Part III, Chapter II - The Body

Jane calmed down after a few seconds of what was nearly racism.

"Right, sorry" said Jane

"No need to apologize" I retorted

"I'm pretty sure she does" mumbled Peter "So, what's your name?" he turned to the man.

"Rupert Yamazaki" he answered

"We are detectives and we would like to see everything the cameras recorded from last week"

"Yeah, okay. But, I can only let you peek when the arcade closes by 9:00pm"

"Understood, we will come back later. Come, you two" Peter lead Jane and I back to the arcade. I noticed that Peter's frightened eyes, from seeing Jane earlier, went away. I thought it was because of my presence.

"Shall we grab coffee?" I suggested.

"Actually, " Jane smirked "We haven't used our arcade tokens. What time is it?"

"Quarter to three" said Peter, looking at his wrist watch.

"Oh, awesome, c'mon William, let's play!"

"What?" I asked. "I haven't played a video game since I lost my sister"

"We're here on a case!" Peter reminded. His eyebrows slightly crossed, and his voice strict.

"Yeah, and we have a few hours before we continue" Jane implied. "Also, you're not my dad"

Peter nodded and said nothing. Jane and I ran off and Peter, once again, yelled for us to be careful. Jane was the first to decide which game to play, she chose the crane game upon seeing her favorite video game character- Blinky the ghost from Pac-Man- only to lose three times and threatened me to choose a game. I chose a shoot-'em-up.

"Have you and your sister ever played a video game?" Jane asked.

"Of course" I answered "We played so many video games and played all day, non-stop"

I finally bumped into a game over screen and we walked to our next game chosen by Jane.

"Of course" I continued "She was always player 2 because she was the younger sibling"

"You big brothers can be too cruel sometimes"

"Enough about me, we keep talking about me, let's talk about you. Did you have any sibling?"

"No, actually, I don't remember anything from before I started working as a detective. Although, my former psychiatrist said I had an accident involving a run-and-gun"

" 'Former'? What happened to him-slash-her?"

"I had a mental breakdown and scared him away. None of it matters" she smirked.

We continued to play arcade games for an hour and had a really great time. The young people did not seem to have cared that we shoved them off their games when we ran out of tokens, except this one lad who kicked Jane between the legs because he thought she was a boy and got him calling for his mother.

Hours have passed and the arcade closed by 9:00pm. Peter returned eating a corndog "Did you kids have fun?" he teased

"You're only calling us kids because you're old" Jane sassed.

"Older than you by two years. Don't know about this guy, though" Peter tilted his head to my direction. "Let's go"

We went back to the security room and Rupert permitted us to look at footages from last week. All the footages were in greyscale with a high gamma level. To our astonishment, there was indeed David McCoy playing games and treating the youngsters. We fast-forwarded to the day yesterday. He came everyday by 6:00 or 6-43pm and left by 8:30 or 8:40pm. Nothing was out of the ordinary and he never touched Polybius when it respawned the day before yesterday. In the last footage of him he came and left with a box of pretzels.

"By the way" mentioned Rupert "When I was on my way to this room one day, I heard him talk about death and how he awaits the Grimm Reaper. He claimed he had nothing to lose"

"I think" said Peter "We have all the information we need, thank you. Our answer is in that box of pretzels"

The three of us walked out and discussed everything in a bar.

"Why a bar?" I asked "I think better with coffee!"

"Give this man a coffee, bartender!" yelled Peter. "You have to think fast"

The bartender pushed my cup of coffee across the bar to make it slide to me. Thanks to my incredible reflexes I reached out my hand fast enough to accidentally push it away and make it fly off the wall to shatter the glass and spill the coffee.

"Not that fast!" cried Peter. "Get this man another one" out came another cup of coffee, this time it was handed to me gently.

"So," Jane interrupted "What do you guys think of the man's death? I personally think it was suicide"

"Neither suicide nor murder" I exclaimed

"Really?" exclaimed Peter "How so? I think it was murder"

"Okay, we will explain nonsensical bullshit one by one. You first Jane"

"Well" began my friend "His favorite snack was pretzels and he wanted it to be the last snack he consumed. In the camera footage, I noticed when he came in with the box of pretzels, his walking was slightly limped which means he was in a hurry. He just couldn't wait to die, so when he arrived home and ate his last pretzel, he made sure his appendix would burst"

"What?"

"I haven't told you about this small paper I found in his pocket with a doctor's handwriting that said he was diagnosed with Appendicitis?" She pulled out the mentioned paper from her pocket which had no writing, only squiggly lines.

"How'd you know his diagnosis by the squiggly lines?"

"Those aren't squiggly lines, stupid. Look closely, from the darkest ink to the lightest, as you can see it goes up and down from the darkest ink which means the doctor wrote an A, and upon the lightest part on the right you can see the top parts of T, I, and S. It's a doctor's handwriting. The letters are obvious!"

"I never thought somebody could actually read doctor. I am impressed"

"Now let's hear why you think it's neither"

"Peter first"

"If you meddling kids insist" said peter "I saw, on the box of pretzels, the name of a company- SebastianBoron- not listed in Idio Town. All official companies here are listed alphabetically by our Government for safety inspections. From A to Z. But no such Company in this town starts with the letter S. So, theoretically, he bought that box of pretzels illegally not knowing that the Pretzels inside were poisoned and whoever sold it to him is a serial killer. If i'm right, then we'll have a murderer on our hands. All right, you have heard my story and we have heard Jane's, that leaves you, Detective Habitat"

"All right" I began "It was not murder, and it was not suicide"

"I'm sorry. What?"

"Shush" said Jane.

"You mixed up which letters were not listed in the list of official companies" I continued " 'SebastianBoron' is an actual pretzel company in this town, in fact one of the stores is right infront of my house. Well, it's like, the only SebastianBoron store in Town, their ratings are low. The letters that are not on the list are I, H, and K. David knew where to buy his favorite snack. After buying one yesterday he saved it for after his playtime at the arcade. He ate his pretzels at home but, upon eating too fast because he loved pretzels too much, he choked on one and died. His death was an accident. But, atleast, like Rupert said, he was ready to die anytime and did not give a fuck about any fucking thing anymore"

"He didn't say the last part" mentioned Jane.

"Only one way to find out which if us is correct" said Peter "We shall go to the morgue and review the autopsy report" he stood up "I will see you two there tomorrow after breakfast" then took off.

"Hey, Jane" I called "If i'm right you give me your next car, and if you're right i'll give you 600 in cash"

"Deal!" yelped my friend.

The next morning we gathered together at the entrance of the morgue. Peter, leaning back on his car, was the first to arrive, Next was me, and then Jane.

"You were right" she pointed out "It was a hearse, not a cadillac"

We followed Peter in and asked for the autopsy report of David McCoy.

"Oh, you're in the morgue" said the autopsy "His body is being shipped overseas"

"Who the fuck would ship a corpse overseas?" I asked. "Where is the giant boat-"

"Ship" Peter corrected.

"Where is the shit now?"

"Over at Barber Harbor" claimed the autopsy. "It's scheduled to leave by 10. The cargo ship's name is C. That's it, just a simple letter C"

The three of us ran off into Peter's car, Jane sat next to Peter, and reached the harbor by 9:50. We could have arrived earlier if it were not for the damn traffic.

"That's a pretty big ship for a cargo ship" exclaimed Peter. "We won't get up there in time"

"Let me take the wheel" insisted Jane. Peter had known her long enough to not let her drive. Jane, however, was very determined and stepped on Peter's foot resting on the acceleration pedal. He screamed in pain and we drove off.

"Not again, Jane!" I cried "I'm gonna die for a man who theoretically choked on a fucking pretzel!"

"And a virgin" mentioned Jane

"Shut up! You're a virgin too!"

"Why do people always bring that up when death is involved?" complained Peter "It doesn't even matter!"

She grabbed the wheel and turned for an unused metal platform diagonal on a rock and used it as a platform to get to the deck of the ship. Peter and I screamed, but Jane stayed calm. We landed on the deck on all four wheels.

"Oh, thank goodness" exclaimed Peter "You did not destroy my car like you did on all of my previous cars"

Jane ran outside to a woman who worked for the harbor "Postpone your travels" she demanded.

We examined the corpse of David and, a closer look at his neck and an x-ray footage, confirmed my theory that he indeed choked on a pretzel. There was no pretzel stuck, but traces showed that, it went down too slowly causing him to choke to death. His throat, however, was damaged.

"I think," I said "instead of going through what we went through. We could've just gone to the morgue to check his stupid corpse!"

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「「Now now, defective, that's just putting away all the fun」」- Cupcake