4
L on the Murder Scene
Lost in Coma and Covered in Cake
L hunched over farther in his chair than normal. An ant was slowly zigzagging its way towards the stack of sugar cubes L had just balanced on his desk. Absentmindedly, L picked up a sugar cube with his index finger and thumb and brought it down upon the ant. He twisted it downwards, squishing the insect. He pressed too hard and the sugar cube crumbled. Triumphantly, the ant emerged from the granules and did an about-face, taking a sugar crystal with it. Watari, L's faithful assistant, entered the room holding a silver tray with an assortment of pastries and cakes on it. He brushed the sugar off the table with a gloved hand and placed the tray in front of L. He lifted an electric kettle of hot chocolate off the warmer from the bookshelf behind L and filled L's ceramic mug. L picked up a doughnut from the tray and dunked it in the hot cocoa, showing little interest in either.
"Something the matter, sir?" Watari asked, a grey eyebrow arched.
"There's nothing interesting happening. No case I would like to pursue." L scratched his head, rustling his spiky, black, matted hair.
This wasn't normal for L, Watari thought to himself. Even if there wasn't a case that challenged him, L could at least find something, however trivial, that interested him.
L's desk was chaotic – on one side of the table there were stacks upon stacks of papers. These were reports of global events and crimes that L had been scanning. The wall behind the desk was covered in TV Screens – each screen broadcasting different news stations across the world. The rest of the space on the desk was given over to sweets – cakes, truffles, lollipops, doughnuts, marshmallows, and so on. L brushed past some papers and grabbed a metal skewer that had rolled underneath the plate of pastries on Watari's tray. With more focus than he afforded to the dunking of the doughnut, L picked up a cream puff and slid it down the skewer. He repeated this process five more times until he had a cream puff kabob. He topped it off with a chocolate-covered mini-éclair.
"Absolutely nothing," L said again, more to himself than to Watari. He picked up the skewer with one hand, and slid it in his mouth, biting off the éclair and three cream puffs. With his other hand, he stirred his mug of hot chocolate with a lollipop and raised the mug to his lips.
"Did you see the breaking story on the Demolition Lovers?" Watari offered.
L closed his eyes, which were dark with heavy circles from lack of sleep. He was in his early twenties, and was surprisingly lean and wiry for all the sweets he consumed. Through his multiple aliases, he was the world's top three detectives simultaneously. He walked with a hunch, no doubt due to constantly leaning forward, looking at evidence, typing, and watching screens. His typical attire, a white shirt and jeans, had taken a rare hit as some cocoa splashed out of his mug and spilled down the front of him.
"Of course," L muttered, grabbing a newspaper by the corner. He held it between his finger and thumb like it was contaminated. "Nothing more than a lovestruck couple thinking they can outrun the law." L lowered the newspaper and blotted the spilled cocoa on his shirt. The incident Watari had referred to had made headlines recently. A male and female couple had performed a string of liquor store robberies and were killed in a blaze of gunfire. "Til Death Did Us Part," one of the headlines proclaimed sensationally.
"What's left to solve?" L sighed and rolled his eyes. Nobody knew who the couple, nicknamed the Demolition Lovers, really were. But that didn't matter to L. Whatever motives they had, whatever delusions they shared, it was all over. The bad guys were dead, for all intents and purposes the case was closed.
Watari adjusted his thick glasses and adjusted his tie to fall back in line with his suit.
"Well then, I shall return to my office. Let me know if I can be of further assistance," Watari said with a bow and exited. Despite being in his late sixties, Watari was just as sharp and quick as ever. He had known L since the latter was a child, and was the one that brought him to the Wammy House, a school for gifted orphans. Watari had watched L's genius grow beyond expectations and had now stepped away from managing the Wammy House to assist L fulltime with his detective work. It was rewarding, and he knew L would get out of this rut. As soon as Watari was back in his office, his computer screen lit up. A white screen with a gothic "L" in Cloister Black font popped up. A call from L already. Watari sat down and pressed his microphone on.
"Why L, what is it?" Watari said, holding back a smile.
Back in L's office, L was holding up the newspaper that he had used to soak up some of the spilled chocolate. He raised it towards the light with one hand, while turning his microphone on with the other. "Did you see the wedding-day massacre?"
Watari rubbed his forehead. "You mean the one in New Jersey, sir?"
"Precisely," L said staring intently at the article he discovered in the newspaper. He plopped an oversized marshmallow into his mouth.
"I would think that one has even less to solve than the Demolition Lovers, sir." Watari's concern didn't register with L. L laid the newspaper down on the desk and thought for a few minutes. He shoved two more marshmallows into his mouth and pressed the microphone on again.
"See Watari, they have this all wrong," L's voice was muffled by the marshmallow. "Here's what we know – a whole wedding party died. Arsenic in the cake it looks like. All the guests, save one in a coma. They said it was a murder/suicide. The baker, the prime suspect, died at the wedding with the 250 guests. It doesn't make sense. Typically, in murder/suicides, the killer takes their own life alone or after the fact. It's more like a cult to have everyone die at once. I suppose we can't rule that out. But something else is bothering me. At what wedding does every single guest try the cake? And they all died? With no witnesses?"
L stared at his screen, which showed a white background and gothic-style W, for Watari, in the center. He waited for Watari's voice to come over the speakers. When it did, it was quiet, just above a whisper. Despite being in a penthouse, the windowless room felt like an expansive cave. Watari's faint voice echoed and reverberated against the walls.
"And this case is what interests you, sir?"
L smiled. "Watari, you should know that anything involving cake is relevant to my interests."