The facts were these, one Leonard Gaswint, thirty-nine years, forty-two weeks, five days, three hours and twenty-six minutes old, was found mauled to death in his home office. His dog Cantaloupe was the sole witness and only suspect in the murder. Convinced of her innocence, the Gaswint family offered a significant reward to find the real killer.
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“You the dog expert?” this question, directed towards the Pie Maker, was asked in sheer boredom by the coroner on duty. He was a dark brown earth pony with a graying mane and a tombstone for a cutie mark.
“Uh-huh!” the Pie Maker forces out, in mock enthusiasm. Even though he had been aware of his gift for most of his life, it still made him very uncomfortable.
“Already had a dog expert” replies the coroner, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m the, uh” the Pie Maker glances over towards his partner. “Other one.”
“Mmmmmhmmmm”
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The Pie Maker gingerly glances under the tarp covering the body of Mr. Gaswint, noting the large chunk of flesh missing from his face.
“How’s he look” Cod asks, standing a fair distance away. He sported a rather squeamish stomach, and couldn’t take the sight of the more dismembered bodies.
“Fine,” replies the Pie Maker. “But my threshold’s pretty high, so you have to take what I say with a grain of salt.”
Cod comes a bit closer as the Pie Maker removes the tarp from the face. He holds back a wave of sick as the tarp is removed from Gaswint’s face.
“That ain’t a grain of salt. That’s one of them blocks they have in bars we like to lick.”
The Pie Maker rolls his eyes, “he can’t help how he looks.”
“That doesn’t make it any less traumatic.”
“For who?”
“Me…and I’m sure him too, but mostly me.”
The two stare at the body for a few seconds in silence, until it was broken once again by Cod.
“I’m gonna wait outside.”
He trots out the door, quite happy to be rid of the grisly sight within the morgue. The Pie Maker, on the other hoof, pulls out his stop watch, starting it in preparation for his little chat with the deceased before touching the recent murder victim. The familiar golden light illuminates the morgue before Mr. Gastwint sits up on the gurny.
“Hello” says the recent corpse.
“Hi, um sorry to disturb you Mr. Gaswint, or…Leonard, d-do you prefe-“
“Leo!”
“Leo,” the Pie Maker says, looking pointedly at Leo’s face and pointing a hoof at his own. “Um, your current condition…”
“Do I have something right here?” Asked Leo, pointing at the exact spot on his own face the Pie Maker was gesturing towards.
“No. There’s nothing left there.”
“Damn dog.”
“Cantaloupe?”
“Oh, no! Cantaloupe’s as docile as a kitten. It was that Rottweiler! My secretary siqued her dog on me. She’s been upset since last year’s Christmas party. Haha, it was a funny sto-!”
Leo’s story was cut short by a jab from the Pie Maker’s hoof, causing the familiar blue flash and leaving him in the same position he was in when the Pie Maker arrived.
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“Was it the Chow?” The coroner asked as the Pie Maker came out of the main room.
“The secretary. With her Rottweiler.”
The Pie Maker and Cod then made their exit, wanting nothing more to do with the dead. Well, for now anyway.
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Her good name clear, and her execution staved, Cantaloupe was freed. The secretary and her Rottweiler were hauled to justice. And Olive Snook sat in her apartment, with the Pie Maker’s dog Digby, watching a report of the day’s events on her holo-screen.
“…an anonymous tip led to solving the murder of Canterlot entrepreneur thought to be mauled to death by the family pet. The truth, however, is far more sinister…”
Olive enjoyed her time with Digby. He was a surrogate for the pony connection she wanted with the Pie Maker. Her desperate attempts to connect to someone so disconnected terrified him. But that didn’t stop her from trying. A knock sounded at the door. The unicorn got up from her spot with Digby, and answered the door to…the Pie Maker.
“How was the convention?” she asked as soon as the door opened.
The Pie Maker, a little uncomfortable due to the fact that he was in Olive’s apartment and that if he wasn’t careful, he could accidentally kill Digby.
“Conventional. How was Digby?”
“Erratic, he’s a very needy dog. Do you pet him? Maybe if you pet him once in a while he wouldn’t be so erratic.”
“I pet him. I’m allergic, so I can’t actually touch him, but I pet him.”
“With a stick? How do you pet him?”
“A stick is involved, but its more like a handle to a…petting device.”
Olive had been advancing on the Pie Maker throughout the entire conversation, to the point where the Pie Maker tripped backwards over Olive’s coffee table.
“A dog needs to be touched. We all need to be touched.”
“You touch him, other ponies touch him.”
“He’s your dog.”
The Pie Maker was beginning to get more uncomfortable than he already had been. Olive, oblivious to his discomfort, continued her advances.
“Do you touch anything?”
“Of course, I uh,” the Pie Maker said, looking around for some way to escape. “I-uh, I tou-touch lots of things.”
“With affection? When was the last time somepony touched you with affection?”
“I get touched.”
Olive leaned in, hoping to sneak a kiss from the love of her life, but the Pie Maker, spotting his escape, stopped her advance.
“Can you get Digby’s leash now?”
Olive looked at the Pie Maker longingly for a few seconds before, reluctantly, going off in search of Digby’s leash.
The Pie Maker turned his head towards Digby, asking “you don’t mind not getting touched, do you?”
Digby looked up to his master, thinking that his master was very thoughtful to leave him with somepony who touched him regularly.
And then came the event that changed everything.
“…in other news, the body of a young mare allegedly murdered aboard a sky cruiser was recovered from the frozen north. The victim’s identity is being withheld…”
The Pie Maker listened intently to the news, unaware that he had stopped breathing. He was haunted by the nameless woman who met her end above the clouds. But he didn’t know why.
“Here’s your leash,” sighed the disappointed mare as she came back from retrieving the leash.
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“…her name’s still being withheld, and very little is known about the victim, who had been reportedly travelling alone, when murdered aboard a passenger air ship, that was returning from an exotic cruise flying between Equestria and Hoofululu. The ship’s captain initially dismissed the death as an accident, suggesting the victim likely returned from a late nig…”
The Pie Maker was back in his Pie Hole, entranced by the reports flooding in about the recent murder.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Entranced no longer, the Pie Maker left his storage room and opened the door to Cod. After brewing some coffee for the PI and himself, Cod finally broke the silence.
“Been watching the news lately?”
“Doesn’t seem like much is going on in the world besides a dead mare on an airship” replies the Pie Maker.
“A lot going on with that dead mare.”
“That so?”
“Mmhmm, fifty thousand bits worth of ‘that so’. You interested in a conversation?”
“I could be persuaded”
“You better be persuaded quick, cause dead mares about to go underground.”
“They just pulled her out of the water.”
“Aurelian. Celestians just leave’em laying around. Aurelians gotta get’em buried.”
“Where are we going?”
“Ponyville, ever been there?”
“I grew up there. Sort of. This dead mare from Ponyville, she have a name?”
“Charlotte Sparkle.”
The Pie Maker gasped in recognition.
“Chuck”