Disclaimer: I don't own DC or MK. I often get uncomfortable when reading extensive paragraphs about why an author was late with posting (though I promise I'm not trying to offend those authors, because it's clear they love their readers as much as I love you guys), so I will just offer my most profound apologies to you all for being absent these two months and continue with the announcements :)
If you notice there's something wrong with the formatting for this chapter, let me know - I had problems uploading and FanFiction was skipping four words out of every sentence earlier. I don't think the story'll make much sense like that, haha.
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Heiji leaned on the wall and tapped his foot, bored. "I know Dad's gotta go to all these lame dinners for important and influential people, but why'd he have to drag me along? I'm not wearin' this tie for one minute longer than I have to," he muttered, tugging at the gold material. At least he was alone again. Those prissy heiresses couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. Heiji had no desire to make small talk with them.
The Osakan spotted a familiar figure laughing raucously in the crowd. Occhan? Does that mean Kudo's here? He perked up, pushing off the wall to intercept the Sleeping Detective, hoping to spot a tiny, bespectacled detective in his wake. Ah, found him. "Conan-kun!" he called, catching up to the kid.
"Ha– Heiji-niichan," the Beikan replied with a smile. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."
Heiji squatted down to his eye-level. "Now that you're here it might actually be fun." He ruffled the Eastern detective's hair, noting with a hint of envy and no little humor that, unlike himself, Conan was dressed the same as he usually did.
"I hope so. Maybe this time we'll avoid running into a case."
"I'm optimistic about our chances. By now we've earned a break, hmm?" A wave of uncertainty brushed through him, but he shook it off. Feeling for the omamori under his shirt, Heiji changed the subject. "Where's Neechan?"
Conan made a face. "Out with Sonoko doing girl things."
"Well, there's one less person to avoid if a case does come up." Ran had a nasty habit of trying to take Conan away from places where he might find evidence.
"You're awfully cheery today."
"Just excited to see you," Heiji grinned, pinching the smaller detective's cheeks and getting an outraged squawk. "Say, why don't you come up to Osaka for a while? We're on summer break now, not like last time with the Kid heist." He lowered his voice, looking around to make sure no one was listening. "I know being Conan is exhausting."
Surprise flitted across the childlike face. "I'll think about it. Or I suppose you could come up to my house," Conan offered, meaning the Kudo mansion, "and I could pretend to be staying with Agasa-hakase." Beaming, Heiji ruffled his hair again. "Stop that. You can't rub my head when I get my original body back, so you should break the habit now."
"It makes you look more like a kid."
Conan frowned. "I'm not starting that argument again. Seriously, though, what would people think if you started doing that to a fully-grown teenager?"
There was a feminine huff from beside them, and both detectives looked over. "My, my. What happened to not being interested in socializing, Hattori-san?"
"Who's this?" Conan muttered.
"Dunno. I just met her earlier. She was tryin' to chat me up or something 'cause of Dad." And she'd been hitting on any man under forty. Clearing his throat, Heiji said louder, "I'm not in the mood for socializin' with strangers, but I know this kid. He's pretty bright."
"Hi, onee-chan!"
Ignoring Conan, the young woman continued, "That's rude, isn't it? How else do you expect to meet new people if you don't want to talk to them?"
"Maybe he just didn't want to talk to you," Conan said chirpily. "You're not very polite yourself. My papa said to never be conda-sending, and you're definitely sending lots of condas!" Heiji had to cover his mouth to keep from losing it. As it was, his shoulders were shaking and his cheeks hurt from the strain of keeping a straight face.
The girl's face darkened. "Why you little –!"
"Heiji-niichan," Conan cried, hiding behind the taller detective, "save me from the mean lady. Her face looks really scary right now." Both boys had the sense to bolt before the outraged woman could get her breath back. Outside the main room, the detectives collapsed against the wall, laughing hysterically.
"That," Heiji managed to get out between gasps, "was priceless."
"One of the few benefits of being a kid. Brutal honesty is expected." They stayed out there for a few minutes, hoping the woman's anger might calm down. However, when Megure-keibu and Kogoro left the party, following a short, anxious-looking woman to the elevator, their curiosity was piqued.
"You think…?"
"Yeah, let's go," Conan answered, already three steps down the hall. "Our luck's not that good." The pair caught up to the inspector and Kogoro and hopped on the elevator with them.
"What's the situation?" Heiji asked.
"The owner of the building was found shot in his office upstairs," Megure explained.
Conan raised his eyebrows. "Yokoyama Reiki? The businessman with those new, revolutionary plans for city planning?" He added cutely, "I saw a program about him on TV!"
"Yes," the nervous woman finally chimed in. "I went upstairs to ask him to come down to the party – he was supposed to be there to give a speech later – but when I knocked on the door, no one answered. It was locked, and I figured he was just working late or something. I looked through the little window on the door and he was sitting at his desk with a… with a bullet in his head."
"How did you know Yokoyama-kaichou?" Heiji asked.
"I don't. I'm part of the catering staff and one of the hosts asked if I could remind him about his presentation."
"So it might not be Yokoyama-kaichou in that room?" he clarified. "You wouldn't recognize him?"
She shook her head. "I'm afraid not."
Heiji turned to Megure. "Why didn't my dad come with you?"
"He didn't tell you? Hattori-keibu got a call about twenty minutes ago for a triple homicide and had to leave."
"So he left me as his representative because it would look bad if he was absent after accepting the invitation... If I'd known that, I would've taken the train home," the Western detective muttered.
"Oh, but then you would've missed out on the chance to investigate with the Detective of the East," Conan grinned. Then, drawling ever so slightly, he added, "Uncle Kogoro is spectacular at his job." Kogoro straightened up at the faux compliment and adjusted his tie professionally.
"You're such a cute little follower, Conan-kun. Maybe if you listen to him while he works on cases, you'll learn something new."
If looks could kill, Heiji would've been a murder victim himself. Conan's look said, Don't call me cute, Hattori. Or adorable, or any synonym thereof. Before the conversation could escalate into outright bickering, though, the elevator door opened and the woman from the catering staff led the group towards Yokoyama's office.
Heiji recognized the fifty-something-year-old man from his pictures in the paper. He was sitting in his chair, hands clenched on top of the desk calendar. His eyes were open: he hadn't been knocked unconscious beforehand. The bullet hole was off-center on his forehead, but still on-target enough to do the job.
The room was very dull, a typical businessman's office. There was a polished wooden desk, bookshelves full of uncracked volumes and traditional art on the walls, a large window facing the sea of trees from the neighboring park, and a bland rug. The door had been locked, according to the woman who found him, so either the murderer had a key or Yokoyama invited his killer in. Or both.
"No gunpowder on the victims' face," Conan murmured as Megure contacted his officers who were en route to the building. "The culprit stood some feet away from him, but not too far, judging by the spread of the blood stains."
Heiji nodded in agreement, but his eyes were fixed on one of the paintings. It was as plain as the other art, just another portrait, but there was something off about it. The shadows. It cast a slightly longer shadow than the ones next to it. Walking over, Heiji lightly tugged on the frame and wasn't surprised when it swung out to reveal a safe.
"Whoever killed him didn't try to make it look like a suicide, which means they were in a hurry or they didn't care," Heiji said. "It's possible he or she needed to establish an alibi."
"That person could also be out of the city by now. You're thinking it was one of the guests?"
"Dad and I had to show our invitation at the entrance and the security people checked our names off their list. Didn't you and Occhan?" The pocket-sized detective nodded thoughtfully. "A guest makes the most sense. Otherwise they would've had to break in somehow."
"Hmm." Conan eyed the safe, an impish smile sneaking onto his face. "Want to bet I find the combination before you?"
"A race? You're on." Heiji made a bee-line for the filing cabinets while Conan searched the desk. The detective of the West bit his lip to hide a grin as Kogoro yelled at the "little brat" not to touch anything. Guess I'll be winning this one, Kudo. The grin broke out despite his efforts. It's kinda nice that our rivalry didn't disappear after we became friends. A poke to the back of his knee drew Heiji's attention to Conan, who was beaming entirely too smugly and holding a slip of paper with a series of numbers on it.
"No way… How'd you do that?"
"I found the maker's label under the desk, and that company puts secret panels in most of their work. I learned that on a previous case of mine, when finding the documents stashed there saved a wrongfully accused suspect from being arrested."
Heiji's mouth hung open. "Y-you cheated!"
"Did I?" Conan asked playfully. "I didn't know it would be in there, and you could've found that information elsewhere." He didn't try to stop his shoulders shaking in laughter, and Heiji was about ready to throw a filing cabinet. "Sorry, Hattori. I just couldn't resist. You're such a bad influence on me; first I offended that girl downstairs, now this…"
"I never would've believed that you had a real mean streak before tonight," Heiji muttered, snatching the paper from Conan and spinning in the safe combination, gloves on.
"Maybe I should keep it up then," Conan teased. "No one would suspect me of being Kudo Shinichi."
"No. God, no. I don't think that would be a good idea. And I am not a bad influence on you." The safe clicked open, and the adults hurried to join them, cutting off any candid reply Conan might have made. The two teen detectives zeroed in on the sole crumpled folder at the same time – It must have been stuck in the door when it closed, Heiji thought – and stepped away from the suddenly crowded area with the manila file. Heiji opened it eagerly, sure that the culprit had been in a rush to put it back and get away from the crime scene.
It was empty.
"Interesting," Conan breathed, face glowing as he took the folder from his Western counterpart. "So it was a robbery, and the culprit knew exactly what he or she was after." Kogoro snatched the file from Conan and bopped him on the head, but both teen detectives had seen the handwritten label clearly before the Sleeping Detective had gotten his hands on it: City Plans, Revised III – Final.
"There were some notes on his desk," Conan started. "The handwriting on the folder didn't match. It's more feminine."
Heiji made the connection. "Someone else probably saw the contents of the file, and could give us a better idea of what was in there. It could be an architect or engineer, someone he was consulting, or his secretary…"
"I think we need to search the scene more. There could be other things missing." The two split up as Megure's forensic team filed in. Heiji turned around a few minutes later to find Conan half-dangling out the window, his feet scraping the inside wall as he searched for something on the exterior. "Oi! What're you doin'?" Startling the Beikan was a mistake: Conan jerked and began to fall head-first out the window. Fortunately, Heiji got an ankle before the teen-turned-child could plummet from a dozen or so floors up.
"Geez, Kudo, don't do that to me. If you died I'd… well, I don't know what I'd do, but it would be bad. Very bad."
"Eloquent."
"Shut up."
"Also eloquent. In case you were wondering, I didn't find what I was looking for."
"Which was?"
Conan was thwarted in his attempt to move back towards the window. "There's a freakishly large nail sticking out just under the window on the inside. See?" Heiji looked at it and nodded. "Well, I thought there might be rope or something on the ground. The culprit could have climbed down instead of going back through the front doors. I can't think of another reason for the nail to be there; it's clearly out of sync with the rest of the room. Also, the window is cracked enough for something to slip through, like rope."
"I see your point. However, instead of leaning out of a window like idiots, let's go down there and check it out."
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From Meri: Just a reminder, an omamori is a kind of good-luck talisman in Japan, and Heiji's is from Kazuha. Conan was pretending to not understand the word "condescending" during his smackdown of Heiji's would-be suitor. I realized something while reading Chapter 882 of DC (it's not a spoiler, though)… while Ran is remembering the pre-APTX-4869 Shinichi, she says that not even a year has passed since that memory. That means that Shinichi has been Conan for less than a year in story-time. How many frickin' cases does he run into over the course of his day? He's definitely solved more than 365 of them as Conan… well, kudos to him I suppose (heh heh, see what I did there?) However, I'm willing to continue my suspension of disbelief if it means I get to read more cases :D