Step by step, case by case
by kyllir
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan, but I made up this fic.. n.n;;
A/N: I appreciate any constructive criticism you can give me, so if I miss the spelling of a word, or use improper grammar (aside from when a character speaks that way naturally), please let me know! As with my last fic, I will be using the Japanese names. Also, before I reveal the solution to the mystery, there will be a line of ooo's, see if you can solve the mystery before Conan does!
The sun beat down over the treetops, baking the earth near the Mouri Detective Agency, the heat wave had lasted over a week. Inside the building, Conan, Ran, and Kogorou all huddled around the rotary fan. They didn't have an air conditioner so they had filled a bowl with ice and placed it in front of the fan, allowing the cool air to circulate the sitting area. The cool air just couldn't reach the rest of the stuffy room. As a result, everyone was stretched out on couches or floors, not daring to get up. Conan lay across the armrest of the sofa, reading a kids mystery manga, he was currently reading about a case in which a Mr. Ida was murdered, found by a friend of his. His friend, a Mr. Morita, said he had been alerted to his friend's peril upon hearing his alarm clock sound for several minutes without stopping. Conan didn't have to read the rest of the story to find out who the culprit was, Mr. Ida was deaf, so therefore Morita shouldn't have been worried about an alarm clock, because he knew Ida wouldn't hear it anyway. Conan closed the manga,
"Ojisan, don't you have any REAL books I could read? These mystery books are SO boring. Don't you have a copy of Sherlock Holmes anywhere?" he stretched out irritably,
"Sherlock Holmes? I never did like his fancy pants guessing games, 'you have soot on your sleeve, that means you're a blacksmith, you have dirt on your nose, you're a lawyer,' that guy has always ticked me off, never made any sense," Kogorou grumbled, Conan glared,
"He never guessed! He DEDUCED, something that you should do more of!" he spat as Kogorou glared back at the boy,
"I'm the greatest detective in the world, I don't need his fancy 'deductions' that don't make sense," said Kogorou with an air of arrogance. Conan rolled his eyes at the older detective,
"They make perfect sense! When Holmes met his friend Dr. Watson, he knew straight out that he had been a military doctor in Afghanistan! Just by shaking his hand! His methods of deduction were so complex and advanced, but at the same time so very simple. He even did a study on one hundred and eighty kinds of tobacco! You cant even tell the difference between the ashes of a cigarette and burnt paper," Ran looked over at Conan, that story sounded awfully familiar to her, she had only ever seen one person defend the fictional detective so passionately before, and she was instantly reminded of Shin'ichi. Smiling, she turned to Conan,
"You'd better watch it, Conan, dad looks like he's about to ground you for a month!" she whispered. Conan flopped back down on the sofa,
"Whatever," he mumbled, just as the phone began to ring. Sensing that her father was still feeling hostile, Ran trotted off to answer the phone,
"Mouri Detective Agency, Ran speaking," She listened, and made a small grunt, indicating that she understood whatever they had to say, and pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil, scribbling something down as fast as she could. Kogorou looked on with an expression of relative boredom and annoyance, while Conan strained his ears to listen to whatever was being said on the phone, he was unable to hear anything besides that the caller was female, however, as both Ran and the mystery caller were speaking in hushed voices. Ran hung up the phone,
"Otousan, a woman called, and she wants to talk to you in person about her case, this is her address," she said, handing her father the slip of paper she had recorded the address on, Kogorou's face lit up when he saw the address,
"This is in the rich part of town! After she pays us we'll have enough to keep me drunk for a month so I don't have to deal with you two!" he practically started dancing, Ran and Conan rolled their eyes and followed Kogorou out the door.
About an hour later they stood outside the door of a very large house,
"Wow! It's beautiful!" cried Ran as she looked through the gate. The house, despite being smack in the middle of Japan, was built in Victorian fashion, with long, narrow windows and intricate woodwork. The house was painted a light shade of pink, with white trim. A carefully tended rosebush stood to the right of the door, as other flowers lined the gate.
"Wow," echoed Conan in awe, he didn't know there were houses like this in Japan. As the group stood gaping at the house, a man exited the front door carrying a large box, which appeared to be full of papers and files. The man was in such a hurry to leave that he almost tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and one of the papers flew out of the box, drifting to the ground. The man caught his balance but hadn't noticed the escaped paper. Conan ran over and plucked the sheet from the ground, tugging on the man's trouser leg,
"Mister, you dropped this," he called up to the tall man, who turned his head down to look at Conan, and smiled,
"Thank you young man, that's an important document. I don't know what I would have done if I lost it," he knelt down and patted Conan on the head, then stood up and resumed walking towards his car. Kogorou and Ran had already approached the door, where a young woman of about twenty five years stood waiting for them.
"I'm glad you made it alright, would you like some tea?" she smiled at her visitors.
Minutes later everyone was seated in the dining room as their hostess filled her teakettle and set it on the stove to heat. She returned to the table and sat down,
"Thank you all for coming on such short notice, my name is Watanabe Megumi, and the case I wish to discuss has to do with my Husband, Watanabe Toshi," She told Kogorou, "You may have seen him before you came in, he was in quite a hurry."
"So the man with that box was your husband?" asked Kogorou, pulling out a small notepad.
"Yes, you see, he has just filed for divorce, and I would like to know why. He wont tell me. I would like for you to follow him and find out, for I don't think I could ever get a good nights sleep again without knowing the reason why my son won't have a father." a sharp whistling was heard across the house, "The tea is ready, I'll be right back," she excused herself and left the room. Conan rose to follow her,
"Wow, you have an amazing house, did you have it built like this?" he asked, "This Victorian style is uncommon, you hadit built specially, right?" Megumi smiled and looked down at Conan,
"You are one smart boy to know this is Victorian style, actually it was like this when I moved in." she told him,
"But usually don't people just buy the land and rebuild a new house when they move? You must have really liked this one!" Conan pointed out.
"I did really like this one," she told him, grinning, "but I don't think I could have afforded the land if I had a new house built, so I decided to keep this house." She loaded up four teacups onto a tray and handed it to Conan, seconds later a shrill cry came from upstairs, Megumi's infant son had apparently woken up from his nap. "I have to check on my baby, so could you please serve this for me?" she asked, patting his head.
"Of course!" Conan took the tray and scampered off, careful not to spill anything. When he reached the dining room he lifted the tray high and slid it over the edge onto the table, Ran leaned over and took the tray from him, placing it at the center of the table. The group waited a moment for their hostess before they drank their tea, the clock chimed two o'clock as she came down the stairs and they all partook in their drinks. The tea was a particularly bland, yet bitter green tea. Conan noticed that the teapot had a broken handle, right near the bottom, it had been repaired by twisting a wire around the top of the handle, and leading the wire over the top and twisting it again around the pouring spout, the wire was used instead of the handle for picking the pot up.
"Hey, I wonder what happened to this teapot?" Conan wondered aloud, Kogorou glared at the boy, but Megumi smiled wearily and answered,
"The pot fell on the floor not too long ago, I haven't been able to go out and buy a new one yet, so I fixed it with those wires," she explained as Conan stared closely at the teapot, if it had broken recently, the break wouldn't have tarnished this much, maybe she really was poor, but didn't want to say. He gave her a sympathetic look as she excused herself to check on her laundry. Conan's eyes followed her as she opened a door and walked down the dark stairs into the basement. A dim light turned on at the bottom of the stairs, and about fifteen seconds later it turned off again and Megumi emerged carrying a basket of clean clothes. She reached behind her and clicked the light switch at the top of the stairs before closing the door with her foot.
"I'll help you with those!" Ran got up and took the basket from Megumi, who gave her a shaky thank you as the two girls walked into what was presumably the master bedroom. Conan quickly tired of Kogorou's company and went to join the girls as they folded the clothes. He noticed that several shirts had been mended by hand, sometimes not even with the same colored thread, he frowned, not saying anything.
"So Ran, how old are you?" Megumi asked cheerfully as Ran smiled back at her,
"I'm seventeen, I'll be starting eleventh grade this fall." she told her as Megumi smiled back wistfully,
"I remember when I was in highschool, I met my husband when I was in eleventh grade," her eyes began to mist over, "are there any boys you like, Ran?" Conan almost fell over, why did everyone ask her that? He regained his balance as Ran answered Megumi,
"Yes, there is a boy I like as a matter of fact," she began, "He's smart, strong, dependable, and very sweet, and he's a better detective than Otousan!" Megumi sighed dramatically,
"Ah, young love," she checked her watch, "I hope it works out between you two!" before anything else could be exchanged between the two girls, another shrill cry was heard from upstairs, "If you'll excuse me, I have to tend to my baby, I'll be back down in a moment." Megumi said as she walked upstairs. Ran began to follow, but Megumi stopped her, "He hasn't been well today, I don't want him to get excited about a visitor or he'll never get back to sleep, the poor dear." Ran nodded and they walked back into the dining room. Conan dangled his legs over the edge of his chair, kicking the edge of the tablecloth. He glanced at the clock, exactly two twenty, time was passing very slowly. He glanced at his own wristwatch, two twenty-five. He knew his watch wasn't fast, so the tall grandfather clock across from him must have been five minutes slow. Seconds after he made this bored observation, he heard Megumi returning from upstairs,
"He's finally asleep!" she clapped her hands happily, "Now, Mouri-san, its about time we got to discussing our business," Kogorou looked up sleepily, then putting on an energetic face he yelled,
"There's no case too big for Mouri Kogorou! I'll do my best to help you!" everyone winced as his declaration echoed through the house, Ran glared and shushed him,
"There's a baby sleeping upstairs! Be quieter!" Kogorou shrunk back at the sight of his daughter's angry face, he coughed and gestured for Megumi to begin her explanation.
"As I said before, I would like you to find out the reason why my husband wants a divorce, I suspect there may be another woman involved, but I've never seen him with one. I would like you to follow him around for a few days to see if you can gather any information," Kogorou nodded, and Conan excused himself to look for the bathroom, finding their discussion to be exceedingly dull. He walked down the hall, finding the door to the master bedroom still open, he walked in, and to his delight, there was a connected bathroom. He walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
Minutes later, Conan emerged from the bathroom, and deciding to take his time before rejoining the decidedly boring conversation of the adults in the other room, he glanced at the shelves and tables in the room, finding a number of photographs. He glanced at one, which looked like Megumi and another woman, perhaps her sister, they had the same eyes, the second one he happened to glance at was Megumi standing alone on a stage, wearing a fancy dress, which looked to be a very old style of American dress.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted as a crash was heard in the basement, he ran into the next room, Megumi looked terrified as she stared at the basement door, Kogorou leapt to his feet and threw the basement door open, only to be greeted by thick black smoke. He coughed as the fire rose up the stairs into the fresh air, there was scarcely time for anyone to react as the fire spread quickly across the thick carpet. Conan stared with horror as the flame spread across the carpet, blocking his path to the dining room, and the front door. He had made up his mind to leap through the fire before it was too late for him to consider, but before he could brace himself for the leap, he felt a pair of arms lift him from behind. He glanced up, and was surprised to see that it was Megumi who had risked her life to get him to safety.
It was only a few moments before they were all safely outside the house, standing on the sidewalk, Megumi gave a cry and collapsed, her left leg was burned from running through the flames. Kogorou caught her before she hit the ground and yelled,
"Someone call the police! This woman needs medical attention!" Conan leapt to his feet and ran to the nearest payphone, which happened to be at the corner, and phoned the police. They arrived about ten minutes later, preceded five minutes by the fire department, but by the time the fire department got there, most of the house had been burned down.
"Oh no!" Ran cried, "What about your baby?" Megumi gave a start and tried to get up, but failed and silent tears streamed down her face. Conan stood up, and taking a deep breath, he grabbed a fire blanket from one of the firefighters, wrapped it around his small body, and ran into the house before anyone could move to stop him.
"CONAN-KUN! Where are you going??" Ran cried as he disappeared into the burning building. A firefighter gave chase, using caution among the tall flames that leapt from the doorway. Conan made it to the stairs, and had begun making his way up. He had his shirt pulled over his mouth, but the smoke was still getting in his lungs. He coughed as he reached the top of the stairs, and glancing from door to door, he heard something, it was hardly audible above the loud crackle of flames, but he could just make out the sound of a baby crying. He pulled open the door, the room hadn't caught on fire yet, but smoke had poured in from the heating vents, and the air was thick with it. Conan couldn't see anything through the smoke, but the crying had gotten louder. He searched for a moment, the crib was empty, he couldn't find any trace of the baby before the firefighter caught up with him, grabbed him around his waist, and carried him to the window.
"STOP! There's a baby in here!" he cried, then broke down coughing. The crying suddenly stopped, and the firefighter opened the window, looked down, and jumped, Conan still in his arms. The fire had rushed into the room behind them when the fresh air came into the room, and exploded out the window behind them. They landed safely in the trampoline, and Conan began to feel dizzy, with blurry eyes he made it to where Ran was standing, worried about him. She caught him just as he passed out.
Conan awoke some time later, with no perception of how much time had passed since he exited the building. His eyes fluttered open, and he saw three eager faces looking down on him, Ran of course, wore a worried expression, which changed suddenly into an expression of joy when she saw him wake up. Megumi looked down on him with sad eyes, and smiled weakly when he looked at her. Kogorou pretended to be doing something else when Conan glanced his way, but he couldn't hide the relief that was shown on his features. Conan slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes, then suddenly remembered what happened and looked around wildly. He found that he was still in front of the house, he had been laid on a stretcher across the street, next to the ambulance.
"What happened?" Conan asked groggily as he tried to get up, Ran grabbed him by the shoulders, he looked up at her with questioning eyes,
"You ran into that burning building, don't you have any common sense? You could have died if that firefighter hadn't found you!" Frustrated tears of worry welled up in her eyes as she calmed down and slowly embraced the bewildered child, "I'm just glad you're okay, I don't know what I would have done if... if..." She sniffed as she couldn't bring herself to finish her statement.
'Ran...' Conan thought, 'you were really that worried about me?' his heart swelled with emotion as he brought his small arms around her and returned her embrace, wishing he could have enjoyed this moment in his normal body, "Ran-neechan, I'm sorry I worried you..." he whispered before succumbing to his fatigue. When he awoke again, he was alone in a hospital room, to his right Ran's jacket lay draped over a chair,
'She must have stepped out for a minute,' he thought as he examined his surroundings, on the night stand next to his bed there was a vase of freshly picked flowers, complete with roots and dirt still attached to the stems. 'Looks like the Shounen Tantei Dan have struck again,' thought Conan with amusement, he heard the shuffling of feet as people walked through the hallway, two sets of footsteps stopped in front of his door, they spoke in hushed voices, but he could easily identify them as Kogorou and Ran,
"The insurance company is investigating that fire, they think it was an arson, and a very amateur one at that, someone opened the basement window and threw in a bottle bomb of some sort, a glass bottle full of gasolene with a fuse. Watanabe-san apparently kept all her cleaning solutions and paint cans down there, the rest is history. I don't understand why the insurance company asked me to investigate though, they seem very suspicious of Watanabe-san, but she was with us the entire time, there's no way she could have started that fire. They're just being paranoid." Kogorou seemed agitated,
"Why would they suspect Megumi-san? Did she do anything weird?" Conan heard Ran ask her father,
"She did, actually. She applied for insurance from fires, specifically brush fires and arson, about a month ago. There was a thirty day waiting period until the insurance protection took effect, thirty days. The fire took place on the thirty first day. She also took out a life insurance policy on her infant son." Ran gasped,
"Did they ever find him?" she asked in a sad tone, Kogorou grunted,
"No, the firefighters combed the rubble after the fire went out, they found no sign of a baby, or any victims from the fire at all." Conan sat up, interested in their conversation, but groaned a little too loudly as his head rushed, Kogorou and Ran stopped talking for a moment,
"It sounds like Conan-kun is awake, lets go back in the room," Ran said as she opened the door and walked in, Kogorou followed her, glowering at Conan as he entered,
"Boy did you get off lucky, kid, you fainted due to smoke inhalation, and they're discharging you in the morning. But if you ever try something that reckless again, you can tack a head injury onto that ticket," Kogorou threatened as he gave Conan a gentle noogie.
"Yes sir!" Conan laughed as he laid back down, he was exhausted, even after having slept most of the afternoon in the hospital, he yawned. Ran brushed his bangs out of his eyes and smiled,
"You've had quite a day, go ahead and get some sleep" She moved to pull her hand away, but he caught it with his own, smiling tiredly,
"Ran-neechan, stay with me tonight?" he asked with pleading eyes. Ran laughed, being unable to say no to the puppy dog eyes, she picked up the phone in the room and dialed the front desk, and asked for a cot to be sent up. When the cot was brought up, she yawned and laid down on it,
"Goodnight, Conan-kun, sweet dreams," she fell asleep almost instantly, Kogorou had already gone home, resolving to pick the two up in the morning. Conan lifted himself up and reached over to touch Ran's sleeping face,
"Sweet dreams to you too, Ran," he laid back down and began to fall asleep.
"Shin'ichi..." Ran called in her sleep, Conan started, but then drifted back off.
The next morning, Kogorou drove over early to pick them up from the hospital, intending to drop them off at the house and continue on his own to the investigation. Conan begged, and promised not to get in the way, and finally Kogorou decided to let him and Ran come along. When they arrived at the scene, Kogorou walked off to talk to the Megure-keibu, who was supervising the investigation.
"Mouri-kun! There you are! I need you to answer some questions for me before we begin," Kogorou strode over, grinning at the inspector.
"Anything I can do to help, Megure-keibu-dono!" Megure-keibu then asked a series of questions;
"What time did you arrive at Watanabe-san's house?" He asked,
"It was about two o'clock when we got there," Kogorou answered,
"During the time you were there, did she leave the room at any time?" Kogorou stopped to think while Conan tugged on Megure-keibu's sleeve,
"We got there at five to two, she went to the kitchen to get us tea, and at two o'clock she went to tend to her baby, she then came back down and had tea with us five minutes later. Five minutes after that she went into the basement to check her laundry, she spent the next ten minutes folding the laundry, and then she went to check on the baby again. After she came back down five minutes later she began to talk business, at which time I went to find the restroom, which couldn't have taken more than two minutes, and that's when we heard the crash in the basement, that's when the fire started, at about 2:27pm, we ran out of the house, called the police, the fire department got here at about 2:35." Conan told him as Kogorou and the inspector blinked at him,
"Wow Conan-kun, you must have a third eye that monitors the clock at all times, that's a pretty good recollection. My next question was for you; why did you run back into the house?" He bent down to look Conan in the eye,
"I ran back in there because Megumi-neechan's baby was still inside, I wanted to save him, but I couldn't find him..." he said sadly, still feeling guilty about not having been able to save the child.
"How did you know he was in the room you searched? There were two other rooms at the top of those stairs," Megure-keibu questioned him,
"Well, that's the room I heard the crying come from, and there was a crib in there, but the baby wasn't in it..." Megure-keibu noticed Conan's troubled expression,
"That's enough for now, thank you Conan-kun," he then went back to talking to Kogorou, who wildly theorized about burglars who were jealous of Watanabe-san's kindness and beauty, as soon as they were properly distracted he walked under the police tape surrounding the grounds where the house had stood.
'It started in the basement...' Conan thought, as he walked over to the basement's former location, and lowered himself down carefully. The ground inside the basement was littered with rubble, most of it had been cleared out, but there was still an abundance of charred wood fragments and beams, a small section of the floor remained above the basement as well. Conan looked around, 'there was only one window in the basement that could have been used for access from outside, and the glass is still in one piece, if not charred and cracked, so they didn't have to force entry...' he thought, then something caught his eye, attached to one of the beams that had fallen into the basement, there was a ceiling light fixture, complete with charred lightbulb. 'This must have been the basement light,' Conan thought as he examined the bulb, finding what looked to be the toasted remains of tape attached to the bulb, and what appeared to be a piece of burnt string caught on the tape. Suddenly he froze, and then turned and ran out of the basement back to where Kogorou and Megure-keibu were discussing what could have happened. While they discussed that, Conan turned and whispered a question to one of the firefighters who had been combing the wreckage, satisfied with the answer he got he continued to approach Kogorou and Megure-keibu.
"Keibu-san!" Conan called, jumping up and down to get attention, Megure-keibu looked down at the boy, "The thing that started the fire was a bottle bomb, right? Do you have it?" the inspector blinked, wondering what the little boy could want with it, but produced it from his coat pocket in a plastic bag, the remains of a glass beer bottle. Conan examined it quickly, 'I knew it! I've solved this mystery!' he thought, and then went into phase two of solving crimes as a kid, bait the grown-up and put him to sleep. He waited until he knew everyone was looking the other way, aimed quickly, and fired. His dart flew through the air, hitting Kogorou on the neck, he instinctively swatted the area, mumbling something about mosquitos as he stumbled backward until he was leaning against a tree. Conan ran behind the large tree and adjusted the dials on his bow tie,
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"Megure-keibu, I've figured it out, I know who the culprit is." Conan announced through his bow tie, Kogorou's voice resounded through the yard as all turned to look at him,
"Who did it, Mouri-kun, what have you figured out?" Megure-keibu was eager to find the culprit,
"Keibu-san, have you ever touched a lightbulb when its been on for a while?" he asked, Megure-keibu blinked a few times before responding,
"Yes, but what does that have to do with this arson case?" Conan chuckled through the tie,
"I once had a jacket that I hung over a standing lamp instead of a coat rack, on one occasion I accidentally left the light in this standing lamp on while my jacket was hanging from it, can you tell me what happened to this coat of mine?" Megure-keibu's eyes widened, "That's right, it caught on fire and burned, I never wore it again. Now, in the basement over there, on the underside of one of those fallen ceiling beams, there is a light fixture, on the lightbulb is a piece of string stuck to the bulb with some tape. What happened was the culprit wanted to disguise what time the fire was started, so they made an extra long fuse and taped it to a one hundred watt bulb, when the bulb got hot enough, the string heated up, eventually catching fire, and as it was treated with kerosene, it had no trouble spreading down the fuse into the bottle bomb, which was conveniently placed next to paint cans and terpentine, and many other flammable chemicals. This fire was planned long before I arrived here yesterday."
"Then who do you suggest is the culprit, Mouri-kun?" Megure-keibu asked, clearly confused by the line of logic,
"The culprit was none other than Watanabe Megumi herself." he announced, "when she went downstairs to check the laundry, she walked down in the dark, turned on the light directly above the washing machine, and turned it off again before going up the stairs and switching the other ceiling light on from the safety of the stairs." Megure-keibu was astounded,
"But why would she put her baby in danger like that?" he asked, Conan smirked behind his bow tie,
"She didn't. The baby was never in the house to begin with."
"But you, Ran, and Conan testified to have heard the baby crying while you were there!"
"We did hear something crying, but it didn't come from a baby, that's for sure. It was a clever trick, but I figured you out, Watanabe-san. You took a recording of your baby crying and set the recording to go off whenever you needed it to." She glared at him,
"That doesn't make any sense! How could I have done that? And you don't have any proof that it was me that did anything." Conan smirked again,
"That is where you are wrong, Watanabe-san, newer alarm clocks can play tapes instead of radio to wake you up in the morning, all you had to do was record a tape of your baby crying and put it in the alarm clock. How else would you explain that we heard crying every twenty minutes on the dot?"
"That is... that is all conjecture, you have no proof to back that up!"
"Oh, but I do, bring it out!" as he spoke, the firefighter Conan had spoken to before appeared, carrying an object in a bag, he then laid it on the ground, and opened the bag. Inside was a clock radio, with tape deck. They carefully extracted the tape from the charred alarm clock, and thankfully the tape had not been harmed at all, "There is your proof, ma'am, I will stake my reputation that this tape contains a recording of your son crying on it," Megure-keibu was in awe, but he still had one more question,
"Mouri-kun, that was incredible, but where is her baby if he wasn't at the house when the fire was set?"
"That's easy, keibu, Watanabe-san's sister was watching him." Before Conan could finish his explanation, Megumi stepped forward and collapsed on her knees,
"It's true, it's all true, after I found out my husband wanted to divorce me, I knew I wouldn't have any money, so I took out the insurance policy, and planned this arson. I hung the bottle bomb from the lightbulb just as you said, recorded my son's voice on a tape and used it as an alarm, I also sent him over to my sister's house for the weekend, she had no idea that I planned to do this, I admit to everything, but I'd like to know one thing... The twenty minute time periods couldn't have been the only thing that tipped you off, how did you know he wasn't in there?"
"'A scandal in Bohemia', when in a fire, a woman will run for her most treasured possession, a single woman will grab her jewelry or prized material possession, a married woman will grab her children, in this case you proved to have the maternal instinct of a mother by rescuing our Conan from the fire, but there's no way that you could have forgotten your only child upstairs if you possessed those instincts." his voice softened, "The charges against you wont be as harsh as they might have been, there will still be time for you to make it up to your son, just remember that it's important for children to have parents that they can be proud of." tears fell from Megumi's eyes as she heard those words, she thanked the sleeping detective and left for the station with Megure-keibu. After they left, Ran walked up to congratulate her father, he opened his eyes and blinked groggily,
"Hmm, what now?" he stared at his daughter as she grinned at him,
"That was amazing how you solved that case! I would have never suspected Megumi-san as the culprit," her eyes softened, "I hope they go easy on her, she was so kind to us..." she trailed off, Conan saw the expression of sadness in her eyes and quickly changed the subject,
"Ojisan, I'm hungry, can we have ramen?" he tugged on the older detective's sleeve. Kogorou looked down at the child and grinned, fully awake now,
"Now that's what I'm talking about! Noodle Palace, here we come!" They then piled into Kogorou's rental car and drove off, to the promise of cheap dinner.
End chapter one
A/N: I'll be adding more to this, I'll post cases as I come up with them. Hopefully this one wasn't too hard or too easy for you guys. If you got it before Conan did, let me know what clue caught your attention the most n.n Until next time!