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The path to death

Chapter 11: Analysis

A red headed, teenaged girl strolled silently through the quiet forest. A soft breeze made the leaves rustle while her long hair danced along with the wind. Her attention, however, was far away from her surroundings. She had come here to get away, to clear her head and to think things through. And did she have what to think about…

She had begun her investigation immediately after she had her action plan at hand. She had done her best to address the issue as calmly as possible, to chase away the passion and make space for logic. "Revenge is sweeter when served cold" went the saying. "Indeed" she thought "And in this case it can only be served cold".

She had followed her plan step by step, thoroughly, doing her best to gather as much information as possible. After putting together a clear report of her autopsy she had gone back to Dexter's lab and took Bell's body away. The boy had woken up, but she could see that he hadn't disturbed her now cold friend. The white haired girl's body had been hidden well, since the Pink Puff didn't want anybody poking around. She had claimed the case and she wouldn't allow anyone to interfere.

Afterwards she went back to the small café where it had all happened. She was lucky that the police had finished gathering any evidence they could find and already left the building. She had her own work to do.

Flashback

The bell above the shop's door rang softly as the door opened and closed. The owner, a medium sized man, not tall but not short either, with brown hair which had already started to give way to baldness but not to the grey shade that age usually brings, and a carefully trimmed mustache, turned from the show he was watching on the big TV screen in the shop. He was in his middle 50's, but he was still pretty lively. His large eyebrows furrowed as his green eyes darkened at the sight before him. His thin lips twitched slightly in impatience.

The person that had entered was a tall woman with short blonde hair and sharp, violet eyes. But her tanned skin and toned body did nothing to soften the man's frown. The woman was wearing a pair of black pants and a blue short sleeved shirt with a black tie and the police's signs. The woman took a moment to take in her surroundings, then walked confidently towards the man.

"Mr. Godfrey?" she asked, the question merely a formality. The man nodded anyway.

"I am Detective Bianca Vaintrub from Megaville Police. I am sorry for not being able to arrive at the same time as my colleagues. I was given the case only half an hour ago. I would like to ask you some questions." The woman spoke, the professional tone obvious.

"If ya' think I have anythin' else ta' say now than what I a'ready told the others yesterday, then go right ahead. I tell ya', not many folks have been coming in here since the discovery." The owner said, upset that the story wasn't over yet and that his customers had decided to avoid him for the day. The woman seemed to ignore the tone and the last part of what he said.

"First off, do you know the victim?" the woman asked.

"It'd be pretty hard not to, missy. All town knows that girl. She's a nasty one, I tell ya'. She's with this crook group that's been wrecking havoc 'round here for a while… Though I've got no idea how she ended up in ma' bath. I don't remember seeing her and I tell ya': I've got no problem recognizing a familiar face when I see it." The woman nodded and scribbled something on a small notebook.

"Now sir, I would like you to try and remember everyone that came in here yesterday morning, especially anyone who looked suspicious. I'd also like to know if you remember who went to the bathroom." The blonde spoke, eyeing the man carefully.

"Well missy, that's no easy task, I tell ya'. But I'll do ma' best ta' remember." The man nodded, crossing his arms. "Let's see… I opened up at 8 o'clock, like every monin'. First ta' come in were ta' joggers. Since this place is so close to tha' park, all the kids who go running around in tha' monin' come here when they're done, just tha' chill a bit before going home. I remember three o' them commin' right after I opened; two girls and one lad. I know 'em all; they're regulars. They all go to tha' University here. One o' tha' girls, Cassy's her name, is in med school; sweet girl… always smilin'. The other two go ta' law school: tha' guy name's James, they call tha' girl Sugar, 'cause she's addicted to tha' stuff. Nice kids… really nice. None o' 'em went ta' tha' bath, though.

A lot of other kids came in after that… mostly highschoolers. I remember two o' tha' girls goin' ta' tha' bath… to fix their make up I guessed. I tell ya', I'll never get it what they need that junk when they're runnin'… That's wha' I thought when I saw 'em goin'. One o' 'em's named Shirley: blonde hair, blue eyes really loud voice, tha' other's a real short asian girl, never remembered her name; they're glued ta' each other. I know some other kids went ta' tha' bath, but I can't remember who.

A couple with a kid came in… looked like tourists. Tha' mom and tha' lil' girl went ta' the bath. Tha' dad had his nose stuck in a map.

Professor Jack from Megaville High came along too at one point. Probably just finished walking his dog. A flock o' girls came in after him swoonin' like crazy. I tell ya' the guy's too nice ta' them! If I were him, I'd tell 'em ta' mind their own business. I think all of 'em took a trip ta' tha' bath before they left. Tha' professor went too, just ta' clean his dog, 'casue one o' ta' girls spilled some coffee on him. Clumsy kid…

There was this quiet girl too… she's been comin' around here for a while; orders sum'thin' and sits down ta' read. Really good kid. Sometimes, when she walks I think of a dancer. She went ta' tha' bath before she left. A nice kid… always polite.

There was a group of guys too… I don't know 'em that well, but usually when they come they're real' loud. Sometimes I have ta' go tell them ta' shut their yaps. They were pretty quiet today though… But that's probably b'cause their "boss" wasn't around.

I remember one o' ma' other regulars comin' in; lovely girl. Bridgett's her name; blue hair, black eyes, usually wears white. Most o' tha' time she's here with her friend, Beatrix. Nice kid too: black hair, brown eyes, wears glasses. She looks like a smart one. They weren't here together this time… but anyway, happened before. I think she went ta' tha' bath before she left 'cause she always does. I didn't notice her comin' out though, but that's not weird 'cause there were many people around at that time.

There was an emo kid too… came up and asked 'bout some weird ice cream I never heard about, then took a coffee and sat down at a corner table. I know he went ta tha' bath and he came out lookin' kinda' sick.

There were a few other kids comin' in, but they didn't catch my eye. Except for a guy with a laptop and a big pair o' glasses. He looked like an alien. I think he went ta' tha' bath, 'cause at one point I didn't see him and then he appeared again.

Blossom Utonium came somewhere around noon and you know the rest… found that girl in ma' bath…" the man exhaled like after a great effort. The blonde woman wrote something down on her small notebook and looked at him again.

"So… nothing out of the ordinary?" she spoke.

"No missy, not any weirder than usual. I don't know why you need ta' know this anyway, since I really can't remember tha' girl being here… Maybe someone just dumped her here after they were done with her…" the man answered, waving his hand a bit as if dismissing the thought that the crime could actually have taken place in his café. He didn't catch the twitch of the detective eye when he spoke the last part.

"Would it be possible that something happened while you were away, say, in the kitchen?" the woman said.

"Might have, missy, but I don't think so… remember, tha' girl was pretty famous around here and I'd think that if she walked in people would notice. But whenever I left I could still hear tha' normal buzzing of people talkin'. Like I said, nothin' more than tha' usual…" came the answer. The detective nodded.

"Can I have a look at the crime scene?" she asked and didn't miss the grimace of the man when she called his bathroom a "crime scene".

"Knock yourself out, missy. Though I don't know what else you could find… your buddies already cleaned tha' place up." The man made a small gesture with his hand towards the small corridor that led to the bathrooms. The detective nodded again and headed in that direction.

She couldn't stop a cold shiver running down her spine as she opened the door. The room looked like anything but a crime scene. The walls and floor had been cleaned of the blood and there was nothing to suggest a struggle. After talking a deep breath, the blonde took a few confident steps in.

First she walked to the cabin where the white haired girl had been found. This had been cleaned too, but she looked anyway. She inspected to toilet seat. "Doesn't look like there has been much pressure… So she was already drugged when she got here…" she searched for any other clues around the seat, but couldn't find any. She stood up and tuned around, looking at the sinks on the other side of the room. She frowned and went directly towards the one opposite to the cabin. Unlike the others, this one was slightly bent downwards.

"Hm… I don't remember this…" she whispered to herself as she kneeled to take a better look. The wall behind the sink was slightly cracked as the metal support had been forced into it. "So she was still pretty conscious here…" the woman looked back at the cabin. "Quite a small distance… must've been very strong stuff, even for her." She sighed and gripped the sink. She took a minute before standing up. That's when a small light caught her eye.

"What do we have here?" she said and went towards the corner of the room, where the trash can was. She had no problem finding the shiny object: a piece of silvery metal. She recognized it immediately. "It's from her buckle!" her eyes widened a bit at the realization and she turned to the cabin. "But how… ?" She walked back to the open door.

"She had her clothes off… so why should this just randomly break and fly all the way through the room?" she asked herself as she gripped the small piece of metal. "Unless… they undressed her after… how does that make sense? They obviously didn't notice this flying off or they wouldn't have left it lying around. This was too well thought through to leave a clue like this…"

Her eyes wondered to the right and she noticed something she hadn't in the first place. There was a mark on the door frame which looked like quite some pressure had been applied there. "Hm, that's weird… pressure there…" she looked at the sink "pressure here…" she looked at the door frame "but none there…" she looked at the toilet seat. "Now this is strange… why not go for the attacker instead of trying to stop her movement if she still had strength…"

She took a closer look at the wood. "Oh… this wasn't her..." she spoke, tracing the mark which was too big to have been made by the hand of a teenage girl; even a super-powered one. "This is too obvious…" she said and frowned. "No one would've left this kind of mark after being so careful not to leave any traces." She thought, then realization struck her. "Heh, looks like I'm not the only one looking for clues… though he could've considered sending someone who wouldn't be noticed afterwards…" she smirked slightly.

The woman turned again and started to thoroughly inspect the small room. She checked the other cabins and the entire floor, just in case any other clues had escaped the criminal's attention. She found none. The walls had no unusual marks on them and so did the small window of the room. She checked that twice, looking for any signs that it had been forced. No such thing: the glass, the wooden frame and the metal bars outside of it were intact. She looked at the door "So they both came in and went out the door." After another quick look she exited the small room. She saw the owner sitting behind the cupboard, reading the paper. She walked towards him.

"Found anythin' new?" the man asked, looking up at her. The woman smiled slightly and shook her head.

"Not much" she lied.

"Told ya'…" he answered.

"Can you remember who came here today?" she asked.

"Sure, missy. There weren't many anyway. Cassy, James and Sugar came in this monin' like usual. We talked a bit. They were all kinda' freaked out 'bout what happened here, 'specially Sugar. I don't blame 'em. I'm pretty freaked out myself. None of tha' other joggers came, though, and those three went away pretty soon. They didn't use tha' bath, if ya' were wonderin' 'bout that. There was a tall guy who came in not long ago and ordered a coffee; didn't seem ta' know tha' news. I don't know if he went ta' tha' bath or not, 'cause I had ta' go answer a phone call in tha' back. He was still there when I came back though. And that's it. Told ya' there weren't many." The woman nodded after he finished talking.

"Thank you, sir." She said.

"No prob', missy. 'Glad to help out." He answered.

"Good day." She said before turning to leave.

"Ya' too, missy" came the response.

The blonde woman closed the shop's door after her. But instead of heading towards the Police Station, she walked in the opposite direction. Upon reaching a deserted alley, she made sure no one was around and reached for her belt. With a swift movement her image was blurred for a second and then, in the place of the blonde detective, stood Blossom Utonium.

End of Flashback

She sighed heavily and hugged herself. That had happened the previous day. She had indeed learned a lot from her little investigation at the café. When she had found Bell there she had no time to take in her surroundings and the last of her worries was to look for clues.

Bridgett… actually Bell. Whenever she'd go there with her friend, they'd have the special belts on that helped them to change their appearance. Hanging out with Dexter did bring some advantages. She'd play Beatrix and Bell would be Bridgett. They often talked with the owner about old movies, a subject that the man was hopelessly in love with. Bell liked to go see the movies that he talked about and then come back and tell him her impressions.

That morning, it wasn't that the owner didn't see Bridgett coming out of the bathroom; she actually hadn't come back out. She was pretty sure that whoever killed her had been in the café. She wished that the small shop would have video cameras, but the owner always thought about them as a waste of money. He was certain his classic security system was enough. Plus, he didn't want to make his customers feel awkward about being "watched" all the time they were in the shop.

The Pink Puff was certain that the tall man who the owner said that had been in, the morning after the "incident", had been the one that left the marks on the cabin door's frame. One of the DarkStar Council, she was sure. She knew that Dr. X would order his men to look for clues and that was why she had hidden Bell's body: she didn't want them to find it in Dexter's lab and steal it. The last thing she wanted was her friend in their hands again.

She still had far too little evidence to start guessing who could be the killer. Hell, she wasn't even sure that the owner had remembered them and they might have been using a special gadget to hide their appearance, just like she and Dr. X's man did. But she did have enough clues to start piecing together the events.

By now she knew that the murderer had used a sword, though she had no idea how such a simple weapon could hurt a Chemical X being. She had yet to figure that out, but she intended to do so. What she did know was that the wielder was far from being an expert, even though the cuts seemed very precise. She guessed that they had practiced that particular move to make a clean cut and make it look like a professional did it. However, the broken piece of metal gave it away. The sword is a weapon that requires precise movement and an excellent control over one's own strength. A good swordsman would have never applied too much force in one blow, even if the victim was a super-powered girl.

Whoever it was, they were pretty short, or the disguise they used was short, though she doubted that the criminal had kept the disguise while doing their job. It was all too passionate. The blows were too strong when they could have been more tempered. Especially the second one which cut so deep that it almost reached the girl's spine. Obviously, it sliced right through the lungs and it even touched the lower part of the heart. It was like the murderer wasn't satisfied with the first cut. Then there were the other wounds. From the autopsy, Blossom could tell that they were made after the two cuts. This didn't make much sense to the red head. It could have been obvious for anyone that those were fatal wounds and no other effort would have been necessary to ensure the kill. After all, the other signs of violence were far from being deadly: broken arms, small cuts on her face and bruises over her body. It suggested that the murderer thought that the punishment hadn't been enough and that some more, this time focusing more on the pain than anything else, was necessary.

At first, the pink eyed girl had thought that it might have been a case of sexual assault, since her clothes had been removed and the position her arms had showed that she had been bound in some way. Her supposition had been proven wrong by the autopsy: there had been no penetration and she couldn't find any traces of sexual assault anywhere on the body. The mystery of the clothes still remained. She had guessed that the attacker might have thought about sexual assault, but changed their mind afterwards. But she quickly dismissed the possibility. It was clear that whoever did that knew what they were doing and they acted according to a plan.

She was pretty sure that the person was left handed by the place where she had found the piece of metal. It was the only explanation as to why it took that particular angle. She dismissed the possibility of someone knocking the object there. She knew that the killer didn't notice it and for that to happen, the object had to have landed in a spot where it was hard to see. There weren't many other places where it could have landed so it would remain unnoticed and there was none which offered the possibility of it being carelessly knocked all the way to where she had found it.

The criminal had done everything to cover their tracks. The body had been purposively placed on the toilet seat before the attack, so the blood could flow directly in the toilet and not be noticed unless someone would open the door. There were also no cuts on any place that could bleed anywhere else. Now that she thought about it, the girl's legs had not only been spread out, but they were also brought a little forward so someone on the outside could see that there was a person in the cabin and not disturb. The only reason why she hadn't noticed this was because she was too deep in thought at that time to actually look. Otherwise she was pretty sure she wouldn't have opened that door and wouldn't have found her friend murdered there. She was, however, sure that it hadn't happened too long before she came in, since the girl had still been alive. And no matter how strong she was and how good of a healer Chemical X was, she couldn't have survived with a direct cut to the lungs and the heart.

Another mystery was the poison that had practically paralyzed Bell. She had absolutely no idea what that could have been. She had found traces of different substances, but nothing clear. The symptoms also didn't fit any poison she could think of. She was pretty sure that the murderer had made that poison especially for Bell. She was surprised that she didn't find any traces of Antidote X. This had totally blown her away. That meant the girl still had her powers when she was attacked with the sword, which raised serious questions about the weapon that had been used.

She was certain that the poison had been injected, because she had found a needle mark on the back of her neck. She wasn't sure if the killer did it in the bathroom or before that. What she did know was that they either were very fast or had a very light hand, so the white haired girl wouldn't feel the needle singing her. She supposed the poison started to take serious effect when the girl was by the sink and it was then that she had unintentionally bent the object. She thought that it could have a slow effect at first and when Bell started to feel weaker she went to the bathroom (supposing the killer drugged her before she went there) or it could have had an immediate and very strong effect (if she had been injected in the bathroom). Either way, she still knew nothing of the substance's origin.

She was now on her way to the DarkStar Council's base of operations. Bell had shown her where it was so she could sneak in there whenever she wanted to see her. The base wasn't actually on Earth, but somewhere in outer space. What she was heading to right now was a cleverly hidden intermediary base which had portals to the real thing. She knew a few secret entrances and passageways in both buildings that would help her go unnoticed by the Council's members. Since she was sure that one of them had come to the café earlier that morning, she was also certain that Dr. X had sent his men to poke around in the police's archives as well and take whatever they could find. Which meant that there was no point in going to the police to see what they had gathered. Whatever it was, it was now at the Council's HQ.

She closed her eyes, formulating a plan that would help her sneak away with any evidence they had (which was probably the main attraction there at the moment). She was just hoping she wouldn't run into Dr. X. She had had just about enough of him for a while.

As she quickened her pace she kept her eyes closed in concentration. Suddenly she felt her feet land into something wet.

"Funny…" she thought "it hasn't rained in days. There shouldn't be any puddles" she opened her eyes in curiosity only to realize that it wasn't water what she had stepped in. It was a thick red liquid which was all too familiar to her now: blood.

Done! I hope you liked it!