SailorStar9: With Chapter 38 uploaded, this is Chapter 39 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 the pairing.
Pairing: Established!Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 39: The Case of the Lucky Calico, Part Two
"Masuko-san, if you're in there, please say something." Conan hollered.
"Boy, he might be sleeping, you know." the apartment manager reasoned. "The door's locked."
"But his neighbor heard a strange noise." Conan pointed out.
"There was this loud thud that sounded like something being hit." the neighbor nodded.
"And there's blood on the paw of Masuko-san's cat." Conan lifted Soseki's front legs. "Something must have happened inside. Haibara, call an ambulance quickly. Do any of you have a string or something?"
he asked the others. "Also, some sort of tape and some sort of wire."
"I've got some wool." Ayumi pulled out some wool threads.
"I've got plasters." Genta took out the box of plasters.
"Here's a paper clip." Mitsuhiko handed out a paper clip. "But what are you going to do with these?"
"Unlock the door." Conan replied, looking at the door bolt. "First, you tie the string to the U-shaped bar on the lock, then fix the loop to the bottom of the U with a plaster. Then, if you thread some wool through the paper clip, and stick it to the inside of the door, you're ready. You just have to shut the door and give the string a big tug. Which flat is yours?" he turned to Masuko's neighbor after unlocking the door.
"That one over here." the neighbor pointed.
Conan ran into Masuko's unit and found the unconscious man on the floor by his bed.
After a while...
"Looks like an accident." Sato noted, she and Takagi was called on scene. "He put the chair on the bed and tried to change the light, but lost his balance and hit himself on the side table. I do the same myself sometimes, but it's hard to balance on a bed, so it can be dangerous."
"Please don't do that." Takagi chided. "Your mattress is very expensive and it's so soft and fluffy."
"How do you know so much about Detective Sato's bed?" Mitsuhiko blinked.
"Have you slept in it?" Genta deathpanned.
"I wanna have a sleepover at Detective Sato's house." Ayumi gushed.
"Gossiping aside, what's the situation?" Haibara asked. "How's the guy from this flat doing?"
"He had surgery, but he's still unconscious and in a critical state." Takagi replied.
"Once he's conscious, I'm sure he'll be very thankful to you." Sato beamed. "After all, it's thanks to Conan-kun opening the lock so quickly that he was saved."
"Actually, before that, once he regains consciousness, I think he'll tell us who tried to murder him." Conan corrected. "Just look, the chair is on top of the bedcover. If you're going to stand a chair on a bed, you'll at least pull back the cover. And also, Masuko-san's wearing only one of his slippers." he showed the two detectives the photo he took beforehand. "If he was going to get on a chair on a bed, don't you think he would have taken off his slippers? And the shattered light on the floor is probably the old light he took out to change, but none of the edges are blackened. It looks brand new."
"In other words, someone push Masuko-san over here in his bedroom, got him seriously injured and set up the room to make it look like an accident." Sato mused. "There was about an hour between the neighbor hearing the strange noise and the manager arriving. There would've been plenty of time to set the place up."
"But there's apparently one spare key for the front door and both keys were on the living room shelf." Takagi pointed out. "How would they have set the door's safety lock?"
"There's someone on the screen." Genta shouted.
"What are you guys messing around here?" Takagi ran out to the entrance.
"It's the intercom." Mitsuhiko replied. "The intercom's set up to record videos of whoever rings the doorbell at the ground floor entrance."
"Here they are." Haibara focused on the window. "Three people came within the hour before we arrived. The audio gets recorded, too and they all introduced themselves. So, we should be able to identify them using Masuko-san's address book."
"We managed to find the three people recorded by the intercom pretty quickly." Sato noted, having rounded up their suspects.
"But his visitor was the only one invited into the flat." Takagi nodded. "He dealt with his second visitor at the door and the third one rang the doorbell on his door, but didn't get a reply and went home. All three of them are suspicious."
"If we consider the first visitor was still there when the second one turned up, then even the first visitor could have tried to kill him after the second one left." Sato reasoned.
"Come to think of it, what did Masuko-san do when you rang the intercom at the entrance?" Takagi turned to the Detective Boys.
"We didn't ring it." Genta answered.
"We thought about ringing it, but then one of the residents was going out, so we went in while the door was open." Haibara explained.
"I did indeed meet with Masuko-san today and we had tea in his room." Tsuyuguchi Furuyo confirmed. "I stayed for about the length of one track on a record, so it must have been 10 minutes or so. I collect vintage jazz records and Masuko-san said that he found a record I've been searching for. So, since I was going along to pick it up, I asked him to play a track for me."
"Did the bell ring while you were here?" Sato asked.
"No idea." Tsuyuguchi admitted. "I was listening to it through headphones. Excuse me, but would you mind if I used the toilet?"
"As I said, I spoke to him at his door, but I didn't come to his flat." Asoh Mari repeated. "I had turned up without an appointment and it seems like he already had a visitor with him."
"Why did you come to see Masuko-san?" Sato inquired.
"I was fired by Masuko-san's company, so I thought I'd drop by to see him one last time." Asoh confessed. "I was fired because of a huge mistake of mine and he really helped me get a new job, so I thought I'd like come to thank him. That's a really cute cat." she spotted Soseki in Ayumi's arms. "Can I hold him? He's so cute." she cradled Soseki.
"Taii-chan's really happy." Ayumi beamed. "He's wagging his tail."
"Do you have a cat?" Conan asked.
"No." Asoh replied. "My parents aren't big fans of pets, though I like them."
"Don't make me repeat myself." Urushiya Rinpei retorted. "I came up here to the front door, but no matter how many times I rang the bell, he wouldn't answer, so I gave up and went home."
"Then, how did you get inside the building in the first place?" Sato asked.
"He let me in when I pressed the button on the intercom on the ground floor." Urushiya replied. "Though, he didn't say anything, so I can't say for sure that he's the one who opened the door."
"What was your relationship with Masuko-san?" Takagi inquired.
"We've known each other since university." Urushiya answered. "We even debuted as writers in the same year. Though his novels didn't sell very well, he gave up quite quickly. That said, only my first novel sold well. Looking back on it, he probably did the right thing changing jobs."
"And you came over there to...?" Takagi prompted.
"To go over some ideas for novels with him." Urushiya commented. "He always helped me out like that when I had writer's block."
"The order they rang the intercom was Tsuyuguchi-san, followed by Aosh-san, then Urushiya-san." Takagi read off his notes. "But that neighbor wasn't sure what time exactly he heard the strange noise, so we can't narrow down our suspects."
"So, those are the people that came here around the time the neighbor heard the suspicious noise?" Megure was called in. "But the door was locked and bolted. Are you sure this is a crime?"
"The crime scene indicated that this wasn't an accident, according to Conan-kun." Takagi explained.
"We're back." Conan returned with a carrier bag.
"Conan-kun, what did you buy?" Sato asked.
"We bought the thing that disappeared from Masuko-san's flat." Conan replied. "A decorative ribbon. You usually cut the excess ribbon with scissors after tying up a present. So, seeing how there wasn't any bits of ribbon in the bin, I guess the ribbon happened to be right length, even though Masuko-san had scissors ready to cut it. The present itself is a used carrier and he had tape there, too. So, he must've wrapped it himself instead of having it wrapped at a store."
"But, what does that tell us?" Megure was confused.
"Are you still half asleep?" Haibara retorted. "The fact that it disappeared from the crime scene means that the culprit must have used it for something."
"For example, to lock the room to make it look like an accident." Conan stated. "First up, how the safety lock was latched." he proceeded to demonstrate. "We pass the ribbon between the door and the bolt, so it catches on it. Then, go outside holding both ends of the ribbon and close the door. Finally, we only have to pull tight on both ends. Next up, locking the door." he continued, Genta bolting the door. "After locking the door and checking that it's bolted, we remove the ribbon and make a knot in the middle of it. Then we loop the ribbon around the dial to lock the door, so that the knot catches on it. Then, we pull one end of the ribbon out and close the door. After that, if we pull on it from outside at an upwards angle..."
"But, unlike with the door lock, you can't pull out the ribbon this time." Megure pointed out, seeing the dangling ribbon stuck at the door edge.
Soseki walked towards the dangling ribbon and jumped, grabbing it with his paws. Pulling the ribbon with his mouth, he ran into his owner's room and behind the bookshelf.
"Follow that cat." Megure ordered.
"That's where the cat hides his treasures." Takagi gawked, Soseki jumping out from behind the shelf. "I found it." he looked behind the book shelf. "There's a second ribbon that's different from the one we just used. It has a knot, too, so there no doubt about it."
"The question is who used the ribbon for this trick?" Sato wondered.
"I think it'd be someone who knows a lot about cats." Takagi mused.
"Could it be the nee-san with the glasses?" Ayumi spoke up. "Taii-chan was wagging his tail when she was holding him."
"No." Conan corrected. "Unlike dogs, cats wag their tails when they are agitated. Asho—san, who doesn't know that, doesn't mean to know a lot about cats."
"But, the remaining two, Tsuyuguchi-san who seemed to be very concerned about conserving electricity, and Urushiya-san, who picked up the things that fell from Genta-kun's pocket." Sato pondered. "Both of those actions seemed almost unconscious, like habits they had."
"But you know, when Genta dropped his plasters, tissues and a bottle cap, he only picked up the bottle cap." Conan pointed out.
"But why would he do that?" Sato was confused.
"Why don't we try it out?" Conan purposely dropped the same items on the floor and Soseki came over and picked up the bottle cap with his mouth and ran into the back of the bookshelf.
"If the cat had taken the bottle cap and brought it to the rest of its treasures, we might have found the ribbon that was used in the trick." Megure realized.
"If he wasn't wearing gloves, we should be able to get fingerprints from the ribbon." Sato nodded.
"Question Urushiya-san again." Megure ordered.
"I was the one who attacked and injured him." Urushiya confessed. "I once wrote a mystery novel with a trick like that. Actually, I came here today to borrow some money from him. We had originally planned to meet up tomorrow, but this morning, he called to tell me he had a great present for me. Since I was curious, I couldn't help coming by today. But the present turned out to be a hastily wrapped used cat carrier. All that there was in it was that calico cat. On top of that, he told me he couldn't give it to me yet with a stupid grin. That cat was just a stray that I rescued in the past."
"So, you were its owner before?" Conan blinked.
"I had it for about half a year, when it was still a kitten." Urushiya replied. "I gave it to him when his wife was suffering from losing a pet. Giving it to him turned out to be a good thing to do. Right after that, my books completely stopped selling and I couldn't have cared for a pet cat. But on the other hand, his company started to really take off. Despite that, he had the gall to try and pus that stray cat onto me. When that cat came into the living room holding the ribbon I'd unwrapped, he picked it up and said 'You'll be fine if you have this cat. It was yours in the first place. It's only fitting for you to be its owner.'"
"But Taii-chan's an amazing cat." Ayumi protested.
"Male calico cats are a rare breed and hardly ever found." Mitsuhiko added.
"I suppose the reason why Masuko-san wanted to give the cat back to you wasn't because of money." Conan reasoned. "But because it was a lucky Beckoning Cat."
Later that night...
"Masuko-san was admitted to the hospital?" Amuro echoed after Ami informed him of the incident that day. "What happened?"
"According to Sato, apparently, Masuko-san was hit on the head by the cat's original owner." Ami replied, a white apron with a 'Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice' phase emblemed on the front tied around her body. "Well, you should be seeing Taii hanging around Poirot by tomorrow." she then popped the caesar chicken into her oven toaster.
"I notice you don't have the 'Kiss the Chef' apron." Amuro teased.
"Seeing what happened the last time..." Ami trained a look at the smirking man.
"I was only doing what the apron says." Amuro grinned.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
