Disclaimer: All the Detective School Q characters belong to their creator.
36. Skeletons in the Closet
"We need a lawyer…" Mr Amakusa was understandably upset at the outcome. He paced franticly in the police station. Ryu nodded. The policemen's English was poor and Judith was not exactly fluent in Japanese. In the end, Judith and a few witnesses were ferried to the nearest police HQ where their statements were being taken with a proper interpreter present. Some of the witnesses were being questioned while others waited their turn.
"Psst, Ryu, think we could investigate this one as DDS graduates?" Kinta nudged Ryu. "No, not without permission from DDC…" Ryu reminded. He wanted no part of it. Kyu immediately picked up the phone and dialled a number. "What are you doing?" Ryu demanded. "Calling DDS to get that permission," Kyu said. "Your step-mother didn't do it. And we should help catch the real killer, right?"
"Guys, I don't know if she did it, but she's lying about the necklace. The thief was fairly rough tearing it off, enough to bruise the skin… and the narcotic used was a mild one," Ryu said. "She couldn't have killed the victim. The blood would not have flowed to the door if the victim was just killed at that time. The victim was probably killed before…" Kyu argued.
"Are you two arguing?" a voice interrupted. The boys halted in mid-sentence. Megumi handed a can of juice to Kyu and a can of coffee to Ryu before sitting down with her can of green tea. "There was blood everywhere on the sink and mirror. The fatal wound was to the front of the neck, possibly severing the carotid artery. The bleeding from the stab wound to the back was less," she closed her eyes, recalling the scene in detail.
"Judith would never kill someone. She doesn't have it in her…" Rosa de Silva emerged from the questioning room. The waiting Rev Remington greeted her with a terse nod. "Am I right, reverend?" she placed her hands on his arm in an intimate manner, which caused him to pull it back suddenly.
"That girl has bad blood in her. She's a curse to our family!" Pearl Remington, the bereft mother, spat. She had clearly recovered from the shock of finding her daughter dead. She was still wearing her bloodied clothes. Her son, Joshua, stood stoic at his mother's side.
"The only curse was when Wallace Remington kept the Rosary in his family instead of returning it to the Neeves when he and his wife, Maria, had no daughters to pass it on too…" Marguerite mused. "By tradition, the rubies are passed to a niece if there were no daughters… and we all know it was in the Neeves household for many generations, since the daughters of the Neeves were blessed with sons."
"Marguerite, I am right about you and your family…" Pearl growled and lunged at the other woman. "You wanted the rubies back all this while! You thieves!"
"It's your daughter who is a thief!" Marguerite snapped. "Lord knows it is unchristian to speak ill of the dead, but she was a slut and a thief!" A full-blown catfight broke out with the reverend and Joshua trying to pull both women apart. Rosa suddenly fainted, causing more confusion to break out.
"Hello, Ryu-kun!" Meiling greeted Ryunosuke with a warm hug. "Here's your souvenir!" She yanked out a garishly-coloured Beijing Olympics scarf. "Gee, thanks," Ryunosuke replied. He still had his laptop running. Meiling was not alone. With her was Kagome. Ryunosuke raised an eyebrow.
"Are you working on a case?" Kagome asked. Ryunosuke nodded slowly, his eyes wary. "Meiling, I'm thirsty. Could you please go buy some orange juice from the convenience store at the corner?"
"But it's so far away," Meiling complained. "Please, Mei… I want the Sunshine brand one," Ryunosuke pleaded. Meiling relented and skipped out of the room. Ryunosuke faced Kagome. "Nee-sama, are you here to kill me?" 'Kagome' let out a soft giggle.
"You are working on that case, aren't you?" she asked. The boy nodded. "Loki did not steal those rubies… Father is dead… Why did you bring his name into this?" he demanded.
"I did not use Father's name in this… if you are a good detective, you should've worked this out by now. One hint, little brother… our client is someone in Amakusa's family. Send my regards to Meiling, she's a cute little girl," Risa stepped out. Ryunosuke swept his collection of disks and papers off his table in frustration.
"Ryu-kun?" Meiling had returned. "What's up? Where's Kagome-nee?"
"She had something on, she left," Ryunosuke lied as he collapsed onto his bed. "Meiling, please go. I'm tired." It's up to Class Q now…
"Ryunosuke must have hacked into several archives and organization for this information," Kazuma gave a whistle as his printer churned out sheet after sheet of information on their suspects. Ryu nodded solemnly. "Rosa de Silva has a swollen blood vessel in the brain. She has been hospitalized at Tokyo General. Her family has been putting off surgery because they could not afford the medical fees," he explained. "My father has offered to help them with the fees. Surgery may be necessary but we don't have a surgeon who could carry it out. Currently both Rosa's mother and grandmother are at her bedside…"
"Joshua's business is in the red and he has long exhausted his share of the Remington fortune. Pearl Remington has also exhausted her share. According to the late William Remmongton's will, his fortune was equally divided between his son Harold and daughter Julia, and grandson, Joshua. No mention was made of Jonah, possibly because he went into the ministry about this time… No, he went into the ministry about six months after the will was made…" Megumi analysed the data. "Harold Remington died in a hunting accident ten years ago… That's odd…"
"What's odd?" Kyu sat up. "This," Megumi thrust a sheet of paper at Kyu. "Blood types?"
"Pearl Remington's an AB. She couldn't have a son with an O type. No matter what blood type her husband was. I remember this article I read once…" Megumi frowned. She flipped through more pages.
"There are very striking family resemblances between the reverend and his nephew Joshua… it's almost as if they were father and son," Kyu pondered. "Nope, according to these certificates, both Jonah and Joshua were adopted into the Remington household, Jonah at age twelve and Joshua as an infant. Jonah's birth name was Alcott, taken after his mother," Megumi found what she wanted. "That would explain the discrepancy in the blood types. Jonah's mother was a servant at the Remington's summerhouse. Jonah's birth father was not listed."
"Could the reverend be paying off someone? According to these bank statements, starting about ten years ago, he has been making large payments to a certain bank account…" Kyu said. "Not only do Joshua and Jonah look alike. Look at this photo of the late William Remington and his two children…"
"His daughter must have taken after her mother, but Harold and Jonah could have been twins… Is illegitimacy enough reason for blackmail?" Ryu frowned. "New England may be conservative, but not to that extent…Could we trace who the account belonged to?"
"Larry Lazarus," Kazuma consulted his notes. "He was at the wedding and not only that. He was Jonah's classmate from high school before Jonah dropped out… And this wouldn't be the first murder in Judith's life…" He held out a page showing a news article. Toddler only survivor in murder-suicide. "It seems Judith's father suspected his wife was having an affair, shot both her and their children before turning the gun on himself. The marriage was on the rocks and Julia has alleged her husband assaulted her on many occasions. The Neeves' luxury fur business also went bust about that time. There were rumours of impeding divorce but the wife never filed."
"We need to question the reverend and our nosey reporter." If the motive of the murder was money, why were the jewels left behind? Because they were too difficult to get rid of? Or was the motive something else?
"What is it you want?" The reporter Larry Lazarus scrambled backwards. He did not understand what he was doing under a bridge in Tokyo in the dead of the night. His assailant only raised the steel pipe in his hand and brought it down hard. Satisfied, the assailant rolled the body into the waiting river where the tide would carry it out to sea.
Somewhere in a cheap hotel room, a man stripped himself to the waist and reached for the whip he kept inside his trunk. "I am a sinner," he addressed the smiling young woman in the photograph inside his wallet before raising the whip and bringing it down on his back as he had done on many nights.
Author's Notes:
Another death? What is the motive?
Clarification on the blood type issue.
AB parent + O (or A or B) parent = A or B or AB children (not O)
This was used in the Butterfly Murders Case in the Kindaichi series by the same mangaka.