Blood is Thicker Than Water

When Fortune Hunter got off the bus, his brother was waiting for him inside their house. As the eldest, Officer Ace Tanning had inherited the house from their mother when she was murdered. It was a tragic event which had shaped both of their lives, Tanning had become a full time cop, and Fortune Hunter was an aspiring detective. Ace Tanning had his legs propped up on the recliner and he was watching reruns of the Equestria Games, sipping a cold bottle of cider. His cutie mark, was a pair of handcuffs joined together and made to look like the Infinity symbol. Fortune Hunter’s cutie mark was a magnifying glass handle with a gold rimmed compass at the top. Nobody knew what his meant, but he did some research and found that the compass is the measure for truth, and the magnifying glass was the search for it.

“I couldn’t get you the toxicology report,” Ace Tanning said, eyes glued to the TV screen “but I got you a copy as soon as I could. It’s on the kitchen table. How was school?”

“Boring,” Fortune Hunter said pouring himself a bowl of cereal and reading over the file.

“You know,” Ace said “you’re gonna get fat if you keep eating that so much.”

“Dairy’s good for you…”

“Not when you’re body’s become ninety percent dairy,” Ace interrupted “anyway, you done reading wiz kid?”

He said this because, though Fortune Hunter didn’t have a photographic memory, he had developed a very fine ability for reading comprehension and memory retention. He folded up the case file and set it in front of him so that his brother could pick it up later.

“What’d you think?”

“Ice crystals,” Fortune Hunter mused “in her blood?”

“Our boys think that the body was killed in a freezer,” Ace said “and then she was stabbed.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Fortune Hunter said

“Why…”

“Because,” Fortune Hunter continued as he at another spoonful of cereal “the blood would have thickened too quickly at that cool of a temperature. I don’t think it’s her blood.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well,” he said getting up and scooting his chair back. He walked over and watched the TV with his brother after tossing the file back onto his brother’s lap “blood begins to freeze at only four degrees below our regular body temperature, at ninety one degrees we start to have amnesia, at eighty two degrees we lose consciousness, and anything below seventy degrees we can die. Blood actually freezes between twenty eight and twenty six degrees Fahrenheit. The report says that the blood inside her body was found at a temperature of forty two degrees, yet there were ice crystals in the blood pool around her.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that whoever killed Pimpernel placed the fake blood there,” Fortune Hunter said.

“Okay,” Ace said sitting up “but riddle me this, what kind of blood was used and why would they try to mislead us?”

“Obviously to cover his or her tracks,” Fortune Hunter said “they could have easily gotten a blood sample from the nurse’s office. It’s not like it’s the most secure place in Equestria now is it?”

“Yeah,” Ace said knowingly “I guess so. Any suspects?”

“I wouldn’t go after Amber Heart…”

“Why,” Ace said “guy being a dick to you?”

“No,” Fortune Hunter said “not more than the usual. No, this was rather calculating for a high school student. They obviously missed some things and weren’t stupid enough to try and frame someone else. No, this person had to have intelligence and ruthless. I would start with Sunset Shimmer, jealously breeds all sorts of strange things. Then I’d also try Iron Side and Harsh Wood.”

“Why them?”

“Well,” Fortune Hunter “Iron Side and Amber Heart’s girlfriend have been going at it for some time now. I’ve been watching them close lately. I suspect that maybe he had something to do with Pimpernel also.”

“We’ll get back at it in the morning,” Ace groaned as he got up.

“You going to bed already?”

“Eeyup,” he said “apart from the murder, I had three car chases and had to stop a bar fight.”

“That bad huh?”

“You would expect this kinda stuff in Manehattan,” Ace said sarcastically as he headed up stairs to his bedroom “but not here in the glorious capital of Canterlot. I wish the Royal Guard would get off their royal asses and actually help with something useful for once. Did you do your homework?"

"You know I do it in school and ahead of time always, Fortune Hunter said “Good night bro."

“Good night,” Ace said back “oh, and two more things, first, I’d get to bed too if I were you, otherwise I’m cutting off our TV bill, and two, find something out for me will ya?”

“What?”

“Find out who got into the nurses’s office and why.”