Judy strode through the halls of Zootopia Central Hospital's psychiatric ward, past row after row of blank doors heavier than most in the hospital due to the greater need to isolate individual patients.  As a younger bunny, she had been quite accustomed to hospitals.  Close to three hundred siblings made for quite a few visits, and between them and her own escapades, she'd been practically on a first-name basis with at least half the doctors at Saint Ninian's Tri-Burrow Medical Center.  The center, however, hadn't had a psychiatric ward, since rabbits as a rule tended to be pretty even-keeled.  The sight of such heavy doors, along with some less-than-pleasant memories of visits to this hospital wing's Isolation Unit, made this walk feel rather like her trip down to the Nocturnal District the day before.

Fortunately, she reminded herself, there was one big difference: this time she was on her way to visit someone she'd already met; someone who, she was sure, would be more than glad to see her.  According to the nurse at the front desk, Mr. Otterton was well on his way to a full recovery.  The hospital had decided to extend his stay, along with those of the other patients, for observation purposes.  The nighthowler serum was enough of a departure from ordinary cases that it had been deemed best to play it safe.  So far, however, it looked like some overtaxed adrenaline glands comprised the worst of the long-term damage – hardly a surprising side effect, and nothing the right care couldn't handle.

At room 201, she pushed a button next to the door.

“Good morning, Mr. Otterton,” she called.  “You feel up for a visit?”

“Are you joking?” answered a voice through the speaker a moment later.  “Come on in before I die of boredom!”

Laughing, Judy walked in the door.  The room looked much nicer on the inside; almost homey, in fact.  Soft blue walls, flowers on the table and bookshelf, a soft-glowing floor lamp, a chair near the bed, and even a few wall decorations made it feel more like a bedroom than a hospital room.  To add to this, his family had brought framed photos, a hand-sewn pillow shaped like a fish, and even a fishing pole which stood propped up in one corner next to his oldest son's lucky baseball bat.  Perhaps the most enjoyable detail was the calendar on the wall, with a circle in red marker around Mr. Otterton's predicted home-going date.  Indeed, aside from a few odd bits of equipment and the bed itself, Judy felt like she had stepped into someone's house.

“Well well, Officer Judy Hopps,” the grizzled-looking otter on the bed greeted, smiling with recognition.  After cracking the case and finding Emmitt, Judy had quickly become friends with the whole family – but at the moment, Emmitt was the only one there.  “What's the occasion?”

“Wanted to see how you're doing,” she answered, “and ask a few questions, if you're up for it.”

“Of course, of course,” he agreed, waving to the chair.  “Ask away.”

Judy sat and pulled out a notepad.  Though her smartphone had its advantages (and she always set it to record interviews in case she missed something), she liked the old-school feel of scrawling a pen across paper.  It made her feel like a detective, which – together with getting Nick into a uniform – was her next big ambition, now that she was a cop.

“Have you thought of any reason why you in particular might have been targeted?” she asked.  They'd discussed the question before since, so far, few of the afflicted mammals had any common threads of which to speak.  None of them knew each other or ran in the same circles, and the closest link any of them had to anything Bellwether might have wanted to disrupt – save that Mr. Otterton had worked for Mr. Big in a strictly legal capacity – was that the first polar bear targeted was Koslov's second cousin twice removed.  It was almost as if someone had stood in a room wallpapered with the names of Zootopia's predators, put on a blindfold, and thrown darts around.

Mr. Otterton shook his head.  “Can't think of any,” he confessed.

Judy tried a few more questions, most of which concerned business or political figures whom the ZPD's detectives had listed as perhaps being at odds with Bellwether.  It turned out that for such an innocent-seeming ewe, she'd had a number of grudges with various predators.  Unfortunately, aside from having voted for one or two of the officials, Mr. Otteron had no discernable links to any of them.

Finally, Judy tried her own lead.  “Do you happen to know Olivia Poisson?”

“No... wait, is she related to Arthur Poisson?”

Judy almost jumped out of her chair with excitement after such a long time of blank looks and empty answers.  “Yes, that's the one.”

Mr. Otteron shrugged.  “Well, I knew her father, after a fashion.  He provided most of the initial investment to get my flower shop up and running.”

Judy considered this.  “So Mr. Poisson owned stock in your company?”

“Still owns some,” Mr. Otterton admitted.  “He advised me to buy back enough to get over fifty-one percent, which I did, but I saw no sense in worrying about the rest.  Last I heard, he still owns it.”  To himself, he mused, “Wonder what he's up to these days anyway?”

That doesn't add up, Judy thought.  If Olivia respects her father even half as much as she seemed to when I met her, she wouldn't want to hurt his stock holdings or a company he helped start.

She jotted down a note to look into the ramifications of that question later, then decided to try another train of thought.  “So there's no hostility between you and the Poissons?'

“Not that I can see,” he assured her.  “Why would you....” he trailed off, and his face took on a stunned expression.  “Great Scott!” he uttered in quiet shock.  You don't think I was targeted because of one of them, do you?”

“Just checking all leads,” Judy assured him.  She could see, however, that the insinuation had unsettled him, so she made the rest of the interview brief.  “Thanks for all the help,” she told him in parting.  “I'll keep in touch.”

Mr. Otterton looked worried as he thanked her in turn.  “Judy,” he told her, “whatever's going on here, Mr. Poisson has been a good skunk for as long as I've known him.  I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for him.”

That could be taken a couple of ways, thought Judy, considering her suspicion that Olivia might have been involved somehow in targeting the otter.

“I never knew his family much,” Mr. Otterton continued, “but from what I knew of him, I can't believe any child of his could be a part of what's been going on.”

Judy thanked him and left, hoping he was right and feeling somewhere deep in her bones that he wasn't.  After all, who knew better than she did that sometimes the apple did fall far from the tree?

As she drove from the hospital to the next stop on her itinerary, Judy went over what she knew in her mind.  The way Emmitt described Olivia's father, it sounded as if he considered the skunk more than an investor; an associate at the very least, and maybe a friend.  That didn't necessarily eliminate any chance of a link between Miss Poisson and the nighthowlers, although it made it seem far less likely that she'd had a role in choosing the targets.

Unless of course Olivia didn't share in that connection, she mused.  I wonder if those shares left with her father fell into her paws along with Pwasson's Passion.

She reasoned that if Olivia did have stock in the flower shop, that would have prevented her from wanting to harm the business or anyone involved in it.  Then she thought of something else.  Finance and corporate affairs weren't her forte, but she was pretty sure she remembered seeing a show in which someone tried to arrange the deaths of a bunch of business tycoons, saying that her own shares in their companies would 'triple in value' when the owners died – or something like that, at least.  Granted, the show had been a sci-fi show, but if such a stunt was possible in the real world...

As she was linking one thought to another, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye.  Is that Nick's car?  She maneuvered closer.  Sure enough, it was; she remembered him showing it off the previous week.  He didn't make a habit of driving, but now that he was going on the up and up he wasn't so worried about keeping a low profile.  The car was just his style; a classic convertible, red with a canvas roof, refurbished and outfitted with a 'big league' engine by some feline mechanics over on the outskirts of Sahara Square.  True to form, Nick had managed to pass the bill off to an old associate who owed him a favor.

Of course, all of that was peripheral.  What really interested Judy was what happened when Nick pulled up to the curb.  Conveniently, the light ahead was red, so she stopped and watched through her rear-view mirror as a vixen stepped out and briefly talked with Nick.  Judy had always been good at remembering faces (one advantage of coming from a big family); she recognized the vixen as easily as an old friend.

Well gol-ly, she