SailorStar9: With Chapter 46 uploaded, this is Chapter 47 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 do not own Sailor Moon or Detective Conan, except this plotline and the pairing.
Pairing: Established!Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 47: The Tense Tea Party, Part One
Time passes...
"I'm back." Mouri burst into the Detective Agency door, having had a hurl at the pachinko parlor. "The Pachinko king is back. A letter?" he spotted a letter on the table. "I'm going to the hospital. At least turn your phone on. Ran.' he read the message Ran left him. "It was off." he gaped, flipping his phone open. "Thirty-four missed calls and sixteen messages?" Mom wasn't feeling well at work and she's about to go into surgery. He read the first text he opened. We're at Haido Central Hospital, so get here quick.
At Haido Central Hospital...
"Eri!" the panicked Mouri dashed into the hospital. "Eri!" he flung the door to Eri's hospital room open.
"Why are you making so much noise?" Eri deathpanned.
"You had surgery." Mouri reminded.
"It was just appendicitis." Eri remarked. "The surgery ended a while ago. The anesthesia wore off and I just woke up."
"It was just your appendix?" Mouri was relieved.
"It was 'just' her appendix." Ran snapped. "What were you doing with your phone off?"
"I'm sure it was horses, mahjong or pachinko." Eri concluded.
"Wasn't it pachinko?" Conan piped in. "Your jacket had a weird wrinkle near your butt. Doesn't that mean you were sitting on a chair for a long time? Also, your phone must have been off because you were somewhere loud enough that you couldn't hear your phone ringing. You don't like to set your phone on vibrate because you think it's gross. And look, between your shoelaces, you have a pachinko ball. You were definitely playing pachinko."
"I see." Eri twitched. "You were captivated by pachinko while I was having an emergency. Get out, you hack detective!" she tossed Mouri and Conan out.
"Is that you, Mouri-sensei?" Amuro was surprised to find Mouri in the hallway. "What are you doing here? Are you not feeling well?"
"It's my wife." Mouri explained. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard one of my friends was hospitalized and came to see him, but apparently he disappeared." Amuro replied. "The nurses told me you've been here before, so maybe you now." he turned to Conan. "A man called Kusuda Rikumichi."
"Who is that?" Conan feigned ignorance. "I don't know him."
"I was hoping he'll return the money I lent him." Amuro supplied. "Are you sure you don't know him?"
"Yup." Conan nodded.
"You're amazing." Amuro remarked. "Excuse me." he turned to the arriving Beppu Katsuki and Happo Tokie. "Do you know a patient called Kusuda Rikumichi?"
"Kusuda Rikumichi-san?" Beppu echoed. "I'm not sure. How old is he?"
"Do you have a photo of him?" Happo inquired.
"It's fine." Amuro assured. "What about you, Mouri-sensei?" he asked, after the two women left. "What would you do if someone suddenly asked you if you knew someone by name?"
"I'd probably respond like those ladies did." Mouri pondered.
"That's right." Amuro agreed. "Most people don't have complete confidence in their own memory. That's why before answering no, they ask for information about the person besides their name. That's why you're amazing, Conan-kun. You knew he was a stranger based only on his name."
"You shouldn't take children so seriously." Mouri scoffed. "Plenty of people will say they don't recognize someone by name even when they've met. Some people only know others by a nickname. Is something wrong?" he spotted Amuro was distracted by a young boy counting down to the elevator.
"Nothing." Amuro stammered. "My nickname is 'Zero', so I thought someone was calling me."
"Why Zero?" Mouri was confused. "I thought your name was Tooru."
"Being transparent means there's nothing there." Amuro explained. "Hence Zero. That's how children come up with nicknames."
In Kosaka Juri's room...
"Kusuda Rikumichi?" Kosaka echoed after Beppu informed her of Amuro's strange question. "What about him?"
"Someone in the hallway just asked if I knew him." Happo explained.
"I don't know him, either." Kosaka admitted. "I have a private room and I don't have many opportunities to speak with other patients.
"Anyway, good news." Beppu beamed. "I hear you're getting out of hospital tomorrow."
"You should've told us." Happo chided. "Doesn't that make our visit meaningless?"
"Thanks for waiting." Suto Reina entered the room. "Let's have some tea. I got some hot water."
"Could you get three tea cups from that cabinet over there?" Kosaka requested.
"Did you buy new cups?" Happo blinked.
"They just look new because I clean them with baking soda after each use." Kosaka remarked.
"I even bought lemons." Suto pulled out a lemon.
"Let's use the tea bags I have." Kosaka turned to the containers by her bedside.
In the hallway...
"Your wife suddenly developed appendicitis?" Amuro blinked.
"I shouldn't have worried." Mouri stated.
"But you shouldn't make light of appendicitis." Amuro cautioned.
Just then, the trio was alerted by a horrified scream which sent them running towards Kosaka's room.
"Is something wrong?" Amuro knocked on the door before flinging the door open.
"Reina!?" Beppu exclaimed, the three women clustered around the fallen Suto.
After a while...
"This is going to be a thing, isn't it?" Ami stated flatly, looking at her lover when she arrived at the crime scene.
"I have no idea what you mean." Amuro gave her a slight smile, as Ami snapped on her plastic gloves and got to work.
"I can't believe someone was poisoned at the hospital." Megure remarked.
"By the time the doctor arrived, it was already too late." Takagi reported.
"Who's the victim?" Megure asked.
"Haido resident, Suto Reina." Takagi answered. "Forty-two years old. Today, she came to the hospital with her two high school classmates to see Kosaka Juri, another one of her classmates. Suto-san arrived before her two other friends."
"The cause of death should be asphyxiation caused by cyanide poisoning. I smelt almonds." Ami reported. "As to the exact type of cyanide, I'll have to send a sample of her stomach contents to Tox."
"But, why was she drinking tea at a hospital?" Megure wondered.
"The patient Kosaka-san liked tea." Takagi explained "And they always held tea parties when the four of them got together."
"Then, that means those three had the opportunity to poison the victim." Megure concluded.
"But the victim drank several cups of tea without any problem when she suddenly seemed to be in pain." Takagi remarked. "It's possible she had been made to swallow a poison capsule beforehand."
"Then, it's possible the crime wasn't committed here." Megure noted.
"Inspector, it's also possible the poison is on the tea cup." Ami pointed out.
"Something's not right." Conan spoke up, having picked up the victim's handphone with a handkerchief. "The phone dropped over here had a lot of pictures on it, but the dead lady has chopsticks in her right hand."
"You can't just touch things at a crime scene." Mouri rebuked, after Megure took the phone.
"What's strange about it, though?" Megure peered at the photo. "It's normal for people to hold chopsticks in their right hand."
"But the cup that broke on the floor." Conan pointed to the broken cup. "There's lipstick on the right side of the handle. Doesn't that mean she was drinking tea with her left hand?"
"But why did the victim use her left hand?" Mouri wondered.
"It's because she had something in her right hand." Amuro surmised. "For example, she may have been looking at pictures on her phone. When people focus on one thing, they ignore all others. Even if the position of the cup or its handle were changed, she would pick it up without noticing. The culprit must have used this tendency to make the victim drink the poison by switching their own poisoned cup with the victim's. Putting poison in your own cup and switching it with the victim's is safer than directly poisoning the victim's cup. No one seemed to be using saucers, so it would be easy to adjust the cups' position."
"There's no way we can switch them." Beppu protested.
"Only her tea had lemon slices in it." Kosaka supplied.
"And look closely at the color of everyone's tea." Happo added.
"All three are different." Megure concurred, looking at the three cups on the counter. "From right to left, there's brown, blue and yellow."
"The victim was drinking a reddish tea." Takagi supplied.
"You couldn't get those teas confused." Megure agreed.
"In any case, if someone poisoned the tea, there must be a container or bag used to contain the poison." Mouri commented. "Maybe a thorough search of the room will turn up something."
"The culprit may still have it on their person, too." Megure concurred. "After we search the three of you, we'll question you separately in another room."
"Forensics," Ami turned a glance at the two forensics officers on scene. "Can one of you bag a couple of the sugar cubes as evidence?"
Later...
"I made everyone's tea." Kosaka confirmed. "After all, they were my guests. But all I did was put the tea bags in cups and add water."
"Are you the only one who touched the cups?" Megure asked.
"Happo-san and Beppu-san got the cups out of the cupboard." Kosaka recalled.
"In other words, it would make sense to find everyone's fingerprints on the cups." Megure reasoned.
"But, why did you make so many different types of tea?" Takagi wondered. "Normally, you only use one."
"Everyone knows I like herb tea, so I received quite a few as gifts." Kosaka explained. "Happo-san brought some as well. I thought we could compare teas."
"As the person who suggested you compare teas and then make the tea, it was easiest for you to poison the tea." Mouri surmised.
"I didn't do anything like that." Kosaka protested. "Everyone saw me pour the water, and Suto-san drank nearly half the tea before she collapsed. Besides, I told you before, she would have noticed immediately if I switched my poisoned cup with hers. I was drinking a blue herb tea called 'Butterfly Tea', she would have noticed if I had switched hers. Suto-san was drinking a red herb tea called 'Hibiscus Tea'."
"Do you know what the other two were drinking?" Amuro asked.
"Happo-san was drinking a brown tea called 'Peppermint', and Beppu-san was drinking a yellow herb tea called 'Chamomile'." Kosaka recalled.
"I was drinking 'Peppermint'." Beppu affirmed. "I thought it would be green, but I was disappointed when I saw it was brown. You know, because of the color 'Peppermint green'. Juri, who knew more about tea than I do, was giggling."
"Red and brown looks pretty similar." Mouri pointed out. "It would've bee/n easiest for you to switch..."
"They look nothing alike." Beppu cut him off. "Mine was common brown, but Reina's was a garish red. Surely, she could've have confused these."
"Did everyone choose their own tea?" Amuro inquired.
"We lined them up on the table and chose what we wanted." Beppu nodded. "Once we finished drinking, we wiped the cups with tissue for our next cup. Juri had been drinking a blue tea before we arrived. She said it was healthy but bitter, so she didn't recommend it."
"How were the four of you seated?" Megure questioned.
"Clockwise, it was me, Reina, Katsuki and Juri." Beppu remembered. "Katsuki and I looked from either side of Reina at the cellphone pictures she was looking at."
"Who suggested you look at the pictures?" Takagi asked.
"Katsuki." Beppu replied. "Apparently, Juri had shown them to her before. She wanted to show everyone the next time we visited. But Reina wouldn't let go of her phone. Katsuki and I had to look over her shoulder. She's always been that way. She's possessive, self-absorbed, and indifferent. Her current husband is my ex-boyfriend. She took him from me. But I didn't want to hurt her." she backtracked. "But Katsuki probably hated her more than I did. She was upset about the heavy loss she suffered because of Reina."
"Of course, I was upset." Happo snapped. "The stock Reina recommended to me crashed. I nearly lost a fortune, but Reina made a killing selling all her stock before it dropped. Now I'm drowning in debt. She could've told me if you knew it was going to fall."
"Is that why you killed her?" Megure inquired.
"If that would've brought my money back, I might have considered it." Happo retorted. "I don't want to talk about the dead, but I think Juri hated her, too. Juri's son failed his entrance exam because of Reina. Juri's and Reina's sons are classmates; they're trying to get into the same middle school, but Reina's son, who came over to study the day before the exam, was sick with the flu. Juri's son got it from him and he didn't have time to worry about the entrance exam anymore. Juri seemed so optimistic about the results before the exam."
"In other words, everyone had motive to kill the victim." Mouri concluded.
"We told you, none of us would ever do it." Happo insisted. "We all resented her, but Reina had always been that way, so we just dealt with it."
"Did anyone leave the room once you started drinking tea?" Conan asked, behind the curtain.
"Tokie and I each left once separately." Happo answered. "I went to the restroom, Tokie went to buy snacks for the tea. I believe Juri and Reina were in the room the whole time. Reina went to get hot water, but that was before Tokie and I arrived."
"When did you..." Mouri gawked.
"Do those tea cups belong to the hospital?" Conan inquired.
"Those are Juri's tea cups." Happo replied. "She said she kept them sparkling clean with baking soda."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
