• Published 18th May 2017
  • 4,921 Views, 665 Comments

Ponyville Noire: Tails of Two Private Eyes - PonyJosiah13



Daring Do is a thief trying for a second chance. Phillip Finder is a private detective with no scruples. Ponyville is a city embroiled in corruption with war on the horizon. They may be the only hope for law and order left.

  • ...
10
 665
 4,921

PreviousChapters Next
Case Four, Chapter Two: Not Welcome to the Neighborhood

Daring managed to find a police callbox sitting on a sidewalk curb a half block away from the alley and put in a call to report the dead body, then went back to the front of the alleyway to wait. About twenty minutes later, a cruiser pulled up to the alley, followed by a white van with “PPD Medical Examiner” painted on the sides in black paint. Both vehicles paused at the entrance to the alleyway.

Doctor Vitae Mortis jumped out of her van almost before it stopped moving. “Where is it?” she asked Daring eagerly, looking about as if she thought that the corpse was hiding behind Daring.

“You’re sick, doc,” Daring grumbled as Officer Wheellock and Sergeant MacWillard exited the cruiser. The griffon set to work sealing off the alley with “CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS” tape, while Wheellock entered the alleyway proper.

“It’s down this way,” Daring said, gesturing for the two mares to follow her. Wheellock and Mortis followed her down to the sewage line at the end. Phillip was still crouching at the edge, staring down at the floating corpse.

“Oooh, looky what we got here!” Mortis chirped, looking down at her prize. “That adipocere formation is a thing of beauty, isn’t it? Officer, get some good pics of the body for the record.” She pulled a camera out of her saddlebags and thrust it towards the officer, never taking her eyes off the body.

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Wheellock stammered, her face blanching as she stared down at the bloated, pale, waxy thing that used to be a pony. She fumbled with the camera for a few moments, then started taking pictures. After the sixth one, she realized that she’d left the cap on the lens.

“So, what’s the story here, Phil?” Doctor Mortis asked, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves.

“Found him floating here,” Phillip explained. “Suspect he’s been there a couple days. Think he was clobbered by somepony with a brick in the alley here.” He indicated the bloodstains on the wall.

Doctor Mortis cast a quick spell over the discolorations in her silver magic. The stains glowed a faint scarlet-purple color for a moment. “Definitely blood,” she nodded. “Good eyes, Phillip. Officer, have you got enough pics? Right, then, let’s get our friend out of the drink and get a good look at him.”

Using their magic, the two unicorns carefully lifted the body out of the sewage and placed him on a body bag that Mortis stretched out on the ground next to them. The doctor carefully turned the body over so that it was face up. Bits of the body’s flesh were missing, eaten up by decomposition or ripped away by sea creatures. Where the corpse’s face should have been was a mess of gray-green bone and rotting muscle; a pair of crabs clung stubbornly to the flesh, trying to pick off some last scraps of meat.

“That’s going to haunt my nightmares,” Daring said, having walked up to watch the examination. Wheellock took several steps backward, gulping loudly. Noticing his partner’s distress, MacWillard walked up and whispered into her ear. She nodded, looking grateful, and took his place guarding the scene. MacWillard stood and watched the examination with a neutral expression.

Phillip bent down and studied the body’s flanks. The cutie marks were faded, but there was enough left to recognize them as a pan of gold.

“This is him,” he confirmed with a nod. “Gold Dust.”

“Damn,” Daring breathed, looking away.

Doctor Mortis’ eyes were drawn to the red stains on the back of Gold Dust’s head. She carefully tilted his head up to examine the back of his cranium with the aid of a magnifying glass. “Hmm...looks like multiple contusions to the back of the head,” she said. “Yup, that one there, right on the back of the skull, that was the moneymaker there. Looks like some brick dust in there, too.”

“What I figured,” Phillip nodded.

“What do you mean?” Daring asked, being careful to not look at the body.

“Gold Dust comes out here to meet with somepony,” Phillip said, walking over next to where the bloodstains on the wall were. “Meeting goes bad. Dust turns around.” He turned on his hooves. “Other pony grabs a brick from the pile here and hits him.” He pretended to snatch up a brick and strike an invisible pony in the back of the head. “Keeps hitting him until he stops moving.” He mimed hitting a pony who was lying on the ground several times. “Drags him over to the river and dumps him.” He turned to Daring. “Begs the question. Who was he meeting, and why didn’t they get along?”

He looked back into the sewage water, squinting. “Doc. Something down there,” he said, pointing.

Doctor Mortis leaned down and squinted. “Ah, yeah, I see it,” she nodded, her horn lighting up. A black briefcase was pulled out of the dark green slime and placed on the ground next to them.

“Latch is broken open,” Phillip noted as MacWillard started snapping pictures. “Killer may have wanted something inside it.”

Once MacWillard nodded that he was finished, Doctor Mortis opened up the briefcase. Inside were a few papers, all of them so waterlogged that they were impossible to read.

“Killer might’ve taken something out of that,” Phillip noted.

“We can restore these at the laboratory,” Doctor Mortis said.

Phillip tilted his head down in thought for a moment, then turned to Daring. “We should check the house with that payment,” he said to her.

“You think that might be the reason he’s dead?” Daring asked.

“It’s a detail that stands out. Worth checking on,” Phillip nodded. “Address was in the Everfree District.”

Daring nodded. “Okay, let’s go, then,” she said.

Giving a nod to the officers and coroner, Phillip ducked beneath the crime scene tape and held it up for Daring. She followed him underneath the tape and the pair started to walk down the sidewalk. Daring walked slowly, with her head down, staring at her hooves.

“You okay?” Phillip asked.

“How do you do it?” she asked quietly.

“Do what?” Phillip replied.

“Be immune to it,” Daring answered, looking up at him. “When I saw that body, I was trying not to puke...like I always am whenever we find a corpse. You just stared at it. Like it was a…thing. Like it wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t a pony,” Phillip finished. Daring frowned but nodded.

“When I look at the body...it reminds me of all the ponies I’ve had to kill,” Daring said slowly. “It’s like, for a moment, I can see who they were, who they could have been before...before somepony took it all away. Like Gold Dust...I was watching Lily, she practically worshipped the ground he walked on. Even if he might have had a fling with that bartender—which I don’t believe, by the way—he was still a guy whose wife loved him.” She bit her lip. “And now, everything that he used to be is just...gone. And all that’s left is a waxy, bloated, stinking corpse. And it’s just…” She swallowed. “It just seems wrong to me.”

Phillip looked at her for a few seconds, then reached over and draped a foreleg over Daring’s shoulders, squeezing her to his side.

“I still remember my first body,” he told her. “Kid got himself killed in a drug deal gone bad. He was only fifteen years old. Hoofball star, looking at a full scholarship to college. Devoted to his marefriend. Had a little sister that he adored. Dead because he made a dumb decision. I couldn’t sleep a wink that night; kept seeing his face in front of me every time I closed my eyes.” He paused for a moment, then added quietly, “He’s still there. They all are.”

“All of them?” Daring asked, her eyes widening.

“All of them,” Phillip nodded. “Their faces. Where and when they died. Who killed them and why. I will always remember them. I’ve just gotten used to it over time.” He took a shaky breath, then continued, “We can’t bring them back, Daring. All we can do is try to give them some justice.”

Daring let out a low grunt and turned away. Phillip gave her another squeeze. “Being squeamish is nothing to be ashamed about, sheila. Doesn’t mean that you’re weak or anything.” He was silent for a moment, then Daring felt his breath tickle the side of her head as he gave her ear a brief nuzzle. “Proud of you,” he whispered.

Daring smiled and nuzzled him back. “Thanks,” she whispered. “Now, come on. We’ve got a lead to follow up!”

And with that, she grabbed Phillip beneath the forelegs and carried him up into the air, ignoring his cry of protest.


The neighborhood the address was in was a slum on the northeastern outskirts of Ponyville. Most of the houses that Daring and Phillip passed over were in varying states of disrepair, and litter was scattered over the uneven, badly paved roads. A group of ponies in tattered coats, their manes spilling from beneath their hats, stood around an oil barrel on a street corner, holding their hooves out towards the fire inside.

Daring looked up and spotted a billboard hanging over a building. “Hey, isn’t that Monopoly?” she asked.

Phillip studied the billboard, noting the name “Phoenix Housing Project” written in bright golden letters. “Yeah. Building a housing project for some of the poor ponies here. Mayor's backing it up. Heard it’s going over budget.”

Daring scowled at the smiling facsimile of the businesspony’s face staring blankly at her. “Must be nice to have such positive publicity,” she growled. “Did I tell you what Sparks and I stole from him? What he had in that safe deposit box?”

“Yes. A ‘last-resort’ spell of some sort,” Phillip said, already looking away from the advertisement.

“Maybe Trace or Red could…” Daring’s thoughts trailed off, then she scoffed. “Yeah, right. What could they do?" She scowled and flew on. “It's not right."

“No, it isn’t,” Phillip agreed. He looked down at the street beneath them. “That’s the address down there,” he said, pointing.

Daring looked down and blinked. Phillip’s hoof was pointing not at a house, but at a pile of charred and burnt wreckage that sat in between two two-story houses as if trying to make itself seem inconspicuous. The skeleton of the house stuck out from the assorted wreckage and ashes like cremated bones; the entire roof had collapsed, only the back wall was left standing, and all that was left of the windows were the frames.

“You sure you got the right address?” Daring asked, lowering them both to the sidewalk. She glanced up and noted a pair of security crystals standing atop a metal pole on the sidewalk curb, mere feet from them. One of the unblinking blue eyes swiveled around to stare at her. She flinched and turned away, lowering her head and tilting the brim of her hat over her face.

“I’m sure,” Phillip nodded, studying the wreckage.

“Shit, that must have been some fire,” Daring whistled through her teeth.

“The flames lit up the block all night. You should have seen it, ‘twas quite a sight,” a voice said behind them. Daring and Phillip both turned around to see a couple walking up the sidewalk behind them. The speaker was a tall zebra with a shaggy brown and white mane and deep blue eyes, dressed in a gray rain jacket with the cutie mark of what might have been a drum or an hourglass. His partner was a pegasus with a yellow-white coat, bright red hair, and the cutie mark of a five-pointed star with wings. The pegasus was wearing a tattered hoofmade scarf with red, brown, white, and green stripes.

“Was anypony hurt?” Daring asked.

“The family of five all got away,” the zebra reported. “Monopoly gave them a place to stay. They’re staying now at Hotel Sun, til the housing project is finally done.”

“Monopoly? Really?” Daring asked skeptically.

The zebra nodded, then turned to Phillip, who was frowning. "Friend, your confusion is apparent. Perhaps you think my speech is aberrant?" he asked.

"Never understood why some zebras rhyme and some don't," Phillip shrugged.

The zebra smiled. "This question has been asked by many, so no offense do I take, not any. These rhymes are used by my ancestral line, a mark of mystic families like mine. For rhyming practice we take many hours, to ensure our words would have proper power."

"Suunkii must be of a different zebra tribe than him," Daring added. "That's why they talk differently."

"I see," Phillip nodded, then turned back to the zebra. "Anything else you can tell us about the fire?"

He started to answer, but the pegasus grabbed his foreleg and stopped him. “Wait, I recognize him,” he said, nodding to Phillip. “He works with the cops.”

The zebra paused, glaring at Phillip. "To you, we've got nothing to say. Now you and your friend be on your way." With that, the two stallions turned and walked away without so much as a backward glance.

“The fuck was that all about?” a bewildered Daring asked Phillip.

“I’m afraid that police are not looked upon favorably here,” another voice said, this one female. Daring and Phillip turned to see a butter yellow pegasus with long pink hair walking up towards them, laden with bags on her back and shoulders.

“I recognize you,” Daring said. “You’re one of Twilight’s friends, right?”

“Yes. My name is Fluttershy,” the mare nodded. “She’s told me about both of you already. What are you doing here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“We’re looking into a murder,” Phillip answered. “We think there may be a link to this fire.” He gestured at the wreckage.

“Oh, my,” Fluttershy breathed, looking shocked. “Who was it?”

“An insurance agent,” Phillip said. “What can you tell us about this fire?”

Fluttershy grunted and shifted to adjust for the weight of the bags. “I can tell you once I’ve dropped these off,” she said. “I live just down the road.”

“Here,” Phillip said, striding forward and taking a couple bags in his mouth.

“Oh, thank you, that’s very kind,” Fluttershy nodded, looking grateful.

“‘O ‘urries,” Phillip said through the bags in his mouth.

Daring took up a couple bags herself and Fluttershy led the way down the sidewalk. “The ponies that lived there were Sunbloom, his wife Dancing Wind, and their three foals. They all got away unhurt, and as you heard, Monopoly is putting them up at the Hotel Sun until they finish the new housing project.”

Phillip dropped the bags on the ground momentarily so he could speak clearly. “What was the cause of the fire?”

“A gas leak,” Fluttershy replied. “They were just fortunate that one of the foals was awake. This is my place,” she said, pointing to the house they were approaching.

The house was a simple cottage that stood on its own block. The house carried the look of a building that had started to fall under its own weight and age but was still cared for lovingly; parts of the walls had been freshly painted, while other parts were faded and peeling. The windows were clean, but the shutters were faded and falling apart, and the roof was sagging in the middle. There was a small garden in the front yard that featured flowers of all colors of the rainbow surrounding a medium-sized pine tree. Fish swam in a small pond of clear blue water next to the tree. Behind the house, open grassland stretched away towards a thin copse of trees. A well-worn dirt pathway led up to the door; the sign next to the pathway read “Doctor Fluttershy: Veterinarian and Animal Caretaker” in flowery pink script.

“You’re a doctor?” Daring asked with mild surprise.

“University of Baltimare, magna cum laude,” Fluttershy said with pride. Almost immediately afterward, she smiled shyly and lowered her head as if trying to hide behind her mane. “Oh, I, um, don’t mean to brag…”

“That’s something worth bragging about,” Daring commented as they walked up the pathway to the door. Her face glowing from behind her mane, Fluttershy unlocked the door and let them in. They passed through a modest hallway, through a simple waiting room with cushions on the floor and a few magazines, and into a living room.

The room had a coffee table, an old but comfy-looking couch, more cushions on the floor, and a bookshelf with several books on nature, medicine, and philosophy, with an entire shelf devoted to romance novels. A large window allowed the ponies inside to view another garden in the backyard. Hanging from the ceiling were several wooden perches and small catwalks; scattered around the floor were chew toys, balls, and other things for animals to play with. Several animals were scattered across the room, including two dogs, three cats, several birds, a trio of rabbits, and, to Daring and Phillip’s surprise, a skunk. All of them converged on Fluttershy as she entered, letting out happy barks, meows, chirps, and various other noises.

“Hello, little friends!” Fluttershy said, instantly brightening at the sight of her charges. She dropped the bags on the floor, revealing them to be mostly food and medicines. “Who’s hungry?”

The animals all crowded around her. Fluttershy began to pour food into metal bowls, chattering happily to all of them.

“You take care of all of these guys?” Daring asked, staring in astonishment.

“I take in pets from all over the city,” Fluttershy replied, petting the skunk, who nuzzled her hoof. “And I also take care of injured or abandoned animals until I can find a nice home for them.”

“This all must cost you a fortune,” Daring commented.

Fluttershy frowned a little. “Well, I do some odd jobs on the side: photography, cashier work, delivery, that kind of thing. It does help…” She trailed off, pouring kibble into a bowl for the dogs.

Something touched Daring’s foreleg. She looked down and stiffened in shock: a black, yellow, and red striped snake was slithering out from underneath a cushion, rubbing against her skin.

“Yeeeeek!” she screamed, leaping up into the air. She flew over to the couch and perched on top of the back, keeping her wide eyes on the snake.

“Oh, Snuggler is just a harmless pearl snake,” Fluttershy said, smiling at the snake as she extracted a dead rat from a small bag and gave it to Snuggler. “See? Red next to black, friend of Jack.”

“Snakes are not my friend,” Daring spat, glaring at the snake as it unhinged its jaws and started to swallow the rat whole.

Phillip, whose thin mouth and quivering shoulders gave away the fact that he was trying not to laugh, turned to Fluttershy. “The fire,” he said.

“Yes, right,” Fluttershy nodded. “The fire was last week; it started in the middle of the night. By the time that firefighters responded, it was too late to save the building, but the family got out safely. And, as I told you, Monopoly put them up at a hotel with the others.”

“What others?” Phillip asked.

“Other ponies who have lost their homes from the fires,” Fluttershy explained. “There have been about six other fires in the past few weeks; just the latest in many these last couple moons.” She paused, then added quietly, “Not all of them made it out.”

“SIx?” Phillip asked, his eyebrows shooting up into his bangs.

Fluttershy nodded. “All of them were accidents,” she said. “Monopoly paid for the survivors to be taken care of.” Her mouth twisted in a frown. "I'd say that that was nice of him, except for the houses that burned down are all ponies who refused to sell their land for that housing project."

“And this hasn’t been in the news because?” Daring asked, not taking her eyes off the snake.

“Because accidents in this neighborhood aren’t worth the news,” Fluttershy said quietly, checking a bowl of water in the corner.

Phillip thought for a moment, then asked, “Tell me about the Phoenix Housing Project.”

“It’s a new set of housing for some poorer ponies,” Fluttershy explained, deciding to look down at her charges instead of at the detectives. “Monopoly is funding it, but they’ve been running behind schedule. I heard that the city is paying for construction to get it back on schedule.”

Daring looked up at Fluttershy for the first time since the snake had appeared, and Phillip could tell that she was fighting down a comment about Monopoly’s honesty and charitable feelings. He gave her a warning look and she backed down, turning her gaze back on the snake that was now curled up contentedly on a cushion.

“Have there been any other fires recently?” Phillip asked.

“There was one last night,” Fluttershy said. “The Duskwind family on Twenty-Seven Apple Tree Way.” She blinked and looked up for the first time, her lower lip shaking. “None of them made it.”

Phillip raised a hoof as if to reach out and try to comfort her, but stopped, hesitated, and lowered his hoof. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ll go and check it out.”

“I believe the police are there already,” Fluttershy said, turning away again and pawing at the bookshelf.

Phillip and Daring stood in an awkward silence for a few seconds, then Daring cleared her throat. “Well, we should...probably be going now,” she said. She flew off of the couch, keeping her eyes fixed on the snake as she slowly flapped over to the door.

“Appreciate the help,” Phillip nodded to Fluttershy. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

Fluttershy nodded. “I hope that some ponies will be willing to help you,” she said.

Daring snorted. “Yeah, we already met two of your helpful neighbors,” she said.

“It’s not just that they’re rude,” Fluttershy said. “It’s that...well…” She sighed, then looked up. “Poor ponies like the ones that live here are always treated badly by the police,” she said. She took a deep breath, then began to speak very quickly.

“I knew a neighbor who was caught for using a small amount of red poppydust. Everypony in court called him a criminal; he was sentenced to prison for eighteen months, and when he comes out, he’ll be even worse off than he was before he went in—he’ll still be poor, he’ll still be addicted, he still won’t have a good education or a good chance at anything. Another pony who lives in the Financial District, a rich pony; he crashed his car into a tree and was found with several bags of red poppydust in the car. He got six months of probation and was sent to a rehabilitation program. The whole thing was just washed away like it never happened.”

Fluttershy paused, taking in another deep breath. Phillip and Daring both noted that her posture had changed: she’d started standing up taller and straighter, and was looking right at them with a fierce glow in her bright blue eyes.

“Whenever the police come here, it seems like all they do is harass our neighbors and friends without any cause,” she continued in a bolder tone. “I’ve seen ponies get pulled off the sidewalk and patted down just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. They don’t trust us, they don’t respect us; all they do is push these good ponies around because they have badges and guns.” She fixed Phillip and Daring with a look that was just on the border of being a glare. “The police are supposed to protect us. So who protects us from them?”

Phillip and Daring stood in silence for several seconds. Fluttershy’s anger deflated quickly and she turned away, hiding behind her mane again as if in shame.

“So if you don’t like cops,” Daring finally asked. “Why are you helping us?”

Fluttershy peeked out from behind her mane. “I don’t really approve of your methods,” she said. “But I’d like to believe that you’re trying to help.”

“We are,” Phillip said, fully aware of just how feeble that sounded.

One of the dogs that Fluttershy was feeding walked up to her and nudged her foreleg. She sat down on a cushion and patted it absentmindedly. “If you don’t have anything else to say, I would appreciate if you could leave,” she said in a quiet tone. “I have a lot of work to do.”

Phillip nodded and turned to exit. Daring followed. They both walked out of the house, back down the pathway to the sidewalk, and started up the road towards Apple Tree Way. Daring kept her gaze fixed on the concrete at her hooves as she walked; as she passed by a discarded, crushed soda can, she gave it a kick and sent it skittering up the sidewalk.

“Do you feel as shitty as I do right now?” she muttered.

Phillip didn’t answer verbally. Instead, he just draped a foreleg around her and pulled her close to his side. Neither of them spoke for the remainder of their journey.

Author's Note:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? A possible answer, in the near future.

Like what you read? please leave a like and a comment to show your support!

PreviousChapters Next