Aizawa
Mysteriously, after becoming chief, my office had seemed to shrink and shrink as I learned more about exactly what the job entailed, and now, in those uncomfortably tight quarters, the light from the computer screen scalded my eyes, and the silence sounded maddening. Try as I might to focus, so far the security footage Mogi got from the research lab showed nothing but day after day of the same blank hallway, and it was becoming apparent that we might have to go back weeks—maybe even months—to find the right moment.
Drumming my fingers, I checked my watch. We'd been sitting for nearly two hours, more than enough time for Ide and Matsuda to have gotten into trouble.
Morons. Last night, it had seemed like Matsuda and I came to an understanding, and I'd honestly believed he would start taking my orders more seriously, but Ide's going against me left me feeling lost, and if I was really honest with myself, slightly hurt.
After all, that was the guy who always had my back, even if I didn't ask him to, even if I didn't want him to. The guy who iced and wrapped my hand when I broke it being overly emotional. That was the guy who told me uncomfortable truths when I needed to hear them and slammed me on the shoulder if I lost sight of myself. That was the guy who used to show up on my doorstep with a pack of beer when life got rough, the guy who chased killers and arrested psychos with me. The best man at my wedding. The uncle to my kids in everything but blood.
I couldn't say he'd liked every decision I'd ever made in my career, but he'd always backed me up, and I never would have dreamed the arguments we'd been having could lead to him to suddenly going against my authority. When he got back, I didn't know if I should yell at him, suspend him, or try to get to the bottom of what he was thinking.
Typically, the latter wasn't even an option with him. No matter what had gotten into him or how bad it might honestly be, he'd go right on playing the calm and collected tough guy he'd always perpetuated. Even if I could pry without losing my temper, he hated it when I pushed him, and he'd probably snap at me.
I don't have time for your shit, Hideki…
Couldn't he see I had a million other things to worry over?
I clenched my fist, dwelling on the pain and thinking of the trouble he'd gone to, tending to my injuries, like he always did. I needed his support.
Outside my office, my secretary, old Danuja, peered through the blinds and pursed her lips, waving a notepad at me—my messages.
When I'd come in, she'd all but jumped on me, rattling off about calls and meetings I'd missed and filling me in on the general unrest running my department in my absence. "Chief," she'd wheezed, in a scolding tone reminiscent of my grandmother's, "you mustn't keep this up. Your job is to oversee the department, not play favorites with only one case."
"I know that, Danuja, thank you."
Still she'd puttered along beside me. "You look terrible, by the way. Does your wife know where you are? She keeps calling me."
If she'd started contacting my secretary, Eriko must be really frustrated, but at this point, I couldn't risk her relaying anything I said back to Sayu.
When it was obvious I intended to ignore her, Danuja let herself into my office, dumping the notes on my desk. "These are the messages I mentioned earlier."
There were a ton of them, scattered across a dizzying palette of colorful sticky notes.
"Some of them are quite important," she rasped. As far as I knew, she'd been smoking her whole life, and it showed in her wrinkly face and constant cough.
That's how stupid Hideki would probably look and sound in another twenty years…
If he comes back…
I shook that away, not daring to think about life without him.
"Yes, Danuja, thank you."
She sniffed. "You really should address some business while you're here; and call Eriko-san back. It's a wonder that poor girl doesn't divorce you."
I felt Mogi staring at me from the corner of his eye, radiating an air of nervousness; seeing how he hadn't been here for practically the whole time I'd acted as chief, he'd never witnessed the blunt, severe way my secretary spoke to me. Like a disapproving, old mother.
"Danuja," I sighed. "Sometimes I wonder about you."
She looked narrowly at me over the golden frames of her antique glasses.
"Have you just been here since the beginning of time? Nagging chief after chief since mankind first evolved?"
With another sniff, she drew herself up. "I do recollect telling a boy named Shuichi Aizawa to mind his manners, and that was nearly twenty years ago. He wasn't a good listener."
"No, well…" I stared hard at the screen in front of me, but there was nothing to see there. "You can't fix everyone. Maybe it's time to give up. Retire."
"I would if I thought anyone could run this department without me," she scoffed, and then added, curtly, "I took the liberty of ordering you a salad for lunch."
"You know I hate salad."
"Your heart will thank me," she said, clipping out of the office, frail and cocky as a red-crowned crane.
"Old Danuja still works here," Mogi mused.
"Who did you think was running the department?" I snorted. "Me?"
A slight smile touched his lips, but he kept his eyes on the screen, and I turned that way again, loath to watch even one more second of boring footage when Matsuda and my best friend might be dying.
In a moment, my phone went off, the light-hearted sound of an incoming text making my chest feel tight, but it was just Ide asking where he should meet us.
Short-lived relief washed over me. For several seconds, I stared at the message, torn between telling him I was glad to know he'd survived and saying something snarky. Neither of us liked texting; I hit the call button.
Ide didn't answer. I tried a couple times before simply texting back, station, because he probably just didn't feel like talking to me, considering the way we'd left things.
I didn't especially feel like talking to him either. It made me angry that he kept butting heads with me on how to handle this case, even to the point that he'd been mad yesterday when I left him on site to wait for forensics. I couldn't get it out of him why that bothered him so much, and it annoyed me that he'd waste energy on something so petty. If I had to guess, he felt a lot more worried by this whole situation than he was letting on, but the fact that he truly seemed to expect me to betray Matsuda aggravated me.
Of course, I wanted Matsuda to go to the hospital and stay there until we could fix him, but unless he chose that himself, my hands were tied; I certainly wasn't going to take him against his will. Ide should understand that.
We've always been on the same page. You always seem to know exactly what I'm thinking. How did we lose that out of nowhere?
"Assuming there's nothing on this video," Mogi murmured, "what can we conclude?"
"That the theft happened a long time ago," I grumbled, reluctant to leave my thoughts. "That they want to cover it up and deleted the footage we need. That they're lying and no one stole that device. That we're being misled. Tricked. Deceived."
For the first time in two hours, Mogi took his eyes off the screen to study me with an air that appeared almost pitying.
At this point, they could probably all see the way I'd begun to come apart, and Mogi had already informed me in the past that they just wanted to help me, because my journey as their leader had been so strenuous and strange.
But I did not want their pity, I wanted them to do as I asked.
"Aren't we always?" Mogi asked quietly.
"Seems like it lately." I got up, stretching my arms. "I'm getting coffee. Want anything?"
"No." He turned back to the screen. "Just stay away from the vending machine, Chief. You know how that goes."
"Very funny," I snorted, on my way out. I just needed to clear my head.
Leaving the safety of my office turned out to be a mistake, though. As soon as I emerged, one person after another swamped me, all with questions or reports, concerns, complaints, petty drama, and insecurities. Danuja was right, as it turned out. I'd been away only a few days, but chaos had taken over my department, and it took quite a bit of determination to reach the coffee pot in the break room.
A few people hung out there, taking lunch and chatting; they looked interestedly at me, as if trying to decide if they wanted to take time out of their breaks to pose their own questions, but I stayed careful not to meet anyone's gaze.
Being chief meant more than giving orders. A long time ago, as a young man, I'd experienced fleeting fantasies about being the boss, though I'd never expected to become anything more than a lieutenant, maybe a captain. Young Shuichi hadn't dwelled much on what leadership really meant, the demands of it or the taxing nature of it; maybe I'd really been naïve enough to believe having people's respect would be enough to make them always obey, but the reality was, this was far from a dictatorship, and if I couldn't even get Hideki to listen to me, I must be failing.
Meanwhile, it looked like I'd let the whole department down; disappearing on them like this, whether it had to do with a crisis or not, was unacceptable.
I can't keep doing this, I told myself, as I hurried back toward my office. I have a job…
Getting the notebook mattered more than that. But Matsuda… This morning he'd more or less admitted that he believed he'd killed those people. I could lose everything trying to restore his mind.
As I neared my office again, keeping my head down and trying not to be seen, Ide and Matsuda appeared on the far side of the room. Matsuda had that air of cold levity around him still, so at least I knew they hadn't cracked the case, but panic seemed to have gotten a hold of Ide, rounding his narrow eyes and making his face pale. He no longer had his tie, but he carried his jacket under his arm, and his hair was disheveled. A broken cigarette hung out of his mouth, partially smoked.
When he saw me, he stopped hard, and then suddenly rushed my direction with such force, I didn't know if he planned to throw his arms around me or take a swing at my face, but I braced myself.
"Shuichi," he sputtered, jerking to a stop right in front of me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him so freaked out.
"We have to find the fucker who did this to him," he gushed suddenly. "We have to find that motherfucker and make him pay. Dearly. We have to fucking find that piece of shit, Shuichi!"
My mouth fell open, and I scanned the department, quickly, unnerved to see several people staring at him, some curiously, some disturbed. "Quiet," I scolded. "We don't—"
"We have to fix this!" he insisted, louder than ever.
"That's what we're trying to do, Ide," I reminded him, gentler.
"We have to do it faster," he decided, raking the hair back from his forehead, and then froze that way, staring vehemently at his shoes.
Matsuda came up beside him, giving him a mild look, while I waited, impatiently, for them to explain his distress.
"I need to go home," he announced suddenly.
"Home? But—"
"Home. Right now. I can't. This is too much."
"Ide, relax. Tell me what's—"
"I don't have time. See you tomorrow." He threw his coat over his shoulder, struggling with his lighter, despite the state of his cigarette. "God. When I find that fucker, I'll beat the shit out of him." Still grumbling things like that under his breath, he strode away.
Matsuda and I watched him go, and then slowly exchanged looks. "What the hell did you do to Ide?"
"Oh, almost got him killed, I think."
He said it calmly, as if he'd committed some minor infraction on par with drinking Ide's last beer, and the added I think made it sound as if he wasn't even sure that's what happened.
As I stared after Ide, my guts twisted, and instinct compelled me to chase him down and drag it out of him what had happened.
If I push him, he'll lose it.
Maybe not. Nine out of ten times, though, if I prompted him to discuss something that made him uncomfortable, he got defensive right away, which turned almost immediately into aggression I didn't think I could handle right now.
He might not do that to Matsuda. Blithe and obliging, the kid knew how to sidestep Ide's defensiveness and overlook the aggression in such a way that it seemed like Ide didn't know what to do other than to explain himself. Sometimes, I'd thought, it looked like he did it simply because he felt guilty and stupid for snapping at him. But, at the moment, I didn't know if Matsuda knew how to do that. He definitely didn't care to.
Ide certainly wouldn't talk to Mogi. And, anyway, Mogi didn't have much patience for his behavior. Before he'd bother to push, he'd simply sigh and mutter, "Okay, then, Ide."
That meant it was up to me, and I wasn't sure I could find the patience required. The last thing I wanted was to start a shouting match with my captain in the middle of the squad room
"Poor Taniki-tan," Matsuda murmured, with a doleful shake of his head.
Still battling with the urge to go after him, I kept my eyes on Ide. "Yeah."
"He's completely in love with you."
"I know."
He hadn't even stood still long enough for me to notice if he'd been hurt. At least, he might let me ask him that much, but delving into his emotions… That just wasn't Ide's strong suit.
At least he's alive.
I'd give him a while to calm down, and then I'd call him. I couldn't leave him that way.
"Have you guys ever talked about it?"
"Talked about what?" Blinking to myself, I finally glanced down at Matsuda. "Wait. What? Did he…actually say something about that to you?"
Ide wouldn't. He'd always kept his feelings under lock and key to the point that I hardly knew what his situation really was.
"No." Matsuda shrugged. "I can just tell."
A million questions hit me. How could he tell? How long had he known? What had tipped him off? Did he have any insights? Suggestions? Ide had never admitted anything to me, outright, I just knew, the same way I knew I didn't feel that same way toward him. Possibly, though, he had mentioned something to tolerant, kind-hearted Matsuda. Or maybe, without the frivolities that normally cluttered his mind, Matsuda had picked up on it.
Even if he had, in this altered state, I doubted he'd have anything very helpful to say, just as his pointing out yesterday that Ide was the brother I'd never had didn't clarify anything for me, only made the bond between us murkier than ever.
Matsuda, I remembered, didn't even care right now how Hideki or I felt about anything, let alone each other.
At last, Ide rounded the corner, and I scanned the squad room to see if anyone had noticed our conversation, but most of them had returned to work.
"Look. Don't just go…blurting that out to anyone. It's between me and him."
He cocked his head, thoughtfully, eyes bright with that unfamiliar quality of analysis. "So… He's just been dealing with that? For twenty years?"
How the hell was I to know? I'd always assumed it was something he'd unwittingly fallen into after working so closely with me for a few years—that was the sort of love I understood and believed in. Possibly, though, Ide had felt that way the very first time we'd spoke. Seeing how I couldn't even remember specifically when that had been, there was simply no telling.
Sympathy and guilt struggling to the surface, I took one last look to where Ide had vanished, and then turned to lead the way back to my office. "Just be careful, Matsuda. He's sensitive about that."
Even if he wasn't sensitive about anything else on Earth, I'd seen time and again that those feelings, however they started, whatever they entailed, meant a lot to him. They might even scare him.
"Yeah," Matsuda agreed, falling into step beside me. "I noticed." And then he dropped it, changing the topic rather loudly. "We went to this club he said is owned by the syndicate, and—"
"Dammit. Not here." Grabbing his arm, I dragged him back into my office, where Mogi didn't seem to have even shifted in his seat.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter," Matsuda decided, dropping into my chair without a thought.
I shut the door a little louder than I'd meant to and realized that I must have set my coffee down somewhere. "What do you mean it doesn't matter? Is he okay? Are you?"
"What?" Matsuda furrowed his brow at me. "Oh. Yeah. He's fine. I guess I'm lucky he was there."
Exhaling an aggravated breath, I leaned back against my door. I'd tried to tell them not to go do that, Ide had undermined my authority in a way only Hideki Ide could manage, and he'd almost gotten killed because of it.
That dumb shit.
I got out my phone and selected my conversation with Ide. Painfully slow, I tapped out, You're a mess, but that was too blunt. I deleted it.
"Anyway, what'd you guys find out?" Matsuda asked, like nearly dying was just a day in the life for him. "We didn't find out very much… Actually, I don't think we found out anything. At this point, I really need that license plate number to work out."
Mogi glanced at him.
I texted. Get some rest, Hideki.
Being so frazzled, he might not like that. I deleted it.
Matsuda bubbled away. "I know it probably won't crack the case, like you said, but I'm fresh out of leads—looks like the syndicate really didn't have anything to do with any of this—and I know Golden Teeth was there when they tortured me."
Imagining that big, asshole westerner laying his hands on my sergeant restored the rage that had gotten swallowed in my worry, and I lingered at the door, trying to curb that feeling, but I wanted to kick the hell out of that man too.
I texted. Call me later. No point in struggling with the tiny buttons when we could have a conversation on the phone. And, maybe, with any luck, not talking about it face to face would keep him from freaking out.
Matsuda kept talking. "I've been thinking, it's weird they didn't scrub that room they kept me in. Maybe that's what he went back there for. I can't think of any other reason for him to show up like that."
Mogi looked at the screen again.
If Hideki didn't call me, went home, and made himself sink back into his façade of perfection, I might not ever be able to get through to him.
I got my phone out and hit call, listening to it ring.
"I guess it's possible he's ditched the car since we saw him," Matsuda rattled on. "But even if he did, we should at least be able to find out who it was registered to. That's—"
The door sprang open, knocking me forward, and Ide stormed in, looking, unbelievably, more frazzled than ever.
"I can't go home, dammit," he explained to our questioning looks. "I can't go home. Not like this."
"Jesus, Hideki," I sputtered, out of pure surprise. "Would you calm down?"
Not seeming to hear me, he prowled once around the room and then took the last seat available, jamming his fingers through his hair until it stuck up like a rooster comb in the front.
"Welcome back," Matsuda greeted, politely.
Distractedly, Mogi echoed, "Welcome back."
With a heavy sigh, Ide slid down in his seat and uttered a sarcastic, "Thanks, guys."
Sliding my phone back into my pocket, I took a step toward him. "Hey. Maybe we should—"
"Anyway, like I was saying," Matsuda started up again, "The license plate is all I can think of right now." He turned to me. "Did you run it?"
"Yeah, yeah, I ran it." I hung awkwardly over Ide's shoulder, staring down at him, and then, when he refused to look at me, back to the footage of that insanely blank hallway. "It's registered under the name Max Cooper. I don't know yet if that's an alias—we'll have to look into that next."
Matsuda frowned. "So why are we wasting time watching this video? Even if we see something, I doubt we'll be able to figure out who we're looking at."
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. His energy was killing me. "Matsuda…we're doing what we can right now. Cases like this take time."
Still, he insisted, "Even if we ID the thief, they might not have anything to do with this. They could have stolen the device and sold it to Tero elsewhere."
"It's a start, that's all. Like the license plate. It's just a place to start."
"Yeah, but I'm saying—"
"I can't just wave my hands and make facts magically appear!" I snarled. "The only fact we have right now is that the GPS that was in your tooth got stolen from this facility where they've been known to research mind control! Everything else is just you running wild—"
Ide jumped up. "I'm going home. I can't take it. I'm going home."
I paused to scowl at him. "Would you please make up your mind?"
"No. No…" he sat down. "You're right. I can't go."
"Oh my god." I dug my fingers into my temples, trying to massage away the headache the two of them had brought back with them. "Hideki, let's go smoke a cigarette. Matsu, stay here with Mogi and watch the footage."
"We should be looking into Max Cooper," Matsuda argued. "I handed the notebook to him, Aizawa."
"You handed the notebook to someone who was driving a car registered under the name—"
Again, the door popped open, slower this time, and Kei poked her head in, staring a long moment at me, and then around at the others before a tentative smile eased across her lips. "Hey, the fantastic four."
"Kei," I sighed. "Not now… Please."
Regardless, she came in, shutting the door gently behind her, and gave a little wave. "Hey, Mogi. What're you doing here?"
He merely jerked his hand at her.
She moved along to Matsuda. "Touma, you're okay! Well, I mean, you look a little…"
"I'm okay," he agreed, stonily.
Smile slipping, she studied him. "Um, I heard they found you, but I thought you were at home…"
"I'm not. I'm here watching pointless footage."
"Oh, um, okay, then." Next, she laid a hand on Ide's shoulder. "Hideki…"
Ide looked up like he'd barely noticed she was there. "Yeah. Hey. What's up?"
"I saw you come in and thought I'd... I haven't seen you in days."
"Sorry. I've been busy." Of course, he'd want to look cool and at ease in front of his girlfriend. I doubted she'd ever seen anything like the crazed Hideki who'd nearly sprang into my arms out in the hall.
"I know," Kei agreed, "and I don't want to distract you. I just was hoping we could talk for a moment."
"Wait your turn, Komagata," I told her. "We're about to go smoke—"
Following a knock on my door, Danuja appeared, holding up a plastic takeout bowl and frowning sourly. "Your lunch is here, Chief. And your wife called again."
"Dammit, I told you I hate salad." Distractedly, I took it from her anyway.
"Call your wife," she ordered, and then left, muttering to herself about my ungrateful attitude.
"God dammit." I threw the bowl onto the desk. "Ide, let's go. Cigarette. Now."
He barely glanced at me. "If you want a cigarette so bad, just go buy a pack and smoke one."
"Well, come with me."
"Anata." Kei leaned over him suddenly, saying loudly, "I need to talk to you in private."
It really wasn't the way I expected a woman to act, undermining my authority and prioritizing their fling over our twenty year friendship; I was so blown away, I couldn't speak.
God damned American women.
"Yeah." Ide nodded. "Yeah. All right." He got up, and they went out together.
I watched them walk down the hall, dismayed. Hideki would find his cool while talking to Kei, and he wouldn't have anything to say to me by the time I actually got him alone.
Aggravated to no end, I threw myself down in my chair, pried open my salad, and doused it in some disgusting vinaigrette with the consistency of mucus.
Maybe I wasn't giving Hideki enough credit. Maybe talking to Kei would help him.
Then again, I didn't know how serious they really were. In some instances, they seemed very serious—much more serious than I'd seen him about a woman possibly ever—and on the other hand, they seemed extremely non-committal. He'd bragged to me that neither of them had an interest in getting married and that their relationship was comprised mostly of having a ton of sex and playing video games between orgasms, as if they were both in their twenties.
But, on the other hand, Hideki had a history of somehow meeting the worst, most superficial, most emotionally abusive women on the planet. Kei really cared about him, at least. He must trust her enough to confide in her occasionally.
"It's not healthy if it's swimming in dressing," Matsuda announced.
"It's not half a pound of meat like you'd get," I answered, absently.
"I have a fast metabolism," he said, dismissively.
It would be nice if, for once, Hideki had someone other than me to support him. He couldn't go his whole life counting on no one but me. Surely, Kei would be able to bring him around to a rational state of mind. Maybe she'd even convince him to talk to me.
"I never asked for a salad."
"Yeah, but Danu-san is just looking out for you."
"I don't want to hear that from you of all people. Not right now."
"Ah-ha," Mogi uttered, leaning forward to slow the video back to a normal speed, and I abandoned my salad to watch intently.
A lone figure sauntered down the blank hallway, black as a demon in the immaculate white. Only for a moment, he paused at the storage door, and then entered using what appeared to be a keycard, disappearing inside, and then came out again immediately. All of it took less than thirty seconds, and if Mogi hadn't been paying such careful attention, we might have missed it.
He paused the footage, backing it up, slowing it down, murmuring to himself, "February second, just before four pm."
"That was a long time ago," I muttered. "If the thief had anything to do with the abduction, he started planning for it months in advance."
We watched the footage a couple times, but, unfortunately, Matsuda was right. It was too fuzzy to make out any distinctive features when the man entered or left the room.
"Tero," Matsuda whispered next to me.
When I turned to him, his eyes were hard as stone, mouth twisted in what almost looked like hatred, possibly the most expressive look I'd seen on his face since he'd gone into the yellow box. He met my gaze, speaking in a low, revolted tone. "That's Tero."
In a new light, I studied the son of a bitch on the video. He walked boldly, with a confident gait, like he was supposed to be there, and he wore a suit. If I had to guess, he wasn't very tall—no taller than Ide or Matsuda at least—an average-looking guy.
Still, I sat back in my chair as Mogi replayed the footage over and over, afraid to blink and miss a vital clue, watching that blurry face and trying to imagine what sort of motives might lie behind all this.
"All their employees have that keycard," Mogi explained in a while.
"Could he have stolen it?"
"Chiyuuda suspected an employee."
Apparently the doctor would have reasons for that, and I imagined he'd mention a missing all-access keycard to Mogi if it had been stolen. I looked at Matsuda, reluctant to ask, "What do you think?"
He hadn't taken his eyes off Tero yet, but the hatred had turned cold, like he was simply watching a TV villain he couldn't stand. "That guy's got no conscience, Aizawa," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he stole it."
No, obviously the sick sonnova bitch had no problem taking people against their will.
"But he's also smart," Matsuda added. "He could work there."
"Leaving this footage behind doesn't seem smart," I scoffed.
"No…" Matsuda thought about that for several moments, and then sat forward to pause the footage, staring a long time at Tero's face. "But if he planned to have his men kill me on that helicopter, he might not have ever expected you to find this footage."
If they'd dumped Matsuda's body in the ocean, they could have gotten away clean.
Suppressing a shudder, I muttered, "Still careless."
"He didn't really strike me like the kind of person to plan stuff out," Matsuda explained after another short pause. "He couldjust be careless. Unless he has some reason to let things go this way."
"Like a trap?" I scowled at the man on the screen. "Looking at everything he's done so far, none of it makes much sense."
Kidnapping Matsuda to find out about Kira's killing methods was insane without question, but seeing how most of the public viewed Kira as a god and thought he had divine power to punish the wicked, he must have had some reason to think he could copy him.
Unless he just wanted to torture someone, and the end results didn't matter as much.
The idea made me feel sick. I didn't know what was more horrifying, honestly, but either way, it hinted at a deranged psyche.
As for the rest, it was all slipshod. He'd sent a helicopter to get Matsuda even though he'd had no way of knowing whether Matsuda would be bringing the notebook or not. He'd ordered his men to kill him, but they'd failed, and now they didn't appear to be making any attempts to finish the job—no, he was just letting an NPA detective run around hypnotized. If he was smart, he'd know that Matsuda's directive would eventually lead us to him.
Programming Matsuda to kill syndicate members might have just been an experiment. I needed to talk to Ide to find out if they'd learned anything at all today.
Not scrubbing the chamber at the asylum was sloppy too. Did he think we'd never find our way back there? Or was he banking on the fact that he'd been careful not to leave enough evidence behind to implicate him?
Leaving this footage behind, though, was different. If we could get someone at the lab to ID him, that would be the end of the case, just a matter of finding him and picking him up.
Ide said he wants to beat the shit out of this guy… I glared at the slender figure on the screen. I do too…
If Tero had any idea how angry he'd made us, he'd have to know it could cost his life to leave behind an image of himself. He knew we helped catch Kira; I doubted he was simply underestimating us.
I guess I'll have to leave him alive long enough to explain everything.
I shook the thought away. Killing him wouldn't erase all the terrible things he'd done, just like dying wouldn't undo my own mistakes. I couldn't let the personal nature of this case push me to do something I'd regret.
Letting those dark feelings take hold would be a mistake, and I decided I was right the first time. I did need to get through to Hideki while I had the opportunity.
"All right," I decided at last. "Mogi, we'll have to take this footage back to Chiyuuda and see what else he can tell us. With any luck, he's an actual employee and they'll have his address on record."
"If they can even make out who he is," Mogi murmured, still peering hard at the screen.
"Right. I'm going to go talk to Ide. Everyone standby."
"What about Max Cooper?" Matsuda wondered.
"One thing at a time, Sergeant."
In the hall, I saw no sign of Hideki, so I found Kei instead, who told me he'd gone outside for some air, adding, "He seems upset," and frowning in concern.
"I'm sure he's fine," I muttered, but as I continued on my way downstairs, I tried to plan out what to say. Coming at him half-cocked wouldn't help.
At last, I found him outside, squinting in the bright sun and studying the ground, dragging occasionally on his cigarette. Even though the frown on his face looked commonplace, something horrorstricken haunted his eyes.
"So, you're still here," I called, to announce my approach.
Ide sighed, like the sound of my voice dismayed him. "Did you find anything?"
"We may have enough to actually make an arrest."
"That's great," he muttered flatly.
"This Tero guy," I said, "seems like a real piece of work. Catching him is one thing, getting him to unprogram Matsuda is something else."
Though he wasn't exactly an optimist, Ide had always had a knack for reassuring me that things would work out; he kept his head, he didn't let his emotions control him, and he thought of things I'd missed. His logic paired with my passion had helped make us a force to be reckoned with. I genuinely hoped he'd come up with something level-headed and supportive to relieve some of my uneasiness.
Being frazzled, though, I imagined it was taking all the composure he had to simply put up his normal walls. It wasn't fair to ask him to be my voice of reason one-hundred percent of the time.
"You okay?"
He gave a slight nod.
"Do you…want to talk about it?"
"Not really."
"You're acting really freaked out."
Immediately, I kicked myself. That was exactly the wrong thing to say to him when he felt upset.
Sure enough, he slid a resentful look my way. "I'm acting freaked out? What about you, busting your hand and screaming at everyone?"
I clenched my broken fist, letting the pain glide up to my elbow.
"That's normal for me. It's not like you to—"
"Let's skip this," he decided, facing me. "No matter what I tell you, you're going to be mad."
"No, I won't, Hideki, just talk to me."
"We have more pressing matters," he announced, like I hadn't spoke. "And I have some bad news."
Not what I wanted to hear.
Getting through to him wasn't working, and if he thought there was something more important, he certainly wasn't about to engage in a long-winded dialogue about his personal feelings.
"What now?" I groaned.
Ide hesitated, though. Gradually, he looked up at me, mouth cocked to one side, eyes dull. "Shuichi… I'm tired. You're…obviously stressed out. Maybe we'd better just talk about all this later."
"Later's not an option," I insisted. God knows we were just waiting for the next catastrophe to strike.
"Okay, fine." Sighing sharply, he dragged off his cigarette again and then began, somewhat icily, "Apparently, Kei saw Sayu and let a little too much information slip. Nothing major, but I guess she knows now that what we're dealing with might have to do with the death note."
"Goddammit." I threw my hands up. "Why would she tell her that?"
"Not on purpose," Ide huffed.
"No one should have been talking to Sayu in the first place! Why did you think I've been screening her calls and keeping her from talking to Matsuda?"
"I'm not the one who spoke with Sayu," he reminded me.
"Yeah. Go figure big-mouth Komagata had to screw this up."
Ide pursed his lips and his eyes narrowed; furiously, he scowled across the street.
I knew I'd pissed him off, so I took a moment to draw a deep breath, struggling not to explode; it wasn't Ide's fault, it wasn't even Kei's. Sayu was good at ferreting out information, and the fact that she knew about the death note in the first place was no one's fault but my own. At the time, making her privy to that information had felt like the right thing to do—for Matsuda's sake—I'd trusted her to keep it to herself, and I still did, but if she chose to take matters into her own hands, she'd have a good idea of where to start.
There was nothing she could do; she was just a kid. Yes, she had a track record for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, seemingly incapably of keeping her nose clean, but it wasn't as if she could locate the death note or would even want to.
She doesn't have to, to be a pain in my ass. All she has to do is show up somewhere she's not supposed to be.
Obviously, she was determined to do just that, visiting Eriko and now Kei. It was a wonder she hadn't stopped by Matsuda's place yet, but I'd be a fool to think she wouldn't get around to that.
"We should relocate," I decided. "Sayu doesn't know where you live. Unless Kei told her that too."
He slanted an unappreciative look at me. "I don't think Kei told Sayu anything. Sayu's smart, Shuichi. Probably smarter than you and me combined."
"All the more reason we need to go somewhere she won't look for us."
"Sure." He shrugged. "You know how my place is, though. Might be better to rent a few rooms somewhere."
This close quarters crap was starting to bug me, even to the degree that I suddenly thought about taking off down the street, just walking as far as I could until my head felt clear and my spirit felt free again.
I drew another tight breath. All I could do right now was try to handle one thing at a time. "What did you find out today?"
Eyes glazing over with horror, he stared straight ahead, and then murmured, "Nothing valuable. My investigation on the syndicate is ruined, though."
"That's the least of our worries right now."
"You might think that…" He shook his head, as if trying to clear something from his mind, "but…not anymore. At least, not for long."
I asked him to explain, and then he walked me, somewhat haltingly, through their visit with the man named Uko. I got the feeling he was leaving some parts out, but it didn't matter. By the time he reached the end, I felt furious.
"Matsuda really did kill those men," he finished up, heavily. "Even if he hadn't, though, they still want him dead."
"That's not news!" I growled. "I told you guys this morning it was a bad idea to go looking for them!"
"I didn't know," he muttered.
"What do you mean you didn't know? Of course you knew! You're the one who's been investigating them—I put you on that because I trusted you to clean it up. I didn't want him anywhere near it! Remember?"
"I remember."
"Then what do you have to say for yourself? You knew taking him over there could put your guys' lives in danger—and it did!"
Ide merely shook his head and sucked harshly on his cigarette.
"Not only that, you openly defied my orders! I expect that from Matsuda right now, but I don't expect that from you, ever, Captain!"
He drew a sharp breath.
"I trusted you to back me up, not go off and do whatever you want!"
Flicking his cigarette into the gutter, he immediately started a new one.
"God, Hideki! What? Should I just reassign you?"
At last, he glared up at me, but merely snarled, "No, sir."
"Give me one good reason not to!"
"I understand you're angry right now," he told me in a dark voice, "but I think it would be unwise to reassign me."
"What's that? Some kind of threat?"
A bitter laugh sputtered from his lips. "You can't even control Matsuda. So what's left if you reassign me? Mogi has no reason to follow your orders either."
"That's just great!" I snapped. "Three insubordinate fuckers doing whatever the hell they feel like!"
"Sorry you don't like it. That's the way it is right now." He scowled up at the sky, biting off his words. "Go ahead and reassign me if you want—I can't say I don't deserve that after what happened today—but I am not going to go work on something else while Matsuda is like this. I'll resign if I have to."
I whipped around, mouth falling open. "Ide!"
"Everything is fucked," he informed me stiffly. "Following your orders is impossible because you don't know what you're doing."
Shaking, I took a step toward him. "How dare you? How dare you act like you can't see the position I'm in!"
"I can see the position you're in; that's why I'm telling you: do not reassign me." He scowled into my eyes again. "We don't know what Matsuda's going to do even if he does get his hands on the notebook. We don't know how deep this programming runs. What if it comes down to the security of the death note or his life, Shuichi? You want to make that decision on your own? Without me? Be my fucking guest—reassign me."
For a long time, we glared at each other, and I felt suddenly that he might be fading into the distance, getting further and further from my reach. I felt so angry with him; he was being insubordinate, even now, threatening to ignore his assignment. It was call for suspension. But dammit, I didn't want to do this without him.
Finally, I leaned back against the cold wall of the station. "How did it get like this? Matsuda should never have been any different than anyone else working under me."
"Oh, geez," Ide said scathingly, "you can't hold everyone at arm's length. I'll bet that was a real shock to wake up to."
"I'm being serious. I should never have let things get this way."
"Yeah, well, I'm being serious too. That wasn't an option, was it? How could you have even prevented it?"
"I should have transferred him away."
"That's right," he muttered, dryly. "Send everybody away and just do everything by yourself." With a sudden sigh, he brushed the bangs from his forehead and dropped the sarcastic tone. "Even if you had transferred him, months ago, this still would have happened, and you can't tell me you wouldn't have cared. This isn't about someone misusing one of your subordinates."
Even if I'd transferred Matsuda to a completely different region, Sayu still would have called me the night he went missing, I still would have taken five days out of my life to look for him, even if it meant losing my job, and I'd still have a duty to the notebook.
"This is about someone taking your friend, hurting him, and using him to get information you swore to protect with your life." He slanted a narrow glare up at me. "If you think I don't understand that, maybe you forgot who you're talking to."
That was as close, I knew, as he'd come to admitting his own feelings, but I didn't need him to explain any of that to me. When he'd first come back to the taskforce, it had been funny to watch how easily Matsuda had broken down his walls, not even seeming to try, striking up conversations and dictating the way they went, giving Ide ridiculous pet names just to mess with him, teasing him relentlessly about everything from his love life to his taste in music, regardless of his superior age or rank. They'd driven me crazy, bickering constantly and chatting about nothing, but then, before I knew it, they were buddies, always joking and laughing at each other. Even Mogi, after one of the first times the two of them had left to have lunch together, had murmured to me, "Did Ide actually make a friend for the first time in twenty years?"
I remembered how hard it had been not to smile as I'd muttered back, "Looks like it." I'd been glad the little jerk finally let somebody other than me into his life.
Hideki had always been quiet about it, pretending he couldn't care less one way or another, bitching about how annoying Matsuda was, but I knew he'd do anything for him, and I'd been a dick to suggest he didn't care about this. I'd be a fool if I thought reassigning him would actually keep him out of this situation. I just wished we could get on the same page again.
"We have to face reality, Shuichi." He threw his cigarette down, stomping on it and speaking in a definitive tone. "Matsuda is gone."
I studied him a long while, but he took his time turning to me, and I saw genuine pain glinting in his gray eyes.
"Come on, Hideki," I said, softly. "It'll be okay. We'll get him back."
"I'm not saying we won't. I saw him get frustrated today. But…even if he is still capable of feeling something, I think we're stupid to keep treating him like he's Matsuda when he clearly isn't."
As expected, he'd side-stepped my attempt to comfort him as if I hadn't bothered.
"How the hell should we treat him?" I demanded, exhausted.
"Like a super soldier."
"He's not."
"He thinks he is. I know you don't want to hear this…and at this point, I don't even want to say it, but really, Shuichi, seriously, letting him go after this guy the way he wants is probably the only thing we can do. And if we were smart, we'd be as objective about it as possible."
As much as I didn't like to think about it, he might actually be right. Ignoring personal feelings and setting our sights on finishing the investigation was the best thing for Matsuda.
My concern, though, was, assuming I did have to choose between securing the notebook and saving Matsuda's mind, it would be impossible to set emotions aside.
That was that at least. Without saying a word to one another, we turned to go back inside.
Mogi met us in the lobby, carrying the tape he'd brought under his arm, apparently heading out. "I'm going back to the lab," he explained.
I nodded. Ide was right. Mogi was good at taking initiative, but he was under no obligation to follow my orders, and so far, he seemed intent to do whatever he saw fit when it came to getting the notebook back. With so much of his life on the line, I couldn't hold that against him.
Clearing his throat, he glanced around the lobby, like he didn't want to be overheard, and then said quietly, "A package came for you."
I tried to remember if I was expecting anything here. "What is it?"
He shook his head. "I told Matsuda not to open it, but it seems suspicious."
Exchanging a glance with Ide, I headed upstairs, quickly, and this time, as I walked through the department, I didn't let anyone distract me. On a normal day, Matsuda wouldn't be able to sit long with a suspicious package before impulse took over.
Sure enough, when we reached my office, he held a small box in his hands, turning it over and over with frenetic energy. "Hey, welcome back." He barely glanced back at me as he added, "This came for you."
I got a glimpse of it over his shoulder, small and unmarked other than my name scrawled in red: Chief Shuichi Aizawa.
"I have a feeling I know who it's from," he added.
"Okay. Be careful with that."
Already, the dumb ass had started ripping the tape off, and before I could say anything about bombs or anthrax, he'd torn it open and fished inside, producing a small, silver thumb drive.
"Oh, good," Ide muttered after a pause. "More information."