13 Eps 11

Handa Kohaku looked for the voice that called her. It is from a man in his 20s.

"Sergeant Sato," She said and bowed as he walked towards her.

The man wears a plain white shirt with plain black slack. He's a simple man. He always had that serious face of his, always had a mind of his own."A new case, "He gave her a small memo with an address scribbled on it. He's somehow very young to become a sergeant because a sergeant usually a more, old and experienced person. She somehow could smell corruption in the department, but maybe that's just her thought. She never liked Sato anyway.

"Homicide?"She asked as she wears her leather jacket, ready to go.

" best guess is suicide, based on what officer Lee had told me."He said simply."Off you go now, Lee is already on the crime scene"

"Yes sir," She said, wanting to get away from Sergeant Sato as soon as possible.

She drove her car to the crime scene. As she walked to the parking lot, she gets a few stares from the police officers in the department, and also from the criminals that had been brought in to the police station.

She didn't mind that. Not everyone gets to see a female detective.

Wearing a hijab.

She admits that it's really hard to do her job with many people staring at her and expects her to do some silly mistakes just because she's a woman. She always got the least favorable job and been assigned some low-class jobs like issuing parking tickets and filing public complaint forms even though she is a qualified police detective. She had done all the same work the other guys had done.

Her physical strength?Almost the same as all the other men, more fit, even. She runs 5km everyday, she can lift an 8 kg weight lift. She even had a black belt in taekwondo. Being a woman had taught her that women need to strive harder than men to be heard. When she hear Taylor Swift's song, The Man, she's sure that Taylor had written that song just for her. That song hit home for her.

All that hard work she had done, but she didn't get to be treated equally like another male police officer in the department.

Being a woman is hard enough.

Imagine being Muslim.

That had made people in the police department treat her like an alien. She's the elephant in the team. People avoided her as if she had a ticking bomb with her.

Converting to Islam is more like converting into a terrorist.

She sighed. As she jump in into her blue Mazda car. Becoming a Muslim is her choice. And she had set her mind from the beginning that nobody and nothing can break her.

Except for this one incident. And every time she recalls about him. The last memory about him had made her heart aches, a lot.

It made her feels like she wants to end her life sometimes. She realized what she had thought before and pray to God that God will forgive her for thinking such nonsense.

She opened her phone, seeing 10 miss calls from Lee. What a stubborn guy. She snickered.

Before she turned off her phone. She glanced at her lock screen wallpaper.

A lovely picture of her, and Tatsuo.

...

She examined the body, and took a couple pics of the dead body using her phone camera."Have you checked her id?"She asked at Lee, her partner every time they had a case.

"Yep, woman,35 years old," He walked around the body in circles."And by the looks of it, it's suicide"He pointed at the gun on the woman's right hand. He then stepped behind, giving some space for the forensic team to take some blood samples.

Kohaku did the same. She glanced at her partner, Lee."Are you sure? Have you asked her neighbors? Her bank transaction history?"

Lee absurdly looked at her. There's proof in front of them. This woman volunteered to kill herself. And that's that.

Seeing no response coming out from Lee, she groaned."We need to check everything, okay? Every possibility," She said as she crouched beside the dead body and analyze the hole in her head, the results of a bullet going through the woman's head at an amazing speed.

Lee nodded, there's no need to waste his energy to argue with Kohaku. She's a stubborn person and everyone in the police department knows that.

"I've contacted the bank, they will send a record of her transaction history later."He said as he crouched beside her. He looked at Kohaku's serious face. Sometimes he wondered if she's becoming bald under her hijab because of all the stress that she needs to deal with in her life. He laughed at his own taught.

She noticed him laughing and then hit him at his arm" Are you laughing, ?"

Lee stuttered and back to the work mode. Gosh, Kohaku really can't see someone enjoying his own humor."I've also asked the neighbor, they say that Mrs Yorisuke rarely be seen happy, she always had her head on the clouds."

Kohaku nodded.

"And I've checked her medical history," He sighed, feeling sad at the dead body in front of him."She had been diagnosed with depression"He shrugged."I guess she can't deal with the stress anymore"

Kohaku sighed also. Poor one. She cupped her hands and did her prayer. She prayed to God that God will accept her soul.

Upon looking at that, Lee does the same, but he prays on his way. He puts his hands together and prayed to the gods that this woman shall finds peace.

After a few minutes, Lee stood up. He offered Kohaku a hand to help her up but being ignored. She stood up on her own.

His face is red with embarrassment. He forgot that Kohaku cannot touch other men's skin. Expect for her relatives? Mahram, she had told him once.

Kohaku smiled at him."Baka"Then she wandered the apartment studio. It was a neat, minimalist studio, there isn't much furniture in the studio. Guess she lived alone. She walked into her room and is attracted to check out her desk. There are notebooks opened and memos with scribbles on them. Then she noticed something.

She took a step back.

She noticed that all her important things like pens and pencils are located on the left side, instead of the right. She looked at the notes.

All the notes started from the left.

This woman is left-handed.

She started to suspect that this isn't suicide. This is homicide.

"Lee!" She called him. Lee walked into the room immediately. And stood beside her.

"What?"

"This woman is left-handed," She said simply, and then turned to Lee. Her eyes are bright with excitement."Do you see where the gun is at?"

"Her right hand?"

"Bingo!"Her smile becomes wider." This isn't suicide!"She walked near to Lee."This is homicide!"

Lee stared at her, and then knocked her head."Stop with your gooey."He took a step back."We had found a note just now, "He gave her a plastic wrapping bag with a note in it. The note is covered in blood."She clearly stated that she wants to kill herself, today" He pats her shoulder."Good work noticing that, though"He smiled bitterly.