meter maid. True, real life was messy; she knew that. Still, 'messy' was one thing. 'I need a shower in the worst possible way' was another story. "So, what kind of material are we talking about?"

"Nothing illegal – at least not for the Poiss…" he trailed off, studying something else. "Well, actually there is something here on the Poissons that would interest the ZPD," he added, handing the papers to her.

Judy surveyed the records, and it didn't take long for the story to unfold. During his time as a chemist for Arthur Poisson (Olivia's father), Doug had managed to gain a great deal of the skunk's respect and trust. Then Arthur found out that Doug was stealing company secrets and threatened to have him arrested. The sheep, however, had an ace up his wool; during his time in the company, he had used his position to obtain some… well, as Nick had said, some compromising photos of the Poisson family. No actual photos were in the file, but the written information gave Judy reason to be glad for that lapse in Olivia's otherwise thorough record-keeping. Worse, Woolard had had them long enough that there was no telling how many copies he might have, and thus no guarantee of tracking down and destroying them all. Faced with the threat of his family being disgraced and his company losing its edge, Arthur had no choice but to let Doug Woolard off the hook.

Just as Judy was starting to wonder what Nick had meant, she got to the next part. Olivia's brother, Guseppe, learning that the files were stored digitally, had broken into Woolard's apartment with one of the company's top tech support consultants hoping to hack his computer and figure out how serious the problem was. They were caught in the act, and Woolard threatened to have the young skunk arrested. With the two sides now in what amounted to a case of mutually assured destruction, Doug apparently decided he had all he needed and left the company soon after.

"Well," Judy remarked, "that explains why Olivia hated the guy so much."

"Yeah, but she just ratted out her own brother," Nick pointed out.

"Not really," Judy admitted, prodding the paper with a finger. "The statute of limitations on what Guseppe did is expired, so technically the police have nothing on him."

Nick exhaled. "Sly skunk," he conceded.

Unfortunately, the dossier contained no current information to help them track down Woolard as far as Judy could see; just more to add to his charges when they caught up to him. Fortunately – or at least Miss Poisson would no doubt think so – things like corporate espionage and blackmail carried longer shelf lives than attempted burglary.

"Well, you can still chase down the techie for attempted hacking," Nick pointed out when Judy mentioned this.

Judy shook her head. "We've got bigger fish to fry." She neglected to add that, after working with Nick despite his history, she'd feel a little divided chasing down someone who broke the law only to help someone the law wouldn't.

Nick shrugged. "I guess this explains what you said about Olivia Poisson's grudge against Doug," he noted.

"If it's all true," she answered. She didn't want to trust Olivia too far. The skunk gave off too strong a case of bad vibes to be discarded so quickly as a suspect. She'd willingly implicated her own brother, albeit of an expired charge. If she and Woolard had been in cahoots, it would be no surprise for her to throw him to the sharks to save herself.

"Aren't you supposed to treat everyone as innocent until proven guilty?" asked Nick when Judy voiced this thought.

"Technically that's how the courts are supposed to work," she answered, letting her gut do the talking. The truth was, her mind knew Nick had a point.

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