SailorStar9: With Chapter 100 uploaded, we hit Chapter 101 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, I only own this plotline and the pairing.
Pairing: Established!Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 101: The Mystery of the Michelin Starred Restaurant
Time passes...
"Guess we're not the only ones here." Mouri peered into a car parked nearby in the carpark attached to the Cucina Eigo restaurant. "I thought there were other people here." he noted, entering the restaurant and finding the restaurant empty.
"They're probably not in the bathroom all together." Ran noted.
"This is kind of like what happened to that ship." Mouri mused.
"The Marty Celeste?" Conan instantly guessed which ship Mouri was referring to. "It's a famous unsolved mystery in the 19th century."
"If I remember correctly, a crew of ten people disappeared into thin air." Mouri recalled. "The ship was found adrift. There were hot soup and silverware left out, making you think they were still eating."
"What was that?" Ran heard a soft moan from behind the kitchen counter. "Kuchiishi-san." she recognized the injured chef.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Mouri inquired.
"Dad..." Ran gaped, spotting the slip of paper with the word 'Curse' pinned on the back door.
"Ran, get an ambulance and call the police." Mouri instructed.
"Ojii-san, look." Conan opened the back door and saw a flurry for footprints outside, with a pile of shoes floating in the lake.
After Megure's team was called in...
"Thankfully, that head wound isn't too severe." Megure remarked, Ami having performed basic first aid on Kuchiishi. "Can we ask you a few questions, Kuchiishi-san? There were five guests at that table? You're certain?"
"They made their reservations last week." Kuchiishi replied. "It was a group from a company called Onda Trading."
"Inspector." Takagi called out. "It's about the identities of the missing group. "Sitting where those glasses are, was Kano Kozo, forty years old. We confirmed his ID from his driver's license that was left behind. We confirmed the guy sitting next to him from the employee ID on his jacket which was still on the chair; Iketani Kazuki-san, twenty-eight years old. Next to him was a floral handkerchief and a bag containing an employee ID for Ekuni Mitsuyo–san, aged thirty-eight. The seat with the ashtray next to her belonged to Sahara Tokuro-san, thirty-five years old. We gathered that from the cigarettes and employee ID in his coat pocket. The last one we put together from the smart phone that was left behind: Manaka Kaori-san, twenty-five years old. They all worked at Onda Trading. The company's homepage confirms as much."
"Kuchiishi-san, can you confirm they're who you saw?" Megure requested.
"That's definitely them." Kuchiishi nodded.
"We haven't been able to contact President Onda, so we had the local police check on his home to be safe." Takagi revealed.
"Detective Takagi," Conan voiced. "When we came in, there was a picture on the phone. Those are the same people, right?"
"That's right." Takagi nodded. "I don't know how close they were, but apparently, the five of them would go out a lot together because there were pictures of them partying at various locations. I bet they planned on taking one here, too."
"So, all five of them came here?" Megure returned the questioning to Kuchiishi.
"They came in about an hour ago, in a car." Kuchiishi related.
"That'd be twenty minutes before we showed up." Mouri supplied.
"What happened next?" Megure prompted.
"They made a toast." Kuchiishi recalled. "I went back to the kitchen to continue cooking. I served the appetizers and soups. Then after about fifteen minutes, I was stuck from out of nowhere."
"You didn't see who hit you, then?" Megure asked.
"Right." Kuchiishi nodded.
"It certainly sounds like someone from that group was the one to strike you." Megure reasoned.
"Kuchiishi-san, this is that cake called tiramisu, right?" Conan pointed to the cake slice on the table. "Everyone else were eating dinner. How come one had cake?"
"You get people like that sometimes, who wanted to start with dessert." Kuchiishi explained.
"I bet the lady who sat here sure loved sweets." Conan noted. "Did someone break their glass when they did the toast?"
"I don't think so." Kuchiishi blinked. "I would have noticed if they did, not to mention having to clean up."
"That's what I thought too." Conan mused. "The trash can in the kitchen is empty, too."
"That's enough out of you." Mouri retorted and dropped the boy outside.
"What did you say?" Chiba hissed into his phone. "Understood. Inspector, about Onda Trading: three years ago, the company was under suspicion for smuggling industrial metals, and there was an investigation. One of the managers left a note, claiming they were responsible for all of it and committed suicide."
"Hell of a case." Mouri recalled.
"Then, the five employees from this incident might've been involved?" Megure realized.
"The manager who killed himself was named Kuchiishi Keigo." Chiba supplied.
"Inspector Megure, look what's on Kuchiishi-san's blog." Conan spoke up.
"You really shouldn't that sort of thing, Kuchiishi-san." Megure sighed.
"Kuchiishi-san is gone." Mouri noticed Kuchiishi was missing from his chair. "Is that..." he spotted a piece of paper with the word 'Curse' pinned on the refrigerator. "Kuchiishi-san!" he flung open the backdoor which Kuchiishi ran from. "Don't tell me he walking into the lake like the five customers?"
"Takagi, Chiba, I want this lake checked out ASAP." Megure instructed.
Later...
"Still..." Ami frowned, having been dragged out by Conan. "Did Mouri-san really tell us to look around here? Or is this your idea, Conan-kun?" she gave the boy a knowing smile. "Or shall I say, Kudo Shinichi?"
"What do you mean?" Conan gulped.
"Genetics never lie, Kudo-kun." Ami tsked. "And I took a double medical degree in Tokyo-U."
"Okay, you got me." Conan relented. "Take a look." he flashed the two pieces of paper forensics had bagged as evidence and placed one above the other.
"Is that... a map?" Ami frowned. "If the lake is over here, then this is the restaurant."
"This is our goal." Conan pointed to the warehouse on the map. "We're almost there."
"Ei..." Ami shone her torchlight at the sign on the warehouse door.
"Just like that chef, Eigo-san." Conan nodded. "Maybe it's like his signature?"
"Then, this is a warehouse Kuchiishi-san owned." Ami reasoned. "What's that sound?" she wondered, hearing a thump on the wall.
"Mizuno-san, open it up." Conan urged.
"Well, guess we really shouldn't be surprised." Ami muttered when the tied-up and gagged guests fell onto the ground once the door was opened. "They aren't wearing their shoes." she spotted the shoeless kidnappees. "Does that mean those footprints were..."
"Kuchiishi-san put them down." Conan nodded.
"In other words, this is all his doing." Ami realized.
"Kogoro-ojii-san even said that wound on his head was part of the plan." Conan revealed.
"The important question is: where is he now?" Ami stated as she set on freeing the captives.
"He said that these people should know." Conan answered.
The next morning...
In his company's safe lock room, the forty-five-year-old Onda Teruaki packed the company's accounting records and was about to flee when Kuchiishi came at him with a knife against his throat.
"You..." Onda recognized the younger Kuchiishi. "Then you really are Kuchiishi's son."
"My old man was weak." Kuchiishi sneered. "He let you people push him around, no, manipulate him into committing suicide and taking the fall. That's not gonna work with me."
"That's enough." Megure ran in with Mouri. "You're Onda Teruaki, president of Onda Trading, right? I'm Megure with the Metro PD's Division One."
"I've been waiting for you, Mouri-san." Kuchiishi stated. "If you are here now, that means you've solved the mystery, right?"
"What was it again?" Mouri was confused.
"Come on." Megure sighed. "We're only here because you told us where to rescue the five missing people and question them about this location. We rescued them from where they were being held, took them into custody and are currently questioning them about the situation."
At this moment, Conan tranquilized Mouri. "Now, to dissect the puzzle." he took over, using Mouri's voice. "It had a few similarities to a famous unsolved case, but as to the clues for unraveling it... Conan. I'm here." he announced his presence. "The first thing I thought was weird was the tiramisu. It was the dessert at the seat with the lady who had the flowery handkerchief. It was dinnertime and everyone went missing, but one person had tiramisu instead. The chef said some people liked having dessert first, but I realized it was a mistake. The explanation has to do with the pictures that were found on the cellphone." he reverted back to Mouri's voice. "In the pictures of the past parties, there was always one person having dessert; but it wasn't Ekuni-san but Iketani-san, a man. Not only that, when you always have the same group, you might have a seating pattern that pops up. The pictures indicated that was the case. But for whatever reason, that wasn't what happened last night. The usual sitting pattern had different people's things in place. It was all to make me, Mouri Kogoro, notice something: the truth behind this case. When you combined the two of them, it shows a route to the warehouse where the kidnapped people were being held. Those 'curse' notes were another part of the puzzle. At first, I thought the five of them were caught at the restaurant, then moved to the warehouse where they were locked up. If that were the case, the five of them would've been sitting in the same position as usual, leaving their own belongings in those seats. There was another thing: a jacket stained with wine with a broken piece of glass that had no explanation at that time. Since there was no sign of a broken glass or bottle in the restaurant's garbage... Inspector Megure, think back they began eating for twenty minutes before we arrived at the restaurant. But the hood of the car that was parked outside was still giving off heat, like it had only recently been parked. That warehouse also had a table, with chairs, along with a broken wine glass and bottle. They were originally lured out to that warehouse where they were benign kept locked up. President Onda, you've all been partying at various locations. Using your name as bait would've been enough to lure them into a warehouse with little trouble and get them to start toasting among themselves. It's just like Kogoro-ojii-san deducted." he swapped back to his voice after receiving confirmation from Takagi. "The wine from the warehouse and the wine on the jacket in the restaurant are the same and it had tranquilizers in it. There was also an email from the president asking them all to show up. Kuchiishi-san was the one who sent that." he reverted to Mouri's voice. "Once they were unconscious, he took their shoes, along with jackets and other belongings and returned to the restaurant in the car they arrived with. He then placed their things at the table, as if they had been there all along and served up the food. He then made the footprints leading to the lake through the backdoor to make it look like they had drowned themselves, placed the 'curse' note, and then hurt himself while waiting for us to arrive. Those notes were actually a message to President Onda using your father's name. His father's name is Kuchiishi Keigo, if you take the 'kuchi' kanji from Kuchiishi and the 'ani' from Keigo, it makes 'curse'. It might have been a signature your father used in the past, since you used one that's similar. The son of Kuchiishi Keigo-san, Eigo-san, planned to avenge his father by killing off a group of employees or intended to make it look like that. The truth was, he was luring President Onda into a trap by making him cautious. Those are the secret books for your company and proof that Eigo-san's late father was innocent."
"It was two weeks ago." Kuchiishi admitted. I learned completely by accident that my father had been framed. I wanted revenge, against all of them. But then, Mouri-san made the reservation; it felt like a sign telling me to wait. So, I reconsidered and realized my father can't rest until I expose their crimes; that I can't redeem him without doing that."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
