Conversations Among Ghosts

by Ysabet

NOT a ghost story, I repeat: NOT a ghost story! Detective Takagi decides to ask some *very* direct questions of Conan; secrets will be revealed, cars will break down, weirdness will prevail and people will (of course) get murdered.***FINISHED 2/10/03!***

4. Mea Culpa

Chapter 4:  Mea Culpa

The flash of red-and-blue lights announcing the approaching squadcar and ambulance were transformed into fuzzy halos by the droplets on Conan's glasses; from just inside the bus door he watched silently as they approached with a splash, pulling alongside the stranded vehicle.

*Took them long enough.  Poor Takagi—he was hoping he'd be able to change clothes or wash up a little before anybody from the stationhouse saw him…  Oh well; so it goes.*  By the looks of things, the officer was probably at least getting marginally cleaner by standing a couple of yards away from the bus in the middle of the downpour—either that, or he was trying for a nice case of pneumonia.

The rain seemed to mute everything, to make it oddly distant; as an unfamiliar rainslicker-coated officer climbed out of the squadcar and splashed his way over to Takagi, Conan wondered distantly at how dulled their voices seemed through the pounding on the bus's roof.  He could barely hear them; they seemed to be arguing over something a bit (the other officer was waving his arms around and giving Takagi a decidedly dubious look), but after a moment a mutual agreement seemed to have been reached.  The officer shrugged, then turned away to wave the ambulance into a place near the front of the bus.

A growl of thunder overhead made the boy glance irritably at the sky; was it *ever* going to stop with the damned rain?  He was damp in places Conan hadn't even known he HAD.  Ran was going to have a fit—well, that was sort of a moot point anyway, she was going to have a fit from the late hour no matter what.  By all rights he should've been back at the Mouri's oh, about five hours ago…..  He winced internally at the thought of her reaction and that of Sato, who was probably going to turn her partner into stir-fry when she got hold of him…..

Of course, one might consider a murder investigation to be mitigating circumstances.  *Right?  That ought to take precedence over getting home on time.  Sure hope Ran and Sato think so too.*  Conan glanced over his shoulder at the quiet form lying a little ways behind him.

The corpse in question belonged to one Shen Wen Li, a Chinese immigrant with Japanese citizenship according to the contents of his billfold.  Fifty-three years old, the man had been working as a driver for the Tokyo Metro bus service for seventeen years; his personal effects had contained pictures of a wife, two grown children and a handful of grandchildren that were now going to have to grow up without their grandfather around.  Conan sighed an unchildlike sigh, scrabbling one hand through his damp, spiky hair.

*When you deal with murders and murderers you tend to forget that the victim's death will affect more than just the people around you—it's so easy to get caught up in the crime-scene that you don't think about the kids that'll never help celebrate Grandad's next birthday, won't see him next weekend or talk to him on the phone…..  It doesn't even really matter whether or not he was a nice guy or a jerk—he was alive and he had the potential to be all sorts of things, and now that's gone.  Stolen from him.  In a weird sort of way, murder is the ultimate theft.*

And this WAS murder, no doubt about that; the tiny lancet hidden in the seam of the seat told that tale quite clearly.  *Bee venom; horrible way to die, too.  Somebody wanted this man to HURT.  Who hated him that much?  It had to be somebody on the bus, somebody that got on fairly recently too…..  If it had been there for too long he would've sat against it before then.  So—*

A  thin fan of mud and rainwater interrupted his thoughts, splashing up through the doorway and across his face and clothing; the faux gradeschooler forgot his cover enough to swear, stepping hastily back up the steps—or trying to.  He slipped with a yelp, one soaked sneaker skidding on the stair's treds and sending him asphaltwards—

--only to be arrested (so to speak) by the hand of Officer Takagi Wataru, arriving in a splash of rainwater just in time to keep him from bashing his brains out.  "You okay?"  The officer sneezed, wiping a tangle of muddy hair from his eyes and carefully  settling him onto his feet.  "Careful—one corpse on our hands is enough…"

"Yeah—thanks."  A little embarrassed, the former Kudo Shinichi glared down at the ankle-deep puddle he had landed in.  "WHY doesn't it stop raining?" he demanded of the weather in general; it declined to answer, unless you could count the particularly nasty gust of wind that did its best to blow him over sideways.  The boy staggered into the older man's legs, muttering uncomplimentary things regarding Mother Nature under his breath.

The detective hesitated and seemed about to say something as he watched his companion gingerly lift one small foot from the puddle, shake the water from it in a fine display of futility and place it  back down with a *sploosh;* Tokyo's drainage system could only do so much, and the water underfoot was rising.  The level was already past the tops of his tennishoes…..

"Uh, Ku—I mean, Conan-kun?  You want help before you start floating downstream?"

*Slosh, slosh, splash*  "Might be a good idea—"  *Squelch, slosh*  "—or you're going to end up fishing me out of a storm-drain..."

Looking rather self-conscious and awkward about the whole thing, Takagi reached down with both hands and caught his diminutive companion up beneath the arms; the rainwater relinquished him with a soggy *plorp*  as he hoisted him off his feet.  Carefully he sat the boy onto the still-warm hood of the squad-car.  "Guess you really can't get any wetter, can you?  At least you're off the ground now.  What happened to the umbrella?"

Conan shrugged.  "Left it back in the bus" he said shortly, nodding towards the stranded vehicle.  "So—now what?  We can't keep everybody on board forever—"  He watched as the other officer climbed up the slippery steps, peering at the driver's body and beginning to make notes in his own Occurance Book.  "Who's that, by the way?"

"Officer Mufune; fairly new guy, not a bad cop.  A little wet behind the ears, I guess—"

The boy grinned a little sardonically.  "Yeah, well, that goes for all of us right now….."

Takagi grunted impatiently, running one hand through his soggy hair and making it stand on end.  "Very funny.  As for what's next—we need some place to talk to the passengers that's out of the way, someplace dry; if we get 'em comfortable, they're less likely to throw a fit about being held longer.  Let's see….."  He frowned, leaning against the wet vehicle and looking around.  They were in a dimly-lit area on the edge of town, the sort of place that seems to consist solely of small businesses and the tag-ends of residential neighborhoods that haven't quite been driven into selling by the bigger companies yet.  A lit window over a small café-looking place across the street caught his eye, and he brightened; two faces could be seen peering down from the second floor, silhouetted against the curtains.  "There, maybe; looks like all our noise woke somebody up— be right back—"  He splashed off across the pavement with a tired but hopeful stride.

Conan scooted back a little further on the wet metal hood, watching him go; 'someplace dry' sounded like heaven at the moment.  *And maybe we can get some tea or something hot to eat…* he thought wistfully; the donuts of a little while back had long since lost their filling abilities.  *I'm a growing boy, after all.*

Behind him the ambulance attendants rolled a gurney up to the bus door in preparation to remove the driver's body; the gradeschooler's face lost its wistfulness and grew a little grimmer as he watched them unroll a black plastic body bag, spreading it out and unzipping it.  *We've got all our suspects in one place and we've got the murder weapon in hand; we'd better make good use of this opportunity for something more than just getting comfortable.  Time to solve this case…..*

Across the street Takagi was talking to a bathrobe-clad man in the open doorway of the café while his wife looked on from the window above; apparently they had found their 'someplace dry.'  *Good; let's get to work.*  The boy's jaw tightened a little into what was almost a smile.  *And this time I don't think I'm going to need any darts from my watch.*

***********************************************

Waking up was…..

….. rather like being mugged in an alley.

There you were, strolling along through the depths of sleep, minding your own business (and having a nice-if-somewhat-confused dream concerning a certain partner, a seventeen course dinner and a pair of hang-gliders)—and suddenly wakefulness stepped up behind you, clubbed you across the back of the head and stole your wallet.

Or something like that. 

*Ooooooooh…..  Whatever I did to deserve this, I'm really really SORRY, okay?*  Sato moaned; she couldn't help it.  Even without opening her eyes she knew she was going to regret being alive, wherever she was.  Her head felt like someone had been using it to mix industrial-strength drain-cleaner and small live animals inside it with a jackhammer; her teeth felt furry.

*No.  Not going to open my eyes.  Don't care where I am, don't care how I got there; it'll have lights, and lights would hurt.  NOT going to open my eyes.*  She moaned again and tried to convince her brain to slip back peacefully into unconsciousness, but her brain wasn't buying the idea and persisted in staying awake.

*Stupid brain.  Doesn't have enough sense to come in out of the rain.*

Rain?  And another noise…..

"…..snerrrrkkkk….."

She could hear rain all around her, muted and distant—it was dripping off something, coming down onto something overhead and making *far* too much noise.  She didn't feel wet, though; just miserable.  But what in the world was that other sound?  Maybe she could open her eyes just a crack without moving her head?  If she moved her head it would fall right off, Sato was sure of it…..

*…just a little tiny bit…..*

Wince.  Maybe she'd feel better if her head DID fall off.  Come to think of it, she probably would.

*Oooh.  Fairly dark, thank God; not too much light.  Uhhhh….. sick.  No, don't want to throw up, NOT going to throw up, don't want to do that at ALL.  Wouldn't help.  I haven't felt this bad since that party at the Academy when I ended up sleeping in the trunk of a squadcar.  Where am I?  And… what's that… what are those SOUNDS…??*

"…..snerrrrkkkk….. sngggggggghh….. SNNGT!zzzzzzg….."

*They sound like… snores.  Snoring.  Uhh-----*

She was warm; that hadn't really registered before, but now it did.  WHERE in the world--??  There was something leaning against her rather heavily on either side, two somethings that were contributing to the snoring sounds; muzzily Sato turned her head to the right and found herself regarding the sleeping face of a young female, Asian, brown haired and approximately in her late teens—

*Oh, right; Ran-chan.  Good.  So who's--*  With difficulty she turned her her head to the left—

*Gaahhh!!*

-- to see a horrific, heavily made-up, dreadfully-smeared, bristle-jowled geisha with his wig askew, mouth open and snoring like an entire herd of warthogs in heat.

*Oh God.  Momo-san.  The bar.  THAT bar.  Ran.  The drinks.  The—birthday present?!?.....  Oh NO.*

"…..snnnnnxx…….. sneeEEEerrrrkkkks……"

*The tattoo parlor.  Momo-san was getting a new tattoo, and she wanted us both to—*  Sato shut her eyes firmly and attempted to shut her brain up as well; once again, it declined to cooperate.

*I've been a good girl, haven't I?  I haven't done anything to warrant this sort of thing happening to me; I pay my taxes, I say my prayers at night, I haven't dragged Takagi off and--  I haven't done anything really terrible in YEARS.  Please tell me I didn't….. didn't…..*

Dimly she became aware of a somewhat painful patch of skin high on her left hip; dimly she became aware of memories that said that she had.

*Oh no.  Somebody just shoot me now.  Please.  No, come to think of it, DON'T shoot me, because then I'll have to explain this whole thing to my dad in the Afterlife…..*

"…..sngggghh….. SSSNRRK!sssnozzzzz….."

To her right she heard a faint groan; Mouri Ran stirred against Sato's shoulder, mumbling something indistinct:  "…nnno, NO, Sonoko, don't *want* 'nymore dwinks—"

Moving with the utmost care, Sato reached out a wobbly hand and shook the young woman's shoulder slightly.  "…..Ran?  Ran-chan?"  Her voice croaked like a frog's in a desert.   "Are—you okay?"  The volume of the snores beside and around them (and it was beginning to dawn on Sato that there were quite a number of them) did not dim in volume in the least, although thunder grumbled overhead as if it had a hangover too.

"—Mmhm?—Wha??—"

"—*oooooooooh*—ohhhhh GOD myheadhurts—" 

Well, she didn't exactly sound like she was 'okay', but apparently she was awake now.  The young officer allowed her own eyes to close again, lolling her head back onto what felt like some sort of bench.  Where the hell were they, anyway?

It had been dimly lit and filled with snoring crossdressers; all else had been blotted out by the overwhelming headache.  She'd have to look around again….  Reluctantly Detective Sato Miwako squared her mental shoulders, girded her mental loins, forcibly put the word *tattoo* out of her mind and reopened her eyes.

The first things that she saw were the unconscious bodies sprawled every-which-way across the room, occupying most of the sizable, uncluttered surfaces with limp bundles of women's clothing and unshaven faces.  The *second* thing that met her gaze was a sign, reading PIERCINGS 20% OFF THIS WEEK!!  CHECK OUT OUR NEW VIBRATING SPIRAL TWISTERS!!!  With a lack of curiosity that probably did her status as a cop no credit, Sato decided immediately that not only did she not WANT to ever check out a 'vibrating spiral twister', she didn't even want to know what one was.  She shuddered and turned her head a little away, blearily scanning the surroundings.

"…..snerrrrkkkk….. snnghwww…… SNGxxss……"

Either they were in a rather peculiarly decorated dentist's office or they were still in the tattoo shop.  Brilliant posters of designs covered every wall (and even the ceiling), but the room had a decidedly clinical look to it despite the flashing neon sign in the window a few yards away.  There was a padded chair with broad armrests and an adjustable light overhead, there was sterilization equipment and white cabinets, there was a tray of band-aids, salves and disinfectant and a strong scent of alcohol—

Oh, and speaking of alcohol…..  WHAT, exactly, had she been *drinking* the night before that would allow Momo-san to persuade her to have a—a—one of *those* done?!?

Maybe it was better not to ask.  Slowly, cradling her head in her hands, Sato sat up.  Beside her Ran moaned again and ground the palms of her hands against her eyes.  "Somebody please turn off the lights—" whispered the teenager miserably, her voice shaky.  One hand crept down and rubbed gingerly against her hip; she winced visably, and a suspicion crept through Sato's mind…..

*Oh CRAP.*  She had to know.

"Ummm… Ran-chan?  Do you—remember what happened after we got here last night?"  Damn, even talking hurt.

The girl flinched, opening dazed and bloodshot eyes.  "I, uhhh…..  Oh.  I—hope not, I really hope not……"  Then her eyes widened in horror and she snatched her hand away from her hip as if bitten by her own skin.  "S-Sato-kun?  Please t-tell me we didn't each get… get a….."

Their gazes met.

"…..We *did,* didn't we?  We… got….. tattooed."

Sato groaned, .  "Your father is going to KILL me.  And I think I'll load the gun for him."

"….. sngggggggghh….."  One of the drowsing crossdressers shifted in his sleep, a bra-strap showing on his bared shoulder.

Carefully her companion slid a little forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her forehead in her hands.  "Sonoko… tried to talk me into getting one once… you know?"  She sounded slightly dazed, rambling on as if in shock.  "We were going to go to a classmate's house, her friend's sister worked at a parlor down on Juuichi Street…..  Sonoko wanted to get some sort of flower vine around her upper arm and she wanted me to get—"

"Uh, Ran?"

"—a heart with a—  What?  Huh?"  Blinking, Mouri Ran looked up at Sato.

"What… do you suppose we DID get?  I can't remember….."

The girl blanched, tiny freckles that would usually go unnoticed standing out against her pallor.  Her eyes strayed to a door in the corner of the room that read 'RESTROOM'; they'd have to step over a number of slumbering crossdressers to get to it, but...  "You go first."

"……. Thanks loads, Ran……."

Two mutual trips to the restroom later:

Ran sat down carefully on the bench again, avoiding Sato's eyes; she rubbed nervously at her forehead, and a blush stood out in bright tell-tale on her pale face.  "Ummm— what did you get?"

The young officer eyed her somewhat sourly.  "…You go first."

Ran grimaced.  "Let's just say that Sonoko'll like it."

"A heart, huh?  …..What's on the heart?"

The young woman blinked.  "How did you know--  Sato-kun, how did you know that there was something on the heart?  How'd you know it wasn't just a plain heart?"  Her blush deepened as the detective just quirked one tired eyebrow in her direction.  "Um.  If you must know… it's a…"  Her voice trailed off.

"—a—?"

"asortofnumeralone."

"A *what*??"

"….. sngggggggghh….. SNGHk?...... sxxxzzz….."

Ran scowled.  "A-sort-of-numeral-ONE, okay?"  She closed her eyes and moaned softly as the raising of her own voice made her headache even worse.  "A kanji.  You know, 'ichi'…..?"

Now it was Sato's turn to blink; her lips twitched in the bare beginnings of a grin.  "You mean as in 'Kudo Shin—"

"—ichi, yes….."  Ran buried her burning face back in her hands.  "And if you ever tell ANYONE, I swear, Sato-kun, my dad WILL kill you because I'll tell HIM and he'll—"  The rest of the threat was muffled by both hands and the misery of her hangover but sounded distinctly and unmistakably sincere; Sato nodded in response, carefully rubbing at the site of her own discomfort.  Dim memories of a surly voice growling 'If ya pick at it it won't heal— keep it sterile an' put antibiotic salve on it twice a day or it'll go septic on ya' made her stop.

"Errr, If it's any help… mine sort of matches yours."  She sighed, deeply and gloomily.  "Only I've got something a lot more embarrassing on *my* heart….."  As Ran's eyes widened the young officer nodded, her own face flushing a deep red.

"What *is* it?  I mean, what could be more embarrassing than having even *part* of somebody's name tattooed on your skin??"  A look of dread and speculation crossed the teenager's countenance and she pushed a tumble of disheveled hair from her eyes, waiting.

"Well….."  Sato ducked her head.  "What is it that you never find a cop without?  What do we *always* carry with us, no matter what rank we are?"

"Ummmm…. A badge?"

The detective shook her aching head; around her the snores of the slumbering crossdressers seemed to mock her.  "Good guess, but no… not quite—"

Ran's forehead wrinkled and she let out a small hiss of pain, rubbing at her eyes again.  "Owww…..  Not a gun, because not all cops get issued guns….. a uniform'd look sort of silly….."  Suddenly her eyes widened, bugging out slightly as she raised her head.  "Oh, SATO—not—??"  And she held both hands out in front of her, fists side by side and wrists close together.  Sato nodded glumly, her face now approaching the color generally known as magenta.

"…szzznerkks…..zzSNORT!!sszzgt….. sneeeerkkkksz…."

There was relative silence for a moment as they both considered the idea.  A muffled snort escaped Ran, and Sato glanced sideways at her; the young woman was biting her lip hard.  "Well….. THAT ought to be interesting to explain to Ta— errrr, to somebody someday."

"Tell me about it," growled Detective Sato.  To her left there was movement; both young women jumped slightly and stared as Momo-san, geisha-at-large and the party responsible for the whole mess began to laugh a great, guffawing laugh…..

***********************************************

Detective Takagi Wataru breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief as he mopped at his face with a handful of paper towels.  The men's restroom in the small café that had opened its doors to the busload of soggy passengers wasn't exactly the equivalent of a shower and a change of clothes, but it helped.  At least he wasn't looking *quite* like somebody you'd find sleeping in a cardboard box in an alley anymore…

Splashing sounds from the other sink made him glance a little sideways; Conan-kun was busily washing his face, making quite a mess of the floor below the sink as he dripped rainwater all over the place.  Still enveloped in his borrowed fishy-smelling jacket, the boy glanced up at the detective's perusal; "What?"

"Nothing."  The detective dried his hands.  "You still have a smear on your forehead—"

An impatient shrug indicated that Conan could not have cared less about smears or anything else of the sort; the faux gradeschooler leaned back against the sink, arms crossed.  "So—how do you want to handle this, Takagi?"  One small eyebrow went up and the older man felt a trickle of discomfort creep down his spine at the sharp, direct gaze.  "Any ideas on the culprit?"

Takagi hesitated; scratching at the back of his head with a habitual gesture, he frowned.  "Yeah, a few…  you?"

An identical frown crossed the young features.  "One or two…  The usual three factors have to be covered here, just like with any other murder:  method, opportunity and motive.  The killer had to have access to the murder weapon, a chance to plant it where it would do what they wanted it to do, and a reason to kill."  Chewing on his lip a little, the small boy scowled harder and leaned over to tie his shoe; tangled dark hair fell forward, hiding his face.  "The second one's the easiest to weed out—"

The detective nodded, pulling out his Occurance Book.  "I have a list of everyone's position on the bus here, plus a pretty good schedule of when they boarded."  He watched as his diminutive companion straightened, noting absently that Conan had somehow managed to pick up a number of twigs and scraps of grass in his sodden hair.  "If we work from the basis that the driver would've hit the point of the lancet pretty quickly after it was positioned, that tells us it had to be set up not too long before he died."

Conan nodded, pulling out his glasses and wiping at the lenses with a paper towel.  "That'd be right—it was sticking out pretty far; there's no way he could miss it for more than a few minutes."  He shoved the glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger, eyes distant.  "You know, though, Takagi?  There's something bothering me about the whole thing… that lancet.  It's not exactly standard medical equipment, is it?  But I think I've seen one like it before, somewhere—"

Takagi nodded; it had been bothering him too.  He reached into one pocket and pulled out the evidence baggie containing the weapon in question; the small, sharp point glinted evilly beneath the restroom's overhead lighting.  "Did you notice how thick the needle is?  I've had my blood drawn a few times by finger-prick at the doctor's, and he always uses this tiny little thing he calls a 'sharpie'—"  The needle in question was nearly the thickness of a pencil-lead, angled at the tip; the interior channel was encrusted with now-dry bee venom.  "It looks more like the sort of thing you'd use for an IV… but the end's closed off."  The flat rubber bulb at the needle's terminus had no openings but was blind, meant to hold fluids of one sort or another.

*Weird; nowadays when a blood sample's being drawn, most of the time they either just take a drop or so or they start filling up vials.  Who uses something like this?*  An odd suspicion crossed Takagi's mind and he turned the thing over carefully, looking for a brand-name or product number; no good.  It was as blank as an empty sheet of paper….. which was fairly odd in itself.  He passed it over to the boy, who carefully slid it out of the baggie with a bit of towel.  "See anything peculiar about it?"

The dark blue eyes were as sharp as needles themselves, dissecting what lay before them.  It only took a few seconds for the mind behind those eyes to come to a conclusion:  "It's old.  Not *very* old, but old enough that it doesn't even have a 'Made In Japan' label or company marking on it—not something you see on modern medical equipment."  Delicately he held it up by one corner of the baggie, checking each detail from less than six inches away.  "Nobody'd sell something like this nowadays; so where did the murderer get it?"  He passed it back.  "Can I see your notes again?"  The detective passed over his Occurance Book, chewing on his lip as he thought.

"So we've got a suspect that has access to obsolete medical or lab equipment and bee venom and hates bus drivers," said Takagi slowly; he shook his head, dislodging a few remaining drops of rainwater.  "They came onto the bus, planted the thing when the busdriver was out of his seat, then watched him die.  What sort of—"

"…………….Takagi—"

"Hmm?"  The detective glanced back at the boy and his eyes widened; if he had thought the kid—Kudo, that is—had looked intent *before*…..  "What?  Did you think of something?"

"No, you did.  You just said it—the murderer had to plant the murder weapon when the busdriver had gotten out of his seat; they couldn't place it unless he was up.  What would make him do that?  I mean, during a route, not while the bus was at the station?"

The older man opened his mouth—and then shut it abruptly, a look of dawning understanding crossing his face.  "A driver would only get up during a route—"

"—to help someone up the stairs or to their seat.  So at what times did he do that?"  Conan's eyes were bright and hard with something that approached triumph; it was that same look that Takagi had seen several times before, the look that did not belong on a child's face.

(In bizarre contrast to this, the not-really-a-little-boy was nearly bouncing on his feet in excitement.  Sometimes Takagi had to wonder about Kudo…..)

He scratched at his head again.  "Okay, we need to sit down somewhere and—"

The door opened; one of the grubbier-looking dockworkers pushed through, rubbing tired eyes with a large hand.  He halted at the sight of the bathroom's two occupants.  "You still awake, kid?  Figured you'd be curled up in a corner asleep somewhere by now…"

Takagi gave him a nervous smile, wondering if the guy had overheard anything from outside.  "Heh heh, kids these days…..  They never know when to quit, do they?"  From the corner of his eye he saw the face at elbow-level flicker rapidly from startlement to annoyance and then to sleepy-eyed innocence. 

Nodding vigorously, the apparent gradeschooler blinked up at the dockworker.  "It's the best way to learn about police stuff—that way I can be a really good cop when I grow up," he earnestly assured the man; this statement was followed by a jaw-cracking yawn which somewhat spoiled the effect, but the dockworker chuckled and reached down to ruffle the damp hair with a fishy-smelling hand.

"Guess you're havin' a pretty exciting night, huh?  Won't your mom and dad get worried, you bein' out so late?"  The man (Takagi remembered his name vaguely, something like Hidaka or Hidoko) busied himself at the sink, scrubbing; the scent of soap and old fish filled the air.

The detective blinked; "Uhhhh--- he's---"

But Conan had matters under control.  "Nooo… I'm staying the night with my niisan, so they don't know yet."  With an air of childlike unconcern he began flipping through his "niisan's" Occurance Book.  "What does 'in-de-cent ex-po-sure' mean, Niisan?"  He read the phrase out loud and looked up inquisitively at the older man, a subdued flicker of mischief glimmering at the back of his little boy's eyes.

Takagi shot him a hastily-camoflaged dirty look.  "Never mind," he said firmly; "Maybe you'd better find a place to sit down at a table or something, okay?"  A thought struck him.  "And maybe we can find you some crayons or something to play with….."  He smiled down at the boy, suppressing a snicker.  *Payback, "otochan"…..*  Drying his hands, the dockworker at the sink chuckled.

Somewhat to Takagi's surprise, however, Conan beamed back up at him.  "I'd like that—I really would."  He grinned, and a spark of something rather predatory and not at all childish flared behind the mask.  "I think… I'll draw a picture of the bus.  I can put where everybody was sitting and all that stuff, and write down when they came in….. just like a real detective making a report.  Right?  And then I can *show* it to you when I'm done….."

*Huh.  Nice idea, Kudo—we can collaborate in plain sight like that, can't we?*  "Sure."  He pushed open the door, shepherding his small charge in front of him; the dockworker followed.  "Let's see if the owners have something you can use….."

As the warm air of the outer room struck them, Takagi glanced down at the top of the small, tousled head in front of him.  *And let's see some of those detective skills you're so famous for; it's time we finished this.*

***********************************************

Mouri Ran groaned, her head in her hands.  She was not dealing well with her hangover, and the discovery of her tattoo had NOT helped. 

"Just think of it this way," advised Momo-san, placing a steaming cup on the linoleum countertop beside her as the rain drummed down on the roof overhead; "Nobody'll know it's there unless you tell 'em…..  I mean, how's your dad gonna find out if nobody squeals?  Sato-san here'll keep shut about it—won't ya?"  He beamed in her direction with a wide, toothy smile.

The young woman shook her head, gritting her teeth against the pain that the jarring movement caused.  "It's not my dad I'm worried about," she said glumly, peering into the tea cup; "—it's my *mom.*  When she finds out I managed to get myself tattooed, she'll….."  Her voice trailed off in the dread and apprehension that only an attorney's daughter can know as the possibilities presented themselves.  "Oh God….. and if SHINICHI ever finds out—"  Ran's face showed a peculiar combination of white pallor and high red spots on her cheekbones.  ".......Oh God.…… ……."

Beside her Sato swallowed hard and closed her eyes; right, Ran's mom was a lawyer.  There went all her promotion opportunities for the rest of her life.

"Kisaki Eri, right?"  At the two women's startled looks Momo-san nodded, apparently pleased (as far as could be determined, anyway, beneath the heavy layers of makeup and his askew black wig.)  He smirked, stirring his own cup with a plastic spoon and leaning heavily on the edge of the counter in a most ungeisha-like sprawl.  "If she gets too shirty about it, just ask her what *she's* got on her left shoulderblade, huh?"

There was a moment of silence; snores from the rest of the sleeping crossdressers out in the main room could clearly be heard.  "Uhhhh… Momo-san, you're saying that Mom—that MY mother—has a…..??"  Ran's eyes widened even more; automatically she took a sip from the steaming cup as the geisha-clad man passed another one over to Sato.  "MY mom?!?"

The large, cross-dressing owner of the Blue Oyster Bar grinned.  "You'd be amazed at what goes on at some of those legal conventions after hours sometimes; y'know how it is---  the drinks start flying, people start bar-hopping and daring each other to do stuff—and kid, lemmee tell you:  Lawyers HATE to lose face.  Heh; if provoked enough, they'll even go to a gay bar….."  He snickered, upending his cup.  The scent of tea filled the damp air, fragrant and strong.

"Errrr….?"  Sato was having a hard time reconciling the concepts of "Kisaki Eri" and "tattoo" in her mind; she knew Ran's mother vaguely from contacts in the past and had always considered her privately to be something of a barracuda.  "Momo-san?  How in the *world* do you know her?  I mean… uh, she's not exactly…"  The young detective floundered for words; her head hurt and her mouth didn't seem to want to obey her at the moment.

Momo-san laughed, sprawling even further back on the countertop; it creaked as he hitched up one hip.  "Went to school with the lady." 

The crossdresser raised one plucked eyebrow at his two guest's dumbfounded stares.  "What?  Don't I look like a college graduate?"  He preened, tossing his head a bit and knocking his wig even more sideways; strands had come loose and it was beginning to resemble something furry that had crawled up onto his head and died there.

Sato shook her head, dismissing the whole idea of lawyers and tattoos with a shudder; she didn't really want to know.  The detective took a careful swallow of her own tea (Earl Grey, with milk; apparently tattoo-parlor owners had rather refined tastes when it came to hot drinks) and sighed as the warmth began to dispel her hangover.  Upon waking, Momo-san had herded the two women back into the owner's office, where he had helped himself liberally to the contents of the tiny 'fridge and other supplies.  The owner himself was still slumped out front in a snoring heap; he was a large, balding man with an American accent and a strong suggestion of too many deep-fried peanutbutter sandwiches about his expansive waistline.   His snores had a distinct nasal sound to them, and occasionally he muttered to himself in unintelligibly in slurred English.  Sato had a faint memory of his voice encouraging her from the night before….

*"Now just sit still—ya want this to be blurred?  Okay, then, don't twitch—"*  She shuddered again and buried her nose in her teacup.

There was a sharp clink! from across the room as Momo-san sat his empty cup back down.  "Y'know," he said conversationally over the background of rainfall and snores, "these guys you two ladies are involved with *really* need to get their acts together..."

His comment had all the impact that one would find in, say, the meeting of the HMS TITANIC and an iceberg—horrified stares, distressed noises (splutterings rather than screams) and sinking feelings.  Ran was the first to find her voice.  "We—how do you--  Oh— did we TALK to you about them last night?!?"  Momo-san's grin only widened.  "We did, didn't we?"

"Sure did—both of you."  He shot them a sideways glance and a snicker as he contemplated the bottom of his cup.  "Wonder if King-san keeps any lemon tea here?"

"Bottom shelf," answered Ran absentmindedly, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.  She closed her eyes.  "Just—what *did* we say, Momo-san?"  There was a note of both fascination and horror in the young woman's voice—it was like being present at a car-wreck; you just couldn't look away or leave it alone, no matter how much you wanted to….

"Oh, tons've stuff, Ran-chan."

"Tons?"  The teenager sounded utterly mortified, and Sato felt her stomach flip over.  *Oh no……  What did *I* say?*

"Mmm-hmmm….. tons.  Like, for instance…."  Momo-san stretched a little, cracking his large knuckles before him and pausing archly; "… well, let's see:  This 'Shinichi' guy you're so fond of--  you think he has nice eyes, you like how he laughs—" (he slid off his seat and began rummaging around in the small locker where the tea was kept) "—and you really think he looks pretty damned good in swimtrunks, 'specially tight ones—"

Ran went scarlet.  "I do NOT!!"

A chuckle was all the answer her rebuttal received.  "Aaaaand…..  you're worried 'bout him, and you wish he'd call more often, and you'd *REALLY* like him to tell you how he feels 'bout you…..."  Momo-san pulled out the box of lemon tea triumphantly.  "Oh, and then you got sorta maudlin and started absolutely moaning about how maybe he's forgotten you and all that crap….."  The bar-owner filled his cup from the electric kettle that sat steaming on top of a cinderblock in the corner of the room, raising one eyebrow at his audience's stunned silence.  "Let's see… and then you went back to the swimtrunks.  And little tiny soccer shorts, too….."  He smirked—no, he *leered.*  A smirk would have been  more gentile.

Mouri Ran opened her mouth and then closed it, choking so hard on her protests that Sato was afraid she was going to require CPR. 

"…oh, and you liked his legs too.  In fact," said Momo-san, warming to the conversation and leaning back against the locker with his brewing cup resting beside him, "you 'n Sato-chan here really got into a little conversation 'bout legs and shoulders and that sort of thing….."

"We did NOT!!" sputtered both Ran and Sato at the same time, sweating.

"OH yes you did.  Ladies, that old saying 'bout In Vino Veritas—y'know, 'In Wine There is Truth'—they don't just say that to watch their lips flap.  'Course, what you two were drinking last night wasn't exactly *wine*… I don't think it was, anyway…. Mmmmm; what was it, or do you remember?"  For a second Momo-san looked a little uneasy; the great, white-smeared forehead crinkled below the wig.  "Neither one've you feels like you're going blind or anything like that, do you?"  At their mute headshakes he relaxed, shoulders untensing beneath the kimono.  "Good; guess I didn't give you any of the scumble; for something that's made mainly from apples, that shit packs *quite* a kick."  He chuckled.

Horrific visions of possible trips to the local Emergency Clinic passed through Sato's mind; "…What does this 'scumble' look like?"

Momo-chan waved her concerns away with a large, beringed hand.  "Never mind, keiji-chan; if you'd had some, you'd KNOW by now."  He took a sip of his tea and made a face; "Needs to brew longer…  Now, listen you two.  Looks to me like you two managed to get yourselves involved with a couple of guys who've got pretty good *brains*….. but absolutely no *clues.*"  He snorted; "Which is pretty damned funny since one of 'em's a cop and the other one's some sorta detective."

Both woman nodded to themselves silently and exchanged glances, faces flushed; the thought had occurred to them both before…..

"Now—"  Momo-san sat his cup down and folded his arms, regarding the two young women with an amused grin.  "—the question you two need to ask yourselves is this:  Is it *worth* waiting around for these guys?  Or maybe you oughtta start looking around?  There's more than two fish in the sea, y'know….. and some guys wouldn't see a clue if it ran past 'em butt-naked with 'CLUE' painted across it in huge red letters and a bow tied around it's—um, neck….."

Sato sighed, rubbing at her aching forehead with one hand that still smelled as strongly as ever of kimchee and oyster sauce, not to mention whisky.  "I know, I know….. and it's not like I haven't thought about, uhh, taking the lead lately; if Megure-san hadn't interrupted us in that alley yesterday, we'd—well, things would be different by now, that's all."  She sat back with a disgusted snort, wondering why she had picked Takagi over the other guys she had known; she shook her head at her own pigheadedness—and at *his.* 

"Men….."

"Amen to that, sweetheart…..  Y'can't live with 'em, but the skin's too thin for a rug."  Momo-san clucked, nodding; Sato and Ran both gave him a startled glance, then blinked.  The large sort-of-geisha picked up his cup and took a sip.  "You two want some more?"  At their murmurs of agreement and thankfully-proffered empty cups, the bar-owner busied himself making more tea.  Sato watched him in silence, wondering in the back of her thoughts where he had gotten such a *big* kimono; most of her mind, however, was directed towards the problem of Men.

*Take Shiratori, for instance.  He's nice, he's good-looking, and he'll make rank a lot faster than Takagi will because he's far more aggressive about that sort of thing.  And he likes me….. but…..*

*…..but whenever I think about both of them together, I always want to hand Takagi a comb or bug him about his driving; or I want to tell him about a book I just read, or a movie I heard of that's coming up and maybe he might want to go see it?  I don't think that way about Shiratori-san; he's… sort of polished, all glossy and smooth; and maybe I just don't *like* polished as much as I like natural or something.  Huh; I'm making them sound like teak tabletops—*

*Takagi's eyes are like teak, dark and warm.  The way he looks at me sometimes when he doesn't know I'm watching, when he blushes like he's not sure he ought to be thinking what he's thinking--*

*I guess….. maybe he DOES have a clue.  Maybe he just doesn't know what to do with it.*

*Maybe I should….. show him?*

"Sato?  Sato-kun?" 

Ran's worried voice hinted that her name had been called more than once.  The detective straightened up in her chair hastily.  "What?  Sorry…. I was thinking—"  Squatting beside the cinderblock Momo-san chuckled as he poured hot water, a deep rolling chuckle that left little question of whether he knew what Sato had been 'thinking' about. 

"What ARE you going to do?  I mean… if you don't mind me asking…?"

The young officer shrugged, quirking one eyebrow up and casting a baleful gaze on her companion.  "OH no.  This time *you* go first, Ran…..  Well?"

The young woman looked down at her toes, both hands twisting together in her lap.  "He—Shinichi…..  He's been gone for so long now—" she said wistfully and more than a little shyly.  "I've known him for so long I hardly remember meeting him—we've been around each other ever since we were really little, and we've always--  I mean—" 

Ran hesitated, fighting to get the words right.  "We've ALWAYS been—close.  When I went to school, he was always right there; when I played, he played with me.  Even when his parents took him to Hawaii it wasn't for *that* long, and one time they took me with them because he made such a stupid fuss about it—"  She rubbed at her temples, looking miserable.

"So?" asked Momo-san calmly, taking a large sip of his tea.  "Just because you've known somebody forever doesn't mean you HAVE to stay with 'em—"

"I… know.  And he only calls me now and then… and I've only seen him ONCE, really, a few months ago when he showed up on stage dressed as the Black Knight—"  At Sato's confused expression Ran sighed and explained.  "It was a school play, and all of a sudden there he was, and then there was this murder—"

(*Of course there was,* thought Sato wryly; *From what I've heard the boy draws out murderers like a bug-zapper draws insects.*)

"—and well… we went out to dinner after it was all over and I really thought he was… going to say… something…………."  Her voice trailed off; after a moment Ran wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and took a deep breath.

"He's really brilliant, you know?  He can read people so well; he can work out people's motives and how they think, he can tell when people are lying-----"  She took another deep gulp of breath that was almost a sob and burst out, "—so WHY doesn't he ever act like he knows how *I* feel?!?  When we talk on the phone, he—I--  We just talk about regular stuff, and I ask him when he'll be coming back, and he can never tell me.  WHY doesn't he know that I—feel like this?!?  WHY NOT?!?"  She wiped at her eyes again, and Sato handed her a tea-stained paper napkin, her own eyes dark in sympathy.

"Ran-chan?"  Momo-san's rather strident voice was oddly gentle.

"W-what?"

"What makes you think he *doesn't* know how you feel?"

The girl stared at him, her lashes starred with unshed tears.  "He—because he never—"

Momo-san shook his bewigged head.  "You just told me yourself, Ran-chan; this Shinichi guy, he's great at reading people's motives and the way they think, right?  So why couldn't he see how YOU feel, girl?  Hell, if you two've been together so much through your lives, he oughtta be able to read every emotion you got!"  The bar-owner reached out and patted her on one shoulder; his painted nails sparkled in the overhead light.  "He *does* know, Ran-chan—you take it from me.  If he's as good as you say, then he knows.  He may not say so for one reason or another, and they might even be good ones; last night you said he was away on some sort've case, right?  Maybe it's dangerous; maybe he doesn't wanna get you involved so's you won't get hurt.  Would he do that sort of thing, you think maybe?"

She nodded dumbly as the napkin crumpled in her fingers.  Momo-san nodded back in turn, a thoughtful look on his broad face.  "Yeah--  You're a good girl, Ran-chan; can't see you falling for a complete idiot—and stop with the blushing, okay?"  He grinned.  "Okay, so he knows; now lemme ask you something.  This last time you saw him—you told me a little bit 'bout it last night.  You were gonna kiss him right on stage, weren't you?"  The deep chuckle filled the room again.  "Ooo-oooooh, blush, blush…..  you were.  But was HE willing to kiss you?"  A deeper chuckle.  "Oh he WAS, was he?  And you said you thought he was gonna tell you 'something' later.  I'd say the chances are pretty damned good he feels something pretty strong for you too.  So….. whatcha gonna do about it, Ran?"

She sat silent, thinking, turning the wadded napkin over and over in her somewhat grimy fingers.  "I….. can't contact him; I don't even know where he is," she said slowly, resolve beginning to strengthen in her eyes and voice.  "But he *does* contact me every few weeks or once a month or so….. and when he does, maybe I should just—"

"—talk to him, Ran; you should talk to him."  Ran's head jerked up and she stared at Sato, who gave her a rather tired but understanding smile.  "Don't let him slip away; it's too easy to do."  The detective's eyes narrowed and she nodded a decisive nod.  "Talking—most men are terrified of talking about relationships, I don't know why, but… they are.  So—why not just act like you two have already told each other how you feel, and just go on from there?"  The teenager stared at her with wide-eyed, sudden understanding as she shrugged.  "In a way, you have."

"And—and what about *you,* Sato-kun?"  Mouri Ran's voice was steadier now with resolve;  "What will you do about Takagi-san?"

Sato blinked.  "Practice what I preached, I guess; as a matter of fact….." and a slow smile lit up her weary face from within, making her dark eyes sparkle; "…as a matter of fact, we've got some unfinished business between us to take care of….."

Momo-san raised both eyebrows in feigned shock.  "Sato-san, Sato-san, WHAT'S come over my favorite cop?"  He laughed a deep, rolling laugh.  "You *GO* girl--!"

"Um, Momo-san?"  Ran smiled up at the crossdressing geisha bar-owner with an expression of somewhat bewildered gratitude.  "Thanks for the… for the tea and sympathy.  But how'd you get so good at giving advice about, well, about people's love-lives?"

The large man chuckled again.  "You mean about men in particular?  Honey, I *am* one—and I been watching men for a helluva long time."  He reached across and tapped the young woman's nose with a broad fingertip.  "There ain't NOTHING anybody can teach Momo-san about *men.*"

***********************************************

"…… and that's pretty much the whole story."  Detective Takagi had just finished explaining the evening's events to his coworker, Mufune Hotoro.  The other employee of Tokyo's Metro Police Force was eyeing him rather suspiciously (Takagi had a reputation (entirely undeserved, in his own opinion) of ending up in tough spots through Murphy's Law) but seemed willing to suspend disbelief for the moment.

The young rookie detective frowned, chewing nervously on his bottom lip.   He was a short, rather stocky character, still new enough to be just a little shaken by the corpse that he had seen conveyed off in the ambulance.  A shooting or knifing, well, those were understandable in the heat of an argument; but calculated, cold-blooded, methodical murder?  Takagi had seen his eyes widen at the sight of the ugly little lancet full of venom; he wondered privately to himself how long it would take Mufune-san to get used to the idea that some people actually spent time figuring out how to kill others and get away with it.

He wondered briefly how long it had taken *him* to take it in; and, glancing across at the quiet little boy who sat scribbling so busily beside them on a sheet of paper with a bright red crayon, he wondered just a bit about Kudo Shinichi as well.

Never mind.  Neither of them needed distractions just then.  But it bothered Takagi sometimes, thinking about how much he had become accustomed to looking for the hidden reasons behind murder and death; he had heard it called the "policeman's eye" before, that way of seeing the unobvious and the disguised.  He supposed it was a good thing to have, considering his occupation.  But right now—

--right now, looking over Mufune's shoulder at a roomful of people which held a murderer hidden somewhere among them like a poisonous snake in a grassy field—right now, he sort of wished he had Sato-san around to talk to.  She had the "eye", no doubt about it, and things always seemed a little clearer when she was around.

She was almost certainly asleep by now.  He wondered if she had thought about him any before she had fallen asleep.

*Rrrgh.  Enough.  Get back to business, Takagi.*

"Ehhh--  Takagi-keiji?  I was wondering—"  The hesitant voice made him wrench his attention from more interesting thoughts and his mind from wandering.  Mufune had one of those bushy eyebrows of his up, an inquiring look in his eyes.   "I, uh, don't mean to pry, but… did you know that you sorta smell like—"

Takagi winced.  "Yeah, yeah, I know," he muttered, cursing all cattle that had ever mooed and vowing to eat as much beef as possible in the near future.  "Don't ask."  He was uncomfortably aware that the fumes from his smeared and sodden shoes were stronger than ever in the dry warmth of the café.  Hastily the detective changed the subject.  "Okay, what've you got on the passengers?"

The other detective had been pulling what information he could over the static-ridden phone lines, now that the weather had calmed down a little; flipping open his own notepad, he began scanning down through the pages.  "Let's see…..  Got a prior record for your clerk over there;" he said, glancing at the white-collar worker, who blinked back nervously.  "Nothing big—looks like he did a little minor insurance fraud a couple of years ago; tried to claim a little more damage in a car accident than was actually done.  Found a little information on your dockworkers—" and he nodded at the trio of burly men drinking coffee at the furthest of the tables, who paid neither officer any attention whatsoever (one of them had dredged up a dog-eared pack of cards and a poker game was just getting going).  "It looks like a couple of them were busted about fifteen years ago for a little gang trouble, fighting and that sort of thing.  The one with the brush-cut did eight months' time and has been picked up for two bar-brawls since, but I wouldn't consider him to be much of a problem."

Mufune-keiji scratched at his head, looking puzzled.  "It doesn't look like you've got much in the way of suspects here….. none of them lived near the busdriver or went to school with him years ago, none of them are related--  I even checked out those American girls' passports and they're clean.  The other teenager too; no problems there, and the woman with the baby's okay as well."  He shrugged, looking nonplussed; apparently Mufune-san was still green enough to look for a smoking gun right off the bat, which (as Takagi could tell him) really very rarely happened…..

*Never mind.  He'll learn.*

"So—what about the older passengers?"  The elderly woman from the back of the bus and the couple that had sat near the front were attempting to make conversation over tea with the old man and his sister; they didn't seem to be too interested in talking, though, from the troubled look on the grandmotherly first woman's face.  In contrast, the thin, lined face of the woman with the walker (Yamashii Ne, he recalled) seemed to be closed in and stern; her companion (her brother?  Yeah, that was right) looked rather edgy.

Mufune clicked his tongue against his teeth, paging further through his notebook.  "No—nothing odd about them.  The Shiros there—" (that was the first couple) "—they live about five kilometers further down the road in some sort of retirement complex.  The woman's a retired teacher and the man ran a drug-store until a few years ago.  The lady next to them's a retired nurse, no record, used to be employed at Kino Hospital.  The second couple, the Yamashiis, they live pretty close by—just a stop or two along.  The woman doesn't work, and her brother—"

"—works as a part-time handyman at the University; I remember.  No dirt on them?"  There was something about their expressions that bothered Takagi for some reason.  Maybe it was the tight look of control on the old woman's face?  That was the face of a born poker-player if he had ever seen one; maybe he ought to suggest that she sit in on the dockworkers' game?

Or maybe he was just getting punchy from fatigue…..

"Just a couple of old parking tickets, nothing recent.  Oh, and----"  Mufune hesitated, dropping his voice a little more.  "Well, there was that suicide a few months ago--  you remember?  That was their sister…"

*Sister?*  "Mufune-san, do you know how *many* people decide to kill themselves in Tokyo every day?"  Takagi took a deep breath, rubbing at the back of his neck with one grubby hand; he was really beginning to feel just how long the day had been.  What time was it, anyway?  "If I remembered all of them I'd—well, I'd be pretty depressed, I guess…..  What happened?"

The other man looked apologetic.  "Sorry—it's just that it was one of my first cases; I'd only been on the force for a week or so, and—well, you know how you remember your first cases…  Anyway, those two had a sister who walked right out into traffic one day.  Just up and killed herself—she was in bad health and she wanted the insurance money to go to the other two, or that's what the note she had on her said."  He sighed; the eyes under the bushy brows looked tired too, and Takagi wondered what kind of day he had had.

*Whoa; hang on a minute here--*  Suicide?  That meant that-- 

"But… if she committed suicide, the insurance companies wouldn't pay the full benefits, would they?"  He glanced back at the pair of geriatric siblings; the other couple had apparently given up on chatting and were sitting back and talking quietly together, looking fatigued.  The Yamashiis, though…..

The old woman was hunting through her purse; after a second or so she pulled out a cough-drop (Takagi recognized the brand; it was one of those sugar-free, tasteless things Sato's friend Miyamoto-what's-her-name used sometimes) and unwrapped it.  Beside her her brother sat staring at nothing, his face almost expressionless—

--almost.  There was a slight tremor about his lined jowls, and he glanced up momentarily to meet Takagi's eyes before looking away.  The detective blinked, the fog of weariness suddenly dispelling.  That flash in the old man's eyes… had looked an awful lot like *fear.*

(Somewhere in the back of his mind he noticed that the sounds of coloring beside him had ceased.)

Now, WHY would an old man be afraid of a cop?  Of course, lots of people were—it was the typical human sense of paranoia in action; any cop knew that.  All you had to do to slow down entire blocks full of traffic was to cruise by in a squad car, even if nobody was speeding.  But there was something odd about this guy's expression…..

"—Yeah.  That was sort of stupid of her, I guess."  *Huh?  Oh, right; the suicide.*  Mufune was going on, also eyeing the Yamashiis surreptitiously.  "If there hadn't been a note, the death would probably have been ruled as accidental; but the woman who hit her found the note and handed it over—she had it tucked inside the handle of her walker.  Sort of a weird place for a suicide note, but the grip came loose and it got noticed and passed over to us when we showed up with the ambulance."

The continued silence beside him made him glance sideways; from the corner of his eye, Takagi saw Conan's head lift a little, saw the flash of light across his glasses as he turned to look thoughtfully across the room at the elderly pair.  As he did so, the detective caught a glimpse of what the apparent gradeschooler had been drawing so diligently—it looked remarkably like a seating diagram from the bus, done in careful notation with crayoned commentary beside the placement of each figure…..

He cleared his throat warningly; Conan—Kudo— looked up, caught his eye and glanced at Mufune (who seemed oblivious to the fact that his co-worker's "otochan" seemed to be a bit on the *advanced* side); one small hand quickly slid a piece of blank paper with a rather clumsy drawing of a squadcar on it over the diagram.  The dark blue eyes flickered back up to his face, gratitude flashing quickly behind the lenses… and then there was just a sleepy little boy, who tugged at Takagi's sleeve and said "Niichan?  Will you look at my drawings?  I drew a picture of the bus for you….."  Somehow he managed to sound disarmingly cute.

"Your little brother?  Too bad he got stuck in all this—"  Mufune grinned down at the boy, who smiled tentatively back and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.  "Doesn't look like you much, does he?"

Takagi shook his head.  "Uhhhh—not exactly; just a friend's kid."  He shrugged uneasily, then hesitated; they needed Mufune conveniently out of the way for a few minutes.  "Hey—could you do one more check for me?  See if the driver had any weirdness in his background as well, will you?"

Mufune blinked.  "Weirdness?"

"Yeah—weirdness.  You know, accidents or convictions that stand out, relatives that died recently, that sort of stuff.  Wierdness."

The other detective nodded bemusedly.  "Okay…. 'weirdness.'  Right."  He got up, still looking a little dubious, and wandered towards the entrance to the café's small porch where the reception would be better for his cellphone.  On the way he got tagged by the nervous white-collar clerk; from the somewhat urgent conversation between the two (and the hopeful looks on the tired faces around them) the man wanted to know why they were being kept so late. 

Takagi smiled a little wryly to himself; reality wasn't much like the cop shows, where problems were solved in a neat hour-long package…  As Mufune-san hedged and attempted to placate his audience, Takagi leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table.  "So," he said softly, "What've you got for me?"

The tousled, damp brown head beside him tilted a little as Conan grunted.  "Maybe something, maybe nothing….."  He tugged out the bus-diagram from its hiding place.  "Here's a timeline for you, showing when each person after us boarded and where they sat.  It's not much… but I don't think we're going to need much, really."  The boy regarded his diagram and frowned, dark blue eyes brooding.  "Let's see…..  When we boarded, there were six passengers:  The old couple, the teenager with the headphones and the three dockworkers.  So far I haven't worked out any connections between any of them and the victim, other than the fact that they ride home most days on his route." 

Conan's quiet voice was clipped and precise, a little remote as he considered the facts with a detachment that would have done any professional detective credit; Takagi listened, fascinated.  "The passengers that boarded after us were the three teenage girls, the white-collar type, the elderly woman that went to sit in the back, the Yamashiis and the woman with the baby."  He paused, his eyes darkening; the small, rounded face that looked up at the detective then had a sort of concentrated perplexity about it that sad oddly on the young features.  "And the only one who seems to have even *touched* the driver's seat was—"

"—was Yamashii Ne, the old woman," said Takagi softly; it had occurred to him too.  He remembered seeing her leaning heavily against the seat-back while her brother dug out the fare from his wallet and arranged the walker in front of her.  "Any other possible suspects?"  He grimaced, thinking hard; his eyes followed the details on the crayon drawings before him and he absentmindedly traced his finger along the paper path that the passengers would have taken…..

The boy beside him snorted quietly, scooting up to sit on the edge of his chair; his short legs dangled as he rested his chin on his arms.  "Not really.  We need a motive, though."  Conan yawned, picking up a dark blue crayon and beginning to doodle aimlessly on the edges of his diagram.  "Why would a sixty-eight-year-old woman want to kill a bus driver she has no apparent connections with, other than taking his bus occasionally?"  A meandering blue line began climbing down the side of the page, occasionally interspersed with squiggles.  "The usual motives—revenge, money, that sort of thing—they should apply to this murder as well as they do to any other."  The blue point of the crayon added a rather fuzzy drawing of a bee to the doodles, and Takagi felt one of his eyebrows creeping up; sometimes you really *did* have to wonder about Kudo. 

The fact that he had conscientiously drawn in a body outline with a white crayon where the driver had fallen didn't really help, either.

"Welll," he offered, yanking his thoughts back to the business of crime-solving and thinking aloud, "you were right about the Yamashiis being triplets—or at least about them having a sister.  Looks like they lost one to suicide less than a year ago—" and he spent a few minutes relating Mufune's little story.

"If the person who hit her had been a man, I would have thought of the driver right away… but Mufune definitely said it was a woman."  Takagi finished up, watching the blue crayon as it jotted down the details of the Yamashii sister's death.  "The bit about the suicide note bothers me—I mean, first off it was in the handle of a walker, which isn't exactly a common place for mail."  He shivered a little; "Wonder if it's the same one she uses now?"

"Who gave the note to the police?"

"Hmm?"  The detective blinked.  "The woman who hit her, I guess—who else?"

Conan scowled up at him, twisting the blue crayon between impatient fingers; it crumbled, scattering several bits onto the paper.  "Do you *know* that for certain?  It makes a difference—"

"It does?  How?"

The boy's eyes hardened as he stared up at Takagi.  "Think about it.  If she IS the killer, then it matters whether she killed for revenge for her sister's death… or for revenge for not getting the insurance money.  If it was for her death, then she would've gone after the woman who hit her, wouldn't she?"  Takagi stared back as, slowly, the facts of the case began to pull together in his mind into an ugly pattern.  "But if she was after revenge for the money, then she'd go after whoever gave the note to the police, wouldn't she?"

Silence.

"People commit murder for reasons that seem logical and right to them at the time," said Conan softly; he placed the broken crayon carefully on the table and tapped the body-outline he had drawn with one finger.  "Sometimes they kill for love, sometimes for revenge, sometimes out of impulse; but when they kill for money, they always plan it out before committing the actual act."  He raised his head, looking out across the room as light flashed across the lenses of his glasses.  "That usually makes it a little simpler, in a way— they try too hard to cover things up and they get clumsy."

Takagi nodded, leaning back in his chair a little and stretching.  "Yeah, I know.  So now we need to find the thing that'll trip them up."  He hesitated, eyeing the boy.  "You think the bus driver found the note, don't you?  Why should he have been on the scene?"

Conan picked up another crayon, a dark red one this time, as dark as blood; he considered it for a moment and then dropped it, shaking his head.  "Think about it, Takagi— the Yamashiis' sister was struck by an automobile, wasn't she?  What kind of vehicle was it?  A car? Or maybe a—"

"Actually, it was a bus."

Both Conan and Takagi jumped as if they had been shot; each had been so involved in what they were saying that neither had noticed the arrival of Detective Mufune, who had quietly walked up to the table as they were talking.  The young man peered down at the diagram lying so openly on the table, while the other two sat frozen in dismay.  "Jeeze…..  Kid, did *you* do this??"

Takagi's mind went blank; all he could think of was *CrapCrapCrap…*

"Ummmm….. just the bus-drawing," stuttered Conan, his pulse beating visibly in his throat.  "Takagi-niisan wrote all the notes and stuff—"

"Yeah, well, I sort of figured that," said Mufune with a chuckle.  He surveyed the two with some surprise.  "Hey, settle down—didn't mean to make you jump!"  He nodded to Takagi.  "Are you teaching the kid the ropes?  Kinda early, but I guess it's never too soon to learn to be a good cop…" and the young detective laughed at his own joke.

Takagi and Conan glanced at each other, both letting out the purely mental equivalent of a relieved sigh.  *Thank God for people who don't really see what they're seeing… even cops.  Now I understand a little more about how Kudo kept hidden.*  "Right, right—the kid's interested, and, uh, y'know how it helps to talk things out…"  The older detective did his best to stick a convincing expression on his face, wondering if he looked completely like an idiot or just *felt* like one.  Apparently his act was successful; his younger coworker just shook his head, grinning down indulgently at the boy. 

Conan beamed back innocently, one foot kicking Takagi sharply in the ankle.  "Mufune-keiji?  Did you say something about a bus?"  Beside him his rather damp companion opened his mouth again, receiving yet *another* kick; he subsided, thinking surly thoughts.

Mufune nodded, sitting down at an empty chair.  "Yeah.  The Yamashii woman—she was hit by a trainee bus-driver, her name was… Yoshida something.  Li?  Lian, that was it; sort of a pretty name—Chinese, I think."  (Below his eye-level Conan blinked, suddenly alert; the detective did not notice, but Takagi did and wondered what had slipped past him.  Something about the woman's name?)  "Poor thing had only been on the job for two weeks and *that* had to happen…..  She'd just gotten married too."  The rookie detective leaned back a little, eyes distant; he yawned.  "When me and my partner got the call we were only a couple of blocks away, just finishing lunch; so we got here pretty damn—uh, pretty quick."  He shot an embarrassed 'Ooops,-I-cussed-in-front-of-a-minor' glance at Conan, who remained oblivious.  With a shrug, Mufune continued.

"It was quite a mess; according to witnesses, the old woman just hobbled out between two parked cars about ten meters before the bus-stop right into the path of the bus.  No scream, no nothing; she just stepped out and…..  Yeah, well.  Anyway, by the time I got here the Yoshida woman was hysterical and her trainer was trying to calm things down; he had Shiburi-san sitting on the curb, had a couple of women from the sidewalk with her, and was directing traffic around the mess as neat as you please—kept his head pretty well under the circumstances, but he'd been driving for quite a while from what he said."

Takagi exchanged a glance with Conan as the boy opened his mouth, gently kicking HIS ankle; the boy blinked, then nodded imperceptibly.  Sometimes it was just better to let a witness tell their story without the distraction of questions.

Mufune went on…..  "So we radioed in for an ambulance and checked things out; the old woman was dead, no doubt about *that*-- you know, I never realized that head-trauma bled that much.  Then the trainer guy came up dragging the walker; it had been tossed clear, only got a few dents and all—and the handle came off right in his hand.  This little bit of paper dropped out, he picked it up and opened it and—"

The young man shook his head, bushy brows meeting over his nose.  "You don't think about old people committing suicide; I mean, not OLD people.  Stupid young kids breaking up with their boy or girlfriends, idiots on drugs or too boozed up to see, maybe an executive with a failing business—yeah, those.  Granted, I haven't been a detective for very long, but…..  Anyway, it was really sad.  The Yamashii woman was in failing health—diabetes, and she'd just been diagnosed with some sort of cancer; so she decided to die and pass the insurance money along to her brother and sister."  He sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, eyes tired.  "It didn't work out quite that way, though…  I mean, it was *suicide,* right?  So when the brother and sister showed up later and we told 'em about the note—"

"What did you say?" said Conan sharply, and Mufune's head jerked up; Takagi mentally cursed.  The little idiot had forgotten to sound like a kid!  *Baka…*

"You said you told them about the note—just exactly what DID you tell them?" he said hurriedly, drawing Mufune's attention back to him and away from the shorter end of the audience.  Beside him, Conan slumped down a little but kept his eyes fixed on the other detective.

Mufune hesitated, then suddenly brightened, slapping one hand against the pocket of his coat.  "Hang on—yeah, I *thought* I still had my old book in here—"  He rummaged around for a second, then pulled out a slightly dog-eared occurance book.  "This one's the old one, but I think the notes are right at the beginning…..  Yeah, here we are—"  Takagi edged over a little to read the somewhat sloppy script; he was dimly aware of a small, dark head ducking under his arm and leaning in to see…..

The other detective had, in his own words, 'informed victim's siblings (Yamashii Tora and Yamashii Ne, home # 03-2472-8862)) of suicide note, found and given to self and partner by Shen Wen Li, witness and employee of City Metro Buslines (work # 03-4400-4690).  Note was tagged and bagged as evidence; siblings protested validity of note and tried to disallow its use during investigation due to contents (suicidal ideation).' 

There it was, right in front of them in black and white.  The connection they needed.

Silence again; Mufune broke it as the other shoe suddenly dropped.  "Uh—you mean you *didn't know* your murder victim was…?"  He stared at Takagi, his brow furrowed in confusion.

Takagi stared right back, feeling a wash of frustration fraying at his already-strained temper.  "Why didn't you TELL us, Mufune?"

The other detective blinked.  "I thought you already knew.  Why else were you asking… all those… questions…..?  Oh."  He scratched at the back of his neck.  "…Maybe it's just a coincidence?"

Takagi just shook his head; the boy next to him let out a pent-up breath and slid back into his seat.  "Coincidence is a funny thing, you know, Mufune-san?" he said softly.  "Sometimes it's real—and sometimes it has help."  He glanced up across the room towards the Yamashiis, his eyes hard.  "And this time….. this time I think it had a *lot* of help."  He slowly pushed his chair back and stood up, even as Conan silently did the same.  "I think that you, me and the Yamashiis need to have a little talk about revenge, don't you?"

Mufune nodded, his own face growing a little grimmer.  "Right—" and he started to get up.  A tap on his shoulder stopped him, and he looked back at Takagi.  "What?"

"Mufune?  Would you mind checking one more thing for me?  Call down to Records at the stationhouse and look into University-related thefts over the last few months—"

***********************************************

"There you go, Sato-san, Ran-chan—"  Momo-san gave them each a pat on their shoulderblades with a beefy hand as he ushered them into the cab.  "Yamoto-san here'll take care of you just fine, won't you?"  He beamed at the rather bug-eyed cabbie, who seemed struck speechless by the combination of Momo-san (whom he seemed to know; Momo-san seemed to know an awful lot of people) and two apparent Ladies Of The Evening.

The owner of the Blue Oyster  had called the taxi, assuring his two guests that he 'knew JUST the person to help' when Sato related the pathetic plight of their vehicular misfortunes.  A little earlier the young woman had been hunting through her purse for a handy pack of aspirin when she had come to a sudden and dreadful conclusion…..

* * * * *

"Errr… Ran?" 

Sato's voice sounded rather tentative; Mouri Ran looked up from where she was washing up the tea-mugs at the tiny sink.  "Yes?"

"Do you remember… back at the cemetery…..  When I took my carkeys out of my purse, I didn't DROP anything, did I?"

Ran concentrated, rinsing the last mug.  That seemed more like something that had happened a week ago rather than less than a day past…..  "I--- don't recall anything specifi—wait.  There WAS something at one point… a sort of jingling noise, when you shut the cardoor?  I THINK I remember….."  She wiped a damp strand of hair out of her eyes, nose wrinkling at the strong scent of oyster sauce that still lingered.  "Why?"

Sato groaned.  "I think I dropped my apartment keys there."  Sinking back gloomily into her chair, she buried her face in her arms on the table.  "Is this night NEVER going to be over?  All I want is my own bed…. Well, a shower first and *then* my own bed….."

* * * * *

…and so they were heading back (of all places) to the cemetery.

As the taxi door closed, Momo-san leaned his large, bewigged head down and filled up the open window.  "You two get some rest, okay?"  The white-smeared face chuckled in what might have been almost a paternal—or maternal—manner, if circumstances had been different.  "But don't rest *too* long—you both got issues to take up with your young men, and the longer you wait the harder it'll be.  TALK to them; you really need to, both of you…..  Trust Momo-san on this, okay?"  He grinned toothily in their faces, which blushed.  They nodded mutely.

From the front seat of the car a small voice could be heard muttering as the door slammed "….. issues…..?"

As the taxi pulled away from the curb, the large crossdressing bar-owner executed a flamboyant wave and bow, yelling out so loudly that the entire neighborhood echoed:  "DON'T FORGET TO STOP BY AGAAAAIN, YOU TWO!!!  SATO-SAN, YOU'LL ALWAYS BE MY FAVORITE!!!  AND TAKE CARE OF THOSE TATTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS!!!"  His booming laughter followed them down the street, setting dogs barking and lights coming on here and there in the predawn darkness.

The two young women huddled back against the seat; Ran wondered if it was possible to spontaneously combust from embarrassment, then yawned and firmly chose not to think about it anymore.  Beside her Sato privately thanked the gods that nobody else that she knew had been nearby; if they had, she would have ended up arresting herself for murder.

Well, at least she would always have a spare pair of handcuffs on her now…..

Detective Sato Miwako sighed once, shrugged her tired shoulders, and decided that she simply did not give a damn.

The cabbie seemed to be a bit irritable for some reason; he kept glancing behind him at his passengers, nose visibly twitching.  He seemed about to say something, but at a steely glance from the detective he just shrugged and rolled the window down, occasionally muttering under his breath.

Bits of this drifted back to the two in the back seat…..

"…..jeeze, you think you KNOW a guy…..  Momo-san and a coupla hookers?  And she's his *favorite*??............ ten years I been pickin' up fares at his bar, and…….."

He glanced back the seat at Sato and Ran again; Sato glared back, while Ran let out a small snore as she drowsed.

"…….never saw Momo-san look twice at a woman before and now there's TWO of 'em…….... man, there's gonna be some disappointed guys in this town if THAT sorta thing keeps happening………."

Sato opened her mouth to retort, thought long thoughts about being left on the side of the road by an angry cabdriver, and prudently decided to take a nap.

***********************************************

Things seemed to have settled down a little among the passengers as Takagi and Conan quietly wandered over to take their places at an empty table in the middle of the room.  The elderly couple were leaning against each other in a booth, nodding; the clerk and the young teenager with the CD player were both blatantly asleep, a thin whine of music escaping from her slightly askew headphones like the auditory version of a mosquito.  The poker game between the dockworkers seemed to be well underway—no, actually it looked like they had switched to Blackjack now—and the woman with the baby was quietly reading a paperback novel from her purse while her child slept peacefully in her lap.

Everybody was waiting, waiting to be released to go home; most people tended to cooperate with the police in matters as serious as a murder, no matter how disgruntled they might get about the disruption of their private schedules.  So they all sat, waiting…..

…..but there was a dead man being wheeled into a hospital morgue somewhere about now that was waiting too—waiting for his murderer to be revealed.

The Yamashiis sat beside the elderly couple, occasionally exchanging a low-voiced comment or two.  Yamashii Ne looked as stony-faced as before, though Takagi noticed that she seemed a little grey; her brother seemed to have developed a twitch in one eyebrow, and his eyes meeting the detective's quickly glanced away and down, his hands rubbing each other nervously.

His hands.

Takagi stared for a second, then nodded to himself.  Gently he angled one elbow out to brush against the small figure beside him… who was, he realized, already staring at the old man's hands.  The detective could almost see the moment when two facts *clicked* together in the transformed young man's brain—there was that second of hesitation, that moment when the dark blue eyes widened and froze in realization….. and decision.

Conan slid down from his seat; he wandered, seemingly at random towards the elderly siblings—and then paused, a look of concern coming to the small face beneath the smeared glasses.  "Jiisan?"

The old man blinked down at the small boy; he shifted uneasily at the bright gaze.  "What, boy?"

"Why are your hands so red?  Did you hurt them?"  They were red, blotched here and there with swellings both old and new against the blue-veined skin; Yamashii Tora looked down at them as if they belonged to somebody else, the fingers still working at one another. 

He seemed at a loss to answer, so Takagi spoke up quietly.  "Apitherapy, isn't it?  I've heard about that….. it's supposed to be good for arthritis."  Unwillingly the man's chin jerked downwards in a nod, his rather watery eyes sliding away from the detective's face in a quick movement back down to his hand.  "Why don't you tell the kid about it?  It's kind of interesting… they're studying that out at the University you work at right now, aren't they?"  He smiled disarmingly at the older man, who glanced a little sideways at his sister as if asking for help.

She simply stared straight ahead as she had been doing for some time now, hard-faced.  No help there.

"It… mhah, it's, uhh….."  He trailed off, looking back down—straight into Conan's brilliant stare.  It was enough to make an innocent man flinch, that stare; Yamashii jerked back a little, shifting gears visibly.  "It's, uh, it's… bee-sting therapy; makes my joints feel better.  University… mhm, yes."  His voice was jerky, wavering like that of a much older man's; nervously his grip twisted and tightened, fingers scrubbing at fingers like Lady Macbeth washing her hands in her sleep to get the blood off…..

Beside him his sister sat silent and unmoving.  Her hands lay in her lap, quite still.

Conan-kun looked concerned; he reached out gingerly and brushed one fingertip against a reddened mark.  "Doesn't it hurt?  Do you have to let lots of bees sting you?  If you did, you could get killed…..  The bus-driver, *he* got killed by a bee, didn't he?"  The boy shivered, moving past the man's knees to hop up confidingly into the space between the two siblings, settling back comfortably.  The old man looked startled; apparently he wasn't much used to kids.  "Do you need my niisan to call you a doctor?"

"No, no—I'm fine."  Yamashii Tora tried to produce a smile; it wasn't a very good one.  "It… it only hurts a little at first, and then later on you feel better."  That seemed to have exhausted his conversational skills, so Takagi decided to prod him a little.

"Are you receiving treatments at the University?" he asked, pushing his hair out of his eyes and continuing to smile.  "I understand the program's been receiving quite a bit of press lately—"  He glanced over at Mufune, who leaned against the doorjamb and nodded back meaningfully as he slipped his cellphone into his pocket.  "Mufune-keiji, what was it you were telling me about it the other day?"

"It wasn't about the program, actually….. just something I heard about at the stationhouse."  The other man frowned, seemingly trying to recall some detail to mind; he crossed his arms and slumped back, bushy brows drawn down in concentration.  "Now what was it…?"

Conan was being something of a pest.  He blinked up at the elderly man, his own small face creased in worry.  "Are you SURE you don't need a doctor?  My niisan can call one for you—the bus driver died 'cause he got stung and I don't want you to die too…   If I get stung by a bee will I have to go to the doctor??"  Small hands pushed up the man's shirt and jacket cuff as his swellings were peered at and examined; the man tried to draw back, but the child was insistant.  "Are you SURE?!?  My niisan can—"

"Shut up," snapped the woman on his other side abruptly, her stone face cracking briefly.  Her brother jerked as if stung by a whip and Conan spooked like a small colt, letting go and sliding quickly down from the seat to take refuge beside Takagi, eyes wide. 

The detective frowned a little at Yamashii Ne.  "He was just curious and a little worried—give the poor kid a break, will you?"  He glanced down as protectively as possible at the small brown head that peeked out from behind his elbow.  "I mean, how would *he* know that you weren't in any danger--- you aren't, are you?"

The elderly man shook his head.  "No—I'm not allergic like the driver was—"  Tora-san's own eyes widened as his sister hissed softly.  "I—uh—"

"…now, how would you know that, I wonder?" asked Takagi mildly.  "I don't recall mentioning it during any of the questioning….."  Inside his mind he quietly ticked off a chalk-mark on a mental notepad:  *Knew about the driver's allergy, check.*

Yamashii Tora's mouth opened and closed, gaping like a landed fish's.  "He—well, he *died* from it, didn't he?  He HAD to be allergic—"

"Of course," smiled Takagi disarmingly.  "That'd be it.  Conan-kun?  It's okay—I'm sure Yamashii-san here didn't mean anything by it, we're all a little tired and we'd like to go home.  Isn't that right, ma'am?"  This last comment was aimed at the old woman, who scarcely spared him a glance.  No response there.

Gingerly the boy stepped out from around his 'niisan' and approached the two siblings again; he looked up into the woman's face.  "I'm sorry, obaasan—I was just…..  Here!  I know….." and he began rummaging around in his pockets, pulling out a half-wrapped chocolate bar that was somewhat the worse for wear (one of the dockworkers had given it to him earlier).  "Would you like a piece of chocolate, obaasan?  As an apology?  I'm sorry it smells like fish, but it still tastes good."  The dark blue eyes flickered with something sharp and edged for a second before filling with entreaty.  "My mom'll be mad if I don't apologize….."

Yamashii Ne's dry-looking face seemed to draw up in distaste.  "I don't eat chocolate, little boy.  I'm diabetic," she answered shortly.  Takagi quietly ticked off another chalk-mark in his mental list: *Diabetic.  Check.*

Conan looked crestfallen; shoving his glasses back up his nose from where they had slid down (and incidentally leaving a black streak there among the other smudges) he seemed to crumple a little, then squared his shoulders.  "Okay….."  He brightened.  "Never mind—I know what I can do—" and he bounced away to rummage among the crayons and paper that he had left on the table at the other end of the room, returning a moment later to sprawl cross-legged on the floor by Takagi's feet, scribbling furiously.

Takagi smiled apologetically over his head at the room in general, dropping one hand down to rest on the boy's shoulder.  "Don't mind Conan-kun, please… he can be a little energetic sometimes, but he means well."  A near-inaudible snort from beneath the table made his mouth twitch.  "He just gets a bit… nosy at times."

The three gaijin tourist-girls (the taller one of which had joined the dockworkers in their card-game) smiled back, and the one with the sketchbook eyed the boy at his feet appraisingly; out came a pencil and she began once more to draw.

The Yamashiis, on the other hand, made no response.  After a moment of silence Takagi turned back to Mufune, who still lounged against the doorjamb.  "Now what was that you were telling me about the University?  Something about bees?"

The junior of the two detectives smacked one hand against his forehead.  "Oh, right!  Yeah, I remember….. there was a report about a theft from the labs—someone stole some vials of bee-venom.  Weird, huh?  About a month or so ago…..  The funny thing about the stuff is that it's not worth much at all, it's just sort of hard to get hold of;"  he shrugged nonchalantly.  "I mean, can you imagine trying to milk a bee?  The learning process must be awful."

Takagi chuckled; then his face turned serious again.  "You work at the University, don't you, Yamashii-san?  Did you hear anything about that?"

The man stuttered for a moment like a broken CD; "I—uh, I—No, I—"

His sister brought him grinding to a halt, speaking sharply.  "I'm sure my brother has other things to do than spend his time gossiping about petty crimes."  She sniffed, crossing her arms tightly over her flat bosom.  "He's a hard worker; he has to be.  Times are difficult enough."

"Right you are, ma'am; money's short nowadays, isn't it?  It just doesn't stretch as far as it used to, does it?"  A short jerk of the woman's chin might have been a nod; Takagi chose to consider it so.  "It really seems sort of unfair, you know….."  He laughed a little.  "Sometimes it seems so hard to get ahead—nothing but bills, bills and more bills."  He scratched his head, doing his best 'harmless cop' routine.  "And some people seem to get by so easily, while the rest of us have to scratch for every yen….."

Now the narrow, dark little eyes in the old face were fixed on his.  "That's so," she muttered.  Then bitterness seemed to twist her mouth out of shape into a tight line.  "Things cost too much—everything costs too much.  Medical bills, insurance…..  Some people aren't worth their keep—"

Beside Yamashii Ne, her brother twitched.  "Ushi—" he whispered. 

He was ignored as if he had not spoken; the old woman went on.  "You spend your life taking care of people and you get *cheated,*"  she muttered, staring at Takagi; there seemed to be a lot of anger in the stare.  Then some of the stiffness seemed to run out of her bones and she leaned back against the bench, the faintest curve appearing on those thin, dry lips.  "Cheaters pay, though….."

"Sometimes," he answered calmly, checking off a third mark on the clipboard in his mind:  *'Cheated'… right.*  There was a tug at his pants-leg and the detective glanced down, then nodded.  Conan's tousled head appeared above the table-top as he stood up, clutching a drawing in his hand and dusting the seat of his pants (not that it did any good, all things considered).  "Yamashii-san?  I think Conan-kun has something for you—"

The scruffy little boy approached the old woman with apparent trepidation.  "I drew a picture for you—it's from your names."  The onlookers in the room appeared puzzled, and Conan held the crayon-drawing up for everyone to see.  Three animals chased each other across the paper:  a rat, an ox and a tiger, the latter only recognizable because of its stripes.  "See?  That's you—" and the boy pointed at the mouse, "—'Ne', because your name means the Rat from the Year of the Rat.  And that's you, the Tiger from the Year of the Tiger."  He smiled up at them, a bright little-boy smile from a bright little boy.  "I think you have *neat* names… we're learning about the animals of the Years in school, the Juu-Ni'ichi….." and he began to count them off on his fingers.  "First there's the Rat, then the Ox, then the Tiger, then the—"

"Conan-kun?"  Takagi interrupted; "Why'd you draw an ox too?  There's only two of them—"

The little boy shook his head.  "Uh uh—  Takagi-niisan, you said they both had the same birthday, so that'd make them twins, right?  But the Ox comes in between the Mouse and the Tiger, so they had to be—what do you call three babies all born at one time?  Triplets, right?  If somebody was going to name their kids after the Year animals, why would they just name them after the first and the third?  So I knew there had to be three of you."  He nodded definitely, then looked away from the woman and back up to the old man.  "You said 'Ushi' a minute ago—is that your sister?"

Yamashii Tora seemed frozen; his face was grey, but there seemed to be something building behind his eyes.

Conan tilted his head to one side a little, some of the sharpness behind the child's mask beginning to leak out into his tone as he gently laid the picture on the old man's lap.  "Here, you hold this…..  Jiisan?  Where is your sister?"

"Dead…" he whispered, his eyes haunted.  "She died….. she….."

The old woman beside him made a harsh noise in the back of her throat; it sounded oddly loud in the small café.  "Some people… aren't worth their keep."

"---she was our SISTER, Ne-chan!!" cried out her brother, his voice sounding broken as it cracked into a sob.  "We took care of her!  When she got sick, she—"

"And what would you know about taking care of her?" spat the old woman with sudden venom, rounding on him and making the onlookers draw back in shock (except for Conan and Takagi, who simply remained still, eyes fixed on her face).  "You just spent your days at the University—you never had to clean up after her, you never had to give her a bath or fix all her meals or take her to the doctor or give her her shots or--  You had it easy, niichan!"  The angry old voice hissed, dry and poisoned as the fang of a snake.  "And then she went and DIED and it was a good thing, too!!  And if she hadn't written the—"  Abruptly Yamashii Ne stopped, her eyes glittering as she became aware of her audience; her mouth snapped shut like a trap, and she glared at her brother.

"I'm sorry, Yamashii-san.  It's hard to lose a sister--  You must have felt terrible."  Takagi's voice was very soft in the silence that fell afterwards; the old man shook his head, not quite denying the words but not quite accepting them either.

"She—she wanted to die.  She told us….." he whispered; one of the dockworkers opened his mouth in shock, but closed it at a warning glare from Mufune.   The old man's voice faded into a mumble, the words falling over each other; "She said… she was h-hurting and she didn't want—didn't want—to be a burden a-any more….."

Takai was aware of the silence beside his elbow—a watchful, listening silence named Conan; he glanced down at the boy… and was glad that he was the only one watching.  There was no way in the world that the expression on the small face belonged on anybody that young—no way.  It shook him just a little, those sharp eyes and that intent look, and Takagi shivered slightly before he spoke.  "Is that why she committed suicide, then?  Because of an illness?"

The old man's lips trembled like an unhappy child's.  "Cancer….. pancreatic cancer.  She was diabetic first, though, and it crippled her.  Then the cancer came….. she could hardly walk by then, only for a little ways at a time.  That's why I didn't—didn't *believe* her when she… said that she was… g-going to… really going to—"  He broke down at this point, hiding his face in his hands and shuddering.  "Ushi."

His sister eyed him with disdain, tight-lipped; her hands, moving at last, tightened on the sweater she held in her lap until the knuckles stood out bone-white against the age-blotched skin.  Takagi watched her now, wondering if she'd freeze up and refuse to say anything else.  It wasn't as if they didn't have probable cause at this point—they could get away with hauling the two Yamashii siblings down to the stationhouse for questioning, but he wanted to finish the whole sorry thing now.

He'd sleep better.  And his mind would be a lot clearer when he talked to Sato-san later on—

*Right.*  Takagi squared his mental shoulders and went for the kill.

"That's why things are so tight, isn't it?  That's why money's such a problem— since your sister died, you don't have any disability payments coming in anymore now, do you?" he asked Yamashii Ne, watching her carefully.  "When your sister was alive she must have had some sort of insurance to help with her living expenses and medical bills—"

"Insurance!!" snarled the old woman, her fury breaking through her stony silence.  "Vultures!  As soon as she was dead they stopped paying, taking away what was *rightfully ours—*"  She paused for a split second to gasp for a breath, and Takagi noted with one corner of his mind that her face was becoming a hideous, blotchy red.  Her hands worked spastically in her lap, tearing at the wool of the sweater as if to shred it to bits.  "And then, when the life insurance company found out she had killed herself, they wouldn't pay what we were *entitled to* and it was all because HE—" and she pointed with one skinny finger towards the silent bus which still sat by the curb, lights blinking, "—gave them the note—"

--and then she stopped, suddenly wary; the snarl of anger in her face shifted a bit, allowing caution to creep in.  But it was too late, much too late; her brother was raising his face from his hands now, staring…..

"….. THAT'S why you wanted to kill him….." he whispered.  "You told me it was because he was her *father*— but that wasn't it, you wanted to—"

"SHUT UP!!" shrieked the old woman suddenly; one of the dockworkers dropped the deck of cards in shock.  But Yamashii Tora went on in an inexorable mumble:

"—you said it was for revenge, for REVENGE—not for money, not because he gave them the note but because if the father died the daughter'd suffer, and she was the one who killed Ushi-chan—"

One thin hand whipped out, striking him across the face and knocking him back with surprising strength; Yamashii Tora choked on his words, his face white.  He stared at her as if he had never seen her before, raising shaking fingers to his cheekbone and the red mark her hard palm had left as she screamed in his face.

"Don't you understand, you stupid old fool?  When he gave the police her suicide note he cut us off!!  If he hadn't, we'd be getting all the—"

"YOU MADE US INTO MURDERERS FOR MONEY--!!  God, Ne, how could you?  How could you?"   Her brother was shaking by now, his lined face full of horror; Takagi looked back down at Conan again just as the boy spoke, his soft voice carrying with uncanny clarity in the room.

"She talked you into it, didn't she, Jiisan?  Your sister had some old supplies from her diabetic checkups—that collection lancet was years old, so it had to come from someone with a longstanding medical condition.  You stole the vial of venom from the University and one of you filled it, probably her.  Then you kept the driver distracted while she leaned on the seat and inserted the lancet so he'd get a full dose when he sat back down….."

The old, old eyes swiveled from his sister's face down to the small one that only came to waist-level; Yamashii Tora seemed incapable of speech, but he nodded dumbly.

Takagi dropped a cautioning hand on Conan's—Kudo's—shoulder; the faux gradeschooler glanced up at him, a shadow of understanding passing across his eyes as the detective took up where he had left off.  "You thought it was to revenge your sister's death, didn't you?  Not for money, not something that paltry or small….. and she even wore Ushi's clothes and used her walker to startle and distract the driver, didn't she?  That must have made it seem almost right— almost like your sister had come back to punish the people who took her away from you."

Silence; the old man's face was almost blank with shock as he stared at his sister.  She glared back, a hard and almost mad gleam in her bitter eyes, breaking the silence at last with a harsh crack of laughter.  "That's right.  That's *exactly* right.  He took away what we—what *I*-- was entitled to by handing over that note.  If he hadn't, they'd have called her death an accident and we'd get all the money we DESERVE."  Her mouth worked as if she were chewing on something bitter, the red patches over her cheekbones livid against the raddled skin.  "All those years taking care of her after she couldn't work, all those months after the cancer showed up and she didn't have the decency to die right away—she WANTED us to have it, she WANTED it!"  The woman drew a deep, ragged breath.  And instead, instead, instead we were *CHEATED*—!!!"

"—!!!———!!!——"

The last word seemed to stick in her throat like the sharp end of a broken wishbone; Yamashii Ne choked HARD, her eyes bulging in her thin red-splotched face as her hands came up, clutching wildly at her chest and throat—she arched, half-standing as Takagi rose to his feet in alarm and Conan started forward, one small hand reaching out—

Too late, too late, too late; the old woman pitched over with a shuddering and broken gasp against her brother, clutching at him as she slid down into a heap and he cried out her name—

Too late.

***********************************************

When the ambulance arrived a little later through the glittering, rain-flooded streets, the attendants said that it looked like Yamashii Ne's heart had given out on her.  Her brother wept brokenly as he told them and anyone that would listen that the doctors had warned her over and over not to get upset, not to get angry….. but that lately that was all she had been doing.  Her chest and left arm had been hurting her for days, but she had refused to go in for an examination.

It would cost her too much, she had said.

*****************************************************************************************

TO BE CONCLUDED IN THE EPILOGUE…..

Ysabet's Notes:  I posted the Epilogue too!  Go, go; what are you waiting for?  You can review after you read it.  Go on—shoo!