Hell in a Handbasket, for One Low Price
Starlight Over Detrot: The Detection Chronicles
Chapter One: Hell in a Handbasket, for One Low Price!
It’s days like this I wish I drank. I’d had plenty of opportunity to, no doubt. There’s no shortage of alcohol in my line of work. What there is now is a shortage of ponies willing to do their damn jobs. Especially while sober. And with some of the shit you see, crawling around on the underbelly of the world? You sober up pretty damn quickly anyway. Of course, it helps that my assistant constantly reminds me that I couldn’t afford a drinking habit even if I wanted to. Damn fiscal responsibility.
Of course, even as I stared at the newspaper and prayed for a whiskey or a gin and tonic, I realized it wouldn’t do me much good. There’s not a whole lot you can do to bring somepony back. Especially not booze.
The headline in front of me read, suite simply: Hard Boiled Junior: Dead and Gone. I couldn’t believe it. The article went on to explain that he’d walked into a casino armed to the teeth, and came out dead. Nopony really knew what happened. I sure as hell didn’t want to know.
I didn’t know Hard Boiled or his father personally. But hell yes I’d heard of them. Everypony anywhere near a badge had. Not that I had a badge. I’m a Private Detective, license and everything. My name is Eye Spy. Pegasus Detective at your service.
Now, I don’t doubt that you haven’t heard of me. Not because I do such a good job at staying anonymous, or that I have some big mysterious past or anything. I’m just not a very big name in the business. Almost all of the work I get is junk jobs that other, much bigger agencies and firms get that they really don’t want to do themselves. The closest thing I have to a big job is being on retainer for Lock, Stock, and Barrel Law Associates. They knew the law, and I knew enough about it to get around it. I try to keep everything legal, but then, if I could, a bunch of well-to-do lawyers wouldn’t need an expendable guy like me, would they?
My job is usually pretty simple. Somepony’s doing something they shouldn’t, and I gotta prove it. Not very glamorous, but I like to think I have a decent lifestyle. Even if I have to take shit jobs to keep my secretary walking out on me.
I was just mulling over what she would think about this when I heard the bell over the office door ring. This early, it could only have been one unicorn: Paperweight. My beloved secretary. “Greetings, sunshine!” I yelled from the back office, while I drank from a cup of coffee. I didn’t want her to know right away something was wrong.
“Sweet Luna! Don’t DO that!” I heard her screech. A few moments later my office door squeaked open and she walked in. She’d made sure to do herself up nice this morning, like always. Her sky blue mane came down in curls around her ears, and just past her chin. I noticed she’d decided to wear the light yellow dress today, which went well with her royal blue coat. That usually meant she’d woken up at least somewhat differently. You know how some ponies say their girlfriends should wear mood rings? My secretary’s closet does that for me. “What the hell…” she panted a little, still shaken. She’s rather jumpy, this filly. “What are you doing here so early? And weren’t you in Coltcoun for a week tracking down that unfaithful stallion?”
“I just got back last night. And imagine the first piece of news I get to read…” I threw the paper at the table in front of her, and it span so that it faced her when it stopped. Oh, I’m SO good. Well, she did stop it from falling off the table, but still. The spin was cool.
“Yeah, I heard about this over the wire a few days ago. I can’t believe it. At first I thought that bitch Police Chief finally did him in. But they’re saying he went on an unauthorized raid and bit it,” she sighed, moving the paper off to the edge of the table, and trotting over to the coffee machine.
I should have figured that she’d have a few days to deal with this. Hard Boiled was the closest thing this city had to truly honest and determined cops, and his son wasn’t far from it. I mean, Junior had been known to work with some truly outrageous lots, but it was all for the answer. When I’d heard about the drug lab he’d busted I was more surprised by the fact that he’d ran muzzle first into a contaminated zone. Not by much, mind you.
Paperweight trotted over with her cup of coffee, her horn glowing while the cup floated beside her. She pulled the paper to her and kept reading. “How much you want to bet they’re not telling us everything?”
I rolled my eyes. “If I knew someone stupid enough to take that bet I could pay your salary for a year.”
She glanced sideways at me. “Speaking of pay…” She looked across the room at my hoodie, more specifically the envelope sticking out of the front pocket. I'd tried trenchcoats before. Everyone pegs you as a cop or P.I. right away. Hoodies? Just some punk walking around. Plus it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to clean.
I looked at the same envelope. “But… but. Can’t I just hold it a little longer?” Extra cash was so rare nowadays. I knew as soon as Paperweight got a hold of it I’d never see it again. All our bills would be paid, but that’s about it.
“You want spare cash? Do more jobs.” She floated the envelope to her, and her coffee followed her and my money out the door. “I’m going to the bank. We’ve got some paperwork to do when you get back, but before then…” she jabbed a hoof at a stack of files sitting on my desk that I’d blatantly ignored since I got here. “Have a case picked out before I get back or I’m buying the cheap coffee this time.”
My head hung somewhere around my ankles, while my wings covered my face. I grumbled something incoherent.
“What was that?” Paperweight challenged.
“I said YES MOOOOOOM.”
Thank god the coffee cup was empty at that point because it really hurt.
--------
Now, I’m not the greatest detective in the world. Flying helps with spying, yes. So does the apparently superior vision we pegasi have. Most ponies who end up becoming detectives are cops for a while. They have certain… instincts. Something I lack. I tried being a cop. I failed out of the psych evaluation. Twice. And that’s all you get. I could do the physical just fine. I had a community college degree in Criminal Justice, so I knew some basics. But apparently, according to the Municipality of Detrot, something’s wrong with my head. Maybe it’s too pretty, I don’t know.
But I’d wanted to fight crime since I was old enough to understand what crime was. I grew up in a not very nice portion of the city. Nothing like the murderous rampages that take up some of the gang-owned territories, or the red light districts. Just not the best neighborhoods. So we got robbed. A few times. And every time, the cops said the same thing: “We’ll look into it.” I wasn’t stupid. I knew ponies were dying everywhere. I knew they had more work to do than look into some jacked jewelry and stuff. But I’d heard it so many times.
Like I said. Not a nice neighborhood.
So I’d decided that I would grow up, be a cop, and ACTUALLY look into it when ponies needed help. I’d be the colt that would take all the crap cases just so ponies could sleep at night. So I studied. Just enough to give me an edge in the academy. Which I never got to.
But that didn’t stop me. I became a private detective. Still doing the crap jobs so ponies could sleep at night. Except for one thing: 7-year old me didn’t put together that crap jobs meant crap pay. So here I found myself, looking over a huge stack of runaway wives, lost kids, missing stuff, and failing divorces. I was just about to play eeny-meeny-miney-mo when the phone rang.
“Yellow?” I said. Paperweight would have killed me. She has this greeting that she wants me to do, and even has it written down. Of course, when she first explained it, I wasn’t really paying attention.
“…Paperweight’s not here, is she?” Said a familiarly smooth voice on the other end. The kind of liquid tones that ooze down the back of your mind. Like a tar pit with a For Sale sign on it.
“No, Inkblot, she’s not. Why do you ask?” I didn’t really have any problems talking to the guy, aside from the fact that his voice felt like velvet spiders.
“Because if she heard you greeting potential clients with colors she’d dye your coat pink,” he grumbled, the slightly rocky edge to his voice seeming more natural. Rarely a voice he used with people he didn’t know.
I glanced down at my brown coat and straw-yellow mane and shuddered. “Gaahhhh don’t DO that.”
“Anywho, niceties aside, I have a job for you.”
“Oh thank Luna.” Inkblot was the face of Lock, Stock, and Barrel. Just the ponies I love to hear from when I need money.
“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t heard what the job is,” the gravelly tone hadn’t left his voice. Something pretty bad must have happened if we wasn’t even trying to keep his composure. I could feel his headache from here.
I straightened in my chair, in an attempt to brace myself. However much good it would do. “What the hell happened?”
“You know how you keep saying you’d always like to solve a murder investigation?” Oh, shit.
“Ummm, yeah? But wait, don’t you have other detectives for that stuff?” I sipped more of my coffee to give myself something to do. This wasn’t going to go well.
“Oh, that’s the funny part. You’re the only detective we have on retainer that ISN’T a suspect, thanks to your time in the tropics.” Every word made it more and more obvious that he wished that wasn’t the case.
“Fine. What happened?” Incoming…
“Barrel is dead.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. I mean, I hadn’t even really known the guy. I didn’t think anypony did. The leaders of the firm just kind of kept to themselves. But that was a whole third of the company just… gone. Who knows what the hell they’d do after this. Finally, after a little grunting on the other end of the line that quite obviously meant ‘Well?’ I said, “Where do you want me?”
He gave me some instructions, and after some customary condolences and goodbyes, we hung up.
I’d just finished packing up my bag and my gear, which unfortunately meant fighting with my gun holster, the damn thing, when Paperweight walked back in with a small bag of receipts. “Oh, good, you found a job. Which one? The missing grandfather clock? Or the colt who ran off to Shireland? Or…” she sighed, dipping her head, “You picked the one about the colt who thinks his wife is cheating on him with other mares, didn’t you?”
Dammit, I should have. “No. Inkblot called.”
She perked up. “Oh, sweet baby Luna save us. About time. …Spy? What’s wrong?”
So I told her. “We have a case. Barrel is dead and I’m the only P.I. they DON’T suspect.”
The bag dropped out of the air, and floated softly to the ground. “Are… you serious?”
“Get your coat. We’re going Uptown.”
-----
“I still don’t know why you wanted me to come with you,” Paperweight sighed. We’d just pulled up to the parking lot of LS and B in her little scootabout. Or, that’s what she called it. I called it Discord on wheels.
“Number one? I can’t drive. Number two? I can’t afford a taxi. And number three…” I trailed off. She gave me a sideways look. “Inner strength.”
Her expression softened, and she nodded.
Let me clear something up. Paperweight and I aren’t together. That’d make things a whole lot messier. But she knows, and I know, that there’s no way I could do this job alone. The paperwork would kill me by itself. And she likes the job, funny enough. She says it gives her purpose. But the truth behind it is, sometimes I do get the nasty jobs. Not the cheap crap-pay ones, but the gruesome, ‘Who could do that to a pony?’ jobs. And that’s where I really need her.
Truth be told, I’m not great with murderers. Dead bodies? I’ve seen enough to have a tolerance. Not just in the morgue (which I avoid like the Cutie Pox, thank you), but fresh kills. I’ve seen quite a few. More people have than should, in Detrot.
No, my problem is dealing with somepony that can willingly take somepony else’s life. Probably the real reason I never made it to the academy was that I couldn’t fathom the thought of taking somepony’s life. So I dedicated myself to answers instead of guns.
Why I still carry one I have no idea. I just use it to scare people, and there are easier ways to do that.
We made our way to the entrance, and paused. I’d been here more than a handful of times, and had gotten used to the ornate grandeur of it all: the marble columns, the huge glass double doors, the fancy writing that spelled out the firm’s name on the front. The building was rather massive, I’ll admit. Easy to get lost in.
But it’s something else to walk into a place you’re used to when there’s crime scene tape over everything. I introduced myself to the griffin at the front door, a fellow I’d met before by the name of Sykes. “Greetings. I’m Detective Spy and this is my assistant, Paperweight. We’ve been called here by the owners.
“Oi heard they was sendin’ summat ter take a look. Yer that lil’ detective fella’ then?” He looked very much like I’d be delicious. I didn’t want to find out.
“Yes.” I tried to keep myself very stable. Griffins always freak me out.
“Well, git. Go on in. They’s be waitin’ for ya.” He seemed very much like he’d rather be somewhere else.
Paperweight gave him a pleasant nod and a wink as we walked in. What she liked about Griffins I have no idea.
But I could practically hear him raise his eyebrows. I certainly heard the unmistakable growl of libido. “Paper, would you stop flirting while we’re on the job? You’re here to help, not hump.”
“Oh please, Spy. This coming from the colt with the Zebra fetish,” she gave me a sarcastic raised eyebrow and walked a bit faster.
I massaged the bridge of my nose with my wing. “…can we just NOT have this conversation in a crime scene? Please?”
“That would be much appreciated,” said an oily voice from right next to me.
“Sweet Luna on a pogo stick! Don’t DO that!” I yelped, jumping back.
Inkblot just smiled. The stallion wore a black and white three-piece suit to go with his black coat and white mane. Which for some reason he insisted on dying black stripes into.
And ponies say I have a Zebra fetish…
“If you continue to tell me all the things I am not allowed to do around you, Mr. Spy, our social interactions would be severely limited.” Oh good, the oily creepy voice was back. Looks like he’d managed to compose himself just enough to lose the normal in his voice.
“Just show me the dead guy…” I grumbled. I could tell this was going to be a fantastic day full of bullshit.
His eyebrow twitched, no doubt at the callous tone in my voice. And probably me calling Mr. Barrel “The Dead Guy”. “I want you to know that you being here is not my decision. If it were up to me I would have put someone entirely new on retainer to handle this matter.”
I looked around at all the cops. “Why the hell AM I handling this matter, anyway? There’s a dozen cops here-MMMF.”
Paperweight glared at me over the hoof in my mouth. “Spy, be a dear and don’t question the ponies TRYING TO GIVE US MONEY.”
Inkblot gave her an approving look. “Very good. Now, please get in,” he said, pressing an elevator door. I hadn’t even realized we’d crossed the lobby all the way. Apparently I can walk just fine chewing on somepony’s hoof, and Paper has the three-legged walk down pat.
We climbed in, and Paper let go of my face. We sat in silence, save for the elevator music, until the top floor. I wasn’t really in a mood to say anything with Paperweight only a buck away from my tender bits. Once we got out of the elevator, I had to stop. I’d made it only a few steps in when I froze.
It was the most surreal, grotesque thing I’d ever seen. The room itself was a no-expense-spared lounge with red velvet, gold trim, and mahogany finish everywhere. It practically screamed money. A large, round room with a circular chaise lounge set neatly into a depression in the floor, it was designed so that nopony would have a seat up on anypony else: the illusion of equality. The large, well-stocked bar in the back looked like it was normally tended at all hours, and there was even a piano in the corner. This was obviously where the owners entertained high-end clientele and held parties.
Except the piano was wide open, and trashed. The bar was covered in spilled booze, and missing bottles. And the lounge…
Above the lounge hung Barrel. Strung up by piano wire like a marionette, with his blood pooling in the floor below him. Some of it had dried. He’d been there a while. But not that long. Broken bottles stuck out of every major joint: somepony had broken them in half and stabbed them into his elbows, his shoulders, his knees, his hips, and his neck. This wasn’t just a petty financial crime. This screamed personal at the top of its lungs.
Cops hustled about the room, and I slipped into some crime-scene horseshoes before going any further. I’d gotten maybe two steps when a rather pretty, if somewhat older, mare approached me. She’d be stunning if her white dress wasn’t in tatters, her mascara hadn’t run all over her white coat, and her blonde mane wasn’t a total wreck. But even completely distraught and frayed, Stock Broke was still a sight. “Oh… Eye Spy. Th-thank you for c-c-coming,” she said between sobs. I’d have gone to hug her, but Paperweight got there first.
“We’re going to do everything we can to help, Ms. Broke. Now, please, tell us what you know…” she said gently. She pulled out a pad of paper and a pen from Goddess knows where, and let them set off to the side, writing on their own via unicorn magic.
I just nodded at the distraught law partner, and she nodded back. “I don’t know much. Lockdown found him, and called me up. We had just gotten back from a meeting with a client who was looking to expand his business. I… I can’t believe he’s…” And she broke down into tears.
I gave her a brief pat on the back, and left Paperweight to look after her. Stock had collapsed into Paper’s hooves, and was crying softly.
I made my way as close to the actual scene as I dared get without contaminating anything. A cop from Equicide came up to me. “Look, I know they called you here to look into this personally, and to be honest…” he glanced a bit side to side. During his pause I gave him a once over. A red colt with a blue mane, and a cutie mark of a gavel. I didn’t recognize him. “To be honest we need all the help we can get. With Hardy down the department’s pretty shaken, and there’s a lot of resources being put into finding the guy who offed him. Even his partner’s gone AWOL.”
“I’ll do what I can, Detective…” I waited for his name.
“Detective Longarm. I think I’ve heard about you. Eye Spy, right?” I nodded. “Nice to meet you. I wish I could say your reputation precedes you…”
“Don’t worry about it. Somepony has to do shit work.” I nodded, and he went back to work.
I just stared at the scene.
Now, you’re most likely asking what makes me a competent detective. I’m no great shakes and don’t pretend to be, but there is one thing I’m very good at: patterns. It’s my Special Talent. A ridiculous attention to detail and a photographic memory make it very easy to see things most ponies don’t. Or just don’t want to. So I stared at the body. The missing bottles on the shelf. The piano missing wires with a broken frame. I looked at the joints in the victim. The blood pooling. Even the way he was hung. And one thing was very obvious.
“You’ve done this before you absolute psychopath.”
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I like this side story, but some of the elements seems ripped from the original, like paperweight pretending to always be at eye spy's throat, ink being like chief jade, paperweight having a foreign species preference, and her driving like a demon, I still like it, but those were some of the things that screamed out to me while reading
I like the story. Has something of a Harry Dresden feel; I approve!
This is genuinely well written. Some bits feel kinda... I dunno, stretched? They could use a little more here and there to flesh em out make em pop like Chessie.
That said the fact alone that you managed to replicate it pretty convincing like is uh...
Man I wouldn't even try myself. You got chops man!