CSI: Canterlot - The Rich and The Poor

"Clear, I have suspects," Siyde said, walking into Clears office and laying a file on her desk. Clear looked up from her work, readjusting her glasses to take a look at the papers.

"Take a seat, and talk," Clear said, examining the pictures and profiles of several rich stallions. Siyde did so.

"Gold Safe — that's your first guy," Siyde started out, "he's known for tripping up other rich stallions for profit, and he's went pretty far in the past to do so. Arrested for assault and battery several times, but always bailed out with some dirty deals. Second guy is Bourgee Highballer, he's a total prick. I'm surprised no one has wanted him dead yet, but he's definitely able to cut some deals at any non-monetary price. Third guy is Deep Pockets — richer than rich. He's always looking for new money, and when options run out, he's not afraid to find more. And the last guy's name is Fat Cat. More of a boss, since he's too fat to go anywhere on his own. If anyone's out to contract and hire for kill, it'd be him."

"Were any of these suspects at the convention on the night of the crime?"

"Yes, Highballer and Pockets. They're a more 'sophisticated' type. Fat Cat was somewhere in another quadrant of Canterlot at the time, but I was able to get a warrant for his phone records, and he's been making a lot of calls. I have yet to find where Gold Safe was at the time."

"Well, let's see where they are now and bring them in for questioning." Clear put the photos back into the folder, closing her laptop and slapping a charger into it.

"Where's Safe?"

"Well, we're still lookin' ... but we have the other three."

Clever and Clear stood, observing the embittered and rancorous rich stallions, all lined up against a wall in seats hoof-cuffed. Fat Cat was taking up two seats, Bourgee barely taking up one, and Gold Safe was comfortably sitting in the last seat.

"So, who do we talk to first?" Clever asked.

"That one and it'll just be me talking to him," Clear said, pointing at Fat Cat, "I feel like he gives off a rancid odor, and I'd like to have him out of my custody as soon as possible."

"That's pretty judgmental there, Clear," Clever said, giving a look of playful accusation. Clear looked back at him.

"I judge that blue equines are quick to anger," she said, turning around and gesturing to some guards to haul the large stallion into the room. Clever fell into a quick daze at the comment as she walked away. He cleared his throat, thinking about what she said.

Clear made her way into the interrogation room, the large stallion took his seat, weighing it down a bit as he stared at Clear in cuffs.

"A stallion is d'fenceless wi'tout 'is goons," the large stallion said in a raspy, Manehattan accent. He held up his cuffs, shaking them briefly, before lowering them. His expression showed a blatant carelessness. Clear read his mind and got to the point.

"I want to be here just as much as you," she quickly spat out, sorting through some files on the case at hoof. She lightly tossed a picture of the dead equine in front of Cat. "Do you know this stallion?" Cat suddenly gave a look of confusion.

"Well," he mused, "who d'hell would wanna go off and kill Silver? I mean, he was kind of a prick, but nothin' worth killing for!"

"Except money," Clear pointed out, "Silver Platter was in your class of richness, that—"

"Oh, I wouldn't go as far as to say we're in the same class," Cat interrupted, "he was a couple'a mill' down from me, but we had great business relations in th' past." Clear nodded.

"I've talked with several stallions like you who had great business relations with their victims," Clear stated, "unfortunately, the greater something is, the larger a mishap will look in comparison. So, let's get to the point here." Clear laid down the pictures of the cultist residence, and of the mutilated bodies. "Do you have anything to do with this?"

"Wh..?!" Cat leaned back suddenly at the sight, "I can't do that, no no no, I don't do that to ponies, that's sick! That's frickin' sick!"

"Is it sick?" Clear asked, standing up, her voice more stern, "is it so sick that maybe it'd take longer for you to get over the guilt?"

"No!" Cat shouted in return, jumping out of the chair and standing back, knocking it over, "I don't do that! I don't do that! I'm not like them!" Clear suddenly paused, her face straight. She nodded, sitting back down.

"Then help us figure out who they are," she said, calmly. Cat slowly recovered, walking to the table as best he could manage being cuffed.

Meanwhile, as they were talking, Clever sat outside of the window with Brass. They both had concerned looks about what was happening, but understood that Clear knew what she was doing. After a while of talking, the two came out, and Cat was released from custody and free to go. Crystal looked up at the two stallions.

"The hell was that all about?" Brass asked.

"Weren't you listening?" Clear asked, gesturing to the monitor that displayed camera feed from inside of the room. Brass looked at Clever.

"We were...distracted..." Clever slowly replied. Clear chuckled a bit, before nodding.

"Don't worry, I won't judge," she said. Her expression returned to a very serious one before she continued, "Fat Cat has a poor history with visions of 'spirits' and such. Could mean he's crazy, but it also means he has information on these 'theories'."

"How do we know we can rely on this guy?" Brass asked with a hint of doubt.

"Because I know we can," Clear said. It seemed arguable, but everyone knew that Clear was a walking polygraph. "Fat Cat says he's associated with spiritual things — very questionable — but I think there's a method to his madness. Going back into his history, he was psychologically diagnosed with a chronic nightmare disorder. I knew that before I interrogated him, and actually wanted to extract his information first, because he's more significant to this case than the other two. He didn't smell bad by the way, Clever."

Clever scoffed.

"Anyway, he didn't coincidentally rise to power. He hides it, but he's been doing research on the unicorns undercover, and by exposing his fear, I have, most probably, one of our greatest sources of information." With that, Clear walked out of the room to interrogate the next two suspects.

"Well," Brass said, visibly impressed, "it happened again."

"What?" Clever asked, curiously. Brass laughed.

"I doubted Clear, and now I feel like she kicked my ass." Clever chuckled a bit, shaking his head and sitting down.

"When does she not?"