SailorStar9: With Chapter 145 uploaded, I present Chapter 146 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 146: The Broken Fishbowl


Sometime later...

"You tricked us." Kitamura Mitsuru raved at the smug Tsuchida Yoshihiro. "What you did was swindle us."

"Give us back our money." Bando Atsuko pleaded.

"Swindle?" Tsuchida mocked. "Don't make such disreputable accusations. You entrusted our company with your precious money after signing a contract with us."

"You're lying." Bando snapped. "You never intended to return our money."

"I'll kill you." Kitamura swore. "I swear I'll kill you."

"Step back, please." Kajiura Yuto stepped in. "I'm sorry, everyone. But please leave for the day. We'll get in touch with you at a later date." he and Nagase Ayako ushered the angry customers out.

"As you saw, those people come every day." Tsuchida addressed Mouri. "Lately, I've been fearing foe my personal safety."

"That's why you hired me to be your bodyguard." Mouri noted. "President Tsuchida, do your actions not violate the law?"

"it's their fault for being greedy and handing over their money." Tsuchida smirked. "I'll pay you generously."

"Let's go, kid." Mouri led Conan out. "You've misjudged me." he informed Tsuchida. "Mouri Kogoro isn't rotten enough to sell his soul to the devil."


At the bus-stop...

Mouri and Conan heard a horrified scream as they waited from the bus and they hurried back to the goldfish investment company.

"What's wrong?" Mouri spotted the terrified Nagase Ayako who was backing away from the door.

"That..." Nagase stammered, pointing to the face-down Tsuchida on the ground.

"It's no use." Mouri hurried over to find a pulse. "He's dead. They used a statue wrapped in a towel. Over there, too." he looked across the hall and saw Kajiura Yuto on the ground in the next room. "It's no use." he felt no pulse on the secretary. "I don't believe it. Two of them..."

"Yuto-san..." Makimura Nozomi, Kajiura's girlfriend, had stumbled on the crime.

"Stay back." Mouri pulled Makimura back.

Scooping up the goldfish that had fallen on the ground next to the broken fish tank, Conan place the flailing fish into the next tank that was still intact.


After Megure's team was called in...

"Goldfish?" Megure echoed, the forensics team was wheeling out the two bodies to the autopsy theater.

"The victim, President Tsuchida, lied about importing rare goldfish from aboard and gathered a large sum of money." Mouri explained. "The investors were furious. I believe the culprit may be one of his clients. This is his office worker, Nagase Ayako-san." he introduced the company's remaining worker to Megure.

"You were the first one to discover the bodies." Megure remarked.

"When I returned after buying the items the president requested, President Tsuchida was..." Nagase reported.

"This is Makimura Nozomi-san." Mouri turned to the other woman. "She was the girlfriend of the other victim, Kajiura-san."

"At the time of the murders, where were you?" Megure inquired.

"Waiting outside for Yuto-san." Makimura replied. "That's when I heard a scream."

"Onee-san, use this." Conan handed Makimura a handkerchief.

"Even if the President Tsuchida-san had incurred the hatred of his clients, why kill Kajiura-san, too?" Megure wondered. "What's going on, Takagi-kun?" he asked, Takagi bringing in Kitamura and Bando.

"They were in the building, so I had them come as potential witnesses." Takagi responded. "This is Kitamura Mitsuru-san, the proprietor of Kitamura Hardware, and housewife, Bando Atsuko-san. I heard they were related to President Tsuchida's goldfish investment. 30 minutes earlier when the murders occurred. Kitamura-san was at a bicycle parking lot near this building."

"I parked my scooter there." Kitamura explained. "When I tried to leave, I found that my tire was flat. I called a bike shop and was waiting for them."

"Bando-san, what about you?" Megure turned to the housewife.

"I..." Bando trailed.

"I was waiting for Yuto-san at the convenience store parking lot across from this building." Makimura spoke up. "I think I saw someone through the window when I was there; someone heading towards the president's office."

"Was it a man or woman?" Megure pressed.

"It was too far to see that much." Makimura replied. "It may have been my mistake, though."

"What's wrong, obaa-san?" Conan noticed Bando peered closely at the fish tank.

"Isn't this boy sick?" Bando pointed to the goldfish Conan had put into the tank. "This boy can't be put in a tank with other goldfish."

"I'm sorry." Conan gaped. "I put him in there since his tank was broken."

"Then, there must have been medicine in the broken tank." Bando noted. "That over there." she spotted the bottle of tank disinfectant. "A disinfectant."

"Detective Takagi." Conan voiced, Megure was about to take Kitamura into custody when they discovered the bloodied towel was from his hardware store. "That towel was wet, wasn't it? Do you know what the water was?"

"It was ordinary water." Takagi recalled. "There was a type of disinfectant mixed in it, though."

Nabbing the bottle of disinfectant, Conan tranquilized Mouri after piecing together what happened. "Hold on, everyone." he took on Mouri's voice using the Voice-Changing Bowtie. "There was just one thing I wanted to confirm. Every crime has a motive, an order and a result. If you approach this case normally, the culprit must've hated President Tsuchida. It's the reason he was killed, why Kajiura-san was caught up in it, and why the culprit is Kitamura-san. But what if the truth was the opposite of every reasonable deduction? The true culprit stole a towel embroidered with the name of Kitamura-san's shop and punctured his scooter's tire so he wouldn't have an alibi. After entering the company's office, they first headed to the main office. Once they were invited inside, they killed Kajiura-san with a knife. Next, they headed to the president's office, where they killed President Tsuchida. Naturally, they left the stolen towel in order to frame Kitamura-san. After committing both murders, they returned to the front entrance and left the office. Of course, I have evidence: first, there's the location where Kajiura-san collapsed. If Kajiura-san was attacked by and fled from the culprit leaving the president's office, he should have collapsed in the opposite direction. Then, there's the towel discovered in the president's office. Detective Takagi, when it was discovered, the towel was wet with not only blood, but also water. Have you determined its exact composition?"

"According to the forensics report, it was water mixed with disinfectant." Takagi reported.

"Could it be this disinfectant?" Conan produced the bottle. "In the main office, there was a small tank in addition to the large one." he continued. "It was for the goldfish that had become sick. Kajiura-san knocked one of them over and the water spilled on the culprit. That's why disinfectant was found on the culprit's towel. If they had killed Kajiura-san after killing President Tsuchida, there would be no fish tank water on the towel. They probably brought with them the knife they used to kill Kajiura-san, but the sculpture they used to killed Tsuchida was already in the president's office. If they truly did intend to kill President Tsuchida, instead of leaving the knife in Kajiura-san' s body, they would have used it to kill the president as well. In other words, the true culprit's intended target was not President Tsuchida, but Kajiura-san. In order to hide their true intention, the culprit murdered President Tsuchida, who was hated by everyone."

"What about Nozomi-san's testimony?" Megure asked.

"What if that testimony was a calculated lie?" Conan countered. "One meant to mislead us. Makimura Nozomi-san, you're the true culprit."

"I killed Yuto-san?" Makimura echoed. "That's not possible."

"Conan-kun told me." Conan related. "You didn't have a handkerchief, do you? When you killed Kajiura-san, did you use it to prevent his blood from getting on you? Have you already disposed of it somewhere? The area around your hips is stained. That stain is from that. Conan. It's from these letters." he ran over to the smudged signboard. "It happened then. Your body was wet from water, then. That's why the letters on this poster bled and stained your clothes. The true culprit was soaked by the water in the fish tank." he went back to Mouri's deduction. "If disinfectant was found on her clothes..."

"That would put her at the crime scene." Takagi blinked.

"Get the forensics team." Megure ordered. "Have them examine her clothes."

"But why kill Kajiura-san?" Nagase was puzzled.

"I gave Kajiura-san everyone." Makimura broke down. "Before he got a job, for years and years. Once he began working for President Tsuchida, he started making a lot of money. Then, he said he didn't love me anymore. On top of that, he told me to leave. He hit and kicked me." she showed everyone her bruises.


SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.