The Crossroads Bar was cut off by police tape, with officers patrolling the perimeter, trying to hold off pedestrians and the media, all to keep the scene intact. Outside the perimeter, people were packed in like sardines. Makoto hurried to find a close spot to park her motorcycle. She took off her helmet and fixed her short bob, all the while looking at the growing crowd circling the crime scene. As she made her way through the crowd, she fumbled through her coat pocket for her badge, but she bumped into a sleazy-dressed, longhaired host in the process.
The host reeked sake in his breath. "Well, hello beautiful," he said, trying hard, but not hard enough. "You a reporter girl?"
"No, but I have to get to that crime scene" she said politely. She gritted her teeth while trying to hold back the impulse of stepping on his foot.
"Well," he continued. "How about we get together at one of the bars and have a drink."
"No, thank you. And I think you had enough to drink, sir."
The host wrapped his arm around Makoto, trying to cop a feel of her breast in the process. "Come on, baby. Let's have a nice night."
"Watch it, or I'll arrest you for sexual assault on an officer," Makoto threatened as she managed to pull out her badge in front of him. He squinted his eyes at it, then realized what deep shit he was in.
"Shit," he uttered, and then he drunkenly fled through the onlookers.
Makoto finally made his way to the crime scene tape. She flashed her badge at him at one officer, notifying him of her rank, and thus letting her through the perimeter. She then logged in, once she found the login sheet from another officer - a formality in procedural record keeping, a chore that needed to be done.
She found Minato Akai by the entrance of the Crossroads. He was surveying the crime scene technicians dusting the front door for prints. She came up behind him and greeted him.
"Boss," he responded. From the look of him, his dark hair was clean, but disheveled. Bags were forming under his brown eyes. Makoto could tell that he's been working overtime. He was born to be a closer – a person who works a case until passing out.
"Akai, you look well," she said back at him.
"Har har, Makoto." He smirked at her before continuing. "Sorry to get you out of bed this night, Boss. This one's a doozy."
"I heard. Botched robbery, right? What have we got, Akai?"
Akai turned his head from her and pointed at the door. "Three dead, bartender included."
"So, late-night patrons?"
"Seems that way, when you get the witness statements." Makoto started to walk towards the entrance, but soon realized that her body was feeling fatigued after being called up in the dead of night. She needed coffee to function; she can't get a clear picture of the crime without the needed focus to clear this new case.
"Before we head in, I need coffee. You said Inspector Bryant has got a fresh batch from Leblanc?"
"You bet. Wait here." Makoto's eyes followed him to a nearby bookstore that the police had commandeered as a command post. She then shifted her gaze to the neon sign over the entrance of the bar. Makoto once thought about the reason the Crossroads Bar got its name. She figured it was due to Lala and the sexual environment of the Shinjuku ward, for obvious reasons. As she reminisced her memories from her time back at Shujin Academy, she remembered that one memory. It was after she slapped her friend Eiko Takao in the face, trying to wake her up to reality and to get her out of debt of a no-good boyfriend. She and Akira ended up at the Crossroads to talk it out. She lamented that she would probably fail a test on love. That was until Akira confessed his feelings for the Student Council President. She was skeptical at first, but that feeling was gone when Akira said, "I do."
Five years later, Akira said those words again when the two said their vows for each other before spending the rest of their lives together, in a venue on a serene coast of a river near the town of Inaba.
Makoto relived the feeling of passion and love as she looked over the bar. Never did the thought of coming back again to investigate a murder ever cross her mind. With that in mind, the whole place seemed haunted, tainted by cruelty.
When Akai came back with the coffee, Makoto took it upon herself to take a scalding gulp.
"Alright then," she said to her partner. "Let's glove up and see what we've got."
The bar was half-packed with photographers and crime scene techs going over every detail of the place for any evidence, no matter how small it was. Akai led her partner to the bar counter, pointing over the countertop to the first victim who laid spread out, face first. Makoto would call the pose angelic, if not for the pool of coagulated blood and lifeless eyes.
"Victim's name is Eri Misaki. That's what the coroner's men discovered when they turned over her pockets and found her wallet."
"The owner," Makoto interjected.
"Seems that way." Akai then pointed to the gun that rested next to Misaki's right side. "From the looks of it, she had that .45 hidden under the counter, and must have tried to take our guy down. CSI found the holster.
Makoto peered into Misaki's lifeless eyes, dazed and blank. "Damn way to go," she said.
"At least she went down fighting. Kind of reminds me of you, Boss."
She turned to look at Akai, amused. "I'm not the backing-down type."
He nodded. "Right you are. You always catch your man, and in a neat little package for the prosecution too."
"Well you can say that about yourself. We're the same, only that I'm married and you're still young, single, and addicted to work."
"Har har, Queen," he replied before sticking out his tongue.
Makoto finished her inspection of Misaki, and found nothing else of interest. She moved on to the next victim, the one wearing a dark T-shirt, leaning down next to the stools. As she crouched down, she noticed the gunshot wound to the side of her right temple.
"Point blank," she said. "She looks familiar?"
"Yeah, she's a reporter." Akai pulled out a small notepad from his pocket and flipped through his notes. "ID is Ichiko Ohya. Writes for the Japan Times. Big name in that industry." Once Akai peered up to look at his partner, he noticed the look in her eye. It was loss, shock, peppered with some inner rage.
"Shit. I know her. Damnit," she muttered. Makoto turned away, gritting her teeth.
"Wait a minute, what do you mean you know her?"
"Back in high school, we've crossed paths a couple times during that whole craze with the Phantom Thieves a while back."
"Oh," Akai said somberly. "I'm sorry." He looked down at Ohya, feeling forlorn at the feeling of losing someone close. He firmly placed a hand on Makoto's shoulder. "Were you two close?"
"Not at all. We just talked about any rumors about the Phantom Thieves at our high school. I was class president back at Shujin Academy, so she milked me for any news."
"I see." Akai looked out to the rest of the crime scene, and knew that now's not the time for mourning for a distant friend. Not now.
"You gonna be alright, Makoto?"
She took a deep breath and reassured him. "I'll be fine. The case's not gonna solve itself." She tucked down on her outfit and rubbed her face. "Anything else?"
"Next victim, at the end of the bar, and the escape route."
"Escape route. Last time I was here back in the day, there wasn't one."
Akai pointed over to the half-opened door, with techs dusting the frames for any prints. "Yeah, it seemed there were some renovations since then. I mean, look at this place. If this bar caught fire, and the front entrance was a no-go, then what now?"
Makoto nodded in agreement, before the two of them walked towards the final victim. "And our last victim?" She looked down at the corpse. The victim was slumped against the bar counter, her face covered by blood-matted black hair. Yet Makoto felt another hit of familiarity, as if Ohya's murder wasn't enough to relive old memories. This hit came closer to her heart, the intuition in her telling every fiber of her being to pull back. The shot of adrenaline came automatically without any reason, other than that old familiar feeling.
"Our last victim here," Akai answered, "is one Eiko Takao."
"What," Makoto could only stutter out. All around her, her hearing dulled, her vision got hazy, and her head reeled in disorientation. The sudden impact came full force as it pierced through her heart, ripping out any sense of comfort at that moment.
"Boss, what's wrong?" Akai sounded muted, while Makoto brushed off the bloodied hair from the girl's face.
Her mind shouted denials, rejections, that this girl simply took Eiko's ID from somewhere. But the dried blood and the entrance wound to the right temple didn't do shit to make her unidentifiable. Makoto registered her as Eiko Takao. Makoto stood still as looked down in silent horror at the friend she saved from the past, now shot down like a dog. And all that Makoto felt was the same feeling when her father was killed in the line of duty.
The feeling of her soul being ripped apart.
