Chapter 4: Lies
I still don't own Death Note. It is soul property of Viz Media, Tsugumi Obata and Takeshi Ohba. If you did not receive my note, which was posted for only twenty-four hours, I am rewriting the chapters. Sorry for any inconvenience.
One of the workers at Wammy's burst through the door and into the room that currently belonged to B.
"Backup!" the man screamed.
Beyond looked up from the book he was reading.
"I told you not to call me that!" the raven-haired boy protested.
"This is important. I have no time to dawdle with your silly name games. Where is A?"
"I told you, he wrote that note and ran away. I'm just as clueless as you."
"Listen Backup, I'm sending a search party to find him. You better as hell tell me everything you know."
"I told you, I know nothing."
The worker looked Beyond in his blood red eyes.
"You may be able to lie to me, Backup, but you cannot lie to L."
L was here? Was A really that important to them?
At the mention of his name, none other than L (the L. Not a proxy, not someone borrowing the title, L Lawliet in all of his sugar-loving glory) stepped into the room. He gestured to the door. The worker left in a hurry.
Beyond freaked out on the inside. L was supposedly a more accurate lye detector than a polygraph.
"Listen B, A is a very important boy. The fate of the world may one day rest in his hands. I don't want this to get any more out of hand than it already has. If you know anything, anything at all, tell me."
"I swear I haven't the faintest clue. I told him to run. He could be anywhere from here to London!" B blurted. The sheer presence of L seemed to scare the truth out of him.
"So you had a hand in this?" L asked.
"He just seemed so depressed! For all I know, he really did throw himself into that river. He sure seemed ready to do so!"
L nodded.
"So you don't know where he is?" he interrogated.
"Not a clue." Beyond said firmly.
L nodded again and left.
Beyond smiled to himself. He had successfully fooled the world's greatest detective. The truth is, Beyond knew A slept in the bell tower last night and was most likely still in Winchester. By telling L that he had a hand in this, L believed that he was telling the truth when he was lying through his teeth. A lie is always better when some truth is there to back it up and make it more believable. Ironically, it was Wammy's House that trained him to lie so well.
April was dying a leather jacket while Light watched when a knock resounded on the door. In stepped a boy with black hair standing on end. He was pale and wore jeans and a white t-shirt. Light caught a glimpse of him and dove behind April. Although he did not know this man was L, he had a feeling Wammy's would search for him.
"Don't talk to me," Light wrote on a discarded slip of paper. "That man is most likely here to take me back to Wammy's House. Don't let him search the house. Please!"
April read the note and shot Light a glance that said "Are you crazy?"
"Is there anyone living here currently?" L called up to April in the loft.
April took three deep breaths. She had no choice but to lie. Her logic was so simple that L would find it laughable: If Light ran away from Wammy's House, then he obviously did not want to be there. Who knows what he went through? They had given him a name he hated and never told him his real name, which was overly suspicious and extremely sketchy, so this was not an organization she could not trust. As intimidating as this strange-looking man may be, she had to protect Light. Period. She felt that he would be destined for great things.
She walked down the stairs.
"I live here."
L held up a waiver. "Late last night, a six-year-old boy known only as A escaped from the local orphanage. We have permission to search the house."
"I assure you, no one is here. How many hiding places do you see here?" April's voice wavered. She was neither a good actress nor a good liar.
She eyed the fine print on the waiver.
"Besides, you can't search the house without my permission." That time, she sounded a bit more confidant. Somehow, she was going to pull this off.
L's dark-rimmed eyes narrowed into a cool grey death glare.
Why won't she let me search the house? It's not like it's easy to hide a six-year-old. Could there be something else she doesn't want me to see? Or is she really hiding A here? Perhaps he's up those stairs.
"Will you at least let me search the loft where you just were?"
"What a useless endeavor! I was just up there, I think I'd notice if there was a six year old up there. Unless he looks like a bottle of leather dye, he's not up there."
She's definitely hiding something up there. She's also lying. It's just too obvious. Although a lot of people avoid looking me in the eyes, she keeps shifting her weight from foot to foot, and she's touched her nose at least six times. There's something she doesn't want me to see, but until I get solid evidence other than the fact that she's lying, we might have to let her case go cold.
"Alright. Mind if I search the central living area?" L asked.
"Search away."
L looked in every corner of the room.
Of course I find nothing, but I might as well play along.
"I see that there was nothing suspicious here. I'd best be off then."
L left, still wondering what she could have been hiding. Once April heard the church door close, she tromped up to the loft, where Light greeted her with an embrace.
"Thank you for protecting me, April." Light said.
April smiled.
Best case scenario: That man found nothing and won't check back here again. Worst case scenario: He comes back again when Light is older and I can't hide him anymore… I'm not sure of the probability of option #2, but it's most likely pretty low.
L stood outside the church door, mulling over the percentages in his head.
Alright, there's a 90% she's hiding something. To elaborate on that, there's only a 1% chance it's A. That's not enough to send the cops on her, though. It might not even be illegal, just embarrassing. No, it's best to just drop it. If the probability is only 1% out of a ninety percentage range, then it's most likely nothing. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. A part of me just wants this to be over. I have several cases on hold that it's of the utmost importance that I must get to.