A Study in Blue

Free Range Pharmacy.  A tidy little apothecary nestled between a hardware/clothing store—Nails and Bows—and a kitchen/lawn emporium—Plates and Patios.  Beneath the sign displaying its name, the drug store's owner had scrawled out what he had no doubt presumed to be a rather clever slogan to entice customers: 'I got the pills for all your ills!'

White Collar stepped through the door, activating a little bell that was hung above it, and found himself in considerably tight quarters.  Boxes and crates of all shapes and sizes littered the floors around the shelves.  It was nearly impossible to make any progress through the aisles.  Fortunately a path had been cleared out that lead to the store's counter.

“Hold on,” a voice called from somewhere in the store, “I'll be right there!” this was immediately followed by the sound of something heavy and fragile crashing to the floor and a stream of curses.  The cowled stallion exchanged a look with the armored pegasus hovering at his side as a series of explicative and crashes grew ever closer to the counter.  The noise soon culminated in a very haggard looking donkey with a red mane and beard bursting out of the back room behind the counter.  He threw a final parting glare at the offending portal and then smiled pleasantly at the pair of pony customers.

“Good morning!  My name is Free Range and I run this fine establishment!” he greeted them pleasantly enough, “how may I help you fine ponies?”

“We're here to ask you some questions about a customer you had earlier today,” White Collar began.

The donkey immediately frowned, sensing that he was unlikely to see a sale resulting from this encounter, “I'm sorry, it's against my policy to discuss my customers' conditions with anyone who isn't their physician,” his eyes darted to the hovering blue pegasus, “even the Guard.”

“I just need you to confirm that a zebra mare came in here earlier,” the stallion continued, “perhaps just an hour or two ago?”

“Uh...yeah,” the donkey supplied hesitantly, “a zebra did come in here.  She made a purchase—confidential, mind you—and left,” he paused for a moment, “why?”

Sundancer found her way into the conversation now, slamming a hoof down on the counter, “are you aware that fraud is a serious crime in this town?  Especially when it comes to selling fake medicine?” she glared at the pharmacist.

“Woah!  Wait, what?” the ginger donkey through up a hoof to fend off the accusation, “hey, all my medicine is completely authentic.  It's all certified for sale by the Equestrian Drug Administration,” he glared at the pair of them now, “why, what's she telling you?  If she's not satisfied with her purchase, then all she needs to do is come back and return it,” he ducked behind the counter for a moment.  He emerged with a small slip of paper, which he put on the counter, “I offer a seven day return policy on all my stuff.  I even still have her receipt.  She didn't take it with her.”

White Collar drew the piece of parchment nearer to have a closer look at it while Sundancer continued with her questions, “you sold her grape juice,” the pegasus said, scowling at the pharmacist, “but you labeled it an Jennadryl.  That sounds like fraud to me.”

“Huh?”  the donkey balked, his eyes wide, “no, that can't be...” he turned around, facing a large stack of shelves.  His hooves frantically plied at several of the bottles on the cluttered horizontal racks until he found what he was looking for.  When he turned around again, it was with a rather obviously embarrassed look on his face and an unmarked bottle held in his hoof, “oops.  I, uh, wondered what happened to that.”

“What do mean?”  the guardsmare demanded.

“I, um, may have accidentally given her my breakfast,” the donkey admitted wanly.  He set the bottle on the counter and sighed, “I've just been so distracted this morning, I must have put the label on the wrong bottle when I was getting it for her.  That's never happened to me before, and I'm really sorry about it,” the donkey rubbed the back of his head, looking up at the hovering guard, “she didn't have to get the Guard though.  Tell her to come in and I'll give her a full refund and a gift card.”

White Collar and the pegasus exchanged looks, and the cowled pony spoke up next, “you say it was a mistake?”  he reached for the bottle on the counter and removed the stopper.  The odor that wafted out was clearly pharmaceutical.  This was indeed the Jennadryl.

“Well, yeah,” the donkey confirmed, “I've just been so busy trying to get all this sorted,” he waved an annoyed hoof in the direction of the assorted creates and boxes, “I guess I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have.”

“I wanted to ask you about that,” the white stallion prompted, “you seem to have a lot of inventory...”

“A delivery order got screwed up.  I asked for a couple bottles of some stuff yesterday at the Bazaar, and this morning they delivered a dozen crates of every drug I carry!  Where am I supposed to put all of this?!” the donkey was very clearly frustrated by the situation.

“Why didn't you send it back?”  the pegasus ventured.

“I tried!  The delivery mare said that she didn't do returns, and that they couldn't have somepony out her until tomorrow,” he snorted at a nearby pile of boxes, “so now I'm stuck with this stuff all day.  I can barely get around my own store!  I didn't have anywhere to put my breakfast, so I set it on the shelf for a bit until I could clear some space, and that's when this zebra bursts in, screaming about being poisoned or something and asking for the strongest stuff I got-”

“Poisoned?” Sundancer jumped on the word, flying right up into the donkey's face as she cut him off.  She took hold of him by the withers, leaning in close, “she said she'd been poisoned?!”

“Ah!” was the pharmacist's startled exclamation at the sudden invasion of his privacy.  He took a half step back and cleared his throat, “okay, well, no, not exactly.  But you'd have thought it by the way she was acting...”

White Collar reached out and drew the pegasus mare back the to their side of the counter and looked calmly at the donkey, “what did she say, exactly?”

Free Range frowned and thought for a moment, “that...she'd eaten something very bad, and it felt wrong.  She was asking me if I had all these weird herbs and leaves, but, like I said: I only carry certified stuff.  I asked her if she'd eaten something she was allergic to, she said, no, but that it was doing bad things to her.  So, I gave her the best stuff I had for a food allergy, just in case.

“It has minimal side affects,” he defended, “why, is she alright?  It's not my fault I don't speak zebra and her equestrian wasn't that good.  I tried to help as best I could.”

“She's dead,” White Collar informed him.

The donkey's face grew pale as the blood drained from his features, “what?!  No, that's not possible!  Jennadryl has no side affects that bad, and it's been ruled safe for zebras!”

“She had a grape allergy,” the stallion supplied.  He pointed at the bottle on the counter, “you never sold her the Jennadryl, remember?”

“Grape...?  But...” the donkey slumped to his haunches, his face a mask of sorrow, “...it was a mistake,” his eyes went to the guard still hovering near the counter, “it was an accident!  I didn't mean for that to happen!  How was I supposed to know she was allergic to grapes?  I meant to sell her the Jennadryl!” he was in near hysterics by the end.

White Collar put his hoof up, “it's alright, Mr. Range.  It was an honest mistake, you're not being accused of anything.  We're just investigating,” the pharmacist seemed to calm done slightly, but he was still clearly upset by the revelation of having inadvertently contributed to the death of the zebra mare, “another guard will be by later to take a statement from you.  Tell them exactly what you've told us, and anything more you can remember about the mare.

“Relax.  You're not being accused of anything,” the donkey looked up at the pegasus, who slowly nodded her own confirmation of White Collar's statement, “thank you for your time,” he turned to leave, and then paused for a moment, looking down at his left leg.  His eye went back to the pharmacist, “I don't suppose you have anything for joint pain?”

Once outside, Sundancer landed beside the cowled stallion as and kept pace with him as they strode back through town, “you really don't think he had anything to do with this?”

“He didn't mean to kill her,” White Collar supplied, “you heard him, she came into his shop because she'd already believed she'd eaten something questionable.  The grape juice was an accident.”

“How can you be sure?” the Pegasus asked him, skeptical, “he's a pharmacist.  He'd know about the allergies of his customers.  Maybe he meant to give her grape juice, knowing it'd kill her.”

“Have you ever smelled Jennadryl?” the stallion inquired, “it doesn't smell anything like grape juice.  In fact, nothing smells anything like grape juice.  If you had such a severe allergy to something, you'd know exactly what that thing smelled like in order to avoid ever accidentally eating or drinking it.”

“Well, obviously that zebra did drink it,” Sundancer pointed out.

“She was panicked, because she had already believed herself to be in danger.  Multiple witnesses saw her fighting with the stopper of that bottle in the garden.  Whatever it was that had her so anxious, it happened before she went to the pharmacy,” the stallion thought for a brief moment, his eye darting about as he searched his mind for further clues that they'd encountered.  There was a case here, and some malevolent force at work.  Somepony had set this in motion, while managing to make it look like an accident.  But that zebra had sensed something was amiss.  She'd noticed something.

What had she noticed?

“We need to know where she'd been,” White Collar concluded, “her personal affects.  Where would they be?”

“Probably at the garrison by now,” the pegasus said.

“Then that's our next stop.”

* * *

This was going to be harder than White Collar had thought.  He had hoped, in vain as it turned out, that he would find something among her varied possessions that would connect her to a member of the community.  Most murders were committed by somepony that the victim knew.  Once they discovered whom she had ties to, they could start working backwards to find links with the other victims.  Unfortunately, it seemed that was not going to happen here.  The zebra mare's possessions amounted to some jewelry, receipts, a little bit of money, and a train pass.

“She was supposed to leave this afternoon,” White Collar noted, looking at the ticket, “and it seems that she only arrived the day before yesterday.  She was only in town for the Bazaar.  Nopony here knew her,” the stallion deflated slightly, feeling that he'd hit yet another wall in what was turning out to be a rather frustrating case.

“That's a long way to come for a little shopping,” Sundancer noted, looking more closely at the various receipts.  White Collar had already combed through them.

“Trottingham's relatively close to Zebrica, all things considered.  You said yourself the Bazaar features merchants from all over Equestria.  If you were looking to get Equestrian goods from all over the nation while keeping your trip as short and as cheap as possible, then it only makes sense to come here,” the cowled stallion looked at the ticket once more.  Round trip, one passenger.  She hadn't been traveling with anypony, or anyzebra.

“The good news,” he noted with a grimace, “is that we know which merchants she dealt with at the Bazaar.  Unfortunately, none of them are here any longer.”

“I wonder if she was a florist,” the pegasus mused aloud, noting the purchases.

“A botanist, if anything,” the overwhelming majority of the zebra's purchases had been plants, “only a few of those actually flower, and I think at least one of them is just a root,” which further corroborated the purpose behind the mare's visit.  Plants from all over Equestria acquired with just a single visit.

He was staring to believe that it indeed had all just been an accident.  Perhaps the mare had managed to mistakenly eat something toxic which freaked her out—one of the plants she'd bought, perhaps?  Then a flustered pharmacist had passed her a drink she happened to be allergic to, which she had drunk without thinking—who genuinely expected to find grape juice in their just-bought bottle of medicine?  A series of unfortunate events, with no true malice behind them...

...that coincided with a time of death that just happened to be predicted, almost down to minute, by the pegasus sitting beside him.

That was what galled him so much.  If this had been an isolated case that somepony had passed him out of the blue, White Collar would have laughed in the pony's face.  It was obviously just a convoluted accident.  But that Sundancer had been able to predict that somepony would die the morning after the Bazaar in such an odd fashion: an allergic reaction to what she'd hoped was an allergy medicine—which, he supposed, may actually have been truly ironic.

It had to be orchestrated.  It couldn't be, but it had to.  If White Collar ever met the pony responsible, he resolved to shake their hoof and profess his admiration.  It may be completely reprehensible, but their methods were truly brilliant, whatever they were.

“At least we know who to talk to when the Bazaar comes back around next month,” the pegasus pointed out, nodding to the receipts that she was still looking at, “maybe we can retrace her steps and learn something.”

White Collar frowned, “asking a group of merchants if they remember a single customer from a month ago that they may have only dealt with for two minutes?” he shook his head, “they'll be no help by then.

“We need meet them in Manehattan.  You said that there was a Bazaar there on the eighth, correct?”

“Yeah,” the guardsmare confirmed.

“Will the same merchants be there?”

“I don't know,” she admitted, “maybe.”

“It's worth checking out,” the stallion decided, “I'll buy the tickets tomorrow for the seventh.  It'll give us time to get settled in before the Bazaar.  Make certain that you bring copies off all the other reports.  The victims have to be connected somehow, and maybe that means that some of those merchants recognize them as well.  Make certain the coroner doesn't forget to send me that copy of the autopsy.”

“Woah, wait,” the pegasus put the receipts down and regarded White Collar, “'us'?  You want me to come?”

“It's your case,” the stallion shrugged, “the whole reason we're even doing any of this is because you saw the pattern.  Why shouldn't you come?”

The mare rubbed the back of her head, considering the proposal, “I guess I can put in for some leave or something,” she certainly wasn't going to be able to cite taking this trip for the purposes of furthering the investigation.  They still had no firm evidence that the zebra's death was anything more than a tragic accident, to say nothing of connecting it to the other deaths in the past three months.  Sergeant LeTrot was hardly a fan of her theory.

“Good.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make certain that I clear this trip with my therapist, as it will cause me to miss our next session.”

* * *

“Two weeks into your court-ordered therapy, and you already want to get out of a session?” the unicorn's tone was rather stern, matching the content of her words.  However, the amused glint in her amber eyes suggested that she was willing to at least entertain any reason that White Collar might give.

“I'm hoping that I can postpone it,” the stallion said, “something's come up, and I need to be in Manehattan next week.”

“Something personal?”

“A case actually.”

This got Summer Breeze's attention, and she sat up a little straighter behind her desk, “you're working again already?  That was quick.  I must admit that I'm impressed.  My patients rarely act on my suggestions so quickly.

“Is it anything you can talk about?”

White Collar thought for a moment.  Normally, the answer to such a question would be an obvious, 'no'.  Cases being worked on by the Trottingham Guard were confidential until Captain Gold Peak or the Mayor issued an official statement.  However, in this instance, there wasn't an active case.  Sundancer's sergeant had decided that none of those deaths were anything more than mere accidents.  Which meant that White Collar could discuss any details he wanted with whomever he wanted to.

“I'm helping a guard who feels that there's a serial killer in Trottingham.”

“Oh my, I hadn't heard anything about that,” the mare seemed genuinely concerned.

“There's no real evidence at the moment,” the stallion assured her, “it may be nothing.  But that's why I need to go to Manehattan.  I don't want to skip the session entirely, I can see you on the tenth.”

Summer Breeze thought for a brief moment, “it should be fine.  You're abiding by the treatment I suggested, so I suppose it would be contradictory of me to keep you from going.  I'll put you down for the afternoon of the tenth.”

“Thank you.”

“Investigating a murderer seems rather ambitious for your first case in nearly three years,” the unicorn's tone danced between concern and respect.  In retrospect, perhaps such a case was rather much to take on, given that White Collar hadn't engaged in such work for years.  Even when he had been actively working, violent cases were very rare.  This may even have been the first serial killer he had ever tried to track.

But, it did occupy his thoughts almost fully.  Memories of the valley ambush and his dead wife hadn't bothered him all day.  Whether a case came of his visit or not, the pursuit was accomplishing what it was supposed to so far.  And it was fun.

“A tough puzzle is the best way to see how rusty I've become,” White Collar assured the unicorn with an easy smile.

“I'm just worried that you'll get discouraged if you don't make the kind of progress you're used to.”

The cowled stallion's smile broadened, “I don't get discouraged; only more determined.

“If you say so,” she didn't sound entirely convinced, but Summer Breeze was also reluctant to stand in the way of one of her patients following her advice, “enjoy your trip,” the therapist said with a warm smile, “and good luck.”