Chapter 146: A Life on the Decline

"Are you saying he applied for social security benefits?"

Senichi frowned and glanced at Takagi. "When we went to the social security office, it seems like the person in charge didn't tell us about this."

"Yeah, that's right. He only mentioned that Otsuka-san consulted him and recommended him to seek medical-related work," Takagi replied, puzzled.

"But why didn't he tell us about the deceased applying for social security benefits?" Takagi furrowed his brows in confusion.

"What else could it be? He must have been rejected," Koda interjected with a mocking tone. "Dealing with people like them every day, I've seen it all.

The social security office doesn't have enough funds for assistance, so they just keep refusing, saying things like only people above 65 years old can apply, or if they have parents or siblings who can help, they can't apply and so on.

But in reality, they are eligible to apply under their circumstances. Unfortunately, the people at the social security office find them troublesome too, so they reject them whenever possible.

They didn't tell you because they didn't want you, the police, to know."

Koda shrugged. "Although I gave him a breakdown of his wages, it was pretty much useless.

Sure enough, the next day he came back, pretending to be pitiful and saying that his application was rejected because he didn't meet the requirements. He hoped to continue working with me.

But I was tired of hearing those words, so I refused him outright. If I let him stay, it would be like opening the floodgates. What would I do if more people came begging me to let them stay? So I kicked him out."

After that, Senichi and Takagi finally realized how unreasonable companies like Koda's were.

Not only were they paid the minimum daily wage, but they also had to pay for construction tools before starting work on the construction site.

After calculating the daily transportation expenses, the cost of three meals a day, as well as accommodation and bathing fees at the internet cafe at night, there wasn't much money left at the end of the day.

Every day, they were just running around to survive, unable to save any money from their wages and without the time or energy to find new jobs.

After being fired from the construction site, Yukihiro Otsuka probably used the remaining money to live in the internet cafe while looking for work.

Furthermore, from Koda's words, Senichi and Takagi learned the truth about Yukihiro Otsuka's situation. They understood why the five "resident forms" they found in the mailbox had the previous address.

After becoming homeless, Yukihiro Otsuka had no fixed place to stay and ended up living in the internet cafe every day. However, he still needed a residential address to apply for jobs.

This residential address couldn't be filled in randomly; its most important purpose was for interview results to be sent to the mailbox.

In other words, although Yukihiro Otsuka didn't rent a house anymore, he still used the vacant mailbox of that house.

Now, Senichi and Takagi had basically figured out what had happened to Yukihiro Otsuka before his death.

Starting from about a year ago, Yukihiro Otsuka's life had been continuously declining, falling all the way to the bottom, even becoming a homeless and pitiful person.

After asking their questions and leaving the interrogation room with sighs, they unexpectedly found Uncle Toshiro waiting for them outside the door.

"Result of the phone you asked me to investigate is here," Toshiro brought a stack of documents and said, "This phone is a prepaid phone, and all the deleted call records are incoming calls. There were no outgoing calls. In this mode, it's very cheap if you only receive calls."

"I'm afraid he used public phones to make calls," Senichi skimmed through the information and found various company HR department phone numbers.

"These are probably interview results and notifications," Officer Takagi sighed as he looked at the long list of company names. "With so many attempts, it's unbelievable that not a single one was willing to hire him..."

"Among them, this one is the most noteworthy," Toshiro leaned over and pointed to one of the phone numbers in the documents.

And behind the standard phone number, it belonged to the Crime Prevention Section of the Metropolitan Police Department's Life Safety Division.

Moreover, the phone calls were made on the day before Yukihiro Otsuka's death.

Senichi was quite familiar with the Crime Prevention Section. Previously, while investigating Akemi's arrangements, he had deliberately inquired about some information regarding "selling identity under false pretenses" during a casual conversation.

However, he never expected that this case would be connected to them.

The two of them went to the Crime Prevention Section and found Detective Mitsumatsu, who made the phone calls. After questioning him, they were surprised to learn that Yukihiro Otsuka actually held a second-hand goods trading license.

However, the questioning by Detective Mitsumatsu was just a normal procedure regarding the actual business operations. It was to investigate the actual performance of the business.

Because even after half a year of obtaining the qualification, his store still hadn't made any progress.

To Senichi and Takagi, this information seemed somewhat unusual.

Combining Yukihiro Otsuka's actions over the past year, they hadn't discovered any traces of him running a second-hand store.

Then, Senichi immediately thought that Yukihiro Otsuka might have chosen to sell his identity.

A person who was at the end of their rope would sell the last valuable thing they had to sustain themselves.

Of course, if it was just a fake marriage, it wasn't a big deal. After all, as long as both parties agreed, according to the law, there were married couples on the surface.

No one could jump out and say that their marriage was fake and that they violated the law.

Of course, there were no legal penalties for fake marriages, so it could only be said that they each got what they needed.

So what Senichi had done before was just a simple method, and there was absolutely no illegal activity involved.

But running a second-hand shop was different. This basically fell under tangible forgery, which referred to the act of someone without the authority to create new documents in someone else's name.

The two of them informed the Crime Prevention Section about the possibility of Yukihiro Otsuka selling his identity and they immediately dispatched personnel to investigate.

After patiently waiting for less than half an hour, the Crime Prevention Section personnel brought back a guy named Yamazaki.

According to what Mitsumatsu said, this Yamazaki person had previously been arrested for violating the Second-Hand Goods Trade Act. Therefore, someone with such a criminal record couldn't apply for a second-hand shop business license.

And Yamazaki's second-hand shop business license was applied for in the name of Yukihiro Otsuka, naturally violating the law.

Moreover, the second-hand goods in the shop were all stolen, so the arrest went smoothly.

"Thank you for this time. You've given us a great contribution for free," Mitsumatsu introduced Yamazaki's situation and then looked at the two of them with a smile. "You can go in and question him now as a gesture of gratitude from our side."

"Thank you then," Senichi smiled and expressed his gratitude.

After running around so many places, he really didn't want to run anymore, especially when it was like extracting toothpaste to gather information, and each time, there was only a little bit.

Having someone help bring the suspect back for questioning really made things much easier for him.

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