NaNoWriMo - Fullmetal Alchemist Fanfic - Chapter 7
(See Chapter 6)
Maes dropped in again, the day after the new arrangements had been put into place, partly to see how all the parties had survived through the day and overnight, and partly to try to take the brunt of things if Roy was in a foul mood. Havoc and Breda had stayed inside the house during the night, spelling each other off in two-hour watches while four other military guards had stood outside. The two lieutenants didn’t seem too bad for wear as he peeked in the door, and there didn’t seem to be any upheaval going on.
When he tiptoed dramatically over to the other door and opened it, he saw that Hawkeye was, again, doing her work in the inner office, her files spread all over the coffee table, her gun lying at the ready on a pile of papers. She’d be leaving after lunch to try to catch some sleep, before serving her turn with Breda in the house tonight.
Roy seemed to have accepted the inevitable, and even managed a joke or two - something about how much actual work he had to do while Hawkeye was actually sitting in the office with him - but there had been a warning in his eyes dissuading Maes from talking much about the situation. Not the fear that had been there the day before, thank goodness, but just a warning not to get into the issues again.
Maes decided to take the wise course and leave the room after just a couple of minutes, content that things would probably work themselves out. No need to indulge in overkill when he’d said pretty much all he needed to say on the subject yesterday. After checking to see who would be staying with his friend in the office this afternoon and tomorrow (it was Falman), he favoured everyone with a wave and breezed back out of the office. It was a good idea, he thought, to let Roy’s worries and ruffled feelings settle down a bit, before they talked again at any length.
He still had his own investigations to continue, though. For one thing, he hadn’t given up on trying to predict where the arsonist was going to strike next. When he got back to his office, he and a couple of other Investigations people studied the map as thoroughly as they could, trying to figure out the exact pattern that had existed before, and why it might have changed, not to mention where it might go next. They placed the map on the study table in the corner of Maes’s office, and sat around it.
One of his companions, Major Vanova, a short, easygoing woman with clipped brown hair and glasses, studied the minds of criminals as well as their actions, and made an interesting observation based on the amount of time between each fire. “The attacks seem to come about every two weeks,” she mused. "Superficially, it appears as though it could just be that this person is on a schedule - "
“Which was interrupted during that month Mustang was away,” Lieutenant Laforge, the other investigator, put in.
“Yes. But on the other hand, if it were simply a prearranged schedule, we could expect that it would be exactly two weeks between fires. There would likely be some consistency. But the wait time varies slightly. Between these two,” she pointed to the map, “there was as much as seventeen days. Whereas with these two, the last before Mustang’s vacation, there were only twelve days.”
“All right,” Maes nodded. “So what does that signify, from your point of view?”
“It seems to me that these fires are not necessarily planned ahead of time, but set on impulse, as the mood strikes.”
Maes squirmed a little in his chair. “That makes it sound awfully…casual. Don’t you think? And what about the spiral, and where it ends? That looks preplanned to me.”
“It could just be creative whimsy.” Vanova glanced over and noticed his eyebrows, shot halfway up his forehead, and chuckled. “But I don’t believe that,” she added. “I think you’re right - that Colonel Mustang is the target. And I also believe you’re correct in assuming that the sharpened angle of the spiral indicates an increased danger to the colonel. Whoever this person is, he has begun to feel extra pressure from somewhere.”
Laforge asked, contemplating the map, “How do you think that will manifest, Major?”
“I think we can expect to see another sharp inturn of the spiral, or a moving up of the timetable. Or both.”
Maes surmised, “And a direct attack on Roy - on Colonel Mustang - will come sooner rather than later.”
“I suspect so, yes.”
Maes put his finger on the spot where the last building had burned, and followed the spiral around in its new projected path, and then sharpened that angle. “Damn,” he muttered. “One or two more buildings, before he hits Roy’s house.”
“That’s right,” Vanova interjected softly, ”only one or two more.” She surveyed the map a moment longer, frowning thoughtfully. “It’s rather interesting...,” she mused.
“What?” Maes pounced, wondering if she’d thought of another clue.
“The seeming impulse of these fires...if I didn’t know better...”
“You’re driving me crazy, here, Major. What are you thinking?”
“I can’t say for sure that the impulse is the same, but this pattern reminds me of the sort of thing that Zolf Kimbley would do, if he weren’t in prison.”
“You know him, then?”
Vanova nodded. “I’ve done a lot of work with him since his imprisonment. Or at least,” with a wry smile, “tried to work with him. And of course, his impulsive acts of destruction happened not weeks apart, but usually just a day or two, or a few hours. So if he himself had been behind this, it wouldn’t have stretched out for five or six months. But this is very similar to the sort of impulse and pattern that we’ve seen in him.”
Maes tried to calm down his racing heart. It wasn’t Kimbley - he knew it wasn’t - the insane Crimson Alchemist hadn’t escaped from prison or the whole military would know about it, and be engaged in a massive manhunt. And there was no possible way (and no logic to the idea either) that he could be slipping outside every couple of weeks to create a fire and then slipping back into prison again. That scenario made no sense.
Even if, Maes ruefully admitted to himself, it fit virtually everything they knew about these fires. After all, it probably wouldn’t take much modification to adapt Kimbley’s method of blowing things up into something a little milder, to create a fire rather than an outright explosion. And that would explain the lack of fuses or other fire triggers, as well as the lack of incendiary chemicals. Maes was almost sorry it wasn’t Kimbley, in fact, though he’d never admit it out loud, because the man fit the scenario so well.
And yet…the imprisoned alchemist might still provide a clue somehow, even if he wasn’t the pyromaniac they were looking for. Maes was sure of it. Indeed, now that he realized how perfectly Kimbley fit the profile, he was kind of kicking himself that he hadn’t thought of the guy on his own by now.
“Major Vanova,” he said, unable to prevent the fervency from creeping into his voice, “even if it’s not Kimbley himself, he may still be one of our clues. One of the biggest, in fact. Thank you for bringing him up, because this may help us. A lot.”
“I should have thought of him sooner. But it wasn’t until I saw this map and saw how it correlates with the timing…” The woman shrugged off any potential self-recrimination and added, “I imagine you want to speak to him now, don’t you?”
“Oh boy, do I!” Maes exclaimed, and his fellow investigator laughed.
“I’ll arrange it, then,” she said. “I’d advise that we go together, if you don’t mind.”
“That would be great.” Maes flashed her a grin. “You can keep me from strangling him.”
He knew it would take a day or two to arrange the visit; Kimbley was one of the few people incarcerated in a severely restricted, extra secure zone in the maximum security prison in the northeast quadrant of the city. Even Maes, as an Investigations person, needed to go through special channels to get permission, so Major Vanova’s extra influence would really help.
Meanwhile, he had other urgent business to attend to. If they had only one or two buildings left before the maniac initiated a direct attack on Roy, it meant he’d have to try to find the next building first, and hopefully catch the arsonist red-handed. So to speak.
Easier said than done, of course, especially considering how well they’d done with that project so far. Police chief Martin was more positive when Maes called this time, but still could only spare a few people to help.
“We think we’re close to breaking this grave robbing thing,” the man said. “All the signs point to the medical students, and we’ve even got what we think are some footprints around one of the dormitories at the school that appear to match some we found near one of the plundered graves. So we’re going to set an extra watch around the dorm, in addition to putting extra patrols near the cemeteries.”
Maes’s heart sank. “So I suppose that means I can’t ask for people to patrol another couple of buildings for the next couple of weeks.”
Martin sighed. “I’ll see what I can do, Maes. I know your investigation is important. Maybe more important than ours right now. Let me see if I can pull a few more people from the cemetery patrols.”
“I know it’s difficult,” Maes acknowledged. “If you lose your leads now, you might never catch the grave robbers. Don’t short yourself too much. But whatever help you can spare, I’d really appreciate it. Call Lieutenant Laforge - he’s arranging the patrols.” He and Laforge had gone over the map again after Major Vanova’s departure, and chosen three possible buildings that they thought could be the next target.
He had planned to go back out to the earliest buildings that had been set ablaze, to talk to the investigators still going over those scenes, but before he could head out, he had another visitor. Edward Elric knocked diffidently at his door (very unlike his usual behaviour at Mustang’s office door), and came inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Where’s Al?” Maes wondered, unused to seeing the young man without his tall metal shadow.
“We thought he might be a little conspicuous,” Ed responded quietly, pulling one of chairs away from the study table and seating himself before the desk. Maes was also unused to seeing the kid so serious. His usual flashy smile was nowhere in evidence, and the smudges under his eyes hinted at considerable weariness.
“Hey Ed,” Maes leaned forward on his desk, frowning, “you look awful. What’s up?”
“It’s nothing,” Ed assured him with a brief smile. “We’re spending a lot of time at night going through those warehouses, and then we have to do our usual jobs during the day. Al could go on for weeks like that, but I’m getting a little tired. We’re trying not to let on that we’ve been doing things at night.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to be conspicuous?” Maes guessed. “Because you’ve been going through those buildings?”
“Yes.”
“Meaning that maybe you’ve found something?” This time, he managed to keep his voice from sounding too eager, but his visitor could still tell.
“Well...” Ed hesitated, then shrugged with an apologetic smile. “That’s the problem, Hughes. We haven’t found a thing. We’ve still got three of the buildings to go through, plus that big one from two nights ago, but so far, we’re coming up completely empty.”
“Then why the need to be inconspicuous?”
“It’s just...this really worries me. There are no fuels in these buildings, at least nothing apart from the frames and walls of the buildings themselves. It’s like the arsonist didn’t use anything to start the fires.”
“Which pretty much means an alchemist, right?”
Ed nodded. “There’s just no doubt about it, Hughes. We’re dealing with an alchemist, all right. And the weird thing is...”
“What?”
“Well, we decided, since we knew it pretty much had to be an alchemist, that there must have been an original array that he used. We’ve been trying to eavesdrop on your investigators as they go over the buildings - sorry about that,” he added, with a mischievous smile that indicated he wasn’t sorry at all. But it vanished again immediately. “There’s usually a place where it’s clear the fire first started, before it spread. Or maybe a few places, but there’s always a starting point or two. So we began poking around in those spots, looking for traces of the original arrays. And there’s nothing - just nothing. No hint of chalk, no hint of any other material that might have been used to draw a transmutation circle. Just,” Ed shrugged helplessly, “nothing at all.”
Maes leaned back again in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin, green eyes narrowed. “Which means...this is someone who either doesn’t need a physical array at all - like you. Or someone who carries his circle with him the way Roy does, or Armstrong. Or,” he added softly, “someone like...Zolf Kimbley, for example. Who has his arrays carved right into his palms.”
Ed’s eyes widened, and he took a sharp breath. “Kimbley,” he whispered. “Are you saying...you think it’s him?”
“It would fit, wouldn’t it, Ed? Someone who could probably create exactly the sort of thing we’re seeing in all these fires, someone who hates Roy...who’s hated him since Ishbal. And who would be just deranged enough to do what we’ve been watching all these months. It all fits, doesn’t it?”
“Then - then we know!” Ed exclaimed. “We know who it is!” He leapt to his feet in his eagerness.
Maes shook his head with a rueful smile. “We would know, if it wasn’t for one crucial thing. Kimbley’s in jail, and is so thoroughly guarded that there’s no way he could have escaped or even slipped out and back again without our knowing it. So no...it’s not Kimbley.”
“Are you sure?” Ed demanded, leaning both hands on the edge of the desk, bending forward urgently. His tired eyes had regained much of their sparkle, lighting up in hope. “Do you actually know he’s still there? Have you seen him? How often does anyone check his cell? Hughes, this could be the big breakthrough we’ve been looking for!”
“I’ll know for sure in a day or two, actually. I’m arranging to talk to him.”
“Good. It’s him - it’s gotta be him. You’re going to walk in that door, and find an empty cell. I just know it.”
Maes had to laugh at Ed’s confidence. He almost wished his young friend was right, and they’d walk into an empty cell tomorrow or the day after. Even if it would mean they’d then have a lot more to worry about than a few empty, burned-out warehouses (and even if it meant Roy was in far worse danger than they’d imagined). It was awful, the way they kept looking for answers and finding nothing, and the buildings just kept on burning as though the military and the police and the general citizenry were no obstacle at all to the arsonist’s plans. It was getting harder and harder to believe they’d ever solve this thing. And the day when they’d have to solve it or lose Roy was getting closer and closer.
So Maes knew exactly why he was wishing for the unthinkable: Kimbley’s escape. At least it would be an answer. And at least, then, they’d be able to decide on a concrete plan of action, instead of groping around blindly in the dark as they were doing now.
Ed left shortly thereafter, and Maes finally had the chance to head out to talk to the investigators who were still going over the clues (or the lack of clues) in the burned warehouses.
There was, as he expected, no more news from any of the sites. He couldn’t help being disheartened as his investigators reported their lack of results to him yet again. But it was so clear, from their glum expressions, that they were even more discouraged than he was, so he made himself adopt a cheerful smile.
“Don’t worry, this sort of thing happens in a lot of investigations,” he bubbled reassuringly at his people, so often, and at so many buildings, that it became almost rote. “You hunt and hunt, and find nothing, and then suddenly one small thing turns up that breaks everything open.”
One of his investigators, upon receiving this little speech, smiled grimly at him. “Which essentially means,” the man said, “that we’re supposed to start again from scratch, and go over the same ground again.”
Maes hesitated, his own smile finally fading. He ran a hand through his hair, the other hand on his hip as he gazed around the blackened shell of the warehouse in which they currently stood. “I just don’t know,” he answered quietly. “I know how good you all are at this. If you haven’t found anything...maybe there really isn’t anything to find.”
“Now, come on, Hughes,” the man raised an eyebrow at him. “You know we’ll be going over it again anyway. Don’t you start losing hope yourself, okay? You don’t really need to give us the pep talk, even though we appreciate it. We all believe that already. We’re not going to give up yet, so don’t you do it either.”
Hughes managed a sheepish smile in response.
That evening, after he and Gracia had put Elysia to bed, they sat together on the couch, gazing into the fireplace. As his wife nestled against him, under the protection of his arm, he nuzzled his chin against her hair.
But she could still sense his tension. “I wish you could really relax,” she murmured.
“What, this isn’t relaxed enough?” he quipped, stretching his long legs out onto the ottoman in front of him. “Any more relaxed and I’d be a puddle.”
He could feel her smile against his chest. “Your muscles are still tense,” she said. “And I know your brain hasn’t stopped racing since you got home.”
“Sorry about that,” Maes said, kissing her hair. The fire was gradually burning low in the fireplace, the dancing, flickering flames almost mesmerizing. A brief memory floated through his mind: streaks of blazing fire, gold, red, orange, sweeping the sky as Roy painted flame across the night blackness.
“It’s all right. I know why you’re thinking so hard. I worry about it too. How is Roy doing?”
Maes rolled his eyes even though she couldn’t see. “Hawkeye tells me he’s still a bit grumpy, but appears to be accepting the inevitable. I’m thinking I’ll stay away from his office for a couple more days to let him cool down. And who knows? Maybe after I talk to Kimbley, I’ll have some new insight to report, and it’ll cheer Roy up.”
“That might be wise. Though you know he relies on your support to keep him going sometimes.”
“I know. It’s a real balancing act. He’s close to Riza too, so I’m sure she’s giving him a lot of support when I’m not there.” He managed a twisted, self-deprecating smile. “Maybe I’m staying away because I don’t want him to hate me, or I don’t want to see it when he starts to.”
Gracia lifted her head and peered into his face. She laid a soft hand along one of his cheeks. “Maes,” she chided. “Roy will never hate you. He loves you as much as you love him. That’s not going to change.”
“I hope you’re right. You didn’t see how he looked at me when I first told him about the guards.”
“Now, don’t you be silly. I mean it. Roy isn’t going to hate you. In the end, I think he’ll love you even more for what you’ve done to protect him. You’ve been absolutely tireless, and you’re going to solve this. He’ll be so relieved it’s over that he’ll probably take you out and try to get you drunk, to make up for grumbling at you so much.”
“And that would be different how...?” Maes grinned. Gracia laughed and settled her head back on his chest again. They hardly spoke after that, cuddling and half-dozing as the fire gradually subsided into glowing embers.
It was just as they were murmuring sleepily about getting off the couch and going upstairs to bed that the phone rang, the harsh jangle startling Maes so badly that he almost threw Gracia aside as he sat upright.
“Gracia - sorry! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She met his eyes as the phone rang again. “You’d better get it, Maes, quickly.”
His heart pounding, he leapt from the couch and strode to the kitchen entryway, reaching around to grab the phone. Please, please, not another one, not so soon!
“Lieutenant Colonel Hughes? It’s Major Vanova here.”
“What? Who - oh.” He cleared his throat and forced some semblance of calm into his voice. “Hi there, Major,” he managed. “What’s up?”
“Sorry to call so late, but I just got word that we can visit Kimbley tomorrow morning, around eleven. I wanted to let you know in case you had to alter any plans.”
Maes leaned his forehead against the wall. “That’s good news, Major, thanks for arranging it so quickly. I don’t have any time conflicts at all.”
“Good. I’ll come to your office, then, and we can go from there.”
“Right. See you tomorrow. I appreciate this, and I really owe you one.”
He replaced the receiver, but wasn’t sure if he could manage to lift his head from where he still pressed it against the wall. He wasn’t sure, in fact, if his knees would hold him up if he tried to go anywhere. He couldn’t believe the terror that had engulfed him at the ringing of the phone, and the thought that there could be another building on fire - another one to struggle with - another step closer to the terrible outcome he so feared.
Gracia stepped into the doorway and took one of his arms, pulling it around her shoulders. “Come to bed, honey,” she soothed. “You need a good sleep. Come on.”
Maes lifted his head and gazed at her gently smiling face. “I love you,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Of course you do. Now come with me and get some sleep.”
It made all the difference, falling at last into slumber in Gracia’s arms, his head lying on her breast as she stroked his hair. When morning came, his brief flirtation with terror had dissipated, and he felt ready to get back to work solving this mystery and saving his friend. Maes allowed himself a longer than usual breakfast with his family, and some play time with Elysia, and then pulled on his uniform yet again and headed back to his office to meet Major Vanova...
...to find that Roy Mustang had gotten there ahead of her, and had settled himself into Maes’s chair, feet on the desk, waiting for both of them.
“You didn’t imagine,” he drawled with a narrow smile, “that I’d let you walk into Zolf Kimbley’s cell without me, did you?”
(See Chapter 8)
Maes dropped in again, the day after the new arrangements had been put into place, partly to see how all the parties had survived through the day and overnight, and partly to try to take the brunt of things if Roy was in a foul mood. Havoc and Breda had stayed inside the house during the night, spelling each other off in two-hour watches while four other military guards had stood outside. The two lieutenants didn’t seem too bad for wear as he peeked in the door, and there didn’t seem to be any upheaval going on.
When he tiptoed dramatically over to the other door and opened it, he saw that Hawkeye was, again, doing her work in the inner office, her files spread all over the coffee table, her gun lying at the ready on a pile of papers. She’d be leaving after lunch to try to catch some sleep, before serving her turn with Breda in the house tonight.
Roy seemed to have accepted the inevitable, and even managed a joke or two - something about how much actual work he had to do while Hawkeye was actually sitting in the office with him - but there had been a warning in his eyes dissuading Maes from talking much about the situation. Not the fear that had been there the day before, thank goodness, but just a warning not to get into the issues again.
Maes decided to take the wise course and leave the room after just a couple of minutes, content that things would probably work themselves out. No need to indulge in overkill when he’d said pretty much all he needed to say on the subject yesterday. After checking to see who would be staying with his friend in the office this afternoon and tomorrow (it was Falman), he favoured everyone with a wave and breezed back out of the office. It was a good idea, he thought, to let Roy’s worries and ruffled feelings settle down a bit, before they talked again at any length.
He still had his own investigations to continue, though. For one thing, he hadn’t given up on trying to predict where the arsonist was going to strike next. When he got back to his office, he and a couple of other Investigations people studied the map as thoroughly as they could, trying to figure out the exact pattern that had existed before, and why it might have changed, not to mention where it might go next. They placed the map on the study table in the corner of Maes’s office, and sat around it.
One of his companions, Major Vanova, a short, easygoing woman with clipped brown hair and glasses, studied the minds of criminals as well as their actions, and made an interesting observation based on the amount of time between each fire. “The attacks seem to come about every two weeks,” she mused. "Superficially, it appears as though it could just be that this person is on a schedule - "
“Which was interrupted during that month Mustang was away,” Lieutenant Laforge, the other investigator, put in.
“Yes. But on the other hand, if it were simply a prearranged schedule, we could expect that it would be exactly two weeks between fires. There would likely be some consistency. But the wait time varies slightly. Between these two,” she pointed to the map, “there was as much as seventeen days. Whereas with these two, the last before Mustang’s vacation, there were only twelve days.”
“All right,” Maes nodded. “So what does that signify, from your point of view?”
“It seems to me that these fires are not necessarily planned ahead of time, but set on impulse, as the mood strikes.”
Maes squirmed a little in his chair. “That makes it sound awfully…casual. Don’t you think? And what about the spiral, and where it ends? That looks preplanned to me.”
“It could just be creative whimsy.” Vanova glanced over and noticed his eyebrows, shot halfway up his forehead, and chuckled. “But I don’t believe that,” she added. “I think you’re right - that Colonel Mustang is the target. And I also believe you’re correct in assuming that the sharpened angle of the spiral indicates an increased danger to the colonel. Whoever this person is, he has begun to feel extra pressure from somewhere.”
Laforge asked, contemplating the map, “How do you think that will manifest, Major?”
“I think we can expect to see another sharp inturn of the spiral, or a moving up of the timetable. Or both.”
Maes surmised, “And a direct attack on Roy - on Colonel Mustang - will come sooner rather than later.”
“I suspect so, yes.”
Maes put his finger on the spot where the last building had burned, and followed the spiral around in its new projected path, and then sharpened that angle. “Damn,” he muttered. “One or two more buildings, before he hits Roy’s house.”
“That’s right,” Vanova interjected softly, ”only one or two more.” She surveyed the map a moment longer, frowning thoughtfully. “It’s rather interesting...,” she mused.
“What?” Maes pounced, wondering if she’d thought of another clue.
“The seeming impulse of these fires...if I didn’t know better...”
“You’re driving me crazy, here, Major. What are you thinking?”
“I can’t say for sure that the impulse is the same, but this pattern reminds me of the sort of thing that Zolf Kimbley would do, if he weren’t in prison.”
“You know him, then?”
Vanova nodded. “I’ve done a lot of work with him since his imprisonment. Or at least,” with a wry smile, “tried to work with him. And of course, his impulsive acts of destruction happened not weeks apart, but usually just a day or two, or a few hours. So if he himself had been behind this, it wouldn’t have stretched out for five or six months. But this is very similar to the sort of impulse and pattern that we’ve seen in him.”
Maes tried to calm down his racing heart. It wasn’t Kimbley - he knew it wasn’t - the insane Crimson Alchemist hadn’t escaped from prison or the whole military would know about it, and be engaged in a massive manhunt. And there was no possible way (and no logic to the idea either) that he could be slipping outside every couple of weeks to create a fire and then slipping back into prison again. That scenario made no sense.
Even if, Maes ruefully admitted to himself, it fit virtually everything they knew about these fires. After all, it probably wouldn’t take much modification to adapt Kimbley’s method of blowing things up into something a little milder, to create a fire rather than an outright explosion. And that would explain the lack of fuses or other fire triggers, as well as the lack of incendiary chemicals. Maes was almost sorry it wasn’t Kimbley, in fact, though he’d never admit it out loud, because the man fit the scenario so well.
And yet…the imprisoned alchemist might still provide a clue somehow, even if he wasn’t the pyromaniac they were looking for. Maes was sure of it. Indeed, now that he realized how perfectly Kimbley fit the profile, he was kind of kicking himself that he hadn’t thought of the guy on his own by now.
“Major Vanova,” he said, unable to prevent the fervency from creeping into his voice, “even if it’s not Kimbley himself, he may still be one of our clues. One of the biggest, in fact. Thank you for bringing him up, because this may help us. A lot.”
“I should have thought of him sooner. But it wasn’t until I saw this map and saw how it correlates with the timing…” The woman shrugged off any potential self-recrimination and added, “I imagine you want to speak to him now, don’t you?”
“Oh boy, do I!” Maes exclaimed, and his fellow investigator laughed.
“I’ll arrange it, then,” she said. “I’d advise that we go together, if you don’t mind.”
“That would be great.” Maes flashed her a grin. “You can keep me from strangling him.”
He knew it would take a day or two to arrange the visit; Kimbley was one of the few people incarcerated in a severely restricted, extra secure zone in the maximum security prison in the northeast quadrant of the city. Even Maes, as an Investigations person, needed to go through special channels to get permission, so Major Vanova’s extra influence would really help.
Meanwhile, he had other urgent business to attend to. If they had only one or two buildings left before the maniac initiated a direct attack on Roy, it meant he’d have to try to find the next building first, and hopefully catch the arsonist red-handed. So to speak.
Easier said than done, of course, especially considering how well they’d done with that project so far. Police chief Martin was more positive when Maes called this time, but still could only spare a few people to help.
“We think we’re close to breaking this grave robbing thing,” the man said. “All the signs point to the medical students, and we’ve even got what we think are some footprints around one of the dormitories at the school that appear to match some we found near one of the plundered graves. So we’re going to set an extra watch around the dorm, in addition to putting extra patrols near the cemeteries.”
Maes’s heart sank. “So I suppose that means I can’t ask for people to patrol another couple of buildings for the next couple of weeks.”
Martin sighed. “I’ll see what I can do, Maes. I know your investigation is important. Maybe more important than ours right now. Let me see if I can pull a few more people from the cemetery patrols.”
“I know it’s difficult,” Maes acknowledged. “If you lose your leads now, you might never catch the grave robbers. Don’t short yourself too much. But whatever help you can spare, I’d really appreciate it. Call Lieutenant Laforge - he’s arranging the patrols.” He and Laforge had gone over the map again after Major Vanova’s departure, and chosen three possible buildings that they thought could be the next target.
He had planned to go back out to the earliest buildings that had been set ablaze, to talk to the investigators still going over those scenes, but before he could head out, he had another visitor. Edward Elric knocked diffidently at his door (very unlike his usual behaviour at Mustang’s office door), and came inside, shutting the door behind him.
“Where’s Al?” Maes wondered, unused to seeing the young man without his tall metal shadow.
“We thought he might be a little conspicuous,” Ed responded quietly, pulling one of chairs away from the study table and seating himself before the desk. Maes was also unused to seeing the kid so serious. His usual flashy smile was nowhere in evidence, and the smudges under his eyes hinted at considerable weariness.
“Hey Ed,” Maes leaned forward on his desk, frowning, “you look awful. What’s up?”
“It’s nothing,” Ed assured him with a brief smile. “We’re spending a lot of time at night going through those warehouses, and then we have to do our usual jobs during the day. Al could go on for weeks like that, but I’m getting a little tired. We’re trying not to let on that we’ve been doing things at night.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to be conspicuous?” Maes guessed. “Because you’ve been going through those buildings?”
“Yes.”
“Meaning that maybe you’ve found something?” This time, he managed to keep his voice from sounding too eager, but his visitor could still tell.
“Well...” Ed hesitated, then shrugged with an apologetic smile. “That’s the problem, Hughes. We haven’t found a thing. We’ve still got three of the buildings to go through, plus that big one from two nights ago, but so far, we’re coming up completely empty.”
“Then why the need to be inconspicuous?”
“It’s just...this really worries me. There are no fuels in these buildings, at least nothing apart from the frames and walls of the buildings themselves. It’s like the arsonist didn’t use anything to start the fires.”
“Which pretty much means an alchemist, right?”
Ed nodded. “There’s just no doubt about it, Hughes. We’re dealing with an alchemist, all right. And the weird thing is...”
“What?”
“Well, we decided, since we knew it pretty much had to be an alchemist, that there must have been an original array that he used. We’ve been trying to eavesdrop on your investigators as they go over the buildings - sorry about that,” he added, with a mischievous smile that indicated he wasn’t sorry at all. But it vanished again immediately. “There’s usually a place where it’s clear the fire first started, before it spread. Or maybe a few places, but there’s always a starting point or two. So we began poking around in those spots, looking for traces of the original arrays. And there’s nothing - just nothing. No hint of chalk, no hint of any other material that might have been used to draw a transmutation circle. Just,” Ed shrugged helplessly, “nothing at all.”
Maes leaned back again in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin, green eyes narrowed. “Which means...this is someone who either doesn’t need a physical array at all - like you. Or someone who carries his circle with him the way Roy does, or Armstrong. Or,” he added softly, “someone like...Zolf Kimbley, for example. Who has his arrays carved right into his palms.”
Ed’s eyes widened, and he took a sharp breath. “Kimbley,” he whispered. “Are you saying...you think it’s him?”
“It would fit, wouldn’t it, Ed? Someone who could probably create exactly the sort of thing we’re seeing in all these fires, someone who hates Roy...who’s hated him since Ishbal. And who would be just deranged enough to do what we’ve been watching all these months. It all fits, doesn’t it?”
“Then - then we know!” Ed exclaimed. “We know who it is!” He leapt to his feet in his eagerness.
Maes shook his head with a rueful smile. “We would know, if it wasn’t for one crucial thing. Kimbley’s in jail, and is so thoroughly guarded that there’s no way he could have escaped or even slipped out and back again without our knowing it. So no...it’s not Kimbley.”
“Are you sure?” Ed demanded, leaning both hands on the edge of the desk, bending forward urgently. His tired eyes had regained much of their sparkle, lighting up in hope. “Do you actually know he’s still there? Have you seen him? How often does anyone check his cell? Hughes, this could be the big breakthrough we’ve been looking for!”
“I’ll know for sure in a day or two, actually. I’m arranging to talk to him.”
“Good. It’s him - it’s gotta be him. You’re going to walk in that door, and find an empty cell. I just know it.”
Maes had to laugh at Ed’s confidence. He almost wished his young friend was right, and they’d walk into an empty cell tomorrow or the day after. Even if it would mean they’d then have a lot more to worry about than a few empty, burned-out warehouses (and even if it meant Roy was in far worse danger than they’d imagined). It was awful, the way they kept looking for answers and finding nothing, and the buildings just kept on burning as though the military and the police and the general citizenry were no obstacle at all to the arsonist’s plans. It was getting harder and harder to believe they’d ever solve this thing. And the day when they’d have to solve it or lose Roy was getting closer and closer.
So Maes knew exactly why he was wishing for the unthinkable: Kimbley’s escape. At least it would be an answer. And at least, then, they’d be able to decide on a concrete plan of action, instead of groping around blindly in the dark as they were doing now.
Ed left shortly thereafter, and Maes finally had the chance to head out to talk to the investigators who were still going over the clues (or the lack of clues) in the burned warehouses.
There was, as he expected, no more news from any of the sites. He couldn’t help being disheartened as his investigators reported their lack of results to him yet again. But it was so clear, from their glum expressions, that they were even more discouraged than he was, so he made himself adopt a cheerful smile.
“Don’t worry, this sort of thing happens in a lot of investigations,” he bubbled reassuringly at his people, so often, and at so many buildings, that it became almost rote. “You hunt and hunt, and find nothing, and then suddenly one small thing turns up that breaks everything open.”
One of his investigators, upon receiving this little speech, smiled grimly at him. “Which essentially means,” the man said, “that we’re supposed to start again from scratch, and go over the same ground again.”
Maes hesitated, his own smile finally fading. He ran a hand through his hair, the other hand on his hip as he gazed around the blackened shell of the warehouse in which they currently stood. “I just don’t know,” he answered quietly. “I know how good you all are at this. If you haven’t found anything...maybe there really isn’t anything to find.”
“Now, come on, Hughes,” the man raised an eyebrow at him. “You know we’ll be going over it again anyway. Don’t you start losing hope yourself, okay? You don’t really need to give us the pep talk, even though we appreciate it. We all believe that already. We’re not going to give up yet, so don’t you do it either.”
Hughes managed a sheepish smile in response.
That evening, after he and Gracia had put Elysia to bed, they sat together on the couch, gazing into the fireplace. As his wife nestled against him, under the protection of his arm, he nuzzled his chin against her hair.
But she could still sense his tension. “I wish you could really relax,” she murmured.
“What, this isn’t relaxed enough?” he quipped, stretching his long legs out onto the ottoman in front of him. “Any more relaxed and I’d be a puddle.”
He could feel her smile against his chest. “Your muscles are still tense,” she said. “And I know your brain hasn’t stopped racing since you got home.”
“Sorry about that,” Maes said, kissing her hair. The fire was gradually burning low in the fireplace, the dancing, flickering flames almost mesmerizing. A brief memory floated through his mind: streaks of blazing fire, gold, red, orange, sweeping the sky as Roy painted flame across the night blackness.
“It’s all right. I know why you’re thinking so hard. I worry about it too. How is Roy doing?”
Maes rolled his eyes even though she couldn’t see. “Hawkeye tells me he’s still a bit grumpy, but appears to be accepting the inevitable. I’m thinking I’ll stay away from his office for a couple more days to let him cool down. And who knows? Maybe after I talk to Kimbley, I’ll have some new insight to report, and it’ll cheer Roy up.”
“That might be wise. Though you know he relies on your support to keep him going sometimes.”
“I know. It’s a real balancing act. He’s close to Riza too, so I’m sure she’s giving him a lot of support when I’m not there.” He managed a twisted, self-deprecating smile. “Maybe I’m staying away because I don’t want him to hate me, or I don’t want to see it when he starts to.”
Gracia lifted her head and peered into his face. She laid a soft hand along one of his cheeks. “Maes,” she chided. “Roy will never hate you. He loves you as much as you love him. That’s not going to change.”
“I hope you’re right. You didn’t see how he looked at me when I first told him about the guards.”
“Now, don’t you be silly. I mean it. Roy isn’t going to hate you. In the end, I think he’ll love you even more for what you’ve done to protect him. You’ve been absolutely tireless, and you’re going to solve this. He’ll be so relieved it’s over that he’ll probably take you out and try to get you drunk, to make up for grumbling at you so much.”
“And that would be different how...?” Maes grinned. Gracia laughed and settled her head back on his chest again. They hardly spoke after that, cuddling and half-dozing as the fire gradually subsided into glowing embers.
It was just as they were murmuring sleepily about getting off the couch and going upstairs to bed that the phone rang, the harsh jangle startling Maes so badly that he almost threw Gracia aside as he sat upright.
“Gracia - sorry! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She met his eyes as the phone rang again. “You’d better get it, Maes, quickly.”
His heart pounding, he leapt from the couch and strode to the kitchen entryway, reaching around to grab the phone. Please, please, not another one, not so soon!
“Lieutenant Colonel Hughes? It’s Major Vanova here.”
“What? Who - oh.” He cleared his throat and forced some semblance of calm into his voice. “Hi there, Major,” he managed. “What’s up?”
“Sorry to call so late, but I just got word that we can visit Kimbley tomorrow morning, around eleven. I wanted to let you know in case you had to alter any plans.”
Maes leaned his forehead against the wall. “That’s good news, Major, thanks for arranging it so quickly. I don’t have any time conflicts at all.”
“Good. I’ll come to your office, then, and we can go from there.”
“Right. See you tomorrow. I appreciate this, and I really owe you one.”
He replaced the receiver, but wasn’t sure if he could manage to lift his head from where he still pressed it against the wall. He wasn’t sure, in fact, if his knees would hold him up if he tried to go anywhere. He couldn’t believe the terror that had engulfed him at the ringing of the phone, and the thought that there could be another building on fire - another one to struggle with - another step closer to the terrible outcome he so feared.
Gracia stepped into the doorway and took one of his arms, pulling it around her shoulders. “Come to bed, honey,” she soothed. “You need a good sleep. Come on.”
Maes lifted his head and gazed at her gently smiling face. “I love you,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Of course you do. Now come with me and get some sleep.”
It made all the difference, falling at last into slumber in Gracia’s arms, his head lying on her breast as she stroked his hair. When morning came, his brief flirtation with terror had dissipated, and he felt ready to get back to work solving this mystery and saving his friend. Maes allowed himself a longer than usual breakfast with his family, and some play time with Elysia, and then pulled on his uniform yet again and headed back to his office to meet Major Vanova...
...to find that Roy Mustang had gotten there ahead of her, and had settled himself into Maes’s chair, feet on the desk, waiting for both of them.
“You didn’t imagine,” he drawled with a narrow smile, “that I’d let you walk into Zolf Kimbley’s cell without me, did you?”
(See Chapter 8)