Chapter 5
“The Last Dance”
Saving a dozen kids from cages is easy. Getting them all to head back to the orphanage without running all over the place? Yeah, that’s going to be a bit of a challenge. And naturally, they wanted to search the warehouse for ‘neat stuff’, and one adventurous little colt tried to climb up a beam. Thank goodness for alicorn magic, or we’d be down a colt. Once we got out… Oh boy. They wanted to go to Haybale’s or Sugarcube Corner for something to eat and drink. Seriously, we can’t afford to feed all these kids.
“We’re trying to get you back to the orphanage,” Twilight said kindly. “They’ll be sure to have something to eat there.” This was greeted by a chorus of disappointed “awwww”’s. As we moved through Ponyville, we had to keep the girls from running off to pick flowers, or after kittens; and the boys from jumping up on fences to walk atop them, or other equally reckless things… If we have kids, I don’t want more than two or three.
We finally managed to reach the orphanage, two of the colts were on my back as more kids were playing a game of tag and using my legs as an obstacle course.
When we got there, a familiar pair walked outside, the both looked glum. Suddenly Minty broke from the group and ran to them, tears in her eyes. “Momma Lyra! Mommy Bon Bon!” she cried.
Lyra and Bon Bon stopped in their tracks and looked on Minty as she ran to them. Tears flowed freely in both of their eyes as Lyra bent down to pick up the little filly in her forelegs and hug her tight. “Oh Minty! We were so worried!”
Bon Bon nuzzled Minty on the head, “Don’t scare us like that again. Lyra and I feared the worst.”
“I’m okay Mommy Bon Bon,” Minty said, nuzzling Bon Bon lovingly. “I’m fine okay, don’t cry.”
The kids shuffled into the orphanage and Twilight began the process of fixing her feathers. “Twenty two! I lost twenty two feathers thanks to them!”
“Well, maybe they wanted souvenirs?” I speculated. “Think how much your feathers will be worth in a decade or so.”
Twilight just gave me a light shove as Lyra and Bon Bon walked over, Minty lying on Bon Bon’s back, nuzzling with a great amount of love.
“We can’t thank you guys enough,” Lyra said, smiling wide.
“Where were they all?” Bon Bon asked.
“It’s a long story,” Twilight said nervously.
“We’d love to explain it all later,” I said, “But right now, we have to wrap something up.”
“I’m just happy to be with my mommies,” Minty said, hugging Bon Bon.
Oh my gosh, if she keeps this up I’m going to have a heart attack.
I smiled at the parents and said, “Take good care of that one.”
“We will,” Lyra smiled and looked at Minty. “Who wants a lollipop?”
“I do!” Minty cheered as the trio left. They were going to do alright.
Twilight looked at me. “Now you know what we’ve gotta do.”
“Doesn’t mean I like it,” I replied.
“I don’t like it either, but we can’t just let this go without doing something,” she said.
“Let’s make a hospital trip.”
____________________________________________________________
Visiting hours had just concluded, and the hospital was pretty empty. Thankfully there wouldn’t be too many witnesses to this. We were let in, due to being on the case, and we made our way to Tappy’s room. This wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done. She was in one of the few private rooms, due to her trauma. The walls were white, and sterile looking, and the floors were a white tile. Guess that’s one way to make sure that everything was clean.
Tappy herself was laying on the bed, clad in a hospital gown and having her back against the headboard. She looked a little better after having been cleaned up. But her eyes showed she was scarred by the events that transpired.
A large part of me felt bad for what I had to do.
“Tappy?” I said as Twilight and I entered.
She looked at us. “Oh, Private and Twilight, I thought visiting hours were over.”
“Not for a matter like this,” Twilight said gravelly.
“What are you two talking about?” she asked, looking at us.
“We know you were in the warehouse Tappy,” I said.
“But I...” She shook her head. “Why in the name of Celestia would I go there?”
“Because,” Twilight said, giving her a steely glare, “You were meeting with a slaver.”
“A slaver…” Tappy said, in genuine shock. “But no… Ivy said… he was going to give them a good home…”
“Prickly was a slaver,” I said. “You had no idea what he was?”
“I wasn’t meeting with Prickly!” she cried. “I just met with Ivy! She said she was going to give the kids good homes!”
“Then why were you talking with Prickly on the phone in the past few weeks?” I asked.
“I was just trying to connect to Ivy. She was busy and would ask Prickly to make the calls for her. I- I had no idea he was a slaver.”
“Then why in the name of all that is good would you kidnap kids?” Twilight demanded.
Tappy, looked down, ashamed.
It then clicked in my brain why. I slowly said, “It was because the adoptees were going to go to parents in same sex relationships.”
Tappy just kept her eyes down.
“Tappy, why?” Twilight said, looking at her. “Just why?”
“They weren’t going to have happy homes,” Tappy said. “It’s all a joke in the end. It isn’t love that brings members of the same sex together, it’s just plain lust. Once their parents found that out, the poor children would have to live through that.”
“Ivy called to help you with that,” I stated. “She lied, saying she would give them better homes didn’t she?”
Tappy nodded slowly, and then said, “She promised me, she said they would be happy with a mommy and a daddy. That they would have a better life. But it was just another one of her lies in the end.”
“You and Ivy were friends in college,” I pointed out. “Just how close were you two?”
Tappy’s golden brown eyes started tearing up. She wiped her eyes then and said, “She was the love of my life.”
“She was?” Twilight said in shock. “But, Ivy is married! On top of that she just seemed like a mean pony all around!”
“She wasn’t always so harsh,” Tappy said, looking at us. “At one time, she was generous and sweet. She wanted nothing more than to make me the happiest mare in the world. I thought I was in love with her. I thought she felt the same way, after all we shared a night together. So, the next day… I went to buy a ring…”
“She rejected you,” I concluded.
“I was... just a fling to her. She… she said it would be horrible if anypony in her family found out. I tried to get her to see my love was genuine, but she laughed at me. She called me a fool for thinking it could work… I was…” She started crying into her hooves. “I was a fool to trust her again, and now she paid the price…”
“Did you kill Prickly?” I asked.
“It was an accident,” Tappy explained through sobs. “I left that night after picking up Windstrum and taking him there. When I arrived, Ivy was there as usual. We talked, and but when I noticed how rough she handled Windstrum I started to question what was going on. Then Prickly comes out of nowhere, he screamed and yelled at Ivy about ‘betraying his trust’ and then, he came at me with a knife…” She broke down into sobs.
“It was self defense,” Twilight said, looking at me. “She was just trying to protect herself.”
“I- I took his knife,” Tappy said, looking at her hooves. “I don’t know how it happened, one minute I was standing there. The next, I was covered in his blood as Ivy was screaming.”
“That led you to leave, and then dispose of the weapon,” I concluded.
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I tossed it in the trash after I got a hold of myself. I was just, so scared and traumatized I… I took some mageth just to forget what happened.”
“That’s how you ended up at the park,” Twilight concluded. “You were in a stupor and just wandered in there.”
“I- I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Tappy said, crying more. “I just wanted to help.”
“YOU CAN HELP BY DYING!!” A pony screamed from behind us. I turned and saw Ivy was standing in the doorway, a gun held in her pale green magic. It was trained right at us. “Nopony move!”
Twilight slowly turned to look at her. “Ivy, put down the gun.”
“What did I say about moving, you bitch!?” Ivy yelled.
Nopony calls my wife a female dog….
Tappy looked at her former friend, and sobbed, “Ivy, why didn’t you tell me Prickly was a slaver?”
“Think you idiot!” Ivy cried. “Would a goody four hooves like you really want to be a part of getting rid of some rabble?”
“They were kids Ivy!” Tappy cried. “Kids! Your husband was going to sell them to some evil ponies in faraway lands! Don’t you think that there’s something wrong with that?”
“You still are the murderer here!” Ivy said, pointing her gun at Tappy.
“Ivy, put the gun down,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “What would killing Tappy get you?”
“Closure!” Ivy cried. “Tappy ruined my life! Her stupid idea of marriage nearly made me the laughing stock of my family! I was humiliated when my mother found out who I was visiting!”
Tappy spoke up, “They knew?”
“Do you think my family gives a damn about privacy? They’re rich, they just want to know if their daughter is going to get a husband with a mansion attached! I had to have a child to carry on the family name! Being with you wouldn’t have allowed that!” Ivy glared at her former friend. “Because of you I was forced to prove I was straight to my entire family by marrying Prickly! I was on my way to having that child before you killed him!”
“It was an accident!” Tappy implored. “Please, you have to believe me!”
“I’m done listening to you…” Her smile developed in a very creepy way. “I’ll kill you, make you suffer for all you put me throu-”
“You did it to yourself,” I said, boldly getting in front of Tappy.
“You think I’m afraid to shoot a cop? Or a princess for that matter?” Ivy snarled. “In the end you both bleed the same!”
“You try to pin the blame on Tappy, but if it wasn’t for you, she wouldn’t even be in this mess. You decided to start the affair, taking advantage of Tappy just to have a college fling. Then you didn’t have the guts to go through with the love you had. You decided your reputation was more important than what Tappy felt. So you tossed her out.”
“Shut up!” Ivy cried.
I went on, not listening, “Prickly caught wind about Tappy being the one who was providing the kids. He thought you’d squeal or something. So, he came to that warehouse because of you.”
“SHUT UP!! TAPPY KILLED HIM! TAPPY IS THE MURDERER!!” Ivy screamed. “She’s the one who should suffer! She’s the one who should die! I’ll kill all of you! Then I’ll take all those damn kids and sell them to salt mines as cheap labor! I’ll be rich while you’ll all be dead!”
I slowly, reached for my trench coat, opened it to reveal the bug inside. I smiled, “Thanks for the death threat, Ivy. You’ve been most helpful.”
“You bastard!” Ivy swore. “You had a bug on you the whole time!?”
Twilight smirked, and reached into her wings and pulled out a small bug too. “So did I, so in case the worst happened, we’d have at least one that caught you confession.”
“I’LL KILL YOU ALL!!!” Ivy aimed the gun at Twilight, she was about to pull the tr-
NO WAY SHE’S MURDERING MY WIFE!!
My horn sparked for a minute, and the tip of Ivy’s gun sparked as well...the barrel slowly sealed itself…
BOOM!!!
The gun exploded in Ivy’s face and she was thrown back. Tappy screamed as Ivy crashed into the wall from the sheer force of the blast.
Alchemy! I used it just like Voidera taught me! Yes!
I walked over to the now unconscious Ivy and cuffed her slowly, “Ivy Rose, I’m placing you under arrest for willingly taking part in slave trade, attempted triple murder, and breaking a mare’s heart and using her for your own sick gain.” I glared at her, “May Celestia have mercy on your soul.”
“I don’t think you can charge somebody for breaking their heart, Private. There would be a lot of ponies in jail, otherwise. Though the second part? That one she can be charged with. I do think it qualifies as fraud, or willful deception with intent to defraud,” Twilight said thoughtfully. “Either way, she’s going to be in prison for a long time for what she did.”
Tappy, was just sobbing as she looked on her former friend. She just kept saying, “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
___________________________________________________________________
The cops arrived a few minutes later for Ivy and Tappy. Twilight and I stood outside the hospital as Doctor Shelter and Nurse Redheart were nursing head wounds.
“Snuck up behind us when we were taking a coffee break,” Shelter said, putting an ice pack on his horn. “Smacked me with a fire extinguisher.”
“We really need to beef up security around the hospital.” Redheart concluded.
“I’m just glad nopony was hurt seriously,” Twilight said. “Ivy wasn’t exactly in the best of mindsets.”
“She still isn’t,” I said, pointing as Yang was leading Ivy out in hoofcuffs. A small crowd had gathered around, looking on as Ivy was yelling and screaming.
“She’s a MURDERER! A MURDERER! She should be KILLED! Hung, drawn and quartered, and left on display until the vultures had picked her bones CLEAN!” Ivy screamed, frothing at the mouth.
“Yeah Lady.” Yang rolled her eyes. “Just shut up and get inside before I find a reason to buck you to jail myself.” Yang was joined by another uniform and they tossed her in a police carriage. Good thing they took my advice to get two carriages.
Rule #1 never leave suspects alone together. Usually it’s so the suspects won’t come up with a story, and make sure they all get it straight. This time, it’s to keep Ivy from killing Tappy.
I looked at Dunnit as he came walking over. “She’ll be going away for a while. I can’t believe that we had the murderer right there.”
“Don’t worry Dunnit,” I said. “not all puzzles are immediately solvable.”
“I’m worried about this crowd,” Twilight said looking at them. “I can see a lot of parents out there.”
“We’ll keep them back as best we can,” Dunnit said, going to the uniforms to form a barrier. Tappy came trotting out, head hung low, in a posture of utter defeat. She, unlike Ivy, clopped to the carriage without a word.
The crowd angrily shouted at her, curses were thrown and they all tried desperately to get at her. Nopony was happy that she tried to sell their children. I wondered how the information got out so quickly. Then I remembered it was a small town, ponies were tight knit, if something happens, everypony will know about it.
Cheerilee pushed her way to the front. “Tappy!” She yelled, trying to get her friend’s attention.
Tappy just stopped, looked at Cheerilee and said, “Make sure that Scootaloo learns the steps okay?”
“Tappy…” Cheerilee said, tears falling down her magenta cheeks.
Tappy then went into the carriage without another word.
Twilight put a wing over me. “You feel bad too?”
“The worst,” I said, closing my eyes. “I destroyed a pony’s life by finding the truth.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Twilight said. “You and I couldn’t have known what could happen.”
“Even still,” I sighed, “This is, honestly, the worst part of my job. When I have to put hoof cuffs on good ponies who got caught up in something they couldn’t control.”
Twilight just pressed her muzzle into my neck. I could hear her softly sobbing as the weight of what happened got to her. I fought back tears myself as I watched the carriages get pulled away.