//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: The Painless Murders // by bkc56 //------------------------------// I’d needed to cover the distance back to the office quickly, so I was rather winded by the time I arrived. I was relieved to see the gang all present and seated around Citrine’s desk. As I walked in, I blew out a breath and wiped my brow. There was an empty chair waiting for me which I fell into with a sigh. “Hi all. My apologies for being blunt, but I need to get caught up, fast. First, Opal, is Misty okay?” “Yes. I got her to her parents. I stayed with her about an hour before heading back here.” “And I can update that,” Mr Eagle added. “When Detective Hunter returned from the crime scene, he had additional evidence. There was the receipt for Quicksilver's submission, as well as documentation of the earlier Message Fire submission. He was willing to admit the facts didn’t add up. I applied some pressure, and he agreed to release Quicksilver, with a strong warning not to leave Canterlot. He’s home with Misty.” “Really? That’s fantastic.” I signed in relief. “Good work, and thank you.” Legal smiled with a single nod. I turned to face Citrine. “So, what do you have for me? Please have something I can use.” “As we’d talked about, my first stop was the bank listed on the Message Fire paperwork. The manager wouldn’t provide details. But he did confirm that the account was opened by a violet unicorn. Also, several deposits were made which he would withdraw within a few days. The police had also been by, and the account was frozen with some recently deposited funds still in it.” Probably the most recent payment Mr Pants had mentioned. If the unicorn discovers the account is frozen, he might figure out we’re on to him. Somehow, I have to get ahead of him. I need to stop trailing along behind him trying to catch up. She then smiled. “I also spotted a couple plain-clothes cops loitering at the bank. Looks like they have it staked out in case anypony drops by to access that account.” “Good.” I nodded. “But somehow I doubt it’s going to be that easy.” Citrine continued, “I also had a quick visit with Outflank’s wife. She’s a nice pony, but is really stressed. It seems her husband has a gambling problem. It devastated their finances and basically destroyed the marriage. That’s why she’s divorcing him. He owes a lot of bits to some bookie. He promises it’ll all be fixed soon, but you know what that means...” “Yeah, it means it might get better before it gets worse than it’s ever been before. And that assumes he’s not flat-out lying to her.” I paused for a moment. “I hope she can get out before he drags her down any further. Although, I wonder what he means by getting it fixed? Typically that means he’s getting, or thinks he’s getting a bunch of bits somewhere. But where?” I rubbed the back of my neck. Citrine shook her head. “I have no idea. Other than his job at the bureau, his wife didn’t indicate any other sources of income.” She paused. “You know, she still loves him, her husband. She was crying as she said she just can’t be with him with all this going on. I really felt sorry for her.” I shook my head. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through. Still, that’s all good info. Anything else?” “Yeah, I was also able to talk to Cloudy.” She tilted her head. “I’m surprised I still got back before you.” I sighed. “Getting in to see Fancy Pants, without an appointment, proved to be slow and painful.” “A busy pony?” she said with a grin. “And how.” I shifted in my chair. “So, what did you find?” “You were right. He was a bit more talkative with me. It turns out he had help preparing that lab accident from a classmate of Quicksilver’s, a pony by the name of Astral Rune. He didn’t mention it at the time because he didn’t want to get Astral in trouble. Cloudy only wanted to scare Quicksilver. It was supposed to destroy the experiment, a small explosion that would be fully contained in the fume hood. Cloudy figured he did something wrong, causing it to destroy the lab and almost kill Quicksilver. “Astral was easy to track down, as he lives here in Canterlot. He said it was just a prank, like a firecracker pop that wouldn't have even broken the beaker Quicksilver was mixing in. He figured Cloudy messed it up. He didn’t come forward because he was afraid he’d get kicked out of school.” My inner voice nagged me about the discrepancy. “From a firecracker pop, to a small explosion, to destroying the lab. That’s a pretty big inconsistency between what they each said they expected, and what actually happened.” “Yeah.” She nodded. “Someone had to mess up pretty badly to be that far off. Anyway, just to cover the bases, I asked him where he was the night of the murder. He was at a social gathering on the other side of Canterlot. Scores of ponies saw him there.” I slowly nodded. “So some new information on an old case, but nothing that seems to apply here. You still believe that Cloudy wasn’t involved?” “Correct.” Citrine shook her head. “I don’t see a motive at this point. He genuinely sounded concerned. And he couldn’t have gotten here from Ponyville anyway.” “By the way,” I added. “What color is Astral?” “He’s light blue with a yellow mane and tail. Is it important?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. I was just checking.” I sat in silence. My inner voice was mumbling at me again. There was something. I just couldn’t… “Steel, is something wrong?” Citrine asked. “What, oh, no, never mind.” I shook my head to refocus. “Anyway, thanks for checking on all that. It was a lot of good work in a short period of time.” I looked at the others. “So, anything else?”  “Uh, Steel?” I looked over at Opal. “I was typing up the case notes from earlier today, and I think I noticed something.” “I thought you usually waited before typing that stuff up.” “I do. But this is an important case, so I thought I should get started. And I had some downtime.” She fidgeted in her chair. I gestured with my leg. “Go on. What did you see?” She glanced down at the notes she held. “This pony’s name, Kaafe Mane? I think it’s a fake name.” I nodded. “I think so too. If there’s submission fraud going on here, it would be pretty stupid to use his real name.” “No, I mean literally. A. Fake. Name.” She raised her head. “It’s an anagram.” I stared at her for a moment. “Huh! Well, I don’t think the cops are gonna be finding that pony anywhere. So, you secretly enrolled in a detective correspondence school?” She giggled. “No, no. I could never do what you guys do. I know my special talent.” She gazed around the office. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” “Still, that was a good catch. Thank you.” The barest hint of a blush colored her cheeks.  I looked around the group. “Okay, it’s late. We’re done for today. Everypony, go home. Citrine, I have one more thing I wanna check. I’ll be home in an hour or two.”