I walked into the basement of the ENDA HQ. The morgue. The room smelled of embalming fluid. I looked around, noticing the several signs pointing toward other sections of the ENDA building. I walked through the room, looking around at the several sliding drawers in it. I went through a small door into a room with the corpse of Mr. Wave on a table. Theorem looked up from his chair. "You made it. Good." he said, utterly serious, a complete turnaround from his mood at the crime scene.

"So you made a full autopsy report?" I asked, walking over to him.

He nodded and handed the file to me. "There's a problem, though."

I raised an eyebrow. "What kind of problem?"

"The hoof print we thought we had. The killer had on horseshoes. The hoof print is a no go." he said, looking over to the table where his surgical instruments were.

I sighed. "Damn."

He then perked up for a second. "But we did find something interesting. Mr. Wave must have bitten his assailant in self defense, because we found a small chunk of flesh in his throat." He looked over to the body. "He was a tough stallion, it seems. I'm surprised he couldn't overpower his attacker."

I looked at the report, which stated the time of death, cause of death, and pretty much everything I already knew. "So we have DNA from the killer." I said softly.

"Yes. However, it matches with nobody in the database. But if we find the right guy and match his DNA with that flesh..."

"We send him away for life." I say, somewhat pleased at this revelation.

Theorem nodded. The intercom in the ceiling buzzed as the voice of a mare came through.

"Dr. Theorem? Call for you on line 2."

He looked up. "Thank you, Marionette." He looked to me. "I'll be back in a minute." he said, standing up from his chair and trotting out of the room.

I read over the report several times, making sure not to miss any details. About 5 minutes after he left, Theorem burst into the room, a look of panic on his face. "There's been another murder. Come on, we need to hurry!"

I got up quickly and ran out the door, Theorem close behind. "Where's the scene of the crime?" I asked as we rushed up the stairs to ground level.

"Everlasting Winnings Casino, top floor. A major shareholder of the franchise was found dead in his office thirteen minutes ago." We got out through the front doors and I was about to call for a taxi when Theorem stopped me. "I got this." He pulled a small whistle out of his pocket and blew it. A police wagon pulled up next to us, the driver looking at us.

Theorem and I jumped into the back of the wagon. "Everlasting Winnings Casino!" I said to the driver. He nodded and drove the cart as fast as he could to get to the casino.

"Who's the shareholder?" I asked Theorem.

"A Mr. Top Tier. Wealthy businessstallion and one of the people keeping Everlasting Winnings solvent." He looked in the direction the wagon was going. "This will bring down their entire business once word gets out."

When we arrived, Bones greeted us at the door. "Come on. We need to get to the office before the newsponies do." He nodded his head to the stairs. "I saw some go to the elevators but I told the electricians to disable them for a few minutes. Come on, let's go." We followed him up the stairs until we reached the top floor. We quickly ran to the office that had been cordoned off by security tape.

A police colt stood beside the door. "Make sure no reporters get anywhere near the room until we're done." I said quickly, ducking under the tape and walking into the room. The first thing I noticed was that there was blood absolutely everywhere. There was blood on the walls, on the ceiling, soaked into the carpets, on the furniture, just absolutely covering everything. Then I saw the body.

Theorem walked in behind me and saw the scene. "Holy mother of Equestria..." he said softly. The deceased was splayed out in the middle of the floor, his front legs cut off at the point between the foreleg and knee and his horn completely broken off. I heard Theorem gag before he walked out.

Bones walked in. "This explains why the pony who found the body was so shaky over the phone." he said, unmoved. He walked over to the body and crouched down, looking closely at him. "Cause of death was strangulation, possibly by garrote." He turned to me. "Write this down."

I nodded and pulled my notepad and pen out of my coat pocket. I wrote down the cause of death. "So, any other trauma?"

He turned the body over, examining the underside of the forelegs. "None whatsoever. His killer got the jump on him, strangled him, cut off his legs, splattered blood all over the room to throw us off, and then broke off the horn. Fuck. This is one sick pony, whoever killed him."

I looked at the blood on the walls. "The blood here seems drier than the blood around the deceased. Maybe this isn't his blood that's been splattered everywhere?"

"Possibly. We'll do a check in the lab." Bones looks at Mr. Tier's body closely. "I swear I've seen this guy somewhere..." he mutters.

"Wasn't he involved in that huge fraud? Hundreds of millions of gambler's hard won bits never being given to them or something?" I ask.

He smirks and nods. "Yep. Thought I recognized this guy. Grade-A scumbag." He immediately frowns. "But nobody deserves to be mutilated like that." He stands. "I'll call in a body transport, you check the side rooms for anything." I nod and walk to the door of one of the side rooms. I walk in.

The first thing that struck me was the strange smell of decay. I quickly turned on the lights and saw a pair of bloody wings nailed to the wall. "Holy shit." I said softly. I walked up to them. They weren't rotting or decayed in any way, so I quickly looked around for the source of the smell. The small room was a tiny walk-in closet, so I looked through the clothes on the racks for anything of use. Then I saw it. A bucket of congealed, dark blood. There was a half-rotted tongue on the surface. "Bones?" I said loudly.

"Yeah?"

"We got a bucket of blood in here. There's a tongue inside." I heard hoof steps behind me, and soon Bones was crouching next to me.

"Hmm, looks like the blood's been sitting for a couple of days..." he said. He picked up the bucket. The blood slightly jiggled in it, jostling the tongue a little. "Maybe the tongue belongs to another victim?"

"Maybe, but the wings over there" I pointed to them, Bones following my hoof. "definitely belong to Mr. Wave. Same color fur, and they're not decayed. I'm thinking they were preserved slightly."

Bones nodded. "Makes sense. Alright, the corpse transport is on its way. I'll head back to the lab with Theorem and make preparations for the autopsies."

"I'll check with the pony who found the body, see if they know anything. Meet you at the lab in an hour."

"Check." He stood up and walked out of the office. I walked slowly to the stairs, arriving at them just as the reporters arrived with the corpse transport. I smiled as the transport shut the door in the reporters' faces. I needed to get to ENDA HQ and talk to the pony who found the body. Maybe they know something.

Author's Note

This chapter was half-written a month ago and half-written today, so it's a bit rushed and rough, IMO. But tell me what you guys think! :D