Reviews make my day, but thanks again to the watchers and favoriters as well!
"You," snapped Saguru angrily as he leveled a glare at the Osakan tantei across from him,"are rapidly reminding me of why I've never bothered to call you since the day we got picked up from that stupid island." The half-Brit settled back down into his seat before returning his attention to his cup of Earl Grey that was in front of him. He then added a small amount of cream and sugar that had been brought to the table along with the tea before savoring his first sip.
The three detectives were sitting in the restaurant of the hotel that Saguru was staying in, Shinichi slinking down into his booth seat as much as he could. He'd realized that while neither of the others he was sitting with had raised their voice at all since the meeting had taken this bad turn, the tone of the conversation had drawn a few stares. What had begun as a perfectly civil meeting had quickly descended into a near-argument after Heiji had begun to ask what Saguru had viewed (and therefore brushed off, angering Heiji) as 'pointless' questions. C'mon, guys, this isn't the time for this...we have a murderer to catch!
"Same to you pal, same to you," retorted Heiji, returning the glare with an equally nasty one of his own. "So it's suddenly somehow my fault that you made assumptions and nearly screwed up that case back then? Just because I punched out the glass thinking that guy might have still been alive and I wanted to get to him in a hurry, and then you decided that I'd destroyed evidence that wasn't ever there in the first-"
"We really shouldn't be worrying about any of those old cases right now- or any other cases right now, really." Shinichi broke in desperately, trying to refocus the group on the task at hand as well as the reason that Saguru had called Heiji in the first place: the murder case that Kuroba Kaito- well, Kaitou Kid- was still up near the top of the suspect list for. "We need to work on figuring out if there is really a connection-" Crap, what am I DOING? I can't talk like my normal self right now-Hakuba doesn't know who I really am! He looked over at the half-Brit warily, who was staring back at him in a tone of mild puzzlement and curiosity. "A-at least that's what Heiji-niichan would normally say when he's not mad, right?" Shinichi finished as he whipped his head towards Heiji, desperately hoping to form any kind of distraction.
"Heh." Saguru broke the silence that had descended with a light chuckle after a few moments. He then reached down into a small backpack that was sitting by his feet and unzipped it, producing a thick stack of what looked like newspapers and photocopies, gently placing them down on the desk and beginning to unfold and sort them. "How sad that a child should be the most intelligent, logical one at this table." He gave Shinichi a pointed glance before turning his attention back to the stacks he had sorted out and grabbing one of them. "Right then. Down to business. I don't want the trouble I'm going to be in when I return home to be for nothing," not elaborating on what precisely he meant by 'trouble'.
"So when did this other string of thefts start exactly? The ones that this guy called the Buddha Thief engaged in?" inquired Heiji after he and Shinichi had spent a few minutes poring over the newspapers Saguru had brought with him. "I see a bunch of articles here about his trial once he was caught but they don't seem to talk about the actual thefts themselves much."
"That stuff is in this stack here, but I'll sum it up for you as briefly as I can." The other tantei patted one of the thick piles of photocopies and newspapers laying in front of him before polishing off his tea and beginning his narration. "There were three robberies in total, all of one of the jade statues in that set of sixteen. They were spaced out over about a year to year and a half. The first was when one of the statues had been placed up for auction by a charity it had been donated to. The thief broke into the truck that was transporting the items headed to auction by cutting a hole in the roof of the truck. The statue was the only thing removed.
"The second theft was from a pawn shop, where one of the statues had been hocked- the police attempted to figure out who had pawned it off with no luck, not that they looked too hard. Anyhow, once again, the statue was the only thing removed from the premises, and the alarm had been expertly disabled though nothing seemed to be gone. In fact, the statue wasn't even noticed as missing for two or three days, until the owner did his weekly inventory- they had assumed that the burglar had been frightened off by something or someone during the break-in and hadn't actually stolen anything.
"The third theft is the one with all the strange parallels to this current case, and probably the one we'll want to look at first and most closely," continued Saguru mildly before catching the waitresses' attention for a second tea. After she had removed the old cup and dishes and walked away, he began again. "This Buddha statue was on display in a museum as part of a jade exhibit. About a week into the exhibit, the alarms went off and the police and security rushed to the scene. The police arrived to find two of the guards cowering in the security room and a third guard shot dead right in front of the statue's now-empty case.
"At approximately the same time the dead guard's body was discovered, the Buddha Thief was seen by several eyewitnesses running down the street and eventually caught by police with a fake jade statue in hand. Videotape evidence showed someone firing the shot at the guard with the Buddha Thief clearly visible in the frame a few moments before the shooting. Granted it wasn't as damnifying as the video they have of Kid now, but it's an interesting similarity, don't you think?"
Just then, Shinichi's phone rang, and it was Shinichi's phone, not Conan's. Letting out a mild oath under his breath after he realized this fact, and knowing there was only one person who would be calling the number, Shinichi quickly made his excuses and slid down out of the booth and walked away from the table. He then began trying to find a solitary place to activate his voice-changing tie and answer the call. After all, I can't always let it go to voice mail, or she'll get suspicious...
"I hope the two of you will tell me what's really going on one day," commented Saguru in that same unflappable, mild tone after their new round of drinks had arrived at the table, Shinichi still chatting away quietly behind an empty booth in the far corner of the restaurant.
"What do you mean by that, Hakuba?" demanded Heiji quickly, hoping he could bluff and lie his way through whatever suppositions the other detective possessed. This is bad...
"I mean exactly that. That's all," he finished with a shrug before beginning to prepare his second tea. "If you don't think I haven't picked up on the fact that that 'child' is no typical child by this point in my interactions with him, even though those interactions have been admittedly limited, then you don't give nearly enough credit to my observational ability."
"Sorry. I have no idea what you're talking about," stated Heiji flatly, giving the other tantei a look that said 'Drop it' about as clearly as it could be nonverbally expressed while crossing his arms and sitting more upright in his chair.
"Mmm. I see. Alright then," replied the other with a nod before sipping his tea and glancing over at the booth Conan was hiding behind.
A tense silence permeated the table until a few minutes later when Shinchi ended the call with Ran, emerged from behind the booth and reclaimed his seat before sipping the milk he had ordered (hey, kids drank milk a lot after all-gotta keep up appearances.)
"Sorry, my friend called," Shinichi explained. At least it's not a lie, though I wish I could tack a 'girl' onto the front end of 'friend'...but that won't be possible until I'm not in this tiny body any more...
"That's fine. We didn't discuss much, so you haven't missed anything," replied Saguru. "We were just discussing a few possibilities regarding how the killer got his hands on Kaitou Kid's outfit. I sincerely doubt Kid would just willingly up and give it to someone else, especially knowing that the other person had murder in mind. Right, Hattori?"
"Y-yeah, that's exactly what we were discussing," Heiji burst out with a nod that was quick- too quick for Shinichi's liking.
"Well, maybe someone made an outfit that looks like his or something," offered Shinichi, having to play dumb to protect the thief. "Maybe they used pictures of him." I want to know what you two really discussed while I was on the phone with Ran. I'll be asking about that later, Hattori...
"Good idea, and there is a slight possibility of that even with what I'm about to tell you," replied Saguru. "The police already went down that path- they asked almost every cloth and hobby shop in the greater Tokyo area whether anyone had purchased a particularly large amount of white cloth in the weeks leading up to the murder, and their inquiries didn't find anything. But of course, it is the police- who aren't infallible, and don't always think far enough outside of the box either."
"Well, there is a possibility, weird as it might be, that the killer was wearing Kid's actual outfit," replied Heiji. "Conan and I went to the police headquarters this morning, and talked with a couple of the detectives working the case. Their videotape footage seems to indicate that two different people were wearing that uniform- one before Kid vanished off of the cameras for a good five minutes, one after the reappearance and during the shooting."
"Really?" Saguru seemed to muse over this revelation for a few moments. "Well, that would explain an awful lot. Like the fact that he killed. So the theory that we're operating off of is-?"
"That the real killer and the guard were working together," began Heiji, who didn't want Shinichi to speak another word in front of Hakuba if he could help it- he didn't want his friend saying or doing anything that would provide fuel to further Hakuba Saguru's way-too-close-to-correct speculations. "They ran into Kid, who was casing the joint to heist a gem from that exhibit there that's moving in next week. The pair surprised Kid and knocked him out, then the murderer dressed up and shot the guard in order to frame Kid and to shut the guard up."
"Hmm. Very interesting speculation. Now what we need is proof to back it up," stated Saguru as he got up out of his chair. "You can take those stacks of materials with you; they're copies of copies, I already have them all. We can talk again when you've looked everything over." With that, he waved goodbye and walked out.
"Kudo," hissed Heiji in a low voice to his friend as he watched the sandy blonde's back dissappear into the hotel's lobby, "just be extremely careful of anything you do or say around Hakuba from now on."