mesbooks Chapter 138 - 1.2
Chapter 138 - 1.2
Chapter 138: Chapter 1.2
Detective, assistant, and chief
The detective agency was on the second floor of a mixed-use building.
"So, how did you make it work this time?" I asked Siesta. I was leaning back into a well-worn sofa, opening the box of pizza that had just been delivered.
After the uproar near the hotel, the man with the knife had been safely handed over to the police. By the time we'd finally made it back here, it was well after sunset, and I still didn't have a complete picture of the incident.
"Oh, I want a slice with lots of shrimp."
Siesta had been in her usual spot at the back of the office, typing on her computer. Now she was drifting over to the freshly baked pizza, like a butterfly drawn to a flower.
"Siesta, are you listening to me?"
"I'm always listening to the voice of your heart. Snarf-snarf."
"If you're gonna eat with sound effects, at least be cute about it, wouldja?" I shot back, and I meant it. Siesta had taken a seat across from me and was stuffing her face.
"Once he knew for sure that she was cheating, the client flew into a rage and attacked his wife and her lover... Isn't that what happened?" Nagisa asked. Bringing over three glasses of soda, she set them on the table in front of us.
"Well, one of our original assumptions was wrong." Now that she'd finished a slice of pizza, Siesta finally began answering our questions. "The man with the knife—our client—wasn't married to that model."
Nagisa and I exchanged looks. Neither of us had been expecting that one. "The client was stalking her. When he suspected she had a real partner, he
hired a detective to find out for sure."
...I see. In that case, we'd basically aided and abetted a stalker.
"But what about the copy of the family register he brought as proof that they were married?"
"Probably a forgery. There are people who'll take on under-the-table projects like that."
"So you realized he was lying back then, Siesta?"
"I didn't find anything suspicious in the documents right away, but what he told us about his wife seemed rather unnatural."
"How so?" Nagisa asked, sitting down beside her.
"It was almost as if he'd memorized an online profile. Superficially, he knew a lot about his wife, but there was no substance to it." Siesta took a long swig of soda, then added, "For example, I know the things my assistant commonly says in his sleep, and that he likes his fried eggs with soy sauce, and I've seen him scrunch up his face when he takes powdered medicines. I know everything about him."
"Huh? Are you trying to one-up me?"
"That's the sort of information you can't know if you've never lived with your partner. The client didn't have any of that."
Oh. So the client—or rather, the criminal—must've felt as if he knew the woman just from looking at her data. He'd probably started to think he was the only one who could understand her or something.
"I see," said Nagisa. "You know, it did feel vaguely off to me, too."
Now that she knew what had really been going on, Nagisa nodded as if everything made sense to her.
She was right: Even in the hotel, she'd seemed to think there was something odd about the incident.
"Hrmm. I've got to try harder. I'm already studying for school anyway," Nagisa told herself, smacking her cheeks sharply.
Like me, Nagisa was majoring in psychology. According to her, there was a motive behind every incident, and behind that motive was a human heart. In order to grow as a detective, she said she needed to better understand the mind.
"So I was the only one who didn't notice anything, then?" Geez. If Siesta had figured it out, she could have filled me in.
"They say if you want to fool your enemies, first fool your friends, right?" "That's not fair... Well, I'd like to say it's not, but were you trying to
accomplish something by doing that?"
"If we were all on the same page, we wouldn't be able to handle unforeseen situations. It's like the way the pilot and copilot eat different meals on a flight to avoid any possibility of food poisoning. It's risk management—we should be coming at this from different angles."
"You mean even if we all have the same basic goal, sometimes it's effective to intentionally have individual perspectives and do different things?"
I didn't even have to think very hard to see we'd always worked that way. "Actually, I found this a little while ago. It's a private account." Siesta held up
her phone, displaying someone's social media page.
"Does this belong to that model?" Nagisa asked. In a post, the OP mentioned feeling like they were being followed. The woman must have noticed her stalker.
"But it's an anonymous account. How did you find it?"
"I just applied the same method I used to identify your account way back when."
"You tracked down my account?"
And apparently she wasn't planning on telling me how. This sucks.
"...Well, I'll turn a blind eye to the past for now. Point is, you thought the woman might have a stalker, so you were on the scene again today."
"Yes, although it was only a theory. I hadn't completely ruled out the possibility that the client might have married the model in secret."
However, because Siesta had noticed all the possibilities, we'd avoided a worst-case scenario.
"I used to be able to resolve these things a bit more neatly." She smiled faintly, remembering distant days.
When she'd been a Tuner, Siesta had had a certain special notebook that
granted its bearer every sort of qualification there was. If she'd used that, it would have been easy for her to check with the ward office and find out if the client and model really were married.
apologizing to us?
"Nagisa, do you know that official?" I asked. Nagisa was kneeling formally beside me. This much humility coming from a representative of the Federation Government was extremely weird. All the dignitaries I'd ever dealt with had been much more overbearing, mechanical, and sort of lacking in humanity.
"No, I don't know her. I doubt Siesta does, either."
On Nagisa's other side, Siesta gazed at the dignitary dubiously, but she was the first to speak. "And? What did you want with us?"
"First, take a look at this."
The masked dignitary raised her head.
In the next instant, a vivid image was projected onto the Buddha hall behind her. It was something like projection mapping that used the uneven background as a screen.
However, what it showed made me want to cover my eyes.
"The corpses of government officials?" I heard myself say. And I hadn't meant "corpse," singular. The beheaded bodies of several masked dignitaries were projected on every surface of the Buddha hall as 3D images, one after another.
"At present, Federation Government high officials are being assassinated all over the world."
...The Federation Government ruled the world from the shadows, and the murderer was only targeting them? If that was really happening, that would be...
"So it's a new global crisis?" Siesta asked, speaking for all of us.
"Wait, though. Aren't global crises a whole lot rarer these days?" Nagisa broke in. As she said, no new enemies of the world had appeared on Earth in the past year. As if to corroborate this, Mia's clairvoyance hadn't activated even once. In that light, what sort of crisis could the killing of these dignitaries be?
"We view them as an 'unknown crisis,' which even the Oracle couldn't detect."
That was the name the masked dignitary across from us gave the situation. "We see the basic problem. Why did you summon Siesta and Nagisa for this,
though?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
"I'll speak plainly: We would like the two former Ace Detectives to investigate."
Ridiculous. Though this had nothing to do with me, I still almost said that out
loud.
And my emotions were justified. Their mission as Ace Detectives was over.
Why should the Federation Government get to rope them into something now? "Take a close look at this," the official said, and the image zoomed in on a
certain spot to reveal—
"Those are tentacle fragments. Not from just any tentacle, either. They're fragments of the weapons wielded by the pseudohumans you once fought. We believe someone is misusing their power to kill these dignitaries."
...She was right. More than two years ago now, our group had fought Seed's pseudohumans. But that battle was over, and so were the sacrifices made to end it.
"Are you saying we haven't finished cleaning up yet?" Nagisa asked. Was the mission still ongoing?
"No. But given these facts, it is true that when we found these things at the scenes of the incidents, we wished to have the Ace Detective's help once more. In other words, Miss Natsunagi and Miss Siesta, in accordance with a special measure outlined in the Federal Charter, we would like to temporarily appoint you as proxy Ace Detectives."
Nagisa and Siesta exchanged looks. Both the reason for this summons and the substance of the request were completely unexpected. Then, for some reason, the two of them turned to me.
"Why do you look more irritated about this than anybody else, Kimihiko?" Nagisa asked.
"...I didn't know I did," I said.
Siesta showed me her hand mirror. "See?"
Oh yeah. My eyes looked about twenty percent meaner than usual. How did that happen? ...No, I actually knew the answer to that, too. I was just pretending not to.
Even so, for now... "It's not my decision anyway. What we do is up to you two."
Siesta and Nagisa nodded, then turned back the official. "All right. I'll take this Ace Detective job for you." "Mm, so will I. Just temporarily, though."
Right. They wouldn't leave a job half done. I'd known this was how it would go.
"We appreciate your help. Take these." The woman took two notebooks out of her robes. I hadn't seen those things in a while. Having them would make Siesta
and Nagisa Tuners again. "I'll get them."
When the other two started to stand up, I stopped them and got to my feet instead.
I respected their choice—I couldn't reject their work or how they felt. Even so, one thing just didn't sit right with me.
"Detectives always put their lives on the line in a fight. Show us you're serious about this, too."
Don't you run. Don't just give them orders without even showing your face. I won't allow it. Walking up to the official, I reached for her mask.
The masked servants who stood on either side of us all pointed their spears at me.
"It's fine." The official stopped them with two words. "I apologize for my rudeness."
She removed her mask.
"From now on, then, I will wear my true face with you. There is just a little more that I must tell you."
Long gray hair spilled over her shoulders, and moss-green eyes gazed straight up at me. I couldn't see any emotion in her expression, but it was full of dignity.
She was a lovely girl whose face still held hints of childish softness.