Silent Graves

"Come in."

The door opened, and Gari stepped in. "You called for me?"

"I did," nodded Pry. "Please, have a seat."

"What happened to your leg?"

"Complications with the second case, don't worry about it. Now, the reason I called you in was because all of the cases are now solved."

"All of them?" asked Gari. "It's only been a week. How'd you manage that so quickly?"

"Luck, mostly," admitted Pry with a chuckle. "First, I went to the college student's place. I figured that was a good place to start, since it was fresh. It was so fresh that we found out that the body was moved from its original location. The real scene of the crime was his dorm room. We brought in the roommate, and after testing him for drugs, he told us everything. The real cause of death was that he cut his wrist open by accident, and they didn't want the guards to know that they were doing drugs in their dormitory. It was just to cover up their real crime."

"And they're in jail now?"

"Yep, locked up for hindering a police investigation and use of controlled substances. I have more information in this case file." He pulled out a file folder and placed it on the corner of the desk. "I'll let you look through that later. Now, the second place I went, the location of the second murder, the staff were being very cooperative, but most of them didn't know anything. Except the gardener, that is. When he was accused of murder, he told us everything he knew, including the locations of some photographs that showed the real killer. When we found those, the real killer tried to silence me."

"Tried to silence you, how?"

Pry lifted his injured leg. "He grabbed a steel pipe. It hurt a lot, but luckily, I wasn't alone. A guard was escorting me."

"You're going to be okay, right?"

"Oh, yeah... I'll be fine."

"So, we only have the one left, right?"

"Yeah. Believe it or not, when I was preparing to look into this after my hospital visit, they sort of just fell into my lap. The only evidence of who might have killed the bartender was that his cart had been stolen. Well, the guards found the cart, and the pony who stole it was a known criminal, who had just been released on violent conduct charges. Go figure."

"So, that's all three of them behind bars?"

"All three."

"Awesome. Hopefully, that means no more fakers. Here's what we owe you." Gari scooted across the table a promissory note. "Twelve thousand bits, and a fine bottle of scotch are waiting for you to pick them up at the local bank. I'd have delivered them myself, but they're really heavy, and I don't want to be carrying that much around with me at one time."

"I understand," smiled Pry, accepting it in exchange for all three file folders. "These are yours. I'm glad that the city is now a safer place for your son. Give him my best, would you?"

"Of course," smiled Gari, collecting the folders. "I'll let him know. In the meantime, I wish a swift recovery for your leg."

"Thank you. Have a nice weekend."

"You too."

Three days later, as Pry was sitting down to breakfast, he noticed the newspaper of the stallion sitting next to him at the diner bar. "Excuse me, sir, would you mind terribly if I took that front section?"

"Not at all," he smiled. "I was done with it, anyway. I'm focusing my attention on the crossword."

The front page had a picture of Rotten Tomatoes, which piqued his curiosity. "Nine Dead in Prison Homicide," read the headline. The article went on about the details of how the bodies were found. Most notably, they all had the same bloody writing on the wall over their heads. "You Dare." Making matters even worse, this wasn't falsified, as all of their victims had been. The coroner had confirmed that everything in this case matched up perfectly with the original murders.

The contents of the victim's stomachs were examined, and aside from the large amounts of stomach acid and dissolved flesh, there was one thing mixed amongst the prison food that wasn't supposed to be there: Trace amounts of an offshoot of amanitaceae. That wasn't supposed to be in there; it was a highly regulated menu.

That meant that whoever was committing these murders would need to know safe methods of handling that particular family, be up to date with the events surrounding the murders, and have access to all of the facilities used. A public forest was easy, anypony could go in there, but then who would be able to follow a couple into a house without alerting them? Furthermore, they'd have to be able to see through the critic's disguise and be inside of a restaurant he was critiquing. Then they would have to break into the radio hostess' apartment, and then be able to access the prisons and the guards' reports.

After eating his eggs and hay bacon on toast, he went back home to think on it. He opened up a new bottle of scotch and a whiteboard, and spent the rest of the day trying to piece everything together. He started writing down everything he now knew about the killer. He might not be paid for this particular job, but this was important. He had to find them.

About halfway through the day, he wrote a letter to the guard who had escorted him last week, asking him to stop by tomorrow to help look over the details and correct him if he'd made any mistakes. He wanted to be absolutely certain that the information he had was correct.

Sure enough, the next morning, the guard stopped by and knocked on the door. After receiving no answer, he knocked a few more times. After half an hour of waiting, he stepped through the door, calling out to ask if Pry was there. He didn't have to ask twice. Pry was sitting at his desk, a bottle of scotch in his right hoof, and his stomach exploded open. The killer had taken another life.