Judy had hoped to tell Nick about her evening before Simon came in that morning, but Simon was waiting at the station when she got there at quarter to eight, and Nick wasn't in yet. The other bunny didn't make any reference to the awkward ending to their evening, just said, "Got my recorder all charged up and ready to go," and that was that.

Nick showed up at 7:59, holding his cup of Shalia's coffee. He took in Simon with his usual impassive half-smile and said, "Great. Officer Hopps, you want to go over what I found last night?"

This reminded her that he'd interviewed the treasurer's assistant without her. "You found something useful from Daren?"

He remained unruffled at her tone. "As a matter of fact, I did, although I don't think he thought it was useful. I smelled fresh paint in the office and asked whether they'd had work done recently, and he said that for the mayor's annual end-of-fiscal-year celebration, they'd had work done all around the office. The paint yesterday…"

"So the painters couldn't be the thieves," Judy jumped ahead.

"No, but," Nick held up his paw. "Daren also told me that someone was fixing the window latch in the office across from his, and that was last week for sure. That was a koala, but he looked up the address for me and he lives in Happytown. I didn't do any more investigating until you were available."

A little bit of a smirk. "Thanks, Officer Wilde," she said.

"We work better as a team," he said. "It's just smart police procedure."

"Officer Hopps," came Clawhauser's voice over the intercom system. "Officer Hopps, there's a phone call for your guest at the front desk."

Simon's ears perked up. "For me? Must be my editor." He jumped down and scurried off.

The moment the door of the bullpen had shut behind him, Nick leaned down to Judy. "It's not his editor," he said. "Finnick's posing as the editor of a Zootopia newspaper who's going to try to convince him to share his story. I told him to keep Nosy-Ears on the line for at least ten minutes."

"Nick!"

"You have a better idea?" He sat on the edge of the table, looking down at Judy in the oversized chair. "I gotta tell you this without him around, it's important."

"Okay." When he was this intent, Judy trusted his instincts.

Nick leaned forward, clasping his paws together. "The koala's made up too. It's an excuse for us to go to Happytown with Bunny Olsen tagging along. But the important thing is this: there's something going on between Captain Whitehorn and Councilwoman Sand."

Judy's nose twitched. "What?"

"Don't know yet. But you know, there's still a few people in Happytown who'll talk to me, and one of them said there was a police picnic and Sand was there talking to Whitehorn."

Judy sank back on the chair. "That doesn't prove anything, Nick. That's a political event."

"Right, I know." He looked annoyed, either at her or at himself for telling it wrong. "But it came right before—okay, do you know about the Hood Street Apartments?"

The name didn't ring a bell. "No."

"It's okay, I only heard about it because this same friend told me, because it was a police thing." He sighed, and now he seemed hunched forward rather than leaning, as though Chief Bogo sat on his shoulders. "I need to do some work, but it looks like what happened was the police raided the apartments. Noise complaints, weird smells, stuff like that. And like half the people got arrested over a month period. Next month, this developer comes to the apartment owner and says, look, I hear you're hurting cause all these people aren't paying rent, let me buy the building. The owner—Clarisse Chrome, this sixty-year-old skunk—she says no way, my family's owned this building for generations, and where would my tenants go? So next month like five more tenants get arrested. For stuff like jaywalking. And this developer comes back, and Clarisse doesn't want to sell, but she's losing money and she doesn't have a lot to begin with. She doesn't have a choice." He took a breath. "Some people hold it against her, some don't. Whatever. She sells the building, the developer evicts the rest of the tenants, they knock down the building and put up a wing of a hospital."

"A hospital? That's not so bad."

"A large mammal hospital." Nick waved around at the immense chairs and tables in the bullpen. "A herbivore hospital. Nothing for the people who lost their homes."

"Okay." Judy felt that pang she always did when she heard about some injustice, the urge to do something about it. "But—what does that have to do with Councilwoman Sand?"

Nick nodded. "My source says that she's involved with the hospital somehow. The city council had to approve it, but there was more, it sounds like. I know, it's not a lot to go on. But that's why we need to go to Happytown."

Judy put one of her paws on his knee. "What does this have to do with our case?"

He flicked his tail. "I told you Whitehorn sounded like a con artist. If she and Sand worked together on this, then maybe…"

"I think we need to interview Ms. Caravan and trace the actual money."

"Hopps." He looked steadily at her and touched his nose. "Remember the Lemon case?"

"I know, I know." She glanced at the clock. Eight minutes had gone by. "All right. Let's follow up with Ms. Caravan, and we'll go to Happytown and try to find a connection between Sand and the hospital. But even if there is one, Nick, what do we accuse her of?"

"One step at a time," he said. "Maybe this'll be an entirely different case, but I want to look into it."

It seemed harmless enough, and as much as Judy doubted that Councilwoman Sand would be evicting people from their homes to build a hospital, she had also learned to trust Nick's nose. When they'd been investigating the death of Lyle Lemon, Nick was the one who'd thought that the cleaning service had been acting suspicious, and when they investigated them more closely, they found a temporary work permit for Peter Royal, a lion who'd just gotten out of prison with a grudge against Lyle. So if he thought there was something there, most likely there was, but whether it related to their current case was another matter.

Nine minutes. "All right," she said. "Now listen, I have to tell you about last night. You won't believe what Simon did."

"Ooh, what?"

The door to the bullpen creaked open. "How weird," Simon said. "I've never even heard of the Alley Van Times, but they were interested in my story. But they didn't want to pay for it, and frankly I'm not sure that editor was a real newspaper person. Maybe a blogger with delusions of grandeur. Is Alley Van a neighborhood in Zootopia?"

"A very small one," Nick said. "Shall we get going?"

The interview with Ms. Caravan took about ten minutes and yielded exactly nothing. She had prepared the authorization, she had given it to Daren, he had told her it had been passed on. She had not heard anything more about it, nor had she expected to. As far as she was concerned, everything had gone completely normally until, of course, the money had been stolen. Even Simon couldn't think of any other questions to ask her, so they thanked her and left.

On the way over to Happytown, Judy pretended to focus on driving (which was only partly pretending because it was a bad traffic day especially when they got to Happytown proper and Nick went quiet and the streets got narrow). But she was actually thinking about Nick pursuing an investigation that might not even be related to their assigned one, and about Simon pushing their dinner the previous night, and about wanting to tell Nick about the date—no, it hadn't been a date, just a dinner. And now they were chasing a fake lead for Simon's benefit so they could pursue Nick's hunch before they had even finished interviewing all the people directly concerned with the crime.

She was annoyed at both of them by the time they got to the address Nick had given them for the koala, which was right across from that new hospital, so she stayed behind the wheel as they got out of the police cruiser.

"Hopps, you coming?" Nick asked.

"You know what? I think I'm going to go talk to Councilor Sand's secretary and see if we can't interview her this afternoon. Simon, you should stay with Nick and track down that koala. That's more exciting than scheduling work."

"But Hopps," Nick said, "you can just call—"

"Oh, they always put you off. It's easier to go in person and it's only a ten minute drive." She waved with a smile and pulled away.

Leaving Nick with that dumbfounded expression was always satisfying, but she was also aware that what she'd just done was not very professional. And Simon had seen it and would no doubt make it part of his story. Great.

On the other paw, she really needed this time away. Even half an hour would be enough to recharge, she hoped, because even if her frustration with Nick was partly fueled by her annoyance with Simon, it was still likely to spill out into her snapping at one or both of them and she had to be on her best behavior.

The Savanna Square City Hall looked to have been built around the same time as ZPD Headquarters. More abstract than the Palm Hotel, it nonetheless evoked a large baobab tree, built like a hemisphere with an irregular surface. At the base, it did not balance on a single trunk, but support pillars cunningly carved like thick vines held up the building around a wide central column.

Judy walked in that entrance and flashed her badge to the receptionist, then found Councilor Sand's office. As she'd expected, a secretary greeted her out front, but she hadn't expected it to be Jenny Scar.

The coyote smiled and said, "Can I help you, officer?" and then did a double-take and leaned forward, knocking over the cup full of pens on her desk. "Oh! Officer—"

"Hopps." Judy came up to the desk and showed her name tag. "It's good to see you again, Ms. Scar. I hope you've been well."

"Oh, you know, Prissy still has trouble sleeping because of the break-in, but we're managing." She collected the pens. "Is it just you this time?"

"Just me. I was hoping to make an appointment to talk to Councilor Sand, preferably this afternoon."

"Oh, let me check her schedule." Jenny spun around to her computer, bumping her cup of coffee. It clattered and splashed but did not spill, though the brown lines like contours drawn by a crazy cartographer all over her desk attested to the many previous times when she hadn't been so lucky.

"She's booked this afternoon, but maybe tomorrow?"

"It'd be really important to do it this afternoon," Judy said. "If there's any way…"

Jenny flicked her ears and bent forward. "I don't see any gaps at all."

"The thing is, we're doing some other interviews tomorrow and we'd really like to get her testimony. I'm sure it's just a formality—after all, what did she know about the money? And I'd hate for us to keep coming back, you know?" She leaned in conspiratorially. "Having the ZPD show up two days in a row at City Hall? People would talk. Maybe there'd be a news story."

Jenny's eyes darted to a spot behind Judy, probably looking for Simon. She tightened her lips over her teeth and put on a pair of glasses, looking at the computer screen. "I suppose the Lionheart Fountain Petitioners won't take up the whole half hour. Let me see if she'll agree to give you the last ten minutes." She picked up the phone. "Councilor Sand?"

"That would be wonderful." Judy bent to pick up a pen Jenny had missed, but as she straightened she froze, because Jenny had asked the question and her tone had now changed.

"The ZPD officer who investigated the robbery, ma'am. I told you about them." Sand's elevated tone came through the phone speaker as well as the door, but Judy couldn't quite make out the words. "I—I did tell you, ma'am. Maybe not the names, but why—" More loud, stern words. "Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am."

Judy stayed hunched over in front of the desk, feeling like an eavesdropper even though Jenny knew she was there. "But ma'am, they're coming back this afternoon anyway, and I thought maybe the Lionheart people, you could take ten minutes from the end of—" Softer words now from behind the door, no longer audible through the phone speaker. "Yes, ma'am. But what if the ZPD keeps coming back over and over? Why not just get it over with in one day?"

Judy wasn't sure if Sand had spoken until Jenny said with palpable relief in her tone, "Thank you, ma'am. I'll put it on your calendar."

Then Judy felt safe straightening up. She smiled at Jenny as the coyote hung up the phone. "So, this afternoon?"

"Four-fifty." Jenny put on a brave smile, assuming the confidence she'd shown the previous day when yelling at them, only now Judy could see the cracks in it more clearly. "And she has another meeting at five, so you can't go beyond that."

"That'll be plenty of time, thank you so much," Judy said. "Is there a restroom on this floor?"

Jenny pointed. "Around that corner."

"Thanks again." Judy walked around the corner, spotted the restroom sign, and then realized she was still holding Jenny's pen.

Dang it. She walked back, and just before reaching the corner, Jenny spoke. "I have Captain Whitehorn holding for you on line 2, Councilor."

Whitehorn? What could Sand want with her? Was it coincidence that she'd called right after Judy's visit? She wanted desperately to hear what they were talking about, but there was no legal way to do that. Think, Hopps, think. She took out her notebook and noted the time of the call, and then looked down the hall. The restrooms looked like they might be adjacent to Sand's office, and if there were air vents, then anything she happened to overhear while in the restroom was legal.

So she hurried into the ladies' and all the way to the back of the restroom. Fortunately the last stall was free, though it was a large mammal stall and she had to jump to lock the door. Then she stood on the back of the toilet and craned her ears.

The only thing that came through the air vent was hissing, though she could hear the grunts of a woman in the adjacent stall, probably a camel. She pressed her ear to the wall, knowing that she was straying farther and farther from legality. Not over the line yet, though.

Only murmurs came to her, but they could have been Sand's voice or the humming of the pipes. Then, sharply, a woman's voice: "Make it go away." Then a clatter that was probably the phone being slammed down.

Make it go away? Right after Judy had pushed her way into an interview? That had to be related, didn't it? She chewed her pen, sitting on the back of the toilet and thinking about it before realizing that it was Jenny Scar's pen she was chewing.

She returned the pen on her way out, hoping Jenny wouldn't notice the chew marks, and hurried back to the police car. Nick had texted her twice, once just to say "not fair" and then five minutes ago to say "when u coming back." She sent him a quick text to meet her in front of the apartment building in fifteen minutes, and he texted back, "good, enough time to hide the body," from which she deduced that things with Simon hadn't gone well.

Still, he should know better than to text things like that, even on their personal phones. But that was Nick. She drove back as fast as she dared, and when she came around the corner, Nick and Simon were waiting together, if you could consider standing five feet apart and facing away from each other "together."

Nick got in the front while Simon clambered into the back. "So," Judy asked brightly, "find the koala?"

When Nick kept typing on his phone, Simon leaned forward. "No," he said, "but the building manager said a koala used to live here two years ago, so maybe it was an old address. Officer Wilde didn't want to go question the people who lived next to him, but they'd been here longer than that so it made sense to ask them if they knew anything about him."

Judy pulled out into traffic, giving Nick a glance which he returned with one of his epic eyerolls, the kind that had gotten him a day on filing duty when he'd pulled it on Chief Bogo. "Well, that sounds like it could be an important lead. Did you find anything?"

"I thought so. But no, they all said he was a quiet neighbor. A raccoon said he moved back to Outback Island to be with his family." His pride dipped only a little. "But it's important to follow up on leads even if they don't end up panning out, right?"

"Right. That's good police work."

"I thought so." He leaned back in the seat, and she could see his smug smile in the rear-view mirror. "That's how the police do it in Bunnyburrow and I've interviewed them a lot. Even if they're not that busy. I mean, fifty thousand bucks stolen? That's a bigger case than Bunnyburrow's had all year, and you guys are the only ones investigating it? Zootopia must have a lot of problems."

Nick wasn't even doing police work; he was playing some game on his phone. She sighed. "We have to interview the bank teller, but we can do that after lunch, and then at 4:50 we've got ten minutes with Councilor Sand."

At that, Nick jerked his head up and met her eyes, and then switched to the messaging app on his phone. Her own buzzed seconds later, but she resisted the temptation to look down while she was driving. Anyway, she knew what Nick had probably texted her.

"A councilor?" Simon leaned forward again. "That's exciting!"

"Yes." Judy's mind raced. "But she specifically requested no press coverage, so I guess you'll have to wait outside."

Nick relaxed, and she knew she'd been right about what he'd texted her. He went back to playing his game.

Six more days of Simon? Judy tightened her paws on the wheel. Never mind the case; the real problem to solve would be how to keep Nick from killing Simon.

At lunch, they managed to distract Simon again and have a few moments to themselves. Judy started to tell Nick about their dinner the previous night, but Nick cut her off. "Where did you find this guy? He thinks he's in an episode of 'Molehill Street Blues.' We had a nice interview with the building manager for a nonexistent koala and she said of course that no koala lived there, and we were about to go when Bunlock there asked if a koala had ever lived in the building. This squirrel is like ninety years old so of course she remembered one, and no matter how much I told him it wouldn't lead to anything, he had to drag us all up and down the apartments talking to neighbors."

"Did he question them?"

Nick gave her a scornful look. "I'm not that incompetent, Carrots. I asked all the neighbors the routine questions. Most of them didn't remember the koala."

"I heard the short version of this in the car," Judy reminded him. "Any details he left out?"

The fox threw his arms up. "None that matter. None of it mattered. It was a huge waste of time."

Judy put a paw on his hip. "And I really appreciate you taking Simon off my paws for an hour. I needed it."

Nick stopped, took a breath, and brought his paws to his hips. He looked off in the direction Simon had gone. "I guess keeping him away from the investigation is a full-time job for one of us. As long as we trade off." He perked his ears toward Judy. "What did he do last night?"

"Oh." She kept her ears alert for any sound of Simon coming back. "He asked me to dinner and then tried to turn it into a kind of date thing."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Ugh. Typical. Wait." He frowned. "Is it?"

"Is it what?"

"Typical. Is that how things go in Bunnyburrow?"

"We're not in Bunnyburrow," Judy said. "I guess he thought he only had a week so he could start early."

"Here he comes. Tell me more details later."

"Of course." They shared a secret fistbump and then turned to welcome Simon back.

The First Savings Bank of Zootopia occupied an entire block of Savanna Square. Judy had only been inside once, to set up an account when she'd first come to Zootopia, and little had changed in the intervening almost-two years. The row of teller windows stretched left to right from XL down to XS, where a line of mice waited, one holding what looked like a wheelbarrow stacked with five large pennies. Over the windows, the marble wall rose high enough that even an elephant wouldn't be able to see over it, decorated at the top with gilded wooden molding and a lighted sign of the logo of the bank.

"Wow." Simon's gaze moved from the elephant at the left down to the line of mice. "Don't the mice all live in Little Rodentia? Don't they have their own bank branch there?"

Nick strode quickly toward the manager's desk, off to the right, so Judy answered. "They do, but they don't have the same kind of change options. And I think there are other reasons mice need to come to the bank. There must be, or they wouldn't have that window."

"I guess that's right." Simon shook his head, his ears flopping around. "Zootopia sure is complicated."

"Not all that complicated. More than Bunnyburrow, I guess, but…the complications make it fun."

"Fun." Simon echoed the word with a lot less enthusiasm than Judy had given it. "It feels more exhausting than fun to think about all that."

"Haven't you ever gotten tired having fun?" Judy asked, and immediately regretted it.

Fortunately, Simon didn't make any reference to their "date," or anything he might've hoped would happen afterwards. "Oh, sure," he said. "But that was when I went out and did stuff, you know? It wasn't just—having to think about everything in life every day all the time."

"You get used to it."

"Obviously you did."

"That's right." Judy puffed up her chest proudly.

"Well, your dad's gonna be real proud. And surprised. But mostly proud. Probably."

"Yeah, I know he—wait. How do you know my dad's going to be proud. Or surprised?"

His ears went down fast, though he recovered quickly. "We see each other, you know, he's active in the Future Carrot Farmers and my dad knows him."

It made sense, but Judy's whiskers tingled with suspicion. "Did you talk to him about this assignment?"

"Sure, a little." He wasn't meeting her eyes.

Before she could press him further, Nick came back leading a gazelle in a shirt and tie and black-rimmed glasses. "Hey," Nick said. "This is Tobias. He's the one who took the cash from the vault and gave it to Jenny Scar."

"Hi," the gazelle said. "Mister Atherton said you wanted to talk to me? Is there a problem?"

"No problem," Judy said as Nick took out his notebook. "We just want to know about when you gave fifty thousand dollars to a coyote named Jenny Scar from Councilor Sands' office."

"Oh, of course. Mister Atherton asked me to handle the cash because I'm the most senior teller here. I have sixteen years of experience and I've never had a mistake."

"So Jenny Scar had a document or some kind of requisition for the money?"

"Of course." The gazelle bobbed his head. "They called ahead and wired the authorization, otherwise we wouldn't have had the cash ready. And Ms. Scar brought the proper paperwork."

Judy looked over at the windows where several mammals stood talking to tellers, taking money and giving money. "Did you do the transaction at a window?"

Tobias laughed shortly. "Oh, no! We have a private room for transactions like this. There." He pointed to an unmarked door painted maroon.

"And did you provide the case?" Simon asked.

"The case?"

"That she put the money into."

"Oh, no. She brought that."

Nick looked up from his notepad. "You don't have to answer his questions," he told Tobias. "He's not an officer."

"Oh." The gazelle looked surprised.

"I'm with the Bunnyburrow Beacon," Simon said, digging in his pockets.

"Is—is that a charity?" The gazelle looked back to Judy, perplexed.

"It's a newspaper," Judy said as Simon held out a card. "He's a journalist."

"Who you do not have to listen to or take a card from or even acknowledge in any way." Nick's tone got sharper. "He's here to observe."

"I mean, you don't have to ignore him," Judy said, because Simon was gathering himself up to defend himself against the fox. "If he has a good question…" Nick's eyes got wider, turning to her, and she went on, "then…I will repeat it for you. How's that? Everyone happy?"

Simon shut his mouth with a snap. Nick rolled his eyes. Judy took a breath and went on. "Was there anything else about the exchange that you remember?"

"I didn't know there'd be journalists here." Tobias looked back toward the manager's desk. "Will this be in the paper?"

"No," Nick said, at the same time that Simon said, "Maybe."

Judy glared at both of them. "Simon's doing a profile on me and Nick. Nothing about you will be in the story unless you consent to it."

"I definitely do not consent."

"Then you won't appear in the story. Right?" Judy elbowed Simon.

"Right. Right!" He took out his own notepad and made a note on it, which she couldn't decipher.

"So. Is that all right?" When the gazelle nodded, Judy said, "Then…anything else you remember about the exchange?"

"Well…" Tobias folded his arms. "Ms. Scar did knock her coffee onto the desk in there—the coffee we offered her. We had to get a whole stack of napkins to clean it up."

Judy couldn't tell if he was more offended that Jenny had spilled coffee at all or that she had wasted the coffee they'd offered her. "That sounds like her," she said.

"But other than that, no. She brought the paperwork, we went to the office, I gave her the money, she put it in the case, spilled her coffee, and left. Before we'd even cleaned it up."

Judy sighed. "I see."

"Did the money fill the case all the way?" Simon asked.

Tobias started to answer and then looked at Judy. It seemed like a harmless question, so Judy said, "Did the money fill the case?"

"No. People have a very inflated idea of what fifty thousand dollars looks like. We gave it to her in hundreds, so a packet like this," Tobias held his fingers an inch apart, "is five thousand. There were ten of those, and she'd brought a big briefcase. It barely filled half of it."

"All right," Judy said, and gave the gazelle one of her cards. "If you think of anything else, please do be sure to call me."

"I will." He pocketed the card. "Can you tell me what this is about?"

"We're not allowed to talk about ongoing investigations," Judy said as Nick snapped his notebook shut. "This has been helpful, though."

"Did the money get stolen?"

"We really can't comment on it. Thank you for your assistance." Simon looked like he had ten more questions, and Nick looked like he was going to hit Simon, so Judy hustled them out of the bank.

"In interviews," Nick said to Simon as they headed back to the car, "maybe you should just keep quiet."

"You can't silence me," Simon said. "The press is a free institution and can't be subject to threats from the police."

"You're doing a story about the police!"

"Exactly! All the more reason I need to be free to ask questions!" He turned to Judy. "Don't you think?"

Nick looked over Simon at Judy, and Judy sighed. "I don't think there's any harm in you asking questions, but—"

"What?" Nick yelped.

"But," Judy glared at him, "ask one of us first before asking a witness directly unless we've told you to go ahead, okay? We need to follow procedure."

"All right," Simon said. "Sorry."

"Are you serious?" Nick asked. "He almost ruined the interview with Jenny Scar by insulting her and now he's asking questions about cases and that's okay?"

"I'm the officer in charge of this case," Judy said, "and I say it's okay." She hated to pull rank on Nick, but they had to go interview Councilor Sand and she didn't want this argument to last all the way there."

"Fine." Nick stared straight ahead and marched to the car, pulling ahead of the rabbits.

"If you don't mind me saying so," Simon said, "your partner seems like he's hard to work with."

"No, he's fine." Judy shook her head. "He's smart. He's sometimes too smart. He thinks way too much about stuff sometimes and convinces himself that people mean things they didn't when they just reacted." She stopped, realizing that this was exactly the kind of thing that would be in the story. "He's a really good guy and a great partner."

"Right," Simon said, and then shut up as they arrived at the car, Nick in the front seat going over his notes from the call. Judy got into the driver's seat and pulled out without saying anything. Nick didn't even comment on her driving, which worried her more than anything he might have said out loud.

The fox stayed quiet all the way to Councilor Sand's office, where he finally broke his silence as Judy parked. "What's our strategy in this interview?" he asked. "What information do we want?"

"I'd like to know a little more about how the money was arranged, who knew about it, and so on," Judy said. "We got that from Jenny, but Sand might have told someone else."

"I'd like to ask her a bit more about what the money was for." Nick checked his notes. "We know it was for the school, but was it for something specific? Was there other money going to other schools or was this a one-time thing for the Sunshine School?"

"Why does that matter?"

"Well." Nick stared out the windshield at the town hall building. "It's just a little funny that this school's money was stolen. If it was a special payment to them then it makes more sense. But if there was money being assigned to a lot of different schools and they chose this one, maybe it was because they figured this school wouldn't be able to follow up. Something like that. Establish a motive."

Simon leaned forward. "Isn't the motive just to steal fifty thousand dollars?"

Nick rolled his eyes and got out of the car. Judy sighed and followed him, Simon behind her. She turned to the other rabbit. "Maybe try to keep it a little quiet this time," she said.

"Sure." He tapped his nose. "I'll try not to upset your partner. Foxes, am I right?"

Clearly his experience of foxes didn't extend to knowing how well they could hear. "Right," Judy said, and walked up to the building.

When Nick joined her, he didn't give any indication that he'd heard Simon, but she was sure he had. They showed their badges and were waved through security, but Simon had to go through the metal detector even though he protested he was with them. This at least brought a slight smile to Nick's muzzle.

At Sand's office, Judy smiled brightly at Jenny as the three of them approached her desk. "Hi there," she said, waving. "Remember us?"

"Of course!" The coyote's smile faltered as she saw Simon behind Nick, but she remained polite. "I'll tell Councilor Sand that you're here."

"Thanks so much," Judy said.

Jenny picked up the phone, knocking over her cup of pens. With practiced ease, she scooped up the pens as she said, "The ZPD officers are here to see you, ma'am." Her ears flicked and then she hung up the phone. "You two can go in," she said, and pointed at Simon. "Not the reporter."

"Excuse me." Simon stepped forward. "You can't deny the press access to a public inquiry."

"She can, actually." Judy put a paw on Simon's shoulder and turned to Jenny. "He's not reporting on the case; he's just doing a profile on us. Nothing from the interview will be in his report without the Councilor's permission."

The coyote looked doubtful but picked up the phone again and relayed Judy's promise to the Councilor. Her eyebrows rose as she listened. "Yes, ma'am," she said, and hung up. "She says he can come in."

Simon pumped his fist and Judy wanted to restrain him again, but it wouldn't look good, so she walked into the Councilor's office.

As with many large mammal spaces, it took her a moment to orient herself. The camel sitting behind the immense desk dwarfed her, Nick, and Simon, but she fit the room perfectly. Three large chairs sat in front of her desk, all finely polished dark wood with blue velvet upholstery, and to one side stood a platform with two stairs up to chairs their size, plain light wood with no cushions. On the far side of that platform, one corner had been cut into a zig-zag staircase going up to a smaller area with four mouse-sized chairs.

Behind the camel's desk, the wall showed off a dozen photographs of Councilor Sand with a few people Judy recognized: former mayor Lionheart, past mayor Carron, and even Chief Bogo. She didn't know the figures in the other photos, but they were all taken in important-looking areas so she assumed they were important Zootopia political figures.

On Sand's desk sat a large-sized laptop, stacks of papers, a lamp, and a framed desk photo whose back was to them. As they climbed the steps to the medium-mammal chairs, Judy got a better view of the papers on her desk: one newspaper and a number of what looked like reports or meeting minutes.

"Welcome," Sand said as Judy and Nick settled into the chairs. Her tawny fur went perfectly with the cream-colored blouse she wore, set off by a brooch designed like a pair of theater masks. Her eyes, sharp and narrowed, followed their progress.

Only two chairs sat on the platform. Simon had gotten up the first step before he realized this, and stood there looking lost for a moment before Sand said, "You're the reporter, is that right?"

"That's right, ma'am," he said. "Simon Grazer of the Bunnyburrow Beacon."

"Why don't you stand in one of those chairs?" she said. "I'm sorry I don't have more chairs to accommodate you."

Simon eyed the large-mammal chairs and then clambered up into the nearest one, standing on it with his elbow uncomfortably resting on the armrest. Sand smiled at him. "Is that all right?"

"It's fine." He took out his notebook.

"Good. I don't have anything to hide from the press. Or from the ZPD." She turned her attention back to Nick and Judy. "How can I help you, officers?"

"We're investigating the theft of the fifty thousand dollars meant for the Sunshine Middle School," Judy said as Nick took out his pad and pen. "We just want to ask you a couple things about the money."

"Of course."

"First of all, the money was requisitioned by the council, so I assume the other councilors knew about it."

Sand smiled. "You're very generous toward my colleagues. But yes, I assume that at least most of them remembered authorizing the money. Or at least their staffers did."

"Would any of them have known the details of when it would be withdrawn?"

The camel shook her head. "Only our treasurer, and she only provided the authorization to the bank. She didn't know who was going to get it or when."

"But he knew it was for your district, so he could have guessed it would be Ms. Scar?"

"Actually," Sand said, "Normally we wouldn't withdraw it at all. We would have Ms. Caravan—that's our treasurer—wire it directly to the bank. In this case, though, the school's bank account was not in good standing."

"Do you know why that is?" Nick asked before Judy could say anything.

"You'd have to ask the school," she replied smoothly. "But it often happens with businesses in certain areas of Savanna Square."

"Which areas?" Nick kept his tone civil, but it had an edge underneath it that made Judy's fur prickle.

"We have a lot of turnover in some neighborhoods," the camel said. "There's a lot of crime and instability, and so the more successful businesses tend to stay away from there. We're working with the police to improve the quality of life for those residents, but there's only so much we can do."

"You mean Happytown," Nick said bluntly.

Judy put a paw on his wrist. "It's not important where it is," she said. "We can ask the school about their bank account and their problems if we need that information. I just think it's so wonderful that you were trying to help them despite those problems."

Sand continued to look at Nick for a moment, her smile unwavering, then turned to Judy. "Of course we do. That was part of our outreach effort. The money was supposed to help the school repair some of its facilities and pay its teachers. Sadly, the people running the school aren't very good at managing their money."

"And now they don't have any," Nick said.

Judy tightened her grip on his wrist as Sand said, "Tragically not."

"Are you going to send them more money?" Judy asked.

Sand placed both hooves on her desk. "Sadly, it's very difficult to go back to the council and ask for another fifty thousand dollars to go to a neighborhood that, if I may be frank, has a crime problem that is responsible for the loss of the last fifty thousand."

Nick opened his mouth, and to forestall him, Judy started talking. "Of course it is. I totally understand that. Just one more question: was this payment part of a larger program or was it a one-time payment just to the Sunshine Middle School?"

This gave the councilor pause. "It was a one-time payment," she said. "We had allocated a certain portion of our budget for special projects, and this was the last of it."

"And how did you choose the Sunshine Middle School?"

"Ah, well." Her confident smile returned. "You've met my assistant, Ms. Scar? She came to me through our intern program designed to give underprivileged people a leg up. She actually grew up in Happytown and she's the one who identified the Sunshine Middle School as a place that could use our money."

"Thank you," Judy said. She turned to Nick, scribbling in his pad. "I know your time is limited and we really appreciate you speaking with us."

"It's my pleasure." Sand stood. "I hope you find the people who stole the money."

They left the office and stopped by Jenny Scar's desk on the way out. "Nice to see you again," Judy said.

"Always a pleasure." The coyote didn't look up from her laptop.

"I just have a quick question." Now Jenny's eyes flickered to her. "Councilor Sand said that you brought the Sunshine Middle School to her attention."

"I suppose," Jenny said. "We talk about a lot of things."

"Do you remember why you thought they should get fifty thousand dollars?"

Now Jenny pushed her laptop away, which nudged her coffee cup to the edge of the desk. Judy jumped to steady it and push it back. "I didn't go there, but some of my friends did," she said. "I remember hearing about how run-down it was, and how they always seemed to be having money problems."

"Did you suggest other places as well? For the money?"

Jenny scratched behind her ear. "It was over a month ago," she said. "I think there might have been others. I wrote her an email…" She looked back at her laptop. "I'll try to find it for you."

"That would be so helpful," Judy said. "Thank you so much."

Jenny smiled and nodded vaguely, pulling her laptop close again. Judy led Nick and Simon out of the building and back to their car.

"So," she said when the doors were closed. "Not as suspicious, right? It was a one-time thing."

"Maybe." Nick tapped his notes, staring into space. "I didn't like the way she talked about Happytown."

Simon had clearly been suppressing a lot of questions or comments, because he jumped in. "What? What did she say about it?"

"All that talk about neighborhoods with crime, about people who aren't good at business…" Nick tapped his pen against his note pad.

"What about it? Some people just aren't good at business."

The tapping stopped. Nick half-turned, looking at Judy. "It's the kind of thing people say about smaller predators when they think that we're stupid and ignorant but know they can't say that out loud. 'Not good at business,' or 'not intellectual,' things like that."

"What do you mean, smaller predators?" Simon asked. "Shrews?"

Judy shared a grin with Nick, and the fox said, "Not shrews. But foxes, raccoons, coyotes even, possums, skunks, badgers, weasels…we're all 'street-smart' but not smart in the right ways."

"Nick," Judy said softly. "You made it through."

"I mean," Simon said, "I've never heard of a badger politician or a rich weasel. So maybe—"

"You probably shouldn't finish that sentence," Nick said. "I know you're from Bunnyburrow and you know carrots, but I'm from Happytown and I know predators, so I think you should listen rather than talk right now."

He smiled, but it was the sort of smile that showed a lot of teeth. Simon slumped back into the seat, ears down. "Nick," Judy said, "be polite."

"Oh, I'm being polite," he said.

"I just mean that Simon's story will come off much better if you're polite."

He stared at her for a moment and then relaxed. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry."

Judy was going to say something else when the buzzing of her phone interrupted her. "Hang on," she said, and took the call.

"Officer Hopps? It's Tobias from the bank."

"Oh, yes?" She put the call on speaker and motioned to Nick to take notes. "Did you remember something else?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." The gazelle sounded pleased with himself. "You were asking about Ms. Scar's case and I remembered that it was an old case."

"Old? Like, used?"

"Well-worn, let's say. But the thing is, it didn't have a lock on it. I remember that because I was going to ask her about it, and then I thought, who would think that she was carrying fifty thousand dollars in that old case. It's probably better than a lock."

Nick scribbled some notes, his ears up. Judy caught his eye to see if he wanted to ask anything, and he shook his head. "All right," she said. "That's helpful. Thank you for calling."

"Oh, good. I wasn't sure if it would be important, but Mr. Atherton said that I should call and let you decide."

"Definitely. Thanks so much." Judy hung up.

Simon leaned forward again. "See?" he said. "Still think those questions about the case were stupid?"