Warning Tags: Chapter 2
Rating: PG-13
Features: Mostly Jun, Sho, Toma and Ohno. Mentions of Akanishi Jin and one appearance of Nino. Still working on where to stick Aiba.
Words: 3212 (approx)
Disclaimer: Nobody is mine. The idea is from zedin but I am more likely not to fulfil the exact requirements of the prompt so this is just for fun.
Boring summary: Jun is a new homicide police detective. Inspector Sakurai offers guidance. Anymore would be telling.
Master Post
Jun blinked, his brain trying to process Toma’s latest revelation.
1: He’d just attempted to arrest an inspector.
2: Inspector > Sergeant. (Yes, his luck was just so incredible today).
3: With Toma’s hand resting on Inspector Sakurai’s shoulder, he couldn’t help but notice that the Inspector’s shoulders were of the seriously sloping variety.
3: Inspector Sakurai was sporting a bruise and a split lip courtesy of him.
“Wait a minute!” Jun frowned. “You bolted away when I said to stop. AND you took someone hostage!”
Toma looked ready to murder him. “That hostage was a suspect I was trailing when your shouting alerted him,” Inspector Sakurai explained tiredly.
4: Crap. That made a whole lot of sense.
“We’ll get him the next time, sir!” One of the officers offered, giving Jun the evil eye. Great, Nino, the medical examiner, possibly Inspector Ohno, Toma, this Inspector Sakurai and even the police officers - he was going for the full alphabet of people that hate him, wasn’t he?
“I apologise, Inspector.” Jun offered. “It’s just that I remembered seeing scars on your hands-” Sakurai shoved his hands into his pockets at once, clearly conscious of the fact.
Toma cut in, “may we give you a lift home?” The look he gave Jun was quite clear: SHUT UP and SHUT UP NOW.
Sakurai shook his head, “no thank you, the weather is pleasant enough for a walk anyway.”
By now, Ohno had arrived. He asked no questions but his silent exchange with Toma indicated that he would get the full story of how Matsumoto Jun had screwed up soon. “You are supposed to be taking it easy.” It sounded like an accusation directed at Sakurai.
Sakurai shrugged, offering a sheepish smile, “and die of boredom at home? I don’t think so. So are you almost done with the crime scene yet?”
“Body’s en route for an autopsy. We’re going to her place of work for questioning and-damn it, now what?” Ohno answered his phone, turning his back towards them.
“It’s either another body or his ex-wife,” Toma commented. “If I were in his shoes, I’d be praying for a second body. Bound to be warmer.”
“Ex-wife?” Jun repeated.
Ohno hung up, returning to them. “There’s been another body. I’ll head there at once. Toma, take Jun with you and go question the-”
“Let me take Jun to do the questioning,” Sakurai offered. “You take Toma.”
“No.”
Sakurai raised an eyebrow. “Noguchi lawsuit?”
“He was asking for it!” Toma protested.
Ohno’s jaw clenched in annoyance. “You are supposed to be on leave.” He reiterated.
“And I promise to be on my best civilian behaviour. I’ll merely act as a consultant to Jun, providing him pointers if necessary.”
“We are understaffed,” Toma admitted.
“Fine,” Ohno snapped. “But you’re getting a psych eval. Tomorrow. If Tegoshi doesn’t give you the thumbs up-”
“I will spend all of next week tending to my plants,” Sakurai finished off.
“Deal!” Toma exclaimed, passing Jun his notes on the Satou case. “Take notes, Jun!” Toma advised, “you’re getting personal pointers from the next Superintendent.”
“Toma!” Sakurai sounded embarrassed. Ohno looked as if he was planning ways in which he could rein in the overgrown problem child, failing miserably to come up with a solution that fell short of shooting the idiot on the spot.
* * *
“Um,” Jun began, trying to break the awkward silence that hung over them as they made their way to the diner.
Sakurai checked his watch. “Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”
Jun blinked in confusion, “eh?”
Sakurai smiled at him, “four minutes, twenty-seven seconds,” he repeated. “The time it took before you couldn’t take walking in silence any longer.”
“I didn’t find it awkward. I just thought that maybe the diner won’t be open at this hour.” Jun offered indignantly. Because a diner with “24” in its name certainly didn’t mean it was open 24 hours, right? “Ah, crap.”
“You don’t have to be nervous around me.”
“It’s just-” Jun hesitated, “I ruined your arrest and hurt you. Why aren’t you pissed off with me like the Inspector and Toma?”
“I am pissed off,” Sakurai admitted, “the person that escaped is a suspect in the recent spate of muggings of the elderly in neighbourhood - until we catch him, more elderly people are going to get mugged.” Jun winced. Sakurai went on, “everyone makes mistakes, true - but as an officer of the law, the people we have sworn to protect expect us to be superhuman. Like surgeons, our mistakes can cost lives.”
Thankfully, Jun didn’t have to respond as they stepped into the diner. “Officer Sakurai!” The cashier looked horrified, pointing to his own face, “what happened?” Turning to his cook, he bellowed for the man to prepare coffee for the officer at once.
Sakurai offered an apologetic look, “I am afraid I have to decline. We are unfortunately here on police business - this is Detective Sergeant Matsumoto Jun. He will be asking you a few questions.” Jun bowed, fishing his notebook out.
“Are you familiar with a Satou Chieko?”
The cashier nodded, “she works for me. Here at the diner. Is-is something wrong?”
“Her body was found in the park this morning. We suspect she’d been killed sometime between midnight and 3am this morning.” Jun explained.
“After midnight,” the cashier repeated. He turned to the time clock at the back of his kitchen, went to retrieve it and gave it to Jun, “she’d clocked out from work just after midnight.”
“Was there anyone she was meeting after work?”
“I will have to ask my evening cashier, I wasn’t here last night.” The cashier admitted.
“What about strange behaviour? Was she behaving in any way that seemed out of the ordinary?”
“I wouldn’t know. Chieko had only been working for me for three days. She arrived in the city four-no, five days ago.”
“Then do you have the address of where she was staying?” The cashier nodded, excusing himself to find her employee documents. The knowledge of Satou having been a newcomer to the city made Jun incredibly sad - like him, she had just arrived, possibly to start a new life. Yet, in less than the span of a week, she’d been killed. Some new life. He thought bitterly.
“Here you go,” the cashier returned, handing him a sheaf of papers. “Now that I think about it,…” the cashier continued, frowning, “Chieko loitered a bit with that new regular yesterday.”
“New regular?” Jun flipped to a new page.
“He’s this person who has been coming in every day since Chieko came to work here. I suspected that he was her boyfriend or something and that they were just pretending not to know each other. But then, yesterday, he gave her his business card,” the cashier explained, “in fact, Officer Sakurai, you might have seen him.” Jun turned to his colleague, who looked at them both blankly. “But I suppose you might have missed him,” the cashier went on, frowning, “I think he slipped out when you walked in.” An idea had clearly flashed in his mind, “you don’t suppose he-”
Jun raised his hands, “it’s a little too early to reach a conjecture at this point.” The cashier looked disappointed that his “detective work” was being rejected. “What about any personal belongings? Did Ms Satou leave anything here at work?” With luck, he would find that business card and determine who the mystery person was.
The cashier nodded, leading them both to the back where a row of lockers were lined up against the wall. Satou’s was locked.
“I don’t suppose you have a key?” Jun asked.
The cashier shook his head, “don’t you have a lock pick set or something?” The man seemed disappointed that Jun was not living up to the expectations of SuperCop!™ after all.
“I do,” Sakurai offered, pulling out a set. “Give me a minute.”
Jun stared back disbelievingly. The cashier turned to Jun, shaking his head at him, “you need to be more take-action like Officer Sakurai here.” From behind him, Jun could hear Sakurai’s stifled laughter.
* * *
“That turned out to be a complete bust,” Jun muttered as they sat at a café twenty minutes later. Other than a single voluminous book on acting methods, the locker had been empty. So Satou had aspiring dreams of being an actress. Someone had offed her before the country could be subjected to bad dramas with even worse no-talent actors. The TV audiences were saved!
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Sakurai began, paging through the acting methods book in question. Jun found his interest in the scars on the Inspector’s hands renewed. Now that he’d had a chance to observe them properly, he realised that they were actually defensive knife wounds. Wounds from a time before the previous evening. Well done, Jun, we should accuse the Minister of Police the next time. Sakurai closed the book, presenting the book to him, “what do you notice about this book?”
Jun furrowed his brow, “judging from how dog-eared it was and the various daily scribbling all over the show, I’d said she treated it like her Bible and that it’s overly long at 1157 pages.”
Sakurai’s smile grew, “exactly.”
“Exactly?”
Sakurai placed the book back on the table, the weight of the book giving a soft thump. “This book isn’t what one would call ‘light reading’ - would YOU take this book with you everywhere you go?”
Jun snorted, “I wasn’t exactly the most studious in my class so no, I would not.”
“But for Satou, she did. As you have pointed out, she wrote notes in here every morning before her breakfast on a daily basis - her personal supplementary notes on acting. She wanted to succeed as an actress. Yet this morning, it's in her locker.”
Jun jumped in. “Because if she was meeting with someone after work, she wouldn’t want to be seen as being awkward, lugging the book with her.”
Sakurai nodded, “of course, it’s all just a theory right now. You will need to look at her apartment and have a look at any personal belongings they found on her. Maybe something there will give you a hint of who Satou was meeting after work.”
Jun downed the last of his coffee, standing up excitedly, “let’s go!”
Sakurai placed the book in an evidence bag before getting up to follow him. “Where next?”
“Satou’s apartment.”
* * *
“Thank you for your assistance,” June bowed as the landlord returned to his own apartment. Standing outside Satou’s apartment, Jun couldn’t help but feel disappointment. He turned to Sakurai, “I don’t suppose you have some scintillating insight that my rookie eyes missed out on, Inspector?”
“You CAN call me Sho, you know. If you are going to handcuff me, we might as well be on a first-name basis with each other.”
“Okay, okay! You win, Sho.” Anything not to be reminded of the morning. “On that topic, why does the cashier at the diner call you officer?”
Sho shrugged, “I guess most of the public will call any member of the police an officer. And I never saw a need to correct the man. It’s not like his incorrect perception of my position is going to influence how I go about doing my job.” They exited the building, noticing that the sun was finally out in full force - as full force as the sun could get on a winter’s day, at least. “And cheer up, Jun - not every place of investigation is going to yield clues.”
“Maybe, I guess I thought we were off to the good start…” Jun grumbled.
“Given that she spent most of her time at the diner and that she had only been here five days, I am not surprised that we couldn’t find anything of value. The woman had few possessions, most of which are unpacked. At any rate, you got the contact details of Satou’s next-of-kin.”
Jun stiffened, realising the one other task that making homicide meant having to live with just reared its ugly head - informing the victim’s family of the news. “So, as someone with the senior experience, I was wondering if you could show me how-”
“I’m not going to call them for you, Jun.”
* * *
Sho handed the itemised call list to Jun, turning to the tech, “check the phone’s browser history. We might get something there.” The tech disappeared, allowing Sho to return his attention to Jun, “no calls on her phone yesterday. Anything in her wallet?”
Jun looked victorious, producing a business card, “Eric Jameson, talent scout. Any bets that this is the business card that Satou received yesterday?” He logged into his computer, conducting a search through the police database. “Four hits - none of them match the contact details on the card.”
Sho peered over his shoulder, “so either the man is clean…”
“Or Eric Jameson isn’t real.” Jun finished. He opened up a browser, searching for Eric Jameson and talent scout. The first few links were fruitful, revealing how Eric Jameson had discovered a few famous talents. “Wow, this man really went through a lot of trouble to establish a fake reputation,” Jun remarked, pointing at the first link. “He even set up all these fake news articles and posted them on the Internet.”
Sho pointed at the screen, “these articles have been up for months. Satou only arrived a few days ago - “Eric” couldn’t only have been targeting her. Search through the cases and look for other women who were stabbed in the area for the last…say…” he did a quick calculation in his head, “…four months.”
Jun nodded, entering new search parameters, yielding two names. Both cases were left open, “pending re-assignment,” he read. The investigating detective had been Akanishi Jin, the detective that had requested a transfer to work with the FBI instead. The detective he’d been transferred in to replace.
“You’ll need Ohno to give you the case before you can open up Jin’s notes,” Sho observed, looking at his watch. “It’s lunch time. You hungry yet?”
“Well-”
“I’m starved. Let’s go.” With that, Sho had grabbed Jun by the arm, pulling him off to the garage.
* * *
Sho consulted his mobile phone. “Turn right here,” he instructed.
Jun raised an eyebrow, but did as he was prompted. “Are you always so picky with the food you want to eat? I don’t have time to drive to weird places to eat weird food…”
“Stop by the curb on the left there,” Sho indicated.
Jun parked the car, looking left and right for the special restaurant. He was sorely disappointed when he realised that the street was occupied by office blocks. He turned to Sho, “where-”
Sho had rolled his window down, greeting the hot dog stand vendor on the sidewalk. “Two dogs, please.”
“We drove down twelve blocks for you to get hot dogs?” How DID this man make Inspector? Did he bombard enough people with his eccentricity until they caved in?
Sho turned back to him, “you don’t like hot dogs?”
“That’s not the point - we passed at least eight hot dog vendors on the way here. Hell, there’s one outside our station!”
Sho took a bite of his hot dog, nodding in acknowledgement, “yes, but are they situated outside a talent agency office?” Jun looked at him, annoyed. He pulled out Eric Jameson’s business card, noticing that they were outside the office printed on the card. He wasn’t going to let Sho see how excited he was by the prospect of kicking down the suspect’s door. As he slammed his car door, he could hear a muffled, “you’re welcome,” from his passenger.
* * *
Jun’s first reaction when he reached Eric Jameson’s office door was that he was at the right place. Pulling his pistol out, he reached for the door handle, giving it a twist. Maybe he should have asked Sho and his lock-pick set to join him (but honestly, who the hell carries a lock-pick set around with them?!?).
So he was surprised when the door just opened.
“Hello?” When nobody responded, he pushed the door wider, about to step in which a hand rested on his shoulder. Instinctively, he grabbed it, throwing his attacker over his shoulder. Too late, he watched in horror as Sho crashed into the office.
From the floor, Sho looked back up at him, wincing in pain. “Ouch?” Pushing himself back up, he dusted himself. “Are you always this loving to your partners?”
“Only you,” Jun retorted, assessing the office. The place looked as if it had been looted.
“Maybe we’re not the only ones looking for Eric Jameson.”
“No,” Jun surveyed the place. “This wasn’t a search - I think Jameson realised we were onto him so he grabbed everything he needed and fled.”
* * *
“Thank you, I’ll leave the rest to you then.” Ohno hung up, turning back to Jun, “the authorities are on alert for Jameson.”
“Not bad for a first day, eh?” Toma asked, grinning.
“We don’t know for certain if he killed Satou or any of those other two women that Akanishi was investigating yet,” Jun admitted.
“Still, you made a lot more progress than the Inspector and I did today,” Toma remarked. “That’s pretty good.”
“I suppose…” the killer was still out there. Despite Toma’s well-meant intentions, Jun didn’t feel particularly triumphant.
“Nino's got the car running downstairs. We’re going for drinks!”
“No,” Ohno glared.
“Yes! Don’t be such an old man, Inspector. Let’s get your jacket first,” Toma insisted, shoving Ohno out.
“You have some sort of eidetic memory, don’t you?”
“Eh?” Jun turned around. Sho was standing at the entrance to the office.
“Earlier you gave me the exact number of pages in Satou’s book despite the fact that you only paid attention to it for all of one second,” Sho explained. “It’s because you have are able to recall things with extreme precision.”
Jun sighed. “It's not as glamorous as it sounds. What good is being able to remembering minor details when you can't process it like a proper detective? In case you failed to notice, I made a lot of incorrect assumptions today.”
“True," Sho conceded, "But you will get better at this. It just takes practice.”
Jun wasn't sure why, but there was something unnerving about the way Sho has said the word “practice”. But then again, today had been drawn-out and eventful.
“Juuuuuun!” Toma’s voice called out. “I’ve got the Inspector tied down. Don’t make me have to come get you as well.”
Jun sighed, “you coming?”
Sho smiled, “Can't. I’ve got a psych eval tomorrow - the last thing I need is to arrive at the shrink's office with a hangover. Besides,” his smile grew, “I would not DREAM of infringing on your induction party.”
Jun groaned. “Help me escape. Please.”
“Okay, Jun. You asked for it!” Both Toma and Nino returned to drag him off.
* * *
Sho looked out the window, watching as Nino and Toma bundled Jun into their car where an irate Ohno was handcuffed. He watched until the car had left the garage before turning the lights of the office off, heading out into the passageway.
A detective with an eidetic memory. Innocent, naïve and clearly new at his current job. Sho’s smile grew as he continued past the offices, returning the greetings of officers that were on duty.
He was going to have much fun playing with Matsumoto Jun.
Next chapter
Notes:
This is probably the last of my updates until the new year. Happy holidays to everyone!
Features: Mostly Jun, Sho, Toma and Ohno. Mentions of Akanishi Jin and one appearance of Nino. Still working on where to stick Aiba.
Words: 3212 (approx)
Disclaimer: Nobody is mine. The idea is from zedin but I am more likely not to fulfil the exact requirements of the prompt so this is just for fun.
Boring summary: Jun is a new homicide police detective. Inspector Sakurai offers guidance. Anymore would be telling.
Master Post
Jun blinked, his brain trying to process Toma’s latest revelation.
1: He’d just attempted to arrest an inspector.
2: Inspector > Sergeant. (Yes, his luck was just so incredible today).
3: With Toma’s hand resting on Inspector Sakurai’s shoulder, he couldn’t help but notice that the Inspector’s shoulders were of the seriously sloping variety.
3: Inspector Sakurai was sporting a bruise and a split lip courtesy of him.
“Wait a minute!” Jun frowned. “You bolted away when I said to stop. AND you took someone hostage!”
Toma looked ready to murder him. “That hostage was a suspect I was trailing when your shouting alerted him,” Inspector Sakurai explained tiredly.
4: Crap. That made a whole lot of sense.
“We’ll get him the next time, sir!” One of the officers offered, giving Jun the evil eye. Great, Nino, the medical examiner, possibly Inspector Ohno, Toma, this Inspector Sakurai and even the police officers - he was going for the full alphabet of people that hate him, wasn’t he?
“I apologise, Inspector.” Jun offered. “It’s just that I remembered seeing scars on your hands-” Sakurai shoved his hands into his pockets at once, clearly conscious of the fact.
Toma cut in, “may we give you a lift home?” The look he gave Jun was quite clear: SHUT UP and SHUT UP NOW.
Sakurai shook his head, “no thank you, the weather is pleasant enough for a walk anyway.”
By now, Ohno had arrived. He asked no questions but his silent exchange with Toma indicated that he would get the full story of how Matsumoto Jun had screwed up soon. “You are supposed to be taking it easy.” It sounded like an accusation directed at Sakurai.
Sakurai shrugged, offering a sheepish smile, “and die of boredom at home? I don’t think so. So are you almost done with the crime scene yet?”
“Body’s en route for an autopsy. We’re going to her place of work for questioning and-damn it, now what?” Ohno answered his phone, turning his back towards them.
“It’s either another body or his ex-wife,” Toma commented. “If I were in his shoes, I’d be praying for a second body. Bound to be warmer.”
“Ex-wife?” Jun repeated.
Ohno hung up, returning to them. “There’s been another body. I’ll head there at once. Toma, take Jun with you and go question the-”
“Let me take Jun to do the questioning,” Sakurai offered. “You take Toma.”
“No.”
Sakurai raised an eyebrow. “Noguchi lawsuit?”
“He was asking for it!” Toma protested.
Ohno’s jaw clenched in annoyance. “You are supposed to be on leave.” He reiterated.
“And I promise to be on my best civilian behaviour. I’ll merely act as a consultant to Jun, providing him pointers if necessary.”
“We are understaffed,” Toma admitted.
“Fine,” Ohno snapped. “But you’re getting a psych eval. Tomorrow. If Tegoshi doesn’t give you the thumbs up-”
“I will spend all of next week tending to my plants,” Sakurai finished off.
“Deal!” Toma exclaimed, passing Jun his notes on the Satou case. “Take notes, Jun!” Toma advised, “you’re getting personal pointers from the next Superintendent.”
“Toma!” Sakurai sounded embarrassed. Ohno looked as if he was planning ways in which he could rein in the overgrown problem child, failing miserably to come up with a solution that fell short of shooting the idiot on the spot.
* * *
“Um,” Jun began, trying to break the awkward silence that hung over them as they made their way to the diner.
Sakurai checked his watch. “Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”
Jun blinked in confusion, “eh?”
Sakurai smiled at him, “four minutes, twenty-seven seconds,” he repeated. “The time it took before you couldn’t take walking in silence any longer.”
“I didn’t find it awkward. I just thought that maybe the diner won’t be open at this hour.” Jun offered indignantly. Because a diner with “24” in its name certainly didn’t mean it was open 24 hours, right? “Ah, crap.”
“You don’t have to be nervous around me.”
“It’s just-” Jun hesitated, “I ruined your arrest and hurt you. Why aren’t you pissed off with me like the Inspector and Toma?”
“I am pissed off,” Sakurai admitted, “the person that escaped is a suspect in the recent spate of muggings of the elderly in neighbourhood - until we catch him, more elderly people are going to get mugged.” Jun winced. Sakurai went on, “everyone makes mistakes, true - but as an officer of the law, the people we have sworn to protect expect us to be superhuman. Like surgeons, our mistakes can cost lives.”
Thankfully, Jun didn’t have to respond as they stepped into the diner. “Officer Sakurai!” The cashier looked horrified, pointing to his own face, “what happened?” Turning to his cook, he bellowed for the man to prepare coffee for the officer at once.
Sakurai offered an apologetic look, “I am afraid I have to decline. We are unfortunately here on police business - this is Detective Sergeant Matsumoto Jun. He will be asking you a few questions.” Jun bowed, fishing his notebook out.
“Are you familiar with a Satou Chieko?”
The cashier nodded, “she works for me. Here at the diner. Is-is something wrong?”
“Her body was found in the park this morning. We suspect she’d been killed sometime between midnight and 3am this morning.” Jun explained.
“After midnight,” the cashier repeated. He turned to the time clock at the back of his kitchen, went to retrieve it and gave it to Jun, “she’d clocked out from work just after midnight.”
“Was there anyone she was meeting after work?”
“I will have to ask my evening cashier, I wasn’t here last night.” The cashier admitted.
“What about strange behaviour? Was she behaving in any way that seemed out of the ordinary?”
“I wouldn’t know. Chieko had only been working for me for three days. She arrived in the city four-no, five days ago.”
“Then do you have the address of where she was staying?” The cashier nodded, excusing himself to find her employee documents. The knowledge of Satou having been a newcomer to the city made Jun incredibly sad - like him, she had just arrived, possibly to start a new life. Yet, in less than the span of a week, she’d been killed. Some new life. He thought bitterly.
“Here you go,” the cashier returned, handing him a sheaf of papers. “Now that I think about it,…” the cashier continued, frowning, “Chieko loitered a bit with that new regular yesterday.”
“New regular?” Jun flipped to a new page.
“He’s this person who has been coming in every day since Chieko came to work here. I suspected that he was her boyfriend or something and that they were just pretending not to know each other. But then, yesterday, he gave her his business card,” the cashier explained, “in fact, Officer Sakurai, you might have seen him.” Jun turned to his colleague, who looked at them both blankly. “But I suppose you might have missed him,” the cashier went on, frowning, “I think he slipped out when you walked in.” An idea had clearly flashed in his mind, “you don’t suppose he-”
Jun raised his hands, “it’s a little too early to reach a conjecture at this point.” The cashier looked disappointed that his “detective work” was being rejected. “What about any personal belongings? Did Ms Satou leave anything here at work?” With luck, he would find that business card and determine who the mystery person was.
The cashier nodded, leading them both to the back where a row of lockers were lined up against the wall. Satou’s was locked.
“I don’t suppose you have a key?” Jun asked.
The cashier shook his head, “don’t you have a lock pick set or something?” The man seemed disappointed that Jun was not living up to the expectations of SuperCop!™ after all.
“I do,” Sakurai offered, pulling out a set. “Give me a minute.”
Jun stared back disbelievingly. The cashier turned to Jun, shaking his head at him, “you need to be more take-action like Officer Sakurai here.” From behind him, Jun could hear Sakurai’s stifled laughter.
* * *
“That turned out to be a complete bust,” Jun muttered as they sat at a café twenty minutes later. Other than a single voluminous book on acting methods, the locker had been empty. So Satou had aspiring dreams of being an actress. Someone had offed her before the country could be subjected to bad dramas with even worse no-talent actors. The TV audiences were saved!
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Sakurai began, paging through the acting methods book in question. Jun found his interest in the scars on the Inspector’s hands renewed. Now that he’d had a chance to observe them properly, he realised that they were actually defensive knife wounds. Wounds from a time before the previous evening. Well done, Jun, we should accuse the Minister of Police the next time. Sakurai closed the book, presenting the book to him, “what do you notice about this book?”
Jun furrowed his brow, “judging from how dog-eared it was and the various daily scribbling all over the show, I’d said she treated it like her Bible and that it’s overly long at 1157 pages.”
Sakurai’s smile grew, “exactly.”
“Exactly?”
Sakurai placed the book back on the table, the weight of the book giving a soft thump. “This book isn’t what one would call ‘light reading’ - would YOU take this book with you everywhere you go?”
Jun snorted, “I wasn’t exactly the most studious in my class so no, I would not.”
“But for Satou, she did. As you have pointed out, she wrote notes in here every morning before her breakfast on a daily basis - her personal supplementary notes on acting. She wanted to succeed as an actress. Yet this morning, it's in her locker.”
Jun jumped in. “Because if she was meeting with someone after work, she wouldn’t want to be seen as being awkward, lugging the book with her.”
Sakurai nodded, “of course, it’s all just a theory right now. You will need to look at her apartment and have a look at any personal belongings they found on her. Maybe something there will give you a hint of who Satou was meeting after work.”
Jun downed the last of his coffee, standing up excitedly, “let’s go!”
Sakurai placed the book in an evidence bag before getting up to follow him. “Where next?”
“Satou’s apartment.”
* * *
“Thank you for your assistance,” June bowed as the landlord returned to his own apartment. Standing outside Satou’s apartment, Jun couldn’t help but feel disappointment. He turned to Sakurai, “I don’t suppose you have some scintillating insight that my rookie eyes missed out on, Inspector?”
“You CAN call me Sho, you know. If you are going to handcuff me, we might as well be on a first-name basis with each other.”
“Okay, okay! You win, Sho.” Anything not to be reminded of the morning. “On that topic, why does the cashier at the diner call you officer?”
Sho shrugged, “I guess most of the public will call any member of the police an officer. And I never saw a need to correct the man. It’s not like his incorrect perception of my position is going to influence how I go about doing my job.” They exited the building, noticing that the sun was finally out in full force - as full force as the sun could get on a winter’s day, at least. “And cheer up, Jun - not every place of investigation is going to yield clues.”
“Maybe, I guess I thought we were off to the good start…” Jun grumbled.
“Given that she spent most of her time at the diner and that she had only been here five days, I am not surprised that we couldn’t find anything of value. The woman had few possessions, most of which are unpacked. At any rate, you got the contact details of Satou’s next-of-kin.”
Jun stiffened, realising the one other task that making homicide meant having to live with just reared its ugly head - informing the victim’s family of the news. “So, as someone with the senior experience, I was wondering if you could show me how-”
“I’m not going to call them for you, Jun.”
* * *
Sho handed the itemised call list to Jun, turning to the tech, “check the phone’s browser history. We might get something there.” The tech disappeared, allowing Sho to return his attention to Jun, “no calls on her phone yesterday. Anything in her wallet?”
Jun looked victorious, producing a business card, “Eric Jameson, talent scout. Any bets that this is the business card that Satou received yesterday?” He logged into his computer, conducting a search through the police database. “Four hits - none of them match the contact details on the card.”
Sho peered over his shoulder, “so either the man is clean…”
“Or Eric Jameson isn’t real.” Jun finished. He opened up a browser, searching for Eric Jameson and talent scout. The first few links were fruitful, revealing how Eric Jameson had discovered a few famous talents. “Wow, this man really went through a lot of trouble to establish a fake reputation,” Jun remarked, pointing at the first link. “He even set up all these fake news articles and posted them on the Internet.”
Sho pointed at the screen, “these articles have been up for months. Satou only arrived a few days ago - “Eric” couldn’t only have been targeting her. Search through the cases and look for other women who were stabbed in the area for the last…say…” he did a quick calculation in his head, “…four months.”
Jun nodded, entering new search parameters, yielding two names. Both cases were left open, “pending re-assignment,” he read. The investigating detective had been Akanishi Jin, the detective that had requested a transfer to work with the FBI instead. The detective he’d been transferred in to replace.
“You’ll need Ohno to give you the case before you can open up Jin’s notes,” Sho observed, looking at his watch. “It’s lunch time. You hungry yet?”
“Well-”
“I’m starved. Let’s go.” With that, Sho had grabbed Jun by the arm, pulling him off to the garage.
* * *
Sho consulted his mobile phone. “Turn right here,” he instructed.
Jun raised an eyebrow, but did as he was prompted. “Are you always so picky with the food you want to eat? I don’t have time to drive to weird places to eat weird food…”
“Stop by the curb on the left there,” Sho indicated.
Jun parked the car, looking left and right for the special restaurant. He was sorely disappointed when he realised that the street was occupied by office blocks. He turned to Sho, “where-”
Sho had rolled his window down, greeting the hot dog stand vendor on the sidewalk. “Two dogs, please.”
“We drove down twelve blocks for you to get hot dogs?” How DID this man make Inspector? Did he bombard enough people with his eccentricity until they caved in?
Sho turned back to him, “you don’t like hot dogs?”
“That’s not the point - we passed at least eight hot dog vendors on the way here. Hell, there’s one outside our station!”
Sho took a bite of his hot dog, nodding in acknowledgement, “yes, but are they situated outside a talent agency office?” Jun looked at him, annoyed. He pulled out Eric Jameson’s business card, noticing that they were outside the office printed on the card. He wasn’t going to let Sho see how excited he was by the prospect of kicking down the suspect’s door. As he slammed his car door, he could hear a muffled, “you’re welcome,” from his passenger.
* * *
Jun’s first reaction when he reached Eric Jameson’s office door was that he was at the right place. Pulling his pistol out, he reached for the door handle, giving it a twist. Maybe he should have asked Sho and his lock-pick set to join him (but honestly, who the hell carries a lock-pick set around with them?!?).
So he was surprised when the door just opened.
“Hello?” When nobody responded, he pushed the door wider, about to step in which a hand rested on his shoulder. Instinctively, he grabbed it, throwing his attacker over his shoulder. Too late, he watched in horror as Sho crashed into the office.
From the floor, Sho looked back up at him, wincing in pain. “Ouch?” Pushing himself back up, he dusted himself. “Are you always this loving to your partners?”
“Only you,” Jun retorted, assessing the office. The place looked as if it had been looted.
“Maybe we’re not the only ones looking for Eric Jameson.”
“No,” Jun surveyed the place. “This wasn’t a search - I think Jameson realised we were onto him so he grabbed everything he needed and fled.”
* * *
“Thank you, I’ll leave the rest to you then.” Ohno hung up, turning back to Jun, “the authorities are on alert for Jameson.”
“Not bad for a first day, eh?” Toma asked, grinning.
“We don’t know for certain if he killed Satou or any of those other two women that Akanishi was investigating yet,” Jun admitted.
“Still, you made a lot more progress than the Inspector and I did today,” Toma remarked. “That’s pretty good.”
“I suppose…” the killer was still out there. Despite Toma’s well-meant intentions, Jun didn’t feel particularly triumphant.
“Nino's got the car running downstairs. We’re going for drinks!”
“No,” Ohno glared.
“Yes! Don’t be such an old man, Inspector. Let’s get your jacket first,” Toma insisted, shoving Ohno out.
“You have some sort of eidetic memory, don’t you?”
“Eh?” Jun turned around. Sho was standing at the entrance to the office.
“Earlier you gave me the exact number of pages in Satou’s book despite the fact that you only paid attention to it for all of one second,” Sho explained. “It’s because you have are able to recall things with extreme precision.”
Jun sighed. “It's not as glamorous as it sounds. What good is being able to remembering minor details when you can't process it like a proper detective? In case you failed to notice, I made a lot of incorrect assumptions today.”
“True," Sho conceded, "But you will get better at this. It just takes practice.”
Jun wasn't sure why, but there was something unnerving about the way Sho has said the word “practice”. But then again, today had been drawn-out and eventful.
“Juuuuuun!” Toma’s voice called out. “I’ve got the Inspector tied down. Don’t make me have to come get you as well.”
Jun sighed, “you coming?”
Sho smiled, “Can't. I’ve got a psych eval tomorrow - the last thing I need is to arrive at the shrink's office with a hangover. Besides,” his smile grew, “I would not DREAM of infringing on your induction party.”
Jun groaned. “Help me escape. Please.”
“Okay, Jun. You asked for it!” Both Toma and Nino returned to drag him off.
* * *
Sho looked out the window, watching as Nino and Toma bundled Jun into their car where an irate Ohno was handcuffed. He watched until the car had left the garage before turning the lights of the office off, heading out into the passageway.
A detective with an eidetic memory. Innocent, naïve and clearly new at his current job. Sho’s smile grew as he continued past the offices, returning the greetings of officers that were on duty.
He was going to have much fun playing with Matsumoto Jun.
Next chapter
Notes:
This is probably the last of my updates until the new year. Happy holidays to everyone!