow. It's still healthier than the route I took. This Thimbul guy didn't join a gang or try to commit suicide by mobster. Can't say it's my cuppa-tea, but to each their own." He glanced at his partner. "That's what Zootopia's supposed to be, right: anyone can be anything? This guy just decided to be morbid is all."

Judy huffed and crossed her arms. "Well, it would appear that Mr. Morbid's little work of art inspired a killer. Says something about that kind of expression, doesn't it?"

Abby's fur puffed and ears twitched, though they remained flopped to either side of her head as always. "Uhh, no. See, it's not the responsibility of the creator to censor the outpouring of his soul just because someone might get offended, or triggered, or take it the wrong way, or do something dangerous with it."

Judy threw her paw out toward the picture on the screen. "Even if it results in the ultimate kind of wrongdoing?"

"Hey, not that this isn't a completely valid discussion and all," Nick interjected while stepping between the two does with his paws out, "but first, we don't know that this was motivated by the artist's work, and second, we are here for a reason other than debating the merits or lack thereof for different art styles. Right? Can I get the most out of my bribe drink? Please?" He weathered the dual glares.

Abby narrowed her eyes, took another long sip of her slushie through the straw while still keeping her gaze aimed in Judy's direction, and then donned a mild, tolerant smile.

"Back to business, then," she said, and turned back to her monitor with the same equally energetic movements that she had before the little disagreement began. She set her Jumbo-Slurp down and started typing away. "Palm Street and all the avenues around the casino are overloaded with traffic cameras and CCTV cameras for the high-end retail shops and banks. Whoever took this picture was probably caught on more than one… but if the traffic camera got 'em, then you won't need a warrant for the footage. We should be able to get a copy right from the database here."

"Fingers crossed," Judy said evenly, now also reining in the big bunny emotions to get her mind back on task.

Nick leaned on the desk. "Go Team Not-Misleading-Camera-Footage! And why's this part so fuzzy?" He pointed at the edges of the picture.

"That's out of the-" Abby trailed off. "It's out of the point of focus!" She started frantically typing. Nick and Judy both leaned in, attracted by her sudden excitement. "There's no meta-data left in the picture, but the image is very sharp so we're dealing with a higher-end camera. Professional grade, not just a good smartphone camera. They're really sharp on the subject of focus, but it leaves the background and foreground out of focus."

She enlarged and enhanced a blurry blob in the foreground. A very specific dark shade of blue splotched all over with a fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark variety of colors. "And this here... it's a structure, but there's some kind of ad right here."

Judy stuck her tongue out. "It looks like one of those Blue Ham Group rave dance event things. Loud music, drums covered in neon paint, black lights… blech. One of my sisters did that for a bachelorette party. Came home looking like a stained-glass window."

Abby chuckled. "Sounds like my kind of doe. Let's see... Triumph was here facing west, and there's a Ticket Mousters kiosk on the corner of Wilmott and Brandt."

Nick whistled. "That's one heck of a camera. Whoever it was took that shot a good quarter mile from our scene." He got a thoughtful look. "Brandt Avenue ends in a T-intersection with Grazer Blvd."

Abby pulled up a map of the neighborhood, and lined up the camera line. She leaned back with a smirk as the line led into a narrow alleyway.

"Aaaaaand if we pull up the traffic cameras facing north and south at around… what time was it this morning you two were on the scene?"

"Might have been nine, nine fifteenish that we were done and walking back to the cruiser," Judy said, standing now on tiptoes and body tense with excitement.

Abby brought up the Zootopia Traffic Network feed for Sahara Square from that morning and clicked to the traffic camera situated in that area. It took a little trial and error to pinpoint the timeframe that they were looking for, but even before the first police cruisers arrived at the scene-even before Judy and Nick received the urgent assignment from Chief Bogo the moment they stepped into the Bullpen for roll call-another mammal discreetly dropped out of the early morning sidewalk traffic and stooped in the alley by the dumpsters. They watched with anticipation as he began to unpack… camera equipment.

Judy bristled up. "That sleazy little creep knew!" She pushed away from the desk and stormed in a circle. "He knew a murder had happened and failed to report it! He even profited-"

"Simmer down there, Fluff." Nick held a paw in front of his partner. "He was there ahead of time, but we can't prove that he knew the nature of the crime." He glanced pensively at the grainy CCTV still. "Even if that is super convenient timing." He looked back at Judy. "We've got a lot on our plate on this one. Let Asstor and the Third run this angle."

Judy gave her patented 'I'm-not-sharing-you-can't-make-me' look before letting it fizzle on her face. She gave another sour glance at the screen and nodded. "Not a bad plan. Then we can focus on The Sun-Bearer and any possible mob connections. Chief did say to delegate where we needed to; it'll be a good use of that 'get out of tedium' card."

Nick put on his most pedantic look. "And it allows us to look like the better mammals to the higher-ups. Hustling lesson of the day: never pass up on an opportunity to earn political points. They're worth your weight in gold."

Judy laughed. "Wow, that much, huh? Maybe I can trade them in for a studio apartment on Hill Street." She turned to Abby. "Could we get some hard copies of those pictures with the timestamps? And as close to that guy's face as you can get. Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll be on their payroll. Any fur patterns we can vaguely match might give us an edge when we question the Editor-in-Chief there."

Abby smirked and pointed to the printer, which was already laden with a number of glossy printouts. "Done and done." She slurped her slushie again smugly. "Go on, say it."

Judy rolled her eyes, but still smiled as she collected the pages. "You're the best, Abbs."

"I am, aren't I?" She grinned wide up at Nick. "Bribe spent. Have fun storming The Sun-Bearer! Tell me all about it after, in excruciating detail. Especially the part where Judy makes someone cry. Those are my favorite."

...

The Sun-Bearer's office was located in Hyenahurst, and was almost as facile as the content it produced. The building had a professional face out front, crisp lettering over the door, clean windows, with neat and simple landscaping. The interior, though, was a different matter entirely. The smell of cigarette smoke clinging to the lobby almost sent Nick lurching back outside. Meanwhile, Judy cringed at the heavily water-stained walls that promised mildew and worse behind the faux-wood paneling that looked to be at least as old as her partner.

There weren't many employees in the office when they arrived, and those that were seemed to take a similar level of care in their professional appearance as their place of employment, most taking the 'casual' part of 'business casual' much further than one would expect.

A stodgy old warthog nursing a stub of a cigar came out to the front desk at the receptionist's announcement that the ZPD was on premises. In stark contrast to his employees, he wore a blazer and tie, as well as a pleasant expression on his face. The receptionist introduced him as Victor Yehlathi, the periodical's Editor-in-Chief.

He gave them a warm greeting and shook their paws firmly. "Good morning, detectives. You'll forgive my delay, I hope… busy busy busy, the news never takes a break, does it?"

He flashed a disarming smile that almost put Nick off balance, then immediately turned and motioned them to follow without waiting for their reply. No grass grew under his feet, from what they could see. Even when they were in his office and seated, he remained standing and in constant motion, whether fiddling with his stogie, his tie, or whipping his tail.

"I can already guess why you're here, and we have both a constitutional right and moral obligation to print-or post as the case may be-the news." He pulled out a layout of the front page for the upcoming printed edition. There in vibrant color, were the mortal remains of Bridget Carcallie, as well as Nick and Judy. "It's not often we get to scoop the major papers, and I do have to keep the future of this paper and my employees in mind. News is a cut-throat business." He came to a sudden halt in front of Judy. "You of all mammals know that."

Judy bristled and wrinkled her nose with annoyance, though she managed to keep the venom out of her words. "While we are here in regards to the article in question, we're more interested in the photographer." She set out the stills Abby had given them. "Specifically, how he managed to be in position to take these photographs a full ten minutes before emergency services were dispatched."

Nick cleared his throat out of reflex in the stale office air. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, what does it say about a struggling periodical who has a photographer ready to go at a murder scene before the police get there, and then fails in their civic duty to notify us?"

Victor nearly swallowed the stump of his cigar. "Now wait up one second! Are you accusing this paper of manufacturing this... this atrocity?!"

Judy sat up primly. "We're not making accusations, Mr. Yehlathi. We're investigating. And currently, one of the most promising leads is the photographer who took these photos for you. A photographer who seemed to know when and where a murder victim was being displayed before anyone else… except, of course, the killer."

Nick steepled his paws and leaned forward. "We need to find out how they knew where and when to take that shot." He tapped the CCTV still. "If he's got a 'source', then it would be in everyone's best interests to cooperate and help us track down the mammal or mammals responsible."

The warthog began pacing again, and was starting to sweat. It added a distressing new layer to the office's peculiar piquant. "I... I want to help; really I do." He withered slightly under the twin glares. "He's not an employee! He's a freelance photographer. He takes pictures then sells them to whoever pays him the most up front. Some of our best articles were thanks to him selling me a timely candid shot." He settled next to his office chair and leaned heavily on it. "This paper is still afloat because of that Vanessa Cudgens scandal picture from last year."

"Well," Judy said evenly, and collected the prints together. "If you paid him, then you should have his name and address on record as part of your expenditures for tax reporting purposes. You can give us that information willingly, or we can come back with a warrant for it." She leveled a molten hot glare at Victor. "I would strongly recommend not making us come back with a warrant for it."

Victor froze under the intensity of her stare; not a single hair on his body moved. Beside her, her fox partner's expression had settled into the smuggest of smiles and he tilted his head ever so slightly as if to wordlessly say, Care to try her?

He heaved a deep sigh and finally sat in his chair. He put his phone receiver to his ear, and tapped away at the number pad.

"Stacey," he said, reaching for a piece of paper and pen as he tucked the phone against his shoulder, "would you give me the contact information for that freelance-photographer who contacted us this morning? Jee-heero… something?" He scrawled the pen quickly over the paper, nodding as he did so. "Right, Jiro, that's the one. Good. That's all, thank you."

Victor hung up and reached over his desk with the paper between his hooves. Nick rose to accept it from him. Judy followed suit and said, "The ZPD appreciates your cooperation, Mr. Yehlathi."

"I'm sure it does," he replied thickly, accepting their abbreviated paw shakes. He nodded pointedly to his office door. Nick and Judy were more than happy to take their leave.

Nick took an exaggerated gasp of breath as soon as they stepped outside. "I have never been so happy to breathe taxi exhaust. I'd suggest demolishing that place, but then the city would be on the hook to clean it up."

"We have another mess to clean up because of this place, anyhow." Judy turned in the direction of their cruiser with stiff steps. "Now let's see if this Jiro guy is willing to shed a little light on how they knew about the scene." She glanced down at the sheet, then stopped and groaned.

Nick turned as she thrust the sheet at him. He snatched it up and glared at it. "What the... all they gave us was an email address and wire-transfer account number?! Mam, I hate dealing with the banks." He managed to not perforate the contact sheet with his claws.

Judy heaved a sigh. "Whelp," she gave Nick a wry smile, "don't suppose you have a fast-track method to working with financial institutions up your sleeve too, do you Slick?"

"Nope." He popped the 'p' as he leaned against the cruiser. "Aside from convincing Lemmings to buy snacks from me, I have as little to do with banks as possible." He heaved a sigh himself and headed around to the passenger side. "Even I have limits to how much speciest BS I'll put up with, and boy does it come out of the woodwork when you try to apply for a personal line of credit."

"Then we sic Financial Forensics on them. We still have the email address. We can get that to Cyber Crime and see if they can work their dark magic on it." Judy hopped up and started the cruiser.

"Tallying up our progress, we've got a dead body-"

"Two dead bodies."

"Right, two dead bodies, a dead end, and more questions than answers. More than enough running about for the morning." Nick smirked. "What do ya say we grab some grub before we check on the good Sergeant's progress in that back alley?"

Judy hummed. "Sounds like a better plan than heading straight back to the station. I'll call it in. You go ahead and pick, but keep in mind it's my turn to buy. That means no Mexicat."

He made an exaggerated crestfallen face at her as Judy pulled them into traffic, though she didn't notice it. She kept her focus on observing the traffic ahead. She was already working through the mental gymnastics to arrange the small bits of information gleaned from their disappointing morning's work.

…

The disappointment Judy and Nick experienced on the first morning of their assignment persisted for the next three days of detective work. As they had suspected, Sergeant Asstor wasn't able to find anything substantive in the alley. More disappointing was the lack of leads on Jiro. The financials on the mammal led to an LLC with a single prepaid card account, while the address listed was a condemned apartment building.

Nick shook his head in frustration. "Gotta paw it to Jiro, this is a slick setup: single mammal LLC, all payments go wirelessly through this one account so every expense is a tax-deductible business expense and he doesn't even have any real income, so no personal taxes."

"Is that professional envy I hear?" Judy popped her back with a smirk over her shoulder at him.

Nick snorted. "Only for that one detail. This is the work of a paranoid mind; there are easier ways to dodge taxes," he held up a digit to forestall comment, "and the only reason you twigged onto me was you needed leverage. I could have run any of a dozen schemes that would have had me and Finnick living in a penthouse. But that would have put me on the IRS's radar." He yawned wide and rubbed his eyes.

Judy caught the yawn and clipped hers short just as her phone began to ring. She reached over and picked up the receiver.

"ZPD, Detective Hopps." She listened for a few seconds and her eyes brightened. "We'll be right down."

Nick perked his ears in inquiry as she hung up the phone and rose from her chair. "That was Dr. Furiakin. He's got more information on the second body. Let's see what he can tell us, and maybe we'll have another angle to work."

They locked their work stations and headed down to the medical examiner's office. "Good morning Ducky!" Judy smiled at the sable medical examiner.

"Yes, good morning, you two." He waved at them from his elevated desk, keying the several monitors to display the form of an autopsied rodent. "We've managed to extract our second victim, and my findings are up here." He gestured to the nearest monitor showing statistics, rather than gruesome imagery.

Nick squinted at the screen. "Daniel Fields? You got an ID already?"

Dr. Furiakin nodded. "He was in our system."

"I see it," Judy pointed to a note on the bottom of the document. "Possession charge three years ago."

"Indeed, and it seems from his blood work he never did break the habit." Illya brought up the chart on the mouse's blood work. "Between the levels in his blood, liver, and kidneys, he was in quite the altered state when he died."

Judy's ears flagged. "I suppose it's for the best. If he was that high, maybe he didn't suffer."

Nick sucked in a breath, pointing at one of the doctor's notes. "If he was high on 'Zootopia Ice', then he felt it all and then some." He shivered as Judy looked on in horror. "College student or laborer pick-me-up, but I've seen mammals shrieking and pulling out their own fur while high from a light breeze. It's nasty stuff, Fluff."

Judy gritted her teeth. "Well, what exactly was the cause of death, if he wasn't… you know…" She gestured vaguely, no desire to put into words the end of her thought. "Was it the drugs?"

"A severed spinal cord." The sable pointed to the back of his own neck. "A clean cut to the base of the neck killed him instantly. The murder weapon may very well have been the blade that was positioned between his paws, although it would be difficult to prove that."

"Any type of prints on it besides his? Nose, paw pads… anything?"

"Sadly, the implement was cleaned and clear-coated before it was lacquered into Mr. Fields' paws." Illya turned to the two officers, his expression sober. "I'm afraid you'll have to do this the hard way this time."

"It's a double homicide, Ducky," Judy said. She and Nick put on their determined faces while looking at the photos. "There isn't any way but hard."

Judy and Nick took their leave of the doctor with a copy of the results to add to their casefile. Next steps at this point were clear: run down the new victim's background and contacts, then cross reference those with their prior victims' for connections. More and more pieces of the puzzle now in their paws, it was time to start sorting and laying down the frame to begin filling in the picture.

…

The plain white panel van blocked the view to the Tundratown Ice Park entrance, though that wasn't really a problem at such an early hour. What was slightly more invasive to the serene setting was the sound of a motorized winch, and the sound of something heavy scraping the truck bed. The few mammals who were still up were either departing the various late-night clubs and bars, or those with nowhere else to go. Still, the Ice Park was home to a sizable outdoor sculpture park, and trucks of that type were a common enough sight to not attract more than passing attention. An hour later, the truck was gone.

A lone Siberian tiger staggered towards the park entrance, intent on cutting through on his way home from a later night than usual. It was a well trodden path, and one he knew well. He could have walked the route blindfolded, or blind drunk as was the case. He never noticed the new fixture suspended from the park's gate. Slamming head-first into the solid mass of ice was the final blow to his senses, and he collapsed on the spot.

The serenity of the neighborhood was shattered that morning. As the first light of dawn broke an arctic hare couple happened to stumble upon his still form. They called the police to report the unfortunate soul, only to look up in horror at what had laid him low and scream.