DCMK: Heavy Silences (5/10)

[what_we_dream]

Title: Heavy Silences (5/10)
Series: Magic Kaitou/Detective Conan
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Follows Slip and Fall/Pride Goeth Before

Summary: "We would like Kid delivered by the 24th. For every day you're late, one bright face vanishes from the world." Children kidnapped, Nakamori has only one place to turn for help. Kaitou Kid.

The park is not an ideal meeting place, and he's not in an ideal mood to meet. While not actually on Ran's route to school, it's not so far off that it would be inconceivable for her to appear around the corner at any minute to bust him for playing hookie. He escaped the apartment early under the cover of a Detective Boys' meeting, which Ran met with scepticism; she would have no trouble believing their staying up past their bedtimes, he knows, but no child will get up earlier than he has to for something that could be put off.

So he finds himself sitting on the platform in the inadequate protection of one of the supporting pillars scanning the sidewalks anxiously while waiting for Kid. Kid, who could be anyone from the old man practicing tai-chi by the sandpit to the highschool student waiting with his bike at the corner, checking his watch every two minutes.

"Waiting long?" says a quiet voice from directly behind him. Conan suppresses a start and rolls his eyes. Well, no, he couldn't be, because Kid will never appear in a straightforward fashion if he could conceivable startle instead.

Only vaguely curious as to what he'll see, Conan swivels. And, despite himself, is surprised. Kid's changed faces, from Hattori's dark skin and sharp lines to a more rounded, slightly gray one with a light scar running across an undefined cheekbone. What surprises him, though, is the fact that he's wearing the same clothes as he was last night: the Hattori-esque light jacket and jeans. Significantly more crumpled, shirt no longer tucked in but hanging long and loose, but undoubtedly the same clothes. It's the first time he's ever noticed a sign of slackness in the thief.

He says nothing, but Kid apparently reads his thoughts from his glance and shrugs. "I've been a little busy," he says. He is, Conan notices, carrying a canvas messenger bag with bulging sides. "Give me your phone," he adds, without explanation. Conan boggles at the thief's out-held hand. "Unless you'd rather your teacher calls the old man to track you down?"

Gritting his teeth, he pulls out his phone from his own bag, hands it over. Kid thumbs through his address book, surprisingly without bothering to leer at some of the more interesting numbers in it. Finds the one he wants. "How predictable of you," he says, raising the phone to his ear. "But I suppose you call yourself in often enough."

Often enough that he sure as hell doesn't need Kid to do it for him. Isn't sure why he is doing it; it's not as though he'll be impressed by another impersonation. And if this is the thief's idea of a favour… But, Conan – Shin'ichi, on occasion – has been saved by enough of the thief's favours that he can't fairly call him on it.

"Hello, staff room?" He may be immune to admiration, but no matter how many times he sees the thief do it, he doubts Kid's impressions will entirely lose their shock factor. Seeing a teenager speak in the old man's deep growl is no exception.

"Yeah, this is Mouri Kogoro. Edogawa Conan's guardian. That's right … He's got a cold, won't be in today. Thanks." He's got the style down pat, somewhere between apologetic and irritated, and trying to be neither. But then, the thief's played the old man for more discriminating audiences before, for a longer time at much closer quarters. He hangs up and tosses the phone back. "Right," he says. Pauses.

"Waiting for applause?"

There's a second of blankness he can't identify on the unfamiliar face, but the pause before Kid's usual attempt at wit is telling enough, and he feels himself growing serious in response.

"I wouldn't want to burden you," is the answer when it comes. "I can't help but wondering," he says in a different tone, and Conan realises he's been settled down to work this whole time, "whether this is the best place for this."

"I figured you'd have somewhere else in mind."

"Unfortunately I've been on a tight schedule. Not much free time to book a lair nearby."

"And Beika's not your base of operations." Conan means it as a help rather than an insult, and then wonders that he should be trying to offer him a conversational hand.

"No," concedes Kid, with a faint smile, taking it as meant.

"Come on, then." He stands and turns. Glances back. "I know a place."

"Figured you might," says Kid, with just enough smugness in his tone that says there was no figuring, only knowing.

"Someday you're going to get tangled up in all those strings you hold in your hand," he retorts, slightly vexed.

"I think I already have." Kid's voice is cold and flat.

What little light-heartedness he had washed away by an icy sea, Conan says nothing. Slips down from the platform and leads the way through the streets to his house.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The heavy flower pot moved to stand by the door by the Professor is filled with very straggly pansies, and Conan scrambles up on it to reach the high lock with no guilt. Kid, behind him, says nothing, and he has no sense of sympathetic eyes watching him, which suits him fine.

It's been more than a month since he was last here – with the Professor collecting his mail and the phone messages forwarded to his cell's mailbox, there's really no need to visit. None, except the desire to be reliably alone, to be somewhere that feels like home, to be somewhere where, at least for a few hours, he is not seen as a seven year-old. But the change between school years is a busy period and he's not been able to rake together the time to come by. Not to mention the danger of him being noticed constantly entering and exiting the Kudou household.

One of the few benefits of camping out permanently at Ran's apartment is that he has become accustomed to the smell there as normal, and so can appreciate the scent of home when he steps into the entranceway. Home smells like old books and violin rosin and, these past several months, dust.

He had wondered whether Kid, despite his apparent descent into severity, would whistle at the tall entrance hall and unusually roomy proportions of the Kudou home. But the thief shows no sign of inordinate interest, and Conan supposes that to someone who's held gems in his hands worth several times the value of the house and all its contents, things like this must lose their value pretty quickly. That, or Kid's no stranger to domestic grandeur.

After kicking off his shoes he leads the way through the musty hall to the dinning room, set with a western table and six chairs for his parents' lavish dinner parties. It has seen no parties for more than a year, but apart from the thin layer of dust it's no worse for the rest. He wrestles a chair away from its dock, realising as he does so that he's never sat at this table as a child. Not since the first time around, at least. Kid whips one around for himself effortlessly and sits, depositing his bag on the tabletop. Coughs in the cloud of dust it raises and wipes at the dull cherrywood with a sleeve. He makes no comment, simply digs into the satchel and hauls out a thin stack of files.

"Here. This is the call transcript, the tracking data, the phone information, the reports on the kidnappings," he puts the files down one after the other, each in its own manila folder neatly titled. Even after the removal of the files his bag is still full-sided, filled with gods know what kinds of tricks and traps.

The files, however, are genuine copies of police reports direct from Tokyo Section One's head office, Section Two in the case of the calls. And it doesn't take much page turning to realise someone's been filtering the information given to Section One, filleting the reports and passively – at least – hampering the investigation. He turns a sharp eye on Kid.

"Something's going on here," he says flatly.

Kid, who has been leafing through a file of his own, looks up, false face blank.

"Really, Detective?"

"None of Section One's reports contain any mention of the ransom call. Someone's been pulling wool."

"Implying I hold that level of power within the Force is flattering, but untrue."

"I wasn't implying it was you," he says, ignoring Kid's levity. Conversing with the thief is like walking on very shaky ground, footing constantly shifting. At least until you realise that his quips are nothing more than an accent, thrown in to distract the easily-misled and create an atmosphere. He doubts the Kid notices he's doing it, it's probably more a habit than anything else. Which explains the mixed signals he was picking up in the park. The only way to deal with him seems to be to discount everything but the bare bones of what he says. "Either Section Two's been purposely impeding the investigation," Conan continues, "or the Organization's got damn deep hooks into HQ."

"The Organization?"

"We have to call them something, and that's as good as anything else we've got." He says it defensively, expecting a comment on his lack of progress. Kid says nothing, though, bright eyes apparently filing away the information.

"Well, I can't speak to their influence with the cops, but I can answer your question." The thief closes the folder he's been skimming through and hands it across. Conan notices, or rather takes on board for the first time his bare hands – so many fingerprints! – but surely Kid's taken precautions against that.

Conan takes the file, light compared to those he's been reading through, which are thin enough themselves, and opens it. Inside, attached to the folder with a paper clip are two pieces of paper. The first is an order, signed and stamped by Section Two Superintendant Higashiyama Yuki to accompany a confiscation of the Kaitou Kid Task Force's files and, if necessary, equipment. The second is a manifest printed in very small font divided into three columns, listing the confiscated material. It has the look of an unofficial list kept for the sake of order rather than official evidence. At first glance the confiscated files are simply those pertaining to Kid, but a quick read shows a more worrying pattern.

…

File 2895 December 24th XXXX – Theft of Tofu Department Store Tree Ornament

…

File 3011 March 12th XXXX – Attempted Theft of Green Dream

…

File 3122 April 1st XXXX – Attempted theft of Black Pearl

File 3125 April 19th XXXX – Theft of Black Pearl

…

File 3201 October 12th XXXX – Attempted Theft of Blue Wonder

…

File 3264 November 10th XXXX – Attempted Theft of Sunrise Pendant

File 3265 November 10th XXXX – Assault on Kaitou Kid

File 3265 November 13th XXXX – Hospital Reports on Kaitou Kid

File 3265 November 19th XXXX – Report on Kaitou Kid's Escape from Tokyo General Hospital

…

"You see the pattern," says Kid almost glumly, without bothering to make a question out of it.

"I see that only heists the Squad was involved in are listed. No files even for the Sunset Mansion, or the thing with the Seiran painting, which were both pretty big news so it's not that they didn't know about them. Of course, they just might not have files on them."

Kid dismisses this with a wave. "Of course they do. You now how much paperwork the cops produce at the slightest chance – and you know how much they like to gossip. No. There aren't any files on me either – files compiling evidence about my identity, my M.O, my bases of operations." He lists the dangerous files off thoughtlessly, without apparent concern. But, Conan supposes, he'd never be able to get out of bed in the morning if he worried about that kind of thing.

"So the Superintendant suspects the Squad of making a deal with you."

"So it seems. But I'll deal with that later; I'm only telling you so you don't go haring off after the wrong target." There's an undertone there, but Conan sees nothing except round blankness on the thief's current face. Interesting as it is, he's right. They have more important things to take care of. He hands the file to the thief and looks back into the reports.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The only reports of any substance are the kidnapping reports which deal with accounts of the homes in the conditions they were found in, any and all possible evidence to a minute and unhelpful degree, and witness interviews. Well, non-witness interviews would be more accurate, no one having seen anything; the closest the kidnappers came to being noticed was a cleaner's cart on an apartment floor and a notice of unusual noise from a different apartment's neighbour.

All in all it's singularly unhelpful, but he hadn't really expected anything else. He reads each report carefully though, paying attention to every line and mostly ignoring Kid's fooling around in the kitchen. It would be nice to think that in light of this unspoken truce he could trust Kid not to pry into every corner of the house and quite possibly plant bugs a foot deep, but it's more that the lives at stake are more important than worrying about Kid finding out what kind of soy sauce he likes or listening to the long silences of the empty house.

The thief returns twice from his pillaging, once with two bowls of plain rice, one of which he offers to Conan – who ignores it, having already eaten – and again later with a box of the imported maple cookies his mother likes. The thief's eaten both bowls of rice and half the cookies before Conan finishes reading, leaving the detective wondering when he last ate.

"It doesn't look good," he says finally, closing the last file. Kid wraps the cookies away in their box with a crackle of plastic and turns to watch him, face blank. "No evidence of any value collected, no witnesses, no clues. Nothing gained from tracing the phone, which turned out to belong to Inspector Nakamori's daughter, one of the victims."

Kid says nothing, not moving except to breathe and even there his movements are minimal, stifled.

"The team investigating the docks where the call came from reported no evidence – not surprising – and no witnesses, also not surprising, but…" but there had been a possibility there, at least. More there than anywhere else. And now, they have nothing. Only the shrieking emptiness of a tundra, deadly in its openness.

"So we have no clues, no information on this 'Organization' other than what you know, and no way of guessing where they're holed up – if they're even still in the city. What now?" There's no sarcasm there, no reproof. Just a galling statement of the facts.

What now indeed. He's faced brick walls before, but there was always some way to get over them. More witnesses to question, more suspects to trick, more motives to dig out. And almost never has he worked with such a deadline. It's already 8:30, only 15 and a half hours left.

There's always Haibara, but he keeps that as a last resort. For one thing she's already told him as much as she's likely to about the Organization; anyway as a pet scientist it's not as though she'd have much idea where they'd be likely to keep hostages. But, more than that, he knows how jittery just having the Organization mentioned makes her. Knowing that he's actively involved in a search for them that has the potential to draw him to their attention… he can't imagine Haibara terrified – a woman who's been driven far enough to try to kill herself is not easily frightened – but it would unbalance her badly. This is starting to feel like he knew it would from the beginning, like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. A particularly apt phrase, in this case.

"Well," he says, and then trails off. Kid doesn't need false reassurances, and he can't give them anyway. As much a part of his life as it's become, he's never had much heart for deception. Maybe that's why he's chased the thief as hard as he has in the past.

"Well," echoes Kid. And then, in a lighter, empty tone, "I suppose we always have the option of just handing me over. Will they keep their word?"

"Don't be an idiot," Conan retorts immediately. "They'll kill you."

"That's not what I asked," says Kid, hard as diamonds. And then, softer, "I need to know, Detective." Kid's watching him with sharp eyes, waiting to weight the answer against his own conclusions.

Conan sighs, and lets his eyes wander to the table, tracing over the litter of files there. "They're not," he says slowly, eventually, words flowing reluctantly as a desert stream, "the type of people who break their promises for the fun of it, to brag that they never keep them. In this case… I can't believe that they would leave witnesses. But I can't believe they could expect the cops to keep quiet if the kids were…" he pauses, eyes narrowing. "If they lose the kids, the cops'll do everything in their power to put them down; bring the full weight of the Force against them. The only way this plan makes sense is if they take you and return the hostages, and no one ever knows what they traded them for. The cops would be blackmailed into silence by their own actions. But that makes no sense either," he finishes angrily, pulling tense fingers through his hair.

"Why not?"

"Because these bastards don't leave witnesses. They tried to kill me because I saw them. Once. No way are they going to let a whole pack of witnesses go."

"Maybe the kids never saw them. It's an Organization, right? There's gotta be grunts."

"Gin made the call, and he put one of the kids on. The kid said he was with the rest of them, so they're all together. With Gin." Simple math. A + B = screwed.

"He could've had the kid separated from the call, make him wear a blindfold or something…" suggests Kid, unenthusiastically. Even his tone says he's aware just how unlikely it is.

Conan digs through the records and turns up the phone transcript. Skims through to the part he needs. "The kid's a chatterbox, but … nothing about blindfolds."

"Or cars," says Kid, reading the paper sideways from his seat. "We're pretty sure the call was made from a car."

"Yeah. So the kid's just not talking about current events."

"He complains about the damn toilet conditions," argues Kid. "I doubt he'd keep quiet about a car ride, certainly not about a blindfold."

"Maybe he was told not to mention them."

"Maybe he wasn't in the car."

There's a moment of silence, both of them struck by the suggestion.

"I suppose," says Conan eventually, putting their thoughts into words – something which suddenly requires much more attention than it should considering he does it all day long, "it could have been a three-way conversation. He could have brought in the kid on another phone and then cut him out when he was done. If it was through his line rather than a real three-way conversation, it wouldn't have shown up on the tracking log…"

"It would explain how they could expect to let the hostages go: they've never seen anyone important. The higher bastards are running the show at arm's length."

Conan flips through the call record again, then looks to Kid. "You heard the whole tape, right?"

"Yeah."

"When the kid was cut off, was it like –"

"A cut-off?" Kid blows out a breath between clenched teeth. Finally, uncertainly, he says, "I don't know. It was pretty abrupt, but whoever had the phone could've just stood up and given the kid a kick." He digs through his bag and produces the tape recorder of last night. Presses play and fast-forwards through a few seconds of tape. Inspector Nakamori's rough voice follows.

"Let me talk to them. Nothing happens until then."

"Daddy?"

A rustle of static as the phone is passed, and then a new voice:

"Shin? Are you alright?"

"I'm okay, Daddy. Onee-san says we have to be brave. I'm being brave, Daddy! It's kind of hard, though. The men aren't very nice, and I'm in my pyjamas, and the toilet smells funny."

"Is your brother okay? Is everyone else okay?"

"Un. Nii-san has a runny nose 'n Haruko-chan scraped her knees 'n Onee-san hurt her head, but she's looking after Haruko-chan now. Oba-san's looking after Emi-chan."

"That's good. You tell everyone not to worry, Dad and the other–"

There's a slight whisper of static here, and then,

"That's quite enough," cuts in Gin's voice, harsh and mildly disgusted.

Kid clicks the stop button, and the sound cuts out. "Well," he says, "that was damn inconclusive."

Conan nods, eyes focused on the table, or rather the direction of the table. He is, in fact, thinking too hard to be looking at anything. "It could be either. But, a divided call makes a hell of a lot of sense. In which case…"

"Can we track it?"

"No, but with the exact conversation times," he taps the phone trace, "the cops can search for all calls made at the same time. That would give us a number at least, and possibly a location."

Kid shifts. "Which cops're we talking about?"

"Well, since I can't exactly go into the station and ask Inspector Megure to run a phone check, it's going to have to be ones… you… know…" he finishes, seeing the pitfall Kid spotted several seconds before.

"Unfortunately, the cops I know are under investigation for misconduct. And I can't very well give it to Section One; if they happen to connect the dots it won't just be an investigation, it'll be a trial." Kid leans back, distancing himself from the whole mess, and stares up at the ceiling. "It's a last resort, and maybe Nak – I – could drum up someone to run the search off the books, but if there's another option…"

It's odd, the way Kid seems to care about the men dedicated to catching him. Is looking after them almost as if he were one of them. But maybe it's just a further manifestation of his policy not to injure or kill. Presumably, it's the same morals that have led him to take such an active hand in rescuing the hostages. Expensive morals, for a thief. But Kid can probably afford them. Or at least has until now; now they may break him.

Conan rustles through the papers, looking for a loose thread unravelled by their new theories. He finds it in the call tracking report, a fact striking him in force now. "The ransom call was made from Inspector Nakamori's daughter's cell phone," he says.

"Yes," replies Kid, strangely distant. Conan takes no notice. The thread is in his hands now, and he intends to give it a good pull and see what he unravels.

"They kept her phone; maybe they kept some of the others." He shuffles through the files. "Who's old enough to have one? Sawara-san, of course, no, no," he tosses out the two elementary school folders, "maybe," sets aside the middle school file, "no," tosses the preschooler. Opening Sawara-san's file and the middle schooler – Nozomi – he finds the pictures supplied by the families and turns them to Kid. "Do you know them?

Kid glances down without moving his head, still tilted towards the ceiling. "I've seen Sawara-san before, once – not to speak to," he adds in an obviously tone. "Don't know the kid."

"So you have no idea whether he's got a cell phone or not."

"No. Why?"

"Most phones can only be tracked while in operation, as you know."

Kid nods.

"More recently though, a lot of companies have installed tracking functions in the phones as a safety precaution in case they're lost or stolen, or something happens to their owners. Most of the time they're not on, but if you call the company –"

"You can track the phone."

"Right. Obviously, it only helps if they've got their phones, and if their carriers offer the service…"

"What're you waiting for? Let's go!" Kid's out of his chair and to the doorway before he remembers he's in a strange house. Rather than roll his eyes, Conan scrambles down, grabbing the files as he goes, and follows. Directs the thief down the hall to the study.