Chapter Six
"It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit."
-Antoine Rivarol
Hakuba was already at the scene when Ruri and Aoko had come rushing to the source of the scream. The victim was a dark haired man who looked to be in his mid-20s.
"Ruri-san! Aoko-kun!"
The girls looked around and quickly spotted the blond Brit waving.
A crowd had quickly formed and they had to wade through the expanse of humans to even begin making their way to Hakuba.
"What happened, Hakuba-san?" Ruri asked, once they managed to get to him.
"A man collapsed in front of this café earlier," Hakuba explained, watching the police with interest.
"Who called the police?"
"Someone from the man's party."
Aoko was looking down at the ground with an interest that suggested she wasn't comfortable hearing about dead bodies and such.
"You said he collapsed?" Ruri inquired.
"Ah! Saguru-kun!"
Ruri took a moment to let the voice sink in and slowly looked at the owner.
Sure enough, Megure-keibu was standing just a few feet away. Upon spotting the high school detective, however, he began to walk towards the teens.
"Keibu," Hakuba greeted.
"Hello, Saguru-kun. I suppose I should've expected someone like you to be here," the inspector gave a wry laugh but stopped when he noticed Ruri.
"Who is this?" he asked.
"This is Yukihisa Ruri-san. We are in the same class," the blond gestured to the aforementioned girl and Ruri began to feel nervous.
"Hello, keibu-san. It's a pleasure," she gave a small smile, bowed, and silently prayed she didn't look weird or anything.
"It's a pleasure as well, Ruri-kun," the inspector looked pleased with the girl's politeness.
Ruri nodded and looked past Megure to see a woman, looking to be about the same age as the victim, rummaging around in her purse. She looked like she was in a hurry and she had an almost grimace on her face.
"Do you mind if I take a look at the body, keibu?" Hakuba asked, bringing Ruri's attention back to him and the older man.
"Of course not. Go ahead. Though I'm sure even if I said no, you'd do it anyway," Megure sighed a little bit at that last part.
"Ano, Hakuba-san?" Hakuba turned to face Ruri.
"You said he collapsed, but you've been referring to him as a 'body'. Did he die?"
"Oh, yes. The man collapsed and apparently hit his head on the corner of a trash can," Hakuba looked like he was already in deep thought when he finished his sentence.
"Do you mind if I watch you?"
The question broke through Hakuba's train of thought, and he looked down at the girl in shock.
"Ah, well, I always admired your skills and I wanted to see you in action," she quickly explained.
Hakuba was silent for a moment more before nodding. "Alright."
xxXxx
The first thing Hakuba did was investigate the body. The man was one Kinoshita Yoichi, 22 years old and a University student. He was of average build, with muscles in a few of the right places. His hair was a black that looked kind of blue in the right lighting.
"According to his ex-girlfriend, he was a nice man who liked to learn."
Hakuba had been jotting down notes the entire time Ruri had been watching him and he had just now finished speaking with Kinoshita's ex, a woman named Fujioka Kiku who was 24 years of age and seemed like a nice lady overall.
"Yoichi had just gotten done with his exams and we all wanted to go out to celebrate. The thing was, he didn't want to go out drinking, so we came here, instead," Yoshinari Atsushi had said when Hakuba interviewed him.
Atsushi was a short man with dyed blond hair and a bright personality. Ruri decided he reminded her a bit of Kaito.
The woman who Ruri had seen rummaging around in her purse was Yoichi's current girlfriend, one Matsuoka Minami.
She was 30 years old and a doctor's assistant. She was a bit on the plain side, but Ruri thought she was very pretty.
But why would Yoichi have both his ex and his current girlfriend in the same place? That seems like he was asking for trouble.
As Ruri tossed ideas and theories around in her head, Hakuba was talking with Minami who seemed rather unperturbed at the sight of her boyfriend dead and on the ground.
Just as Hakuba was about to ask if they had any problems in their relationship, Ruri rushed over to the detective and woman.
"Do you mind if I take a look inside your purse?"
Minami at first refused, but with a quick reassurance that Ruri wasn't going to do much, she agreed and reluctantly handed the girl her bag.
"What are you doing, Ruri-san?" Hakuba asked, watching with a slightly confused expression as the girl pulled out things with her gloved hands.
When he didn't get an answer, he shrugged and went back to the body to inspect it once more.
On his second round of inspecting, he noticed something off. The man had been wearing shorts and Hakuba momentarily berated himself for not noticing sooner.
"There's an injection site on his upper thigh."
Ruri's head snapped up when she heard those words.
She rushed over to Hakuba and crouched over the body.
"Where?" she asked.
Hakuba showed her Yoichi's right leg.
Just as he had said, a small hole was there.
"He was murdered."
Ruri ran back to Minami's purse and shuffled through the contents.
What she found didn't surprise her as much as it should have.
xxXxx
"Hakuba-san, do you know what this is?" Ruri was holding up an odd cylindrical contraption.
"An insulin pen?"
Ruri nodded.
"This is our murder weapon."
Hakuba looked at her with skepticism.
"Matsuoka-san did it?"
"I don't know that yet," Ruri shook her head and looked down at the body.
"But I am absolutely 100% certain this is the murder weapon."
xxXxx
"Matsuoka-san, do you have diabetes?" Ruri inquired, holding up the insulin pen.
The woman shook her head. "No, I do not."
Ruri's eyebrows scrunched together.
"But I carry around an insulin pen because of my habits."
This only succeeded in making Ruri's eyebrows scrunch together even more.
"I am a doctor's assistant. We work with diabetics so I am required to carry around an insulin pen in case of an emergency. It carried onto my personal life because I made it into a habit to carry around the pen wherever I go."
The eyebrows were suddenly freed of their muscle-y bindings.
"I see," the girl said.
She then turned on her heel and left.
So how you like dem apples? I made this chapter extra long since I'm going away for a week and won't be updating for a while. I might update after next Sunday, but that's only if I have the time. Thanks to JarayZ for the idea! I wanted to do the poison mechanical pencil thing but I ran into so many road blocks with that... I'm so sorry! I promise I'll do the mechanical pencil murder in the future! Next chapter I will reveal the murderer! (I can't believe I wrote more than 1000 words!)