Wufei moved his fingers in rubbing circles at his temples. The headache hadn’t gone away. He had put so much work in the Catalonia/Schbeiker case, and lately he had the feeling he was walking into walls, what wasn’t making things any easier.
Sighing, he picked up his reading glasses. He hated, no, loathed cases he couldn’t solve. Especially cases like this. Dorothy Catalonia. Hilde Schbeiker. One thing they had in common were the piano lessons with Duo Maxwell as their teacher. The second thing they had in common was that both their necks were snapped- according to the coroner, in one single move. The girls hadn’t felt any pain and they certainly weren’t attacked or abused before they died. Wufei tapped with a pencil on the stack of files. Lady Une insisted on daily reports, but there was nothing to report. He couldn’t arrest someone just because Wufei had a hunch he did it. Something was wrong with this case, incredibly wrong. Chang Wufei was one of the top detectives of this police station and he wasn’t about to give up.
"I’m overlooking something," he said aloud and started tapping with the pencil on his forehead.
"You say that at least once every day," Trowa Barton snorted. Wufei hadn’t heard his colleague coming in and hid his irritation extremely well. It helped that Trowa had brought Chinese food for lunch- and two interesting looking, thick paper files.
"And?"
"Success. I got every collaboration from Miss Po."
"Thank the spirits, finally some good news. Sit down, Barton, and don’t keep me waiting."
Trowa quickly arranged the white cartons and carefully put the files away, so that none of the food could be accidentally spilled on it.
"How did you get the woman to talk?"
"It took some digging, but she finally admitted that she has seen both Yuy and Maxwell in therapy, albeit not together." Trowa took the set of chopsticks and opened one of the cartons. "After I met and questioned Khushrenada and Merquise, I dug deeper into their past, especially Merquise’s. He still has ties with former soldiers, from the Alliance, White Fang and OZ. The man has switched so many sides he still has friends in almost every faction. Finally I tracked down Po, but only because someone mentioned a former Alliance medic who had vague contacts with pilot 01, but contact nonetheless. Anyhow, when I called Po I just mentioned her Alliance past and she was quickly to operate. It wasn’t my intention to intimidate her, but she isn’t very proud of her past."
"Get on with Maxwell and Yuy." Wufei took extreme pleasure in the fact that he, after all those years of Chinese take-out for lunch, still handled the chopsticks better than Trowa.
"Maxwell evidently suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, after what happened to him at the church. He couldn’t deal with all the guilt he felt and he couldn’t handle that he was the sole survivor. She also mentions his anger about his talent for music. According to her notes, he felt quite worthless because he, in his words, ‘could only play some tunes at the piano’. He’d rather wanted to help with the rebuilding of society, wishing to be of some more use. At her advice, he left L2 to get out of the situation, and, judging from the time pad in the file, he did so quite abruptly. She prescribed him medication to alleviate reoccurring nightmares, but not lately."
"That explains the Clorazil. Apparently, he doesn’t need to see the doctor again to renew his prescription, if Yuy was able to get it at 03:00 at night. Continue."
Trowa closed the carton. "Yuy, on the other hand, is a classical case of a train wreck. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, compulsive behavior, paranoia, borderline, bipolar, you name it. We already knew he was dumped after he self-detonated the Gundam, and was rewarded with a war pension. Nobody didn’t even undertook one effort to look after him."
"Cruel cowards," Wufei muttered. "He was only a kid then."
"Interesting, though," Trowa chimed in. The chopsticks scraped at the bottom of the carton. "The recording of his file immediately stops after his self-detonation, but Sally Po helped him nursing back to health. She was field medic at the time. I could clearly distinguish about what she told me that Heero left around the same time Duo did."
"Did they meet in the aftermath of the war? How come that Maxwell was in Siberia?"
Trowa shrugged. "There was a war going on, not everything was recorded, and records were destroyed or lost in the turbulent times. I’m not sure about the connection between Sally Po and Duo Maxwell. She didn’t want to talk much about her Alliance past and she did both a field medic job as well as a psychiatric job, before quitting and returning to her homeland."
When Wufei didn’t comment, Trowa continued. "They met somehow when Heero was recovering from his self detonation stunt and Duo was getting on his feet after the traumatic events he went through. They must’ve found something in each other- Heero, the strong soldier, could focus all his protection on Duo as he was trained to do, setting his parameters around him. Duo, the frail piano teacher, could finally bask in the attention and the shelter of a loving partner, after being on his own for so long and taking away his feelings of guilt and insecurity after the events at the church."
"I see that Po woman mentioning Maxwell’s success in slowly but steadily cutting down on his medication," Wufei said, skimming through the first file. He had shoved the empty cartons in the wastebasket and his desk was spotless. "She mentions his strong character, because he managed to leave a great part of his past behind. Amazing. Look here, the dose for his tranquilizers went down exponentially. We know what became of him when he left L2- a renowned piano teacher with a waiting list for his students."
"Not any more." Trowa said wryly. He finished the last of his lunch.
"So, what do we have here?" Wufei leaned backwards. Something nagged at him, again. "We have the sole survivor of a tragic church accident who has become a piano teacher, and a trained soldier, capable of snapping a woman’s neck in one swift motion, without leaving any traces. Two students are murdered, without a trace of assault, robbery or abuse. We don’t have a motive and we don’t have a suspect."
"That Heero fellow," Trowa answered, cleaning up his desk. "We don’t have anything to pin him down, but we both agree he did it, right?"
"We just can’t prove it. We only have a stupid receipt from the Corner Pharmacy to prove his alibi."
Trowa shrugged again. "He could’ve picked up a receipt another customer left behind."
He pulled one of the files towards him and opened it, with the full intention to read the documents within the file.
"It’s something you said," Wufei said, suddenly.
"What?"
"Protection," Wufei adjusted his chair. "There has been something bothering me about that ‘protection’ of Yuy. Back in the apartment, when we were there for the first time, did you notice how he was holding Maxwell? And when they were here for interrogation? Constant holding him close, hands clasped together, not letting him one second out of sight?"
"Wufei, don’t tell me you’re disturbed by them?"
"No Barton, of course not," Wufei shook his head. "That protectiveness is radiating some kind of obsession. You heard Yuy’s answers when he was here, you know about the scene the second time we were in their apartment."
Trowa sighed. "Don’t tell me your newest theory is that Heero kills every student of his life partner because he somehow wants to protect him. Why would he do that for?"
Both detectives remained silent. They looked at each other.
"Good God, Wufei, you really think so!"
"We know Heero is a former Gundam pilot. We know what extensive training he underwent. We know he has had some mental problems. My guess is that Yuy still is stuck in his days as a soldier and has replaced his objectives of the war with his objective to protect Maxwell from whatever -or whoever- he esteems dangerous."
"For what reason he could’ve esteemed Dorothy Catalonia or Hilde Schbeiker dangerous?"
Wufei rubbed frantically at his temples. The whining voice in his head wouldn’t leave him alone. "Attention?" He suggested. "Attention that was taken away from him? The girls fell in love with Duo?"
Trowa jerked his head. "The girls, certainly Hilde as Duo’s best friend, would’ve certainly known they wouldn’t stand a chance!"
"I’m just guessing here," Wufei gave back, slightly annoyed. "I believe that "protection" thing of Yuy is the key to the case. If we can prove he killed those two students in order to protect ‘his’ Duo, we’ve got him."
"How do you prove something like that? We haven’t anything that remotely could point Heero as possible perpetrator!"
"I don’t know, I simply don’t know." Wufei suddenly stood up from his chair. "Anything with that other student? The blond guy?"
"I saw his name on the list. He’s Quatre Raberba Winner, the Winner heir," Trowa confirmed.
"May the good spirits be with us," Wufei exclaimed. "If anything happens to him, we have both Dermail and Winner senior breathing in our necks. All hell will break loose! That’s all we need!"
It took a full minute before Trowa spoke again. "He’s male."
"Of course he is, mister Obvious," Wufei snarled and regretted his words. He normally wasn’t hot tempered, but this case was getting at his nerves. Only the calm look on Trowa’s face told him that he was overseeing an important detail and he knew it within the second.
"If your theory is correct," Trowa drawled, "then we have to work out something fast and make sure Quatre Winner doesn’t do something that could be dangerous… in Heero’s eyes."
"Falling in love with his life partner." Wufei continued, brainstorming. The glasses fell off his nose, totally forgotten. "Anyone coming close to some personal level with Duo Maxwell is dangerous to Heero Yuy, and will die."
Chapter 12 | Chapter 14 |