Rina Kudo's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Rina Kudo spread the Okabe file across her desk and knew she had almost nothing. Five years cold. A whole family slain and their house lit on fire, and no name for the person who did it. She had reopened the case on Monday. By Wednesday, half the department was laughing. She had done it anyway, because that clipping had sat in her drawer since she was fourteen, and she had promised the faces in the photo she would find who killed them. Her boss stopped at her desk with a donut in one hand. Daigo Miyata was chief here, a big man the officers called Chief Donut. He did not laugh at her. That was worse. "Kudo," he said. "Accelerant was inconclusive. The coworker gave you tears, not testimony. You've got no lead." He took a bite. "I'm not killing your case. But I can't feed it. Show me something real by Friday, or I move you back to open files." He walked off. Rina stared at the photo. Then she made a plan. If the coworker cried and said nothing useful, then someone else had stayed silent too. She would go where the silence started. Junpei Nori looked up from the next desk. He was new, transferred from Tokyo three weeks ago, and he shared a dead man's desk without complaint. He rarely spoke. When he did, it cut. "You're going to the house," he said. Not a question. "Yes." "Everyone walked that ruin. Found nothing." "Then I'll walk it slower." He studied her a moment. He knew what it was to work a case no one wanted. He stood and grabbed his coat. "I'll drive." The Okabe house was a black skeleton behind torn warning tape. The roof had caved in. Burned timbers lay crossed like broken bones. A crow watched from a leaning beam, still as a photograph. Rina ducked under the tape and moved into what had been the front room. She crouched on the scorched floor and worked her fingers along the seam where a wall had stood. The old report said accelerant was inconclusive. But no one had checked here, low, where the fire started and where liquid would pool. Her glove caught on a warped floorboard. She pried it up. Underneath, protected from the flames, sat a scorched metal can, crushed but intact. She smelled it. The sharp bite of fuel, faint but real, still trapped in the seam. "Nori," she said. Her voice shook. He crouched beside her and looked. The crow lifted off the beam and was gone. "That's a lead," he said. It was more than a lead. It was proof the fire was set on purpose, and proof someone had missed it for five years. Rina had her real thing for Friday. But the smell told her something else. This was no accident, and no random cruelty. Someone chose this family. Now she had to find out why.