“This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening!” Grapevine bemoaned as she paced back and forth. We were standing in the parking lot outside the coffee shop and I had been watching her rant and rave for a good twenty minutes until I convinced her to move away from the frightened customers inside the cafe. If there’s anything I knew about Grapevine, it was to just let her blow off as much steam as she needed. Otherwise, I’d be the one she targeted next.
I leaned against a section of wall between two shops while Grapevine snaked her way through the cars, tossing her hooves up in the air and muttering to herself. “How can you not remember them if they’re your own thoughts?” I called out to her.
She paused before groaning in frustration. “Ugh, it doesn’t work like that!” she said. “Now can you shut up and let me think for a second?”
Well, at least the crisis had apparently brought the old Grapevine back. Not that I had exactly missed her, but at least I enjoyed the significantly lower chance of being kissed. Plus, she pretty much ignored me as she went off on her tirade. I was free to kick back and observe the scenery again to figure out where my little description had gone wrong.
A cold front blew in over the mountains and gave the air a sudden chill that was unusual in the rest of Fillydelphia during the summer months. The sudden climate change seemed to get Grapevine’s attention, and she paused for a second before turning to face me.
“This is just . . . this is bad, okay?” she said. “This shouldn’t be happening; not here!” She looked away. “Not now . . .”
I got on my hooves and walked over and stood unsteadily next to her, still making sure to keep a minimum distance. “What’s wrong?” I said. “It’s not like we haven’t dealt with this before . . . I mean, so far, our track record hasn’t exactly been clean on, you know, that stuff.” The words coming out of my mouth surprised even me, but they felt right despite whatever thoughts I harbored for Remedy or Chemiker.
My words didn’t have the best effect on Grapevine, however. “No, no, you don’t understand!” She sighed. “The Burb is supposed to be quiet--to be safe. No drugs and users, no international conspiracies, and definitely no killing.” To emphasize her point, she tapped my chest in beat with the last few words. So much for personal space. Again.
“Alright, well, you don’t even know if the words mean anything bad, do you?”
“Uh, Minty? The journal was pretty explicit in what it meant.”
I shrugged. “All I’m saying: gun, bang? Could your brain be using euphemisms . . . ?”
She looked at me hard. “This isn’t some sort of joke, Minty.”
“I wasn’t joking! I’m just saying we shouldn’t just automatically assume the worst, right?”
Her horn glowed and I felt my camera being yanked out of its bag. I briefly protested, but a hoof held in front of my face silenced me. “See this thing?” she said, shaking my camera. “The pictures it takes give the full, detailed look to everything. It fills in every little blank we have; it’s why the paper uses it.”
She tapped her horn. “But this . . . thing doesn’t do that. It deals in absolutes; everything I see or hear is recorded, mostly without my knowledge. I don’t get leeway. Understand?”
I nodded tentatively, trying to follow her explanation as best as I could. “Yeah, I guess. But where does that leave us, then?”
“Where it always does,” she said, shoving my camera back into its bag, “on the case.”
“What about Ornate? Or Ivory? Or anyone else that can help?”
She quickly and vehemently shook her head. “No, definitely not. Not only would they not be welcomed here by the locals, but-” She paused. “Minty, you and Starshine and the rest have Fillydelphia, but I have The Burb. This is my town, and it needs to be me who keeps her safe.”
“Her?”
“Just keep Starshine and your coltfriend out of this, okay?”
Oh, so that was how it was going to be. Well, I figured, I had to go along with her, at least for now. But I’d need to get into contact with Sterling at some point; he’d taken to worrying every time I walked over to the Chronicler that I was going to go on another dangerous mission and now I was doing exactly that. Can’t say he was wrong to assume that I would, though.
“Right, got it. Any other rules?”
If she caught the sarcastic inflection in my voice, she didn’t show it. “Nothing besides keeping your mouth shut and letting me work, if that’s possible.”
I obeyed and stood and watched her think. And think. And think. After a few minutes, she seemed to grow frustrated and just kept muttering under her breath about “impossibilities”. Eventually, I said, “So . . . what are we going to do first?”
“What did I just say?” Despite her tone, the question seemed to jolt her back to normal, and she rubbed her forehead comfortingly. “Anyway, the first thing we need to do is go back to the scene of the crime.”
“Your neighborhood?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Yes. My neighborhood.”
I looked around. “And how are we going to get there?”
“Walk?”
I’d realized sometime before that just watching Grapevine had tired me out. Enough that the prospect of walking all the way back seemed a little . . . much. Maybe it was the fact that I only half believed that Grapevine was right. I don’t know. “Well, we don’t want the crime scene to get cold before we get there, right?” I said.
She seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, fly up and get us a taxi.”
“How will flying help?”
“Just do it.”
I sighed and obligingly took to the sky. My skills were still a bit rusty--as if they had ever been oiled--and I wobbled a bit. Starshine had stopped by a few times since the Summer Sun Celebration to bug me about more flying lessons, but I hadn’t been in the mood. Though at this point, I thought, maybe it would be good to hang out with someone different for a while.
Down below, yellow-checkered steamcars made their way through traffic, and I began to circle and look for one with an opening. Few of the cars stopped, and the monotony began to get to me, and my mind drifted again. Back to Grapevine, of course. Where else?
I mean, I believed she had seen something, but murder? The reasoning still seemed flimsy to me, and almost felt like Grapevine was just trying to pull me into another adventure with her . . . I quickly pushed the thought away. Still, though, if Grapevine was right, then our frequency to be around when bad things happened was starting to get steadily high.
Below, a cab finally emptied of its occupants, and I decided to land gently in front of it to get the driver’s attention. Naturally, though, the plan didn’t go as well as I thought. I folded my wings closer into my body and glided down just fine, but when it came time to suddenly open them and brake myself, it didn’t go as well. I waited too long and the air resistance was too great by the time I tried, so I ended up smacking painfully onto the roof of the taxi. The driver behind the windshield, gripping hard on the steering wheel, gaped up at me.
“I’d like to rent this cab, please,” I said.
* * *
The driver turned out to be more understanding than I thought, and agreed to take us back to Carter Ranch. For double the price. The ride was smooth, though. The fancy car’s engine made almost no smoke or noise louder than a soft whirr of the motor. It was comforting, especially when I had to sit next to a fidgeting Grapevine.
She kept moving her flank slightly in her seat, and used her hoof to tap gently against the door. Her eyes kept looking out the window to the road ahead, and didn’t rest on me one time since we had gotten underway.
“You alright?” I said.
“Just wanting to get back,” she said without looking at me. “We need to move fast if we’re going to catch whoever did this. He couldn’t have gone far, after all.”
I paused. “You know, are you sure we’ve got the right idea for this?”
She finally turned to face me. “What are you trying to get at?”
“Nothing, I’m just making sure that you’re positive about this little case,” I said while holding my hooves up defensively.
“I am positive,” she said. “Since when have you known me to be wrong before?” When I didn’t say anything in return--though part of me ached to--she continued. “Are you sure you’re not just disappointed that we can’t focus on making you a reporter?”
Ouch, that one stung. And not necessarily for different reasons, either. Still, the retort hurt, and I instinctively flinched and turned away a little. Not too much that I couldn’t see Grapevine respond in kind.
She did so by sighing and lowering her head. “Look, no, I didn’t mean that,” she said “I just . . . I’m just trying to focus on the task we have right now.” She gave me a small smile. “I’ll be sure to give you some lessons as soon as this blows over, okay?”
I accepted what she said and let her know just as we reached the front gate of Carter Ranch. A few departing ponies in cars watched us as we got out of the cab, like we were some unknown species. Which to them, I guessed, we really were. Grapevine paid the cabbie with a wad of cash she pulled from a pocket on her bag, which revealed she had even more still with her. A shock to someone like me, who was used to seeing how far I could make one bit stretch. A practice Joya had approved of, and I had assumed Grapevine would too. Which just went to show how well I really knew her.
The mare at the security booth in front of the neighborhood let Grapevine through without a second look, though kept her eyes trained on me the whole time. Though, it may have been puzzlement rather than suspicion. After a little bit of walking on the sidewalks framed by parks for foals and small business actually inside the gates of the neighborhood, Grapevine stopped.
In front of us was the main street lined with houses. “So you think it happened here?” I said.
“It had to,” Grapevine said. “Anywhere else and I would have noticed.”
“I still don’t understand how your brain noticed it but you didn’t . . .”
She glared at me and I shut my trap. The street was mostly empty except for a scant few cars parked in driveways. No signs of life could be seen; even the foals from earlier had departed for parts elsewhere. The sun shone brightly in our eyes, reflected off the many panes of glass in many windows.
“This is a work-live neighborhood,” Grapevine explained when she saw the look on my face. “Everyone here has to keep up a job to live in the houses; most of the time, both spouses have a job.” She paused. “They only make exceptions in . . . special circumstances.”
I didn’t press the topic, choosing to let it drop. Instead, I got us back on topic. “So what you’re saying is that it would be weird to see both the husband and wife home?”
“Exactly.”
I jumped in front of her. “So that means this will be quick, right?” I said excitedly.
She held up a hoof. “Whoa, not so fast. That fact also means that almost no one in this neighborhood would have been home at that time.” She swept one hoof to indicate all the dark houses on the streets. “No witnesses, and no leads.”
“So then what are we doing here?”
Grapevine smirked. “Because I happen to know a few ponies who should be gone, but aren’t.”
We walked down the sidewalk until we were near the middle of the row of houses on the right side. The houses here were similar to Grapevine’s, but somewhat larger. The architecture and paint, even to my untrained eye, were still very boring. No one was going to win an architecture award for square house number nine thousand and one. Not to mention the colors varied wildly between brown and beige. I wasn’t even one to care for such things, but the monotony of the neighborhood was already getting to me; I wondered how Grapevine could stand living here.
The house we stopped in front of had the unique distinguishing feature of having an off-red door, which was apparently the only customization allowed. The abode’s address was 411 Dartmoor Drive, because the neighborhood had apparently gone with theme naming.
“So who’s in there?” I said.
“The Whites,” Grapevine said. “I know for a fact that Mrs. White stays home all day. She’s real secretive about what Mr. White does, but apparently it brings in quite a bit of money.”
“And they still want to live here?”
She didn’t reply and just rolled her eyes before striding up the front walk to the door. She knocked once, but no reply came from within the house. She knocked again, harder. Still nothing. Finally, Grapevine started banging on the door, shouting, “I know you’re in there, Skyler! Open the door!”
A lock inside slid out and the door slowly opened. “What do you want?” came a voice from the other side. It was neither quite timid or forceful; more of a voice that demanded not to be taken advantage of.
“Don’t worry, we’re not here to report you,” Grapevine said. “You should know me by now.”
The door didn’t move. “You haven’t answered my question.”
Grapevine sighed and rubbed her forehead. “We’re here to . . . investigate . . . disturbances in the neighborhood.” The door started to close. “That don’t involve you or Mr. White.”
Another pause, but the door finally opened all the way. In the doorway stood an amber-maned mare with a coat as white as the clouds above the city. She was tall, far more so than any of us, and even more than Marshmallow. Around her neck was a fancy pearl necklace with a jewel pendant that matched the symbol on her flank. Even with her accepting us being able to see her, she leered at us like we were going to betray her at any second.
“Can we come in?” Grapevine said, an edge starting to take in her voice.
Skyler quickly scanned the street before eventually nodding her head and consenting for us to follow her into the house.
* * *
The interior was a lot like Grapevine’s. No, it was Grapevine’s, but reversed. The kitchen was on the opposite wall, and so was the main hallway. The main difference was in the decorating. Most of the Whites’ furniture was wooden with little padding that looked thoroughly uncomfortable. Not that Skyler offered either of us a seat.
Instead, she gave us a look that implied she was crossing her hooves in our general direction, without actually doing so. Ponies in the The Burb were strange that way.
“Alright, start talking,” Skyler said.
Grapevine took a deep breath before speaking. “We have reason to believe that . . .” She paused and looked around, as if somehow her whispered words could be heard around the whole neighborhood. “. . . reason to believe that someone in this neighborhood may have committed a very, um, heinous crime.”
Skyler brushed some of her mane away to reveal a sparkling horn. A coffee cup levitated over to her lips and she took a sip. “Somepony bought it.”
“So we think,” I said.
Grapevine glared at me. “We have very good reason to believe that a stallion in this neighborhood murdered his wife.”
Skyler took another sip. “Do tell.”
“This is serious,” Grapevine protested. “Somepony died.”
“And what do you expect me to do about it? I’m not some cop.”
Grapevine sighed and took a moment to compose herself. “Look, Skyler, we’re not here to mess with you, your son, or your husband; we just want to know if you saw or heard anything!” By the end of her sentence, her voice had risen to a fever pitch.
Skyler, meanwhile, look nonplussed. “You could have just said that in the first place.” She took another sip of the coffee. “And no, I didn’t see nothin’. I’ve been in here all day, and I didn’t hear or see anything.”
“You sure?” I said.
“Positive.” She placed the coffee cup gently on the counter. “Now get out. Both of you.”
Back on the street, Grapevine beat her head against the Whites’ brick mailbox. To facilitate the thinking process, she told me. “I should have known Skyler wouldn’t help us; the dingbat’s drunk half the time.”
“But she was drinking coffee,” I said.
She looked at me, then just shook her head and went back to thumping against the mailbox.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“This.”
“You know what I mean.”
She stopped her banging. “I don’t know anypony else on this street,” she said. Under her breath, I could hear her mention “rich pricks”. “I have no idea who’s home and who’s not, and without that we have no idea who we can talk to.” She turned to me, her eyes half-lidded. “If there were a time to try to be a reporter, now would be it.”
I thought for a second. Well, longer really. It was more of an expression, you see, and anyway I racked my brain to come up with a solution. Derbyshire hadn’t had neighborhoods by any sort of definition. Just wide-spread farms that were loosely organized by a bookkeeper in city hall.
Suddenly, I could almost swear that the lightbulb on my flank lit up. “Is there a place where this neighborhood’s records are kept, by any chance?”
Grapevine thought for a second, then started to laugh. “Yes, in fact, there is,” she said, still laughing. “And, see, the last record keeper was a Pullmare-ite, so they had to get a new one and-” She waved a hoof. “Well, you’ll see.”
Without another word, she led me out of the neighborhood to parts of The Burb yet unknown.
* * *
The trip took some time, as we traveled the breadth of The Burb to reach wherever we were going. Whenever I questioned Grapevine about why the record keeper would live so far away from the neighborhood, she brushed me off. We elected to take a cheaper carriage, which also extended the time by quite a bit.
The area we came to was another neighborhood, though far unlike Grapevine’s. It was on a grassy hill that rose a little over the rest of The Burb. Imaginatively, it had been dubbed, “High Point Estates.” The houses weren’t as close together as in Carter Ranch. Instead, they sat on their own plots of land with open space between houses. The lawns, despite being many times bigger than Grapevine’s, were just as well kept. The place reeked of money.
The carriage stopped in front of a house set far away from the road and connected only with a wide concrete driveway. No car sat on the surface, though. The two-story brick house looked dark, to me. But Grapevine seemed to approve, as she got out of the carriage and paid the driver.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I said.
“Positive,” she replied.
I walked with Grapevine to the door. Instead of knocking, however, she just swung the door open, causing it to creak the whole way. Inside, the lights were off. Sunlight only made it into the house through gaps in blinds and curtains over every window.
We were standing in a small foyer that opened up to the entirety of the house. A hallway to the right led to some rooms, and next to it was a double staircase that led to an upper story. Through a wide opening in front of us was the living room, and to the left was a dining room.
There was more stuff, but I was tired of trying to draw mental maps of boring houses with boring furniture, so I stopped caring. Anyway, Grapevine took me through the living room to an even smaller hallway at the back. The door there was closed, but she shoved it open.
It was the master bedroom, and most of the room’s space was taken up by a giant bed. The sheets were lush and the mattress was taller than a colt. A cabinet radio took up the remaining space in the room. We walked in, and the first thing that I noticed was the snoring. A body turned in the sheets, and I realized we were walking in on a sleeping pony.
I moved to leave, but Grapevine motioned for me to stand still. She walked over to the side of the bed and looked thoughtfully at the sleeping form. After a moment of contemplation, she slammed a hoof against the wooden bedside table, sending a loud thump out to fill the room.
The pony in the bed shot up with a startled cry. Her blonde mane and cream coat briefly reminded me of Skyler, and then my mouth hung agape when I realized who it really was. Marshmallow sat up in her bed, looking at both Grapevine and I with considerable surprise.
“W- What are you two doing here?” she mumbled.
“We need your help,” Grapevine said flatly.
Marshmallow yawned. “That’s great and all,” she said, “but can I use the bathroom first? I’ve got the feeling this is going to take a while.”
* * *
A short time later, Grapevine and I were sitting on a large couch in Marshmallow’s living room while she sat on a fluffy chair next to it. Her hair was still a wild tangle, but she’d slipped into a bathrobe the same shade as her coat and sipped at some warm tea held in her magic. Dark circles were still visible under her eyes, though she had stopped yawning every few seconds.
“So how did you two get in again?”
“You left the front door open,” Grapevine said. “Again.”
Marshmallow sighed and pinched her eyes shut. “I keep doing that . . . I tell myself that I’ll stop but I end up forgetting anyway.” She took a mighty swig of tea from her mug, and gargled it down in a fashion that surprised me. “It’s all these stupid late nights I’ve been doing.” Grapevine nodded sagely.
I raised one hoof like I was back in school. “Excuse me, question,” I said.
“What?” Grapevine said irritably. Marshmallow parroted, but left the annoyance from her voice.
“Well, sorry if I’m not really in the know,” I said, “but didn’t you live in the library?”
Marshmallow laughed and shook her head. “Oh no, not permanently. My parents forced me to buy a house here when I moved to the city, but I usually preferred spending time in the library.” She paused. “It’s just that, since the Pullmare fiasco things around here have been crazy, so I’ve spent most of my time around The Burb. My relations to Canterlot even got me appointed to the new, temporary city council.”
“Which is what we came here to talk about,” Grapevine cut in.
Marshmallow sighed and chugged the rest of her tea and replaced the mug in her magic field with a brush that began working out the tangles in her mane. “And do I dare ask what the two of you need with the neighborhood records?” She smiled. “I don’t approve of stalking, you know.”
“This is serious,” Grapevine said, gripping the edge of the couch’s hoofrest.
“I am being serious,” Marshmallow said. “We don’t need a repeat of the Bukowski incident.”
Grapevine’s face turned red, but she pushed the comment aside. “I’ve got a . . . strong hunch that someone in my neighborhood was murdered, but we don’t know who. Most everypony was gone at the time, and I don’t know most of the ponies on that street, so-”
“You need the records,” Marshmallow finished.
“Yep.”
Marshmallow thought for a second. “Alright, you can take a look,” she said finally.
Grapevine hoofpumped. “Alright, can we see them now?”
“Sure,” Marshmallow said, hopping out of her chair.
“Wait, right now?” I said. “You keep the records here?”
“Don’t be silly!” Marshmallow said. “It would be impracticable to keep all of the records here; I just have the neighborhood records.”
“And where would those be exactly?” I said.
Marshmallow motioned for us to follow her. She led us over brownstone tile in the kitchen to a small laundry room. She opened the door to reveal a simple, closed garage. The air was musty, and it smelled of . . . old, uh, -ness.
The garage was basically a concrete floor covered in a mass of boxes stacked in teetering stacks to the ceiling. The only thing that broke pattern was a stunningly-white steamcar sitting in the middle. “Whoa,” I said.
Grapevine groaned. “I forgot how much was in here,” she said. “Where do you keep the Carter Ranch records, again?”
“I dunno,” Marshmallow said. She shrugged. “They’re probably . . . somewhere to the left.”
“Right, thanks,” Grapevine said.”
“Not right, left.” Marshmallow chuckled when Grapevine hunched her shoulders and shook her head. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me, either of you.” She walked out, but briefly stuck her head back in the doorframe. “Breakfast will be ready in a bit.”
With that, the white-painted door shut. We were left in the glare of a few electric bulbs hanging from the ceiling and reined in by boxes, boxes, and, oh right, more boxes.
“So you think there is an easier way to do this?” I said.
Grapevine grabbed the first box to her left and started rifling through it. “Nope.”
“Well maybe we could-”
“Just get going.”
I huffed in her direction but sat down at another set of boxes not too far from her. They were wooden, but the tops had already been loosened, so it was only a matter of tugging them off. The first address I read, however, identified that the ponies inside lived on Stefanie street, so I put that one back in the pile and took another.
“How exactly is this supposed to help us find the ‘killer’, again?” I said. “I mean, all we’ve got is a probable street and the color of whatever stallion did it.”
“This was your idea,” Grapevine reminded me.
“Yeah, but your case,” I shot back.
The sound of rustling paper from her side stopped. “Just find the box with the residents of Carter Ranch, and we’ll work from there,” she said.
“But how is that supposed to help?” I said. “I mean, it’s not like all of these are going to list coat color with the residential stuff.”
Grapevine just snickered.
“What?” I said.
“You’re talking about an entire town designed by Ms. Pullmare. Of course it’s got coat color; she recorded every little detail. Heck, I’m sure it’s even got whether the residents prefer colts or fillies in there. The married ones.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “So what does it say on yours, then?”
I had meant it more as a joke, but Grapevine’s only response was an icy, “get back to work.” She didn’t speak to me after that. I sighed and obediently went back to the current task, if only to do something that occupied my mind.
However, half an hour later, my mind felt like it was going to melt and drip out of my ears. The heat in the garage had climbed exponentially since we had come in, what with it being an uninsulated and closed space in the middle of summer. Grapevine and I had both begun breathing hard, and my sweat dripped freely onto the wooden boxes, soaking them.
“Okay, I can’t do this anymore,” I said after my simple touch turned a piper file into mush. “We have got to cool down.”
“Yeah, well, if you’ve got any bright ideas,” Grapevine said, flicking sweat from her brow, “I’d just love to hear them.”
I looked around a little, but didn’t spot anything besides more boxes, the floor, and the garage door. I almost gave up, when I realized I was looking at a garage door. I almost wanted to smack myself. “Why don’t you use your magic to open the garage door?” I said. “Let in a little air from outside.”
Grapevine opened her mouth, looked at the large metal door, then shut it again before saying, “ . . . Right.” Her horn glowed, brighter than usual from the strain, and the door slid open on hinges designed for just the purpose. Cool air--relative to the garage, anyway--poured in and both of us sighed.
“That’s more like it,” I chirped.
“Yeah, it does feel nice,” Grapevine said, “but we need to get back to work.”
I shut my eyes and groaned like I was a teenager again when I saw how many boxes we had left and how few we had gone through in comparison. “There’s no way we’re going to get this done today,” I said.
“Not with that attitude.”
“Yeah, well, I just wish there was an easier way,” I said. Grapevine didn’t offer up any suggestions, but it got me thinking. Like I was, again, back in school and coming up with an elaborate way to cheat instead of just studying. I moved closer to the open garage door to feel the cool air while I thought, and then I wanted to smack myself a second time in five minutes.
“Hey, Grapevine, all these boxes are labeled, right?” I said.
“Yes, I do believe so,” Grapevine said. “Glad to see you noticed sometime in the past thirty minutes.”
Ignoring her comment, I continued, “And that means you could, say, look over the entire room and at least get a glimpse at all the names, right?”
“Yes . . .” Grapevine said, pausing her work to look at me.
“And your magic records everything it sees . . .”
Her eyes got as wide as saucer plates. In the next second, she had abandoned the pile she’d been working on and was standing next to me, trying to see what I saw. “Yeah, yeah, this could work,” she said. She laughed. “Since when did you start coming up with ideas?”
“Since I got a chance for the job I really wanted?”
She nodded. “Right, right, nice to have someone else actually thinking for a change.” She paused. “If you’re only just now motivated to do actual work, why did you stick around through Pullmare’s stuff?”
I could tell she was fishing for an answer involving her, but I didn’t oblige. It wasn’t the truth, anyway. “I’m not really sure, I guess,” I said. “I just felt it was my, uh . . . duty . . . to stick around. Like, to help ponies.”
“A hero without a cause.”
“Uh, sure, I’ll go with that.”
Grapevine giggled. “Good luck if you ever write an autobiography.” Still shaking her head and laughing softly, she activated her magic again. Her eyes did the glow-y thing and a blinding light flashed through the garage. Suddenly, a notebook and pencil shot from her bag and into the air where the pencil began furiously writing.
To tell the truth, it wasn’t as impressive the second time. After a minute she stopped, and only just managed to catch the notepad before it hit the floor. Woozily, she held it up to her eyes and scanned the page. I heard her muttering the gibberish nonsense on the page until she alighted on what she was looking for.
“Bright light under boxes Stone Chimney Ash Street Carter Ranch Tranquility Lane floor,” she read. She pointed at a pile of boxes stacked directly beneath one bulb. “That one, it looks like.”
I started to make my way to it, but Grapevine’s purple aura surrounded the third box from the top and sent it flying toward us, leaving the others to topple over into a mess. The flying box nearly hit me, too, if I hadn’t already started to duck.
“Hey, watch it,” I said.
“Hey, watch yourself,” Grapevine replied. “This magic business isn’t easy, you know.”
I grumbled and watched her open the box. Her file was the first she grabbed, and it disappeared inside her saddlebag before I could catch a glimpse of it. Next were the files from Dartmoor Drive. Grapevine scanned over them faster than my eyes could keep up.
Many files went back into the box until only three remained. “Alright,” she said, “these three are all red, married stallions living on Dartmoor.” She placed all three on the ground. “Now we just have to eliminate two.”
She started to pore over them, but stopped. “Hey, if you’re going to be the one coming up with ideas,” she said, “then why don’t you tell me which one we should go with.”
My voice caught in my throat. “Y- You mean that I have to be the one to decide which one is the killer and that we go after?” I gulped. “And that if I make the wrong decision, the killer probably gets away.”
“Comes with being a reporter. You did want to be one of those, right?”
“It sounds more like being a cop.”
She started to slide the files away. “Fine, fine, I can do it by myself . . .”
I stuck a hoof out to stop her. “No, I’ll do it. Show me the files,” I said.
She did so, and I peered over them. All had pictures, but they were black and white. Instead, the files had a category on the paper that read, “Color: Red” for all of them. I scrutinized the dossiers before pointing to the one on the far right. “Well, he’s innocent,” I said.
“Oh, and why would that be? Remember, the wrong choice could be costly . . .”
I gulped. “Well, it says that he and his wife are in their 60’s, so I doubt he would even do such a thing, or that you, er, your brain wouldn’t have described him as old.”
Grapevine smiled. “Good choice.” She put that file back in the box. Which left two very similar stallions in age and appearance. Both red, of course. I pored over both of them, but found little difference. Even their jobs appeared similar; working for big name companies. I couldn’t hardly tell them apart, even. Which probably said something.
“Okay, I give up,” I said. “What sets one of these two apart as killers?”
“Check their histories,” Grapevine said.
I did, and finally found what I was looking for. The first colt had a fairly normal history with the usual education and work history, but the other had it a little different. Namely, a stint in the Equestrian Rifle Corps for four years. Mr. Gibbons, the dossier said. Or, rather, Sergeant Gibbons.
I held up his dossier. “I think we may want to have a talk with the Sarge,” I said.
Grapevine smiled. “There you go,” she said. She took the file from me. “It gives a business address for him right here; we can go check him out.”
“But why would he return to work after this morning?” I said.
“He won’t be there, but clues might be.”
I nodded. “Alright, but how do you suppose we get there? The carriages won’t come back to this neighborhood, I don’t think. And if we take one, we’ll get there past closing time.”
Before Grapevine could answer, the rattling of keys could be heard behind us. “You could always get there in style,” Marshmallow said.
* * *
Marshmallow assigned Grapevine to clear the way for her car to get out under the pretense of needing me to help her with the food, much to Grapevine’s dissatisfaction. She mumbled and grumbled as, magic spent, she pushed the boxes out of the way.
Meanwhile, I was led inside. On the kitchen counter was a plate of bagels and two official-looking uniforms, complete with bowties. Marshmallow explained that we would need disguises to get into Mr. Gibbons’ workplace. Everything was in such neat order, in fact, that there was nothing left for me to do.
“Why exactly did you want me again?” I said. “Wasn’t there some job needed doing?”
Marshmallow rolled her eyes. “That was just so I could pull you away from Grapevine for one second.”
“Alright . . . what for?” I asked nervously.
Her face took on a look of caring and sympathy. “So how are you holding up?”
“Um, fine, I guess,” I said. “Is this about Chemiker, or Remedy, or-”
“Grapevine,” Marshmallow clarified.
“Ah.” I sighed. “How much do you know?”
“Everything. Word gets around, I’m afraid.”
“Joya?”
“Right the first time.”
Well, I had figured the word would get out sooner or later. How Joya had found out, only Celestia knew, but I wasn’t very surprised. What only frightened me was the prospect of Sterling finding out. I would need to talk with him . . .
“So, how are you holding up?” Marshmallow repeated.
“I’m fine,” I said, doing my best to brush off the question. “What happened, happened. Sterling and I are still together and everything.”
“But what about you and Grapevine?”
That, I had no answer to. Instead, I nervously looked at the door, hoping she couldn’t hear anything of what we were saying. “We’re working on it.”
“Uh huh. And does she know that?”
I looked away. Marshmallow dropped the subject and gave the uniforms and bagels to me. “Just think about talking it out, alright?” Marshmallow said. She smiled. “You two are too important to the paper to fall apart over something so silly.”
Silly. Right. I took the stuff and started back out the door without another word.
“Oh, and say hi to Joya for me!” Marshmallow called after me.
I assured her I would and shut the door behind me.
* * *
Grapevine got her suit on just fine, though I had a little trouble with mine. Worse, she elected to help me with it, so I had to stand stock still while Grapevine fussed over me like she was a more violet Joya. Marshmallow’s words rang in my ears the whole time, of course. Once I had the suit on, Grapevine tied the bowtie as well with her magic, and we were all set.
The steamcar was already sitting on its own outside the garage in the driveway and we both hopped in, Grapevine driving. She started the car, backed out, and set off back into The Burb. I offered to give directions, but she directed me to just stay quiet and enjoy the drive.
Which I did. The added speed of Marshmallow's classy steamcar with the windows rolled down allowed her to take a more scenic route that arced around the edge of The Burb, snaking through the foothills of the mountains. It was cooler there, and allowed for a magnificent view of the dusty yet majestic city of Fillydelphia rising above the grassy Equirius Plane where the Delamare and Schuylhoof rivers met to ride out to the sea a little ways beyond. And behind us, I knew lay central Equestria with Manehattan, Canterlot, and, most of all, Derbyshire. It was a nice contemplative scene, so I tried to approach Grapevine.
“So me and Marshmallow were talking . . .” I said.
Grapevine tensed up a little. “Ponies tend to do that,” she said.
“Aren’t you going to ask about what?”
“Wasn’t planning on it, no.”
I sighed. “It was about you . . . and me . . . and the other night.”
Her expression didn’t change, but I noticed that her eyes were locked more rigidly on the road, and her hooves gripped the steering wheel even tighter. “Oh, is that so?”
“And she said we should talk about it, so-”
“Minty,” she said softly, “can we just . . . not. Please?”
The tone surprised me so much that I had to look at her to make sure I was talking to the same pony. Not that she hadn’t spoken softly before, but not in such a desperate way. I shut my mouth.
Grapevine bit her lip and took a deep breath before speaking again. “Just- just know that what happened . . . that was wrong of me.” She looked at me for one brief moment. “I messed up, Minty.”
She turned her eyes back to the road after that, and I didn’t say anything more. Just focused again on looking out the window. Lose myself in the landscape, and try to imagine how I would write it. One step forward, and two steps back, a tiny voice inside my head reminded me.
Eventually, the car made it out of the foothills and into the business district of The Burb; like a small version of Central City in Fillydelphia. Our destination, a looming tower of glass, lay before us. A steel sign in the front informed us the company was called Initech, though what the name stood for I could only guess at. We parked in the guest parking lot and both of us got out.
“You ready for this?” Grapevine said. “It’s been awhile since we went undercover.”
I nervously nodded, recalling my last incident with sneaking into a place of work--and the consequences that had come from that. “I’m ready,” I said.
“Good. Now, let’s just walk in there like we’re normal workers running late, find Gibbons’ desk, look for any clues he may have left, and get out.”
There were a few workers arriving, presumably from their lunch breaks, so we mingled with them. I quickly noticed, however, that we were a bit overdressed from the others. They only wore button-up shirts without ties of any sort, and some were even less formal than that. No gave us trouble, though, and we got into the building’s lobby without trouble.
According to the dossier, Gibbons worked on the fourth floor. We headed to the elevator, but never got a chance to make it. Halfway across the coldly-decorated lobby, a pony stepped in front of us. He was dressed even more bizarrely than us--actual trousers with suspenders up over his pleated white dress shirt. Despite his clothes, though, the face that greeted us with sunken eyes and receding hairline was anything but exciting.
“Are you two the consultants we sent for?” he said in the most boring voice I had ever heard. No, really: it made me want to fall asleep just hearing it.
“Um, yes,” Grapevine said, “Yes we are.”
“I’m impressed; you’re both three hours early.” He didn’t look impressed. More like my father when our fields had to be plowed a month sooner than normal.
“Well, we aim to please,” Grapevine said.
The office worker--manager, a tag on his shirt said---sighed. “Alright, then; let’s go ahead and start the evaluations.” He motioned to a separate elevator. “If you’ll just follow me . . .”
Grapevine held up a hoof. “Actually, we got here early so we could go talk to the employees a little beforehand, to get a handle on how best to interview them.”
The manager shook his head sourly. “Can’t let you do that,” he said. “If our workers knew were downsizing, and that you two are here to evaluate who gets to keep their jobs, well-” He left the sentence off, but didn’t seem to be in favor of picking it back up.
“Well, surely we could at least gain a little insight on the office environment from a quick look around,” Grapevine said.
He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m going to need you to not do that. Now just follow me to the interview rooms, and we’ll get started.”
Grapevine looked helplessly at me, and I back at her, before we both followed the steam-colored stallion to the elevator. Something told me I was about to get my first look at an office space, but it wouldn’t be a good one. The elevator door dinged shut.