Thank you for reviewing, desamontello12 and D C JoKeR H S!
D C JoKeR H S: Wow, looks like you have some great reasoning skills on hand! Let's see if your deductions are correct!
To my readers: Please read and review! I'd like to hear your thoughts, and I appreciate any feedback. Make some deductions, predict the suspect, write whatever you want. But be warned: Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender will stomp out any flames!
Disclaimer: I do not own Detective School Q. Amagi Seimaru, Sato Fumiya, and Animax do.
"Let's review the case," Kyuu, the unofficial leader of Class Q, ordered after everyone had shared their experiences interrogating their suspects. "We were called to a local gym to investigate a drowning at the pool."
"And the victim was a professional swimmer, meaning that it couldn't have been an accident, so she was most likely murdered," Ryuu continued. "Although I also believe that we should check for the possibility of suicide, just to cover all the bases."
"According to the police report, the estimated time of death was between 9 and 11 p.m. last night," Kazuma added as he scrolled all the way through the data.
"And all three suspects were here in that time span, although their alibis are difficult to verify, since each of them were alone," Megu mused.
"And then each of them were acting strangely or said strange things," said Kinta. "We'll have to look at clues and motives to help us figure out what happened."
"Oh!" Kazuma exclaimed, since he had found an interesting update on his computer. "By the way, the coroners reported that there appeared to be signs of blunt force trauma on the back of her head."
"I guess it makes sense, since if there was a killer, he or she would have to incapacitate a professional swimmer first in order to drown her. Kazuma, why don't you research and see if you can find any information online that could be related to the case? I'll check the lounge and ask the suspects a few more questions, Megu will check the women's locker room, Ryuu will check the pool, and Kinta will check the weightlifting room for any clues. How does that sound?" Kyuu asked.
Ryuu raised an eyebrow. He wasn't the only one. When had Kyuu become capable of forming such a coherent plan? However, none of them dared to say it out loud. Instead, they all nodded their consent, and split up.
Megu stepped inside the locker room, slipping her gloves on. It was fairly nice, as far as locker rooms went. It was furnished with lockers, a bench, toilet stalls, sinks, and shower stalls. The floor was clean, and had been waxed recently. The janitor had clearly done a very good job, since the room was clean and smelled of green apples.
As she made a careful examination of the room and its contents, she did not find anything that stood out until she stood in front of the lockers. Two of them in particular caught her eye. Their gold and silver nameplates read Yamaguchi Misao and Kanegawa Mayumi, respectively. Was there some sort of significance to the colors? Glancing inside the lifeguard's locker, she found a duffle bag with a clean change of clothes, a spare towel, a purse with a phone and other miscellaneous items, and a bottle of water. Opening Yamaguchi-san's, she found similar things, but in the victim's purse, she found a bottle of sleeping pills (that she remembered required a prescription). Wait. Didn't the boyfriend mention that she had some sleeping problems? Maybe we should talk to her doctor.
Kinta sighed as he looked at the weightlifting room, realizing that he would have to be very thorough in his search. Grabbing a spray bottle of luminol from the DDS vehicle and putting gloves on, he stepped back into the room and began lifting each of the weights to check for blood residue. He then proceeded to test every surface of machinery in the room, as well as the walls and the floor. All of them came up devoid of blood, so if the lovely Yamaguchi-san had been killed, she hadn't been knocked out here. However, his eye caught a flash of color under one of the bench presses. Taking a closer look, he saw that it was one of those brochures that argued against some subject or another.
Normally, something like that wouldn't have made him suspicious (it could have been on proper dieting, or not smoking or drinking, this was a gym after all), but this particular bench press had been the one that Sugase-san had been working out on. Was that why he had come here from the lounge? So he would have an excuse to search for this brochure that had been misplaced?
As he scanned the title of the brochure, his eyebrows rose higher and higher with each word. It was clear that this wasn't one of the gym's brochures, like he thought earlier. I should ask Kazuma to see if he can find anything that could confirm my suspicions...
Ryuu glanced at his reflection in the pool for a few seconds, taking a short break from his search for clues. He kept his frustration to himself. Despite Kanegawa-san's unprofessional demeanor during his interrogation, she clearly did her job (as she said she had) and had cleaned the pool last night. However, that made it harder to find any evidence. The water had washed away any traces of blood or hair that may have come from either the killer or the victim, and any towels provided by the gym had already been taken to the laundry room and cleaned. Was she cleaning up evidence of her crime?
What about the cause of the blunt force trauma? Ryuu thought. Is there anything hard enough to knock her unconscious here at the pool?
His eye caught the glint of the metal connecting the diving board to the ladder leading up to it. …! It couldn't be!
He hurried there, and sure enough, there was blood and hair stuck to it. He took a few samples to send to the forensics lab, so he could confirm that it was the victim's.
Kyuu stopped in the lounge, feeling the strange atmosphere in the room as the three suspects sat there. Hearing a small whirring noise that no one else seemed to detect, Kyuu pinpointed it to the corner, where a security camera sat. If Kazuma hasn't done it already, we should get him to review the footage. That could prove Minabuchi-san's alibi.
He then turned to look at the suspects. Kanegawa-san seemed to be patting Minabuchi-san on the shoulder, offering her condolences. A love triangle, maybe? Sugase-san sat on his own, his arms crossed over his chest.
From what Ryuu told me, Kanegawa-san wasn't on good terms with Yamaguchi-san. And Kinta mentioned that Sugase-san was the victim's classmate, although they weren't friends. So…I guess that leaves…
"Minabuchi-san, can I ask you one more thing? In private?" Kyuu stressed. The victim's boyfriend followed the Class Q detective out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him.
"Minabuchi-san, what I'm about to ask you may be hard to hear, but please answer honestly." The marine biologist nodded, his expression tense with anxiety.
"Did Yamaguchi-san… ever seem to contemplate suicide?"
Minabuchi-san was momentarily caught off guard by the question, but returned with an explosive "No! She would never do something like that."
Kyuu, taken off guard by the loud response provided by the quiet man, nodded. The conviction in Minabuchi's tone was so very strong that he didn't bother asking him if he was sure. Sure, another detective might question Kyuu believing the suspect so easily, but they weren't there to witness the exchange that had just happened.
Yamaguchi Misao was definitely murdered.