Author's Note: I'm going to be traveling for Christmas, and I probably won't have Internet access. I didn't think anyone would mind if the next chapter went up early, and I didn't want to post it late. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you enjoy your holidays!
The first sign of Rich Wolf's power was the plaque on his door. While the other offices that they had passed on their way to his had plastic plates with the name and title of the occupant on a paper card, Rich Wolf's door had a brass plaque with nothing but his name on it. Compared to the other offices, it gave the sense of permanence, that while the mammals around him would come and go Rich Wolf would always be there.
At Judy's first knock, the door was pulled open by a coyote somewhat older than the wolf at the reception desk but with an identical dress sense. "Officers Hopps and Wilde to see you sir," he called into the office.
Rich Wolf's office was dominated by a massive desk, elaborately carved out of a dark wood that Judy couldn't identify. He didn't have a computer on it, just a telephone, a Rolodex, and neat stacks of paper. The wall opposite the door had a view of the waterfront, and the remaining walls were covered with the various awards Wolf had won over the course of a decades long career in television. The wolf himself was tall and thin, towering over everyone else in the office. He wore dark slacks and a white dress shirt with the top button undone. At his wrists were cuff links of what looked like solid gold, which matched a watch that probably cost more than Nick and Judy combined earned in a year. Although he had to be at least seventy, his pale blue eyes were sharp and alert and his presence was palpable. "Please, come in!" he said warmly, "I must say, it's a pleasure to meet you, Officer Hopps. And you as well, Officer Wilde! We had considered a fox as White's partner, but the test audiences think 'wolf' when they think police. Not that I can claim to be completely unbiased, of course."
He chuckled at his little self-deprecating remark. "I've always said, my secret is just that I figure out what the audiences want and then give it to them. As simple as that."
Rich Wolf clapped his paws together. "But where are my manners! Rich Wolf," he said, by way of introduction, thrusting his paw forward and giving Judy and then Nick in turn a firm shake.
"That'll be all for now, Carlos," he said to the coyote who had answered the door.
The coyote nodded sharply once and then left the office, closing the door behind himself.
Rich Wolf took a seat behind his desk and gestured at the chairs in front of it. Once Nick and Judy had sat down, he leaned forward, his fingers laced together. "So how can I help the two of you?"
"Anything you could tell us about why someone might be after Holly Leaves would be a big help," Judy replied.
Rich Wolf frowned. "I'll be honest with you," he said, "I'm the executive producer. I focus on the big picture, not the details. But if you want to talk to any of the actors or crew, I made sure they're all available for you."
Judy wondered if part of the reason that Bryce the receptionist had deliberately wasted their time was because he knew that his boss was going to be helpful and was doing his petty best to disrupt that. In any event, she wasn't going to waste the opportunity. "Let's start with her co-star," she said, "Thomas Lupowitz."
The dressing room of Holly's co-star, Thomas Lupowitz, was not particularly glamorous. It was a cramped room with a couch, a few chairs, an armoire, and a mirror over a small desk. Lupowitz had surrounded the mirror with photographs, which seemed split about evenly between ones showing him and a taller wolf that looked like he could be his brother and ones that were presumably from previous acting jobs, including several in which he was dressed in a turn of the century costume with sleeve garters, a straw boater hat, and an overlarge briefcase with the words "Prof. Harold Hill" painted on it. Lupowitz himself looked almost exactly as he did on Black and White; he was an entirely black wolf in excellent shape with yellow eyes. Where he diverged from how Judy expected him to look, however, was his height. She had seen him and Holly Leaves onscreen together and had met Holly, so in retrospect she should have realized that Lupowitz wasn't the average height for a wolf. He was easily the shortest wolf that Judy had ever met; he had at most three inches on Nick. Perhaps Thomas had a chip on his shoulder about his height, as he seemed to size up Nick as though he was expecting the smaller mammal to fight him. Either that, or it was one of those "canine things" that Nick occasionally referred to dismissively. Despite that, he introduced himself warmly enough and directed them to the couch while he took the chair in front of the mirror.
"What's your relationship with Holly like? Are the two of you close?" Judy asked.
Thomas laughed. "If you're asking if Holly was having an affair with me, Officer Hopps, let me put it to you this way. We'd both be cheating on our boyfriends."
Judy realized that the other wolf in the pictures around Lupowitz's mirror was probably not his brother, and that he had been sizing Nick up in quite a different way than she had initially thought. "That doesn't answer her question," Nick said smoothly, taking over the flow of the conversation.
The wolf sighed. "We're coworkers. We're friendly enough onset, but we've never done anything offset, you know?"
Judy wondered what it would be like to have that kind of relationship with her partner. When Nick had been at the academy, they had texted back and forth as much as their schedules would allow. Certainly, friendly but not friends described her relationship with most of her coworkers, but she couldn't imagine it extending to her partner. But then, Holly and Thomas were not really partners; they only played it onscreen.
"And she's a good actress to work with?" Nick asked.
Thomas nodded. "You know, I thought she'd be a nightmare because of her agent, but she's about the best I've ever worked with. Never has any trouble remembering her lines, listens to the director... She's a real professional."
Judy leaned forward. "What about her agent?"
Thomas paused for a moment, seeming to collect his thoughts. "Well, you know, I understand that an agent has to fight for their client. I expect my agent to try to get me the best possible deal. But this Thanatopsis guy... he was just going too far, you know?"
Nick smiled. "I don't, actually. What was he doing?"
Thomas laughed a bit more than the quip seemed to deserve. "I'm sorry. It's a bad habit," he said, clearly in reference to his tendency to insert the phrase "you know" into conversation, "Thanatopsis was just real pushy and demanding. He kept trying to get rewrites to give Holly more lines, he'd pitch fits at the producers... It got so bad by the second week of filming they banned him from the set."
Nick and Judy exchanged a wordless glance. "How well did he take that?" Judy asked.
"Not very," Thomas replied, "He blew up at Holly, told her she'd be nothing without him and she'd regret it if she dumped him when it came time to renegotiate her contract. Said that Rich Wolf would eat her alive."
Judy was furiously scribbling it all down. "Has it happened yet?" Nick asked.
"What, contract renegotiation?" Thomas asked, scratching the back of his head.
When Nick nodded, the wolf continued. "For her, maybe, I guess. They haven't officially renewed the show, but it's doing way too well to cancel. Holly only signed a one season contract, you know. The rest of us are all on a five year contract, so Thanatopsis must actually be pretty good at negotiating."
While Judy had never worked in television, she figured that the principle was pretty much the same as it would be in any field. With a one season contract, Holly had a lot more leverage than the other actors if the show was a success; she'd be negotiating from a position of strength since it'd be difficult for the show to replace one of its costars. The other actors, conversely, wouldn't be in a position to demand a raise until years down the line. She recalled from the packet of information that Clawhauser had put together that Black and White was going to run for ten episodes and the show hadn't been officially renewed yet. There were only four episodes left, and the next episode was scheduled to air the following day. It'd make sense for Holly to be in the middle of negotiating a new contract; the show had been a solid hit and Judy had the feeling that the drama surrounding the assault on its lead actress would only increase its popularity.
Nick had previously voiced his suspicion of the agent, and it sounded like there was definitely a potential reason to dig deeper. Thanatopsis had also been frozen out of Holly's press conference following the assault; she made a note to get a copy of the footage to see if there was anything useful there. Perhaps Holly had been on the verge of quitting the show or changing agents or otherwise doing something that Thanatopsis saw as a threat to his position.
"Can you think of anyone else who might be holding a grudge?" Judy asked, more as a matter of course than out of any expectation that the answer would be yes.
Lupowitz shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well..." he started, sounding nervous.
Judy leaned forward a bit, but didn't say anything, and Nick did the same besides her. "There's this one guy. One of the lighting techs. Seemed to have a thing for Holly, you know? Like he was flirting with her a little. I don't know if she ever really realized that he was into her that way. But about four weeks back, I caught him."
When Lupowitz's pause started dragging on, Judy prompted him to continue. "Caught him doing what?"
"I saw him going into her dressing room," he said.
He dipped his head and his ears flattened back against his skull in obvious embarrassment. "Caught him going through her underwear," he mumbled to the floor.
That sounded like the kind of behavior that could have eventually lead to the attack. Perhaps the lighting tech had planned on getting revenge for his unrequited feelings, or perhaps Holly's boyfriend had been the target all along. "Holly didn't mention this guy, did she?" Nick asked, turning to face Judy with a thoughtful frown on his face.
"No, she didn't," Judy replied, seeing where Nick was going.
It was very strange that when prompted to think of a mammal who might want to hurt her or her boyfriend, Holly hadn't named the mammal who was at best a pervert and at worst some kind of crazed stalker. Lupowitz continued staring at the floor. "I never told her," he said, sounding ashamed, "Just the producer, Jim Capricorn. He fired the guy on the spot."
"Why didn't you tell her?" Judy asked.
Lupowitz sighed, and then looked up. "I'm almost forty," he said looking defeated, "I just... If this show doesn't work out, this might be it for my acting career, you know? So I thought, if Holly knew she had a creep after her, maybe she'd just walk when the season ended and it'd all be over. God, isn't that about the most selfish thing you've heard?"
He spoke the last of it with what sounded like genuine self-loathing, but Judy found it somewhat difficult to empathize with him. He had, in conjunction with the producer, kept Holly unaware of something that could have resulted in the death of her or her boyfriend. The fact that he was ashamed of his decision was a start, but even if Jacques Lapin made a full recovery Lupowitz had a burden he'd have to carry for the rest of his life if it turned out that the lighting tech was the guilty party. "Do you remember his name?" Judy asked, "Can you describe him?"
She kept her carrot pen poised over her notepad, waiting while the wolf tried to recall the details. "Bobby... something," Thomas said eventually, chewing his lip, "I think it started with an 'S.' He was some kind of rodent, I think, not a bunny."
Judy wasn't sure if Thomas was implying that he thought bunnies were rodents or merely specifying that Bobby wasn't a bunny, but his description sounded like it was enough for the studio to be able to find him in their files.
The mammal that Rich Wolf got to look into the studio's Mammal Resources files for them was his personal assistant, Carlos. Considering that Rich Wolf didn't seem to have a computer of his own, Judy got the feeling that Carlos did a lot of other tasks for him as well. The coyote had listened to the description they provided, and then started to type away at his keyboard. A few minutes went by as he apparently checked entries and didn't find matches until, at last, a small smile of triumph appeared on his face. "Roberto Escurel," the coyote said, rotating his monitor and showing them the file onscreen.
The picture that went with the name was of a squirrel who had apparently dyed his fur black, and hadn't done such a great job of maintaining it if the red roots were any indicator. The last name was instantly familiar, and Judy saw Nick's eyes widen in surprise as he made the same realization. "Escurel?" she asked, her heart pounding, "As in—"
Carlos cut her off. "Yes. He's the mayor's grandson."