Kindergarten Heero Part 10
"Mrs. Mueller! Mrs. Mueller!" Heero called, breaking into a run to catch the woman before she could pull away from the curb. As he knocked on the driver's window insistently, Alexia scrambled into the passenger's seat and he could hear her apologizing for not noticing that he was following her. Heero frowned internally though he kept his face from showing his discontent. There was no reason that the child should be apologizing to her mother for the fact that her teacher had followed her to the car.
The window rolled down and Heero found himself facing a young blonde with a sharp, hard face and eyebrows at least as pointy as Khushrenada's. "Mrs. Mueller, I've..."
"Catalonia. Ms. Catalonia," she corrected sharply.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Catalonia," Heero apologized smoothly. He let his confusion show as he inquired, "Alexia is your daughter?"
"Yes, yes," the woman said impatiently. "I'm in the process of a divorce and have no desire to use my husband's name," she informed him icily.
Somewhat taken aback by the woman's attitude, Heero tried to get back on track with his prepared speech. He'd said it enough times by now that it should have been a simple matter to get it out. "I'm Heero Yuy, your daughter's new kindergarten teacher. I've been trying to meet the parents of my students. I've left several messages..."
The woman cut him off abruptly, "Is there a point to this, Mr. Yuy? I am a very busy woman." She lowered her voice to an icy hiss, "Divorcing an abusive bastard and making sure that his life is a living hell tends to keep one's life rather hectic."
"I - see," Heero said, blinking in surprise. He made a quick decision. If she was genuinely divorcing her husband, that should be easy enough to check out. She was distinctly hostile right now so there was no point in pressing her for details. He would make further inquiries on his own first. "In that case, I won't keep you. Thank you for your time." He looked across the car and smiled faintly at Alexia. "I'll see you in class, Alexia. Goodbye." As he started to move away, he impulsively turned back for a moment and told the woman quite seriously, "Congratulations. And... good luck."
The blonde looked startled for an instant, then gave him a distinctly feral smile. "Thank you." And with that, she rolled up her window and pulled away.
Heero almost felt sorry for her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Almost. Though if he really was abusive, he deserved everything that he had coming to him.
***
Noin hurried through the crowded street market, checking nervously over her shoulder. Her nerves were really getting to her since she'd agreed to cooperate with the cops and testify against Khushrenada. If she wasn't so sure that damn detective would come looking for her if she didn't follow through with her promise, she'd have cut and run.
Slipping through to a particular stall, she found the dealer exactly where she'd expected him to be. "You got the stuff?" she demanded urgently. He extended one hand slightly from his side in response. She slid her wad of cash into his hand and took the small plastic packet in exchange, quickly tucking it deeply into her jacket pocket. "Thanks," she said abruptly as she turned away. She really needed this hit to settle her nerves.
The dealer silently watched her leave. She'd never been a particularly big client but she'd been a pretty reliable one. Oh well. He turned and headed back into an alley. Inside, he was met by a tall man wearing a hooded jacket. The hood obscured the man's face, masking it in shadows. "Hey, man, I gave her your stuff. Now where's the rest of my money?" the dealer demanded.
A thick wad of bills changed hands. The dealer stifled his curiosity; asking too many questions was one hell of a good way to end up dead in this business. "Pleasure doin' business with you," he muttered before turning and heading back into the bustle of the market.
"Believe me, the pleasure was all mine," the hooded man murmured sotto voce. A gloved hand tucked a stray strand of platinum blond back inside the hood and then he vanished into the shadows.
***
Heero pulled up his messages and scowled at the laptop screen. Still no response from Jaye regarding his request to be taken off the assignment. He absently tossed Zero's ball across the room each time the ferret brought it to him as he scanned through his other messages. His frown deepened. Still no new leads on the other orphans from the orphanage that Leia had been raised in. He sighed in resignation and started to pull up online newspaper archives. He might as well start checking out Alexia's mother's story.
The front door opened and closed. Heero rested his hand lightly on the gun taped to the underside of the desk until a familiar voice shouted, "Yo, Yuy! You here?"
Heero rolled his eyes in exasperation at his partner's shouted query. "Where else would I be?" he demanded irritably.
"Off dating that hunky teacher?" Hilde suggested as she entered the room. She grinned at the faint flush that stained Heero's cheeks in response to her remark. "Seems to me that it's your turn to ask him out..."
"Don't you have anything better to do than stick your nose into my dating life?" Heero grumbled. "Like, say, your job?"
Hilde flipped him off good-naturedly. "What do you think I've been doing all day? Watching soaps?"
Heero opened his mouth to reply then thought better of it. She was his partner after all. It wouldn't pay to piss her off too badly, no matter how tempting the setup was. He settled for a noncommittal grunt.
Once it became clear that Heero wasn't going to respond, Hilde settled down to business. "Took me all day but I found out that Alexia Mueller and her mother aren't the ones we're looking for. Though weirdly enough, the mother is related to Treize - second cousins twice removed or some such nonsense. Apparently her branch of the family and his aren't on speaking terms though. The reason there's no father around is that..."
"The mother's divorcing him on grounds that he's abusive," Heero interjected. He smirked in satisfaction at the stunned look on Hilde's face. "I met Ms. Catalonia after school today. I was just starting to check out her story."
"Well, if that's what she told you, it's definitely true. She's got temporary full custody and a restraining order against Mueller. Had to go through the police chief to get the full details. At any rate, she's off the list of possibles."
"Did you start checking into Elisa Maxwell?" Heero asked, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.
"Started but nothing back on her yet," Hilde said, shaking her head. "Started checking into Duo Maxwell as well but there's not much back on him either. Just that the story on the house is true - it's owned by the Winner family, not him. And that he's got less in the bank than I do and that's pretty damn pathetic."
"Winner? That name sounds familiar..."
"It should," Hilde remarked drily. "They're only one of the biggest oil families around. Then there's the fact that the only male heir is quite openly gay and in a relationship with his Executive Assistant."
"How the hell does a small town teacher know someone like that well enough to be given the use of a family house?" Heero exclaimed in shock. This just kept getting more and more confusing. 'Correction, Duo Maxwell keeps getting more and more confusing... None of which changes the fact that I'm in love with him and would just confront him and ask him to explain if I weren't still on this damn assignment...'
Hilde shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe we'll get more information tomorrow that'll answer that question." She stole a sly glance at Heero and suggested, "Or you could always ask him..."
Heero scowled darkly at her in response. She knew as well as he did that he simply couldn't do that. Not as long as he was undercover on this assignment. All he could do was hope that he would get pulled off of the assignment very, very soon. Then make his excuses and head back to California temporarily until the investigation wrapped up and he could come back and tell Duo the whole story. 'And hope like hell that he understands...'
***
Meiran sat in the car and glared at the innocent-looking house down the street. She'd overheard the name "Yuy" mentioned while the woman was taking her leave of Chief Gee and since she was due to go off duty anyway, she hadn't even tried to resist the temptation to tail the woman. She noted down the address and headed home. 'I think Duo mentioned dropping his date off somewhere in this subdivision. I'll have to think of a way to confirm exactly where...'
But she really didn't have any doubt that it would be the same address that she'd just followed the woman to. 'Or rather, that I followed the out-of-state undercover cop to...' she thought darkly. She knew that much because Chief Gee's secretary had complained about all the extra work she'd had to do on behalf of said cop. And if the undercover cop was sharing a house with the new kindergarten teacher - the odds were awfully high that said "teacher" was a cop too. What they were doing here, she had no idea. Nor did she have any idea what Duo could possibly have to do with their presence. If anything. The cop might just be using him for cover. Or - maybe - he could actually be interested in Duo personally.
'A cop's better than a criminal... But if he's just using Duo, he's going to end up hurting him just as surely and as badly...'
And, as a fellow police officer, she was going to have to stand back and watch it happen. Meiran swore furiously through the entire drive home. Sometimes the law and justice were not synonymous. She truly hated those occasions.
***
Duo exchanged an amused look with Heero as Relena Darlian made a flamboyant entrance into the gymnasium. The expensive - and, inevitably, pink - bicycle and the pretty white pony - wearing a pink halter, of course - that the woman had brought to donate as raffle prizes had both classes losing interest in the preparations for the funfair and attempting to run off to pet the pony. Duo grinned in appreciation as Heero brought his class back under control with a quick blast on the whistle hanging around his neck. 'He's really getting the hang of handling them,' he thought as he rounded his own class back up.
He still hadn't entirely decided what to do about Heero. Whether or not to reveal part or all of his secrets to the other man. They'd managed to spend at least a little time together every day, either during lunch hour or by helping the other tidy up his classroom at the end of the day. And Heero had invited him - and Helen - out for supper tonight. Duo had accepted but suggested that they get takeout and go back to his place. He didn't want to keep Helen out too late on a school night. 'And I want the privacy too. I'm not prepared to tell him everything - but maybe if I just tell him a few little things, drop some hints, I'll be better able to judge how he'd react to the whole story...'
That was what he was hoping anyway.
***
Meiran chewed her lip nervously. She really wasn't sure whether this was the right thing to do or not but she couldn't just sit back and wait when a friend was in danger of being hurt in any way, be it physical harm or emotional. She needed some answers. Taking a deep breath, she knocked firmly on Chief Gee's office door. "Chief? I need to speak to you..."
***
Heero frowned as he swept his gaze over the playground. Recess was almost over and he was coming up one student short in his headcount. Which one of his students was missing? He hadn't been on yard duty so maybe someone had simply gotten permission to go inside to go to the bathroom... But somehow, he didn't think so. For some reason, his every cop instinct was on alert, telling him that something was wrong.
Automatically, Heero's gaze found Helen first before running through the rest of the class list. A number of parents had showed up to help with the funfair preparations and a couple of them had taken their children home when they left; maybe someone had forgotten to let him know. 'Alexia. Where's Alexia? I would have noticed if her mother was here; she's too powerful a personality to overlook...'
But what about the girl's father? He hadn't met the man so he wouldn't recognize him...
Blowing his whistle sharply, Heero instantly had the full attention of his class. They all immediately stopped whatever they were doing and ran to line up in front of him. "Has anyone seen Alexia?" he demanded.
Samantha nodded and informed him, "She was over there..." The girl pointed towards the gate leading to the street, "...talking to her daddy."
Heero swore explosively in Japanese, only realizing after he'd done it that it was a good thing that none of his students understood the language. "Go inside and choose one toy each," he instructed the class hurriedly. "Play quietly until I come back. I want to talk to Alexia's daddy," he explained carefully. The kids nodded their understanding and he sent them inside before hopping over the low gate - noting that the school needed to change that, locking it didn't do much good if it was low enough for an adult to jump over or lift a child over - and hastily scanning the street for any sign of the girl.
A wail of "I want Mama!" and the sharp sound of a slap gave him the direction he needed.
TBC...
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