Connections are Found [Tokyo Metropolitan Police]

"Hmm, that might be a good idea. First though, I'd still like to check out the first wife's house. I tried to call earlier, and it seems like she's out. Wanna give it a shot?"

Bayle finished her broth and slammed the bowl down. " Let's go!"

"Yes, let's!" Guy agreed, and they started off. Tsuriko's house was fairly close, so it wasn't a long walk, half an hour at most. On their way, as they walked down a sidewalk lined with trees, Bayle spotted someone familiar.

Half-hidden behind a tree, Li was staring off in a different direction with a strange look on his face. However, while they were still some distance away, he noticed the pair approaching and quickly started off across the street toward an alleyway.

Bayle wasn't letting him get away that easily. " Hey, Li! How's it going?" she shouted in chinese as she waved both of her arms. It would have been impossible not to hear her, she could scream over the sound of a squadron firing, and she made sure her voice reached his ears.

"Ah!" Guy winced, startled as Bayle screamed across the street at the man. Nevertheless, Li pretended not to hear Bayle and disappeared into the alleyway.

"Who was that?" asked Guy.

" A recurring character. He was at the widow's house cleaning for her. I wonder what he's doing here...maybe she talked him into coming to look for her cat too. His name is Li Sheunshen." she resolved to do a background check on him when they got back to the Agency, or at her house if Guy didn't have the equipment. For now, she continued towards the ex-wife's abode.

"Hmm... Yet another mystery that needs to be solved," Guy decided. "I'll definitely help you out with that however I can!"

When they finally reached the mansion, what they saw was truly appalling. The entire property was surrounded by garbage. Hundreds of bags littered the front and side lawns, and the smell of rotten food permeated the air. Large bottles of water lined the front entrance. The entire property looked entirely uncared for!

"Oh geez!" exclaimed Guy, holding his nose. "What's this all about?! Ah, I think I've heard of this before, something called a 'garbage house.' I think it's something like what Americans call 'hoarding.'"

"Yeah, they call it hoarding." she replied scrunching her nose up. "I really don't understand why people do this but...oh well. We need to check it out anyway. I wish I hadn't worn these clothes..." she began to pick her way through the garbage. "Here kitty kitty kitty," she sang out occasionally.

"Yeah, how can anyone live in this sort of place?" He followed Bayle up to the door, which was completely unlocked. When they opened the door, it was completely dark inside, but the smell of garbage was even worse in here. Garbage and junk littered the hallways and stairways, and it was difficult to even walk through the house.

As they walked, Guy began to grow uneasy. "Really... can someone live in this sort of place? It's intolerable..."

Suddenly, though, he stopped and pulled on Bayle's sleeve, putting his finger to his lips. He pointed through a side door, which was partially cracked open. Inside was the dining room, and on the table, a black cat was laying calmly, facing away from them, its tail waving back and forth.

Bayle smiled and reached into her pocket carefully, pulling out a tin of anchovies. She was hoping their smell would outsmell the garbage. She popped the tab and rolled the tin back as carefully as she could and held it out at arms length as she carefully picked over the garbage. "Mi-chaan~. Here kitty~" she called trying to imitate the widow's voice.

The cat instantly perked up and turned around, and Bayle got a good look at its purple eyes and red collar. It didn't seem totally interested in the anchovies, though, instead growling slightly and jumping off the table toward the window. It slipped, though, as it fell into some garbage, and struggled for a few seconds.

"Ah, it's trying to run!" called Guy, darting into the room to block its way to the window.

Bayle didn't want to, but it needed to be done. She leaped over the garbage, vaulted over the table and pounced onto the cat. She would have to shower extra hard when she got home...

The cat struggled out of the garbage at the last moment, slipping through Bayle's arms, and headed out toward the hallway, taking a sharp left. As Bayle pursued, Guy quickly shrugged off his jacket and tossed it at Bayle. "Here, take this!" he managed to scream just before tripping face first into some garbage.

Out in the hallway, the cat ran to a set of double doors as Bayle closed in, but suddenly stopped, rocking back as it stared through the doors. It was as if it were shocked at something.

"You son of a bitch!" Bayle yelled at the cat as it escaped. She quickly recovered just in time to easily catch Guy's coat and laugh at him as he fell into the garbage while she bounded after the cat. When she saw it pause at the double doors she didn't take the time to think about what it would have seen that made it stop. She took this opportunity to leap onto it, trapping it in Guy's jacket and wrapping it up tight. "Ha! You think you could get away so easily Mr. Kitty?" she said with a dark chuckle. After making sure the cat was secure, she looked through the double doors.

While the cat struggled in vain to escape from the jacket, the bell on its collar slipped loose and rolled through the double doors. Inside, Bayle could clearly see a skeleton.

It was clothed in a nightgown, its head half buried in garbage, though a pool of dried blood surrounded it. A few bits of rotten flesh still hung onto it, but it was clearly very old.

Luckily, dead bodies didn't scare her. Especially when they were that old. "Matsu-saan~ I found a body!." She called towards where she'd seen him last. She stepped in and carefully retrieved the cat's bell. As she waited for Guy to get here she held the jacket up to her face and whispered. " A sad day for you Mr. Cheshire cat. If you'd cooperated, you could have had a nice anchovy meal."

After struggling for a few more seconds, the cat finally stopped struggling, instead letting out what seemed like a resigned growl. A few moments after that, Guy extracted himself from the dining room and followed Bayle, peeking in the door after her. His face lost some color, but he didn't seem quite as bothered by it, either.

"M-My goodness... Is this Toshiko? What should we do?"

"Call the police, I would assume." Bayle dug out her phone and began to dial. "Also, I have bad news, this isn't the cat we were looking for..." she said putting the phone up to her ear.

"Really?! Damn it, after we came all this way... Should we let it go then?"

The phone rang, and was picked up shortly after. "Tokyo Metropolitan Police."

" Hello! It seems I just can't stay away from the dead lately. While on the case for a missing cat I seemed to have stumbled upon a dead woman in a house full of garbage." she gave her name and the address she was at as the police officer on the other line prompted her and was assured they'd send someone over. " Well, they're on their way. Let's wait outside." she said picking over the garbage again to get to the slightly fresher air in the yard. "And no, I will not be letting it go. I think this is the cat that was talked to me."

"Oh, I see... Well, I hope you can get it to talk some more, then," Guy said curiously as he looked at the bundled up jacket, which had long stopped moving. "A talking cat is a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

Minutes later, Guy was shocked to see a swarm of police cars arrive on the scene, with one ambulance accompanying them. The crew of the ambulance immediately rushed inside with masks to extract the body, accompanied by several crime scene investigators and officers, but the rest of the officers surrounded the pair of detectives. Lastly, Kirihara emerged from a police car, wearing a worried expression on her face as she approached Bayle.

"We meet once again, Ms. Falain. Funny how things keep bringing you around so many bodies."

"Well, you can't try and blame me for this one. It's been dead for awhile. Plus!" she said holding up Guy's jacket. "I have found the talking cat. I don't know what it was doing here, but it hasn't been speaking. It probably won't either, even if it actually could talk...if I were it I wouldn't give myself away in front of so many people." She shook the jacket a little, beginning to worry a bit over it's lack of movement.

The movement caused the cat to spring back to life, yowling and struggling inside the jacket.

Kirihara raised an eyebrow when she looked at it, before turning back to Bayle. "Be that as it may, it's some luck to even stumble across a long dead body. Nevertheless, you do realize you were trespassing on private property, right? The death of the owner doesn't really change that."

Bayle immediately switched to her offensive intimidating manner, suddenly becoming serious. " We didn't come here to trespass, we came here to talk to her. That's called visiting, if you aren't aware. Sometimes people do that. If that doesn't work well enough for you, I can give you several other reasons to be here completely legally: 1) we saw the garbage and we were concerned, knowing that an old woman lives here 2) We have good reason to believe this woman stole a cat that we have been hired to find, therefore have the right to investigate her house or 3) I came here to buy this place. Speaking of which, it actually does matter how long she's been dead. If she hasn't made payments on the house for too long, it might be foreclosed. In that case the house has defaulted to whatever bank she chose to work with and the punishment for that isn't really much but a slap on the wrist. Especially if I'm coming prospectively. Now, Miss Kirihara, which reason would you like to write down in your report?" Bayle reflexively moved her hand to her hip, even though she wasn't carrying any guns today.

Kirihara was unswayed. "Neither concern for garbage or a stolen cat gives you the right to enter private property without permission. And as you so helpfully pointed out, it could now be owned by the bank, which still renders it private property. No need to lecture me, Ms. Falain, I know how the law works." She tried her best not to let her temper get the better of her. "However, that is not while I'm here. You are not going to be questioned again, but I am here to accompany crime scene investigation. I must ask that you not leave until we have extracted the body."