//------------------------------// // Case Five, Chapter Two: The Dockside Disappearance // Story: Ponyville Noire: Tails of Two Private Eyes // by PonyJosiah13 //------------------------------// Flotsam Street was one of the oldest streets in Ponyville, a long wide road that was first built as a fast route for workers to carry goods and materials from the harbor to the markets and factories of what would become the Industrial District; naturally, it also came to be known as a place for weary sailors to waste their shore leave and pay. Homes, apartments for the more well-off citizens, and small shops hawking food, clothing, drinks, and sex lined the street. Number 782 was a three-story brick and mortar apartment building located right across the street from a red-light establishment. Daring glanced over her shoulder at the shop while Phillip ran his hoof down the list of names on the doorway. “Hey, they’ve got special pricing for couples,” she commented, reading the sign advertising prices next to the flashing neon display of a unicorn mare laying on her chest, lazily kicking her hind legs up in the air. “Stay focused,” Phillip replied without looking up. “Ah, here he is. Headline Jot, apartment 19.” They both pushed open the unlocked doorway and started walking up the stairs to the second floor. They rounded the landing and found themselves standing in front of a long hallway with doors lining either wall. Number 19 was on their left, the number displayed in golden letters on the white door. Phillip knocked at the door. “Mr. Jot?” he called. There was no answer. Frowning, Phillip knocked harder. “Mr. Jot!” Again, nothing. “I’ll check to see if there’s a window,” Daring said, heading back downstairs. Phillip heard the front door open and close, accompanied by the sound of wings beating against the air. A door unlocked farther down the hall. Phillip looked up to see a young female griffon peering out her open door at him. Her yellow eyes fixed themselves on his cutie mark, then she quickly ducked back into her apartment. He heard the latch click shut a moment later. Thirty seconds later, the front door opened again and Daring flew back up the stairs, banking hard and kicking off the wall on the landing to alight in front of him. “We need to get in there,” she said breathlessly, crouching by the door and pulling her set of lockpicks out of the hidden pocket in her money pouch. She inserted the pick and tension wrench into the keyhole and defeated the lock in just under six seconds. Pushing open the door, Phillip led the way into the apartment. The apartment was a modest, but elegant affair. A short hallway led into a sitting room with two sofas and a coffee table, upon which sat a tin of Black Bear chewing tobacco. There was a large radio set in the corner, next to a hutch with several glasses sitting atop it and a bookshelf. Adjoining the sitting room was a combined kitchen and dining room. The place had been ransacked. Cushions were thrown off the sofas, the glasses on the hutch had been shoved aside, cupboard doors were laying open, their contents spilled all over the floor and counters. Books from the bookshelf were scattered all over the floor amongst the remnants of a wall clock like bodies after a battle. On the far wall of the apartment was a broken window, shards of glass laying atop some of the books and a cushion from the sofa. “Looks like somepony else was looking for Jot,” Daring commented, panning her eyes over the scene. “Klutzy thieves; all this would’ve made quite a bit of noise, and there’s no organization to it. Plus, why’d they bother going through the cupboards?” “Jot could’ve been hiding something in there,” Phillip stated, slowly walking into the apartment, his eyes darting everywhere in search of clues. “Maybe, but only a rank amateur could pull a job like this,” Daring replied. “If it were me, I wouldn’t be wasting time fucking around in the cilantro—the heck is cilantro, anyway?” she muttered, mainly to herself. “I’d just get in, grab whatever valuables I could snatch up, and get out without making too much of a mess.” “Might not be a petty burglar,” Phillip suggested. “Could be looking for something else.” “Could be,” Daring admitted. “But if I had something important I wanted to hide, I wouldn’t put it in an unlocked cupboard. If I were too cheap for a safe, I can list off a dozen better places to hide something that would be easy to get to, but that most ponies wouldn’t find by accident.” “Let’s keep looking,” Phillip said. They proceeded down a hallway that led to two doors. One door opened into a small bedroom with a double bed, a dresser, and a small closet. Only one side of the bed was rumpled. The room appeared to have been completely untouched, as the books atop the dresser were all standing in a neat row and the drawers remained closed. A daily calendar on the dresser was turned to the eleventh. “Bedrooms are probably the first place I’d hit if I were hitting the place,” Daring commented. “Most ponies don’t keep their jewelry and shit in the living room.” The other door opened into an office that had a desk covered in stacks of papers, with a pristine typewriter sitting in the middle of the organized chaos. More bookshelves lined one wall, groaning under the weight of several books, most of which seemed to be concerned with the history of Ponyville and the surrounding area, and binders stuffed with papers. A reel-to-reel tape recorder, about half the size of a small suitcase, sat on the floor next to several stacks of reels, some of which were labeled in marker with dates and interviewee names. A can labeled Brown Bear Smokeless Tobacco sat on the desk. One wall was lined with framed copies of newspaper articles from the Foal Free Press. A theme quickly became apparent from a glance over the headlines: “Corruption in Local Auto Industry: Foreponies Take Bribes to Overlook Deadly Flaws!” “City Official Complicit with Sex Slavery Ring!” “Illegal Guns Flood City Streets: Where is it All Coming From?” “Somepony’s got a hobby,” Daring commented, looking at the one photograph in the entire place. The picture showed Mayor Mare shaking hooves with a unicorn stallion with a white coat, two-toned ink black and light blue hair to include a short beard and mustache, glasses, and the cutie mark of a typewriter. He was wearing a powder blue suit with a black and white-striped tie, smiling broadly at the mayor. Phillip studied the pony for several seconds, then turned to the stacks of papers on the desk. All of them were hornwritten, but the squiggles of ink were so small and short that they were totally illegible. “Can you read any of this?” Daring asked, tilting a notepad to one side as though that might help. “Is this a code or just sloppy writing?” “Dunno,” Phillip replied, turning to the desk drawers and trying each of them one by one. All of them were locked, save one. This drawer, however, was completely empty, save for one detail: a couple strands of blue hair. Phillip plucked some of it out with a set of tweezers and placed it into a small plastic bag from his vest. “Can have Suunkii take a look at that,” he said, placing the bag back into his vest. “Hey!” a voice called from the front doorway. “Who’s in here?” Phillip and Daring exited the office and looked out into the hallway to find two police officers entering the apartment. “What are you doing here?” one of them, a blue earth pony corporal with a bushy brown beard growled at Phillip. He had a cutie mark of a billowing sail. “Following a lead,” Phillip replied, his tone flat and emotionless. “Not anymore you’re not,” said the officer, whose nametag identified him as Trade Wind. “This is the scene of an ongoing investigation, and you’re trespassing. Both of you, out.” Daring glared at the officer for a moment, but Phillip shook his head in warning. The two of them exited the apartment quietly, and the door slammed shut behind them. “Assholes,” Daring grumbled. “Leave it be,” Phillip said, already descending the stairs. “That told us a couple things.” “What?” Daring asked. “This break-in was recent: calendar was to today’s date and the clock stopped this morning,” Phillip stated. “The police already know about it, but they’re keeping it quiet. And there’s one other thing: break-in was faked.” “You sure?” Daring asked, pushing the door to the apartment building open. “You saw the same things I did,” Phillip said. “There was one detail that gives it away.” Daring pondered in silence for a few moments, then her eyes lit up. “The glass from the window,” she said. “It was on top of the cushions and books. The window was broken after the place was trashed.” “Good onya,” Phillip said with an approving nod. “So there’s more to this than a burglary.” As they walked past the empty cruiser that the two officers had arrived in, the radio inside suddenly crackled to life. “Any available units, APB on vehicle for Headline Jot update: vehicle spotted at Goldbeak’s Wharf. Any units to respond, Code Three…” That was all Daring needed to hear. Before Phillip could say anything, he found himself being carried up into the air, the ground flying away from his hooves. “You could at least warn me!” he snapped at his pilot. Goldbeak’s Wharf, named for the immigrant griffon who had first dominated Ponyville’s fledgling shipping industry in the eighteenth century, was a stretch of flat concrete that touched on the northern banks of the Maresippi River. A tugboat sat in the water next to a dock, ready to bring any larger ships in close to receive or drop off cargo. A little farther north was a tangled route of train tracks, some of which had empty boxcars, gondolas, and other freight cars waiting to carry cargo into the city or further into Equestria. Dull gray office buildings and warehouses lined the concrete. As Daring approached, a train clattered along one of the tracks, generating a great cacophony of metallic noise. A two-door green Chevroneigh sat abandoned in the middle of the train tracks, looking as out of place as a tomato stain on a white wall. Spotting it from the air, Daring swooped down and landed next to it. Their hooves crunched in the white gravel, the ground beneath it still muddy from the early morning rain and mist. “No tracks here,” Phillip muttered, scanning the ground. “Gravel’s no good for it. Maybe a unicorn could--” He paused, looking at the ground next to the driver’s side door of the car. Daring looked down and spotted it as well: a pair of bullet cartridges, laying in the gravel. Both of them looked up into the car. The driver’s side window was down, giving them both a good view inside. The interior of the car looked like a slaughterhouse: both seats, the dashboard, and the windows were smeared with blood, as though somepony had used it to paint. Daring flinched, taking a half-step back away from the car. “Holy shit,” she muttered. Phillip, impassive as ever, studied the interior of the car in silence, then slowly began to walk around the car, scanning the ground and the exterior of the vehicle. “The ground beneath the car is still wet,” he reported. “Car got here this morning.” “Excuse me, are you with the police?” a voice called. Phillip and Daring looked up to see a male griffon walking towards them. He had a dark chocolate brown coat with yellow-white plumage and green eyes. He was wearing a reflective vest and a hard hat. “That’s close enough,” Phillip said, approaching him with his hoof raised. “This is a crime scene, you might step on something.” “Sorry,” the griffon said, pausing. “You called this in?” Phillip asked. “Yeah,” the griffon nodded. “Name’s Clyde. I was working here on my shift, doing a count of the cars and checking the rails, when I saw the car parked out there in the middle of nowhere. I went up to take a look, saw the blood, and ran to call the police.” “You didn’t see anypony else around?” Phillip asked. “No, sir,” Clyde shook his head. “And that car definitely wasn’t here when I got on shift at seven o’clock this morning. I’d have seen it as I flew over the yard.” Daring glanced down at her watch and noted that it was currently eleven-thirteen. “That’s helpful, thanks,” Phillip nodded. “You didn’t hear any gunshots or anything?” Daring asked. “This far out from anypony, with all the noise of the trains and ships and stuff, you could have a marching band go through here and nopony would hear it,” Clyde remarked. “Privacy and a nice view of the river,” Daring remarked. “Perfect place for a murder.” Clyde stared at her like he didn’t know what to make of her. “Pay no attention to her, it’ll just encourage her,” Phillip muttered. At that moment, there was a crunching of tires on gravel and two more cars pulled up to the scene, parking several meters away. One of them was a cruiser, the other was a bright red Pontifact Series 26 convertible with the top down. Two police officers, one of whom Phillip recognized as Creek Dancer, stepped out of the cruiser and approached, followed by the stallion from the convertible. Said stallion was a dark purple earth pony with silvery blue hair and mustache, his eyes glittering with a smirk. He was dressed in an eye-catching yellow suit and a black fedora. “Oh, good to see you two here!” he called, waving in good humor as he stepped forward. “Night Waltz,” Phillip scowled. “What stakes does vice have in this?” “I’m responding to the APB, simply doing my civic duty,” Night Waltz replied, signaling for the two officers to begin establishing a perimeter. “With you two on this case already, the three of us should be able to solve this one in no time.” “Careful,” Daring commented. “If you do any actual work, you might crease the suit.” Night Waltz frowned at her. “I don’t insult your fashion sense,” he said coldly. “Walking around in that ridiculous helmet of yours, I’m amazed you don’t get laughed out of every building you walk into.” Daring glared back at him. “Least I don’t feel the need to look like I shop at Pimps R’ Us.” “I’d like to see you afford a suit like this!” Night Waltz snapped back. “If you want to look like a clown, you don’t need to spend six hundred bits for it,” Daring replied, ignoring Phil’s attempts to push her back. “You can just join the circus. They could probably use somepony like you!” Night Waltz growled and looked like he was going launch himself at Daring when another car pulled up. A Hayson Commodore. The doors opened and Trace Evidence exited, tugging his trenchcoat up around his shoulders. “Wave off, Waltz,” Trace said flatly, clearly done with this shit already. “This isn’t your jurisdiction.” “I beg your pardon, sergeant,” Night Waltz replied, quickly recollecting himself. “I was merely offering my assist--” “There’s blood in that car. That makes this a murder case, not vice,” Trace cut him off. “Go find a pimp to slap around, or I’ll call the captain on you.” Night Waltz scowled and quickly stomped back to his car, looking mutinous. He threw it in reverse and drove away, disappearing around a bend. Phillip let out a relieved breath. “Thanks, mate.” “You couldn’t have waited for a couple minutes?” Daring huffed. “Unfortunately, assaulting a police officer is a crime, and being an asshole isn’t,” Trace Evidence commented dryly. “What have we got?” “Clyde called it in,” Phillip said, gesturing at Clyde. The griffon waved feebly, looking a little overwhelmed by all the new developments. “Car parked here sometime between eight and now.” Trace gestured for Officer Creek Dancer to take Clyde aside for a statement, then walked carefully over to the driver’s side door. He noted the position of the two cartridges on the ground, then bent to look in the window. “Shit,” he commented. “Well, if our reporter friend was in there, he had a bad time.” “Look again,” Phillip said calmly. Trace glanced up at Phillip, then turned to look back into the car. A frown traced its way across his face. “Yeah, you’re right, Phil. Somepony wants us to think that Jot’s dead.” “What?” Daring asked. “What do you mean?” “Look in there again,” Phillip said, stepping aside. “What do you see?” Daring took a quick look into the car, then looked away. “I see a whole fucking lot of blood.” “Yes, but it’s smeared,” Phillip said. “Not sprayed, like it would be with an actual gunshot. Looks like somepony just took the blood and wiped it all over the place. And there’s no void space.” “Void?” Daring asked. “If there was somepony sitting in the front seat who got shot, then there’d be an outline in the blood where they were sitting,” Trace said. “There’s not.” “Trace, can you do a tracking spell?” Phillip asked. “I’ll try,” Trace muttered. He closed his eyes and lit up his horn. Phillip and Daring both stepped back as Trace cast his magic around. After a few seconds, faintly glowing gold hoofprints appeared on the ground. “That’s us, the officers, and Waltz,” Phillip said, shaking his head. “Keep trying.” Trace’s brow furrowed in concentration and he let out a quiet grunt of effort as he pushed more energy into the spell. More tracks appeared, those of a griffon approaching the car, then quickly running away again. Finally, more hoofprints appeared on the ground, exiting the car and walking a short distance away before disappearing. Phillip crouched over the prints, frowning at them. “Damn. Can’t get any detail out of that.” “No sign of teleportation or flight magic,” Trace commented. “Looks like they just flew away.” “But Jot is a unicorn,” Daring said. “So a pegasus or a griffon drove here, most likely,” Phillip said, looking into the car again. “No sign of any feathers...what’s this?” Trace looked over his shoulder and spotted what Phillip had seen: a small clump of hairs on the seat. He plucked them up with his magic and held them out to Phillip, who dropped them into a plastic bag from his vest. He pulled out the bag from Jot’s apartment and held it up to compare. The hairs seemed to match. “We’ll have to impound the car and do a more thorough search,” Trace said as Phillip tucked both bags into his vest. “Suunkii will probably be able to do something with this.” “So, if I’ve got this right,” Daring said, casting a brief glance over at the two police officers, both of whom were standing too far away to hear them. “Somepony wants us to think that Headline Jot is dead.” “Looks that way,” Phillip stated. “And that same somepony took something out of Jot’s desk.” “Whatever it was, it must be something that got him into trouble,” Trace said. “And chances are, the mob’s looking for him,” Phillip added. “Which means we’ve got to find him first.” Daring paused, her eyes sliding over to Trace. Her heart beat out a warning tattoo against her ribs and she started to pull away. Trace looked up at her, his face creasing in confusion. “What is it?” “Nothing,” Daring said, quickly looking away. Trace shrugged. “I’ll let you know what I turn up. In the meantime, it’d be smart if you two head down to the Foal Free Press and start asking about Jot.” “Agreed. Drop these off at Suunkii on the way there,” Phillip said. “Daring?” Daring nodded, spreading her wings and taking off. Grasping Phil underneath the forelegs, she took off into the air, headed northwest towards the city center and the police precinct. “What’s wrong?” Phillip asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the officers. “You know that there’s a mole in the PPD,” Daring said. "How else did Twisted Root find us at the motel? And how did Tinderspark know that we were coming and decide to run off?" "I know," Phillip nodded. “Are you sure that it’s not Trace?” Daring asked. “If he wanted to screw us over, he’s had a dozen chances already,” Phillip replied. “True…” Daring said slowly, her tone making it clear that she wasn’t fully convinced. “We’ll be careful, all right?” Phillip said. “Okay,” Daring nodded. There was a pause, then she added, “And what’s wrong with my helmet?” “Nothing,” Phillip said. “I mean, it’s not really something that you see in the city, but I like it. It’s sturdy, adventurous. It’s you.” Daring considered his words for a moment, then let out a brief huff through her nostrils. “Yeah, why should I let that clown tell me how to dress? Dude dresses like he’s colorblind or something.” “Yeah, that yellow is really hard on the eyes,” Phillip agreed as they flew over the rooftops of Ponyville.