Twilight slammed the door open and stormed in. “This is going too far, Valiant!”
I stared at her and sighed. “I’m a busy man, Twilight. Please be a normal nerd and say exactly what you mean in well-structured paragraphs so that I may better understand what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Bella Brella,” she spat.
“What’s that?”
“Who’s that,” she snapped, “or rather, who it was.”
“Twilight, we talked about this. Complete paragraphs.”
She was still growling through her teeth, but complied. “Bella Brella lived in Ponyville. She was pink with a purple mane and an umbrella cutie mark. And now she’s dead. What do you know about that?”
“Nothing. Why?
Cordoba walked into the room just then. Twilight said, “Cordoba, did you kill Bella Brella?”
“Who?”
“She lived in Ponyville. She was pink with a purple mane and an umbrella cutie mark.”
“No.” Cordoba kept walking.
Twilight looked at me, opened her mouth, closed it again, and over the course of a couple seconds her glare turned into more of a routine distasteful look. “You don’t know anything about it, do you?”
“That’s what I just said.” Twilight was beginning to realize that I had very little reason to lie about anything because I suffered very few consequences. Good, that’s just what I wanted her to think.
“So, I don’t know anything about her. Why, what happened to her?” I held off on saying her name again, but just thinking about it was funny enough. Bella Brella.
“She was murdered,” said Twilight.
“Ah. Okay, yes, I can see why you came here looking for me. See Twilight, if you had just lead with that, gave me the whole story up front, we could have had this sorted out a lot quicker.”
“It’s not sorted out!” she protested. “The killer hasn’t been caught!”
“What makes you think she was murdered?”
Twilight gave me a flat stare. “She was stabbed to death. Come on, Valiant, give me some credit here.”
“Okay, fine.” I dropped my head back to what I was doing. A poster promoting the virtues of Valiantco®, if you’re curious.
Twilight cleared her throat.
I looked up. “What?”
“Aren’t you going to help?”
I spread my hooves. “Just what do you want me to do? And since when is it my responsibility? Believe me, I’m the last guy I thought would ever say this, but isn’t this a job for the police?”
“You know as well as I do that Ponyville is too small to have its own police force.”
“Despite all the weird shit that’s happened here over the years,” I said. “Yeah, maybe you should lean on Celestia to make that happen.” Because then I could buy their loyalty and have my own police. Don’t you want your own police?
“Maybe I will, but that’s for another time,” said Twilight. “You’ve got your extensive and frankly disturbing surveillance systems. Why not put them to good use and help catch this murderer?”
“Fine. Where was she found?”
“Just at the edge of the forest outside of town.”
I turned to the imagery console. “When was she found?”
“Just minutes ago.”
I found the feed of Ponyville, zoomed in on the edge of the forest, and rewound the recorded images taken from the satellite.
When Twilight said at the edge of the forest, she meant inside the treeline. Movement was about all the cameras were able to discern from under the canopy of trees.
“Well, bad luck.” I turned back to my work.
Twilight touched the console, looking elsewhere in Ponyville. I shouldn’t have let her, but I suspected what she was searching for. I tweaked my cheek muscles, loosening them up.
When Twilight found the picture from minutes ago when the satellite had taken a picture of me sitting where I was sitting now, the picture showed me giving the camera – and thus Twilight – the hoof.
She turned to look at me and I gave her a trollface. Always nice when you know you’re going to have to do one and have some time to get your face muscles properly stretched out.
She sighed and shook her head. “Could you at least come with me to examine the body?”
“N-”
“Maybe you can tell me something about the weapon that was used.”
“-okay.” I have to admit, I was sort of curious.
We headed through town towards the hospital. I guessed that was where the morgue was. Strangely, I’d never known that before. It’s the little things you miss when you’re dead.
I paused along the way to hang up the poster. Twilight studied it. “Since when are you so focused on marketing? Valiantco® is the only company of its kind, so there’s little need to advertise.”
“It’s all about public relations.”
That got her attention. “Wait, since when do you care about that?”
“Maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
She snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it, Valiant.”
“No, really, I’m trying to be cool.”
She actually looked slightly impressed, but then asked, “Since when do you care what anypony thinks about you?”
“Touché. But given the choice, I’d rather be cool than uncool. As a nerd, you should understand.”
The way Twilight clammed up just then suggested that maybe I’d touched a nerve.
Still, I was sincere about being cool. Unfortunately, in Equestria, I couldn’t just wear a leather jacket. Also, I had a bit of a reputation to overcome. It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock ‘n roll.
That was a good idea, I should start playing guitar again.
In the meantime, I had to keep doing my Santa-Claus’-bitch thing. Being a rock star would make the furry red pimp coat easier to justify, though.
We entered the hospital and went down to the basement to meet with the morgue pony who Twilight had apparently talked to earlier when the body was first coming in.
“Ms. Brella is over here,” he said, opening one of the refrigerated drawers. Chill air flowed out. Damn glad to have my pimp coat sometimes.
“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll just need a minute.” I handed him a candy cane. “Here, something for your trouble.”
He seemed pleasantly surprised, but thanked me and walked away, unwrapping it.
Twilight and I bent over the body.
Bella Brella’s name was still funny, even if she was dead. I inspected the stab wound in her ribcage. “Could you hold this open for me?”
“Why do you want to do that?”
“So I can look inside.”
Twilight grimaced, but used magic to pull the wound apart.
“Hmm. One smooth blade with a drop point. A single stab directly to the heart. Yeah, this was definitely a premeditated murder.”
“How do you figure?” she asked.
“Killings of passion or fighting generally involve multiple wounds. Not only that, but this was especially well aimed and involved a hunting- or fighting-type knife. Who just carries one of those around Ponyville? Who even has one?”
Twilight looked at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Who else that actually has motive and no alibi?”
Twilight rolled the drawer back into the cooler. “So what do you think?”
“I think this was someone with experience. Maybe even a professional.”
“Somepony put out a hit on her!?”
“Well, who else would do it like this, in cold blood, with that kind of weapon? But where’s the motive? Do we know if anyone wanted her dead?”
“I guess we’ll have to talk to her associates,” said Twilight.
We walked out of the morgue. The tech was outside in the hall, working on the candy cane. I clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work.”
Twilight stared at me as we kept walking. “You really are trying to be more personable.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll have to be cool the old fashioned way: by being a stand-up guy, rather than with cheap gimmicks.” I sighed. “Shit.”
A moment passed. I said, “Also, I think he really is going to need to keep up the good work.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, if this was actually a professional that killed her, or at least someone willing to go to the trouble of figuring everything out to do it that way, then I’m thinking we might see a few more on the slab before we catch the killer.”
Twilight came to a halt and faced me. “Explain. Now.”
“Well, it would take some practice to get to that level of proficiency at killing, wouldn’t it? Either this wasn’t the first pony they put on ice, or it won’t be the last.”
I shrugged. “Or I’m wrong.”
I let that hang in the air. I knew that Twilight knew how infrequently I was wrong.
We climbed the stairs back into the hospital. I paused to hand out more candy to a couple kids in the waiting room.
Twilight looked contemplative as we left the hospital. “I know you said you’re trying to improve your image, but why?”
“I told you. Things work better when people like me.”
“Or could it be that you’ve finally decided that you’ll live a cold, lonely existence without any friends?”
“I don’t need friends if I’m indispensable,” I pointed out. “You came to get my help today.”
“Not my point.”
I shrugged. “I mean, okay, I guess it is a little selfish, trying to be cool. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I’m well liked. After all, what’s cooler than being cool?”