Mission Start [Jessica]

[Jessica Jane]

Jess caught up to him quickly enough, but not quite quick enough to make her wonder why she was in this, again. Right, because she owed this guy. He'd taken an interest in her and he needed some closure... she was trying to help him with that. Jess reminded herself of that fact as they approached the building. She was doing this to help.

"It's all on you." She resisted the urge to toss in a snarky 'lover-boy' on the end of that statement. Now as not the time to go messing with Thoma's concentration.

[Thoma Hirako]

"Right," he said, opening the door for the two of them and walking confidently to the front desk. He flashed his SP License and walked on by, no need for them to know who he was exactly, just that he was a Deka.

As they walked past, into the back rooms towards the file room, there was one detective sitting there, working on something. He saw them coming, forcing Thoma to come up with a quick lie, just in case.

"Detective," Thoma nodded.

"You look new," he told Thoma.

"Yeah, first day in this department," he said, "I was told to review some cases," he directed towards the back room.

"By who?" questioned the other detective.

Great, Thoma didn't quite know the name of the chief, so just saying "the chief" wouldn't be very good. He had to make up a lie.

"Ok, I was lying," he said, directing over his shoulder to Jessica, "The two of us were looking for somewhere secluded where we could go..."

The man smiled knowingly, "Yeah, go on."

Lie bought, fortunately. Not a great lie, but the look of the man told Thoma that he would probably believe it. As they passed out of earshot, he whispered to Jessica, "Sorry about that one; not the most flattering lie."

[Jessica Jane]

Jess didn't respond right away. She didn't trust herself to. Once they had moved beyond the cop's range of sight and rounded a corner, that was right about when Jess' hand met Thoma's cheek-- and not in a kind and gentle way. She followed through with the slap, determined to make the stinging count, and gave her 'partner' the glare of death.

"I cannot believe you." She huffed; folded her arms over her chest. "Honestly, I don't know what's worse: the fact that you were dumb enough not to find out the name of the higher up, the fact that you concocted such a stupid lie in the first place, or the fact that he bought it."

She paused for a moment and then continued with a growl. "If I weren't so kind and caring, I'd be walking out on you right about now. Seriously, what were you thinking?"

[Thoma Hirako]

He touched the spot where she had slapped him, feeling it throbbing a bit, "Well, the chief here was removed for illegal activity, and to my knowledge, there is no new chief. I honestly don't even know the rank of the person in charge, let alone name. And trying to ask someone to find out would seem a bit suspicious, don't you think? Considering I have no ties to this place.

"Look, I'm sorry about that lie, but looking at that man, it was the easiest way to get past without a lot of questions. And it worked. It's not like we're actually going to sleep together at any point; it's just a lie that won't matter, because that man won't see us again after today.

"That's what I was thinking. And it worked," Thoma told her, opening the door to the records room.

[Jessica Jane]

Jessica put a hand to her eyes and stifled a groan. Men. It wasn't the lie, it was the principle of the thing... but good luck ever getting him to understand that. Still... if he ever pulled anything like that again...

"Fine. Whatever, but if you pull another stunt like that, I'm gone." With that, she set off after him, moved past the open door and into the record room. "So where do we start looking?"

[Thoma Hirako]

"I'll remember that," he said, looking through various filing cabinets to find the years. He stopped at one and opened the second drawer, going through folders until he found one.

"Here's her report," he said, glancing over it and setting it aside, "The same one I saw. The officer's name is Kido; we just have to look for any other reports by him in the same year. That's probably the best place to start."

[Jessica Jane]

"Gotcha. Kido... I'll let you know if I find anything." Jess noted the name.

With that, she turned her attention towards the files and began sifting through the load upon load of paperwork. After a few moments' worth of attention, she amassed several reports from Kido. And a quick glance at them... left some very interesting results.

"Thoma... take a look at this." She extended the papers to her companion in crime.

[Thoma Hirako]

He looked over her shoulder, putting his own small stack of yet to be read reports aside, "What is it?" he asked, then taking the stack into his own hands.

[Jessica Jane]

(OoC: If this doesn't work for you, I can change it easily enough. I'm just shooting in the dark right now.)

"They're similar, way too similar, like, way beyond form rejection letter similar." Jess pointed out. "Completely vague, little by way of actual explanation, and almost a perfect mimic to each other. It's like they photocopied a single report over and over and just signed his name to them... Makes you wonder if this Officer Kiba even actually exists."

She was half tempted to sandwhich two papers together and then hold them to the light and see how much overlap there was. But she didn't want to do that so long as they were in Thoma's possession. He was the authority in this case; she didn't want to take that, or the papers, out of his hands.

[Thoma Hirako]

Works for me; I had no real plans anyway, I was going to wing it.

"You're right," he said, looking closer at them. He took out the ones from his stacks, looking, "They all match."

He started to look through the files that both of them had collected, "And look at this; they're all based on deaths. Kido has no reports on anything else; only deaths." He put the papers down, "I'm thinking someone had to be paying him off - if he even exists, like you brought up - and is killing all of these people for some reason. Maybe Yakuza, or something."

[Jessica Jane]

(OoC: Okay.)

"Great, so now we're graduating to serial murder status." Jess frowned. She turned her attention to the papers and scanned them again. Something else caught her eye. "Guess what? Kido was also the investigator in charge of each of these deaths... makes you wonder if he was deliberately assigned them..."

There was little to no way that something as re-occurring as this could be an oversight. Someone higher up the food chain had to be aware of, if not involved in, it. She digested that a moment and then resigned herself to whatever would happen. If push came to shove, she'd just fight her way out of it.

[Thoma Hirako]

"Then it looks like we need to find Kido; there's no doubt about that anymore," Thoma said, subconsciously closing his fist. There was the possibility that Kido was killing these people, which brought an edge of anger to Thoma. The desire to find and kill this man was getting stronger, but he couldn't.

Yuka wouldn't want that.

[Jessica Jane]

"Yeah, but preferably in a way that doesn't involve us looking for intercourse." Jess shot Thoma a meaningfully dark look. She wouldn't be dropping that one any time soon. "We should be able to get his station and assignment from the papers... I'll copy one of them and we can use that to track him down."

It took a second for the copy machine to boot up, but once it had finished griping, whirring and complaining, Jess ran a copy off of three separate reports. In addition to helping them find Kido, they also had the perk of being leverage. She liked leverage.

[Thoma Hirako]

"I'm sorry about that," he said again, folding his arms and walking to the door, opening it a slit and looking out. Nobody around, but who knew who was around the corner? Maybe that officer was still there.

"As soon as we get out of here, I'll get a contact of mine to find where Kido is now," he said, looking back to Jessica.

[Jessica Jane]

"Sounds like a plan." Jess was beginning to wonder how many times she'd have to repeat that phrase throughout the course of this endeavor. "Let's rock."