The phone rang in the morning.
“Hello?” Pinkie murmured, not raising her face from the pillow.
“They actually approved you to be a consultant!” Whet Stone blurted.
“Wa-really?” That got Pinkie up. She had been joking about being a celebrity consultant. With the position she was in, it wasn’t like she wanted to spend more time with the police.
“I’ll be by in ten minutes to pick you up.”
What was this bullshit with him and early mornings? Pinkie rushed to get ready.
By the time Whet Stone picked her up, Pinkie was dressed but still uncaffeinated. She mumbled a hello as she got in the car.
He did a double take, seeing the handgun strapped to her hip. “Do you have a permit for that?”
“In Virginia, you only need a permit to carry a weapon when it’s concealed.” Pinkie then herself did a double take, only now realizing her half-asleep autopilot routine had added the gun to her ensemble.
“I have to say, I didn’t expect you to carry a Colt that looks like World War Two surplus,” Whet Stone commented.
Attempting to conceal the fact that she, too, was surprised, Pinkie played it off. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. A gold-plated Desert Eagle, maybe.”
“You say ‘gold-plated Desert Eagle,’ I hear ‘party cannon.’”
“Please don’t.” Whet Stone started the car. “And take off that fake badge.”
“I’ll have you know I’m a McGruff Junior Detective!”
It was a keepsake, and she was surprised it was still around the house.
Speaking of, “So if I’m a celebrity consultant now, does that mean you’re going to take me to crime scenes and stuff?”
“That’s right.”
“So where are we going now?”
“There was some kind of fight at the Hooters near the interstate.”
Pinkie suddenly regretted asking.
Whet Stone did not seem to notice her sudden change of mood. Pinkie wondered if that was an effect of her SEP field. If so, it went a long way towards explaining why nobody ever asked her how she was. Maybe that was also why she never stopped to think about herself.
She shook her head. No, this was not the time for introspection. She had to be on her A-game at the restaurant and maneuver out of any pressing questions that might come her way.
There were already half a dozen police vehicles in the Hooters parking lot when Whet Stone arrived with Pinkie. She got out of the car, pausing with her hand on the door as she glanced around the parking lot. She was really only pushing the celebrity detective angle to find out what the police had, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least pretend she was looking for clues.
She followed Whet Stone into Hooters. He glanced around, seemingly hiding a smile. His eyes lingered a little more than professionally necessary on the promotional materials around the entrance. There didn’t seem to be any actual waitresses present.
A shot of panic went through Pinkie. What if there were? That girl Blonde Faith would surely recognize her just like she had the first time.
However, there didn’t seem to be any restaurant staff around except an older woman in a polo shirt. Maybe she was the manager. Her arms were crossed and she looked annoyed as cops canvassed the dining room.
Gaining confidence again, Pinkie walked forward to join a couple of suits standing in a semicircle around the broken table. “What do we got?”
She’d stopped next to Soft Eyes and he glanced at her, amused, noting the tarnished gun on her hip and the plastic badge on a string around her neck. “Well Ms. Pie, there was some kind of dust-up here last night.”
Pinkie looked at the debris, taking in the splintered wooden table and broken plates. She hadn’t gotten a great look the night before, with the lights off and being in a hurry and all. Wow, Maud had really gone to town on that one guy.
“Was anyone hurt?” she said.
“We think so.”
“You think so?”
Soft Eyes gestured to the mess. “From the looks of the blood, there were at least a couple of people fighting. Responding officers didn’t find anyone, though, and there haven’t been any recent hospital check-ins with obviously connected injuries.”
“Camera footage?”
“It was the darndest thing,” Soft Eyes said. “The tapes cut off because there was a power outage just then. We found the main utility feed in the back of the building had been turned off. Likely, someone that was part of the incident planned it.”
“Witnesses?”
“It was dark, because of the power outage.”
“Hmm.” Pinkie crossed her arms and tapped a finger on her lips. “This is going to be a toughie.”
“What do you think happened?” Soft Eyes asked.
“Wellll...the last time I attended a Southeastern Service Marketing Expo, I remember the Hooters representative saying that they were trying to move away from their breastaurant roots and become more of a sports bar. There are usually football games on Monday nights, so maybe there was a riot when the power cut off in the building.”
Soft Eyes glanced at one of the uniformed cops. “Gridiron, who was playing last night?”
The man looked up. “Browns and Lions, sir.”
“Having provided stadium box parties, I can tell you, fans of those teams are diehard.”
“See, this is the kind of expertise she can offer,” said Whet Stone, apparently still riding the afterglow of getting his celebrity consultant request approved.
Soft Eyes gave him a patient smile, and then turned back to Pinkie. “Or you could just tell me what happened, hon. You were here last night.”
It felt like Pinkie’s heart stopped, and then restarted at triple speed. He’d known from the start and had only asked her to see if she was going to come clean.
A hurricane of options ran through her head. She could tell the truth - but that could get her sisters in trouble. She could tell a modified version of the story - but that was risky because she didn’t know what police already knew. She could lawyer up and shut up.
Pinkie was just about to decide, when Whet Stone opened his mouth. “Wait, she was here?”
“I was going to tell you this morning, but then you offered to bring her here and there wasn’t time.” Soft Eyes gestured to the scene.
Whet Stone internalized that, and turned to look at Pinkie.
Under both of their stares, Pinkie finally made her choice. “So the power outage wiped the security cameras, but there’s probably a backup, so you probably saw everything up until then, including me walking in with my sisters. Not only that, but if you’ve interviewed the staff, someone probably mentioned me by name.”
“I actually just saw where you were from an Instagram post,” said Soft Eyes.
Whet Stone seemed surprised by that, but kept his mouth shut, for once. Pinkie, meanwhile, was growing increasingly frustrated with social media. She was a public figure, but maybe getting to be a little too public. She was going to have to have a talk with the Zucc when she saw him next.
“Who were the people that came in just before the fight?” Soft Eyes asked.
“What makes you think there was a fight?”
Soft Eyes stared at her, and then did an impression of Vanilla Smiles from Wheel of Fortune to present the shattered table. “The elder Ms. Pie was with you. I think it’s safe to say there was a fight.”
Pinkie hesitated, but then took a chance. “You said you’d seen her work. Does that look like a Limestone Pie bar scrap?”
Soft Eyes’ lips pursed. “No, to be honest. But if we were to throw in some Kirin that came up here from south Florida hunting Ponk PK? Well then, I’d be willing to believe just about anything.”
He gestured to the plastic badge around her neck. “So are you going to help me take a bite out of crime?”
Pinkie felt backed into a corner. At least she could truthfully say that she had no idea where to find the Kirin.
But before she could reply, there was a ping. Soft Eyes paused, and then frowned. Apparently it was his phone, though he didn’t reach for it.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Pinkie suggested weakly.
“How did you know I had alerts turned on for your Instagram posts?”
“First of all, what!? Second of all, I didn’t. Third of all, I didn’t just post, either, so I have no idea what that notification was for.”
Whet Stone looked at the two of them blankly.
Soft Eyes held Pinkie’s look for another second, and then pulled out his phone. “What’s this? Did you have a post pre-scheduled?”
“Um...no?” Pinkie walked over to him
He showed her the phone. “Then you didn’t just take a selfie telling everyone that you’re hosting a fitness-themed event during the Salt Seasonings Festival in the park right now?”
On the screen, dressed up in plastic star-shaped sunglasses, spandex, a headband, and a pink clown wig, was Marble.
“Oh my Harmony!” Pinkie said. She quickly added off the cuff, “Also, I’m really sorry. I thought you just said I had made a post on Histagram, which is a, let’s say dating app for refined gentlemen.”
“Why would you have-” Whet Stone started to ask.
“However, I did just make a post on Instagram.” Pinkie pulled out her own phone and showed it to Soft Eyes. The post was already getting little hearts.
Pinkie had no idea how Marble had gained duplicate access to her account, nor what the horse pucky she was doing.
Soft Eyes stowed his phone and then asked, “How did you just make a post if you’ve been standing here talking to me the whole time?”
“Oh, I’ve got the fastest fingers east of the Mississippi. For example, here’s Whet Stone’s wallet.” Pinkie held it up.
Whet Stone slapped his pockets and looked up in alarm. Pinkie handed the wallet back to him.
It was a good thing they’d forgotten about her gun, or they might be very concerned about it right now.
Now that she had the police stirred up, Pinkie had gotten out of the metaphorical corner, but was treading a very fine line, and could see the abyss on both sides. But there was also a glimmer of light guiding her forward. Maybe…
“So if you can see where I am from hashtags, maybe the Kirin were doing the same thing,” Pinkie said. “Now they think I’m in the festival.”
Soft Eyes sighed. “This would have worked a lot better if you’d coordinated with us first. Alright, fine. Let’s go to the park and see who we see.”
This had actually worked too well. Marble with a wig and sunglasses was a passable impression of Pinkie, but if she showed up with the police, they were going to have questions about why there were two of them.
But to be fair, right now Pinkie had questions about Marble, too.
Soft Eyes and a couple of other detectives rode together. The way he was on his phone, Pinkie figured he was probably calling ahead to secure more support.
As she rode with Whet Stone, Pinkie also wanted to somehow warn Marble, but there was still the problem of how exactly she was going to play this off when she arrived.
The convoy of cop cars pulled into the park. The Salt Seasonings Festival was not really hopping in the late morning on a Tuesday. There was plenty of parking for the detective cars. Most of the crowd was just now showing up for lunch. It was a food festival, after all. Among the scatter of vendor canopies, it was not hard to spot Pinkie’s pink trailer. The burned side was turned away from the crowd.
“Wow, you really went to a lot of effort for this,” muttered Whet Stone.
It looked like the trailer was hooked to Maud’s pickup truck. Were Marble and Maud in on this together? And again, why? Was Limestone also here?
Absent any coordination with her sisters, she was just going to have to trust that they trusted her to be herself and take matters into her own hands. Her Granny had once told her that the best way to fill a hole in a secret plot was to march a brass band through it.
Maybe that was how the 88mm Flugzeugabwehrkanone had come to be in the park, as the town’s World War Two memorial. It was kept neatly maintained, if inoperative, with the barrel pointed skyward. At some point when Granny was Pieing her way through Nazi Germany and occupied France and Italy, she’d picked it up and then shipped it back in her luggage. The small plaque affixed to the concrete base on which the anti-aircraft gun sat did not offer details, just that it had been donated.
Pinkie took a breath, and then broke out in the biggest smile she could muster. She was never quite sure if she was putting on a mask or taking one off, but just like always, it got the attention of everyone within a city block.
“WHO’S READY TO PARTY!?”
She jumped atop the gun, doing a quick twirl around the barrel like a firepole. As she vanished around the backside, her clothes changed to workout gear, spandex and sunglasses. Superman needed a phone booth - Pinkie needed just the width of a flak gun barrel.
The ruse may have worked a little too well. All the cops were staring at her. At least that meant they weren’t looking for her sisters. From her perch, Pinkie had a good view, and saw a flash of pink wig over by the trailer.
“Alright everybody, let’s get those hearts pumping!” Pinkie had already activated the Bluetooth audio controls from her phone to the trailer’s sound system. Granny had nothing pleasant to say about Jane Fonda, so this was going to be a Richard Simmons-style workout.
She even found the time to spit some freestyle. Pinkie was not a musician herself, but she dabbled. Workout rhyming wasn’t hard while trying to burn off the lard.
Put up your left hand / and then your righty
Work out with me / and you become mighty
Pinkie did a handspring off the flak gun, landing badly, but smoothly transitioning it into a somersault.
I’m Ponk PK, and I’m here to say
This is a quick work-out; I ain’t here all day
She’d hit the ground near her trailer and was suddenly grabbed by the scruff of her neck and hauled behind it. Pinkie saw a flash of pink as someone passed her, going the other way.
Pinkie landed on her back, staring up at Maud and Limestone. From back around the front of the trailer, she heard Marble rap:
Now that you’re loose / now that you’re warm
Stretch out a little / use the proper form
“What is going on!?” Pinkie demanded in a loud whisper. She scrambled to her feet.
“Well, we were setting a trap for the Kirin, but we caught you!” Limestone retorted.
“I couldn’t not come! The police are here, too!”
“How did they find out? Why are you here with them?” Maud asked.
“Long story.” Pinkie glanced down at the brass knuckles Limestone was wearing. “And you’re even carrying evidence of premeditation.”
“Not just evidence,” Limestone said. “I was going to beat the shit out of them when they showed up.”
“And you brought Marble, too? How is she even-”
Do the limber up / it’s rule sixteen
It’s way important / to you and me
“Just…” Pinkie shook her head and raised her hands. “Let me take care of this.”
She peeped around the corner of the trailer. Every eye was still on Marble.
One jump now / way up high
Eyes up now / up to the sky
Marble threw the microphone she was carrying into the air, and sure enough the crowd followed it. Pinkie had swapped out with her by the time it came down, and caught it.
That’s all folks / that’s all for now-er
Cooldown now / and hit the shower
Pinkie struck a pose just as the song ended. There was a small scatter of applause. Most of them probably didn’t know who she was. Most of them probably just wanted lunch.
Four of them, in the back and wearing dark sunglasses, were definitely there for Pinkie though. Unfortunately, as the song ended, the spell seemed to be broken and they realized the cops were right there. They were already getting into one of the black BMW’s.
“And for my special guests from south Florida, why are you leaving so soon?” Pinkie said into the microphone.
Whet Stone looked around wildly. He saw the car and ran after it.
Unsurprisingly, he was not fast enough.
He returned, panting, to the small group of detectives. Soft Eyes looked at him, but was talking on his phone, staring into the distance where the car had vanished.
Well, the plan hadn’t worked. On the other hand, Pinkie got her nostalgic trip to the Salt Seasoning Festival. Just like old times.