Probable Improbability
by Moonraker One
CHAPTER TWO
L sat in a chair, knees by his chin as usual, explaining item after item to Osaka. He originally hated the idea of giving Kira more time to go about his genocidal activities, but when he heard from chief Yagami that his plans had changed and his house would not be fully vacant for an additional two days, this gave the detective the window regardless. Explaining things to Osaka, now that her mental condition had been treated, came quite easier than he expected. The hardest thing, he found out the hard way, was keeping her on task. Ask Takemaru about medication, he reminded himself. The next hardest thing came in the form of having to share his sweets with her. She had an appetite on her, that girl. She wasn't getting fat, so perhaps she burned a lot of calories on thinking, just like him. The other family that Penber had been shadowing, that house freed itself quickly, so L went on his own to put in the cameras. Initially he felt uneasy about not bringing Osaka along, but he didn't notice any traps to check for entry into rooms, so he felt better.
"Tell me, mister Ryuzaki," Osaka chimed, looking up from a surveillance video.
"Hmm?" L half-hummed. He took a bite of a snickers bar.
"I was just wonderin' when we're gonna go to the other house. I never put bugs in someone's house. Well, not the spyin' kind, anyway. One time I accidentally had lice in my hair and went to my friend Tomo's house..." She shook her head. She caught herself drifting off topic again; the Takemaru guy had told her not to.
"You're in luck; we're going to do that tomorrow."
Osaka perked up. "That's great. I always wanted to spy on someone's house. I feel like I should have a British accent or somethin'."
L reached in his pocket and produced a series of small cards. "I almost forgot. Here are the entry cards into the hotel rooms I'll have everything in."
"Can I ask a favor? Do you got a spare bed I could sleep in? Since I don't gotta go to work tomorrow, I figure it'd waste time to catch the night bus home and the morning bus here again." She went back to studying the video.
"Sure. I'll have Watari bring out the extra mattress." Taking a cue before being told, the elderly gentleman left the room. L nodded in his general direction, as an unseen symbol of approval. "Now Osaka, I have to tell you, I really want you to be as observant as possible tomorrow. I don't want you to miss anything, no matter how small it is."
She nodded. "I gotcha, mister Ryuzaki." She stretched out her arms and yawned. "I'd love ta stay up and chat, but I'd love to get some shut-eye. I'm gonna go to bed, ok?" Barely waiting for his agreement, she left the chamber and went past the rest of the group and into the other room. She made sure the door was shut, then pulled off her top and pants, then slid her night wear over her main outfit, slowly. When it fit comfortably over her frame, she lay on the mattress, not even pulling the covers over her.
The cameras displayed that the first household had completely fallen asleep. There wasn't a single member still awake. L found this acceptable, since it didn't appear as though any were likely to wake up and continue any action. He flipped two switches on the panel in front of him, and the monitors shut off en masse. He listened around him; when no sounds could be heard, save for the usual creaking of the building, he pulled a small remote out of his pocket. The button on it switched on a single monitor in front of him. On it, displayed Osaka—complete in her night wear sleeping on the mattress. Her angle gave him a view of her sleeping on her left side facing the camera. She had hands folded under her pillow, and her hair strewn chaotically behind her head and on her shoulders. The nightgown did little for her chest—which wasn't much to begin with—but it accented her hips. Her business shirt and pants did little for her hips, but in the soft gown, her excellent hips and thighs became quite the sight to see.
Perhaps if Kira can indulge in his killing, L thought to himself, then I can spy on a girl. After all, it isn't perverted to admire a fine piece of art. He sat there, just watching her, with his hands propped up on his knees. He started to feel guilty after a few minutes, but couldn't take his eyes off the screen. Her rhythmic breathing, the gentle, harmless look on her sleeping face, her shimmering hair. He admired what he couldn't touch. It was almost an hour before he switched off the monitor and went to fall asleep in his own bed, right in the surveillance room.
Shoichiro Yagami had told him of the specific time that the house became empty. L set his clock for three hours ahead of time. Never could it be said that preparedness was not his primary advantage over adversaries.
As it turned out, Osaka managed to pre-empt him by waking up almost five minutes ahead of him. By the time he'd gotten out of bed, and punched his alarm clock in the process, she'd already managed to get ahead of him in the shower. He found this out by going to knock on the door, and being met by Watari. "Your female friend is in there," he instructed L. L rubbed his eyes.
"Well, if that is the case, can you fix me something to eat?"
"The usual?" Watari knew what this meant. Ice cream deluxe with the familiar seven toppings.
"Yeah, the ice cream deluxe with the seven toppings."
Watari smiled and headed off while L sat on the floor outside the bathroom. The elderly gentleman, quite possibly, could be called L's second greatest asset. All the money he made could not have happened without the familiar sight in the hat taking care of half the business. All the cases he solved could not have happened if he'd had to meet the police organizations in person. So, despite being a glorified butler, Watari held only the highest regard to his young master because he knew that the two worked together like a well-oiled machine. So, he had no problem making a seven-layered ice cream natural disaster for a man very much younger than him.
"Ryuzaki, it's ready!"
L popped up from the floor at the sound of his morning sweets being available for consumption. Sliding his hands into his pockets, the young detective moved towards the kitchen area. "You've made a habit of outdoing yourself, Watari," L complimented. He sat down and ate. Showering could be done afterwards. The spoon he took by the handle in his normal way of mishandling it, and began scooping ice cream into his mouth.
Osaka walked by the kitchen, a towel wrapped around her torso. "The shower's yours. Hey! You're eating ice cream for breakfast?...! That's amazing!" She entered the kitchen.
"Do you want some? I can have Watari make you some."
She shook her head. "I usually eat a somewhat normal breakfast. Ice cream in the morning is something I haven't seen before. I think I'll just see what you have available." Watari went to one of the cupboards and showed her the "normal" foods she talked with L about. Finishing his mountainous ice cream, the detective went back upstairs and entered the shower. He considered a clean body to be very important, even if his clothing struck everyone as somewhat uneventful and extremely disorganized. He took his clothes off and entered the stream of hot water. I wonder what kind of breakfast she usually eats, L thought. He had spied on her in her sleep, and despite no naughty bits showing, he felt like a pervert. Still, at the same time, he'd found her to be very beautiful. She didn't have much chest—which he felt wasn't the most important anyway—but she made up for it with her hips. She had great hips. She also struck him as being the type of girl who was as curve-less as a flower pot throughout the teenage years, then came into her figure at the outset. He had no evidence, but her face seemed to tell the tale; it still had that child-like demeanor. Then again, it could merely be her ADD.
Once he'd finished showering, and Osaka completed her "normal" breakfast, he waited by the phone until he got a call from one of his agents who told him that the Yagami household had become barren. With Light not set to return for several hours, and the wife and daughter out, they had a small window of a little over two hours before the first of the family came home. Within a few minutes, the two of them were out the door, and Shoichiro Yagami would drive them there in his civilian vehicle so as not to arouse suspicion.
"So, tell me, do you really think that Kira is one of the people in my family, Ryuzaki? I mean, really." The senior Yagami's question might have a certain meaning for him, L would disregard emotional attachments and merely respond with matter of fact attitude.
"In all truth, Yagami-san, I do not think so," he explained. "There may be a 1 percent or so likelihood that Kira is in your house, and that warrants us to be doing this, but the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of Kira having nothing to do with your particular family. After all, there are quite a few people in these areas of Japan." He had told the truth, although, at this point, he seriously would not doubt if any particular member of the Yagami household had been Kira up until this point. Even if it was the wife or daughter—the odds of which were unimaginably low—he would not be surprised. The previous cases he'd been on had told him to avoid judging the book by its cover, as the cliché were. Raye Penber had done that by showing his ID to someone on the bus. It had gotten him killed.
"So, what do you want me to do, Mister Ryuzaki?" inquired Osaka. She sat hands clasped on her lap, eagerly waiting for her answer.
"I'm going to figure out where the best places to put the cameras are, Osaka," he told. He looked at her. "I want you to do one very specific thing: I want you to look out for things you would consider 'weird.' I don't care how 'weird' or not, if you get the slightest inkling about something, tell me." I'm sure you can do that, right?"
She smiled. "I'll do the best job I can, Mister Ryuzaki!" She started staring at the clouds. Catching herself, she tried to think more about her task at hand. She had to be serious, she knew; lives were at stake. If she didn't help to the best of her abilities, people WERE going to die, there was no if.
Shoichiro Yagami stopped the car. "Okay, I really hate that you guys have to spy on my family, so let's get this going as quickly as possible, ok Ryuzaki? I hate to sound rude, but please hurry this up."
"Yagami-san, I swear this won't be any longer than it has to be." They stepped up to the door. L turned to Osaka. "Remember, focus on anything that seems unusual. ANYTHING. If there's a speck on the ceiling that looks abnormal, I want to hear about it, ok?"
Osaka nodded, and headed into the house first. L let her go ahead, since she could scout the place first, with her observation skills, that the psychiatrist had told him were superior to his. This way, she could see things before he mucked with them. Sure enough, she went in, and started going into private bedrooms, looking carefully at doors, windows, bookshelves, not a single proverbial stone was left unturned. While she looked at everything, she didn't report anything you wouldn't see in any other Japanese household of the same financial category. After she would leave a room, L would enter with his bag of miniature cameras and listening bugs, and select the choice locations for them. He had always been good at analyzing things, so to figure out where a bug could be placed so as not to be found was a simple task.
Suddenly, L received a shout. "Mister Ryuzaki! I found something unusual!" He came up the stairs as fast as he could.
He looked at the door, and noticed two things. Hmm, he thought. The door to Light Yagami's room has a piece of paper by the door to determine if someone's been in. He looked at Osaka. "Thank you; that's the kind of observation I'm talking about."
She stopped him before he entered. "That ain't all, Mister Ryuzaki. Don'tcha see the door handle is a bit shorter than it could go?" She moved the handle down slightly. "It doesn't look like it's all the way up."
He looked at the handle. It seemed a minor triviality, and could very well be a simple mechanical failure of the return spring, but it could also mean that the paper was but one part of two systems for determining unwanted entrance. He took a mental note to return the handle to this way when he left. When they went inside, she started her examination on the floor. She looked near the door, and perked up yet again. Leaning down, she picked up two halves a lead for mechanical pencils. L looked at them. He knew they were from the door. Wow. Light is good. He's got three different ways to tell if someone's come into his room. His amazement at Light's security almost overcame his amazement at Osaka's observational skills.
L scanned the room, seeing several places where he might want to start looking. He unearthed one of the potential hiding places for things, only to discover centerfold magazines. "I have to tell you, Osaka, you are indeed a natural born sleuth. If you had been born into a different situation, I'd say you could've become a detective." He took note of where certain spots could see, calculating angles in his head.
She went over to the computer desk. She pulled out the bottom drawer, and found nothing but a calculator and several rulers and other math tools in it, so she slid it shut after looking at every angle of it. She then took out the top drawer. It was empty. She looked at it from several viewpoints, and that's when she noticed a little hole on the underside. Aw, that hole's too small to fit anything much into, she thought. Let's see if there's anything that'll fit. She looked at the top of the desk. She saw several pens in a holder. She grinned; that might work. She took a pen and unscrewed the cap, pulling out the inner ink tube. She poked around underneath, and slid the tube into the hole. Success! It had fit. She lifted the lid. "Uh, Ryuzaki? C'mere. I definitely found somethin' you'd call weird."
L came over, and looked at the situation. Her pen tube, having been pushed into the hole underneath the drawer, raised a fake bottom. In the bottom, sat a plastic bag with a black notebook that read, "Death Note" in english letters. A rudimentary system of electrical cables fed with a primitive circuit breaker system into the bag. He reached in and pulled out the bag, and Osaka lowered the fake bottom. Opening the bag instantly revealed the purpose of the electrical wires. This bag has a small amount of gasoline in it, he realized. This is the kind of security you use when you desperately want something NOT to be found. Light is Kira; there's no other explanation. He opened the notebook. He saw instructions in English and Japanese.
"The human," he read in Japanese, "who has their name written in this note shall die." A notebook? What kind of notebook can kill? I don't understand, but it doesn't change the facts. He stopped reading and opened the notebook. It was full of names of criminals, and underneath some of the names were causes of death. Light—Kira—killed with a notebook. Ludicrous, positively outrageous, L knew; yet it made perfect sense when you took into account that impossible circumstances were arising with deaths of criminals. An outrageous question could only be answered by an outrageous answer.
L shook his head. His initial bewilderment aside, he put the note back into the bag, and arranged it in the fake bottom as perfectly as he could to the way it had been before. Osaka helped him. Then he left Light's room after installing the bugs, and put the door security back into the way Light had arranged it. He felt bad for Shoichiro Yagami, but at the same time he could have danced a jig. He'd finally found who Kira was.
And he couldn't have done it without the keen observations of a girl.
He let loose a small grin. It reminded him of Naomi and how she helped him crack the Beyond Birthday case.
Shoichiro Yagami met Osaka and L by his car. He looked at them. "Did you get done?" He couldn't wait to get back to the hotel. As soon as he got this case over, he could go home.
L stood close to Shoichiro and looked at him. "Yagami-san, I have to tell you something you may not want to hear."
Shoichiro looked at him, slightly irritated. "Ryuzaki, I know you think members of my family might be Kira, but please, stop trying to make me feel better."
L shook his head. "No, that's not it. I've found almost conclusive evidence that your son Light is, in fact, Kira."
The police officer could have exploded. "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!...?" He tried calming himself, but only went so far. "I...I thought you said there was a one percent or so chance! I...I want to see this evidence of yours, right now!" He wanted to beat the shit out of L right now, but out of professional courtesy, kept it in. Still, if this turned out to be fruitless, he would never forgive the detective.
"I've set everything up so your son will not notice anything different than the state he left it," L explained. "Back at the hotel, when we see your son on camera, I'll explain everything." After that, and a few tense moments, the three got back in the vehicle, and went off. A few hours later, the mother and daughter came home, and later than that, Light himself. Sure enough, thanks to Osaka and L, he never noticed that people had been in his room. So when he took out the Death Note, and started writing, it all got caught on camera. Along with his talking to some monstrous creature. Only L and Osaka saw it, because only they touched the Death Note, but from what he'd read, L knew of the rules anyway. It didn't matter; conclusive evidence was conclusive evidence.
Shoichiro looked at the monitor in sheer terror. His emotional storm went to anger, then to sorrow. He didn't want to believe it. However, his eyes wouldn't lie. The facts in front of him could not be altered. L explained everything he saw in the Death Note to him. The elder Yagami went to the bathroom, vomited, and sat down on the floor, crying. L got Watari to make backups of the surveillance tape, and he got the plan together to capture Kira. They had won.
But they would later learn the truth.
Light Yagami?
He was the least of their concerns.
