Later on Kakashi wouldn't be able to work out just how he had managed to get back behind the wheel of that sedan and drive them all the way back to the precinct without crashing. The second Mizuki had been locked carefully in the interrogation room Detective Hatake found himself in the men's bathroom, desperately splashing water on his face and trying to calm his shaking hands. His weapon now safely in the holster on his hip, but it felt heavy, hot and foreign.
Kakashi Hatake had long forgotten what things were really like in the field. That sickly come down from the momentary adrenaline and panic had lodged itself firmly in the pit of his stomach. It was such a turbulent feeling that he was glad he'd skipped on lunch. There was only one word that came to mind as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. Pathetic. He was a pathetic mess, attempting to be a detective when the only thing he was good for without Obito at his side was paranoia.
The second he had seen Sakura's determination and readiness to act he'd found himself in a kind of waking sleep paralysis. He knew what his body should be doing, he knew that she was making the right call, he'd just been unable to bring himself to move properly. His brain unwilling to offer any coherent explanation as to it's sudden halt of all rational thinking.
Something within Kakashi had changed, something nameless had shifted, and it began with the absence of Obito and the sound of Sakura's voice filling that void. It was the only reason he was finally pushed to move out of that car.
The day had been a veritable roller coaster of emotion, and it wasn't over yet.
There was a knock on the men's bathroom door.
"Kakashi? Are you alright? We need to question Mizuki before he lawyer's up…"
Once again it was Sakura's voice bringing him back from the depths, reminding him that he was a detective, and there was work to be done.
"Yeah…" he found his voice, "just give me another minute."
The detective in him was torn, wanting to wait to see what forensics found first in that locker but also wanting the chance to question Mizuki alone. The second that the public defender turned up his mouth would shut tighter than a vault, and that was only assuming that he couldn't afford a lawyer himself on a gas station attendant's salary. In a whole year he had never been so close to a potential lead for Obito's case, there had never been this much hope and tension riding on one round of questioning.
He needed to keep his head on straight and without Obito as his voice of reason chiming in, he would need to rely on his partner. Sakura would probably have him committed to an asylum if she knew what was really going through his head.
Kakashi was fighting every day just to keep his memories of Obito indelibly etched in his mind. The sound of his voice, always cheerful in the morning regardless of the time, the spark of infectious joy when he'd solved a particularly hard case on his own. They were all things Kakashi wanted to keep alive, he didn't want to forget any of it, but the more he tried to hold onto them the more they faded like a dream.
He didn't want those memories of Obito to leave him. Kakashi could only claim a small stockpile of happy memories in his lifetime, and the majority of those held Obito. Without them, without Obito, what did he have? Nothing but miserable…
"Kakashi! It's been five minutes, this is why I told you to steer clear of fast food…"
Sakura interrupted his reverie just in time to stop the spiral into darkness.
There was a job that needed to be done, she was reminding him. In doing his job to the best of his ability, surely that kept the memory of Obito alive just a little… for now it was all he could do to hope for such a thing.
"Yeah, yeah, I heard you… The whole precinct can hear you." Kakashi shook his head before heading to the door, Sakura was waiting for him with her arms folded, leaning against the wall.
"Well your hearing isn't what it used to be, old man, better to keep the decibel level high…"
"You're awful, you know that?"
"Awful nice to look at? Yes, I'm aware."
"Ha ha, very funny. Have you made yourself useful and briefed Tsunade on the situation?"
"Well, yeah. As soon as we got in. Are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah, why?"
"It's just that I already told you that I was briefing the Captain..."
"Maybe I just didn't hear you, seeing as I'm so old... Anyway, what's our plan with Mizuki? We should probably go into this with a joint strategy. 50/50, remember?"
At this Sakura's stoic expression finally broke into a semblance of a smile.
"Well, while you were powdering your nose, the uniformed officers handed over to us the bag that Mizuki threw in the dumpster and tried to burn. Want to check that out first? See what he was trying to get rid of?"
"Sounds like a great start. After you."
They discussed briefly whether or not opening the bag directly in front of Mizuki would be a good idea. Kakashi had never had someone question his methods so much in his entire career, but Sakura liked to push those buttons. It was a good thing, for a detective anyway, it was certainly keeping him hyper aware of the case at hand and how best to deal with it.
Sakura had a different way of thinking about things, and that directly clashed with the stubborn old school gumshoe strategies that Kakashi had developed. But he was nothing if not resourceful, he would adapt and keep an eye on her at the same time.
The evidence was signed over to them at the field office of the precinct. Kakashi made a point to do things by the book for Sakura's benefit and he could tell that she was taking in every detail. Both of them donned the appropriate gloves before handling the bag which was left for them on a sterile table. On the outside it appeared to be an ordinary black duffel bag with a strong smell of gasoline coming from it. The outer layers protected whatever was inside the bag from being contaminated, but Kakashi was nevertheless eager to get the contents examined thoroughly and quickly to be sure.
Whatever was in here, Mizuki hadn't wanted anyone to find it, and he was willing to burn down the whole storage facility just to be certain. Kakashi opened it with trepidation, not wanting to destroy anything that may be crucial to the investigation. This job might have been better suited to the forensic technicians, and on a normal day that's exactly who he would have deferred to, but time was of the essence. They could only hold Mizuki for 24 hours, and if he lawyered up quickly then the chances of any kind of information were slim.
Each item was carefully placed on the table. First to come out was a blue notebook, so thick that it wasn't closing neatly, all the pages had been thoroughly used. On its cover were drawings and symbols, it looked to Kakashi like the album artwork for some heavy metal band.
Sakura and Kakashi exchanged a glance, she nodded and carefully handled the pages. While he went back to the contents of the bag he felt that something heavy and foreboding awaited them in the pages of that notebook. Even with a rookie detective as his partner Kakashi wasn't worried about Sakura working with evidence, something was telling him that she was probably more efficient in that area than he was.
Next out of the bag were a pair of shoes, men's sneakers, nothing remarkable about them for the moment but there would be trace evidence there that he couldn't see. A pair of slacks. Another smaller notebook with some dates on the cover. Receipts, snack wrappers.
The heaviest thing in the bag appeared to be a smaller bag, Kakashi was surprised by the weight of it as he picked it up.
"Jesus Christ..." Sakura whispered.
"What is it?"
"There is some... seriously morbid stuff in here."
"What are we talking, anything about dismembering a body?"
Sakura was silent again as she skimmed the pages so Kakashi continued with his work, putting the heavy object on the table. It landed with a thunk, and in the light it was easier to see that it wasn't a bag at all, but a rolled piece of fabric that was tied around the middle with leather strips. Sakura glanced up from the book in her hand.
"That looks like a hunting set..." She spoke quietly, her eyes wide as they went back to reading.
"It's pretty heavy...:" Kakashi scanned upward to regard his partner, she seemed okay for the most part but he was growing ever more concerned at her shift in behavior. She was being agreeable and that prickled worry within him. "You gonna share what you've found in there?"
"I would if it made any sense." Sakura grumbled before clearing her throat. "A lot of pentagrams and crude sketches of naked men and women. The passages read like poetry but it's... morbid, all of it. Feels more of a manifesto, we'll need a psychiatrist to go over this one..."
"We don't have a psychiatrist just lying around the precinct, Dr. Haruno, you'll have to do for now, so take a shot at it before the public defender gets here."
"What strikes me most is the repeated scribbling of a poem by the name of Lady Lazarus..."
"Never heard of it."
"Of course you've never heard of it you uncultured swine..." Sakura didn't seem to notice the insult that had slipped past her lips until Kakashi was staring at her fully with accusing eyes. "Would you like me to lecture you about the fine arts Kakashi or will a summary suffice?"
He rolled his eyes.
"Haruno, I'll have you know that I've read my fair share of... why am I even arguing. Just explain it, we don't have time."
She smiled.
"Right, well Lady Lazarus is narrated by a woman who is about to die, it could be read as suicide but it's not exactly clear. In the poem she is certain that her flesh will soon be restored to her face after having been sacrificed to the grave, and then she will be able to smile again."
"That sounds... interesting."
"It sounds morbid. And considering the only piece of our victim is a defleshed skull I think it's pertinent..."
Kakashi glanced at the book himself.
"There's all sorts of satanic symbolism there, and this poem is what strikes you the most?" He tried not to sound dismissive, he knew better than most that hunches came of their own accord at times and without explanation.
"It's the words, Hatake. Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well."
There was a pause of brevity while they gathered their thoughts, Sakura continued to read.
"Well, what you have in your hands there is probable cause to get a search warrant of Mizuki's apartment." Kakashi answered Sakura's furrowed brow of confusion. "It's incriminating as hell, Haruno. Your opinion as a detective is also worth more than some second rate psychiatrist. We'll still need forensics to dust it for prints..."
"But, why? We caught him red handed throwing it out..."
"He could still claim that it isn't his, and he probably will, I'll pull out the stops for a handwriting analysis as soon as we have time."
Sakura sighed.
"Well, what have you found."
"I'm not sure..." Kakashi said while turning his attention back to the table, reverently he untied the srips that were around the bundle of fabric before rolling it out flat. With each inch it unfurled a new and disturbing gleaming silver object appeared in front of them, all bearing their teeth. "Fluting knife, peeling knife, boning knife... Serrated utility knife..." He named them as each one presented itself until there was no more fabric to roll out.
In all there were 8 very worn knives laying in front of them.
"Well... I think that's a cut above probable cause, don't you?" Sakura sounded breathless, her eyes still wide.
Kakashi fought the urge to audibly groan at the pun, she had to have said it intentionally, the groan was more that she had beaten him to the obvious punch.
"You just suck all the fun out of this..."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing, nothing. We need to get these swabbed as soon as possible and then get a better look at that storage unit. It was certainly nice of him to bag all this evidence for us so neatly... but it's nothing if we can't tie it to Samantha."
"Is there anything else in here?" Sakura tentatively opened the duffel bag and peered inside.
"Don't think so, check the pockets..."
Something was pulling his attention away from the knives in front of him. The smaller notebook with the dates scrawled across the cover, it was well used but not in the haphazard scrawling state like the other book. Kakashi casually flipped through the pages and he knew what he was looking at in an instant.
"These look like surveillance notes, dates, times and locations. What do you think?" He turned it so that Sakura could see the open pages.
"Yeah... they do. So he was stalking Sam?"
"Might not be Sam that he was watching."
There was something about this little book that made Kakashi feel a prickling sensation at the back of his neck. He scanned his mind for anything familiar that might be obscured by looking too closely, unable to see the forest for the trees. Once upon a time he'd have been able to block out all other noise and pull up the relevant images in his mind, he'd been able to do that in an instant, and with exact precision. But in those days he'd also been able to go into the field without having a panic attack.
Focus, focus. There's something here. Something that needs to be found. Trust yourself, trust that instinct as a detective. It's what you told Sakura to do. It's what Obito would have done.
He didn't notice that Sakura had moved and was now watching over his shoulder.
"Those dates are over a year ago, when's the most recent?"
Kakashi was already flipping to the last page before her question was finished.
"Exactly a year ago..." That cold and prickling sensation began to claw at his heart as well as the back of his neck. "This surveillance, or whatever it is, stopped here. On the day..." Kakashi let out an involuntary sigh, "On the day the Kyuubi killer got Obito."
Sakura was silent, Kakashi's mind was reeling too much to register if she was speaking anyway. Did it mean anything? It was hard to say at this point, and Obito, his former partner and voice of reason, well he was conveniently silent.
"It could... just be a coincidence, right?" Sakura sounded unsure of herself for the first time since he'd met her.
"There's no such thing as coincidence when it comes to murder investigations, Haruno."
The possibility of it being only coincidence and nothing more was lessened the more he scrutinized the pages of the notebook. There were details in here that Kakashi only knew to be true because he had been the one to find Obito's body, at the precise location listed on the page before him. It was a detail he would mention to Sakura, except that his body was no longer in his control and the words wouldn't form.
"Kakashi, we need to brief the Captain before we talk to Mizuki. He could be..."
"He isn't, I'm sure he isn't the Kyuubi killer. He's not smart enough. We just caught him red handed with what can only be described as a murder kit, complete with weapons and satanic ramblings. There's no way it's him. But we need what he knows, the only people who know these details were working the case or unfortunate witnesses, the fact that the killer only had time to take one of his eyes..."
Kakashi had worked perhaps a thousand homicide cases in his years as a detective, he'd seen awful things as a beat cop as well, but in speaking of the details of his friends murder bile began to rise in his throat. It was always harder when it was someone you knew, someone you cared for. His reverie was derailed as Sakura reached a hand around him to point at something on the page. He was sure that being this close to him she had to hear the thumping of his heart, it was practically deafening in his own ears.
"What is this... 6 digits, is this an area code? Why is it singing out to me..."
"That's no area code, and I know why it's singing out to you. It's because you've seen it every day you've been working here."
"Wait a minute, this is..."
"It's the plate registration for the rust bucket."
"Wait, does that mean Mizuki was following... you?"
Kakashi took a deep breath to steady himself.
"The car belonged to Obito Uchiha, it's why I've been so reluctant to have it replaced. Mizuki was following Obito..."