And so, another update is here. Don't kill me yet, just let me finish the story and THEN you can kill me for taking such a tremendously LONG time to continue.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DETECTIVE SCHOOL Q.

Chapter 5: The Body in the Library

The next morning, Class Q went to one of the practice rooms to watch the top violin class practice their skills.

Minoru, Yui, Kazumi, Yamato, Satoshi, and Daisuke were there.

"Hang on, where's Ayame?" asked Meg, looking at Minoru.

Minoru shrugged his shoulders. "She usually wakes up pretty late. She comes into practice a few minutes after the rest of us get here."

"Oh," said Kyu.

Kinta looked at the rest of his own classmates. "Speaking of missing people, where's Shizuko got to?"

Kazuma turned around. "She was right behind us a few minutes ago."

Ryuu raised an eyebrow. "Was she?"

A few moments later, Shizuko walked through the door. "Sorry, I kind of got distracted."

"There you are," said Kyu, grinning.

"Heheh," Shizuko laughed, embarrassed. She carefully set down her violin case on the floor.

Satoshi took notice. "Minoru, you never told us that one of your friends was a violinist, too."

"I didn't think it was too important…" Minoru replied, a tiny drop of sweat forming at his temple.

"Well, we simply must hear her play," said Yui, setting down her bow on a table. "I'm sure you choose your friends wisely, Minoru."

The rest of Class Q sweat dropped.

"Yeah, let's hear it," said Kazumi, abandoning her violin.

Yamato smiled to himself and put down the violin he was holding.

Daisuke looked in their direction, but didn't say a word.

Shizuko felt a drop of sweat form at the back of her head. I should not have brought my violin.

Kyu gave her a look that said, "Well, you may as well show them..."

Ryuu had an exasperated look on his face.

Meg could only grin, along with Kinta and Kazuma.

Shizuko sighed and unzipped her violin case, taking out her violin and bow. After making a few adjustments, she placed her bow carefully on the string and began to play.

The violinists' mouths dropped open as she began a fast-paced violin solo. Shizuko squinted as she turned her full attention to the complexity of the violin piece.

This…this is impossible! Only a virtuoso can play that! Satoshi thought in shock.

My God, Minoru thought. Who taught her this?

How can she do that? Yui though, eyes widening.

Shizuko's fingers flew across the strings, her brow furrowed in concentration as she shifted from note to note, string to string. Her bow moved with incredible accuracy.

Even Class Q stared in disbelief.

That…that was so unexpected, Kyu thought, mouth dropping open.

Who is she? Meg thought, pink orbs wide. How can she be this good?

Ryuu's eyes looked astonished. This…can't be…

Almost as quickly as she had begun, Shizuko ended the piece. A tired breath escaped from her lips as she lowered the violin from beneath her chin.

The violin students stared dumbfounded for a moment, then burst into applause.

"That was amazing," complimented Kazumi, smiling.

"Thanks," said Shizuko, placing her violin back into the case.

"How long are you going to keep shocking us, Shizuko?" asked Kinta, grinning.

"Heheh..."

Yamato suddenly remembered something. "Wait a minute. Where's Ayame?"

Minoru looked around. "She hasn't arrived yet?"

Yui wrinkled her brow. "She's always late, but never this late…"

"Just wait, maybe she'll turn up," said Satoshi. "Maybe she overslept a little more today than usual."

"I doubt it," said a serious voice behind them.

The violin students turned around. "Daisuke…" said Satoshi.

The student with the scarred wrist looked at them. "Don't think that just because I'm quiet when you bring up Fumika's death means that I don't care about it."

"But you never let us know that," said Yamato.

"It's because I don't want to speak badly about what happened to her. But now…because of what happened to Fumika…I have reason to believe that something's happened to Ayame, too."

"How can you say that!" said Kazumi in a frightened voice.

"Don't you remember? The same thing happened when Fumika died!" Daisuke said.

A few weeks ago…

"What's taking her so long?" Satoshi paced the practice room impatiently.

"She probably slept late last night, you remember what she said," said Yui calmly.

"Playing the Maestro's composition? Sure," replied Satoshi. "But I don't think it's an excuse to skip the practice, or be late."

"Hey, I'm late for practice every day and you don't care," said Ayame, pouting.

"That's different. You're late so many times that we come to expect it," said Kazumi teasingly.

"That's mean!"

"Well, it's different from this case," said Satoshi, bringing them around again. "Fumika is never late. She loves practice sessions."

"There's no reason to be so worked up, Satoshi," said Minoru, putting down his violin. "Can't you forgive a person for being late just once, even if it's unusual?"

"Gah. Forget it. I sent Yamato over to her room to see if she's awake or what."

Yamato walked through the door. "She's not in her room. It was left unlocked, so I came in. No one was there."

"WHAT?" said Satoshi, fuming.

"Wait, wait, don't get too mad," said Yamato. "She said she was going to try and play Maestro Maeda's piece, right?"

"So?" asked Satoshi.

"Maybe she's in the music room…"

"Oh,yeah!" said Yui. "Maestro Maeda's composition book is there..."

"So let's get to it…"

The rest of the violin students looked down at the floor.

"Yeah, I remember that…" said Yamato.

"But you really didn't care at the time, all you guys thought was that she'd goofed off on her own," said Daisuke. "And then…"

"Fumika! Fumika, why'd you lock this—?"

"Just get the key from downstairs, Satoshi," said Minoru.

"Fine…"

Moments later…

"It's open," said Minoru.

"Fumika! Practice was—AAAH!"

Everyone looked horrified. Fumika was lying on the floor of the practice room, pale as a ghost. And the scattered sheets of paper around her were…

"These…these are the music sheets for…"

The title page was only a few meters away.

"The Nine Circles of Hell…!"

Kyu's eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. "Everyone…"

All the people in the room turned to look at him.

"I think that Daisuke is right," continued Kyu. "Something might have happened to Ayame."

Satoshi seemed to crumble under the weight of the situation.

"All right…" he said in defeat. "Let's look for her."

"Did any of you find anything?" asked Meg, looking at Kyu and the rest of her classmates.

"Nothing yet…" said Kyu.

"There's one room we haven't checked yet," said Shizuko. "The library."

In an undertone, she asked, "Do you really think the killer got her?"

"More than likely," said Ryuu. "It's almost definite."

"If this really was a murder…don't you think the killer would follow some sort of pattern? Why not in the music room, like what he did with Fumika?"

"Maybe the lack of time or opportunity."

"Hm," said Kyu.

Class Q and the violin students gathered at the entrance to the library.

"All right," said Minoru. "If she isn't here then I have no idea where she could have gone."

He turned the doorknob.

As Class Q and the music students opened the door to the library, they received a very big shock.

Meg, Kazumi and Yui screamed at the sight. Meg shut her eyes immediately, but too late. The image would haunt her for the rest of her life.

The rest of them could only gape at the scene, stunned.

Ayame's body was hanging from the ceiling fan, which was switched on at a very low speed. The dead corpse rotated a full 360 degrees before them, giving a ghastly effect.

Kinta swallowed a lump in his throat, then said, "Anyone care to call the police?"

As they waited for the authorities to arrive, Class Q began inspecting the body, having sent out the rest of the music students. Of course, the violinists had no idea that they were detectives yet, but they were only too glad to exit the crime scene.

Shizuko had switched off the ceiling fan. However, since they couldn't move the corpse themselves, Kinta came along with a nearby stepladder, which was kept in the library to reach for highly shelved books.

"Hold on a sec," said Kinta. He lifted the stepladder close to his eye and stared at it.

"What are you looking for, Kinta?" asked Kazuma.

"I think that the killer might have used this stepladder to get the body up there," said Kinta. "There could be fingerprints."

"That's a good idea," agreed Kyu, taking a look as well.

Kinta tried the fingerprinting kit from the DDS Notebook, but…

"No way! Everything's been wiped clean…not a trace!"

"The killer must have anticipated an investigation and cleaned it of fingerprints," said Ryuu.

"Darn it," muttered Kinta.

"I guess we can use it now," said Kyu, putting the ladder back in place.

Ryuu ascended the ladder and studied the neck of their corpse. "As expected, the markings on her neck are both from strangulation and hanging. I'd say she was killed before she was hung up here."

Shizuko, who was working from below, said, "I don't see much defensive wounds on her hands…maybe she was attacked from behind."

"Most likely that's possible," said Kyu, "She was taken by surprise, and so she didn't have much chance to defend herself..."

"I wonder why nobody heard the attack here," said Meg, still a little shaken from the scene.

"Maybe the bookshelves stuffed with books muffled the noise," said Shizuko. "Either that, or maybe there was damage to her windpipe and vocal chords, it's no wonder no one heard her scream."

"We'll have to wait for the forensic analysis to see which one it was," said Kazuma, typing in the data on his laptop.

"Anything you got to say about this, Kazuma?" asked Kyu with a sigh.

"Well, I managed to recreate a scale diagram of the crime scene," said Kazuma. "Maybe you can see more from this point of view." He turned the laptop screen towards them.

"As you can see, each of the four walls of this library is shelved. And books occupy them. The only part without a shelf is the door. This place is pretty much sealed.

"The door opens inward, so someone coming in would have to push on the door. So there's a small space behind that door that allows it to open and close freely without being obstructed by the shelves."

"Wait," said Ryuu. "That space behind the door. It's large enough for a person to stand in. Anyone coming in through the door wouldn't see whoever was standing there, making that area a potential blind spot."

"So assuming that she was killed here in this room, there's a place for the murderer to hide in," said Kyu. "The murderer would then come from behind her with a rope, and strangle her to death."

"If only we knew the time of death," said Shizuko. "Then maybe we could find out who killed her by questioning the violin students…"

"You really think it's one of them?" asked Kinta.

"Well, they have motive," said Ryuu. "And most likely they'd try to supply themselves with alibis, but it won't be too easy to figure out which one is—"

"OY! What are kids doing here?"

The whole of Class Q sweat dropped.

Why does this always happen when we're investigating? thought Shizuko sourly.

The authorities seemed to have arrived. The detective began yelling at them. "What do you think you are, detectives? I'm the only one who's allowed to stay in her are investigate! Judging by the way you were ogling the body, you guys must think…"

On and on, the lecture went. Ryuu looked at his watch. Approximately five to six minutes had been wasted since the detective, or whatever he called himself, had entered the scene, and yet he wasn't doing anything that could be considered investigating…

Unless, of course, yelling at six perfectly innocent teenagers counted as investigating, but heck. You get the idea.

Ryuu looked in a different direction, no longer listening.

"And you! Blue-haired one!"

Ryuu looked back at the detective calmly. "Is there something wrong, detective?"

"Don't 'detective' me, pretending to be respectful. I know your type, being all calm even when you're reprimanded because you think you're right and all, well let me tell you something, you're just a little brat who thinks…"

Ryuu's face barely twitched as the detective blathered away, his face inches away from Ryuu's trying to force some kind of reaction into his face, but no avail. Ryuu remained as calm and composed as ever.

Shizuko giggled to herself. The detective was practically yelling his lungs out at Ryuu and he wasn't even batting an eyelash.

I guess all that yelling Mr. Hongou gives us is actually good for something after all, she thought amusedly.

Meg was also giggling, because the officer was practically red in the face from bellowing.

And yet Ryuu showed no signs of response.

The detective, finally realizing that Ryuu was not going to crack, sighed in extreme exasperation, turning away from him. Everyone could see the vein that was throbbing violently in his temple.

The detective looked back at their lot. "All right, fine, do any of you mind explaining to me what happened here?"

Rants: MwahahahhA! And Riyoko-san shall leave you hanging. :avoids all the things being thrown at her: Hey! Don't kill me yet! I promise, I'll continue this! And the actual investigation will continue in the next chapter! I swear it!

Anyway…finally, Daisuke talks, ne? XD and you all thought he was probably an extra, or basically a mute person. Hahah…

Yeah, as always…PLEASE REVIEW!