Fate: Hammer Time

Chapter 41: Endless Meetings Part 1

In Fuyuki-City, detectives Osaki Koyo and Yomaura Taya were hard at work investigating a possible murder. A dead body had been found near the Ryuudou-temple, something that had shocked the city's inhabitants, and the police had promptly put their best people on the case.

Osaki and Yomaura had accepted the job and were now working to shed light on the situation, to identify the victim and to hopefully find suspects, as well as motives, means, and opportunities.

As the victim's body was already well on its way to becoming nothing but a skeleton however, identifying them had been a challenge, to say nothing of determining how they had been killed.

They had ultimately succeeded in the identification quite quickly though, through dental records they'd happened to have in their system.

Carlton Paris was not a criminal, but several years ago, an overzealous officer who had happened upon the scene of a mugging had arrested everyone in the vicinity who looked suspicious, including Paris, who, as someone born in the Caribbean, had a dark complexion and was thus extra suspect, at least according to that particular officer.

He had been released quickly, and the arresting officer had been punished, but Paris' dental records had still been entered into the system, which now helped in identifying his body. As regrettable as that incident had been, it did have some use now.

According to the background check, Carlton Paris worked as a part-time cleaner at one of the companies located in the harbour. He was by all accounts a hard worker, who kept himself to himself and had never been involved in any incidents, save for the one where he had been unlawfully arrested.

Interviewing the teenagers who had found the body had yielded no new information, though Osaki and Yomaura had been unpleasantly surprised to learn that Matou Sakura was one of them. She was associated with Emiya after all, who was better known at the station as Rakurai, the elusive vigilante.

She had claimed not to be involved with the murder, and the detectives had chosen to believe her, as they couldn't find any reason for Matou or Emiya to want Paris dead.

As such, they needed to look for other avenues, and as part of that, they were going to search and investigate Paris' house.

The address was found easily enough, a warrant to search the place was obtained in less than a day, and now, Osaki found himself behind the wheel of his car, on his way to Carlton's house with his partner sitting next to him in the passenger seat.

"So that's the preliminary conclusion that the pathologists have made?" Yomaura spoke into her phone, biting her lip in thought. "But do they think it is correct? And there were no other injuries? No mysterious substances in his body? There were? Alright, thank you."

She ended the call, and then turned towards Osaki once she'd put away her phone.

"According to the pathologists, Carlton was strangled to death, most likely with a cord or a thin piece of rope." She told him. "They haven't found much more yet, but they are confident that Paris was drugged while he was killed, most likely with Tenzine."

"Tenzine?" Osaki asked, quickly going over the list of drugs he'd had to memorize during police-school. "Isn't that an anti-depressant?"

"It is, though an overdose can easily change it into a very potent sleeping agent." Yomaura replied. "It is likely that he was strangled while unconscious or at the very least dazed from it."

"Is Tenzine difficult to obtain?"

"You certainly can't buy it without a prescription, if that is what you mean. Its use is regulated quite heavily, and according to Paris' doctor, he was not using Tenzine, or any other drug for that matter."