Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Maxwell Murder Mystery ❯ The Arrest ( Chapter 2 )

"Rack em up again Jack." Duo said as he chalked up his cue. A rather burly man, somewhere in his late forties with graying hair and stubbly beard, leaned down and gathered up the balls, placing them in the triangle. When the man finished Duo took a long drink from his beer bottle and then lined up his shot. After a few seconds he sent the cue ball flying, hitting the triangle of billiard balls with a sharp crack and sending the balls in all different directions, two of the solid ones going into the holes.

"Looks like today is my day." Duo commented with a smirk as he shot another colored ball into the corner.

"Hey Duo!" He heard the bartender shout as he lined up his next shot, causing him to turn his head and look over at him. "They're talkin about that murder you investigated on the radio!"

"I'm not surprised." Duo replied, frowning slightly as the ball he hit bounced off the corner of the pocket and hit two or three other balls, none of them going in. "She was someone really important you know, whoever did this better watch their back."

Suddenly two policemen walked into the bar, walking straight over to Duo. It was Duo's turn again; he was lining up one of his shots when the first police officer tapped Duo on the shoulder.

"Detective Duo Maxwell?" The officer asked Duo after he turned around and faced him.

"Yeah, that's me." Duo replied, finishing the last of his beer. "You guys want a drink? Perhaps talk about that murder case that everyone is all up worked up about?"

"We can't have a drink right now," the second officer said from behind the first. "But we would like to talk to you about this murder, perhaps down at the station."

"Why would we go down to the station when we…" Duo replied, looking at everyone at the bar and putting his pool stick on the table. "Why don't you just wait until you get my report, I will file it with you guys tomorrow."

"Duo, we have a warrant for your arrest." The first officer said, pulling out a folded piece of paper. "Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way." The second officer put a hand on his revolver to emphasize his point.

Duo sighed, "sure, anything I can do to help." The first police officer put Duo's arms behind his back and secured them with handcuffs while reading him his rights. When that was finished they lead him out of the bar and into the awaiting squad car, sitting him down in the back before getting in themselves and driving off.

About a half an hour later Duo was in a 7 x 7 steel cage in the back of the police station, his head against the bars and his arms hanging out. In a couple minutes they would bring him into a stuffy interrogation room and try to get a confession out of him. As he heard the prison door open Duo knew his time had come and shook his head, his mind already racing through possible ways to get him out of this.

The voice he heard next actually had him pleasantly surprised instead of worried. "Hello Duo." He heard Heero say.

Duo breathed in a slight sigh of relief. "What's going on here, why am I a suspect, not to mention being called the killer, in this murder?

"It wasn't my idea Duo," Heero replied, sounding slightly exasperated. "There is a pile of evidence here that points to you. Your fingerprints were on the gun and bottle found at the hotel, the gun was registered to you, not to mention your DNA being found from the saliva on the bottle and the hair strands, as well as several electronic and eyewitness statements-"

"This is impossible!" Duo shouted. "Heero, you gotta do something about this!"

"My hands are tied." Heero replied. "Do you have an alibi for last night?"

"Last night…" Duo said, rubbing his head. "I was at the bar, someone challenged me to the shot game, I won two out of three… that was about 9pm. After that… next thing I knew I woke up in my office on the floor at about 10am, and Hilde was helping me up and giving me a cup of coffee."

There was a slight pause, then Heero spoke up, "you have no alibi. You need to find something that clears your name, try talking to that clerk, Trowa, something tells me that he's not telling us the truth. Afterwards try Dr. Winner, he might have something useful as well. The rest… is up to you." Heero took out a ring of keys and unlocked the cell door, sliding it back.

"Thanks Heero, you're the best." Duo replied, getting out of the cell and walking towards the back door.

"And Duo." Heero said suddenly, making Duo spin around. "I'm taking a big risk on you, if you get caught again I will not bail you out, and I will kill you if I have to." Duo laughed, then stopped when he saw that Heero was far from kidding. He went out the back door and hopped over the fence, then ducked down into an alley. As he passed a phone booth he walked in and took out the phone book, looking up the address of Dr. Winner, then wrote it on a napkin and started walking back to his apartment to regroup before the word gets out that he escaped. As he walked he tried as hard as he could to remember what happened last night, to no avail. Even though he knew that the murder was too well planned out, he began to doubt his own innocence.

About half an hour later, Trowa Barton was in his office filing papers when there was a sharp knock on the door.

"Come in." He said, not even looking up from the desk drawer. When he looked back up he saw who was there, surprised. "I didn't expect to see you back here." Suddenly there were two loud gunshots and Trowa's lifeless body fell to the desk, blood pouring out of the two bullet holes onto the papers on the desk. The person fired another round, this time into the computer system, causing it to spark up. The killer put a duffel bag underneath the desk and threw the gun on the floor, then turned the doorknob with a gloved hand and walked out of the office, silently closing the door before walking out of the lobby and down into the parking lot.