As Nick described what he knew about Teddie Scursly, Judy quickly realized why the gazelle hadn't immediately come to mind for him at hearing Isabel's description. Scursly had never been a member of Mr. Big's organization, so far as Nick knew, and had never been much more than a messenger who kept numbers games running smoothly and occasionally helped collect unpaid debts. "He wasn't anything special," Nick said with a shrug, "He wasn't particularly strong, or smart, or even loyal, from what I hear. If he's turned himself into a real billboard, covering those little horns of his in silver, he must have made good somehow. Could be that he made it as a hit mammal."

As they kept walking to the parking garage, Judy considered what Isabel had told them about Scursly compared to what Nick knew. "Do you think Scursly could have fit in the crawlspace under the Thief of the Night?" Judy asked.

Isabel had described him as being on the short side, but the gazelle's perspective was probably a bit different than either Judy's or Nick's; she herself would tower over Nick standing up straight, and the crawlspace hadn't even been tall enough for him. Nick stroked his muzzle thoughtfully as he considered the question. "Not standing," he said at last, "He had to have been at least six feet tall. On all fours, though..."

He trailed off and Judy considered the image his words conjured of a gazelle on all fours. Perhaps he had made a running start, knocking over the bottle of single-malt scotch that had led Nick to discover the hidden crawlspace, and then once he had reached the hole made in the floorboards raised his head and gored Carajou. "Those horn sheaths would have had to have been awfully long to reach Carajou," Nick continued.

Judy had been thinking the same thing and she nodded. "Do you have any idea where we could find Scursly?" she asked, and she tried not to be disappointed when Nick just shook his head.

"That might be one for the police," he said, "I don't know anyone who ran in his circles."

Judy nodded. "I guess we can head to the Precinct One station," Judy said as they approached the Buchatti.

"As long as we can stop for something to eat afterwards," Nick said as he climbed in.

Although Judy was feeling too excited to feel hungry herself, the last time they had eaten suddenly seemed as though it had been months ago. "Fine," she said as Nick started the car, "But it has to be something fast."

Nick nodded, anything he might have said swallowed by the roar of the Buchatti turning over, and they were off.

The moose who had been at the reception desk in the Precinct One station the last time they had visited must have had his shift end, because his position had been filled by a stocky ewe. The sheep was about twice Bellwether's size, the wool atop her head permed into little ringlets that splayed around her face with an unnatural rigidness that made her vaguely resemble Norma Sheared, although she probably couldn't have fit into any of the actress's dresses. Still, although she had looked at Nick with some obvious curiosity, she didn't say anything until after Judy introduced herself and showed her badge. "Oh my!" the ewe said, and her voice was gratingly breathy even though she had to have been almost forty, "A prohi, comin' in on my shift! Gosh! An' you, you a prohi too?"

She directed her question at Nick, who looked down at Judy with a somewhat bemused expression. "Not quite," he said solemnly, and then leaned over the top of the desk to whisper in the ewe's ear, a paw cupped around it in a conspiratorial fashion, "Real hush-hush stuff, you know."

Although his voice hadn't been above a whisper, Judy heard him clearly and had to resist the urge to roll her eyes as Nick tipped the ewe a wink and then stopped leaning on her desk. "Golly!" the ewe said, her hooves up by her mouth in amazement, "Whatcha need, Agent Hopps?"

"Is Chief Bogo in?" Judy asked, trying to maintain a straight face and a serious tone.

Sometimes the most frustrating thing about Nick was that he could still get the results he wanted even—or perhaps especially—when he didn't seem to be serious, but the more time that Judy spent with him the more she realized that the charisma he all but oozed only appeared effortless. "No, he went home 'bout an hour or three ago," the ewe said, her ears drooping in apparent disappointment at not being more helpful before they shot back up as she snapped her fingers.

"Ya can leave a message," she said brightly, and then started digging through the little cupboards on her side of the desk, "Here, we got this whole departmental memo thing. I'll give ya a red envelope. Extra urgent, ya know. It'll be the first thing he reads in the mornin'."

Judy exchanged a glance with Nick, who simply shrugged. She supposed that telling the chief about Teddie Scursly could wait until morning; even if they had wanted to go into the Zootopia City Hall records themselves, the building had already closed for the night. When the sheep finally produced a manila envelope with a bright red strip running across the flap and down its side, a piece of ZPD stationary, and a pen, Judy accepted the items gratefully and jotted down a quick note to the chief before putting it into the envelope and completing the address field that had been stamped onto it. She tied the envelope shut and gave it over to the ewe, who handled it as though it were made out of glass.

"I'll make sure Chief Bogo gets this the second—the very second—he walks through those doors," the ewe said, clutching the envelope delicately, "He'll about cast a kitten, he hears he missed this!"

Judy coughed delicately. "I'm sure he'll appreciate your help," she said, "Thank you."

The ewe waved them out of the station. "Ya can count on me," she beamed.

Once they were outside, Nick turned and looked down at Judy. "She seemed nice," he said, "Now how about some food?"

"I've had better pie," Nick remarked as he pushed the remains of his slice around his plate, "But you wouldn't believe how long it's been since I've had blueberries."

They were sitting in an automat that Nick had pointed out on the drive from the Precinct One station back to his house, and Judy had been willing enough to try it. The automat was all gleaming white linoleum and polished chrome under bright electric lights. The main cafeteria area that they were sitting in was mostly empty, and the few other mammals eating didn't seem to pay them any mind. The rows of vending machines that lined three of the four walls except the glass storefront offered up an incredible variety of foods—except, it seemed, for meats of any kind. The doors of the vending machines, each with a coin slot next to them to pay with nickels, were sized for mammals no smaller than Judy was, although they did increase in size until the doors along one of the walls were about as large as Judy herself was.

Judy couldn't complain much about the food herself, and the automat was a good place to talk while they might as well have been alone for all that the other diners spread out across the large cafeteria seemed to care. The furniture, matching the vending machines and the general decor, was all of a gleaming chrome Art Deco style, with circular tables with four stools bolted to them.

She was down to the remains of a turnip pie and half of a cup of coffee (decaffeinated, as Nick had said he didn't want her little bunny heart to explode) herself, having chosen not to take any kind of desert. Nick had polished off his own dinner, which consisted of some slightly wilted-looking mushrooms in a sauce she suspected had come out of a can, in short order along with two cups of decaf of his own. Judy hadn't realized how hungry she had been until after they had made their purchases from the vending machines and had sat down to eat; they had ended up eating in complete silence until Nick made his remark on the quality of the pie. "There weren't any blueberries in Podunk?" she asked.

Nick shook his head as he delicately wiped at his muzzle with a paper napkin. When he spoke again, she saw that his tongue was stained purple from his pie. "Afraid not," he said, "Plenty of apples, but not a single blueberry tree."

Judy looked at him. "Blueberry trees?" she asked.

"What?" Nick said, with an innocent look on his face that made it difficult to tell if he was teasing or simply trying to cover up for something he genuinely hadn't known, "I grew up in the city. I don't know all your fancy farming words."

He took a sip of his coffee and Judy changed the subject. "So what now?" she asked.

Nick set his cup down and leaned back. "There's not much more we can do tonight, is there?"

Judy had to reluctantly agree that he had a point. They had spent so much time running around the city that the night had seemed to evaporate; the few other mammals in the automat looked like they were all either naturally nocturnal or had chosen to work night shifts. She thought out loud, hoping to find their next move by talking it out. "We know Carajou and Scursly were together a few days before Carajou was murdered. If we can find Scursly, Dr. Tolmie could tell us whether or not he killed Carajou by goring him."

Nick nodded, seeming to remember as she did that the medical examiner had said that if they found a mammal with horns that he could prove by way of measurements whether or not they had used those horns to stab Carajou. A frown crossed Nick's face suddenly and he held up one finger in objection. "But even if Scursly gored Carajou, he didn't kill him. Someone else broke his neck."

Judy frowned herself. "There's an accomplice. Maybe someone who links the two of them together somehow."

Nick shrugged. "I don't know anyone who got along with the both of them. They didn't even work for the same outfits."

Judy thought about it from a different angle. "We still have a hotel room key," she said, "If we could find the hotel, maybe we can find something there."

The key that had been among Carajou's effects seemed almost as though it was taunting them; Judy felt sure that Carajou's room would be a treasure trove of clues, if only they could figure out where it was, impossible as it seemed at the moment.

"Find it how?" Nick asked, seeming to think along similar lines, "There are too many hotels it could go to and it'd take forever to check them all. And that's assuming some hotel clerk didn't throw everything out after Carajou stopped paying after up and dying."

They lapsed back into silence for a moment. "What about the Camellac?" Judy asked at last.

"What about the Camellac?" Nick repeated.

"Your friend Finnick said the police tore apart his shop looking for a Camellac Imperial Sedan," Judy said, "It might be connected to the murders at the Tundra Town Lanes, but the police report didn't mention the car by model. What if it wasn't police officers who were looking, or what if—"

"Or what if there's a dirty cop trying to cover things up?" Nick interrupted.

"Not bad," he continued approvingly as Judy eagerly nodded in response, "Are you sure you didn't miss your calling for a life of crime?"

"I guess upholding the law takes a lot of the same skills as breaking it," Judy replied, "You know, you could always switch jobs again if you get tired of being a teacher."

Nick smiled briefly. "I'll make sure I consider my career opportunities," he said, and although his words had a teasing tone it wasn't a straight rejection.

"If all these gang murders are related, if we can solve one of them we can solve all of them," Nick continued thoughtfully, "It's a big maybe, but it makes sense to check on this car until we find Scursly or Carajou's hotel room."

Judy felt her ears fall as she realized that they were trading one difficult problem for another. If finding a hotel off just a key wasn't easy, finding a single car with nothing but the make and model didn't seem like it'd be any more doable. In contrast, Nick didn't seem fazed. "Ears up, Carrots," he said, "I think I know how to get to this one. Camellacs aren't exactly Model Ts, you know."

"Really?" Judy asked.

"Sure," Nick said, "I know a fella down at the DMV. We can head there tomorrow when they open."

"That's—" Judy started to say, but even with her sudden burst of excitement she had to stifle a yawn, "That's perfect!"

"Don't thank me yet," Nick warned, "But why don't we head back to my place before I have to carry you out to the car?"

Nick's house had a narrow garage hidden behind it, and he got out of the Buchatti and opened the large wooden door, making the rusty hinges squeal shrilly. While the Buchatti wasn't particularly large there were still barely two feet of space to spare once Judy had pulled it in, and even less on either side. The only dimension that it had easily fit in was height; the Buchatti was still by far the lowest car for a mammal of her size Judy had ever seen, and even if she had put her paws up while pulling it in she wouldn't have been able to touch the bottom of the door's lintel.

Nick gathered up the packages from their shopping trip, which were looking a little worse for the wear after having been strapped to the outside of a car for the better part of a day as they drove it around, wordlessly dismissing Judy's offer of assistance with carrying them, even when he was awkwardly balancing them against the side of the house as he dug through his pocket for the key.

Once he managed to get the door unlocked without dropping any of the packages he turned to face Judy and then to her surprise tossed her the key. "Put it on the ring with the Buchatti's, would you?" he said.

When he saw her expression, he added, "I've got a spare," but Judy was looking down at the cold piece of metal in her palm.

She felt as though she had been rooted to the doorstep, even as Nick easily slid past her on the way in, neatly stooping over to drop the boxes off by the inside of the door.

"You trust me with the key to your house?" she asked, before hastening to follow him inside.

Nick didn't immediately answer, turning on the lights and then collapsing into an overstuffed armchair. He gave an exaggerated yawn, his lips peeling away to show off just how many sharp teeth his mouth was full of, and then gestured to take in his parlor. The room was almost entirely empty, except for the armchair he was sitting in and a sofa. Both were upholstered in matching neutral gray fabric and stood on clawed feet of wood so dark they were almost black. The walls were completely bare, although there was a rectangular faded spot on the wallpaper (an almost Impressionist pattern of miniature tropical islands, complete with palm trees, in muted watercolors) that made Judy think that something had hung above the sofa at one time. "It's not like I have much worth stealing," Nick said.

Judy's eyes flicked involuntarily upwards in response. "But what about—" she began, thinking of his collection of records in the little room on the second floor, but he cut her off with a wave of his paw.

"As far as I know, you can't bust me for some records," he said, a slight smile playing across his face, "Or has that changed since '25?"

Judy shook her head as she put the key on the same ring as the one to his car. "Not yet," she said, and Nick chuckled.

The silence that followed was somehow companionable as Judy leaned against the sofa and Nick kept his position in the chair. Even lounging, he still seemed alert, and Judy broke the silence only reluctantly, watching as his ears pricked up at her words.

"We can make an early start tomorrow," Judy said, "See if we can follow up on that Camellac Imperial Sedan with this friend of yours at the DMV."

There still wasn't any evidence proving that the murder of Thomas Carajou was connected to any of the previous ones, but she couldn't shake the feeling that they were close to figuring everything out.

"He's on Otterton's list, too," Nick said.

"And that means he's trustworthy?" Judy asked after yawning.

She felt somehow tired and wired at the same time, and Nick's earlier yawn seemed to be pushing her further towards tired. Nick waggled a paw back and forth. "More or less," he said, and then stifled a yawn of his own.

"You can have the bed," Nick said, "I'm afraid I've only got just the one."

"Oh, no, I couldn't," Judy protested immediately.

Her parents had always drilled the rules of common courtesy into her and her siblings, and while sharing a house with a fox while investigating a murder fell far outside anything they had ever provided guidance for, it still didn't seem right to take his bed and it wasn't as though it would be appropriate to share it. "Wonderful," Nick said, clapping his paws together, as he gave in with no resistance, "I'll get the spare sheets out of the closet. You can have the sofa."

He got up to do just that, and then, seemingly as though he had read her thoughts, he added, "Unless you wanted to share..."

He had thankfully been reaching into the closet as he said it and couldn't see her ears flush in reaction. By the time he had brought the sheets over to the sofa she had fully recovered and was ready to tease him right back. "And I thought you were a gentlemammal," she said, "But you're making me sleep on your sofa? Even after I let you sleep on my bed?"

Nick raised his paws, smiling. "I offered," he said, "You can't say I didn't."

He ambled off to get ready for bed himself and Judy set about making the sofa into her bed. It was more than large enough for her, and was actually more comfortable than her bed had been. By the time she was done, Nick had finished in the bathroom and had emerged changed into what looked like the same bathrobe he had taken the belt from when she had worn one of his shirts as a dress. "Night, Carrots," he said as he made his way up the stairs.

"Good night, Nick," she said, and watched as he vanished into the gloom of the unlit second floor, apparently having no need for the lights.

Once she had finished in the bathroom herself and climbed up onto the sofa and beneath the sheets, it seemed to take much longer than usual for Judy to stop her mind from racing as she tried to fall asleep. She felt powerless to stop herself from tossing and turning, theories and ideas about the case turning themselves over in a senseless flow, until she could hear, faintly coming from the upstairs bedroom, the sound of Nick's gentle snoring. She focused on the rhythm and her own thoughts fell away. It was almost as though Nick were right next to her, and at last she drifted off.

Author's Notes:

The title of this chapter "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee," comes from a 1932 Irving Berlin song written for the musical comedy Face the Music and was chosen in reference to the title of chapter 12, "A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich and You."

Calling someone a billboard was 1920s slang for saying that they had a flashy appearance; I think massive and elaborately engraved horn sheaths made out of silver would qualify.

The sheep at the reception desk's hairstyle being a perm is somewhat fashionable for the 1920s, as shorter hairstyles for women were coming into fashion in the 1920s. Perming is a method of setting hair into waves or curls using heat, chemicals, or both together, and gets its name from being permanent—it affects the structure of the hair and will last until the hair grows out. The perming process was first developed in the 1870s, and advancements in electricity that made electrical heating elements cheap and practical quickly superseded the old method of heating tongs over a fire.

Norma Sheared, as mentioned back in chapter 4, is a pun on Norma Shearer, a real Hollywood actress somewhat popular at the time. As both Sheared and the unnamed officer are sheep, it made sense that the latter might imitate the style of the former.

To say that someone cast a kitten is to say that they had a fit; it's somewhat similar to the more modern usage of saying that someone is having kittens to mean that they're worrying.

I know I say this about just about everything, but fast food is an interesting topic from a historical perspective. In the later part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, advancements in transportation and refrigeration made it practical to ship fresh food long distances, and advancements in mechanization drove down the cost of producing many foods even as synthetic fertilizers increased yields. These factors together made access to a huge variety of cheap foods possible especially in urban areas, and it shouldn't be surprising that the concept of fast food began to develop modeled after the techniques that factories used.

White Castle, for example, was arguably America's first fast food chain, and it was founded in 1921. It was really the start of treating restaurants like a sort of industrial, assembly-line process that could take advantage of relatively unskilled labor to turn out a consistent product in much the same way that Ford could churn out cars. The proliferation of fast food restaurants would accelerate throughout the 1920s, and McDonald's would kick that development into overdrive in the 1950s. I recommend watching The Founder, a drama about the franchising of McDonald's that's a fascinating insight into the company's growth into a juggernaut.

However, the sort of assembly-line restaurant that's still common today wasn't the first attempt at fast food. The automat that appears in this chapter is a real kind of restaurant that really did exist in the 1920s; the first automat opened in 1895. As described in this chapter, automats were essentially cafeterias with a large number of vending machines that pre-made and ready to eat meals could be bought from. In the US, automats were most popular on the east coast and never really caught on in Chicago; Nick's wry observation on the quality of the food is one of the reasons that was blamed for their inability to get a foothold in Chicago, although the restaurant business is a rather difficult one even with high quality food. Automats in the US eventually fell out of favor due to completion from fast food restaurants such as McDonald's and due to inflation making it inconvenient to pay for food that required ever increasing amounts of small change; unlike McDonald's, automats didn't have cashiers who could break a bill.

Decaffeinated coffee did exist in the 1920s, as a decaffeination technique was discovered in 1903. Sanka, which derives its name from sans caféine (which is French for "without caffeine"), was on the market in Europe in 1903 and reached the US in 1923.

Blueberries do, of course, not grow on trees; they grow on bushes.

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