Cold Case

Inconclusive

MIDORIYA'S POV

"We have nothing." Bakugo groaned as he slammed his coffee mug on the table.

"We don't have nothing." I shrugged. Our interviews didn't go as we wanted them to, but they weren't terrible. The brother has a solid alibi, but the father doesn't.

"The father and kid are each other's alibis. There were no other leads at the time, and they refuse to give us one now." He scoffed. I understand what his boss meant when he said that he was impatient. Investigations like this took time, and they sometimes led nowhere.

"Somebody knows something, and they're going to talk eventually." I reminded. I don't know how to calm him down and give him patience. I'm trying to make him see things through my point of view, but he is one stubborn bastard.

He took a deep breath and tapped his fingers on the table a few times. "Where do we go from here when we don't have leads?"

"We try to poke holes through the alibi's for the father and canvas the neighborhood." He scrunched his nose, something he often does. I can't figure out if he does it when he disagrees with me or when he's thinking. Either way, it's cute.

"How do we do that? It's been almost a decade. How are we supposed to poke holes in something like that? The places he visited probably don't have the same employees." We paused our conversation as the server came over with the coffee to refill our glasses.

"We can get confirmation was the ballpark they claimed they went to. They keep records for up to twenty years. I didn't see anything about that being checked in the original case file." The real question is, where do we start? Only having two people was a struggle since we could only be in one place at once. We're not supposed to go off on our own for safety reasons, so I'm not entirely sure where to go first.

"The weapon was never found, was it?" His eyes were closed, almost like he was trying to remember the file in his mind.

"No. At the time, the officer wrote that it looked like they were killed with a hard frisbee." I scoffed. I'm not sure if it was the examiner or the officers who weren't great at their job ten years ago. Most of the case file didn't make sense, and we tried our best to decipher it.

"A hard frisbee?" Bakugo scoffed.

"Not my words." I took another drink of my coffee and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I need to see if Yamada has anybody else he can send to us to help canvas the neighborhood.

"Do you know what could be considered a "Hard Frisbee?"" Bakugo's fingers stopped drumming on the table.

"A few things, but what are you thinking?"

"That lamp in the living room of her house. Her husband kept glancing at one when we talked to him and his son." My eyes widened in realization. I wasn't paying much attention to our surroundings when we were there. My focus was on Bakugo and how he was adjusting. Once again, my mind wasn't where I needed it to be.

"Let's see if we can poke a hole in their alibi." I grabbed my wallet and threw a few bills on the table.

"Will we get enough for an arrest warrant?" We both stood up and slipped our jackets back on.

"No, but depending on if we can poke a hole in the alibi and what the neighbors say, we might be able to get enough for a search warrant."

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"So the tickets were bought with a credit card in his name, the tickets had his name on them, but they were never scanned?" Bakugo questioned.

"They never made it to the game."

"What time were the tickets bought, and what was her time of death?" He was on the right track. It's not hard to see why his team is the number one private investigation firm. He knows what he's doing. For the most part, anyway.

"That's where it gets interesting. Her time of death was around two in the afternoon, and the tickets weren't bought until four." I closed the file and shoved it down by my feet in my bag.

"So he killed his wife, cleaned up any evidence, then created an alibi?" He asked, mainly to himself.

"The file from the forensic pathologist isn't in here. We need to get that file. The report said she was killed from a blow to the head, but it doesn't show any other injuries she had."

"Are we sure she had other injuries?" I couldn't help the small smile when he said, "we."

"I'm going to assume so." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Yamada. He has to give me another person to help back at the office. Bakugo and I can't do this on our own.

"Hey, Midoriya. How's it going?" He sounded happy. Hopefully, since he was in a good mood, he would be willing to help me out a little.

"Good. We're getting somewhere on one of the cases, but I need help."

"What can I do for you?" He asked.

"We need another person. It's taking us twice as long as it should because we're only one team. We need someone to do some digging back at the office and make phone calls while we're out and about." I talked quickly, a terrible habit I had when I was nervous.

"Done." I paused for a moment, surprised that it didn't take any convincing.

"Done?" I questioned. Bakugo sent me a confused glance, unsure why he agreed so quickly.

"Lesson one, you guys realized that you can't do everything on your own and know when to ask for help." I rolled my eyes. Good to know they have a hidden agenda because that wasn't something we were told we needed to work on.

"Where are you guys heading now?" Another voice asked.

"Aizawa?" Bakugo questioned in confusion. "What's going on?"

"We're working on another case together. Each of you pick someone from your team. They'll work with you guys and us, so pick carefully." They warned. Luckily, we won't need them too much. Probably just to canvas some areas if they're available and do some digging at the office.

"Can we talk it over and give you a call back in a few minutes?" I asked. If we were going to have people working together from our teams, we needed to figure out a good combo.

"Lesson two, working together." Yamada said happily. He's acting like they gave us much of a choice. "Call me back in a few."

"Do we really need to talk it over?" Bakugo scoffed as he parked the car in the parking lot of a café near the neighborhood we were going to.

"I figured we should," I shrugged. "They're going to be working with us for a while, so I want us to be on the same page."

"Do you want us to pick the people who are best for the job or the ones that need more focus in the area?" He asked with a sigh.

"Both. I want to pull Uraraka to get some space between her and Iida. They need to learn to work without each other at some point. That was something we said we could work out together this year." I shrugged. "Plus, Uraraka needs to work on gathering intel instead of interrogating all the time."

"If that's the case, I'll pick Kirishima. He's great at talking to people, but he keeps getting distracted by Sero. He needs to work on the computer stuff, so I think they're the best bet if we want someone capable but willing to improve."

"Alright. I'll text Yamada and tell him we want them to get the forensic file on Aya and see how far they can go back with her husband's credit card purchases. They usually don't keep them after seven years, but maybe we'll get lucky somewhere else."

"Alright, let's get to work then. Hopefully, we can have a good idea about what happened by the end of the day." Bakugo was a completely different person out in the real world than he was in that basement. I'm still deciding which one I like better, but there was no argument that he looked better in his jacket with his badge around his neck.