Click!
The camera's shutter pierced the early-morning silence. Officer Caution Tape stood over the still mare. This would not be a fun morning.
The orange light of the sunrise cast its warm glow on the body of the mare. She was lying on the cold concrete in what was unmistakably a pool of her own blood. Her snow-white coat was splotched in crimson, with gashes lining her chest. Her rose mane was matted, stuck to her fur.
Caution Tape turned to the pony beside him. "Well, detective, what do you think?"
Detective True Gaze lowered his camera and cast his eyes over the scene before him. He took a sip of his coffee, then stifled a yawn. “Well, I’d say it’s pretty clear what happened. Some kind of mugging gone south real fast. Rigor hasn’t set in, so it can’t have been too long ago. Six hours?” He took another sip.
“I can’t believe it,” said Tape. “I knew her, you know.”
“Oh? That gonna be a problem with the case?”
“No, no,” replied Tape, brushing him off. “We got a job and we’re gonna do it. Murder weapon?”
“Over here,” said the detective, pointing a bit further in the alley. “A knife. An old kitchen knife, by the looks of it. Probably some kid who needed money, but didn’t know what he was getting into.” He sighed, then raised his camera.
Click!
True Gaze trotted back over to the edge of the crime zone, where the other policeponies on duty had brought their equipment. He grabbed some evidence bags, then trudged back over to his partner. “How’d you know her?” asked Gaze.
“Huh?”
“I said, how’d you know her? You said you recognized her. Who was she?”
Caution Tape was silent a moment. “Redheart.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“Pardon?”
“Her name was Redheart,” he continued, loud enough for his partner to hear. “I knew her from Ponyville Elementary. She always wanted to go into medicine. Always wanted to help people. The last I heard of her, she got in the papers over some kind of spat with Ponyville General Hospital. Something about a janitor.” He stared off into the sunrise. The city was beginning to wake up, and a few ponies were gathering around the crime scene, being held back by the officers. Many looked, but continued on. See, this was why you don’t go out at night, they’d tell each other. Then they’d continue on with their lives
“Next of kin?” asked Gaze, picking up the knife with a covered hoof and dropping it into an evidence bag.
Tape was once again shaken out of his reverie. “Sorry, what?”
“Do you know if she has any next of kin?”
“I… I’m not so sure. Her parents died when she was still in Ponyville.”
“Alright, we’ll check the records back at base. Cross-reference hoofprints and dental records to make sure this is Redheart. If there’s any next of kin, it’ll be in there.”
Tape numbly nodded his head. He looked at Redheart again. She looked… so peaceful. Like death had come easily. Maybe being a doctor helped that. Experience with death, and all. He couldn’t imagine...
Gaze continued his analysis. “Well, judging by the blood patterns, she was stabbed over by where the knife was, and the attacker must have run off. Our dear Redheart was dying, but not quite dead at that point, and it looks like she was dragging herself towards the street when she finally kicked the bucket. Shame, really. A few hours later and enough people would be around to find her. She might’ve survived, had she been at a hospital. Eh, what can you do?”
“What can you do?” asked Tape, incredulously. “This mare just got stabbed, and all you have to offer is a ‘what can you do?’”
“What do you mean? What am I supposed to be feeling? Our job is to document the evidence, alert the next of kin, and hopefully catch whoever did this.” True Gaze’s voice rose in anger. “Just what am I supposed to be doing, aside from my job?”
“Well, maybe show a bit of respect for the dead!” Caution Tape’s voice rose to match his partner’s.
“Now listen here, rookie, I know you haven’t been on the force very long, so I’ll make this perfectly clear.” True Gaze stepped forward, his muzzle inches from Tape’s. “We do our jobs. It doesn’t matter if you knew this mare, it doesn’t matter if she’s your freaking wife, our job is to serve and protect, and that means catching that bucker that did this. Leave the musing to another time, when you’re trying to get smashed at a bar or something. Not here.”
Their gazes remained locked for a moment, but Caution Tape eventually sighed and looked away. True Gaze backed off and went back to the body. “I guess you’re right. But how are we supposed to do that?”
“Doesn’t matter how. Just push it to the back of your mind is what I do. Can you go grab me a body bag?”
Tape trotted over to the equipment and retrieved the bag, laying it beside Redheart. He didn’t look at her peaceful face. He couldn’t. “But, are we even still ponies at that point?”
True Gaze thought for a moment, stopping what he was doing. He shrugged. “Dunno. Doesn’t matter either way. Someone’s gotta do this job, might as well be us. If not us, then it’ll be some other poor sod.”
“But what about the dead?”
“What about them? They’re dead, I doubt they care anymore. If the Summer Lands are real, I’m sure our dear Redheart is there, helping sick ponies or something. What does she care of her body anymore?” He began moving her body into the bag.
“I dunno. It just feels weird to talk about her like she’s just a thing. Like that knife. Something to be catalogued and bagged.” He stopped, looking at Gaze and very much not looking at Redheart. Gaze zipped up the bag, then waved Caution Tape to help him carry it. He trotted over and bent down to pick up one end, while True Gaze grabbed the other.
“You’ll get over it. We’ve all had to.” They loaded her into a cart, along with the knife, to be taken to the station. A signal from True Gaze, and the cart drivers departed.
“Still. I just…” began Caution Tape. He closed his eyes. He could see the little white filly from his fifth-grade class. They were at recess. A grey pegasus had fallen down and scraped something, and she was already beside her, comforting her. The white filly grabbed a clean napkin from her lunchbox and was already pressing on the wound. Words of reassurance wrapped around the injured filly like a warm blanket.
He opened his eyes. That little filly wasn’t here anymore. That grown mare who cared for so many wasn’t either. Officer Caution Tape wasn’t really there anymore, either.
