"Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today
To get through this thing called life
Electric word life it means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here to tell you there's something else
The afterworld, a world of never ending happiness
You can always see the sun, day or night
"So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
You know the one Dr. 'Everything'll Be Alright'
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left?
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
'Cause in this life things are much harder than in the afterworld
This life you're on your own
"And if the elevator tries to bring you down
Go crazy punch a higher floor…"
Something about the Purple Rain album always helped Hinata wrap up her day strong. It was just after five and the law offices were mostly empty, which gave her a moment to slip off her shoes and dance along for a minute or two to stretch and wake herself back up after a long day of meetings and legal briefs.
Her phone started ringing, which prompted her to pause her cassette and answer. "This is Hinata Hyuuga, may I ask who is calling?"
"Glad I caught you before you left," the deep, mature voice was obviously Mr. A, "how is the case with the college professor coming along?"
"We've got two weeks until the second arraignment, but after meeting with the school's board of governors I'm got the impression they're going to give us the stonewall treatment."
"Let me guess, they'd rather we just prosecute the dealer and drop charges against the professor?"
"I'm sure that's what they implied, but they made it clear that they would use the resources of the college and teacher's union to protect Dr. Akado. Honestly it was a waste of 30 minutes of my time."
"The only people who can say less in more words than attorneys are educators." Mr. A's laughs were uncommon, but infectious. "Keep at it Hinata, I'll have Mabui take charge of the dealer's case, you focus on the professor. I've got a few more days out of town, you need anything give Darui a call."
Hanging up, Hinata started putting away files and waved at the custodian as she put on her shoes and grabbed her jacket. She tried not to think about cases when away from work, but sometimes they required more thought than could be given in the confides of an office. Getting to her car, she drove out of the parking lot and got stuck in downtown traffic. Not bothering to change her facial expression to match her inner frustration, she found the first side street exit and took the backstreets to her destination. Kids were outside playing after school, but fewer were out on the streets than a few years ago ever since the release of the NES. "To think Sakura wants one of those for the apartment."
The sun was low in the west by the time she arrived at Royal Burgers. The parking lot was full, but that gave her no trouble identifying Shino's green '74 Challenger, affectionately named "the bug". Sure it looked nothing like a bug, but every car Shino owned was christened that by Kiba in honor of Shino's first car, a '66 VW Beetle.
With a wave as she parked, Shino got out of his car and went to open the door for her, as was the custom. Then it was an order of sliders and birch beer with a side of honeybuns for Hinata, Shino opted for grits and home fries with a bowl of fruit.
While waiting for the order, Shino sipped on his water and commented, "I invited Kiba to come along, as usual, and he refused again."
"One of these days I'm sure we'll find out why he never joins us." As Shino tapped his fingers on the table, Hinata turned her head to smile at a shy boy sitting at the next table over.
"It's never sat well with me though, ever since High School it was Wednesday Sliders at Royals. Sometimes Kiba doesn't make sense to me."
"Of all the weird things Kiba does, you pick 'he doesn't get burgers with us on Wednesdays anymore' as the top example?"
"Fair enough." With a chuckle, Shino adjusted his sunglasses as the cashier called out their order. He was up and back in a moment before setting their food down. "Maybe it's the neighborhood? This certainly isn't the nicest part of town anymore."
"Maybe… but of the three of us that seems more like your excuse for not keeping up a tradition." Adding mustard to her sliders, she ate one and took a drink of the birch beer. Talk about Kiba was a nice distraction; the truth was that more often than not Shino liked to coordinate his work with hers at these meals. As professional as Shino looked, he actually liked to do things off-the-cuff.
"How did the arraignment go today?"
"Dr. Akado is out on bail. Doubtless he's already at the University getting his back patted by all his peers."
"There's not a doubt in my mind that he did it, but the evidence at the crime scenes is scant. The only connection is the mix of drugs given and the liver biopsies taken. No fingerprints, no forensic evidence, nothing."
"What about the lease on Mina's apartment?" Mina was the third victim, the college student who was supposedly taking a semester off of medical school.
"Sure enough, Akado was paying for it. We didn't get much from the landlord, just that her behavior only started seeming strange the past two weeks or so. Akado would show up once a week to see her and leave the same day."
"Anything else there?"
"Nothing we can prove yet. Mina's apartment only had some drugs, her clothes, and medical equipment – the lab is looking into that but everything in there was sealed, doubt there's going to be anything on those."
"And the other two victims?"
"Matt Jones and Russell Gomez. Matt was regularly getting cocaine from Shigure, but his separated wife swears he was starting to get clean. He was actually being considered for a job as a salesman at a used car lot when he was killed. Gomez was in the bodybuilding scene, known to use steroids from time to time, working towards a modeling contract. There were no witnesses for Jones, but we asked around the gym and a couple of trainers say the Gomez was meeting with a doctor for outside treatments."
"A doctor?" Hinata sounded hopeful but Shino shook his head.
"When given a photo, none of them identified Akado, instead they recognized Mina. She must have been posing as the doctor." With a shake, Shino's hand went to his waist to grab his pager. "Mind if I use your car phone?" Rather than continue to eat, Hinata pulled out her notepad and wrote a few notes.
It would be hard to build a case towards 'beyond a reasonable doubt' if they didn't find evidence that connected Akado to the tissue samples. What worried Hinata more was that if they didn't get anything substantial by the second arraignment, the case might not even make it to trial.
Shino came back upset, even to the point where he was drinking out of the wrong glass on the table. "Kiba took it upon himself to follow Akado. But that red car of his stands out like a sore thumb, Akado led him on a merry drive along the beach before going on a shopping trip and then to his house. And in the last few seconds he decides to tell me that the chief has had some resistance to getting the search warrant for the University's labs.
"What's the condition of the girl? Moegi?"
"It's only been two days, but it's still in the air." With a sigh, Shino finished his grits and picked at his fries. "The dose Shigure gave her put her into shock, we brought her down but her body chemistry will take a while to return to normal. Until then it's a waiting game. What are we missing Hinata?" The concern was clear on Shino's face, some said he rarely showed emotions but they were there, just less pronounced, more subtle.
"Records, information, documents. As much physical evidence would be great, it's safe to assume that Akado will have had those samples destroyed by now. But Mina would have kept records as well, and the fact that they started killing means that loose ends were already recognized and being eliminated. At some point Mina became a loose end too. It's Moegi's involvement that we have no clue about. Was she just a friend, or was she a part of it?"
"No, her apartment was clean. And unlike Mina she didn't have any signs of biopsies taken from her."
"Focus on the girls. Back off from Akado for a few days. With any luck Moegi will wake up and we'll have a new source of information… and make sure there's a police guard at her room." Getting tired of being in 'business mode', Hinata loosened her tie and finished her sliders.
"How's Hanabi doing at college?" Finishing his order, Shino was done with work for the day as well.
"She says she likes Virginia, but still can't understand how it can be freezing up there and sunny and warm down here. Otherwise she mentions that it's nice to be out of the W&M dorms and into dad's weekend house up there."
"And that double degree she's working towards? Colonial History and Law?"
"We all know she'll get whatever degree she has her mind on. The problem is whether she'll get to experience all the other things college has to offer. It's one thing to skip two years of high school, but sometimes I wonder if she pushes herself too hard and doesn't take some time for herself."
"You come from a driven family that can't help but be in the public eye. I wonder how much of what she is doing is advised from your father, to try to keep her out of the tabloids."
"William & Mary was Hanabi's choice. Dad wanted her to go to Yale or Columbia. Senator Hyuuga might be one of the biggest names in Washington, but Papa Hiashi is nothing more than a teddy bear with a grumpy face to his daughters." That got the two of them laughing; it was good to break a little of the tension hanging over them.
Parting with a hug, Hinata got in her car and started back to her apartment. A department store caught her eye as she felt a pleasant thought come to her. A few purchases and a complimentary gift wrapping later and she was back on her way home.
It was just after seven when Hinata finally came in, Sakura was in the living room watching Jeopardy and eating powdered donut holes. Somehow she managed to hide the box from Sakura's point of view and make it to the bedroom to change out of her dress suit. After everything she had to deal with today, she felt like she needed another shower, but decided the soft couch and some donuts sounded even better, so she put on a shirt and sweatpants and sat down next to Sakura.
"Its 4 historic provinces are Connaught, Leinster, Munster & Ulster" Alex Trebek gave the answer.
"What is Ireland?" Sakura said before the contestant and popped another donut.
"West Indian island that's the home of the limbo dance & calypso music." The next question came.
"What is Trinidad?" Sakura adjusted her position on the couch to let Hinata lie against her.
"Largest of the Mariana Islands, we acquired it in 1898."
"What is Guam?" Sakura laughed and turned down the volume, "Nancy has this game in the bag. And speaking of bag…" Noticing the last of the donut holes were gone, Sakura raised her eyebrows and have Hinata a look. "I'm setting my alarm for 5:30 a.m. Not only am I tired of being late to work, but we're getting up for an early morning jog."
"Fine, whatever." Hinata was going to sit up, but Sakura starting giving her a head rub, which prevented her from doing so. "Mmm, that's nice."
"What was in the box you brought in?" Sakura asked sweetly.
"Who did you go on a date with last night?" Hinata mirrored Sakura's tone.
"We decided to keep it secret for now." There was more than a light blush to Sakura's cheeks.
"Fine. Then I'll keep the box secret for now too." Getting up, Hinata threw the empty bag away and poured herself a glass of water. All the secrets she was privy to in the line of her work, and somehow she knew the one that was going to give her the most trouble was a gift she had tucked away in her own closet. It was nice that she and Sakura were able to be so casual with each other, given how stressful their jobs were, made worse the times their work overlapped. But for now, as difficult as things got, being with a friend always made them seem easier to deal with.
Author's note: Questions were taken from the January 30, 1987 episode of Jeopardy. There's actually an archive of all the Jeopardy episodes/questions I found that I used for this chapter. Also helps date the fanfic. In later chapters (written as of Chapter 19) my hope is to seamlessly integrate real world events and happenings into the story, while still being able to maintain an original narrative. I have some ambitions for this story and hope you'll stick around with me to see them through. And I hope the little tidbits of information and 80s songs help keep you in the mood.
also yes, Manabu Akado, the 40 year old Genin, is the primary antagonist of the first Case. Just in case you thought you remembered that name.