SailorStar9: With Chapter 115 uploaded, I present Chapter 116 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 116: The Sun Sets in Tangerine Fields
Time passes...
It has been one of the very rare days that Amuro and Ami had a day off from work. And it's even rarer for Amuro to pay a visit to his adoptive uncle's tangerine farm.
"The tangerines are still in full harvest as usual." Amuro told his adoptive cousin, Terauchi Naoya, who was carrying a crate full of the fruit.
"You can take as many as you can today." Naoya informed. "You two are the only visitors."
"I can see why you chose her, Rei-kun." Terauchi Tetsuji was impressed as he watched the young couple snip off the ripe tangerines from the branches.
"I don't think this is the first time she's harvesting orchard fruits." Amuro admitted. "She mentioned she paid a school visit to a strawberry farm during her elementary school days. These tangerines are you precious children, right, Uncle Tetsuji?"
"Don't let that bother you, Rei-kun." Terauchi Nobuko assured. "Your uncle is just an awkward man."
"Mom." Naoya blinked.
"It's been too long, auntie." Amuro bowed slightly.
"I'm heading back down." Nobuko informed.
"When you get there, can you send it up?" Naoya requested.
"It?" Amuro echoed, after Nobuko left.
"You'll see." Naoya smiled.
"Naoya-san, is something wrong?" Amuro noticed his elder cousin's look.
"I just haven't seen mom in such a good mood for a long time." Naoya remarked. "Lately, she had been arguing with dad a lot. She's been on edge."
"Don't tell them that." Tetsuji chided.
"It should be fine, dad." Naoya rebuked. "Rei's still family."
"We ended up picking a lot." Ami noted, loading the last crate onto the conveyor truck.
"There must be at least a month's worth." Amuro agreed.
"It's here." Naoya heard the incoming mechanical trolley.
"Now I see." Amuro mused. "The 'it' is an agricultural monorail for transporting crops."
"It automatically goes up and down the mountain when you activate the lever." Naoya explained. "Once it reaches the work shed at the peak, it automatically switches into reverse and returns to the shed at the foot of the mountain. Of course, it can be operated manually as well."
"That is rather convenient." Ami noted.
"Thanks to this thing, transporting crops has become much easier." Tetsuji added. "Let's load the containers on the bed."
"See you at the bottom, dad." Naoya called.
In the house at the bottom...
"I see you've added a lot more recipes since I was here last, auntie." Amuro was impressed by the assorted different dishes on the dining table.
"Try them out." Nobuko urged.
"Thanks for the food." everyone chorused and dug in.
After lunch...
"That's when we first started the tangerine farms together." Tetsuji took out the photo album. "That's the first time Naoya and Rei harvested tangerines together for the first time."
"You were so cute." Ami teased her lover. "It's like your family history." she turned to the elderly Terauchi.
"Things were really great back then." Tetsuji sighed.
"Uncle, did something happen?" Amuro blinked, watching Naoya leave the room.
"A lot happens when you were gone, Rei-kun." Tetsuji told his adoptive nephew. "Want to see more?" he looked at the young woman.
"Yes, please." Ami's eyes glittered.
"Ow." Tetsuji choked back a pained cry. "Ouch..." he placed his left hand over his right shoulder.
"Uncle." Amuro hurried over.
"It's nothing serious." Tetsuji assured.
"It looks like a frozen shoulder." Ami frowned.
"It's fine." Tetsuji waved off the couple's concerns. "You can't overcome age. Rei-kun, get the third one from the right."
As evening dawned...
"Have you ever brought Morofushi here?" Ami asked, the couple was watching the sunset.
"Hiro?" Amuro echoed. "A couple of times, during summer break. That sound..." his ears picked up the rumbling of the monorail. "Over here, Uncle." he called out, waving.
On the monorail, Tetsuji waved in response.
"Uncle!" Amuro exclaimed, the monorail pulling to a stop nearby and Tetsuji collapsed on the pathway.
"I was watching from below." Naoya hurried to the scene. "It looked like dad fell."
"Ami, how's Uncle?" Amuro looked at the forensics pathologist.
"Sorry." Ami shook her head.
"Honey." Nobuko had also arrived on site.
After Megure's team was called in...
"The deceased is Terauchi Tetsuji-san, the manager of this tangerine farm." Takagi reported. "According to Mizuno-san's initial examination, the cause of death was a skull fracture. Most likely, he hit his head on a rock when he fell."
"You saw Tetsuji-san fell?" Megure turned to the vacationing couple.
"Come to think of it, how did you notice Uncle fall?" Amuro looked at Naoya.
"I was making repairs near the sprinkle control panel." Naoya recalled. "It's near the base of the mountain southeast from here. I turned to look when I heard Rei's cry and just happened to witness my father falling from the monorail."
"Rei?" Takagi was confused. "Isn't your name Tooru, Amuro-san?"
"It's a long story..." Amuro looked away.
"I was looking for ingredients for dinner in the fields at the base of the mountain." Nobuko recounted. "Like Naoya, I heard Rei-kun's shout."
"Would it be natural to think Tetsuji-san lost his balance when he let go of the monorail to wave to Amuro-san and Mizuno-san?" Takagi wondered. "Why was Tetsuji-san heading towards the peak?"
"I asked him to." Nobuko answered. "I told Rei-kun to take Ami-san to watch the sunset. Since it'd be dark by the time they returned, I asked him to go get them."
"It looks like there's blood inside Uncle's cap." Amuro went into detective mode. "But there's nothing on the outside. Isn't that strange? You said Uncle died when he hit his head on a rock. Wouldn't the rock have left a mark on the outside of the cap? Maybe Uncle lost his cap before he hit his head on the rock. If that's the case, then when did the blood get on the inside of his cap?"
"So, where is the monorail your husband was riding?" Megure asked.
"It should be at the shed at the foot of the mountain." Naoya replied.
"Have the others hold things down here while we go check it out." Megure instructed.
In the shed...
"There's nothing unusual about it." Takagi inspected the monorail.
"There's nothing particularly suspicious about this incident." Megure informed the Terauchi mother-and-son. "It's safe to assume it was an accident."
"Please wait a moment, Inspector Megure." Amuro voiced. "There's something I just don't understand. Ami, do you remember what Uncle did when I waved to him?"
"He waved back at us with his hand high up in the..." Ami's eyes widened. "Air... wait a minute, didn't Tetsuji-san have a frozen shoulder on his right arm? If that's the case, then he couldn't possibly be able to raise his hand at all."
"Uncle was probably forced to wave his hand by someone behind him," Amuro revealed.
"But only Tetsuji-san was riding the monorail, Tooru." Ami pointed out.
"That person was probably hiding in the bed of the monorail." Amuro explained.
"There's no space for someone to hide." Takagi stated.
"Not now, Detective Takagi." Amuro corrected. "There are footprints on the front of the monorail, right? Judging by those footprints, they belong to Uncle. Could you place your feet in them and try standing on the bed?"
"How was he able to sit with his feet in this position?" Takagi was puzzled, losing his footing and falling on his backside.
"Perhaps there was an additional row of containers there so the culprit could hide." Amuro suggested.
"Even so, I don't think an adult could hide inside these containers." Takagi noted.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Amuro quirked a smirk.
"It's impossible." Takagi insisted.
"Detective Takagi, try this." Amuro handed the younger man a folded-up container. "The bottoms and sides of these containers can be adjusted. If you fold the bottoms, three containers can be merged into one and creating a space large enough for a person to hide inside. Furthermore, if you leave the left side that we couldn't see open, it's possible to make Uncle wave from inside the container without anyone noticing. Several similar containers were scattered around the tangerine fields. The culprit hid inside the folded containers and pushed Uncle, then used the monorail's automatic return system to pass before us and return to the foot of the mountain. Later, they exited the monorail and pretended they saw Uncle fall when they ran to the crime scene."
"I did it." Naoya declared. "I killed my father, put him on that monorail and pushed him so it would look like an accident."
"I'm the one who killed my husband." Nobuko protested. "I hid the hammer I used to strike my husband under the workbench. If you examine the fingerprints on the hammer, it should prove I'm the culprit."
"What happened between you?" Ami cut into the family quarrel.
"I overheard them talking about selling the farm." Nobuko replied. "I thought he was doing this to repay the debt he accrued fooling around with other women."
"That's not true." Naoya corrected. "I'm the one who suggested he sell it. We wouldn't survive operating this farm as a single family. I recommended selling the farm so it would be revitalized using new techniques."
"Not realizing that, I was desperate to leave this farm to Naoya." Nobuko added. "So I..."
"If you'd properly discussed selling the farm as a family, this wouldn't have happened." Amuro rebuked.
"Dad told me not to say anything." Naoya looked at his cousin. "He said mom would never allow it. When I told mom about the plan to sell the farm on the way to the shed, she suddenly started crying. When I asked her about it, she confessed that she'd killed dad."
At the train station...
"Are you alright?" Ami asked, worried about Amuro's silence.
"I will be." Amuro let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Naoya-san promised to protect the tangerines."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.
