Fru Fru's response was immediate. She whirled to face her husband, her long snout nearly touching his. "Language!" she squeaked shrilly, her accent thickening, "An' in front of the children! Ya want 'em talking like that? Ya wan' everyone should think we raise 'em in a gutter?"

Angelo cowered from his wife's fury, and Judy couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be positioning those children, still awkwardly held in his arms, between himself and his wife like some sort of shield. "No, Fru Fru, no," he said, his tone soothing, "I just ain't forgot how they hassled ya, after your fadder got arrested."

He turned and looked up at Judy, seeming to draw himself up to his minuscule height. "Fru Fru ain't never had nothin' to do wid her fadder's business," he said, "I ain't gonna let ya hassle her over nothin'."

Judy couldn't help but be somewhat bemused by this, as there wasn't much Angelo could do to physically stop her. She could probably knock their charming little house over with one paw, if she wanted to, but she understood what Angelo meant behind his bluster. Considering how badly Bellwether wanted to see Nick punished, she was willing to bet that her boss had been just as tenacious in going after Mr. Big's daughter; Bellwether had probably only given up after dragging the shrew through the most thorough investigation she could possibly manage. That Fru Fru wasn't behind bars was a pretty good sign, so far as Judy could tell, that Mr. Big had sheltered her completely from his life of crime as Nick had said. Still, how long had the interviews lasted, when Mr. Big had been arrested and the Bureau had circled his associates like hungry sharks? When Fru Fru had been dealing with the complete upheaval of her life, had the Bureau shown her any compassion, any benefit of the doubt? Judy suspected that Bellwether, or whoever had been entrusted with the job, had been merciless, and in that moment realized how much Angelo had to love his wife, no matter how futile his gesture of defiance was.

She paused a moment before responding, trying to sound as sympathetic as she could. "I'm sorry to bother you," she said, "But I was hoping you—the two of you—could answer some questions about Alphonse Biggliani."

"Sure," Angelo said, his skepticism flatly evident in his body language and in the way he said the word, but it was Fru Fru's turn to sooth her spouse.

"We'll answer any questions ya got," she said to Judy, her accent receding back with as her anger evaporated to something that was only a faint hint, "Ain't that right, Angelo?"

As she spoke, she stroked his arm, and he nodded, looking up at Judy with a somewhat abashed expression on his round little face. Before Judy could draw in a breath to ask her first question, Fru Fru's attention turned suddenly back to Nick, who had been watching the entire proceedings with an expression on his face that was difficult to read. Nostalgia, perhaps; surely it wasn't the first time he had seen Fru Fru's temper flare and die out like a match that had burned itself out. It was looking up at Nick that Fru Fru spoke, sounding puzzled, "But why ain'tcha dead, Nicky? I heard that fella—whassisname, Randall Steervens?—set you an' Daddy up."

Her expression turned brooding, and Judy suddenly realized why Nick had been so unconcerned about going to Fru Fru. The simple fact of the matter, she supposed, was that he had lied. From reading the Bureau's files, she knew that there was no such mammal as Randall Steervens; he was a phantom, created by Nick, to provide plausible deniability to the money laundering arranged for Mr. Big. If Nick hadn't provided copies of the accounting ledgers he had falsified under the assumed identity of Mr. Steervens, it might have taken years to untangle the web of financial crimes that had turned the large illegitimate fortune in the profits from bootlegging into one nearly as large but seemingly completely above board.

Then again, maybe it wouldn't have taken years without Nick's help; maybe it would have been completely impossible to pin Mr. Big down, the charges of tax fraud fizzling in court like a wet firecracker. Either way, Judy had to admit that it had been particularly clever, on the fox's part, as to how he must have arranged his departure from a life of crime. It was almost as though he had been planning to leave it all along, and the thought startled Judy when it came into her head. It occurred to her that she was taking the most charitable possible interpretation of his actions, and she wondered at what had changed, in her head and her heart, to do so. Before she could puzzle over it, Nick responded, nearly flat on his belly to get his eyes more or less level with Fru Fru's head. "The police already had the books when they arrested your father," Nick said, "I got out of town before I could get pinched too."

It was a lie of omission, Judy supposed; it was all technically true, but he had completely neglected to mention his own role in the arrest. Still, when Nick spoke again after a brief pause, she thought the statement that followed was completely sincere. "I'm just sorry I couldn't do anything for you first," he said, still looking into Fru Fru's face.

"Ah, Nicky," Fru Fru said fondly, stepping forward to pat at his muzzle with one tiny paw, "You was always good enough to me, don'tcha ever doubt it. I just wish I had known you was OK all these years. Maybe I coulda done something for you."

There was a brief moment of silence broken by Angelo clearing his throat. "Why don'tcha go 'round back?" he suggested, gesturing at Nick and Judy, somewhat awkwardly due to the precious bundle of his children, "There's a picnic table ya can sit at. I'll get that gabagool an' we can all talk more comfortable like."

It was somewhat awkward, crouching down to talk to the shrews, and Judy agreed. The picnic table absolutely dominated a stretch of undeveloped parkland behind the Petruccio's house; it was taller than any of the homes, a comparatively massive edifice of rough-hewn pieces of timber that had been arranged into a hexagonal table with benches on all sides. Despite the apparent crudeness of the wood, the pieces all fit together perfectly to define the table top itself; it was only the edges of the table that really appeared rough and natural. In the center of the table there was a hole where, in a different community, an umbrella might have gone to provide shade. In the heart of Little Rodentia, however, just off the gravel path for larger mammals that wound through the district, it hosted a little wrought-iron elevator, the metal worked to appear like tangled branches. The top of the elevator shaft made a protrusion about six or seven inches above the surface of the table topped with a little hexagonal gazebo that perfectly matched the style of the table providing and provided some coverage for the mammals small enough to use it.

Nick and Judy had only been sitting at the picnic table for a few minutes before Angelo and Fru Fru exited their house through the back door, Angelo still holding their children and Fru Fru holding a platter in one paw and a stack of plates and forks in the other. After they had made the ride up to the top of the table, the elevator making a tinny ding like a cheap toy as its doors opened, she placed one of the plates before Nick. It was smaller even than one of the buttons on his suit jacket, but he regarded the plate, and the minuscule portion of what Fru Fru served onto it, with exquisite care. Angelo had said that it was made out of night crawlers, and while the circular slices were no bigger around than the eraser at the end of a pencil and consequently difficult to see, they didn't look like they had been made out of worms. Still, Judy politely declined even as Nick enthusiastically took his plate, delicately gripping the fork he had been offered between two of his claws.

When the three other mammals had been served, Fru Fru looked up at Judy even as she cut apart her own slice and shoveled pieces into her mouth. "So whaddaya want to know, Agent Hopps?" she asked.

As Judy had waited with Nick for Fru Fru and Angelo to arrive at the table, she had thought on how best to phrase her questions, and she started with the first one. "There's been a series of murders," she began carefully, "They look like someone from your father's gang might be responsible. I was—"

Before she could get another word out, Angelo had snorted, a tiny delicate sound that nonetheless interrupted her train of thought. "It ain't her fadder," he said, and his words were both dismissive and firm.

He gave a start and looked at his wife as though he had said something he shouldn't have out of fear of upsetting her. "At leastwise... Ever since, you know..." his words trailed off awkwardly, but Fru Fru patted his arm, and then spoke.

"'s OK," she said gently, and then looked up at Judy, "Daddy had an apoplexy, 'bout a month after they locked 'im up. He..."

Judy could see Fru Fru's throat bob as the shrew swallowed before continuing, her voice wavering, "He don't talk no more. Can't talk no more, can't so much as lift a spoon."

That was an entirely new piece of information for Judy, and from the way that Nick sharply turned his full attention to Fru Fru she saw that it was just as new to him, too. She supposed that, if she had needed any confirmation that he hadn't had any contact with the gang, that was it. Nick was a good actor, she had seen, but she didn't think even he could summon up that flicker of emotion that had run across his face at will, a look that somehow blended surprise and horror with regret and pleasure before it vanished again nearly as quickly as it had come. "I'm sorry," Nick said, his voice low.

Fru Fru had missed the look digging a handkerchief out of a pocket of her little dress and dabbing at her eyes. "Look at me, bawlin'. It's the baby." she said, rubbing her swollen belly with the other paw before Angelo interlaced his fingers into it.

Perhaps Fru Fru was right—Judy's own mother had born all of the pregnancies that Judy could recall acting no differently from how she normally did, at least until the kits were almost due. Bonnie Hopps had sometimes burst into tears at the slightest thing, from a jigsaw puzzle that was missing a piece to a dropped and broken plate. But those had been minor things, and Judy thought that Fru Fru's father becoming incapacitated was reason enough. She couldn't imagine how she would react, if it was her father who had been reduced to a shell of his normal blustery cheer, and she suddenly wished that the letters from her parents had survived the fire at her apartment. She still had the rejection letter, tucked away in her purse, but that was worthless compared to those little expressions of familial love.

Judy swallowed herself, a lump having developed in her own throat. "You don't have to apologize," she said, "I can't imagine how difficult this must be for you."

Fru Fru had put away her handkerchief and gave one final sniff. "It's his own fault," she said, "Puttin' himself in an early grave, runnin' that awful gang. I never knew nothin' about it, not 'til the police took him away."

Somehow, Judy didn't think that Fru Fru believed her own rationalization. Perhaps Mr. Big never would have had an apoplexy if he had never formed the Zootopia Outfit, but perhaps it had only been a matter of time before something in his brain had burst like an old balloon, a ticking bomb no one had known was there. Fru Fru apparently wasn't done talking, and she continued. "He always said he was still in the import business. Guess that was the truth."

Her smile was ghastly, a bitter grimace, but she plunged onward. "I shoulda known sooner. All those business partners lookin' like street thugs and bimbos, the whole awful lot of 'em."

She paused briefly and quickly turned to Nick. "'Cept you, Nicky."

Nick briefly inclined his head, but he didn't seem to have a smart remark about his own toughness. "It's not your fault," he said quietly, "He... We hid it from you. He wanted it that way."

Fru Fru waved an arm dismissively. "But I'm just ramblin'," Fru Fru said, looking at Judy again, "What'd ya want to ask?"

"Do you remember Thomas Carajou?" Judy asked.

"Carajou?" Fru Fru asked, seeming to think at the name, "Wolverine, ain't he? Real ugly fella—face like someone tried to cut it off once?"

"That's him," Nick said, smiling a little at the frank, but certainly accurate, description.

"Daddy said he was a driver," Fru Fru said with a shrug, "Never saw 'im much."

Judy supposed that Carajou might have been a driver, at least in the sense that he had driven mammals out to the middle of nowhere to make them dig their own shallow graves, but she couldn't help but be a little disappointed at Fru Fru's answer. "You wouldn't happen to remember where he lives, would you?" she asked, not holding out much hope for a positive response.

It was something of a long shot; although the Bureau had tried to keep tabs on Thomas Carajou, he didn't have anything like a permanent address. He had bounced from hotel to hotel, sometimes staying for as long as a week, sometimes for less than a day. There didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to it either—he might stay at the same hotel that oil barons and railroad tycoons favored one day, then move on to the worst flophouse in the city near the slaughterhouses. Although he was a wolverine, he hadn't seemed to have any preference for Tundra Town either, and he moved freely between the city's various districts without care or any kind of obvious pattern. If he did have a permanent address, the Bureau had never learned where it was. Perhaps it was what had kept him alive for so long until his luck had at last run out, some sort of low brutal cunning and intuition to avoid routine or complacency.

As a result, Judy was unsurprised when Fru Fru shook her head no. "We've taken up enough of your time," Judy said, repressing a sigh, "Thank you for the help, though."

"And the gabagool," Nick added cheerfully, his plate completely empty.

"Any time ya drop by the ol' neighborhood, feel free to call," Angelo said.

Considering the sign that was posted on the gate to their little community, Judy doubted very much that Nick would ever drop by again, but whether Angelo was being sincere or it was simply a polite fiction, she couldn't tell. Certainly neither one of the shrews seemed to have any qualms about a predator in their district, but from the cries of panic she had heard on the way to their house, she doubted that the same was true of their neighbors. Judy supposed Nick was thinking along the same lines, but he didn't show any sign of it, simply dropping a wink in Angelo's direction. "Certainly," he said, "You take good care of Fru Fru now, you hear?"

"Oh, he does," Fru Fru said fondly, placing an arm across her husband's shoulder in a sort of sideways hug.

"Angelo's a defense attorney," she added proudly, "Best one in the whole city."

Nick smiled at that. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

"You take care yourself, Nicky," Fru Fru said, seeming to worry that his words were something more than a joke.

The little shrew then turned to look up at Judy. "You too, Judy. Keep an eye on this fella for me."

"I will," Judy promised, and she made her way back to the gravel path with Nick in tow.

"So what now, Carrots?" Nick asked once they had started walking towards the gate out of the district.

Judy had been considering their next move, and while she was disappointed that Fru Fru hadn't been able to provide much information, she by no means considered it a wasted trip. It didn't seem likely that Mr. Big could have been plotting from his jail cell, if what Fru Fru said was true, but then again maybe he was only pretending to be incapacitated. There were a thousand reasons why he might do that—maybe he was ashamed of his daughter seeing him locked up, maybe he was angling for an early release, maybe it was a trick to get the police to relax their guard. She pushed the thoughts away, thinking that there was no point on dwelling on it at the moment. She thought it might still be worth it to visit Mr. Big, but she thought maybe that should be a solo trip. If there was any chance that the shrew did retain his mental faculties, she thought she owed it to Nick to keep him out of his sight. Besides, she thought it was odd that none of the official records she had read said anything about Mr. Big's disability, and she wondered why that was.

There were still several names on the list that Mr. Otterton had provided, but she thought that she wanted to be careful about approaching any of them, too. She recognized the names, and all of them had been involved with Mr. Big's bootlegging operation quite deeply. What we—and Judy was briefly surprised that she had started thinking of the investigation in that sense, we instead of I—What we need are more details about how Carajou was murdered. The solution was obvious, and she turned to Nick as he unlatched the gate out of Little Rodentia, a question she was sure she already knew the answer to on her lips. "Do you know how to get to the coroner's office?"

"Absolutely," Nick said, as she had hoped, "Time to visit Mr. Carajou?"

Judy nodded. "Time to visit Mr. Carajou."

Author's Notes:

The title of this chapter, "Just a Memory," comes from a 1927 song by Paul Whiteman. It seemed appropriate to me for Fru Fru's reminiscing.

Adirondack style architecture and furniture was fairly popular for the well-to-do in the early 20th century; it was supposed to look rustic and old-fashioned, but it was actually fairly expensive. The description of the picnic table is accurate to this, as the table is clearly well-made despite the attempt to make it look rough.

Randall Steervens is a reference to Randall Stephens, a similar phantom referenced in the Shawshank Redemption, which is an excellent movie and an excellent novella under the longer title of Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. I definitely recommend both reading and watching it; while there are a number of differences between the two (as a minor one, Randall Stephens is called Peter Stephens in the novella), I think both do a great job of taking advantage of their respective mediums to tell the story.

Apoplexy is a now somewhat outdated expression for a stroke. Strokes, which occur when there's not enough blood flowing to the brain, can vary quite widely in their effect. In the modern era, prompt treatment significantly improves the chances of recovery, but strokes can be fatal or cause permanent impairment, such as paralysis or the loss of mental functions. In the real world, Al Capone died in 1947 of a heart attack following a stroke, but he spent the years prior to his death with significantly reduced mental capacity as the result of neurosyphilis and the long term effects of his drug addiction. At the time, syphilis was completely untreatable, as antibiotics weren't discovered until 1929 and while they first saw widespread use in 1942, it wasn't until 1945 that they became widely available outside the Allied military forces. Worse, while penicillin can cure neurosyphilis, it can't reverse the brain damage caused by the disease, and by 1945 it was already far too late for Al Capone.

Bimbo is a word that has definitely changed in meaning since the 1920s. Then, it was a slang term for an unintelligent but tough man, as compared to its modern meaning of an attractive but stupid woman. It seems that the change in usage started in the late 1920s, going through a period where it could refer to stupid men or women, before it started being used exclusively to refer to women and picked up the additional part of being attractive as well as stupid. Under either definition, though, Fru Fru is right that it doesn't describe Nick.

As wolverines are native to the northern reaches of the world, it makes sense to assume that one might prefer to stay in the artificially cold district of Tundra Town, but that apparently was not the case for Carajou. The word flophouse as a term for an extremely cheap hotel dates to the beginning of the 20th century, and in the 1920s you could find some pretty dire ones.

As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought if you're inclined to comment.