Happy 2020 everyone! It's late here but I really want to just…get this out ahahaha…and then sleep…
Thank you to LadyAgnimitra and bookgirl18 for reviewing! And thanks, of course, to sassybratt for her beta skills, for her nursing knowledge, and for showing me pictures of her adorable cats snuggling with her during their cold!
Just a heads up…this chapter doesn't spell good tidings for Inuyasha…
The tense atmosphere was worsened by the fact that they only had until the end of the day to compile the first case report for Chief Tachibana, though they thankfully had Sango putting her pushiness to good use and delegating tasks immediately after they finished reviewing the video feed. Miroku could practically hear everyone's heads sizzle as they got to work.
Higurashi's newspaper clubmates brought up a rather pertinent point several times: that they missed an important 48 hour window into finding her. Statistically, the first 48 hours in a missing person's case were crucial towards the gathering and preservation of evidence—leads had a tendency to go stale afterwards. While missing the time window didn't necessarily mean that it would become impossible to locate someone, it did make their work more difficult, and everyone involved—from Higurashi's family to the precinct team—did not want this to turn into a cold case.
"Done!" Oda said proudly as he finished booting up a new pc. One reason why they'd been taking more time than they would've liked was because Oda took it upon himself to install two brand new computers in their home base. The kid also went as far as to create a separate wifi network and cloud server ("totally encrypted," he assured them) so as to streamline their work.
"Getting tech services and the finance department to approve this was a complete pain in the ass," Oda grumbled, "and a bunch of guys here still want handwritten reports to be sent over fax! Honestly, things would go so much faster if we just updated our equipment, but we can't 'cause it might inconvenience some 50 year old ojisan who doesn't want to learn to use email."
"Isn't it safer to use a fax machine if we don't want our stuff hacked though?" Amamiya asked shrewdly.
"Didn't I say our cloud's encrypted? Are you doubting my skills here?"
"When you two are done fighting," Sango tutted, her ever present disapproval manifesting in a perfectly arched brow, "I'd like to start hearing about how we're going to present our report."
That shut the pair up immediately. Miroku sent Sango a winning smile, as though to say 'good job!' but the tough-as-nails inspector scoffed and rolled her eyes in reply.
Takeda, to Miroku's displeasure, was quick to display his professionalism. "I believe we'd be better organised if we start off by stating the hard facts first—what we do know—and then go into what we want to uncover. That way we can include the timeline we have so far and then go adding in charts in a more logical way."
The room echoed in appreciation for his straightforwardness. Whatever good mood Miroku derived from teasing Sango dropped when he saw that she was perfectly happy to smile at Mr. Golden Boy and his slick, polished persona.
Show-off, Miroku didn't say.
Kai, as one of the fastest typists in the room, but also the most careful one, was assigned to write their report:
On Thursday September 28 of this year, Higurashi Kagome, 23 years old, went missing from her apartment.
"Shouldn't we put in the whole thing about her disappearance being violent and all?" Hachi interrupted Kai's reading aloud as she typed.
"Don't worry, I'm getting to that," she responded patiently.
Higurashi's apartment was broken into at approximately 11:30 AM. Her husband, Higurashi Inuyasha, left to work at the Olympic Village construction site at 7:30 AM, which was witnessed by the occupants of the unit across from them, Taniguchi Chiyoko and her grandson Katagiri Daichi. The tenants of the fourth floor, where the Higurashis' apartment is located, reported hearing a violent altercation take place. Higurashi Kagome discovered an as-yet unknown person intruding into her home. The neighbours reported hearing her verbalise outrage at the intruder's presence and threatening to call her husband before making the decision to confront them.
Miroku pulled up a chair next to Kai, wanting to have a more hands-on presence in the report rather than standing to the side and commenting, as the others were doing. "We should put the summaries of their testimonies after this paragraph."
Kai hmmmed, unsure. "Wouldn't that just needlessly expand the size of the report, instead of just putting it in an annex?"
"Perhaps, but it certainly would flow better with the list included there. And besides, if Chief Tachibana is anything like Sango-san, then report size is definitely something that'll impress him."
The team did its best to stifle their collective laughter—even Takeda, Sango's apparent golden boy, cracked a tiny smile—and Miroku would be lying if he said the positive attention didn't feel nice. He even softened a little bit towards Takeda, and especially liked how Sango's face turned a bright pink but did nothing except look embarrassed.
After Kai finished inputting the fourth floor residents' testimonies, the team decided to place the results of the crime scene's gathered evidence into charts right after for the sake of clarity and flow. To their chagrin, the forensics lab had been a bit slow with processing the findings, and it took a lot of pestering on Oda and Kuwatani's parts to get them the data they needed for that day.
"The blood was confirmed to belong to two different individuals: the victim and her aggressor," Kai intoned to the tune of the computer keyboard clacking away. "Its liquid state attested to the recentness of the events as well as the precinct's prompt response time. Processing revealed no traces of semen, vaginal fluid, or vomit, with only small amounts of saliva found. It does not discard the possibility of sexual violence…"
Kuwatani pulled up a chair to sit next to Kai, dictating the writing of the evidence charts from the lab documents and correcting their formatting as they went along. The data disclosed type O blood belonging to a man along with type B blood from a woman.
"Results were tested with three processes: the use of Raman spectroscopy, pioneered by Igor Lednev and a team at the University at Albany; T-cell tracing developed by Manfred Kayser of the Erasmus University Medical Centre; and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) biocatalytic assays discovered by Jan Halámek, also of the University at Albany. All three sets of data were cross-checked against each other to give a rough age and gender profile, but testing is still undergoing to determine the presence of certain diseases and genetic markers. A warrant has been issued to the victim's primary hospital to obtain further blood samples and medical records. The perpetrator's blood and skin are being cross-referenced with the samples already documented in forensic profiles. The victim's husband, meanwhile, has provided a sample of his own, and the scene has shown that, while his presence is noted in the apartment in general, there is no trace of his blood or other biological fluids in the crime scene."
A loud group groan rose at the mention of Higurashi Inuyasha. "How's Mr. Emotional Constipation doing these days?" Hachi asked drily.
"I wouldn't call him constipated anymore. In fact, he seems to really be letting it all out now, with the way he keeps calling us constantly to ask us why the case isn't going any faster, if we've found his wife, and—oh, to call us useless morons." Oda rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, having been on the receiving end of many of those calls.
Amamiya rubbed her temples. "Honestly, what does his wife see in him? He's such a nuisance."
"Nuisance or not, he's within his rights to call. We did give him a number to use for that reason." Sango, suddenly looking tired, also pulled up a chair. The computer desk was suddenly surrounded in a tight little ring. "However. He's got no business abusing that right to waste our time by insulting us. And if he keeps that up, then I've half a mind to revoke his calling privilege."
"Well said," Miroku added, and he was very pleased when she didn't rebut him with her usual snippiness.
After the blood chart came photographs of where the blood was collected from (the floor, the wall, the wall telephone, the broken table, and the window that yielded most of the male's blood—most likely having caught himself against the glass during his escape) and then more charts discussing other samples from the suspect such as a few flakes of skin and some tiny threads that probably came from socks. The threads were of particular interest given the fact that they came from high quality clothing.
"Wow, so we've got a silk thread and a few cashmere ones," Hachi whistled. "What kinda thief goes runnin' around in expensive duds like that?"
"We still don't know if the suspect was there to burgle or not," Amamiya corrected him.
Kuwatani turned around to face Sango, which was a little awkward considering the other woman was almost right behind her, and Takeda sitting next to her meant she couldn't just move her body around. "Those threads don't come from any kind of blend at all; they're 100% silk and cashmere. Does that mean we can discard the burglary theory? Surely someone wearing materials like that can't be hard up for money, can they?"
"Not yet." The inspector reached up to grasp her chin with her thumb and forefinger. The gesture was so endearing that Miroku made a mental note to memorise it. "It's a good guess, but at this point it's still just a guess. Let's say we are dealing with a thief—maybe the clothes are theirs, or maybe they're stolen. That still doesn't narrow it down too much."
"Hmmm. We've still got the lab techs analysing them to see if they can pinpoint a particular brand or garment either way," Kuwatani added.
The report proceeded to the scene in the street behind the apartment complex. A few drops of blood belonging to the victim were found, but their biggest lead on that front was from a set of tyre tracks produced when the getaway vehicle made its escape, and footage of a white van emerging at the end of the street (the only part of said street where a camera was found, pointing outwards) to join a larger avenue in an attempt at blending in with the rest of traffic.
Oda was the one who managed the video evidence and pointed out the low presence of cameras in the area, as well as the images' blurriness preventing them from getting a good look at the license plates. "What we do know is that the car is a white Daihatsu cargo van. Most likely a 2011 model. The shots we did get of the plates show that they're green, which means it's a commercial vehicle, and the prefectural seal tells us that the issuing office is based here in Tokyo."
"Still no luck on the plate numbers?" Takeda asked.
"So far we managed to decipher the first two digits—46. That's what we got. The van was tracked throughout Shinjuku, but then we lost it in the Yamate Tunnel."
"But how can that be? That tunnel has a lot of cameras in there."
"I know, right? I still can't quite figure it out myself, and the guys over at surveillance say they're still filtering out a ton of other white vans in the footage. But that's one of our big issues right now, and it's gonna take a lot of work to narrow it down."
Miroku hummed thoughtfully. A perpetrator who came prepared with a getaway vehicle, who had the sense to try and wipe down the blood at the crime scene, who knew how to break open windows and most likely carried a weapon on his person, and who managed to throw the police off his scent when escaping…
"I do think that we're looking at someone who has experience with burglary, if not a burglar themselves. And it's very likely that they have a larger team of accomplices and possibly even a network helping them out," Miroku said.
Everyone turned to look at him. The awful buzzing from the fluorescent lighting made him realise that he hadn't checked the time in a while—was it past five yet? His stomach gurgling added to the noise, but the team's stares felt a little disconcerting.
"What?" He raised an eyebrow questioningly.
Sango cleared her throat and brushed some strands of her ponytail away from her shoulder, frowning slightly. "It's a…sound assessment, detective, but it seems like you're suggesting some kind of conspiracy at work here."
"Well, you did say that it's a 'sound assessment.'" Miroku leaned in closer, wanting to push her buttons a little, maybe get a blush or a scoff out of her. "So what's wrong with it?"
And scoff she did, crossing her arms and legs and leaning forward in turn. "It's a bit far-fetched, don't you think, to suggest that there's some sort of string pulling involved?"
"Why would it be? It's already been established that the Higurashis made a lot of enemies during their newspaper club days. The notes Higurashi's mother, which we're still combing through, detail everything from schoolyard bullying to drug deals. I'm sure at least some criminals still want to get back at them."
"I agree, but I don't think you're being accurate by ascribing that to an entire network. A lot of the people they helped put away were individuals working on their own, and the few yakuza and gang affiliated ones haven't shown signs of wanting to retaliate, according to those same notes."
"Not any retaliation that we know of."
"Unless we've got some—some deeply vengeful mastermind out there having bided their time for the whole five years that mark the gap between this year and the last of the newspaper club's publications, then it doesn't seem likely that all these criminals suddenly decided to get together and unanimously vote on wanting to bring down the students they haven't seen in years. We're probably looking at some thieves who botched a break-in."
"Well then why haven't we heard of a ransom note or at least a call? If they just want money then that seems like the most logical thing to expect, right? But now we've got a woman missing for five days now. Five! Her family and friends are right to worry, because regardless of the suspect's motivations, Higurashi might be in bigger trouble than she was before, or even dead, Sango-san—"
"Oh my GOD!" The inspector suddenly exploded, taking everyone aback with her volume and force. "Once, just once, would it kill you to address me as 'Tachibana-san?' We're colleagues, nothing more, and I'm your superior to boot! We're not on friendly terms, understand?"
The team had been watching their back and forth with a morbid sort of fascination, completely unsure of what to do or say, much less having the courage to try and break it up. Oda's mouth opened in quiet astonishment.
But Sango just looked so amazingly cute. The way her flushed skin lit up her eyes, how her anger had mussed up her hair just right, her nostrils flaring as she tried to even out her breathing…
It really was too damn tempting to him.
"My apologies," he said, as a slow, cheeky grin began to snake its way up his face. "Senpai."
Another spark came alive in Sango's eyes as she prepared to fire off another retort for his blatant insolence. Just as she sucked in a deep, deep breath, Amamiya shot out of her seat as though burned. "H-hey! I'm super hungry right now and I'm thinking about going to the store for food! D-does anyone want some r-ramen?"
The tension was broken by the promise of carbs, and there were some mutters debating over beef vs chicken. Amamiya dashed out, eager to escape the bickering, and Miroku decided to try and move things along with help from the whiteboard.
"Look. I think both of us have some good points—"he started.
Sango, rubbing her temples, shook her head. "There's a big difference between having some good points compared to bringing up conspiracy theories."
"What? I didn't—well, as I was saying. Maybe there's more to this than just a simple break-in. We won't know for sure until we keep investigating and piecing the clues together. And what we have so far indicates that quite a lot of people might certainly have it in for the Higurashis, far too many for us to just classify this case as a robbery. It's very likely that the suspect had another person driving the getaway vehicle, and the method of exit, not to mention the high probability of a knife being used, means there's an experienced criminal out loose." Miroku outlined each point on the whiteboard with impressive speed and force, tapping the final syllable of his last sentence with a flourish. His notes, though weirdly cramped, were all connected in a complex spider web of a graph that also used borrowed printouts to drive home his thesis. At least Sango couldn't say he wasn't being thorough.
The inspector sighed and rubbed her temples harder, and Miroku was pleased to recognise a concession when he saw it. "Fine," she sighed. "We can keep that as a secondary hypothesis. We don't have time to be debating over a definitive story and we need to get the report out, fast."
He felt himself deflate. "What do you mean, 'secondary?'"
"Exactly what it says on the tin. That way we can have both arguments in the report and everyone is happy. After all, the Chief and I really do like long reports."
Miroku pouted but said nothing and started to add her points to the board.
"Uh, Tachibana-san," Kuwatani piped up, hand raised. "Ishida-san does have a point. It's logical for us to look into the Higurashis' past and see if anyone still has it in for them. The children at Higurashi Kagome's workplace said as much when you went to interview them, as did her mother and brother. Maybe criminals joining forces to bring them down isn't so far-fetched in the end."
Kuwatani sticking up for him was a small victory, short but oh-so sweet. Miroku grinned at her and she beamed right back, her expression downright sunny.
"That's what I thought too. But then all of these weird things about the husband kept piling up." Sango looked straight ahead. There was an odd intensity to her eyes that Miroku couldn't quite gauge; not anger…but definitely not anything sad or positive either. It was very intriguing indeed, and he had to wonder what exactly was going on in her head, behind that inscrutably intense façade.
Amamiya announced her return with a clatter from the door, plastic bags rustling as she placed them on the table and moved their documents off to the side. She began taking their contents out: three styrofoam cups of instant beef ramen, two chicken cups, and one shrimp cup; a can of coffee, two cans of green tea, one can of mugicha, bottled peach nectar, and an energy drink; a box of fruit gummies and two packets of pocky.
"Are you kiddin' me?" Hachi groaned out loud when Amamiya passed him his ramen. "You got the gross cheapo kind!"
Amamiya looked downright offended. "I-It's not like you specified any brand you know."
"Lemme guess—you got it from the store across the street. That's worse!"
"I'm not a mind reader! I just got what was available."
"Kid, if there's anything I know about this city, it's where all the good stuff's at. Next time you leave the food to me, alright?"
Sango had no choice but to call an impromptu lunch break as the team shuffled around the so-called "coffee station"—really nothing more than a tiny set of drawers supporting a coffee pot and a small hot water dispenser. The sound of slurping filled the room as they made quick work of their ramen.
"Back to the task at hand, people. Now, while we can't exactly rule out a…conspiracy of sorts…" Sango tapped her untouched noodle cup with a nail, "Higurashi Inuyasha's behaviour has been highly suspect from the start."
"Besides his delightful personality?" Oda snorted through a mouthful of food.
"Quite related to that. For starters: why lie about his place of employment? I called his mother-in-law over our next interrogation session and she didn't know about it. None of his wife's immediate family did. Neither did the children at the orphanage. Then we have testimony from several of his coworkers detailing his violence—he assaulted a man bad enough to necessitate minor surgery—and a generally aggressive attitude, especially concerning his wife. His landlord and neighbours all mentioned the couple's frequent fights, corroborated by the children and the newspaper club, and, to top it all off, now we're hearing about an ex-girlfriend causing tension in their relationship."
Miroku watched as she carefully wrote that all down on the whiteboard, and though he was fascinated by her clear, neat script, her words gave him a sinking feeling.
"So are you saying all that invalidates my hypothesis?" he asked.
"No," she replied firmly. "What I'm saying that things are not looking good for Higurashi Inuyasha in spite of it."
The detective exhaled. He looked up at the section of whiteboard where all of their photographic and printed documentation was taped, squinting at the schedule obtained from Sasagami Iron Works. "But he had an alibi. He was at work during the break-in, and one of their neighbours called him afterwards. And witnesses did see him running up to his apartment while we were first processing the crime scene."
Not that he didn't give me a bad feeling when we talked, Miroku thought.
"That doesn't rule out his involvement," Sango replied gravely, that odd intensity back in her face again.
No one paid attention to the sound of the clock ticking despite the time limit. Everyone was too focused on Inspector Tachibana's writing; now she had called Amamiya up to talk for her as she wrote.
Amamiya cleared her throat, a little nervously, before starting. "It's common for women in relationships to experience intimate partner violence. It makes up one-fifth of all violent crime, but only ten percent of victims come forward, making it the least reported crime."
"Woah, woah, woah," Hachi interrupted. A bit of broth dribbled down his shirt, but he ignored it. "This is a safe country. Whaddaya mean 'one-fifth?' That's…thousands of cases."
"'Safety' doesn't really quite cover it," Amamiya replied with a hard edge to her words. "This is something that happens everywhere!"
Oda uttered a light scoff. "Not to like, sound mean or anything, but…domestic violence? The guy's an asshole, but I don't see him being a wife beater. Last time we heard, the battering was towards guys who made comments about his wife. If anything, doesn't that tell us that he cares about her? Everyone we interviewed always brought up how jealous and overprotective he is."
"Jealousy is actually a very big indicator of an abusive relationship, and it points to a controlling, domineering attitude that can quickly turn violent. We already have evidence of him assaulting someone else—who's to say he hasn't already done it to his wife?"
"Her family would've known. They would've seen bruises."
"It's not as simple as that! Makeup can disguise injuries. Many women hide their abuse out of fear, shame…and everyone already said they fought a lot over things like money."
"But that neighbour kid, he remembered her threatening the intruder with a call to her husband. Would someone who's being abused call their abuser for help?"
"Oh my god, why can't you just—"
"STOP." Sango ceased her writing and whirled around to face her subordinates with an expression that spoke volumes. Chastened, they fell silent and awaited her judgement on their extremely uncouth behaviour. "Oda. Be quiet and listen. Amamiya, get to the rest of your points quickly. We have a deadline to meet and we don't need your bickering dragging the rest of us down. Understood?"
"Yes, Tachibana-san," the two replied meekly.
"Good. Amamiya-san—from the top."
Amamiya cleared her throat again, clearly ashamed of being disciplined. "S-so, a-as I was saying, there's a high probability that we could be dealing with an abusive relationship. We have enough evidence that points us in that direction. A husband with anger issues, who has a history of violence, who fought with his wife over things like money, who hid information pertaining to his employment, who has jealousy issues, who also still maintains contact with his ex-girlfriend, which is an additional source of strife in their relationship, and abuse may have been physical as well as emotional. Higurashi Inuyasha could have hired someone to deal with it for him."
"You got that all down?" Sango asked Kai. The other woman nodded an affirmation and sat calmly, poised to keep writing some more.
I mean, it looks solid on the surface…but it feels all wrong, Miroku thought. He scrutinised Sango's side of the whiteboard, the organised fashion of her chart, and he thought some more. It wouldn't be the first time that a husband hurts his wife like this, and that backstory of theirs doesn't mean it couldn't happen to them…but…
"Ishida-san," Sango called out to him, arching a brow. "Is there anything you'd like to add to that?"
He exhaled. What was there more to say? Was she just going to shoot him down and call his proposal a conspiracy theory again?
"Just that there's still the issue of how that all relates to Higurashi Kagome's abductor," Miroku responded.
"Well," Takeda interjected, shuffling a sheaf of papers. "I just got a news alert on my phone about how crime is up three percent in that area of the city, so there's that…"
Oh, shove off, the detective didn't say.
The keyboard's clacking stopped, and Kai rose from her chair to stretch, the subtle sound of bones creaking underlining her relieved sigh. "I think that's all! I'm going outside for some fresh air while you all go over it one more time."
The team scrambled to check it for spelling mistakes, to ensure that their images were the proper size, and that their printer had enough ink and paper to handle their final, thirty page report. The little machine whirred to life and delivered each piece of paper at an annoyingly slow rate, and Sango's obvious distress proved mildly amusing to Miroku.
When it finally spat out the last page, Sango snatched it up immediately, stapled it all together, and dashed out of the room.
Kuwatani cracked her back leisurely. "Well, that takes care of that! I'm starving—who's up for some dinner?"
Their chit-chat revolved around deciding whether they wanted rice bowls or soup as everyone gathered up their coats, exclaiming over the late hour. Takeda advised everyone to wait for Sango and Kai. The two returned shortly after and everyone exited together, Sango having declined the dinner invitation.
Well, everyone except Miroku.
"You're not coming?" Kuwatani's face looked tired but cheery as ever, as she stood at the door waiting for him. He was touched by her sincerity and desire to include him.
But some things, like dinner dates, would have to wait.
"Sorry," Miroku grinned sheepishly. "I know it's late, but there's just one more thing I need to do. You all won't mind if I stay behind for a little bit? I promise to clean up before I close up shop."
Sango squinted suspiciously at him. Quite a few seconds were spent examining his face, clearly wondering why he still needed to use their room, but she relented. "Fine. Just make sure to lock the door like I showed you all how to."
"Your wish is my command, senpai," Miroku replied, and he laughed inside when he saw the corner of her eye twitch tellingly.
Sango was very much a homebody. With the exception of that annoying "bonding exercise" set up by her traitorous grandfather, she rarely went out for meals, preferring the comfort of her house and the company of her family.
They always ate in a cozy six-tatami room overlooking the garden and veranda, and tonight was pleasant enough to keep the shōji open so they could enjoy the view as they dined. Sango smiled appreciatively as she tucked into her grilled fish and soup.
"So how was your day, Sango?" her father asked from his seat across her. He then proceeded to lightly scold her teenage brother, Kohaku, for slouching and staring moodily at his food, which was answered by a mumbled apology.
She sipped her steaming-hot soup. "Tiring."
"Diligent as always," Shako praised, reaching towards the centre of the table for some pickles. "I know that writing that report was difficult, and, I won't lie, that last-minute delivery had me worried for a moment, but we know we can always count on you to go above and beyond our expectations."
Sango, blushing over her grandfather casually mentioning the lateness of her team's report, looked off to the side with a scowl. "I would've done a better job if those kids had stopped goofing around for at least ten seconds."
"Now now Sango, we've already had this conversation before—I wouldn't have placed them under your command if they weren't good at their jobs. They've all presented excellent marks during their time at the academy, and before they were transferred to you, I've had many talks with their mentors and superiors over their work ethic and productivity."
"No offense, but I sincerely doubt that arguments over the quality of convenience store ramen and such constitute good work ethic. I could've finished so much faster without having to deal with all that, thanks."
"What about Takeda and your other friends?" Kohaku asked pointedly.
Her pink face turning red, Sango hid her face in her bowl of soup. "T-they're fine."
"Sango." Ken sighed, putting his chopsticks down to focus on her, wrinkles creasing every so slightly around the corners of his face. "You're all adults who can talk to each other and come to an agreement. Complaining about them to us isn't going to fix things. And if they really are as problematic as you're making them sound, then it falls upon you as their commanding officer to fix that. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and a well-oiled machine—"
"—is a working machine," she sighed right back. "I just wish my machine actually had some working gears in it instead of a bunch of loose screws."
"Well then, enough chit-chat about your apparently undesirable crew then. Why don't you tell us more about your report? I saw the little note you snuck in at the end," her grandfather said.
Sango enjoyed discussing her work with her family. They were seasoned, experienced police officers who provided years of valuable wisdom and insight, often proving to be of great help. She didn't mind having Kohaku around despite the fact that he was still in high school—he had been groomed to join the force with the rest of his family for practically his entire life, and Sango looked forward to seeing him in the precinct with a uniform of his own one day. She ruffled his hair affectionately and he smiled.
"I think that the best hypothesis—well, the most plausible one at least—is that we're looking at a case of domestic violence. While the husband wasn't at the scene, and the abductor's DNA doesn't match his, it doesn't exclude the possibility of him hiring someone to deal with his wife." Sango unconsciously assumed a seiza position as she recited her findings back to her family. "Everyone we spoke to talked about the couple's frequent fights, and the husband has a history of violent behaviour. I've already tasked my subordinates with searching for any criminal records he might have. And to top things off, he hasn't told his social circle about his job at the Olympic Village site, and he maintains contact with an ex-girlfriend that apparently caused his wife a good deal of grief."
Shako nodded with each word, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "A very solid hypothesis indeed, Sango. But…?"
"Ishida-san brought up some weird conspiracy theory about a bunch of criminals banding together to bring them down instead."
An odd glimmer shone in her grandfather's eye. His chin stroking stopped.
Sango raised an eyebrow and waited for his response.
"Well, it's not an unfounded theory. You did mention that those two were responsible for shining the light on quite a number of unsavoury characters. Not that I approve of vigilantism or anything of the sort, quite the contrary."
"And I told him as much, but there's the issue of a five year gap between the last of their newspaper club's activities and Higurashi Kagome's disappearance. Why would criminals holding a grudge against them wait so long to get revenge? And why this insistence that a network is operating towards this goal instead of individuals striking back on their own?"
"Well, that's your task, Sango, to find that out. But don't be too harsh on Ishida. He's had…odd ideas before, but nothing too extreme." Shako finished his fish and reached for his tea and took a long, satisfying sip.
Sango, her brows furrowing, leaned closer. "What do you mean by 'he's had odd ideas before'?"
"Oh Sango, if I told you now, then you'd just use it as an excuse to be unfair towards him," Shako exclaimed, shaking his head in exasperation.
She spluttered. "Oh come on—"
"Calm down! You're going to give yourself premature grey hair with all that anger of yours," her father laughed breezily. "Now come on. Kohaku bought some cake for us on the way back from school, and I intend to end the night on a high note, with dessert, instead of getting worked up over unimportant details."
The silence of the precinct after hours would've been unnerving to Miroku had he not done this many, many times before. But being left alone proved to be a blessing. It allowed him to clear his thoughts of doubts and worries, leaving him with the clarity to focus on the task at hand.
He sifted through Higurashi Kagome's notes. That girl really had been thorough in her years as a junior sleuth. The sheer level of persistence and dedication was impressive, and he mused, with a hint of wryness, if her husband was just as keen a detective as she was.
Probably not, he thought. I'd have liked to have her on my team.
Miroku shuffled the photographs of their missing victim, and pinned them up on the whiteboard carefully, almost as if he was worried they would disintegrate in his hands: a red-faced baby with a single tuft of black hair, screaming in the arms of her tired but proud mother; a toddler dressed up in a beautiful pink kimono for Shichi-go-san; a little girl holding her swaddled baby brother with a sad sort of smile.
There were many more pictures of Higurashi Kagome. Of her first days of school, and birthday parties. Of trips to the beach and inns, sitting with her friends in a Wacdonalds, then the newspaper club, and candid shots of her with her perpetually scowling husband, surrounded by the orphanage children.
Then, there was a photograph of her wedding day. Miroku was surprised to see how widely she smiled in every picture so far, but in this one, there was a quiet, determined set to her face that revealed no discernible emotion. Was she nervous? Afraid? Miroku remembered reading about how she married just fresh out of high school, right before entering university. What could have the young couple been thinking that day? What did they think the future had in store for them?
His favourite photo so far was of Higurashi asleep at her desk, her slightly wavy black hair sprawled all over a math textbook, evidence of an all-nighter for what surely was a very important test.
Miroku pinned it right next to the picture of a dead man. He wondered—no, he hoped—if Higurashi's case was the key he needed.
OHOHOHO I do so love cliffhangers! But don't worry—next chapter is getting back to Kagome's POV…as well as some other character perspectives.
Notes time! Though I'll try to keep this brief because my bed it calling me hahaha
While it's technically correct for Miroku to refer to Sango as his senpai, apparently a lot of people don't actually say that bit out loud unless they're still in school for fear of coming off as an upstart (towards seniors) or arrogant (towards juniors). Additionally, the senpai-kohai relationship is evolving due to how workplaces now often feature superiors being younger than their employees and how many areas are now focusing on skillsets rather than seniority and age.
The blood testing procedures here are real (I found them by googling for 'can blood testing show age'), but they're still rather experimental and are controversial in part due to their peer review processes and sample size. Sassy also reminded me that age can't be revealed by blood testing (yet), though blood type, the presence of certain cells such as white blood cells and platelets, as well as certain hormones and diseases, can. Even so, biological sample-based DNA forensics is not the smoking gun many people believe it to be. While it has certainly revolutionised forensics and the way crime is fought and traced, it's still subject to human error, bias, imperfect readings, and false positives, for one. Still, there's hope for their improvement, and there's interest in the aforementioned procedures due to their potential.
Daihatsu is a Japanese automotive brand based in Osaka that mostly caters to the domestic Japanese market (though there's some presence in countries like China, Indonesia, South Africa, the UK, and Thailand). Its mostly known for its kei cars or keijidōsha, which are the largest passenger vehicles allowed on the highway and have certain limitations on their engine output. Their rather interesting silhouette lends itself to the name "bread loaf cars." Kei cars are also sold as keitora ("light trucks") and microvans, which has proven popular for many drivers. As for the license plates, this is because Japan uses a certain type of colour coding for their plates: in the case of the vehicle our crew has found, a green plate means that it's a commercial vehicle used by a business, its engine output has a limit of 660 cc, and the kanji above its plate number means the city/municipal entity that issued it is Tokyo. But alas, the magical enhance tool as seen on tv isn't here to zoom 10000 times in and find the rest of the numbers! They'll just have to work harder to find it then.
(As an added note, the imperial household is exempt from using license plates. They're entitled to the use of the chrysanthemum seal on their cars)
The Yamate Tunnel is the longest road tunnel in Japan and the second-largest in the world; it connects Tokyo to the expressway leading to the Greater Tokyo Area and boasts of features like safety telephones, infrared sensors, and traffic cameras placed at 100 meter intervals…which would usually mean that the car should've been spotted by at least one of them…
To finish these notes on a sober note (pun not intended) comes the domestic abuse statistics. This fic takes place in 2017, the Japan Times Article cited (which can be provided for anyone who's interested) is from 2015, and the Act on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Protection of Victims was revised in 2017 from the original published in 2001. While I, as a Mexican, don't doubt that Japan is much safer than Mexico, I was shocked at the statistics I found: in 2015 there was an estimated domestic abuse related death every three days and 1 in 4 women died at the hands of their partners. This was apparently an improvement of the 1 in 3 statistic from 2014…which gender equality campaigners and advocates on behalf of victims argue doesn't reflect the reality of the situation. They point out how many victims rarely come forward, but they also accuse officials of not recording cases properly as well as failing to even investigate and follow up the ones that are reported. They also argue that the supposed protections and benefits awarded to victims often aren't enough for them or for any children they might have, and the system of monetary resources falling to the man in the relationship—often the abuser in question—complicates things to the point of danger. Many shelters are also just repurposed from ones designed for a controversial 1950s anti-prostitution law (that state victims can only stay there as long as they don't leave), and, to my knowledge, there are very few male shelters.
Let's just say things aren't looking great for Inuyasha…and in the next chapter we'll see a little bit of his POV, Kagome's…and our bad guys…