All In - An Applejack Noir

by Belligerent Sock

Chapter Seven

The room was small. It had a table, two chairs, and a mirrored window. There was a door, too, but that hardly mattered. It was lit by one of those special government gem lights that only seemed to make the shadows deeper. The table had a nice tone when struck, and the hardwood floor made a deep creak when tapped against. An all-percussion band wasn’t much fun, though, even with me on backup vocals.

I leaned back in the chair, kicking my legs up. My stomach growled; my eyelids started gathering lead weights. More than once, I thought of dropping my hat over my face and simply slipping away. It’d probably get them to come in quicker.

I just wondered whether the good cop or the bad cop would come in first.

When the door finally swung open, it turned out there was only one of them. She was a wide mare, one who could hug you with one limb or break you with it. It was easy for her to look tough, and she knew it. Her coat was hard, sweet caramel, with a dash of salt around her cheeks. She had a pink mane that fell in front of one of her green eyes—always one or the other. In one hoof she carried a mug of steaming coffee, and a file folder in the crook of her foreleg. She wasn’t young, by any means, but she’d always look that way to me, even with the sergeant’s stripes on her uniform.

“Well, hey, Babs. It’s been awhile.” I smiled at her.

She didn’t return it. “Evenin’, Cousin. Let’s have a talk, huh?” She sat down, setting the file off to the side.

“Let’s. You still seein’ that colt from the docks? What was his name? Girder-Something?”

“No, we broke up a couple months ago.”

“Good work, girl. He was all wrong for you.”

“Thanks.” She pushed the mug across the table.

“That coffee for me? You shouldn’t have.”

“Drink up. You’re gonna need it.”

I took the mug in hoof and had a swig. It tasted like a wet paper bag. “Good ol’ police swill. I’ve almost missed it.”

Babs folded her big hooves on the table. “So, you—”

“How’s the sergeant life been treatin’ you?”

She blinked. “It’s been fine.”

“Y’know, it’s alright to show off a little. Making sergeant in five years is something to be proud of.”

Her brows lifted, slightly. Then they settled back into the same stern frown. “Like I was saying, you—”

“I just hope they’re not ridin’ you too hard. Anypony gives you lip, you make sure and bite back, you hear?”

A slight smile appeared under her hard eyes. “So, you keeping busy, AJ?”

I sipped at the coffee. “As busy as I can.”

“You working a case right now?”

“Yeah. It’s nothing too major.”

“Really?” She opened the file. It was full of photographs. “Because I’ve got some things here that say it’s major, all right.”

She pushed a hoof-full of the photos toward me. They showed a small apartment after it had been hit by a tornado. They showed upended chairs, discarded drawers, and clothing littering the floor. Papers scattered like stars in the sky. A life in disarray.

I looked back up at Babs. I kept my expression even.

“The landlady of a tenement over on Brookmare Lane says you showed up there earlier today.” She tapped a hoof on the overturned bed in one of the pictures. “That you told her to open the door on this mess.”

“I might’ve suggested it.”

“Hm.” She slid another picture across the table. “There were scratches around the keyhole. You carrying any lockpicks?”

“Your boys searched me. Am I?”

She let that one slide, but not without a frown. “Did you take anything from the apartment?”

I shook my head. “No, I did not.”

“Did you go into the apartment at all?”

“Shouldn’t that one have come first?”

“Answer the question.”

I shrugged. “I took a step inside, yeah.”

“Did you touch anything?”

“I know better than to disturb a crime scene. I left it just as I found it.”

“So you really didn’t take anything from there?”

“That’s the honest truth.”

She leaned back, resting an elbow on the back of her chair. She pursed her lips and blew her mane out of her face. “All right, then let’s talk about De Prancy Street.”

“It’s a wide road on the East Side with way too many red lights and not enough cops.”

“True, that. So what were you doing there, AJ?”

“Who says I was?”

Her head lolled back, and she looked at me down her nose. “We’ve got a bunch of eyewitnesses who say they saw a firefight there this afternoon. Somepony let off a few rounds inside a carriage. Enchanted rounds. Incendiaries. The kind that’ll char you black from the inside out if they hit. That’s some ugly business, there.”

“You saying I fired those rounds?”

“Did you?”

I looked her square in the eye. “No.”

She blew on her mane again. “Well, the witnesses also claim to have seen a pony in a coat and hat runnin’ from the carriage just as the shooting started.”

“That could’ve been anypony.”

She smirked. It was a look she’d had years of practice with. “And there it is. Your face always scrunches when you’re fibbing, AJ.”

I returned the smirk. “Good to know I’m still an open book.”

“So, let’s read the story together, huh? What were you doing there?”

“Working.”

“On what?”

“My case.”

She swept her free hoof wide. “Any details on that?”

“Nothing that I need to share with the MPD.”

“Things like acting as a courier from Broken Spoke?”

I felt my breath pause, just for a moment. I decided to hold it a bit longer.

“A ‘Ms. Rosestone’ said she ran into you in the Golden Carrot. You were poking into somepony’s cubicle. Ms. ‘Sugar Beet’, was it?”

This time it was my turn to sit back in my chair. I folded my hooves in front of me for good measure.

“Care to explain what that was about?” said Babs.

“Business.”

“What kind of business?”

“My kind.”

She nodded. She tilted her head back in fake thought. “What I don’t get is how you go from a hole-in-the-wall counting house to a shootout in the street.”

I grinned. “Even I’m not sure how that happened.”

“Well, you must’ve bumped into somepony who didn’t want to be bumped. Is that about right?”

“Can’t say.”

“Was somepony casing the joint, maybe? You block their view or somethin’?”

“Keep guessing.”

“What’s so important about this Sugar Beet?”

I blinked, a curious expression settling onto my face. “What does it matter to y’all?

Babs went quiet. Her eyes flicked to the window, once. “So, you gonna share any of this with me or not?”

“No, no, no. Back it up. You’re pretty darn interested in this mare, aren’t you?” I leaned forward, putting my forelegs on the table and staring her in the face, good and close. “Now it’s starting to make sense. Why y’all are all but giving me the third degree. Why they’d send you in. Somepony here’s been trackin’ Sugar Beet for a while, and they’re desperate for info.”

“You can think that.”

“Who made the call to put you in here? How high does this go, Babs?

She shook her head, once and quick. “I can’t answer that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. Same as you can’t name your client.”

“No, it ain’t the same.”

“Then let’s be open and honest, AJ. Let’s lay it all out on the table.” She spread her hooves wide. “You said it yourself, there’s a reason I’m in here. Let’s be cousins and help each other out.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I slammed a hoof against the table. “Because until you guys own yourselves you don’t own me. Until y’all can be trusted, all the time, to look for the truth and find it and let the chips fall where they may, until I can trust you, I’ve got a right to listen to my conscience and protect my client as best I can. Until I’m sure you won’t do him more harm than you’ll do the truth good.”

Babs slumped back in her chair; her ears drooped like a scolded kitten’s. “You really think that of me, AJ?” Her voice was tiny and quiet.

I locked gazes with her. I hoped my eyes looked soft. “I think the world of you, Babs.” Turning to the window, I said, “That wasn’t meant for you.”

I took up the mug again and drained the last dregs of coffee. “Is there anything else?”

She glanced at the window, too. “No. No, we’re done here.”

“Thank you kindly.” I pushed off from the table, sliding the seat back with a squeal of wood. The door was unlocked, and opened with the same noise. I stood there a moment.

“Hey,” I said.

She spun to face me. “Yeah, AJ?”

“Next time, don’t let ‘em push you around, Babs. Have ‘em send in the bad cop.”

I straightened my hat and walked out.

---

Nopony in the 10th Precinct ever slept. Inside its white stone walls and behind its heavy brown doors, there were always cops doing something. There were cops wandering the halls, cops sitting at their desks, young cops chatting together and doing their best to look like it was still work, old cops with mugs full of coffee and eyes that said it still wasn’t enough, cops with ink-stained hooves putting the last of the day’s paperwork to bed, cops clocking in for the night shift, cops escorting surly private detectives out into the main lobby, saying thank you Miss, have a good evening.

I checked out with the watch lieutenant and was a free mare again. He didn’t recognize me. Seemed like nopony did. Maybe if I stood near the photos on the wall long enough, they’d make the connection.

There were a lot of new photos on that wall. A lot of bright new faces, a lot of bright new commendations. Detectives, lieutenants, a few patrol boys, here and there, all of them standing tall for the camera. I looked along the rows and back through the years.

One of them showed a pegasus stallion and an earth pony mare. He had a captain’s bars on his uniform, which was as crisp as it could be without being dangerous, and he held up a shining brass placard to the camera, his eyes squinted tight above his wide grin. The mare also looked sharp, of that there was no doubt. Her cap was held under one foreleg and she stood at perfect attention, looking into the camera with her mouth drawn so straight she might have been choking on the professionalism. Her eyes looked hard, framed by her lightly-colored locks, but if you knew to look, you could see the joy in them. It was her freckles—they crinkled a bit near the corners of her eyes.

She’d had a lot to be happy about, back then.

I spun away from the wall, made my way out through the heavy wood doors. I stood there, wasting a few moments listening to the rattle of carts on the street and hooves on the sidewalk. My watch told me I was up too late, that it was making my head go places it didn’t need to. Home was close. It was time to get there.

I’d made it maybe a dozen steps when the door to the precinct banged open again. I turned to look. Three ponies were hurrying out of the building. Two were patrol cops. The other was a detective.

He was the color of brick and cobblestone, his mane hanging across his neck like rust on a gutter. His coat and hat might as well have been part of his skin. He moved with the stride of a marathon runner, and his face was set in a frown that could light a fire or freeze a criminal solid.

I knew him. More than that, I knew what that look of his meant.

One of the uniforms hitched himself into a patrol wagon while the detective hopped in back with the other, and then they sped away into the dark. They were headed east, probably to somewhere on the far side of town, where none of my business was going on. Or maybe they were headed east toward 56 Thirteenth Street, close to Harmony Square.

Darn it. There I was, getting notions in my head again. One of these days, I’d learn better.

I hailed a cab, gave the driver the address, and told him to sprint.

Comments

[RoseOf1000Thorns]

Woah.

[Shank]

I haven't even started reading this yet, but on concept alone, this is one of the most unique stories I have ever come across, I am looking forward to this!

[CultonoDk]

40.media.tumblr.com/ffdaf89067b3059ca948d89489bcb6d7/tumblr_nbvozqBEYG1tkd45ao1_1280.jpg

[Csquared08]

You didn't specify which address.

You monster

[Esle Ynopemos]

Love your description of Babs.

[Maran]

I love Babs' role in this, and the subtle hints about AJ's former job and why she quit. And now I'm curious about the pegasus stallion in the photo.

[BlackRoseBrony]

What an Amazing Story, I'm loving it so far. Good luck with this story and everything else in your life. Thanks for this great reading experience!

[the frank]

Tracking this. excellent writing!

[Monanniverse]

Have fun.