At first there was no answer, so Rarity waited for a few moments and then knocked again. She knocked three times each, but on her second knock, she heard the door unlatch and pulled her hoof away just in time to witness it swing open into the apartment. She was met with a very average looking earth pony, a mare who had a cream white coat, a purple and pink mane that seemed to be split right down the center, and who looked at her with curious, yet seemingly kind blue eyes.
“Yes?” the mare asked, “Can I help you with something?”
Rarity used her magic to pull her badge off the side of her coat and levitate it up to the mare just long enough for her to get a good look at it. “Detective Rarity,” she introduced herself as she tucked her badge back into its slot, “and this is my assistant, Spike,” the dragon peered around her to look at the mare. “I’m here on behalf of the Las Pegasus Police Department madam. Would it be alright if I stepped inside?”
The mare was visibly surprised and confused, but after only a second of thought, she replied, “Of course,” and stepped aside so that Rarity and Spike could enter. She closed and locked the door behind them and turned to face Rarity. “Is there something I can do for you? Can I get you a drink?” she asked with a slightly worried tone, but retained her warm and friendly demeanor.
Rarity dodged her question and instead asked, “Is there anywhere comfortable that we can talk?”
“Yes,” she replied, “right through here is the living room.” She then walked briskly ahead and led the two into a very spacious and luxurious looking living room. The floor inside, much like throughout the rest of the apartment, was a very fine oak, and in the center of the room were two plush sofas that faced each other and that were divided by a coffee table. She sat down on the one sofa and looked at the two, now very visibly worried.
“May we?” Rarity nodded at the sofa.
“Oh, yes,” the mare nodded anxiously, eager to find out why a law enforcement official and her assistant was in her home, “of course. I’m sorry.” She offered up a slight smile and waited for the two to sit down before she asked, just as anxiously, “Now, please, what is this about?” Her eyes moved quickly between Spike and Rarity.
Rarity sighed and then looked the mare in the eyes. She hated this part of her job, telling the friends and family of a victim that they would never see their loved one again. One could never tell how the news would be reacted to, but it was almost never pleasant, not that it should be. On top of that, it was sometimes a very difficult task to remain level headed and professional in the midst of all of that emotion. Still though, it had to be done.
“Before I answer your question, may I first ask your name?” Rarity asked and pulled out her notepad.
“Oh! Yes, forgive me,” the mare replied and adjusted herself on the sofa, “my name is Bonbon.”
“Thank you,” Rarity jotted the name down. She was quiet for a moment and then asked, “Now, are you familiar with a Miss Lyra Heartstrings?”
The color drained from Bonbons face, and she gulped before answering. “Y-yes, I am. Why? Is she OK?” A shiver could be heard in her voice.
“This isn’t easy for me to say ma’am, it never is, but… I’m afraid I must inform you that Miss Heartstrings was found deceased this morning,” Bonbon gasped and tears started to well in her eyes, and her head shook as Rarity eventually finished, “and… there is strong evidence of foul play.” Bonbon finally broke down and cupped her head in her hooves so that she could sob. Rarity gave her a few moments to grieve, and Spike looked away from the sorrowful scene while he tugged at the collar of his shirt. After some time passed and Bonbon tried frantically to compose herself, Rarity gently pressed, “I know that it’s hard ma’am, I know,” she spoke with the tone of a concerned mother, “but I do have some questions for you, and your answers may prove very valuable to the investigation.”
Bonbon tried to control her emotions as best she could, but she was clearly upset a great deal. She was only able to nod her head a few times as she reached over and pulled a tissue from the box that was on the table next to her. Before she pressed even further, Rarity decided to allow her some more time to dry her eyes and blow her nose. “I-I’m sorry…” she managed to mumble afterwards and pull another tissue.
“No, no, it’s quite alright. There’s no need to apologize. I… understand that this is very difficult news to hear,” Rarity responded with her still-gentle tone. “Me and my assistant would like to give you some time ma’am, but in that time, would it be alright if we had a look around?”
Bonbon silently nodded once more, and could only bring herself to manage a simple, choked, “Yes.”
Rarity thanked her, and with a gentle smile, stood up. She indicated for Spike to follow her, and the dragon took the hint. Rarity moved her eyes around the living room, looking for anything that might be of use to her in the case, and tried to tune out Bonbon’s sobs in the process. After some moments of looking around, she concluded that there was nothing of much use to the case in the living room and opted to search the rest of the house. Spike followed her and together they combed over every inch of the spacious condominium.
The large, furnished kitchen complete with connected dining room was the first stop, as it was directly parallel to the living room. The table and countertops were looked over and the drawers were pulled open and their contents inspected. Even the stainless steel sink with its ornate controls and the multifunction oven were given a thorough examination by Rarity and her scaly assistant. When those rooms ultimately yielded nothing though, the two moved on to the other rooms. They searched for anything, no matter how big or small, that might help them paint a picture of the real Lyra Heartstrings and possibly even give them an idea as to why her life taken so prematurely from her. However, like the laundry room, bathroom, and makeshift office before them, the rest of the downstairs rooms turned up nothing. In that moment, it seemed like the hope inside of her was falling while the frustration inside of her was building as Rarity entertained the idea that she might not find any useful evidence at all in the apartment. However, those thoughts were quickly quashed when the two moved upstairs.
The upstairs portion of the apartment was fairly simple, but Rarity and her tasteful eye couldn’t help but notice the beautiful elegance of it at the same time. Once at the top of the stairs, there was a hallway which led off to the left and to the right. A little offset to the top of the stairs was an open door which led into a bedroom, and she knew that before she even reached the top of the stairs. Rarity knew the layout well, for her apartment building had the same layout. Residents on the lower floors, such as herself, had only one floor apartments, that, in Rarity’s opinion, were generic in every sense of the word, but which fulfilled their purpose nicely. Wealthier residents on the upper floors, however, were given two floor apartments with a more luxuriously appointed interior. She knew this because whenever she would find herself with a little free time, which was hardly, she would often find herself invited up to Miss Harshwinny’s apartment, which sat two floors above hers, for tea.
However, as nice as it was to stand and admire the similarities in housing arrangements, Rarity knew that she had to stay focused on the task at hand. Without a moment of hesitation, she proceeded forward into the bedroom with Spike close behind. At almost the precise moment she set hoof inside of the bedroom, she noticed several things that caught her attention and piqued her detective’s intuition. The most obvious thing, and perhaps the oddest too, were the multitude of small, black jewelry boxes that seemed to adorn every available space inside of the room. Some were open, and some were closed, but the ones that were open were shown to contain some of the most beautiful jewelry that Rarity had ever laid her eyes on. Horn rings, necklaces, earrings, and gems of all shapes and sizes and constructs. Some of the pieces sat freely, either laid out flat on the nightstand or draped over bed posts. Directly to her left was a large oak bureau with a crystal clear mirror attached to it, and the small black boxes mingled with loose articles to cover practically every inch of its flat top. Slowly, Rarity turned to move in for a closer look.
“Well…” Rarity began, smitten with the beauty of the pieces, “Somepony is certainly quite the collector of the finer things in life, and with such exquisite tastes too.” Her eyes scanned over the open boxes and their contents, and then moved up to see the necklaces and bracelets that were hanging from the ornate pattern that was carved into the wood around the mirror. A dim light came in from the closed shades, but the jewels were so fine and pure that they glistened like diamonds in a mine shaft that was just exposed to the light of day, and if the pieces on the bureau didn’t do the job themselves, the rest of the jewels gave off a glisten that seemed to illuminate the room better than any light ever could. Some of the crystal and diamond pieces were so striking in fact that it made the fashionista detective burn with desire and the mouth of her dragon assistant drool. In the midst of all her admiration though, her eyes and head stopped moving when she saw the two picture frames that were flanking the neatly arranged line of black boxes. She picked up one of the frames and examined the picture inside of it more closely.
“Spike,” she called her dragon assistant and his grumbling stomach over, “come take a look at this.” He came over and stood up on his tiptoes to get a good look at the picture that Rarity had levitating in the air. “That’s her all right,” Rarity examined the picture of a beautiful, smiling Lyra who was adorned with several necklaces and had two exquisite-looking pairs of earrings in her ears. “That’s our victim,” she showed the picture to Spike with a sigh, “and I’m willing to bet that all of this is hers.” Rarity again looked all around the room and surveyed the countless number of black velvet and fine wooden jewelry boxes, and the loose articles themselves.
“I guess she was quite the collector, huh?” Spike commented as he too examined the room once more.
“That, my dear, is an understatement,” Rarity replied and then put the frame back in the spot it had been in, only to pick up the other one. “Look at this one,” she looked at the picture herself before then showing it to Spike. Inside the frame was a photograph of Lyra and Bonbon, wrapped around each other in a warm embrace and smiling. It was very apparent that Bonbon was close to Lyra. “She must be a very dear friend,” Rarity commented and then put the frame down, “poor dear.” She then listened intently for a moment, only to be able to still make out the sounds of Bonbon’s sobbing downstairs. She then scanned her eyes over the collection of jewelry one more time, more absent-mindedly than anything, but stopped when she noticed one of the smaller black boxes, this one a perfect square, resting opened and empty. She hummed to herself and then moved briefly to look at the rest of the jewelry boxes and cases in the room.
She inspected the boxes that were on top of the chest at the foot of the bed, covered the window sill, and lined the elongated dresser which rested against the back wall. All of them had one thing in common: They were closed, and when opened, they contained their respective pieces. Rarity returned to the bureau and levitated the small box up towards her. Having had her own modest collection of jewelry, Rarity could tell what kind of box it was just by looking at it. “This earring box is empty,” she showed the empty box to Spike. She even checked under the plush lining to see if they had been hidden there, but alas, nothing but emptiness.
“You think that that’s the box that the missing earrings were in?” Spike asked.
“It’s a possibility,” Rarity replied and then pulled out her notebook to take some notes on the box, “but I can’t help but feel like it is. We’ll have to see if Miss Bonbon can tell us anything about the earrings and this box, and if she can’t, see if she can tell us of somepony who can. She wasn’t wearing any earrings when we came inside, so just how many other possibilities could that leave? One, they are or aren’t hers and have merely been misplaced, two, they’re being cleaned or repaired, or three, they belong to Miss Heartstrings and are now in the possession of her attacker.” She noted the jeweler name on the lid on the inside of the box, and whispered it as she wrote it down, “Jeweler Joe’s Diamond Emporium.” The name did sound familiar to her, but she didn’t know of an address so she would have to check with police resources after she finished having a chat with Bonbon.
“I don’t think anypony will mind if we take this for evidence,” Rarity muttered after she finished taking her notes. She used her magic to place the small black velvet box in a baggie which she then put in the same saddlebag as the rest of the evidence that she had collected. Afterwards, she moved to observe the rest of the room with Spike to assist her. Before she could even start to look into the small things, however, the next big clue jumped out at her when she got her first good look at the bed. “Very curious,” she commented both to herself and to Spike as they looked over the bedspread. The luxurious silk sheets seemed to be split right down the center, with one side being ragged and showing signs of being slept in recently, while the other side was perfectly folded over and made up. While Rarity couldn’t quite put her hoof on it, there was just something odd about how the bed was made up on that left side. It was a little too perfect. It wasn’t just made up, it was undisturbed. “It looks like only one pony has been sleeping in a bed and a bedroom made for two,” Rarity commented and then scratched down some of her observations, “and it looks like this one side hasn’t been slept in in quite some time.”
The two looked over the bed for a few more moments and then moved on to search over the rest of the room. Jewelry of some kind could be found in every nook and cranny, of course, but other than that, there was little more evidence of worth inside of the bedroom. “I’ll check this room over here,” Spike informed Rarity as the two of them exited out of the bedroom. He pointed to his left at the closed door that was just past the top of the stairs and not but a few paces from the two of them.
“Alright,” Rarity nodded, “I’ll go check the bathroom down here, and then I’m going to head into that guest room.” She doubted there would be anything of use in the bathroom, there hardly ever was when the home itself wasn’t the scene of the crime (in which case the bathroom usually contained most of the evidence), but still, her investigative procedure called for every room to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. Even the contents of the smallest trash can in the smallest room could prove invaluable to leading to the capture of a suspect.
The two then walked away from each other, and with Spike only a few paces from the door at the end of the hallway he was the first to reach his destination. When he opened the door he was surprised to find that the room was not actually room at all, but was in fact a closet. Naturally, the first things to meet his eyes were a bunch of clothes that looked like they hadn’t been worn in quite some time, and some miscellaneous housekeeping items such as a duster and vacuum were inside as well, but he knew that it should be checked nevertheless. He couldn’t really see what was up on the top shelf, but when he backed away from the door and craned his head up while he stood on his tiptoes, it looked to hold nothing more than folded up towels and sheets. He walked back closer to the closet, almost inside of it then, and knelt down to examine the floor level. There were some old shoes down there, which, like the clothes above them, looked as if they hadn’t been worn in a very long time, and a few small cardboard boxes that appeared to contain nothing but assorted and forgotten junk. He placed the lid on top of the second and final box of junk that he pulled out, huffed a sigh, and pushed it back inside of the closet where he had found it. He only wished that he could be of more help to Rarity, but it looked as if there was absolutely nothing inside that could be of use to her or her investigation. That is, until he happened to spot what appeared to be a bulge in some sort of cloth in the darkest, most rearward corner of the closet.
He moved a little further inside of the closet and then leaned his head in to get a better look. He wondered if his eyes might have been deceiving him in the low light, but that all changed when they were given a moment to adjust and he was afforded a better look. It was then that he discovered that there was indeed something hidden beneath some black cloth. He pulled on the cloth which, he discovered, was actually a black dress, and it came floating right into his claws. He placed it on the ground beside him and looked at the corner. There, his eyes met with another cardboard box, this one just a little bit larger than all of the others that contained all of that junk. Could this one simply contain junk too? He wasn’t sure why, but he felt compelled to look over his shoulder and make sure that nopony was there before pulling it out of the corner and into the light.
When he pulled the top off of it, he was surprised to find not the junk he had been suspecting, but folders upon folders of various documents. He thumbed through them for a few moments before calling out for Rarity. “Hey Rarity!” he called down the hallway, “I think I found something! Come look at this!”
Within a matter of moments, the detective came bounding out of the bathroom and came to a halt beside her dragon assistant. “What is it Spike?” she asked him as she surveyed the black dress and the opened cardboard box, “What did you find?” She lowered herself to be more even with him.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, “A bunch of… folders and papers.” He pulled one of the documents out, a very official looking piece of paper, and flipped through it before placing it back where it had been. “I don’t know if it’s important or not, but those two boxes,” he pointed at them, “they’re just full of junk, and they weren’t hidden like this one was.”
“Hidden? What do you mean it was hidden, Spike?”
“Well,” he picked up the black dress, “that’s where this comes into play. It was on top of this box, and it was shoved way back there in the back.” He pointed at the spot where he had uncovered the box of documents.
“Hm…” Rarity hummed to herself and rubbed her chin, “Let me see something.” She then righted herself up to her full height and backed a few paces away. She observed the corner and found that it was indeed practically hidden, if not by the narrow doorway, then by the dresses and coats that hung down a considerable distance. She walked a few paces closer and kept her eyes glued on the same spot. Just as she had suspected, the corner was just as hard, if not more difficult to see whenever she was right up at the entrance to the closet. With a dress that dark covering something in an already hard to see corner, one would truly have to be looking for it to discover it. There was no doubt in Rarity’s mind now that whatever was inside of that box was deliberately hidden away.
“Good job Spike!” she smiled warmly and congratulated him on his find, “You did excellent!” She sat down beside him and moved to examine some of the documents. He couldn’t help but blush as he made way for her.
At almost the exact moment she pulled the first document out from the front of the neatly arranged files and folders within the box, Rarity could feel that she was going to discover something sinister within. On the first document she pulled out, the first, most obvious thing that she noticed was a large, bright red stamp that read “EVICTION NOTICE.” Shockingly, it was for the very address in which she stood, but even more alarming, the date printed on it was only two weeks ago. Eager to find out if there was anything more, Rarity put the document back into its spot and pulled out the folder behind it. Inside, various letters, cards, and official-looking documents complained of bounced checks, threatened legal action, and demanded immediate payment.
“Why, Spike,” Rarity began as she flipped through document after document, “you’ve uncovered a treasure trove of evidence here.”
“Ah,” Spike waved his hand modestly, “Don’t mention it.”
Rarity stopped her searching just long enough to smile at him once again, but briskly went back to looking through the documents. As she progressed through the folders and loose files, she noticed that the dates were going from most recent to oldest, and by the time she reached the last folder and its contents, she had looked through close to an entire year’s worth of somepony’s financial troubles, seven months to be precise. Practically every folder that she had examined contained the exact same documents as the folder in which she had first examined. All in all, there were a little over three hundred letters and documents that informed of missed payments and damaged credit, threatened legal action, or demanded money, and, to boot, a staggering ten notices of eviction.
There wasn’t enough time for her to sit there and study the documents, but she tried to record as much information as she could. After some minutes passed, and she had taken all the notes over the box and its contents that she could, Rarity finally closed her notebook and stood back up.
“I hate to give you busy work Spike,” she said as she tucked the notebook back inside of her saddlebag, “but I need you to start going through all these records and cataloging what all is in there and just how many of each there is. Can you do that for me?”
Spike, while he did hate busy work, wasted no time in accepting the task for Rarity. “Aye aye cap’n!” he responded and then comically saluted before pulling his own notebook and pencil out, and then the first folder as well.
“Thank you Spike,” she said to him and then gave him a peck on the head, “You’re the best partner a detective could ask for.”
Spike blushed deeply but tried to remain cool and collected. “Yeah…” he grumbled, smitten with his gift, “D-don’t mention it.”
After she let out a giggle, Rarity looked down the stairs towards the living room and returned to her no-nonsense demeanor. “In the meantime, I’m going to finish looking the place over and then have a little chat with Miss Bonbon.” She looked away and scratched her head, “Maybe she can shed some light on this peculiar mess.”
With that, Rarity then turned around and left Spike to do his task. There hadn’t been anything of interest in the bathroom, so all that was left for her to examine was the guest bedroom. As she walked down the hallway, and even when she entered into the room, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about those records and all of the possibilities that they could imply. When she was all the way inside of the room, she shook those thoughts out of her mind as best she could and proceeded to look around.
The room in which she stood was very plain, and it was somewhat musty. It was apparent that nopony had been inside of it for quite some time, but still, it was worth a look. There was almost no furniture inside, aside from a bed against the back wall and a single dresser that was against the wall to her left. The room was so small, in fact, that it didn’t even have its own closet. She approached the dresser first and pulled each of the six drawers on it open one by one from the top down only to reveal that there was nothing inside. However, just as she closed the sixth and final one on the bottom left, something caught her eye which then prompted her to reopen it. Inside, there was a dreary looking white sheet that looked like it had been hastily folded and then practically thrown down inside. Just on a whim, Rarity slid her hoof underneath and peeked underneath the sheet. What was underneath filled her with even more interest. She pulled the sheet out and let it float to the ground to then discover that it looked as if somepony had cut some sort of compartment in the bottom of the drawer. She inspected it more closely and saw that there was indeed a perfectly cut incision in the form of a rectangle. She knocked on the side of the exposed drawer while she listened intently. A small echo that met her ears told her that the drawer itself was indeed hollow.
She looked inside of the opening one more time to survey the cut. There was no hole or pull string on the rectangle, so the first step would be to try and figure out just how to open it up. She surveyed the drawer from side to side and from front to back, but still saw nothing that would hint to her how to open the secret compartment. Suddenly though, an idea struck her. She placed her hoof gently atop the cutout shape and wiggled it a little bit. There was a tiny bit of play in it, so insignificant in fact that if she hadn’t been paying complete attention she wouldn’t have noticed it, but it had moved nonetheless and she was sure of it.
She rubbed her chin and then whispered to herself, “Maybe you just… lift it off?” She used her magic to grasp onto the compartment door and give it an easy pull. Sure enough, it came right off. Absolute genius. A compartment that only a unicorn could open.
Rarity laid the thin piece of wood on top of the white sheet and then peered down inside of the opening. Even more curious than the makeshift compartment itself were the contents within. Inside and almost perfectly aligned with the opening was a small stack of books, three to be precise. Again, using her magic, Rarity pulled the books out one by one and sat them on the inside of the drawer. Now that they were in the dim light, almost instantly, Rarity recognized them as not being books, but rather diaries. More specifically, the exact same kind of diaries as the one that she had removed from Lyra’s saddlebags at the crime scene. Taking care not to jump to conclusions though, Rarity pulled the one diary from her saddlebag and examined it closely alongside one of the others. Just as she had suspected it would be, it was a perfect match; Binding, color, number of pages, and all.
Her curiosity piqued, and her hopes of finding another clue within their pages alive and well, Rarity flipped open the cover to the first diary. The first thing she examined was the date, and she discovered, as she had presumed, that these were old diaries and that this was Lyra’s “secret stash”.
“Why are these hidden though?” she asked herself quietly, and rubbed her chin once more as she closed the book and flipped it around in her hoof. She had heard of ponies, especially ladies, keeping their diaries and hidden thoughts in safe, hidden places, but this seemed to just be taking it too far. Hidden financial records one moment, and then hidden diaries the next? Rarity wasn’t sure what the whole story was just yet, but she couldn’t help but feel that of all the things that this posh urban apartment contained, trust wasn’t one of them.
She reopened the diary and flipped through the pages quickly, and then did the same with the other two. As she had expected, the diaries were full cover-to-cover. She knew that she didn’t have the time to sit there and read them from beginning to end, but on that same token, she didn’t feel quite right about removing the diaries from their hidden place and claiming them as evidence. To her, it almost felt like wrongly exhuming the remains of somepony. While these books weren’t Lyra, they were her stories and emotions, and they had every right to now rest in peace just like their author. In her mind, to desecrate these books would be to desecrate the author. She took a deep breath and then picked up the first diary that she had initially had in her magical aura. Thankfully, years of detective work, countless nights of research at the library, and, as much as she hated to admit it, a few years of doing patrol for the LPPD awarded her the gift of being able to skim over pages upon pages of information and weed everything out that wasn’t relevant or important.
As quickly as she could, Rarity started to skim through the pages of each book. Her eyes moved over the pages so fast, anyone else simply wouldn’t be able to keep pace, but alas, her mind moved as quickly as her eyes and absorbed all of the information that it was given. Finally, with only five minutes or so having passed, Rarity closed the back cover to the third and final diary. Unfortunately, as she had feared, the journals gave her practically no information that was relevant to her investigation. However, they did paint a very vivid picture of Lyra as she had been, in happier times. Like the picture that was inside of the wallet inside of her saddlebag, Lyra’s diaries revealed her to be a kind, generous, loving, and full of life, in every single aspect of the word. Perhaps a little oddly, Rarity noticed, Lyra spoke little of her home life and personal history, but always had a story to tell about her experiences with the orchestra, her time with Bonbon, and, of course, her taste for some of the finer things in life. So while these books hadn’t given her any information relevant to the case, they had reminded her just exactly what she was fighting for.
Once Rarity had closed the final diary and placed it down, she looked at all three of the books that were laid out before her. She knew that it would be wisest to take the books and actually read through them one by one, on the off-chance she missed anything, but admittedly against her better judgment, she concluded not to take them. “I’m not going to take them from you darling,” Rarity whispered to the nothingness in the room, “not today. Not ever.” Then, using her magic, she silently stacked the three books exactly as she had found them, and then gently placed them back into their hollow, wooden tomb. She then placed the wooden cover back where it had been and then folded the white sheet properly so that it would completely cover the bottom of the drawer. Once she placed the sheet inside, she quietly pushed the drawer closed and turned to walk away. However, she took only a few steps away from the wooden bureau before she stopped.
In a final act of solemnness and respect that she felt paid homage to the deceased, Rarity turned around and opened the drawer one more time. She lifted up the sheet inside and then silently cast a spell at the rectangular door inside which bound the cut wood to the rest of the inside of the drawer, and effectively sealed the hidden compartment. The spell even took away any evidence of there ever being a rectangle cut into the bottom of the drawer. Lyra had very obviously never intended those diaries to be read by anypony other than herself; she had hidden them inside of a secret compartment in an abandoned room, and the detective couldn’t help but feel obligated to fulfill her wish. Rarity heaved a sigh, smiled ever so slightly to herself, and then closed the drawer with a gentle nudge.
Afterwards, a solemn Rarity who was able to keep her graceful composure turned back around and moved to examine the rest of the tiny room. Naturally, she moved a few paces forward to observe the only other piece of furniture in the room: the bed. When she was standing right beside it, she scanned her eyes up and down it looking for anything of interest. All except for, or at least what Rarity believed to be, a once grand pillow that appeared to have lost its grandeur long ago, and a thin, dusty sheet atop it, there was absolutely nothing to be found. She lifted up the mattress with her magic, examined the underside of the mattress and the wooden platform atop which it rested, and even got down on her stomach to look underneath of the bed, all to no avail. She stood back up, dusted the front of her coat off, and then looked around the rest of the room rather absent-mindedly. She already knew that she would find nothing more inside of the abandoned room with its hidden memories.
Afterwards, she left the room just as silently as she had entered it and closed the door quietly behind her. She had looked over all that she could, and Spike had too, so now all that was left to do was talk to Bonbon. At the end of the hallway, Rarity saw Spike still working diligently on his task. She couldn’t be too sure from where she stood, but it looked like he had made a good bit of progress. Either way, that wasn’t what was on her mind as she walked towards him. Time seemed to slow down for her as she found herself stuck with thoughts of Lyra in her mind. While she didn’t know her personally, those diaries had painted such a detailed picture of her that Rarity couldn’t help but feel as if she knew her. As she walked slowly down the hallway, she found herself to be conflicted over the diaries and her actions. She wondered if she had been wrong to hide them away where no one would ever be able to read them, or even if she should have read them in the first place. On the other hoof, she couldn’t help but entertain the idea that those diaries were deliberately hidden away, in such a fashion that were never intended to be found by someone other than Lyra. It made sense either way, but in that final moment before Rarity took that final step that would place her right next to Spike, she felt like she had made the right call. The diaries of Lyra could rest in peace just as their author now did.
“Just about done here Rarity,” Spike commented as he counted a few documents with his index claw and wrote down the number. His voice shook Rarity out of her deep, timeslowing thoughts and made her push all of them to the back of her mind so that she could focus on the task at hand.
“Excellent darling,” she smiled at him, “you’ve just saved ourselves a lot of work. However, I think it’s time we interviewed Miss Bonbon. We’ve given her all the time to grieve that we can, and we can’t risk losing any valuable information that she might have.” Rarity then craned her head just slightly outwards and listened intently. It was deathly quiet now, and the sounds that had been Bonbon’s sobbing were now replaced with quiet, sorrowful sniffles.
“Right,” Spike agreed and stood up. He pulled up the folder that he been working on so that it would act as a marker, and then tucked his notebook inside of his jacket pocket. “I’m ready when you are.”
With that, the duo walked down the stairs and entered back into the living room. Bonbon held a tissue, damp with tears, tightly in her hoof and had her head laid over on the side of the couch. “Ma’am,” Rarity announced herself and Spike gently as she entered, “I believe we’re ready to ask you those questions, if that would be alright?”
Bonbon looked up at them rather quickly, startled by their sudden entrance into the living room, but eventually sat back upright and, in a quiet, broken tone responded, “Yes… of course.”
“Thank you,” Rarity responded gently as she sat down directly across from her. She pulled out her notebook as Spike climbed up into the spot beside her and subsequently followed suit. “Now…” she began slowly and then cleared her mind with the flip of her mane, “let’s start with the basics, shall we? Tell me, Miss Bonbon, what is your relation to Miss Lyra? Sister? Cousin? Very dear friend I presume?”
Bonbon remained silent as she patted her eyes dry, but even after she did so she was reluctant to answer the question. Rarity could tell so because of the way she noticed Bonbon’s eyes moving, and the blush that spread across her face. Before she had the chance to coax an answer out of Bonbon though, the mare spoke up. “She… she’s my wife…” she managed, more silent tears following shortly afterwards. “W-well, in practice anyway…”
“Oh!” Rarity found herself struck with surprise. “My apologies.”
Then, for the first time since Rarity and Spike had entered into the apartment, a small, albeit short-lived smile spread across Bonbon’s lips. “It’s quite alright,” she said as she pulled another tissue, wiped her eyes and blew her nose, “Excuse me. I know it isn’t ideal.”
“Ah, well,” Rarity nodded her head, offered a small smile, and then made a note of Bon-bon’s relation to Lyra, “it isn’t my place to judge ma’am.” Two mares carrying on a relationship while actually living together certainly was an oddity, and a unique experience for Rarity personally, but, as she had clarified, it wasn’t her place to judge, nor did she intend to do so. Everypony, no matter who they might be or what kind of life they chose to lead deserved justice, and Rarity believed that firmly. Lyra Heartstrings was no exception to this rule. After she finished noting Bonbon and Lyra’s relation, she adjusted herself in her seat and pressed forward with the questions.
“Tell me a little bit about Lyra. Her job, for starters, other family too. Interests. Anything you can think of or that you believe is useful.” Rarity felt it best to ask about the trivial things first, as it would help to not only paint a more detailed picture of the kind of pony that Lyra was, but of Bonbon and her character as well. Along with that, it would also ease Bonbon, or whomever else might be under Rarity’s investigative microscope, into the interview process and put them more at ease with her.
“Well…” Bonbon began by clearing her throat, “Lyra is from Canterlot, like me. We met each other a couple of years ago, and one thing just led to another and we moved out here.” Again, a small, very short-lived smile spread across Bonbon’s lips as she stared blankly at the wooden floor, apparently very deep in memory. After some moments of reminiscing though, she was able to pull herself out of it and continue answering the detective’s questions. “Even before I met her, Lyra was a part of the Canterlot Royal Orchestra. She could play just about any instrument you gave her, but she was particularly gifted with the lyre, as you can probably imagine.”
“Indeed,” Rarity commented as she and Spike scribbled down what they had heard, “I don’t doubt for a moment that she was very talented, Miss Bonbon.” The two shared a smile and then Rarity pressed, “But please, do continue.”
“Her family lives back East, in Canterlot. Oh…” she looked sorrowfully back down at the ground and choked, “They’ll… they’ll be devastated.”
“I understand. Would you happen to know their names and of any addresses? I believe it’s best if we got word to them as soon as possible. I’m sure you understand.”
“You’re right…” she gulped, “I don’t know off the top of my head to be perfectly honest with you, but Lyra always made sure to write them at least once a week. They would write her back and she would keep the letters in a basket in the dining room. You’re welcome to them.”
“Thank you,” Rarity nodded at her and then looked over at her partner. “Spike,” was all she had to say before the dragon nodded at her and jumped down off of the sofa, headed for the dining room so that he could record the names and addresses on the letters. Furthermore, he knew that it would be his task to read the contents of the letters and report to Rarity if he found anything “troubling” in there, but they wouldn’t reveal that part to Bonbon, of course.
Once he was out of the room, Rarity turned her attention back to Bonbon and readied her pencil once more. Intuition and observation told her that Bonbon was now more at ease with her and felt it safe to try her chances with more direct questioning. She remembered all of the jewelry upstairs and her assumption that Lyra was connected to it in some way.
“When was the last time you saw Lyra, Miss Bonbon?”
“About three days ago…” she nervously scratched the top of her hoof.
Mid-write, Rarity looked up at her and asked with a surprised tone, “And that doesn’t concern you? Didn’t you file a Missing Pony Report with the police department?”
“N-no,” Bonbon stammered out a quick defense, “Lyra was always doing projects with the orchestra or going to some kind of jewelry convention out of town. Sometimes she’d be gone for days on end. I didn’t file a police report because it wasn’t out of the ordinary.”
Rarity felt a little skeptical of Bonbon’s explanation, but decided to hold her in good faith, at least until she could squeeze more information out of her. “Jewelry convention?” she asked, “Interesting. Then I can safely assume that the jewelry upstairs belongs to Lyra? Can you tell me more about that?”
“Oh, you saw that? Yes, one of Lyra’s greatest passions was collecting jewelry. Pieces of all shapes and sizes, and made of just about anything under the sun. Gold, diamonds, silver. Everything.” She sighed, “Some of it didn’t even fit her. She would buy it just to… to look at it.” Rarity noticed a bit of a condescending tone in the conclusion of Bonbon’s statement. She called her out on it.
“Does that bother you?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“Of course not,” Bonbon simply replied and look off to the side, “Not at all.”
Rarity surveyed Bonbon for a moment, sizing her up silently. She knew that Bonbon wasn’t being completely honest with her, at least in regards to her opinions over the large collection of gems and jewels, but she also knew that that wasn’t a crime nor a reason to be overly-suspicious of her. However, she made sure to pay extra close attention to Bonbon now. “Miss Bonbon, Lyra was missing two earrings from her person. Forgive me if I am a little too forward, but… they appear to have been forcibly removed. Would you happen to know anything about them?”
Bonbon placed a hoof over her mouth and muffled a gasp. She closed her eyes tightly and tried her hardest not to imagine what she had just been told. “S-she has so many…” Bonbon gasped. Her eyes darted about as she thought about which earrings Lyra might have worn on that day. “Uh… a gold and diamond pair were her favorite?”
“OK,” Rarity replied and scribbled down a description of the earrings, “We found this empty earring box upstairs, and have decided to take it for further inspection. Is that alright? It has the name ‘Jeweler Joe’s’ inscribed on it. Does that name mean anything to you?” Rarity pulled the bagged box from her bag to show it to the mare.
Bonbon looked at it only for a few moments, and, ignoring Rarity’s first question, huffed, “You bet it does.” She had an upset look upon her face.
“Go on.”
“Lyra’s choice of jeweler, and for the love of me I don’t know why. Some place a couple of blocks from the center of Downtown, on the East Side. Joe, the colt that runs it, is a real slime ball.”
“Oh? Why exactly do you say that?”
“I saw the way he looked at Lyra,” Bonbon’s condescending tone returned, “He wanted her as more than just a ‘valued customer’.” She huffed once more.
Rarity jotted even more notes down and then flipped the page in her notebook. “Did Lyra… reciprocate his feelings?”
Bonbon looked flabbergasted, and was upset on the inside, so she had to try her hardest to stay composed. She answered with, “No,” she then crossed her hooves and leaned back, “she had only one thing on her mind. One thing. The jewelry.” There was that same condescending tone again.
Rarity sized Bonbon silently up again, this time more intently, and took her tone into far more consideration. It was then that she remembered the financial records that Spike had uncovered. “Tell me, could you afford all of that jewelry? It looks like there is an awful lot of expensive pieces in that collection.” She locked her eyes intently on Bonbon.
“Well!” she gasped in offense, “With all due respect, I don’t see what business it is of yours, but… yes, of course we could afford all of that… meaningless jewelry. Is the house that you’re in not a good indicator of that, detective?” She shifted her eyes downwards, but tried to hold eye contact with Rarity and show her that she was indeed offended.
Alas, the insult and the offended stare blew right over Rarity’s head. She smiled cockily at Bonbon and shook her head, “Uh-uh,” she waved her pencil, “wrong answer Miss Bonbon.” She leaned forward in her seat, a move that was intimidating enough for Bonbon to break eye contact with her. “We found your financial records, your hidden financial records. We know that this apartment is just barely being paid for, so how is it that Lyra could go out and buy a set of earrings that are easily worth five hundred bits? Maybe more?”
The color drained from Bonbon’s face, minus a deep red blush, and she gulped. She had never meant for those documents to be discovered. If word got out to the rest of the building, she would be a laughing stock, and she knew it.
“OK, OK,” she closed her eyes for a few moments and then looked down at the ground, afterwards continuing with a quiet tone as though she feared the neighbors may hear through the walls. “Here’s the truth. I… lost my job as head of a candy company a few months ago. Sales were down, production floors were understaffed and so, ponies had to be laid off and doors had to be closed. Apparently, not even the high-ups were safe; I wasn’t safe. It was good money, and it was a real blow when I lost it, but we were able to manage on Lyra’s commission money from the orchestra… barely.” She was quiet for a few moments as she reflected on it all and then quickly moved to defend herself, “B-but! I am looking for another job, and I have been for a while. It’s just… times are tough aren’t they?” She tried to make small talk with Rarity as comeuppance for her lie.
However, Rarity was strictly professional and wasn’t about to become involved with such a distraction. Besides, she knew that Bonbon was still withholding information from her. She did believe that she had been told the truth, just not the whole truth. Still, it didn’t explain to her why the files were hidden away in such a deliberate fashion. There was a difference between stashing things away for safe keeping and deliberately hiding things so that they would not be found. “Come on Miss Bonbon,” Rarity pressed as she wrote down comments here and there, “I know you can do better than that.” She stopped and looked the mare right in the eyes, “Why are those files hidden away? They seem pretty important to me, so why hide them?”
Bonbon gulped, and looked down at the ground once more. Her blush had gone away for a time, but not it had returned.
“I… I didn’t want Lyra to know.”
Rarity nearly dropped her pencil in surprise. “You mean she didn’t know? You didn’t tell her about the fact that you lost your job?” She made a play to squeeze more information out of Bonbon via a line that used cunning and a little bit of deception. “Now, you can’t seriously expect me to believe that.”
“It’s true!” Bonbon was quick to defend, “I swear! I didn’t want Lyra to find out because I was afraid she would leave me if I couldn’t give her the things she wanted!” She sighed, closed her eyes, and hung her head in regret. She was silent for a few moments before she concluded with a quiet, guilty tone, “I know it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. I know I should have told her about it… I know I shouldn’t have lied. I… I was just so scared and I didn’t know what to do!”
All was silent after Bonbon concluded, with her reflecting over the mistakes that she made and Rarity continuing to observe her silently. Detective Rarity had gotten what she wanted out of Bonbon as far as her line of questioning over that particular subject went, and she believed her now, but she was far from finished with this interview.
“But still, you were on Lyra to watch her spending, weren’t you?”
Frustrated now with Rarity’s intrusive questions but trying her best to keep a level head, Bonbon replied, “Of course I did! I couldn’t let her spend the last of what we had on necklaces or bracelets or earring or whatever and allow us to be thrown out on the streets!”
“Yes,” Rarity nodded her head, “and that lead to quite a few arguments between the two of you, didn’t it?” she asked matter-of-factly.
Bonbon looked away from her and bit her bottom lip in nervousness. She had read enough detective novels and listened to enough crime operas on the radio to know where this was going. “No,” she replied, “never. I asked her to watch her spending, and tried to distract her from it, yes, but we never argued. We had a happy marriage.”
Rarity had caught Bonbon in her third lie, and now the shadow of suspicion was starting to cast itself over the widow… or perhaps the widower. Not only had Bonbon contradicted herself with this statement and her last, but Rarity had physical proof that she was lying. “Why are you lying to me Miss Bonbon?” she asked with a cool tone.
“You can’t prov-” was all Bonbon could manage with a hostile tone before Rarity swiftly cut her off.
“Recognize this?!” Rarity raised her tone intentionally so as to intimidate her subject, and whipped out Lyra’s diary in the process.
“It…” Bonbon stammered, knowing full and well what the little black book was, but Rarity was too fast for her.
“This is Lyra’s diary!” she threw it down on the table with a moderate amount of force, “I read through it and I know that the so-called marriage you two shared was FAR from happy! I also know you argued frequently! What I don’t know though is what you two argued about, but I do know that you’re going to tell me!”
“You’re incredibly rude and insensitive!” Bonbon gasped, as tears welled in her eyes.
“Listen here!” Rarity pointed her hoof at Bonbon, “I’ve got one suspect right now and that one suspect is you. If you don’t start being truthful with me, it’s going to look very bad for you. Do I make myself clear?”
Outraged and upset, Bonbon almost stood up in an emotional rage, “Me? You don’t think I killed her do you?! I loved Lyra! I would never hurt her!
“Mmm...” Rarity grumbled and then replied coldly, “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Bonbon stopped fighting and allowed herself to weep for a few moments before she finally dried her eyes with the back of her hoof. She sighed while at the same time trying to choke back tears, which resulted in a cough. Afterwards though, she finally opened up to Rarity. Quietly and in a calmer state she responded, “You’re right… she was right,” she nodded at the diary on the table, “We argued.”
“How often?”
“All the time,” Bonbon shook her head and corrected herself, “Well, since I lost my job that is. Almost every day these past couple of months or so.”
“Over what?”
“Just… foolish things. I was always on her back to watch her spending or buy something useful instead of all that jewelry, and she was always yelling back at me asking what my problem was and telling me not worry about it and that it wasn’t my business and this and this and this…” she waved her hoof around and then hung her head in it, visibly distressed now. She was silent for a few moments, the only sound to be heard the scratch of Rarity’s pencil over the paper in her notebook. Finally, though, she broke that silence with a depressed sigh. “Oh Celestia,” she shook her head slowly, “I should have just told her. Why, oh WHY, wasn’t I just truthful with her?” she lamented mostly to herself and not to Rarity.
Experience told Rarity that she had successfully broken Bonbon’s resolve to lie, and that now she would tell only the truth and nothing but the truth. However, she knew that it was safest never to jump to conclusions too early on and made sure to keep her guard up. Faith in your suspect was something that you could not have. She cleared her throat and pressed on with the questions, this time back to using her gentle and civil tone. “I just need a few more moments of your time Miss Bonbon, and then I believe we’ll be done here.”
Bonbon nodded her head a few times, her eyes still closed, and her head still atop her hoof and simply responded, “Yes. Of course.”
“Excellent. Thank you. Now, this is very important, and I need you to think hard. Is there anypony, and I mean anypony at all that might want to hurt her? Anypony she might have had a disagreement or a falling out with? Anypony suspicious interacting with her or following her around?”
Bonbon took a deep breath and tried to collect herself. As she did so, she thought long and hard about the ponies that Lyra associated herself with. As hard as she tried, there were only a few possible culprits that she could put her hoof on. Lyra had such a unique and beautiful personality that any pony in her presence couldn’t help but love her. Her friends within the orchestra, and her jewelry collecting friends would all be devastated once they heard the news, so Bonbon couldn’t imagine it as any of them. “Joe, and just about any other bigot in this city.”
“What do you mean by that?” Rarity looked at Bonbon intently.
Bonbon heaved a sigh and rolled her head and eyes, frustrated still with providing answers to questions that, in her mind, should have been obvious.
“I know what me and Lyra had wasn’t exactly orthodox Miss Rarity, and we never tried to pretend it was. For every pony that loves in this world, there is another pony who hates.”
Rarity understood now. She understood perfectly. As diverse, welcoming, and sprawling a city as Las Pegasus was, it did have its imperfections. Passersby and pedestrians that saw two mares walking together, perhaps a little too close, or stealing a kiss when they thought no one was looking could warrant hushed whispers or even the rudest of actions. However, as experience so often told her, sometimes that level of misunderstanding could be the polar opposite and be downright deadly as a result.
“I see…” Rarity cleared her throat and adjusted herself in her seat. It was a depressing and uneasy subject to talk about, but a necessary detail nonetheless. “You and Lyra found yourselves to be targets quite often then?”
“Well…” Bonbon fiddled with her mane shyly, “I wouldn’t say ‘targeted’, but oh some of those ponies would say the nastiest things.”
“Anything violent?”
“Nothing physical, no, but on more than one occasion one or both of us might have gotten followed home.”
Rarity’s interested was now piqued. This could be an invaluable clue as to the identity of her attacker. She pressed Bonbon for more details.
“Followed? Do you know by who? What would they do?” she launched question after question.
The mare sighed and looked down at the ground silently before responding. It pained her to have to look back on these awful occurrences.
“Nopony in particular. Usually a different pony each time, sometimes a mare and sometimes a colt. I’m not sure what they were doing exactly, to be honest with you, and neither did Lyra, but we both agreed that they were following us to get our address. Sometimes they would scratch up the door or bang on it in the night and yell awful things at us, but mostly they would just leave the most horrible letters because security or neighboring tenants would run them off. The neighbors even called the police one time the pounding was so loud,” She visibly shuddered when she finished. “I kept a few of them, here, in this drawer. I was going to go to the police about them if they didn’t stop, but… you’re welcome to them. Not like it would’ve helped anyway.”
She sighed and then leaned across the sofa and rummaged around inside of the drawer that was on the opposite side of where she sat, only to pull out three wrinkled pieces of paper. She extended them outwards to Rarity, who seized them with her magic. She wanted to read them over now, and see if she could possibly get a lead, but decided that it would be best to save them for later, both to preserve her image of professionalism and avoid any chance of upsetting Bonbon as it might put her chances of a smooth interview in jeopardy. As she folded them up and went to tuck them into her saddlebag, she wished that there was more she could have done for Bonbon, and perhaps even for Lyra as well. Much to her disgust, she, like Bonbon knew that the LPPD was a hopeless cause just because of how the two chose to love and be happy. On that same token though, Rarity was somewhat relieved that she had these letters, despite their vile contents, in her possession as possible evidence for she knew that had Bonbon or Lyra taken them to the police they would have almost certainly been tossed into the garbage and/or ripped up in the mare’s faces as they were threatened and berated by the very police officers who were supposed to be sworn to protect them. It made her sick to her stomach, but alas, reminded herself that she was here to solve the murder of a deceased victim, not to bring justice to the world’s flaws.
Pencil at the ready, Rarity resumed her questioning. She wanted to mine Bonbon on the uneasy subject just a little bit more, so she asked, “Are you sure there’s nopony that stood out?”
Bonbon thought hard, of all the ponies that had harassed her and Lyra, and continued to harass her to this day, but was still unable to think of anypony that she could pinpoint either by name or by level of torment.
“I-I’m sorry, but I just can’t name any of those ponies.”
“It’s quite alright, I understand.”
The room was totally silent for a few moments afterward, broken only by the pitter patter of Spike’s small feet as he entered back into the room and then crawled back up onto the couch. After that, with an emotionless and broken look upon her face, and a quiet tone to match, Bonbon commented, “Maybe somepony just… took their hate too far.” Her eyes slowly moved from the floor up to Rarity’s saddlebags where she eyed the exposed corner of the letters that were tucked within. Rarity saw what she was doing and shifted just slightly so as to hide the exposed corner from view.
After a few more moments of silence had passed, and Rarity had been given the chance to catch up on her notes, she proceeded with her final line of questioning; The part where she asked questions about the answers to the questions she had already asked.
“Tell me about… Joe,” she pressed and waved the end of her pencil around.
Bonbon’s face scrunched in disgust briefly, and then she replied, “Like I said, he’s nothing less than a slime ball who runs some shady jewelry store a few blocks east from downtown. I swear, I can’t for the life of me figure out why that was Lyra’s favorite place,” she commented with a bit of a snarl. “Bad appearance, even worse breath, greasy mane, and eyes for one thing and one thing only: money… When they weren’t sizing Lyra up, of course.”
“I see. Go on please.”
“Lyra. He watched every single move she made in that store, and he would make sure to have a long, drawn out, and might I add flirtatious, conversation with her over every single piece of jewelry that she looked at. He only tried to sell the most expensive piece to other ponies in the store, but it was like he ‘allowed’ her the variety, and once you get to know Joe you know that that isn’t in his nature.”
“If you don’t mind my saying Miss Bonbon,” Rarity leaned forward a little, “It sounds like this Joe was highly attracted to Lyra, and it sounds to me like he harbored a bit of a crush on her. What makes you think that he would want to hurt her?”
Bonbon was quick to answer, “Things changed, drastically, these past two months. The few times that I went in there with her over the course of that time, I noticed that his advances became stronger and stronger. Sometimes he would even wait for her at the front door. Also…” Bonbon blushed and looked down in shame, “I… think he may have been given a few checks that bounced.”
“Ah, now would that have been before or after his advances got more focused?”
“Before…” Bonbon gulped as a million guilty scenarios ran through her mind.
“Do you think that he may have confronted her about it?”
“I’m not sure, in hindsight, but I tried my best to cover for her quickly before she did find out. On a stroke of luck, I answered the phone and he went on ranting and raving about it, and that was when I learned that he happened to call only at a certain time of day. I’m not sure if Lyra visited him or not recently, but to the best of my knowledge I paid any and all remaining debts to him.”
“I see,” Rarity scribbled down more of her notes and then flipped the page again, “and you believe that he would hurt her because he believes that she was trying to chat him?”
“That, or the knowledge that he would never have a chance with her,” she huffed and then mumbled, “As if…” She then flipped her mane and continued, “But to answer your question, he may have wanted Lyra, but he didn’t love her. He could never love her. Money is his first and only love.”
“And you believe he would kill for it?”
For perhaps the first time, or the first noticeable time, Bonbon locked eyes squarely with Rarity. Not out of anger or frustration, but pony to pony she looked her in the eyes. Without the slightest amount of hesitation in her voice, she confidently responded, “Yes. Joe is just that kind of pony.”
Following that, Rarity scribbled down the last few notes in her notebook and then snapped the cover shut. She slid the pencil inside of the rings and then tucked the articles away inside of her saddlebags, and afterwards stood up. Spike, who had been looking over his own notes throughout the remainder of the interview, followed suit.
Rarity offered a brief smile and then said, “Thank you for your time Miss Bonbon. I believe we’re all done here.”
Bonbon offered a small, broken smile back as she too stood up and then replied quietly, “Thank you detective. If there’s anything else I can do, anything at all, for Lyra, please let me know.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Rarity commented and then took a few paces forward, “Ah, on that note, may I use your telephone?”
“Of course,” Bonbon invited, “It’s right there, in the hallway.” She pointed towards a mahogany table that was in the center of the hallway that divided the kitchen and the living room. Atop it was a rotary style telephone that was flanked by two vases which contained roses.
“Thank you,” Rarity replied and then walked over to the phone. She picked it up and then dialed in the number for police resources. Once the operator on the other end picked up, she stated her name and badge number. “Private Investigator Rarity. Badge number 515. Conducting an investigation for the LPPD.”
“How can I be of assistance detective? Also, I have two messages for you,” the voice on the other, a prim and proper sounding mare, replied.
“I need a box of financial records picked up at my location,” she stated the address and then asked, “Two messages you say? Go ahead.”
“Right away Miss Rarity, I’ll dispatch some officers right away. That’s correct. Two messages from Captain Shining Star for you. He requests that you be reminded that police resources are fully at your disposal,” Rarity rolled her eyes. That was just like Star. He had to remind her of that which she already knew. She didn’t know if she should feel annoyed at the fact that he seemed to lack a great deal of trust in her, or flattered at the fact that he found it necessary to constantly peer over her shoulder and assist her wherever possible. “Also he requests your presence at the coroner’s office as soon as possible.”
Once the operator told her that, Rarity resolved to pinpoint her next lead. She glanced up at the ornate clock just about her head and saw that ample time had passed which would have allowed the body to be safely transported and inspected by the city’s expert coroner.
“Thank you, is that all?”
“Yes ma’am. Have a nice day.”
The line went dead a few seconds afterwards and Rarity hung up the phone. Then, after lifting Spike up onto her back, Rarity turned around and moved to the door of the apartment. Once she got to the living room entrance where Bonbon stood, she stopped and told her, “I’m not sure if you caught that or not, but I’ll be needing those financial records for the investigation. I’m sure you understand.”
Bonbon looked as if she wanted to object, but she knew better. She looked down at the ground with an ashamed look upon her face, but then nodded her head and replied, “Yes. I think I understand.”
“Very good. Police officers are on their way to collect them now,” she took a few more paces towards the door and concluded, “Thank you for your time Miss Bonbon. If there is anything else you need, or anything else you can think of that might be helpful, here’s my card.” Using her magic, Rarity summoned a small business card from the pocket on her coat and presented it to Bonbon.
The mare glanced at the card and then nodded her head. She followed Rarity over to the door where she then placed her hoof on the knob so that she could pull it open for her. She did so, but opened it only a little bit before she stopped and looked into Rarity’s eyes. She gulped, and with a broken voice that sounded like it had more tears waiting behind it, asked, “How did it happen? How did she die, I mean? Did she suffer?”
Rarity was a little surprised to have been asked such blunt questions in such abrupt ways, but still, she answered, “Miss Bonbon, with all due respect, I don’t think that now is the best time to dwell on that.”
“Oh…” tears welled in the mare’s eyes, “Well, Can… Can I see her?”
Rarity briefly placed her hoof on Bonbon’s shoulder and then opened the door for herself the rest of the way. Still with a gentle tone, she replied, “The coroner’s office will call you within the day and request you to come down and make a positive ID. There is a process to it, and I’m afraid I can’t give you an exact time unfortunately, but it’s only a formality. You may see her then.”
Bonbon nodded, and once again, tears welled in her eyes as she tried not to imagine the sight that would behold her later in the day. With one last gesture, Bonbon saw the two out and closed the door behind them.
The halls outside were as silent as they had been when the duo first entered the complex, and the one and only noise that shattered that silence was the sound of the door as it clicked shut. As she walked down the silent, twisting hallways and stairs, Rarity knew that her next stop should be the coroner’s office. She knew that one she arrived she would be able to get some more insight on what exactly the cause of death was for Lyra, but also be offered the chance to confront Star about something that had been nagging at her mind ever since she had first encountered him back at the scene of the crime.