Whodunit? : Odaiba High School Incident File #5197

By Android Eleven

Exhibit B

Davis stood up from his seat in the office when Mr. Fujiyama called him and nervously went into the back room. His mother beckoned for him to sit down in front of the table that Mr. Fujiyama had just seated himself behind. He did so reluctantly, twiddling his thumbs.

"Now, Davis," Mr. Fujiyama said evenly. "Don't feel as though you're in the Spanish Inquisition here, okay? We're not accusing you of anything; we just want to ask you about the things you did yesterday. You're going to be considered innocent until proven guilty."

"Yeah, right," Davis muttered under his breath. The principal narrowed his eyes at him.

"What was that?"

"Nuthin'" Davis replied sullenly. He sank further down in his seat and sighed. He watched Mr. Fujiyama and his mother stare at him silently. Impatiently, he gestured at the air. "Well? Where are the questions? Go on, fire away."

Mr. Fujiyama cleared his throat. "Well, uh, okay. Tell us what you did starting yesterday morning."

Davis discreetly rolled his eyes. "Fine. It started at about eight thirty when Dad woke me up..."

*

~~ "Davis! Get your butt out of bed!" Hearing his father's voice echo loudly into his bedroom from the hallway, accompanied by his pounding on the bedroom door, Davis jerked awake and promptly fell out of bed. "Now!!"

Davis struggled to get up out of his blankets, but his feet were tangled up. He tripped and fell face-first back onto the floor. "Oomph!"

His father's pounding hadn't ceased for a second. "Davis! You up yet?!" Rolling onto his side and kicking the blanket away furiously, Davis finally pulled himself up onto his feet.

"Yeah," he responded dully, staggering over to his dresser. "I'm awake."

The pounding stopped. "Alright, then. Hurry up, we're leaving in twenty minutes for your soccer game, so go on and get ready."

Stifling a yawn, Davis grabbed his uniform out of his top drawer and dragged himself out of his room and into the bathroom. He quickly washed up, brushing his teeth and combing his hair, deciding to take a shower after playing the rough, dirty, sweaty game he was on his way to play. He pulled on his uniform and checked himself in the mirror before heading out to breakfast.

After scarfing down a bowl of oatmeal, two slices of toast with jam, several glasses of juice and half of a sesame bagel, Davis declared that he was done breakfast and was ready to go. His dad reminded him to go grab his cleats and his mother wished him luck because she wouldn't be going, and then he was on his way.

He and his father went down to the parking lot and climbed into Mrs. Motomiya's car. His dad pulled the spare car key out of his pocket and placed it in the ignition, glancing at Davis as he did so. "You know," he said after a moment, "it would be awful nice of you to return your mother's keys sometime..." ~~

*

"Your mother's keys?" Mr. Fujiyama demanded at once. "You had your mother's keys?"

"Well, yeah." Davis looked mildly confused before the implication the principal was making appeared to have occurred to him. "Oh, wait. No, man, you got it all wrong. I didn't use them to break into the school. Mom's car key's on that set. I took Mom's car driving with Dad Saturday afternoon, so I borrowed Mom's keys. I'm going to be 16 in a few months, you know, and I want to get that license as soon as I can. Practice makes perfect, you know. Dad promised that, as long as I don't just go driving around wherever I want without an adult in the car with me, he won't send the cops after me." Davis said the last bit with a grin on his face, looking at his mother, who looked at the principal and nodded as though verifying everything Davis had just said. Mr. Fujiyama on the other hand, was scowling.

"That's all very nice, Davis," he said in a would-be calm voice, "but I don't care. All I want to know is what you did with your mother's keys!"

"Well," Davis replied, completely unfazed by his principal's reaction, "I guess I put them in my pocket and forgot about them. Dad and I had gone over to the mall on Saturday and I met up with a bunch of friends. I told Dad I'd get a ride home with one of them and he went on home without me. Like I said, he had a spare key to Mom's car."

"Who did you get a ride home with?" It was his mother who had asked this, before Mr. Fujiyama had gotten the chance.

"Tai Kamiya," Davis answered promptly. "I guess the keys must have fell out of my pocket while I was riding in Tai's old junk pile or something."

Mr. Fujiyama looked at him suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

Davis waved his hand dismissively. "I'll get to that momentarily. It's all part of my story, so be patient..."

*

~~ Davis reluctantly told his father that he wasn't exactly sure where his mother's keys were and, in return, he received a lecture on responsibility that lasted until they found a parking spot near the soccer field. After promising for the fifth time to find the keys before the end of the day, Davis practically ran out of the car and took refuge amongst the flood of soccer players heading towards the field.

Two hours later, now freshly showered and dressed in his street clothes, Davis was still basking in the warm feeling of a game well played. His team had won, of course, and he had had a lot to do with it.

After the game, a couple of friends had descended down from the bleachers to congratulate him because this win meant that their team was going to the play-offs. Among his well wishers was the smiling face of Ken Ichijouji, who gave him a friendly slap on the back.

"Great game, Davis," he said grinning. "I only got here in time to see the last few minutes, but that shot at the end was amazing!"

Davis grinned back and thanked him, asking him what he was going to be up to for the rest of the day and if Ken would like to join him when he went to the mall later. "No, I can't," Ken replied reluctantly. "I've got to go tutoring." Ken rolled his eyes as he said this, but the grin was still on his face, so Davis knew he didn't mind his job as much as he pretended he did.

Davis shrugged, a little disappointed his friend couldn't join him but not overly so. "Alright, you have fun with that, then." Davis glanced over towards the parking lot. "I'd love to stay and chat with you, you know, but my Dad's probably getting impatient. I should go."

Ken nodded. "Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow at school." Davis nodded and waved as he walked away.

He headed back out to the parking lot to catch his ride home. In his elation, Davis found it much easier to sit with his father, even while the other man alternated congratulating him with continuing his lecture. It seemed like no time at all had passed before they arrived at home.

Davis went upstairs to grab his wallet off of his dresser and pull on a different shirt before going right back downstairs to the lobby. It was almost noon by now and he was on his way to the mall to try and find a gift for Kari's birthday the following weekend. He had to be careful this year about what to get her, too. She was going out with TK now, and Davis had gotten over his crush on her (for the most part), so he had to get her something platonic, instead of the stuffed animal or the necklace or any of the other things he used to get her for her birthday.

Davis was already out the lobby door when he heard a familiar voice call out his name. Looking back over his shoulder, Davis saw Matt Ishida striding towards him. Giving the blonde a curious look, Davis walked over to him. "Hey Matt. What's up?"

In response, Matt tossed him something small and very jingly. "Those yours?" he asked. Davis glanced at what the older boy had thrown at him and breathed a sigh of relief. It was his mother's set of keys.

"Yeh," Davis replied gratefully. "Thanks so much. You have just saved me hours and hours' worth of parental lecturing. Where'd you find them?"

Matt gave a casual shrug. "Tai found them in his car...if you call that thing he drives around a car...anyway, he was busy, I think he had a date, so he asked me to drop by and give them back to you."

Davis pocketed the keys. "Yeah, well, thanks again." Matt nodded.

"Hey, no problem." He paused for a moment before he remembered something. "Oh, yeah! I wanted apologize again for the whole pool incident. And the Nyquil thing." Davis looked at him steadily, his brow suddenly furrowed at the memory and the slightest hint of a frown on his mouth.

"Uh huh."

Matt cleared his throat and continued. "Anyhow, I got to get going. Places to be and all. You know how it is. See you later, D!" Matt gave a final grin and a little wave and turned and walked away. ~~

*

Mr. Fujiyama frowned yet again. "What time did you say that happened?"

Davis thought for a minute. "A little before noon. Why?"

The principal ignored the question and looked over at Mrs. Motomiya. "What time did Takeru say they left that party shop?"

"10:40," she replied promptly.

"Hmm," Mr. Fujiyama said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He was silent for a few moments, apparently very deep in thought. Then he looked back at Davis and asked, "What did he mean by 'the Nyquil thing'?"

Davis's nose twitched unpleasantly. "It was this prank Tai and Matt played on me and Teeks...I mean, TK Takaishi, a few weeks ago. We were out on this double date, TK and Kari, me and Lila Nauru. I have liked Lila for ages now. She is, like, the hottest girl in school, you know? Why she agreed to go out with me, I'll never know, but she did. And TK and Kari were celebrating their one-year anniversary. Anyway, we went to dinner and a movie and the girls are all psyched and happy and grabbing our arms, asking us questions and stuff. And then, on what was probably the most important date in either of our lives, TK and I both fell asleep. I mean, I spilt what was left of my soda all over Lila's new skirt. We found out later that Matt and Tai had followed us and spiked our pop with quite liberal amounts of Nyquil. Eventually, it just got the better of us. Lila and Kari weren't impressed."

Mr. Fujiyama nodded, digesting the information, and then, at last, he waved his hand. "Continue, Davis. Tell us about anything else of interest that happened to you yesterday."

Davis just shrugged. "Well, nothing else interesting really happened to me yesterday. I went over to Wanda's, got some coffee and made fun of TK's apron before heading over to the mall. I spent two or three hours there, got Kari a gift certificate from the camera store and decided to head home. I got home at about three thirty and I went over to baby-sit the neighbors kids at four." He glanced at his mother again and she nodded affirmatively at Mr. Fujiyama once more.

"Their parents got home at about eight, eight thirty maybe," he concluded, "I went back home, grabbed something to eat and played video games until I went to bed. And that's it."

Mr. Fujiyama just sat there watching him for a minute while Davis tried not to roll his eyes and his mother checked her watch, sighing. Finally the principal gave up. "You can go, Davis. We'll call you if we need anything else."

Davis, looking only too happy to have finally been dismissed, quickly stood up and left the room. Mr. Fujiyama stood up also and paced for a minute before looking at Mrs. Motomiya. "You've got your keys back now, right?" She nodded. "When did he give them back to you?"

She thought for a second. "When he came back from baby-sitting. He just came in and pulled them out of his pocket, putting them down on my desk and apologized for keeping them so long, said he'd forgotten he even had them."

Mr. Fujiyama frowned again. "Are you certain that Davis was baby-sitting? Could he had used it as an excuse to get out of the house for a couple of hours?" Mrs. Motomiya shook her head.

"No, I called the neighbors this morning to double-check that very thing. They said he had definitely been there. He's pretty good with younger children, you know, he baby-sits quite often." Mr. Fujiyama merely nodded and paced for another couple of minutes, thinking.

After a few minutes, he sat down yet again. He turned to Mrs. Motomiya and said, "Call in Ken Ichijouji."

* * *