...
(I was an attending ME on this scene, this actually happened, and most of the dialogue happened.)
...
The flies were already swarming. Three hours on the hot pavement of summer in Tokyo had baked the pulverized flesh, releasing the chemical equivalent of a dinner bell, and the air was now alive with buzzing, whizzing flies. Though what remained of the torso was now covered with a sheet, there was still much exposed tissue for scavengers to feast on. Bits of gray matter Nd other identifiable parts were dispersed in a radius of thirty feet. A skull fragment had landed in a second-story flower box, and clumps of bloodied muscle had adhered to the nearby cars.
Detective Roronoa Zoro had always possessed a strong stomach, but even he had to pause, eyes closed, fists clenched, angry at himself for this moment of weakness. His partner, Detective Portgaz D. Ace, had already tossed up his breakfast in humiliating view of the public, and was currently sitting in a police cruiser with the AC cranked on. Zoro could not afford to lose against nausea, but he had succumbed to the sweltering heat, and had removed his blazer. He was assaulted on all fronts, the smells, the flies, and the humidity.
Loud voices drew his attention and Zoro looked to the right to see the Medical Examiners walking over. Newly promoted lead ME Trafalgar Law was walking towards him with his usual air of "I'm a badass, fear me", while his assistant Tré Suijouki shuffled behind him, yawning and rubbing her eyes.
"Late night, doc?" Zoro asked the girl, and Tré nodded, her eyes widening a little as she took in the scene.
"Yeah-" she stifled a yawn behind her hand. "Went to bed at three-fortyfive or so-"
"Because you wanted to watch the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie." Law interjected. The dark haired man looked up as an angry voice rang out.
"I've got a sales conference, okay, and I'm an hour late already! Now you've got you're fucking police tape wrapped all around my car and you're saying I can't drive it?"
Head director Smoker was standing in front of a civilian who apparently wasn't too thrilled about the accident.
"It's a crime scene." Smoker said. "Did you see anything, or hear something?"
"Same thing everyone else did." The man replied.
"A loud bang."
"Yeah, at seven-thirty. I was just getting outta the shower. Looks out the window, there he was. Asshole driver came tearing around the corner like a bat out of hell."
Smoker sighed. He hated dealing with hit-and-runs. With a groan, he dismissed the other man and walked up to the patrol cars. Zoro rose an eyebrow.
"What's up?"
"Let the rookies handle this, you all take that call from Shinjuku." He ordered, and Zoro walked off to his car, while Law rolled his eyes.
"There was absolutely no point in our being here, then?"
Smoker pulled a cigar out of his jacket and lit it. "Not really, but fucking with you this early put a smile on my face."
Tré stalked back to her car and slammed the door as Law flipped off their newly appointed boss. Ever since Rob Lucci had lost his goddamn mind and went around gutting foreigners, Smoker had taken over, and they'd eventually found the bastard in a rundown shack in the middle of the Minamori forest a few miles out of Tokyo's city limits. He was now held in a solitary cell on the island prison of Kurata.
Tré stuck her key into the ignition and stopped for a moment, lifting her shirt up to reveal the scar on her lower abdomen where Lucci had tried to cut out the essential part of her anatomy that made her female. Her eyes grew solemn and she frowned at the memories. She still had nightmares, would wake up screaming, tears pouring down her face.
She blinked rapidly and looked up to see tapping at her window.
"What?" She asked as she rolled it down.
Law's eyes gave her a once-over and then sighed. "Go home."
Tré shook her head repeatedly. Law had handled the ordeal better than she was, and the emotional toll it took on her ruined her focus.
"I'm fine-"
Law opened the door and forced her into the passenger side. "Then why are you crying?" Tré frowned, having not realized this fact. She looked at Law's hands. Where thick scars knotted his palms.
"Don't think of them as victimizing injuries." He put the car in drive and gunned it, following after Zoro and Ace. "That's a battle scar, woman. You're a tiger who earned her goddamn stripes."
...
The Shinjuku patrolman posted in front of the house didn't recognize Ace or Zoro and stopped the two at the street entrance, but before he could question them, Captain Tashigi pulled them through.
"How many victims?" Ace asked.
"One. They're getting ready to move him out now."
The two were led inside of a neighborhood where birds chirped and the air smelled like sweet flowers. The landscaping was immaculate, and the houses were something out a 17th century Victorian.
"So this is where the upper-class part of Tokyo resides." Ace grumbled. The richest member in the department was Tré, but her lodgings was a simple penthouse in Tokyo, down the street from the office. She actually had enough room for seven people, and more often than not, friends from work would stay with the girl.
Ace dimly wondered when the next monthly 80's movie marathon was, but his attention was directed to the door as Law and Tré came through.
"What've you got?" Law asked.
Zoro and the others followed them into a hallway adorned with pictures. Framed black and white photographs; but not of family poses, stark images of a female in nude, the faces obscured. A woman embracing a tree, smooth skin pressed against rough bark. A seated woman bent forward, long hair cascading over her chest.
The patrolman grimaced. "Looks like they had some kinky shit going on."
Tré stares at the woman's finely toned body. "I don't think it's kinky at all, these are beautiful pictures."
Law forced her to walk, "Focus on the case."
They all stopped at the threshold to the living room, eyes glued to the blood. A comet's tail of arterial spray had shot across the wall and trickled down in ribbons. And the source, Mr. Nobuo Tanaka, sat with his back propped against the wall, wrists bound in front of him, ankles bound with duct tape. He was clad solely in his boxers, and his hair was mussed as though he'd been sleeping.
"Rigor mortis is set." Law examined the slash mark across his throat; a slash that had gone deep enough to sever the artery and cause the man to drown in his own blood. He was already familiar with such a wound. The artery spurting, lungs filling up, the victim aspirating through the severed windpipe. "Of estimate death between...midnight and three AM."
"Okay, let's get him away from the wall," Tré said, and the two morgue attendants obeyed, laying out the body on a disposable sheet. Rigor Morris had stiffened the corpse into a 90-degree angle, and the attendants were figuring out how to move the body.
"What the head! It's slipping!" One of then cried.
"Aw, Christ." The other groaned.
Zoro suddenly focused on a chip of white lying on the floor where the body had been sitting. He crouched down and picked up what appeared to be a tiny shard of china.
"Broken teacup." Tashigi said. "There was a teacup and saucer beside him, like it fell off his lap."
"Symbolic artifact?" Law asked, pulling of his latex gloves and tossing them into a rubbish bin.
Tré grimaced. "Ritual tea-party for the dead guy."
"Where's the wife?" Ace asked, noting the gold band on the victim's finger.
"Gone." Tashigi said.
"Abduction?" Ace asked.
Tré frowned. The victim had broad shoulders, and washboard abs. So he easily could have fought off an attacker, but here he was, head bowed, throat slashed.
/The killer props him up, then cuts his throat. Like an execution. Then there's the woman...he kills the husband, but what does he do with the wife?/ She stared at the remains of the teacup, the significance blowing through her like an icy wind.
"It's too bright in here, we need Luma-lite." She said.
Law rose an eyebrow. "What are you thinking of?"
Tré seemed more animated, moving around the room, and Ace got out of the smaller girl's way. She turned to the wall.
"He was sitting there when he died. Our unknown subject dragged him from bed, propped him against that wall, made him face the center of the room."
Zoro nodded. "Okay."
Law caught on to where she was going. "Why was he placed there? Why go through all that trouble while the victim is alive? There was a reason."
Ace was confused. "What reason?"
At last, Zoro's face registered appalled comprehension. He stared at the wall, where Mr. Tanaka had sat; an audience of one in a theater of horror.
"Oh, God." Tashigi's eyes flared. "Mrs. Tanaka."