Anime Murder 4
The killer strikes again. On the evening on Day 9 Carmen Rose was alone in her house. We see an eerie blue glow of the killer's camera. We see a familiar white flash and here a telltale gunshot.
Later, Chief Ford arrives at HQ with some horrific news. There's been another murder Carmen Rose. Ford has blood on his hands and clearly shaken. As with the Smith crime scene, he reports there was a lot of blood but no body.
Day 10
"This is the hardest case of my life. It just like Dracula vs. Sherlock Holms," said Conan.
Morning Briefing, Andy discusses Carmen's death. While no body was found, he informs then that based on that amount of blood and skull fragments found they could assume that she is dead.
"This bring Paul Dixon to the forefront as he desire to kill her," said Conan.
Li, Ulrich and Shute will be Team 1 and their mission is to investigate the crime scene, bring back evidence and get it analyzed.
Based on the 2 bill found in Sandra's car. Team 2 will travel to Williamsburg and check out the club their called "2 bills" and look for connection for Sandra's car. Because they have no jurisdiction, the team will be undercover. Conan and Ash will be assign to this team.
Team 3 will follow up the lead provided the killer clue that Yahiko brought back the night before this assignment will be for Yahiko and Jim. The killer clue was a 16mm roll of film. The investigators watch the film on the plasma screen TV. The image is a close up man whose face is horribly disfigured. He is sitting in a room with gaudy colored wallpaper.
"My earliest memory was in 1941 when I was 8 years old. I remember running through a dark hallway filled with smoke. There were flames on my back chasing me. My clothes were on fire, and my hair was on fire and there was no escape. Then the wall collapsed and I was outside. I could here people screaming. The left side of my face has melted and my tongue had swollen. I couldn't do anything but run. I finally stumbled off the wharf and into the tide. A few days later a fishing boat found me 40 miles away barely alive and clinging a piece of wood. They spoke almost no English and they took me to Vanilla Harbor with them. I didn't seen Moonlight again until I was a man," said the burnt man.
The investigators immediately put several important things together about this man. If he was eight years old in 1941 then he was born in 1933. That would make him 71 years old today. As of yet, they don't know when the film has been made. Andy asked Kelly Baker to run a photo of this mystery man in the paper. Someone was the photo and called in reporting that they know who is the "burnt" man is.
Team 3's investigation, they are to contact Kelly Baker and get him to reveal who called in with the information. Baker is currently at Carmen Rose's house photographing the crime scene for Ford. Baker tells Ford that he's photograph many crime scene in New York. "You get use to it," he states very matter of factly.
Conan and Ash head down to Fred Johnson's boat where he immediately confronts them stating he" didn't kill Carmen Rose." Ash responds that they don't think he did and the only reason that are there is to get a ride to Williamsburg as his boat is the only way to get there. Johnson agrees and the go off.
Team 1 goes along with Team 3 arrive at Carmen Rose house. They look over the crime scene.
"Looks like Carmen trying to make a phone call when she was attacked," said Shute.
Ford points out that there is a blood trail leading out of the room where the murder apparently occurred. Kelly is still taking pictures and Li comments later that Kelly seems to be turning up a lot of places and he doesn't trust him.
When away from Kelly, Yahiko informs Ford that Kelly Baker is a suspect and that he shouldn't be at the crime scenes. Meanwhile, Jim tells Kelly he has some questions for him when he is done with his photographing.
"I'm going to visit the man who called in and he said he could identify the burnt man," said Kelly. Kelly tells Yahiko and Jim he will make them a deal. If they agree to talk to him for the paper, he will let them come with him to meet his source. They agree and head off together in Kelly's car.
Back at the house, Team 1 starts taking photos and sifts though evidence, picking up the pieces they feel are important. There is gray-blond hair scattered all over the room.
"It looks like the killer may have shaved Carmen's head," said Ulrich.
Li finds a small pieces of material caught on a nail on a doorway. As with the other crime scenes, they find a .357 casing. Finally, they find a small "scramble" puzzle, the kind with 15 sliding squares and one empty space, which you try and slide around to get the numbers in order.
The puzzle is covered with blood. On the back, which is clean of blood, is an engraved inscription... "To K.B. You make all the pieces fit. Love, Me." Shute states that the initials are probably Kelly Baker's and that he is very high to number in order.
The investigators followed up on one final piece of evidence, the phone.
"I suggest we should hit re-dial and see who she trying to call," said Ford.
The re-dial works to find out who was the last Carmen called was Rev Bernie Knight answers the other end of the line. Ford asked him if the spoke with Carmen Rose the day before. The Reverend said he did, in the morning.
"Carmen called to talk about the bake sale they are holding at the end of the month," said Reverend Bernie Knight.
"Call me or the investigators if he remembers anything else?" ask Ford.
On the way to Williamsburg, Conan and Ash checks the hidden spy camera in Ash's shirt because he's the tallest of the group. This will allow them to covertly film what they encounter on their visit to 2 bill. In the club, investigators discovered that a 2 bill is a strip bar and a restaurant and they are surprise they are allowed their and that 2 bills is the main type of currency. On the stage a dancer is finishing her routine. As Ash and Conan sits down by a hostess and hands them their menu, right in front of the stage, the DJ announces the next dancer "That bad girl from across the bay Janet Mitchell."
As Janet Mitchell shakes her moneymaker, Ash admits to being somewhat "lost in thought." He's glad, though, that Conan is around to keep him focus.
Team 3 with Kelly arrives at the Hilton Hotel Lodge. When they get out of the car.
"Have there been any major fires in Moonlight?" ask Yahiko.
"There was two about the so-called miracle fire of '41 in which Moonlight was practically razed to the ground, yet not a soul as been killed. After this three talk who they assume is the lodge owner. He tells the team that the burnt man had stayed in the lodge until '71 and the show them his room. When they got there, the lodge owner explains the burnt man handed himself in the shower the year that he stayed here. He doesn't know anything else about him, and no one claimed him upon his death. When goes on to say that the family would claim a freak such as that, Kelly takes offense, admonishing the man for being so callous as the call the man a freak.
Back on Team 2, Ash is still to find ways to enjoy himself when Janet steps down from the stage and invites him and Conan a little chat. They want to know that she the one who dumped Sandra's in the drink in the previous chapters. As she tells the team that Randy begged her to do it, two huge bouncers come and escort the duo to the club's owner.
When they arrive at the office, Paul Dixon. Dixon is upset that Conan and Ash dared to enter the club while wearing a wire. He tells them that he thinks they are targeting him. When Conan moves to interject, Dixon shuts her down, telling him that he shouldn't interject "nothing."
Ash's smile is barely contained, Dixon goes on to explain that he is a son of an unwed 15-year-old mother who was driven out of Moonlight by her best friend, Carmen Rose. Yes, he hated Carmen, and yes he hated her and she controlled the property necessary for his building of the hotel, but no, he would never killer her (or he said).
When Ash and Conan return to HQ, Conan recaps the day's events for Teams 1 and 3.
Before they can go to sleep, there comes a knock on the door. Reverend Bernie Knight and Janet Mitchell have arrived, and they bear gifts. It seems that the answering machine at the church received a call from Carmen Rose just before the day she was killed. Janet Mitchell was at the church when the Reverend played it, and she convinced him to bring it over.
"Janet Mitchell is strange that she would be stripping one day and then at the church with the reverend from the next," said Syaoran.
Day 11
The investigators recap their findings to the entirety to the group. First, Andy gives his voice to the question of why Janet Mitchell was at the church with Reverend Bernie. The team correctly identifies that Sandra was working at the church in the days preceding her death, so Janet Mitchell's working there should come to no surprise given what we know about her somewhat skewed personality.
Team 1 new mission becomes its acquisition. In response to this, Ash tells the group that Rev. Bernie Knight invited them all to casino night at 2 Bills (a little odd for a reverend to recommend the party at a strip club). Since Dixon is the owner of the club, it's reasonable to assume that he will be present will go to the club and try to takes Dixon's jacket.
Team 2 mission is to go back to the club and look for Randy. They are to corroborate the story that was told to them that the story that was told to them by Janet Mitchell was well as find out details that brought about the thief of the car.
Since the oldest guy in town is Robert Smith's father, Team 3's mission will be to discover any possible connection between the burnt man and the historic blaze.
Yahiko and Jim are driven to the burnt out remains of the Fishermen's Cannery, where they meet up with Arnold Smith looking out over the horizon. Yahiko ask a couple of questions, but the answers don't really shed any more light on the origin or result of the fire. All we are told is that the greatest victim of the fire the sardine business. It was the fire's only casualty.
That night, Teams 1 and 2 arrive at 2 Bills. There they find the largest assemblage of suspects the Smith memorial a full week (game time) before. Shute reiterates the need to obtain Dixon's jacket, while the others begin flirting with everyone in the other room. Shortly, Laura Powers begins yelling at Kelly Baker.
This prompts Tina Ryan to explain to Conan that Laura having some problems ever since she entered the Smith house and find the blood on the floor. The doctors have diagnosed her with Pavor Nocturnus, or Night Terrors, because she wakes up every night screaming. Ash chats with Amy Nakamura before remembering that Team 2 is suppose to look for Randy. Conan and Ash discover Randy in the back of the club, gazing forlornly at an evocative tape he had made of the late Sandra Smith.
When Ash begins to tell him of Janet Mitchell's confession, he demeanor immediately changes.
"I paid Janet Mitchell 700 for she suppose favor to a friend and seems less than pleased by her subsequent failure to accomplish the simple task," said Randy.
Randy tells the team about the fight he and Robert had on the night of the murder. This time he admits that he came back to the club and had a few before returning to the Smith house.
Angry and more than a little drunk, he proceeded to bash in Sandra's car in hope that someone would come out to meet him. When no one did, he entered the home only to find blood in the foyer. He freaked out, stealing Sandra's car and taken it to the hidden woods. He never hurt Sandra; it was just being at the wrong place and the wrong time.
Shute meanwhile, is still eyeing on Dixon's jacket. Dixon however, is obvious. He had call this party so that again regale the assembly with tales of his beautiful hotel. He tells the group that Arnold Smith's failing heath will give him controlling interest in the cannery and soon nothing will stand in the way of the Inn of Ocean Point.
When the party ended outside Ash explaining an idea to get Dixon's jacket to Conan take off his coat and go over to Dixon under the auspice of being cold as he looks like he's the youngest. Then Conan goes over to Dixon and requested his coat. When he gives it to Conan the group head back to HQ.
At 3:04AM as all the investigators are asleep they here a loud slam downstairs then the all woke up and went downstairs. Then they hear water leaking at the pool and see a red and blue envelope. That means the killer was in the Headquarters and they can't go back to sleep.
Day 12
The investigators successfully match up the fabric piece with the nice new hole on Dixon's jacket. When Team 2 tells the story, an argument ensures to whether his actions are believable or not. The team remands him as a suspect.
Then they went to the red envelope and the question is asked be: What is a Pavor Nocturnus? Conan comes up the answer a medicine and once again he's correct and Calvin Brown is cleared from the suspect board.
Then at 7 o'clock the team starts voting again.
"The people are going are Li and Yahiko," said Andy then he gives the boys two blue envelopes and Yahiko is heading the Ocean Bay Lighthouse and Li's heading to Product Trading Warehouse then Yahiko is first to enter the boot for his last will and testament.
"So this sucks going for the third time and that means the group doesn't like me for some reason. I just hope they carry this one request for me that tell a girl named Tsubame back my home that I love her and I'll always be with her when she needs me. Not much this time but I have more words if I come back," said Yahiko the left for Li's turn.
"Here I go again, I have been this position before and I been chosen for this task to go out to find the killer's clue and one step closer to justice. But if you're hearing this that means I'm dead. If I die tonight tell Sakura Avalon my girlfriend that I will always love her and be with her when she needs me. I hope I see you in heaven or come back in one piece," said Li.
Then they head out to their location barefooted. As Li and Yahiko arrives at there locations and begin to explore in the familiar slow and poorly fashion. Yahiko arrives at the top of the lighthouse only to find that she has to go back down to find her flowered X. Li meets up with a couple of flying mammals. As Yahiko arrives at his X arrived at his X and sees a memorial statue. Li finds her X and then saying hello in the room then he yells out, then a flash and a gunshot sound. Li is dead. At the lighthouse Yahiko leans over the memorial to find a circle named Duchamps.
Back at headquarters the here footsteps from the stairs and surprise that Yahiko is back for the third time.