It was a snatch-and-grab, if I had ever seen one. Where there had once been one ruby-encrusted, jalapeno-iced strawberry-lemon cake for a chubby little dragon’s birthday party tomorrow, there was now nothing but crumbs and the occasional gem shard.
I took a deep drag from my pipe and blew the bubbles out of my nose.
“Pinkie, dear, what have we told you about blowing bubbles and talking? You’re going to get soap in your throat.”
The dame, fussy as she was, made a good point. She had run this joint since I was in diapers, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at her.
“Thank you, dearie. Now put that pipe away.”
I hand over my pipe to Gummy and get myself thinking.
Besides the birthday boy himself, only five other mares knew about that cake. Logic insisted that one of those mares must have stolen that cake. And as hard as it was to think that there could be a mole in my circle, the facts were staring me right in my pretty pink face.
/~~~~~ o ~~~~~\
Stop number one was the library. The gal who ran it was a little goody two-shoes—the last person I’d think would do the dirty, so it’d be best to get her out of the way early. Before things got messy.
“Messy? Pinkie, what are you talking about?”
Messy, as in not clean-cut. No straight lines. Messy, as in dangerous. You’d never think the world was so unforgiving, until it comes and snatches what you love from right underneath you, leaving you cakeless and flailing in the dark with no end in sight.
“I-Is there something wrong?”
While I gave her pad the sweep, I told her not to worry her cute little head about it. Leave this sort of thing to the professionals. We’re not gonna lose any more sleep over things we’ve already seen. And things we’ve already seen could only haunt us in the short distance between here and the next bottle of hard cider. And, boy, was I going to need a drink when this job was done.
As I suspected, there wasn’t so much of a whiff of chili frosting in the main floor. My search was about to take me upstairs when the girl grabs my hoof.
“Spike’s not feeling too well today. And, honestly, I don’t think you’d be a good influence on him right now.”
Life hadn’t been a good influence on me, but I couldn’t blame the girl for wanting to protect what she loved.
I looked into those big, round, innocent eyes, and I knew I wasn’t going to find any crumbs upstairs either. This gal hadn’t done a dirty thing in her life. She was probably the kind of girl who learned about the birds and bees from a book.
“W-Wh-Whaa? Pinkie, that’s hardly appropriate! And entirely untrue!”
The poor thing was blushing and sputtering. I knew I was a hell of a charmer, but this was a bit too much. I slipped through the door just before books started getting thrown.
/~~~~~ o ~~~~~\
The sunshine outside was a pale comfort as I made my way across town. There isn’t very much that can put a smile on your face when you’re trying to figure out if the next of your friends is the one who put the knife in your back.
As I came up to part of town that suspect number two’s known to frequent, I caught sight biggest, meanest-looking son of a gun I’ve seen in a long time. Was he hired help? It made sense for a cake thief to have muscle like him around.
The thug was built like an elephant, and he had a pair of dead-set eyes that I recognized the likes of. A pony with those kinds of eyes could do anything, and that made them dangerous. Chances were that those very eyes have witnessed the kinds of horrors that make grown mares bawl like fillies.
“Nope.”
He was a stubborn one, but I knew I’d get what I needed from him soon enough. I fixed him with a stare that matched his dead-set gaze ounce for ounce, but he didn’t so much as flinch. Did he think I was kidding around or something?
“Eeyup.”
The guy had guts, talking to me like that. This goon knew something about that missing cake, and I was going to choke it out of him if I had to.
“Nope.”
A mind like a steel trap. This wasn’t this pony’s first rodeo; that much was obvious. But I was a mare driven to desperation. And desperation makes mares like me do crazy, crazy things. I was going to find out what he knew, Celestia-damn it all!
“Pinkie what in tarnation are you hollerin’ about? And what the hay have you got your hooves around my brother’s neck for?”
It was suspect number two, arriving at precisely the wrong moment. I tightened my grip on her goon. He was probably my only way out of this jam. With cold steel in my voice, I calmly told the mare to back off!
“… You okay, there, Mac?”
“Eeyup.”
Atlas shrugged, and my rump hit the dirt. So much for that plan.
My mind raced, and I pictured every possible way this scenario could play out. Precious few of them involved me getting out with all my teeth still in my head.
“Wait, what now? Is there somethin’ that I don’t know about? ‘Cause right now you aren’t making a lick o’ sense.”
It surprised me how sincere she sounded.
“That’s cause I am sincere. Cupcake in my eye and everythin’.”
I chewed the inside of my lip. Pinkie promises aren’t things to be taken lightly, so despite my current state of affairs, I found it easy to believe what she was saying. Maybe a little too easy. After all, nopony would have this kind of muscle laying around for no good reason.
An old-fashioned stake-out never hurt anyone, and I’d definitely feel better about crossing this name off my list after I’ve given her a few hours of meticulous observation.
“Whatever floats your boat, Pinkie. So long as you don’t make a big ruckus again.”
As soon as the mare turned away, I slipped into the shadows and out of sight. I’d be back, though, with a pair of binoculars and a flask of something strong.
/~~~~~ o ~~~~~\
After about five hours of scouring every inch of Sweet Apple Acres, I threw in the towel. The place was as clean as a newborn’s flank; nothing but entirely legitimate business. I worked out a crick in my neck and set my sights on the Ponyville spa.
Now, while a massage at the spa did sound nice after the sort of morning I’ve gone through, this was purely business. I had it on good authority that a certain pair of broads were having their weekly spa session there. In fact, this was normally the kind of thing that’d go into my event planning calendar, complete with little red hearts and smiley faces. But as I made my way inside, I was in anything but a doodling mood.
I slammed the door to the hooficure room open, and all the conversation in it grinds to a halt.
“Pinkie, dear, why in Equestria are you wearing a trenchcoat? And are you muttering to yourself again?”
I looked the speaker over. The broad was real pretty, in a cheap sort of way. She had curves that most mares would kill for, and makeup caked a mile thick.
“Excuse me?!”
I pay no mind to the first broad’s hysterics, and instead turn my gaze to the second girl.
Now, this babe—she’s a real beaut. Former model, if my sources weren’t exaggerating things. But looking at her right now, I had no choice but to believe them. She had a face that was cuter than a newborn foal, a tail that went on forever, and legs that just didn’t quit.
“Eep!”
She was even cuter when she was embarrassed.
“Oh my goodness…”
But I cut right down to the chase. After all, a very special cake got nabbed this morning, and the trail wasn’t getting any warmer.
“Is that what this is all about?” The first broad huffs and tosses back her hair. “Well, Fluttershy and I have been here since the crack of dawn, getting a full makeover. The both of us have been here in the mud pit all morning.”
I threw a skeptical glance at the spa ponies, but they nod to confirm the hissy broad’s alibi. Still, I wasn’t so easily convinced. After all, who’s to say that the masseuses weren’t in on it too?
“Pinkie, darling, just look at my mane. Have you ever seen it this splendid without hours and hours of luxurious care from my two favorite hairdressers?”
Her mane was pretty spanking fabulous, no doubt about it. Both the broads had some serious work done on them; the kind of stuff that couldn’t be faked on the fly.
“You’re quite right, dear. There’s simply no possible way we were out stealing cakes this morning.”
“Um, that’s not to say we don’t like your baking… Because we really do! I hope you don’t take it the wrong way…”
Cute as a button, and with impeccable tastes. This babe was really gunning after my heart, that sweet thing.
“Eep!”
I blew the doll a kiss and made my exit. But my good mood dropped like a stone as I pushed through the frilly double-doors. Because now, I only had one name left on my list. And my next little conversation had a snowball’s chance in Appleloosa of being a pleasant one.
/~~~~~ o ~~~~~\
“If this is a prank, I think you’re doing it wrong.”
The gal blew a bang of her rainbow-colored hair out of her eyes as they disinterestedly floated between me and the ten-inch caliber party cannon. A sixteen-ounce shaped charge and twelve pies worth of stopping power stared right back at her.
I gave the triggerstring a warning tug to prove that I meant business. There’s a time for pranks, and there’s a time for explosively delivered weaponized pastries. One little pull, and this cake thief was gonna get a lot more baked goods in her face than she bargained for!
“… Is that twelve-pie thing even legal?”
Geneighva Convention infringements aside, I tried to make myself absolutely clear when I said that if she didn’t start talking soon, she was gonna be sneezing out whipped cream for the next month.
“Dude, for the last time, I didn’t steal any cakes from anypony! You’ve got the wrong pegasus!”
From where I stood, that was pretty unlikely. I was looking at the one pony out of those who knew about that cake with both the means and the opportunity to do the deed.
“Okay, I’m not saying that I couldn’t have nabbed it. I’m saying that I wouldn’t have.”
I couldn’t help it; I was intrigued. I gave the trigger some slack and motioned for her to explain.
“You know that I can’t stand spicy food. And you said this thing had chili frosting and jalapenos and what not in it? And rubies too! Rubies are spicy, right?”
My grip on Mr. Boomy slackened. This gal had a point. Without a motive, it made no sense for her to risk getting caught.
Dejectedly, I flick the safety back on and do my best at apologizing for threating her with thirty-six pounds of dessert.
“It’s—uh—fine, Pinks. I know you didn’t mean it.”
I nod, but deep down inside I knew that I was ready to pull that cord if she said the wrong words. What have I come to?
“Uh, okaaay… I think I’ll just go now.”
As the gal scurried away, I knew I had hit rock-bottom. I just held my best friend at cannon-point, and for nothing. I was desperate—I was sure of that much—but had I lost my cause? Was I still a detective, or was I just a crazy, cakeless pony with a bubble pipe?
/~~~~~ o ~~~~~\
I all but collapsed into my bed as I came home that day.
I had gone full circle, and it got me nowhere. Each visit replayed in my mind a hundred thousand times, but I couldn’t put anything together that makes sense. I was a failure on all counts, and I knew it.
I’d whip up a quick and dirty replacement cake in the morning, but for now, there was nothing left to do. At that point, I could only consign myself to get as sauced up as my pretty little pink flank could manage. The bottle of cheap cider I kept under my bed would do just nicely.
When I was on my fourth or fifth pull of the bottle, my thoughts gravitated, as they inevitably do, back to the unsolved case. It seemed like fate itself conspired against me; every time I thought I had come close to unmasking the true culprit, a trick of circumstance would prove them innocent. This one had no motive, and that one had an airtight alibi.
Then, an odd, niggling thought struck me. I felt compelled to draw up a little diagram listing the reasons why I originally suspected each potential culprit along with the evidence that ultimately cleared them. And I began to notice a startling pattern.
Half an hour later, the little diagram had grown to consume my entire bulletin board with pictures, thumbtacks, and notes all connected in a web of red string. A web of lies that I was only now starting to understand. By Celestia, I’ve figured it out at last!
“What was that, Pinkie, dearie?”
I called back to the voice downstairs to tell her it was nothing. Nothing but the sounds of a long-awaited discovery!
It was all so clear now. Alone, each of the suspects lacked the capability to pull off such a dastardly deed. But if they had been working together, it was an entirely different story. The pieces fell together like clockwork.
The last gal I talked to had all the opportunity in the world to nab the cake, but no reason to do it at all… unless someone was paying her to do it, that is.
But even then, a job this big meant she would need to hire outside help. And what better place to get the muscle than from the Apple crime family?
Of course, they’d want to keep the cover of their farming front as clean as possible. That’s where the hissy broad from the spa came in. She was the middle mare. After all, what better place was there for the less than entirely legitimate exchange of money than from behind the doors of a private spa session?
And then the final piece. The icing on a big, multi-layered cake of deception. The client who orchestrated it all, who paid a great deal of bits to these undesirables to procure the cake for her. With a sinking sensation, I realized that this pony was none other than the pretty doll who charmed me at the spa.
In hindsight, it was downright strange how only one other pony even mentioned their taste in my baking. Only now did it all make sense.
But now, I faced an entirely new problem. I had no idea who else could be in on this scheme. All I knew was that smack dab in their sights must be a certain birthday boy whose cake they had just stolen.
Realizing that I had not a moment to lose, I dashed out of my room and made my way towards the library.
/~~~~~ o ~~~~~\
The librarian greeted me as soon I flew through the front door.
“Pinkie! I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Spike told me everything right after you left, and I’m really, really sorry about how he—”
Now was not the time! A little dragon could be in danger! Wasting no time, I pushed the girl aside and sprinted up the stairs.
As I busted down the door to the bedroom, my nose was immediately assaulted by the smell of chili sauce. The same kind I had used for the cake! The floor was also covered in cake crumbs and ruby shards. Had the thugs already been here? Was it already too late?
“Pinkie, is that you?”
Relief washed over me when I saw the little dragon wrapped up in blankets in his basket. I quickly explained how the cake thieves were probably looking to tie off loose ends, and that he was in danger!
“No, Pinkie, it’s all my fault! I just couldn’t help myself, I—”
I told him not to ever think like that! There was nothing he could have done to prevent this! You can’t blame yourself when these things happen to you.
“No, no, no, I ate the cake, Pinkie! It was me!”
Wait, what?
“I’m really sorry. It was just that you made it sound so good when you were describing it, and I couldn’t help but sneak a piece when you weren’t looking. And then it was missing a slice, and I was so embarrassed that you’d find out, so I took the whole thing and I ate it here.”
Really? Oh my gosh, thank goodness! Whew!
“Wait, you’re happy it was me?”
Duh, of course I am! ‘Cause that means that Applejack isn’t really a Mafioso, Rarity isn’t running a shady money-laundering business from the spa, and Fluttershy is still toootally on the market for me! And to top it all off, you actually got to enjoy the cake I made you, which is all I really cared about in the first place!
“Hold on, what was that you said about Rarity in the mafia?”
Hehe, it’s a long story. Want me to explain it over a cup of cocoa at Sugarcube Corner?
“Actually… I've still got a bit of a bellyache from all those rubies. Could we just get some tea downstairs instead?”
That sounds great! Lead the way, little guy!
/~~~~~ o ~~~~~\