Sitting, hunched over the bar counter, was a short, flamboyant man of a lean stature nursing a highball. His dyed blonde hair, multiple piercings, and array of tattoos led any nearby businessman to avoid sitting next to him at the counter. Shinichi approached him briskly.
"Excuse me sir, may we have a moment of your time?"
The man glared and let out a huff and grunted in a questioning manner.
"Are you aware of the murder that took place here?"
"Hell if I know," the man responded, taking a swig of his drink.
"If you would state your name, age, occupation, and your relation to Murata Eiji please."
"Why the fuck should I do that? You suspecting me of murder or something?"
"There has been a witness proclaiming that you have repeatedly headed towards the bathroom and caused a ruckus"
"Yeah, 'cuz some little shit locked themselves in the bathroom for like, the last fucking hour and I need to take a piss!" he yelled, jumping up from his seat and slamming the counter, "and now I can't go in there cuz it's blocked off for some reason?"
Shinichi scrunched his eyebrows together and tilted his head, "the door was unlocked before the police arrived. Why didn't you enter?"
"The fuck you mean it was open!? The little thingy was red when I went to take a piss an hour ago. Of course it was locked!"
The suspect slumped back into his seat viciously and proceeded to keep on muttering vehemently as he slushed his glass around.
Nudging Shinichi, Hattori mouthed Let's move on to the next suspect before pushing him along.
Shaking his head, Shinichi motioned towards the bathroom, "I'll meet you there. I just need to check something first."
Hattori waved him off and turned to face the last suspect.
He was sitting in a lone booth at the edge of the Izakaya with a stony face. He was tall and lean. His stony, well-defined face, coupled with his hunched back, seemed to radiate an aura of darkness.
" S'cuse me sir, may ah have a moment of ya time?"
The fourth suspect stared at the Hattori with a thin film of emotion blocking his eyes from seeing properly. He nodded.
"Are ya aware of the murder that took place here?"
He stared at him for a little while before slowly nodding once again.
"If ya'd state your name, age, occupation, and ya's relation to Murata Eiji please."
"Fujimiya Issei. JMSDF. He-," The fourth suspect's voice cracked and he looked away. A few seconds later he looked back again and continued, "He was my friend from high school… We met up because we haven't seen each other in so long… so we could catch up, and um…"
Fujimiya looked down into his drink as his face switched between different emotions. He laughed a little "He was always so constipated. He uh, he always took so long in the bathroom…" Fujimiya's slight laughter slowly turned into little sobs, bringing his red-tipped fingers up to his eyes in defeat.
"...Thank ya for ya's time. I'm sorry for ya loss."
Shaking his head, Fujimiya's attention died out as the detective walked back to the crime scene.
Shinichi walked back to Hattori, his face scrunched up with interest.
"...What a depressing guy"
Deadpanning, Shinichi motioned in a quizzical manner.
"What? I get tha' the last suspect was grieving and all, but he was extra depressing," Hattori shrugged.
"Anyway, he was friends with the victim an' said they haven't seen each other since high school. Said the victim was constipated and usually spent a long time in the bathroom. His fingertips were a weird red too. I dunno if that's a medical or what but he needs to get that checked."
Shaking his head with a sigh, Shinichi supplied, "Well, the previous suspect was right about the bathroom occupancy indicator being red. Someone colored it in with what appears to be a red paint pan. It also turns out that the victim was poisoned with hemlock, conium maculatum, along with being strangled, which doesn't make sense because it's such overkill. However, that also means that the victim's estimated time of death was later than we first, though, because of the conium's muscle atrophy side effect. So…"
A loud shout then reached the two detective's ears from the bar. The suspect with the bleached hair was yanking a wad of the bartender's collar with his fist and snarling incoherently. Jumping forward to intervene, Hattori was stopped by Shinichi's sudden grip around his shoulder as Takagi-keiji broke the bartender and suspect apart before dragging the suspect away.
Hattori shrugged out of Shinichi's grip and made his way to the bartender, "Ya okay there, sir?"
"I'm fine," the bartender replied, smoothing out his shirt as would a ruffled bird, "Just tired of dealing with him all the time. He's a troublesome fellow."
"Does he come 'ere often?"
"Unfortunately, he does. He's well known for picking fights with the workers or other customers around these parts. He's on all of our black-lists."
The bartender laughed gruffly, his shoulders drooping considerably, "He just got into another bar fight earlier this evening. I thought he'd be done for the night but-" the bartender mumbled incoherently.
"Do ya happen ta know his name or remember what time that was?"
"Yeah. He's Hayashida Toramaru. Uh… I think it was around… six pm? He was taken to the police station for a bit because I called the cops on him, ha. Serves him right. I hate that he still came in like three hours later, but it's whatever"
"Thanks for ya time"
Shrugging, the bartender turned back to whatever he was working on as the two detectives walked off.
"Who do ya think did it, Kudo?"
Shinichi shrugged, smiling cryptically.
Narrowing his eyes, Hattori stared for a few seconds before letting go with a huff.
"Bro, what happened to your hand?"
Shinichi's pupil shot over to the source of the voice and saw Okita whisper frantically to his senpai, shrinking his body away from any nearby people.
Shinichi let his gaze slide back to Megure-Keibu, who was now advancing upon Tamaki-san and the three-(three?) girls that were comforting her. One of the girls looked almost identical to each Ran, although there were subtle differences in build, bone structure, and hair and skin color.
"No! Why do I have to kill someone I've never even met before?" Tamaki-san was glaring at the police officers with eyes that were brimming with tears, "Yeah, he might have flirted with me and I may have found his advances to be disgusting but that doesn't mean I wanted to kill him! Plus I wouldn't even have the time to kill him! I was serving tables the whole time."
She sniffled and the girl who looked like Ran grimaced sympathetically and rubbed her back.
A myriad of gears whirred at double time, exponentially gaining speed, inside Shinichi's head, letting all the pieces of the puzzle make their way to their designated place.
"Megure-keibu, I don't believe that Tamaki-san is the offender in this case."
Shinichi glanced over at Hattori, who had already realized his intentions, and was ushering forth the suspects: Tsujikura Koji, Okita Yuuto, Hayashida Toramaru, and Fujimiya Issei.
"Although Tamaki-san was in the position to most easily poison the late Murata-san, she is not the killer. Due to the toxicity of poison hemlock, there was no way she could have mixed it into his food or drink without putting herself and other customers in danger. Furthermore, and I do not mean to offend, but I highly doubt she would be able to leave such bruises upon Murata-san, even when taking into account the weakened state that he would have been in, due to the poison."
Tamaki-san's shoulders drooped slowly as she leaned into the girls' comforting touch.
Sighing, Megure's head drooped slightly, in resignation. "Then who do you make out the killer to be, Shinichi-kun?"
Letting his eyes slide over to the true killer, his body followed suit and turned accordingly as Shinichi pointed a certain muscular, yet gangly suspect.
"Fujimiya Issei-san, it was you."
He felt the general audience collectively draw in a breath.
"The bathroom occupancy indicator was made to look constantly occupied by coloring the indicator in with a red paint pen. Fujimiya-san, your fingertips are unnaturally red at the end. You were also the only other person who was able to poison Murata-san's food without raising much suspicion. You probably poisoned his drink with ground hemlock while he was busy flirting with Tamaki-san. Am I wrong?"
Fujimiya-san was pushed along to the police car waiting outside, his head hanging low.
"Is everything okay, Shinichi?" Ran looked at him with wide, warm eyes as he and Hattori met back up with the girls.
Bringing his hands up behind his back, Hattori smiled at them, "Don't ya worry 'bout it. We caught the killer, no big deal. We just got 'ta go give our statements down at the police station."
Nodding, Kazuha smiled at him,"I'll meet ya at the hotel then, Heiji!"
"Shinichi, be careful, ok? Oh, and we'll be meeting up with these lovely folks tomorrow!" Ran pulled the girl that looked like her, along with a young man who looked suspiciously like him. He smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with a slightly bent posture.
"Y-you're-"
Cutting him off, Ran pushed Shinichi towards the door. "And Don't. Be. Late. Mkay? We're meeting at the café next to Beika station at 2:00 pm."