CHAPTER ONE
Locked-Room Mystery
"Ah... we've received word about you!" says the police officer standing at the entrance to the crime scene. "Ms. Kimishima, is it?"
"Good," says Naomi icily. "This'll make things easier. Where's the victim?"
"He's over here," the burly guard replies. "This way, please..."
The officer and his partner, just as big, lead Naomi up the rickety staircases and to the crime scene. Naomi enters the room cautious, looking around at the fallen table, the burnt floors, the broken fan...
"Victim is, uh, Dennis Tayler, 30-year-old male. A neighbor called in the fire, and the firemen found him. The knife in his hand matched cut wounds. Probably suicide."
Naomi turns, frowning, and points at the table falling on its side, the wood scorched black by the flames that had leaped forth. "What's this?"
"Oh, that's where the fire started," the officer shrugs. "Likely before the suicide."
Naomi only grunts as she stares at the burn marks intently.
"Ms. Kimishima?" the officer asks hesitantly, but it's too late. Naomi has already begun to slip from the real world and into her death one; her slim phone, clutched tightly in her hand, begins to softly glow and hum as it emits a light purple trail of something that looks almost like smoke. With closed eyes, Naomi slowly lifts the sleek black phone to her ears.
This phone isn't like an ordinary phone; it's one that is the bridge between life and death, for it can hear the dead's last words. Naomi listens intently for Dennis Tayler's final words before his life was cut short...
"S-Stop! You...! NO!"
The message ends there, and Naomi, as if disappointed, sets the phone down. The glowing stops and the world grows bright again, as Naomi takes one step back into reality.
"Are you feeling all right?" the officer nervously asks.
In a cold reply, Naomi turns to face him, staring at him with intense blue eyes. "This was murder."
Outside, Naomi departs the crime scene with just as much iciness as she had come in with, leaving a chilling linger of it behind. "Send the corpse to CIFM immediately," she orders briskly. "I'll examine it. I want all finger and footprints found in that room. If you find anything, contact me directly. I'll be at the lab."
She climbs into her dark black car, and drives away, leaving the two guards still stunned and speechless at her sudden declaration of murder and everything odd she had done, so to say, everything.
"What was that about?" one guard asks.
"Well, she does work at the forensic medicine laboratory," the other one shrugs. "Supposedly, she's solved a lot of cases for the FBI."
"Th-The FBI?" the first guard cries, shocked.
"That's right. That means we need to keep out of this."
"Let's begin," says Naomi out loud. "This is Dr. Naomi Kimishima, ID 422194. Hey, Little Guy, tell me what we know so far about this."
"Oh, right," comes Little Guy's hasty voice over the intercom. "The victim's a 30-year-old Dennis Taylor. At 3:30 PM, someone in the same building reported a fire. The firefighters found the body in bed 20 minutes later. He had a knife in one hand and a deep wound on his wrist. The door was closed and chained. It's being ruled suicide."
"Nonsense," Naomi snaps. "Is that your personal opinion or your FBI training?"
"Huh?" Little Guy cries, shocked. "Isn't that the most reasonable fitting explanation?"
"I thought people learned when they grew older," Naomi scowls.
"Doctor, what do you mean by that?"
"Let's begin," Naomi sighs. Explaining her phone and all would be too complicated for Little Guy's measly brain, and besides, now she has work to do. "Show me how this life's flame was snuffed out!"
Naomi starts the autopsy with examining the corpse, as always. Immediately, she locates the wound the police had talked about.
This wound on the wrist is believed to be the cause of death. Even though this looks like a self-inflicted wound made with a sharp knife, there's something unnatural about it... there's no pain reaction.
"There's only the one wound on the wrist," says Naomi out loud. "A single slash, deep enough to reach the artery. No matter who it is, pain is an immediate response to a cut. No one should be able to make a single cut this clean and deep without flinching. I can't say this is proof of homicide, but I can't ignore this incongruity..."
Moving on, Naomi spots a flowery-shaped mark on the patient's right side, a bit past his lung. "Is this a bruise? It's oddly shaped, though."
Confused, Naomi sets the bruise question as a mystery for later, and continues the examination.
"The index finger is fractured... we can't say what's wrong with it for sure until it's sent in for analysis, though."
Naomi starts to shift upwards, and looks at the head for a long time. Many murderers strike here, one of the most vulnerable places of the human body. Frowning, Naomi leans in closer...
"There's something odd about the eyeballs here. There appear to be spots of hemorrhaging in the eyeballs... This isn't a common condition. Perhaps I should ask Little Guy about it."
Deciding that's all the information she can get, Naomi goes back to the office and begin to sort out the information. As she does, Little Guy calls her over the computer.
"Ah, Dr. Kimishima. The results of the examination of the knife have come in. The knife itself is a cheap common brand, sold all over the country. It will be difficult to locate where the knife came from. The blood left on the blade matches the deceased's. Only his fingerprints were found on the handle, as well."
"I see," says Naomi, realizing that Little Guy is talking about the knife said to be the suicide weapon. "At least one thing is clear now. This knife is believed to have been used to slit the victim's wrist. Even then, we can't prove that unless we compare it to the wound. The shape of the knife blade corresponds with the wound found on the wrist. This shows that the knife was used on his wrist. This appears to be an open-and-shut case... then again, this all seems a little too convenient for me."
Frowning about the hemorrhaging and the fractured finger, Naomi sends in the finger for analysis first.
"There's no mistake," says Little Guy. "This finger is fractured. Can you send me the details? We'll get an X-ray performed as soon as possible. Oh, and I have one more piece of good news, Dr. Kimishima. I've received a recording from HQ of a witness's account."
"Great," Naomi replies. "That will be useful. Who's the witness?"
"It's the deceased's neighbor," Little Guy answers. "We've asked her some questions about the day of the incident."
"Perfect timing," Naomi beams. "Maybe we'll be able to use her account to determine when the fire started."
"I'll send the data over to you," says Little Guy, relieved to have finally pleased the cold doctor.
Before that, however, Naomi is determined to work Little Guy to the max, and shows him the hemorrhaging in the eyes.
"Hemorrhaging in the eyes, you say?" he frowns. "It's a condition called petechia, caused by increased blood pressure and spasms in the blood vessels. It's commonly found as a sign of death by asphyxiation."
"Wait a second," Naomi cuts in. "That doesn't seem right. If I recall correctly, the cause of death was thought to be hemorrhaging from a slashed wrist. If the cause of death is asphyxiation, it's possible that we are dealing with a homicide."
Giving up for the moment, Naomi turns to the recording Little Guy had talked about, looking at the witness's name and picture. Kirsten Langley, a 70-year-old female, Dennis Taylor's neighbor. Her hair, completely white and covered in shadow, eyes looking downcast, gloomily staring at the ground.
"Yes, that's right. It's been so hot lately. I've been keeping the window that faces out into the street open because of the heat. That's how I could hear my neighbor so clearly. It was... let me think... around three in the afternoon? Yes, it must have been. I was watching Farewell, Danny at the time. I heard this loud noise from my neighbor's room. And then, the fire alarm started going off a little after that..."
"A loud noise, followed by the fire," Naomi mutters. "That may be a clue. The way she described it, the sound doesn't seem to have been something exploding. Could the noise have been made by someone in the room? Or, something else? The room was sealed, and the neighbor heard the sounds at 3 PM. The fire occurred not long after that. What we can deduce from that is that Dennis was alive until 3 PM. At least, that's all we can determine using our currently information. The deceased was alone at the time, so there's a good chance he made the noise. Still, we need more information to see if there was anyone else in the room when it happened."
"I was really surprised!" the tape continues to play. "Oh, uh... I think it was about 10 minutes. I looked out the window and saw smoke coming from next door! I ran to my neighbor's door, but nobody answered when I pounded on it. But I had to see if there was anyone in there, so I pulled on the door. It was chained from the inside, and no one answered me when I yelled. Yes, the fire truck came soon after that. A firefighter cut the chain on the door and went inside. My neighbor? No, it seems he lived alone. Oh, but I remember an electrician came at around noon."
"So, an electrician had come to the deceased's room that day, at around noon," Naomi repeats. "That was much earlier than when the fire supposedly started, but we should investigate it."
The computer begins to beep as Little Guy tries to get his message through. Naomi isn't the type to smile, but she definitely seems pleased. "Ah, Little Guy. Perfect timing. It seems an electrician entered the deceased's room around noon on the day of the incident. If he's talked to your people, can you ask them for the recordings of the interview?"
"All right, I'll contact them immediately," says Little Guy wearily.
"Please do," says Naomi coolly. "How is the analysis going with the finger?"
"Well, regarding the fracture on the corpse's finger," Little Guy begins, "The right index finger was fractured by an external force. It's rather odd... there are no signs of healing in the fractured area."
"No traces of healing?" Naomi questions. "That would mean the bone broke after he died. Reactions to injury, like minute healing and hypodermic hemorrhaging, are vital reactions. They only occur while the body is still alive. Thus, if there were no vital reactions to this broken bone, the fracture occurred after the person was already dead."
"That would have to be the case," says Little Guy, astounded by how far Naomi Kimishima has gone since she was at Delphi two years ago. "Oh, and to be clear, there's no way that the body was damaged during transport. We take the utmost precautions when moving bodies."
"I hadn't considered that until you brought it up," Naomi admits softly. "Still, I'll take your word for it. If his index finger was broken, using the hand would have caused a great deal of pain. With that in mind, he shouldn't have been able to use his right hand all that well."
She sighs. All of this doesn't add up. "There was a wound in the left wrist, and a fractured finger on the right hand. This seems odd, because the knife was in an injured hand. The deceased would have had to hold the knife in his injured hand to cut his left wrist. Then he would have to cut deep enough to sever the artery, putting pressure on his broken finger. Even if he was right-handed, this situation just doesn't add up."
Refusing to give up, Naomi tries to piece more facts together, but Little Guy interrupts.
"Hello, Dr. Kimishima," he says in a casual, pleasant tone.
"Cut the small talk," Naomi snaps, not sharing Little Guy's upbeat mood. "What do you want?"
"S-So cold," Little Guy mutters darkly. "HQ's questioned the electrician that the neighbor mentioned. I've sent you the recordings. It seems HQ already knew who he was, so there wasn't a problem."
"Now we'll find out why that electrician went to the deceased's room," says Naomi, nodding, and hurrying to the recorder to listen to the testimony.
Liam Richardson, reads the name on the testimony. Frowning slightly at the well-built man in the picture, Naomi hits the play button.
"Yes? Oh... yes, that's right. A murder...? Y-Yes, that's fine. He said his air was broken, and it needed to be fixed."
"He fixed the air," Naomi quotes. "We should focus on that. There's nothing odd about having a repairman come to work on the ventilation system. But, at the very least, Dennis was still alive when the electrician came. We need to learn about the deceased's condition at that time."
"That was... around noon, I think. I got the call earlier that day. Yes, he said he needed it fixed that day, so I went straight there when I finished the job I was doing. Yeah, it was really quick. All I had to do was swap out a cable. Right, I think I was only there for about an hour. Yes, I fixed his heater."
"He repaired the heater, at this time of year?" Naomi asks incredulously. "It's been a warm spring."
"The customer? Hmm...well, the way he looked, I wouldn't be surprised if he committed suicide."
"It wouldn't be surprising if the deceased committed suicide?" Naomi wrinkles her brow in deep thought. "Sounds like an important detail. Does that mean the deceased had a motive for killing himself?"
"Around 3 PM...? No, I wouldn't have a clue. I was already fixing a washing machine at my next appointment's house at that time..." The recording finishes there.
"On the day of the incident, the electrician had been asked to repair the deceased's air," Naomi murmurs softly. The electrician went to the deceased's room at noon, and left after finishing his work. Both the deceased's neighbor and the electrician himself agree on this."
Doubling back to the electrician and the neighbor's testimonies, Naomi continues investigating and, as always, talking to herself. "The last time the deceased was seen alive was between noon and 1 PM. At that time, he seemed depressed. This comes from the electrician's testimony. The last time we believe the deceased could have been alive is around 3 PM. The neighbor reports hearing a sound from the room at that time. Within an hour after that, a fire started in his room, and the deceased was later discovered dead. That's all we know at this point... hey, Little Guy, I want to go through the information that we've gathered so far."
"All right," he agrees. "Let's piece it all together, step by step. The deceased, Dennis Taylor, was found dead in his apartment. His body was discovered because of a fire."
"Yes, but by the time firefighters arrived on the scene, the fire had already gone out," Naomi interrupts. "His corpse was found on the bed."
"That's right. The FBI and police initially ruled this case as a suicide. The reason for that was the knife and the slashed wrist. The other reason was the door was locked."
"Indeed," Naomi agrees. "The slashed wrist and the chained door point towards suicide. It would seem he was so desperate for death that he would both slit his wrist and set his room on fire. That isn't a surprising conclusion."
"The knife blade does match the shape of the wound in the wrist," Little Guy points out. "The blood on the blade matches his DNA. Lastly, the deceased's fingerprints were found on the handle of the knife."
"Those were all true, but there was something odd about that wound on his wrist," Naomi argues. First, no pain reaction wounds. Another point is the knife was in his right hand. His finger was fractured. Would he have been able to use a knife with a wounded hand?"
"It's very unlikely," Little Guy admits. "But that's not the only thing that raises doubt. If he did die of the knife wound, he would have bled to death. However, investigating the corpse points to a different cause of death. That is the hemorrhaging in the eyes."
"The petechia on the eyes," Naomi nods. "And the strange bruise on his abdomen... there's more than enough evidence to doubt that this was a suicide."
"But according to the electrician's statement, the victim seemed like he might be in a state to commit suicide."
"There are too many uncertainties to be able to draw conclusion at this point," Naomi sighs. "I'm going to have to investigate the scene for myself, Little Guy. Get me approval to enter the area."
"Understood. You shouldn't have a problem, Dr. Kimishima."
"Yes, but I don't intend to waste any time," she raises her eyebrows in exasperation. "I'm going there right now. You deal with the rest on your end."
Dennis Taylor's room has scorch marks and blazing trails of ash still scattered around the room, just as Naomi had seen it before. But most of the room is intact; the fire must've been small. The table in the center of the room is where the fire was assumed to be started, but the desk several meters from it lies untouched. But hanging above the table is a fan, one of its blades torn and twisted.
"It's the ceiling fan," Naomi notes. "There's a speed selector and a timer. One of the blades seems to be broken, though. Hmm... the electrician had supposedly come to fix the air... I need to review his testimony to confirm what he actually fixed."
Sighing, Naomi bends down to inspect the table; best investigate how the fire started. "The burns are most severe right here... what was burning here? If I send this for analysis, I might find out what was on fire on the table."
Going further into the room, Naomi cautiously steps past the table, as if not wanting to disturb the dead's home. To the far corner of the room is a bed, simple and plain, with a white mattress. A pool of blood is splattered across the snow-white fabric.
"This is where the deceased's corpse was," Naomi mumbles. "If this bloodstain is his blood, then he was lying on his back. Yes, the injury was on his left wrist. From the position of the bloodstain, it would appear he was lying face-up on the bed. There is only the one bloodstain, so he didn't move around much after his wrist was slit. If this truly is a suicide, that would mean that he bled to death here, however, the amount of hemorrhaging here seems to be too small for a man to completely bleed out..."
More proof that this is isn't a suicide. Naomi stands up, and notices something that she hadn't noticed before. Above the drawer that sits to the right side of the bed is a bulletin, and several pictures scattered across it. "Who's this in the picture?" Naomi squints. The deceased's... friend? I was so caught up in the case that I didn't check the man's background..." Wanting to hit herself for stupidity, Naomi presses the speed dial on her phone. "Hello, Little Guy. Can you hear me?"
"Woah," Little Guy grumbles. "Yes, I hear you. Did you need something, Dr. Kimishima?"
"Yes," says Naomi abruptly. "Can you do me a favor and look into the deceased's friends? I'm going to send you a picture right now. Try getting a hold on whoever that is."
"All right," says Little Guy. "Is there anything in particular you'd like us to find out?"
Naomi doesn't waste her time and breath to give Little Guy his homework. "First, about the deceased himself. It'd be great to find out more about the day of the incident."
"All right," Little Guy agrees. "I'll make preparations to have them questioned. I'll send you the recordings of their answers, so please check the recorder."
"Good," says Naomi. "I'm glad you can get on this so quickly. I'll be counting on you.
Naomi ditches the crime scene and heads back to the office, snatching her recorder up once she gets there. Sure enough, just as Little Guy had said, the new recording is already there.
James Morton, reads the name. Head cocked slightly, Naomi presses the play button.
"Hey, whatcha want, man? Why're you callin' me out here? Huh? You wanna talk 'bout Dennis? You're better off askin' his girlfriend. Her name's... uh... Stella. She's at the club down on Roulette Street. Yeah, she can probably tell you more about Dennis than I can. That guy, huh...? No, nothin'. He's a friend of mine, y'know? I don't hate him. We've been drinking together the night before he died, after all. Uh... he did seem pretty flush recently, if you know what I mean."
So Dennis had money? Naomi wonders.
"He called me up out of the blue and said he'd pick up the tab that night. Well, it wasn't really important, it was just how he normally brags."
Bragging? That doesn't seem like the usual behavior of someone who would commit suicide the next day...
"He was all proud of his red Portland Jacks T-shirt he was wearin', too. The red ones are limited edition or somethin'. They're pretty rare."
"A Portland Jacks T-shirt," Naomi quotes, this tidbit of info too important to ignore. "If he was telling the truth, the victim was wearing that shirt on the day of the incident. In any case, after hearing this testimony, it seems hard to believe that the deceased would have committed suicide. That reminds me, the man said in his interview that the deceased had a girlfriend... I wonder if HQ knows who she is."
Naomi thumbs the call button etched on her computer, and Little Guy's image immediately snaps around. "Yes? Did you call, Dr. Kimishima?"
"I need you to look into somebody for me," Naomi orders. "A woman named Stella Abbot."
"Oh, the deceased's girlfriend?" Apparently Little Guy knows this person. "Well, technically his ex-"
"That doesn't matter," Naomi interrupts impatiently. "Can you find her?"
"We already have," says Little Guy, almost arrogantly. "HQ's just finished questioning her. Should I send you the recording?"
"Please," Naomi grumbles, exaggerating the tone of it. "Now, if you don't mind."
While waiting for Little Guy, Naomi goes on with the case. Something's not right... according to the victim's friend, the victim was wearing a T-shirt on the day he died... I may be able to learn something new from the information I've gained here. I should take another look at the victim's personal effects.
Following her own orders, Naomi moves to the examination room and inspects the clothing: black trousers... and a white jacket.
"Something about this shirt is bothering me," Naomi frowns. "The deceased was apparently wearing a red T-shirt on the day of the incident. Did he change after he got home? Or was there some reason for changing his shirt?"
"This does raise some doubts," she murmurs. "The electrician supposedly came to the victim's room to fix his air, but he didn't repair the ceiling fan? Or did the fan break after the electrician had left? In any case, I'll need to hear his account again."
Her thumbs twiddling the controls on the recorder expertly, Naomi swaps back to the electrician's testimony. "Yes, I fixed his heater."
"He fixed the heater," she frowns. "Something about that is odd; it's too hot to need a heater. Yes, the deceased's neighbor mentioned that; summer is already starting. And yet, on the day of the incident, the deceased wanted to have his heater repaired?
"I still have doubts. Fans circulate air within a room. If the owner was having his air system fixed, the fan should have been considered part of it. Why, then, would the electrician fix only the heater, and not the ceiling fan?"
Getting impatient, Naomi urges Little Guy by giving him the bloodstain found on the bed to analyze.
"This is a bloodstain," says Little Guy. "One moment, please... I did some quick calculations. A stain of that size would take about 800 millilitres of blood."
"The average adult male would have to lose at least 1500 millilitres in order to bleed to death," Naomi reckons. "This means that he might not have bled to death. The amount of blood loss required varies from person to person, so this isn't quite proof. It is unusual, though. I'll have to remember it. Can you analyze something else?" Naomi hands over the ash. "I've collected some of the remains of the fire. Can you find out what started the fire?"
"I can't promise anything, but I'll send it to the lab. I'll contact you once the results of the analysis come back, so please continue with your investigation. Oh, Dr. Kimishima, did you receive the voice data?"
"From the deceased's girlfriend? Have you sent it?" she asks obnoxiously, annoyed by the fact that it took him over ten minutes to send it.
"You should be able to listen to it using the recorder," says Little Guy quickly, trying not to get Naomi's cold glare dumped on him again."
"Right," says Naomi. "First, I want to know about the deceased's source of income."
"He did seem fairly well-off for somebody without a steady job," Little Guy admits.
Naomi makes a mental note to observe carefully about it while she listens to Stella Abbot's testimony.
"Ugh... seriously? What do you guys want? I've got work to do, so let's get this over with. Huh? Dennis? You mean... Dennis Taylor? Wow... that name brings back bad memories. We broke up years ago. Yeah, at first I thought he was an interesting guy. Pretty cool and all. But... he never had a job, and he just kind of wandered through life."
She certainly didn't think much of him, then.
"Oh, but he always had money. I'm sure he didn't come by it honestly." At this point, Stella gives a big sigh. "Are you really this slow? Don't you get it? Drugs. He was a drug dealer."
"Good heavens," Naomi breathes. "The deceased's been holding onto quite a secret. I'm going to have to change the way I approach this case. Let's go through the information we have, now that we know the deceased's true identity..."
"This is looking more and more like a case worth investigating," Little Guy agrees gravely. "If Dennis Taylor was a drug dealer, then there could be a variety of reasons to kill him."
"Still, I can't let my prejudices cloud the truth. I need to remain objective. However, it seems that we're going to have to change our views regarding this case."
"Right," says Little Guy. "I'll prepare the CSI's ALS."
"ALS," Naomi recalls. "The Advanced Light Source that can adjust the wavelength being emitted?"
"That's right," says Little Guy, impressed. "An object's visibility depends on the light being reflected from that object. The ALS lets you select a particular wavelength to focus only on what you want to see."
"Or hide what you don't want to see?" Naomi presses.
"Huh? Oh, no..."
"I'll try using it," says Naomi matter-of-factly. "Thanks, Little Guy."
But Naomi lies, and she has no intention of visiting the crime scene again until she has sorted out all the information she has...
"I get the feeling that there's something very wrong about this... At first glance, it doesn't seem like these testimonies refer to the same person at all. On one hand, drug-dealing scum enjoying his life, on the other, a man with suicidal depression? Either one of these clues is false, or there's more to this shady business that I haven't found out. In either case, the truth of the matter is that he was indeed a drug dealer."
Giving in, Naomi goes to the crime scene to try out the ALS. In front of one of the shelves that line along the walls next to the desk...
"There's white powder scattered on the floor... it looks like there are footprints in it," Naomi mutters. "I can guess at what this powder is, but I should send it in for analysis just in case." But while inspecting more closely, Naomi finds that the powder isn't really what it seems. "It trails behind the shelf..."
Grunting, Naomi shifts the drawer, revealing what's behind it. "Bingo. There's more of that powder inside this hole in the wall. What an obvious place for a hiding spot... Mr. Taylor wasn't all that clever."
Shining the ALS everywhere else, Naomi feels confident that she has found everything, and heads back to the office. She wastes no time to prodding Little Guy about it.
"I feel that I already know what it is," he sighs, looking at the powder. "I'll have it investigated in any case. Can you please wait?"
Naomi does so, drumming her fingers on the table impatiently. Several minutes later, Little Guy responds.
"Ah, Dr. Kimishima, about that white powder that was spread on the floor..." Little Guy finally says. "There were traces of drugs found within it. A number of different sets of footprints were identified in that powder, as well. They all belonged to the firefighters, police... and you, of course."
"I see," says Naomi carefully. "The room belonged to the deceased. If the drugs had been spread on the floor before the incident, his footprints should be there as well. But the only footprints in the room were from people who had entered after the fire. This would mean that the drugs would have to have been spread before or soon after the fire began."
Satisfied, Naomi goes on. "All right, let's go over the information we've gathered. First, the white powder... it was revealed to be drugs. The trail of drugs led directly to the hole behind the shelf. If the same powder from the floor was inside the hole, then it was a place to hide the drugs. But there weren't any drugs inside the hole, and the layer of drugs had footprints from the firefighters, the police, and me left in them. All of the footprints had something in common: they were made after the fire. There weren't any footprints from before the time the fire began. From this, we can deduce that the drugs must have been scattered on the floor when the fire started. If I take this even further, I'd say that it would have been after Mr. Taylor stopped moving. In other words, it must have happened between his death and when the fire started. But why were there drugs on the floor? They must've spilled out when someone removed the drugs from the hole in the wall! Denis Taylor was killed, and someone walked out with the drugs. I'm starting to get a clearer picture of what happened here, but... there's no proof just yet. I need to move onto the next step..."
"Dr. Kimishima, have you confirmed that it's a murder after all?" Little Guy asks.
"I don't know how you heard about that so quickly," says Naomi evasively. "Have you been eavesdropping on me?"
"Huh?" he gapes, falling for Naomi's trick as always. "N-No, um...!"
"Forget it," Naomi laughs. "I can see right through you."
Little Guy only gives a nervous chuckle. "Oh, right, I have a new tool for you! It's luminol. Do I need to explain it to you?"
"A chemiluminescent material based on reducing 5-nitrophthalhydrazide with sodium dithionite," Naomi shrugs easily. "It reacts to iron in hemoglobin by glowing, making it useful to find otherwise hidden bloodstains. Anything else?" she finishes smugly.
"Um... no."
"Good. I just spray this onto suspicious areas, then shine the ALS on it, right? I'm sure it will be useful. Thank you, Little Guy."
Leaving her assistant in a trance and still shocked into silence by Naomi's demonstration of what luminol is, the forensics examiner leaves the office to go back to the crime scene once more.
Dennis Taylor's room is the same as always, and Naomi sprays the luminol everywhere she can manage: the bed, the floor around it, the table, the broken fan blade, even the door. But when she activates the ALS, the first reaction to come through is on the floor, near the bed.
"So there were bloodstains here, too," says Naomi quietly. "If these are from the deceased, we may be able to use this with something else that we know."
Moving on and shining the ALS everywhere she had sprayed onto, she finds a reaction... on the fan. This eventually leads to a clue she had missed before due to the poor light conditions of the room and her fatigue settling. "There's a rope wrapped around the shaft of the ceiling fan? There's no mistakes, those are bloodstains."
But why would there be bloodstains on a ceiling fan...? Naomi continues investigating, but Little Guy interrupts.
"Dr. Kimishima, sorry for the wait," he says the moment Naomi answers her phone (the regular one). "The analysis of the burnt material has come back from the laboratory. Calcium hydroxide was detected in the sample."
"Calcium hydroxide?" Naomi repeats. "You mean slaked lime?"
"Yes," says Little Guy. "Small amounts of quicklime were also detected. Quicklime is a substance that releases a great deal of heat when it reacts with water."
"I see," says Naomi. "So this was used to start the fire."
"I agree, but isn't it odd? If the killer wanted to start a fire, there are far easier ways to go about it."
"You're right," says Naomi. "There must have been a reason for this. It's our job to investigate that, isn't it?"
Moving on to prove her point, Naomi starts piecing together the clues – right at the crime scene. "There were two different bloodstains left in the deceased's room. The one on the floor was made first, unless the corpse got up and walked over by itself. It's most likely that the deceased died where the first bloodstains were found... and then was carried to the bed afterwards. That would explain why there was such a small amount of blood on the bed itself."
Continuing the investigation, Naomi moves onto the next piece of information she had found: the fan, the rope, and the blood found on it. "The rope wrapped around the ceiling fan is what caused it to break. The question now is why there was a rope around it in the first place."
Standing up and looking around, Naomi shines the ALS into every nook and cranny of the room. A few minutes later, she still comes with with nothing, and in her frustration, the light bounces onto the doorknob.
A soft blue glow tells her that there's a reaction.
"This?" she whispers incredulously. "There's a reaction to blood on this screw that's securing the doorknob. The screw seems rather loose, as well. Come to think of it, the door to this room was chained shut when the fire started. Could this be related to that in some way?"
Finally feeling that she has enough information, Naomi heads back to the office, confident that she has all there is to get from the crime scene. She begins by giving Little Guy homework, as she has been doing forever.
"What's this?" he asks, when Naomi shows him the chained door. "It just looks like a loose screw to me."
"Think harder, Little Guy," says Naomi exasperatedly. "How was the room when the firefighters arrived at the scene? The entrance was closed, but was it completely unaccessible? The door the Dennis's room was locked only by the chain; the chain on the door had been attached, but the door itself wasn't locked."
"Um, sorry, but... the door only opens about 15 centimeters with the chain attached. I don't even think a small child could get through a space that small."
"You're so unimaginative," Naomi scolds. "Flex your mind and think about it. What I'm trying to tell you is that this loose screw tells us everything. With the screw removed, the entire plate on the door can be swivelled around by the doorknob. The plate itself is about 20 centimeters long, so the gap increases to almost 35 centimeters. How big does somebody have to be so that he couldn't fit through a space that size?"
"I see now," says Little Guy slowly. "That's more than enough room to get past the door. So the killer just screwed the plate back on from the outside after he left the room, then?"
"I think that's the most likely explanation," says Naomi. "But the killer was in plain sight once he was outside the door. He wanted to finish quickly. He couldn't completely tighten the screw, and left the area as we found it."
"Well, that proves that this isn't quite the locked-room mystery we thought it was," Little Guy chuckles nervously.
"Still, this doesn't help us figure out who the killer is," says Naomi pessimistically. "I need to investigate the situation in more detail."
"Ah, Dr. Kimishima, we've identified the blood on the screw," says Little Guy moments later. "It's a DNA match with the victim, Dennis Taylor. Why would his blood be there, of all places?"
"It's simple," says Naomi arrogantly. "It's probably because it touched the murder weapon."
"Wait," Little Guy interrupts. "Why would the killer touch that screw with the murder weapon?"
"He would have to, if the weapon was a screwdriver. It was likely used to both loosen and tighten that screw."
"Then the screwdriver left the blood on the screw while he was covering his tracks," Little Guy realizes.
Screwdriver. Naomi frowns at the shape of it, and her eyes widen as she doubles back to a piece of information forgotten a long time ago: the flower-shaped bruise. "I didn't notice because the bleeding had stopped completely, but this isn't a bruise... it's a stab wound. The distinctive bruise on the corpse's abdomen is from the screwdriver's handle! It's indisputable evidence that the weapon was jammed in so deeply that the grip left a bruise."
This can be pieced with another clue, as well, also long forgotten: the signs of asphyxiation from Dennis's eyes. "Looking at the location of the bruise, the tip of the screwdriver must have pierced Dennis's lung. His lung would then rupture, causing pulmonary emphysema, and he would have suffocated. This explains the spots of hemorrhaging in the corpse's eyes... what actually happened that day is slowly coming to light now...
"On the day of the incident, the killer came to the victim's room and stabbed him in the torso. The murder weapon was a screwdriver, and it pierced the victim's lung, causing pulmonary emphysema. This caused respiratory problems due to lung failure, and thus, the cause of death was asphyxiation. After this, the killer moved the victim to the bed. The murderer then arranged the corpse to make the death appear to be a suicide. That is what I believe took place, according to the evidence we have gathered."
That only leaves the mystery of how the fire started, and then Naomi's job here is done.
Feeling that she should still check the personal effects for clothing damage, Naomi does so, and realizes what's wrong from what she sees, or more accurately, what she doesn't see. "This is odd; there's something missing that should be here. If the puncture wound in the abdomen is the true cause of death, then there should be bloodstains and a hole where the screwdriver went through his clothing... this can tell us something.
"According to Mr. Taylor's friend, on the day of the incident Dennis had been wearing a red Portland Jacks T-shirt that day. But when his body was discovered, it was wearing a white shirt. In other words, his clothing had changed. And yet, if that was all we know, we couldn't rule out if the deceased had changed his shirt himself. However, if he had, there would still be a discrepancy. The white shirt the corpse wore doesn't fit the facts because that wasn't reflected by the status of the clothing it was wearing. There's only one answer to this puzzle, and that is that whoever had killed Mr. Taylor replaced the shirt he was wearing after killing him. The reason for doing that was to make it look like suicide. It was to hide the stab wound and make us believe the cut wrist was the cause of death. The killer staged the suicide in order to mislead us."
That isn't it, and there's further proof of the killer changing Dennis. "There are no vital reactions to the broken finger. That means the damage occurred after death. Considering that the killer must have changed the victim's clothing after death, it was broken while changing."
That solves everything, except for the sole topic that Naomi has hunted for so long: the fire. "It began near the fallen table. Calcium hydroxide was found in the substance on the floor there, and it's formed through the reaction of quicklime and water. That reaction creates something else, as well: heat. Quicklime releases 65 kJ of energy per mole when it reacts with water. This was the method used to start the fire in this room. First, you would place a glass of water on the table, and then put quicklime around the floor and on the table near the glass. When the table falls over, the hydration heat caused by the reaction would cause a fire. But... why would the killer go through such a complicated plan to start a fire?"
Naomi answers her own question: to delay when the fire started. "If all he wanted was a fire, he could have just set something alight. The killer needed to have a delay until the fire began. That's why he devised a plan that made use of two components: the ceiling fan and rope. The killer wrapped one end of the rope around the fan, and tied the other to a table leg. When the fan activated according to its timer, the fan wound the rope up, flipping the table over and spilling the water onto the quicklime! However, there's still one basic question left to be asked... why did the killer have to set the room on fire in the first place? Why go through his extravagant setup to make it happen?"
As usual, the answer comes to Naomi's mind immediately: "Due to the fact that there was nothing flammable added to the body itself, the culprit never intended for the corpse and the evidence to be destroyed in the fire. Instead, the killer wanted to cause a commotion that would draw attention to the corpse, to create an alibi. The plan was to have enough time to create a viable alibi for when the fire began. It's easy... I mean, with this method of misdirection, the culprit could start a fire hours after having left the crime scene entirely.
"This is the entire truth behind this mysterious arson."
At this point, almost on cue, Little Guy's voice emits out of the speakers. "Dr. Kimishima, how's the investigation going?"
"I've almost uncovered the deception, but the truth hasn't completely been revealed," says Naomi.
"So we can't arrest the culprit yet," says Little Guy dully.
"That's right," says Naomi. "I need conclusive evidence that can help us identify the killer."
"The most reliable giveaway would be if we could find a fingerprint at the crime scene," says Little Guy. "However, only the victim's fingerprints were found when HQ searched the room."
"I'm not surprised," Naomi sighs. "Considering the lengths the killer's gone to hide his tracks. The murderer was probably wearing gloves while the crime was being committed."
"Isn't there anything the killer might have touched?" Little Guy questions.
"Something that would require him to take his gloves off?" Naomi repeats. "It's hard to think of anything."
"Well, the best evidence would be on a hard, slick, inorganic substance," Little Guy offers. "It doesn't matter what size it is."
"All we can investigate are the crime scene, the corpse, and what the corpse was wearing," Naomi mutters exasperatedly. "Could there be anything among those items that the killer touched with a bare hand?"
Ditching Little Guy in the middle of their conversation, Naomi moves onto the examination room, determined to end this case once and for all. I can't give up now... not when the truth is so close!
Naomi knows that there won't be any fingerprints at the crime scene because the FBI had already checked, and obviously not on the corpse. That leaves the personal effects...
"The killer put this shirt on the victim's corpse after the murder took place," Naomi mumbles, inspecting the white cotton button-on shirt. "That would mean that the killer would have had to button the shirt up as well... Buttoning up a shirt with gloves on is no easy task, and if my predictions are correct..." Naomi heads back to her office with her story.
"The buttons on the victim's clothes, huh?" Little Guy laughs after Naomi had explained it. "I'll look into them right away! One moment, please!"
"Hopefully, this will help us find the identify of our mystery murderer," Naomi sighs in relief.
"Dr. Kimishima!" Little Guy cries. "It was there, I found it! There's a fingerprint from someone who isn't the victim! It's a... a right thumb!"
"Great," says Naomi happily, but with the same authority she has used for several years. "Run the print through the list of registered offenders immediately!"
"Such an attention to detail has gone into this," Little Guy mutters as he works. "It can't possibly be a first-time offender. There has to be a match for this fingerprint in our records!"
"I sincerely hope so," Naomi agrees heartily. "This case should be over soon."
"The dead shall speak."
Little Guy and his crew are still investigating the fingerprint, and Naomi has slithered away from the din to join the corpse, asleep forever. The woman standing right in front of the corpse could very well be the borderline and the messenger between life and death, or as people call it, the Corpse Whisperer. Her name is known throughout the country, but that doesn't mean that she has to lack in her conversations with the dead.
"Let's put together the truth of what happened here," Naomi continues in her ominous tone...
The victim in this case is 30-year-old Dennis Taylor. As there's no motive for murder, it's a suspected suicide. However, the victim had a hidden other side, and while he did work at the bar, he also dealt drugs. This case is related to the victim's drug activities, because the drugs hidden behind the shelf were missing.
The drugs. Hidden from daylight for so long, behind the heavy shelf that obscured them from outside invaders, but the murderer had found it...
The killer went into Taylor's room to kill him... for his drugs. The real cause of the victim's death can tell us that, for the wound on the wrist was not the true cause. The killer disguised the murder as a suicide. The appearance of suicide covered up the real cause.
Dennis Taylor, his body already frozen stiff from rigor mortis, the shadow of the killer lifting the corpse to its bed.
The next topic is the secret hidden in the room itself. The murderer used a trick to create a locked-room mystery. It was made to seem as if the victim was the only one there, and the killer thought this would clear his trail.
The killer, setting up the fan, the rope, the water, the quicklime... escaping through the door, and screwing the screw in... and the door slips closed.
And yet, the culprit had one more way to hide from suspicion. That was to hide when the murder itself took place, which happened three hours prior to the fire's start. It's natural to assume that if the room was locked, then the crime and the fire would be at the same time. The plan was perfect. No fingerprints were left in the room. However, there was one thing the killer hadn't counted on, for there was one task he needed to remove his gloves to do: he probably couldn't button the clothes with his gloves on. No matter how small the buttons, there were still prints. Even a fragment of a fingerprint can be used to identify him.
The killer, carefully taking his gloves off, and avoiding brushing his fingers along anything else, slowly buttons the shirt and quickly putting the gloves back on, hoping that no one would bother checking the fingerprints on the jacket... but Naomi did.
The victim must've been surprised. After all, he thought the killer was a customer... This is what he said at the very end...
"S-Stop! You...! NO!" Dennis Taylor's last words cry just before the murderer stabs him with the screwdriver... the electrician.
The final flickers of this soul's light show me the truth.
Naomi slowly withdraws from her own world but is suddenly jerked awake by a sudden clanging of a door slamming shut. Frightened and knowing that Little Guy or any of his crew wouldn't dare enter without knocking (they've had bad experiences before), Naomi turns around, feeling the first thuds of fright taking place.
"Who's there?" she demands. Much to her surprise and it only sets terror alight once more, the orange suit of the electrician throws the door to the examination room open and storms in.
"I'm sorry, I must've surprised you," he smirks.
"You're that electrician," says Naomi gingerly, taking this in her evasive, sly way. "Why are you here?"
"Oh, I was called up because a switchboard blew," he says quietly. "I need to have it fixed by tomorrow."
"I see," says Naomi slowly. "That sounds difficult."
Her icy blue eyes slide over to a gun sitting on a bench, bullets already jammed in. She feels her muscles tense; the electrician can't know that I have already figured out who is the murderer... And Naomi sees a screwdriver clutched in his heavily muscled grasp.
Three... two... one... the countdown seems to be shared in unison by the two, glowering in each other's faces. Zero. Naomi dives to the side as the electrician runs up and attempts to stab her with the screwdriver.
He misses, and Naomi grabs the gun, takes aim briefly, and fires. The electrician falls to the floor with a grunt, blood trickling from where the bullet had hit him: the left leg. Naomi strides up to him, gun cocked and ready, towering over the fallen murderer.
"Freeze," she says coldly. "Don't move. I see corpses all day; one more won't bother me."
Night has fallen, and the coldness of it all seems to lurch over Portland as a moonless night rises. Naomi Kimishima strides through the gates of CIFM, heading home. The recent encounter with a murderer had left her heart still beating shakily, but she has managed to stay alive after all these years...
"Naomi!" The sudden cry of Chief Wayne's voice has Naomi turn around as the giant, dark man runs forwards. "Are you hurt? I'm sorry, I should've stayed..."
"I've solved the case," she says airily. "I'll give you my report tomorrow."
"The report can wait," he says gravely. "Naomi, You must think of your safety."
"Nobody lives forever," she mutters darkly, eyes closed, thinking back to her days being the patient instead of the doctor. "Even if I died today, it'd just be earlier than I expected."
She swings on her heels and walks off, leaving Chief David Wayne alone in the darkness, astounded by her last words.
*screams* I'M FINALLY DONE LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERY! Ugh. Sorry, after several weeks of inactivity, this is what was planned to have happened:
mockingjayfire writes Locked-Room Mystery, Behind the Lies, and Seeking Atonement.
fighterkirby writes Wandering Girl, Crime of Passion, and Journey's End.
So fighterkirby finished Wandering Girl within a week. mockingjayfire barely started, and then after her deadline, she told me to do it instead. :) So fighterkirby's here, finished ANOTHER massive chapter (9,027 words) and... yeah. Good news, though. Another 10000+ word chapter (Wandering Girl) is coming right up.
Don't you DARE blame mf, though, or fighterkirby stabs you with a Rosalia's GUILT-infested screwdriver. It makes you addicted to OSTs and you get the Rosalia Virus plus GUILT. *freaky smile*
The next chapter in the chronological version is "32. Tomoe: II: Moment of Zen".