“Shady Hollow Message Service!” a voice chattered back. “Important message for Miss Vera Vixen!”
“Oh!” Vera thought of Philomena Ambler. Perhaps the bobcat had already uncovered some new information and sent it down, first by wingmail to the message service office, and then to be delivered personally to Vera’s door.
She opened the door to find a uniformed squirrel standing there.
“What time is it?” Vera asked.
“Half two!” the squirrel replied. “Message for you, Miss Vixen.”
“Go ahead, please.”
The squirrel then recited in a rapid-fire way, “Vera! Get down to the cop shop right now! Meade’s got me behind bars and I ain’t done nothing, and I told him you’d talk sense to him.” The squirrel cleared his throat, adding in its own tone, “Twenty cents, please. Collect message.”
Vera was struggling to understand the words the squirrel had just recited. “Officer Ambler is here in Shady Hollow, and Meade arrested her?”
The squirrel twitched its nose, thinking hard. Then it said, “The message was sent by Lefty, who listed his occupation as honest citizen.”
“Oh. Lefty. That makes more sense.” Vera found a coin to pay the messenger. Of course Lefty wouldn’t be able to pay for it, since he was currently without cash, but oh, no! What if Edward Springfield finally reported the break-in and Lefty spilled the beans? The raccoon was not the most loyal of creatures at the best of times, and if he told the police that Vera paid him to sneak inside the Springfield house to snoop…well, that would make things very awkward with Orville.
She dressed in an outfit suitable for public view, and hurried to the police station, worrying the whole time. The lights inside the station office were blazing, as were the tempers of the two bears yelling at each other.
“I was patrolling the streets, just like I’m supposed to do!” Chief Meade was insisting.
“Patrol schmatrol! You were snooping around my campaign office and had to make an arrest to justify why you were there!”
“Lefty is a criminal!” Meade yelled.
“Everyone knows that!” Orville shot back. “But that doesn’t mean he was doing anything criminal just then!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Vera said, interrupting the argument. “Are you telling me that Lefty was arrested for breaking into Orville’s campaign headquarters tonight?”
“Yes!” they both roared.
“Oh, good,” she said with a sigh.
“How is that good?” Meade asked.
“Uh, never mind. What did he take?”
“Nothing!” Lefty howled from his jail cell. “That’s my whole point! I wasn’t taking, I was giving!”
“Giving what?” she asked, hurrying toward Lefty’s cell.
“The latest flyers for the campaign,” he explained. “They finished printing real late, but I’m a night creature, so I do my volunteering in the wee hours.”
“A likely story!” Meade snorted. “You’re not a volunteer.”
“Uh, he is actually,” Orville corrected. “And if you’d bothered to ask me instead of arresting Lefty and making me wake up and come down here in the middle of the night, you’d know that.” Orville then turned to Vera. “How did you hear about this?”
“I got back from Highbank earlier this evening,” said Vera. “And I’m here because Lefty sent a messenger squirrel to me when he got arrested. Which seems like a good idea, because someone needs to ask some sensible questions right now.”
“Thank you!” Lefty grumbled.
“Ok.” Vera pointed to Lefty. “You were in the campaign office at two in the morning. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And Chief Meade found you there, and arrested you?”
“He didn’t even ask me what I was doing there,” Lefty whined. “Just cackled out loud and cuffed me for breaking and entering. But I was only entering!”
Vera looked at Orville. “Seems to me that all you need to do is confirm that nothing is missing from the office, and that the new flyers are there.”
“And that’s what I will do,” Orville replied. “But I had to rush down here when I heard that Meade had made an arrest! I was so sure he’d somehow caught the murderer we’ve been looking for.” Orville grunted in disgust. “Should have known better.”
Meade looked frustrated, which Vera could understand. He probably thought that he was going to make Orville look bad for catching Lefty on Orville’s home turf, so to speak. She looked over to the prisoner. “I still can’t believe you’re volunteering for a political campaign. What do you care about law and order?”
“Excuse me,” the raccoon said, standing up on the cot of his jail cell to gain enough height to look the bears in the eye, “but politics touches everyone’s life and I have a right and a responsibility to participate in the process. You cops! I bet you think I spend all my time moving merchandise that fell off the docks. I am not just a caricature!” He rubbed his paws together. “Voting is for everybody!”
“You believe in universal suffrage?” Orville asked. “Even felons?”
“Well, sure. Who knows more about what parts of the criminal justice system need reform?” Lefty countered.
Vera tipped her head, thinking about the raccoon’s argument. If Lefty ever ran for council, he might win. “Well, we can debate voting rights in the morning. Now, I think Chief Meade better unlock the cell and allow Lefty to go in peace.”
Meade grumbled, but did what Vera suggested.
“Orville and I will see Lefty safely home,” she told Meade. “And tomorrow is a new day, so let’s everybody act like it. No more one-upping or snooping or fights about sign colors. Just a good, clean campaign. There’s only a few days left!”
The bears looked at each other and grudgingly agreed.
Soon after, Vera and Orville escorted Lefty out of the police station. The raccoon took a big breath of air when he got to the street. “Oh, freedom!” he said. “I knew you were the right fox to send for, Miss Vixen.”
“You’re lucky I got back to town when I did. And you owe me twenty cents for the collect message.”
“Oh sure. Pay you tomorrow…or
