Nevermore

By: Hikari-chan (Chitsuki)

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to Gosho Aoyama. Anything that is Edgar Allan Poe's work is (eventually) referenced in the text and belongs, obviously, to Mr. Poe. I (unfortunately) make more profit from this.

Musings: Some quick housekeeping items: 1) I will be away on vacation for about 3 weeks, so obviously, I can't update the fic. I will upload a new chapter once I get back. 2) I'm far enough in the writing process to tell you guys that it will be 9 chapters long plus an epilogue, so rest assure you will actually get a resolution. :) (Three cheers for attention span actually lasting!) And 3) I meant to respond to some of your reviews, but got caught up in pre-vacation prep stuff. I read them! I swear! Thank you for them, as always~ They feed me. :)

-o-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 5

-o-o-o-o-o-

Conan wasn't sure whether the scene that greeted him was fortunate or unfortunate. On the one hand, there weren't 4 girls inside the shack. However, there was a woman, tied down to the equipment rack. She was motionless, and Conan raced quickly across the wooden floor of the shack to her, feeling for a pulse. Outside, the wind howled.

Ai flipped on the flashlight in her watch, and in the glow of the light, they could see that the woman was deathly pale. Her skin was frozen under Conan's touch. She only wore a sweater and a pair of jeans. The expression on her face was one of resignation.

"No pulse, no breathing, no response," Conan whispered. "She's dead."

Ai brought the light closer to him. "Who is she?" she asked.

Conan frowned, trying to place the face of the woman. He felt like he had seen her around the resort before, but her name was escaping him right then. "I don't know," he admitted.

Ai gave him the flashlight watch and stepped around him to examine the body. "No sign of blunt force trauma," she muttered. "Preliminary guess is severe hypothermia causing death. Again, without toxicology, it's impossible to determine if she came here while drugged. We can't pinpoint a time of death either since the extreme ambient conditions will cause rigor mortis to be significantly delayed."

Conan watched as she took some pictures of the scene for documentation with her phone, then joined her when she started looking closer for bruises and other marks. He heard Ai draw a sharp intake of breath and looked up.

She had retrieved a black note card from the pocket of the victim.

They were both silent for a moment. Ai finally took a deep breath and read it aloud for him.

"I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has 'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer de qui n'est pas'.
LX"

Conan frowned. "That last part," he began.

"Is French," Ai confirmed. "It means 'to deny what is, and explain that which is not'."

Conan furrowed his brow, obviously trying to remember something. "I'm pretty sure that quote is from 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'. It was the prototype for later detective stories, including Sherlock Holmes. I can't remember if the original was in French though."

"We'll go back and check," Ai said, pocketing the note. "I found bruises on her legs and some on her arms, but if she was a skier or snowboarder, that's hardly out of the ordinary."

"We have to get her body back to the infirmary," Conan stated as he reached for the detective badge and opened the line to contact Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko. He quickly relayed what they had found and approximately where the shack was. "Ryusaki-bucho knows where it is. I remember seeing him here the first time I saw it."

There was a pause on the line, then Mitsuhiko's voice came through. "Ryusaki-bucho is coming up with Igarashi-sensei in a snowmobile, but the conditions are bad, so it might be a little while."

"It'll have to do," Conan replied.

"Tsuburaya-kun, do you have your computer with you?" Ai asked through her own badge.

"Um, yea. Do you need something?"

"Find a quiet place," Ai instructed. "I'm going to dictate the state of the body to you since its condition will change before emergency services arrive. Write it down."

"I can do that," Mitsuhiko agreed. "Is Conan-kun and Genta-kun's room okay?"

"That's fine."

"Genta, Ayumi," Conan continued. "Start interviewing the guests we haven't covered. See if we can get an ID on the woman and where those guests were for the other death. And don't split up."

Genta and Ayumi agreed over the line before Mitsuhiko's voice came back, telling them he was in Genta and Conan's room, ready to take down Ai's notes. Conan paced back and forth in the small area of the shack while Ai's voice noted the state of the body and all the things they had found through the detective badge.

He wondered when the woman was killed and if she would have lived had he figured out the note's meaning faster. He wondered where and when the murderer planned on striking next, because the presence of a third note no doubt meant that this wasn't over. He wondered the reason the first note was dropped off at his house; surely it would be easier to slip the note into his room on the resort.

He stopped pacing when he heard that Ai had stopped. She had put away her detective badge, but she was shivering slightly, pulling her jacket closer around her. He deduced that she probably didn't have time to dress properly for the amount of time they had ended up spending in the snow, since she had hurried to catch him earlier.

"Ai," he called her.

She turned and looked at him. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, her breath forming soft puffs of air. She was rubbing her arms to generate some warmth. Conan opened his arms, and without a word, she crossed the room and stepped into them, wrapping her arms around his waist and tucking her head into the crook in his neck. She was cold, but he held her tighter, dropping a soft kiss on her temple.

"This wasn't your fault," she whispered.

He smiled wryly. "I know that logically," he admitted. "I just feel like I'm playing a game, and it's my fault I haven't caught up to them yet."

"There is a silver lining though."

"Hmm? What's that?"

"Those girls are probably alive," Ai pointed out. "Assuming it's the same culprit, they clearly want them for something. Otherwise, we would have found their bodies."

Conan tightened his hold on her and nodded into her hair. That's right. The chances of both a kidnapper and a murderer being snowed in at the same place at the same time were pretty low. This was turning out to be more like an elaborate scheme with a lot of pieces they haven't yet been able to put together.

The chase wasn't over yet.

-o-o-o-o-o-

The onsite doctor and nurse were ready to help when Ryusaki and Igarashi came back to the resort with the dead body of the woman. Some of the staff had helped clear out the crowd, so it was a quick trip to the infirmary. Ai followed the doctor and nurse, using the same procedures as she had with Chiba-sensei's body to preserve any evidence she knew the police would need later. Two of the three beds in the infirmary were now occupied by corpses, and it was clear that there was unrest out around the resort.

Conan, for his part, had decided to interview Ryusaki-bucho, and together, they had identified the woman as Shima Chiaki. The manager had once again cooperated with Conan by letting him into the victim's room on the second floor of the right wing, just next to the stairs.

Conan walked around, noting that Shima-san was staying alone. The room was very much like the one he and Genta shared, but with one double bed. The window faced the inside of the complex, and he could see the dark shape of various structures in the central area, although most were now covered in snow. Shima-san was obviously a skier, with her own skis and equipment laid out around the room. She seemed organized, her toiletries lined up neatly in the bathroom. Conan noticed a glass of juice by her bedside table. He picked it up with his handkerchief and smelled it. It smelled very faintly of alcohol. Blended with the sweetness of the juice though, he thought it could be possible that Shima-san wouldn't necessarily notice.

However, that was extremely odd. Supposing Shima-san poured it herself, what was the point of adding the alcohol if it was so faint? And if it was offered by someone else, the amount of alcohol wouldn't be strong enough to induce any kind of inhibited state. He replaced the glass and searched the rest of the room. There were a few books on the desk which Conan flipped through; a slip of paper fell out onto the floor. Conan picked it up and examined it. It was handwritten in block letters and only said: "Your room, 8:00AM". He frowned and put it into one of the bags he was carrying.

"Did anyone ask about Shima-san before we found her?" Conan asked the manager.

Ryusaki shook his head. "Not at the front desk."

Conan tapped his chin thoughtfully. So, if Shima-san had received the note in the past 24 hours, then the writer of the note, who looked as though he or she hadn't asked about Shima-san missing their 8 o'clock appointment, was likely the culprit. That meant the time of death was probably sometime between 8:00 and when he and Ai found the body. Although speaking of that, Conan thought with a frown, how did the body get up to the shack?

"Other than the snowmobile, is there any other vehicle you use onsite?" Conan questioned.

"A few," Ryusaki replied. "We have some cars and trucks, but I don't think they would work that well in the storm."

"Can you take me to check them?"

The manager nodded, seeming to have resigned himself to being Conan's personal access around the resort. They made their way out to the equipment building, and Conan made his way past the rental snowboards and skis to the back of the building, where it led out to the garage. As Ryusaki had said, there were a few vehicles. Conan checked the tires, noting they were all dry and there were no signs of wet tracks anywhere. He moved down to the snowmobiles. Unlike the vehicles, there were wet tracks on the ground and Conan knelt down to examine them. He noticed there was a mess of wet tracks on the ground, some parts of it drier than others.

"Other than going up the slope for Shima-san's body, when was the last time someone used the snowmobiles?" Conan asked.

Ryusaki frowned, as though trying to remember. "Not since before the storm, I would say."

That was a couple of days ago, Conan thought to himself. Those tracks should have long since dried by now, which meant that the drier set of tracks was from the culprit taking the body up to the shack. While the moguls slope wasn't fully visible from the resort, guests looking out the window might still have thought it was strange if they saw someone on a snowmobile leaving the resort in this weather. It was difficult to say exactly though, since Conan knew firsthand that it was hard to see outside.

He walked around the snowmobile, looking for clues. There wasn't much, so he took pictures of the tracks and went to examine the door. It was a standard garage door, with electronic remotes that could be used to open and shut the door.

"Do you keep track of the remotes?" Conan questioned as he examined the check-out log for the vehicles. He took pictures of the pages from the past few days so he could compare it to the employee list later.

"They're kept locked up in the drawer," Ryusaki pointed to the ordinary desk the logbook was sitting on.

Conan pulled on the drawer. It slid out with no protest, much to the manager's surprise.

"They're supposed to be locked up," he corrected with a frown.

Conan rifled through the drawer. There were only a few pens, some notepads, and five remote controls for the garage. There might be fingerprints on the remote controls, but he somehow doubted it. He shut it and turned to the manager. "What do you know about Shima-san?"

Ryusaki shrugged. "She was a guest that checked in alone. She skied and seemed a little jittery."

"She was jittery?" Conan echoed, suspicious. "About what?"

"I'm not sure. I never asked."

"Was there anything she said or did that you thought was out of the ordinary?"

"Um...," Ryusaki stammered. "Her room was booked and paid for months in advance. The records said cash, which was odd, but not unheard of. And she mentioned that it was nice to be skiing here again, so I remember thinking she must have been a customer of the old ski resort."

The cash part, Conan thought to himself, was odd, just as Ryusaki-bucho had said. However, that lined up with the fact that someone was supposed to meet Shima-san in her room and didn't come asking for her when she didn't show up. It was entirely possible that this same someone paid for her room to get her to come to the resort.

"You wouldn't remember who paid, would you?"

"It was months ago, so no."

"Did she know Chiba-sensei?" Conan continued. There had to be a reason those two were the victims. Serial killings usually showed a pattern of some kind.

"Um, maybe in passing?" Ryusaki suggested. "Maybe he gave her skiing lessons at one point? He lived in Sapporo since he was very young, and had been teaching for years."

That wasn't really a solid connection, but Conan did think of something else as they walked back to the main building. He borrowed the landline at the front desk and called the Professor.

"Ah Shinichi," Agasa greeted him with enthusiasm over the line. "How's the trip?"

"We're snowed in." Conan quickly informed him of the situation for the past couple of days.

"That's..."

"A mess?" Conan supplied. "That's a nice way of putting it. I need to catch this guy, and fast."

"There's nothing unusual here that could help, I'm afraid," Agasa told him apologetically.

"I figured as much. I actually need you to look into something for me. The manager mentioned there was a murder of some kind at the resort that used to be here – Hope Hills. The case is over 7 years old. I need you to find out what you can about it. I feel like there's a connection somehow," Conan admitted.

"Hope Hills in Otaru," Agasa muttered as he scribbled it down.

"I'll call you back tomorrow around this time," Conan said. "They've lost cell phone reception and the Internet is down as well."

Agasa promised to have something ready for him by then and hung up. Conan looked at the clock and realized it was evening already. His stomach protested angrily at the number of meals he had skipped, but it was past dinner time and he didn't think anyone wanted him, the only person in the world who would make tea incorrectly, in the kitchen. Maybe Genta would have a stash of food somewhere in their room.

-o-o-o-o-o-

For about five seconds after he opened the door to the room he shared with Genta, Conan thought he had walked into the wrong place. The television was on. The sound was muted, and the screen alternated between weather reports and a fuzzy screen, meaning the reception was still having issues.

Mitsuhiko was sitting on the edge of Genta's bed, with one chair (which Conan noted didn't belong to the room) used as a makeshift desk. His laptop was sitting on top of the chair. A second chair was next to it, holding a...printer? Conan blinked and shifted his gaze to his own bed. Ai had a second laptop open, balanced on her knees. The Edgar Allan Poe book was open next to her and there were various papers strewn around her. However, the most obvious change was a large whiteboard on wheels which was standing in the middle of the room. Genta and Ayumi were standing in front of it, holding a notebook, different coloured markers, and a roll of tape.

"What in the...?" Conan blurted out as the door shut behind him.

"Conan-kun!" Ayumi reacted first. "Welcome back!"

"Um, yea. What are you guys doing?" he asked.

"Genta-kun was complaining at dinner that there's too much information to keep everything straight, so Haibara-san suggested putting things down on a whiteboard," Mitsuhiko filled in.

"Look! It's really helpful," Ayumi chimed in, turning the board so Conan can see.

Ayumi had drawn two parallel timelines at the top of the board, one for the murders and one for the disappearances. The estimated times for each set of crimes were blacked out. There were also somehow pictures of the murder victims with their names and occupation written out. A line was drawn between Shima-san and Chiba-sensei's pictures, with a large question mark. Pictures of the four girls who had disappeared lined up vertically on the right side of the board, and in Ayumi's neat handwriting, each name was printed next to their respective picture. Conan had to admit it was a great way to visually summarize the information.

"Mitsuhiko is going through the interviews," Genta added, "so we can see which suspects are left."

"Impressive," Conan couldn't help but admit with a smile. "One question." All three waited expectantly. "Where did all this stuff come from?"

"The business centre, mostly," Mitsuhiko admitted. "We just borrowed the board and the chairs. The printer is from Ryusaki-bucho's office."

"You guys hijacked Ryusaki-bucho's printer?!"

"Borrow, Conan! Borrow!" Genta corrected. "The front desk said it was okay if we write down our names and return it later."

"And the second laptop?" Conan asked curiously.

"This is Fujisaki-kun's," Ai answered without looking up. "He was gracious enough to let us borrow it for the time being. I'm just comparing the notes on the two bodies to see if there are any similarities."

Conan let out a tired sigh and made his way across the room, sitting down next to Ai on his bed as the other three went back to sorting through the interviews. "So what do we have?" he asked Ai.

"I think both bodies will test positive for some kind of knock-out drug," Ai stated. "Chiba-sensei died from an overdose, so more likely than not, an excess amount was in his food or drink. Alcohol would speed up the effect of the drugs if it was used. As for Shima-san, no reasonable person would just go out in this weather dressed the way she was, so she had to be knocked out and brought there."

"Hmm..." Conan murmured. "Alcohol's a great possibility." He told her what he had found in Shima-san's room. "It stands to reason that she was knocked out with some kind of alcohol mixed with some kind of drug when the person she was supposed to meet came by."

"But why?" Ai asked. "And for something as deliberate as leaving her outside to die. That's a lot of work. Wouldn't it have been easier just to dose her the same way Chiba-sensei was killed?"

Conan nodded. "It has to be for a very specific reason. The note also implied that she was killed for revenge, so something Shima-san did made someone very upset." He turned to the trio that was working on the whiteboard. "Did you guys find out anything about Shima-san? Like, is there anyone on the resort with some form of relationship to her?"

"Not a thing," Mitsuhiko admitted, looking over at them. "Shima-san checked in by herself, according to the front desk, and no one on the resort had more than a random passing interaction with her. It just seemed like she was taking a vacation by herself."

"No, she was lured here," Conan corrected. "And I think she frequented the old ski resort that was here." He explained briefly what he had found out. "By the way, did anyone mention to you seeing a snowmobile outside? Before Ai and I went out there, that is."

"Um..." Mitsuhiko flipped quickly through his notes. "Ah, here. There's a couple on the fourth floor of the right wing that mentioned looking outside and seeing a figure zoom by below, but they chalked it up to nothing after since the weather was so bad."

Conan perked up. "What time was that?"

"Before they went for breakfast," Mitsuhiko read. "Around 9:30."

"We have a time of death then," Conan said, nodding to Ayumi. "Shima-san died sometime between 9:30 this morning and 12:30, when Ai and I found the body."

"Probably closer between to 11:00 and 12:30," Ai chimed in, "since cause of death is likely hypothermia."

Ayumi marked down the three times on the timeline.

"Hey, Conan," Genta spoke up hesitantly. "Do you think there will be another one?"

Conan sighed. "Unfortunately, yes," he admitted. "There was note with the body. Just like the other note was a quote from 'The Cask of Amontillado', this one was from 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'."

Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko all looked at him blankly. Conan sighed again and flopped down on his back onto the bed.

"They're stories from Edgar Allan Poe," he explained, closing his eyes. "Poe was a famous literary during the 1800's, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. He's generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre, although he was best known for some pretty morbid stories. In 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', the detective solves a locked-room mystery where two women were brutally killed."

"So the next victims will be two women?" Genta asked, looking confused.

"Not necessarily," Conan continued, his voice somewhat sleepy now. "In 'The Cask of Amontillado', the victim was a man, and Shima-san was a woman. Besides, the culprit in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' was an orangutan. I'll have to reread it to see if there's any other clue."

"Can we do it for you, Conan-kun?" Ayumi asked. "You looked tired."

Conan mumbled something incomprehensible, so Ai answered instead, "His book's in English." She pointed to the massive tome open on the bed. Genta looked like he lost a little bit of colour just realizing how thick the book was. "By the way, Meitantei-san, I reread it. The original actually is in French."

Instead of responding, Conan blindly reached for her and pulled on her waist. Ai let out a surprised squeak when she fell backwards onto the bed. He turned on his side and pulled her closer, hugging her to him and nuzzling her neck. "That's good," he mumbled, obviously half-asleep already. "Means I don't need to wonder why the culprit chose to write that part in French."

"What are you doing?!" Ai hissed. "Get off! You're heavy."

"Really, you two," Mitsuhiko interrupted dryly. "Get a room."

"I am in a room," Conan grumbled, although Ai was sure she was the only person who could hear his muffled response.

She elbowed him in the ribs and he let out a loud "ouch", rolling over and rubbing his stomach. "Arg, what was that for?" he complained, opening his eyes. "I'm tired. I just need some sleep."

"Actually, what you need is food," Ai pointed out. "You skipped lunch and dinner again, didn't you?"

Conan sighed. "Room service is closed already," he reminded her.

"Yes, we'll just borrow their kitchen," Ai shrugged, getting up.

"We're borrowing the kitchen too?" Now he sat up, feeling just a tad amused. How much stuff did his friends plan on 'borrowing'?

"Actually, Ai-chan, why don't Genta-kun and Mitsuhiko-kun and I go get some food from the kitchen?" Ayumi suggested. "We can't help with that note and I bet Genta-kun's hungry too."

Genta laughed sheepishly and scratched his head. "Do you think they have unagi-don?" he asked.

"We can check!" Ayumi promised.

Mitsuhiko got up from his position on Genta's bed and stretched. "I could use the walk too."

"Sure," Ai agreed. "Stay with Ayumi-chan though."

Genta and Mitsuhiko agreed and they made their way out of the room. Conan sighed and flopped back down onto his bed.

"Are you feeling okay?" Ai asked him. "It's not like you to just fall asleep while discussing a case."

"I really am tired," Conan admitted. "I feel like I've asked tons of questions, but I don't have any answers. I don't fully understand these notes; I haven't figured out the connection between the murder victims, or why some girls in our class were kidnapped."

"And you have no energy because you keep skipping meals," Ai pointed out with a frown.

"And because I haven't slept very well all throughout this trip, except that one night you seduced me in a chair," Conan added dryly.

She shrugged, smirking at him. "That hardly counted as seduction."

"Oh? Then what counts as seduction?"

"Well, first of all, somewhere without the chance of our friends walking in any moment with food," Ai replied.

Conan sat up and rubbed his face. "Alright, alright," he conceded. "Is there anything about the other guests you guys found out?"

Ai picked up Mitsuhiko's laptop and skimmed the notes. "Looks like most of the guests were families or friends, so a number of them have alibis," she summarized. "Funny thing here is that Uchida Ayako and Uchida Kyoko weren't together in our timeframes of interest."

"The mother-daughter we met the first day?"

"Yea. Ayako-san slept in the morning and read in the library by herself in the afternoon because she wasn't feeling well. Kyoko-san spent most of the day on the slopes but claimed she didn't know who could verify that she had been there," Ai elaborated.

"And they were the only other guests that didn't have alibis?" Conan questioned.

"Hmm... and Enomoto Haruki-san," Ai said. "He spent most of the day working on his articles in his room and only went for dinner around 7:00."

"That's still quite a few people to work with," Conan muttered to himself.

Ai got up and wrote the name of their suspects in the middle of the whiteboard. As she wrote, she asked him, "Did you have new thoughts about the note?"

"Only that I don't think the initials idea is exactly right," he answered. "If Chiba Ren is CL because Japanese doesn't have the letter 'L', Shima Chiaki should be SC, even if somehow we make a case for the C and X making similar sounds."

Ai frowned. "It has changed to LX on the new one," she reminded him.

Before they could discuss it further, their badges beeped in unison. Conan managed to reach for his first. "Hey," he answered.

"Um, Conan-kun," Ayumi's voice came over the badge in hushed tones.

Conan immediately became more alert. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I think there's someone following us," Ayumi whispered back.

"Where are you?" Conan said even as he clicked on the tracking glasses.

"Maybe about 20 meters from the kitchen," Ayumi estimated.

Conan dashed out of the room towards the stairs with Ai close on his heels, following the three blinking dots on his glasses down to the first floor.

-o-o-o-o-o-

End Chapter 5.

Word Count: 4,570
Cumulative Word Count: 24,616

Chitsu's Curiosity Corner: I admit that was on purpose. I have to keep you interested somehow, right? :) A question I have for you guys: Do you want an appendix? Some reviewers from the last chapter mentioned they had trouble understanding the puzzles. Obviously, Conan's brief deduction in the last chapter was incomplete; the actual resolution should explain everything better, but there might be language and cultural things I don't explain in the story itself. I can also include some of my thoughts on the story if you're interested. Happy Halloween, and until next chapter~