Judy regretted yelling at Simon as soon as she left the restaurant, and even though the soufflé was delicious, it would definitely have been better warmer and fully…puffed up. The center had compressed and the parsnip puree had soaked into it a little by the time she got it home. Still, it was pretty good. She would have to give her compliments to Carlotta, the next time she was allowed into the restaurant.

She slept fitfully and the next morning was woken by a call. She saw her parents' faces on the phone and put it back on the bedside table. "Not right now," she groaned, and settled back for the fifteen minutes of sleep she could get before her alarm went off.

When she got to ZPD, Clawhauser flagged her down. "Hopps! Hopps!" he called. "Chief Bogo wanted me to give you this."

She eyed the chocolate donut he was holding out. "Thanks, but I already had breakfast," she said.

"What? Oh! No, that's for me." He switched paws. "This is for you."

His other paw held out a folded piece of paper. Judy took it, avoiding the smears of chocolate where she could, and read:

Officers Hopps and Wilde, I have been notified by Mr. Grazer that his assignment is complete and he will no longer need to accompany you. It was signed by Bogo at the bottom.

"Why didn't he just email us?" Judy asked.

"You know how Chief Bogo is with email," Clawhauser said.

Judy frowned. "He…uses it?"

"Sometimes! But sometimes he doesn't. He asked me to type that up so he could sign it just like ten minutes ago. Maybe he wanted to make sure you saw it before you checked your email."

"Maybe." Judy re-folded the paper. It was also possible that Bogo didn't want an email record of the end of Simon's assignment for some reason? Or it could be that he just liked paper and wanted it written down on official ZPD letterhead. "Is Officer Wilde in?"

"Not yet. You want me to call you when he gets in?"

"No, that's okay. I'll just go back to my desk and he'll probably come there first thing." Judy pointed to the back of the station.

"Oh yeah, you guys sit together so of course you'd see him. If you want, I can type up a letter telling him to come back and see you."

"That's…fine. I'm pretty sure he'll do it anyway." Judy smiled. "Have a good one."

Donut already in his mouth, Clawhauser sputtered, "You too!"

She was a little early, but Nick often was too, and she'd hoped he would be here. She felt terrible after the fight with Simon, but also she still felt mad at Simon, and she hoped they would have an excuse to take a ride over to Happytown so she could tell Nick all about the night before and he could tell her that it was going to be okay.

Nine o'clock came and went without Nick appearing, so Judy pulled out some of the reports from the night before and went back to work on them. When her phone rang, she thought, "Oh no, my parents," but the number was one she didn't recognize. Also, she noticed, it was almost nine-thirty.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Carrots."

"Nick! Where are you?"

"So, funny story, I'm in Precinct Four and they are holding me for 'interfering in an ongoing investigation' which I guess is something you can get into a lot of trouble for."

"What?!"

"Oh yeah, there have been words thrown around like 'suspension' and 'de-badging' and 'thrown into Tundratown naked'—wait, maybe that last one was just Lieutenant Roarey's fantasy. Ow!"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Lions don't have a sense of humor, but they also have retractable claws. That won't even leave a scar."

"Nick, I'll come get you—"

"No, Carrots, you won't. They told me to call you so you'd know I'm safe, and that you should go ahead with the investigation. What I was doing didn't have anything to do with that investigation. It was another one." He paused. "I sure hope this doesn't leave a scar on my record."

"But Nick—"

A scuffle came from the other end of the line and Nick's voice, faintly, said, "Hey, I'm not done," and then the line went dead.

Judy held the phone, staring at it, and then dropped it back in the cradle. What was that all about? Nick, interfering in another investigation? It didn't seem right, and the way he'd been talking had been strange, too.

The first thing she thought to do was head upstairs to Chief Bogo. She'd made an appointment to see him anyway, to talk about Simon, but she'd so thoroughly forgotten about that that when she opened his door and he said, "Ah, Hopps, I hope you got the message," she made the wrong connection.

"I wasn't interfering in anything," she said. "And I'm not sure Nick was either!"

The big buffalo's brow creased. "What?"

She stopped. "What were you talking about?"

"That reporter from Bunnyburrow. He called an hour ago to say he's gotten his story and he won't need to follow you around anymore. I sent you the official notice through Clawhauser." His frown deepened. "Did you get it?"

"Oh! Yes, yes I did."

"Good. I suspect that will be something of a relief."

"Yes—I was going to—that's fine." She dismissed it with a wave. "Did you get a call about Nick? Officer Wilde?"

Bogo shook his head slowly. "But I haven't checked my email this morning. It may have come in on the computer. Let's just take a look." His fingers thunked down on the keys of his keyboard while Judy hopped from foot to foot.

"He's in custody at Precinct Four," she blurted out. "They said he's interfering in an investigation, but he was just pursuing our investigation so I don't see how he could be interfering in another one."

"That happens," Bogo said, staring at his screen. "Believe it or not, many criminals commit more than one crime at a time."

"But why would they take him into custody? Shouldn't they just tell him about their investigation and maybe we could compare notes and help each other?"

"Sometimes." Bogo tapped some more. "Ah, here it is. Lieutenant Roarey, was it?"

"Yes! Nick called and he was there with him. It feels wrong, chief."

Bogo hummed as he scanned the email. "This is all by the book. Wilde was questioning an informant from another case and doing it in a 'confrontational' manner that in Roarey's opinion might have adversely affected the informant's willingness to cooperate in his investigation."

"Confrontational? Nick?" Judy made a show of scoffing, though her heart sank. "That's—not like Nick at all. He does everything by the book."

Bogo stared down at her over her glasses until she squirmed. "Well. Not everything. But I don't think he'd get confrontational." Bogo still didn't say anything, and Judy sighed. "All right, he could be. But it still feels—it doesn't feel right."

"This doesn't happen often, but it does happen. You're still new, so you won't have encountered it, but occasionally we step on each other's toes, especially when we go outside our regular jurisdictions."

"You're the one who keeps sending us to Precinct Four," Judy pointed out.

"At the request of Captain Whitehorn."

"If she wants us there, she should have prepared us better." She paced back and forth. "So what happens now?"

"Well." Bogo looked back at the computer. "They wouldn't have detained him unless they felt the interference was deliberate. Usually what happens is they'll hold onto him for a day and then he'll be suspended until an internal hearing where he can present his case. 99% of the time he'll just get a slap on the wrist."

Judy kicked at the floor. "But he won't get fired or anything?"

"No. It does mean you'll have to wrap up this case by yourself, though, unless you want me to assign you another partner."

"We don't have anyone else who knows Happytown like Nick." Judy rubbed her whiskers. "Are you sure there's nothing else you can do? Can you at least tell me who he was talking to?"

"They haven't mentioned it, and I'm sure they wouldn't give me the name just so another officer can go out and talk to them," Bogo said. "But I'm sure that a bright bunny like yourself can finish up this case."

"Thank you, chief," Judy said, and turned to go.

"Hopps," Bogo said.

She turned back to see his serious expression. "I'm counting on it," he said.

Solve the case on her own? She'd always had a partner to lean on, someone to help her make connections and find out things buried in Zootopia's past, things she would never have seen growing up in Bunnyburrow. Who was there on the ZPD who could take Nick's place?

There was nobody. She was on her own, and she didn't even know where to pick up what Nick had been investigating.

She thought back to his phone call and went back over it in her head. The thing he'd said about the lion's paw, and the strange way he'd talked about "leaving a scar on my record"—of course, that pointed to Jenny Scar. But they'd talked to Jenny several times already. Had he gone back to her? If so, what had he gone back to her with? She'd thought he would be checking up on Freddy or on Councilor Sand.

Well, if she was going to follow in Nick's tracks, there was a chance she was going to step on the same Precinct Four investigation, so she was going to have to do something differently.

Down in the bullpen, she wondered whether she could confide in one of the other cops, but apart from Clawhauser, there weren't any she was really close to, and anyway, if she did, they'd probably just react the same way Bogo did: You step on another precinct's toes, you get a hearing, maybe you get a week off with pay, NBD. If she wanted something else to happen, she was going to have to go outside the system.

After a cup of coffee (terrible coffee from the station, not from Shalia's), she arrived at the inescapable conclusion that she had to call Simon.

She'd made awkward phone calls before, but this was going to be one of the worst. Still, she told herself, it was her duty. Even so, it took her a long time to call up his number once she'd stepped outside the ZPD headquarters, and even longer to hit the green CALL button.

Fortunately, he answered, his tone cautious. "Hello?"

"Simon. It's Judy Hopps."

"I know."

She sighed. "Listen, I know we left things on a bad note…"

"It's okay. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about your parents. I just didn't think you'd want to let me hang around if you knew, and I really want to get this article written. I think it's really important."

"You're right. I probably wouldn't have."

"Heh." He dropped the chuckle right away. "Anyway, I'm sorry. It was wrong of me as a journalist and a friend."

This wasn't the time to tell him that she didn't think they were really "friends." "It's fine. I mean, it's not fine, but we can talk about it later. I need to ask you a favor."

"What? Me?"

"Nick got detained last night." She explained the situation quickly.

"Oh wow." Simon breathed heavily for a moment. "So you think he's being held by crooked cops who are afraid you'll expose them?"

That was what she was afraid of, but when he said it out loud like that, it felt ridiculous. "That's a movie plot," she said. "Interfering in investigations happens all the time."

"Right. Sorry. So what do you want from me?"

Judy took in a deep breath, making the words as reasonable as possible in her head before she said them. "I have to go follow up his leads, and there's a chance that I might trip on the same investigation he did. So I want you to write up everything about the case and if I don't check in with you every twelve hours, send it off to Marcia Oncia at ZNN."

"Marcia Oncia?" Simon gulped loudly enough for Judy to hear it. "I—I don't think I have her number."

"I'll send you her email address as soon as we get off the phone. All right? Can you do that?"

"Sure, but—why can't you do that? Or just ask one of your fellow police to? You've got all the case information, right?"

Judy didn't have a good answer to that, and she hesitated long enough that Simon said, "You really don't trust the police."

"I do," she protested.

"It's fine," he said. "I'll send the information if you don't check in. No, wait!"

"Please," she said. "I really need you to do this."

"No." His tone had gotten firmer. "I'm coming with you. I'll be at ZPD Headquarters in ten minutes. Unless you're somewhere else! Are you somewhere else?"

"No, I'm at ZPD, but you don't have to—"

"If something happened to you, your parents would be so angry at me. And also I'd be angry at me."

"Simon, I can handle this—"

"What if you find out something today and then one of those crooked cops arrests you before you can tell me? I'd be more help if I was there at the scene."

"There aren't 'crooked cops,'" Judy explained. "I'm just worried—"

"I'll draft an email to Marcia Oncia but I won't send it, and if something bad happens I'll whip out my phone and send it real quick."

His earnestness was endearing, but he was a civilian. "If something bad happens, you might not have time to send it. When Nick and I were investigating the Bellwether case, we ended up dangling from vines, shut up in an asylum, running for our lives in a subway car…things happen fast."

"I know. I'll be on alert all the time. I promise! I'm writing the email now, putting all the case details into it. What was Nick investigating last night?"

She told him briefly her suspicion about Jenny Scar and the fact that Nick was supposed to be investigating Freddy, working through it in her head as she did. "Maybe," she said thoughtfully, "something in Freddy's case files led him to Jenny Scar. You think that might be it?"

"It could be. I never trusted her. She yelled at me."

"I yelled at you, too. So did Nick."

He was quiet for a moment. "I know I'm not the easiest guy to hang out with. But Jenny Scar didn't find out I was hiding something from her, and I didn't say something stupid and prejudiced to her. She was just mean."

"All right." The humility took her off guard. "Nick definitely thought she was involved, so I'm going to go there first. You stay in your hotel and wait to hear from me by…" She checked her phone. "9:30 tonight."

A car pulled up in the plaza outside ZPD headquarters. "No," Simon said, as a bunny got out of the back of the car and waved to her. "I'm here now. I'm coming with you."

Judy hung up and folded her arms as Simon walked across the plaza to her, trying to cope with the annoyance that he wouldn't listen to her even though she was more experienced both in investigations and in Zootopia in general, and the conflicting mild relief that she had someone else to have her back, and on top of that the confusion that Simon, who'd lied to her and had been sent by her parents to subvert her life here, was now coming through to help her. "This could be dangerous for you," she said when he was close enough to hear.

He took the earpiece out of his ear and held his phone out to her. "Here's the email," he said. "I wrote it on the ride over while I was talking to you. Can you just put her email address in the top there?"

Judy sighed and found it in her phone, then took his to type it in. She couldn't help but read the top of the email draft as she typed. Simon had written: "Dear Ms. Oncia, You don't know me but I'm a reporter for the Bunnyburrow Beacon and I'm a friend of ZPD Officer Judy Hopps. Officer Hopps is working on a case and her partner's been arrested and she's worried that someone is trying to shut down her investigation. She asked…"

She wanted to read more of it, but resisted the temptation and instead gave the phone back to Simon. "There," she said. "Don't send it unless you have to. And don't butt-send it."

"I keep my phone in my jacket pocket," he said, slipping it into the inside pocket of his light jacket. "See?"

"All right, come on." She waved him toward the police cars.

"Where we going first?"

"Precinct Four. I want to look up some arrest records."

Sergeant Rainwater shook his head. "I didn't give any records to Nick. But I wasn't here after five. Nick could've gone to Records and gotten them himself, I guess."

"Right," Judy said. "You mind if I head over there?"

"I think Bellicama's in there now." The jaguar lowered his voice. "I can pull something for you. What do you need?"

"It's fine. I don't want to bother you." Judy rubbed her paws together. "It's kind of complicated and I'm not even sure what I'm looking for, so I'd rather just go through the paper myself, if that's all right."

Rainwater leaned back in his chair. "You're the one that has to deal with Bellyache. No fur off my tail."

"Thanks." Judy smiled and hurried toward the back of the precinct, Simon in tow.

"Did you think he's in on it?" Simon whispered in her ear as they rounded a corner of the hallway.

"No," Judy whispered back.

"Did you think he might tell someone who is?"

"No! Shh."

"Sorry."

"And stay outside. Bellicama's bad enough for us to deal with. I don't want you to have to deal with him too."

"What if he's the one? What if he arrests you in there and pulls you through a secret door to his hideout and nobody knows what happened to you?"

Judy rolled her eyes as they came up to the Records door. "If I'm not out in fifteen minutes, text me. If I don't answer in another five minutes, send the email and go back to your hotel. Okay?"

"All right." Simon pulled his phone out. "But if I'm texting you, then I won't be able to send the email at a moment's notice."

"It's fine. We'll just have to take that chance." She put her paw on the door handle and opened it.

Sergeant Bellicama took up one entire table of the small records room, his bulk spread out over the edges of the largest chair in the room. Judy couldn't see what was on the table he was working at, but as she closed the door he moved a folder from one pile to another with his trunk. At the click of the door, he looked up and his face wrinkled into a frown. "Fur net!" he bellowed.

"I'm just here for a few minutes," Judy said.

"A small mammal sheds fourteen hairs every minute. If you're here for five minutes, that means seventy hairs that get into the air, get into our papers, and contaminate them with oils."

"How many hairs did I shed in the time it took you to tell me that?" Judy asked sweetly.

"Next time wear a fur net or you're not allowed in here." The elephant went back to his records, grumbling under his breath.

Judy went looking for Freddy's arrest records through the files. What had Nick said his last name was? Right, Foxson. She found the thick folder quickly and brought it over to one of the records tables. While she was here, she figured she should look for Jenny Scar as well, so she hunted through the files.

The "S" file cabinet happened to be in the corner right near where Bellicama was working. His chair was pressed right up against the cabinet, so Judy tapped the seat, which was as high as she could reach. "Excuse me, Sergeant," she said. "I need to get in here?"

He grunted and moved his chair a couple inches. Judy pulled the drawer out, but it banged into the chair before she could get a look inside. "Excuse me?" she said again.

"What? What? Do you want me to stop what I'm doing so you can get into the file cabinet? Can't you wait just a moment?"

"Well, how long is that going to take?"

"Shouldn't be more than an hour."

"I just need to get in here for one thing," Judy pleaded.

"I don't know what to tell you. I'm blocked in here. You think it's easy being an elephant in this station made for big cats and wolves?"

"I guess not," she said. "Sorry."

"The large files are over there," he said, pointing to the other side of his chair. "They're all duplicated."

"I know." Judy stared up at the immense filing cabinets. "Can you open one of them for me?"

Bellicama heaved a great sigh that made some of the papers on the table flutter. "Which one?"

"The Sa-Sp drawer, there." Judy pointed to a drawer that fortunately was in Bellicama's reach.

He leaned over and stretched out his trunk, which just managed to grasp the drawer handle and pull it open. "There," he said. "Now I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone."

"Thank you," Judy sang, and hopped her way up to the drawer, landing in the front of it. She climbed over the folders, then dropped down into the drawer and worked her way back, using the light on her phone to skim the names as she pushed through the large swinging folders. There were no records for Jenny Scar.

Her phone buzzed with a text from Simon. Are you okay? Have you been kidnapped?

I'm fine, she texted back. Out in a few.

In the back of the drawer, the darkness closed in around the small circle of light created by her phone. She worked her way back toward the front of the drawer, through the folders and all the smells of the lions and elephants and wolves and bears who'd filed them. Plenty of their hairs in here, she was sure.

At the front, she climbed out and hopped down to the ground. "Thanks again," she called to Bellicama, who grunted in reply.

The file she'd found on Freddy contained enough paper to write a small book. Misdemeanor arrest, misdemeanor, minor violation. Some of the misdemeanors were things like littering, which Judy had never arrested someone for, and some of the minor violations were even less specific: Disorderly conduct, with the explanation box left blank; trespassing, similarly unexplained.

A couple of the records specified the location of the arrest, all from the same place: Colby Street. Judy read further and finally found one report filled out meticulously in a way that reminded her of the reports she filed, which the other cops sometimes razzed her for. Officer Packer, she noted. Probably a rookie like she was. But thank goodness for Officer Packer, because he'd not only filled out Colby Street but also had put down a street number: 2945. He'd also written in an explanation of the disorderly conduct: "Suspect had thrown glasses. Officer observed broken glass on the floor being swept up on arrival and suspect admitted he had thrown the glasses. Officer attempted to secure witness testimony but no witnesses came forward. Officer left contact information."

It was a very good by-the-book arrest. Judy approved of it. She snuck a glance at Bellicama, who was absorbed in his own work, and then took a quick photo of the arrest record with her phone.

Only then did she notice two new messages from Simon.

Are you still okay?

And then, a few minutes later: If you don't answer soon I'm sending the message!

I'm fine! she typed back quickly, and then, Coming out soon. Look up this address: 2945 Colby Street.

She didn't need Simon to do that; she had a map on her phone too. But one, it would give him something to do, and two, it was good for Simon to have the information in case someone stopped her on the way out.

She shook her head, replacing the Freddy file, and walked out of the Records room. She really was getting paranoid, thinking someone was going to stop her. Although Nick was somewhere around here, being held for "interference" that seemed pretty suspicious if she let herself think about it for too long…

At the front desk, she paused. She could ask Sergeant Rainwater right now if he'd seen Nick, if he knew what had happened…but as Judy entertained that thought, voices echoed from behind one of the doors, getting closer. One of those could be Lieutenant Roarey, and if he spotted her, he might ask what she was doing here.

"Sorry, Nick," she murmured to herself, hurrying past Rainy's desk and to the front door. Every step, she expected someone to call out behind her, to tell her to stop, but nobody did. She reached the door and darted out into the street, taking a breath of the outside air. Nick wanted her to follow up with Jenny Scar, so after they checked out this address where Freddy had been arrested multiple times, they'd look up the coyote.

Simon hung out the window of the police car and his eyes lit up when Judy came into view. "There you are!" he called. "I was so worried!"

She spread her arms. "I'm fine," she said. "Thanks for checking up on me, though."

"Did anyone catch on to what you were doing?" His nose twitched.

"No." She walked around to the driver's door. When Simon expressed her paranoid fears, they seemed even sillier. "I had to go digging in some files, but it was easy. Did you find that address?"

"Yeah." He showed her his phone. "It's a bar called Better Days. Did a crime happen there?"

"Maybe." She checked the listing. "Looks like it's open. Let's head over there and see what they've got to tell us."

On the drive over, Simon kept checking in the rear view mirror and looking behind himself until Judy had to ask, "What are you looking for?"

"Oh, I'm just making sure nobody's following us."

"Who would be following us?"

His brow lowered. "The crooked cops who arrested Nick—er, Officer Wilde."

Judy laughed shortly. "There's no crooked cops—well, I mean, Nick's arrest wasn't that. He was just detained for a short time and he's probably suspended from police work for a few days. Nobody knows what I was looking at there at the station, and I'm sure nobody's going to be following us."

"All right." But Simon didn't sound convinced, and he kept looking behind them, though he did try to be less obvious about it.

Judy hadn't been to Colby Street before, so as she turned onto it she kept her eyes open for Better Days. It was hard to read the faded signs outside buildings, especially when they were behind dirty streaked windows, and as she looked she couldn't help but notice that the people out on the street withdrew into themselves as her car passed: a raccoon pulled his jacket around himself and hurried his pace; a badger and possum smoking outside a boarded up building stopped talking to each other to watch her; a fox leaning out of her window withdrew inside. It wasn't unfamiliar to Judy, this suspicion of police, especially in Happytown. That didn't mean it didn't make her a little sad.

"There it is." Simon had shifted from looking for pursuit to staring at the directions on his phone, and now he pointed out his side of the car. Judy pulled over into a parking spot and got out as Simon did the same.

Better Days looked like the kind of bar that catered to locals and not many other people: dark wood, chipped and cracked, framed two windows with neon signs that hadn't been turned on, both advertising brands (one of which Judy recognized as a cheapish beer). The door, big enough for a large mammal, hung loosely in the frame, with a shiny deadbolt against the old painted wood.

Inside, it looked cleaner, if not much fancier. Everything here looked sized for medium mammals, despite the size of the door: Mismatched chairs that Judy or Nick would have been comfortable in sat around tables, mostly empty, and at the back, a gleaming brass rail defined the bar right at Judy's head height. Bottles lined the shelves behind the old raccoon who'd stopped doing whatever he was doing at the cash register to look up when they walked in.

"Hello, Officer," he said carefully. "What can I do for you?"

"Hi!" Judy said brightly. "I'm working on a case. Are you the owner of this bar?"

"I am. Brice Ringer. How can I help you?"

She came up to the bar with Simon. "One of the suspects in my case is, I think, someone who comes into your bar a lot. He's a fox, goes by the name of Freddy Five-Fingers?"

If the name was a surprise, the bartender didn't show it. "Sure, I know Freddy. He's a good kid. Had a hard time of it, so he takes things now and again."

"He's been arrested a lot," Judy said. "And it seems like he's been arrested here a lot."

"I never called the cops on him," Ringer said.

"Then who did?"

The raccoon shook his head. "I don't ask what people in my bar do, long as they don't cause trouble."

"But it sounds like he was causing trouble," Judy said.

Ringer turned back to his cash register. "Officer, I keep good with the cops here, but I got a business to run. I don't know what Freddy's been up to and I don't know where he is right now. If you want a story of his life, you got just about everything I know."

"But—"

Simon put a paw on her arm. "Can I ask a question?"

Judy hesitated, then nodded. Simon stood up on tiptoe and tried to rest his arms on the bar, but it was a little too high, so he scrambled onto a bar stool. "Was there another officer in here last night asking about Freddy?"

The raccoon's eyes flickered. "What, you guys don't talk to each other?"

"No, we do," Judy said. "We're just working on parallel cases and he's—we can't reach him right now."

"I think I should ask to see your badge," the raccoon said. "I ain't never seen you around here, and you come in asking questions about foxes…you one of those people?"

"No!" Judy took her badge out and put it on the bar. "I'm from Precinct One, but they send me down here sometimes because Four doesn't have any small mammals. Or even medium ones."

"Don't I know that." The raccoon didn't touch the badge, but studied it and then nodded. "I don't know anything about another cop, sorry."

"But you knew he was a fox," Simon said.

For the first time, the bartender drew back and looked a little worried. "Where's your badge?" he demanded.

"He's a reporter shadowing me to make sure I do everything by the book." Judy justified the half-truth by telling herself it would put Ringer more at ease.

Simon produced a business card that the raccoon barely glanced at. "Whatever, I didn't say anything about a cop being a fox. Whoever heard of a fox cop?"

"You did." Judy realized what Simon had noticed. "You said 'asking questions about foxes,' plural. But I only said Freddy was a fox. You wouldn't have known that the officer I was asking about was unless you saw him here."

Ringer sighed and lowered his voice. "All right," he said, "yeah, the fox was in here, asking questions. I didn't know he was a cop, though, not at first. He asked me about Freddy and it sounded like maybe he had a job for him so I pointed him to a couple of the foxes Freddy hangs out with. He talked to them for about fifteen minutes and then a lion and a tiger cop came in and took him away. I thought he was a crook, and I went over to tell the foxes not to do business that was gonna bring the cops into my bar, but they laughed and said he was a cop too, and they were helping me clean up the place."

"It seems like the police come here a lot anyway," Judy said. "Freddy's been arrested here a whole lot of times. How many other people have been?"

"I run a clean place here." Ringer stepped back, indignant. "Guys get in trouble, sure, but I never got written up for the bar."

"But you don't get the cops in here much? Even when they come for Freddy?"

"They usually pick him up outside is what I hear. They come in for him once or twice."

"Like when he was throwing glasses?" Judy asked.

Ringer stabbed a finger down at the bar. "That wasn't him," he said. "I guess they just picked him up for it because the glasses got broken and people complained, and when you got a record, you get blamed for everything."

"I don't think—" Judy stopped herself from defending the police. "It didn't say on the arrest that he contested the charge, though. Wouldn't he say he didn't do it, if he didn't do it?"

"Ah, well, probably didn't want his lady friend to get in trouble."

"He's got a lady friend?" Simon perked up.

"Sometimes. I see 'em together every now and then. She seems too nice for this place, if you want my opinion, so maybe they get together somewhere else too. I ain't never asked him about her."

"And she was the one who broke the glasses?"Simon asked. "Is she another fox?"

"No," Judy said before the bartender could. A fancy lady who broke glasses? She knew what Nick had found, now. "She's a coyote, isn't she?"

"Yeah." Ringer looked surprised. "How'd you know that?"

"Detective work." Judy tapped Simon's shoulder. "Come on, Simon, we've got to go. Thank you, Mr. Ringer, you've been a great help."

"Oh," Simon said as he slid off the stool, "and if you could not mention to anyone that we were here, that'd be a big help."

Judy pulled him toward the door. "That doesn't feel like you're making sure everything's 'by the book,'" she muttered as they left the puzzled raccoon behind.

"Then think of a better lie next time," Simon said cheerfully. "Come on, let's go interview Jenny Scar again."