Mai Pierce
Charmaine Charmpagne
Holy god! This story lives! Who would have thought?!
CHAPTER THREE
A SUSPECT APPROACHES
The clock ticks away another hour. It's now two in the morning. A press reporter, a jaunty young Brit similar to the officer who stopped Mai from jumping off the pier earlier, walks in. "Hi, Malik," he says to the officer at the front desk.
He is ignored. Pressing on, he walks up and says, "So, what's the good word, chap?"
"My feet hurt. That's the good word," Malik says, not looking up from his report.
"Oh, you'll get me crying." He smiles. "Come on then, how about a nice, juicy item for the morning edition?"
"Nope, Ryou. Not today."
Ryou turns and looks at Mai. He tilts his head, puzzled. "What's she in for, then?"
Malik sighs. "Parking gum under her seat in a movie. Satisfied?" he asks sarcastically.
After Raphael escorts Joey into an auxiliary office, the waiting room is totally silent. Mai is now alone there, surrounded by unfamiliar faces and badges flickering in the room's dim light, watched by suspicious eyes whenever she glances, desperately, to the Inspector's Office, the end of her current line. The only noise in the room is the clock on the wall, ticking away furiously, a noise which makes Mai long for the stifling sound of total quiet. It feels like an eternity since the officers took Joey away; in reality it's been only an hour. But that means it's late now, almost four in the morning, and Mai can feel her insides getting shakier and shakier with each tick of the clock's second hand.
Just as she feels about to physically lose control, ready to vomit and cry and scream and pound her gloved hands on the floor like the chastised two-year-old child she feels like, the phone rings. Mai's stomach drops, and the heartbeat in her head sounds louder than the ticking of a million synchronized clocks. She stares at the phone like a drowning man looking at an anchor as Solomon picks up the receiver.
"Yeah? ...ok." He puts the phone down and, without looking at Mai, says "He wants you now. Now you can talk."
They don't trust her to walk through the door on her own. They think she'll burst into tears, or faint dead away. Or do they think she'd fight them? Regardless, she's walked through the door by her faithful escorts, and fights to keep calm. The only thing she is allowed to do for herself is to move her legs, which she does, placing one foot in front of the other as they approach the Inspector's desk.
The room is oddly lit; as they approach she can see little more of the man than the wild shadow cast by his spiky hair. His face is obscured in shadow, and Mai, incapable of reading him, puts up her guard.
"Inspector, Mai Kaiba," Alistair says by way of introduction.
The Inspector rises to greet Mai, and as he stands he moves into the lamplight, revealing both a gracious smile and a decidedly warm expression in his slanted crimson eyes. "How do you do, Mrs. Kaiba?" His voice is deep and gentle, and comes as a great relief to Mai's frazzled nerves.
"How do you do," Mai responds. Seeing the Inspector, who at least pretends to regard her as a human being, has actually been a welcome surprise, the first for her in many hours, but her voice still sounds weak and tired after hours of forced silence.
"Won't you sit down," he asks, gesturing to a worn-looking chair on the other side of his large desk. She complies, indeed is given little choice as Alistair pulls out her chair and pushes it back in after she sits down. He sits down in a shadowed chair on the far side of the room, with Raphael shutting the door before following suit.
The Inspector remains standing, and as Mai watches him, she is momentarily convinced that she is hallucinating. Before her eyes, the Inspector goes fuzzy around the edges, and things start to change. Slight things: the incline of his impossible hair, the color and shape of his eyes, his height. Her eyes widen before she slips her head down, forcing herself to blink several times to clear this apparition from her sight.
But then he speaks, catching her attention. "I'm so sorry about your husband, Mrs. Kaiba. It must have come as such a shock to you."
Mai just stares, back into his eyes which now seem to be as purple as hers. His voice is so much softer now, the voice of a person infinitely more compassionate than the smooth, respectful person she assumed him to be at first glance. In her confusion, she doesn't venture a response for several seconds, only to quickly realize how her silence must make her look. She dips her head down and nods slightly, heartbeat racing again as she struggles to understand the man she'll have to fool.
But then the next time she looks up, he's stepped back and is returning to his chair, and in the dimmer light his edges look a lot crisper, more real. His hair is back to normal, his height returned, his eyes once again narrow and crimson red. Dismissing the whole thing as a trick of the light, Mai grips the armrests on her chair and focuses on stopping the desperate sadness she suddenly feels from leaking into the stoic expression on her face.
"Well," the Inspector says, tucking his chair in. "I'm...afraid I don't quite know how to begin. You see, the fact of the matter is, Mrs. Kaiba...we don't need you."
Shock is evident in Mai's wide eyes. Still, her voice is controlled and calm as she dumbly repeats the Inspector's words. "You...don't need me?"
The Inspector continues, "I don't know how to apologize for bringing you down her for nothing, but you understand. We had to be sure." He smiles warmly at Mai, an attempt at assurance. "Well, now we are sure."
Mai's hand curls on the desk as she leans in, confusion and anxiety swirling in her head. "Aren't you going to ask me questions? I...I thought you would, ask me questions."
"I know, Mrs. Kaiba," the Inspector begins, "everyone thinks we detectives do nothing but ask questions. But, detectives have souls, same as anyone else." His eyes flicker as he pushes a wooden box over to Mai's side of the desk. "Cigarette?"
"No, thank you," Mai says shortly, her gaze never leaving the Inspector's face.
"Go ahead, it's all right," he says, in that soft voice which, once again, throws her for a loop. Unthinkingly, she takes a cigarette from the box and raises it up, jumping slightly as Raphael silently comes up from behind her, striking a match to light her smoke.
She breathes fire into the cigarette as the Inspector starts to speak, his voice smooth and deep again. "You know, Mrs. Kaiba, being a detective is like, well, like making an automobile. You just take all the pieces and put them together one by one, first thing you know you've got an automobile."
Raphael slinks away back to his shadowed chair as Mai takes her first drag and places the box delicately back on the desk. The Inspector smiles as he continues, voice darkening. "'Yes, an automobile. Or a murderer."
At this Mai's eyes snap back to the Inspector's, searching desperately for an answer, which he summarily provides. "And we got him."
Mai opens her mouth, a million questions fumbling around her tongue, but she barely manages to blurt out a gasp of air before the Inspector continues.
"Oh, you're in the clear, Mrs. Kaiba. Case is on ice. So you can go now." His eyes flick over to the corner, and he addresses Alistair and Raphael. "Alright, men."
The pair stand up, as does the Inspector, and all begin preparing to leave. Mai, anticipation making her dizzy, feels like an overinflated balloon as she shoots up from her chair to address the Inspector before he exits the room. Breathlessly, she asks, "Could you...would you tell me, who-"
"Who did it?" the Inspector finishes calmly. He turns from where he stands, putting his briefcase together, and walks back to his desk to look at Mai. "Sure. You're entitled to know." He smoothly reaches down and pushes a button on his desk, producing a loud buzz. He then turns around and resumes gathering his things.
Seconds later, the Inspector's door opens, and at the click of the doorknob Mai whirls around to greet it. At first she just sees Tristan and Duke, each with a hand grasped firmly on the man they're escorting, the man who has been accused of shooting Mai's husband.
Taking a deep breath, Mai steadies her feet on the floor and raises her eyes to see the suspect, whom she is prepared to stare down with her best poker face. But when her eyes do meet his, Mai's face drops in surprise. It's not who she expected. Waves of horror pass over her, her stomach cramps, her eyes water. The nights events and the consequences they carry are suddenly very real to her, and she is totally disgusted, with the situation, with herself, with everything.
"No...no!" She looks helplessly at the condemned, and he stares back at her, his face hard and resigned.
"Yes," The Inspector says. "He did it. Your first husband. Wheeler."
Thoughts? Complaints? Bewilderment at this thing's sudden and unexpected resurrection? Let me know!
Chapter Four may or may not be coming soon! Live in anticipation, everyone!