“It’s completely inert,” the Professor said in her giggly, bubbly way. “Nothing remotely magical. Chemical, but nothing you’d make lightning out of.”
Julie, Trailblazer, and I were gathered in his office in the pre-dawn hours, examining the bottle of LN-16. Bristle had been sent home with all my bits and apologies.
“So, you tackled a janitor and stole his floor cleaner because?” Trailblazer's voice trailed off.
I slumped in my chair, embarrassed and annoyed. “Squeaky Clean is either a witness or a suspect for what happened at CIM. Velvet Melody saw his mop bucket outside the room which exploded. He’s disappeared—hasn’t been home for days.”
“I know Squeaky Clean: he worked at this station up until a few moons ago. Polite old fellow.” Trailblazer mused for a bit. “Kind of melancholy; lost his family way back.”
I pulled my head up and looked at Trailblazer. “I know he had a wife.”
“And a son,” Trailblazer said. “They lived in Forest Grove.”
“Pinebeard,” I said, lost in a memory. “That was the school that—Sweet Celestia.” I said it to no one specifically, it just came out. It was all coming back to me: Forest Grove was founded by a prospector named Pinebeard. He was the first mayor, so they named a bunch of buildings after him, including the schoolhouse.
He lost his son, his wife, his home, his community. Everything gone in a fiery, blazing flash of plasma. The EWS's reputation took a hit, but that’s salvageable. Squeaky lost a family and that’s not something you can just put back together with a song and dance. Could that be the explanation? Revenge? After all these years alone, living in squalor?
The others must have shared my thoughts, because Trailblazer was grinding his teeth and Julie was frowning.
“No,” said Trailblazer firmly, after doing enough grinding to keep his dentist in the black. “I don’t believe it.”
“It doesn’t look good for him, chief.” I said. “Look: he’s got the motive: revenge. He’s got the opportunity: access to the CIM supply room and equipment. Maybe Velvet caught him in the act, so he split then came back to finish the job.” Then what about the run-around with LN-16? Why’d Velvet play games if she had an idea with what was at steak?
“What if Velvet framed Squeaky?” Julie asked, catching me off guard.
“Yeah!” Trailblazer hooked onto the idea like a tick grabs hide. “She has the same motive and opportunity, plus she’s the only one we know was at both fires. No pony actually said they saw Squeaky there.”
“What motive?” I asked, sitting upright and leaning forward; this was the first I’d heard of it and I could feel my eyebrows vying to see which would reach the top of my head first.
“Velvet was the EWS PR spokespony during the Forest Grove incident. She went there with the press and came back really shaken; the EWS even put her on a mandatory sabbatical, so the story goes. When she got back, they moved her to management to keep her out of the spotlight.”
I felt dizzy: this was becoming too much for me. I was a nobody: a glorified secretary sent out on what should have been a simple assignment: report on the CIM fire—the first one. Now, we were talking arson and revenge and it could be one or the other or the both of them, but why? Why after so many years?
I left Trailblazer and the Professor and headed out to Pothole Lane to see if anything had changed. As I came down the street, I saw Knight-Paladin Radiant standing like a statue in front of Squeaky Clean’s home. As I walked over, I amused myself with the thought she hadn’t moved since I last saw her.
She recognized me as I approached and I could feel, if not see, her eyes roll. “Good Day, Citizen,” she said, capitals and punctuation apparent in the stiff formality of her voice. She was working and didn’t want a sales pitch; she was about to be disappointed.
“Hello, Knight-Paladin,” I said in my usual voice. Her expression change: my voice surprised her. “Apologies for the deception the other day.” I showed her my credential card and she scanned it mechanically. “Have you been inside the house?”
I could tell from the way her face turned that she had. I said, “I have a feeling Squeaky has cleared off; he’s not coming back. But to know why he left, we need somepony else. I need your help—if you’re willing.”
She looked at me carefully, with eyes like microscopes. I was wearing my best poker face, hoping it would be good enough to pull at her leash and not, as I feared, get thrown in the slammer for lying to a guard.
Radiant nodded and signaled I should lead. We left the house for the last time. I was glad to put it behind me, even if the stink would never come off.
As twilight was setting in, I was wearing a grey suit and blue tie and my favorite hat. Battered, sweat stained, faded grey with a light purple band, it was still mine and it held a special place on my head. I was riding an elevator to a suite in an expensive apartment where Velvet Melody lived. When the door opened, I walked down the carpeted hall. Dim light scones barely fought back the darkness of the hallway. I felt like a convict walking into Tartarus: abandon all hope, for darkness swallows thee.
I knocked on the door. Velvet answered in a dark evening robe. Her hair was down and she looked like she’d just woken. She didn’t greet me right away, instead she stared at me for a long moment before stepping aside and gesturing I should enter.
The door revealed a wide-open floor plan, with a spacious living room which offered panoramic windows facing Canterlot Castle. I stepped across the room to the window and admired the view. “It’s a beautiful night, let’s have some air.” Before she could respond, I opened the latch and pulled the windows open. I took a deep breath, enjoying the coolness of it all. Maybe one day I’ll be able to breath without thinking of a certain house on a certain lane, with a particular collection of old, yellowed items.
“Mister Quill,” she began in her quiet voice. I still liked it when she said my name. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I turned to face her, my back to the window. The moonlight was coming down on her mane, giving it an ethereal glow. “I wanted to apologize,” I started. “You were the school administrator; I imagine it was hard watching it burn.”
“Is that all,” she asked irritably. “An apology for a burnt-up building?”
“No,” I said, moving to a chair near the window. I gestured she should sit. She didn’t, but she moved closer, which was what I needed. “I came to tell you I figured out what happened. I’ll type the report up tonight and send it off first thing in the morning.”
“Have you?” She tried to sound disinterested, but that to me was more telling.
“It started about ten years ago, when a shipment of lightning jars fell from Cloudsdale onto a town called Forest Grove.” No reaction, I continued. “The town’s volunteer fire crew didn’t have the juice to fight back the blaze, and the town, along with most of its ponies, were wiped out. Among the survivors was a fellow named Squeaky Clean. Now, Squeaky was a gentle fellow: dotting husband and father. Even volunteered as a clown at a hospital. After the dust settles, somepony at the EWS takes pity on him and decides to hire him on as a janitor. All alone, he moves to Canterlot to work at the office in the ‘burbs. Only, see, Squeaky’s in a new town with nothing. He can’t shake what he’s been through and he isn’t much fun to be around, so he goes to work, comes home, goes to work, comes home and that’s it. Doesn’t make friends, or enemies, or nothing. He’s just a machine, now: sweep the floors, eat a sandwich, go to bed, and do it all the same the next day. As far as he’s concerned, he died in Forest Grove with everyone and everything that made him get out of bed.”
She wasn’t looking at me, but through me at some phantom or vestige. If she was asleep before, she was awake now. But, I kept going: there was more to tell and she needed to hear it.
“He’s only a third of the story. You’re another third: you were working for the EWS in Public Relations when Forest Grove turned to barbeque—”
“You are too callous with their tragedy,” she said in a cold, hard voice. I accepted the rebuke.
“Apologies. Anyway, you were sent there to help cool things with the press and show how the EWS was working to—heh—fix what had happened. I’m guessing you saw something that was too much for you to handle because next thing you know, they’ve shipped you off on administrative leave for nearly a year before they think you’re well enough to come back. Then you do, and you wind up running CIM. But, you aren’t better, not really. Whatever you saw is still haunting you to this day, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said in a voice as distant as she was beautiful and I could feel her tense as I got ready for the last piece.
“Now let’s talk about LN-16. You put me on that trail after the first fire, when you asked me out on a—was it date?” Surprised, she agreed it was a date. “Thanks. So, you mention LN-16. I went to visit Trailblazer at the Canterlot office and he says it doesn’t exist, Professor Mint Julep—who’s supposed to be an expert on this stuff—says it doesn’t exist, and Director Maelstrom—our mutual boss—won’t say a peep about it. So, it’s three against one here, but see, I got to thinking: when I asked Maelstrom about it, the way she omitted it made me think it was true: you were working on LN-16 lightning and that contract was coming through the Royal Guard.”
There was a thump outside the window, I elected to ignore it. “See, the Guard’s been on the ropes lately, with all the monster attacks making them look like toy soldiers in a foal’s bath. They needed more oomph to fight back the nasties. You agreed at first, but as the project went on and you started seeing the results, you started thinking of a little village and all that pain started coming back. So, you engineered a plan to stop it: you’d blast the research and make it look like an accident.”
She was quivering now, shaking with rage or tears or some other emotion only known to her. I pressed on, I was at the home stretch:
“You knew what had to be done, but you were afraid of being caught and what it would mean for you. You knew about Squeaky—only a few survived Forest Grove—and would have had plenty of opportunity to see him at the Caterlot office. You figured him for the perfect patsy, so you had him moved to your building two moons ago. You waited awhile—maybe you were scared—but every success LN-16 had was another dagger in your heart, so you set it up to look like Squeaky Clean blasted a hole in the building. When the Guard and I showed up, digging into files, you decided the only way to get away with it was to burn the whole building down to cover the evidence. And Squeaky—that poor old stallion—he caught you that first night and booked it, because he saw what you were doing and knew he’d wind up taking the fall for it. Now tell me, Velvet,” I stood up as if to leave. “Did I get all the ducks in the gallery?”
She nodded slowly.
“Let me hear you say it: you did this whole thing, didn’t you? Set Squeaky up to nix the LN-16 project?” I needed to hear her say it.
She looked at me with doe eyes. I wanted her to deny it, to tell me I was full of crap. I wanted to go back to that first evening, watching the sequence dance on her dress, tell her how beautiful I thought she was. “Yes,” she admitted. “It happened like you said: Forest Grove, Squeaky, LN-16. All of it.”
I walked across the room to the door. She followed me with her eyes. “Where are you going?” She asked.
“To bed,” I replied truthfully. I paused in the doorframe. “I’ll make a deal with you, Velvet: go down to the police station tomorrow morning and confess. You do that, I’ll talk to the Director about getting you the help you need.”
I closed the door and hit the elevator and nearly ran out into the street. Radiant joined me a moment later looking like a gilded falcon. “Did you hear all of that?” I asked her, hoping it wasn’t wasted effort.
“I do not care for deception or eavesdropping.” She paused dramatically—guards are good at that, too. “But, yes. I heard your explanation and her confession. I am empowered and compelled to arrest her, presently.” She looked back at the building, conflicted. “Though, I would concede repentance must come from one’s own volition. If she does not confess by afternoon,” she kept talking, but it didn’t matter one way or another to me.