“Rarity?”
“Hm…”
“Rarity.”
“Hm? Er, yes, darling?”
“That’s a dead body.”
“It is,” Rarity said with a level of calm entirely inappropriate for the situation.
Sunset Shimmer hissed out a breath and hid a curse in it for good measure. When they’d first seen the body slumped over the gas station counter, she had assumed she’d need to be strong for Rarity’s sake. Since Rarity seemed perfectly fine, she needed to find another reason to be strong. Fluttershy, maybe. Sure, she was more than a hundred miles away and wouldn’t hear about this for quite some time, but...well, damn, she couldn’t be strong for herself. Rarity pulled out her phone and poked at the screen a few times, then typed something in.
“Good idea, we should call…” Sunset leaned over to look at the phone’s screen. It was a map. “What are you…?”
“I’m estimating how long we’ll have between calling the police and the first car arriving.” She pinched her fingers on the screen and scrunched up her face in thought. She and her adorable, wrinkling nose almost made Sunset forget to ask the important question.
“Why?”
Rarity nodded to herself and tapped the phone a few more times and held it up to her ear. “So I know how long we’ll have to investigate, of course.”
Sunset gaped at her girlfriend as she gingerly pushed the door open with her back and retreated towards the trunk of Sunset’s old Firebird. This was supposed to be a day trip to test drive a car for Rarity. They’d been meticulous and a little picky in their search. It had to be presentable, but it had to fit in their budget. Rarity had found this little gem of an ad buried on a fairly reputable website. A luxury car, about 10 years old, well used but well taken care of, and custom upgraded over time. It looked like new, and it was cheap enough that they could buy it outright.
First, of course, they’d checked up on the seller. Axel Lane was a strange combination of distant and passionate. Browsing his MyStable returned two types of posts: far-off, faux-existential musings like “If we were bees, we’d all eat our own houses”; and incredibly impassioned and intricate diatribes about his cars. As in, plural. Which helped to explain why he was letting this one go for so little.
Rarity turned her big eyes on Sunset, who with some hesitation took out her key and tossed it over. Rarity, with a giddy delight that edged towards unnerving, flung open the trunk and started rooting around in her luggage while she gave some succinct information to the person on the other end of the phone.
“What do you think?” Rarity whispered, poking her head around the edge of the trunk. She was wearing a hat. A very...distinctive hat. She glanced at her phone and with an “Of course,” she hung up. “It’s called a deerstalker.” She wrinkled her nose. “Horrendous name, I know, but it has a certain rustic chic to it, no?”
Sunset sighed and hung her head while Rarity adjusted the thin brim over one side of her face. “It looks great, Rares, but…” She massaged her forehead to try to work out the headache that was starting to form. “I just don’t know if—”
The sound and feel of fabric hitting hair made her pause, and she moved her hand from her forehead up to the thing Rarity had topped her with. It felt...round. “Why do you have a bowler hat in my size?” Rarity had pressed her palms together in front of her face, and Sunset could see the bright grin behind it. She was also...squeeing, apparently. Sunset shook her head and chuckled. “Alright, fine, we’ll look around. But I really don’t see why we need to get involved beyond calling the police.”
Rarity’s face fell into seriousness. “Sunset. We are at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. In a town in the middle of nowhere. In a county in the middle of nowhere.” She raised her eyebrows. “The police here are unused to murders. I checked.”
“You wha—?”
“What do you think is going to happen when they get here?” Rarity folded her arms behind her back and started to pace. “We call the police. They arrive. They find us near the body. We get arrested. The murder is handled by people who now already think we’re the murderers.” She turned back to Sunset and snapped her feet together. “So we need to be prepared to convince them otherwise.”
Sunset leaned her hip against the side of the car. “And how many murders have you been involved in?”
“Six.”
“Right, so…” She trailed off, taking a moment to process that. “Um. Six?”
“Oh the first one I was barely involved with,” Rarity said, going back to the trunk and fishing around again. “My aunt was killed a few years before you arrived. It turned out I could provide some testimony that became essential in finding the murderer. Then there was that poor mall santa, and the girl on my cousin’s college dorm floor while I was visiting. A domestic dispute down the road from my house turned violent at one point, but there were complications.” She surfaced with a pair of white fabric gloves on and offered another pair to Sunset. Again, they fit eerily well. “And finally the double murder of a butler and maid on a family friend’s estate during a party. That was about a month before we became friends.”
Sunset leaned her elbow against the roof of the car to steady herself. “That’s...kind of insane.”
“Fingers, darling,” Rarity chimed, and Sunset, in a daze, held up both hands to assure her that nothing would be caught when she closed the trunk. “Now then, can you check around the sides and back of the building for me? Tell me if you find anything out of place.”
Sunset swallowed hard and managed a nod. “Do you...Do you think they’ll still be around here?”
Rarity gave one of her most disarming smiles, which Sunset would have appreciated more had she not wanted to feel more well-armed. “They’ve been gone for a while, dear.” She hesitated at the door. “But...be careful. If anything looks wrong, come inside the gas station and we can lock the door.”
“...Alright.” Sunset waited just long enough to stop her legs from shaking, then started an extremely careful circuit of the building. A few minutes later, she stepped into the gas station, unstabbed, unshot, and otherwise unassaulted. And there she found her girlfriend precariously leaning over a pool of blood to examine a dead body. Today was officially weird.
“It looks like he’s been dead for a few hours,” Rarity said, after checking over her shoulder to make sure it was Sunset. “The shelves are stocked, and the cash register is closed.” She started to ease back to an upright position, but her footing slipped and she started flailing her arms for balance.
Sunset swooped in and caught her elbow, pulling her back away from the body and the pool of blood. Rarity clung perhaps a bit too desperately onto her arm. It was the first sign of distress she’d shown since they’d arrived. Of course it was over the possibility of getting her dress bloody. Not that Sunset was about to cannonball into it, either.
When Rarity had gulped down a few deep breaths, she regained her composure. She didn’t let go of her arm, though.
“So,” she said as if nothing had happened. “What did you find?”
“Nothing,” Sunset said, shrugging.
Rarity blinked at her. “You’re going to have to be...a little more specific, darling.”
“Well…” Sunset placed a knuckle from her free hand on her chin. “There was an enclosure with a couple of dumpsters in it. Guess they recycle. Then there was a low wall, and past that was just woods. The tire pump was on the left side of the building, if that matters.”
Rarity rested her cheek on Sunset’s shoulder. “Was that everything?”
Sunset thought back, then shrugged. “Some candy wrappers, a soda bottle, random pieces of paper…”
“Hm…” Rarity drummed her fingers on Sunset’s arm. It tickled. She stayed like that for a while, and Sunset let her. She didn’t get much of a look at Rarity’s face, but during the occasional regrip on her arm she saw distant eyes, concentrated on something Sunset was in no mindset to comprehend. She didn’t move until the wail of mismatched sirens reached them through the trees. “Come on, then, darling.” Rarity turned on her heel and gingerly pushed the door open. When she turned around and held it for Sunset, her eyes sparkled with excitement.
“Rares? You alright?”
“Don’t worry, Sunset. We’re going to be just fine.”
The Stirrup County Police Station didn’t have interrogation rooms, per se. The Stirrup County Police Station barely had a station. Or police. What it did have was one room with a table and two chairs. Rarity was in that one. It also had a broom closet with a step-stool and an overturned bucket.
Sunset was on the bucket.
Officer Gregson didn’t seem to mind the step and its caked-on shoe mud laced cracks. He was less pleased with Sunset’s practiced death glare.
“Listen up, girlie.”
“I’m going to need you to stop calling me that,” she responded, drawing a ‘patience’ breath from the rough older man.
“Listen, girlie, if you just tell us what really happened we can all get this over with.”
“You’ve got my phone. You can trace our movements for the whole day. There’s timestamped pictures on MyStable.”
“I know how easy them technology doohickies can be rigged,” said a man who had no idea what he was talking about, “We both know what’s goin’ on here.”
“Oh,” Sunset said, her chipper tone laced with smoldering irritation, “Why don’t you explain it to the girlie, then? Cause she’s totally in the dark.”
Gregson crossed his arms over his chest and glowered. Though, he always seemed to glower. It was a safe bet to put ‘and glowered’ at the end of any given action the man did. “You two showed up, put on gloves to not leave fingerprints, and killed the boy.”
“And then called the police,” Sunset added.
“Yep.”
“On ourselves.”
There was a moment of hesitation. “That’s the size of it.”
“Have you gotten the time of death, yet?” No response. “It was a while ago, wasn’t it?” Still no response. “So we killed him, waited several hours, called the police, and waited for you to show up. With the gloves still on.”
“You criminals don’t act like normal people. We right folk can’t understand your actions.”
“Really? Because I thought you said you knew exactly what happened.”
The pause went longer this time, and was broken only when he stood up and the stool scraped across the floor. “I’ll be back.”
Sunset glared at him until the door latch clicked shut, then let out a long sigh and rubbed her temples. She decided to direct her ire to a mop that kept creeping into the corner of her vision. She wished, for a moment, that they’d just gotten into the car and driven away. But that probably would have caused more problems. That is, if these guys even had caller ID. Or knew what it was. What did this Gregson guy think they did? Fake GPS coordinates and upload pre-taken pictures on their whole one bar of regular phone service? They didn’t even have 3G out here.
Fortunately, she wasn’t left alone very long. A few minutes later, while Sunset was contemplating whether GPS spoofing really would work in a situation like this, Gregson pulled the door open again. He also had that punchable smugness you only get from people who think they have you outmaneuvered. And he still glowered.
“Alright, girlie,” he said, just to piss her off, “game’s over. Your friend confessed.”
Sunset was, to her shame, taken aback. For a second. Then, her simmering irritation turned into boiling rage. She stood up, her fists balled at her sides. “You better hope on everything you care about that you’re bluffing,” she growled.
It was Gregson’s turn to look surprised. Surprised and glowering. “And why’s that?”
“Because you would have had to have done something really bad to someone I care very deeply about to convince her to confess to a crime she didn’t commit.” She leaned towards him. He leaned back. A little, anyway.
“What are you getting at?”
Shelving the idea of threatening to personally give him a concave nose, she took a deep breath. “What I’m getting at is that I’m going to litigate your ass so far into the ground you’ll be breathing citations and eating legal codes. My lawyer and I will make sure that your own kids won’t recognize you through the misconduct-shaped bootprint we leave when we kick you into the pit of eternal deskwork.” She jabbed her finger at the door. “Now I suggest you go rethink whatever life choices brought you to this situation so we can put this behind us and you can maybe, just this once, stop wasting everyone’s time.”
Gregson glowered.
Sunset glowered right back.
Gregson huffed, turned on his heel, and slammed the door on the way out.
Sunset collapsed on the bucket. Which kinda hurt.
She was raring to go when the door opened, but this time someone else stepped in. A younger man, if only by a couple of years, and not a single glower in sight. He eyed the stool, crinkled his nose, and pushed it off to the side, choosing to stand instead. Sunset, not one to be outdone, stood up as well.
“I heard you give Gregson a hard time. The pit of eternal deskwork sounds pretty awful,” he said. There was humor in his voice. Sunset reminded herself not to smile.
“Are we done here?” she asked, folding her arms.
“We’ve been thoroughly convinced that you’re not our culprits. Your friend’s pretty resourceful.” The man slipped his hands into his pockets and leaned on the doorframe.
Sunset let out a sigh and sagged. “Yeah...she really is.”
“But we’d like you not to leave the area.”
Her gaze snapped back to him and she narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”
The man looked genuinely surprised. “I’m sorry, your friend—”
“Rarity.”
“Yes, Rarity. She said you had no intention of leaving until this was all cleared up. She even had us call her friend, Blacktie.”
Sunset tapped her toe on the ground. Who the hell was Blacktie? Jacobson seemed to be telling the truth and all, but...She glanced at the hat she’d placed on one of the shelves. She remembered Rarity’s reaction to walking in on a body. She remembered the glint in her eye as they left the gas station to wait for the police and ambulance to arrive. She didn’t understand it all, but she realized that for some reason, Rarity wanted to investigate. She let out a sigh. “Fine.”
The officer gave a wan smile. “I’m Officer Jacobson.”
Sunset was suddenly skeptical. They had weird names out here in the country. “Sunset Shimmer. I guess I’ll be looking forward to working with you.” Jacobson pulled the closet door open and waved her out. “Until we meet again, you’re free to go.”
Sunset had just entered the hallway and was adjusting the bowler back on her head when she had a sudden thought.
“...Go where?”
Axel Lane had lived in an old, repurposed two-story farmhouse. It was a nice place. A real nice place. Big front yard, big backyard, privacy hedge, long driveway, all of it kept immaculate. From her probes into Lane’s social media, Sunset knew enough about him to be suspicious of this green thumb. She would have theorized that he didn’t live alone, except Rarity had already dredged that information out of Jacobson. Axel had had a sister: Jasmine Lane.
As Sunset carefully pulled the car around the flowering camellia hedge and the house fully revealed itself, Rarity pressed her face to the passenger side window. It wasn’t the lawn, or the twin trees flanking the path to the door, or even the house itself: almost a mansion in size with, apparently, new siding. It was the deep green gem of a car that glinted in the afternoon sun.
Rarity seemed drawn to it, her eyes wide and shining and locked on the object of their whole journey to begin with. Sunset smiled. Rarity had never understood Sunset’s obsession with...well, anything with a motor. She’d had the advantage of being born and growing up in a world where such things were commonplace.
And the car was nice. Where Sunset’s Firerbird was sharp and powerful, this car was all curved lines and elegance. While Sunset wouldn’t bet against her own car in a race, the modifications Axel had made to that baby would at least give her pause. She wanted to give it a try, too. But Rarity...Rarity looked absolutely ravenous for it. By the time Sunset had turned the engine off, she was out the door and making a beeline for the new car. Sunset moved faster, though, and stepped in her way.
“We’re not here for that,” Sunset chided.
“But—”
“No. Pretty as it is—”
“It is pretty…”
“—we’re here to talk with the sister.”
“But!”
Sunset placed her hands on Rarity’s shoulders and steered her towards the front door. Rarity put up enough of a struggle to show her discontent, but plodded along anyway. The car would have to wait.
There was a moment of hesitation at the door. They didn’t actually know what Jasmine had already been told, and Sunset at least was prepared for an extremely awkward meeting. Rarity took the plunge and rang the doorbell.
It was a very long 15 seconds or so before the door swung inward and a young woman—eyes baggy, nose red, shoulders slumped, occasionally hiccupping—greeted them. Somehow, knowing where they stood made things even more awkward than they had been.
“Oh...hello, you must be…” She trailed off, her eyes fading into a blank stare.
“Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset said, trying to be personable. “And this is Rarity.”
“Oh, of course. Officer Jacobson called ahead to let me know you’d be coming. You’re the ones who...who found…” Her voice caught in her throat and, before either of them could react, she’d thrown her arms around Rarity and started wailing.
Rarity was not the motherly type. She was, however, a good actor. Any time that Jasmine might be able to see her, she put on a soft, soothing smile. Whenever Jasmine was looking away or, more often, hugging too tightly, Rarity was frantically mouthing a word that, to Sunset’s perfectly practiced eye, looked like “Kelp.” Or something like that, anyway.
She placed a hand on Jasmine’s shoulder, which had the dual effect of temporarily halting the sobbing and causing her to let an extraordinarily relieved Rarity go. “Let’s go inside and talk, hm?”
“Axel takes care of the cars.” Jasmine led them into a sitting room, her voice still shaky. “Our parents left the house to both of us, but I’m the one who takes care of it.”
“So,” Sunset said, settling into an armchair. It was emanated age, but it was also very, very comfortable. Of course, she’d been sitting on a bucket for the last three hours or so. “The bushes, the trees, the lawn...You do all of that?”
“Well, mostly.” Jasmine reluctantly let Rarity take a seat on the couch, then sat on the other side of it. “Axel runs the lawnmower, and the rest is all...it’s a hobby of…” She broke down into sniffles, and Rarity shot a nervous look across the room. Fortunately, Jasmine kept her place.
“Subject change please?” Rarity mouthed over Jasmine’s shoulder.
To what? The only common ground they had with her was, well...Axel. What else? Her parents, obviously also deceased? Probably not the best idea. Landscaping was apparently off limits. How about… “I’ve never been in a house like this,” she mused. Rarity didn’t look impressed. “I’m used to apartments and townhouses. We have a friend that kind of lives in a house, but it’s a lot smaller.”
Jasmine took a long breath in and tried to steady herself. It didn’t really work. “I grew up here. It’s a nice place...Oh!” She straightened out, suddenly alert. “Officer Jacobson told me you were going to stay in town until...well, I thought I could offer you a room.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” Rarity said, snapping back to casual. “We were just going to get a room in the local motel…”
Jasmine looked suddenly aghast. “Absolutely not! I couldn’t let you sleep in that...place.” Somehow, Sunset got the distinct feeling that she had been about to say ‘rathole’. They’d driven by the place on the ride to the house. Rathole was a charitable term. “No, we have a free guest room, and I’m sure Serge won’t mind.”
“Serge?” Sunset quirked her head. “Who’s Serge?”
“Oh, he’s my boyfriend.” Jasmine stood up and started pacing. “He and...Axel are...they’re close friends.” She cleared her throat. “You seemed interested in my work outside, would you like to see my flower garden?”
Rarity and Sunset traded glances. “Of course, darling,” Rarity said. “That would be lovely.”
Sunset wasn’t quite as convinced. She wasn’t really good at this sort of thing at the best of times, and today she’d seen a dead body, so ‘the best of times’ were half a day behind her. She didn’t know what was good, what was healthy, and how she was supposed to respond to help the poor girl. Nonetheless, she followed Jasmine and Rarity back out the front door and around the side of the building. Rarity, fortunately, was affecting some small talk.
The flower garden was a good-sized, fenced-off area against the side of the building.There were a few footpaths, but the majority of the space was dedicated to twining, twisting plots of flowers. Rarity ‘ooh’d appreciatively, and Sunset had to admit that the place had a wild beauty to it. There were a lot of flowers, and nearly as many vibrant hues.
Jasmine already seemed to be feeling better. She and Rarity were talking flowers and layouts and bouquets right up to the point that Rarity let out a loud, prolonged gasp. Sunset jumped to attention, but Rarity was leaning over a small plot dotted with a variety of colors. Sunset approached and peered over Rarity’s shoulder for a look.
One flower stood out in the patch. It looked like one flower nested within another: The outer petals a sharp magenta, drawing the eye to a small cluster of deep, folded blue. “How absolutely gorgeous!” Rarity said, her hand hovering a few inches beneath the flower as if she were holding it, but refusing to touch it.
“Yeah.” Jasmine smiled. “I was surprised. Axel gave me a mixed pack of bulbs for my birthday earlier this year, and this sprouted with the rest.”
“Do you know what it’s called?”
“Oh, I...I don’t really check on that sort of thing. Not with the mixed bags, anyway. I look at them like their own groups, inseparable. I couldn’t imagine breaking them up into different types...It wouldn’t feel right.” She waved her hand down the short walkway and, indeed, there were several other plots that looked like pockets of beautiful chaos. Full and colorful, but unplanned.
Rarity frowned. “There seem to be some petals missing.” Sunset hadn’t even noticed the irregularity.
“Yes,” Jasmine responded. “That little guy wasn’t doing well from the get-go. It took some work to get him to bloom, and he’s always been a little sickly since then.”
Rarity stood up and tisked at the flower. “Well you seem to have done a wonderful job with it nonetheless.” She gave a slight cough, and Jasmine gasped.
“Oh! I didn’t even offer you anything to drink! I’ve been an awful host, is there anything I can get you?”
“Actually,” Sunset said at a nudge from Rarity’s elbow. “I could use a glass of water, if you don’t mind.”
“And I would be delighted at a cup of tea.” Rarity fell into place at Sunset’s shoulder.”
“Right!” Jasmine said, skipping towards the house. “Water and tea. You two can stay in the garden, and I’ll be back in just a minute.”
“Thank you, darling!” Rarity called after her as she rounded the corner of the house. She arched her neck and, once she was sure Jasmine wasn’t coming back, she gripped Sunset’s elbow.
“Ah, hey, what?” Sunset said, scrunching up her nose and half turning.
“Do you know what that flower is?” Rarity said, breathlessly. Sunset’s blank look must have been enough of an answer, because she carried on. “That is an Amaryllis Duleran.” She squeezed Sunset’s upper arms harder, excitement glinting behind her eyes.
“Er...Yeah. Duh. That’s uh, that’s...good?”
“It’s…” Rarity hesitated, checking down the path again. “Amaryllis Duleran is one of the rarest and most sought after flowers in the fashion industry. The dyes you can make from the petals are the definition of fashion, especially for lipstick.” She blushed a little. “I...might have obsessed over getting some for a month or...seven.”
Sunset looked back down at the flower. It did have a distinctive look to it. “When you say rare…”
“It’s notoriously hard to grow them. One petal would be worth several thousand dollars to the right person. A pair, one of each color, would easily triple that price. A whole flower?” Rarity looked back at the flower, then at Sunset again. “We’re standing next to one of the most expensive plants in existence.”
Sunset was a bit put off by that. She kept thinking about just how easy it would be to pick up her foot, move it less than a yard to the side, and—
“Water and tea!”
Sunset nearly jumped out of her skin as Jasmine came up behind them, holding a tall glass in one hand and a teacup in the other.
Sunset was more or less along for the ride, at this point. Rarity had a momentum that she couldn’t even really track. Her best bet was to hook a tow line and let herself be dragged in her wake. Even so, she was surprised when Rarity accepted the offer to remain at the Lane house for the rest of the day. She thought Rarity would have wanted to be out and about, channeling that energy she’d found into running about the town and questioning everyone with even a tangential connection to the case.
Instead, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, she found herself sitting on a bed in the guest bedroom, staring out the window. Rarity was bustling behind her, organizing their luggage. Without even thinking about it, Sunset let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding since the gas station.
“What’s the matter, dear?” Rarity had stopped her task and nestled herself against Sunset’s side almost immediately. Sunset smiled. She couldn’t get away with anything.
“It’s nothing, Rares. Just stress from the day.”
“Hm…” Rarity leaned forward to get a better look at her face. She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure?”
Sunset decided to skip to the end of this conversation. She had no idea what was going on with this investigation thing, but she already knew she was backed into a corner on this topic. “Rares, I feel like I should have known this about you.”
“Known what, darling?” Rarity followed Sunset’s eyes to the pair of hats sitting on a vanity desk. “Ah…”
“After all this time, I thought I had you mostly figured out, y’know?” Sunset hung her head. “I never in a million years would have thought I’d see you examining a dead body.”
Rarity’s arm wrapped around her waist and Sunset felt herself engulfed in a warm embrace. She let her head fall onto Rarity’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” Rarity said. “I don’t like to talk about all of this. It brings back unpleasant memories. I’m sure I would have told you eventually, but…”
“Yeah,” Sunset said with another, more comfortable sigh, “I know what you mean. When do you even bring that sort of thing up, right?”
“But I still should have told you.” Rarity leaned her head against Sunset’s. “Not having a cue has never stopped me before.”
“Speaking of cars…”
“But we weren’t…” Rarity looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Sunset winked. Rarity’s mouth curved into a smile and she playfully pushed Sunset away, and Sunset took this as a declaration of war. She half turned and lunged forward, tackling Rarity to the bed in a fit of giggles.
A short while later, the pair lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Rarity turned and snuggled up to Sunset’s side. “Can I ask your opinion on something?”
“Of course,” Sunset said, holding back a yawn and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“Do you think Jasmine knows what that flower is?”
Sunset frowned and thought about it. “I don’t really know. I figure she must, if she’s that into botany and it’s that big of a deal.”
“I’m not sure,” Rarity responded, drumming her fingers on Sunset’s stomach. “I’m very nearly convinced she has no idea. Or she certainly didn’t know when she planted it. There’s no known way to grow it in captivity, and I doubt that throwing it into a motley flower garden would be a botanist’s first choice.”
Sunset frowned, running that over in her head again. “But it worked.”
“It did,” Rarity said, falling into silence.
“Hey,” Sunset said, stretching her arms as much as she could, “we never did take a look at that car. We should see if Jasmine has the key.”
“Oh!” Rarity sat up. “Of course! The car! Yes, we should ask!”
Sunset pushed herself off the bed and stretched properly, arching her back and heading to the window. They had a view of the front of the house, and by extension the driveway. She pulled the curtain aside and squinted into the afternoon sun. “She really is a nice…” As Sunset’s vision adjusted, the green car came into focus.
And so did the figure in a hoodie fiddling with the door.
“Hey!” Sunset leapt into action, bolting for the door and ignoring Rarity’s questions. She skipped two stairs at a time as she flew down into the lobby. When she hit the door, Rarity was hopping on one foot by the bannister, trying to tug on a shoe.
Sunset burst into the front yard and reoriented herself. The figure at the car whirled around, and Sunset was shocked to see an empty hood. It took her a moment to realize that there was a sort of mask obscuring the person’s face. Her hesitation gave the person the time they needed to turn and make a run for it, and they made a beeline for the shrubbery. Sunset pursued, sliding across the hood of her own car (partly because there’s never a good enough reason not to do that) and vaulting over a flower bush.
The figure pushed their way into the hedge a few yards in front of Sunset, and had disappeared from sight by the time she arrived. She valiantly dove for a spot in the hedges to make it through, and was less-than-valiantly thrown backwards by an unexpected branch. With a shake of the head and a snarl, she decided to just go around the darned thing. But by the time she’d rounded the end of the row and stood in the driveway, there was no one in sight.
Rarity jogged up to her, gasping for breath. She’d put on heels for crying out loud. That was Rarity for you. “Did you see where they went? How tall were they? What color hair did they have? Were they wearing shoes or boots? Did they—”
Sunset held up a hand and steadied herself on Rarity’s shoulder. “I didn’t get a good enough look, and they had a mask on. Did you see them?”
“I only got a glance out the door when they ran through the hedges.”
“Oh.” Sunset bit her lip. “Did you see, um…?”
A leaf fell out of Sunset’s hair, and Rarity reached up to pick out of a few more. Then she leaned forward and gave Sunset a light kiss on the cheek. “I saw absolutely nothing.”
They found Jasmine in the kitchen, a room in the back of the house. She greeted them cheerfully, then gave them a good looking over. “I didn’t think the bed was that uncomfortable.”
Sunset filled Jasmine in on the situation and she let out a quiet gasp. “Did you call the police?”
“I did,” Rarity said. “They said they would send Officer Gregson over.”
Sunset huffed. She did not like that man, and the prospect of dealing with him again didn’t exactly appeal. They decided, as a group, to sit around and have some coffee while the stew simmered in the slow cooker, because the tea just wasn’t strong enough for this kind of thing.
Sunset decided to broach the subject before they forgot again. “Do you have the key to that car?”
“Axel’s? No, I don’t. He never tells me where he keeps it, though he usually has it on him. He doesn’t let anyone into that car without him in it first. I know where mine is—in the garage—and that’s enough for me.”
Sunset and Rarity exchanged glances. They’d both been catching it since their conversation earlier, but Jasmine was still talking about Axel as if he were still alive. It was unnerving to say the least.
Rarity piped up next. “Well, we had originally made the trip out here to look at buying that car.”
That caught Jasmine’s attention. She sat up straighter and opened her mouth as if to respond, but nothing came out immediately. “I...he was going to sell Lucille?”
There was that past tense. “Lucille?” Sunset asked, almost innocently.
“The...his car. He called it Lucille. He was going to sell it?”
“I understand he had another car,” Rarity said.
“Well, yes, but Lucille was his baby. He and Serge have been working on that since they bought it 5 years ago. It needed some body work back then, and they just kept improving it a bit at a time...new seats, new engine parts, new wheels…” She set her coffee down when she realized she was gripping it too tightly. “I had no idea…”
Rarity had a hand to her chin and was watching Jasmine intently. She lowered her hand and was about to speak when the door banged open and a series of loud footsteps prefaced a young man bursting into the room, eyes wild. “Jas!”
Jasmine stood up and rounded the table, rushing to the man and into his arms. So that, Sunset guessed, was Serge.
Rarity had moved to another chair in order to give the two more room on the couch. Not that they needed it. Jasmine had broken down again and was sobbing into Serge’s shoulder, and the two were barely taking up a full cushion. They all took a few minutes to let the emotion in the room simmer down before they made their introductions.
“Serge Di Forza.” Serge put on a strained smile. “It’s nice to meet you. I wish it was under better circumstances…”
“I’m sorry,” Rarity said, cradling an empty coffee cup. “He was your friend as well, yes?”
“I met him through work, actually,” Serge said. “I moved here around 6 years ago, got a job at the same gas station and we hit it off. I met Jas through him, and we’ve all been close ever since.” He sighed and squeezed Jasmine closer. “I run the graveyard shift, until he took over for the day shift. I just saw him when he came in this morning.” He shook his head.
Rarity remained silent, and Sunset herself sure didn’t know what to say. The silence was cut by the sound of wheels grinding to a stop in the driveway. Rarity stood. “I’ll go let him in.”
“Oh,” Serge said, reaching into his jacket pocket. “Here, Jas, I picked up one of those packs he used to get. I thought...well, I thought we could plant something for him.”
Rarity was just getting up, but her eyes locked on the small parcel in Serge’s hand. It was hardly more than a small paper bag, tied up with a twist-tie and filled, presumably, with an assortment of flower bulbs.
“I’ll go, too,” Sunset said, jumping to her feet. Being left alone in this room with these two right then would have been infinitely worse than dealing with Gregson with Rarity.
Gregson, for his part, wasn’t nearly as bad as when he’d been interrogating Sunset. Still not great, because he was asking a whole lot of questions neither Sunset nor Rarity knew the answers to about the attempted car thief, and he paid for every answer they didn’t give with a patented glower.
“Well, there ain’t much we can do more than what we’re doing,” he said, thumbing out the door. “Jacobson’s out there sweeping the area.”
“I doubt he’ll find much,” Sunset sighed.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Rarity had her airs on.
Sunset snapped her head up. “What do you mean?”
“You gave them quite a scare, I think. Possibly enough to make a mistake. But enough about possibilities: Officer Gregson, did you find anything at the gas station?”
Gregson snorted. “Your guess was off, missy. There was something stolen.”
Rarity straightened out, dropping her arms to the side. “What? But that...What was stolen?”
“Money from the till,” Gregson said, looking a bit smug. “Not much, about 80 dollars is missing. They don’t keep too much on hand.”
“Oh,” Rarity said, and relaxed. “I see.”
“Simple cash grab turned bad, looks like.” He checked over his shoulder to make sure the other two were out of earshot. He lowered his voice anyway. “Lanes was shot once, right in the back of the head. Up close. Died instantly.”
“I thought as much,” Rarity said. She had looked at the body. Which was still weird.
“Way I see it someone wanted some fast money, picked a place out of the way, grabbed the cash and didn’t leave any witnesses.” Gregson huffed. “Gonna be hard to track someone like that down.”
Rarity had lapsed into thought, so Sunset piped up. “But there’s got to be something we can do, right? Anything at all?”
Gregson grumbled. “All we can do is put out an APB, but without a description to go off of there isn’t much chance they get caught.” He turned to Rarity. “Even your friend Blacktie can’t do much on this one, can he?”
“Alright,” Sunset said, planting her hands on her hips. “Who is—?”
Rarity’s expression broke when the sound of another car crunched its way into the driveway. “Officer Gregson...Do you think you could help me with something?” She headed for the door to greet the new person, and Gregson, suspicious, followed. “Wait here, darling,” Rarity said over her shoulder. “We’ll be right back.”
The newest car was a lawyer’s, and everyone present had gathered in the sitting room at his request. Gregson stood by the door, Sunset and Rarity retook their seats, while Serge and Jasmine kept their spot warm on the couch.
“I am Michael Hendrixson,” the lawyer said, folding his hands in his lap. They really had weird names out here in the country. “I am here to represent Mr. Axel Lanes in one of his final requests.”
Jasmine sniffled. “Axel hired you?”
“I was asked a favor in a professional capacity,” Michael said, not really answering the question. “I was asked, in the event of his death, to come to this house and read a particular note.” He cleared his throat and picked up his briefcase, setting it on his lap and opening it. After a moment of fishing, he held up a single piece of paper with some scrawled handwriting on it. He cleared his throat.
“If you are hearing this, I am already dead, yadda yadda.”
Everyone exchanged glances. Michael held up the paper and pointed to the end of the first sentence. It did, in fact, say ‘yadda yadda.’
“Let this serve as an official Will: First, I leave the blue car to Serge. I know how much you love that thing.”
Serge chuckled.
“Second, the green car I leave to a very special person, who I think will take good care of it: my new friend, Rarity.”
Serge stopped chuckling. Jasmine’s mouth hung slightly open, and Sunset realized that hers had, as well. Rarity reclined in her chair, looking for all the world like nothing had happened.
“All other effects will default to my sister Jasmine.”
“Hold on, hold on…” Serge stood up, a sudden anger flaring across his face. “What’s this about giving the car to this girl? When was this written!?”
Hendrixson, however, was implacable: “If I don’t cancel this order, then it should be clear that the story of my death involves a great betrayal.”
Sunset was reminded of all of those overly worded philosophical MyStable posts. A chill ran down her spine, and the words certainly stopped Serge in his tracks.
“And thus I feel it is my duty to indict my killer.”
There was a collective intake of breath in the room. Sunset spotted Gregson placing a hand on the holster of his gun. He met her eye, and they shared a nod. This new information suggested that the killer might be in the very room in which they sat.
“I know you can’t answer me right now, and I guess I can’t be sure you’re in the room. But I want to know why. Why would you do this to me? Was it the flower? That never seemed to bother you, I didn’t think you had any idea that I knew about it.”
Jasmine seemed lost for words, and Serge was looking suddenly pale. His eyes flicked to Gregson, who was at peak glower.
“I thought we were close. But you had other ideas, right? You never really liked me at all, did you?”
“What is this?” Serge said, his arm shaking. “What is this nonsense? No way he wrote—”
“You didn’t even really need the job at the gas station.”
“Enough!” Serge shouted. Surprisingly, Hendrixson capitulated.
Rarity smiled. “So then,” she tittered. “Care to introduce yourself? Serge Di Forza?”
Serge seemed to suddenly realize where he was. Any color left in his face drained completely. “Wh-what?”
Sunset, for her part, was utterly lost. So was Jasmine, it seemed. Rarity stood up and brushed down her skirt. “I admit, this probably wasn’t the only way to get you to reveal yourself, but…” She shrugged. “I felt like being a bit dramatic.”
Serge mouthed a few words. No sound came out.
“If you like,” Rarity said, “I’ll tell the story. You just tell me when I get something wrong.”
No response.
“From the very first, I suspected you. Well, not you specifically,” She said, starting to pace. “A coworker, though. Someone familiar with the gas station. It seemed like nothing was stolen, you see.”
“But something was stolen,” Gregson said, hand still on the gun.
“Oh sure, money from the cash register. But you see, the thief made a very telling mistake. If you’ve murdered someone and are stealing money from a cash register, you aren’t very likely to take the time to close the drawer when you’re done.”
Sunset jumped, then let out a laugh. “Of course! That’s why we thought money wasn’t taken in the first place!”
“Unless, of course,” Rarity continued with a slight smile on her face. “You’re used to working with it and closed it without thinking.”
Serge growled. “Speculation. At best.”
“Then there was the other lie you told,” Rarity continued without even pausing. “You said you spoke to him when he came into work.”
“And I did. There’s a half hour of overlap between our shifts.”
“Normally, yes. Except today, he didn’t go into work, did he?”
Sunset squinted and thought that over. “But, Rares, we found him at the gas station.”
“We did,” Rarity nodded. “Remember when I told you to check around the back of the building? What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. And what should you have found?”
Sunset frowned and tapped her foot. “Presumably...something?”
“Why did we come here, Sunset dear?”
“We came to test drive the…” Sunset smacked her hand to her forehead, knocking her hat to the floor. “The car! The car wasn’t there!”
“At first I thought it might have been stolen. I asked Officer Jacobson to look into it, but when we got to this house, there it was. Sitting in the driveway.”
Jasmine covered her mouth with her hand. “He never takes that car to work, it’s always either the blue one or he hitches a ride, depending on the day. He doesn’t like bringing Lucille out where it might be broken into…I just thought…”
“Today would have been the only day, then,” Rarity said. “And the murderer had no idea that Lucille was supposed to be there.”
“T—....Test drive?” Serge put a steadying hand on the end table.
“Axel didn’t arrive at work,” Rarity said, turning to lock her eyes on Serge, “he was brought into the gas station. I assume he was unconscious, though I might be wrong about that. With all of this together, we can see that an employee left work, retrieved Axel by some means, brought him to the gas station, and killed him there.”
“That’s enough!” Jasmine said, startling everyone. “Are you accusing Serge of murder!? Don’t be ridiculous! Why would he want to do that!?”
“The flower,” Sunset murmured, and Rarity nodded.
“That flower, the red and blue one I asked you about. It’s a very rare breed worth an untold amount of money. That’s not the sort of bulb you can get by accident. Someone must have given it to you on purpose. You said it was in a variety pack?”
“It was, but…”
“Swapping one common bulb for another would be easy, and I was sure of that when I saw one of the packs for myself. Just untie, switch a bulb, and retie.”
“But...who would give that to me, and why?”
“I admit,” Rarity said, sounding disappointed, “that I don’t know all the details. But my best guess is that someone, somewhere, determined that you might be able to grow that flower, and so Serge here came to find out for sure and get you to try to grow one without you realizing what you were doing. Is that much correct, Mr. Di Forza?”
Serge just shook and glared.
“And you were able to, after all. After, I would guess, at least three other attempts. Possibly four. One each year, hm? And finally, everything worked out. Except...something unexpected happened, didn’t it, Mr. Di Forza?”
More shaking.
“Axel got curious about the new flower, and looked into what it was. Then, when he found out, he took a few fallen petals and planned to send them to someone to confirm his suspicions. And he placed them in his car, correct? Perhaps because he wanted to hide them from you.”
“How…”
“So you needed to stop him from revealing your secrets. You met with Axel before he started the day to talk about the flower. You attacked him or convinced him to come to the gas station with you. You set up your murder scene to look as though someone had killed him in a robbery, then took his keys and, later, went to retrieve the samples—a small fortune themselves—from the car.”
Serge took a deep breath in, then relaxed. He chuckled and shook his head. “You’ve got quite the imagination. You’re good at murder mystery parties, aren’t you?”
“Unfairly so.”
“So? Where’s your proof? You can tell a good story, but I don’t see so much as a lick of—”
Officer Jacobson appeared in the living room doorway, wearing gloves and holding three evidence bags. The large one held a familiar-looking hoodie, and the other two held a car key and a pair of flower petals in an even smaller bag. One red. One blue.
“Found it in a tree,” he said with a grin. “Key was in the pocket, like you thought.” He nodded at Rarity. “Petals were in the glove box. Funny, this looks like your size, wouldn’t you say, Serge? Now then, I think we have a few questions for you at the station. Why don’t you just—”
Serge vaulted the couch and bolted for a closed french window. Gregson cursed and joined Jacobson in a rush across the room to try to intercept. Rarity danced out of the way of all the commotion, and Sunset lunged to pull Jasmine aside before she was trampled.
All of that was unnecessary, though, as before Serge could throw the window open, a foot drove into the back of his knee. Hendrixson grabbed the back of the man’s collar as he crumpled to the ground with a sharp cry, and in moments had him pinned.
Sunset watched with interest. “So, do they...usually train lawyers in jiu jitsu, or was that just a hobby?”
Then he pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
“Alright, Forza. Enough playing around,” he said. His accent was entirely different. In fact, his entire voice was different. Rarity strolled over to Sunset’s side.
“That,” she said, hiding her words behind one hand, “is Blacktie.”
A lot of things needed to be cleaned up. Jasmine was inconsolable for several hours, and then she was asleep. Sunset and Rarity decided to spend the night at the farmhouse after all, with Jasmine’s approval. At least, what she mumbled sounded like approval, and she wasn’t upset with them in the morning. They traded contact information and promised to check in on her regularly, and visit again.
Blacktie had left in the night, leaving Forza with the police. “For now,” Gregson grumbled. It seemed like he wanted at least some credit for nabbing the first murderer in the county in nearly a decade. And Sunset still didn’t have any answers from that guy.
By the time Sunset turned the key in the old Firebird, she was more than ready to go home to her own bed.
“So, like, is this just going to be every road trip with you?” She nudged Rarity’s elbow. Both hats were stored in the trunk.
“Oh not all of them, though I do seem to be proficient at finding trouble…” Rarity sighed and leaned against the window, watching as they pulled away from the car she’d come to adore in such a short time. “Maybe Jasmine would still be willing to sell it…?” The will that had been read was, of course, entirely made up. Rarity had supplied a few suggestions, and Blacktie had scratched up something that held up just long enough to fool Serge. And herself, she thought with some annoyance. Sunset hadn’t been in on the plan at all.
“I don’t know about that,” Sunset said. “That car has a lot of sentimental value. I’m sure she has plans for it.” Rarity groaned in response, and Sunset allowed herself a secret smile. In fact, Jasmine did have special plans for that car: She intended to gift it to Rarity once the estate procedures had gone through. After all, she’d just learned that not only did she have an impossibly rare and valuable flower, but there were a whole lot of people interested in paying a whole lot of money to hire her to grow more.
“What did you think?” Rarity was leaning on her hand and staring out the window at the rolling country hills and forests.
“I still have no idea,” Sunset replied. “What was even going on? What was Serge’s deal?”
“Would you believe me if I told you it was an international flower smuggling ring?”
Sunset glued her eyes to the road. “I’m trying to decide if doing that would make it easier or harder to cope with all this. And who even is that Blacktie guy?”
“I’m not sure I’m allowed to tell you that.”
“...Really?”
Rarity bobbed her head from side to side. “I think it’s a legal grey area. Let’s put it this way: I’m not sure I’m supposed to know.”
“Ah. You...do realize I want to know even more, now.”
Rarity smiled and yawned. “If I ever get the okay, you’ll be the first to know.”
Sunset drove in silence for a while, picking up speed when they hit a State route.
“...Sunset. I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“Not telling you about my...past experiences.”
Sunset sat silently for a while, but eventually flicked on her blinker and pulled to the side of the road.
“Sunset?” Rarity sat up straighter. As she turned, Sunset reached across, took a hold on the back of her head, and pulled her into a deep, loving, slightly dangerous kiss. When they finally broke, Rarity gasped for breath. “Aah, ahaha!” she said. “Um, heehee, um, okay?”
Sunset smirked, winked, and pushed her foot down on the gas.
If nothing else, she still had that.
