Equestria's Killer

Chapter 4: The Investigation

NOTE: This chapter is a first person perspective of Ballad Bones.

As the stupid alarm rang at 6:00 am, I got up and followed my usual routine. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth, I sat on the toilet and did my "business", then finally took a hot shower. I got out of the shower and dried off, then made my way towards my closet. Putting on my one piece of clothing I wear to work, I knotted my tie and headed to the kitchen to make a quick breakfast. As I prepared my usual eggs on the stove, I realized that Weed Blower never came home last night. "Where was he?" I thought to myself with concern. "I hope he didn't do something stupid again like he usually does." As I scrambled my eggs, the stallion I was just thinking about walked through the door. "Hey Ballad..." He said with enthusiasm in his voice. "Where the hell were you?" "Oh just sleeped over at a friends." He said like nothing was wrong, but I knew damn well there was. "Come here." I said with a serious tone to capture his attention. He walked over to me slowly, as if he was hiding something. I sniffed him and immediately smelled the usual odor. "HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING POT AGAIN!" I yelled leaving my eggs to burn. "No..." "DON'T BUCKING LIE TO ME WEED BLOWER!" I screamed furiously, as if I was about to knock him out. "How dare you! We had a bucking deal!" "Look I'm sorry.....after Sun Butt's announcement yesterday, me and Pinkie had to mellow out." "YOU GOT ONE OF PRINCESS TWILIGHT'S BEST FRIENDS HIGH!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, I was seriously losing it. This crazy bastard was going to ruin my reputation with his retarded antics. "Bro I swear all we did is share a joint, nothing else!" He said thinking he could calm me down. "Bro I promise I'll never do weed again! This was the last time! If I do I'll move out, I swear to Celestia!" "I don't know if I could trust you anymore Weed Blower..." "Please bro! Give me one last chance! I swear I won't buck it up! Please, please, please!!" "Okay, okay, shut up!" I said not being able to handle his annoying begging anymore. "One last chance. If you buck this up, no more investigating and I'm kicking your flank out!" "Okay, promise." He said relieved. I turned the stove off after smelling the eggs burn. This whole ordeal made me lose my appetite. I took the pan off the stove, trashed the burned eggs, threw it in the sink, and made my way out the door. Work finished as usual at 4:00 pm. My fellow co-workers helped me a lot calming down. They were great to be around when Weed Blower pissed me the buck off. I made my way home to find that Weed Blower went out again. So I sat on the couch and finally let myself relax. Weed Blower woke me up after an hour of napping on the couch. "Ballad! Ballad wake up!" "What...." I said still half asleep. "Cmon Ballad, the days almost over. I want to do something involving our investigation before the day ends." I finally sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Like what exactly?" "Well, I wanted to go to the Brasshoofs' house and ask them a few questions." I chuckled at that. "And you think they are going to talk about their dead daughter to some random strangers?" "Well no, that's why we need to tell them we are P.Is." "Private Investigators? And how would we make them believe that?" He formed a wide grin and shouted, "to your closet!" We went to my room and he opened my closet revealing my many trench coats that I wear when it rains. "Please tell me this isn't your plan..." "Now that's no fun is it." He said in a smug tone. "Put one on and let's go!" He said still eager to try his plan out. "What did I drag myself into?" We arrived outside the small apartment near the town square. It was a pretty rundown place for a family of four, or three that is now. "How are be going to convince them to let us it?" I asked. "I donknow" he replied. "I rang the number for their apartment on the dial next to the door." "Hello?" A young colt's voice asked. "Hello there champ." Weed Blower began. "We are here to speak to your mommy and daddy, can you please unlock the front door?" "Okay.." the young colt said as he pressed the number on the phone to unlock the apartment's front door. "Booyah!" Weed Blower exclaimed. "That was just pure luck." I said as we walked through the door and climbed the stair to the Brasshoof apartment. I knocked on the door and a big stallion with a brown main and light green coat opened. "How may I help you gentlecolts?" he asked in a mellow tone. "Hello sir." I began. "We are Private Investigators hired by the families of the victims of the Turquoise Strangler, we came here just to ask you a few questions about Blushy." "What are your names?" he asked in a much harsher tone. "I'm Ballad Bones and this is......Garden Step." I said deciding to make a fake name for Weed Blower as he turned his face towards me with an irritated look. "Well Mr.Ballad and...Garden, we are still grieving over our loss and don't wish to talk about it, good day." He said trying to close the door, but was stopped by Weed Blower. "Sir, I'm very sorry for your loss but this is a serious issue, there will be other victims if you don't help us. You have got to talk to us Mr. Brasshoof." I was genuinely impressed by Weed Blowers little speech he gave there. "My daughter is dead, Mr. Step, I have nothing more to say." He said in a calmed but evasive tone. "Do you want him to kill more innocent mares like your daughter Mr.Brasshoof." I began. "We could prevent that from happening if you would just talk to us for a minute." "What do you want?" He asked in an annoyed voice. "Did your daughter mention anything strange that Friday night before she left to go out." I asked. Mr.Brasshoof began to shed a tear. "No....no she didn't. She just told us she was going out to a party with friends. After the party was over she never came home." "Did her friends not stay with her or keep an eye on her during the party?" I persisted. "No, they all got drunk and lost each other. It was at that Filthy Rich's home. Their spoiled daughter decided to invite Juniors and Seniors over to party and even bought them all booze. I should sue that bastard. If only he didn't have Equestria's top lawyers in his pocket!" "Can you remember anything else about that Friday night? Anything at all?" I asked hoping for a single clue. "No! I told you everything I remember! Now if you both would please just move along, I have to return to my wife and colt." He said slamming the door on our faces. "Welp, that wasn't helpful." Weed Blower stated the obvious. "And are you bucking kidding me? Garden Step? That's even lamer then the name my parents gave me." "Now what?" I asked hoping to finish this soon. "Now.....let's go check out the crime scene. All the guards left already after Sun Butt made her announcement. Maybe we could find something. You never know." "You never give up do you?" I asked him obnoxiously. "Those bits are all mine.....ours I mean." We headed into the Everfree forest in the worst time of day. Night, of course. I turned on my horn light as we made our way to the river where Blushy's body was found. The wild animals could be heard all around us as we walked. Or maybe that way just me being paranoid. We were in the most dangerous forest after all. We finally reached the river and started looking around it for clues. Searching up and down but finding nothing, as usual for any cases with the Turquoise Strangler involved. Not to mention the darkness of night and my very small light that only lightened a few inches. Weed Blower decided to look under the river to find any leads. He dived in without hesitation, not realizing how cold the water was at night. "HOLY BUCK THATS COLD!" He yelled out, causing the wild beasts to howl and roar from a distance. "Shut up you idiot!" I said in a low voice. "Do you want to get us killed?" He dove down into the river again to search for anything at the bottom. A few minutes passed with him looking when he finally got out and rolled around the grass to dry off. "So nothing huh? This is a waste of...." "Look!" he said interrupting me holding out his hoof. "Thats....her bow." I said amazed that he actually found something. "Ya but a bow isn't going to help us with anything." He criticized. "We need to find something important!" "We've been here for an hour already! It's clear that he left nothing behind as usual. Let's go before we get into serious danger!" He finally listened to me and bowed his head down. As we started walking away from the river, he said "well I hope your....." but before he could finish his sentence he tripped on a stone next to a bush. I wanted to laugh so badly but I kept my composure. "Motherbucker!" He yelled. "Shhhhh!" I yelled back. "Wait." He announced. "Bring you light over here" he demanded. I did so and flashed it in to the bush her fell next to. "Look!" He said in a loud voice again. I looked down and saw what he saw. "Is that.....the killers coat pocket?" I asked in a sudden surprise. "Ya, and look!" He said picking up a paper under the black cloth. "It's a letter..." he said. "I left the dye at the usual spot" I read. "What does that mean" I followed up with a question. "It must be the killers dye dealer. The pony who he gets the turquoise hair dye to the strangler who uses it to dye his victims' hair. "Ya, you might be right." "Let's go show this to Princess Twilight!" "What's she going to do?" I asked confused. "I don't know, maybe she could help us figure out who it's from." "And how will she do that?" "Bro stop asking questions and let's go!" He said eagerly.  We arrived by Princess Twilight's castle late at night. I was really on opposite terms with Weed Blower for coming here at 2 in the morning. He started banging on the door, waking both Twilight and Starlight in the castle up from their sleep. Finally Starlight Glimmer opened the door, looking at us with immense anger. "Hey newbie." Weed Blower began. "We need to see the princess right now. We found something that we need to show her. Starlight looked at Weed Blower with the same aggressive eyes that she did when he first talked to her, mistaking her for a maid. "Please Starlight, this is some really important stuff we found." I said trying to convince her. She sighed heavily and opened the door. We quickly made our way to Twilight's room. Weed Blower opened the door to find Twilight just waking up and Spike looking at us with a face full of hatred for waking him up. "Oh....it you two again.." she began. "Why did you come so late?" "Sorry Princess, but this really couldn't wait. We may have found the first lead to finding the Turquoise Strangler!" Weed Blower exclaimed. Twilight's eyes immediately opened wide up after hearing those words come out of Weed's mouth. We all sat at the kitchen table to talk about the discovery. "Can I get you two anything?" Twilight asked. "No thanks we're...." "I'll have some chamomile tea please." Weed Blower interrupted me. "Some chamomile tea please Starlight." Twilight said to her as she got up and glared at Weed with an annoyed look. "So what is this lead that you two found?" She asked fascinatingly. "This letter and the killers coat pocket. It was inside a bush by the river." I told her. "Wow, those guards are bad at their job." She joked as she took the letter to read. "Blushy must have tore it off before she was strangled." I suggested. "Wait a second..." she said. "This is very strange. If the killer had a dealer, how did his dealer get him turquoise hair dye? That was outlawed all over Equestria after the first murders started occurring." "You decided just now to tell us that?" Weed Blower argued. I had to agree with him on that one. "Well, I thought you two already knew. It was made quite clear by Princess Celestia about seven months ago." I had to admit, even I forgot about this new law. "Well thank you for bringing this to me. I'll look into it personally. In the mean time, you two get some sleep. You did more then enough to help us with this problem." "Thank you Princess, and goodnight, sorry for bothering you again." I said apologetically. "Don't be! You two brought me great info. Maybe we'll catch this monster soon after all!" She said in an enthusiastic tone. "We hope so too Princess." I agreed. "Cmon, let's go." I demanded Weed Blower. We made our way towards the front door as we heard Starlight behind us yelling "HEY! YOUR BUCKING TEA!"