Disclaimer: I don't own death note.
Chapter 25
Connection
Yumi was tapping her fingers against the floor, she had nothing to do and it had now been one day since her first phone call with Misora.
Today Misora and the private detective "Ryuzaki" were going to investigate the second scene. L was out of the room and Yumi had a guess or two as to why, but she wouldn't have mentioned either of them to L had he been present.
Yumi was bored out of her mind, she sighed and lay back on the floor staring at the ceiling.
"Ok." she said to herself. "If L can go out then so can I." she stood up and started toward the door. Then something dawned on her, she looked back at L's computer and saw her cell phone on top of the monitor.
Common sense said leave it but Yumi ignored this.
She crossed the room and grabbed her phone, she pushed it into her pocket and left the warehouse.
While she walked down the street Yumi made a decision on what to do with her free time.
She would investigate the second crime scene herself.
As she turned down an ally, having decided to take a short cut, she heard a noise behind her. She jogged the rest of the way down the ally and turned the corner, then she looked back the way she had come to see what the noise had been.
Yumi almost laughed as she saw Naomi Misora walking down the ally. She played with the idea of introducing herself but pushed it away. L wouldn't like it much if Yumi approached Misora.
Then Yumi's thoughts were disrupted as a figure wearing a mask ran at Misora from behind. Yumi was hidden from the attacker's view but she still pushed herself closer to the wall.
As Yumi confirmed that the attacker was after Misora she readied herself to help.
Before she could act, however, Misora ducked under a blow from the masked figure without even turning around, then kicked up with her leg aiming for the man– for it was obviously a man– he dodged but Misora was now facing him.
She took a fighting stance as the man swung at her with a wooden club, Misora dodged the blow and swung her legs up aiming for the man's temple with her heal. She missed and was back in her stance ready for more.
But the attacker was less enthusiastic about the fight and took off running back down the ally. Misora didn't follow him and Yumi could guess why.
Then Misora took out her phone. Yumi wondered why and then–
her cell phone rang, it was on vibrate so Misora didn't hear but Yumi had to sprint around the corner away from Misora.
By the time Yumi reached the warehouse, Misora had already stopped calling. A few days ago or even an hour ago, Yumi would have answered the phone even when she was standing right around the corner from the caller.
But after seeing Misora fight off an attacker, Yumi felt it more important to reach L and let him know about the fight.
L was at the computer when Yumi got back inside, she took a minute to catch her breath after the run the she started to explain.
L didn't move or speak through Yumi's entire story, but that had been what she had been expecting.
When she had finished she looked at him and waited for a response.
And waited...
After several minutes of silence Yumi lost her patience.
"So, what do you think?" she asked him.
"Did you see the man who had attacked her?" L asked her back.
"No, well yes but not his face." Yumi answered.
"How far away from him were you?"
"About fifty feet, why?"
"Well at that distance you wouldn't have been able to tell..." L faded out, Yumi knew that asking "what?" wouldn't do much.
After L's last comment they went back to work.
It was around noon when Yumi started to wonder something about the case.
"The next murder's on the 17th, right? That's in one day so shouldn't we–" she was cut off.
"No." L said, "not one day."
"Not the 17th?" Yumi asked.
"No, the 22nd." he said.
"What? But that's nine days between the crossword puzzle coming to the police and the first murder, then four days between the first murder and the second, and nine days between the second and third murders, so shouldn't it be another four days to even it out?" she asked.
"No, don't look at the time between the murders, look at the dates themselves." he said and gave her a minute to figure it out. She didn't get it.
"How does that work? The crossword puzzle came on the 22nd, the first murder on the 31st, then the second on the 4th, and the third on the 13th, those dates have nothing in common at all." Yumi felt stupid over not being to figure out a conclusion that L had already reached.
"Base it off thirteen." he said to give her a hint.
Yumi thought the numbers over again and this time a solution came.
"So you can make thirteen with all of them, what does that mean? Why thirteen, you can make four out of all of them too?" she asked.
"What does thirteen look like when you write the numbers too close together?" he asked, Yumi felt like a child being taught the alphabet.
Wait. Thirteen looked like... B? What did that mean?
"But what does that have to do with it? B, sure it comes up a lot, all the victims names... can be B but what does that...?" she didn't know what to make of his deduction. It seemed easy enough to understand when you knew what to look for but how was B going to help catch the killer?
Around that moment L was cut off by the phone ringing, it was Misora L started the conversation with simple questions on the investigation, then he brought up the attack in the ally.
He didn't say anything direct like, "I heard about your fight." or "Who was your attacker?" because it would show that he knew about the attack, and that would cause questions to be asked.
Instead he told her to be careful, then he asked her a question involving different types of martial arts.
He listened to her answer and a confused look appeared on his face.
Yumi wondered what it meant but didn't ask.
Then L listened to her speak again and said something about videos.
After that he explained the date of the fourth murder attempt, and a minute later he hung up.
"What videos?" Yumi asked.
"Hmm..." L ignored her and focused on his computer screen as he looked something up. Yumi gave up.
______________________________________________________________________________
author's note: sorry short chapter and I'm pretty sure some sentences aren't grammatically correct. Oh well, thanks for reading anyway! See you tomorrow!