6
L on the Murder Scene
To the End
As Watari made his way to the mansion of the crime scene, L was lost in thought. He never showed his face in public, and he would have to devise a way to investigate in person if need be without revealing himself. For now, Watari would be L's link to the crime scene. Equipped with a small video camera masquerading as a corsage on his suit jacket lapel, an in-ear phone, and a wire, Watari served as L's eyes and ears. The mansion itself was stunning. It sprawled expansively in front of Watari as his black car approached, unfurling across the horizon, blending in as if it stretched out towards infinity. Way Estates, the iron letters proclaimed, nestled between the vertical bars of the foreboding gate. Watari left his car running in neutral as he got out to swing the gate open.
L used this moment to take in what he could see from Watari's corsage-cam. "What a strange place for a wedding," L said under his breath. The mansion of Way Estates was built to evoke the gothic era. There were spiraled towers that flanked either side of the massive wooden door. They rose up towards the heavens, obscured by the grey clouds hanging low in the sky. The outside of the mansion was covered in a dark stone that seemed to deliberately close itself off from visitors. However, the most recent owners must have sought out a country cottage aesthetic. Purple wildflower wreaths were placed over the gargoyles that loomed above the door, pink snapdragons and golden sunflowers lined the flowerbeds on either side of the driving path up to the door.
Despite being blocked off by yellow caution tape and the site being restricted by police, Watari was able to enter Way Estates untroubled. He had the credentials if asked, but the manor was eerily empty and quiet. Watari pushed open the large, oak door and it swung open silently, with little effort. The interior of the mansion reminded L of an impressive old-world cathedral on the inside. As L watched through his monitor, he noted the cavernous entry room – the ceilings arched, the floor was a marbled tile, and there were stone pillars lining the entryway, spanning floor to ceiling. L directed Watari to explore the first level of the house. He walked along the corridor past some artwork and sculptures. L noted a large canvas in a baroque frame. The Black Parade, a placard read. The painting showed a grim reaper leading a black-clad marching band. The painting directly across from The Black Parade was a smaller portrait. It was of an pre-teen boy with dark sunken eyes. Big black circles surrounded each eye, making them look like shiny pennies that had fallen to the bottom of empty twin ponds. The boy was very pale, and had short cropped hair that had been bleached to almost white. Cancer, the placard simply, yet elegantly, read.
"I believe we are in the processional hall," L informed Watari. Guests would have lined up here to greet the newlyweds as the exited the wedding alcove after the ceremony. The rest of the interior has been modernized past this grand entryway. "Turn to the left and enter the servant's area," L instructed. In the time it had taken Watari to drive to Way Estates, L had hacked into the police files and had the blueprints for the manor on one of the screens in front of him.
Watari complied with L's instructions. He walked down the vast corridor and found a modest door. He entered and found himself in a stuffy room filled with bags of stained cloth. A rustic looking washing machine was in the corner of the room, and a scratched-up wooden table filled the center. This room looked nothing like the grandeur of the front of the mansion. The lighting was dim, the once-white plaster walls were now yellowing, and there was a thin layer of grime coating everything.
"There should be a service elevator along the back wall," L instructed. The reception was on the rooftop terrace- an outdoor sunken garden accessible from the eleventh floor." Watari spied the elevator, it blended in with the wall with ease. As he pushed the horizontal doors open, the metal groaned and slowly opened up and down, like an obstinate oyster that spitefully refuses to yield its contents. Watari climbed in and pulled the grate shut. Looking at the buttons, he noticed there was no floor eleven.
"This elevator only goes up to ten, sir," Watari said regretfully.
"Ten it is then," L sighed. "I'm sure there's a way to get there."
Watari selected floor ten and the elevator jerked upwards and dragged itself to its destination. Watari exited and looked around.
"I'm not seeing a staircase on the blueprints," L said intently. "This can't be right."
"Can I help you?" a gritty, but inviting, voice called out to Watari. He spun around and saw a young man standing there. He was wearing a black pinstriped suit and had jet black hair. His face was the color of bone and he reminded Watari of the boy from Cancer, only now in adulthood.
"Yes, I'm with the FBI," Watari said and flashed a credential. He had several, one for the FBI, one for the CIA, one for Interpol, all of which were valid thanks to L's accomplishments. L's services were sought out around the world, and most (if not all) doors were open to him without question. L preferred to investigate on his own before working with the various branches of authority – he found that he could accomplish more independently than by being restricted to the regulatory framework such organizations imposed. There was less red tape with hacking and surreptitiously breaking and entering.
"I need to get up to the eleventh floor," Watari continued.
"I can show you that," the stranger offered. "It's a bit of a trick." The man clearly took Watari's lack of an introduction as an invitation to not offer his own.
"Go ahead, follow him," L whispered into Watari's ear. "Just be vigilant in case he's not as helpful as he seems." Watari nodded to himself and gestured to the man to lead the way.
This level of the mansion was very modern, and quite minimal. There was steel piping visible through a glass ceiling. You could see wood and plaster behind the pipes. The walls were similar – made of a thick glass that revealed the piping and wire work underneath. "How very odd," Watari thought to himself. "Why hide a secret passage on a floor that's so transparent?"
The man stopped at a statue placed on a pedestal along the right-hand wall. It was of a woman with spiky hair and soft features, despite the hard lines used to carve her face into the stone. The pedestal was shrouded in a bright red and orange velvet cloth that was tattered and frayed intentionally. The effect created an illusion of fire, reaching up to consume the bust. Mama, the placard on the statue read. The stranger took out a pick and knelt to the floor. He picked at something on the base of the pedestal behind the statue, and the panel of glass wall jutted out. The man stood up and slid the panel (glass, piping, wires, and all) down to the side. It slid with ease.
L stared intently at the sliding glass door. The whole room was a series of sliding glass doors hidden in plain sight. By giving the illusion of the wiring behind the walls, by having glass instead of plaster covering it, one would assume that the walls were the limits of the room. The door that the man slid open revealed a stair way. Watari and the man followed it up and outside. Here it was, level eleven.
The outdoor courtyard was gorgeous, even with the macabre air that permeated it from recent events. There was a pool at the far end, and a sunken garden in the middle of the space. The expanse was disorienting at first, but it was not hard to imagine how 250 guests comfortably fit up there. There was room for at least double that. "So, it was a small wedding by capacity standards," L thought to himself as he took in the view from Watari's corsage-cam. They were high up enough to see that the gothic façade at the entrance to Way Estates was merely that – something added to give the illusion of dramatic grandiosity. Or perhaps it really had been initially envisioned as an ancient cathedral – and then was expanded to by millionaires with eccentric tastes.
The man cleared his throat. "I'll leave you to it," he called out as he turned away and descended back down the stairs.
On his wall of screens, L had several images of the bodies from the crime scene pulled up, taken from the police files. On his main screen, L kept his stream from Watari's hidden camera running. Darting his eyes from the images of bodies to the now vacant space Watari stood, it wasn't hard for L to juxtapose the sight of 250 bodies scattered around Watari in the courtyard. There were corpses of men floating in the pool, bloated. A woman laying on her back, her hand curled around a rose bush. Bodies laying in the flower beds of the garden like fallen petals. The magnitude of death was staggering. Even without the visuals, Watari could feel the presence of death around him. He was an intruder in a space that could never be reclaimed for the living.
L's thoughts interrupted themselves. He couldn't focus. He knew he had seen that man somewhere before. If he was the model from the Cancer painting, was he an owner of the property? No, he couldn't be. The owners had died at the wedding reception they had attended as guests. L frowned. He wasn't staff, they had all been dismissed and sent away from the police. L pulled up the roster of faces of officers working on the case. The stranger wasn't a part of the task force investigating the alleged murder/suicide of the wedding. L glanced at the newspaper crumpled on the floor and stained with the residue of hot chocolate from the day before. His eyes drifted past the wedding massacre headline and rested on the one that called out "Til Death Did Us Part." There, the article about the Demolition Lovers. He looked at the images of the nameless suspects. The man in the article was the same man who just guided Watari to the eleventh floor of Way Estates! But he had died along with his female accomplice. They should be at the morgue waiting for identification. How could that be? L heard a cracking sound that pulled him out of his mental haze. He looked up at his screens and saw the corsage cam falling in the pool.
"Watari!," L called into the microphone as the camera stream lost signal. "Get out of there!"