"Asano family, huh?” she thinks about the name as he takes a short drag. “I feel like I heard that name before. But I digress. So, you just need a copy of the autopsy report, yeah?”

“You don't need to print a new copy. Just show me the copy you have and I'll scan it myself.”

“Before I give it to you, there's still something we need to discuss,” the doctor looks up with greedy, expectant eyes. “How important is this report to you?”

“How much do you want?”

Natalie leans back in her chair again to tap the index finger of her free hand against her chin and twist her face into a comical, contemplative scowl. She's not keen on taking this transaction especially seriously.

“Fifty,” she announces with a non-committal shrug.

“Really?” Devin speaks up in surprise at the charitably low demand.

“The more you ask me to step outside the boundary of my profession, the higher the price. Asking me to falsify reports wouldn't have been cheap in the slightest – just ask Bessho. However, if all you're asking me to do is just forget for thirty seconds that autopsy reports pertaining to criminal litigation isn't public record, then that's not much of a task, is it? It's more like... an oversight.”

Atreus is somewhat shocked at her aloof attitude, but doesn't complain at the bargain he's getting. “I only have twenties, so have an extra ten on the house,” he says as he retrieves three twenty-dollar bills and places them on the desk.

“Well, ain't I lucky?” Natalie grins as she begins shuffling through various papers on her desk to collect ten sheets that make up Camlin's autopsy report. She neatly organizes them and slides them to the opposite end of her desk, towards Atreus. “Everything you need to know about William Camlin's untimely passing. Knock yourself out.”

Atreus wastes no time taking out his phone and holding it above the report to take quick, perfectly legible and pixel-perfect vector graphic scans of each individual page.

“If you don't mind me asking,” Devin chimes in again, “does Dr. Wiles know you do this? Cut deals with the Sanada-gumi?”

“He does,” the doctor confesses with a surprising lack of hesitance. “But as long as he makes sure he keeps his mouth shut about it, I make sure the footage of him beating his dick to a thirteen-year-old girl's dead body doesn't see the light of day.”

Atreus and Devin glance at each other with complex expressions of quiet acknowledgment that they just heard something perturbing, but it's ultimately not their business. Atreus continues copying the report; the entire process takes less than a minute. When he's done, he quickly double-checks the results to make sure everything's there at a glance. After he confirms it, he places his phone back in his pocket.

“Thank you,” the augmented man monotonically expresses his gratitude along with a slight bow.

“No problem. Good luck finding the killer, Mr. Watanabe,” Natalie gives a final word of encouragement before they turn to leave. “And as a gesture of good will, I'll erase the footage of your arrival from the lobby security cameras.”

The two men silently make their way back to said lobby, where the anxious receptionist follows their exit with frightened eyes. When they're outside again, they cut through the parking lot and begin to walk back around the corner and out of the field of view of the police station down the road.

“If I die in the near future from some job related to the clan,” Devin speaks up, “please make sure my body isn't brought there. I really don't want my reports messed with or some old dude jerking off on my corpse.”

“I think you're safe from being jerked off on as long as you're not a thirteen-year-old girl,” Atreus cracks a dark joke as he takes his phone from his pocket and purchases another ride. “Let's head over to Takahashi's place and look at this report in peace. I'm still hungry.”

“Yeah, same here.”

Soon, another silver, logo-covered taxi picks the two yakuza detectives up and takes them back up north into Kyoba limits, dropping them off at Takahashi's Donuts & Coffee, which sees only mild activity at this time of day, allowing for a quiet opportunity to pore over the ten respectably dense pages of Will Camlin's autopsy results.

They enter the humble dessert cafe, its magenta and white interior and subtle 1950s diner-inspired motif providing a clear contrast in character from the bleak sterility of the coroner's office, complete with a television near the back playing a local news station. Their entrance also brings a chime of the door's bell, drawing the attention of stocky, middle-aged Mr. Takahashi himself, who is behind the display of vast quantities of donuts. He looks up with a hopeful gaze at his potential customers.

“Oh, hey boys!” the shop owner welcomes them with fervor in his gruff voice. “You're here a bit earlier than usual. Want to chat or to eat?”

“Eat, for sure,” Atreus immediately answers as he approaches the counter. “Can I get one mint crème peanut butter and chocolate donut, one classic glazed, and one triple chocolate?” He looks over to the three-tier beverage counter next to the donuts display, and leans towards it to grab a bottle of water, “And one bottle of water.”

“Sure,” Takahashi eagerly grabs a folded paper bag, whips it open with one hand, and uses tongs to collect each donut from the display with the speed and delicacy of a man who's been handling the delicious circular desserts for many years. “Remember, the mint and peanut butter donuts are only around for two weeks, so enjoy as many as you can before I switch them out for another recipe,” he comments as he folds the bag closed and places it on the counter.

Takahashi's Donuts & Coffee has an extensive default selection of donuts available for purchase every single day, but the big thing that helped the modest shop succeed and grow were the unique, heavily experimental donuts Takahashi made from scratch. For the limited window of two weeks, a new concoction is released. On the occasion he doesn't have a brand new creation ready, he'll simply bring back an older one. Thus, if you miss out on a specific original donut, you might have to wait months before you have another chance to try it. With this system, there's always a guaranteed boost in sales in the first few days of every new fortnight.

“Thanks, oji-san. Do you know what you're going to make next?” Atreus asks while he takes the bag and places his phone's screen over the code reader to pay for the order.

“I have a few ideas swimming around in my head; one of them's a brand new concept I've been sitting on for a while, but I'm not sure it's quite ready yet,” the donut master teases with a sly smile.

“I hope it has strawberries in it this time,” Devin gripes while approaching the counter. “It's been three months since the last time you brought out any strawberry-flavored donuts. You're killing us strawberry lovers out here, old man.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Keep up your whining and I'll just whip out my raisin-based recipes instead,. They're a hit with the elderly,” Takahashi lectures with a stiff wag of his finger. “So what do you want?”

“Chocolate caramel, plain blueberry, and a frappuccino.”

“Alright,” once again, the shop owner deftly whips open a bag, and places the selected donuts inside and places the bag on the counter. “I'll holler when the frappuccino's done.”

“Thanks, oji-san,” Devin gives his gratitude as he pays via his phone, as well.

With their orders in hand, the two gangsters decide to take their seats at a small, two-person table in the back corner of the seating area, as far away as possible from the entrance, to minimize any possibility of the few other customers overhearing what they're about to discuss. Atreus rests his phone on the tabletop with the screen facing up. Using the device's folding display, he's able to enlarge the screen to tablet size, fitting a full page within the boundaries of the phone's face, and flip back and forth between each page with ease. In the chance that it's still not adequate, he can use the holographic display to project an even larger page above the surface of the phone, though considering the sensitivity of the nature of the documents, that wouldn't be ideal.

As he begins to skim through the detailed descriptions of Camlin's corpse, the two men grab napkins from the holder at the edge of the table and set their first donuts on them like makeshift plates. Atreus chooses the temporarily available mint crème-filled chocolate donut with peanut butter glaze, and Devin decides on the plain, glazeless blueberry.

“See anything interesting?” Devin asks in a low volume as the stuffs his blueberry donut into his eager maw.

Atreus swallows a mouthful of his own donut and nods lightly, “Right off the bat, it says he was shot three times – twice in the chest, once in the head. No signs of a physical altercation; he wasn't beaten or choked or anything like that.”

“Killer must've known what he was doing, then. We might be dealing with a professional.”

“If that ends up being true, then what the hell did Camlin do or know that would require a hit to be put on him?” Atreus asks aloud as he takes another bite.

“Does it say what he had on him when his body was found?”

“It does. Apparently only his wallet was with him.”

“Seriously?” Devin manages to barely enunciate with a mouthful of donut. He chews a few more times and swallows, “Just his wallet? Not even his phone?”

“No phone. Just a black faux leather wallet that contained thirty-seven dollars, a debit card, credit card, ID, copy of his social security card, and a family portrait. Nothing out of the ordinary was found on him at all according to this,” Atreus takes another mint crème-filled bite.

“So what's the implication of that?”

“Not much. It means he was either killed while he had nothing but his wallet on him, or he did have something else that was stolen before the cops showed up. We don't really have any way to know what he could've had on him if it's the latter.”

“Don't tell me this report might be a dead end, too,” Devin gripes as he takes one last bite of his glazeless blueberry donut.

“Well, I just barely started reading, so give me a minute and I might find something substantial about the gunshot wounds.”

“Devin, your frappuccino's done,” Takahashi calls out while placing on the counter a tall plastic cup of light brown frappuccino topped off with a mountain of cream and chocolate syrup. A magenta straw effortlessly stands up and off-center due to the thickness of the cream.

Devin stands up and approaches the counter to received it, “Thanks, oji-san.”

“You boys staying out of trouble?” the donut craftsman strikes up some casual small talk. “Don't think I didn't notice those swollen knuckles,” he points and raises his eyebrows like a concerned parent, referring to Devin's right hand, which is still somewhat puffy from the poorly thought-out punch he threw while collecting money the day before.

“It was only a little scuffle, no one got hurt,” Devin waves the older man's suspicions off.

“I know you have your obligations to get your hands dirty sometimes, but don't go too far just to put food in your mouths, alright? I told you about my time in college, but did I ever tell you about one of my college classmates who barely had enough money to feed himself?” Takahashi asks while leaning forward over the counter, already committed to telling a story.

Devin sighs and gives a tired glare at the middle-aged man, “No, I don't think so.” He listlessly sips his frappuccino from the straw and prepares to listen to the presumably lengthy tale. Atreus continues minding his own business reading the autopsy report without even so much as giving a glance up.

“Well, I had a neighbor in my dorm – a junior,” Takahashi furrows his brow and looks up at the ceiling as he reminisces. “Poor guy was both a full-time student, and also had a full-time job to pay for both tuition and room and board. Unfortunately, most of his money went towards tuition and room, but not so much 'board', you know?”

“Wait, weren't you in the same situation?” Devin interjects with a question.

The shop owner shakes his head. “No, I had a scholarship that covered tuition completely. I took a part-time job to cover room and board. I had it rough, but not as bad as him.”

“You didn't take out a student loan?”

“Hell no, I didn't,” Takahashi declares with a scoff. “I've heard more than enough of my fair share of horror stories about those things to know to avoid them. Anyways, this guy was always busy – five classes and forty hour of work per week. The poor bastard barely had any social life at all because of it. He always looked like a lifeless shell every time I saw him during the weekday, right? I was curious about how he was able to feed himself when damn near every penny he made went to other things, so I asked him about it. You know what he said?”

“What?” Devin asks with a mouthful of caramel-glazed chocolate donut, which he washes down with another sip of his frappuccino.

“He said he's friends with a bakery employee, and that every Monday and Friday night, he'd go over there after they closed, and take home a trash bag full of their unsold food.”

“Is that allowed?”

Takahashi shakes his head with a slight scowl, “'Course not! But do you think the employee gets paid enough to care about where the food goes after it's thrown away? Even if it weren't a thing he organized with his friend? I sure as hell wouldn't have cared.”

“Is that even sanitary? Placing it in the trash before it gets picked up?”

“They had their own little procedure. The guy working there would triple-bag the food for security and tie it closed with a certain color bag tie,” he explains with a stiff index finger pointed upward and his head leaning forward as if elaborating on a world-class heist plan. “Then he'd tell my classmate what color tie to look out for, and he'd grab it and go home. Each bag had anywhere from ten to thirty pounds of food.”

“Do all bakeries and cafes get rid of huge amounts of food like that? Even yours?” Devin inquires, his eyes narrowed in suspicion before taking another bite of his second donut.

“Yup. Every night, we have anywhere between twenty to forty donuts left, sometimes more,” Takahashi admits with no hesitation. “But I, personally, don't throw any of them in the dumpster – I have a huge problem with wasting food, no matter what it is. If something's still good enough to be eaten, then it should be eaten.”

“What do you do with 'em, then?”

“I'm friends with the manager of the homeless shelter and food bank downtown. He picks them up every night after we close to serve them the next day. I also take a few home for myself, too,” the donut maker confesses with a nonchalant shrug. “There are also occasions where I donate them to schools who are holding events the next day. Every kid loves a good donut.”

“Fair point. I didn't know you were so charitable,” Devin comments before taking one last bite of his second donut.

“What do you mean you 'didn't know'?” Takahashi grows a bit irate all of a sudden. “I gave both of you donuts on the house all the time when you were youngsters – way before you became some chinpira – so you know about my charitability first-hand! Don't act surprised at me being nice!”

“Alright already, oji-san, I was just playing around,” Devin lifts his hands, palms forward in a clear gesture of surrender.

“Hey,” Atreus calls out. During Takahashi and Devin's back and forth, not only had he continued reading, but he also ate through two of his donuts and is nearly done with the third. “I found something."

“What's up?"