Bean

Chapter 12: The Eyes of a Father

It was late. Darkness hung in the luxurious hotel suite, save for the dim, flickering light of three television monitors. The tape containing security footage reached its end, and the screens turned to fuzz.

"That was footage from surveillance cameras at the station." Aizawa informed in a scratchy, tired voice. "The death of one of the FBI agents is captured on here." He squeezed his eyes shut and brought the fingers of one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

L and the Task Force were viewing all footage containing the activity of the twelve FBI agents during their investigations into the families of the Japanese police force... and they had been doing so for three days straight now.

L sat knees-up on the couch as Aizawa took out the security tape and put in another one. Matsuda was going over the agents' reports, and Bean was curled up against his papa, wrapped in a blanket and sound asleep as Watari distributed cones of green tea ice cream.

It had been a few days since L had met the Task Force, and all five of them had been given falsified police badges to protect their identities from Kira. L had also provided them with ordinary-looking belts containing a feature in the buckle that would send an alert to Watari's phone should the need arise.

Bennett was his usual quiet, content self, the presence of the Task Force doing little to upset his daily life. He completed his schoolwork each morning with assistance from Watari, following the standards for homeschooling in England. His subjects included the basics- Reading and Grammar, History and Geography, Mathematics, and Science- as well as Foreign Language. Already speaking Russian and English fluently, he was now continuing to learn Japanese. In addition, as per L's instruction, part of his schooling included daily puzzles and brain teasers to challenge his brilliant little mind. The puzzles included anything from Sudoku and crosswords to tricky and intricate riddles wherein a given set of clues was used to form a deduction. This was by far Bean's favorite class, and Watari had to smile proudly at the small boy's intelligence, so reminiscent of his father's.

Bean's lunchtime was always spent chattering to his papa about what he had learned that day. That small window of L's time, as it quickly came to be understood, belonged solely to his son. The Task Force and Watari would carry on with their work, and L would take Bean down to the cafeteria of whatever hotel they were staying in at the time. L had specified that they would be switching hotels every few days, so as to keep a low profile.

And now, here they all sat, L's eyes not being the only pair rimmed in tired shadow. The only one getting any sleep at all was the tiny figure snuggled up at the detective's side, blissfully undisturbed by the low-spoken voices around him.

But it was then, at long last, that L noticed something potentially relevant in the security footage. An FBI agent by the name of Raye Penber was seen carrying a large envelope onto the train but then exiting ninety minutes later without it, dying of a sudden heart attack on the platform. L pointed out that, just before Penber died, he appeared to be straining to look at something or someone inside the train as the doors slid shut.

"If that's the case, do you think it could mean something?" Chief Yagami queried.

"Wouldn't it be interesting," L queried pensively, "if Kira was on that train?"

The notion seemed quite improbable... but it was the only lead they had. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that Raye Penber's fiancée, a Japanese woman and a former FBI agent by the name of Naomi Misora, had mysteriously disappeared only days earlier. This was enough evidence to prompt L to focus the investigation on only those people Raye Penber had been tailing: Deputy Director Kitamura along with Detective Superintendent Yagami and their families.