Chapter Text
Chapter 1 - Fog
Friday, February 24th, 2012
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Near has not stopped stacking dice since the argument. His team has already left for the night and returned, but he hasn't moved from his position on the floor. The only difference is that his cityscape now expands from wall to wall, but even then, they don't dare disturb him. They merely exchange concerned looks and begin their respective tasks.
Not that they have anything to work on, not really. That had been the crux of the argument— Near has not taken a case in months. He has instead, in Lidner's words, spent all of his time moping and pretending the rest of the world does not exist. "There's more to the world than what's in your head, Near," she'd said. He told her to leave, she refused, and Rester and Gevanni took her side.
Rester seems to attribute Near's behavior to eating too much chocolate; Near heard him grumbling to himself about it. Near has already considered and dismissed this possibility. His behavior isn't due to anything other than the fog in his own mind. He can't explain why it refuses to dissipate, but it seeped into his brain after the Kira investigation, and from that point on, it has been his constant companion. Nothing has been clear to him since.
He still solves his cases, of course, the few that he's bothered to take since then. It's not that kind of clarity he's lacking.
And it's not as though Rester has a choice, anyway. Near wants the chocolate, and Rester works for him and is therefore required to purchase it. The exact brand, too— he won't accept any substitutes.
Near glances down at the chocolate bar in his left hand. He hasn't actually done anything but unwrap it so far. He hates chocolate, but there's nothing else he can do to remember. There's nothing left.
He closes his eyes and breathes in, as if that will rid him of the fogginess that has consumed him for over two years now. He exhales slowly, then opens his eyes.
The world looks the same.
Near returns to his tower. The room is silent but for the clack, clack of the dice as he works.
"Near," Rester says. Gevanni and Lidner look at Rester in surprise, no doubt because neither of them would have the courage to try talking to Near in his current stormy state.
"Yes?" Near asks. He can't stop a hint of amusement at their expressions. They're acting like he's a child who might explode into a tantrum at the slightest provocation. And… that thought sobers him immediately. "What is it?" he says more coldly.
"You've received an official request to look into a serial murder case in—"
"L only takes cases if there have been at least ten murders," Near interrupts, his voice monotone.
"The eleventh one happened two days ago," Rester says. "In Denver, Colorado. Haven't you been following the news?"
"Have they all been in Colorado?" Near asks, ignoring the question. In truth, he's let his knowledge of current events slip over the past year. The original L would never have been so careless, but it's difficult to find the motivation to keep up. If anything important happens, his team will inform him of it.
"Yes," Rester says. "They've all taken place in Denver. The first one was on October fifth of last year, and there's been no clear timeframe since. The victims are mostly males in their twenties—"
"If all the murders have taken place in Colorado, we have no business getting involved," Near interrupts again. "Denver is over fifteen hundred miles away. I do not want to move."
Rester frowns slightly but doesn't argue. He's always spectacular at keeping his cool no matter what Near throws at him. If Near were in a better mood, he would be impressed.
Lidner, who has been watching the conversation warily, speaks up. "Near, we can't only take cases that happen in the area. It's not right to—" She breaks off, then tries a different approach. "It will be obvious that you're in New York City if you only take local cases. There are still a lot of Kira sympathizers left who would try to take us out if they found out where we were, and it won't take them long to track us down."
Near takes a bite of chocolate to see if it will help him think. It doesn't. It never does.
"They don't know when the next murder will be or if the killer will ever stop," Rester says. "The police have run out of leads, and they're asking for your help."
Near glances up at him briefly, then returns his gaze to the tower. He places another die. "I am busy."
Lidner opens her mouth to protest, but Gevanni steps forward and kneels down beside Near so they're at the same level. Near watches with vague interest. Gevanni usually stays out of it when Rester and Lidner argue with him, so Near is curious as to what method Gevanni will employ to convince him.
"Near, it's been two years since the end of the Kira investigation, and you've hardly taken any cases. I've heard the rumors— people are beginning to wonder if you died with Kira."
Near pauses. Gevanni isn't entirely wrong, but it isn't Kira with whom Near has died.
He takes another bite of chocolate. It doesn't help.
"But this case presents a puzzle," Gevanni continues when Near returns to his dice without replying. "There's no pattern. The second murder happened eleven days after the first. The next was four days later. Then twenty-three, and twenty, and then… one. It goes on like that. A killer like that should be easy to catch, but they've so far left no evidence. People are scared, Near. They can't predict when the killer will strike next— the next murder could be anywhere from tomorrow to several weeks from now. There's no pattern that anyone can see, but maybe you can see it. Maybe you're the only one who can."
It's an impassioned speech, more so than Near has ever heard from Gevanni. Near looks up at Lidner, who is watching Near with a sad expression, and Rester, who looks uncharacteristically tired.
He pauses in his stacking and looks at the die in his hand.
"I am not the only one," he says quietly.
The others exchange a worried glance— they've been doing that a lot lately, Near has noticed— and Gevanni frowns. "What do you mean?"
Near doesn't answer. After a moment, he reaches out to push down the tower in front of him, taking another bite of chocolate as he watches it fall, dragging the rest of the cityscape with it. The clatter of raining dice drowns out everything else in the room.
When the sound has finally stopped echoing in his ears, he lifts his hand to twirl a strand of hair around his finger.
"Fine," he says. "We'll go to Denver."
He sets the chocolate bar down and begins to pick the dice up and put them away in the corner of the room. Gevanni stands up and goes to the computers, presumably to book a flight to Denver. Lidner and Rester share another uneasy glance.
The room is silent as Near puts his dice away, picks up his chocolate bar again, and returns to his spot on the floor. He takes another bite, chewing through the unbearable sweetness, and swallows. He doesn't know how Mello could stand to eat so much of this. Near sets aside the rest of the bar and takes the wrapper, which he begins folding into an approximation of an origami crane. The foil isn't ideal for the task, but Near doesn't care. With enough practice, he will make it work.
"Tell me the details of the first murder," he says.
Rester immediately launches into the summary. "At three PM on Wednesday, October fifth of last year, Jason Labelle, a twenty-five-year-old college student, was walking home from class when someone came up behind him and shot him in the heart."
"How dull," Near muses.
Rester clears his throat and continues. "The killer then sat Labelle's body up against the wall of a nearby building and placed the gun used to kill him in his left hand. No fingerprints were found on it apart from the victim's.
"The gun was registered to the man's brother, and the brother had reported it stolen three weeks prior. The police thought he reported it to cover his own tracks, but he was working at a restaurant miles away at the time of the murder. This was all verified. They scrutinized his alibi heavily."
"Yes, he would have been the prime suspect before they had reason to consider anything else," Near says. "How do they know the murders are connected?"
"In every case, the gun used to kill the victim was stolen from either the victim himself or someone close to him, and that gun was then left at the crime scene. In the second murder, for example, eleven days after the first, the gun belonged to the victim. He had reported it stolen three days before. The guns were all legal and registered yet untraceable to the killer, and they were all left at the crime scenes. That's the main reason the police began treating these deaths as related incidents, but even then, they're not a hundred percent certain."
"Were all of the thefts reported?" Near asks.
"No, only six of them," Rester answers promptly. "As for the other five, three belonged to the victims, so we have no way of knowing when they were stolen. The owners of the last two claimed not to have noticed them missing."
"I'll compile a list of stolen gun reports in the area to narrow down our potential victims," Lidner says, heading for her computer.
Near nods. It will be a large number, but it's a start. It will be less than the population of Denver, at the very least.
"I've booked us a flight that leaves in six hours," Gevanni says.
"Very well," Near says. He holds out his hand for the file, and Rester gives it to him. "I will study the information we have so far. Commander Rester, could you please arrange a location for us to work from once we arrive?"
Rester nods and heads to the phone. Gevanni, meanwhile, sets to work packing whatever won't look too suspicious going through airport security. Near would prefer to take their own plane, of course, but that would draw too much attention. It will be best to stay under the radar for now.
Near turns his attention to the case file. It's as Rester summarized— men mostly in their twenties being killed by stolen guns. It's an odd choice of weapon, but Near can understand the logic behind it. It's almost impossible to obtain a gun that's truly untraceable, and this method circumvents that problem entirely.
All of the victims were shot from behind while walking outside. In seven of the deaths, people nearby reported hearing a single gunshot. By this time, of course, the murder had already occurred and could not be prevented, but Near wishes someone would have at least reported seeing someone nearby. The Denver metro area is home to millions of people— surely someone must have seen something. But according to the police reports, no one has.
Almost no one, anyway. One person, a woman who happened to look out her window at the exact right time, spotted a car idling by the curb in the middle of the night. The next morning, the eighth victim was found in the neighboring alleyway. Even if the car was related to the killings, the description— a dark sedan— is almost entirely useless.
Rester has also provided a timeline, which lists when each victim was killed and when each gun was stolen. At a glance, it looks like the killer is someone who simply sees people and kills them whenever they feel like it. That kind of killer, while less predictable, is much more likely to make mistakes. What they haven't reported in the news, however, is the fact of the stolen guns, and it is this fact that tells Near the killer is not acting at random, no matter how it appears. Some of the guns were stolen weeks in advance. This means, subsequently, that the victims were chosen weeks in advance. They are not people whom the killer simply stumbled upon at the wrong time.
Near scans the reports, hoping to see a pattern to the thefts, if not the murders, but there's nothing there. In fact, some of the times actually overlap. The fifth and sixth murders occurred one day apart, on December second and third. It's unknown when the gun for the fifth murder was stolen, but the sixth was reported four weeks before. That was long before the fifth murder, and even a few days before the fourth. Others seem to have no turnaround time at all. For example, the third victim was killed on his way home from the police station, having just reported a break-in that morning.
Is the killer just stockpiling guns and waiting for the victims to make themselves vulnerable? It seems a rather inefficient method, but it might explain the varying times between the murders.
Near twirls a strand of hair around his finger. No, that doesn't make sense either, he thinks as he reads through the reports again, because the first victim was killed while walking home from school. This is presumably something he did every day, so there would be no shortage of opportunities for the killer to act. That suggests the timing is important after all.
But it can't be. There's no pattern there. It doesn't make sense.
Near does not like when things don't make sense.
"It looks like there are a total of two hundred and seventeen guns that have been reported stolen over the past six months," Lidner says. "I'm sending you the reports now."
"Thank you," Near says. "We will have to look into their families and friends as well when putting together our list of potential victims, and we must also consider the people who have not reported the crime for whatever reason. This will not be an inclusive list."
"We'll have the case solved in no time at all," Gevanni says dryly. Near notices his hand is resting protectively over his own gun. All three members of his team are armed and well-trained, though Near himself doesn't carry a weapon. He has never found it necessary. He doesn't leave the confines of headquarters unless he has to, and in the event that anyone ever manages to break through his security to get inside, the other three are more than adequate to protect him.
He wonders briefly what happened to Mello's gun. As far as he knows, nothing was found in the wreckage of the fire, but he never looked into it. He didn't want to sift through the ashes to search for what remained when he already knew the answer. Mello is gone, and there is nothing left of him but memories.
All he knows is that Mello was fond of that gun. Of course, Near only saw it once, when Mello aimed it at him, desperate to pull the trigger. Near almost wishes he had.
He sighs audibly. These thoughts are pointless, yet they always come at the most inopportune moments. Mello would never have killed him. That wouldn't have been victory.
Which makes it all the more puzzling that Mello died for him.
Well, not for him. In truth, Mello was probably reckless because he had nothing left to lose. He'd already lost Matt, and he would have had to live with the fact that he helped Near. Mello probably hadn't cared whether he lived or died by that point, but he did what he had to in order to defeat Kira.
Near is not L. He can never be L. With Mello at his side, however reluctantly, they were able to surpass him. With Mello gone, Near is nothing. He will continue to be nothing until the fog consumes him, until he can no longer see what is in front of him.
It's all pointless.
"Are you sure you're all right, Near?" Lidner asks, her voice full of concern. Near meets her gaze, and he wonders how long she's been watching him. And how long he's been staring— glaring?— at the little chocolate-wrapper crane he's created.
He crushes it in his fist. "I am fine," he says. "Do not ask again."
Even though he gives the order, he knows she won't follow it. He is aware that his team is not simply a group of people under his employ. They stayed voluntarily when the Kira case was over, and he knows they care about him on some level. He is not sure what to do with that information.
It is, however, irrelevant now that they have a case to pursue.
"Okay," Lidner says. She hesitates, then adds, "but you really should lay off the chocolate. It's not good for you to eat so much of it."
In answer, Near unwraps another chocolate bar and heads to his own computer. He has two hundred and seventeen reports to go through.