SailorStar9: With Chapter 10 uploaded, this is Chapter 11 of this fic. (Sighs) Guys and girls, is it too hard for you to leave a review, instead of just putting this fic up on your favorited list and story alerts?
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and potential pairing.
Pending pairing: Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 11: Froth, Steam, and Smoke, Part One
Shortly afterwards...
"Using Kogoro's rental car isn't an option, huh?" Haibara asked, Conan hanging up his mobile phone as the two waited outside Professor Agasa's house.
"It's already seven." Conan complained. "By the time we get back from the bus stop, the bus with the professor and everyone else will have already left."
"That's why I told you." Haibara scolded. "'I was the one who forgot my stuff, so I'll go get it by myself.'"
"As if I could let a kid walk around alone." Conan rebuked. "You might have gotten kidnapped, so I came with you."
"So now what?" Haibara asked. "We could take the train, but with all the transfers, we'd arrive in the evening."
"It can't be helped since it's our only choice." Conan muttered.
"There's another option." Haibara correct. "We could ask Subaru to drive us there."
On the road...
"Going skiing with everyone?" Subaru was intrigued once Conan explained. "Sounds nice. If I'm going anyway, think I should ski too? My body is getting a little stiff."
"Detective Takagi." Conan spotted the yawning Takagi by the pave-way. "Stakeout?" he guessed.
"Pretty much." Takagi replied. "I just switched places with Chiba."
"Isn't it a bit too early to start working again?" Conan was worried.
"Sometimes, I still have nightmares about it." Takagi admitted. "I woke up right after I fell off the board. I keep telling myself, 'It's okay. I didn't fall.'"
"He fell!" someone shouted.
"The other side of the road?" Takagi blinked.
"Detective Takagi, get in." Conan exclaimed. "Let's check it out."
"Excuse me." Takagi dispersed the crowd. "I'm with the police." he produced the badge. "What happened? This is...?" he was stunned to see the dead Katsumoto Daisaku lying on the pavement.
"I was jogging through here when suddenly this guy fell from above." a passer-by related.
"I also saw him fall." a woman concurred. "I was walking my dog on my usual route."
"Does anyone know who this man is?" Takagi went to work.
"He's got a cell phone in his breast pocket." Conan pointed out.
"Before he fell, he received an email." Takagi checked the message inbox. "Furthermore, it was sent to multiple recipients simultaneously."
"Then, why don't we send it again?" Conan suggested. "It seems it was sent to those three." he noted, when Ogino Keisuke, Tsukihara Kaori and Sodesaki Kazutomo looked their their phones.
"That means the three of you must've known him." Takagi turned to the trio. "Why didn't you guys say anything when I asked about him?"
"I heard a big scream and frantically ran over here." Ogino stammered. "I haven't confirmed who it was."
"It's the same with me." Tsukihara explained. "Since it was a really loud scream, I accidentally spilled my coffee."
"I also heard a noise." Sodesaki confirmed. "If the person that just fell also sent the text earlier, then it must be President Katsumoto."
"So, this person is a president?" Takagi inquired.
"The president and editor-in-chief of Katsumoto Publishing Company, Katsumoto Daisaku." Ogino clarified. "Recently it's been selling like crazy. You must be familiar with the 'Weekly Great'."
"It has celebrity gossip and various other things." Takagi nodded.
"The president and staff live in the same apartment complex?" Conan was surprised.
"It's just coincidence because our company is close by." Tsukihara replied.
"I was thinking about moving soon." Ogino admitted. "I'm just a freelancer, not part of the staff."
"We're on the third floor, and the president is on the twenty-sixth floor." Sodesaki supplied.
"Sorry, but would you all please accompany me back to the station?" Takagi requested. "I would like to ask all of you some questions."
"Are you suspecting us?" Tsukihara demanded. "I told you, right? I was in my room until a while ago."
"IS there anyone who can verify this?" Takagi was all business.
"Probably not." Sodesaki admitted. "The three of us live by ourselves."
"Then, let's all go check your rooms right now." Conan piped in. "It hasn't been four minutes since that guy said 'He fell.' We might be able to find something."
"Judging by the severe body damage, he must've fallen from a considerable height." Subaru surveyed the corpse. "If this turns out to be murder, then the culprit most likely pushed this man and rushed here afterwards. If they find evidence that the suspects were in their rooms at the time, they'll be off the hook. Unexpectedly, they have to show their rooms because Detective Takagi happened to be nearby. The culprit couldn't have foreseen that their room would be searched. Thus, stopping by their room after the murder to create the evidence for their alibi would have been pointless."
In the apartment building...
"What's that bag?" Conan wondered, Takagi accidentally kicked over the paper bag Ogino left on the floor.
"A few days ago, on my way back from a funeral, I received a funeral gift." Ogino tidied up. "I left the TV on." he showed Takagi and Conan his living room. "My beer still has this much froth on it." he showed them his beer glass. "Earlier, I was drinking beer while watching TV."
"You went to the same funeral as Ogino?" Conan spotted a similar paper bag in Tsukihara's unit.
"All three of us went." Tsukihara nodded. "But the president didn't come."
"This coffee..." Takagi peered at the coffee cup on the table.
"Before I left the room, I was drinking that coffee." Tsukihara explained. "I can't start my day without drinking a cup of coffee."
"hen, this could possibly count as evidence, too." Takagi noted. "There's still some steam rising from the coffee."
"Detective, hurry." Sodesaki urged, opening his unit's door. "I just remembered." he flung open his bedroom door. "It's no use. It went out." he looked at he ashtray on his work desk. "I put the cigarette I just lit in my ashtray and left. I thought it would still be smoking. See?" he started, when the cigarette smoke started rising. "There's still smoke rising from it. This is proof that I was here."
"So, the three of you didn't go to the president's room?" Takagi asked.
"Nope." Sodesaki confirmed. "That's what we've been saying."
Later...
"Froth, steam and smoke?" Megure echoed after Takagi reported in. "Can those uncertain pieces of evidence be considered alibi?"
"Here's the timeline." Takagi reported. "Around 7:30 am, I was relieved from the stakeout and was on my way back to the station. I heard a cry that someone had fallen. Rushing in front of this apartment complex, I found that a man in a robe and pajamas had fallen. Thanks to the testimonies from the witnesses, we figure he fell from a high floor of that complex. In the man's breast pocket was a cell phone. After investigating, we found that right before he fell at 7:25, he sent a text to multiple people. When we resent the text..."
"I see." Megure nodded, understanding what had happened. "He provoked one of those three and the text lead to his murder."
"The man that fell worked with these three." Takagi added. "We found out that he was the publishing company's president, Katsumoto Daisaku. With the content of the text being what they are, I'm thinking about asking them to come voluntarily to the station for further questioning. 'If we go to my room now, we might find something that will prove I'm here earlier'." he quoted. "So..."
"When you visited each room, the beer froth, the coffee steam, and the cigarette smoke were seen." Megure concluded.
"What if one of them was the culprit that pushed President Katsumoto to his death?" Takagi posted a question. "If the culprit came straight here and joined the crowd after pushing him off, he must've rushed over here. If anyone saw you soon after, you could say you were rushed due to the commotion when questioned later."
"But you were the only one who saw the froth, steam and smoke." Megure pointed out.
"I made sure to take pictures." Conan piped in. "Although it was with a cell phone camera. Look at this. This is Ogino's beer froth. This is Tsukihara's coffee steam. It's hard to see with a picture, so it's the only one with a video. And this is Sodesaki's cigarette smoke. To easily identify their rooms, I had them hold their items before taking the photo."
"When these are taken, where were the other two?" Megure asked.
"I had them stand by the room's entrance with the door open." Takagi responded. "There wasn't enough time for them to sneak off and create evidence."
"So, you're positive President Katsumoto fell from the twenty-sixth floor of his veranda?" Megure questioned.
"Yes." Takagi nodded. "Both the apartment door and veranda screen door were left open. Right after sending the text, the president called a remodeling contractor at home. It seems the carpet installed las night in the president's room didn't match his order. On the phone, the president measured the carpet pile and complained about it. During the phone call, the doorbell rang so he told him he'd call back later and hung up."
"President Katsumoto was in his room before he fell." Megure mused. "So the one who went there is most likely the culprit. By the way, how long does it take to go to the president's room from their rooms?"
"All three of them live on the third floor." Takagi supplied. "In order to go up twenty three floors to the president's room, the round trip would take about seven minutes. I tried an experiment by climbing the stairs myself, so it's correct."
"You didn't use the elevator?" Megure was puzzled.
"The elevator has a security camera." Takagi explained. "When I checked the footage in the control room, before and after President Katsumoto fell at about 7:30 am, those three weren't there. If one of them is the culprit, they must have used the stairs which doesn't have cameras."
"The culprit rang the president's doorbell, was invited in and then pushed the president off." Megure noted. "If we add the time it took to get to the first floor to the time it took to check their room, if one of those is the culprit, then wouldn't they have left their room for about ten minutes?"
"If that much time passed, the froth, the steam and the smoke might have disappeared." Takagi surmised.
"But why did the president send such a text?" Megure asked their three suspects.
"The lawsuit." Ogino snarled.
"The three of us were going to sue the president." Tsukihara clarified.
"At the beginning of next month." Sodesaki supplied.
"You heard that a popular actress drowned herself last week, right?" Ogino asked.
"If I recall, wasn't the reason for her suicide being photographed while kissing a dangerous lover?" Takagi blinked.
"I was the one who took the picture." Ogino revealed.
"I wrote the article." Sodesaki added.
"I edited and posted the article." Tsukihara stated. "And that's how the 'Weekly Great' turned out."
"Because the photo and article were fabricated." Ogino sighed. "The photo was a photo of them before they hugged. They didn't even kiss."
"The man in the background was fake also." Sodesaki stated. "He's a stuntman and the injuries on his face were from filming that day."
"Wasn't she engaged to a young diet member?" Takagi wondered. "If they were hugging, in a way, maybe it wasn't all fake."
"That's also wrong." Tsukihara refuted. "He was her younger brother from a different mother. After hearing the news of her engagement, they embraced. Even the truth was uncovered before it was published and the article was rejected, President Katsumoto rewrote it and posted it. Popular Actress: Before Marriage, Late At Night, Playing With Fire' was the headline."
"The magazine's release date as the day before her and the diet member's wedding announcement." Ogino sighed. "So the magazine sold like crazy."
"Her younger brother was ambushed by crazy fans and is still unconscious in the hospital." Sodesaki added.
"Naturally, the wedding was canceled." Tsukihara hissed. "In despair, she chose to end her life."
"But if she had immediately told the truth, then the article would have been revealed as fiction." Takagi pointed out.
"She couldn't say it." Ogino growled. "Her younger brother was the illegitimate child of an affair her father had."
"He anticipated she wouldn't say anything and so the president went ahead and posted that absurd article." Tsukihara shrugged.
"But using our names without permission on that article is simply unforgivable." Sodesaki insisted. "That's why we sent him a text message with all of our names on it."
"'We have proof that you fabricated that article, so prepared yourself.' we said." Tsukihara added.
"And 'Until we ruin you, we will keep suing you.'" Ogino continued.
"So the president saw the text this morning and he replied with a provocative one?" Megure realized.
"Then, could the funeral bag that was in all three rooms be..." Conan started.
"We received those as a gift for attending the actress' funeral." Tsukihara confirmed.
"If that article was the motive, shouldn't we suspect the family of the suicide victim as well?" Takagi wondered.
"But right after the text was sent, the murder took place." Megure reminded. "That does not eliminate these three from being suspects."
"Inspector Megure." Conan voiced, a call from Ayumi giving him a flash of inspiration. "While we're at it, why don't we do an experiment? An experiment with froth, steam and smoke."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
