Magnus's Point of View
When, at precisely twelve minutes past four by the ormolu clock on Magnus's mantel, the telephone interrupted, Magnus was deep in the papers. Lucy had become a legend. Scarlet-minded headline artists had named her tragedy THE BACHELOR GIRL MURDER and one edition was tantalizingly titled SEEK ROMEO IN EAST SIDE LOVE-KILLING. By the necromancy of modern journalism, a gracious young woman had been transformed into a dangerous siren who practiced her wiles. People were commenting on how men left her apartment and snuck in. Her generous way of life had become an uninterrupted orgy of drunkenness, lust, and deceit, as titillating to the masses as it was profitable to the publishers. At this very hour, Magnus reflected as he lumbered to the telephone, men were bandying her name in pool parlors and women shouting her secrets from tenement windows.
Magnus heard Laxus Dreyar's voice through a comm. "Mr. Lydecker, I was just wondering if you could help me. There are several questions I'd like to ask you. Can you come over?"
"Where?"
"The apartment. Lucy's place."
"I don't want to come up there. It's cruel of you to ask me."
"Sorry," he said after a moment of cold silence. "Perhaps the Duke can help me. I'll try to get in touch with him."
"Never mind. I'll come."
Laxus's Point of View
Just as Laxus wanted Vincent and Magnus were at Lucy's place the next day.
"What are you doing here?" Magnus asked rage in his eyes.
"I could ask the same of you-"
"Calm down I asked both of you to come here." Laxus said hands in his pockets. He had his headphones on AC/DC was playing.
"Why would you ask us to do that? Surely one person was good enough." Magnus hissed through his teeth.
"For entertainment." He shrugged, "and to ask a few questions." Laxus had grabbed the spare key from Mira earlier that morning. He would be using this one from now on. Laxus eyed both men, they were wearing mourning suits. Waldo was fiddling with his walking stick.
"How do you have a key to Lucy's apartment?" Magnus exclaimed surprised.
"You don't?" Laxus asked. He was waiting on his answer.
"I do not." Magnus said with a straight face. "That doesn't answer my question though."
"It's none of your business on why I got a key Lydecker." Laxus grunted. He opened the door and was shocked. "What the hell are you guys doing here?" He exclaimed. In the apartment was Team Natsu. Erza turned around her armor clanking as she moved.
"After we got off the phone last night, I grew concerned about this missing key and Lucy's keys also missing."
"What is this about a key?" Magnus asked stepping into the apartment uneasy. It was grizzly for him being there. His beloved Lucy was murdered in this exact room, he took off his hat.
"Lucy's celestial keys are missing." Gray said coming out of the bathroom in nothing but his underwear. Vincent and Magnus's eyes widen. Laxus rolled his eyes. "Gray you're clothes!"
Gray looked down. "WHAT!? How did that happen!?"
Laxus rolled his eyes, he looked around. "Where's Natsu?"
Natsu and Happy emerged out of Lucy's bed. "What the hell were you doing in the bed!? Don't you understand this is a crime scene!?" Laxus yelled.
Natsu shrugged, "we miss her." He wrapped himself in Lucy's blanket. Vincent and Magnus looked disturbed and enraged.
Magnus shook his head and looked outside Lucy's window. The street had yielded to the spirit of a carnival. Popcorn vendors and pushcart peddlers, sensing the profit in disaster, offered ice-cream sandwiches, pickles, and franks to buzzards who battened on excitement. Sunday's sweethearts had deserted the green pastures of the Park to stroll arm-in-arm past her house, gaping at daisies which had been watered by the hands of a murder victim. Fathers pushed perambulators and mothers scolded the brats who tortured the cops who guarded the door of a house in which a bachelor girl had been slain.
Laxus sighed, "a house key is missing. I was going to question you two about it but now-"
"Lucy's celestial keys are more important." Natsu stated.
Laxus glared. Magnus sighed. "I would have to agree. Lucy's spirits meant the world to her. Her father tried to deter her but most had belonged to her mother and that alone kept Lucy clinging to them."
Laxus nodded, he got it. The keys were important. Laxus watched Magnus stare at the commotion outside. "Murder is the city's best free entertainment. I hope it doesn't bother you, Mr. Lydecker."
"Quite the contrary. It's the odor of tuberoses and the timbre of organ music that depress me. Public festivity gives death a classic importance. No one would have enjoyed the spectacle more than Lucy." He sighed.
"If she were here now, she'd open the windows, pluck daisies out of her window-boxes and strew the petals on the sidewalks. " Vincent said smiling.
Team Natsu smiled at that. Gray rubbed the back of his head. "She would have wanted a celebration and no one crying that's for sure."
"Aye." Happy said his voice shaking. He missed Lucy.
Laxus plucked a daisy and tore off the petals from the opened windows flower box. He was going to get on to Natsu about this later. That was probably how het got in.
"Lucy loved dancing in the streets. She gave dollar bills to musicians when she could." Magnus replied looking out the window.
Laxus shook his head. "You'd never think it."
"She also had a taste for privacy." Erza said. "Not that we gave her much." She smiled at that. Her eyes drifted towards a photo of Lucy and her. Her and Lucy were hugging one another they were in bikinis. Lucy had a yellow ruffled top and some flowery bottoms of blue, red, and yellow colored flowers. Erza had donned her black one. Natsu and Gray were in the background in their swim trunks too. They were at the beach when that photo was taken. They had been blowing off some steam after a mission. Natsu had his scarf wrapped around his head frowning. While Gray was giving the camera a thumbs up. Happy's face was barely in the corner, he had been the one to take the picture. A tear came out of her eye. She wiped it away quickly. Now wasn't the time to cry. She would make the murderer cry instead...
"It was this taste for privacy that led to her death, for there was no one to ask at the door if she was expecting a visitor on the night the murderer came." Vincent said quietly.
"The doorbell rang," Laxus announced suddenly.
"What?" Vincent said confused.
"That's how it must have happened. The doorbell rang. She was in the bedroom without clothes on. By the time she'd put on that silk thing and her slippers, he'd probably rung a second time. She went to the door and as she opened it, the shot was fired!"
"How do you know all this?" Magnus demanded.
"She fell backward. The body lay there." Laxus said and pointed.
"I'd have to agree with Laxus." Erza mused. " If the killer broke in, Lucy would have summoned a spirit. If she opened the door she wouldn't have had time. But what I don't get is why a house key is missing. Also her celestial keys are highly valuable, wouldn't we want to be pursuing that avenue-"
"Lucy didn't go anywhere without her keys." Gray said sitting on the sofa. Magnus looked upon the young man in disdain. "Do you have a problem with me?" Gray bristled. "Yes! You're naked in Lucy's apartment! And you're part of the reason why the press is having field day with the headlines saying she's a promiscuous lewd woman." Magnus said venmously.
Natsu sighed. "Luigi dressed like that all the time. She dated we all knew that. The papers know we weren't having orgy's. Everyone knows Gray has a stripping problem. And everytime Gray was here Erza was here too. And no one would think Erza would have a orgy. Unless they want to get casterated." Erza smirked in agreement.
Magnus glared at Natsu. Laxus was stunned, he was not expecting Natsu to say that. Laxus and Natsu both stared at the bare, polished floor. Natsu had seen the body, the pale blue garment blood-stained and the blood running in rivulets to the edge of the green carpet.
"The door downstairs had evidently been locked. It was locked when we got here the next morning. The tenants of the first and second floors are away for the summer and there was no one else in the house. The houses on both sides are empty, too, at this time of year." Erza said looking around the apartment again for something.
"Probably the murderer thought of that," Laxus observed.
"She might have been expecting a caller?" Vincent asked.
"Do you think so?" Laxus asked the group. Something didn't sit right with that answer.
"You knew her, better than I did or will. Tell me, what kind of dame was she anyway?"
"She was not the sort of woman you call a dame," Magnus retorted.
"Okay. But what was she like?" Laxus asked bored. Laxus was partially lying he combed almost every bit of Lucy's life last night. Reading her diary and letters. He stayed up till 5 am in the morning reading her novel...
"Look at this room. Does it reveal nothing of the person who planned and decorated it? Does it contain, for your eyes the vulgar memories of a young woman who would lie to her fiancé,"
"Ex fiance!" Natsu exclaimed. "She never agreed to engagement again." Gray and Erza nodded. Vincent looked sheepish. "Fine! Deceive her oldest friend, and sneak off to a rendezvous with a murderer?" Magnus was livid with the situation. If he failed to appreciate the quality of a woman who had adorned this room, Magnus should know that his interest in literature was but the priggish aspiration of a seeker after self-improvement, his sensitivity no more than proletarian prudery.
Natsu shook his head again. He looked around the room. He could still smell her through the comforter. The crowding memories of fire lit conversations, of laughing at dinner, midnight confidences after Phantom Lord happened filled his mind. He missed his best friend. He now had lost both Lisanna and Lucy. He looked at the floor. This was a lot for him to process.
Laxus chose the long green chair, stretching his legs on the ottoman. His eyes traveled from the fireplace in which the logs were piled, ready for the first cool evening, to softly faded chintz whose deep folds shut out the glare of the hot sun.
After a time he burst out: "This place has—" he hesitated "—it's very comfortable." He admitted. He looked at Lucy's desk. That must have been where she wrote.
Magnus rolled his eyes, "I think the word in your mind had been class." Vincent rolled his eyes. "You're a marvelous company you know that?" Magnus glared at him. Laxus's attention wandered to the bookshelves.
"She had a lot of books. Did she ever read them?" Laxus inquired.
Natsu snorted. Laxus looked like he was ready to electrocute him. In fact he was ready to electrocute everyone. Natsu looked sheepish.
"What do you think?" Magnus asked sarcastically. Laxus let some of his magic seep under the floorboards. Magnus went down with a scream. Vincent looked shocked. Erza and Gray took pity on the man. Laxus shrugged calmly. "You never know about women."
"Don't tell me you're a misogynist?" Vincent asked scared he would be electrocuted but also curious.
He clamped his teeth hard and glanced at Vincent with an air of urchin defiance. Erza raised an eyebrow genuinely curious at Laxus's answer.
"Come, now, what of the girlfriend?" Vincent pleaded. Gray and Natsu looked at Laxus curiously. Laxus was a playboy they had heard of women parading around they had slept with him. But as far as they knew he never had gone steady with one.
Laxus answered dryly: "I've had plenty in my life. I'm no angel." Laxus had dated but nothing had been serious. No woman had really caught his attention for long. He also didn't trust women. Most wanted the fame and money that came with being his woman. Hard finding women who were genuinely interested in him.
"Ever loved one?" Magnus asked crisply getting back up.
"A doll in the Heights got a fox fur out of me. So make what you want of it."
"Ever know one who wasn't a doll? Or a dame? Or a broad?"
Laxus went to the bookshelves. While he talked, his hands and eyes were concerned with a certain small volume bound in red morocco. Laxus laughed, "no. If a woman wants me they have to put up with me. Even the bad parts." He snapped the cover on the red morocco volume. The shrill blast of the popcorn whistle insulted their ears and the voices of children rose to remind them of the carnival of death in the street below.
"What did you want to ask us Dreyar? Why did you bring us up here?"
Laxus was about to say something until something caught his eye. It was a vinyl album, it was Black Ice. Laxus was stunned. It was signed.
"What's this?"
"Surely a man of your music taste is familiar with a vinyl record." Magnus said.
"But why is it here in her apartment?" He emphasized the pronoun. She had begun to live.
"I haven't been around to know the precise date when this object was introduced into the household."
"I can answer that," Natsu said. "We saw them together not too long ago."
Laxus was shocked. "You like AC/DC?"
Natsu shrugged. "Lucy is WAY more of a fan that I am. Concerts aren't my thing because dragon ears. It hurts my head. But I went with Lucy 'cause that's her thing. I like them and she asked me to come along."
"How did she get them sign it?"
Natsu blushed embarrassed. "She flirted her way back stage."
Laxus's eyes widen.
"There were many facets to her character." Magnus finally said.
"Vincent are you a fan, too?"
"Will the answer to that question help you solve the murder, my dear fellow?" Vincent asked.
"I just wanted to know. If it bothers you to answer the question. . ."
"There's no reason to get sullen about it," Vincent snapped. "No I don't."
Laxuss glare bore into Vincent. Finally he said, "so I called everyone here to ask them about a missing house key I was wondering if you or anybody knew where it was."
Natsu frowned. "She had a spare key. She offered to give it to me. But I didn't want it. I climbed through the window anyways." Envy flashed in Magnus's and Vincent's eyes. Laxus scowled, he was annoyed he was annoyed by that fact as well.
Vincent was the first to recover. "Well it's perfectly logical that she had a spare. I'll bet it was in her desk. It's where she kept the most important things." He said smugly looking at Magnus as if to rub it in his face he knew that. Magnus looked annoyed. Vincent straightened his suit jacket and went about looking through Lucy's desk.
Near the door, a few feet from the spot where the body had fallen, hung Stuart Jacoby's portrait of Lucy. Jacoby, one of the imitators of Eugene Speicher, had produced a flattened version of a face that was anything but flat. The best feature of the painting, as they had been her best feature, were the eyes. The oblique tendency, emphasized by the sharp tilt of her brows, gave her face that shy, fawn-like quality which had enchanted people. Jacoby had caught the fluid sense of restlessness in the position of her body, Lucy held the collar of her blue vest with gold trim in her hands on what appeared to be a table. Her long blonde hair was swept to the side. The portrait was a trifle unreal, however, a trifle studied, too much Jacoby and not enough Lucy.
"She wasn't a bad-looking da—" Laxus hesitated, smiled ruefully, "—girl, was she?"
"That's a sentimental portrait. Jacoby was in love with her at the time."
"She had a lot of men in love with her, didn't she?"
"She was a very kind woman. Kind and generous." Erza stated sitting on the couch.
"That's not what men fall for Titania." He said smirking at her portrait he could see that her boobs were on display in the portrait.
"She had delicacy. If she was aware of a man's shortcomings, she never showed it." Magnus said breaking his thoughts.
"Full of bull?"
"No, extremely honest. Her flattery was never shallow. She found the real qualities and made them important. Surface faults fell away." Gray answered. Laxus studied the portrait.
"She wasn't like women in your past. Lucy had no need for a parlor suite. Marriage wasn't her career. She was establishing her career, she made money, and there were always men to squire and admire her. Marriage could give her only one sort of completion, and she was keeping herself for that." Magnus added. "Well it's not in her desk. Maybe her bedside table?" Vincent called, he went to go and look.
"Keeping herself busy," Laxus added dryly when Vincent left.
"Would you have prescribed a nunnery for a woman of her temperament? She had a man's job and a man's worries. Knitting wasn't one of her talents. Who are you to judge her?" Magnus criticized.
"Keep your shirt on," Laxus said. "I didn't make any comments.
"Tell me Dreyar why did they photograph her body in that horrible position?" Magnus finally asked.
Laxus rolled his eyes but looked back at the painting. "When a broad gets murdered she doesn't care about how she looks-"
"Would you stop calling her a broad!" Magnus demanded. "She wasn't just some broad!" Before Laxus could retort. Vincent's voice called out, "found the key! It was in her bedside table "
Laxus smirked, he wasn't facing Vincent at the moment. "You know, the police are always fussy with inventory. That key wasn't in there yesterday."
"And so it's made a sudden reappearance!" Magnus said getting distracted.
Vincent frowned. Laxus got up and turned around. "You had the key the entire time. Didn't you?"
Vincent nodded. "Why?" Laxus questioned. Vincent looked at the ground. "I have private reasons. I wanted to give it to you in private I had reasons that I didn't want Magnus or no offense her team to know."
Magnus laughed, "everything about Lucy concerns me." Natsu rolled his eyes, this guy was too much for him.
"You on the other hand have motives-"
"Magnus! I'm going to ask you politely stop implying that I had reasons to murder Lucy! Or that I did!"
"Fine." Magnus said folding his arms over his chest. "I'll make a direct statement-"
"Alright! That's it!" Vincent lunged at the man, Gray and Erza somehow held Vincent back.
"That's enough!" Laxus growled. "If these reasons are so private we can talk later at your hotel room!" He was annoyed he had his answer but he was curious on why Lucy gave him a key. Or did he just steal it? He hoped it was the latter.
Magnus had gone to the bookshelves and removed the volume to which he had given such careful scrutiny. Magnus gave no sign that he had noticed, but Magnus watch Laxus fix his fury upon Vincent. Magnus caught a glimpse of darker, more impenetrable mystery. Here was no simple investigation. In such inconsistent trifles as an album, a worn Gulliver, a treasured snapshot, he sought clues, not to the passing riddle of a murder, but to the eternally enigmatic nature of women. This was a search no man could make with his eyes alone; the heart must also be engaged. He, a stern fellow, would have been the first to deny such implications, but Magnus, through prognostic lenses, perceived the true cause of his resentment against Vincent in that moment. His private enigma, so much deeper than the professional solution of the crime, concerned the answer to a question which has ever baffled the him, "What did she see in that other fellow?" As he glowered at Vincent who was talking to Erza at the moment. Magnus knew that he was pondering on the quality of Lucy's affection for Vincent, wondering whether a woman of her sensitivity and intelligence could be satisfied with a man like him.
"Too late, my friend," Magnus said jocosely. "The final suitor has rung her doorbell."
With a gesture whose fierceness betrayed the zeal with which his heart was guarded, he snatched up some odds and ends piled on Lucy's desk, a book, letters, bills bound by a rubber band, unopened bank statements, checkbooks, another old diary, and a photograph album.
"Come on," he snapped. "I'm hungry. Let's get out of this dump."
"But! I thought you wanted to ask me some questions!"
Laxus looked down at the ground. "Later tonight yes. Do you know a lot about music?"
"I don't know a lot about a subject in general, but I know a little about practically everything."
"Ok. So what were they playing at the concert again?"
Vincent looked puzzled. "They played Brahms's First and Beethoven's Ninth."
Laxus nodded. "Natsu," the pink haired mage looked over at Laxus. He looked tired. Laxus almost felt pity for the kid. "I've got questions I've got to ask you. Care for some food? I'll pay." Natsu's eyes widen but he nodded.
"Good. Now everyone get out." He growled walking to the front door.
AN: thanks to all my followers! I hope you enjoyed this next chapter!
Summer Nickels thank you! Your review made me smile I was at work when I read it thank you!
Alicia, Thanks again for the review! I'm super happy people are enjoying this!
Guest, ah you caught me on the celestial key thing, I stretched and I'm sorry. I don't know where to place opening a gate like Aquarius because I feel like she's super powerful and it's got to be a lot of magic right? Also as for the hiding behind, I see your point. But I have to slightly disagree. She totally became less dependent but I was going for the more Karen Lilica girl. So when I wrote it I was thinking of those scenes with poor Aries and all the abuse she got and that's what I meant by hide behind. Lucy at least was like no we fight together. And she did do some fighting with just her whip but she definitely was no bad ass.
See y'all in the next chapter!