Chapter Four: Simon

Judy didn't recognize the rabbit in the visitors' waiting room, but he stood up as soon as she walked in, a big Bunnyburrow smile on his wide face. "Judy Hopps!" he said, and bounded over to shake her paw.

"Hi," she said, returning the shake with a little less enthusiasm. "You're from Bunnyburrow, aren't you?"

His smile faltered a little. He adjusted the collar of his white shirt and smoothed down the brown fur under it. "You don't remember me?"

"Uh…" She shook her head. "I'm really sorry. I've just come in from a pretty exciting morning. Help me remember?"

"I was in Mrs. Kicker's Home Ec class with you? Remember when we made carrot soufflé and yours, uh…"

"Fell harder than a tree in Beaverdam," Judy said. "That's what Mrs. Kicker said. You were in that class?" He nodded. "How did your soufflé do?"

He scraped one foot along the floor, a little embarrassed. "Oh, it did okay. It got a gold star."

Now Judy remembered the bunny who'd gotten the gold star for the carrot soufflé. "You know, I hated you for the rest of that week."

"You weren't the only one." His smile came back.

"But…I'm sorry. I still don't remember your name."

"Ah." His ears flagged with the corners of his smile, then came back up. "It's Simon. Simon Grazer."

"Oh! My parents know your parents."

"Yeah! That's kind of why I'm here, actually."

Judy folded her arms, worried now. "Why, did my parents send you?"

"No, no. No, I work for the Bunnyburrow Beacon. And my parents were talking to your parents about you, you know how proud your parents are, and they thought it'd be a good idea for more of Bunnyburrow to know about the great things you're doing. Not everyone reads the Zootopia Times, you know."

"Oh, I know." Judy rolled her eyes. Her parents hadn't even subscribed until she'd moved here. She'd had to read the paper in the library to find out what was going on in the world.

"So anyway, I pitched the story to my editor and she loved it. A little bit of logistics later and here I am."

He still had that big grin and big wide eyes that made Judy think of Bunnyburrow, especially of her brothers and sisters who were happy to stay there, content to believe that the worst thing that could happen to them would be that they might get bullied by a jerk or eat some bad spinach one day. Naïve, she thought, and then checked herself. Wasn't that one of the things she liked about Bunnyburrow, that it was so peaceful that they barely even had a regular police force? Just because she would've died of boredom there didn't mean it wasn't a nice place. "So," she said, "what do you think of Zootopia?"

His eyes got even bigger. "There's so much of it," he said. "I saw it come up on the train and I got ready to get off, but we rode through it for fifteen more minutes!"

"What was your favorite part?" The train ride into Zootopia was still one of Judy's favorite experiences, the track winding through several of the most picturesque neighborhoods in Sahara Square, Tundratown, and the Rainforest District.

Simon blinked at her. "I guess…the train station? But the police station is really nice too."

The train station was gorgeous, but Judy couldn't help thinking he'd missed her point. "Did you come straight here from the train?"

"Sort of. I'm staying at the Impalasy Suites right next to the station. I dropped my bags off and took a cab. They said I could walk, but I wasn't sure how safe it was."

She tapped her badge. "My job is to keep the streets safe. Especially during the day, it should be fine."

"I know, I know." He bobbed his head. "I'm sure you do a really good job. But the paper is paying for it, so why not, heh heh."

"All right." She glanced back at the door. It would probably take Nick another ten minutes to get the report done. "How long will this take? I should tell my partner if it's going to be more than a little while. We've got a lot of work to do today."

Simon cleared his throat. "Ah, sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. This isn't just an interview. I'm following you around for a week. Did your chief not tell you?"

A week? Judy was aware even without Nick around that she wasn't very good at hiding her emotions. "No," she said. "You talked to Bogo?"

The other rabbit ran a paw over the brown fur between his ears, smoothing them back. They popped up again quickly. "My editor did. At least, she talked to someone at the ZPD and they said it would be okay for me to ride along with you. Maybe it wasn't the chief, but it was someone who handles your media contacts? I think? She wouldn't have sent me out here if we didn't already have permission." His nose twitched and he leaned forward. "Do you have problems communicating with the other officers here at the ZPD?"

"No," Judy said quickly. Good gravy, was she going to have to spend a week watching everything she said around this walking recorder? "No, I'm sure I just missed a memo. Can you wait here a minute and I'll go make sure it got approved. You know, uh, sometimes…paperwork…and bureaucrats…the ZPD really focuses on catching criminals…" She edged toward the door as she said this. "So sometimes, things…you know, little things…slip through the cracks…anyway, I'll be right back."

She closed the door of the waiting room carefully and leaned back against it, catching her breath. There had to be a mistake. But she had thought that Chief Bogo handled the media requests, and he would never have approved a ride along with her and Nick for a week.

Nick. Did Simon know about him? He'd likely have no better opinion of foxes than most of the Bunnyburrow bunnies, despite Judy making an effort to hang out with Gideon Grey and his boyfriend when she was home. Gideon loved making pies, but he sent a lot of them over to Evening Gulch, where the nocturnal predators didn't mind pies made by a fox.

A little more composed, she hurried up to Clawhauser's desk, where the big cheetah was getting an early start on lunch, or maybe a late start on his second breakfast. It was a big sandwich that smelled gooey, so you couldn't tell either way. Nick wasn't back from Bogo's yet.

"Clawhauser?"

He gulped down his bite and wiped his lips, though he missed a corner where a bit of the sauce continued its way down through his fur. "Oh, hi, Judy. How's your guest?"

"Who handles media requests for the ZPD?"

"Chief Bogo takes them all himself," the cheetah said. "He insists."

"I thought so." Judy turned toward the upper level of the atrium.

"Except when he's on vacation," Clawhauser said, his mouth full of sandwich again.

Judy's ears turned back toward the cheetah, and the rest of her followed. "Like he was a few weeks ago?"

"Uh huh!"

She waited, but the cheetah kept on eating his sandwich. Finally she stood up on tiptoe and put her paws on the edge of his desk. "Who handles the requests when Chief Bogo is on vacation?"

"I do."

She managed to duck most of the sprayed sandwich bits. "Did you approve a media request from the Bunnyburrow Beacon?"

"Oh, wow, I don't know." He put the sandwich down again, his tail flicking around behind him. "I might have. I usually say yes. But usually the only people who ask are from the ZBC, and Chief Bogo likes us to be on TV."

"There should be an official record of the request?" Judy loved Clawhauser, but sometimes he made her test how patient she could be.

"Yeah, there should be." It took him a second. "Oh, you want me to find it?"

"If you could."

She waited while he fumbled with his computer, wiped sauce off the keys, and then asked her twice for the name of the paper again. "Hey, look, here it is. Bunnyburrow Beacon. I guess I did sign it. Oh yeah! He wanted to ride along with you. It sounded like fun."

Maybe Chief Bogo could revoke the permission. Judy turned back up to the office and sighed. "Is Bogo busy now?"

"What's this about, Hopps?"

Chief Bogo barely looked up from behind his desk. Judy hopped up onto the chair and peered over it at him. "It's this bunny from the Beacon, sir. Clawhauser approved his request to ride along with me and Nick for a week, and I really don't think it's a good idea. We've got this high priority case from Precinct Four, and it might be politically sensitive."

"I know," he rumbled.

"Good, then could you tell Clawhauser to revoke his permission. I'm sorry he's come all the way down here. I'll do an interview or something, but I can't have him riding along—"

"I know about your case," Bogo said. "And I know about the reporter. I approved that."

Judy stared at the buffalo's calm expression. "You? But Clawhauser's signature was on it."

"I review all of Clawhauser's work," Bogo said. "Wouldn't you?"

"Yes, but—but you thought it would be okay?"

Now he looked up and raised his eyebrows. "Aren't you the one saying we need to raise the profile of the ZPD especially in rural areas? How better to do that than by profiling Bunnyburrow's favorite daughter?"

"Oh, I'm not—" She fumbled her words. "But the case."

"Ah, yes, the case. Captain Whitehorn requesting our assistance yet again. I've reviewed the materials, Hopps, and the reporter signed the standard form agreeing to confidentiality in everything he witnesses until the ZPD explicitly releases it. And if there's any political fallout, it'll be nice to have a reporter in the car, won't it?"

"But sir."

"Either that," he leaned forward, "or you may tell Captain Whitehorn that you're not available for this case."

"If you don't want us working this case, sir, just deny her permission. You're the chief."

Bogo sighed. "It's not that easy, Hopps. If I deny permission, she'll say she's got no suitable officers. The case will go unexamined and I'll be "obstructive." So I have to go along with her. But I don't have to like it. And I don't have to make it easy."

And if she told Whitehorn she wasn't available, she'd be the one in trouble. "So Nick and I have to suffer."

He smiled thinly. "Until one of you is promoted to Captain."

"Yes, sir." She saluted and left the office.

Nick had finished his paperwork and was gossiping with Clawhauser when she got back down to the lobby. "So," the cheetah was saying, "McHorn put in for a change of address, and I think he's been showering in the locker room every morning before everyone else gets here."

"Interesting." Nick barely came up to the desk, but he managed to affect a casual lean against it without straining to see over. "Trouble at home?"

"Has to be. Oh hi, Judy!"

Nick's ears had flicked toward her; he already knew she was coming up behind him. She'd long since given up trying to sneak up on him. "Hey, Carrots," he said. "I hear we've got a ride along? Chief wouldn't kick him out?"

"No," she said. "It's complicated. Come on, I guess you should meet him if he's going to sit in the car with us all week. How was the report?"

"I think I checked all the boxes." He smiled his smug grin at her, so she knew he'd done fine.

"Great. Thanks."

"You're welcome, partner. So who is this guy?"

"Reporter for the Bunnyburrow Beacon."

"You know him?"

Judy sighed. "Yeah. We were in Home Ec together. He made a better soufflé than I did."

Nick's eyebrows rose. "Well. Sounds like quite the accomplished bunny. Don't worry, I know what not to call him."

She shot a look at him which failed to dislodge his smile. "I hope he's just as polite."

"I'll leave it to you to correct his manners."

She hoped so. Especially when she pushed open the front door and Simon's big smile completely vanished when he saw Nick behind her. Judy cleared her throat and gestured. "Simon, this is my partner, Officer Wilde."

Nick stepped forward, all sunshine and honey. "So pleased to meet you," he said, extending a paw. "Judy's told me all about you."

"Uh." Simon nodded, and shook quickly. "She has?" He looked back at Judy.

"I told him you're a reporter," she said.

"And he'll be coming along with us?"

Judy answered quickly before Nick could. "He's my partner. We work together."

"Of course, of course." Simon recovered his poise quickly, she'd give him that. Still, she noticed the way he spread his feet and angled them apart, so he could hop off in almost any direction; the twitch in his nose; and the slight widening of his eyes.

Nick's smile seemed toothier than usual. "I can assure you that whatever myths you've heard about foxes, they're exaggerated. Why, Ca—Officer Hopps and I have been partners for months and I only bit her the one time."

"He's never bitten me," Judy said with a glare at her partner.

He turned his smile on her. "You're forgetting the museum? So soon?"

Judy rolled her eyes. "The one thing that's true about foxes," she said to Simon, "is that they'll say just about anything to get a reaction."

"Just about," Nick agreed without losing the smile.

"Ah," Simon said, "what did he mean about the museum?"

Nick held up the case file Judy had gotten from Whitehorn before Judy could answer. "Shall we all go on a car ride together?"

Judy's ears perked up. "Do we have a lead?"

"I thought we'd go talk to the assistant, Jenny Scar. She's a coyote," he said, leaning toward Simon. "Just so you're prepared."

"I've met a coyote." Simon stood taller and thrust his chin out.

"Yeah, they're all pretty much the same," Nick said in his fake-agreeable voice.

"Nick."

"Sorry," Simon said. "I didn't mean—"

"He knows." Judy shook her head. "Come on, let's go. Nick, you have an address for Ms. Scar?"

He brandished his phone and then turned back to Simon. "Do you get carsick?"

"No." The other rabbit turned to Judy, head tilted. "Why?"

"Oh," Nick said with a grin at Judy, "first time for everything is all."

He strode ahead of them to the exit, bushy tail waving behind him. Judy sighed and followed, and Simon hurried after her, fumbling with his recorder.

She made an effort to drive more carefully, and Nick didn't comment on her driving, but then, he was busy navigating them back to Happytown as they went over the file Whitehorn had given them and discussed the questions they wanted to ask Ms. Scar. "Hey," Nick said, reading ahead. "Her statement says she thinks the burglar was a fox."

Simon piped up from the back. "Does that mean she'll be suspicious of you?"

Nick ignored the question. "She's a coyote, so I'd trust her sense of smell."

Judy turned to Simon. "Not necessarily. People in Zootopia know that what one fox does isn't necessarily what all foxes are going to do."

Nick didn't say anything, but he smiled slightly, and Judy felt good. She also felt good when Simon subsided and didn't comment further.

They didn't go along Walnut Street, but came around through Sahara Square and Desert Palms, a fancy neighborhood that didn't have wide high-traffic streets running through it. The edge of Desert Palms that bordered Happytown still had new paint on the apartment buildings and balconies with flowering plants hung over them, but the windows of the apartments were closer together and there were fewer houses. When there were houses, they were row houses, so much like the ones in Happytown that Judy thought they might have been built at the same time. Desert Palms houses had neat front lawns though, with no garbage in them and no spray paint on the trunks of the palms that lined the streets. They even had the house numbers painted on the curbs in happy yellow and blue, a color scheme that also adorned the hydrants and streetlights.

There were a few camels and rhinos here, and buildings sized to them, but mostly the buildings were Happytown-sized, and the people in the street were coyotes, wolves, gazelles, impalas, and a pair of oryxes that reminded Judy of her neighbor.

Jenny Scar lived in this part of Desert Palms, on Simoon Street in a small apartment building with a neat number 44 painted in yellow on a blue square beside the door and only four entries listed on the directory out front. Judy and Nick, with Simon trailing behind, buzzed the apartment marked, "Scar," and after a moment a female voice said sharply, "Hello?"

"Ms. Scar?" Judy asked.

"Yes. Who's this?"

"I'm Officer Hopps and I'm here with Officer Wilde. We've been assigned to investigate the money that was stolen from your apartment."

After a moment's silence, the voice said, "And who's the other bunny?"

Startled, Judy looked at the dark glass above the intercom, and noticed that though Nick didn't move his head, his eyes had moved to the same dark square. Must be a camera behind it.

"I'm—" Simon started.

Judy held up her paw. "He's a reporter for the Bunnyburrow Beacon, trailing us for an article this week. If you'd prefer, he can stay down here."

"Hey," Simon said, glancing down the street where a pack of young wolves was laughing and joking around with each other.

"Sorry," Nick said. "Police procedure. Chief Bogo might have authorized you to follow us around, but a witness in an investigation has the right to speak only in front of the investigating officers."

"But why?"

"Because of intimidation," Judy said. "Someone else in the room might have power over the witness to stop their testimony."

"But I'm not going to do that. I don't even know this person."

"Ah well," Nick said with a smile and a shrug, "a rule's a rule. We could actually be fined or suspended if we bring you up there."

"It's fine," Jenny Scar said through the intercom. "You can all come up."

Darn. Judy had hoped that Jenny, too, was listening to the explanation and would take advantage of the rule to ask Simon to wait. It would do Simon good to stand here alone with those wolves down the street so he could figure out that they weren't going to do anything to him. She also wasn't sure, Bogo or not, that she wanted him sitting in on her investigations.

They didn't have a good reason to keep him out, though, so up he walked under the wide skylight with a paw on the varnished wood banister. Judy didn't recognize any of the prints up on the walls of the staircase, but Nick pointed to one and gave her a meaningful look. She shook her head slightly and he raised an eyebrow and returned just as slight a nod. He'd tell her later.

A coyote in a dark blue business suit opened the door to apartment #3 and gestured them inside. "Officers," she said, but only extended a paw to Simon. "And the press. I'm Jenny Scar."

Simon shook her paw. "Simon Grazer."

She had a bright smile (teeth whitened) that nonetheless didn't set off Simon's alarms the way the wolves had. Maybe it was her soft floral scent or the pristine loveliness of her apartment, decorated in autumn gold and brown and orange. Even if she'd had the room to display them, Judy didn't have half as many books as Ms. Scar had out on her bookshelf, and when she brought in flowers to spruce up her place, the flowers ended up smelling musty after a day or so. And her feet sank into the carpet as if it were really just the soft grass of a well-tended lawn.

"Mister Grazer, would you like something to drink?" Ms. Scar said. "I've got carrot juice."

"Oh." Simon's ears perked up. He looked at Judy and Nick. "Am I allowed to accept a drink by police rules?"

He wasn't being sarcastic. "It's fine," Judy said.

Ms. Scar turned to her. "I'd offer you some as well, but…you're on duty."

Nick and Judy exchanged a look. Was it alcoholic carrot juice? "Of course," Judy said.

So they had to wait while the coyote poured a glass of carrot juice and spilled some on the counter. "So clumsy," she said, and mopped up the spill, but then snagged a claw on her carpet and spilled more from the glass just as she was holding it out to Simon. He jumped back and didn't get splashed, but Ms. Scar had to go get the carpet cleaner, a process which involved her knocking over two other bottles under the sink.

"It's fine," she said with a smile as Judy offered to help. "I've got it all under control."

"It really doesn't look like she does," Nick murmured when Jenny left the room to throw away the paper towels.

"No," Judy agreed.

"Just don't step in that spot," Ms. Scar said, hurrying back in, "and we'll all be fine. Now, officers, what can I tell you?"

She had seated herself closer to Nick and was looking at him. He had their questions written down, and he was a predator, so Judy let him take the lead while she set her recorder on the table. "First of all, Ms. Scar—"

"Oh, do call me Jenny. Everyone does."

The fox cleared his throat. "We were wondering why such a large amount of cash was in your apartment. You reported that it was going to a school. Is that the usual procedure?"

"Well." Ms. Scar crossed her legs and smoothed out her pants. "No, to be honest. Normally we would of course deposit the funds directly to the school's bank account. But the bank account was not in order. They had defaulted recently, I believe. So the bank required cash to re-open the account."

"A transfer from the city account wouldn't work?" Judy asked.

Ms. Scar—Jenny—spread her paws. "I only know what they told us. You'd have to ask the bank."

Nick made a note on his mini-pad. "And you were not in your apartment at the time?"

"Nobody was." The coyote pointed to a picture on the coffee table, knocking it over. She picked it up to reveal a stern-looking female camel. "Councilwoman Sand, who I work for, she gave me two tickets to the symphony at the Palm Arena, so I took Lisa—that's my partner—and we were gone all night. Prissy stayed over at a friend's house, because we were going to be out late."

Lisa was in the report as Jenny's spouse, but Judy didn't remember a "Prissy." "Sorry," she said. "Who's Prissy?"

"Our daughter. She's off at school right now."

Nick made another note. "And how was the money stolen? I mean—" He nodded to the door. "Was the door forced? The window?"

Jenny glanced at his pad. "Doesn't it say in your report? I sniffed around after I made the call. I'm fairly sure the thief was a fox who came in through the window."