ACT THREE
The captain was starting to feel convinced that this was an open-and-shut case, but he kept on asking questions to Lip and Steel.
“You say you can vouch for her, that this bloody feather was never in her purse?” he asked to Steel.
“Positive.” answered Steel “We went on a lunch date and she dropped her purse. Everything fell out and that feather was not in there.”
The captain bought that, but he was still not convinced. “Still, you went out to lunch, and then Lip Smear came to this place in late afternoon, which had to have been after your date, and she did have a key to this house, and the feather was found in her purse sometime after she came in here.”
Lip could hardly bring herself to answer under all this stress and pressure, but still insisted “I don’t know how that feather got in my purse.”
“I’m sorry,” said the captain “But we still have evidence of your hair being found by the murder weapon, and you being a unicorn, you could still have stabbed your ex colt-friend using magic, without having to touch the knife.”
“I didn’t do it!”
“Stop it!” snapped Steel “You’re upsetting her!”
“I’m just doing my job here. If we can’t disprove this evidence, she’ll have to come to the station.”
Rarity sat down to contemplate the clues and evidence so far, when suddenly she felt something lumpy hit her.
“Oh! What’s this?”
She reached down between the cushions and pulled out a half-eaten apple, with its core exposed, and it looked a little rotted as if had been eaten recently and was just left there, and yet somehow it found its way into the sofa.
Rarity then realized, “The seed…”
She levitated it out of her pocket and confirmed it had come from the apple core.
“What’s that you got there?” asked one of the cops.
“Oh, I just found it in the sofa.”
The cop was at first grossed out by it, and didn’t seem to regard it as much of anything, but suddenly another cop burst into the home calling for the captain.
“There’s been a report on the autopsy of the deceased.”
“What could they want?” asked the captain “We already know how he died; a knife wedged in his side.”
“There’s more to it, I’m afraid.”
Everybody in the room turned his way, and were shocked we he explained, “…There was a small amount of a lethal toxin in his bloodstream.”
“Are you sure of this?”
“We are, and get this, it had to have been ingested somehow, and they found traces of apple still on the victim’s teeth, as well as traces of the poison.”
“Apple?!” cried Rarity.
“Poison?!” yelped Applejack.
The cop then snatched the apple from Rarity and showed it to his colleagues, which they saved as evidence.
Rarity went into narration.
“Unbelievable. This could only mean one thing: Whoever the assassin was had obviously poisoned Numeral and allowed the poison to run its course, and then stabbed him with the knife so he would lose blood, and therefore, if anyone had discovered him, it would be too late to help.”
“We checked the kitchen.” said another cop. “There aren’t any other apples anywhere. That’s the only one in the house.”
The captain then remembered Applejack.
“You there… Weren’t you hauling a load of apples around?”
“Eeyup, and I did bring an apple to this house earlier.” Suddenly, Applejack’s features hardened, “Wait just a hog’s back, here! Are you suggesting that I tried to poison him? No one’s ever been poisoned from the Apple Family’s apples!”
Twilight intervened. “My friends and I can vouch. We had apples from her cart today, and they were delicious.”
Spike and Starlight nodded.
“I bet other ponies ate their apples, and none of they felt sick.” said Starlight.
“But then why was that apple poison?” wondered Spike.
Rarity went into narration again.
“Spike was onto something big. Why was that apple from Applejack’s cart lethal, and more importantly, if it was meant to poison and kill Numeral, what was it doing buried in the couch?
Surely, anyone trying to kill another would do the smart thing and hide any trace of evidence.
This called for further investigation!”
She went off towards the kitchen, leaving the captain to label Applejack as another potential suspect.
Applejack was furious. “I’m telling you, there was nothing wrong with my apples! I washed them myself before I loaded them and gave them away.”
“I’m sorry,” said the captain “But the fact is, this apple here is poisoned, we want to know how you got it, and why you gave it to Numeral.
I’m just doing my job!”
Applejack could only sigh.
“I’m really starting to not like this guy!” Spike whispered, and Twilight and Starlight agreed.
Rarity searched the kitchen. She looked high, and she looked low, and found some evidence to disprove Lip’s guilt.
“Rarity, what are you looking for in here?” Twilight asked.
“Aha!” snapped Rarity, “Just as I thought. There is a butcher knife missing from this knife holder on the counter.”
Twilight realized that too. “It’s the knife that was used to kill Numeral with.”
“Yes,” agreed Rarity, “But that’s not all. Do you see this?” She held up a single oven mitt.
“Uh, it’s an oven mitten.”
“Precisely, but where is its match? That’s what I’d like to know, and also, why can’t I find any hairs around here?”
Twilight rolled her eyes back and forth trying to figure out what Rarity was trying to get at, and she just cut her losses and backed away.
Rarity went into narration.
“It was starting to come together. I now had some proof that Lip Smear couldn’t be the culprit, but I doubted very much that loudmouthed captain would be interested.
As for Applejack, I know for a fact she would never sell poisoned apples.
It was then I knew there could only be one other explanation.
It was time I visited the victim’s bed chamber.”
She searched Numeral’s bedroom. She remembered one of the cops had come out with a bag of blue feathers clipped from Numeral’s wings, suggesting maybe he hadn’t gathered them all.
Rarity then spotted one behind the dresser, but wondered how it got there.
She also noticed a picture frame was tucked behind the dresser as well, and shards of broken glass that cops had somehow missed.
She examined the picture which appeared to be a younger version of Numeral and two other ponies. One of which had to be his father, but the second pony turned out to be none other than Shifty, the mover.
She had the same coat, same mane, and the same cutie mark.
Then she could see out the window, Shifty was passing by down the street. She opened the window and called to her, “Excuse me, Shifty. I’d like a word with you.”
Shifty turned to face her, and Rarity noticed her eyes had red-rims, and the tear streaks gave more of it away too.
“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m upset? I just lost my brother!”
“You mean, Numeral was your brother?”
Shifty nodded, “I thought I knew him well, and so did our father. He ran the moving business before I took over.
We wanted him to follow in our family business, but he chose numbers and math over us, so our father disowned him, and wanted nothing to do with him anymore.”
Rarity found that to be most shocking.
“And then things got even worse!” cried Shifty “He messed up bad at the bank, and nearly bankrupted the company because he filed the papers wrong, and he wrote him a letter saying…
“You’re dead to me! Even more dead than your dead mother! I’m just thankful she’s not here to see what a disgrace you’ve become.”
Rarity gasped hard, and at that moment a soft breeze blew through the window, blowing the feather Rarity had found through the air, and sent it landing in a waste bin in the corner.
“Is there a draft in here?” someone called from the outside room.
Rarity shut the window and realized the draft.
She moved over to the garbage bin where the feather had landed, but that wasn’t the only thing she had found.
There were envelopes dated from several days ago in the bin, as well as a tiny box with an engagement ring inside it.
Rarity gasped at how beautiful the diamond ring was, and what it was doing in the trash was obvious by what was underneath it…
…A photo album, with many pictures of Numeral and Lip Smear. All the good times they had, they seemed like such a perfect couple. So romantic, so lovely!
Yet, Lip was with Steel Hoof, and one of the letters was addressed to Numeral from her, announcing her wish to break up with him.
The letter read…
“Numeral, I’m sorry to have to do this to you, especially before the holidays, but I’m afraid that I must leave you now. I can’t tell you why.
We’ve had amazing times together, and you’ve been so sweet, but I doing this for a reason.
I wish you the best of luck.
…Lip Smear.”
Reading that letter made Rarity’s heart felt heavy, and she was breathing stressfully.
She read the second letter, which was from Numeral’s father, and just as Shifty promised; it was full of heartlessness, slandering, and cruelty!
“Hope you’re finally proud of yourself, you good-nothing excuse of a son!
No, I take that back…
It’s bad enough you ignore the family pride and business, and it’s even worse you prefer to be a geeky nerd, but what really peeves me, is the fact that you wreck my company’s bank stock, and endanger others’ lives because you didn’t know how to add right!
If your mother was still alive, I’d shame her silly for ever having you!
Stay out of my life! Don’t reference me, because as I’m concerned, you just a mistake!”
Rarity felt really hot now under all the pressure of the stress. So hot that’s she felt she actually needed to open the window and let some cool air flash on her.
But as she laid her hoofs on the window to open it, a mighty thought had struck her, and she began to think about something else…
…The body!
It was found lying on the floor, near the sofa, and the table next to it was tipped over, while the knife was perfectly struck hard into Numeral’s side.
The poisoned apple found buried inside the sofa, and a seed on the floor.
The feather, the hair, the other clipped feathers, the oven-mitt in the kitchen.
She only had one last thing to check to ensure her theory.
While outside, the captain felt they were wasting time now just sitting around.
“All right your three,” he said to Lip, Steel, and Applejack, “You’re all going to have to come down to the station. You three are still the three primary suspects, and we’re going have to question you better at the station.
“No!” snapped Lip “I won’t go! I didn’t do this!”
“That goes double for me!” added Steel.
Applejack’s friends were horrified.
“You can’t just take her to the station!” cried Spike “Twilight, Starlight, do something!”
“There’s nothing we can really do, Spike,” Twilight said sadly.
Starlight felt ready to kick over a table. “If only we knew who really did it!”
Applejack felt on the verge of tears, but she sucked it up and bravely agreed to come quietly.
“Applejack, you can’t!” cried Spike “We know you’re innocent! They can’t just take you!”
The captain intervened, “We can, and we will. Sorry, but we’re just following procedure.”
“It’ll be alright.” said Applejack “In the meantime, do me a favor, don’t tell my family what’s happening. I really don’t want their Hearths Warming ruined and full of worry.”
Rarity suddenly burst into the room, and shouted, “That will not happen, Applejack.
…I’ve solved this mystery!”