Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Summary: "Hattori-kun? Conan-kun? ...and a murder. Of course. I should have known. Why do you two leave your houses?" "It's not our faults!" "I'm sure the murdered singer will be pleased to know that." In which Heiji and Shinichi must solve a murder and clear the name of a visiting phantom thief.
Pairings: Hints of Heiji/Kazuha, Shinichi/Ran, and some others.
A/N: I own nothing except Anna Wong, Anika Roth, Lady A, Samuel Lewis, Sara Hamilton and Jose Lopez. Bolded words are English. Name comes from the famous choir/rugby song. Also, I write/call Kudo Shinichi/Edogawa Conan Shinichi in this fic - and most likely all of my other fics in the series - but he's still mini. Until I make Ai give him the antidote, anyways. Thanks for warning me, crimsonskyr!
EDIT:(15/02/2013) Fixed grammar errors, comma overuse, and other things. Thank you, mountainelements!
"Da-ad!" Mouri Ran tried to not sound like a whiny, impatient kid, but it was becoming increasingly difficult as her father refused to come out. "Hurry!"
The bathroom door opened, just a crack, allowing Ran to catch the glimpse of her father's annoyed face. "Wait your turn. I need to look good for this party. Yoko-chan will be there, and she's going to be a guest star at the performance!"
"Ran-neechan, I'm done!" Edogawa Conan, the false identity of Kudo Shinichi, decided to play up all the young charms of his currently-seven year old self.
It worked as a suitable distraction. Ran immediately turned on him, checking for loose strands, wrinkles, stains, or anything else that might have made his appearance less than perfect. "You're good, Conan-kun!" she announced after her inspection of his dress was complete.
I could have told you that myself, he thought, but kept silent. She didn't know he was actually her best friend, anyways.
Ran herself was dressed nicely, in a green cocktail dress she had borrowed from her friend Sonoko. Her hair was its usual loose and long self, but she had put on some pearl earrings and a bracelet, as well as some perfume. Like this, it was hard to imagine her as a karate champion instead of an heiress or actress, ready to go to a party.
"I'm sorry you can't take some of your friends, Conan-kun," Ran told him, straightening her dress for the millionth time while she waited for her father to hurry. "But at least Hattori-kun will be there!"
Hattori Heiji was another high school detective, and one that was his close friend. He also knew his secret, and had an unfortunate habit of calling him 'Kudo' in public. Conan made a mental note to kick him should the dark-skinned Osakan choose to do that today.
The party, or rather, the Opening Celebration they were going to was to do some kind of ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first Club A to open in Japan. Of course, it was to be in Beika, and Mouri Kogoro, having been a rising name in detectives nowadays, had been invited, family included. 'Edogawa Conan' wasn't family in the strictest sense, but he was freeloading on them, and since he was young enough he had been allowed to come along.
Club A was a chain of clubs that had an interesting backstory. He had done some research on the establishments, and the owner of the chain restaurants had apparently been a part of some youth singing group in Canada eight years ago. Called 'Songs for the Heart', they had been lucky enough to catch the attention of a mysterious rich benefactor who helped them by donating huge amounts of money to all the charities they sang for. The singing group, then composed of high school kids, had sent a thank you card as well as a request to meet them all in person. The person had agreed to do so and booked a small café for the meeting.
The class had gone to the café with a huge homemade thank you card, fruit baskets, and bouquets of flowers, where they were met with the knowledge that their benefactor had been an internationally wanted thief dressed in a Victorian-style dress. A phantom thief, who went by the name of Lady A. She had popped out of nowhere – or wherever Phantom Thieves popped out of – nine years ago, shortly before Kaitou Kid had gone on his long hiatus. Kind of like Kaitou Kid, she went around stealing things with the golden rule of 'No one gets hurt'. She was lacking in popularity because she didn't perform heists in public like Kid did (then again, Kid was in a category of his own) but she was known for organizing the return of the things she stole in events held for charity, where the audience would decide the price of the stolen good and the former owner would either pay or never see their precious item again. All proceeds went to the very same charity it had been resold at. Most of her popularity came from her 'Steal from the Rich, Give to the Poor' ways.
(Shinichi personally thought Kaitou Kid had the better name. Lady A? Really?)
Long story short, while the teenagers had gawked at meeting the famous thief in person, she thanked them for all the efforts they were putting in to make the world a better place – the charity had been for abused women – and told them to keep up the good job. Then, she left before any of them could think to call the cops.
From then on, for almost all the charity events these kids sang for, Lady A went and not only dropped in her large donations but held many her charity return heists there. Lots of the singing teens grew up to be famous musicians. One of them, a daughter of the head of some rich financial group or another, had decided to open a club and dedicate the name to the lady thief who had helped in their youth. It had become immensely popular, and they now had Club A establishments in sixteen countries. Japan would be the seventeenth.
There were lots of rumours going around about the opening ceremony, like the baseless rumour that Kaitou Kid would crash the party and rob all of the celebrities there. Another unfounded but popular rumour was that Lady A herself would be coming to the opening gala, but there hadn't been a notice of her charity returns, so he thought the chances were unlikely. About as unlikely as there being two internationally wanted pacifist thieves in the country, in the same area. About as unlikely as him ever running into a cleverly-disguised murder. It wasn't like such things happened to him on a daily basis. No, it was more weekly.
Shinichi rubbed the nose of his shrunken nose. He was becoming really cynical. He blamed Haibara's influence.
Call it paranoia, call it detective's intuition. . . but he just knew that he had to get to that party. It could have been the chance to put an International Criminal behind bars (for once), or the possibility (low as it was) of Kaitou Kid being there. There was, of course, the promise that a lot of famous and/or influential people would be there, all eager to be a possible part of Lady A's Japanese debut. Seeing just how many of the well-known people he had managed to run into had been revealed to be a part of the Organization responsible for his shrunken state, he knew there was an excellent chance for one of Them to be there. He would have to keep his eyes and ears open, be invisible in the way only children could be, and cross his fingers for luck to get a desperately needed lead on them.
Oh, and depend on Haibara's sixth-sense for the Black Organization, because she was going too. Apparently, the owner of the chain establishment really liked the professor's inventions, and Ai had managed to charm the woman while she had been in the professor's house.
He still didn't understand, and had a feeling he didn't want to.
The man famous for sleeping while solving seemingly impossible cases finally stepped out of the washroom, dressed in a grey suit. "How do I look?"
"Like someone late to a party!" Ran grabbed her father's arm and began to drag him out, ignoring protests and yelps of pain. "Come on!"
Shinichi followed. And, of course, there was one more reason as to why he was going to the party.
One of the distinguished guests was a very famous novelist known all around the world for the Night Baron.
"Kazuha!"
"Ran!"
Ran was already with her friend from Osaka, talking a mile a minute with each other. And if Toyama Kazuha was here, then chances were-
"Yo, Ku-Conan-kun!"
Shinichi avoided the urge to kick the dark-skinned boy, and instead made his voice as childish and as un-Shinichi-like as possible. "Hi, Heiji-niichan!" he gave a very forced smile to the teenager who had respected the dress code enough to wear a suit, but had also chosen to leave his baseball hat on. They didn't go very well together, but he probably wouldn't leave the hat behind.
He was still going to get kicked, Shinichi promised himself. Just not in front of Ran.
"How've ya been, kiddo?" Heiji asked, bending down to ruffle his hair. Making sure his face wasn't visible to Ran, Shinichi gave him a death glare he had learnt from Haibara herself. "Still a secret, huh?"
"Of course it is!" he hissed while dragging the currently-taller boy to the buffet table. A split-second glance at the spread allowed him to see just how fancy Club A could be. "I told you over the phone, They could be here!"
Heiji glanced around the room, where colors of the women's dresses stood out brightly against the mostly-black tuxedoes of men. "Yeah, they could, huh?"
Shinichi reached to grab a small plate, and began to fill it with food that he could reach. "I hate being short," he muttered gloomily.
The Detective of the West was piling food onto his plate. "It's a pretty international spread here," he commented. "But then again, th' club's from Canada. 'S pretty multicultural there."
"That's right!" a woman popped out of nowhere, giving Shinichi a heart attack and nearly making Heiji drop his plate. "And the food is our way of saying that everyone is welcome!"
Heiji put the undropped and unbroken plate back on the table, and extended a hand, while Shinichi studied her. Tall, Caucasian, bright red hair, green eyes, black dress. . . .
But she spoke Japanese surprisingly well. There were the barest hints of an accent there. That, and her choice of color in dress made him put her on the list of possible BO members, even if she seemed just too ridiculously happy to be in a murderous syndicate.
The woman took Heiji's hand and pumped in enthusiastically. "Hello!" she beamed. "You must be Hattori Heiji, the famous detective!"
"I am," Heiji grinned back. "So I take it that ya heard o' me, then?"
"Of course!" the woman pushed her hair back behind her ear, and Shinichi saw the twinkle of small emeralds before her hair fell again. "I'm a fan!"
"Is that so?" the grin on his face was becoming bigger, and Shinichi would have sworn that his head was inflating with sheer ego.
Time to stop that. "Is neechan the owner of Club A?" he asked sweetly, already guessing the answer.
The redhead turned to properly see 'Conan' for the first time. "Oh my god, you are adorable! Even cuter in real life than on screen!" she exclaimed, slipping into English for the first part of her sentence. She promptly enveloped 'Conan' in a huge rib-bruising hug that left him gasping for oxygen. "Yes, I am! My name's Anika Roth. You're Edogawa Conan, yes?"
His suspicious radar pinged. "You know me?"
"Of course!" she leaned down with a slightly sheepish expression. "Don't tell anyone here about this, but I'm also a Kid fan, and I see you all the time in recent heist news."
That, he had not expected, but now that he thought about it. . . what if the BO recognized him from all the Kid heists he attended? God knew he made the front pages often enough because of it.
"Why can't I tell anyone neechan's a Kid fan?" he asked anyways, playing the curious kid. Well, he might as well just show the world that sometimes, the innocent, never-ending curiosity of a child could foil even the greatest plans.
Anika Roth looked around, seriously looking for listeners. "Because almost everyone here loves Lady A," she whispered. "Oh, don't worry, I like her too, but some of the people here are really hardcore, to the point where they think that Lady A should be the only famous thief. Just last week, Anna and Sara had a huge fight over it all."
"Anna Wong and Sara Hamilton?" Heiji guessed. "Th' two from th' International Coed Choral Group?"
Anika nodded enthusiastically. "Anna was actually one of the students in the original Songs from the Heart, like I was," she smiled. "She always was a great singer. . . . And now she's getting what she deserves."
"Two of ya are friends?"
"Very good friends. She always sings for a gala opening, free of charge! Although, I think that's mostly for Lady A."
"She's one of the hardcore fans?" Heiji began to eat, and Anika passed him a plate well-stocked with good food. It was almost freaky how she had picked the ones he liked, but the smell was absolutely divine. He dug in while she answered.
"Yeah, she is. Anna came from a poor family, so she never expected to go to a good university even if she was good at studying and singing. Actually, I think Anna was good at everything she did. But even so, she just couldn't afford university even with full scholarships, so she was just thinking of giving up and getting married early when Lady A began her Annual Ace Scholarships."
Right. Steal from the rich, give to the poor. Lady A's sacred motto, or the website had said. One of the things she liked to do was help poor students get a chance to go to a good school by financing their education.
"Anika, you're talking about me again, aren't you?"
Conan turned to see a short woman of Asian descent standing with her arms crossed and a bemused expression on her face. Her English sounded perfectly American, although considering the amount of people in here from a certain large northern country it could have just as easily been Canadian-accented.
"Of course," Anika replied before she remembered her manners. "Oh, sorry. Heiji, Conan, this is Anna Wong, my good friend and one of the performers for tonight's gala. She can't speak Japanese so I'll be one of her translators."
Anna gave them a friendly smile, and held up her hand to show the small paper bracelet on her wrist. 'I can't speak Japanese' was in bold black letters across the paper.
"Nice to meet you," Heiji shook Anna's hand. Neither she nor Anika didn't show any surprise at his remarkably-good English. "I'm Hat-Heiji Hattori. This little boy here's Conan Edogawa."
"Nice to meet you!" he greeted.
Anna Wong smiled down at him, and then turned to Anika, face twitching with slight annoyance. "Sara's throwing a tantrum again," she muttered in a low voice. "Sam looks like he's ready to murder her, and Jose had to leave before he could lose his temper."
Shinichi's – and without looking, he knew his friend's had as well – ears perked at the word 'murder' before the rest of the sentence was digested. Oh. Just some woman pissing her coworkers off, if 'Sam' and Jose were really who he thought they were.
Anika made a face. "Sorry, I have to go," she beamed and waved enthusiastically. Who was the kid here? "I'll see you! Enjoy the night!"
And then she was gone in a whirlwind of red hair and black silk. Anna followed, leaving more quietly and calmly.
Heiji took a bite out of his samosa. "I don't know 'bout ya, Kudo," he mumbled around his mouthful of food. "But I'm getting a bad feelin' about tonight."
"You've jinxed us," Shinichi grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.