SailorStar9: With Chapter 30 uploaded, this is Chapter 31 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 31: Jodie's Memories and the Cherry Blossom Viewing Trap
Time passes...
It was once again Hanami period in Beika.
"The sakura are in full bloom." Professor Agasa remarked. "Going to hanami at a shrine is really nice."
"And the weather is great, too." Ayumi agreed.
"It's the perfect weather for hanami." Mitsuhiko concurred.
"And those bento would be perfect in my stomach." Genta drooled.
"He would really go for dango over flowers." Mitsuhiko teased.
"Professor, why don't we look around and get our fortunes told and you spread out your sheet and save us a space?" Haibara suggested. "What is it?" she asked Conan, seeing him look around as if searching for someone. "Weren't you looking for someone?"
"Not really." Conan replied.
At the park's shrine...
"I got 'fairly good luck'." Genta reported, reading his slip.
"I got 'good luck'." Ayumi added.
"I got 'delayed good luck', which isn't too great." Mitsuhiko piped in.
"Then, let's go tie up our fortunes." Ayumi turned to the omikuji rack nearby.
"Hey." Sakamaki Shigemori called out. "You managed to get good fortunes, so you should take them home with you. You only tie up your fortune to leave bad luck behind and change your luck. Though in recent years, some people have taken up the bad habit of tying up whatever fortune they get."
"Then Edogawa-kun's the only one who has to tie up his fortune." Haibara mocked.
"So, what did you get anyway?" Conan asked.
"If you're so interested, then I guess I'll have to show you." Haibara flashed her omikuji slip.
"Great luck?" Conan exclaimed.
"But you know, 'bad luck' is really rare." Jodie cut in. "So, I hear some people take getting it a sign of good luck. So don't feel disappointed, Cool Kid."
"Jodie-sensei." Conan blinked.
"Are you here to see the flowers, too?" Ayumi asked.
"Oh yes." Jodie replied. "I love sakura."
"I get it." Haibara realized what was going on. "You called her out so you could talk in secret, didn't you? Parks and shrines are often used by spies to exchange information. So, why don't we give them some space?" she led the Detective Boys off. "It looks like they want to have a private talk. But don't forget, you often find Public Security officers watching places like this, so be careful."
In the pathway...
"So?" Jodie started, after she and Conan were left alone.
"You said you saw Akai-san with a burn scar, right?" Conan reminded. "That wasn't Akai-san, but Bourbon, one of the men in black in disguise. He was wandering like that near people who knew Akai-san to check whether or not Akai-san was truly dead. Since if the FBI had faked his death, he'd know your reaction. Though, on the Bell Tree Express, Vermouth wore the Akai disguise herself, instead of applying it to Bourbon."
"The Bell Tree Express..." Jodie gaped. "You mean they were behind that train bombing?"
"It seems that way." Conan replied.
"Hold on." Jodie spoke. "If that man with the burn scar was one of the enemy, then that means Shu... really is... then the next time I see that man with the burn scar prancing around, I'll catch him, rip off his disguise and find out who he really is."
"I know who he is." Conan cut in. "As well as where you can find him. He called himself Amuro Toru, and he works part-time at Café Poirot under the Mouri Detective Agency." he showed Jodie Amuro's picture.
"But why?" Jodie wondered.
"I don't know." Conan shook his head. "That's why I had you come here. I wanted to have the FBI to investigate him. He should have achieved his objective, so why is he still at Poirot?"
"Aren't you the foreign lady who was a hostage in that bank robbery just like me?" the masked Benzaki Tohei asked from behind. "I was one row behind you to the side." he pulled down his face mask. "And it was my wife who covered up your eyes and mouth with tape."
"I do, kind of." Jodie replied.
"Then, was that man with the burn scar next to you your boyfriend?" Benzaki inquired.
"He's not." Jodie refuted.
"If he isn't, don't worry." Benzaki assured. "I saw him two or three days ago, that's all."
"Where did you see him?" Conan barked out.
"Answer the question." Jodie pulled Benzaki back.
"Pickpocket." a female voice rang out. "There's a pickpocket." Yatani Ikuyo pushed her way through the crowd and ran into Jodie.
"You alright, madam?" Ayumi helped Yatani up.
"I'll be fine." Yatani replied. "I was just panicking since someone put their hand in my bag."
"You do often find pickpockets lurking in crowds." Benzaki stated.
"You're right." Yatani sighed. "I'll have to be more careful. Then, excuse me." she made herself scarce.
At the shrine...
"You can't drink that water, Genta-kun." Ayumi chided, Genta drank the temizu water from the shrine's temizu-ya.
"You're supposed to raise out our mouth, then spit it out on the ground." Mitsuhiko rebuked.
"You still can't remember?" Jodie pressed. "Where you saw him, I mean."
"I was stuck in bed all day yesterday with this cold, so my memory's fuzzy." Benzaki replied.
"You do have a very hoarse voice." Conan drawled, as Benzaki coughed.
"You wouldn't have seen him by a can vending machine selling coffee any chance, would you?" Jodie asked.
"Did he like canned coffee?" Benzaki blinked.
"He often drank it." Jodie nodded. "Even back then we were expecting them to attack the hospital at any moment. That's enough. Contact me if you remember." she handed her name card over.
"Don't ring it so loudly, Genta-kun." Mitsuhiko scolded when Genta rang the suzu.
"But Dad said I should ring it with all my might." Genta replied.
"That's right." Danno Yoriko agreed, ringing the suzu beside them. "You ring these bells to tell the gods that you're here. So, if you don't ring it loud enough, the gods might not notice you.
"Dead?" a man behind Conan and Haibara in the queue echoed what his companion had informed him.
"There's a big ruckus about it behind the toilets." the bespectacled man confirmed.
"Professor, what's up?" Conan took the call.
"It's terrible, Shinichi." Professor Agasa reported. "A murder. I just witnessed a murder taking place."
"You witnessed a murder?" Conan exclaimed.
"Anyway, come quickly." Professor Agasa urged. "There's a big crowd forming, so it won't be hard to find."
"Did you see the murderer?" Conan asked as she and Jodie hurried to the crime scene.
"They were shaded by the trees, so I could only see a silhouette." Professor Agasa answered. "But they were attacking again and again with a rod about 30 centimeters long."
By the toilets...
"Let me through." Jodie pushed her way into the gathering crowd.
"That's the lady who ran into sensei earlier." Genta recognized the dead Yatani.
"It hasn't been long since she was murdered." Jodie inspected the body.
"Five yen coins colored black with marker pen?" Conan spotted three black coins lying by Yatani's body. "Could it be Kurobee? It's the nickname for a pickpocket." he explained. "She was named that because she puts three black five yen coins in the bags of her victims. The rumor goes the 'five' of five yen, the 'black' of the pen and the 'three' for three coins can be read as 'gokurosan'; so it's like she's saying 'thank you' to her victims for earning her money."
"Officer, it's here." Professor Agasa led the police officer on duty over. "Over here."
"What are you doing?" the officer demanded. "Step away from the body."
"I'm Jodie Starling, an FBI agent." Jodie replied. "Seal the exit to this shrine right away and call the detectives. Then, she was killed by Kurobee?"
"She had a purse full of black coins in her bag." Conan inspected Yatani's bag. "Which means she probably was Kurobee. Look at this bundle of notes wrapped in a rubber band that was in her wallet. Inside it... is that a GPS transmitter? With a phone, you can locate it to within five meters."
"But for a pickpocket to have that wrapped in notes in her wallet..." Jodie gasped.
"It's likely that one of her victims murdered her." Conan concluded.
Later...
"You can't just do this, Jodie-san." Takagi chided. "You may be an FBI agent, but this is Japan. And you're only here because you took a day off to fly over here. If you go ordering around the Japanese police, think about how it looks for us."
"My usual habits just took over." Jodie explained. "But the crime scene is yet far away from the shrine exit, and it hasn't been that long since she was murdered. So, since the shrine is sealed, her murderer would be trapped here."
I guess you did help by giving the right orders..." Takagi chuckled nervously.
"But, are you sure?" Megure was skeptical as Ami inspected the corpse. "Is this woman really Kurobee that Division Three of the Criminal Investigation Department have spent years looking for?"
"I'm pretty sure of it." Conan was certain. "The purse she had was filled with five yen coins colored black with a marker pen."
"Kurobee is said to leave three black five yen coins in her victims' bags." Takagi mused.
"And did you really see Kurobee get beaten to death, Agasa-san?" Megure turned to Professor Agasa.
"I witnessed it when passing by after leaving the toilet." Professor Agasa nodded. "But it was dark with the shade from the trees, and at first, I thought they were hammering in a poster or something."
"Then, what did her killer look like?" Megure inquired.
"All I really saw was their silhouette." Professor Agasa admitted. "Though they were wearing a hat and holding a thin rod about 30 centimeters long."
"What's the diagnosis, Mizuno?" Megure turned to the coroner.
"It's as the Professor said." Ami confirmed. "The deceased is beaten to death as shown by the bloodied indent right here on her frontal bone." she circled the spot with a finger. "I'll need to perform an autopsy to confirm the cause of death. Jodie, it's been while." she greeted the younger woman as two police officers took the body out.
"Coroner Ami Mizuno." Jodie returned.
"You two know each other?" Megure was astonished.
"We've worked together." Jodie replied. "A few times."
"On a couple interstate serial murder/rape cases." Ami nodded. "We also met in the aftermath of the Twin Towers."
"Did they have any other unusual traits?" Takagi questioned Professor Agasa.
"Now you mention it, they were dragging their feet slightly as they left." Professor Agasa recalled. "I even called out to them and asked if they were okay."
"Then, what did they do?" Takagi pressed.
"They ignored me and walked away." Professor Agasa replied. "By the time I realized that they were beating the woman up, they'd already mixed in with the crowd."
"Inspector, if they were dragging their feet at a situation they should want to run away from..." Takagi turned to his superior.
"I doubt it would be an act to try and avoid suspicion." Megure agreed. "But to find the killer among all the people at this shrine with so few clues..."
"It's nearly impossible." Takagi concluded.
"You should be able to narrow it down." Conan corrected. "That woman had something strange in her wallet."
"A GPS transmitter wrapped in bank notes." Jodie stated. "The pickpocket Kurobee has never been caught, so there's no way of identifying that it was her, other than finding black five yen coins in your bag. So, if someone deliberately had notes with a transmitter stolen by her, they could track her with a mobile phone, wait for Kurobee somewhere quiet, then beat her to death."
"Then the killer is one of Kurobee's victims?" Takagi gaped.
"Still pickpockets often commit thefts in groups." Megure pointed out. "So, we can't ignore the possibility of her killer being one of her accomplices."
"I think Kurobee was working alone." Conan noted. "She herself yelled out that there was a pickpocket here. It's a common tactic used by pickpockets. If you heard that there was a pickpocket nearby, you'd check your wallet was safe without thinking. Pickpockets use it to find where their victims keep their wallets, but if she had accomplices, wouldn't she have one of them yell out instead? That's why, Jodie-sensei, I think you'll find your wallet is..."
"My wallet's gone." Jodie checked her coat.
"She probably took it when you helped her up." Conan guessed.
"If the pickpocket's dead, then how are we going to find her victims?" Megure sighed.
"That shouldn't take long." Conan provided.
"Conan-kun, I found one." Mitsuhiko reported in via the Detective Boys Badge. "It's in a bin by the racks to tie up your fortunes."
"I found one, too." Genta came in. "It's in the bin by the place where I drank the water."
"I think I've got one." Ayumi chirped. "It was in the bin where we rang the bells. I asked a priest to help get it out."
"I've got one from a bin beside the crime scene." Haibara added. "The rubbish was about to be collected, but I made a fuss and had it searched."
"Then, bring the wallets you've found over here, making sure not to get any fingerprints on them." Conan instructed.
"The wallets." Takagi realized Conan's plan. "Pickpockets just take the money out of wallets, then abandon them. So, if we check those wallets..."
"We may be able to find their owners." Megure noted.
After a while...
"And these four were the only wallets you found in the bins?" Megure surveyed the returned wallets.
"The rubbish collector said that he'd started collecting the rubbish in the bin when I checked." Haibara replied.
"That blue one is mine." Jodie spoke.
"Then, that makes you a suspect, too." Megure pointed out.
"It wasn't Jodie-sensei." Ayumi protested.
"She never left our side after that woman bumped into her." Genta added.
"She didn't have a chance to murder anyone." Mitsuhiko remarked.
"That means the murderer is likely..." Megure mused.
"The owner of one of the other three wallets." Takagi concluded.
"It's easy to tell who owned this black wallet." Megure picked up the wallet in front of him. "It has a driving license in it."
"We saw that guy earlier." Genta stated, recognizing Benzaki's photo.
"He talked with Jodie-sensei." Mitsuhiko confirmed.
"He had a cold, so he was wearing a mask." Ayumi provided.
"Though, I doubt we'll find a license so easily in the other wallets." Megure opened the tan magnetic button wallet. "A photo sticker?" he spotted the photo on the underside of the wallet.
"We know that lady, too." Ayumi exclaimed.
"She taught us how to ring the bells." Mitsuhiko supplied.
"Maybe she's still over there." Genta wondered.
"And the final red wallet is empty." Megure inspected the red wallet. "Except for a 'pretty good luck' fortune."
"Wouldn't it belong to that old man?" Ayumi wondered.
"He told us to take our good fortunes home." Genta reminded.
"And I saw it." Mitsuhiko confirmed. "I saw him take out that red wallet to buy his fortune when he was lined up in front of us."
"We'll go look for them." Genta nodded and the trio ran off.
"Takagi-kun, you go with them." Megure instructed. "If any of them had a 30-centimeter-long rod, then that'll be the clincher."
"We'll know soon enough even if they don't have a rod." Conan piped in. "The murderer left three black yen coins by the corpse as if to say 'you can have them back'. It wouldn't be easy to find distinctive black five yen coins like them."
"Then whoever doesn't have the five black yen coins that Kurobee gave them would be the murderer." Jodie realized where Conan was coming from.
A while later...
"What's going on here?" Danno asked, she, Benzaki and Sakamaki were being summoned for questioning.
"This detective said you wanted to talk to us right away." Benzaki stated.
"What are you supposing we have done?" Sakamaki inquired.
"Before I ask each of your statements, could I ask you to check if you have five yen coins colored black with a black marker in your pocket or bag?" Megure requested.
"Why are these here?" Danno dug into her bag to find the black colored coins. "I found some black colored coins."
"I have some, too." Sakamaki gaped.
"Me too..." Benzaki blinked.
"But that means..." Megure gaped.
"What exactly are these creepy black five yen coins?" Danno asked.
"They're souvenirs left by a pickpockets called Kurobee." Takagi explained.
"Then, I was pickpocketed." Danno dug into her bag.
"I knew it." Benzaki noted. "I noticed I didn't have my wallet a while ago. I was going take them to the police."
"I didn't have much in my wallet." Sakamaki remarked. "So, I don't mind losing it. But have you caught that pickpocket?"
"The truth is..." Takagi started.
"We found her dead body here not long ago; our coroner has already taken the body to the autopsy theater." Megure turned to where the corpse once was. "We suspect her killer is one of you three."
"We're victims ourselves, aren't we?" Danno reminded.
"For now, we'll like to conduct body checks on each of you and inspect your belongings and phone." Megure instructed. "Of course, it's at your discretion, so you can refuse."
"But if you do, it may cause trouble later." Takagi reminded. "So, we'd advise you to comply."
"Fine." Danno relented. "Inspect whatever you want. But my phone's all sticky since I have greasy skin. So, if you want to check it, you'll have to put up with it."
"Jodie-sensei?" Conan voiced. "Did you figure something out?"
"No." Jodie replied. "I was thinking of the men in the video you took before. Remember when we said we were trying to identify the spy they sent to infiltrate the hospital, you deliberately dropped a phone and had them pick it up? The fat man who picked it up first had greasy skin. In the end, the next man to pick it up was the spy and the last old man had a pacemaker. And that's phone that Shu..."
"Jodie-sensei, that doesn't matter at all." Conan stated.
"So, how about it, Professor?" Jodie turned to Professor Agasa. "Is any of the three the killer you say?"
"That old man with the cane does look very suspicious." Professor Agasa admitted. "But the murderer had a 30-centimeter rod, not a cane. The hat the killer was wearing wasn't a hunting cap like the old man was wearing or a knit cap that woman was wearing, but something like an alpinist hat. And the murderer doesn't have a cough like that man there."
"But couldn't he be faking his cold?" Haibara pointed out.
"I doubt it." Conan corrected. "When we first met him, he had no way of knowing we knew the Professor. He wouldn't have had to pretend to have a cold in front of us."
"Then, how about the way they walk, Professor?" Jodie asked. "You said they dragged their feet slightly.
"Without his cane, it looks like the old man can walk at all, let alone drag his feet." Professor Agasa reasoned. "And the other two don't seem to be dragging their feet at all."
"You can't find the weapon?" Megure echoed after Chiba reported back. "Have you checked everywhere?"
"We even checked the drain of the purification trough and inside the offering box." Chiba confirmed. "None of those three were carrying it, then?"
"We checked the old man's cane, but it doesn't seem to have been used as a weapon." Megure nodded. "And we checked all of their phones, but none of them had any app that could track a GSP transmitter. Thought the killer could've predicted they'd be checked and deleted it."
"But we'd need a warrant to conduct further checks." Chiba reminded.
"Kids," Takagi went over to the Detective Boys. "When you met those three, were any of them acting strangely? For instance, if they had someone following them who handled them some sort of thin rod."
"All three of them were alone." Ayumi recalled. "The old man told us that if we drew good fortunes, we should take them home."
"The woman said that we should ring the bells loudly so that the gods can hear us when we ring them." Genta added.
"The other man said he already washed his hands at the purification trough." Mitsuhiko recalled. "So, he must've been at the shrine for quite a while before meeting us."
"Inspector Megure." Sugita ran in. "We believe we've found the killer's hat and coat. They've got blood splutter on them, so there's no mistaking it."
"They're covered in flower petals." Megure looked at the sakura flowers stuck on the hat.
"They appear to have been hidden under the sakura petals." Sugita nodded.
Then, the weapon might be hidden in the same way." Megure concluded. "Find it even if you have to kick through the petals. This is Megure." he picked up the call.
"Inspector." Ami voiced over the other line. "The cause of death for Yatani Ikuyo-san is confirmed to be blunt force trauma on the frontal bone. What's strange was the weapon that caused it; because of the blood, it wasn't obvious. But once the body was washed down, I found a total of fifteen 1.5mm indentations overlapping the fatal injury."
"Fifteen 1.5mm indentations?" Megure echoed.
"I've sent two photos of the injury to you." Ami related. "Please take a look."
"That's true." Megure noted, scanning through the two photos Ami had sent to him.
"Mizuno-san, what's that purple paint over the wound?" Takagi asked.
"Iodine." Ami answered. "I painted iodine over the injury to make the indentations more visible."
"It's getting difficult to keep the shrine's exit sealed." Takagi informed Megure, after the officers guarding the exits were getting complaints from the public.
"There's one part of the murder weapon the killer still has on them." Professor Agasa spoke up, Conan using his Voice-Changing Bowtie to mimic his voice. "The killer used it to tie together the murder weapon."
"The weapon you saw was in one piece." Jodie reminded. "It wasn't tied together or anything."
"The killer constructed the murder weapon using a large amount of a certain object." Conan explained. "And if you find the many parts, they're hidden in such a way that they aren't suspicious. Approaching the children, they managed to camouflage their actions smoothly."
"Do you mean the old man who talked to us when we were drawing fortunes?" Ayumi wondered.
"There were a lot of fortunes tied up." Genta remembered. "Nobody would notice if there were a few more of them."
"But no matter how you tie fortunes together, you can't make a weapon that can beat people to death." Haibara reminded. "Didn't the coroner lady say she found a total of fifteen 1.5mm indentations overlapping the injury?"
"That leaves the lady we met when we were ringing the bell." Ayumi pondered. "The offering!" she exclaimed.
"Due to the saying 'May you find good ties and good fortune', most offerings are five yen coins which have a hole in the center." Conan explained.
"And if you pass a string or wire through the hole, and bind a lot of coins together, you get a long rod." Haibara surmised. "That explains why the coroner found 1.5mm indentations over the injury. What's more, even if you find a large quantity of five yen coins in the offering box afterwards, they're mixed up with the other offerings and not suspicious, which means it easily deceives the police who are looking for a long metallic rod."
"But in order to produce a 30-centimeter long rod, you need at least 200 five yen coins." Takagi gawked.
"And if you throw a large quantity of coins into the box, you'll stand out and people will certainly notice." Megure added.
"That's why the killer approached the children." Conan continued. "Saying the gods wouldn't hear them if they didn't ring the bell loudly. You found her through a GPS transmitter in the wallet you had stolen, then bashed her to death with a rod made from many five yen coins tied together. The killer of Yatani Ikuyo-san, or rather, the pickpocket Kurobee, is none other than you: Danno Yoriko-san. You called out to the kids to ring the bell loudly to hide the noise of lots of five yen coins clanking into the offering box. You untied the knot tying the five yen coins together, then holding the end of it and dangling it over the offering box, you could get rid of all the five yen coins in an instant. What's more, the murder occurred before you rang the bell: meaning that as a victim of the pickpocket, your wallet must already have been stolen. The fact that you apparently made an offering and rang the bell without noticing that is proof that you were lying."
"You certainly should have noticed that your purse had been stolen when you tried to take it out to make an offering." Megure agreed.
"Don't you know that you shouldn't open your wallet in front of the offering box?" Danno shrugged. "If the gods see the contents of your wallet, it might anger them because you have so much money, yet put in so little. That is why I always put a five yen coin into my pocket before visiting a shrine."
"And that's why you didn't notice your wallet had been stolen." Conan remarked.
"If you'd seen me put a large amount of five yen coins into the box, that might mean something." Danno scoffed. "But like this?"
"Even if I didn't see it, I can be sure if we take a look at your shoelace." Conan declared. "Most likely, you used one of your shoelaces to tie the coins together. That's why you couldn't immediately flee from the crime scene. One of your shoelaces is missing, so you'd have lost your show if you'd walked normally. It seems that you put your shoelace back in and tied it after ringing the bell. But if you used that shoelace for committing the crime, it should be there: the victim's blood that spurted when you killed her."
"If you'll excuse me." Takagi knelt down and inspected Danno's shoes. "I found bloodstains."
"Then, why did she still have her five yen coins?" Megure was puzzled. "Weren't the five yen coins inside the body the ones that Kurobee had left in your pocket when she stole the wallet?"
"Those were the coins I showed you earlier." Danno confessed. "The coins left behind were the ones I found in my pocket when I was pickpocketed last year: the five yen coins that killed my son. The wallet that was stolen last year also had my car keys. Because I didn't have them anymore, my son, who had asthma, was locked in the car for several hours. By the time we got to the hospital, it was too late and he died. So, I researched that pickpocket on the net and hung out in places where she frequently appeared."
"But why did you put that photo in your wallet?" Takagi asked. "If it hadn't been in your wallet, we might not have known it was yours."
"When you open the wallet, the photo leaps into your sight." Danno answered. "I wanted that pickpocket to see that what she stolen wasn't just money, but also the life of a little boy."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
