Detective Yamamoto Helps an Acquaintance Part 1

SATURDAY

Officer Ishioka was not having a very good day. It started as a good day, as she had the day off and she got to attend the first day of a convention she had looked forward to for the past few months. In fact, most of the day was good. The convention proved to be fun and lively, she got to see cool things and meet people with magnificent cosplay. People even liked her cosplay. However, her day took a massive turn for the worse when she returned to the changing room to change back into her street clothes. She found very quickly that the locker she had stored her clothes and personal effects in no longer contained anything for her to change into. Reflexively, she slapped her hand over her face and swore. This was not merely an inconvenience, as Officer Ishioka quickly realized. The real problem was that among her personal effects was her badge.

Her mind raced as she considered the possibilities. Naturally, a stolen badge for a police officer was a bad thing, but the worst aspect of it, to Officer Ishioka, was that it would reflect poorly on her and make her seem careless. She had always taken pride in her fastidious nature, even from an early age, and so it only seemed natural to her that something like this would be interpretted by her superiors as carelessness or disregard for the tools and symbols of her office.

Not for the first time in her life, and likely not for the last, she briefly envied Hanako Yamamoto. The two had been classmates in school and were about as diametrically opposed in temperament as was possible, but there were some days, especially when Officer Ishioka's attention to detail and diligence had landed her with extra work, that she wished she could be as laissez-faire and indolent as Detective Yamamoto appeared to be.

Wait a minute, thought the officer. Maybe I could approach Detective Yamamoto for help.

She shook her head, banishing the thought from her mind. Something like that would embarass her infinitely more than getting reprimanded at work. The ongoing and continuous antipathy between her and the detective made it a near certainly that if she sincerely asked for help, Detective Yamamoto might well help her, but she would lord it over her and be insufferably smug about it the entire time.

"Hey! Hurry up in there," said an impatient-sounding voice accompanied by a pounding on the door. Officer Ishioka was now forced to decide on a course action and to her chagrin, she decided that maybe Detective Yamamoto, tempered by her lack-wit assistant might represent the slightly better option.

Sheepishly, she unlocked and opened the door of the changing room, having not changed in the slightest. She noticed, to her embarrassment that a sizable line had formed while she dithered about what to do.

"Sorry," she said, although she spoke too quietly for any but the closest people to hear her, as she rushed towards the exit of the convention center. As she walked, it occurred to her that her day was getting worse and worse, as in order to get to Detective Yamamoto's rundown excuse for an office, she would have to walk there, dressed in her cosplay outfit.

~~~

Satoshi was vaguely aware that today was something of an unusual day. Normally, it was a given that someone with a case would approach the detective on a Saturday, but today precious few people had even so much as walked past the agency, as if everyone simultaneously had had something better to do.

This suited Satoshi well enough. He had been the detective's assistant for long enough that he had worked out a system for slow days like this. Naturally, he would come prepared to aid in investigating, but he also brought with him the tools of his trade, so to speak, just in case inspiration struck and free time presented itself.

Today alone, he had written a couple hundred words already and he kept up a good pace. Every now and again, he would take a break to stand and stretch or check on Detective Yamamoto. As was typical of her, she lounged at her desk, and given that she didn't have anything to do either, she didn't begrudge her assistant from doing a bit of writing.

After one such break, where Satoshi took a moment to clean Detective Yamamoto's desk of newly produced empty beer cans before they took root and began to multiply, there came a knock at the door. Satoshi felt a little disappointed, as this meant he would likely have to save his writing for later, and in turn he felt a little disappointed in himself for feeling that way. On his way to front door, he heard a second, more impatient knock.

"One moment!" he called as he walked towards the door. As quickly as he decently could, Satoshi dashed to the door and opened it. "Hello, welcome to the-" His mouth stopped speaking as soon as it caught up to what his eyes were seeing.

The woman who had knocked on the door was undoubtably Officer Hitomi Ishioka, whom Satoshi had met on a few occasions prior. Indeed, Satoshi would likely recognize her anywhere, in no small part due to her short stature, but mainly because she had saved his life not long ago during a case. What was highly unusual was that Officer Ishioka was not dressed in uniform, as he had seen her before, nor was she dressed in ordinary attire, as Satoshi might have reasonably expected of her on a day off.

Instead, Officer Ishioka wore what appeared to be a costume. It consisted of white leather boots that rose to just below the knee, black stockings that covered the rest of her legs, a black skirt the left very little to the imagination if Satoshi felt inclined to take a closer look at it, and an extremely tight-fitting yellow shirt that had long sleeves and a very steep v-neck. The shirt almost resembled a leotard in terms of material and skin-tightness. It was further tucked into her skirt to more completely show off the shape of her body.

All told, it was not an outfit Satoshi would have expected Officer Ishioka to wear for many reasons, not least of which being that the outfit constituted a fantastic cosplay of Agent Alice from The Cleaners. Alice was one of the main characters from an admittedly tasteless series about a bunch of femme fatale spies who specialize in fixing messes caused by other more inept agents or agencies. Tasteless as it was, it was fun and Satoshi was known to indulge in the odd episode on occasion. He was on the verge of asking about the cosplay when he noticed that Ishioka tapped her foot impatiently.

"Hurry up and let me in!" demanded the diminutive officer. Without waiting for a response, she squirmed and pushed past him and started walking towards the detective's office.

"Wait a minute, officer, what's going on?" Satoshi called after her, but she didn't immediately respond. Instead, she barged into Detective Yamamoto's office without preamble, shortly followed by Satoshi himself. This got Detective Yamamoto's attention. She looked up from her desk and then looked between Officer Ishioka and Satoshi.

"Assistant," Yamamoto said with a tone of voice that dripped with disappointment. "Can't you just ask before you bring hookers back to the office?"

"I am not a hooker!" shouted Ishioka.

"I don't hire hookers!" shouted Satoshi.

"Oh, Hitomi, is that you?" Detective Yamamoto said. Satoshi noticed the touch of smugness in her voice that she tried to mask with the feigned confusion. He suspected that the detective intended to have more than a little fun by pretending to be dense at Ishioka's expense.

"Of course it's me, you-" Officer Ishioka started to say something but seemed to think better of it before actually uttering any expletives. Satoshi could see that she clenched her hands at her sides to the point that her knuckles turned white. "Excuse me. I have come to you for help."

"Oh?" said Detective Yamamoto. She sat up in her chair and leaned forward. "What seems to be the problem, officer?" Satoshi was starting to get a little uncomfortable at the exaggerated tone of ignorance that Detective Yamamoto employed.

"My clothes have been stolen, hence why I'm wearing this, and my badge was with them." Detective Yamamoto leaned further forward, resting her elbows on her desk and her face on her hands. She appeared to be studying Officer Ishioka and her outfit, looking up and down as a mischievous smile began to spread across her face.

"Where are Agents Betsy and Debra? Can't they help you?" Detective Yamamoto asked, knowing that this would likely provoke a response. Then she cupped a hand over her mouth to imitate the compressed sound of a two-way radio. "Agent, your mission today consists of-" Satoshi had to stifle a laugh at Detective Yamamoto's impression of the agents' handler from The Cleaners so as not to appear overly rude to the client.

"Shut up!" screeched Ishioka. There was an uncomfortable silence for about thirty seconds as the officer fumed and it was unclear whether or not Yamamoto was going to continue teasing her. To Satoshi's relief, Detective Yamamoto appeared to relent.

"So where did you lose your clothes?"

"It was down at the convention center."

"We're not doing anything better anyways," Detective Yamamoto turned to Satoshi. "Wanna go to the convention, assistant?"

~~~

At the convention center, the scope of the problem quickly became apparent to Satoshi and Detective Yamamoto. Even at this time of day, when Officier Ishioka had already spent several hours at the convention and contemplated leaving, there were still hundreds, if not thousands, of people still out and about. The detective did not vocalize her concerns or make them known, but Satoshi grimaced. Even he knew that this was a hopeless situation. The guilty party was likely just one person, one out of the very many people here, and there was no gaurantee that the culprit was even still sticking around at the convention. Satoshi really didn't want to say it, if only because Officer Ishioka looked like she would get upset, but he really didn't like their odds of success.

"Alright Hitomi," said the detective. "Where do we start?"

"Shouldn't you know? Aren't you the detective?" Ishioka responded sourly. After a sharp look, both from Satoshi and Yamamoto, she relented. "Sorry," she muttered. "Follow me."

Officer Ishioka led them through the convention centers, through the throngs of convention goers over to the changing rooms. By now, there was considerably less of a crowd of people waiting for the changing rooms, and after a few minutes of waiting, the trio were able to investigate the room Ishioka had used earlier in the morning.

Seeing it for the first time, Detective Yamamoto looked around with a critical eye. At first glance, the changing room seemed pretty standard. Along two walls, there were benches to sit on while changing. In one corner of the room stood a full-length mirror. Next to the door into the changing room was a bank of lockers. The lockers were fairly small, perhaps one cubic foot, and there were twenty-four of them total.

"Which of these lockers did you use?" asked the detective.

"It was this one." Officer Ishioka singled out one of the lockers in the middle of the cluster. Detective Yamamoto nodded and began to inspect it in greater detail, with Satoshi and Ishioka both peering over her shoulders. Satoshi wasn't sure what precisely the detective might be looking for, but in terms of getting to the bottom of this case, this was really the only place to start.

"Aha!" exclaimed the detective. "We can rule out the staff stealing your clothes."

"How can you tell from looking at a locker?" Satoshi asked. Detective Yamamoto pointed to the face of the lock, next to and around the keyway. As she pointed to it, Satoshi took notice of little scratch marks. There were places where the paint on the cylinder face had been scraped away and the bare metal of the lock became visible beneath it.

"These marks might have been made while picking the lock. Staff would have a master key for the lockers." Officer Ishioka didn't seem remarkably impressed by this deduction, but it appeared to Satoshi that she had thought better of saying anything.

"So that just leaves us with all of the patrons and anyone that wouldn't have a key," said Satoshi. He was merely stating the obvious, but he felt that sometimes it helped to restate things lest Detective Yamamoto get ahead of herself.

 "That's true," Detective Yamamoto conceded, tapping a finger on her chin as she thought. "Maybe we can check with venue security."