Death and a bowtie pt.2
"Wh-what do you mean he's dead?" The man in the leather jacket asked looking at Able as though he had three heads.
Able looked up from examining the corpse that just a moment before had been a man enjoying dinner at the restaurant.
"It means exactly what it sounds like," he answered the man staring at him, "he is dead."
"But how can that be," the woman who had been sitting at the booth asked, "he took his epipen as soon as he found out that the pie had strawberries in it so he wouldn't have a reaction."
Able, who had returned to his table and grabbed a clean napkin while the woman had been talking came back over and grabbed the epipen with it holding it between his thumb and forefinger and held it near his nose and took a small sniff of it. He simply stayed in his squatted position for a moment before looking over at the group at the other booth, remembering the boy telling one of them to call an ambulance.
"Miss?" he asked the young girl who was holding the phone, "You may want to call the police as well, this wasn't an accident."
"Hey now what do you mean this wasn't an accident?" the girl in the middle asked in an annoying brash sort of way.
"There's something on the epipen isn't there?" The third girl looked up from under her fedora.
"A type of poison right?" The young boy chimed in as well.
"That's right," he answered both of them, impressed that the two of them picked up on that from the quick sniff he did of it, "And the two of you are suspects," he said as he pointed at the two who had been sitting with the man at the booth.
"Hey what kind of joke is this you brat?" The man in leather asked, looking visibly upset by the accusation.
"Indeed," the woman commented, "It was just an unfortunate accident from him accidently eating a slice of pie without realizing the sauce was from strawberries wasn't it?"
"No, there is poison on the epipen, this man was murdered, and since the two of you were with him when he injected it, and you yourself handed it to him," he said as he pointed at the woman, "that would make you the prime suspect. Though without proof I won't treat you as such, and make both of you equal suspects."
"Um excuse me sir," the girl who had made the phone call walked up, "the police are on their way now."
"Thanks," he said, giving her a curt nod as he went to put the epipen back in the victims hand so as to make everything like it was for when the police arrived.
"Excuse me for asking," the brash girl from earlier came up from behind the other, "Just who are you exactly?"
"Me? My name is," He stopped to think for a moment. Able doesn't seem like a good name in public, and just giving them a letter would be ridiculous. I can't give them my real name though just in case. Guess I have no choice. "My name is Ryuzaki, I'm a detective."
He didn't like the fact of using the name L and B used, but decided it as the best name to give in the situation.
"A detective huh?" the brash girl asked, looking suspicious.
"Really," the girl in the fedora piped up, "we have something in common then, I'm a detective as well. My name is Sera."
The girl was quite tomboyish, with dark hair and a hoody and jeans, making it even harder to tell she was a girl. Luckily A wasn't the average person when it came to figuring people out.
"Well then," Able looked at her and smirked, "with two detectives this case should be simple then won't it?"
"Three actually," Sera told him, "this little guy is a detective to," she picked up the young boy to show him off.
"Hey Sera, put me down," he complained.
She giggled a little and put the boy back down and he adjusted his glasses before looking back up at Able.
"My name is Conan Edogawa," he told him with a childish smile, "A detective."
Able eyed the young boy. Something seems off about this kid, he thought to himself, something tells me I should look into him later. He quickly looked to Conan and smiled.
"Glad to have you on bored Conan, the more detectives we have the faster when can bust this case wide open," he looked over at the other girls, "And what about you two?"
"My name is Sonoko," the brash one answered.
"And my name is Ran, nice to meet you," Said the other.
"Like-wise," he said with a smile.
It was about fifteen minutes before the police arrived at the diner, which was spent by Sera, Conan, and Able talking about past cases they worked on. When they had finally arrived Four officers walked in.
One, whom Able presumed was in charge, was a hefty man in an orange trench coat and matching hat, one was a taller, younger looking officer with short dark brown hair, another man slightly shorter than the presumed chief but just as hefty looking, and a female officer with short black hair.
"I am Inspector Megure," the hefty man in orange spoke up, "These are officers Takagi, Sato, and Chiba."
He looked over at the body of the victim laying on the floor.
"Has anyone disturbed the body before we arrived?" The inspector asked.
"I examined the epipen earlier," Able spoke up, "after looking at it a noticed that it had an odd smell, which is why I had you called in, I believe the victim may have been poisoned. After examining it I placed it back exactly how it was in the victims hand before looking it over, and used a fresh napkin to avoid getting finger prints on it."
"I see," the inspector looked him over before noticing the others behind him, "Ran and Conan? What are you two doing here?"
"We were out late shopping with Sonoko and Sera, and we lost track of time and since we were pretty hungry we stopped in here to eat, and that's when we heard the commotion coming from their table. This man," she gestured towards Able "checked his pulse and presumed him dead before checking the epipen and having us call you."
"Hmm," he simply nodded his head, "Takagi and Sato, you two take statements from the two who were sitting with the victim, and Chiba send the epipen to forensics and have them run a test on it to see if anything unusual shows up."
"Yes sir," The three said in unison and went about their orders.
While the officers were going about their business, Able decided to call Near and let him know what was going on. He pulled out a phone Roger gave him on the flight over so that he could contact himself and Near without it being traced.
"Yes Able?" A voice came through before the first ring was even finished.
"I'm going to be a bit late getting back, there was an…incident…at the diner I'm at."
"Incident?" Near questioned.
"Yeah. Some guy just killed over after taking an epipen, something about having an allergy to strawberries."
"Did he get it himself?" Near asked.
"No, the girl across from him handed it to him after he started to panic. After he died I examined the epipen, I think it may have been poisoned."
"I see. Hurry up and get back then."
The phone began beeping, so Able just closed it and put it back in his pocket.
"Who was that?" Sera asked, walking up behind him.
"Roommate," he answered quickly, "didn't want him asking a bunch of questions when I get in late."
"I see," she said smiling, "I thought it might have been a girlfriend or something."
"Nah, don't have one," he said shrugging, "Never met anyone interesting enough to date."
"Well after this case is over what do you say we-"
She was interrupted by officer Megure walking over to talk to Able.
"Excuse me, um" he paused for a name.
"Ryuzaki" he told him.
"Right, could I speak with you for a moment over with the other officers?"
"Of course," he looked over at Sera, "what about her?"
"Well she has helped on a few cases before so I suppose it couldn't hurt."
The three walked back to where the other officers were waiting.
"Inspector Megure," Chiba spoke up, "Forensics just called, there apparently was a substance coated on the needle of the epipen that is poisonous, they believe it is a type of biocide, but they'll have to run a few more tests to figure out the exact kind."
"And Officer Takagi and I have just finished taking statements from both suspects," the female inspector known as Sato told him.
"Go ahead then," he nodded towards Takagi.
"Right, it seems the man's name is James Hickory, and the woman's is Brooke Chambers, who was engaged to the victim. The man was a close friend of the victim since High school, and was recently fired from his sales job. The woman owns her own business as a personal psychologist."
A psychologist huh? Able thought to himself, If that's the case then…
"You thinking what I'm thinking about her?" Sera whispered in his ear.
"Yeah." He answered
"Ne Ne, don't leave me out you two," they heard Conan say from under them.
Megure noticed the trio talking to each other.
"Is something the matter?" he asked them.
"What's that red spot on officer Takagi's neck?" Conan asked innocently.
"What this?" Takagi pointed to the spot, "That's been there all day, I probably rubbed it in my sleep."
"I sure hope that's it," Able said, "I heard there is some new type of virus going around, that starts off as a neck rash."
"Oh yeah, I heard about that," Sera chimed in, "after the spot on the neck shows the other symptoms can show up anytime between a day or even a week after the rash shows up. The other signs of infection are sweating, and dizziness at first, followed by your knees suddenly getting weak and"
Thuwmp!
The group all looked over to see officer Takagi planted on the floor.
"What the?" Officer Sato exclaimed.
"The virus?" Chiba asked.
"Nope," Able answered them both.
"It was a psychological trick," Sera told them, "If something is said in such a believable way with no way to prove it wrong, then you can easily get someone to believe they're sick when actually they're perfectly healthy."
"A-le-le?" Conan chimed in as childishly as he could, "Wouldn't that be a rather simple trick for," he looked over at Brooke, "A psychologist."
"Wh-what are you trying to imply?" she shouted, with a panicked expression.
"When I came in earlier, the two of you had just had your desserts brought out, and yours was the only one with any sauce on it," Able said with his finger pointed towards her.
"It probably went something like this," Sera began to explain, "Since you're his fiancé you could easily access his epipen and tamper with it, which the police reports confirmed had been poisoned."
"Right," Able continued, "So after ordering the pies, you probably had James distract him with conversation about what it's like to have an allergy to something while you swapped pies, making it look like he had just eaten the one with strawberry sauce. Then, being a psychologist, you probably talked to James describing the symptoms when John looked down and noticed the bite taken from the strawberry pie."
"In other words," Sera chimed back in, "he was mentally tricked into thinking he was sick, causing him to think he needed his epipen which you had coated with poison. Am I wrong?" She asked with a smirk on her face.
"Th-that's-" She started
"Give up Brooke," James spoke from behind her
"But James," She looked at him, shocked.
"Enough, they've caught us red handed."
"Why would you do something like this?" Officer Sato asked.
There was silence for a moment, before Brooke finally spoke up.
"Because of the will I found. John had a small fortune he inherited from his parents. The will had left all of it to me if he died. And my business was starting to fail and James had lost his job so…So James and I, we thought of this plan to kill him and take the money for ourselves and run away together."
"You Idiot," Inspector Megure shouted at her, "You would kill someone who cared so much about you just for money? He left it to you because he loved you enough to want to make sure you were taken care of when he wasn't around anymore! A kindness wasted it would seem," the inspector finished, giving them both a hard glare.
"I'm…I'm so sorry," Her face was now covered in tears.
The two were arrested for the murder and were escorted away by officers Takagi, Sato, and Chiba.
"Thank you for your help," Officer Megure tipped his hat towards Able and Sera.
"Anytime," the two told him.
Able looked around after the officers had all left.
"Well that was more than I was expecting when I came to eat," he sighed softly.
"Tell me about it," Sera came behind him and patted him lightly on the back.
"It's already gotten so late," Ran said looking at her watch, "We'd better hurry and get home soon Conan," she said looking down at the young boy.
"You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up with you," Sera waved to them.
"Are you sure Sera?" Sonoko asked her.
"Yeah, there's something I need to take care of first," She answered.
Sonoko noticed Seras' hand on Able and giggled quietly before pushing Ran and Conan out of the diner.
"Ok we get it, just don't take too long," She said, giving Sera a knowing wink.
"So what do you need to take care of exactly?" Able asked her.
"Well I was hoping to talk to you about something since we were interrupted earlier," She smiled sweetly at him.
"Oh yeah," Able said as he recalled their earlier conversation, "What were you going to ask me before?"
"Oh well um," she blushed slightly, "Well it's just that you don't seem like you're from here. "
"Well you're right. I lived in England for most of my childhood, then moved to America for a while. I just got here today actually."
"Right, well I was wondering if you wanted to hang out later, maybe take in the sights sometime? Since you're new and all."
Able smiled at her before pulling out a pen and grabbing a napkin and started scribbling on it.
"Here," he handed the napkin to her, "call me whenever you're free. Oh, but I probably won't be able to do anything for a couple of days, there's some business I have to take care of here and it'll probably take a while to finish it."
"Is your 'business' some kind of super difficult case?" Sera asked, a gleam in her eyes.
"Yeah. Super secret too, so i'm afraid I can't let you in on it," he answered, much to her disappointment.
"I see, well I'll keep that in mind, but you'd better not turn me down when I decide to call you," she smiled and one of her teeth popped out over her lip. "Or better yet," she grabbed another napkin and swiped Able's pen from him, "You can just call me when you're done instead." She handed him the napkin and winked.
A double tooth when she smiles? Kinda cute, He thought to himself.
"It's a date," he winked back.
The two left the diner and waved goodbye as they went their separate ways. After walking for a bit Able heard his phone ring.
"So soon? I think I kinda like this girl already."
"Able?"
Damn.
"Just finished it up Near, on my way back now."
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"Able…there is another message…"
Able stopped in his track.
"Is it her?"
"It is"
"I'll be back soon"
"Able?"
"What?"
"…I think it's for you."
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A/N
I know the solving of the murder wasn't quite as thought provoking as death note or case closed type stuff, but hey A, Sera, and Conan are geniuses, they don't need much to work with…And I know Conan/Shinchi wasn't a big part of this, but it's for a reason, trust me ;) As always Reviews and shares are loved and appreciated.