Black Dog Blues

Chapter Eight: I Hate Spiders
by Kracken

Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.
Warnings: Male/male sex, graphic, language, violence


 


Back at the Precinct headquarters, Duo sat at his desk eating his lunch, a hamburger with the works, a coke, and some french fries. He had in his ear buds and was listening to some Glitch Mob, well aware that Wufei was sitting at his desk and looking at him in disgust. When Duo accidentally dropped a dollop of ketchup from his burger onto his paperwork that frown deepened. When Duo didn’t interrupt his computer research to clean it up, he swore and muttered under his breath and firmly turned away, as if Duo was chaos incarnate.


Duo felt a presence. He looked up briefly and saw Heero standing at the front of his desk looking thoughtful—cautious—angry—wearing his usual expression of intense concentration that was impossible to define. After a long minute, Duo sighed heavily, took out his ear buds, but kept working. It was an open invitation for Heero to speak his mind.


Heero didn’t speak. He simply kept staring until Duo was forced to say irritably, “Now that you’ve had time to find out all about me from our fellow officers, are you ready to ask for a reassignment?”


Heero kept staring.


Duo’s irritation went up a notch.


“I’m not judging you. The psychiatrists tell me I have a type of schizophrenia. I’m not so sure, of course, because, heads up, crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. I see things, Heero, and whether they’re my imagination or signs from the netherworld, they help me solve my cases. It works for me. I have an unusually high success rate.”


Duo typed a few lines on his computer and watched his internal records search results propagate the screen.


“I lose partners because they can’t deal with me,” Duo continued at last, “not so much because of my visions, but because I’m told I’m hard to work with. It’s not a good package, being crazy and a dick. I understand if you want out.”


Heero nodded at Duo’s computer. “Have you found anything?”


Duo looked up in surprise and stared at him in disbelief, then, flustered, he pawed through the mounds of files and paperwork on his desk before he settled on the piece of paper christened by his ketchup. He dabbed at it with a napkin and then handed the paper to Heero. Heero read what was written there and his eyebrows went up in surprise.


Duo grinned, pleased with himself, and told him, “Remember the barista saying the park was perfect because there was security there? The security guard has a military background. His name is Silas Polski. He worked with a dog during his tour of Afghanistan. I did some checking. It’s really amazing how our soldiers strap military dogs to their bodies and go into dangerous situations. I saw a video of a soldier strapping a German Shepard to his chest and jumping out of a plane. It’s cold outside. It’s possible a man could strap a well-trained dog to his body, put on a large coat, and walk around without anyone noticing. It would explain the disappearing dog tracks and the lack of witnesses. A bloody dog is hard to miss.


“Motive?”


Duo shrugged. “Hell if I know. Maybe he’s decided to become an assassin for hire? He could always say the dog did it and beat a murder charge.”


Duo showed Heero several evidence bags. “These are cat bones. My theory is that he was using them as training bait. I checked with forensics. The cat hair found on the victim was black. I had Robert Chin call her Chinese landlord and confirm that she owned a white cat. I think Carla met up with your kitten friend. For some reason, the dog attacked Carla instead of the kitten.”


Heero frowned thoughtfully. “It doesn’t make sense to train a dog to kill kittens when he wants to kill people.”


The little black kitten emerged from underneath a stack of papers, stretched, yawned wide enough to show its needle sharp teeth, and then slowly climbed the garbage on Duo’s desk to reach him. Its fur was sticking up in all directions and its wide eyes and skinny appearance made it look like a crack head waking up from an all-nighter. It was distracted by Duo’s french fries and expertly pulled one out of the container. When Duo reached to take it away it hissed and protected its food aggressively. Duo retracted his hand before he was bitten or scratched.


Heero was saying, “If the trainer was going to kill someone, I think he would use something to make sure his dog attacked the right thing, or person. An object? A scent of some kind?"


Duo saved his French fries from another kitten steal by picking up the paper container and holding it out of reach. The kitten hissed at him angrily.
“Yeah,” Duo grumbled, “You look cute, but you have the attitude of someone’s future ex.”


Duo began to reach into the container for a fry for himself, but then froze as he realized the container was full of black spiders. He dropped the container onto his desk with a gasp and fries spilled out. Black spiders with fat bodies, furry legs, and intimidating jaws didn’t follow. Duo, hand trembling, picked up a pencil and poked at the container fearfully while the kitten pounced on the fries and carried one off to a safe position on top of Duo’s In file.


“What’s wrong?” Heero wondered sharply, leaning forward in concern.


Duo dropped the pencil as if it burned him and scowled, trying to remember the details of his vision: the spiders clustered tightly, multiple eyes staring up at Duo, black fur on hairy legs beginning to stir, threatening to propel the spiders out of the container towards Duo. And stickers. Duo’s scowl deepened as he pushed through his fright to remember correctly. There had been tiny stickers on their fat bodies.


Duo suddenly propelled himself out of his chair, threw his coat on, and thrust a finger at the kitten.


“Wufei! Watch the kitten.”


Wufie turned in his chair and glared, perfectly slicked back, black hair looking tight enough to be painful. He managed to look down at Duo despite being seated. “I am not a pet sitter. I have an investigation—”


Duo impatiently tucked the kitten into his coat pocket. It refused to give up its french fry and it growled at him as if it feared Duo was about to steal it. Having the kitten with him was becoming a habit Duo didn’t want to develop further, but he was too anxious just then to find another solution. “Heero, I need the keys to your car.”


Mystified why Duo’s container of french fries could alarm him and then cause him to want to leave the precinct headquarters on his own, it was plain Heero was doubting Duo’s sanity. He certainly didn’t want to give up his car to a suspected unstable detective. Heero took out his keys, but held them in a tight fist. “I’ll unlock the car.”


“Fine, let’s go!” Duo snapped and led the way. He’d take Heero to task for obviously questioning his competency later.


Once inside the parking garage, Heero opened the locks to his car with his key fob as Duo rushed towards it. When Duo pulled ineffectually at the passenger side rear door with a dent in it, Heero said calmly, as he caught up to Duo. “It doesn’t open. The car was in an accident.”


Duo muttered under his breath as he went to the driver’s side back door and opened it. Climbing into the car, he searched the floor while Heero watched him.


“Got it!” Duo said as he backed out of the car again and closed the door, the small sticker stuck to his index finger. He took out an evidence bag from his coat pocket and slipped it inside. Sealing it, he grinned at Heero.


“What were you saying about having something from the victims? This was stuck to the kitten’s fur. Let’s get this to forensics.”


Duo realized too late that it said something about his sloppy methods and priorities that he had forgotten it in favor of satisfying his hunger for fast food. He was used to having someone to dot the I’s and cross the T’s, even if his partners didn’t stick around long. Being organized while visions and case work filled his thoughts was nearly impossible. He needed Heero, even if Heero rubbed him the wrong way. Or did he? Maybe he had been Mr. Freeze early on, but he was proving insightful and when he did speak it was with purpose. Trusting Duo’s visions and instincts would come later…. If he stuck around.


“You have to be more pro-active, Heero,” Duo admonished as they left the parking garage and took the elevator down to forensics. “Make sure everything I say, point to, find, etc., is recorded, bagged, and retrieved. It’s the only way I can work.”


“I’m not your assistant, I’m your—”


“Partner,” Duo finished. “But I have my job too. You’re not exactly the life of the party. I’ll do all the interviewing and contact work, okay? We both have our parts to play.”


Heero didn’t reply right away. Duo was sure he was considering whether he wanted to play his part.

TBC

 


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