Sera and Shinichi, who were now standing behind Yui, looked at each with a questioning look. They both smirked and nodded, before stepping closer to Yui.

"Well, we can't do anything about the infrastructural problems..." Sera started, making Yui turn around to them.
"...but about the murder case..." Shinichi continued. "We can solve that and present you with the culprit!"

Chapter 9 - The Culprit Revealed; And Shinichi too?!

Yui, Sera and Shinichi entered the dining room. The room was dimly lit by one candle stand on the table and occasionally was brightened by a lightning flash. Around the big dining table, Tamami, Jinsuke, Sumika, Ran and Sonoko were nervously waiting, sitting in the chairs. Yui's two ununiformed colleagues, of which Shinichi still didn't learn the names so far, leaned against the wall in one corner of the room, watching over the potential suspects; their stance told Shinichi that they were just as nervous as the ones sitting around the table.

Entering the room, the three of them drew all of the attention. "Did you figure anything out?" Tamami asked.

"Erm, no, nothing, but..." Yui started, but she was swiftly interrupted.

"So you still don't know who killed Masaie?" Jinsuke hissed.

"N-no, but..." Yui wanted to answer.

"So it really was the ghost of the Woman in Red..." Sumika said in panic, burying her face in her hands.

"Please, if you would just let me..." Yui tried, but she didn't get a chance to finish her sentence.

"But you don't have a better answer now, do you?!" Tamami exclaimed, with a little bit of irratation in her voice.

On one hand, Shinichi liked that Yui tried to be polite, but on the other hand, he knew she wasn't going to get them to shut up anytime soon this way. "We didn't anything in the room right now..." He gave his voice a tone of authority and sharpness, that made everyone stay quiet, even Yui. "...but that doesn't mean we're clueless. You may rest assured that we have figured out who the murderer is."

Short gasps and silence where the sounds that followed Shinichi's statement. Yui looked over to Sera. "Alright, so let me see if I understood the two of you correctly: you say, one of Masaie's three friends is the culprit, right?"

Sera nodded. "Correct."

Yui pulled out her little notebook. "But when Sumika-san, Ran-chan and Sonoko-chan checked the temperature in the bathroom, they didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. When they were done with the cleaning and wanted to take a bath, the tub was suddenly full of tomatoes. On the bottom of the tub, you found the body of the already deceased Masaie-san. So, the crime must've happened while the three of them were still busy with the cleaning. That leaves us with only two possible suspects." Yui looked over to where Jinsuke and Tamami where sitting. "Tamami-san, who was busy preparing dinner and Jinsuke-san, who was supposedly one kilometer away in a grocery store." Yui looked back to Shinichi and Sera. "Didn't you say earlier, that neither of them had done it?"

Sera nodded again. "I did say that. And I still stand by that, because Ran-chan, Sonoko-chan and Sumika-san were cleaning the ground floor during our presumed window of opportunity, and the bathroom, our crime scene, is on the very same floor. I don't think either Tamami-san or Jinsuke-san could've committed a murder on the same floor, without being noticed. Especially since with all the stuff that we found inside the bathtub - the body, the tomatoes and the dumbbells - the culprit most likely had leave and enter the bathroom multiple times; there is no way the three of them wouldn't have noticed that during their cleaning activities."

"So, all three of Masaie's friends couldn't have committed the crime then." Yui concluded.

"Not quite." Shinichi shook his head. "If we assume, that Masaie-san's body was already inside the bathtub when Ran checked the temperature, then the person who cleaned the upper floor on her own, could very well be the culprit. And that person is you,..." Shinichi sharply turned his head to the person he meant. "...Sumika Kawana-san!"

Sumika paled; her eyes widened and she considerably slumped in her chair. Tamami and Jinsuke gasped sharply; they couldn't believe Shinichi's accusation. "S-Sumika? Did you kill Masaie?" Tamami asked her friend, shaken by imagining Sumika to be the culprit.

Jinsuke directed his emotions elsewhere; not to his friend, but to Shinichi. "WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING? THAT'S NONSENSE, EVERY WORD YOU SAID!" His emotion was also less that of shock, but rather that of anger.

Even Sonoko was having her doubts. "We really heard Sumika-san clean the upper floor the whole time! The vacuum was very loud! And we heard it moving too, as she occasionally bumped against the walls."

"The sounds are easily explained." Shinichi answered and gave Sera a little nod. She did the same in reply and went off to the kitchen, to fetch what they needed to demonstrate the trick. "She simply attached Jinsuke-san's baseball bat to one of the supporting columns and glued a piece of cardboard to the front of it, like a wing. After that, she placed the fan we found in the room, behind the column in rotation mode; thus, everytime the fan passed the baseball bat, it would fly off away from the column and then fall back when the fan rotated away again. The sound of the bat falling back and hitting the column, is the sound you heard and thought it was the running vacuum hitting the walls. This is evidenced by the sticky spots, that forensics found on the bat earlier, but couldn't quite tell why they were there. These were the spots, where the piece of cardboard was glued to the bat, most likely with duct tape or something comparable."

Yui nodded. "I see." She turned to the forensics guy. "Well?"
The man shook his head. "No scratches or anything and no luminol reaction. This isn't the thing that the victim was knocked out with. But it is a bit sticky, seems like something was glued to this recently."
"Huh. Educated guess what it was?" Yui asked, but the forensics guy just shrugged. Yui sighed yet again.

"I wonder..." Sera said. "...why is there a fan in the corner, if this mansion has air conditioning?" She was right, there was indeed a fan in the room.

Shinichi continued by turning to his girlfriend. "Ran, when the three of you checked the temperature, was the water already as green and as untransparent as it was later, when we found the body?"

Ran nodded. "Yeah, it was the same both times. I wasn't able to make out the bottom of the tub when we checked the temperature, although to be fair, I didn't pay too close attention to that."

"You saw how deep I had to reach into the bathtub to pull the body out, right? When you checked the temperature, did you reach similarily far into it?"

Ran shook her head. "No, I just put my hand into the water, that was enough to get a feeling for whether the water was too hot."

"So, it was possible that the body was already in the tub and you missed it."

Ran nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, it is...now that I think about, with the water and the steam and everything, it almost feels like it made so I would miss it..."

Shinichi smiled. Ran was following his train of thought quite well, saving him the breath of spelling out that conclusion too, which would have been necessary he figured, looking at the faces of the police forces in the room.

Sonoko wasn't quite convinced however. "A-alright, even if that would be the case, what about the tomatoes. There were non in the bathtub when we checked and afterwards, Sumika-san wouldn't have had the chance to put them in there."

That was Sera's cue. She re-entered the dining room, carrying a water pitcher with her. "These two things don't contradict each other. But the issue with the tomatoes is the same as the issue with the body: just because you didn't see them, doesn't mean they weren't there."

"Huh?" Sonoko asked in confusion.

"You mean...the tomatoes were already in the tub when we checked, just like the body?" Ran asked, catching on to what Sera meant.

The female detective nodded. "Yes, exactly." Sera put the glassy water pitcher onto the table. She fumbled in her pockets, pulling out the tomato from earlier. Sera raised the red object higher for everyone to see. "This is one of the tomatoes from the crime scene, that I secretly took with me..." She earned a disapproving look from Yui for that, making her expression waver for a second, but then she continued like usual. "If you put this one into the water..." Sera said, doing exactly that. Like when Shinichi and Sera tried it in the kitchen, the tomato sank to the bottom of the pitcher.

"Ah, I see." Ran exclaimed. "These tomatoes must have a high sugar level, which makes them sink, in contrary to regular tomatoes which float...why are you looking at me like that, Sonoko?"

"Nothing, nothing." Her best friend, who had shot her a glance, replied. "You just sound like your husband right now..."

Ran waggled with her index finger, correcting her friend. "Boyfriend, Sonoko, not husband. We're not married yet." Sonoko's eyes grew wide, no doubt a wonderful tease already formed in her mind, but Ran quickly continued before her friend had the chance to speak up. "And besides, I know that, because it's a trick traders often demonstrate at vegetable markets. You'd seen something like that too, if you'd bought your food yourself." Ran emphasized her point with a sly grin. It probably sound pretty mean to outsiders, but Ran's little shots at Sonoko's pamperedness were just one of many insiders between them.

"Hmpf, it's not my fault..." Sonoko huffed. "Anyway, now tell me, how exactly did Sumika-san make the tomatoes float up then, Meitantei-chan?"

Since Ran didn't have an answer for that, Shinichi quickly filled in for her. "With salt!" He pulled out a salt shaker, that they had already used during their test. He moved towards the pitcher on the table, while explaining. "Before she joined you in cleaning this floor, she dissolved salt in the bathtub. Enough to make the water turn green, but not enough to make the tomatoes float to the surface yet. Then, she just had to give a little bit more into the water..."

Shinichi carefully shook the salt shaker over the pitcher, dropping as few salt crystals into the water as possible. Quickly, the desired effect started to show; the tomato floated to the surface.

"Ah!" Sonoko, Jinsuke, Yui and the others exclaimed. "It floats!"

Sera nodded. "Sumika-san used bathsalts for her trick of course, since it wouldn't raise any eyebrows that way. She was just pretending to clean the upper floor. In reality, she sneaked up on Masaie-san, while he was cleaning the bathroom; she knocked him out with a dumbbell hit from behind and drowned him in the bathtub afterwards. Then, she weighed down the body with said dumbbells and put all of the tomatoes into the tub. She turned the water green with the bathsalts, so it would impossible to see either the body or the tomatoes. Afterwards, Sumika-san asked Ran-chan and Sonoko-chan to help her with the cleaning. She made the three of you go past the bathroom, so you could testify, that there were no tomatoes there at the time. When you were finished with cleaning, Sumika-san went into the bathroom first and gave just a little bit more of the bathsalts into the tub, making the tomatoes float."

"And this is not just a nice theory of ours." Shinichi continued, holding up his bloody shirt. "This is the shirt I wore, when I pulled Masaie-san out of the bathtub. Notice the crystalline structures, that have formed on the sleeve I reached into the water with? She has the same on her sleeves. When we first met you today, your sleeves were rolled down, but now you've rolled them up. I wonder why?" Shinichi went over to Sumika. "Do I have to forcefully roll them down for you?"

Sumika audibly swallowed; her face had degenerated into a grimace, expressing desperation and, ultimately, resignation. She knew it was over. "That won't be necessary." She slightly shook her head and began to unroll her sleeves, exposing the salt crystals on them. Everyone took a closer look; now, nobody in the room had doubts anymore.

"I had an eye on you, even before you rolled up your sleeves or the murder happened." Sera said.

Sumika looked over to her. "R-really?"

Sera nodded. "Yeah. All of your friends mistakenly thought I was a guy, a common mistake that happens quite often to me. However, you didn't ask any questions when we met you; no 'Who of you is Sera's sister'; no comment on how we were two guys and two girls, nothing; no, you simply went straight over to me and handed me the photos of the strange incidents. Therefore, you already knew I was a female high school detective."

"My guess is, you were the Woman in Red, that Sonoko and Ran saw, when we first made our way to the mansion." Shinichi continued. "And you listened in to our conversation about the case and stuff in general."

Sonoko and Ran were shocked by that part.
"Really?!"
"T-that was you, Sumika-san?"

Anger made its way to Sumika's face, mixing into the desperation and resignation from earlier. "Yes! I put on a wig with long hair, wore a red raincoat and red boots, all to change into that cursed Woman in Red. And I did it...I did it to lure out that coward...THAT SIMPLY LEFT SATOKO TO DIE BACK THEN!"

Tamami gasped. "S-s-simply...left her to die?"

"When I asked a policeman a couple of years ago, I figured it all out! When her body was found, she wore a red raincoat!"

Now Jinsuke also chimed in. "Wait a minute! Satoko wore a beige cardigan back then, didn't she?"

Sumika nodded. "Yes, but just like me, Satoko changed into the Woman in Red."

"But wasn't it Satoko who said, that she saw the Woman in Red in the forest back then?" Tamami inquired.

Sumika nodded again. "Right. She told us this, so we would all go into the forest. And then she would pretend to have gotten lost, so she could scare us with her disguise. Thus, she must've had an accomplice, someone, who would lure us to her, with the costume on. I did all of the pranks...with all the red stuff, which was supposed to remind us of the Woman in Red and scare the accomplice enough, so he would blow his cover. But it wasn't enough...but finally, this time with my dress up, it worked. Only the accomplice would think, that Satoko would still roam the forest, when somebody mentions a woman dressed in red..."

"And did she really wear red clothes?" Sumika pressed the subject. Her face grimaced scarily.
"Yes..." Ran said, swallowing hard. She regained some of her composure. "We saw a woman with long hair, dressed in red from head to toe. She wore a red raincoat with matching red boots."

Masaie nervously bit his lip and tried to fight the sudden outburst of sweat that was running down his face with a handkerchief.
Jinsuke stared into the air with his mouth open, swallowing down an imaginary lump. "M-My goodness...don't tell me..."

Suddenly, Masaie slammed down his hands on the table and jolted up. "IT CAN'T BE! SATOKO CAN'T STILL BE ALIVE! IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!" He screamed, slumping visibly after he pushed out these words. His breathing was heavy and irregular and his face was more white than freshly washed sheets. His sweating also intensified.

Tears wallowed up in Sumika's eyes and began to ran down her ghastly face. She didn't make any effort to hide or wipe them away. "Before I...before I killed him...I got him to confess. He told me, that he got scared when Satoko didn't appear on their meeting point in time; because of that, he kept silent. Satoko probably just really got lost in forest and couldn't find the meeting point anymore...had...had he just admitted to us, that it was just planned as a prank, we could have...she could have...Satoko could still be alive, if he had just said something." She sobbed, her tears falling from her face to her clothes and the table.

Shinichi frowned. "Sinning by silence; Masaie was probably guilty of that. Not a very smart thing to do, definitely not a brave thing to do. It's just cowardly." He shot Sumika a pervasive stare. "But then again, all of these things are also true in regards to murdering a friend, just for petty revenge..."

These words did it; Sumika broke down, now audibly crying her eyes out; her whole body slumped, to the point where her body just lay on the table. Yui and her colleagues went over to her, putting her back into a proper seating position and cuffing her.

"Case closed..." Sera whispered, not comfortable with saying her catchphrase out too loud in the current situation. The room was filled with Sumika's sobbing; everybody replayed what just happened in their mind, everybody having their own, probably very divert thoughts about and ways to cope with it.

After a while, Yui stepped towards one of the windows and cleared her throat. "Alright, now that the investigation is over, we'll have to see what we're gonna do. The storm is still going strong outside; it doesn't look like we're gonna get away from here before tomorrow morning. So, here's my suggestion: we'll go to bed and see what the next day brings us. Sumika-san will be taken into one bedroom; we'll cuff her to the bed and we three police detectives will stay in the same room, guarding her. The rest of you will split over the other bedrooms. How does that sound?"

Everybody nodded; some more faintly than others. While the whole group got up to get into bed and just forget about this tragic day, Shinichi couldn't help but think about the Woman in Red again.

'So, Sumika-san really was the woman back when we first were on our way here...but then, we did I feel like somebody was watching me, when Sumika was already in the mansion?' Shinichi thought.

Suddenly, Shinichi felt something cold behind his back; he sharply spinned around, but he didn't see anything suspicious. Shinichi narrowed his eyes, gazing along the treeline; he could've sworn there was somebody out there watching him.
"Shinichi?"
"No, it's nothing...I just felt like somebody was watching me." He said.
Jinsuke waved him off. "It's the density of the trees, makes people paranoid sooner than they can say 'Hallucination'."

'No, that wasn't it. I'm sure somebody was there. My feeling about this kind of thing hasn't been wrong.' Shinichi thought. He turned around and followed the other ones inside. While walking, he threw a last glance over his shoulder, but he didn't spot anyone.

'I was so sure that there was somebody there...was it really just my imagination, or was there someone else out ther-' His thoughts were brutally interrupted, when a gigantic wave of pain overcame his whole body. He felt his heart aching so painfully; his knees gave away and he had to prop his right arm on the table to not fall down to the ground. 'Oh, no! This pain...it can't be...'

"SHINICHI!" Ran's frightened, concerned voice made its way to Shinichi's ears, but he didn't react to it. He looked onto his watch. 'No! My time...the antidote...Haibara warned me about this...'

"Argh!" Another wave of pain rocked through his body; he wasn't able to surpress his scream this time. Shinichi lost his grip on table, but Ran caught him before he hit the ground. She pulled him up and wrapped one arm around his waist and threw his right arm over her shoulder. Shinichi's face turned into a pained grimace; he clutched his shirt in the area of his heart. It was throbbing like crazy.

"Shinichi, what is happening to you?" Ran hastily said, terrified by the state he was in. He had to close one eye out of pain and looked at Ran.
'Ran...no!...she can't find out...not this way...not after what she told me today!...because of Conan, everything between us, our feelings, our relationship, everything is...hindered by Conan...our progess...it is so slow, but yet, somehow, we found a way for there to be progess...I can't...let that small progress of our love be destroyed by Conan now!'

"Ran..." He whispered, unable to speak up anymore.

"Shinichi? Yes?! Talk to me! Please!" The desperation in her voice pained him; he couldn't tell whether it pained him more than the antidote wearing off, because frankly, he didn't have the mental capability for such a comparison right now.

"My...bag..." Shinichi tried to say.
"Huh?"
"My...bag...in the bedroom...I need to get there..."
"But Shinichi, maybe you should rest her-" Ran tried to say, but Shinichi used his free hand to desperately cling to Ran's shirt.

"Please! Get me...to that bedroom...I beg you Ran!" He managed to push out through his gritted teeth.

She looked at him consideringly, surprised by his desperate and pained plea, but ultimately Ran complied. She helped him to get to the room with their bags, followed by the equally worried Sonoko, Sera and Yui; meanwhile, the two ununiformed policemen took care of the adults. Shinichi went on as fast as he could; trying to surpress the pain and praying to all gods that he could think off, that the antidote would last just a little while longer. They reached the room. Ran helped Shinichi to sit on the bed. He looked at the faces of the foor women in the room staring at him with worry.

He tried to muster a grin, but it was probably more than crooked. "I...don't...quite need...an audience right now..."

"Oh..." The women nodded in understanding. As soon as they turned around and headed for the door, Shinichi threw himself off the bed and robbed over to his backpack. 'Come on...come on...where is the...AH! There it is!'

With shaking hands, he opened the small box Haibara gave him and hastily swallowed down one of the new twelve hours pills. 'Alright...even if this doesn't work...I can still...just take the regular antidote Haibara also gave me...'

"Shinichi!" He heard Ran's voice say. 'Oh, no, please...'

To his dismay, Ran hadn't left the room with the other three women, she just closed the door behind them. Shocked, Ran now saw him lying on the ground. Atleast she hadn't seen that he took a pill from his backpack. She helped Shinichi back onto the bed, this time in a lying postion, rather than a sitting one. 'No...I have to get...her out of here...' Shinichi thought.

"Ran...could you...get me some water...?" He pleaded.
"Sure..." Ran said and pulled a bottle from her backpack, making Shinichi curse her being always prepared for everything.
"Ah...could you also..." He tried again, but was cut short.
"No! I know what you're trying to do! You want me to go away again, just like in that case on the highway and in that village. Both times, you were in this kind of pain. Well, I don't know what it is, that makes you have this kind of pain and it doesn't seem like you want to tell me, but I know one thing for sure: I won't leave your side this time! No way! So, don't even try to get me away from here!"

'Ran...' Shinichi thought, as his vision blurred. 'Oh, no...' Were his last thoughts, before he passed out.

When Shinichi woke up, he heard sobbing and angry whisper. He fluttered his eyes open; he was a bit disorientated, but atleast the pain was gone. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, when he realized, that his hands were a lot smaller than before. "Oh, no, please, no..." He said, jumping a bit, when he heard Conan's voice come out of his mouth. He slapped his mouth shut with both of his hands in shock.

"Yes..." Ran said. Conan turned around and stared into the faces of Ran, Sera, Sonoko and Yui. 'Oh god, no!' Shinichi thought.

Sera smirked. "I knew it." She pulled out her phone and dialed. "Hey, Aniki...you won't believe what I just witnessed..." Sera said into her phone, walking out the room to have more privacy.

Sonoko just glared at him. "You're the worst Shinichi-kun! How could you have done this Ran?! I'm telling everyone about this!" She spat at him, pulling out her own phone and following Sera to make some calls.

Yui put her finger to her chin. "Uhh, Kan-chan will love to hear about this..." She said and followed the other two girls, leaving in Conan in the room with Ran.

Conan swallowed. "Ran...let me explain..."

She angrily sobbed. "What is there to say? How you shamelessly lived with me, made me worry, perved out on me, made me cry? Do I even want to hear it?!"

"Ran...please...I have a reason for this..."
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT, I HATE YOU!"
"Ran, no, please...listen to me!"
"No! I'm done listening to your lies!"
"Ran...please..." Conan said.

Suddenly, a long-haired woman, dressed in a red raincoat emerged from the hallway, sneaking up on Ran. 'The Woman in Red!' It shot through Conan's mind.

"Ran! Behind you!" Conan exclaimed.
"Tsk, I'm not falling for that!"
"No, really, turn around, there is the-"
"I told you, I won't fall for that trick!" Ran hissed at him, when the Woman in Red behind her raised her arm and stabbed Ran through the chest with her knife. Ran's body stiffened in pain, blood starting to drip out of her mouth. "Shin...ichi..."

"RAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

A/N: Yeah, I think this is a good place to end it, isn't it? No? Maybe you'll find some comfort in the fact, that I originally didn't plan to have this chapter end on a cliffhanger, but when I wrote it, it just seemed too perfect to not end on that. Does that help you? No? Welp, then I can't make you feel any better, except by assuring you, that this is not the end of fic. No no, I didn't change the status to completed yet, there are more chapters coming. So, stay tuned for that. And always remind yourself: not everything may be as it seems. Heh, I feel like I'm chasing ravens, if you know what I mean...

Anyway, don't forget to tell me what think about the chapter and the fic in general, by writing. It really helps to motivate me for future chapters and gives me gauge for how well you like the stuff I'm writing.
~27.06.2015