Meitantei

Chapter 8: Suspicious Parties

Apparently everyone thought Shinichi would be next on Kaitou Kid's psychotic fan's hit list, much to his annoyance.

"Ran, I'm fine," Shinichi reassured her over the phone.

"Shinichi, don't give me that! Sometimes you can be so oblivious! What if the person catches you while you're in the middle of thinking about a case? When you're like that, it's like nothing can get through to you."

Shinichi made a half-hearted attempt to deny that he was not oblivious when thinking about a case, yet the memory of how he hadn't even heard what Reiko-san had asked him about the tea earlier that day sprang to mind. As if reading his thoughts, Ran added salt into the wound.

"Don't pretend like it hasn't happened before. When you get distracted, bad things happen. Like Tropical Land?"

It was a low blow to remind him of the inattentiveness that had caused his near death and subsequent ticket back to elementary school.

"Oi," Shinichi grumbled, annoyed.

"I'm worried about you!" Ran pleaded with a note of hysteria in her voice.

"Ran," Shinichi murmured, surprised. Shinichi knew that Ran bringing up his faults was for his own good. True friends pointed out what was wrong with you so you could fix it. Therefore, despite the sting to his ego, he knew she must be extremely worried about him. It was Ran after all. Ran always worried.

Since the real thief's disappearance, the assistant had been nearly caught quite a few times. It made sense that people would think it was only a matter of time before Kid was caught. Logically, if there was a Kaitou Kid fanatic worried about someone catching the thief, then what Shinichi needed to do was put the real Kid back on the hunt. That was rather disturbing. The thought that he would need to get Kid out of jail so he could steal some more was almost paradoxical. But realistically, it would help for a number of reasons.

It reminded him of the Holmes' case, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange and Holmes' reflection.

Shinichi took the slightest inhale, a Sherlock Holmes' quote balanced between his lips, before he thought better of it. He'd been spending too much time around his Detective Club who had some rather die-hard Sherlock Holmes fans. Unlike his university friends, Ran wouldn't find a Holmes' quote quite so reassuring, especially since his mind had derailed onto a different topic than what she was thinking about.

He took a deep breath, removing the quote from his lips, and tried a different approach.

"Really, I'm fine, and I will be fine. If you must know, I'm spending the evening with some of the police detectives…We're going out to karaoke."

"They invited you to karaoke?" Ran asked.

"Oi."

"I just mean they must be worried about you too!" Ran hastily amended, though Shinichi knew that was only half of what she meant. He mumbled something along the lines of, "They've invited me plenty of times before."

Still, Shinichi had not needed the helpful reminder of his less than stellar vocal capabilities to remind him they only invited him since he was their friend and to make sure nothing happened to him. Ran gave a weary sigh.

"I guess it can't be helped. I'll have to meet up with you so I can be your bodyguard. It's no big deal if I miss a night out with my parents," Ran sighed.

"Who says I need a bodyguard?" Shinichi grumped, his pride feeling wounded even as his heart gave a happy little flip thinking that Ran was worried about him to the point that she was volunteering to protect him and skip meeting up with her parents.

"I say."

And really, when a karate champion says something in that tone, there are two choices: listen to her or feel pain. Shinichi, despite what his friends thought, had a very strong sense of self-preservation and chose to listen. Masochism was not his thing.

"Fine, fine. I have a few things I want to look over in regards to this case and then we can meet up."

"Shinichi...don't you have an evening class today?"

Letting out a groan, he checked his phone for the date and realized that yes, he did have one evening class due to start in less than an hour. When he stopped to think about it, he realized that he had had classes yesterday that he had blown off and a morning class earlier that day he had completely forgotten about. His professors were rather used to him not showing up on occasion, but for this evening class he had a professor who was very adamant that all of her students attend her lectures. If the students missed classes without an official excuse, their grade would drop. He already knew she wasn't too fond of him, even though he had made sure to give her documented excuse notes if he was absent. Then again, she really didn't care for his excuse notes. Apparently she'd never had a student who had written excuses for missing classes from police officials.

Shinichi knew that Megure-keibu would always vouch for him if necessary, but he wasn't really working on a case for the police right now.

"Hai, hai. After class then." His evening class would take him almost until the start karaoke, meaning he'd have little time to continue investigating Kuroba-kun's case for the day. It left him feeling unsettled that he wasn't able to solve the case as fast as he could, but at the same time, he knew what it meant to keep up appearances.

Shinichi knew that it was very likely that he was on the hit list of the Kid fan, so going to his class would actually be something that would allow him to assess the people in his daily life to see if anyone was watching him. Shinichi had an uncanny ability to feel when hostiles fixated on him. Besides, he knew his biggest leads in Kuroba-kun's case would be talking to Ueda-san and Nakahara-san who were currently unavailable.

Then again, with all the mayhem Kid had caused, perhaps a little extra time in jail served him right...maybe.

All sorts of questions had run through Kaito's mind when he'd heard that Hakuba was in the hospital. It could have been an accidental injury. He could be visiting someone in the hospital. The detective could have had a chronic illness that had reared its ugly head, and he needed a check-up.

Perhaps the detective had suddenly developed an inner ear problem and was in the hospital being treated for severe vertigo. Hey, it could happen! Those things could pop out of nowhere.

Really, Kaito's mind could speculate and make up theories with the best of them. Yet Kaito had not expected to hear about what had happened to Hakuba on the evening news.

"Hakuba Saguru-sama, the renowned detective, was brutally attacked and is currently in critical condition. The near fatal beating from an unknown suspect has left him in the hospital, fighting for his life. The only witnesses of the attack were unable to get a clear look at the culprit, but the suspect is believed to be a male in his early to mid twenties and a fanatic Kaitou Kid supporter. A notice was sent to police headquarters threatening all detectives involved with Kaitou Kid's heists-"

Kaito's heart plummeted at the news. Not only had one of his fans attacked a person, the culprit had attacked someone he knew personally – someone who he would (sometimes) consider a friend. No matter if he thought Hakuba could be a douche bag, Kaito respected him enough as a rival/frenemy – heck, just as another human being – that he would never want to see someone do something like that.

Yet what made Kaito's gut squirm was that there were two other detectives well known for trying to foil his plans. The notice, after all, had said "all detectives involved with Kaitou Kid heists." As if the newscaster had read his mind, the reporter added:

"An attempt was made on police detective Nakamori Ginzou-keibu's life. He is well known for leading the task force against Kaitou Kid, but the attempt was thankfully thwarted. The police detective has vowed to hunt down the culprit."

Speculation ran rampant about who the assailant could be. The news reporter announced that a notice from Kid had urged the culprit to cease his activities. Kaito hoped that Jii's message on his behalf would end things. However, the announcer went on to say that Kid's plea to the culprit had been made that morning, but there had been a second attempt on Nakamori-keibu just that afternoon. No other useful information was given after that. Kaito was glad that Nakamori-keibu was okay and hoped the most recent attempt had been set into motion before the culprit had heard the plea, though somehow, Kaito doubted it. It unnerved him that the news had not explained what the attempts were or more specific details of when they happened.

Kaito worried about Aoko. He desperately hoped that she hadn't been involved, being the keibu's daughter and all. Still, the news hadn't mentioned her, which he hoped was good. However, the most disturbing thing to Kaito was that there was another detective well known for thwarting him in addition to Nakamori-keibu and Hakuba; one who the assailant was sure to think was trying to put him in bars yet was actually doing the exact opposite: Meitantei.

Kaito knew Kudou Shinichi. Meitantei would be doing everything in his power to prove that Kaito had not killed anyone and bring justice to Motoyama-san. Kaito just hoped that the detective would make sure to look out for himself.

Shinichi grumbled none-too-quietly as he left his evening class. Apparently some of his classmates had made bets speculating if he would even show up for class. Several of the other students had assumed that he had been attacked by the Kaitou Kid fanatic or that he was out investigating what happened since he had missed classes the day before and that morning. Others had speculated that he was involved in chasing the culprit down. It wasn't like he was involved in every single police investigation or everything related to Kaitou Kid. Almost, but not all of it! In fact, he hadn't yet followed up on the attack on Hakuba-san. The news articles he had read on his phone had been very vague. He had read that Nakamori-keibu had had two "attempts" on his life, but the details were being kept tightly under wraps.

Perhaps the police wanted to keep the details under wraps in order to prevent copy cats?

Wondering why everyone was worried about him getting attacked, he made a mental note to ask his police friends during karaoke just what happened to Hakuba-san. He wondered why everyone was so freaked out about everything. Perhaps the more detailed information had been on a different news report than the ones he'd managed to view on his phone.

A few other texts flooded in asking if he was okay. Two were from members of the detective club at his university asking him if he wanted to join them for an impromptu outing that night. He declined, explaining he already had plans to do karaoke. His stomach clenched thinking about doing karaoke when Hakuba-san was in the hospital, but he supposed the best way to help the other detective was to find out all the details. When he'd phoned Megure-keibu earlier, the inspector had been unusually unhelpful. The detectives he would be going out to karaoke would be, hopefully, more forthcoming with details.

Shinichi had also made a call to the hospital asking about the other detective, but they said that he was unable to receive visitors at this time. Shinichi wanted to talk to him to see how he was doing and to discuss what he'd found in regards to Kuroba-kun's case.

Realizing that if Hakuba-san was anything like him, he'd want something to stimulate his mind even before he was able to do much else, Shinichi typed out a text asking after his health along with an inquiry into Kuroba-kun's case. Even if he was unconscious now, he would surely respond once he was able.

Just as he sent the text, he looked up only to see Hanako-san, the waitress who'd been through a bad break-up from the Royal Café, walking fast paced in front of him. A pained expression crossed her face. Curiosity getting the better of him, he followed her. Ran had said that the waitress took classes at Ran's university, meaning Hanako-san did not go to his campus. With the pinched look on her face, Shinichi was fairly certain that Hanako-san was attempting to catch her ex-boyfriend outside one of his classes. Shinichi didn't have to wait long to see if he was right.

"Akihiko-kun!" Hanako-san called out. Shinichi could tell immediately that "Akihiko-kun" was the ex-boyfriend who had dumped Hanako-san. Shinichi also realized that something odd was going on. The ex-boyfriend seemed almost glad to see Hanako-san before masking his expression into one of distaste. Akihiko-san's initial reaction to seeing his ex had been one of genuine pleasure. You don't look like that at someone who you have broken up with unless you didn't really want to break up in the first place.

Shinichi didn't have to get too close to see Akihiko-san very coldly brushing off Hanako-san. It didn't take a genius to see that how harshly he spoke hurt Akihiko-san as much as it hurt Hanako-san. Taking note of the ex-boyfriend's overall appearance, Shinichi could easily see that he was clearly not eating or sleeping well.

Trusting his gut upon seeing the former couple's strange interaction, Shinichi sent off a quick text to an acquaintance, asking for some inside information. Hopefully things would not turn out the way his current deduction lead. There wasn't much else he could do for them until he got a response to his message. It was maddening. Everything right now was a waiting game. Waiting for Hakuba-san to wake up. Waiting for Ueda-san and Nakahara-san to become available. Waiting for the Kid attacker to show up. Pushing the thoughts from his mind, Shinichi hurried off to meet Ran for karaoke.

"You really didn't have to come with me," Shinichi reiterated loudly as he and Ran walked into the karaoke bar where the police officers had asked him to meet them. The location the officers had chosen was very crowded. He'd wished that they'd chosen a quieter location. There were so many people in the area that Shinichi had constantly felt people's eyes on him. From the cursory glances from passersby to a few who did double takes, he could feel people's eyes on him. Nothing felt hostile, but he could read in the faces of some who'd looked at him that they recognized him and were aware of the media hype of the Kid fanatic and the attacks against the detectives who went up against Kid.

As Ran and Shinichi came into the entrance, loud music and poor singing assaulted their ears. Karaoke Kingdem (a misspelling of what should have been the English word "Kingdom") had a public karaoke area where anyone who paid for single songs could wait to sing for the crowd. Different colored lights – purple, blue, deep pink, green, and red – rotated from various areas in the club, casting everything in cascading hues of the aforementioned colors.

Ran and Shinichi made their way to the receptionist desk, informing the attendant that they were meeting a private party. The attendant shouted the room number as to where they could meet up with the others. Shinichi was momentarily distracted by the strange tattoo underneath the woman's eye along with the number of piercings that she had. For a moment, Shinichi's mind blanked, looking at the tattoo around the woman's eye. It was a picture of a spider on a web, and it forcibly reminded him of the tattoo that Chianti had.

Old fears rushed him as he remembered his struggles with the black organization.

"Oi, Kenta! You gonna get up here or what? I gotta leave for my night class in five minutes!" Her high-pitched voice brought Shinichi out from his revive.

"You okay?" Ran asked, looking at him worriedly. She gripped his arm, searching his eyes. Forcing himself to get a grip, he smiled at her.

"Yeah, sorry. Just thinking."

"You're always thinking," Ran pointed out with a smile, but she didn't look like she believed him.

"Yes. Which means I am looking out for people who are dangerous. I'll be fine."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Ran demanded, her voice taking on a precarious tone.

"What? No! It's not like that!" Shinichi said, putting his hands up in defense. Honestly, he didn't need Ran's protection if it meant getting beaten up for it. "I just don't want you to miss the dinner with your parents."

"For your information, Yumi-san invited me," Ran added, raising her nose at his attitude. Despite the haughty look, the way the blue then purple lights lit up Ran's face, Shinichi couldn't help but get distracted at how regal and beautiful Ran looked. Her eyebrows lifted when he didn't respond right away, and Shinichi came out of his daze, trying to remember what he needed to make a rebuttal to.

"You're hoping that they'll still go to dinner without you. In fact, without your presence, you're hoping they'll talk more. Coming to "look out for me" is just an excuse so that way they're not angry at you for not showing. In other words, you're using me as part of your ploy to get them back together," Shinichi deduced, smirking. Ran blushed.

"Well -"

Ran's retaliation was cut off mid-sentence.

"Kudou!"

Shinichi turned his head, only to have a flash of multihued lights hit his eyes. He blinked, trying to rid himself of the sudden appearance of green spots as he looked into the crowd of people waiting to sing at the communal karaoke in the lobby. As his vision cleared, he was somewhat surprised to see one of the Touto University Detective Club members appearing from the crowd of people waiting for their turn to sing. He called out to Shinichi again, ducking underneath the monitor where the lyrics of the song played. The guy calling out to him was the senior, Naoki. Following not far behind him was the sophomore Daisuke. The two grinned at him widely.

"Minami-chan deduced that you'd be here at this karaoke spot," Daisuke beamed at him, as though Shinichi had somehow done something spectacular for showing up where their fellow Detective Club member, Minami-san, had thought he'd be.

"Minori-chan was the one who picked which karaoke place, though," Naoki added. Behind them, Yamaguchi Minami and Tama Minori, the two freshmen girls from their university detective club who were obviously quite competent when it came to making deductions, smiled at him shyly as they emerged from the crowd. Behind them, standing near the edge of most of the others in the lobby was Masaru, a sophomore who didn't particularly like Shinichi. Masaru scowled at him, and Shinichi wondered why Masaru had bothered coming if the other members' intent had been to track him down.

Behind him, scowling alternatively at Masaru, then at the two girls in the group, while then turning a challenging glare at Ran, was Itsuko-san, the senior girl who had a rather obvious crush on Shinichi. While Ran had met most of the Detective Club members before, she had yet to meet Itsuko-san.

"Hello, Mouri-chan," Minami-san greeted, stepping in between Itsuko-san and Ran. Minori-san followed her lead and greeted Ran happily, while Itsuko-san huffed in the background. Hopefully the dim lighting and the florid changing of colored lights hid Itsuko-san's glare from Ran. The last thing Shinichi wanted to see was a confrontation between the two. While he didn't expect Ran to act violently unless provoked, Shinichi was quite sure Itsuko-san would purposefully say something to provoke Ran.

The club members tended not to meet at the same time for non-detective related outings. Itsuko-san only met up when Shinichi was sure to be there, but refused to go if Shinichi mentioned he'd be bringing Ran. Thus, Itsuko-san knew what Ran looked like, but Ran didn't know what Itsuko-san looked like. Ran did, however, know that Itsuko-san supposedly had "a thing" for Shinichi, as Daisuke had been quick to inform Ran of Itsuko-san's crush. In fact, it was Ran who had told Shinichi that the senior girl had a crush on him. Ran had never seemed upset about the other girl's interest in him. Not that Shinichi wanted Ran to be jealous, but it would have been nice if she had at least made it clear that Shinichi was off limits. Itsuko-san was quite aware who Shinichi preferred. Her jealousy over Shinichi's interest in Ran was more than obvious.

Since Shinichi had mentioned he was meeting up with the police detectives, Itsuko-san must have assumed Ran wouldn't be there.

Masaru tended to only show up to outings when it was likely that Shinichi wasn't going to be there. Masaru would have had to know the group was looking after Shinichi. The Detective of the East wondered why Masaru had come…why any of them had bothered to come. He felt both annoyed and touched that his classmates were also worried about a possible threatening figure after him.

"It's so good to see you, Ran-san!" Minori-san pressed. "Let me guess, you had a feeling you should keep Kudou-kun out of trouble?" But instead of looking to Ran for a response, she turned to Minami-san.

"That was my thought," Minami-san agreed. "'I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner.'"

Ran looked at Shinichi, confused at the exchange.

"Minami-san is quoting from a Holmes' story, The Man With the Twisted Lip."

"Kudou-kun," Satou-keiji greeted, popping her head out of the room that Shinichi and Ran had been heading toward. "You didn't say you would be bringing your classmates."

"They're following me," Shinichi half-joked. Satou-keiji smiled having met the members of his Detective Club before on various cases.

"Why don't you all join us? The more the merrier!" She ushered all of them into the karaoke room. Shinichi, Ran, and his classmates followed. The room was plenty big enough for the entire crew, and a half thought went through Shinichi's mind as to how many people Satou-keiji had invited. The next thought was whether or not Ran or Satou-keiji had actually invited his classmates – more people to look after him.

Shinichi didn't dwell on it too deeply as he was rather distracted as he helped Ran out of her jacket. She wore a bright red shirt with a neckline that plunged more deeply than anything he recalled seeing her in. Feeling a little flustered, it took Shinichi a moment to realize he was still holding her jacket rather dumbly before he added it to the coat rack. Right after he, Ran, and the Detective Club members sat down, Yumi-san and Naeko-san, two of Shinichi's friends from the traffic department, joined them.

"Just got done work! What a night," Yumi-san grumped, sitting down heavily next to Ran.

"I'm ready for some karaoke!" Naeko-san added, smiling brightly. Shinichi frowned, looking at the two traffic officers. Even if they had just finished work, the two of them were dressed for a night out.

In addition to Satou-keiji, his classmates, Ran, the two mini-patrol officers and himself, Takagi-keiji and Chiba-keiji were also there. Shinichi wasn't so sure about the mix of people, but since Satou-keiji had invited them in, he decided to see how things went. The only thing that would have made it more awkward is if Shiratori-keiji was there and had brought along Kobayashi-sensei. It was always a bit disorienting to see his former (second-time-through) first grade teacher.

Two and a half hours, twenty-nine decently performed songs, three less than stellar ballads, and two extremely ear-bleeding songs later (the two Shinichi had sung), Shinichi was surprised at how well the evening was going.

Besides Itsuko-san who had stalked out after Yumi-san had (drunkenly) yelled at her for latching onto Ran's property (aka Shinichi), everyone else seemed to be having a good time. Masaru seemed to be extremely happy to engage Chiba-keiji, and by association, Naeko-san into conversation about the original Kamen Yaiba live action series. Somewhere along the way, Satou-keiji had managed to weasel out of Masaru why he seemed to dislike Shinichi so much. Having learned that Masaru had a crush on Itsumo (who was obviously smitten with Shinichi) the other detectives had reassured him that Shinichi was not interested in her. In between talking about the special effects used for the live action series, Chiba-keiji was trying to encourage Masaru to take an interest in Yumi-san; apparently Masaru had a thing for older women. Naeko-san promptly tried to dissuade Masaru from this notion as she said Yumi-san already had someone.

The topic eventually turned to where they were meeting up for lunch the next day with Chiba trying to convince Masaru to join them, but Masaru politely decline.

Ran, Satou-keiji, Yumi-san, Minami-san and Minori-san were taking turns singing the most recent song choice, passing the two microphones back and forth between the five of them, while Naoki and Daisuke sat rifling through the song selection racing to find the next song to sing.

Noting that most everyone else was distracted, Shinichi moved over toward Takagi-keiji.

"What happened to Hakuba-san?" Shinichi asked Takagi-keiji. Satou-keiji and Ran were in the middle of singing, leaving Takagi-keiji and Shinichi alone to talk for the first time all night. Takagi-keiji laughed a bit awkwardly, trying to brush his question off. Shinichi sighed. "I can tell that Satou-keiji asked you not to tell me, but she can't hear us right now."

"So that's why you waited to ask until she was occupied with Ran since you didn't want Ran to hear it either," Takagi-keiji deduced wisely. Shinichi nodded.

"The little bits and pieces I've managed to pull from the newspaper articles are vague at best. He was attacked, but I didn't hear how badly. However, when I called the hospital, they said he wasn't seeing visitors," Shinichi explained.

"It was a near fatal bludgeoning." That information surprised Shinichi. He hadn't realized it had been so violent, let alone nearly fatal. "Hakuba-kun still hasn't regained consciousness since his surgeries. He was found in a park, but it was clear his body was moved from a different location than the initial attack."

Shinichi frowned, trying not to think of how Takagi-keiji had said "his body" in reference to Hakbua-san. The description sounded more like dealing with finding a corpse. It must have been really bad.

"Did it seem like the culprit wanted Hakuba-san to be found?"

"It's hard to tell. An older woman and her granddaughter happened to be walking around through a seldom used path when they heard a thud. When the woman went to investigate, she saw a medium-sized man in a trench coat near Hakuba-kun. Hakuba-kun already had a very large head wound that was bleeding profusely. The woman screamed when she saw them. The man left Hakuba-kun and got on his bike and rode off. Apparently the man had a shovel that he took with him."

"He was planning on burying Hakuba-san alive?" Shinichi asked, disgusted.

"We're not sure if the man knew Hakuba-kun was even alive."

"Why do you think it was a Kaitou Kid fanatic?" Shinichi asked.

"There was a note sent to Nakamori-keibu at work the afternoon Hakuba-kun was attacked that said, 'To all the stupid and incompetent detectives after Kaitou Kid – you are not worthy to capture him!' Nakamori-keibu obviously took the notice personally and thought it meant him and his team. Thankfully before going home from work, Nakamori-keibu happened to check his car for signs of meddling and found that the brakes on his car were cut."

Shinichi frowned, thinking of the information that Takagi-keiji had told him. There was something off about all the details that he'd just learned.

"Did-"

A scream cut through even the loud karaoke music, cutting off Shinichi's unasked question. Running out of the karaoke box, all the people from Shinichi's room dashed to the lobby. The music blared in the background, but no one was looking at the scrolling karaoke lyrics.

A woman knelt on the ground, holding tightly to the limp form of a man. Shinichi's eyes drank up the discoloration of the skin, the dilation of the eyes, and the man's strange position.

"Nobody move!" Satou-keiji ordered, looking over, as Shinichi was, the tell-tale signs of poisoning the man had suffered. "This man has just been murdered."

Continued in Chapter 9: Mithridatism…

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks for reading.

~ Jelp