Nevermore
By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it still belongs to Gosho Aoyama. Anything that is Edgar Allan Poe's work is (eventually) referenced in the text and belongs, of course, to Mr. Poe. I make no profit from this.
Musings: Thanks for all your lovely reviews~ I do read them; I just put my free time towards working on new chapters instead. I hope you feel that's a fair trade-off. :) All cultural & dead body facts are as accurate as I can research them. I'm sure the person checking my browsing history think I'm some serial killer. :/ On a more light-hearted note, the library scene is dedicated to all my fellow CoAi shippers. More about that at the end. Enjoy. Cheers~
-o-o-o-o-o-
Chapter 3
-o-o-o-o-o-
Conan stared at the note on the night table with wide eyes. No way. He turned back to look at Ai. The expression on her face was probably a mirror of his own – disbelief and confusion. Ai managed to regain her composure before Conan. She turned to her three friends and instructed, "Ayumi-chan, make that call to the police. Kojima-kun and Tsuburaya-kun, make sure no one else comes in here."
She walked into the room, pulling her own handkerchief from the pocket of her jacket so she could examine the body. Hanging around with a corpse-magnet like Conan enforced some habits in her.
Falling into the once familiar pattern, Ayumi quickly got her cell phone. It seemed like there wasn't any reception, so she started walking down the hall to see if she could get some signal. Genta and Mitsuhiko turned their back to the room and stood firmly in the doorway, ensuring anyone getting in would have to get past them.
The three adults were still looking at the five teens who had barged in with some confusion. Igarashi, being their homeroom teacher, was the first to find his voice. "Just wait a second," he started. "I think the police or an adult would be better for this."
"Yes," the manager agreed quickly. "You should at least let us in to check on Chiba-sensei."
"Chiba-sensei is dead," Conan informed him, tone curt but professional. He came up behind Genta and Mitsuhiko. "No pulse, cool to the touch, and his body is stiff from rigor mortis. He has been dead for at least 6 hours."
"What?" the manager choked out.
"Actually," Conan corrected himself thoughtfully. "He has probably been dead for closer to at least 8 or 9 hours, since he missed the ski lessons that were scheduled for our class this morning. Why did he miss the ski classes this morning?"
"I um...I think it was a family emergency," Ryusaki-bucho replied.
Conan frowned. "Did he call in about it?"
"No, it was an email from his email account."
"When did you get the email?"
"Um...a little before Igarashi-sensei came asking for Chiba-sensei," Ryusaki recalled. "So maybe about 10:15?"
Conan was about to ask more questions when Ayumi came running back. "Conan-kun!" she yelled. "I can't get a cell phone reception anywhere!"
Conan reached into his pocket and flipped open his own phone. There was no reception. Outside, the wind howled and even through the walls of the resort, they could hear that the storm had gotten even worse. The reception towers were probably having problems because of the storm.
Ai walked up behind Conan then to join the group. She gave Conan a small nod and stated, "If this isn't the scene of the crime, then he was moved quickly after. Considering Chiba-sensei was an athlete and probably fairly heavy, that's unlikely. Livor mortis is happening around the side pressed to the bed, so no one moved him post mortem. Judging by the discoloration of the skin and what Ryusaki-bucho just said, I would say time of death is between 8:00 and 10:00 this morning. Preliminary, of course."
"I thought the same thing," Conan agreed. "And since there's no visible weapon or signs of wounds, my guess on cause of death is poison or overdose."
"So what's our next move, Boss?" Ai asked, crossing her arms.
"Boss?" Conan echoed, looking at her in puzzlement.
She shrugged. "We have no cell phone reception to call the police, so I'm assuming you will be leading this investigation until we get in touch with them."
"Wait," Ryusaki interrupted, looking between Conan and Ai in stupor. "Investigation? By some fifteen-year-olds?"
"Who's more familiar with police investigation procedures?" Ai asked. "You? Or this one?" She tipped her head in Conan's direction.
"Definitely Conan-kun," Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko chorused.
The manager stared at them, speechless, and Ai took the chance to prompt Conan again. "Well?"
"Right. Ryusaki-busho, does the resort have a landline?" Conan asked, taking over again.
"Um, yes. In the front office," Ryusaki replied.
"Ayumi-chan, Mitsuhiko, you guys go with Igarashi-sensei and Ryusaki-bucho to the front office," Conan instructed. "Make the phone call from the landline, Ayumi-chan. That shouldn't be affected by the cell phone towers. Tell them to also be on the lookout for two fifteen year old girls in Teitan Junior High school jackets. Mitsuhiko, get a copy of that email from Chiba-sensei's account. Try not to let anyone know we found a dead body; it would cause panic."
"Okay!" Ayumi and Mitsuhiko led the two speechless adult away.
"Choshi-sensei, you need to go back to the dining room," Conan continued. "Get our classes' attendance lists together with Sugimoto-sensei and Saiki-sensei, then make sure everyone's accounted for. We have two girls missing and we need to make sure no one else has disappeared."
Choshi-sensei nodded and hurried down the hall. He looked unsure how to feel about taking instructions from his student, but it seemed to be the best course of action for now.
"What about me?" Genta asked.
"Ai and I are going to close the door and look at the scene more carefully," Conan told him. "I need you to walk up and down the hall and make sure no one suspicious comes along. Culprits tend to return to the crime scene. Let me know with the detective badge if you see anyone."
At Genta's nod, Conan closed the door and turned to Ai. They stared at each other for a moment before walking over to the night table in unison. Conan picked up the black note card and read it out loud.
"You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat.
CX"
They both silently processed the contents, written in English.
"What are the chances it's not the same person?" Ai asked quietly.
"Minimal," Conan admitted. "It's the same type of card in the same colour, with the same style of font used for the message. If this is also Edgar Allan Poe, the chances it's not the same person would be none."
"You don't know if it's Poe?"
"I reviewed all his poetry between last night and the night before," Conan told her, "but this is obviously prose. So I know it's not from Poe's poetry work, but it could be from his short stories."
"If it is Poe, your culprit has cited it incorrectly again," Ai pointed out, frowning.
"I think it's more important that it's cited differently," Conan responded. "If we suppose the writer made a mistake, why not both CL? Or both CX? It stands to reason that if he or she is quoting without knowing the actual author, they would make the same mistake in both notes rather than different ones."
"So we have to go through Poe's work to see if this is a quotation," Ai concluded. "And of course, you brought a copy, probably of his complete works."
Conan smiled a little sheepishly. "In English, too," he confessed.
"So which one of us is spending the evening in Mr. Poe's company?" Ai asked.
Before Conan could answer, his detective badge beeped, and he reached into his pants pocket to pull it out, clicking the button on the back to open the line.
"Conan-kun," Ayumi's voice came over the badge. "We got in touch with the police, but they said they can't make it up here anytime soon. The storm's too bad." Conan was silent until Ayumi prompted him. "What do we do now?"
Ai grabbed Conan's hand which was holding the badge and pulled it over to her. "Ayumi-chan, go find an infirmary," she said. "I need a pair of gloves, syringes, and vials – the kind used for drawing blood for tests. There should be an infirmary onsite in case of injuries."
"Can one of you grab some Ziploc bags too?" Conan added.
"Huh? Um, okay," Ayumi replied, sounding confused, but obviously believing Conan and Ai knew what they were doing. "We'll come back soon then."
Conan put the detective badge back in his pocket and turned to Ai. "Guess we're going to be doing more than just figuring out a note," he commented.
Ai sighed, taking out her cell phone. The phone did not have a high quality camera by any means, but it was going to have to do. A dead body did not wait for professionals to show up before it continued to the next stage of death. "I guess I've got the body and you'll be covering the rest of the scene, Boss?"
"Why are you calling me that?"
Ai raised an eyebrow at his obvious discomfort.
"You're not my subordinate," Conan clarified. "You're my partner."
"Ah yes, this is a case," Ai nodded. "In that case, of course I am."
Conan frowned, mystified at her comment, but he shook his head and started looking around the room for clues. There will be time later to figure out Ai's behavior. For now, they had a dead body on their hands.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Conan was on his hands and knees looking for clues around the floor when the knock came on the door. He got up and opened it, finding Ayumi and Mitsuhiko with their arms full of supplies he and Ai had asked for. Genta was with them, and Igarashi-sensei and the manager were both there, looking more apprehensive now than before.
Conan took the Ziploc bags and handed Ai the rest.
"Here's the copy of the email, Conan-kun," Mitsuhiko said, handing two folded pieces of paper. "I also had Ryusaki-bucho pull the history of the access key cards made for this room."
Conan was surprised as he skimmed through the second piece of paper. "Right," he murmured to himself. "Because the keycards are electronically coded, so there would be a computer record of them. Good thinking, Mitsuhiko."
Mitsuhiko grinned proudly.
"What do you need next?" Ayumi asked.
Conan slipped the two pieces of paper into one of the Ziploc bags, then looked at his friends. "I need you guys to go back and pretend nothing's happened for now," he instructed.
"What?" Genta sounded indignant.
"I don't want to cause panic before the police get here," Conan explained. "And I don't want to tip off the culprit that we've already begun investigating. So I need you guys not to say anything about this. Ryusaki-bucho, we need to get the body to the infirmary, but otherwise, can you keep this under wraps for as long as possible?"
The manager nodded. "Chiba-sensei was booked for your school the entire week. No one else will ask for him except some staff," he replied. "I can tell them about the family emergency email for now."
"That will do. I also need room access to this room sealed off, obviously." Conan noted. Ryusaki nodded his understanding. "Igarashi-sensei, maybe you can coordinate with other teachers to take over the ski lessons? It would stop the class from asking questions."
Igarashi agreed.
"Conan-kun, are you sure we can't help anymore?" Ayumi asked again.
"I'll let you know once I figure out the next step," Conan appeased her. "For now, Ai and I are just putting the evidence together for the police when they arrive. Those two girls from 3-C are still missing, aren't they? You guys need to go keep things under control there."
Nodding, the three of them left with their teacher and the manager, and Conan let out his breath as he closed the door and turned back to Ai, who was in the process of drawing blood from the victim into the vials. The notebook and pen he had lent her earlier were on the night table, and he knew that she had filled it with her notes on the body. He walked over and placed the black card into one of bags.
"What are your thoughts?" he asked Ai, turning to her.
"Nothing spectacular," she replied. "Without blood tests or toxicology, it's impossible to confirm what drugs are in his system. No signs of struggle though – nothing under the nails, no signs of self-defense, no smells. So my preliminary guess is overdose on sleeping pills."
Conan frowned and turned towards the full-length mirror. "It's definitely homicide though," he mused. "Not counting the presence of that note, it's bad feng shui in Japanese culture to have a mirror facing the bed, so no one would deliberately sleep like that. Besides,why would someone committing suicide want to die looking at themselves? "
"They're narcissistic?" Ai suggested.
Conan frowned. "As a ski instructor? Narcissists tend to be self-focused in interpersonal exchanges, which would make him a poor teacher."
"So you think someone moved the mirror here," Ai stated. "But why?"
Conan examined the position of the mirror thoughtfully, and paced a little bit as he turned the facts over in his mind. There wasn't really anything he had found so far at the scene, and without a forensics team, they couldn't do much more. The best they could do for now was preserve the scene. Plus, since the body hadn't been found until 8 to 10 hours after the crime, the culprit would have had plenty of time to clean up the scene, had that been the intent. Even though the room was electronically locked, the culprit could easily have gotten in claiming they would like a morning appointment with the instructor. But why would someone want to kill him?
As of right then, Conan knew he had two things he had to do to unravel the mystery: first, see if anyone saw anything that morning, and second, figure out that note.
-o-o-o-o-o-
Midnight found Conan poring over his volume of Edgar Allan Poe stories in an armchair in the corner of the resort library. It had been late by the time he and Ai had finished up bagging the evidence and documenting anything they thought was relevant in the ski instructor's room. Interviews, they decided, had to wait until the next day. Lying in bed, listening to Genta snore though, Conan found his mind actively at work, trying to figure out a good way to tackle the task of talking to hundreds of people on his own and narrowing his suspects list, not to mention looking for two missing classmates. He didn't know if the murder and disappearances were related, so for now, he would have to somehow investigate both at the same time. Finally, he had decided lying in bed was a poor use of his time since he couldn't sleep anyways, thrown on a loose button-down shirt and a pair of pants, and headed to the library with his book to try and figure out the other half of the puzzle.
The sound of footsteps made him look up. Ai was walking towards him with a tray of food, wearing a light sweatshirt over a dark skirt. The smell of food made him realize for the first time that day that his stomach was growling. She set the warm bowl of noodles and the cup of tea on the table in front of him and handed him the chopsticks.
"Ayumi-chan told me you didn't eat breakfast," she said softly. "Then you didn't join us for lunch and we found Chiba-sensei's body before dinner was fully served."
Conan dug in gratefully. "I thought you were mad at me," he muttered in-between bites.
"I am," Ai shrugged. "But one person's dead and two people are missing. I can postpone my grudge until Mr. Holmes isn't needed."
"Whatever it is I've done, I am sorry," he replied.
"Whatever it is you've done?" she echoed. "You still haven't figured it out."
Conan sighed. "After talking to Genta, I don't think it's just because of a phone call, but that's pretty much as far as I got."
"You're so stumped you went to Kojima-kun for relationship advice?" Ai sounded incredulous.
"Um, not exactly, but he asked me where I was all day and it stemmed from there."
Ai rolled her eyes. "I don't know if it's endearing that you're so clueless or absolutely infuriating."
"If that's open for discussion, I'm voting for the former."
"Of course you would." Ai perched herself on the arm of his chair and reached up to take his glasses off. She placed the glasses on the table next to his finished bowl of noodles, then gently traced the circles that were starting to form under his eyes with cool fingers. "You should sleep."
Conan grinned. "Pot, kettle."
"Not quite. I trust you."
"What do you mean? I trust you, too."
"Not really," Ai shrugged. "You certainly trust me to call in reinforcements for you, but you don't trust me with your worries and problems. You've categorized in your mind things you won't tell me because you don't trust me to handle whatever it is. You still believe that you can protect me from everything."
"I will protect you," Conan insisted.
"And I believe you," Ai replied. "More importantly though, I believe in you. I trust you to protect me and save me not because it was a promise you made, but because it's you. I believe you can share my burden with me even if you can't solve my problems for me." She paused, looking deep into his eyes. "Do you believe in me?"
Conan stared back, and he thought he finally understood why she was angry. It had nothing to do with the phone call itself and everything to do with his tendency to want to solve every problem by himself, even those that would be easier if he involved her. "I'm trying," he finally answered. "I've been a one-man team for a really long time."
"Yes, speaking of that, how is the one-man team thinking of interviewing about 200 students and all those other guests?" Ai asked. "Supposing the police doesn't make it up here soon since I can still hear the storm."
"The one-man team has no idea," Conan admitted.
"Well, how about you extend the number of team members then?" Ai suggested. Conan looked questioningly at her, so she continued. "Ayumi-chan, Tsuburaya-kun, and Kojima-kun were pretty eager to help. If you have them interview our classmates, they'll take care of a large chunk of the interviews three times faster than if you did them all yourself. And unless you think our fifteen-year-old classmates have anything to do with one murder and two disappearances, it should be pretty low risk."
"And Ayumi-chan knows almost everyone in the grade. She would be good at identifying any missing people," Conan mused thoughtfully.
"We could get a list of all guests staying at the resort from Ryusaki-busho," Ai added. "Then, we could narrow down the guests to those without an alibi for the time of the murder."
"Yes, that's a good approach," Conan agreed. "I don't want Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko to interview the other guests or our teachers though."
"Our teachers?" Ai frowned. "You don't actually think they had anything to do with this, do you?"
"I was thinking about it earlier," Conan admitted. "Igarashi-sensei is most likely innocent. He was seen in the dining room with some students who were early for breakfast from about 8:30. Then he spent the whole day teaching our class and Class 3-B skiing. He didn't have opportunity. But Choshi-sensei and Chino-sensei were both late for breakfast, plus Choshi-sensei would have had the chance to abduct those two girls while their class was split up during the scavenger hunt."
"What would be the motive though?" Ai asked, obviously confused.
"No clue, but I don't have any clear motive," Conan pointed out. "Besides, I got the first card in Beika. How would the culprit know I'll be here?"
"Ryusaki-bucho has clear access to the whole resort, so that's opportunity too. And you would be on the guest list since the school registered everyone's name and addresses," Ai added.
"Yes," Conan nodded. "So I think you or I should interview the teachers and staff at the resort. We'll scrutinize what they say a little better."
"And the other guests?" Ai prompted.
Conan frowned. That was still a lot of guests to interview.
"We can split up," Ai suggested after a moment of thought. "I can pair up with Kojima-kun and Ayumi-chan can pair up with Tsuburaya-kun; we'd get through them twice as fast. You, I'm sure, will want to investigate on your own."
That wasn't a bad idea, Conan thought to himself. And because both of the students missing were girls, he would feel a lot of better if Ai and Ayumi had someone accompanying them. He smiled at Ai. "Looks like I wasn't the only one staying up and pondering the interview problem."
"You did call me the pot," Ai said dryly.
"One problem down, one to go," Conan responded, gesturing to the Edgar Allan Poe book on the table.
Ai furrowed her brow. "Maybe you should take a break from it. You've been looking at it for so long, maybe you're overlooking something obvious," she pointed out.
Conan conceded to himself that it was a good point. In addition, Poe's short stories were doing nothing to put his mind into a slumber-friendly state.
He felt a mischievous smile form on his face as he glanced up at Ai. Then, without any warning, he reached up and pulled on her waist, making her lose her balance from her perch on the armchair. Ai fell right into his lap and Conan silenced her undignified yelp by sealing his lips over hers. He felt her stiffen at the unexpected kiss, then she seemed to process what was happening and relaxed in his arms. She slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. His hands slid slowly and sensually up her ribs, making Ai squirm in his grasp. Conan kissed his way down her jaw, to her throat, to her neck, nipping gently against her skin. Her fingers raked through his hair, and she let out a soft whimper when he sucked lightly on her pulse.
"My, aren't you a little forward all of a sudden?" she gasped out.
Conan chuckled into her neck. "I can't sleep because I have nightmares, my lovely girlfriend delegated away most of my work, and I was just forbidden to think about the Poe connection to the case," he murmured as he continued to make his way down to her collarbone. "And," he added cheekily, "I'm a fifteen year old boy. I'm not sure what else I could be thinking about."
"Technically, you're twenty-five," Ai retorted, fingers grasping the lapels of his shirt.
"With the hormones of a fifteen-year-old," Conan replied dryly. "I wonder whose fault that is."
She raised her eyebrows at this, her eyes almost glittering in the faint glow cast by the lone lamp on the table beside them. "Well, let's see if I can make up for that." She sat up and twisted around in the armchair, straddling him and pressing her body against his. Cupping his face, she kissed him hard. He opened his mouth readily, feeling the heat flood into him as she flicked her tongue against his. The gentle scrape of her teeth against his lips made him feel liquid and heavy, and his hands fell on her hips as he pulled her closer. Her cool fingers traced his jaw and down his neck, reaching to unbutton his shirt as her lips followed the path her fingers were taking. He gasped loudly when he felt her hands running down the bare skin of his chest to his stomach, tugging his shirt from his pants while her lips sucked gently on a sensitive spot behind his earlobe.
She was soft and warm, and he wanted to touch her, grasp onto her, bury himself into her warmth...and all of a sudden, the weight was lifted from his lap and cool air hit him.
"Huh?" He looked up in a daze, his eyes dark and hazy, to find Ai standing and straightening her skirt. "W-What was that?" His voice sounded hoarse and husky even to his own ears.
"Hmm? Oh, you know, something to help with the nightmares," Ai replied dismissively. She gave him a knowing smile.
Conan gaped at her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
"You should go back to your room and sleep soon," Ai continued, picking up the food tray from the table. "You have a long day ahead of you, after all. Sweet dreams, Meitantei-san."
Conan was still speechless as he watched her turn around and walk out of the library. He sank deeper into the armchair, trying to make his thoughts coherent again. What the hell had just happened? He reached blindly for his book, but found nothing on the desk. He frowned stupidly until some blood came back to his brain and kicked him mentally. Ai must have taken his book with her when she left. He rubbed his face tiredly and glanced at his watch.
It wasn't even 1:00AM yet...
Haibara Ai was really something else, he thought with a wry smile. In the span of about forty-five minutes, his girlfriend had fed him, forgiven him, solved the interview problem he had been turning over in his mind, made him take a break from the case, and with some searing kisses and cool fingers, nearly made him lose his mind and take her in an armchair in some corner of a fairly public library. More importantly, she was probably going to be right about the source of his dreams that night.
Conan grabbed his glasses and got up from the armchair with some effort. Before the much-needed sleep though, he needed a shower. A really cold shower.
-o-o-o-o-o-
As Ai had theorized, the snowstorm continued overnight and didn't let up until just before dawn the next morning. Even then, there were still some flurries. When Conan looked outside in the morning, he knew that the emergency services wouldn't get there that day. The snow was too thick for it to be safe to travel from the city up to the resort. Plus, the snowstorm probably meant that there were other areas around the city that required help.
Ayumi and Ai knocked on Conan and Genta's room around 8:30AM. Genta was still brushing his teeth, but Conan looked well rested and ready to take on the day.
"Good morning, Conan-kun!" Ayumi chirped. "Good morning, Genta-kun!"
Genta's response from the direction of the bathroom was a jumbled mix of something that was probably "good morning", while Conan asked if she could go get Mitsuhiko because he had something to discuss with them. Once Ayumi headed down the hall to knock on Mitsuhiko's room, Ai held out Conan's missing Edgar Allan Poe book, like he had suspected, and he took it from her.
"How did you sleep?" she asked politely, but there was a smirk on her face.
"I slept through the night," he grudgingly admitted.
"That's good to hear," she replied. "And the dreams?"
He glared at her. "It's not that I don't appreciate your um...help, but next time, do you think you could come up with something that doesn't require me to take two cold showers in the span of seven hours?"
"Duly noted." Her voice was suitably demure and repentant, but seeing the devilish smile on her face, Conan didn't believe the sincerity in her agreement for a second.
Ayumi chose that moment to re-enter the room with Mitsuhiko, and Genta emerged from the bathroom, changed for the day as well. Conan gestured for them to gather around and explained the plan that he and Ai had come up with the night before.
"It'll probably be boring and you'll have to take a lot of notes," he admitted, "but it's a place to start narrowing down our suspects. What do you guys think? Willing to help?"
Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko exchanged grins with each other.
Conan glanced at Ai, who smiled back at him. They could see where this was going.
"Let's do it!" Ayumi exclaimed.
Genta and Mitsuhiko pumped their fists into the air with her. "Temporary comeback of the Shounen Tanteidan!"
-o-o-o-o-o-
End Chapter 3.
Word Count: 4,693
Cumulative Word Count: 15,262
Chitsu's Curiosity Corner: So, re: the library scene. I'm actually in Conan's boat on that. I finished writing it and went "what the hell just happened?" Then I decided Ai would totally do something like that to him and left it. I think my Conan-muse wants a more um...satisfying end; he's giving me trouble in the chapter I'm working on. :P Oh well, hope you enjoyed it anyways~