SailorStar9: With Chapter 27 uploaded, this is Chapter 28 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.
Pairing: Developing!Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 28: The Ex-Boyfriend Living Next to a Crime Scene, Part One
Time passes...
"Yumi-san?" Miike voiced, awaking the dozing off Yumi. "Yumi-san? Assistant Inspector Miyamoto Yumi! Don't doze off when we're out on patrol. Yumi-san, did something happen last night?"
"Sorry." Yumi yawned. "I pulled an all-nighter playing mahjong with the guys in the Organized Crime Division."
"You shouldn't stay up all night playing mahjong." Miike scolded. "It's bad for both your work and skin. Anyway, what was that about 'collecting all seven'? You said it in your sleep: something like 'when are you gonna be able to get all seven?'"
"It's something my ex-boyfriend said." Yumi sighed. "When I told him we should break up because I was becoming a police officer, he gave me a weird-looking envelope and told me not to open until he'd 'collected al seven'. But he never called me again since, so I dumped him. Told him I wouldn't wait any longer and I didn't even want to see or hear from him ever again."
"And where'd you first meet?" Miike's interest was perked.
"While I was still studying in university, in a subway train." Yumi answered. "He lived in a high-end place, so maybe he's some spoilt rich kid, who knows?"
"But what's that 'seven' thing about?" Miike wondered. "Seven what?"
"No idea." Yumi replied. "Probably something useless."
"Could he be a sailor?" Conan piped in. "The north and south Atlantic Oceans, north and south Pacific Oceans, the Indian Ocean, and the north and south Arctic Oceans. He's telling you to wait until he's conquered all seven seas. Did he have a sunburn?"
"No, pale white and looked like a moocher who never leaves his home." Yumi answered. "He kept going somewhere, but it didn't look like he was going for seasonal work, either."
"Then, maybe he meant the Seven Lucky Gods round-up tour." Mitsuhiko suggested.
"But you can get something like that really quickly, right?" Conan reminded.
"Another possibility is The Seven Deadly Sins." Haibara declared. "Pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust."
"Who'd want to collect those?" Conan muttered.
"But the Seven Lucky Gods thing makes sense." Yumi mused. "He did say that on Christmas, after all. Hold on." she stopped herself. "Why am I talking about this with you guys?"
"And what'd you do with that envelope?" Miike asked.
"Hell, if I know where I put it." Yumi replied. "Can you back up a bit and park at the shoulder?" she requested, seeing an argument erupt nearby.
"It's from Sakurako." Miike picked up the incoming call. "What is it? I'm on duty right now. Somebody died?" she exclaimed. "But I'm not a detective."
"Is that somewhere nearby?" Conan asked.
"Yeah." Miike responded and the Detective Boys ran off. "Anyway, don't touch anything." she instructed Sakurako. "I'll be there right away. A friend of mine called me, saying somebody'd died." she informed Yumi.
"Where?" Yumi pressed.
"At a flat in Chateau Beika." Miike answered.
"A flat in Chateau Beika..." Yumi stammered.
In front of the high-rise building...
"Miyamoto-sama, long time no see." the housekeeper of the flats greeted Yumi.
"So, what floor is it?" Yumi asked as she and Miike entered the elevator.
"18th floor." Miike answered.
On the 18th floor...
"The mini-patrol ladies came here, too?" Genta spotted Yumi and Miike.
"But aren't you two from the traffic division?" Mitsuhiko wondered. "Isn't this kind of case a little out of your scope?"
"I only came to bring you guys home." Yumi protested.
"Conan-kun's gone." Miike looked around.
"He's inside." Haibara supplied.
"He told us to wait here." Ayumi added.
In the Itami unit...
"Who the hell is this kid?" Itami Naganobu demanded.
"Edogawa Conan." Conan introduced himself. "We met in a previous murder case. Isn't that right, Yonehara Sakurako-san?"
"In that optical illusion case." Sakurako recalled. "I started working as a commuting housekeeper for this place last week, but then something like this happened again. Nae-chan." she spotted Miike. "Sorry, I panicked and called you without thinking."
"Don't worry, we just called the detectives." Yumi assured. "It's doesn't look like a murder to me. But just in case, would you mind telling us the sequence of events?"
"I had a fight with my wife, Chiyoko, about an hour ago." Itami related, Itami Chiyoko was hanging from the chandelier. "To let her cool off, I decided to leave her alone and went out with the housemaid."
"Since we hadn't purchased ingredients for dinner yet, the master and I went to a nearby supermarket." Sakurako nodded.
"My wife broke her wrist recently and couldn't do housework, so we had to hire a housemaid." Itami explained. "If she throws a tantrum again, her injury will get worse. My eye looked like this, after all." he lifted his glasses to reveal the bruised eye. "When my wife is in a fit of rage, she tends to throw things. Because of that, I had to take a day off from work."
"And when you came back, you found your wife hanging?" Yumi asked.
"We finished shopping in about half an hour." Sakurako replied. "And when the master and I came home and passed the entryway door, I heard a 'slam' from this bedroom door closing. I think she was still alive at the time. Just in case, I knocked and called for her, but since she didn't answer, I figured she was still angry."
"That's why I asked the housemaid to pour me a cup of coffee, and we chatted for about half an hour after that." Itami added. "Then we knocked on the bedroom door again, and this time, we opened the door and went in, where we stumbled upon her. I never imagined my wife would've been that troubled about our argument."
"What about the memo under her feet?" Yumi knelt down.
"It's her suicide note." Itami answered. "It's her handwriting, and it details my injury, my son's exams, and even the fact that my sister's daughter is celebrating her shichigosan this year. She put so much thought into writing these. And she asked for forgiveness for departing this world."
"Then, it's definitely suicide." Yumi concluded.
"No, it could be murder." Conan corrected. "The suicide note was supposed to have been written and ripped out from this notebook on the desk. But if you look closely, you can see there are two holes from the remainder of the torn page at the spiral binding. But there are three holes worth of gaps on the suicide note. Isn't that strange? What's more, the writing on the note looks pretty shaking." he pulled out the trash bin from under the desk and poured the contents on the ground. "She apparently wrote a lot of notes using that notebook, but she always signed with just her given name. But that suicide note alone has her full name. It looks inconsistent to me."
"Was the entryway door locked?" Miike inquired.
"I was the one who unlocked it." Sakurako nodded. "So, I know it was secure."
"And who had the spare keys?" Miike asked.
"Just my wife, the housemaid, my son, Yasuie, and myself." Itami replied.
"Where's your son right now?" Miike inquired.
"At the driving school, I think." Itami recalled. "He said the test was coming up soon."
"Just in case, I think there's another spare key in the mailbox on the first floor." Sakurako supplied.
"That mailbox was locked, right?" Yumi pressed.
"It has a combination dial." Sakurako nodded. "So, I didn't think anyone could've opened it easily. There's someone else." she exclaimed, recalling HanedaShukichi reciting the numbers. "There's someone else who knows the combination. Yesterday, when I was planning on taking out the mail from that mailbox, I'd forgotten to bring the memo with the combination on it, and when I was in trouble, the person in question told it to me."
"And does this person live in this block of flats?" Miike was startled.
"He's the next-door neighbor." Sakurako replied. "He always has an unshaved stubble and looks a bit scruffy. I think his name is..."
"It'd be faster if we just go next door immediately." Miike insisted.
"Wait..." Yumi tried to stop the younger policewoman who had dragged Sakurako over next door.
"What is it?" Haneda Shukichi answered the door. "Yumi-tan!" he beamed, seeing his girlfriend hiding behind his neighbor's door.
"Do you know him?" Ayumi wondered.
"He's my ex." Yumi sighed.
A while later...
"So, to recap." Megure started. "To let your wife calm down after a heated argument, you went shopping at a supermarket with the housemaid for about half an hour. After you returned and opened the entryway door, you heard the sound of the bedroom door closing. You knocked on the door and there was no response. You had no choice but to spend another half an hour chatting to the housemaid in the kitchen. Then you knocked on the door again, and this time you went in and you found your wife, Chiyoko-san, hanging with the electric cord."
"Yes." Itami nodded.
"By the way, what was your argument about?" Takagi asked.
"It was about stocks." Itami replied. "She recently became addicted to buying stocks. When I reprimanded her for it, she went hysterical. She's probably stressed over the fact that our son who's graduating from university, is still unemployed. He's barely visited since he moved out to live alone at a flat near his university."
"But he called recently." Sakurako stated. "Saying he wants a car once he gets his driver's license. And that he was going to come by and show a catalogue of cars. But his mother yelled at him. She said a car is out of the question when he didn't even manage to get a job yet and hung up on him. I never imagined my new job would come down to this again."
"Be careful you don't end up like Mouri-kun who brings death everywhere he goes." Megure sighed. "Regardless, why were you, from the traffic division, the one who reported it in, Miike-kun?"
"Sakurako-san discovered the body first and she decided to call her friend first: Officer Miike Naeko." Conan piped in. "I happened to overhear them, so I came too."
"Then, was the housemaid a classmate of yours, Naeko?" Yumi asked.
"She's a childhood friend of mine, and she used to be my neighbor." Miike replied. "I'm a year older than her."
"Does that mean, you, your wife and the housemaid were the only ones here?" Megure inquired.
"I haven't seen my son for over a year, after all." Itami noted.
"Then, who's the guy behind Yumi-kun?" Megure frowned.
"I live next door." Haneda smiled. "Yumi-san and I have been dating. My name is Haneda Shukichi."
"He's my ex-boyfriend." Yumi insisted. "Emphasis on the 'ex'."
"Still, why is your boyfriend here?" Megure wondered.
"My ex-boyfriend remembered the combination to the mailbox dial where this room's spare key was kept, so I dragged him here." Yumi snapped.
"You look familiar somehow..." Takagi frowned.
"I seem to have heard your name somewhere before." Megure pondered. "Anyway, there's a suicide note near the body's feet."
"We can rule this as suicide." Takagi concluded.
"But this might not be a suicide." Sakurako spoke up. "That's what Conan-kun said anyway."
"You're right." Megure concurred, re-piecing the torn off note back to the notebook. "The edges of the suicide note and the residual of the torn page don't add up. The suicide note says 'I'm sorry for causing your injuries, and I hope you'll get well soon. Yasuie-san, study hard for your exams. I hope you pass and get accepted. Please celebrate Ichiko-san's shichigosan by letting her wear my kimono. And please forgive someone as undutiful as me for leaving this world. Signed Itami Chiyoko.' Does anything she wrote here seem odd to you?"
"As you can see, I have a bruise from when my wife threw an ashtray at me and hit my eye last night." Itami sighed. "And my son Yasuie also said he was going to take a test in order to get his driver's license. And my sister's daughter's gonna turn 7 years old this year."
"But why did she throw the ashtray?" Takagi wondered.
"When she gets angry, she tends to throw things around." Itami replied.
"I saw her doing that, too." Sakurako confirmed. "That's why I thought the mobile phone on the floor in front of the bedroom was her doing, too. I noticed it when I was knocking on the bedroom door after I came back from shopping."
"And where's that phone?" Megure asked.
"I kept it." Itami responded. "Figured I'll give it back to her once she felt better." he handed the phone to Megure.
"There's no incoming or outgoing calls or messages for today." Megure checked the history. "I thought this might've been used as a part of some murder trick."
"Seems it doesn't have anything to do with the case." Takagi nodded.
"But as I figured, she didn't commit suicide." Sakurako remarked. "Because of what she said before. She said 'I'm the bearer of good fortune and God's beloved child.'
"Several years ago, the plane she was on was about to collapse." Itami explained. "But as if by a miracle, she was saved. I intended to board that plane, but I ended up breaking my foot during a skiing trip right before that."
"That's why I don't think she'd commit suicide just over an argument." Sakurako was confident. "Also, that suicide note seems odd. She had a cold back when she was 7, so she couldn't celebrate her shichigosan, and she said she had nothing to do with kimonos since then until her coming-of-age ceremony."
"I see." Haneda pieced the pieces together. "A well-prepared move. That's what it is."
"What are you on, Chukichi?" Yumi retorted. "She just said the deceased wasn't preparing any kind of kimono."
"Then, this suicide note looks awfully suspicious to me." Megure nodded.
"Looks like a handwriting recognition test is in order." Takagi agreed.
"I can't believe a person who just broke her wrist would choose hanging, something hard to do with one hand, as her suicide method." Megure concurred.
"Inspector Megure." Chiba came in. "We're obtained testimony regarding a suspicious suspect. According to the concierge who was guarding the first-floor lobby, a suspicious individual with their face covered with a hat, glasses, and a mask came and left the block of flats."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
