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"Greeting Cards"Written By: Kaeru Shisho Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing
or its characters, nor do I make any monetary profit off this story. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Yaoi, funeral practices, AU, fluff Pairings: 1+4, 1x2x1, 3+H, 5xH, 3x4, 6x9 Summary: Each chapter is based on Heero’s
greeting cards and Duo's mortuary. "Greeting Cards " Chapter 11 -- August Moon part 2 It was just another morning at the morgue, and Zechs surprised me by showing up a minute after I did. Zechs' disconcertingly pale blue eyes crinkled away in a smile. "I couldn't wait to 'dive in' this morning," he admitted. Trowa buzzed up on his new motorcycle, which we all had to go check out for ten minutes. I thought it would be awkward having my friend and employee dating my ex, but when he mentioned his name in passing, it didn't bother me at all. Everything was going to be all right. "It's a BMW R1200GS. Quatre helped me pick it out. Pretty cool, huh?" Yes it was, and I was on the bike in a heartbeat. "Is this the new supermoto hybrid machine?" Trowa couldn't have been more pleased. If he had grinned any harder it would have split his face in two. "Yeah, built from a dirt bike platform for racing but still's great for riding on pavement. It can dismantle a tight and twisty canyon quicker than pretty much anything out there." I asked for and received Trowa's beamingly excited answers, rattling off engine sizes, borings, ratios, and stats ad infinitum. "It's got the same basic platform of an air-oil-cooled 1,170cc OHV four-valve Boxer Twin as a stressed member in a tubular-steel trellis frame riding on a 19-inch front and 17-inch rear wheel. Suspension is the German bike maker's unique Telelever up front and Paralever out back. I chose the Adventure model's 8.7-gallon fuel tank, 1.7-inch taller adjustable seat height, spoked wheels, hand guards, the larger windscreen, off-road style wide-platform footpegs, and crash guards for the fuel tank and cylinder heads." "Does 105 hp at 7,500 rpm, an unchanged 85 ft-lbs at 5,750 rpm, and a new 8,000-rpm redline, up from 7750 rpm. And it's got a stiffer 6-speed gearbox with slightly shorter transmission ratios to capitalize on increased engine output as well as a slightly shortened secondary gear ratio. You gotta give it a ride sometime." "I'd like that—" "First gear is 10-percent shorter for slow-speed crawling, allowing you to modulate the throttle without having to constantly feather the clutch to pick your way around technical terrain." He would have gone on, except that Zechs interrupted and pressed him about the séance. "What, if anything, have you learned about your past from Quatre's meddling?" The magic broke and the chatty Trowa shut down. "Not much." A man of few words. That was Trowa running on normal. When he reached for his coveralls in the changing room, he noticed my warning note right off and had a few choice words. "Oh foo duh-- for our protection. Maxwell, what the fuck?" "Just preparing you for a little redecoration project Heero got into the other night. Nothing to be concerned about. It's all good. It's art, anyway. Con-cep-tu-al art to be precise." Precise, but wrong I was to find out. The lab phone let loose with a jarring ring and we ran in from the changing room. Trowa snapped off one glove and took the call. "Maxwell's Funeral Home and Mortuary." He listened for some time, plucked a yellow sticky note off the wall, and jotted a few notes on the back. "Okay, shoot, Chang." There was a long pause while Zechs and I gathered around and waited. "Yeah, that was quick. Hey, thanks for letting us know. Glad to help." "What was that all about?" I asked. I was last to leave the dressing area, having had a great evening out the night before with Heero, and feeling happy inside. "That was one of the detectives on the case of the body you pulled from the salt tank. He said they found a car in the parking lot with blood spots and fly pupae on the seat related to those we found on the body. If the DNA testing checks out, then they found the car used to transport the corpse." "Great? Who does the car belong to?" I asked. "It was his car," Trowa's voice dropped and his eyes met mine. "Dekim Barton's. The tank was full and there was a receipt stub from a gas station dated 9 days earlier than the discovery of the body- just as we thought." "As we had deduced from the facts," I corrected. "So are they running prints from the car?" "Yeah. Waiting on that, too." "Did you say Heero Yuy put these up?" Zechs asked. "Yeah." I hoped he wouldn't ask why or expect me to explain them. "Why?" Well, hell... "For protection?" "These are o-fuda-- Japanese Shinto good luck charms that are drawn or written by priests. It's a folk custom, pasting the o-fuda, in places to repel evil demons and prevent disasters." Zechs sighed and stared at me appraising my intelligence. "That man is certifiable." Certifiable? "I'm going to check the 'to do' list," Trowa said, moving off, when the phone rang again. "Your turn, Zechs." "As you wish. Hello, Maxwell's Funeral Home and Mortuary." Zechs listened to the message and jotted down a few instructions, also using an overhanging o-fuda. I hoped doing that wasn't like despoiling consecrated ground or something and bring us bad luck or undo the charm or insult the artist. "We shall be there in..." he checked the wall clock before saying, "twenty minutes. Yes, thank you." He lifted the van keys off the hook. "Duty calls. We have a live one-- with bug life only-- out on Route 90." "Tro'? You okay here alone for an hour or so?" "Sure." "Okay," I said to my lofty, chic volunteer. "I'll accompany you." I realized while standing beside the taller man, that when I pushed my hands into the coverall's pockets, I made a dramatic contrast to Zechs, who would never have dreamed of doing so. He made the worker's uniform look smart and fashionable. Jamming his hands into the pockets would ruin the line of his clothes, even if they were just coveralls, and he was far too innately elegant to do that. "Have fun." Trowa shuffled through the assignment sheets. "Looks like I can take care of what is here when you get back with whatever you find." I mock-saluted him and jumped in line after Zechs heading out the door. "Go on, you drive. And... make sure you stay well off the road while you are loading. Cars speed going down that road; at least, we've gotten several accident victims delivered from there in the past, heh, heh..." Zechs paused at the van. "You have a very dark sense of humor, Duo Maxwell. I like it." En route to pick up body, Zechs asked, "What kind of education is required to do Trowa's job?" "Not much. He's way overqualified for the embalming work. There are a few specialty schools around where it's taught, but mostly everything can be learned on the job. Now, when we add in the autopsy part of the job, that takes more training, like mine or what he's got. To be a morgue attendant, like what you're doing, is rarely formally trained. On-the-job training seems sufficient. What Trowa does takes more training, and with a college education he can work cases for the government, do research, or any of several choices." "He told me he's far happier working for you than where he was in the hospital," Zechs said. "Oh yeah? That's nice to know." I turned on the radio and we listened to the news and weather for a few miles. "I see the turn off for Route 90 up ahead." "And then it's a few miles north of that. I don't see many women working in a morgue. Or is that just your preference?" "It's heavy work, moving bodies. And it smells. Doesn't attract too many people to begin with, and women the least. I think a woman doing Trowa's job is a one-in-one-hundred occurrence. Still, if you do the job right, it's secure work. Most folks in your position tend to stay at their job for decades. I think this is because most management types don't know what goes on in the morgue, and would not care to mess around with its staffing come belt-tightening time, and the attendants themselves like being left alone by management, and enjoy a much greater degree of autonomy than most workers at their pay grade and level of education." "What Trowa said amounted to the same thing. A select bunch we are," Zechs smiled. "My own impression of the 'morgue attendant personality' is somewhat secretive and cliquish, and one gets the idea that they have a lot more going on in their lives than they tend to let on. I've known them to entertain a variety of strange often repulsive visitors in the morgue." I smiled over at Zechs, and added, "But there are exceptions." He chuckled. "I see flashing lights up ahead." Zechs pulled over behind a patrol car near an exit on Route 90, where an officer was waiting, but no wreck. It was the same blond investigator as before. "Hey!" I shouted while hopping out of the van. "We seem to hang out at the darnedest places, eh?" The man brightened when he recognized us and remained glued to Zechs. "Seems that way." "So, where's the body for us to pick up?" I asked looking around and breaking their eye contact. "It's off a rural road a ways. Two dirt bikers driving through came across a burned-out car. The spot is pretty remote. I thought meeting here at the exit would make it easier to locate. Just follow me." The officer replied to me, but his eyes never left Zechs'. "That officer is attracted to you, you are aware of that, aren't you?" I asked him when we were rolling again, this time following the patrol car into the dark. "You're reading too much into these meetings. He has only seen me the two times over corpses, and he doesn't even know me. Besides, I'm straight and uninterested in anything he has to offer." "You think knowing you makes a difference?" I smiled. "He was crazy about you the moment he laid eyes on you." "That's enough. Not interested." Zechs blushed like crazy. "I'm trying to concentrate. This road's gravel and rutted and... Ugh! Full of potholes." "Careful not to break an axle." "Shut up or I'll set you up with one of my sister's friends, the name Dorothy comes to mind." "I dated girls, girl, once and... no thanks." "Point made then?" "Gotcha." Another patrol car was at the scene, headlights and a couple of portable battery-powered electric lamps providing the only lighting. Holding our flashlight over my head, Zechs illuminated the gloomy interior of the wreck enough for me to observe the situation. The glimmer of light flickered across the back seat and over the charred body grotesquely slumped in death. "We've already surveyed the crime scene and taken the photos, so it's ready for you to remove the corpse from the car," the investigator told Zechs. "Thanks. By the way, what's your name?" I asked. "I'm Duo Maxwell." "Detective Trant." He flashed me his toothy smile and then flashed it upon my assistant. "Nice to meet you-- both." Zechs shrugged. "Zechs." He marched off and had the back of the van open with a forceful bang was picking through a few tools stashed at the side. "Where's your partner?" I was thinking of "helmet head" from the last time. "He's here in the car. We have an onboard computer for looking up the car ID." Trant leaned closer to my ear and lowered his voice. "He's a little squeamish when it comes to bugs in bodies." "Who isn't?" I asked, and then trotted over to our van. "Zechs? Something wrong?" He was busy setting up the cot. "You were right about the man being attracted to me, and I don't find it flattering." He sighed and straightened to look at me. The guy towered nearly a foot over my head. "I had hoped you were wrong. I have received unwanted attention before." "The sooner we got this done, the sooner we're gone, then," I pointed out sounding a bit miffed. I would have found attention like that to be fucking flattering. I was short with brown hair and rather ordinary everything else. Next to Mr. Tall, Rich, and Suave I practically disappeared. Another thing to like about Heero. He was just perfect for me. Just the right height, dark, gorgeous as Hell, but not the head-turner Zechs was. Zechs could walk into a room and it was as if he blasted everyone with a stun gun. Heero killed them slowly nailing a guy with his dead-on eyes until the blood slowly drained... "Duo? Do you know what has to be done to extract the body?" "Yeah, I've done this kind of thing before. So, ah, do you have a special girl?" "Girlfriend? Yes, her name is Lucrezia Noin. Familiar?" Oh yeah... publicist extraordinaire. She created stars; she created Solo's onstage persona. I don't know if Zechs knew that. There was no reason he should associate me with Solo because we were discrete. "I've heard of her, yes. No shrinking violet, that one." "Not, not at all." The conversation left me feeling uneasy. With as few words as possible, Zechs and I scooted a plastic sheet underneath the burnt body, wrapped it protectively so as not to scrape the crisp skin on the door, and jostled the corpse onto the cot. Leaving my helper to strap in the body, I examined the backseat for any further crime evidence. I found a few 'somethings' and slipped them into zip-lock style bags. A rumble of distant thunder echoed about the hills in the remote area. "We have a tow truck on the way to haul in the car. We want to go over it back in town," the officer told me. "Good. I was looking for fried larvae beneath the body," I explained as he straightened up. "What for?" He appeared more than ready to just go home and call it a night. "Snacks!" I joked and turned away only after catching the man's face blanch. "Crispy critters. Here, catch!" The officer, expecting a handful of 'treats', threw up his hands to ward them off, missing the bagged knife, which fell to the ground at his feet. At the same moment, the sky lit up with a crack of lightning, followed by a rumbling of thunder. Impressive dramatic timing on my part. "Make sure they test the blood on the backseat, burned as it is, and that knife for fingerprints." Zechs locked down the cot in the van and secured the tools. "I'll lead you out," Trant said, trotting over to his car. "I need to direct the tow truck." "Hope you get out before the storm hits and washes the evidence off the car," I said. "Let's not waste any time," the officer nodded, and cranked on his engine. "Duo, what did you say to the investigator?" Zechs asked me once we were on the way back to the funeral home. "Nothing personal," I said to make sure he knew I wasn't the type to get between a gay man and his target, even if the target was a straight male. I told him about my crispy critters joke. "That was tasteless." "Well, Detective Trant, the tall, sandy-haired police inspector? He is supposed to be a professional, or should have been. He had to have known what I was doing. He should have been looking there as well but was too lazy to do his work." "So, what were you looking for?" "Oh, I was looking for larvae, fresh or fried, like I said, but that was because after I found the knife under the seat and the dark stain on the cloth seat where the body had been I figured that the man hadn't died in a car wreck." I didn't mention the most disturbing detail that I had noticed, which was the wolf canine design carved into the hilt of the dagger. "I noticed that the car appeared to be in good condition, despite being burned," Zechs mused. "It didn't appear to have been in a wreck." "Yeah, that should have set off a few alarms in their heads, too. You are very perceptive." "I am," he said with a suave smile. "So, you were saying about the larvae?" "I looked for them. I figured that if he had been lying out there in the open for long, a few might have started to grow. Or... maybe the fire happened right after he was murdered, before he could have attracted flies." "They'll go after cooked flesh or raw, but it might help us determine a time of death back at the shop." Zechs said, remaining composed, concentrating fully on the road ahead. It started to rain as we turned into the mortuary driveway. Trowa moaned when we brought in another "poor condition" corpse to autopsy, but I knew it was all for show. The man loved a challenge. "I am both repelled and fucking curious about what we might find." See? He helped Zechs move the blackened cadaver onto the table. When he peeled back bits of the clothing, Both he Zechs let out disgusted groans, "Ugh!" Live maggots crawled across the surface of the body, but when they removed the top of the skull, they found cooked maggots inside the brain. This was a significant discovery. It meant that the victim had been dead long enough for flies to leave larvae, for maggots to grow and eat away much of the decaying outer tissue and enter the braincase. Zechs teased out a few of the larvae, and then moved them with tweezers to a Petri dish for closer examination. "By comparing the length and weight of the maggots inside the brain with my own charts of maggot development," he said, giving his own commentary as he did the work, "I conclude...yes... that the maggots had died between 14 and 16 days after the victim himself was killed. Put that together with the maggots outside the body-- that Duo collected along with the knife, which I determined to be approximately 2 days old-- and we have one unusual case." "Look closely at these," Trowa said, pointing out scores and scratches on the spine to Zechs. "Those marks look like incisions." "Yeah, Duo, take a look. You agree? These look like cuts on the vertebrae," Trowa called to me. "Yes, from all my extensive experience with stabbing victims." I could be sarcastic, too. Most the bodies that came my way were due to injuries or illnesses. Homicide victims were the least common. "He was stabbed hard for the bone to be marked that badly." I paced the room, picking up a couple o-fuda that had detached and pocketing them. "Okay, then based on this evidence, I think we can reconstruct what happened. The man was murdered with one or more knife stabs, and left in the back seat. The knife I found might have been the murder weapon or one he pulled in defense. Lab analysis should tell. Some two weeks later the people, or person, who did it came back and set fire to the car, maybe in the hope of getting rid of the corpse, or creating the impression he had died in an automobile accident. The fire went out, and the body cooled enough for the flies to come back and lay more eggs on the burnt material." "Sounds plausible." Trowa turned to Zechs who was fiddling around with the larva under the microscope. "When you get done over there, would you see what you can come up with from the clothing?" He had cleaned the cot and stowed it, along with fresh supplies, back in the van. With time to kill and nothing else to do, he liked to study the insects. I liked his determination and good nature, considering what a snooty high-brow he could be. He readily agreed to shift through the burnt 'pockets' and tease out the contents. "Got it! I believe I've found a piece of ID," he said, wiggling a needle-pointed tool in the air. "Driver's license, but not Sanc, from somewhere else." I heard a gasp and bounded over. "What?" "No, not a driver's license, but something equally good. Our man is from OZ Penitentiary and Asylum." "An inmate?" Trowa asked. "I didn't think anyone broke out from that hell-hole." "No one ever has, and neither did this man. This was an employee." Zechs frowned and moved to the computer. "I have a little work to do here, so if you'd all leave me alone a minute, I'd be most appreciative. I'd like to use the phone too, if I might? I have contacts with OZ." "Sure thing. Be my guest." I made a wide sweeping gesture and turned to Trowa. "Let's finish this baby up and give our man Chang a jingle. Oh, yeah. He's going to join Preventers. Hilde called with the news." Zechs had been on the phone to his contact on OZ island compound, looking into the dead employee's history. The contact was more than willing to supply him with the latest passwords to the Asylum and penitentiary's databases. Of course, he hadn't told her exactly why. In fact, from what I overheard, he had given the contact an entirely false excuse. "Preventers? That's a prestigious job. I would like to meet this up and coming investigator friend of yours. Can you invite him over?" Zechs asked. "Sure, if he's game." "Soon." After looking up the information he needed, Zechs returned to the phone to report to Detective Chang what he had learned and what they suspected. He was going over the details leading up to their conclusions on the time and cause of death, when Trowa rolled in with the next body. From that point on, everyone worked in silence. We each knew what had to be done, and didn't have time to waste. There was one brief interruption when Trowa called me over for a second opinion. After some discussion, we reached an agreement and questioned Zechs on his stomach findings. "He must have swallowed the entire bottle. I counted 245 pills in his stomach and the label indicated that the bottle contained 250 originally." "Really?" I was puzzled a moment. "Plus the three lodged in his air passage and the few fragments in his mouth. That would account for all of them." "They couldn't have poisoned him, then. He hadn't even ingested them." Trowa could do the math as well. "Let me look over that windpipe again," I said. Zechs helped Trowa mop up and then Trowa hung the clipboard back on its hook and announced, "That's it for tonight." "There's probably still the stuff we had to do when we got here," I pointed out. "Oh there is plenty left to do, but no time to do it." Trowa met my eyes. "It's late. We keep bringing in more work, but the shift stays the same. Something's got to give." "I'll advertise for an embalmer. That shouldn't be too hard to find." "That might be enough." Trowa ripped off his gloves and loped to the changing room. "If we keep with the crime scene work, we'll need a pathologist better than me." "So, isn't a pathologist a kind of doctor? You're not an MD, are you?" Zechs asked him. "No, just a technician with a PhD. However, Duo can tell you the difference between an internist, a surgeon and a pathologist." He grinned and at that moment Zechs knew that he just set himself up for one of my jokes. "Duo?" "Go ahead, Tro' you tell that one." "Okay," he leaned against the wall, looking down either to hide or collect his thoughts. He did both frequently. "So an internist knows everything, but actually does nothing; a surgeon knows nothing, but, as it turns out, does everything; a pathologist knows everything and does everything, but, sadly, too late." Zechs burst out into laughter. "I have a story related to that, if you are interested?" Trowa asked with a shy smile. The tall blonde nodded and wiped his glittering eyes. "Please, go ahead." "I call it the Doc Hunters." He paused again long enough to get the story straight in his mind, and make sure he had everyone's attention. "Okay, so a group of doctors went out duck hunting. They hadn't been waiting very long before a bird flew toward their blind." "You know what a 'blind' is, don't you? A camouflaged spot from which they observe their quarry?" "Yes, Duo, I know that. I hunt. Go on," he urged. Well, it had been a stopper for me. I never hunted that way. "Well, the general practitioner got ready to shoot, but then turned to the others and said, 'It's what I've heard a duck should look like, but I'm not sure. You specialists have more experience with this -- what do you think?' "But by that time the bird had flown over and was out of range. Soon another bird flew toward the doctors. The internist, an internal medicine specialist, just to clarify for the purpose of this story, prepared to shoot, but then hesitated, thinking 'It's probably a duck, but I should do some tests to rule out whether it's a goose or pigeon or seagull.' "By which time that bird, too, had flown over and was gone. A bit later, another bird approached. Showing no hesitation, the surgeon stood up and blast several rounds with his shotgun. The bird plummeted into the marsh some distance from the hunting party. The surgeon turned to the pathologist, asking, 'What are you waiting for? Get out there and find out what the fuck that was.'" Zechs laughed along with Trowa. "That was awful. Where do you come up with your material?" "Mostly the bathroom walls at pool halls," Trowa said. "It was the only place I ever read for enjoyment. The rest of the time I read chemistry books." "Bathroom walls, huh? Speaking of 'coarse' material!" I nudged him with an elbow, while he groaned at my pun. "Hey, as fun as this is, I gotta hit the street." "Later!" (o) The next day, Zechs was observing Trowa prepare a cadaver for autopsy when the phone rang. I was at my desk and answered. "Maxwell's Mortuary and Funeral Home. Yeah? Oh, howya doing, Detective Chang. And congratulations." Zech's back stiffened and he looked up from the table. "Is that so? He's sitting right here. I'll put him on for you." I tossed the phone to Zechs with a smile. "He was excited by your info." Zechs returned the smile and took the phone. He listened and spoke in a low voice. "You are welcome, detective." He turned to us. "I was able to trace the burned stab victim's ID card to his work records." "You wouldn't mind telling us how you managed that, would you?" Tro asked with a frown. "I used the computer, but that's not the point," he evaded. "The victim failed to show up for work one morning, and he was listed but not reported missing by his employer, which isn't any real surprise." "Right and then sometime later—" "18 days later," Zechs said with his authoritative voice, "the two dirt bikers came across his burned-out car, and then we were called. I passed the dead man's name to the investigation team with the results of our investigative work the other day. They were very grateful." "So, who was the guy?" Tro asked. He sounded irritated by Zechs, who, I had to admit, seemed amused by the resonance of his own voice, as he drew out the tale. "Marshal Noventa. I told them that if they looked hard enough they would find evidence to link Marshal Noventa to Dekim's death, say... fingerprints on Dekim's car. I faxed Detective Chang a copy of Marshal Noventa's prints on record at the penitentiary. They keep records of many things there, dental records too." Trowa stopped what he was doing and asked, "Why would you link this Marshal Noventa guy to Dekim?" "Something seemed suspicious about him." "That wasn't an answer." Trowa gave a snort and returned to work. "I have a nose for trouble?" "He's not going to tell us," I growled. "And if it has anything to do with that OZ place, you don't really want to know. You'll be safer not knowing." "That is true. Sorry, but...it's a secret," Zechs said, then turned back to the phone to dial a new number. "Yeah, well not all of it," Trowa stalked up to Zechs and got in his face. "What else did Chang have to say?" "He was most excited that Duo pointed out the importance of some mark on the knife." "Oh? Tell me everything you know about that. The knife was special, wasn't it? As in a ceremonial one." Zechs hung up the phone looked vexed. "Yes, Trowa, it was a White Fang dagger embossed with their wolf canine insignia. Now you know all what the police knows. Let it rest." But Trowa looked alarmed. "White Fang. That's a clan destabilizing OZ." "Yes, I know. I am their leader. And with that information, I place my life in your hands," Zechs said.
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