Chapter 3
K and the death of near
"As you all know, someone needs to replace Near." Vladimir Kota, the head of the FBI, says addressing the four FBI agents in front of him. They all looked at each other, thinking the same thing.
"Who will it be?" Max Mar'tee asks anxious, voicing their unanimous thought.
"It won't be any of you." Vladimir's eyes narrowed. The four looked at each other once more, some a bit agitated.
A woman cleared her throat, swallowing thickly because of the tension.
"Then…who?" She, Rachel Vega, asks with a pause.
Vlamdir smiled, pleased with who the successor was.
"Allow me to introduce, K, the sole successor of Near." Vladimir announces Waving his hand in the hair overzealously. "K you can come in now." He calls.
"Don't tell me what to do." A voice called from the other room. It's pitch was odd. It sounded childish due to the statement, but rather elegant in the same fashion. A young man, who all the agents assume dot be Kid, enters the FBI room, folding back the last piece of a paper swan.
He's wearing white jeans, and a long sleeved black shirt that covers most of his hands with the collar falling off one shoulder, and military boots that didn't seem to fit with the rest of his attire. He also adored sunglasses, despite being indoors. His skin is a pasty white and unkempt shaggy black hair.
"Who's this?" Josh Va-tee asks.
"You may address me as Kid." The youthful, but strangely broken boy answers, voice still holding that hallow elegance.
"Could you be? Are you…from Whammy's house?" Matsuda Touta asks, Kid's eyes, though hidden, grow wide.
"Interesting. You know about Whammy's house?" Kid asks.
"Yes, I worked with L until… well, that's not important." He says smiling, trying to ease the tension.
"Someone who worked with the real L, wow." Kid says to himself, as his eyes bounce back and forth, unsure for a moment.
"Anyway, I'm here to investigate the murder of my mentor, Near." Kid said, snapping out of his trance about as quick as he went in it.
"We're about a twenty minute drive away from the crime scene, want me to drive you?" Matsuda asks.
"As much as I would love to see his dead body, no. I don't think I'll need to leave this room to solve this case, or the one he was working on." The boy says, pulling out his laptop.
"Does this kid really know what he's doing?" Josh asks, a little doubtful.
"He knows more about what he's doing then any of us probably ever will." Vladimir says, displaying his confidence, and probably a tad bit of pride, in the boy.
"So what exactly is Whammy's house?" Rachel asks, cocking her head to the side.
"Well it's a-"
"Don't answer that." Kid interrupts, holding his hand up to make his point clear. Enough people knew about it already. He was actually a bit surprised that Matsuda worked with L, knew about Whammy's house, and was fully prepared to blab about it in front of three untrustworthy people. Matsuda nodded quietly and looked down, realizing his mistake, then Kid continued glaring at the screen, followed by the rapid clicking of buttons in succession.
"The first thing I'm going to ask you all to do is hand over your guns." Kid starts, putting his laptop aside on Vladimir's desk and one by one they put their guns on the desk next to the laptop.
"What's all this about? We aren't going to shoot you." Rachel says, a bit indignant.
"The killers gun should tell us who the murderer is." Kid clarified, picking up one gun and unloading all the bullets. "That one was full. You're off the hook." He says, handing the empty gun back to Rachel.
"The killer shot Near. So, their gun should be missing a bullet, unless they reloaded their gun or didn't report something, which is strictly against FBI regulations." Kid said, emptying another gun, as each bullet one by one hit the floor, and hands the now empty gun to Matsuda. Of course, Kid knew that a murderer wasn't exactly against breaking an FBI rule. It would be highly unlikely for him to actually find something by doing this. It was mostly a show, an act for the real killer, which Kid had already pinpointed.
"But if it was one of us, wouldn't the killer have thought ahead?" Matsuda asks.
"Probably, but we should still check every small detail." Kid lied, littering the floor with bullets as he hands the third empty gun to Max and makes eye contact with Josh.
"One left." Kid says, emptying the gun, slipping one bullet in his sleeve, and putting the rest on the table instead of dropping them to the floor like the others. "One bullet missing." Kid says certainly.
"What? No! That's impossible." Josh said aloud. He knew he used a different gun to kill that albino freak! It was in the back of his pants as they spoke.
"Tell me, what do you know about Whammy's house?" Kid asks.
"I-I don't know anything about Whammy's house." He admitted.
"Are you the highest ranking FBI agent that was working with Near?" He directs cleverly, leading the killer to a confession.
"Yes." He admits once more, not following along.
"So, without any knowledge of Whammy's house, it would be safe to assume you'd believe yourself to be the one to replace Near?" Kid asked.
"Not necessarily, Matsuda did work with the original L and does know something about the Death note, most people don't even believe it exists." He futilely tried.
"That knowledge does not make him qualified to be the successor of L's successor." Kid said bluntly, rolling his eyes behind the reflective blue lenses.
"Tell me, as a head FBI agent, what do you specialize in?" Kid asked.
-Poison- A recording of Nears voice said over the laptop at the click of a button.
"Honestly, I don't even need to be asking you these questions to be putting you behind bars. Near left me enough evidence in a few voice recordings alone. It's almost ridiculous to even think that my expertise was needed, but seeing as this was Near…" Kid mumbled, drifting off a bit before clicking on something else.
-The killer uses poison. I ruled out all civilian possibilities, some due to the lack of know-how, others the lack of expenses, not to mention lack of ability to gain a large number of lethal poisons and security clearance. The building I am currently residing in was built by L with the intention of keeping Kira out. That and lack of civilian motive. I've started searching the backgrounds of my own FBI agents, and, if I had done this sooner, I could have had this case solved in a day's time. If I am to die, He would have the most to gain, at least from his knowledge. He also has the most knowledge of poison. By tomorrow, if I'm dead, especially by any means other than poison, it means he killed me. I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to solve this case without these voice recordings, but by tomorrow, my killer may very well be Josh Va-tee.- The recording ends.
"No! I refuse to let it end this way." Josh yells, pulling out the gun in the back of his pants, as Vladimir pulls out his and shoots him once in the back; Josh falls on the floor.
Kid moves toward the wheezing body, prying the gun from the soon-to-be corpse's hand, emptying the cartage.
"One bullet shy." Kid muses, almost wishing there had been more to Near's death than that.