The police arrived ten minutes later. It was Takagi and Sato leading the case this time. "So let me get this straight," Sato began. "Takeshita-san began to choke on the pizza he was eating, but he died sooner than expected?"

"Yeah," said Kogoro. "Normally it takes up to five minutes for someone choking on something to die. They pass out sooner than that. However, this man died within a minute of choking. Therefore this is an obvious case of murder. Now, I, Mouri Kogoro, have determined that the only possible suspect is his wife over there." He pointed to the woman, who was crying into a napkin and paying then no attention.

'You were the one who was going to call it an accident until Kisaki-sensei reminded you of the choking times,' Conan thought irritably. While the adults were talking, Conan was busy looking over the scene. 'If I had to guess, Takeshita-san choking on his food was likely coincidence. His death must've been caused by something else, probably poison. Since the murder still happened, it must be a trick that the murderer ultimately had no control over. Huh, what's that?' He noticed something on the floor under the table and moved in closer. 'This is a…cat hair, isn't it?' he thought. He called over a CSI tech to pick it up and examine it.

"Hey!" Kogoro shouted, bonking Conan on the head and picking him up by the collar. "Ran, keep an eye on him!" he said, giving Conan to Ran.

Eventually Ran put Conan back down, so he went to question the staff. "Excuse me?" he said, addressing the waiter that had brought the man's pizza out. "Did the man who died come in here often?"

"Yeah, he did," the waiter replied. "He and his wife came in here at the same time every week, and they always ordered one extra-large gourmet four-cheese pizza. They've been coming for the last three or four months now."

"So how was the pizza made and delivered?"

"Sorry boy, the recipe is a trade secret," said the waiter, "so even I don't know it. As for its delivery, I pick it up from the window and put in on the table directly between them."

"So if the man was poisoned, you could have placed the pizza on table so that the poisoned slices faced the dead man, right?"

"Wait, what are you saying? You think I did this? Silly kid, I barely knew the man, so I don't even have a motive!"

Conan talked to some of the other waiters and some of the chefs, but he came up empty on suspects. Only the waiter could have positioned the pizza in such a way to ensure any poisoned slices were eaten by the victim. However, that particular waiter had only been working a few weeks, and before that he had lived in Okinawa, where the victim had never gone. Conan did learn some information about the victim, such as his numerous allergies, which he kept medicine in his pocket for in case he encountered one of them. The allergies ranged from foodstuffs, like nuts, to dust and some animals. The victim was an office manager who was born and raised in Tokyo and was scared of both boats and airplanes.

After learning this information, Conan approached the scene again, where the police were busy removing the corpse. "Hey, Tome-san?" he asked the CSI tech, "were there any weird marks left on the body, such as…" He lowered his voice to talk to him and voice his suspicions.

"Yeah, there was something there! I thought it was odd…"

'So I was right,' thought Conan. He quickly went to Kogoro, aimed his watch, and stunned him.

XXX

Kogoro had had no leads on the case. He had thought for sure it was the wife at first, but when no evidence surfaced condemning her, he was beginning to think he might've been wrong. The kid had been running around a lot too, but he hadn't made any of his annoying observations this time. Then, as he went back to the table to look for more clues, he felt a familiar pricking sensation on his neck. He used to think he passed out from over-thinking the situation, but now he wasn't so sure.

A sharp jolt woke Kogoro up. His first instinct was to jump up and screech in pain, but then he realized that the pain had come from the heart monitor. It was programmed to deliver an electric shock if his heart rate got too low, which was supposed to prevent him from passing out. The fact that it had gone off meant that he had passed out or fallen asleep. As he began to come back to himself, he heard a voice nearby explaining the case to the room. The voice was low and gruff, and spoke similar to him. 'Do I really sound like that?' Kogoro wondered to himself.

"And that's how the trick was pulled off," Kogoro's voice said. His actually choking was by chance; if he hadn't done that, she would've used the cat hair in her purse to trigger an allergic reaction. She took advantage of the opportunity by using a special fork with the tips sharpened attached to her shoe to kick him in the knee, therefore poisoning him. Since he was distracted by his choking, he didn't cry out from being stabbed."

At this point, Kogoro cracked his eyelids to see Takagi, Sato, and the culprit in front of him. The culprit was looking at the floor. Kogoro's voice continued, "Since she hasn't gone anywhere since the poisoning, she should still have both items on her."

"Ma'am, will you allow me to search your purse?" Sato asked, reaching for it.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" the woman snapped. Then she sighed and got out the incriminating items. "I should have come up with a way to dispose of these sooner, I guess. But I wasn't planning to kill him until later, so that escape plan went out the window. When he started choking, I thought I wouldn't have to kill him. But then Mouri-tantei came over to perform the Heimlich, so I panicked. Look where that's got me. That womanizing drunkard had it coming, though. I had my suspicions for a while, but then I saw him one night with one of the nurses from his allergy clinic! That was the last straw! Kisaki-bengoshi, you've been having marriage problems, too, I take it. Well, allow me to HELP YOU OUT!"

With no warning, the crazed woman gripped the poisoned fork and rushed at the 'sleeping Kogoro.' It was so sudden, nobody could react in time. Nobody except Kogoro. As the woman got close to him, he quickly stood up and gave her a judo throw, smashing her into a nearby table.

"Nice, Dad!" Ran exclaimed as the police quickly cuffed the woman before she could do anything else.

"Well, nothing's impossible for the Great Detective Mouri Kogoro!" he replied, guffawing.

XXX

The following morning, Conan and Ran woke up to find Kogoro sitting in his office, staring out the window and out into space. "Good morning, Dad!" Ran said cheerfully.

"No thank you, Ran," said Kogoro. "You just go on to school." Ran, seeing he wasn't talkative, left worriedly, not noticing that Conan hadn't joined her.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't expose you to Ran right now," Kogoro said suddenly, still looking out the window. "Oh, yes, I know everything, Shinichi. You thought you'd play nice and solve my cases for me while at the same time lying to both Ran and me about every little thing." At this point, Kogoro turned around and pointed to a photo album that had been open on his desk. "Now, tell me that this is just a coincidence."

Conan walked forward slowly and looked at the photo album. It was a photo of him and Ran as kids at some festival. Kogoro had drawn glasses over his half of the picture with a marker.

"Now I dare you to feign innocence with me again. Do you know what this is?" He took off his tie pin and held it in front of Conan's face. "This is a camera. It captured everything I did yesterday. Including everything you did. Did you know I was wearing a heart monitor that shocks whenever my heart rate drops too low when I'm wearing it? So I overheard most of what you said after it woke me up again. The camera filled in the rest. Now then, you are going to tell me everything you know. NOW."

Seeing he was defeated, Conan had no choice. Kogoro wasn't like Ran; when he was actually acting competent, there was no fooling him. "You think it's easy living like this? To live in hiding after an evil syndicate tried to kill you? I didn't tell you anything because I wanted to keep you and Ran safe!"

"Well, kid, here's a newsflash for you: we can protect ourselves! But we can't protect ourselves against something we don't know anything about. So, here's the deal. You're going to tell me everything you know, starting from the day you first disappeared. You also will never tranq me again. In return, I'll keep your secret from Ran. If I told Ran about you, we'd both end up in the hospital. Deal?"

Telling Kogoro the truth was a small price to pay to avoid Ran's fury. It would bruise the man's ego, but since he had such a super-inflated ego to begin with, maybe it would be a wake-up call. "Well, it all started when I saw these two guys in black."