Alive - October 30th
L was just getting ready to turn off his computer and head downstairs when Kathleen Morgan called him from the police station.
“Good evening,” he answered the call calmly. “How are you doing, Detective Morgan?”
Morgan looked startled that he’d asked, then grateful.
“Better,” she disclosed with a faint sigh. “I - I still don’t understand it, and I still don’t want to believe it, but Jeff and my boss have managed to talk a little common sense into me. I’m not going to let it get to me if I can help it.”
L smiled. “Your courage is admirable. Tell me, is it something about that case which you were calling about?”
Morgan shook her head. “No, not that one. It’s about the man you mentioned, who was stalking one of your children.”
“Ah, yes,” L frowned. “We were out again this afternoon, buying pumpkins for them to carve, but fortunately, we didn’t see any sign of him.”
Morgan paused. “You wouldn’t have,” she finally said, rather delicately, “because he’s dead.”
L’s eyes widened. “Dead? When, how? Are we sure it’s him?”
“We’re not entirely sure when,” Morgan replied. “His body was found about an hour ago, but it had been dead longer than that. It would appear that he fell from a fire escape or possibly even the roof of the building. Our best guess is that he was chasing or attempting to assault some person, there was a struggle, and he lost his balance. He had a few bruises and scratches on him, but it’s undoubtedly the fall that killed him.”
“Have you identified him?” L asked.
Morgan nodded. “Thomas Hunter, resident of the city, currently unemployed. Arrested twice on charges of child molestation, but acquitted both times for lack of evidence. Found dead wearing the very costume you described.”
L swallowed. “That does sound like our man.”
Morgan smiled wryly. “It does. I know we shouldn’t be glad that he’s dead, but at least you won’t have to worry about sending your children into the city tomorrow night.”
L nodded. “Yes, that is a slight relief. I’m still nervous about letting them out, especially after what happened with Near - but that seems to be concluded now, and if the stalker is out of the picture as well, I really don’t have a reason to keep them home. Halloween is one of the most special nights of the year for them.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Morgan smiled. “Jeff and I will be out patrolling the streets, along with half of the rest of the force. We’ve divided the city up into areas and taken one each, and we’ll be out there from sunset until the last trick-or-treaters have gone home. We want to make tomorrow night as safe as possible.”
“Thank you,” L said. “That’s good to know.”
“It’s our job,” Morgan assured him. “And please let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”
“I will,” L replied. “Thank you again.”
He hung up, then stood and headed downstairs with a sigh of relief. Perhaps things would be all right after all.
When he arrived in the kitchen, it was already set up for pumpkin carving, with chairs around the various counters, newspapers spread to protect against inevitable messes, and various carving tools and decorating supplies. From across the room, Mello and Matt were waving him over to an empty stool.
“That one was yours, right?” Mello asked, pointing to the pumpkin sitting on the counter before the stool. L nodded.
“I believe it was. Do we have enough carving tools?”
Mello nodded. “Yeah. Hey, Near, your pumpkin’s silver.”
“I know,” the white-haired boy said calmly from L’s other side. “Watari helped me with the spray paint this afternoon.”
“You’re going to make it into a robot, aren’t you?” Mello demanded.
Near smiled and reached for a scooping tool.
Over the next hour or so, his pumpkin did indeed become a robot - with square eyes and a square mouth, different colored lights inside making the former glow red and the latter glow blue.
“That’s kind of cool,” Mello admitted reluctantly, glancing up from the pumpkin he was decorating to look like a monster, with tinfoil fangs, evil eyes, small branches for clawed hands, and what appeared to be every other accessory he could fit onto its substantial surface. L smiled, remembering watching him dashing around the pumpkin patch with Matt in a gleeful search for the biggest one he could find.
Matt, for his part, was carving his pumpkin to look like Bowser, and L was decorating his with his elaborate L. Watari stopped by to look at them and smiled.
“Almost done?” he asked. “I can help you carry them out to the dining hall.”
For that night, the chairs and tables in the large dining room had been pushed back to allow the residents to fill it with pillows, blankets, and sleeping bags. The fireplace was lit, the pumpkins were illuminated and lined up along the window-wall, and the members of the House gathered to celebrate Halloween and share each other’s company.
Once L had taken his pumpkin out to put it in front of the window, children trailing, and crossed to stand by the fireplace on the opposite wall, he discovered Amos handing out paper plates of pumpkin pie and Rachel ladling hot apple cider into cups.
“Thank you,” he told both of them. “And Happy Halloween.” Collecting his sweets, he carried them over to the corner where his makeshift bed was piled, leaning back against the pillows and setting his plate of pie in his lap.
Immediately, his three companions dove under the blanket as well, Near latching onto his left arm and Mello his right, Matt curling up on the blond boy’s free side. L, who was rather used to this phenomenon, simply smiled and ate his pie.
That night, as he fell asleep with the faint smell of woodsmoke drifting down from the fireplace, the jack-o’-lanterns like sentinels along the window, and a symphony of soft breathing rising from the group of small forms using him as a pillow, he allowed himself to grow calm. There were a lot of things L associated with Wammy’s House - one of them was safety.
(next chapter)