Detective Yamamoto and the Cheating Boyfriend Part 1

TUESDAY

Tuesday had seemed like it would be a day like the few before it. Satoshi showed up to the Yamamoto Detective Agency in hopes that the detective would have a case, but he was to be disappointed. Instead, after the past few days of sitting around and waiting, he brought along his computer. If he was going to sit around, he might as well also work on something. The past few days had been so devoid of any meaningful activity that Satoshi took to cleaning the office. He actually made a reasonable attempt at clearing up all the empty cans and general mess despite Detective Yamamoto's best efforts to render all of Satoshi's work moot.

Today Detective Yamamoto was her usual self. Rather than get dressed up for any potential clients, she sat half-naked in her office chair, resting one leg on top of her desk, her modesty only preserved by an increasingly thin and thread-bare undershirt.

Satoshi secretly hoped that today would be a slow day as well. He had scarcely put pen to paper and written a hundred words when there came a knock at the door. Detective Yamamoto perked up somewhat and swiveled in her chair towards Satoshi.

“Assistant, if you please,” she said. Satoshi set his computer aside on what passed for his desk and stood up off of his makeshift chair. He strode over to the door just as the potential client knocked again. Satoshi opened the door and put a smile on his face.

“Hello, welcome to the Yamamoto Detective Agency,” he said cheerfully. The woman did not immediately respond. From the look of her, Satoshi clearly saw that she had a real problem on her hands.

The woman was young, perhaps in her early twenties, and in Satoshi’s opinion, she was quite attractive. She had long, dark hair tied back professionally, and she dressed in a similarly professional manner. If Satoshi had to guess, he would assume she worked in an office based on her attire. Her appearance was somewhat marred by the tears that had caused her makeup to streak and smudge, but Satoshi wasn’t willing to hold that against her.

“Follow me and I’ll take you to the detective,” said Satoshi. He turned and walked back inside, casually looking over his shoulder to make sure the woman followed him. He led her to the detective’s office, and he was faintly glad that he had done some cleaning after all. He brought the woman a chair and pulled it over to the front of the detective’s desk. All the while, the woman quietly sobbed to herself and occasionally dabbed at her eyes. Satoshi walked around the desk to stand off to the side of the sitting detective and turned to face the client.

“What can we do for you, Miss?” asked Satoshi. He trailed off as it occurred to him that he hadn’t yet asked for the woman’s name.

“Hitomi,” she said. “Hitomi Takahada.”

“Well, Miss Takahada, what seems to be the problem?”

The problem seemed to be a very touchy subject indeed, as the woman began to cry harder. After an uncomfortable few seconds, she managed to regain some measure of control.

“The problem is my boyfriend. I think he’s cheating on me.”

Satoshi and Detective Yamamoto exchanged glances. Satoshi had helped on a few cases by this point, but never one like this. The look Yamamoto gave Satoshi told him that this case would likely be a gigantic pain in the rear. The silence, interrupted only a few quiet sobs, was becoming uncomfortable again. This time, the detective decided to speak up.

“Why do you think he's cheating?” asked the detective. It was a natural place to start, as surely there must be something that convinced Hitomi of her boyfriend’s unfaithful conduct, but like before this only made her cry harder. Hitomi managed to give an answer between sobs.

There was nothing concrete, like her boyfriend being caught with another woman, but a definite pattern of suspect behavior started to emerge, and the lying in Detective Yamamoto’s eyes was especially worrisome. After Hitomi gave all the details, Yamamoto put her elbows on her desk and taped her fingers together in front of her face.

“I can take on this case,” said Yamamoto. “But I want to be very clear upfront that there’s a good possibility that we’ll uncover something you won't like.”

“I understand.” said Hitomi. “But I’d rather know for sure.” Detective Yamamoto nodded.

“First things first, we'll need to follow your boyfriend around. Can you tell us what a typical week is like for him?”

“He works at Nakatomi Industries, nine to five, Monday through Friday. He usually goes home after work. On Friday's he goes drinking with his coworkers. We normally spend the weekends together.”

“And what's your boyfriend's name? We might have to ask about him.”

“It's Ryu Kurosaki.” Detective Yamamoto nodded again.

“I think this is enough to go on for now. We'll start digging around and we'll let you know if we need more information or if we find anything.”

Hitomi nodded and got up to leave. Once she had left Satoshi turned to the detective.

“Do you know where Nakatomi Industries is?” he asked. The detective nodded.

“I do, but I don't think I should drive now.” To punctuate the point, Yamamoto cracked open another can. Satoshi sighed. Rather than getting any real detective work done, and because he couldn’t justify sitting around writing to himself, Satoshi spent the rest of his time at the agency researching and trying to dig up any information that he thought might come in handy later. He didn’t come up with much. Whoever Ryu Kurosaki was, he kept his life private for the most part. Satoshi didn’t want to immediately think poorly of the guy, but his lack of any kind of presence online and Hitomi’s suspicion cast him in a poor light.

WEDNESDAY

Unfortunately for Satoshi and the detective, Satoshi’s research had revealed that Ryu’s workplace was a bit out of the way. All of the cases that Satoshi had helped on up to this point had been well within walking distance. If they were to tail Ryu and make sure there was nothing untoward going on, they would have to go to extra lengths to do so, and walking was out of the question. For Satoshi, this presented a problem. He didn't have a car, and he wasn't certain the detective had one either.

As it turns out, Detective Yamamoto was prepared for this eventuality. When Satoshi showed up at the detective agency in the morning, he was somewhat surprised to find that the detective was up and dressed, and in proper clothes no less. It seemed that in this one instance, she might be taking the role of detective a bit more seriously. The tweed suit jacket was certainly a fashion statement, but Satoshi wasn’t about to complain if this represented an overall change in cleanliness for the Detective. Detective Yamamoto greeted Satoshi with an insouciant grin and she held up a set of battered car keys.

“Haven’t driven in a while,” said the detective in passing. This did not instill Satoshi with confidence. He tried to tell himself that Detective Yamamoto had proven herself remarkably competent many times before, but it wasn’t sticking in this instance.

“I didn’t know you had a car,” he said weakly after a pause.

Car may have been a bit of an overstatement, thought Satoshi as he laid eyes on the vehicle. It might once have been a nice vehicle, nice if not expensive. Now, however, it appeared to consist of more rust than not, and a little hypochondriac impulse told Satoshi that merely touching the door handle would risk causing tetanus.

“Let’s go, you can ride shotgun!” said the detective. She urged him to get in the car by pushing him in the small of his back. The door creaked as it opened and shut, and the car’s suspension sounded unhealthy, but the seat belt seemed to latch without issue. Satoshi took this as the best bit of a less than desirable situation.

~~~

Now that they were driving, the actual work began. Hitomi had told the detective and Satoshi the make and model of her boyfriend’s car and where and when they could find him on his way to work. Hitomi’s assumption had been that Ryu would go to work as usual, but Detective Yamamoto wanted to be as thorough as possible.

The plan consisted of Satoshi keeping an eye on the boyfriend’s car as he drove. In theory, this was simple. Detective Yamamoto could focus on driving as Satoshi could afford to keep a look out. In turn, Satoshi could focus all of his attention on the car as he wasn't driving. However, things were a bit more complex, as Satoshi was to quickly discover. He had never been particularly prone to car sickness, but something about the way Detective Yamamoto drove turned his stomach. Perhaps it had to do with the decrepit state of her car, perhaps it had to do with her personal idiosyncrasies, but the result ended up the same and Satoshi’s stomach turned fiercely.

The worst jolt came when Ryu’s car, a dark colored sedan, took an unexpected exit off the highway. Naturally, if the pair were to tail Ryu, they would have to take the same exit. If Satoshi had expected Detective Yamamoto to take a calm, reasoned approach to tailing Ryu, he would have been sorely mistaken. Without so much as a turn signal, Detective Yamamoto jerked the steering wheel, cutting across the intermediate lanes of traffic. Horns blared as other drivers voiced their disapproval, but to Satoshi’s vast relief that was the only consequence.

After the excitement of the near traffic collision died down, Satoshi took a moment to examine the new surroundings. It was fairly obvious that when Hitomi’s boyfriend took the exit, he wasn’t driving to his workplace anymore, but that merely opened the question about his actual destination. Satoshi soon found his answer as the car pulled into a plaza. He directed Yamamoto to follow and turn in after him.

Even without prompting, Detective Yamamoto parked her car in an out of the way space that gave a good vantage point from which she and Satoshi could watch Hitomi's boyfriend. The plaza had half a dozen stores, and each one was specialized in some form or another, but of all the stores, Ryu approached and entered a jewelry store. In spite of himself, Satoshi felt his stomach drop. He didn't immediately want to jump to the conclusion that Ryu was a cheating scumbag, but what Hitomi had told the detective colored his opinion.

“What do you make of this?” asked Satoshi, turning in his seat to Detective Yamamoto. She sat forward, gripping the steering wheel with a pensive look on her face.

 “It doesn’t look good,” said the detective. She didn’t sound certain. Satoshi would have asked the detective to elaborate when Ryu walked out of the jewelry store. He was very clearly carrying something, and something small. He walked over to his car, got in, and prepared to drive off.