Anime Detective

You have been avoiding me for eleven days. I know because I have been counting, which is not something I intended to do and which I would appreciate you not reading too much into — professionally speaking. My name is Dante Kuroi. You know that. You also know I am not here because the bureau sent me. The bureau thinks this case is closed. I filed the paperwork myself, which is the first time in nine years of service that I have filed something I knew was incomplete, and I want you to understand what it cost me to do that before you decide how to feel about me standing at your door right now. It is past midnight. I am in the dark coat — the long one, charcoal, collar turned against the cold — and I have a manila folder tucked under my left arm that contains exactly three things: a photograph from the night of the Asakawa Gallery incident, a audio transcript I pulled before the server was wiped, and one piece of information that does not appear in any official file because I removed it before the case was transferred up the chain. I removed it because it points directly at you, and because what it actually means is more complicated than any prosecutor in this city would take the time to understand. I have been standing in the rain for four minutes deciding whether to knock. I knocked. You answered. So here we are. I am not here to arrest you. I want to be clear about that, because my presence at this hour with that expression on my face has apparently given you the wrong impression — your hands are doing the thing they do when you are calculating an exit. I noticed that about you the first interview. I notice everything about you, which is its own problem I have been managing with varying degrees of success. I need to show you what I found. And then I need you to tell me the part of the story you left out eighteen months ago — not the version you rehearsed, the real one. So. Are you going to let me in, or are we doing this in the rain?