At dawn one late August morning, Gladys Honeysuckle, a hummingbird and gossip columnist for the Shady Hollow Herald, flies her usual route into town. As she passes over the millpond, she notices an unfamiliar shape on the water. She circles lower and realizes she is looking at a dead toad floating belly-up: Otto Sumpf.

Though Otto was known for his bad temper, the sight of his body shocks her deeply. Gladys’s first instinct is to tell everyone immediately, but a small inner voice reminds her to contact the police first. She resolves to calm herself at the office before making the call—but upon landing at the Herald, she catches the smell of strong coffee and realizes the fox has beaten her there.

Vera Vixen, a news reporter for the Herald, is already at her desk when Gladys arrives in unusual silence. Vera quickly coaxes the truth out of her, and Gladys tearfully recounts finding Otto’s body. Seeing a major story, Vera settles Gladys with sugar water and tissues, then grabs her camera and heads to the pond.

She photographs Otto’s body, the damp paw prints along the bank, and a clean, shiny bottle half-hidden in the reeds. She doubts the death is accidental, noting drily that an amphibian drowning is hard to believe. Returning to the Herald, she overhears Gladys already embellishing the account to colleagues. Vera heads to the police station, but Chief Theodore Meade, a slow-moving black bear, is out. She reports the death to his deputy, Orville Braun, a brown bear notably “sharper” than his boss.

Orville accompanies Vera to the pond, rows out, and retrieves Otto’s body. When it is placed face-down on the mud, Vera sees the evidence of foul play: blood seeping from Otto’s back, and a knife handle protrudes from it. It is clearly a murder—the first killing in Shady Hollow, to Vera’s knowledge. Orville vows to find the killer and takes charge of the scene. Vera, shaken but focused, returns to the newspaper, recognizing both the tragedy and the professional opportunity before her.

While the murder unfolds at the pond, business at Joe’s Mug carries on as normal. Joe opens at six and serves his regulars: Howard Chitters, a mouse and chief accountant for the sawmill, who stops in daily for pastries for his demanding boss, von Beaverpelt; and Professor Ambrosius Heidegger, a vegetarian owl who still keeps nocturnal hours and stops by for a bedtime snack. Joe overhears customers mentioning Deputy Orville’s name and senses something is wrong.

Lenore Lee, the raven who runs Nevermore Books, arrives for her usual coffee and scone. She tells Joe she noticed a commotion at the pond and wonders if someone drowned. Joe confesses a deep, inexplicable unease and predicts that the town is on the verge of significant change. Lenore, skeptical that anything could truly disrupt Shady Hollow, leaves for her bookshop—a repurposed grain silo across the street—hoping Vera will come by soon with the full story.

Back at the Herald, Vera develops her film and studies the photographs of the crime scene. Editor BW Stone, having already heard from Orville, wants a full-page story by sundown. Vera heads out to gather facts and finds the town buzzing with gossip. At Joe’s Mug, Joe tells her that the day before, Otto had heated arguments with Reginald von Beaverpelt and Ruby Ewing, a sheep. Ruby came into the café that morning late and visibly haggard. Vera then visits Lenore at Nevermore Books. When Vera says there has never been a murder in town, Lenore corrects her, recounting a killing during the sawmill’s construction.

Their conversation is cut short when, out the window, they see Deputy Orville marching a raccoon named Lefty down Main Street in rope cuffs. Lefty loudly protests his innocence. Orville tells Vera he is only questioning Lefty, whose paw prints were found at the scene. He dismisses her journalism as unimportant.

Stung, Vera returns to Lenore’s shop, and the two examine her photographs together. Lenore spots drag marks, suggesting that the body was pushed into the water from the bank. They identify raccoon, beaver, and hoof prints—too many to single out Lefty.

Returning to the crime scene, Lenore retrieves the green bottle from the reeds. Vera identifies it as a cordial bottle from the Bamboo Patch, a restaurant run by a giant panda named Sun Li. The label is clean and intact, suggesting it was left there recently. They place the bottle in Vera’s bag and head to the Bamboo Patch for lunch, intending to question Sun Li.

Vera and Lenore arrive at the Bamboo Patch, where owner Sun Li greets them and seats them by a window. When Vera shows him the bottle, Sun Li immediately identifies it as a plum wine he sells. He recalls that the last one went to Ruby Ewing earlier that week. He notes that Ruby worked briefly at the restaurant when it first opened and developed a taste for the wine. Vera also asks whether he knew Otto; Sun Li confirms that Otto had dined there occasionally and had tried to sneak out leftovers to reverse-engineer the sauce recipe.

During the meal, Vera notices the von Beaverpelt daughters—Anastasia (Stasia) and Esmeralda (Esme)—eavesdropping from a nearby table. Lenore launches into a loud, distracting complaint about bookshop customers until the sisters lose interest and prepare to leave. As they pass, Esmeralda dismisses Otto as a crank who had insulted them, implying that no one will miss him. The sisters leave abruptly. Vera muses that Otto had a talent for targeting people’s sore spots.

That afternoon, Orville works the case without the chief, who remains absent. He formally identifies the body, gathers evidence, and sends an urgent message by pigeon requesting a medical examiner from a neighboring village. The police station’s two cells are both occupied: one holds Otto’s body, the other holds Lefty, who continues to protest his innocence loudly. Orville privately doubts Lefty killed Otto—his arrest was partly a matter of optics; Orville believes the citizens need to see that something is happening with the case. It also gives him the opportunity to question Lefty about a series of local thefts.

Medical examiner Dr. Solomon Broadhead, an adder, arrives and delivers a startling finding: Otto did not die from the stab wound. The cause of death was poison, the specific type still to be determined. A stunned Orville must reconsider the entire case. He questions Lefty, who insists he is a thief, not a murderer, and had no motive to kill someone with nothing worth stealing. Orville decides to hold him overnight anyway, then goes home exhausted and falls asleep in his armchair.

Meanwhile, Vera races to finish her story at the Herald. BW Stone, gleefully anticipating high sales and a drawn-out trial, hovers over her as the deadline approaches. Vera gets the piece in just as the presses begin to run, then heads home to rest.