Chapter Thirty-Four: The Incident at the Miso Tofu Shop:

Everyone stood around in the parking lot by the time Alex and Honda pulled up. One woman flagged them down. Alex turned to their passenger.

“You stay right where you are,” he said. “In fact…” He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed them to the hook on top of the window.

“Hey!” the passenger shouted.

“Sorry, buddy,” Alex said. “We can’t take any chances since you won’t tell us anything.”

“Assholes!” the young man shouted. The detectives ignored him as they climbed out of the car. Alex took out his badge.

“Okay, we’re here now!” he shouted. “What’s the problem?”

“She has a knife!” an old lady yelled. She pointed to the locked-up store behind her. Two police officers stood at the doors with guns drawn at their sides. Alex sighed and rubbed his forehead. He turned to Honda.

“Ready to do this?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Honda said. They walked over to the police. One cop looked up with a look of relief on his face.

“Thank goodness!” he said. “We didn’t know how long we could hold everything together before we rushed inside.”

“What’s going on?” Alex asked. The cop looked into the store.

“She’s gone crazy,” he said. The detective took a look inside for himself. A woman stood near the cash register with a knife in her hand. She looked around as if she was on drugs. Alex couldn’t see her face but he got a good look at her body from the shoulders down. His face dropped.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” he shouted.

“Yeah,” the cop said.

“Is it Kido-san again?” Honda asked. Alex nodded once.

“Oh…” his partner said.

“Yeah,” the younger detective said.

“How do you want to do this?” Honda asked. Alex turned to the police.

“How long has this been going on?” he asked. The cop did a quick count on his fingers.

“About three hours now,” he said.

“Has she made any demands?” the detective asked. The other cop shook his head. Alex rubbed his forehead.

“Right…” he said. He knocked on the glass. The woman turned whipped her head around. Honda and the cops all looked at Alex.

“What did you do that for?” Honda hissed. His partner shrugged and shook his head. The older detective smacked himself in the forehead.

“Idiot,” he muttered to himself. Suddenly, Tomoe started walking towards the glass doors. She didn’t put down the knife. The deranged woman raised her eyebrow. Alex put up his hands.

“It’s okay,” he mouthed. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just want to talk. Put the knife down.” The woman didn’t move as she stared at the police. Alex tried to push open the door a crack.

“What’s going on here, Kido-san?” he asked. “What happened here?” Tomoe clutched the knife tighter in her hand.

“Put the knife down,” Alex said. “Put the knife down. Listen to me. Just put the knife down and we will talk.” Tomoe didn’t speak. She wouldn’t let go of the knife. One of the cops was ready to draw out his gun. Alex held out his hand.

“Don’t move,” he said. “You’re only going to make it worse.” The cop took a step back as he lowered his gun. Alex turned to the crazed woman. Tomoe had a judging look of rage in her eyes.

How did this happen? We will have to back up about twelve hours to get the full story about this incident.

Twelve hours earlier…