"Nick," Judy said, almost running to keep up with his longer strides.

She grabbed his paw and he came to a stop, and when he turned down to look at her his face seemed to change in much that it had when she had first met him and he had dropped the country bumpkin act. His ears went back up and the tension smoothed itself out of his face, his eyes back to being half-lidded and the ghost of a smirk playing across his muzzle.

"I'm touched that you care, Carrots," he said, and if his smile had somewhat less than its usual cockiness it was impossible to tell in the club's low light. He looked normal, and even sounded normal, but there was something that Judy couldn't quite put a finger on that seemed off.

"But a bunny like you... A fox like me..." Nick continued, "We wouldn't want any misunderstandings, would we?"

His tone was mild, but Judy could still feel herself wincing. He was absolutely right, and she should have known better. If anyone else noticed the claw marks on her face, they'd almost certainly jump to the wrong conclusion and it probably wouldn't end well for Nick. Judy ran her free paw along the side of her face, mussing up the fur again, and she looked up into Nick's face. "I should have known," Judy said, "I didn't mean to—"

"I let myself get carried away," Nick interrupted, airily dismissing her concern with one paw.

There was a brief pause, during which Judy struggled to think of a way to reassure him that panicking in the heat of the moment wasn't his fault and he certainly hadn't gotten carried away, before Nick spoke again.

"Also, you can let go now," he added.

Judy let go of his paw with a start. "Sorry," she said, and then turned back to find the musicians and hide the sudden flush in her ears.

The musicians were making a beeline for an unoccupied table, the two tigers on either side of the gazelle who had been playing the piano and singing. Nick inclined his head briefly, accepting her apology wordlessly although she could have sworn that his smile widened a degree at what must have been her obvious embarrassment. "Shall we go, then?" Nick asked, and Judy found herself incredibly grateful that he hadn't let the moment get too awkward.

"Yes," she said too quickly, "Right."

By the time Nick and Judy had made their way over to the table, Ethel was already there, setting a brown bottle that had been all but invisible in one of her paws in front of one of the tigers.

"This is a Beevo," the tiger who had the bottle placed in front of him said.

Judy couldn't quite tell the two tiger musicians apart; they were dressed in identical tuxedos and were so close in height and build that they could have been twins. The tiger who had spoken was right about his drink, though. Judy had never cared for the flavor herself, but she still recognized the shape of the bottle, with its distinctive long neck and bulging barrel-like body, and the illustration on the label was unmistakable even in the poor lighting. Judy had just enough time to wonder what Nick thought of that mascot—an exaggeratedly feral-looking fox wearing red trousers and a jaunty green hat with a feather in it, covered in angry welts and fleeing from a cloud of bees, a bottle in one paw and a fish skeleton in the other—before the bartender spoke again.

"That's right," Ethel said, "A Beevo. Your usual."

The blind tiger gave the word a heavy and unnatural emphasis, and inclined her head a fraction of a degree in Judy's direction.

All three of the musicians turned and looked first at Judy, and then at Nick, and then back at Judy. The degree of synchronization was almost comical, and it continued when their heads went in Ethel's direction as she spoke again, gesturing vaguely in Judy's direction. "Agent Hopps here is a prohi. Said she had a few questions for you."

While the musicians looked back at Judy, Ethel added, "I'll come back around once the agent here is done," and then left.

Nick casually sidled up to one of the free chairs and set a five-dollar bill in the center of the table. "I understand you might be thirsty when we're done talking and the two of us leave," he said as he put the bill down, "It's not drinks that we're worried about. But where are my manners? I'm Nick, by the way."

"So what are you worried about?" the tiger who hadn't gotten the bottle of Beevo asked, his tone somewhat skeptical.

Although Nick had proffered his paw to all three of the musicians as he introduced himself, only the gazelle had shaken it at once, the two tigers only doing so somewhat grudgingly. "A murder," Judy said, taking a seat in the chair next to Nick's.

Before she could say anything else, the tiger who had received the drink visibly relaxed and plucked the five-dollar bill off the table, briefly inspecting it before it vanished into one pocket. "Is this about what happened in Tundra Town?" he asked, "We talked to the police, but they weren't this generous."

Judy exchanged a glance with Nick. He seemed equally puzzled at how the tiger knew that they were investigating Carajou's murder, but the tiger forged on, introducing himself and his fellow musicians. "I'm Bill. That's Frank. Isabel's the one who called it in, you know."

As he spoke, he gestured at them, not that Judy couldn't have guessed which one was Frank and which one was Isabel. Bill's introduction did make Judy realize, though, that he obviously wasn't talking about the murder at the Thief of the Night. "You were at Tundra Town Lanes?" Judy asked, making the connection.

The report she had read on the shooting at the bowling alley that had a speakeasy hidden in a basement hadn't had much more detail than the article she had read in the newspaper the day that Bellwether had assigned her to her first field action, determining whether or not the Thief of the Night served alcohol. Although that had only been a few days ago, it felt as though months had passed, and Judy felt a flurry of excitement. It still seemed likely to her that the murders of gangsters over the past few months were all connected somehow, and now she might have witnesses for the murder that had immediately preceded Carajou's.

Frank frowned. "That's not what you were going to ask about?" he asked, obviously having seen her excitement.

"I want to hear about that, too," Judy said quickly, "Please, what happened?"

Bill turned to Isabel. "I think that's your story to tell," he said.

The gazelle had been so quiet to that point that Judy might have thought she was mute if she hadn't just heard her singing. Isabel took a deep breath, and when she spoke, her voice was soft, with an almost musical quality to it. "We were playing for Mr. Koslov," she began, "Sometimes he wanted live music, even when he was just talking business."

Judy did her best to contain her excitement. "Do you know who he was going to meet that night?"

Isabel shook her head, and the tuft of platinum-blonde fur atop her head ended up in front of one of her eyes. Offstage, she didn't look quite as glamorous as she did on. Her magnificent dress had a few spots where it was obvious that some of the countless silver sequins had fallen off, and her body language seemed entirely different. Isabel seemed more real, more vulnerable; somehow it was obvious that the strength and confidence she had as a performer didn't mean that she was always like that. In the moment, she was a mammal who knew that something terrible had happened to someone she knew, maybe even someone she thought of as a friend. "No," Isabel said, "No, when we left it was just Mr. Koslov and his usual pals. But he was acting funny."

"Funny how?" Nick asked, leaning in.

Isabel paused for a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts before she answered. "It was... It was like he knew something was going to happen," she said at last, "He asked me..."

She trailed off, apparently trying to remember the exact words the polar bear had used. "He asked me if it was hot in the spea—in there."

"Never was, not there," Bill cut in, apparently to cover her near use of the word "speakeasy."

"Always put my bass out of tune," Frank chimed in.

If the musicians wanted to maintain the polite fiction that they hadn't been playing in a speakeasy, Judy wasn't going to call attention to it as long as they kept telling the story. Isabel nodded her agreement. "He told me 'You and your tigers get some air. A cigarette break, for ten or fifteen minutes.'"

Judy frowned. The way that the gazelle had explained it, she had to agree that it seemed as though the polar bear had known that something was going to happen. But if he had the foresight to keep the musicians away, why hadn't he made any apparent effort to escape himself? Judy made a note to discuss it with Nick once they were finished, and she prompted Isabel to continue. "What happened then?" she asked.

"We scrammed," Isabel said, "As we were walking away, a car pulled up to the bowling alley. Something real big."

"A Camellac Series 314 Imperial Sedan," Frank added, "Brand spanking new one."

Judy made a note of it, remembering that the fennec fox who had stored Nick's Buchatti for him had mentioned that the police had been looking for a Camellac Imperial Sedan. The report she had read on the Tundra Town Lanes shooting hadn't mentioned the model, but she guessed that it had to be the reason the police were looking for one. "Are you sure?" Judy asked.

Frank nodded. "This ain't my only job, you know," he said, gesturing towards the stage, "I'm a porter at a Chevolet dealership. The one in the Rain Forest District, I mean. Anyways, if the General makes it, I know it."

Isabel shrugged. "If he says it was a Camellac Series whatever, that's what it was. It had its lights off, though."

"Did you see any of the mammals who got out of it?" Judy asked hopefully, but all three musicians shook their heads.

"It was too dark," Isabel said, "And once the shooting started..."

She swallowed, trembling a little, and Frank put one of his massive arms around her shoulder. The gazelle turned to him, patting his arm thankfully. "You fellas didn't see them either, did you?" she asked, and her voice at least was even.

Both tigers shook their heads. Judy had the idea that what they had said might be useful, somehow; if nothing else it showed just how poorly written police reports could be, although she couldn't guess as to why information had been left out. The report hadn't even referenced the musicians or the Camellac, although it had run to a fairly tedious length on the details of how many times Koslov and his associates had been shot. "Is there anything else you remember?" Judy asked, "Anything you think might help?"

The three musicians exchanged a wordless glance, and then Isabel shook her head. "So what were you planning on asking us about?" the gazelle asked.

"We're looking into the murder of a wolverine named Thomas Carajou," Judy said, "We heard he was here last week sometime."

"I remember him," Frank said, his lip curled into a snarl of obvious distaste, "Him and that friend of his."

"What happened?" Nick asked.

"It was last Thursday. We were taking our break, like we are now, and they were at that table."

Frank pointed at the table that was closest to the one that they were sitting at, and then continued. "I remember thinking he looked like the meanest son of a bi—"

Frank coughed, glancing quickly in Judy's direction before continuing, "He didn't look real friendly-like. Big ol' scar on his face, missing that ear... But that pal of his..."

When the tiger trailed off, Isabel picked up the story. "He was a gazelle. In his early forties, I think, a bit short. He had these giant silver sheaths on his horns, all engraved with little loops and swirls."

Judy glanced at Nick, who gave her a subtle shrug in response, apparently not knowing any gazelles who matched that description. "Acted like he owned the place. Real fancy suit, but he wasn't any kind of gentlemammal. He came up to me, put his hoof here," Isabel continued.

She turned in her chair and put one of her own hooves on the curve of her generous hip at the point where her tail met her back. "Said I was the most beautiful cow he ever saw. Said we ought to find a dark corner to make love in."

Isabel's disgust with the male gazelle was plainly written across her face, but she continued. "I told him not to touch me and I grabbed his hoof, but he was just laughing. He asked... He asked how much it was for a night."

Clearly the bull gazelle hadn't meant for a night of music, and the faces of Isabel's fellow musicians had darkened at the memory. "I stood up and told him Isabel ain't that kind of lady and he oughta leave before I made him," Frank said.

He said it simply enough, but Judy imagined how intimidating the tiger must have been in that moment; even if the male gazelle had been powerfully built, Frank would probably have been at least twice as big. "So then he asks if we know who he is, and I thought there was gonna be trouble. You know how mammals get before a fight? It was like he wanted one," Frank continued.

"Then that wolverine came over," Isabel said, "He took one look me and then he turned to that gazelle and he said, 'Eddie, she's not worth it.'"

"By then, Ethel had come over. She grabs this Eddie fella by the arm and she tells him he oughta leave and never come back. I think maybe he was going mouth off to her, but that wolverine, he says something like 'I ain't gonna lift a finger. You wanna pick a fight you can pick up your own teeth when it's done.' Then Eddie said fine and they left."

"You didn't hear them say anything else?" Judy asked, and the musicians all shook their heads.

"I'm sorry it happened," Judy said, "But thank you. You've been a lot of help."

Isabel shrugged and stretched across the table to pat Judy's paw. "Thank you," she said, "When you find the good in the world, you've got to grab onto it and never let it go."

Isabel pulled her dainty hoof back and rested it briefly on Frank's paw. She smiled, and for the briefest of moments it was with the same energy she had showed onstage. "But you already know that, don't you?"

Once they were outside the Blind Tiger, Judy turned to Nick, trying to put her thoughts in order. She felt as though they were on the verge of a breakthrough, and she wanted to be sure they didn't overlook anything. "Do you think this Eddie might be the one who stabbed Carajou?"

It made a certain amount of sense. A gazelle who had sheathed his horns with metal might have been able to stab through the wolverine's chest, especially if the tips had been sharpened. Eddie might have even had a grudge against Carajou for not being willing to fight with him, leaving aside any other reason he might have.

"It's certainly possible," Nick said thoughtfully, "But..."

Judy waited a moment as they walked back towards the parking garage. The streets were mostly empty except for the occasional car, and the dim streetlights didn't do much to fight the fading light of day. "Teddie," Nick said suddenly, "Not Eddie, Teddie. Carajou slurred his words because of that scar of his and they must not have heard him right. Teddie Scursly probably got tired of being called Littlehorns."

"What?" Judy asked, but Nick's growing excitement was obvious.

"Teddie Scursly. When I knew about him, everyone called him Littlehorns. His right horn was about this big, and his left one wasn't half that."

Nick briefly held his paws about four inches apart to indicate how small Teddie's horns were. "He hated it. There's a reason I never complained about everyone calling me Nicky, you know."

Judy laughed. She couldn't help herself, suddenly they had their first solid name they could connect to the murder and it seemed as though all of the pieces were falling into place. "I've never heard of Teddie Scursly," she said, "I want you to tell me everything you know about him."

Nick gave her a sidelong glance. "That might take a while," he said, "He was real small-time, but he must have hit it once Big went down."

"It's a long walk back to the car," Judy countered, and Nick nodded agreeably.

Before he could launch into his explanation, Judy thought about what Isabel had said before they had left. She wondered if the gazelle had been talking about Nick, but as she looked up at him, eager to help use what he had learned as part of Mr. Big's outfit to help solve a crime, she thought that maybe she understood.

Author's Notes:

The title of this chapter, "She Knows Her Onions" comes from a 1926 song by the Happiness Boys. Although the title seems somewhat nonsensical now, in 1920s slang someone who knew their onions knew what they were talking about. In this case, Gazelle has quite a bit of useful knowledge relevant to the case, and her last bit of dialog implies she might know something else entirely unrelated to the case.

"Beevo" is a pun on "Bevo," which was a real near beer that was most popular during Prohibition, although production stopped in 1929 when competition from actual beer smuggled into the US or illegally brewed in the US killed demand. As it turns out, most Americans at the time preferred to drink something that tasted like beer and contained alcohol. Bevo's mascot was Renard the Fox, the trickster of European fables. The fictional drink Beevo has a nod to this in its mascot, which I would imagine Nick is somewhat less than fond of.

Gazelle does a decent job of summarizing what happened all the way back in the first chapter, and it was nice to make this portion of the story loop back into the main narrative.

"Chevolet" is an awful pun on "Chevrolet," the American car manufacturer. They were formed in 1911, and competed with Ford and Plymouth in the 1920s for the large market for reasonably priced cars. "The General" is a nickname for Chevrolet's parent company, General Motors, which also owns the Cadillac brand. If Chevolet's are sized for voles, Frank's job as a porter is probably really easy for him, since the cars would be smaller than his paws.

"Making love" in the 1920s had an entirely different meaning than it does nowadays. Back then, it meant to have a private, romantic conversation, so it's understandable how it became a euphemism for having sex. It can be a bit jarring to see in older works, though; probably the best example of this comes from the musical Singin' in the Rain, set in late 1920s Hollywood as a film is hastily being converted from a silent film to a "talkie." In the movie, the character of Lina, instructed to deliver her lines of dialog to her love interest so that a microphone hidden in a plant can pick them up, protests that she can't make love to a bush.

Teddie Scursly's behavior is still creepy and unacceptable, of course. His name is completely fitting for the physical aspect of his character, as the word scur means an incompletely developed or deformed horn. I don't think it requires much explanation as to why he would be particularly touchy about having unusually short horns; in the real world male gazelles use their horns for fighting and to attract mates, so I imagine they would be something of a sign of masculinity in the world of Zootopia. Horn sheaths seem like the sort of thing that might appeal to the vanity of horned mammals, both for the decorative aspect and to add length.

There was a lot going on in this chapter; as always thank you for reading. I'd love to know what you thought!