Detective Yamamoto and Her Need For Speed Part 2

TUESDAY

It was the fifth day straight of doing nothing but scoping out the street races, and Satoshi was quite confident that his brain had melted and dribbled out his ears sometime on day three. It made for absolutely mindless work, just sitting around quietly and waiting for something that wasn't guaranteed to happen. In any case, street races frequently did happen, and as utterly bored as Satoshi was, Detective Yamamoto seemed to be increasingly engaged.

After the map she had been marking down occurrences of street racing on had started to border on illegible, she had revamped her system, making a table in a note book and organizing all the relevant information: place, time of day, and if possible, appearances of the vehicles involved. As the data set became more substantial, now approaching fifty data points, a small cast of characters started to make themselves known.

Two cars featured in nearly every race that Satoshi or Detective Yamamoto had seen first hand rather than heard. One was red, the other was blue, and both had been extensively modified and customized to the point where neither investigator could confidently pick out a make or model. Detective Yamamoto had taken to giving the cars nicknames. As a pack of street racers tore through the city streets a block away from the stakeout, Detective Yamamoto smiled to herself as she marked down the street and time.

“Big Red is at it again,” she said to herself.

“That makes twelve sightings,” said Satoshi absentmindedly. “Do you see the Blue Blur too?” The detective shook her head before realizing that Satoshi's glassy stare remained fixed out the window.

“No, just Big Red.” Satoshi shifted slightly in his seat. That meant Big Red had expanded its lead in number of sightings decisively. They had only seen the Blue Blur nine times. Satoshi's mind wandered and he wondered if something might have happened to the Blue Blur that prevented it from racing. Detective Yamamoto finished writing down the information pertaining to this most recent street race.

“There! That makes fifty,” she said with a note of satisfaction. “I think we've got enough to work on now.” This perked Satoshi up for the first time in days.

Finally, he thought. We can get out of this car.

Although leaving the detective's rusty deathtrap of a car was cause for considerable celebration, there was still a lot of work to be done. The poor woman who had brought this case to their attention was no doubt still worried sick about the state of everything. If he was being totally honest, Satoshi wasn't sure how Detective Yamamoto intended to actually solve this problem. He had had plenty of time to think and consider many possible approaches, but regardless of how much attention he sunk into it, he continued to draw a total blank.

“So what's the plan from here on out, detective?” Satoshi asked as the detective drove from the stakeout spot back to the agency. Detective Yamamoto favored him with a playful grin, taking her eyes of the road and drifting in her lane.

“Well, assistant,” she said, jerking the steering wheel to keep her car in the lane. “The plan is to sift through the data and figure out when and where the next race will be.” Satoshi had figured as much, but Detective Yamamoto spoke with such confidence that she clearly thought this simple deduction was some sort of master stroke.

“That makes sense,” said Satoshi. “What do we do when we find the race?”

“That's the cunning part,” replied the detective. “We stop it before it starts.” Satoshi sighed.

“Look, detective,” he said, letting his exasperation start to show. “If you don't want to tell me the plan, can you just say so? Or don't you have a plan?”

“I have a plan, I have a plan,” the detective whined, looking over at Satoshi again. Satoshi gave her a disbelieving look. “It's a good plan too!” whined the detective again. “You'll just have to wait and see.” Satoshi turned away from the detective and grumbled to himself for the rest of the car ride.

~~~

Detective Yamamoto spread out a fresh map of the city across her desk and started marking it up. Satoshi was faintly surprised, as the detective had produced multiple pens with various colors of ink. No doubt she intended to color-code the map, but Satoshi didn't know what the purpose behind it was. Finally, Detective Yamamoto finished copying over the data they had collected and she slapped her hand down on the map with pride.

“Here's all the information we have,” she said with vigor. “Notice anything?” If Satoshi was being honest, he didn't, aside from the fact that the map looked a lot more colorful now.

“What should I be looking for?” asked Satoshi, as he leaned forward over the desk for a closer look. Detective Yamamoto waved one finger in the air like an orchestra conductor then brought down on one section of the map.

“Observe!” she declared. “What do you see here?” Satoshi saw four lines. Each line was drawn in a different color and they were grouped in pairs such that the lines in a group were parallel to each other and intersected with the other group of parallel lines.

“I see an intersection?” Satoshi said, clear uncertainty staining his voice.

“Well, yes, this is an intersection, but that's not what I meant!” said the detective, growing increasingly excited as she attempted to hold back the revelation.

“Can you just tell me?” Satoshi asked, having very little patience after five days of waiting. Detective Yamamoto groaned as if by bypassing this guessing game, her assistant was sucking the fun out of this entire ordeal.

“Fine,” she said. “Each color represents a different day. Green for Friday, Blue for Saturday, and so on.” She traced a circle around the intersection she had pointed to Satoshi. “As you can see, the street racers have passed by this street only once per day, despite racing multiple times.” Things were starting to click for Satoshi. There was a pattern here, and Detective Yamamoto had just cracked it. As Satoshi scanned the rest of the map, the pattern held. There were areas of high street racing traffic, but over multiple days, and never on the same day. As Satoshi looked closer at the data, it was clear that the time of day followed a pattern as well.

“I think I get it now!” said Satoshi, some of the excitement he was feeling now creeping into his voice. “Have you figured out where the next race will be?”

“That's the million dollar question,” said the detective. “But yes.” She dramatically pointed to the map again, specifically at one area of the city that had seen comparatively little in the way of street racing. Normally, Satoshi would have shied away from pointing to this location if he had been in the detective's position, but the pattern fit so neatly that he was willing to take it on faith.

“Alright,” said Satoshi, clapping his hands together. “We know when and where the race will be. What's the plan for stopping the race?” Detective Yamamoto smiled coyly.

“You'll just have to wait and see,” she said, picking up the map and folding it again. Satoshi was unsatisfied with this answer, but decided not to press the issue. After sitting still for so long, for so many days in a row, Satoshi felt exhausted.

“Ah fine,” he grumbled. “I'll see you tomorrow.” Satoshi left the detective's office, walked home, and slept like a rock.

WEDNESDAY

Satoshi arrived at the detective's office bright and early. After all, today was the day he and the detective planned on confronting and breaking up the street racers, so it wouldn't hurt to get an early start on preparing. When Satoshi entered the office, he got the feeling that something wasn't quite right. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was almost like a change in air pressure before a thunderstorm.

“Good morning detective,” said Satoshi, trying to mask his sense of foreboding.

“Good morning assistant,” replied the detective, casually turning the page in her comic book. All at once, the realization struck Satoshi like a brick to the face. Detective Yamamoto wasn't drinking. He knew of only one circumstance that would preclude Detective Yamamoto from cracking open a cold one.

“Are we planning on driving anywhere?” he asked. He racked his brain. Based on the map the detective had marked up the previous night, it seemed like the site of the race was going to be fairly nearby.

“Of course!” said the detective cheerfully. “You didn't think we were going to walk, did you?” Satoshi relaxed. Of course they couldn't walk. This whole case revolved around street racing. Walking there and trying to intervene on foot would just be silly. After about fifteen minutes of tense waiting, Detective Yamamoto stood up from behind her desk, revealing that she was already dressed and prepared for the day.

“Is it time?” Satoshi asked, looking up. The detective nodded.

The car ride out to the site of the race was surprisingly pleasant. As had become a pattern as of late, Detective Yamamoto had broken with her more hazardous style of driving. Satoshi was almost becoming sleepy, as being the passenger in a car less dangerous than the detective’s frequently had this effect on him.

Satoshi snapped out of his stupor when the detective made a big turn in the middle of the street and reversed back into the shadow of a building. It was almost as if the detective was setting up a speed trap, as though she were a traffic cop.

“Now we wait,” said Detective Yamamoto, shifting her car into park. From where they had parked, Detective Yamamoto had seemed to maximize their view of the supposed starting line while also concealing their location. Satoshi doubted he could have done a better job had he been inclined to try.

The waiting that Detective Yamamoto alluded to wound up being a relatively short period of time. Satoshi made a habit of glancing at the car’s clock and a few minutes before the top of the hour, a heavily modified car trundled down the street and came to a stop by a telephone pole for no discernible reason. Less than five minutes later more cars pulled up alongside the first car. Detective Yamamoto was heartened to see Big Red among them.

“It looks like we’re in the right spot,” said Satoshi.

 “You ready?” the detective asked, glancing over at her assistant.