Case Nine, Chapter Ten: Cold Case, Cold Comfort
Phillip had never liked hospitals. Despite the number of ponies wandering around, doctors and nurses bustling up and down hallways from one emergency to another, anxious visitors loitering in waiting areas for news, and emergency responders bringing in one sick or blooded patient after another, the place was clean and white. A hundred different odors lingered beneath his nose, but one scent overwhelmed them all: the stench of bleach and cleaning fluids. An indistinct message sounded over the PA and a doctor raced past him, white coat flapping in his wake.
Forcing himself to ignore the smells and sounds, Phillip shifted the weight of the saddlebag on his side and proceeded down the hallway to where he’d been directed. Stopping at the doorway, he peered inside.
Daring Do was laying on the bed in light green scrubs, covers pushed down to her waist. A golden metal band inscribed with runes adorned her head; her clothes and pith helmet lay on a table next to her. Rainbow Dash was sitting on a chair next to her, apparently regaling her with a tale. A light rain was pattering against the window, falling from the dull gray clouds that had moved in within the last few minutes.
“Phillip, please,” Daring groaned as he entered, her voice coming out dry and slightly raspy. “There’s nothing to do in here. I’m dying of boredom! Rainbow Dash is barely keeping me alive at this point.”
“Don’t worry, I brought what you need,” Phillip smiled. He proceeded to the bed and leaned down to kiss Daring on the lips. After this greeting, he took the saddlebag from his side and dumped the contents onto the bed: a notepad and two pens, the crossword and puzzle sections of the last four Foal Free Press editions, and three books.
“What, no Manticore Rare?” Daring asked.
“I’m not a bootlegger,” Phillip stated, sitting down opposite Rainbow Dash. “But I did bring you a special gift.” He nodded to one of the books.
Daring checked the title of the book and her eyes widened. “Hayana Pones and the Curse of the Scarlet Queen?! But that doesn’t come out for a month…” she said, caressing the detailed cover of the book depicting the fedora-wearing protagonist looking up at a step pyramid set against a dark red sky with a partial lunar eclipse behind the summit of the pyramid.
“Check the inside cover,” Phillip smirked.
Daring opened up the book and stared at the inscription inside the cover in swirling light purple ink. “To a fan who’s nearly as awesome as Hayana Pones himself. Love, Nightingale Star.”
Daring’s jaw dropped and she stared at the book in disbelief, faint squeaky noises emerging from the back of her throat.
“I was talking with Pinkie Pie about getting you a birthday present a week ago, and she mentioned that Twilight knew Nightingale Star,” Phillip explained. “So she put in a good word and—”
Phillip’s sentence was interrupted by Daring seizing him around the neck and pulling him down to mash her lips against his. He let out a muffled grunt of surprise and momentarily struggled, but then melted into the kiss, embracing her in reply (and ignoring Rainbow Dash sticking her tongue out and gagging).
“Have I ever told you that I love you?” Daring said, hugging the book tight to her chest.
“Once or twice,” Phillip smiled, enjoying the warm wash of endorphins rushing through his body. “So what’s this?” he asked, nodding to the golden band around Daring’s head.
“They crowned me the queen of the hospital,” Daring smirked. “They’re arranging for a parade in my honor.”
Phillip rolled his eyes. “Okay, actually, this is for my multiple concussions and minor skull fracture,” Daring explained. “It’s for repairing brain damage.”
“We couldn’t have gotten you one sooner?” Phillip smirked.
Daring gave him a Flying Feather, but couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “So I’m guessing you saved the Mayor,” she said, settling back into the bed.
Phillip gave her and Rainbow Dash a brief recount of his adventure. When he’d finished, Daring sighed and closed her eyes.
“Why would you promise to help him?” Rainbow asked, befuddlement written across her face. “He tried to kill us!”
“Because this job isn’t about revenge, kid,” Daring replied, giving her a stern look. “Revenge blinds you. Revenge will get you killed. This job is about doing the right thing for the right reasons. A kid’s been killed. Even if her father isn’t on our side, somepony’s gotta pay for that. Right?”
Rainbow frowned. “I guess…”
“Yup,” Phillip agreed and stood up. “I’m gonna check on Trace and Red, and you need to get some rest. Hopefully, you won’t die of boredom before you’re healed up.”
“Oh, I think I’m good,” Daring said, turning to the Curse of the Scarlet Queen and eagerly scooping it up. “So does this mean I’m not getting a birthday present?”
“We’ll see,” Phillip smiled. He kissed Daring on the forehead. “See you sheilas later.” He exited the room and trotted down the hallway.
“Are those books really that good?” Rainbow Dash asked, tilting her head as she studied the cover of Hayana Pones’ latest adventure.
“The best,” Daring replied, her eyes panning across the page as she devoured the story.
“Twilight’s been trying to get me to try them for ages,” Rainbow shrugged. “Personally, I say that they can’t be as good as your stories.”
Daring raised her eyebrows at Rainbow over the top of the book. “My life’s complicated enough without having to deal with rabid book fans. Those guys are more likely to kill me than any gangster.”
“Yeah, but has Hayana Pones ever taken down a big-time mobster?” Rainbow asked with a smirk.
Daring blinked a couple of times, then shrugged. “You got a point, kid,” she admitted, returning to the book.
Phillip walked down the hallway to his next target. Reaching the room he’d been directed towards, he peered through the doorway.
Red Herring was laying on the bed faceup, eyes closed, though Phillip could tell by his quick, steady breathing that he was awake. His chest was wrapped in bandages and an IV was injected into his foreleg. Trace Evidence was sitting beside him, the metal ring still around his horn, his head wrapped in bandages.
“Hey, Phil,” Trace muttered as he entered.
“You okay?” Phillip asked.
“Dandy,” Trace muttered. “Good news, they’re telling me that I should be out of here tomorrow. They say I’m lucky.”
“Red?” Phillip asked as he sat down on the opposite chair.
Red took a slow breath. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” he nodded, opening his eyes and looking at Phillip wearily. “Just woke up this morning, and then I find out you almost got my partner killed. You really are the worst thing that happened to me.”
“Yeah, Daring and I love you, too,” Phillip muttered with a small smile. “How long are you gonna be here?”
“At least another week,” Red muttered, closing his eyes again. “The surgery went off without complications, but they want to make sure that everything’s healed up right.”
He sighed deeply and seemed to try to sink back into the bed. “You know what I kept thinking about while I was under?” he mumbled.
“Lion?” Trace asked.
Red nodded. “The last time I saw him and Honeydew, he was only six. He’d be...fuck, it’s his birthday in two months. He’ll be eleven now.” He opened his eyes again and looked at Trace, face sagging in exhaustion. “I fucked it up with her, Trace,” he admitted. “Came home one night and she and my son were both gone. Just...poof.”
Something in Red’s eyes glimmered. He wiped at his face with a wing, letting out an annoyed grunt. “I miss them,” he muttered.
“You could try again,” Trace offered.
Red looked at him. “You know, I kinda got the impression that she didn’t want that much to do with me when she sent me the divorce papers in the mail,” he deadpanned. “Told me that I could barely make time for them with my job.”
“If she did, she wouldn’t be sending you letters, letting you make phone calls on Lion’s birthday,” Trace pointed out. “Red, you fucked up. So does everypony. Doesn’t mean you can’t try again.”
When Red didn’t answer, Trace smirked. “Remember pepper spray day at academy?”
“Oh, Faust, you had to remind me,” Red groaned.
Phillip winced. “I can still feel the spray on my face. DI used the fogger on me instead of the spray; wanker said he’d run out.”
Red chuckled. “You just have a knack for pissing everypony off, don’t you?”
“Like I was saying,” Trace cut back in. “I’m sure you remember how much it hurt. I know I just wanted to lie down and wait for it to stop.”
“So did I,” Red muttered. “And let me guess: this is some kind of metaphor about how no matter how badly something hurts, what matters is getting up and working through it.”
“Hey, the cliches have their place,” Trace shrugged.
Red pondered it for a bit, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe it’s worth a shot. Not like she can divorce me twice.”
“That’s the spirit,” Trace smiled.
Phillip allowed the tender moment to linger, then grunted to bring them back to seriousness. “The Mayor’s safe for the moment; stopped the assassin,” Phillip nodded.
“You think that’s the end of it?” Trace asked.
“Doubt it,” Phillip muttered. “Zugzwang wouldn’t make it this easy.”
“Why the hell did he even announce it to you?” Red wondered. “Doesn’t make any sense, unless he thinks he’s some kind of comic book supervillain. And last I checked, you don’t go running around dressed like a bat.” He blinked. “Do you?”
“No,” Phillip deadpanned. “But I can guess. Two possible reasons: one, he’s arrogant.”
“And the other?” Red asked.
Phillip let out a breath. “He’s got something else planned,” he stated. “That’s the one that scares me.”
“Well, we’ve set him back, at least,” Trace commented. “Detectives are sweeping Hobnail’s place for any clues.”
“Right,” Phillip stood up. “They can call me if they find anything important. Meanwhile, I’ve got something else to take care of.” He extended his hoof towards Trace, who bumped it with his own.
“You mates stay healthy,” Phillip said, bumping Red’s hoof.
“Same,” Red called as Phillip exited. A distant rumble of thunder resounded from the sky outside and the rain began to fall in earnest, rapping hard against the window.
By the time Phillip walked into the laboratory, the pain in his shoulder was fading fast and he could move it normally. He was tempted to remove the sling but decided to make sure that it had ample time to heal.
Dripping wet from the rain, he entered to find Twilight and Suunkii bending over a plastic pan with several indentations, each little bubble filled with a white powder. Weaving her magic with great proficiency, Twilight placed an eyedropper in each of four jars of liquid, each one a different color--blue, orange, pink, and yellow--then started placing drops into each indentation, a different color for every row.
“If this works, we’ll have a better method for identifying poppydust,” Twilight commented, screwing the jars closed with her magic.
“I have every confidence in you, mwanafunzi wangu,” Suunkii smiled at his student, patting her on the back.
“Thank you, doctor,” Twilight said, practically glowing. It was then that she noticed Phillip entering.
“I see somepony forgot their umbrella,” Twilight commented.
“Suun, Twi,” Phillip nodded. “I need to pull a cold case.”
“Which one?” Suunkii asked.
“The death of Rosemary Harvest,” Phillip replied. “It was in a gang shooting in the Industrial District, in ‘47.”
Suunkii nodded. “I believe I recall that case. Come with me.”
Suunkii led Phillip down the hallway, the earth pony leaving a trail of small puddles behind him. Suunkii regarded the puddles with a raised eyebrow. “I believe your mother would state that the wandjina were angry,” he commented.
“She would,” Phillip nodded, hanging back a bit so that he could shake himself off without getting Suunkii wet. “Though I’m pretty sure that the Aborigineigh rain guardians wouldn’t come this far north.”
“How is she?” Suunkii asked as they reached a doorway.
“Good,” Phillip said. “She and dad will be coming up this summer like usual.”
“I believe we shall attend the concert,” Suunkii smiled briefly as he unlocked the door with a key extracted from his lab coat pocket.
They entered a room roughly the size of three broom closets, packed so full with filing cabinets and cardboard boxes with papers spilling out of them that there was barely enough space to move inside.
Suunkii managed to squeeze his way inside, grunting with effort as he forced himself in between two cabinets. “Perhaps with that better budget Cold Case has been promising, we can hire some interns to clean this up,” he muttered as he paused before a cabinet and pulled the drawer open. He flicked through the folders within, and finally settled upon one. “Yes, here it is.”
He started to back out, but the cabinets blocked him in. Frowning, Suunkii pushed harder, but he could not force himself through. He looked back at Phillip, who was grinning broadly, and sighed. “Help?” he muttered.
Grasping Suunkii’s tail with his teeth, Phillip tugged backward, trying to yank him loose. Suunkii pushed as hard as he could into him, his cheeks already starting to glow with red. But unfortunately, the friction still proved too great for the two of them to defeat.
“Okay, one more try,” Phillip muttered through Suunkii’s tail, bracing himself. “On three. One, two...three!”
Phillip yanked on Suunkii’s tail as the zebra pushed backward, both of them straining as the cabinets groaned in protest. Suunkii’s flanks slid through the last couple inches, then with a sudden pop, he was freed from his prison.
Unfortunately, his momentum caused him to fly back into Phillip, who was knocked off-balance by the sudden impact. Before either of them knew what had happened, a panting, red-faced and slightly sweaty Suunkii was sitting on Phillip’s face. Phillip grunted in shock and started writhing beneath his flanks, trying to free himself.
And, of course, it was right at that moment that the door opened. The doctor turned to see an officer standing in the doorway, staring at the scene with wide eyes.
Suunkii cleared his throat, feeling his blush spreading across his face even further and silently pleading for Phillip to stop wriggling beneath him. “Officer, I assure you, this is not what it—”
That was as far as he got before the officer stepped back and closed the door. Suunkii stared, his jaw slack. “Oh, dear.”
“Geroff!”
Suunkii scrambled awkwardly within the confined space and after some struggling, managed to get off Phillip, who was also red and sweaty-faced. Phillip glared at him as he retrieved his trilby.
“We shall never speak of this,” Suunkii stated, ordering his face to return to its normal color.
“Agreed,” Phillip grunted.
The two exited the file room and walked back down the hallway to the laboratory to find Twilight bending over the pan, her face practically glowing with excitement. “Doctor Suunkii, it’s working!” she cried, dancing in place.
Dropping the folder on the table, Suunkii trotted over and bent over the pan. “Indeed. I was absolutely certain that your experiment would work, Twilight Sparkle.” He smiled and patted her on the back.
While the two of them were busy talking, Phillip opened up the folder and began to pan through the files, thinking. He ran a hoof down the first officers’ reports.
“Shootout between two rival gangs...warehouse on docks...police called for shots fired at 1513…” he muttered to himself. “Five deceased: two from each gang, and Rosemary Harvest, on her way home from school…”
He paused at a picture showing a young earth pony filly sprawled across the sidewalk. She would’ve been a beautiful little girl, her sunshine yellow mane tied neatly into pigtails and her long tail braided. Her flanks were blank; she couldn’t have been more than six years old.
And yet the image was totally ruined by the dark red blood that was splashed across her light green coat. A bullet had ripped through her body, just below her shoulder: Phillip could see the concrete of the sidewalk through the hole. More blood was painted across the sidewalk on either side of her.
“It’s horrible,” Twilight breathed, looking over his shoulder. “How could a little girl get killed in the street like that and nopony care about it?”
“Case went unsolved; cops couldn’t get enough evidence to convict anypony,” Phillip stated, sorting out more photographs and a sketch depicting a birds-eye view of the entire scene. “Doesn’t mean they didn’t try.”
“In no small part because of enormous pressure put on them by the Foal Free Press,” Suunkii muttered.
“The city’s changed a lot,” Phillip stated. “And now we’re on the case.”
He pulled out the autopsy report and scowled. “Bollocks. Doctor Dust Bowl did the autopsy.”
“Yes; as I recall, Doctor Mortis was out with the flu at the time,” Suunkii said dryly.
“Bogan can’t tell a bullet wound from a broken bone,” Phillip growled, looking through the report. “And the body will be too rotted by now…” He sighed.
“Okay. COD listed as bullet wound, passing from her left shoulder and out through her right at a downward angle,” he muttered. “Poor sheila went into shock and bled out.”
Twilight winced. “That poor girl…”
“Need to figure out where the shooter was.” Phillip looked at the photographs of the girl’s body, pulling out a magnifying glass and studying the bloodstains.
Twilight cleared her throat quietly. “Phillip, have you been thinking about Zugzwang?” she asked.
Phillip’s hoof paused over a photograph, then continued tracing a bloodstain. “No,” he admitted. “Think about him when I see him again.”
“Phillip, according to Flash, you’ve lost every fight you had with him,” Twilight stated.
Phillip scowled deeply, then grunted. “He’s not the first unicorn I’ve fought. Not the first fight I’ve lost. I can handle it.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Is it really so hard for you to admit that you need some help?” she sighed.
Phillip paused, then took a deep breath. “Twilight, did you have an idea?” he asked dryly.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Twilight said, puffing her chest out. “My brother Shining Armor and I were sending letters--”
Phillip suddenly looked up. “Shining Armor?” he repeated. “As in General Shining Armor?”
Twilight puffed up a bit more, her proud smile broadening. “Yes,” she replied. “He and I both graduated from the Royal Academy of Magic. Anyway, he and I were discussing a ward that was designed to reflect offensive magic that could be applied to plainclothes, and I remembered something. You remember the wards I put on yours and Daring’s vests when we fought Tinderspark?”
Phillip nodded, unzipping his vest and looking on the interior. Burned into the fabric was a geometric shape in faint purple lines, looking like a decagon, an eight-pointed star, and a raindrop all artistically intertwined with one another. This, a ward of Twilight’s design, was designed to make the vest fireproof, even against cursed dragonfire.
“Well, a part of that ward involves making the vest somewhat magic-repellant to prevent the Dragon’s Spark from working on it,” Twilight lectured. “Shining theorized that if I tinkered with it a bit, I should be able to make a ward that’s almost completely magic-proof. Ordinarily, a reinforcing ward like that wouldn't work on fabric because the material isn't strong enough, but according to Starswirl’s Seventh Law of Magic, if I can rework Stygian’s Theorem and--”
“Twilight Sparkle,” Suunkii interrupted, giving her a deadpan stare. Twilight paused, then grinned sheepishly.
“Sorry. Anyway, I’m confident that I can create a new ward in the vest that should create a shield that will repel any offensive magic,” she explained. “He was hoping I could do a test run on it and send him the results.”
“And you want me to be the guinea pig?” Phillip asked. “You sure it’d work?”
“Absolutely!” Twilight declared.
“And you’re sure that it won’t backfire?” Phillip asked.
Twilight’s smile flickered a bit. “Well...I’m fairly confident that it won’t…”
“Will I at least not turn into a pineapple this time?” Phillip deadpanned.
“I’m sure. And it was one time!” Twilight protested, ignoring Suunkii’s stifled snickering.
“Then let’s have a go,” Phillip said, taking off his vest and handing it to her. Twilight’s grin grew even broader as she grasped his vest in her magic and set to work. With a faint buzzing noise, the former ward disappeared, the purple lines disappearing into dust.
Her eyes narrowed in concentration, Twilight began to draw a new ward on the fabric, the purple aura around the vest glowing so brightly that it seemed to dim the other lights in the room. First, she placed down the shape of a diamond, which she decorated with some runes constructed of harsh, angular lines scratched along the perimeter. To this, she added a four-pointed star, then a crescent moon at each corner of the diamond and each point of the star. Finally, she finished off the whole thing by drawing a circle of runes around the entire ward.
The light faded away and Twilight sagged, panting. “That...took more effort...than I thought,” she said, handing the vest back to Phillip and leaning against the table.
“You okay?” Phillip asked, swinging the vest back on.
“I’m fine,” Twilight said, wiping off her brow. “Okay, that ward is for a temporary shield spell that'll deflect magic. Now, I should mention, this ward isn’t constant like the other one is: it’d burn out all of its energy very quickly if I tried that. This ward is effectively like a bullet in a loaded gun. It will only work when it’s triggered.”
“Right,” Phillip nodded. “So what’s the trigger?”
“That’s up to you,” Twilight said. “I won’t be able to trigger it for you, unless you want me to follow you around everywhere.”
Phillip stared at his vest, then at her. “How do I trigger it?” he stated.
“For non-unicorns, a spell like this can be triggered by saying a special word, or phrase. Something meaningful to you,” Twilight explained. “The most important thing is that you have to believe, wholly and completely, that it will work. Otherwise, it won’t.” She paused for a moment, then added, “I suppose it’s like your boomerang. You have to be sure that it’ll hit the target.”
Phillip frowned. “I had a few years to practice with the boomerang, though,” he pointed out.
“I’m sure it’ll work,” Twilight smiled, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out.”
Phillip stared for a beat, then shrugged and turned back to the photographs. He studied the bloodstains for a moment longer, then growled. “That bloody moron.”
“What?” Twilight asked, looking over his shoulder.
“The bloodstains,” Phillip said. “Dust Bowl got it wrong. She wasn’t shot at a downward angle, she was shot at an upward angle. See the blood here?”
Twilight and Suunkii both squinted at the red coloring painted on the sidewalk. “I concur,” Suunkii nodded. “The blood on Rosemary Harvest’s right is back spatter from an entrance wound.”
“And if it was from an upward angle, then she was shot by somepony lying on the ground,” Phillip continued, drawing a hoof down to another, larger red stain painted onto the ground a few feet away from where Rosemary lay. “Somepony who was wounded.”
“But who?” Twilight asked. “Witnesses stated that about a dozen ponies were involved in the gunfight: two were killed, and only three others were caught.”
Phillip studied the photographs for a few moments more, then closed his eyes and let out a slow breath; just before the rest of the world slipped away, he faintly heard a telephone ringing.
And then everything else vanished from his awareness. He opened his mind’s eye, and found that he was standing on a sidewalk on a street, surrounded by warehouses and dilapidated shops and pubs; a thick fog surrounded everything except for a few yards around him; all was still and silent as the grave.
Before him was Rosemary Harvest, frozen in mid-step, a look of pain and horror on her face. Blood blossomed from her shoulders, and a red line traveled through her, going up from below her right shoulder and out the top of her left shoulder.
Turning to his left, Phillip saw the shadowy silhouette of a pony lying on their side on the ground, a revolver in one extended hoof. Smoke and sparks ran from the muzzle of the weapon, and the beginning of the red line blossomed from the muzzle as well.
Phillip’s mental eye tracked the line as it passed from the barrel through the filly and out her other shoulder. He followed the path of the bullet across the street, and it was there that he saw what he was hoping to see.
And then he heard somepony calling his name. Opening his physical eyes, Phillip turned to face, Suunkii, whose own eyes were wide.
“It is Detective Matchstick at Hobnail’s house,” he stated. “They have found something.”
Phillip took the phone from Suunkii’s hoof and held it up to his ear. “Finder.”
“Finder, it’s Matchstick,” a mare’s voice said over the phone. “We got something real bad here. We found several empty canisters for oil and gasoline, and empty boxes that had been filled with styrofoam. You know what you can make with that?”
Phillip’s heart leaped into his throat. “Napalm,” he breathed.
“And a fucking lot of it,” Matchstick agreed. “And then we found something else. Clock parts and wires, and then blueprints and part of an ID badge for a worker. You wanna guess what they're for?”
“Fuck,” Phillip breathed, dropping the phone and sprinting for the door.
“Where are you going?” Twilight cried.
“City Hall, there’s a bomb!” Phillip shouted, bursting through the door and racing up the stairs.
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So sickeningly sweet.
Oh dearie me, Daring won't like this!
Yeeeeeeeaaahhh, I'd have to agree, this story arc has gone on for a bit longer than it actually needed to. You could have easily cut out a few moments really, or saved them for later arcs.
9604211
Don't worry, there's just two more chapters left.
9604257
I would try and find a way to condense it down to one if I was you.
9604295
Not unless you want a 9,000 word chapter.
And, of course, I've had cases that went on for eleven chapters before.
So, a building on high alert allowed some shady construction workers in...
... considering the state of their documentation, this is not much of a stretch (and filing systems seem to be a problem both for canon and fanfic Equestria. There are like 3 characters in the whole series who can keep their papers in order)
Some lighthearted comedy was a welcome change that the characters needed.
I wonder how they'll handle the next case, with a gang war on the streets and half the team out of commission.
Waiting for the next chapter. Hopefully the mayor has at least a single pegasus on her staff to save her from being trapped in a burning building... unless there's a sniper waiting exactly for that.
So we went from an assassination attempt to a bomb threat we their ant no rest of the wicked. Also I know Phillip and Suunkii are old friends but I don't think they relationship warrants a face sitting.
10045877
Believe me, neither of them think that either.
The more I think about this exchange in the context of the story and the material it's based off of, the more meta it becomes.
I wouldn't say so. Personally, I'm quite a fan of slower pacing and character moments, which this case has been packed full of.
Why is it always the backup plans that have to deal with explosives?