The Raven and The Emerald

Chapter 9: The Start of Surveillance

(Nine Days Later):

(L POV):

"Okay, so... Aizawa-san, you keep searching for connections between the 11 FBI agents and those heart attack victims, while Yagami-san and Matsuda-san concentrate on what Raye Penber was up to."

"Okay."

"I'm on it." A couple of moments later, Watari's phone rang.

"Yes... yes... Please wait a moment." Watari looked over to L and covered the lower half of the phone.

"Ryuzaki. It's from Ukita-san at the other office. He says that he's on the line with someone who holds interesting information."

"All right. Tell them the number for line 5 then ask the person to call back using it." L turned towards Matsuda who was sitting on the couch.

"Matsuda-san, you can turn your cell phone back on. That is, please turn it on."

"Huh? Oh, okay." Just then, his cell phone started to ring.

"Hey!" L then snatched the phone out of Matsuda's hands and held it up to his ear with his thumb and pointer finger.

'...I swear..." Matsuda thought, his eyes twitching slightly.

"Yes, this is Suzuki, head of the information processing unit for the Kira case. Raye Penber's fiance?! Heard that name before..." Watari quickly typed something into his computer and spun it around, showing L. There was a picture of a young beautiful woman with long black hair, and light pale skin. Under the picture was written, "Joined FBI in September 2001 and attained the rank of a special agent with unusual speed for a woman. Had arrested perpetrator of the 'Los Angeles BB serial murder case' on August 22, 2002." L gasped slightly.

'Ha! So it's her. She's from the Los Angeles BB murder case. That's right. She was working under me. I guess she must have come to Japan with her fiance.' L hung up the phone and handed it back to Matsuda.

"When Raye Penber entered Japan his fiance was with him. She was staying with him in his hotel. And the day after Penber died, she went missing."

"I'm sure anyone in her situation would be pretty depressed, don't you think?" Masuda claimed.

"She killed herself..." Aizawa whispered.

"No. The Naomi Misora I knew had great inner strength. And she was an excellent FBI agent. I think she'd try to go after Kira." The room was silent until L started speaking again.

"She was with Raye Penber... She might have known something..."

'In which case, did Kira get to her first...?'

"Everyone, at this point forward on I'd like to focus our investigation on only those people who Raye Penber was tailing. In particular, he was assigned to three police officers and those closest to them. Penber reported there were 'no grounds for suspicion' for any of them, but... nevertheless, I'd like to place wiretaps and secret cameras in all three households."

"W-what?! This is Japan! That's completely illegal!" Matsuda cried.

"Yeah...That's going too far Ryuzaki..." Aizawa agreed, "If that got out, we'd have a civil rights disgrace on our hands. We'll all be fired. Not just fired, arrested too."

"So you wouldn't risk your jobs? I thought you were risking your lives for this case." Aizawa quieted down and stopped talking.

"Who were the three personnel that Penber was following?" Matsuda went over to the stack of papers on his desk and shifted through them.