Deception

Disclaimer: I do not own PoH, that pleasure belongs to the lovely Matsuri Akino.

Warning: contains suggestion of domestic violence and just flat-out creepiness. Go forward at your own risk.


It was Friday, and that meant it was pudding-cup day at Pine Ridge pre-K. Happy young women doled out the cups of deliciousness to their young charges. A young woman with "Kyra" on her nametag stopped in front of a lone little boy, holding out one of the cups and a flimsy plastic spoon. The boy silently and intently continued stacking blocks, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. Kyra smiled and knelt down in front of him, wiggling the cup in what she hoped was a tantalizing manner. The boy looked briefly up, and sucked on his lower lip all the harder, trying to suppress a smile. Kyra chucked him under the chin and set the pudding in front of him.

"For when you want it, Jordan." She whispered.

The boy looked up at her with guarded eyes, and his right hand stole towards the cup. Kyra nodded encouragingly, and then she heard the playroom door bang open. Jordan's mother had gotten off her split-shift t pick him up, and none of the senior aides were around to talk to her. The jittery, abrupt woman preferred the older women working at the daycare, and studiously avoided eye contact with the younger aides.

"Hello, Ms. Greenwood," Kyra said with what she hoped was a disarming smile, "how are you doing today?"

Lizzie Greenwood stopped short of her son and cast a panicked glance at Kyra.

"I'm-I'm fine," she barked out. She reached for her son, who subtly shrank back, Kyra noticed.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to have a word with you about our spring project for the children?"

Lizzie straightened up, ears reddening slightly. Her hands were shaking a little. "What now?"

Kyra tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. "The district has given us the go-ahead for the silkworm house, but they refused to help with funding, so we decided to ask each parent to chip in just a little." And threw in our own money too, she said in her head.

Lizzie swallowed, still facing away from her. "How much was it?"

Kyra named what she thought was a reasonable price. Jordan's mother clenched slightly, her ears reddening.

"That's a bit much," she said in a dangerously even voice.

"Oh, but it's actually pretty fair," Kyra put forth hurriedly, "normally silkworms are pretty expensive to obtain, but we found a local supplier who was willing to give a discount—"

"He's gouging ya, if you ask me." Lizzie snapped a cigarette into her mouth, and Kyra pointed frantically to their "no smoking" sign.

Kyra could sense she was losing the battle and grasped for a straw. "Well, perhaps his father could—" almost before the words were out of her mouth, she knew she had said the wrong thing. Lizzie shot her a stricken look, and dropped her unlit cigarette.

"No," she said, "I…he can't."

"I'm so sorry," Kyra gasped out, "I shouldn't have said that, forget it. I'll just tell Maria to excuse you—"

"No," Lizzie said a little more firmly, "I'll…I'll work something out. Somehow. C'mon Jordan."

Kyra stood there, mortified, as Lizzie gathered her little boy's things. She managed to catch up to them at the doorway.

"I-I forgot to give you the address," she stammered out.

Lizzie took it and squinted at it. "Chinatown?"

"From a reliable seller, he's the one who gave us the class hedgehog."

Lizzie grunted a reply. Kyra bent down to tell Jordan goodbye, clandestinely passing his unopened pudding cup to him. For the road, she mouthed to him. The boy looked back at her with empty eyes, and then he and his mother were gone.

At home, Jordan's mother shoved him into the playroom and put on a video. She lit her fourth cigarette since leaving the daycare center and stared bleary-eyed into the mirror.

"Chinatown," she thought, "fuck."


Leon Orcot stared bleary-eyed at a report faxed just that morning, dog-end cigarette hanging limply from the corner of his mouth.

"Chinatown," he said, "fuck."

Jill, perched on the edge of his desk, took the paper from Leon's hands and scanned it, tsking.

"Are you really surprised?" she said, "after all, you seem pretty eager to tie every crime you come across to that shop."

Leon rested his head in a callused hand. "I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to deal with that creepy fruitcake in this case. It's complicated enough as it is."

Jill snatched the cigarette from Leon's mouth and squashed it like a beetle in a nearby ashtray.
"All it means is that we have another lead in the case. D's always been really forthcoming with us, and he brings awesome cheesecake, too. What's your problem with him, anyway?"

Leon couldn't really explain what it was about D that simultaneously creeped him out and obsessed him. He had no words for the mixture of exasperation and anger with D's dubious practice, no easy way to point out that while D was always forthcoming with the truth, he never told them all of it.

"He's a weirdo and a sneaky bastard," was all he could say.

Jill snorted and rolled her eyes. "Glad you're not prejudiced, then. He'll be here at 2 sharp, Leon, and the chief would probably look kindly—well, kind-er—if you gave the paranoia a break for a while."

Leon leaned back in his chair, dropping his ragged sneakers on the desk. He had been operating on too little sleep and too much coffee all day, his chin dipped low on his chest and the edges of objects were beginning to blur together. Los Angeles was in the grip of a heat wave that the barely-functioning AC managed to reduce to muggy warmth in the office. A wasp droned just outside his window, he could hear small, furious taps as it hurled its body doggedly at the glass. His cigarettes lay in the pocket of his jacket, which had long been abandoned on the coat rack by the door. What Leon wanted, what he really needed right now, was some sleep.

"Sure, what the hell?" he said.


Author's note: weelllll, I'm back! I'm kind of resigned to the fact that my output will never be what it once was, inspiration is striking rarely these days. Don't worry, though, I won't leave this one unfinished.