Shinichi went over to his backpack and wanted to put his bloody shirt away, when he noticed something on the sleeves of the shirt. There were lots of...crystalline structures...?
He curiously put one of them in his mouth. 'This taste...these are definitely salt crystals...I reached into the bathtub with that sleeve...Ah!' A sudden realization flashed through his mind. 'Salt crystals on sleeves. The water in the tub. Floating tomatoes...Hehe, now I definitely know who the culprit is!'
Chapter 7 - The Deduction and the Call
Another thunderstrike roared through the night and rain started to pour down. The wind wasn't gentle anymore like it was when the four teenagers arrived at mansion earlier, now it was violent; it shook the trees, threatening to uproot them. It truly wasn't a weather where a human should be outside, but the long-haired woman dressed in red didn't care for that. The wind and the rain whipped around her, but she ignored it, as she was still observing the mansion. Two police cars were parked in front of it. Not for long though, as one of the cars drove off. Now, only the patrol car was parked by the mansion. The woman tightened her grip around her knife.
Shinichi left the room where his group stored their backpacks, with his bloody shirt curled up in his hand so it wouldn't raise any attention, leaving Ran and Sonoko there. He looked around for Sera; now that he was sure of who the culprit was, he had to solidify the evidence and he needed her help for that. Shinichi wasn't sure what Sera did when she kneeled down besides him in the bathroom when they found the corpse, but now he had a theory.
"Got it." Sera said and crouched down to the ground beside him. Before Shinichi could get a look at what she was doing, she had one hand burrowed in her pocket and stood up again.
Yui was talking to her colleagues, but Sera wasn't with her. Didn't she want to check out the other rooms with the police detective? Shinichi moved over to Yui. Her colleague just told her about the forensic report.
"So, he was knocked out with one of the dumbbells?" Yui asked.
"Yeah, the forensic guys said the shape of the wound on the back of the victims head matches with the shape of the dumbbells." The police detective replied.
"Are they finished with everything?"
"Yep, they worked through the whole house and have already removed the body. They left with their truck just a minute ago to get the body to the pathology department and to evaluate the evidence in their lab."
"Driving through a storm in this kind of landscape..." Yui looked outside a nearby window, the rain pattering against it. "I hope they'll be safe...Anyway, did Inspector Yamato report something yet?"
"No, Ma'am, we have received no word-..."
That was the point the conversation got uninteresting for Shinichi. He went around the place still looking for Sera, when he finally heard her voice.
"Thank you, Aniki..."
Shinichi gasped. Aniki. Just a normal term you use to adress your big brother. Yet, because of that jerk Vodka, Shinichi flinched when he just heard the word. Even out of Sera's mouth. 'Damn it, couldn't she use any other term to adress her brother...wait, she's talking to her brother again? Let's see what they have to discuss.' He thought.
It didn't sound like he was in luck, as it seemed that their conversation was about to end. "Yes...yes, I know...no, no, it's not like that, no...yeah, I will...yes, I'll do that, than-...yes, okay I got it. Alright, see you." Sera said, before hanging up. She sighed and started to mutter out her thoughts. "...now, how do I get the evidence...?"
That was his cue. "Perhaps I can help you with that." He stepped closer to her. Sera spun around and gasped, she hadn't heard him being there or coming closer.
"Kudo! Gosh, you startled me...do you like to sneak up on people?" She panted a bit.
He offered her a smile. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you or to listen in on what your phone call was about, but...I was looking for you, you know?"
Sera's eyes widened a bit. "You...were?" Did she just blush a little bit or was he imagining things?
"Yes. When we were in the bathroom, you crouched beside me and picked something up, right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "You took a tomato with you, didn't you?"
Sera grinned and pulled the red object out from one of the pockets of her jacket. "Yep. I have a theory about that." She playfully raised an eyebrow. "And if you guessed that I took one of these with me, I assume you have the same theory?"
"I think so. Take a look at this." He unfolded his bloody shirt from his hand. "Do you see this, on the sleeve I reached into the tub with?"
Sera took a closer look. "Are those...?"
"Salt crystals, yes."
"So many, huh?"
"Mhm. What do you say, Sera? You wanna head over to the kitchen and test our theory?"
"You betcha, Kudo!"
On their way to the kitchen, it occured to Shinichi that he and Sera had dismissed honorifics while talking to each other. He couldn't quite recall when it happened during this day, but he was sure they didn't start without them. Anyway, there were more important matters at hand right now.
"So..." Shinichi started. "...if we suppose that Masaie-san died after Ran, Sonoko and Sumika-san checked the water temperature, only Tamami-san and Jinsuke-san would've had the opportunity to kill him."
"True. But, that's not the only possibility, of course. If the corpse was already in the tub by then, the window of opportunity changes." Sera continued. "You had to reach far into the tub, as evident by the sleeve of your shirt. It was possible for Ran-chan to miss it, if she just casually dipped her hand into the water."
"Right. The body was weighed down and the water was completely green and untransparent, thanks to the bathsalts. A perfect setup to give us a wrong time window. None of the possible culprits had the chance to put the tomatoes into the bathtub after the temperature check though, so they also already had to be in there by then."
"Tomatoes with a high sugar level do not float, in contrary to regular tomatoes. If you then give enough salt into the water, they will float to the top. The culprit had to put in a large amount of bathsalts to get the water green, but just barely not enough for the tomatoes to float. Then, a very small amount of salt could've been enough to bring them to the surface."
"And if that is the case, then there is only one person who could've done it. If the tomatoes really have a high sugar level."
"Well..." Sera said, tossed the tomato up and caught it with the same hand. "...that's what were about to find out." She flashed him another smile; exposing her snaggletooth once again.
'Again, I'm sure I've met her before...that tooth...I can't quite remember...' Shinichi thought.
"Do I have something in my face?" Sera asked.
Shinichi looked up to meet her eyes. "Ahh, no, I was just thinking, sorry. Sometimes I just stare when I think."
"I see..."
The kitchen was empty, as expected. Everyone stuck to the police order of staying in your room. Well, almost everyone, but detectives of any kind are not bound by that kind of order, of course. Sera grabbed a glassy water pitcher from one of the cupboards and poured water into it, while Shinichi fetched a handful of salt.
"Alright." Sera put the pitcher down on one of the kitchen counters. "Let's put our theory to the test." She let go of the tomato; it immediately sank to the bottom of the pitcher.
"So far, so good. Abracadabra!" Shinichi exclaimed, jokingly imitating Kaitou Kid performing a magic trick, and gave his handful of salt into the water. And sure enough, the tomato slowly started to rise to the surface, prompting Shinichi to smile in a fashion that Haibara would describe as a bit mischievous. "I guess that proves it then. Right, Sera?"
Shinichi turned his eyes away from the pitcher and towards the female detective. To his surprise, she wasn't really paying attention to their experiment and just stared at him.
"Sera? Do I have something in my face now?" Shinichi asked.
"The...Wizard..." Sera whispered absentmindedly.
"Huh? What did you say?"
"Uhh, ahaha, nothing, nothing." Sera stuttered, her thoughts apparently back in the real world. She cleared her throat. "Ahm, yes, that is the proof that we needed. Then the culprit is indeed..."
"Shinichi!"
Sera and Shinichi turned around to the door. That was Ran's voice.
"Shinichi, where are you?" Ran shouted again.
"In the kitchen!" He answered her call.
A few seconds later, Ran entered the kitchen with Sonoko in tow. In her right hand, she held her older fashioned flip phone.
"I have Conan-kun on the phone right now, he wants to talk to you. I think it's something about a case or something." Ran said and extended her arm to give Shinichi the phone.
"Conan-kun?" Shinichi said, a little bit stunned.
"Conan-kun?" Sera echoed, sounding completely baffled.
Shinichi shot her a quick glance, before he took the phone out of Ran's hand. He didn't like the look in her eyes; she looked at him with a stern and questioning expression. Atleast he didn't saw any anger, but he still wasn't sure what to make of it. Shinichi put the phone to his ear.
"Hello? Conan-kun?" Shinichi said.
"Ah, Shinichi-niichan?" Conan's voice came from the phone. Shinichi had to admit, it was a bit creepy to hear that voice right now.
Shinichi inaudibly swallowed hard. "Yes, it's me."
"Hey, I wanted to ask you about a case I'm busy with, but...I don't want anybody else to know about it, you know, client protection and all the stuff Occhan always talks about. So, can you make sure nobody can hear me?"
Almost automatically, Shinichi started to pace the room, even while 'Conan' was still speaking. He liked to move around while being on the phone anyway, so it looked quite natural when he put some distance between the three girls and him. He still felt their stares in his back with every step he took. When he was sure that they couldn't hear what 'Conan' was saying anymore - although he wasn't even sure if they could hear 'Conan's' initial words - he stopped his pacing.
Shinichi casually leaned against a kitchen counter and continued. "Yeah, it's fine, don't worry." It wasn't an appropriate answer, but he had a suspicion of who he was talking to and if he was right about that, it didn't matter that the answers didn't match the questions.
"Are you sure about that?" 'Conan' asked.
"Yes, absolutely."
"Alright." He heard some rustling on the other side of the line. "It's me." Suddenly, Haibara's voice came through the telephone. Shinichi smirked, his guess was right.
"Just so you know who you're talking to. I'm putting the mask back on now." Again, he heard rustling and then Conan's voice returned. "Anyway, I just wanted to check in on you, but since you turned off your Conan phone and as I don't have the number of your Shinichi phone, I had to call your girlfriend under the guise of Conan. I'm pretty sure you don't mind."
It wasn't a question, but since he was still under scrutiny, he took the opportunity to throw in an answer. "No, no, it's fine, you know that you can ask me anything."
Haibara chuckled. "Yes, yes, give your girl sentences that will make her believe you're advising me on a case." She dropped her sarcastic tone. "So, I wanted to check whether you're still you and whether you have any physical afflictions."
"No, I don't think that is of any matter to the solution."
"So...that's a no then?"
"Yes."
Haibara mumbled something he couldn't understand; Shinichi then heard the clicking of a ballpoint pen and some scribbling noises.
"Anything to worry about, at all?"
"No, nothing of that sort."
"Hmhm, alright. Have you taken the follow-up pill already?"
"No."
"You should do that sometime soon, time's almost up."
Shinichi glanced to the time displayed on the phone. Haibara was right. "Yes, you're right about that."
"Of course I am. Alright, I heard from your girlfriend that you ran into a case over there, I take it you won't be back before tomorrow?"
"Yes, you're on the right track there."
"Can't stay out of trouble, can you? Anything else?"
"No, I think that's about everything. But it's already late and dark outside, you shouldn't..."
"But, Shinichi-niichaaaaan!" Haibara excessively whined into the phone. "It's impossible for me to fail, I'm god, don't you remember?" She dropped the act. "If that's all, then I'm hanging up now."
Shinichi had to surpress a frown at Haibara's last 'imitation' of him. "Yeah, alright, see you."
Haibara hung up without another word.
"Yeah, bye." Shinichi said into the already dead line.
"Ah, wait, I wanted to talk to him as well..." Sera said and moved towards him, but Shinichi apologetically shrugged.
"He already hung up, sorry."
Sera eyes him suspiciously. It seemed like 'Conan' calling surprised her.
"So, Ran-chan, why did Conan-kun call you?" The tomboyish girl asked, without taking her eyes off Shinichi. Remembering their conversation in the forest, Shinichi didn't have a good feeling about this.
"Oh, he just wanted to check up on me." Ran answered. "Professor Agasa told him that we were at the Professor's house, but missed him, so he wanted to make sure that everything was okay."
'Atleast Haibara did find a good reason why Conan called Ran.' Shinichi thought.
Sera nodded, still looking at Shinichi. "I see. And what was that case he asked you about, Kudo?"
Shinichi crossed the distance he created between him and the three girls, and gave Ran her phone back. "Oh, that. Nothing really. After he was done working on school stuff with his friend, the Professor gave him a very difficult, Holmes related riddle. He didn't know any further, so he needed advice from the only person he knows that has more knowledge on that subject than himself."
Sonoko snorted. "That brat, I wouldn't have thought that there was anything Holmes related he wouldn't know."
Shinichi chuckled; more at the hidden compliment for his alter ego, than out of amusement over Conan's limitations on Holmes knowledge, but the girls wouldn't be able to tell the difference. "Well, it figures. He's on a good way as a Sherlockian, but he's still so young; there's no way he could've already read everything."
"But, it really is late already." Ran said, less worrying than Shinichi would've expected. "He shouldn't work on that riddle anymore, even if there's no school tomorrow."
"Yeah, that's what I tried to tell him too." Shinichi replied. "But he was very quick in assuring me that he would go to bed soon. Although he was probably just worried you would get upset at him staying up for something like that."
"Well, that's Conan-kun for you..." Ran nodded. She still looked at Shinichi, not as suspiciously as Sera was at the moment, but still somewhat...curious? Uncertain?
Sera spoke up again. "Another thing-..." She started, but her phone beeped at the arrival of a new text message. "Ah, sorry, let me just check that real quick..." Sera turned and moved a bit away from the other teenagers; intensly staring at her phone.
'Probably her brother again...' Shinichi breathed a sigh of relief; all that talking about Conan like it wasn't him was really exhausting. He had to find a way to divert Sera's attention to another subject. But first, he wanted to speak to Ran; as Shinichi, he always knew when something was the matter to her - atleast in non-romantic regards -, so he decided to just directly ask her.
Shinichi put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Ran, is something bothering you?" He whispered. No need for Sonoko to also hear that.
"Huh?"
"You keep looking at me as if something was wrong..."
"Ah, no...it's nothing..." She muttered.
"Raaan..." He stretched out her name. "I always see when something is upsetting you, you should know tha-..."
Suddenly, all the lights went out; the kitchen was almost completely dark, only the display of Sera's phone gave some light.
"W-what's happening...?" Sonoko asked with a shaky voice.
"A blackout...?" Sera said.
Shinichi took out his phone as well for some more light. "Ran, Sonoko, take out your phones too."
As far as he could see, the two girls nodded. Ran still had her phone in hand, so she just needed to flip it open again for the display to shine. It took Sonoko a moment to fish out her smartphone from her pocket, but soon enough she also had a light source at hand.
"Alright, we should see if we find some candles or something." Shinichi said.
"Shouldn't we also check the fuses?" Sonoko asked.
"No, let's search for candles first." Sera replied.
"Do we even know where the fusebox is in this house?" Ran added.
"Oh...I guess we don't..." Sonoko said sheepishly and started to look around the kitchen for candles as well.
Unbeknownst to the teenagers, the adults or the police force inside the building, the long-haired still watched the mansion from not so far away. The storm wasn't merciful and she was soaked; her clothes were supposed to be rainproof, but at these floods that came down from sky, every piece of textile would've surrendered. As the lights inside the mansion went out, a smile crept onto the woman's face. Still firmly grasping her knife, she thought about what her next move should be.
A/N: Looks like our two detectives have figured the case out, now it's almost time to reveal the truth. As always, remember to leave a review to tell me what you think and to give me feedback, it matters a lot. See you soon with the next chapter!
~17.06.2015