priceless. She knew she'd pay for it later, but for the moment she felt it was worth any revenge he might come up with. Besides, he had interrupted her traffic stop.

Nick was still annoyed with her when she got back to the cruiser. "Did you have to call me that in front... I mean, in public?" he complained.

She reached out and pinched his cheek playfully. "Oh, but you look so cute when you blush."

He pushed her paw away. "Ve-ry funny," he complained. "It's not fair to call me that if I'm not allowed to use that word about you."

Judy had to admit he had a point there. "Well, you'll be happy to know I let her off with a warning and the quickest test I could think of just for you, Junior Detective."

Nick was groaning inside, but didn't feel like giving her the added satisfaction of hearing him do it out loud. "You know on the off chance I bump into her later I am never going to be able to face her, right?"

She shrugged. "Well, then I guess getting you her phone number was a waste."

"That," Nick said pointedly, "is not very funny."

Judy just hummed cheerfully to herself.

"Uh, Carrots," Nick ventured, "you were joking, right?"

In response, the rabbit jerked her head as if she had been startled. "Oh, clumsy me!" she said in an exaggerated tone. "I left the tablet unlocked with all her information."

There was no time for Nick to think or do anything except feel a sense of "No!" as Judy reached out and pushed a button on the device, closing the screen.

"Okay," he complained, "that was just mean."

Nick and Judy were still arguing as they made their way into the station, past the chubby cheetah Clawhauser at his usual post - and with his usual array of snacks.

"What's going on?" asked Clawhauser, pausing in the middle of a box of doughnuts.

Judy smirked as Nick gave her a "Don't you say a word" look. "Oh, just having a little fun with Junior here about his new girlfriend."

Nick dragged a paw down the center of his face. "She is not my girlfriend, and would you stop calling me Junior?"

The cheetah's expression fell. "Nick and a girl?"

"A vixen I pulled over," Judy went on relentlessly. Then, out the side of her mouth in a fake-discreet tone, she added, "Not a bad find for a guy like him, either."

Before Nick could express his indignation at the "guy like him" part, Clawhauser's face dropped to one paw. "Aw, there goes the bet with Bogo," moaned the cheetah.

"What bet?" Judy and Nick chorused.

"Well, I bet Bogo that you two would end up dating. He didn't believe it. 'Officer Hopps is trying to get that fox instated as a cop,' he said. 'Wouldn't be so unprofessional' he said."

Judy and Nick both stared at one another. "Well," Nick remarked, speaking for both of them, "that's... just too bad."

"Is that what they think?" asked Judy, fuming as they continued toward Bogo's office. "Is that what everyone thinks?"

"Well don't sound so insulted," Nick countered, folding his arms and putting an edge in his voice.

Judy instantly repented of her tone. "Sorry. I just..." she paused. "I don't know. Does everyone think because we hang out, we're automatically a couple or something? We've hardly even known each other that long."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Well, you just told Clawhauser that Taelia was my girlfriend, and I talked to her once. So how is it unfair for people to make assumptions because a handsome fox is hanging around with a c-"

Judy's paw shot out and wrapped around Nick's muzzle. "Don't say it; we're even."

"Yuh th moff," he mumbled before she let go. With his mouth free, he added, "And I was going to say 'cop.'"

Judy's frown diminished by a tiny fraction, so Nick continued. "Besides, Bogo doesn't think we're a couple – he even said you were too professional for that."

"That's true." This brightened Judy's mood considerably. A compliment from Chief Bogo was like a shooting star – rare, and likely to be missed if you took the time to blink. "Maybe he thinks making us partners would work out after all."

Bogo lowered a folder to the desk. "Sorry, but I don't think it would work out."

"What?" cried Judy. "But Chief, he helped me solve the biggest case this city's seen in at least ten years."

"Fifty, actually," acknowledged the water buffalo, "but I ran a background check on Mr. Wilde here..."

Nick's already bothered expression fell into one of sprouting despair.

"And I turned up a few... suspicious things in his financial history. It's nothing concrete, but this was only a preliminary check. If there is anything of interest, the full background check is sure to turn it up."

Oh, sweet cheese and crackers, Judy thought. It figured; if she had managed to dig that up before she was even in the system, of course Bogo would find the same thing. Fortunately, she had a loophole. "True," she admitted, "but if he works that out with a judge, he can still get in."

Bogo adjusted his glasses. "True, but to get that through he'll need someone high up to vouch for him. City Hall is in a muddle, and the only other official who can get recommend him for an override...is me."

Now, Nick looked positively ill.

"Right now I'm doing you a favor just not bringing out the handcuffs," Bogo went on, looking squarely at the fox. "If I'm going to recommend you for this department, though, it's going to take a little more than that."

"More than helping save the city?" asked Judy incredulously. "What's he supposed to do, stop an asteroid?"

Bogo regarded her with a stony gaze. "I'm sure you'll think of something. Now, Officer Hopps, I think you have a case to get back to."

Judy huffed. "Fine."

Bogo was only left alone for a minute before Judy poked her head back in.

"By the way," she added crossly, "you might as well know you won the bet with Ben."

This news pleased Bogo just a little. "Well, maybe after a few days without doughnuts he'll be able to catch someone."  Normally he wasn't the type to gamble, but he hadn't gotten where he was by turning down opportunities when they literally walked right up to him.

Since Nick wasn't a recognized member of the ZPD, regulations hindered Judy from using the office areas to go over notes with him. Instead, she chose one of the interviewing rooms; quiet little isolated rooms, loosely similar to the ones for grilling suspects in that they were soundproof and were monitored on closed-circuit television. The presence of potted plants and windows, and the lack of a two-way mirror, helped to make the feel of the Dale more pleasant – which was kind of the idea. The interview rooms were generally used for private talks with witnesses, and occasionally in efforts to coax more cooperative suspects into coming forward.

"Okay," said Judy, climbing into a chair at the desk in the middle of the room. She opened the folder, skimmed its contents briefly, and then divided the stack through the middle like a card player cutting the deck. "You look through those, and I'll check these out. Let me know if you find anything interesting."

It didn't take long for either of them to find something worth that label. Judy soon discovered that Doug Woolard had indeed been a brilliant chemist, and not too bad with machines either. He'd fine-tuned a good many of the machines and methods used to concentrate the extract; sometimes so much that there were notes on his designs like, "Rejected; danger level too high."

"Wait, they were concentrating the stuff?" asked Nick, pricking his ears when Judy mentioned this. "I thought you said it was carefully diluted."

"That was Olivia's story," Judy answered doubtfully. It wasn't a solid case for her either, though. Even if the stuff was diluted in the finished product, it would make sense for them to concentrate it for storage and perhaps other stages in the process; juice companies often did the same thing. Still, it was clear enough at least that Pwasson's Passion factories – and perhaps other facilities – did have places where they stored heavy concentrations of nighthowler serum. It also confirmed that working for them had taught Woolard much about how to handle the flowers and their derivatives; perhaps even how to grow them so successfully in a subway tunnel, of all places.

Judy was pulled from her study when Nick let out a low whistle. "Yikes. No wonder she hated the guy."

Judy looked up. Nick's eyes were wide as he stared at his own collection of info. "What is it?" she asked.

He glanced up at her. "You don't want to know."

"Tell me."

He paused for a minute. "Remember your reaction to the Mystic Spring Oasis?"

Judy cringed. "Mind bleach, please." Then, more skeptically, she added, "Is there really something like that in there?"

"Only reports," he admitted, "but suffice it to say Woolard used his opportunities working for the family to get some… compromising material."

Judy spoke slowly and reluctantly, missing for the first time her days as a meter maid.

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