Volume Fifteen: Wallow Written by Kashiwae Masato Illustrated by Chayamachi Suguro Summary by Amparo Bertram Early April, 2000

On his day off, Nobuyuki goes to visit Youko to get his hair trimmed. Garth corresponds with her regularly by email, and from a recent message in which he asked her opinion about some perfume, she suspects he's about to acquire a girlfriend. As Nobuyuki leaves, a number of emergency vehicles speed past, sirens wailing. From the conversations around him, he picks up that there was a shooting at a local elementary school. Heading in that direction, he even sees Henry and Sidney show up to help handle the situation.

Knowing he can't do anything but get in the way if he sticks around, he finds the nearest public phone and informs his boss about the commotion so that their tour buses can avoid the traffic jam around the school. On his way home, he happens to run into Steve on the stairs to the subway. Steve's nephew, Jerry, was in the same second grade class as the shooter. Nobuyuki accompanies Steve to stay with Jerry until they are given permission to leave the school gym to which the students had been evacuated.

The shooter, Freddie, had taken his father's .22 caliber gun and shot first a classmate, Tim, then his homeroom teacher, Mr. Joyce. He ran from the classroom, shooting a security guard during his escape, and then disappeared. The police can't locate him, nor do they even know whether he is still on the school campus. They contacted his father's cell phone, and he claimed to be on his way, but hours pass with no sign of him.

Sidney is not thrilled to see that Nobuyuki is with Steve, particularly at the scene of a shooting. He's interested to hear that Steve's nephew was in the same class as Freddie, but Steve doesn't want Jerry to be questioned by the police, especially so soon after such a traumatic event. Henry and Sidney drive to the boy's house, where his mother waits in shock, with Nobuyuki tagging along. She doesn't know why her husband, Lowell, bought a gun. They call Lowell's work, but his employer tells the police that he quit a month ago. His wife hadn't known that either; he left the house every day as usual.

Sidney tugs on Nobuyuki's ponytail and notes immediately that he got his hair cut.

When they go home that night, Sidney and Nobuyuki discuss how difficult it is for parents who own guns--particularly police officers like Henry--to keep the guns locked away from their kids. No matter how sloppy Sidney is with the rest of his belongings, he always puts his gun away in his nightstand. Nobuyuki remembers the night he couldn't sleep because it was snowing and crept into Sidney's room, only to be mistaken for a burglar and have a gun held to his head. Sidney asks if he had been scared, concerned that Nobuyuki might have been traumatized by the incident. Nobuyuki reassures him that he hadn't even realized what was happening until it was all over.

Sidney brings up the fact that he hadn't been able to sleep that night. Nobuyuki protests that he already apologized, to which Sidney shoots back that Nobuyuki hadn't even known *why* sharing his bed had been so hard for him. Upon being challenged to say whether he understands now, Nobuyuki bashfully replies, "Probably..."

At work the next day, Nobuyuki mentions to his boss that a friend's nephew had been in the same class as the shooting. Steve called and told Sidney that he didn't want Jerry questioned directly, but Steve would be willing to tell Sidney what he knew about the relationship between Freddie and Tim. Takada asks Nobuyuki if he intends to go along, but Nobuyuki uncharacteristically seems intent on focusing on work rather than the case. Nobuyuki's response is so out of the ordinary, Takada wonders if he had a fight with Sidney. Nobuyuki answers with a straight face, "No, everything's going *very* well, and I'm *very* happy."

Takada advises Nobuyuki to get a cell phone so he can be reached more easily. Nobuyuki muses that it would also facilitate reporting emergencies; if he hadn't found a pay phone the previous day to warn the office, their tour bus might have gotten caught in the traffic jam. Another traffic jam is in the making on the way to the airport, because the cars are all being stopped to search for Lowell and Freddie. A man fitting Lowell's description breaks through the checkpoint, causing a minor accident.

Sidney arranges to meet Steve at his brother's house after Nobuyuki gets off work, so Nobuyuki comes along. Steve explains that, according to his nephew, Tim had been bullying Freddie. What's more, he was doing it because Freddie's parents had somehow caused Tim's parents to lose a lot of money on stocks. Henry makes a few calls for verification. It turns out that Freddie's father was a computer programmer for a company that had been hired to set up a system of computers for day trading. The computers were arranged in a salon similar to an Internet cafe, except that they were all programmed to handle stock trading. Not having to go through a middleman makes it convenient for the investor, although as Sidney knows from having dated a stock analyst, amateurs are likely to lose a bundle.

When they drop Steve off at the fire station, he invites Nobuyuki out to lunch again. Sidney growls, "If he weren't so nice, I would hit him."

The three go to the hospital next, to question Freddie's homeroom teacher about the bullying. Joyce had been unwilling to talk to the police earlier, but he responds to Nobuyuki. He admits that he had started to notice the bullying, but the shooting occurred before he could do anything about it. He also mentions that Freddie's father had bragged a bit at PTA meetings about the day trading computer system he had designed. On their way out of the hospital, they run into Tim's mother. According to her, Freddie's father had made day trading sound like an easy way to make money, so she tried it. She did make some money at first, so she kept going back every day, but she eventually lost over a hundred thousand dollars. When she told her husband about it, her husband blamed Freddie's father for making it seem so attractive. They fought about it every night. She hadn't realized that was related to the shooting until, after surgery, Tim complained that it was all Freddie's father's fault, so he had just been punishing Freddie; he didn't understand what he had done to deserve to be shot.

On the way back to their apartment, Sidney comments that the distinction between "bullying" and "punishing" is a difficult one to make even for adults. He adds that it's the same with war. Nobuyuki can't help but be reminded of the United States' handling of Iraq. As always, justice is on the side of the victor.

Since Lowell broke past the highway checkpoint, there is a possibility that he left the state, so the case gets turned over to the FBI. Nobuyuki doesn't hear any more for over two weeks. Then, on Good Friday, Steve drops by the Sky Travel office to see him. Nobuyuki notices that he constantly has a bandage on his face somewhere; this time, it's on his chin. In the middle of chatting, he spots Freddie on the television that's showing the news in the background. Nobuyuki reports the sighting to Sidney and takes Steve over to meet up at Police Plaza while the TV station checks their footage. Steve is astounded by how dangerous Nobuyuki's cluelessness can be.

The television station finds the footage with Freddie at the Central Park Zoo and puts it on video. While Steve heads to Central Park to start searching, Sidney takes the video to Freddie's mother for a definitive identification. She is under the observation of FBI agents Jason and Allen, who remember Nobuyuki from the bank fraud case he solved. Jason doesn't miss the opportunity to taunt Sidney with a few more snide remarks.

After Freddie's mother identifies him, Sidney and Nobuyuki take off for Central Park. Steve has located Lowell and Freddie and calls Sidney on his cell phone to guide them. They hide in the underbrush and watch Lowell read a picture book to Freddie, who has fallen asleep against his leg. Sidney wants to rush out and confront Lowell, but Nobuyuki stops him, feeling that Lowell is waiting for someone else to arrive. Nobuyuki's intuition proves correct as Joyce rolls up in a wheelchair.

Sidney squeezes in between Nobuyuki and Steve to ensure they are properly separated while they keep watch. Steve protests every time the two start cuddling in front of him.

Tim's parents had not been the only ones to lose money from day trading. Many other parents and staff of the school blamed Lowell for their losses as well. Joyce was among their number; during a parent-teacher conference, he threatened to kill Lowell. Unbeknownst to them at the time, Freddie had been listening outside the classroom. He felt that by shooting his teacher he was protecting his father.

The next day, Nobuyuki asks for time off from work to go hide eggs for Jerry. Steve usually does it, but he's on duty. Takada agrees--but only on the condition that he carry a cell phone with him at all times from now on. Nobuyuki doesn't like the idea at first, feeling that it will impinge on his private time, until Takada points out the stipulation that if he uses it for more than fifty dollars' worth of personal calls per month he has to pay the extra. In other words, he gets free use of a cell phone with up to fifty dollars worth of personal calls, and he only has to consent to call the office in the event of emergencies such as the traffic jam he reported earlier. It seems like a reasonable deal, so he signs the contract and scampers off to play Easter Bunny.

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