Pinkie Pie is Dead

by chrumsum

2 - Sideways

The rain grew more vengeful when I reached my house that night. I close the door and leave the torrential downpour locked behind wood and glass.

“House” is maybe a bit of an overstatement. It’s a forgotten building on the fringe of Ponyville, where the chipper thatched rooftops and heart-trimmed fences give way to sad-looking rooftops and woodwork facades. It creaks when it’s cold. Right now it’s groaning like a galleon, and the skies are pouring enough of an ocean for me to set sail. We weren’t supposed to be in for rain like this. But the clouds are too dangerous even for pegasi. Like a snowball, this storm’s been rolling in the distance for a while now. No stopping it now.

I toss my keys on the table, and the jingle they make shoots pain into the back of my horn. Headache. Magic’ll do that to you. For some strange reason, there’s a lot of red tape to go through when you’re filing a report about the murder of one of Equestria’s greatest heroines. I’ve had worse migraines, though. But those usually come in the morning, and they’re not because I’ve been practicing spells all night.

I slip off my soaking wet trench coat and pull my notebook from the inside pocket. The jacket goes on the hanger, along with my holster. The notebook comes with me into the kitchen. After shaking a couple of painkillers from their plastic bottle, I down them along with a swig of water. I look into the mirror. A wreck looks back. With my rusty fur and graying mane, I look like a jalopy that grew hooves and decided to parade around among the living.

I wipe my mouth. It still feels dry. I ignore it, slipping into a chair and spinning it around to face a desk littered with crumpled papers, chewed pencils, and eraser crumbs. The faces on the corkboard above stare down at me as I open up my notebook. They talk amongst themselves through lines of red yarn like a telegraph.

I linger on the first page. Date, signature, badge number, address... and a name.

Heh. Sideways. With a name like that, momma shoulda known I’d be nothing but trouble. Rest her poor soul.

I leaf through the rest of the pages, but I feel numb. The words melt together and I can’t see the edges of my puzzle pieces anymore.

Poor momma. Thought coming to a peaceful little place like Ponyville would be better for her heart. Phillydelphia is a dangerous city, all brick and steel and smoke, where gunshots come from dark alleys and witnesses conveniently disappear. Momma’s heart never would’ve held up if I’d stayed, she was frail. Poppa was a clerk. Would’ve been the smarter thing to follow in his hooves. When I nearly got shot in the brain during a bust, that was the end of it. Momma threatened to cut off everything, disinherit me, OD, the whole nine yards. So I caved and we went to Ponyville, like she’d always wanted. Pretty, safe, peaceful.

She died of cardiac arrest on the train ride. Poor momma. But now she’s gone and I’ve spent the last five years lonely and bored out of my damn mind.

Most of the pages in the notebook are almost totally blank aside from a couple brief notes on some petty theft resolved in a few days or some scribblings from dull board meetings. Ponyville’s quiet. Anything too major is handled by the bearers, and whatever scraps we get tossed are hardly ever worth looking into. The Ponyville Police Department is the most pathetic inside joke in Equestria. I guess it’s fitting enough that I’d end up here.

I stop on the most recent page. The words are blurry.

Sewing book, “Stich in a Sitch!”. Thread. Scissors. Murder weapon? Autopsy? Blood pooling. All doors locked. Dead. Vic: Pinkie Pie.

I read them, over and over again, reliving every moment in that room.

Time of death... Question the guardians, friends, write up report. Cross-check with autopsy.

The headache is coming back. I go back a page, as if I’ll somehow go back in time and find myself someplace better. Instead, I find a hastily-written reminder.

Pinkie’s birthday next week. Find present.

That’s when it hits me. It wasn’t just another body, not just another murder. Pinkie Pie is dead. The one pony who’d shown me the slightest ounce of sunshine and kindness and asked for nothing in return was gone. The one pony who always remembered my birthday even though I could have sworn I’d never told it to her. The one pony who would always send a smile my way even when my head was killing me and I was about to strangle the next pony to look at me funny. The one pony who asked me how my day was and could somehow start a conversation even though nothing had really happened. The one pony who made life beautiful enough that I didn’t put my own gun to my temple.

She’s gone.

The thunder crackles darkly in the distance, and I catch myself crying. A tear rolls down the side of my cheek and falls beside her name.

Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I push away from my desk, and trot to the cupboard. I pull out the hardest liquor in the house besides the rubbing alcohol in the bathroom. I pour a tumbler and down it without even thinking. The burn as it goes down brings tears once more, but these don’t hurt. I look down at the glass, considering another. I go against it, staring out the window as the world ends outside in a curtain of rain and a roar of thunder. I need to be presentable in case the Princesses show up tomorrow. I have to be able to keep it together while I feed them what they want to hear.

I can’t stand them. Bureaucrats. Monarchs. Ponies in suits and crowns with heavy heads and busy hooves. So busy and sure of themselves that they only have time to look at the big picture. A Bearer of an Element has been murdered. Harmony is in peril. All that crap about the future of Equestria that those high-brow alicorns love to monologue so much about.

The glass quivers in my hooves, then cracks.

I don’t care about all that big picture bullshit. Leave it to the bureaucrats. All I know is that a mare who was good to me, a two-time loser going nowhere in life who didn’t deserve the briefest glance of sympathy, was dead.

And I was going to find the son of a bitch who did it.


Comments

[Scootaloser]

[Luminous Lead]

Sideways, huh? Weird name, but it works quite well. I suppose that he or she has a sideways approach to investigating? Also, again, are males more likely than females to commit crimes in Noir Equestria? That's twice now that Sideways has referred to the perp as "him" without any prior evidence.

momma threatened to cut of everything

"off"?

[Pyro The Reader]

2693606 I'm pretty sure that has no meaning, people do that all the time, woman would use the word 'her', guy would say 'him', but that doesn't mean they think it's a guy or a girl. It aint good to assume either way, especially when you're a detective. It's just something that everyone does.

[Luminous Lead]

2694417 It's possible that it could be gender projection, but we don't even know the gender of the detective/inspector yet, so we can't conclude it's a personal-perspective bias. More investigation is required

[Pyro The Reader]

2695897 Gender projecting, that's what it's called, thanks. Always wondered what doing that was called.

[Luminous Lead]

2695973 I actually have no idea what it's called, but if the glove fits...

[Sypher]

I'm getting a Bastion-type vibe when you describe his past.

I'm lovin' it.

Edit:

All I know is that a mare who was good to me, a two-time loser going nowhere in life, who didn’t deserve the briefest glance of sympathy, was dead.

I find this sentence kind of awkward. If I don't read closely it reads like you're describing "a mare" with "who didn't deserve the briefest glance of sympathy"

[Landon]

Second Chapter is read. This is the best short-chapter story I have ever read, in 1000 words you pretty much cram 3000 words worth of story

[InMyMind]

We've seen his sorrow. It looks like things will happen now.

[Blank!]

This is hilarious.