All In - An Applejack Noir

by Belligerent Sock

Chapter Eight

All the windows on this block had round tops. It was the one stretch on Thirteenth that was like that. This time of night, they lit up the street like glowing tombstones.

I gave the cabbie a big tip; it was the least I could do for how fast he ran here. The whole walk in front of the apartment was choked with ponies. A number of them looked like your average folks, maybe a few reporters. Most were police. They ringed the front stoop like a barnyard fence, keeping the crowd back.

I made my way through them, pushing and nudging and saying “pardon me.”

A uniformed mare held out a hoof as I finally reached the front. “Sorry, Ma’am, but you can’t go in there.”

“Can I ask why?”

“There’s been an incident, Ma’am. I’m afraid I can’t say any more.”

“Well, who can say?”

“Are you a member of the press? A statement will be released at…”

Her words trailed away like dust behind a plow as I spotted a certain stallion stepping out of the apartment. “Hey, Black! Blacky!” I called.

Detective Black Light of the MPD was a pony born to tread the streets. His dark fur blended against the brown stone of the apartment; the worn cloth of his overcoat actually made him easier to see. A dark hat sat upon his reddish hair, casting his eyes into a band of shadow. His eyes were deep blue, almost black, and they were narrowed in a frown as he made his way over. The patrolmare wisely made herself scarce.

“What are you doing here, Applejack?” Black said. His voice was a cobblestone street after a hard rain, coated with the brick dust of a Broncolyn accent.

He hadn’t changed a bit. I found myself smiling. “I’d ask you the same question, but I already know that answer.”

His look was flatter than the sidewalk. “You got me over here. Don’t waste any more of my time, please.”

“You’re still working Equicide, right?”

“You know it’s not good for us to be seen talking, right?”

“That just leaves one question. Who’s dead?”

“You’ll have to deduce that yourself.” He turned away.

“A’right. The vic’s a pegasus. Male. Silver coat, tan mane. His name’s Flying Quill.”

It was a shot in the dark, and it struck home. Black ground to a halt. I couldn’t see his expression, but I heard his sigh. When he turned back, he looked very tired. “I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”

“Right now, I just want to talk.”

He looked around at the milling crowd, back at the group of police. His jaw clenched, then he leaned in close. “There’s a door in back. Five minutes.” He drew back, taking a deep breath. “Now get the hell out of here!” he thundered so the entire neighborhood could hear.

I looked suitably sheepish as I stepped back. The crowd seemed to take the hint, breaking up and heading away from the scene. It made good cover as I slipped into a back alley and made my way to the rear of the building. Just as Black had said, there was a single door, lit by a lone, swaying gem lamp and nearly hidden between the garbage cans. And just as he said, it opened after five minutes.

He stood in the doorway, a little smirk on his face. “Come on in, partner,” he said.

“Always the gentlecolt, Black.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I gave him a little nudge as I passed by. “You sure this ain’t too much of a risk?” I said.

His hoofsteps fell in with mine. “I’ll take the heat.”

The hallway beyond was dim and noisy. The floorboards creaked with every step, the clop of hooves echoing from somewhere beyond the flickering light of the candles lining the walls. It was a barn apartment, little more than walls and a roof to keep the world out. The wallpaper fell from the walls like the evening edition hot from the presses.

I turned to Black. “So, what’s the story here?”

“Just got the call about half an hour ago. One of the tenants noticed a smell coming from Mr. Quill’s door. Landlord opened it up, and… Well, here we are.”

“You been inside yet?”

“Nope. Which is why I’d appreciate an extra set of eyes.”

“Well, at least I can do that.”

As we neared a corner I heard the sound of somepony being sick. I paused. Black came up alongside me, his expression hard. The sound was given a face a moment later as a young patrol officer came around the corner, his hoof over his mouth and vomit leaking down his sleeve.

“All right, trooper?” said Black.

“Y-yes, sir.” He wiped his lips, breathing heavily.

“Take five.”

“Yes, sir.”

Around the corner, there was a door. Another patrol officer stood near it. His face was scrunched, like he was trying valiantly not to follow his partner’s example. The smell probably had something to do with that. It was pond scum and sewers, it was a griffon’s nest on a hot day, the gums of a dragon’s maw and the scent of a newly-made coffin. And it only got stronger as we got closer.

“We’ll take it from here,” Black said to the officer. “You want to give your pal a hoof?”

He glanced between the two of us. “Much obliged, detectives,” he said, and with a tip of his cap, he all but galloped away.

I waited until he was out of earshot before I said, “Good to know I still look the part.”

“It never leaves.” Black leaned in, looking closely at the keyhole. “Scratches. Lock’s been picked.” With a glance at me, he pushed the door open.

I had flashbacks. First to a tiny apartment on the other side of town, and then to somewhere much, much darker. The place had only two rooms, one main living area and a bath. It was done up in sky tones, with blue walls and a blue sofa, welcoming to a pegasus. There was a desk in the corner with a gleaming black Overtree typewriter placed with care on top. An empty bookshelf sat next to it. Empty, because all its books lay on the floor in front of it. Drawers and papers joined them.

They ringed a single wooden chair in the center of the room. Seated on the chair was a pegasus. He had a tan mane, a ragged curtain that hung in front of his face. A black rime ringed his mouth, hanging from his chin in stringy lines, dripping down onto the silver fur of his chest and the ropes which held him upright. It joined the waterfall already there, flowing from the line drawn across his throat. His wings hung limp at his sides like two broken tree branches, stripped of their leaves by an autumn wind. Their feathers were scattered around the brown lake beneath the chair like some snowy islands. And his eyes stared wide and empty at the doorway, as though expecting company.

From somewhere far away, I noticed that I was standing still on the threshold.

Black noticed it too. He stepped past me. “You take the outside, I take the inside?”

I nodded, quick and shaky. “Yeah. I got it.”

We stepped into the tomb, and I took to the perimeter. There were plenty of papers to paw through. Not a scrap of paper had been left unmoved; somepony had been thorough. I glanced into the bathroom. They’d even ripped open the medicine cabinet. The lid of the toilet tank sat on the floor.

Black stood in front of Quill. Hard eyes against empty ones. “Bruises on his face,” he said. “Round. Sharp edge. Somepony was punching him.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “How big are the marks?”

“Bigger than mine.”

“Hefty. Earth pony?”

“Probably. Could have been a unicorn, though.” He leaned in, to where his nose was almost touching the bloody gash in the pegasus’s throat. “Clean cut, straight through the vessels and the trachea. It would’ve been relatively quiet, especially with the way he was tied down.”

Quiet. With him spasming and jerking against the ropes, choking on his own blood. I turned away, back to the shelves. “Somepony could still have heard.”

“Mm.” Black moved around the chair, examining Quill’s naked wings. “They also ought to have heard all this happening. I ain’t a pegasus, but it must’ve hurt.”

One scream for each feather. I looked among the papers on the floor. He’d certainly kept a lot of notes. None of them looked useful, not now. “What are you thinking?” I said. “One guy, maybe?”

“I’m guessing two, at least. One to work the place over, the other to work him over.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Just like us?”

He chuckled. I don’t know what was funny. “Yeah. Probably just the two. Three would catch too much attention.” Bending his neck down, he traced his snout over the bloody feathers. “What do you know? Some of these are almost untouched.”

“Come again?”

“Some of these are all mangled. Broken shafts, vanes all messed up. But some don’t look like they’ve been touched. Like they just fell out.”

“They don’t just do that.”

“Nope. No, they don’t.” He held a hoof up to Quill’s neck and rotated his wrist back and forth. “Throats don’t cut themselves, either. ‘Specially not like this. Weird angle of attack, plus blood spatter, straight on through… The blade came right in from the side, level with the ground.”

“Like it was floating?”

“Yeah. You’d need a muffling spell to keep things quiet, too.”

I nodded. “Unicorn and earth pony.”

He nodded, too. “So, the earth pony beats him around the face, tears out a few feathers with his teeth, asks him questions in between. When that doesn’t work, the unicorn steps in, starts plucking him one by one. He caves, tells them what they want to know, and the psycho slits his throat.”

“How do you know he told them?”

Black shrugged. “He’d still be alive if he hadn’t given them what they were after.”

“But does he have something for us?” I moved to the desk and looked over the typewriter. No paper in it, and no crumpled pages nearby. The wicker wastebasket was flipped upside-down and empty. I sniffed at the air. It all smelled like ink, but… “No ink ribbons.”

He looked over, frowning. “None at all?”

“Nope.” I glanced among the discarded drawers. “They took the one from the typewriter, too.”

“Okay, so there’s our motive. Hate crime against the press.” He grinned.

My eyes flicked to him, and to the bloody corpse he was standing next to. I didn’t say anything. His grin faltered, breaking down in chunks like a crumbling brick wall. In its place he built another, this one a tired, sad-looking wall whose mortar was missing in places, that had seen too much weather. He opened his mouth to say something.

The door swung open, and a crew of ponies stood in the hallway. One of them had a bulky camera slung across his back. The one in front looked at the scene like a rabbit before a timberwolf.

“Um… Excuse us, detectives,” he said.

“Yeah,” Black said. “It’s gettin’ too crowded in here.” He looked at me, jerking his head toward the door. I followed him out, keeping just behind him as we went out the back door and into the alley again. His face was half-hidden in the shadows beneath the brim of his hat.

He struck a match against his hoof and lit a cigarette. He took a long, deep breath, and let it out in a cloud. It hung there in front of his face, seeping into his eyes, and he blinked and waved it away with a hoof. There was a quiet clop as he set his hoof back on the pavement again. He was a scarecrow, looking straight ahead without flinching. A breeze blew through the alley, causing the light above the door to sway and the shadows to twist and turn before it all fell still again.

“Just like old times, huh?” he said suddenly, grinning an over-wide grin at me.

I looked at him. I might have let some fear into my eyes. “‘Old times’ never looked like that, Black.”

His grin vanished like a snuffed candle. “Yeah.” He scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah…”

We went back to being quiet. I watched the tracings of smoke curling toward the moon. I could hear the clopping of hooves out on the street. Just one set, echoing down the alley. It was just for a moment, a brief passing, before the background tumult of the city settled in again. A passing ghost, on its way to who knows where.

Black took the cigarette out of his mouth. “So how’s the—” He cut off, his eyes flicking to the hem of my coat for a second. “How’s things?”

I nodded at him. “I’m getting enough sleep. Everything else is as good as it can be.”

“You sure? You’re looking kinda thin.”

“And you’re looking scruffy.” I reached up and swiped the back of my hoof against his chin. “I’m no worse off than anypony else.”

He smirked, taking to his cigarette again. “Good. That’s good to hear.”

“How about you, Black? They treatin’ you all right at the Precinct?”

“Yeah. Keepin’ busy.” He paused, and shook his head. “Not too busy, thankfully.”

“That why you don’t have a partner? Not enough work?”

“Nah, I’m… between partners at the moment.”

“Oh.” I pawed at the ground. “Sorry, I…”

“No, no. Nothing bad happened. He just transferred over to the 13th Precinct. They, uh, they needed a replacement over there.”

I nodded, though that still didn’t help. “And you haven’t got a replacement yet?”

“Turnover’s somethin’ awful.” He chuckled, rolling his eyes and taking another drag. “Can’t think why.” He let a smoky breath out. “So, the story’s pretty obvious. Two ponies, one unicorn, one earthy, come to this guy’s door and knock. He either doesn’t answer, or tells ‘em to beat it. So, they pick the lock. The unicorn casts a muffling spell, the earth pony grabs him, and together they tie him to a chair. They toss his pad looking for somethin’. When they don’t find it, they beat it out of him. Then the unicorn takes a knife to him and that’s all she wrote.” He looked at me. “So, the only question is, ‘What were they after?’ I got a feeling that’s where you come in.”

I shrugged. “There’s a mare I’m trying to find. Her name’s Sugar Beet. She met with him a few days ago in the Three Squares.”

“But they weren’t just lookin’ for good eats.”

“Yeah, from what ol’ White Castle was saying, it was definitely business. What that business was, I’m not sure.”

“Well, a reporter would have to have plenty of dirt. He have some on her, you think?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. She’s new in town. Nothing to blackmail her with. The guys who busted in were lookin’ for something, though. And like you said, they must’ve found it.”

Black tapped some ash from his cigarette. “Silencing job. If they were just after his info, they could’ve taken it and just walked right out.” A frown creased his brow, his voice turning grim. “They had to kill him. Somehow, some way, he knew too much.”

Just like that. Answer the door. Don’t answer it. Same result.

“So,” Black continued, “aside from their meeting, any other connection with this ‘Sugar Beet?’”

“Maybe. Her apartment was tossed, too.”

“He probably talked about her. They figure she has the goods, so they hunt her down.”

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

“So, what do they think she has? Does she even have it?”

“I’ll know when I find her.”

He took a drag on his cigarette. “Well, that doesn’t help me much. Any other leads you can share?”

“I was over on De Prancy earlier. She worked at an accounting office there, and somepony was casing the place. Don’t know who he was, just that he was pale, lanky, and a unicorn. He was watching from a big black carriage, and had somepony else watching him.” I shifted on my hooves. “That other guy was a unicorn, too. Rosy coat, yellow mane, blue aura. Didn’t see his cutie mark, just the pistol he used on me.”

Black’s head snapped around. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. He was a crap shot.”

He kept looking at me for a moment, then went back to his cigarette.

“I don’t know if that helps,” I said.

“Guess I’ll let you know.”

I took a deep breath. I had to ask him. “Black?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s with you? The way you were acting in there, making cracks, talking about it like that… You were never one to stomach violence. How does somepony get so numb to things?”

It took him a second to answer. “I’ve seen worse.”

“Worse?” I stared at him. “Worse, Black?”

He tapped some more ash from his cigarette, watching it tumble to the ground. His eyes stuck to the pavement for a moment, tracing back and forth like he was counting every speck, before he dragged them up again, staring beyond the walls of the alley. Beyond the walls of Manehattan.

“We got a call a while back. Little boarding house over on 25th. Some of the tenants had a disagreement that got ugly or something. We never found out the details. All I know is that I walked into the place and saw the bodies. Three of ‘em. Throats slashed, guts stabbed, just… lying there like… Like…”

“Islands in a red ocean,” I finished for him.

He looked at me. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s about it. So, we started looking over them. Didn’t seem to be any motive. Nopony had any idea where the perp went.”

He frowned, bitter and hard. “But that’s just because the uniforms didn’t do a proper sweep. Turns out the guy had been hiding right upstairs, ‘cause he came down the steps just then, bloody hooves and all. We drew our pieces, but he just stood there, with that blade hovering next to him, and he said to us—” Black snorted, a harsh grin on his face “—‘I bet wrong.’ Then he came at us, and we… we opened up on him.” He took a long pull, and let it out in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know who got the kill shot in. I looked him over, stripped off his coat, and it turns out he… He had a Brand.”

I stared at him.

He looked away. “Press had a field day with that one. Great to have a monster to talk about.”

“I remember the headlines. That case was yours?”

“I didn’t want my name attached. I’m still tryin’ to forget about it.”

“You can’t hide from the truth, Black.” I looked away. “You shouldn’t try.”

“Not everypony’s stubborn like you, AJ. Not everypony just throws everything at their problems and bull-rushes ‘em. Some of us get stuck with the hard questions. And they’re what keep us up at night.” He shook his head, his lower lip curled. “What makes a pony do all that? What makes a pony do that?” He jerked a hoof back toward the door.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

The sounds of city closed in around us again, echoing down the alley.

“So what’ll you do now?” he asked.

That I had an answer to. “Home. Sleep, probably.”

“Trains ain’t runnin’ anymore.”

“Yeah, I’ll just head back to my office and sleep there.”

“Cozy.”

I shrugged. “Gets better after a few dozen times.”

“I could see about getting you a ride, if you—”

“Detective?” called a voice from inside.

Black turned to the door. “Here!”

“Photo boys are done with the scene.”

“All right, I’ll be right up.” He looked back to me.

I smirked. “You’re busy. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“All right.” He took one last puff of his cigarette, then dropped the butt to the ground. He stared at the wall again. “Hey, AJ?”

“Yeah?”

“You got somepony watchin’ your back on this one?”

“You offering?”

His gaze drifted down to the butt of his cigarette. He stamped out the last few stubborn embers with a foreleg. “Find a partner, if you can. I got a feeling you’re gonna need one.”

“I’ll be careful, Black.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know you will.” His eyes met mine, and lingered there. His mouth parted, slightly, a few times. He took a breath, and said, “Good night, AJ.” Then his gaze went to the door, and the rest of him followed.

I stood there on the stoop. The breeze was blowing again, and the light was swaying. The shadows danced, then fell still.

“Good night, sugarcube,” I whispered.

Comments

[Belligerent Sock]

Author's note: in case any of y'all need a better picture of what ol' Black Light looks like...
derpicdn.net/img/2014/11/28/773753/full.png

[WhitewolfStormrunner]

5322988 Thanks for the pic. He looks cool.

And he and AJ were partners once, huh? (and from the sound of things, the still have that partner-bond to a certain extent.

I just wonder what caused her to quit the force?

Guess we'll find out later on in the story, huh?

[Corejo]

Wut. Heavy chapter here. Likin' it big time. Keep it up, man!

[Shadow_Wolf]

There's definitely history between those two...

[Csquared08]

Backstory, ho!

[Monanniverse]

Have fun.