Detective Yamamoto and the Missing Cat Part 2

“It’s the cat!” Detective Yamamoto whispered. Satoshi glanced around the paper bag and saw that there was indeed an orange cat on the street ahead of them. Presently, it was just sitting leisurely as if it didn’t have a care in the world.

“How do you know?” asked Satoshi. In his mind, this was a fair point. This could be any orange cat, and not necessarily the one they were trying to find.

“It’s orange, it’s hanging out in this general area, and it might like pork,” replied the detective. That didn’t seem like a whole lot of definitive proof, but admittedly, Satoshi didn’t have any better ideas. “Quick, give it something to eat!”

When Satoshi didn’t immediately move to grab something from the paper bag, Detective Yamamoto took matters into her own hands. Without any preamble or warning, Yamamoto reached up into the bag and rummaged around. Unprepared for something like this and only having a tenuous grip on the paper bag, Satoshi lost his grip on it and it clattered to the ground. Normally, this would be a bad thing in its own right, but in fact it was catastrophic. The sound of the paper bag colliding with the ground and crumpling made a noise that spooked the orange cat. It jumped up from its sitting position and took off running. Detective Yamamoto swore and withdrew her hand from the bag without firmly grasping the pork she was searching for.

“Come on, we need to catch that cat!” Detective Yamamoto hollered as she broke into a run. Satoshi scooped up the bag as quickly as he could and took off after her. Even as the chase began, Satoshi had a sinking feeling in his gut that it was fruitless. The cat outsped them by a considerable margin, and the clamor he and the detective made as they attempted to catch it only convinced the cat further that it didn't want anything to do with them. The creature seemed to sprint even faster in an attempt to ditch its pursuers. It certainly didn't help that cat was far smaller and more agile. The streets were only sparsely populated with pedestrians, but Satoshi and Yamamoto had to weave and run around people while the cat could dart between their legs with far greater ease.

Satoshi and Detective Yamamoto made a valiant effort, but try as they might, they could not keep pace with a frightened cat. Gradually, as the cat pulled further and further ahead of them, they stopped running and began to catch their breath. Detective Yamamoto flopped onto the ground. Satoshi dropped the bag he had been carrying as he doubled over and put his hands on his thighs. He swore.

“We really screwed up,” murmured the detective between heavy breaths. Satoshi could only nod in agreement as he fought to catch his breath. A few minutes passed with nothing but ragged breathing.

“So what do we do now?” asked Satoshi.

“We keep looking, assistant.” replied the detective. “This time, we'll do it carefully.”

Detective Yamamoto stood back up and motioned for Satoshi to follow her. Unlike before, the detective wanted to take a thoughtful, deliberate approach. In this part of town, there was a plethora of alleyways that a startled cat could hide in. If they were to have any hope of finding the poor animal, they would have to methodically check every alley.

Progress was nonexistent. Every alley they searched yielded nothing of worth, much less the cat they were looking for. Satoshi considered that if the cat had any sense, it would be hiding. It wouldn't be easy to find at all, but he still hoped they would have found it. He was sure the detective felt the same, even if she didn't show it.

They came to an alley lined along one side with a pair of dumpsters. Satoshi was about to help the detective search through them when she forestalled him with a gesture.

“I'll handle these. You just hold onto the food, and keep an eye out for the cat.”

Up until this point, Detective Yamamoto had foisted all of the unsavory tasks onto Satoshi. Admittedly, her motives might have been selfish, as she certainly wouldn't have wanted to waste food by getting it soiled, but this was a welcome change of pace for Satoshi. He didn't particularly enjoy being treated as her pack mule, but in this instance it had come in handy.

Without another word to Satoshi, Detective Yamamoto hauled herself over the edge of the dumpster and dropped into it. She began to root around and made her displeasure known as she began to dredge through its contents. Satoshi was doubly happy that he wasn't doing the digging, as the sounds that emanated from the dumpster informed him that it would be a particularly disgusting activity.

Nevertheless, in spite of how disgusting it was, Detective Yamamoto continued onto the second dumpster after the first failed to yield anything. She emerged from the second dumpster much faster than she had from the first. It was plain to see why this was the case. She was absolutely coated in garbage in a way that Satoshi didn't envy in the slightest. Aside from a grimace, the detective did not complain, and instead moved towards the next alley.
The next few alleys proved easier to search and lacked anything so nasty as the dumpsters, but also yielded no sign of the missing cat. As Satoshi and Detective Yamamoto considered giving up, the detective noticed a faint noise that caught her ear. She nudged Satoshi to get his attention and gestured in the direction that the sound came from.

“That sounds like a cat,” she said. Satoshi concurred. Unlike last time, Yamamoto and Satoshi decided to prepare in advance. Satoshi set down the bag gently, reached into it and took a small piece of pork fat. The pair of them started creeping towards the entrance of the alleyway that the meowing emanated from. Detective Yamamoto peered around the edge and then turned back to Satoshi with a look of triumph on her face. As fate would have it, it was the same orange cat as before, but in its haste, the poor creature had gotten stuck in a wrought iron fence.

“We need to be very cautious,” warned the detective. “We don’t want the cat to run off again when we free it.”

Satoshi nodded. Detective Yamamoto approached the cat first. When she did, the cat became more distressed until it smelled the fat. Yamamoto held out the pork in one hand so that it was just out of reach of the cat. The cat, for its part, sniffed furiously and strained to get out of the fence and at the food.

While the cat was distracted by the detective, Satoshi crept up too. Carefully, he grabbed the cat and prepared to pull it out. Now that he had a firm grasp on the cat, Yamamoto set a piece of the fat down and reached through the fence to help. It seemed to the both of them that getting the cat out of the fence would be simple enough if it was calm. They would just have to rotate it a bit and it would slide right out between the bars.

Even though the cat continued to cry as they worked it out of the fence, Satoshi and the detective persisted. Finally, after finessing the bars of the fence more than would otherwise be advisable, the cat was free, and the poor creature was so relieved to be free that it hardly struggled when Satoshi picked it up and it ate the pork fat directly out of Detective Yamamoto’s hand.

Satoshi took a moment to count themselves lucky. Had it not been for the fence, Satoshi doubted either he or the detective would have ever been able to catch the cat, but now that they had done so, he was going to make absolutely certain that the little creature wasn’t going to escape. As Satoshi continued to clutch the cat, Detective Yamamoto wiped the residue of the pork off onto her already soiled skirt and clapped him on the back.

“Good job, assistant. Maybe I’ll keep you around for a while,” she said brightly. Satoshi simply smiled in response. She seemed to be in a good mood for someone covered in garbage.

The walk back to Detective Yamamoto’s agency seemed a lot longer than it actually was, due in no small part to Satoshi’s nervousness regarding the cat. Sure, it was docile now that there was pork on hand and it wasn’t being actively chased, but Satoshi knew he would only relax when the cat was safely in the hands of the client, and not one moment sooner.

As the agency came into view, a rumbling coming from the stomach of Detective Yamamoto informed Satoshi that it was, in fact, dinner time. Just as the detective had instructed the little girl earlier this morning, the client was waiting for them.

When the girl saw the cat that Satoshi was carrying, her eyes immediately lit up.

“Carrot!” she exclaimed, running towards the pair. “You found him!”

“Of course I did,” said the detective with a trace of smugness. “I always solve my cases.” Satoshi passed the cat carefully to the girl and she hugged it tightly. She then turned and looked up the the detective. She seemed so ecstatic to have her cat back that she ignored how the detective was covered in garbage.

“How much do I owe you?” the girl asked.

“Nothing,” said the detective, smiling.

“Thank you, Miss Detective!” said the girl, smiling even brighter than Yamamoto had. She started to turn to leave, but Detective Yamamoto stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“One more thing,” said the detective. “Carrot really likes this pork.” Detective Yamamoto handed over another little piece of fatty pork to the girl. She thanked Detective Yamamoto again and even spared some thanks for Satoshi before trotting off with her cat.

Now that the girl had left, Satoshi turned to the detective. Internally, the detective's generosity surprised him. This made two cases where she refused to accept any payment. Whatever faults and eccentricities she might have, Satoshi reckoned that her heart was in the right place.

“That was very generous of you,” said Satoshi. The detective coughed and cleared her throat as though she felt faintly embarrassed by her good deed being witnessed.

“I had to pay it forward. Someone paid for my lunch earlier.”
Someone indeed, thought Satoshi, although he couldn’t bring it upon himself to become truly irritated by the detective’s flippancy.

 “Is there anything I can help you with today, detective?” Satoshi asked. Yamamoto started to shake her head, but stopped.

“I need to take a shower and wash off all this garbage,” She said, before gesturing to the paper bag Satoshi had been carrying from the butcher's shop. “But after that, I could use some help eating dinner.”