Chapter 13
~Inuyasha~
Miroku pulled the car into the parking lot of the convenience store, turning the engine off, they both paused staring at the front of the store. Inuyasha turned and looked at Miroku, who nodded, and they both got out of the car. They walked into the store and Inuyasha's eyes immediately went over to the till, hoping the bastard was working. The clerk at the till was turned away from him, organizing items behind the counter, Inuyasha and Miroku approached the counter and Miroku cleared his throat.
The young woman turned around giving them a welcoming smile, "How can I help you?"
"We're with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, we need to speak with the Manager or Owner of this store. Is someone in?" Miroku asked as he showed her his police badge. She nodded in understanding and walked around the counter.
"Of course, um, follow me this way, he should be in the office." She said as she led the way. They walked past the front counter, and led them to a plain white hallway. The fluorescent light bounced off the white walls, it made the hallway look longer than it was. She led them past bathrooms, the break room, to an office at the end of the hallway. She knocked on the door twice, before opening it.
"Excuse me, Mr. Morita," she gently asked as she poked her head into the office. "I have two police officers here who want to speak with you." The man in question turned and looked over his shoulder, his aloof dark coloured eyes peering over his glasses, he sniffed as he took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ashes off in the ashtray. He grunted as he stood up and turned to face Miroku and Inuyasha.
Miroku and Inuyasha bowed and Mr. Morita did the same. "Thank you for taking the time to talk with us Mr. Morita, we have a few questions to ask you regarding an employee that works here."
"Of course, Haruka, go watch the counter." Mr. Morita commanded as he welcomed Miroku and Inuyasha into the office, Haruka closed the door behind her as she left. Inuyasha looked around the office, it was a typical office for a store owner he thought as he never worked in a convenience store before. The walls were white and stained with the same fluorescent lights from the hallway. The desk where Mr. Morita sat and had papers in neat piles, with an older computer desktop reflecting the CCTV footage, the employee's schedule was posted on the wall in front of the desk. A grey file cabinet was tucked in the corner to the right of the desk.
"The employee in question might be involved in a kidnapping case, as such we appreciate your assistance for helping us." Miroku started as he pulled out his notebook, flipping through pages to find the one he needed.
"Ah, yes, whatever I can do to aid the investigation." Mr. Morita agreed and took a hit of his cigarette.
"Does a Naraku work here?" Miroku asked and looked at .
"USED to work here, he quit a few days ago." stood up and went to the grey filing cabinet, he opened the top drawer, scrolling past a few folders he grabbed a manila folder, he sat back down in his chair as he opened the folder.
"It shows here in his employee folder he put in his notice of resignation a few days ago, but he switched his last shift, from working a morning shift to an evening shift the night before." Mr. Morita explained as he read over the notice of resignation, Miroku quickly jotted down a note in this notebook.
"Do you have the address of this Naraku guy? We'll need to question him as well." Inuyasha asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Mr. Morita nodded as he searched through the papers in the folder. He grabbed the last page and held it out to Miroku.
"This was his employee information on the date of hire, I believe it is still up to date."
Miroku took it, while leaning over the desk he copied the address down.
"Did Naraku ever display any behaviour that was deemed odd by other employees or has any customers ever put in any official complaints?" Inuyasha asked.
"No, oh no," Mr. Morita answered quickly. "Naraku was an absolute joy to work with, if a shift needed to be covered he would come in, I have only heard of other good things about him from the other staff that work here. I never had a customer complain about him either, he's an exceptional employee as far as I am concerned."
"Was the employee who traded shifts with him, are we able to talk to them at all?" Miroku asked while giving Naraku's employee information back to the store manager.
"Ah, yes, Haruka was the one who traded with him, she's out at the front counter right now." answered as he closed the manila folder.
"Perfect, we'll ask her a few questions when we're done here" Miroku said as he finished jotting down Haruka's name for his case notes.
"Mr. Morita," Inuyasha began as he uncrossed his arms and approached the store manager. "Are you able to bring up the CCTV footage from X night.I believe our victim might have had an encounter with Naraku."
Mr. Morita nodded as he turned the chair to face the desk. He brought up the search function on the CCTV program, typing in the date in the search bar. "What's the time frame?"
Inuyasha thought back to his date with Kagome, where she went into the store to buy him a can of chilled black tea. When he came into the store to see her backing up scared, clutching the items she bought until her knuckles turned white. He regretted not beating the bastard up that night, but he will get his chance to do so, soon.
"From 9pm onwards." Inuyasha stated as he watched Mr. Morita types in the time and searched for the footage. He clicked on the play button, the footage started to play, both Inuyasha and Miroku leaned in closer to the screen. "Can you make this go faster?"
Mr. Morita clicked the fast forward button as they both watched the images zoom by, Inuyasha stared at the screen, waiting for the right moment, waiting for when he saw her. That was when he saw Kagome enter the store, he yelled out, "STOP!"
Mr. Morita jumped and slowed the footage down. He picked up his cigarette and leaned back in his office chair, smoking the cigarette as he watched the screen.
The first camera you can see Kagome enter the store walking over to coolers where she disappeared off the camera. The second camera on the bottom left of the desktop screen Kagome opened one of the coolers grabbing the chilled black tea and her bottle of water. She turned around, walking to the counter to pay for the items. She then appeared on the top right camera, Inuyasha watched her sit the drinks down on the counter, and rummage through her purse to find her wallet. He saw her freezing when Naraku said something to hear, and as she slowly lifted her head to face him. He watched as Naraku leaned over the counter, as Naraku smirked when he coyly spoke to her.
She tried to grab the items from Naraku who quickly moved the items out of her reach, but nothing hurt more when Inuyasha watched Kagome look out the front window, looking for him. He watched her back up as fear took over her body, Inuyasha watched Naraku say something else to Kagome and she took another step back. When both heads moved at the same time looking in the same direction, Inuyasha's eyes darted over the screen trying to see what caused them to look. That's when he saw himself on the first camera standing in the entryway looking annoyed. Kagome quickly swiped the items from the counter that were now free from Naraku's clutches, and she quickly walked over to the door to meet Inuyasha.
Inuyasha cleared his throat and stood up. "Am I able to get a copy of this footage? Can you put it on a USB stick?"
Mr. Morita paused the video and looked at Inuyasha. While he spoke smoke escaped his mouth, "I can't do that I'm afraid. The system is too old to put it on a USB stick, I can probably put it on a CD for you. It takes a long time to burn the recording onto the CD, I can drop it off at the police station if you prefer?"
Inuyasha sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck, this guy was testing his patience now. How can a store owner not have an updated system, why is he still using CD's?
"You can call us at this number here, we'll have an officer pick it up when it's ready. Are you able to get sound on the video?" Inuyasha handed him one of his business cards.
"No, I'm afraid this system doesn't record sound, just the images. I'll call you when the CD is ready then." Mr. Morita said as he sat the card down on the desk. He stood and all three bowed to one another. Inuyasha made his way to the door when he paused when he heard Miroku begin to talk.
"Mr. Morita, are you able to have someone cover the counter while we question Haruka? We'll need a few minutes of her time." Miroku politely asked, Mr. Morita nodded and put out his cigarette.
"Sure, I'll cover the counter for her." Mr. Morita grunted as he walked past Inuyasha and Miroku. The two men followed the store owner back out into the main area, Mr. Morita went behind the counter, and quickly spoke to Haruka who looked shocked when he told her why he was covering the counter. Haruka made her way around the counter and followed the two cops outside to the cop car where they could talk.
"Haruka, thank you for meeting us. We only need a few minutes of your time," Miroku began as he yet again opened his notebook. "We understand that your co-worker Naraku asked to trade shifts with you on his last day. Did he give a reason why he needed to switch?"
Haruka looked up and to the right as she thought about the day. Shaking her head she replied, "No, he didn't. He just said that something came up early in the next day so he wanted to work the earlier shift instead of the late one. Naraku was really good for showing up to scheduled shifts, it was his last day so I wanted to cut him some slack."
"Did Naraku ever mention anything about a girl entering his personal life as of late?" Inuyasha pressed as Miroku tried to keep up writing notes down.
"No, he never mentioned anything. He kept to himself a lot, he didn't like to talk about his personal life. Is Naraku involved with the kidnapping case?" Haruka nervously asked as she wrung her hands over and over.
"We can't give out details on an active case," Inuyasha scoffed as Haruka nodded in understanding while whispering an apology. "Look, did this guy ever say or do anything to you to give you the creeps?"
Haruka looked at Inuyasha, her brown eyes swimming with uncertainty, he could tell she didn't want to get her coworker in trouble, but she knew something, something that might help them in their case. When she didn't say anything, Inuyasha huffed and lowered his face to bring it close to hers.
"Listen here kid," Inuyasha sternly spoke, Miroku opened his mouth to retort at Inuyasha who gave him a death glare to shut up for one second. Inuyasha looked at Haruka eye to eye, giving off an intimidating aura. "You know we are working on a kidnapping case, every second we waste trying to pry information out of you, is another second closer to the victims death and a greater chance of us not finding her. If you were in her shoes would you want someone wasting the officers time that they could be using to look for her? If you know anything then spill it!"
There was a long pause of silence, Inuyasha's eyes boring into Haruka's, she swallowed as tears brimmed her eyes. 'BINGO,' Inuyasha thought as she broke down.
"Okay, okay, I'll tell you," she sniffled as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "There was one day when Naraku came in to work, I don't remember how long ago this was mind you, but he was working with me. A lady came into the store, she started to yell at him, and she was throwing things off the shelves at him. She was crazy! She eventually left when Naraku managed to pull her out into the parking lot and it looked like they had a super intense conversation. I was already cleaning up the products she threw when he came back in to help me."
"He asked me to not tell the manager, it was his girlfriend at the time, I guess he broke up with her the day before that and she wanted to get back together. But I don't remember her name.."
Sighing Inuyasha stood up and pressed his index fingers to the sides of his eyes. How could a girl be so damn useless?
Miroku swooped in to save the situation. "Do you remember what she looks like? If we have a description we can try to put out a BOLF and hopefully she can stop by the station."
Haruka nodded and began to describe her. "She had long dark brown hair, it was like waist length, I remember being super jealous of that. Um, she has brown eyes, fair complexion, and I'm positive she was wearing black leggings with a floral print dress. I also remember it being super dirty like she rolled in dirt or something… But that's all I can recall right now."
Miroku jotted the description down, it wasn't much but it was a start.
"Thank you for your help today Haruka, if you can think of anything else here is my business card. Call anytime if you remember any other detail." Miroku handed her the card, she accepted it and nodded. Haruka ran back inside the store, Miroku looked at Inuyasha and smiled.
"Well, I'll call the Chief, we need permission to check out this house ASAP."Miroku said as he opened the passenger door tossing Inuyasha the keys.
"Wait a second, you're allowing me to drive?" Inuyasha laughed as he opened the driver's door.
"Of course my friend, while I schmooze with the Chief to allow us to look at the perpetrators house, you can drive like a mad man to get us there in no time."
Inuyasha chuckled as he started the car, he put it into reverse, and gave Miroku a wicked smile. "Hold on, this is gonna be a messy drive." Inuyasha shifted the car into drive and slammed onto the gas pedal, speeding out of the parking lot of the convenience store, his heart pounding with adrenaline, hopefully going to this freaks out will be the break they need in this case, for the first time, he felt a small ray of hope.
Author's Note: Surprise! Two chapters in one day! I meant to post these chapters earlier then I ended up doing but after the semester finished I needed a moment to myself to wind down from finals. Thank you to everyone who follows FM and for your support. Happy New Year to you all! 3
