I would like to apologize. Someone mentioned in a review that I was killing off too many people to the point where it wasn't a surprise anymore and I agree. I have been annoyed for a while at detective Conan because I don't feel like there's ever any tension, I feel like there is nothing the main characters can possibly do to get hurt. While that's always been true things like Akemi and Seiji's death helped balance that out because we got to see them fail when it was as important to them as that. I wanted to write a story where there was an actual chance of them being hurt but I might have overdone it. Sorry :). I'm not going to change anything but it won't happen as often in the future. Also, I'm going to have Sera not be too behind Conan in the investigation cause that really made me angry. This case might not be that good but hey, I tried. I wanted to have at least one where I spent some time on the case so you might not like it anywhere near as much as some other chapters.
Conan took a deep breath. Right, now was not the time to have a problem like this. Someone's life could be in danger, he had to focus on the case.
Having cleared away a majority of the more disturbing thoughts he shook his head and focused his attention on the case. It was a murder, someone had strangled the victim and then placed their corpse in a closet. The victim was Masahiro Touma, a doctor at the hospital. He was a small man wearing a light gray shirt and no shoes. He had not shown up for work that morning and the estimated time of death was 11pm to 3am. He was known to have a bad attitude and caused people he worked with to feel uncomfortable.
The police helped with that information but were completely stuck after. One clue they had was that there was a handful of people who got caught on tape the previous night, but none of them had anything like a body with them. If the police were able to deduce how the body was brought in then they would solve the crime. The police brought in the five people who were caught on tape for questioning.
The first was a woman named Yasutake Saika, the manager of the building. She had been reinstalling the security cameras into the building so she had brought with her a blue bag with materials. She gave it to the police for inspection who found no evidence of a body having been inside, as well as it being impossible for her to carry the man in it.
The second was a man named Tajima Ichiro, a laborer who claimed to have been moving materials inside the building. The boxes he was shown to have brought in were all accounted for.
The next was a man named Muto Shuncho, a doctor who claimed to have been fixing an important error he made on a paper. He brought a light gray duffle bag with him from working out before but it was decided that it would be impossible to close if a human was put inside.
The fourth was a man named Yabe Teiji, the brother of a worker at the hospital who had stayed late into the night. The brother, Yabe Toshiaki, was furious that his brother was being suspected for murder and heavily denied his brother's involvement. Teiji had brought a pale yellow suitcase with him because he was just visiting town. He had a suitcase with enough mass for a body but the shape would have made it impossible.
The final was a woman Kamei Ao, a kind woman who always brought snacks for patients and their families in the emergency room. Apparently she left her phone at the hospital but only realized after she finished exercising, she had a backpack with her that she used to carry water bottles and snacks for her run. It was also decided that the bag would be too heavy for her to carry.
Sera walked around with Conan as the suspects bags were looked through by the police.
"And, are you going to try to solve this?" Looking up, both made eye contact with Mary who was giving them each a glare. "We really shouldn't draw any attention to ourselves."
"Come on, mama. It'll be fine. We'll only take a little while and the police already know Conan."
"Know him? Oh, right, his ability to attract corpses everywhere he goes. I'll leave this to you then, I'm going back to the room, I shouldn't be out in the open as much."' Turning on her heel she walked away from them and left them to their thoughts.
"If she's letting us solve this," Sera began, "we should have as much fun as we can!"
"Alright," Conan smiled at her enthusiasm. "Why don't we check the bags ourselves?" Sera nodded in agreement and both circled around to where the police was keeping the bags.
"Really, tape? What's that doing on him?" they heard a police officer ask.
"Not sure. All I know is that the forensics people say that there is glue left over from duct tape on the body. Someone seems to have taped his body on to something.
"Hey, doesn't this one look a bit strange here?" she asked him, pointing to a specific part on the duffle bag.
"Yeah, you're right. It almost looks like someone who was much less proficient at sewing did that part instead. Weird." taking a step closer Conan saw that the thread almost looked like the original thread had been taken out and added back in. "Maybe you should go and see if it's part of the original design and it had to be redone or if it was done after."
"Right but, what about you?"
"I'm still a patient. I can't leave the hospital without a nurse and things so I'd be more of a burden than anything else."
Sera gave a little frown at the idea of not going with him but agreed and left the room with a few police officers, taking the bag with her. Conan walked back between the remaining bags, looking through them deep in thought. After several seconds of thinking he went back to the victim's body to look at it again and stopped.
'That shirt. Something feels really familiar about it. Wait!' Turning around he ran up to a police officer and asked them for the pictures of the bags.
"Please, Sera-neechan said she wanted me to check something for her!" Taking the photo he confirmed his earlier thoughts.
Pulling his phone out he texted Sera and told her he had asked someone to do something in her name before telling her about his idea. A minute later he got a response from her with the results of the investigation on the bag she did and confirmed his thoughts. "So, what should I do now? Wait for you to come back to start the deduction show?"
"No, I'll have the people over here with me look for evidence in the bag. You should start the deduction show saying that I told you about it."
"Got it." Turning off his phone he gathered the police and suspects and told them that Sera had given him a possible explanation of who the culprit was.
"I'm going to explain what Sera-neechan said about the culprit for this case." the suspects looked unbelievingly at the police for listening to a high schooler and a child but were curious to see what would happen.
"So, the main problem with the case is that there isn't enough room in the bags to carry a body or that the people who could fit it inside don't have the strength. That would stand to reason that the bag just needs to be bigger for the trick to work. So, the only requirement is to make the bag a little bit bigger."
At this point all the suspects were looking around for some evidence that it was just a trick and not an actual investigation. A police officer directed their attention back to Conan, much to their astonishment.
"I suppose it doesn't make much sense to say the bag was made bigger. It would be more accurate to say they made one of the walls disappear." Conan pulled a picture of the duffle bag, watching Shuncho glare suspiciously at his bag being brought up, a barely noticeable cold sweat running down his forehead. "Did you know? On this bag the bottom was taken off and resewn on. Why would it be like that? Now, it could just be that the string ripped, but an explanation that fits this case much better would be that it was taken off so that it could be completely zipped while a body was placed inside it."
"H-hey! Why go for my bag specifically just because I had to resew part of it?" Suncho was getting worried, as made obvious by his stutter.
"Not just because of that. Can't you tell? The victim is wearing a shirt that's the exact same color as the bag. You know mister… the victim was found to be covered in duct tape. He was probably taped into the bag so that he wouldn't fall out with there being no bottom to the bag. So," Conan changed his childish expression to a predatory smirk, "That's why we're having the police check to see if they can find anything like that inside the bag. I wonder what they'll find."
"I… I…." The man had no more words, he could only slowly back away in shock. "Yes, I killed him. He was keeping me down, always mocking me and never accepting my attempts at promotion. I'd had enough, I just wanted to destroy this whole terrible experience I've had at this hospital and now…" the man reached into his jacket, "I'm going to do just that!"
Pulling a switch out he pressed the button. For a second no one was sure what happened as the police restrained him, then a cry was heard.
"Fire! There's a fire!" Everyone snapping to attention some of the police dragged the criminal out of the building while the rest ran to assist in evacuation. Due to the murder pedestrians were told to reschedule appointments and had left the building, greatly reducing the amount of civilians that needed to be evacuated.
'Mary'. Conan suddenly remembered the woman who was inside his room at the time. Running over to a police officer he alerted the man of the problem and brought the man to the room he had been at. They found Mary using a cloth from the bed to help her breath while she tried to escape through the smoke. The officer picked her and Conan up and ran with them outside of the building where they saw fire trucks pulling up and setting out the fire.
"She breathed in a lot of smoke, we should get her some help." Conan looked up at the officer, "She's a friend that Sera-neechan introduced to me while we were walking around the hospital. She came with Sera-neechan but wasn't interested in the murder. I'm going to go tell Sera-neechan where she is after we get her into the hospital."
Bringing her to an ambulance the policeman asked, "You don't know her guardians then?"
"No but I think Sera-neechan might."
"Alright. It seems that it was only a little bit of smoke she inhaled so she'll be fine. We'll see if we can find anything about her identity but it would be great if Sera knew the girl's parents. You should probably go tell her." Conan nodded and left the hospital, running to meet up with Sera.
It would be a bit hard to explain why the girl was with Sera but it should be fine as long as Sera played it off as a relative turned out to be the girl's guardian causing the girl to be living with her.