Disclaimer: Detective Conan and Magic Kaito is not mine.

Warning: I don't know how to kill people without others knowing.

O Pandora, Pandora, Wherefore art thou Pandora?

Chapter 10: Retain that dear perfection which he owes

"Which building?" Heiji demanded as he shoved his way through the growing crowd of screaming onlookers to the building that was pointed out.

"Hakuba, go help Hattori secure that building and make sure no one leaves." Shinichi quickly ordered before turning around at having no response back. "Hakuba?"

The British Detective paled as he looked at the ground in front of the other detective. The body was faced down so he couldn't get a clear look, but the brown suit and short hair suggests the victim to be male. There was gunshot wound on the back of the head; blood was still spilling out of it, not to mention all the blood splattered on the ground where he fell.

"Hakuba!" Shinichi's worried shout startled him out of his stupor. "Are you alright? You can take a seat over there if you need."

"No, I'm fine." Saguru took a deep breath to help calm himself and tried not to look at the body again.

"Good. I need you take Kaito and help Hattori secure that building."

"I'm staying here with you." Kaito said firmly while holding onto Shinichi's shirt sleeve. He was equally as pale as Saguru, but kept a straight face, not letting it show how much the bloody body has shaken him up.

While Saguru is ok with corpses, he's never seen one that fresh as he was usually called to the crime scene after the body has been out for a while and never stumbled across them like Shinichi and Heiji usually does. Kaito on the other hand never had to deal with dead bodies before and was quite shaken up and didn't want the leave the comfort of Shinichi's side, even if it has to be near the body.

"Are you sure?" He placed a hand on Kaito's cheek and received a nod in return. "Ok. Hakuba, please help Hattori, I'll have Kaito help me with crowd until the police get's here."

Saguru nodded and took a glance at his unusually calm and quiet classmate before looking for Heiji, more than happy to leave the blood splattered body to the one that's seemed the least concerned with the gore.

By the time Takagi and Sato arrived, the body and the five story building has been cordoned off from anyone coming or leaving. Shinichi and Kaito lead the two police detectives to where Heiji and Saguru had the fifty-some employees waiting.

The building has different business operating on different floors and each business had about 8-13 employees, plus three cleaning people for the whole building. The victim worked on the fourth floors as an editor for a small book publishing company. According to his coworkers, he was a very decent man. Hard to see how anyone would want to kill him.

One employee from the 5th floor saw the man go up to the roof with the new cleaning lady that just started today. The problem now is locating her. All the exits were guarded so she couldn't have gotten out yet. Saguru remembered bringing someone fitting her description into the room earlier and had seen no one has leaving the room.

Working on a hunch, Shinichi asked for the building's blueprint. He sent officers to guard all the vents on that floor and Kaito into the one in that room. "Take this with you. He pinned a small button onto Kaito's collar. "You can use this to communicate with me." He pointed to a similar button on his shirt. "Let me know if anything happens or if you need help. Be careful, I'm sure she still has a gun on her. I'd go myself, but Hattori would have my hide if I did." He said, hoping that Kaito was calm enough to not make a mistake and get shot.

Kaito gave a mock solute and grinned, more than happy to put his KID skills to use to catch a killer. "Yes Sir!" And silently boosted himself up to the vent and disappeared into the maze of duct work.

"Why won't you let him go?" Saguru whispered to Heiji.

"Because he has a habit of getting shot and I don't want to clean up after him if I don't have to." Heiji mumbled.

"And he sent Kuroba who isn't a detective instead of us?"

"We're too big and wouldn't be able to move around as quietly as those two."

Saguru had nothing to say to that since it was true. After chasing KID and witnessing Kaito's constant pranking at school, he had no doubt about Kaito's ability to move around in small space with no one noticing. But he was worried about the gun still on the culprit.

After a few more minutes of waiting, Saguru heard some clangs and a thump echoing from the vent above and Kaito's cherry voice come from both Shinichi's and Heiji's direction, "Shinichi, the killer lady is out cold and in the hands of the law."

"Good job, Kaito. Can you get back here?"

Saguru eyed Heiji's button and raised an eyebrow in question.

"Got it from Kudo." Heiji sounded quiet proud of himself. "Got a lot of nifty gadgets from him and they come in real handy. There's a tracking device in this button thing, his watch, cell phone – don't look at me like that."

"You sound like a stalker." Saguru himself understands the handiness of having technology to help with case works, but the thought of having a tracking device on everything he carries just didn't sound very safe. Especially if someone were to want to off him and uses it against him.

"I'd like to see you try to keep track of him without it."

"Why do you need to go to such lengths to watch over him. He's a respectable detective and I'm sure he can take care of himself."

"Ha! Respectable? Sure he's got lots of admirers, but he's forgetful and eats when he remembers to, very bad at telling people where he is, and very prone to finding dead bodies out of nowhere. Once he disappeared for a few days, only to be found at a crime scene. No one could find him or get in contact with him. Megure-keibu even sent out a search team for him when Neechan reported him missing since he didn't go to school during that time."

"And they sent you?"

"Because our families know each other and it's even better since we're the same age and all. It's better than giving him a babysitter. He's too old for one."

To Saguru, it was Hattori that was the crazy one, not Kudo. But then again the other didn't even flinch when the body came into view. It was like it was the most normal thing to happen. Or perhaps I'm the only sane one in this group.

Shinichi internally sighed, wishing Heiji wouldn't talk so much about those kind of things. Especially to someone like Saguru, who, if curious enough, may looking to things he doesn't need to know.

"Kudo-san, how did you know she was in the duct work?" Saguru questioned, just as Kaito dropped out of the vent.

"You said you escorted her to this room and that door is the only exit and entrance to this room, and there's no window for her to climb out of. That leaves the vent as the only other passage way, one that many wouldn't think of. I remembered KID doing the same once, so it wouldn't be impossible for someone else with a smaller build than his to fit through it."

Of course, why didn't I think of it? Saguru felt ashamed for not thinking of it first after being around Kaito and KID so often.

"She's probably the serial killer we've been looking for. Someone's been going around killing males of about 30-40 years of age, they were all shot in the back of the head with a silencer. No one heard the gunshots, the victims are always found a few hours after being shot and alone. No witnesses and no clues. I'm guessing this time she couldn't get the victim alone, so she disguised herself to get close to him. She probably would have gotten away if we didn't get here in time; drop the disguise and walk out normally before the police get here. It's just too bad that a body had to drop in front of us just to get our attention." Shinichi said as they walked towards the policemen to follow them out.

It was a few hours later that they were able to leave after giving their statements and heard the woman' motive when she woke up thirty minutes after being put to sleep. She's 33, still single was constantly nagged by her mother about still being single at her age. The constant nagging caused her depression and the want of revenge on all her ex for dumping her.

Shinichi was correct in guessing it was hard to get the last victim alone. She tried to escape through the vent out of panic, but got lost in its maze.

"You guys go through that for every case? How time consuming." Kaito complained while stretching his arms over his head.

"It usually takes longer when we have no suspects or too many suspects, but this time it was easy. She gave herself away by running." Shinichi walked by his boyfriend's side.

"It's already late. Let's get dinner instead of making something." Heiji said suddenly.

"I can't believe you're thinking about food after that." Saguru said in disgust.

"What? You're still thinking about that body? It's been a few hours already. Flush it out of your mind." Heiji waved his hand over his head to shoo away the image of the body.

"It was kinda gross the way the blood went splat all over the place. I'm surprised we weren't hit by some blood sprays." Kaito said. Both his and Saguru's face paled just remembering.

"Try not to think too much about it." Shinichi said softly to Kaito, holding his hand while they walked. "We'll take our time and shop for grocery to clear our minds. I'll make dinner tonight. Hakuba-kun, why don't you join us?"

"If I wouldn't be imposing."

"Of course not."

"Are the others coming over tonight?" asked Heiji.

"No, they all have plans."

"Those kids of yours are scary." Kaito said.

"It's how they were raised before I took them in. You'll get use to it."

"You have children?" Saguru asked, startled by the news.

Heiji laughed before explaining. "No, no. Those kids of his are older than him. He's sort of taking care of them and letting stay in his extra house on either side of the mansion."

"That's…interesting." That didn't make any sense and somehow, for once, he didn't want to know.

They spent the next two hours taking their time walking to the grocery store and picking out things to cook. Their conversation topics went from anything to everything they could think of the cheer up the two Ekoda residents. Even with Heiji teasing Saguru ("Can't believe you'd get sick over that." "I'm not the only one. Go bother Kuroba." "He's not a detective, he has a good excuse.")

Author's note: It seems what I said in the last author's note is a bit misleading, English isn't my first language, but I went to school in the US (English and writing was my worst subject because I just don't understand). The first few years was just a nightmare since I had a hard time understanding what the teachers were saying, I was just dumped in school with no understanding of the language. It's just that my vocabulary isn't as wide and varied as others are.

I write my stories with a dictionary open (gave up on the thesaurus in fear of using big words wrong) to make sure I'm using some words right (that could be why it takes me forever to type it up and upload). Even when I talk, I say random things and use words incorrectly and have to be correct. -_- But thank you all for the nice things you've said. It made me feel better about myself. Even told my sister (English teacher) and she laughed at you guys since you don't know me very well. XD