A/N: Okay, a few things before I'l let you continue reading... I know it has been a dreadfully long wait for you, but writing is kind of like cooking. If you serve before its done, it will be terrible^^ I had to iron out some kinks with it, because I was heading for a plothole of epic proportions. Besides that, I wasn't sure if this chapter wasn't too OOC (something I usually tend to avoid, but I think its still bearable in this case). But since I have the chibi in a place where he has to stay under the radar pretty heavily, I felt like I could take a bit of liberty.

And that is really the root of what I meant to say. I am aware that this chapter is somewhat OOC, but like I said before, desperate times call for desperate measures. So, please refrain from writing in your reviews how OOC-ish you think it is, because I am aware of slight OOC-ness. And I personally don't think it's that bad.

Also, for all of you out there antsy for action, have patience. I again refer to the cooking metaphor...

Well, now that I got that off my chest, I still hope you can enjoy this chapter somewhat and I promise to curb the trend of going slightly OOC in the next chapters. I just needed it for this one^^

Regards, Callie

Chapter 5

Monday, 30th August 2011

Shinyuku Park

Late Afternoon

All in all, it was not a bad thing to have Mitsuhiko along. Okay, he was moving slower than he had anticipated, but that was simply because Mitsuhiko's size made it impossible for both of them to ride the skateboard since it had been upgraded to go faster; therefore they had to leave the skateboard behind and take the bus. But all things considered they made good time and it was only a little after four when they arrived at their destination.

Shinyuku Park. Not that far from where Hanako had lived, but that really didn't point to that much. Whether the place meant something to the killer or not he hadn't yet figured out, but for the immediate moment it seemed like it was at random.

There was however one big hitch to the whole operation and said hitch was currently standing right in front of the police band that prevented curious passer-bys to take a sneak peek at the crime scene. Said hitch was a policeman, unfortunately one that Conan knew and one that would in all likelihood start the proverbial mills that would take the information to Kogoro and Ran. Sooner or later, depending on how fast this policeman could get the information out that he had been here. And with this guy, it was sooner rather than later, this specific policeman was worse than a bunch of fishwives considering the gossip.

Grumbling he stood a bit away with Mitsuhiko, carefully keeping out of the line of sight of the uniformed person, his mind thinking through several scenarios that could get him past the man. Unfortunately none of them seemed to work out.

"Let me guess. You mean to sneak past this police officer, don't you?" Mitsuhiko asked and threw a quick glance around to ascertain no one else was present.

"Exactly. The problem is just that if he sees us, he'll ask what we want here and since he knows Oji-san, he'll get the gossip around. Meaning that by this time tomorrow I'll have to face Oji-san's or Ran-neechan's wrath on this, as they tried to keep me out of the loop so far. I need to get past him without him noticing." he answered absently, his brain rifling through a couple more scenarios, only to come up with the same solution. They'd be spotted.

Problem was that the man never moved. He stood right behind the barrier and looked around. Erratically no less. If there had been some pattern to the way he looked around he could have used a blind spot or something, but the policeman was too alert for that. He was on the verge of asking Mitsuhiko for a decoy of some sort, when the boy himself spoke in a hushed voice.

"How long would you need to sneak past him?" the lean kid asked, his eyes roaming the place around, as if he was up to something again.

"About a minute. Why do you ask?" Conan answered and carefully calculated the way he would need to take to avoid ending up in the policeman's peripheral vision.

"If I distract him, and you sneak past, we're clear, right? Though I am not sure whether you should go to the site alone, it indeed appears the only reasonable solution that I can see." Mitsuhiko answered calmly and threw him a quick look and a smirk. One that Conan found himself sending back. The kid had realized that a decoy was needed almost instantaneously and had acted accordingly. Conan made a mental note to take Mitsuhiko along more often, he was a most promising student of the detective's art.

"How do you intend to distract him then?"

Another smirk, this time way broader, followed his question.

"Well, I for one have never seen this officer, therefore I have only to think about a plausible excuse for me to talk to him. Once I have his attention, I think it leaves you with ample time to get past him. Leave the excuses to me, I believe I can think of something." Mitsuhiko answered and Conan had to think that this whole cloak and dagger operation was to the liking of the thin geek. For whatever reason. It seemed somewhat out of character for Mitsuhiko, but then again, he had never before been required to stay under the radar so heavily, so he had really no idea how his friends would react in such a scenario.

"Fine. You distract him and I sneak past him. I'll meet you on the other side behind the trees in twenty minutes. I guess that should be enough. Just make sure he doesn't follow you." Conan instructed and gestured to a group of trees behind the policeman, already outside of the police perimeter. As bizarre as it sounded, the place were the girl had been found was almost convenient. Slightly hidden behind a group of bushes and flanked by those trees. Therefore it could be watched by one person only. And as far as they had seen the technique of this policeman to watch the place had one major flaw. At least for the policeman. He never had turned around. He only kept his eyes on the paths in front, but had never looked behind. Meaning that as long as he was quiet, he would be in the clear as soon as he was past the man. It would be slightly problematic to get through the bushes on the other side, but it was manageable. He only couldn't approach from that side, it would have made too much noise.

Blast it, I'll just need to be careful...

Nodding to Mitsuhiko he watched as the lean kid himself put on the kiddie-act. Which; in itself, was hugely startling. He'd never seem one of his friends try the same tactic he so often employed. Slowly he began to suspect that these kids imitated him far more than he had been previously aware of. Suddenly the kid changed attitude and began walking towards the policeman, frantically shouting for someone called "Keiko-chan". Conan grinned from his hiding place as Mitsuhiko made his way over. Had he known that the decoy the kid planned would be something so ridiculously simple, he would have taped the thing with his cellphone to send to Hattori. These kids imitated him to such an extend that they even copied the kiddie-act, as they had seen him do it so often to wheedle information out of officials.

And apparently everything went according to Mitsuhiko's plan, as the policeman turned to him to ask what was wrong. Leaving Mitsuhiko to spin a tale about a lost cat, and his sister that was distraught over its disappearance, and so on. Mitsuhiko also placed himself in such a way that the policeman had to turn his back towards Conan to listen. Carefully sneaking past, all the way fighting to stop the wild grin from splitting his face at the ears, Conan listened with half an ear to his friend. He had to give him credit, it sounded very believable and Mitsuhiko acted just like a child that had lost a beloved pet.

And then his focus shifted as he cleared the policeman's line of sight and crept behind the bushes to observe the scene. He had to hand it to the police, they had been very thorough in their investigation. At the spot where the body had been found the soil had been kept clear, but for a small path leading directly to where he surmised the body must have been. Looking around carefully, he couldn't see any footprints or anything that had been overlooked. Except three pawprints of a medium sized dog, in all probability the dog that had discovered the body and alerted its owner.

The grass in a three foot radius had been trampled, but that was to be expected. Several branches were clipped off, perhaps for them to compare it if they did get a link to a suspect. Quickly the non-child set to work, fishing a pair of latex gloves out of his pockets. A convenient thing to carry around, for sure, one could never know when he might have need of gloves. Especially considering his strange curse of finding bodies. Then he bent low to comb through the grass himself, all the time keeping the radius to the clear space. The earth had been dry, but not dry enough to have dust accumulating which would have given them footprints. Unfortunately the weather had been on the killer's side, allowing him to walk around without leaving footprints. There was also the possibility that the killer had deliberately erased any footprints he might have left on the ground, or he (though that option he really did not want to picture) had just thrown the body. The girl would have been small enough to be thrown, trussed up as she had been. That would also mean that the culprit could never have gotten near the scene itself, but could have been able to maintain a relatively safe distance to avoid leaving evidence.

Silently cursing, Conan continued to comb through the blades of grass, some small part of him hoping to find something, anything to put him on some sort of track. But another part of his brain (one that was much louder and bigger) shouted that he probably wouldn't find anything.

After ten fruitless minutes of searching, all the time keeping an ear out for the policeman on the other side of the bushes, he stood up, brushed the dust from his gloved palms and his knees to survey the scene in its entirety. As it was, it remained slightly hidden, and judging from the pawprints he spotted some two feet away, the dog had probably led the owner here to discover the site. The place was not easy to see from the path, if it hadn't been for that dog, Hanako might have been discovered much later.

As far as he could see, there was nothing particularly interesting about the site itself. It was simply a patch of grass between the bushes and trees. Angered with himself and the fact that there had been no evidence to find, Conan stuffed the now dusty gloves back into his pocket and turned to walk towards the trees behind. But despite his annoyance with the progression of the case so far, he was able to creep almost soundlessly through the undergrowth, grateful for Mitsuhiko, who still continued to talk to the policeman and so kept the attention away from the scene.

The shrunken tantei had to admit that it would have been much more complicated to get a look at the scene without Mitsuhiko there. And though he had meant to keep the kid out of it, he recognized the value of someone to depend on, especially while he was operating under the radar in a manner of speech. Which continued to irk him, he admitted to himself, while he sketched the layout of the scene in his notebook. It was immensely annoying to sneak around in search of clues and information, usually he was present when cases were discussed, often he was even simply overlooked, when a body was spotted somewhere. But this time both Kogoro and Ran kept a sharper eye than usual out, often checking on him, where he was, what he did, it almost felt like they kept him under observation. Something that didn't really help with the paranoia he had developed since being shrunk. And he had become paranoid, he knew that. But it was a reasonable reaction after all and his distrust of everyone around him (with a few exceptions) had saved his skin several times.

Slowly his mind started to focus on the meaning of them keeping such a close watch over him, all the time sketching around in his notebook. Sometimes being able to multitask was a convenient trait to have.

He was aware that he and his friends could also fall into the killer's MO, since the kids murdered had all been firstgraders. All around the ages of six to eight, which made his friends and him possible targets. But that was no reason to raise such a fuss. After all, they had been in numerous dangerous situations before and had emerged unharmed. Or mostly unharmed, if things had been a little too close. Perhaps (though the thought itself was ridiculous) the old man knew something he had not been able to glean yet. But if he did, why then the general watchfulness, instead of a pointed warning? It made no sense, however he looked at it.

Conan's thoughts ceased and propelled his focus back into reality as he noticed Mitsuhiko coming closer, occasionally throwing glances around. At the very least the lean boy was aware to keep a watch on his surroundings. Conan waited until the boy had drawn level with him, before falling into step with him towards the nearest park exit, away from the policeman and the risk of being discovered. Only when they had walked some twenty paces did the thin boy next to him speak.

"Were you able to find something?"

Grumbling Conan admitted that he hadn't.

"There's nothing there. Either the police have already gotten some evidence or there's just nothing there. But that would be a first ever, I've never heard from a scene where no evidence could be found. There's always something there, but back in that scene, there was nothing I could see. There's also nothing outstanding about the place either, which would allow us to understand why he picked that place to put Hanako down here." Conan continued, absently cupping his chin, while his mind walked through the scene again, cataloguing every blade of grass, and coming up empty handed. There was however one thing he hesitated to mention, simply because he had no possible evidence to back his claim up. Something was wrong with that crime scene, it was as if he had overlooked something, but considering that he had been combing through the place on hands and feet, it seemed unlikely. And yet there was a nagging feeling somewhere inside him, as if it was right in front of his nose, with him unable to spot it. For the moment however, he could not find any indication that his feeling was accurate, and therefore he chose to keep silent for the time being and focussed on his tall friend again.

"But isn't that the oddest thing? That there is no evidence? I mean to recall reading about the trail humans leave behind, no matter where they go or what they do. I read that the average person loses between 50 and 100 hairs every day. And yet you say there has been no hair discovered that did not belong to one of the victims. It seems to me the oddest fact yet." Mitsuhiko supplied, showing off that vast amount of knowledge crammed into his brain.

"Its true, and I've been thinking about that too. Of course its possible that the culprit has shaved his entire body, I've heard about a case in America where a killer had done that to avoid leaving hair at the scene. Its possible and since one can get a wig and fake facial hair almost everywhere, it would be easy to change looks often. Its also possible that the culprit wore a net to prevent any hair getting on one of the victims. Problem is, for the moment that's just a theory and we have no way of proving it at this rate." he answered and filed that information away for later pondering over the possibility of it. For a while they were both silent, each wrapped into their own thoughts about this thing.

Just as they stood at the bus stop to wait for the next option to get back towards Beika, Conan remembered something.

"Say, earlier you said you told the others you had to give me something. What was that?" he asked and looked towards the other kid. Seemingly that had escaped Mitsuhiko's focus also, for he blinked twice, obviously jolted out of his own thought processes, before apparently remembering.

"Oh right. I meant to give it to you before you so rudely ran off. It is something I spent the weekend researching and though I am not certain in what degree it might help, it seemed useful at the time. If nothing else, it makes for an interesting read, though it is somewhat disturbing." the tall child answered and dug into the pocket of his jacket to produce several sheets of paper, carefully folded to fit into his pocket. Reaching over, Conan took the item and unfolded it to read. The headline alone caused his eyebrows to nearly graze his hairline.

Serial Killers and their motivation - A discussion on the subject of serial killings, their definition and their Modus Operandi

"Where the he- ... heck did you find that?!" he asked, considerably surprised that his friend could mention something like this with nothing more than a passing glance and a shrug, when it was obvious he had spent some time researching the subject.

"On Saturday evening I went into the Internet via my sisters laptop. I googled and found several sites referencing to the subject. On Sunday morning I stumbled across the site of the FBI, which had apparently held a course about this and copied it. In the evening I managed to print it and decided to give it to you. Like I have said, I am not sure as to what degree this is helpful, but at the very least it makes for interesting, if disturbing reading material."

Conan was uncertain whether he should be proud or worried about the fact that Mitsuhiko had researched Serial Killers out of his own free will. And even stated that it was an interesting read. Sometimes the limits of this kid surprised him. And Mitsuhiko seemed to be burrowing ever deeper into the subject with an interest that exceeded the normal rate.

I really need to keep closer taps on this kid...

But as for that day at least, the hunt was over and the trail cold with no evidence to point anyone in something like a general direction. And with the sun sinking lower towards the horizon as they drove back to Beika, the chances for finding Katsuro dwindled also. Somewhere, deep within himself, Conan had already begun to understand that they would not find the kidnapped child in time. This had so far been an interlude, the main course had only just begun.

A/N: I know that normally googling doesn't really link one to the FBI, but this last little thing actually came from personal experience when I was doing research for this fanfiction (and yes, I do research^^). I was trying to get some facts on serial killers in order to evolve my version of one and actually stumbled on the homepage of the FBI in the wee hours of the morning. And they indeed had a thirty site piece about serial killers. Basically that became my template for creating the serial killer for this fanfiction. And seriously, leave Mitsuhiko alone with a computer, something like this was bound to happen. Besides, no-one knows what that kid actually does when he's not hanging around Conan. Therefore its not that far-fetched if you really think about it... At least not from my point of view^^