Phillip Finder panted as he sprinted up the sidewalk, the cold air of the gray morning biting at his tongue with every breath. His head was covered by the hood of his dark blue sweatshirt. Emblazoned on the breast of the sweatshirt was a white facsimile of the coat of arms of Ponyville: a shield decorated with an apple tree sitting in a field, the sky above it half night and half day. The shield was flanked by a unicorn on the left, an earth pony on the right, and a pegasus with their wings spread on top. Beneath the shield was a scroll with the motto, “Domus Pro Omnibus,” “A home for all.” Underneath the coat of arms were the words “PONYVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT.”
He jogged around a couple of passing mares and found himself charging right at a hot dog cart manned by a griffon. The griffon looked up and let out a squawk of alarm, his eyes widening as he realized that Phillip was going too fast to stop in time.
Phillip spotted a parked car sitting on the curb and adjusted his trajectory so that he was running right at the hood. With a grunt, he vaulted up onto the hood, leaped onto the roof and performed a forward flip over the hot dog cart. He tucked and rolled as he hit the sidewalk, popping back up onto his hooves and running onwards. The griffon’s jaw dropped, as did the hot dog he was preparing.
“Hey! I just waxed that!” the irate owner of the car shouted after Phillip, whose reply was to put on speed.
Phillip vaulted over a short fence to cut around a corner and jogged up Honeybee Bakery Street, weaving around other pedestrians. The familiar blue of 221, with its hanging sign advertising his services swinging in the breeze, was fast approaching. His lungs burning and his legs aching, he put on a final burst of speed, racing towards the goal. But just as he reached ten feet of the threshold, a grayscale rainbow descended from the sky and landed on the top step.
“I win again!” Daring said, grinning victoriously through her panting. Sweat glistened on her uncovered brow and in her windswept, tousled mane; over her light green cargo shirt, she wore a blue-purple neck warmer that complemented her golden coat.
Phillip slowed to a halt and glared at Daring. “It’s never a race,” he grumbled walking up to the front door and pulling out his key.
“That’s what losers say,” Daring smirked, stepping aside so Phil could unlock the door.
“Keep that up and see how much I kick your arse in sparring later,” Phillip said, opening the door and entering.
“Maybe that’s what I’m looking forward to,” Daring purred, following him into the house.
Phillip rolled his eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”
Daring smirked, then raised a wing and smacked Phillip on the flank with it, causing him to jump and let out a surprised whinny.
“What was that for?!” he shouted, turning around and staring wide-eyed at Daring as his ears burned red.
“There was a fly,” Daring said.
“Don’t touch my butt!” Phillip said.
“But that’s what sexy butts like yours are for,” Daring replied without a trace of shame in her voice.
Phillip growled and turned away. “I hate you,” he grumbled.
“Hate you, too,” Daring called after him, hanging up her neck warmer on the coat rack.
As she was about to enter, there was a knocking at the door. Daring turned and opened the door to find a unicorn mare standing on the other side. The mare was wearing a long blue scarf that complimented her creamy white coat, and a black purse hung around her shoulder. Her reddish-brown mane was just beginning to show signs of graying and lines were starting to etch themselves into her face around her light yellow eyes. Her cutie mark was a pair of bright lilies imposed upon a cloud.
The mare squinted at Daring, then looked up at the hanging sign over the door. “Are you...Phillip Finder?” she asked tentatively.
"No, I’m his partner," Daring replied. "Hey, Phil! Client!” she called into the house.
“Send her in!” Phillip called back.
Daring nodded to the mare, who entered without hesitation. The two proceeded right into the sitting room, where Phillip was waiting on one of the two chairs.
“Ma’am,” Phillip greeted her. “Please sit down.” He gestured at the sofa across from himself. The visitor sat down on the sofa and began to settle herself down while Daring hopped up onto the other chair next to Phillip and began to look over their new client.
The mare extracted a white hoofkerchief from her purse and dabbed at her eyes with it. Engraved on the hoofkerchief were a facsimile of her cutie mark and the initials LV in pink cursive. Daring heard the jingling of keys from inside her purse when she extracted the fabric, as well as the light brown dirt that clung to the underside of her hoof. A gardener? Did she drive here? Daring’s eyes were then drawn to the wedding band around her hoof. It was a simple golden ring, but the front of it was encrusted with white and purple diamonds. Wedding bands that were meant to be worn around the hoof did not come cheap on their own, and she observed two small silver sections in the ring where it had been resized. The mare was definitely not hurting for money.
“What’s your name?” Phillip asked.
“Lily O’Mountain,” the mare replied. “I’m here because my husband, Gold Dust, went missing.”
“How long has he been gone?” Phillip asked.
“Two days,” Lily answered. “He’s never gone for more than a night.”
“You called the police?” Phillip asked.
“Yes,” Lily nodded. “But they didn’t give me much hope. I spoke to a detective there, Detective Evidence. He said to speak to you.”
Daring’s eyebrows raised slightly and she looked over at Phillip. Phillip didn’t look back at her. “When was the last time you saw your husband?” he asked.
“Two days ago, on the fifteenth of Hunter’s Moon, at about 7:30 in the morning,” Lily replied. “I had just seen him off to work; he works for Phoenix Life and Home Insurance, up in the northern part of town. He didn’t come home.”
“Does he have any family or close friends in Ponyville that you know of?” Phillip asked.
“A few, but all of them said that they hadn’t seen him either,” Lily replied, her voice and her hoof trembling. “He was just...gone. He would never just leave me…” She brought her hooves up to her mouth and let out a quiet whimper.
Daring leaned forward and gently grasped Lily’s hooves, bringing them down to her lap. She looked into Lily’s light yellow eyes, bright with worry, and smiled reassuringly.
“We will do everything we can to find him and bring him home,” she promised. “Do you have a recent photograph of Gold Dust?”
“Oh, yes, here,” Lily said, plucking a photograph out of her purse and handing it to Daring. The picture showed Lily standing in front of a house with a tall unicorn stallion. The stallion had a pale golden-brown coat and bright yellow hair to include a bushy mane and a full beard. He smiled at the camera, his brown eyes twinkling. He was wearing a light green suit and tie and his cutie mark was a pan of gold.
“Did your husband mention anything unusual or start acting odd before he disappeared?” Phillip asked.
“No…” Lily started to say but stopped to think. “Actually, before he left he mentioned that there was something he needed to talk to his coworkers about.”
“Did he say specifically?” Phillip asked.
“No, just that he thought there had been a mistake at work,” Lily replied.
Phillip frowned in thought. “I’ll need some other details from you, please,” he said.
He had Lily list off her husband’s favorite foods (barbecue and pizza), favorite hangouts (Lucky Lane’s bowling alley), and other notes that filled out his life, made Gold Dust more than just a name and a photograph.
“He had just bowled a turkey when he turned to me,” Lily was saying, smiling sadly as she adjusted the wedding ring around her hoof. “He reached into the bag for his ball and pulled out these two rings and slipped this one around my hoof...he was so awkward and sweet about it, he kept stuttering and stumbling over his words…” She blinked heavily, her smile wavering.
Daring took her hoof in both of hers again, rubbing it as if for warmth. “I promise, we will find out what happened to your husband,” she reassured her.
Lily’s smile wavered and she gripped Daring’s hoof back. “Oh, thank you, thank you,” she said. “Here, let me give you my phone number and address.” She scribbled down a number and an address in the Industrial District on a sheet from her notebook and handed it to Daring.
“We’ll call you as soon as we have something,” Phillip said, shaking Lily’s hoof.
“Please do it soon,” Lily said as she exited. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you!” She waved goodbye and walked out the door, closing it behind her.
“What do you think?” Daring asked. “Maybe he really did run off and—”
“Daring, I keep telling you, making theories without evidence is a critical mistake,” Phillip interrupted, raising a hoof.
“Right,” Daring nodded. “It’s still a possibility, though.”
“Describe her,” Phillip stated.
“What? Oh, uh…” Daring said, tilting her head back to think. “White unicorn, red-brown hair, yellow eyes. Cutie mark of a pair of lilies with clouds. Wearing a black purse and a blue scarf.”
“Hobby?” Phillip asked.
“Gardening, judging by her hooves,” Daring said, a note of pride in her voice. “And she drove here.”
“How can you tell?” Phillip asked.
“I heard her keys jingling in her purse,” Daring said.
Phillip shook his head. “Could’ve just been her house keys,” he said.
Daring felt herself deflate slightly. “Oh...I didn’t think of that,” she admitted. “I was just thinking about how she got here, and I heard the keys, and I made that jump.”
“You’re still right, though,” Phillip added. “I saw marks on her shoulder from a seat belt, and I didn’t hear a taxi driving up. She parked a ways up the street and walked down here.” He paused, then added, “Don’t worry too much, sheila. Easy mistake, jumping to a conclusion like that. Learn from it, all right?”
“Okay,” Daring nodded.
“Attagirl,” Phillip said, tousling her mane affectionately. “Now, let’s start with Phoenix Life and Home.”
“I know where it is,” Daring said. “It’s in the northern part of Ponyville.”
“Aces,” Phil said, swinging his vest off the coat rack and onto his shoulders. He dropped his trilby onto his head as he exited the door, sliding his ears through the holes in the brim. “We’ll probably catch a taxi down the street…” He paused and turned back slowly, his eyes widening. Daring was looking at him with a grin and a gleam in her eyes.
“Taxi? Just this once? Please?” Phillip pleaded quietly.
“Hmm…” Daring said, tapping her chin in thought. “Nah.” With a laugh, she snatched Phillip beneath his forelegs and flew up into the frosty air, heading north.
“Trace was right,” Phillip grumbled, shifting in Daring’s grip and watching the ground speeding past several feet beneath him. “I’m using the money from this to buy a car.”
“You’re no fun at all,” Daring snickered. “Can a car do this?” She rose up into the air, performing a few fast, tight loop-de-loops, tightening her grip on Phil’s chest and laughing.
“Daaarrrriiiiiing!” Phillip screamed, clutching his hat to his head and clamping his eyes shut as tightly as he could.
“Oh, relax, I’m not going to drop you!” Daring laughed. “Learn to live a little!”
“Living involves not dying!” Phillip protested, still keeping his eyes shut and trying to hold his lunch in his stomach.
Phoenix Life and Home Insurance was a grandiose building in the Financial District, the northern part of Ponyville, not far from the August Gallery of Art. The front of the building was adorned with a brass fresco of a phoenix rising from a gust of flames; the revolving door underneath it was adorned with fiery orange.
Phillip and Daring pushed through the door and entered a lobby decorated in red, black, and orange. Two potted plants with fiery red leaves stood on either side of the doorway. A blonde receptionist sat behind a desk with “Phoenix Life and Home” painted on the black marble in foot-high gold lettering.
“Welcome! Can I help you?” she asked, giving the detectives a wide smile.
“Detectives Finder and Do,” Phillip greeted her. “We’re looking into Gold Dust’s disappearance. Where’s his office?”
“Number 308,” the receptionist said. “Take the elevator to the third floor, then turn right and proceed down the hallway. It’ll be on your left.”
“Thank you,” Phillip said. The two of them proceeded to a waiting elevator and entered the booth. The doors closed behind them and Phillip pressed the button for the third floor. He turned and noticed that Daring was staring at the back wall.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I read somewhere that if you do this in an elevator, it’ll make everypony uncomfortable,” Daring said.
“Well, stop it,” Phillip said.
“See? It works,” Daring smirked. Phillip rolled his eyes.
With a ding, the elevator stopped on the third floor and the two of them exited, turning right and walking up the carpeted hallway. They paused at a doorway marked 308. Daring tried the doorknob and found that it was unlocked. “Well, that makes things easier,” she commented, entering the office.
The small office featured a simple wooden desk and a set of red cushioned chairs. Several stacks of papers sat on the desk, accompanied by a telephone and a framed photograph of Gold Dust and Lily, standing in front of what Daring assumed was their house. A shelf sat on the wall to the right, groaning under the weight of binders and books on insurance laws. Behind the desk was a window that looked out to the north; they could see farmland in the distance, past the brick, concrete, and steel of the city.
“What are we looking for?” Daring asked, scanning the room with her eyes; ceiling to eye level, eye level to knees, then knees to floor, just like he’d taught her.
“Anything that might have led to his disappearance,” Phillip said. “Anything out of place.” He walked over to the desk and began to sort through the drawers on the left side, starting from the bottom. Daring joined him and started searching the right drawers, also starting from the bottom.
Inside the drawers that Daring searched through were nothing but writing materials—pens, pencils, tape and staplers—and papers filled with legalese that she didn’t bother trying to comprehend. “Do you really think that this has anything to do with anything?” she asked, staring in incomprehension at a page of information about what she could only deduce was an insurance payout for a car accident.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m looking,” Phillip said, flipping through a packet of documents. He frowned, then looked up at the shelf. Plucking a binder from the shelf, he flipped through it, frowning.
“Pages are missing," he declared, lifting the binder up to show scraps of paper where documents had been hastily ripped out.
"Hey, what's this?" Daring said, pushing aside a folder to reveal a newspaper clipping from the Foal Free Press. "'Discussions for Everfree Oil Pipeline Continue in Canterlot,'" she read aloud, running a hoof down the article. "Something about an oil pipeline being constructed through the Everfree Forest."
“Excuse me, what are you doing here?” a voice asked from the doorway. Daring and Phillip looked up to see two stallions standing in the doorway. One was a small, skinny light green unicorn stallion with light blue hair and a mustache and a cutie mark of a stack of papers with a red pen; the other was a tall, rotund autumnal brown earth pony with a shaggy mane of golden hair and a steel safe for a cutie mark.
“We’re detectives,” Phillip answered, standing. “Who are you?”
“I’m Safe Deposit,” the earth pony said in a slow, deep voice. “This is Red Mark. We worked with Gold Dust; we’re both in the offices next to this one.”
“We haven’t seen him for a couple of days now,” Red Mark said. “Is he all right?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Daring said, walking up. “You said you saw him a couple days ago?”
“Yes, he was leaving the office,” Red Mark said. “He said he had to meet with somepony.”
Safe Deposit snickered. “Yeah, meet with lane number 8 and ten pins. I heard his bowling horseshoes in his briefcase as he was leaving.”
“Lucky Lanes?” Daring asked.
“Most likely,” Safe Deposit nodded. “If he had a flaw, it’s that he loved bowling a little too much.”
“Or maybe he loved the beer there a little too much,” Red Mark chuckled, nudging Safe. Safe snickered.
“Is that so?” Daring asked, a grin crossing her face. “The beer there pretty good?”
“More like the mare serving it,” Safe Deposit smirked. “Pretty little thing, makes a point of always being there whenever he was.”
“Really?” Daring asked, raising her eyebrows. “What’s she like?”
“Her name’s Clover Petal,” Red Mark said. “Bright green coat, blue and white hair, cutie mark of a four-leafed clover.”
“Placed on one of the finest flanks in the Financial District,” Safe Deposit smirked.
“What about Gold Dust’s wife?” Daring asked.
“Now, don’t get me wrong; Gold Dust loved Lily,” Safe Deposit said. “But, sometimes, there are things you just can’t get from your wife.”
Daring nodded. “Did he mention anything else unusual before he vanished? Or do anything weird?”
“Not that I can remember,” Red Mark said. “Well, except, he was working longer hours than normal recently. Was kinda vague about what, though.”
“I see,” Daring nodded. She glanced back at Phillip, who gave her a subtle nod. “We’ll let you know if we need anything else,” she said.
“I hope you find him,” Safe Deposit said as he and Red Mark exited.
“Good work,” Phillip said approvingly. “Next stop: Lucky Lane’s. And can we please just walk this time?”
“Ehhh...nah,” Daring smirked.
“I didn’t think so,” Phil sighed as they exited the office.
Lucky Lane’s, which was only a few blocks from Phoenix, featured a flashing neon sign over the doorway depicting a bowling ball striking a set of pins and sending them scattering. Phillip and Daring pushed through the doorway and found themselves in a low-ceilinged room. The carpeting at their hooves was decorated in an abstract design with very loud colors. Twenty bowling lanes stretched out in front of them, more than half of which were being used. The rumbling of bowling balls and crashing of pins mixed with voices, the clinking of drinks, and electronic dinging from the arcade to their left.
“Lane for two?” asked the bubblegum-chewing receptionist at the desk.
“No, we’re detectives,” Phillip said. “We’re looking for one of the bartenders, Clover Petal.”
“She’s over there,” the receptionist said, smacking her lips and pointing.
Clover Petal was standing behind the bar near lane twenty, washing a beer stein, shaking her blue and white mane out of her eyes. Phillip and Daring approached her.
“Detectives Finder and Do,” Phillip introduced himself. “We’re told that Gold Dust was here a few nights ago.”
“Yes, he was,” Clover Petal nodded, a tinge of a Mareish accent around her voice. “He came in here three nights ago and ordered a couple of drinks.”
“By himself?” Phillip asked.
“Aye,” Clover Petal nodded. “He had his briefcase with him. He said he was waiting to meet with somepony. He had a couple of drinks, then walked into the alleyway out back through the fire door. That was the last I saw of him.”
“Thank you,” Phillip nodded and started to walk towards the fire door.
“Is he all right?” Clover asked.
Daring gave her a pitying look. “We’ll find out,” she said and followed Phillip through the doorway.
The alleyway outside was tight, with only enough room for three ponies to stand side by side in it. A slightly overflowing dumpster stood next to the fire door. The asphalt at their hooves was splattered with stains of varying colors and textures. The brick wall in front of them had been recently repaired; a small patch of bricks was more brightly colored than the surrounding bricks, and the lines of mortar between them were thicker and brighter.
“You can’t really expect to find anything here,” Daring said, looking around at the filthy alleyway.
Phillip studied the walls of the alley, then walked over to the brick wall in front of them. “Here,” he said, pointing.
Daring squinted. “All I see is puke stains.”
“Look here,” Phillip said, pointing at a spray of dark droplets along the wall. “This is castoff blood spray, from somepony swinging a weapon. And these droplets here,” he continued, pointing at more round droplets on the ground. “That’s blood from somepony on the ground, getting their head bashed in.” He mimed swinging an object at somepony lying at his hooves, demonstrating how the blood would fly back onto the wall from each backswing.
Daring’s eyes widened. “You don’t think…?” she asked.
Phillip paused, sniffing. “Do you smell that?” Without waiting for an answer, he started to walk down to the end of the alley.
Daring followed him, sniffing the air. At first, she didn’t smell anything, but as they approached the end of the alley, something familiar tugged at her nostrils. The scent of decay. The malodor of death.
They reached a sewage channel at the end of the alleyway and looked down over the edge. Daring gagged and lurched, fighting to keep her stomach contents in her stomach.
“Find a callbox,” Phillip instructed, his voice quiet.
Daring turned and ran back out of the alley, leaving Phillip standing at the edge of the channel, staring down at the bloated, waxy corpse floating in the dark green water beneath him.
“Gold Dust, I presume,” he whispered.