Chapters I wheeled up to a white house and parked my car. I took a deep breath. A new home, changes. A new beginning. I closed the door and started walking up the driveway towards the door, only to be knocked down by something barreling into my back. I went crashing to the ground with that heavy weight still on my back. Then I heard a deep gasp of surprise.
"Are you okay!?" whoever it was asked me.
"I will be when you get off of me," I shot back.
She apologized, and the weight left my back. I rolled over to see a pink blob staring back at me. Her face was only a few inches from mine. I blinked a time or two, and the form didn't change. I waited a few more seconds, and she still didn't move. I cleared my throat and she still didn't move. This was definitely a thick one.
"Excuse me. Personal space," I said, a bit of an edge sneaking into my voice.
"Oh sorry," she said, folding her ears.
She took a couple of steps backwards, allowing me to finally get up. She looked towards my car and presumably saw the boxes in the back. She came to her own conclusion. I'd be a bit impressed if I wasn't creeped out by her rapidly growing smile. She was once again refusing to move, so I decided to leave her to whatever the hell was going on in her head. I turned around and made my way towards the house.
"You're moving into this house, aren't you!?" she said, stopping me in my tracks.
"Uh, yeah," I said.
"Oh we're going to be the most super-awesome neighbors ever! We can have cook-outs every weekend in the summer, and spend our holidays together! And we can have wild nights of partying! Don't worry, I'll even take care of the body myself. Speaking of partying, I've totally got to throw you a house-warming party!" she said.
Her mouth was running a hundred miles a minute. I could barely follow along. I grabbed her muzzle, and I could swear I heard the sound of skid marks. I gave an irritated smile, and I let go of her muzzle. I thanked the heavens above that the motor didn't start up again. Instead she was just smiling at me innocently.
"Why don't you just start with your name?"
"Oh my name's Pinkie Pie, pony party-thrower extrodinaire! What's yours?"
"Jack."
"Need some help moving in?" Pinkie asked, looking back to the car.
"You break anything you pay for it," I said.
She walked over to the car and I walked to the house. Something told me that this wasn't going to be as easy as I hoped it would be. I gave myself a mental note to strangle whatever that "something" was sometime later. The door came open and I stood in my foyer, a staircase to the basement and a staircase to the upper-floor sat before me. Great, one of these houses. Bringing in groceries was going to be hell. A crash from the car caused my train of thought to fly off of the rails. I looked out to see Pinkie holding a yellow trinket. At her hooves was a flattened box, marked—in big red letters no less–fragile. I stormed over to Pinkie and took the trinket from her. With a blur, the trinket found its way into my pocket.
"You have an investigator's badge!" she said, seemingly in shock. Her eyes went wide as she added "a homocide investigator's badge."
"What about it?" I said, checking the box. Yup. It was my computer, glass cracked all across the monitor.
"Why didn't you tell me!?"
"Hello, random stranger. My name is Jack. My job is poking and prodding dead bodies to find out what killed them. And if I'm really lucky I get to find out who killed them. What's your name?" I asked, still more focused on my broken computer than her.
"Point taken. Sorry about the... um... computer."
"Oh don't worry about it. You're the one who's going to pay for it," I shot back. She gave a nervous chuckle.
"Yeah, so, um, do you still need help moving in?"
I reached into my car and looked around until I found a particularly heavy box. I took a second look to make sure that the word "fragile" was nowhere to be found, and placed it on Pinkie's back. She struggled for a few moments before walking towards the house. I picked up a box of flatware that I desperately didn't want broken.
She was struggling to get up the steps to my stoop. Oh boy would she have fun getting that thing up to my kitchen. By the time that I returned to collect another box, she hadn't gotten much further. I rolled my eyes and took the box off of her. She smiled and ran off to get another one. The actual weight of the box suddenly dawned on me. I put it down on the stoop. I'd deal with it later. Pinkie was struggling pulling yet another box. I picked a much lighter one and placed it on her back before grabbing another box of my own.
"So, what do you want to talk about?" Pinkie asked me. She stopped and waited for me to catch up.
"I don't."
"You know, you remind me a lot of one of my friends. She doesn't like to talk much either. Then again, she's not..."
"Uh-huh," I replied.
I brought the box up to my kitchen and sat on it. My breathing had grown heavy, and a bead of sweat was starting to form on my brow. That heavier box must have taken quite a lot out of me. And to think that she walked it across the driveway, uphill. She placed the box down next to the other couple of ones. I took a pack of cigarettes out of my jacket pocket.
"Um Pinkie," I started.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. For the help, I mean."
"Not a problem," she said, and then she beamed at me. Her eyes briefly darted back and forth. "You're not still mad about the computer, are you?"
I put a cigarette in my mouth. "Why would I be mad? After all, you're the one who's paying for it."
"There wasn't anything important on it, was there?"
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a flash drive. "Everything I need is in here."
I put the flash drive back into my pocket and pulled out a lighter. While I tried to get the cigarette lit, she stared sat on the floor and stared at me with that big grin. To be totally honest it was starting to creep me out. I blew a puff of smoke into the air in a vain hope that it would shatter the nothing that was happening before me.
"So, is there somewhere you have to be?" I asked.
"Yes, but helping you out is more important."
I blinked. She blinked back. I blinked. She blinked back.
"Why?" I managed to ask.
"Because I want to be your friend."
"I thought you said you already had a friend."
"I actually have six-hundred-seventy-two, but when I saw you I realized that I wanted six-hundred-seventy-three friends."
I took another puff of my cigarette. It was going to be a long day. A very long day.
Case I: Accident Prone (Act I)
"Hello, you wanted to see me sir?"
"Yes. Your little stunt nearly cost me my leg. Perhaps even my life."
"I-I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"You've got that right. You're fired."
"I understand. I'll turn in my ID tomorrow morning."
"I'm afraid that won't be necessary."
"What are you talking about? I-is that a gun?"
"Just bought it. Now I couldn't be in good conscience if I left a walking disaster area alone, could I?"
"Sir, I—I'm sorry!"
A gunshot fired.
*****************
I woke up on the couch. My head was pounding from last night's endeavors. What they were I don't know. The harder I tried to think about them the more my head decided to hurt. The first thing I noticed past my blurred vision were multicolored balloons. The ground was covered with streamers. In the corner was a spilled punch bowl staining my carpet. I would have kept looking at the tornado around me if a crunching sound didn't break my concentration. I looked to see Pinkie Pie sitting on my recliner.
"Pinkie, what are you doing in my house!?" I groaned.
"Eating cereal."
I wiped away some of the previous night from my face. Sure enough Pinkie was sitting on my recliner eating cereal. I was pretty sure that I didn't even have cereal, but whatever. The next logical question would be how she got into my house, but judging from the scenery she probably never left. Speaking of the scenery, "what the hell happened last night?"
"Maybe it's better if you don't know," Pinkie giggled, "that way you can keep some of your dignity."
I rolled off of the couch and landed on something hard. The television turned on. The remote. Great. Some news broadcast was playing. I reached out behind my back and pulled out the remote. I looked around the room, trying to connect the dots. The more that I pieced together the more that I realized I didn't want to know.
I got up, and ran to the bathroom. Something needed to come out, and I didn't know which end it was going to come through. In the bathroom I leaned over the toilet and only then did I get an eye full of some sort of stuffed alligator. I grabbed it and that thing came to life and tried to bite my arm. I threw it across the room and it barrelled into the wall. It slid down towards the floor, keeping its same dead-eyed stare on me.
"Wow Jack, you are a riot," said a voice from the bathtub. Her head was resting on the edge of the tub. It was a pony with a rainbow-colored mane. If I ever knew her name, I didn't know it now.
"Did you spend all night in my bathtub?" I demanded, switching my attention back and forth between her and that alligator thing on the floor.
"Eh maybe," she said, nonchalantly, "don't really remember though."
"You and me both," I said. The pounding returned to my head.
"Right," she said, rolling her eyes, "and that thing on your neck is just a bruise. You know what you did."
I panicked and looked in the bathroom mirror. About a couple of seconds before I found out that there was nothing there, she hit the porcelain, laughing hysterically. I picked her up, much to her chagrin, and kicked open the bathroom door. Pinkie Pie was still eating cereal and watching television. I gritted my teeth.
"Hey Pinkie! Does this belong to you?" I asked.
"Oh hey Rainbow! I didn't know you were here!"
"Funny thing about that. I didn't know she was here either," I shot. Then I looked Rainbow in the eye. "Are you going to walk out of here, or am I going to have to carry you out of here?"
"You know what, I'm feeling lazy. Why don't you carry me," she said, and she gave me a cheeky grin.
Well she did ask for it. I grabbed her tail and held her upside down as I made my way to the front door. She struggled to escape my grip, waving her hooves and wings around like crazy. Pinkie didn't even notice. She was far too focused on the television. I opened my front door and got hit by the bright sun shining on my face. I used my hand to block out the sunlight and saw something that caused my expression to falter.
"Is that your underwear hanging from the power lines?" Rainbow asked.
I didn't answer, leading her to burst out laughing once again. I let go of her tail and she banged her head on the concrete stoop. Before I could hear her cursing me out, I went back into the house and locked the door behind me. She began to kick at the door. Each pound felt like it shot straight at my migraine. I walked back up into my house. Either she'd break the door, or she'd get tired of it eventually. I really didn't care. I picked up the punch bowl and the remote, and turned off the television.
"Hey, turn that back on!" Pinkie shouted, practically panicked.
"Oh, I'm sorry, were you watching my TV in my house while I was picking up what I can only presume is your mess?"
"I'll help you clean it up later, but please, turn it back on!"
I decided to oblige her. The television turned on. It was just a brief announcement about some pony—Cloudkicker, I think her name was. She had apparently gone missing. People and ponies go missing all the time. I don't know why this was so much of a concern to her. Still, she looked entranced by it.
"Do you know this pony?" I asked.
"Yeah, I mean, not well, but still, I talked to her just a few days ago. Do you think that she's...?" Pinkie began, unable to finish.
"It's too soon to tell. She's only been missing for one day, right? There could have been any number of things that could be happening. She could have passed out in an alley somewhere," I said, reaching for the first thing in my mind. The look that Pinkie shot me made me realize that I probably should have been more tactful.
"I don't think she would have done that. She's got a filly. I remember the two of them going into the bakery together. I couldn't imagine her drinking. Something terrible must have happened. You've got to investigate!"
"Isn't that something that the police would do?"
"They won't."
"What? Why not."
"They don't," Pinkie said, dejectedly. Her eyes fell to the floor.
"What do you mean?" I said, becoming increasingly worried of what I was uncovering.
"'People are our priority,'" she said sarcastically. "They don't take us seriously, at least, not until it's too late. Please, you've got to investigate. I-I'll pay you myself."
"You do know that I'm a homicide investigator, not a private investigator, right?" I said. That made me realize that I was most likely extremely late for work. However, a brief glimpse at my watch told me that it was Sunday. I tapped it to make sure it was working before I breathed my sigh of relief.
"Well, maybe you'll investigate in about a month or so after the police are cleaning out their backlog," she said, staring out my window. We sat there, totally still in silence for a couple of moments.
"Tell me everything you know about Cloudkicker," I sighed.
She ran over and tried to hug me. I stopped her and pointed to the random debris strewn about my house. She stopped and nodded. I sat down on the couch and thought about what I had just agreed to. My head was still pounding. Was I really in my right mind. I looked to Pinkie Pie who was running around the house with a vacuum cleaner and that alligator-thing on her head. I decided that the best way to figure out where you're going is moving forward.
"Where does Cloudkicker live? The first thing we should do is ask her family everything that they know."
Case I: Accident Prone (Act II)
It was a long drive. It was a very long drive. If it wasn't Pinkie Pie fiddling with the radio, it was her trying to grab the wheel to get us to stop for a soda. You'd think that I wouldn't have to remind her—repeatedly—that she asked me out of desperation to investigate into a missing pony's case. Then again, she did slam down on the breaks in front of Cloudkicker's apartment complex
I sat in the car for a few minutes, just staring at that pink nightmare. I tried to look through those eyes to figure out what was going on in that head of hers. It was probably safe to say that the hamster turning the gears in her brain wasn't running at full speed. I got out of the car and she followed along with a spring in her step.
I stood in front of the building. Looking up I saw a face pressed against a closed window. It was hard to make out more than a lavender blur, but I could assume that it was Cloudkicker's daughter looking out into the distance waiting for her mother to return. I shook my head. If I wanted to get this over with quickly I'd have to keep those thoughts from clouding my mind.
Pinkie practically knocked down the door as she charged into the building. Even at a breakneck pace I couldn't keep up with her. I was winded by the time we hit the third floor landing, and she was still dashing down the halls. She began to furiously bang on the door. It was like she had just remembered what might have been at stake after a period of totally forgetting about it. That lavender blur opened the door, and thinking back to the newsreport she did have a resemblance to Cloudkicker.
I made my way into the apartment and was instantly hit with a foul smelling gas. I looked around quickly and saw a pot on a stove. It was boiling over with green goop and the bottom of it had been stained black by the fires below. I ran over to the stove and turned it off before something decided to explode. With that relief I could see that the rest of the apartment wasn't doing much better. Random newspapers, receipts, and a bunch of other junk littered the floor. The wallpaper was beginning to peel, and now that the smell of burnt metal was starting to disperse an even worse odor was coming from the fridge. I didn't even want to know what was coming from that. The filly stared at me.
"Mom said not to turn off the stove!" she shouted at me. "She-she said she'd be right back! She'll be right back!"
"When did she—" I began before Pinkie tackled me.
She had her hoof across my mouth and looked deeply into my eyes as if she was trying to send me some kind of signal. Whatever it was, I wasn't getting it. I pushed Pinkie off of me, but she would not relent. She pulled me into the hallway of the apartment. She came close and then she started to whisper.
"She's just a little filly. Be careful what you say. We can't tell her that her mother might be in danger."
"Alright then. If this is such a delicate process, then you get information out of her."
"No, I can't do it—"
I would have listened further, but I was too busy running over to stop that delicate filly. She had grabbed a chair and was attempting to turn the stove on again. I picked her off the chair and moved it away. Then it dawned on me. Cloudkicker went missing sometime yesterday. There was a good chance that this filly hadn't eaten all night. I asked her if she was hungry, and she weakly nodded.
"Pinkie, you're a baker right? Can you make this filly something to eat, I can't cook for s—sunshine," I said.
Pinkie came in, beaming. Her mouth showed happiness, but her eyes showed intense worry. I must admit that I was heading there myself. It looked like there was some kind of struggle in here. Hell, it looked like there was a revolution. While Pinkie made the filly some food, I decided to look around. Maybe I could find some clues as to where Cloudkicker would have gone to.
The papers and receipts didn't give me many clues. Most of them were of grocery bills months old. In short, nothing helpful. I tried to go in what I presumed to be Cloudkicker's room, but the filly—Violet, as I learned—wouldn't let me, claiming that "no one was allowed in Mom's room." It was hard taking her seriously with a face covered with macaroni and cheese. And unfortunately, the only clues that I would be getting would have to be in Cloudkicker's room because there wasn't any piece of information to be found anywhere else.
"Thanks Ms. Pie. I was really hungry," said Violet.
"Oh, it's no problem at all."
"I'm going to ask around the building. Maybe the neighbors know something," I said. Then I lowered my voice. "You ask her if she knows anything."
Before Pinkie could stop me I was in the hall and knocking on neighboring doors. Most of the apartments were empty or their inhabitants didn't seem to care enough to answer. I eventually made my way to apartment 312, way down on the other side of the hall. I knocked and waited. I was about to return towards Cloudkicker's apartment in defeat before I heard a latch being undone.
"Oh Cloudkicker, you're back!" said the stallion who opened the door. Then he saw me. "Oh, you're not Cloudkicker. What do you want?"
"To ask about Cloudkicker. If you haven't heard, she's gone missing."
"Of course I've heard. I was the one who reported her missing. What's it to you?"
Perhaps it was time for a little bit of intimidation. I showed my badge. He took a good look at it, and a surge of shock shot through his expression. He took another good look at my badge, probably hoping to change the reality before him. No matter how hard he tried it wouldn't change. There was a homicide investigator at his doorstep after he reported a missing pony.
"You d-don't think that she's... do you?" he asked me, never taking his eyes away from the badge.
"That depends. Can I ask you a few questions?"
He nodded and let me into his apartment. He guided me towards his sofa. He asked me if I wanted refreshments of any kind, but I I declined. I saw him sweating and fumbling with a teapot anywhere. A small smirk came to my mouth. I had an idea, and I was loving where I thought that it would take me.
"A bit nervous, aren't we?"
"Well yeah. Someone tells me one of my friends might have been murdered, of course I'm going to be nervous!" he shot at me. Then he shook his head.
"Cloudkicker was a friend of yours?"
"What do you mean 'was?'" he said, turning towards me. "I thought you said you didn't know if she was dead or not!"
"Sorry, I misspoke," I said calmly. "But either way, you two are friends?"
"Yeah, she's pretty. Um pretty great I mean," he said, turning back towards his teapot.
"Sounds like a bit more than a friendship," I said, raising my eyebrow.
"Yeah I wish," he said hopefully. His voice changed gears into a sarcastic tone. "Yeah I wish."
"Her apartment showed signs of a struggle. Pictures were cracked and knocked crooked, papers were all over the floor. Honestly, it looked like a disaster area."
"I-it's always like that. 'Why bother to clean it up if it'll just get messy again?' She's always bumping into things like those pictures. I swear her wings are of two different sizes. Wait a minute, you were in her apartment?"
"Yeah, and do you know what I found? A filly trying to operate a gas stove. I don't think I have to tell you what might have happened if I didn't get there when I did," I said, and almost as if on que the teapot whistled. He shut it off, and then he turned towards me.
"Cloudkicker was only supposed to be gone for an hour. Two at the most. And that was last night. She couldn't get a foalsitter on such short notice so she asked me to check up on Violet every once in awhile."
"And you did a bang up job at that! When I got in there that filly probably hadn't eaten for the better part of a day."
"What would you have wanted me to do?"
"Oh I don't know, maybe what you were asked to and actually checked up on her! What do you think Cloudkicker would say about that? You're lucky that I didn't stumble upon a burnt corpse."
"Violet wouldn't let me in, what do you want from me!?"
"You're familiar with Pinkie Pie, right? Why would Violet let her into the apartment, and not you, someone Cloudkicker trusted to keep an eye on her filly?"
"Because everypony knows Pinkie! She's friends with everypony. Violet knows her, as does Cloudkicker. They like her better than me, sue me."
"I'm going to do more than that, I'm going to have you arrested for child neglect. You knowingly left a filly alone in that apartment all night. I don't care if she wouldn't let you in, she was your responsibility, and you find a way to meet that responsibility."
"N-no, you can't!" the stallion stepped back.
"Then tell me what happened yesterday. What I know is that Cloudkicker unexpectedly left yesterday and left you responsible for her filly. After some time, you reported her missing. The apartment showed signs of a struggle. You claim that Violet wouldn't let you into the apartment, but she easily let me and Pinkie in."
"You can't seriously be suggesting that I—?"
"Tell me what happened."
"O-okay. Last night, I think that it was around seven. Cloudkicker came to my apartment, saying that her work called her in. She said that she'd only be gone for an hour, two at the most—I swear! I asked her if somepony else was watching her, but she said that it was too short notice to get a foalsitter. Everytime I tried to check in on Violet, she wouldn't open the door. At ten I reported her missing, and this morning at six I did it again."
"Where does Cloudkicker work?"
"At the Mandeas Warehouse. It's just a twenty minute flight, er ten minute drive from here."
Finally, this case was moving forward.
Author's Note
Do you know what happened?
Case I: Accident Prone (Act III)
After Pinkie made sure that Violet was okay and wouldn't turn the stove on again we left for the Mandeas Warehouse. I couldn't drive in—there was a gate blocking the way. Only working employees with an ID card could get it open. We were forced to park at an old bar about a quarter mile up. I asked Pinkie to stay at the bar. I was pretty sure that they would only let customers park there. She put up a bit of a fuss, but after I gave her some money she didn't complain. I hiked my way back to the warehouse.
I knocked on the door to their entry building. I waited for awhile, getting no answer. I did think to myself that it was a Sunday so the warehouse might have been closed for the day. Then I looked through the security gate and saw a few cars parked there. There were only three vehicles a beat-up old van, a pristine red car, and a green pick-up truck. The red car in particular caught my eye. I don't think anyone would leave that there over night. I pounded on the door once again, and an intercom buzzed to life.
"Hello, can I help you?" asked a female voice.
"Yes, I'm a police investigator. I'm here to ask a few questions. May I be let in?"
"Do you have an appointment?"
"Yes," I said bluntly.
I heard the door click unlocked. I pressed it open and found myself in a waiting room of some sort. There was the receptionist—the woman who presumably let me in—behind a desk clacking away at her computer. She moved her eyes from her computer towards me, but the rest of her uninterested expression didn't change. She pressed on an intercom.
"Mr. Kalloway, someone is here to see you."
"Who? I don't have any appointments today."
I grabbed the receptionist's hand and pressed the intercom button myself.
"I'm a police investigator. One of your employees has recently gone missing. I'd like to ask a few questions, perhaps do a little looking around. Since you don't have any appointments, I don't suppose you'd mind a brief interview?"
"Ah yes..." said the man on the other side, "I don't see why not."
The receptionist stopped trying to fight me away from the intercom and just gave me a scowl. I stared back for a few moments before she pointed me down a hallway. I made my way through the hall to an imposing door at the end of it. If that wasn't something that screamed intimidation then I don't know what was. I didn't work there, but even I felt nervous slowly approaching that door. I opened the door and saw Mr. Kalloway sitting beyond a desk in his stuffy suit and tie, a lit cigar rolling around in his right hand. He gave me a smile transparent as glass.
"So, who's the person who's gone missing?"
"Pony. She was a pony," I said, taking a seat across from Kalloway. "Her name is Cloudkicker. From what I understand she was last seen reporting to a call you gave her sometime last night, around seven PM. I was wondering if you knew anything."
"Cloudkicker," he said, putting his cigar into his mouth. He almost sounded like he growled as he said the last part of her name. I decided to jump on that.
"Sounds like you didn't like her very much."
"No, of course I didn't. She was constantly bumping into things, knocking over crates, damaging valuable property! She was a walking danger zone. Just recently she put someone in a hospital! I had no choice, I had to fire her. Let that klutz rot and starve."
"Y-you do know that she has a daughter, right?"
"Of course I do," he said, blowing a huff of his cigar. "Whenever I tried to fire her in the past, she always brought Violet up. 'Oh my poor girl will starve' 'I can't get a job anywhere else'. I wouldn't be surprised if she got hit by a truck on her way home."
"I highly doubt that she's that accident prone."
"That's not what I meant," Kalloway said with a smile.
"Y-you're not seriously suggesting that she—?"
"She did seem like a good mother. How do you think she would be able to tell her only filly, her whole world that she got fired from the last job that she could find? I personally don't think that she could do it. You should have seen her crying out of my office! It was a sight to behold. It almost made the price in damages worth it."
"So you think that she killed herself," I said, saying each word slowly, "and yet you don't feel any sense of remorse."
"Hey, we don't know that... yet," he said, almost chuckling.
"Did you collect her ID card?"
"She ran out of here crying before I could. I tried to call her again, she didn't pick up her home phone. You say she was missing ever since her visit here last night. I guess that explains that. If you manage to find it, I'd really like that back."
"Speaking of that? Is it okay if I do some searching around the place."
"What are you hoping to find?" he growled.
"I won't exactly know until I find it, now will I?"
"You're a bit of a smart ass, aren't you?"
"Yes."
Kalloway stared at me for a brief moment, before he burst out laughing. He said something about liking my guts, and gave me a visitor's pass. It wouldn't let me everywhere in the complex, but if Cloudkicker was really here for such a short time there wouldn't be much need for me to search through the more restricted parts of the facility.
For now, I'd begin my search in the parking lot. I began looking at the cars. The red one obviously belonged to Kalloway, but did the beat-up green pickup truck belong to the receptionist? I guess it goes to show you that stereotypes don't always line up to reality. But who owned the van? Was there a third person here? I put my hand on the door of it.
"Hi! Whatcha doing?" asked a voice behind me.
"I'm looking around to see— Pinkie, what are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay and watch the car."
"Yeah about that," she said, folding her ears. "I-it kind of got impounded."
"What do you mean 'it got impounded'?"
"Um... I ran out of money so they kicked me out of the bar, and told me to take the car off of the premises. Of course, I didn't have the key so it took me some time to hotwire it, and—" I put my hand to her mouth.
"On second thought, I don't want to know. While you're here, help me look around. See if you can find any clues that would help us figure out where Cloudkicker disappeared to."
"You mean like that ID card in the tail pipe of the white van?"
I looked to the van and reached inside. Sure enough, I grabbed something. Upon pulling it out I had a rectangle covered in soot. Once I removed the debris I found that I was holding Cloudkicker's ID card. Pinkie suggested that that van was hers. I doubted it. Cloudkicker didn't seem to have the money for a vehicle, even one as beat up as this. Furthermore, this place was within flying distance of her house. Even if she did own this van it wouldn't have explained why she put her ID card in the tail pipe.
Nonetheless, having Cloudkicker's ID card presented itself with a few opportunities. We wondered around the facility until we found the locker rooms. I used the ID card on every locker until one finally opened up. What I found on the inside shocked not only Pinkie, but me as well. I stood there eyeing a .357 Magnum pistol. M-m-maybe she did do it. No, that wouldn't make any sense.
"Ponies can't use guns, right?" I asked, wandering through my thoughts.
"No, they can't," she said, and then she added. "Not unless they're a unicorn."
I looked for a paper in the locker and used it to pick up the gun. I couldn't risk getting prints on what might have very been the murder weapon. I banged it against the door of the locker and five bullets fell out of a six-shooter pistol. My breathing slowed as the metal hit the floor. The clattering of the gun echoed them as it fell to the floor. No matter how many times I go through the motions, I still get that shock. Luckily my lucid mind returns quicker and quicker each time. I picked up the gun once again with the paper, had Pinkie wait in the locker room, and returned to Kalloway's office.
"I found Cloudkicker's ID card. It was in the tail pipe of the white van out in the parking lot. I hope you don't mind, but I used it to open her locker."
"I don't really mind. After all, she is missing. I suppose it would be the best place to look for clues. So what did you find?"
I placed the gun on the table. That seemed to catch him off guard. He reached for it, only to stop short. Then he stared at it for a few moments. I stared at him, reading his emotions. There was definitely a large amount of surprise within his expression, although why I didn't know. Was he surprised that there was a gun, or was he surprised that I found it?
"You found this in Cloudkicker's locker?" Kalloway asked.
"Yeah, but you'll never guess where I found the ID card: in the tail pipe of the white van. Who owns that van?"
"I-I do."
I blinked.
"Okay, then who owns the red car?"
"Another one of my employees, Stormbolt. His car is still here because he left in an ambulance. He's the one that Cloudkicker put in the hospital."
Author's Note
Did you figure it out yet? This is your last chance. :)
