An update at last! Here's yet another chapter.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DETECTIVE SCHOOL Q.
Chapter 6: The Crime Scene
"He's dead?" Shizuko said disbelievingly.
"He is. Mei was going to confront him about something, but Shinji wouldn't even open his door. Mei went to Musashi, naturally, since he's head of the boy's dorms. When they got the door open, well…"
Sumika paused in her storytelling.
"Have the police been informed?" asked Ryuu.
"Momoko ran off to call them, and Mei and Musashi are still at Shinji's room."
"Can you take us there?" asked Kyu.
Sumika raised an eyebrow. "Sure, but it's pretty gross…"
"I want to see it as well," said Ryuu.
Sumika blinked. "Okaaaaay…"
"He's in there," said Sumika, pointing to an open door.
"Did anyone move him?" asked Shizuko.
"No. We were too disgusted to…"
Ryuu entered the room without hesitation.
Kyu followed him.
Meg screwed up her face and crossed the threshold of the room.
Taking a deep breath, Shizuko stepped into the room.
What they all saw came as a bit of a shock.
Shinji's body was lying on the floor, with a torn piece of cord around his neck. The rest of the cord had been cut from the curtain pull in the room. His eyes were bulging out from his purple face, and his tongue hung out from his mouth, which had fallen slack.
"Clever," said Ryuu. "The murderer used something of the victim's to strangle him, so that nothing would be missing from his own room. He won't be traced."
Kyu nodded, indicating that he had thought of the same thing.
"But the question is, how did the killer get in the room to cut off the cord? And then use it to strangle him? That could mean that Shinji could have simply passed out with the killer's first attack, like, say, manual strangulation as he entered the room, then using the cord as a finishing touch, a final blow," said Shizuko.
"It's plausible, but then that would mean leaving fingerprints on the victim's body, and that wouldn't be the killer's way," said Ryuu.
"He could have worn gloves," said Kyu thoughtfully.
"Hn," said Ryuu. "It is likely."
"This smell is horrid," Shizuko muttered. "How long could he have been dead?"
"Not too long, I think. A corpse that's been dead for quite a while would smell even worse," said Ryuu knowledgeably.
I don't think I even WANT to know how he knew that, thought Shizuko.
"This smells even worse than the dead cat I found in the backyard a few weeks ago," Shizuko said.
Desperate for something else to look at, Meg began scanning the rest of the room, at the same time, incorporating it into her photographic memory.
Her eyes fell on the computer, which was turned on.
"Look at this," she said.
Everyone else tore their eyes away from the dead body to look at her.
"Another message?" asked Kyu.
Meg nodded vigorously.
"Same M.O.," said Ryuu seriously.
Shizuko nodded, thinking. M.O. stands for "modus operandi". It means "method of operation", and it was true that the killer had used the same method of operation, killing his victims and even leaving a message on the computer.
"What does it say?" asked Kyu.
"And so now, the hunter becomes the hunted," Meg began. "The bully is finally dead. How long did he torture us? How long was he allowed to abuse his power and make us bow to his brawn, his strength? Well, here he is, lying before you. Is this someone to fear? Is this someone who we need to respect and cower before? NO. Not anymore. Now, as he lies, dead, he is forced to bow before us, in atonement for his tyranny."
"How poetic," Shizuko said sarcastically.
"He sounds like a smart and prestigious person," said Ryuu.
"With an ego to match. He sounds arrogant, like he's implying that HE should be worshipped for his brains and not Shinji's brawn," said Shizuko.
"That's an interesting way to look at it," said Ryuu. "And he sounds a little too confident about his murder."
"Too confident," said Shizuko, frowning. "He's planning another one, guys."
"That, he is," said Ryuu. "But we don't know who could be next…"
Kyu and Meg watched the exchange between the two geniuses. It was like watching a tennis match, looking from one person and then turning to another, back and forth.
"Hey, don't strain your brains, guys," said Kyu cheerfully.
"HEY! What are you kids doing in there?"
A police officer yelled at them. "This is a crime scene! Nobody should be in here!"
"We didn't touch anything, sir," said Kyu.
At that, the officer seemed to soften a bit. But still…
"That's good, but GET OUT OF HERE! Detective Iwashizu won't be too happy about this…"
The four teens looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and quickly exited the room, while the officer continued to banter on about "kids ruining the crime scene" and how "teenagers have no respect for authority".
Musashi, Mei, Sumika, Momoko and Rei were standing outside the room.
What the heck is Rei doing here? Shizuko thought.
Musashi nodded at Ryuu in greeting. "This is weird, huh?"
"Yeah, it is," Ryuu agreed. "Who would actually want to kill him?"
Musashi shook his head amusedly. "Well, do you want them alphabetically or by date of attack?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Kyu, interested.
Mei snorted in disdain. "Shinji bullies just about everyone in this school. Including me, in fact. And…didn't you have a fight with him a couple of days ago, Musashi?"
"It wasn't really a fight; it was more of an argument…"
"Suuure, and most arguments nowadays include kicks and punches," said Mei cynically, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"That was a long time ago!" burst out Musashi.
"Sure it was."
"Enough, guys," interjected Rei. "The guy is practically dead with his tongue hanging out already; can't you at least try to respect his memory?"
Mei rolled his eyes. "What's there to respect? The only people who'd come to his funeral, if he even has one, are his two stupid cronies who don't even know what goes on in the world."
Rei sighed. "Right, we all know that. But even so…"
Mei shook his head. "I'm not going to complain about this, you guys. If you ask me, this is a cause for celebration. Even though I never even had a chance to tell him off."
He walked off down the hallway with his nose in the air.
Sumika shook her head.
Musashi smirked. "Who's willing to bet that he's gonna be next on the kill list?"
That remark somehow touched something in Ryuu's mind. They really don't care, do they? To them it's nothing, like a standing joke…
Shaking their heads and snickering, Musashi, Sumika and Momoko went their separate ways.
Rei stayed a little longer, frowning. "Those guys can be so inconsiderate. This is serious. Two people have died and they don't even care."
Shizuko nodded. "I know."
Rei shook his head. "Anyway, I'll be seeing you. Bye."
He put his hands in his pockets and walked off down the corridor to his own room.
Ryuu raised an eyebrow at the exchange. "He seems genuinely concerned."
"I guess so," said Shizuko.
"OY! All of you!"
The police officer was yelling again. "Detective Iwashizu wants to talk to everyone who was here!"
What, does he have a built-in loudspeaker in his voice box? Shizuko thought irritably as the man's voice rattled her eardrums.
"What happened to the other kids who were here?" asked a middle-aged man in a brownish coat. Apparently, he seemed to be the detective.
"They went somewhere, I think," said Kyu.
The detective sighed heavily. "Gah, the days of easy detective work is now gone. Now even people at the crime scene don't even bother to stay for questioning!"
The man turned to Kyu. "Kid, do me a favor, and try to look for them, would you? But be back, I need your statement too."
"Of course," said Kyu cheerfully. He ran off.
"Everyone here was confirmed to be at the crime scene, is that correct?"
Detective Iwashizu looked at each of them in turn, focusing on each of their faces.
Musashi, Rei, Mei, Sumika, and Momoko set themselves far from each other as though they refused to have any kind of association with one another, which was a bit surprising, since they had been quite chummy in the corridor.
Kyu, Ryuu, Meg, and Shizuko were there as well, though looking a lot less nervous.
Detective Iwashizu laid down the facts before them. "Okay, here's the deal. One of your schoolmates was killed, probably around last night. You found him this afternoon, dead. Who was the first to discover him?"
Muasashi and Mei looked at each other. "We did, sir," said Musashi.
"How did you find him? Tell me in your own words."
Mei began his story. "Well, it happened like this. Shinji had bullied me out of my cell phone a few days before. I couldn't take it anymore that he kept using it in front of me in the hallways, showing off. So this afternoon, since he hadn't been to any of his classes all day, I went to his room myself to confront him about it. I knocked on his door over and over, but he wouldn't answer. I went to Musashi here for help."
Musashi continued the story. "Well, I was just sitting in my bedroom doing homework when Mei knocked on my door, asking me to open the door to Shinji's room…"
"Why would you open Shinji's door? You have access?"
"I'm head of the boy's dorms here. I have spare keys."
"Okay. Continue."
"Well, at first I refused, since I really didn't want to bother a guy like him. But Mei insisted, and in the end, I picked up the spare key and went to Shinji's room. When we got the door open, he was there, lying on the floor, dead. Mei yelled in shock, and then Sumika and Momoko came running."
Sumika carried on with the account. "Momoko here is head of the girl's dorms, and she's my friend. We came running to the room when we heard Mei yell, and we saw the body. Momoko ran off to call the police, and I went off to tell Shizuko."
"Why did you tell her about it?"
"Because she was new to the school…I thought that maybe she deserved to know, and I gave her a heads-up."
Momoko piped up, saying, "I was there for only a short time, I ran off to call the police."
Detective Iwashizu turned to Rei. "And you? How did you end up at the crime scene?"
Rei replied, "I ran into Momoko as she was running back from her call to the police, she told me that someone had been killed again, and I just followed her as she went back. And I saw the rest of them huddled around Shinji's door."
The detective turned to Kyu, Ryuu, Meg, and Shizuko. "And the four of you?"
"We heard from Sumika about the killing, and we just came to the room to take a look at it…" said Shizuko.
"One of my officers said that you were in the room. What were you doing in there?"
"We just wanted to see what happened, that's all," said Kyu promptly, although a bit too cheerfully for his own good.
"Oh, so you just thought you could waltz into a crime scene and take a look for yourselves. What do you think you are, forensic experts?"
Close enough, thought Meg. After all, we are undercover from DDS.
Ryuu spoke up. "We just thought that maybe we could find something that could help…"
"And did you?" asked the detective, raising an eyebrow.
"Maybe. But what we know is purely based on theory. A forensic investigation could tell much more, and would even help us in formulating a theory."
"Ooh, someone thinks he's an expert. So what's your theory, then, Mr. I-know-everything?"
Ryuu shook his head. "One of the greatest mistakes that a person makes is formulating a theory before he knows all the facts. Therefore, what I have in mind, I will not disclose until such time that I know all the details."
"And what do your friends here have to say? Do they have their own theories, too?"
Kyu nodded vigorously. "Sure we do."
The detective chuckled. "Really now, this is definitely one of the most amusing things I've ever seen in all my years of investigating. Four kids coming into a crime scene acting like they know everything there is to know about a murder."
Well, we ARE from DDS, Shizuko thought sarcastically.
"What about you, sir?" asked Meg curiously. "Is there anything that has been found out about this killing?"
"Huh? Me, you say?" the detective wanted to laugh, now. "I've never seen kids this interested in a crime before. Well, forensic experts are examining the scene right now, and I'm sure we'll turn up something. And we'll see how it matches up with the theory of yours." He smirked. "We'll see just how well-versed you kids are in this business."
The detective stood up and gestured to Musashi, Sumika, Mei, Momoko, and Rei. "The five of you can leave now. Do your homework or something. Thank you for your statements."
The five people looked at each other, confused, but stood up and left.
Rei gave Shizuko a last glance before closing the door.
rants: the next chapter will contain more details of the investigation.
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