Serious Inquiries Only Part 1

MONDAY

It will only be for a week, Detective Yamamoto told herself. She found it difficult to sound reassuring, as between the two of them, her assistant supplied the levelheadedness more often than not. Speaking of Satoshi, he had given some lame excuse about an obligation to visit family and informed the detective that he would be gone for a week. At first, Detective Yamamoto was confident that she could manage as she always had before, but as she counted down the days until Satoshi's temporary departure, she found herself becoming increasingly worried and anxious.

Satoshi, to his credit, had picked up on this by virtue of the uptick in empty beer cans littering the office and had acted accordingly. He had done some asking around and searching, and ultimately, he had lined up a few potential temporary replacements for the detective to peruse. Unfortunately, the timing was such that Satoshi had to leave before this could be completed. The full implication of this hadn't set in for Detective Yamamoto until the first replacement arrived.

As was her wont, Detective Yamamoto lounged behind her desk, wearing a flimsy tank-top in deference to the heat, when someone knocked on the door. The detective heard another knock. By force of habit, she looked up and nearly chastised her assistant for not answering the door before realizing that she would have to do it on her own.

"Come in!" Detective Yamamoto hollered. "Second door on the left!" she said, preempting what she viewed as the obvious question before the visitor could ask it. After a moment, the footsteps coming from the direction of the front door grew louder and a figure emerged from the door to Detective Yamamoto's office.

The figure was a man. He had dark hair and eyes, and appeared to be similar in age and stature to Satoshi. When he walked across the threshold and laid eyes on everything, Detective Yamamoto noticed a subtle tension in his posture and demeanor. He only seemed to become more tense when the detective swung one leg off her desk, followed shortly by the other, and sat up straight.

"Good morning," said the detective. She gestured for the man to have a seat in front of her desk. Normally, this chair was reserved for clients, but given that there currently weren't any, the detective saw fit to bend the unspoken rule.

"Good morning detective," said the man. "I spoke with your assistant the other day. He said you would need someone to fill in for a week."

"That's right. Can you grab me a beer?" The detective pointed to the refrigerator over in the far corner of her office. The man's facial expressions changed from vaguely anxious to one of outright confusion.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked after a decent pause. The detective now adopted a confused expression before taking on a tone of professional disappointment.

"My assistant would have grabbed me a beer," she said while looking down at her desk and tracing one finger on the surface of it. She looked up at the man to punctuate her statement. The man looked uncomfortable and cleared his throat.

"I don't," he started. "I don't feel comfortable with you drinking at this time of day." This statement more than anything else disqualified this first candidate as a potential assistant.

"I don't believe I'll be requiring your services," said the detective frostily. "Let me show you out." She walked across her office and motioned towards the door. The man's expression of discomfort became one of bewilderment, but he did as Detective Yamamoto requested. The detective followed him down the hall ensuring he left the premises. She was about to say something along the lines of “and stay out!” when she noticed someone who appeared to have been about to knock on the front door.

“Hello,” said the new woman with a voice like nails on a chalkboard. “Are you Detective Yamamoto?” Detective Yamamoto fought the urge to grimace at the sound of her voice to what might be considered a pyrrhic victory. There was something familiar about this girl, but the detective couldn't quite place the face or attach a name to it.

“I am,” replied the detective. “Who are you?”

“I'm Hana,” said the girl, no less shrill than before. “I work with Satoshi at the convenience store. I think we met once.” The detective nodded. That did ring a bell.

“Do you have a case for me to solve?” Hana shook her head.

“Satoshi said you would need help and he asked me if I could fill in for him.”

“Come on in,” said Detective Yamamoto while absentmindedly lifting her tank top to scratch an itch. “I've got a few questions for you before we can work together.”

If Hana was curious about what the questions might be, she didn't show it. Instead, she seemed to take a lull in the conversation as an opportunity to talk and fill the silence in the most inane way possible. While Satoshi would sometimes voice complaints about how she tended to dress in the privacy of her own office, which is to say scandalously scant, Hana saw fit to voice the same opinion and toss a few pejorative terms in for good measure. She even went as far as to imply that many of her clients would only tolerate her slovenly office on the off chance that the detective's wardrobe let slip a glimpse of something. When Detective Yamamoto rounded on her, she found that Hana still had an expression reminiscent of an eager golden retriever on her face.

“What is it?” she asked, as though everything she had been saying was completely reasonable. Detective Yamamoto counted to ten in her head as she exhaled.

“Nothing,” the detective replied, biting her tongue. “Tell me, what do you know about detective work?”

“Nothing!” Hana replied cheerfully. “I’ve seen you around town before and you seem like you have a lot of fun. Satoshi says he has fun sometimes.” Detective Yamamoto wasn’t quite sure what to make of this.

“I suppose the work is fun sometimes,” the detective admitted.

“Do I have to dress like you too?” Hana asked, seemingly worried that this would be a requirement or prerequisite for detective work. Detective Yamamoto pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

“I don’t think I’ll need your help,” she said through clenched teeth. Hana seemed vaguely disappointed by her rejection, but dutifully turned about on her heel and left the detective’s office as expediently as she decently could. When the detective noticed the lack of sound indicating the door being closed, she left to close it herself. Now suitably annoyed, Detective Yamamoto returned to her desk, and prepared to drink herself into a calmer state of mind.

As Detective Yamamoto settled behind her desk once more, holding a can of beer in one hand and a comic book in the other, there came another knock at the door. The detective voiced her frustration, throwing down the comic and stood before stomping over to the door. She wrenched it open and refrained from verbally unloading on the new visitor only by virtue of surprise.

“Hitomi?” Detective Yamamoto asked. It was in fact Officer Ishioka who had come to visit, and based on her attire, the detective could only conclude that this was a day off for her. “What are you doing here?”

“Your assistant tracked me down the other day,” said the diminutive cop. “He asked me for a personal favor.” Detective Yamamoto started to cringe preemptively.

“Oh no, don't tell me,” she started.

“I'm not doing this just because he asked,” said Ishioka. “There’s been a burglary, and I’m keeping you away from it.”

“Hitomi,” the detective whined. Officer Ishioka put up her hand.

“The inspector was adamant. He said he didn’t want you, you specifically, anywhere near the case considering what happened to you last time.”

“Ah, fine,” said the detective, now slumping back into her chair. “Feel free to pull up a chair, we don’t have anything better to do at the moment.” Officer Ishioka did so after a beat. As Satoshi likely would have done, she moved her chair adjacent to the detective’s and sat upright as though she expected to be doing something.

“So what’s next, detective?” Detective Yamamoto looked up from her comic book at the cop.

“Waiting,” replied the detective. “I don’t have any cases right now, so unless you want to clean the office or start writing a book, there’s only waiting.” Officer Ishioka sighed.

“I shouldn’t complain,” said Officer Ishioka to herself. “This beats paperwork.”

~~~

Time crept by at a glacial pace. Officer Ishioka, to her chagrin, now wished she had paperwork to do, as at least then she would be marginally productive. Few things were worse to her than sitting idly and this experience would strongly deter her from doing favors for Satoshi again.

A knock on the door broke the silence. Like a faithful hound detecting the first indication of an intruder, Officer Ishioka sprang to her feet.

“I’ll get it!” she declared as she sprinted off to the front door. In truth there was no competition, as Detective Yamamoto hadn’t so much as stirred. When the diminutive cop reached the front door and opened it, she was greeted by a rather dull-looking middle aged man. He wasn’t particularly tall, despite towering over Ishioka, and he wasn’t particularly fit either. All told, he presented himself as a rather average specimen. This effect was exacerbated by a dull, nondescript wardrobe consisting mainly of faded jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt.

“Are you the detective?” the man asked in a nasally voice.

“No, I’m working as her assistant as a temporary assignment. Follow me please.” Officer Ishioka led the man through the office in an attempt to avoid as much of the mess and clutter as possible before bringing him face to face with Detective Yamamoto.

“So what seems to be the problem?” Officer Ishioka asked.

“I lost my wallet,” the man said simply. Ishioka looked from the man over to the detective. Detective Yamamoto’s attention remained fastened to her comic book. In her mind, of course, it was the assistant’s job to seek out all the useful information at the outset of the case, so it was only natural that she waited until her assistant had come to a conclusion.

“You lost your wallet?” Officer Ishioka echoed. She stared at the man in hopes that he would elaborate further. When he didn’t Ishioka sighed. “Do you know where you might have lost it?”

The man shrugged.

“Do you know when you lost it?”

The man shrugged.

“Do you have any information that might help us?”

The man shrugged. Officer Ishioka sighed again, more heavily than before.

“I don’t think we can help you,” she said. Detective Yamamoto’s eyes snapped up as though they had been forcefully torn from the pages of her comic.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, assistant!” she exclaimed as she sat upright and put her comic book down on her desk. “You can’t just turn a client away whenever you feel like it.”

“It’s officer,” replied Ishioka with a considerable degree of truculence. Rather than backing down as she ordinarily might have, Detective Yamamoto met the diminutive cop’s eyes with an equally chilling look of her own.

“Today it’s assistant,” she said with a tone of utter finality. Ishioka held her gaze for a moment before relenting.

“Fine,” she muttered with ill grace. With that matter now settled, the detective turned her attention over to the client, who had taken on an expression of slight bafflement at the argument that had just transpired in front of him.

“You said you lost your wallet?” the detective asked.

The man nodded.

“Do you remember where you were when you noticed it was gone?”

The man nodded.

“Can you tell me?”

The man nodded. There was a pause as though the man hadn’t really listened to what the detective asked him.

“I just left the Wild Badger and I was puking in the alleyway.” he said. “I had my wallet cause I paid my tab. I was patting myself down to get all the dirt from the ground off, and I noticed I didn’t have my wallet.”

“Now we have a place to start,” said the detective. She said it while looking at Ishioka, and the inflection of her voice indicated reproval, as if to say This is my job and I’m better at it than you. “Come on assistant, the Wild Badger isn’t far from here.” Detective Yamamoto stood up and started to make her way to the door of her office when Officer Ishioka stopped her.

“Don’t you need to get dressed first, Detective?” The venom that laced that word Detective was not lost on Yamamoto, but she chose to ignore it.

 “I suppose if it’ll make you feel better,” she remarked, before sticking her tongue out an making an obscene gesture.