This took time and effort to write and my friend Kaede Tsukino So I hope to get at least one review for us writing it. It's a two part case because not all stories have to be long. The end of this case is not the end of the story so don't think we are finished yet. Thank you and have a nice read.
XXX
Time was most unkind to Yoru today. He was standing in the security room wondering which of the three suspects might have drugged (not beat with a bat) his dad. Right now he was thinking of what might have motivated them to commit this crime.
Hatred maybe. The presidents wife was in the idol business and people in the idol business would do anything for money or good publicity. Maybe she would do this so people would feel sorry for her and she could feed off their sympathy and ask for things to help her " get over" the threatening letters.
Blackmail was another option. When someone sends hateful letters that say their going to "expose" them for what there's always a "or you can send" sentence that tells them they want money. What was complicated about these letters is Yoru didn't see a message like that in any of those letters.
There were too many motives. It could be someone who hated their client. Someone who is mad in love with their client (even though the suspects are girls) trying to get her away from her husband. It couldn't even be someone who wanted revenge against their client. All this thinking was hurting Yoru's head. It also hurt before all this thinking because Yoru didn't have anything to eat since the investigation started.
" Dad, do you have any more cake?"
Yoru was normally such a diet freak. He wanted to keep in shape...being out of shape would make him unable to fight people who pick fights with him or chase people trying to escape a crime scene. Yoru was just so hungry and would eat anything right about now.
" I have a piece with a bite taken out of it, but I think it might be what has the drug in it."
Yoru had an idea come to his head. It was so obvious. He had to test these foods to see if any of them still had the drug inside it. " Can you give me the tea and wagashi as well?"
" I'm sorry, son. I drank that cup of tea and ate all the wagashi." Yoru silently cursed in his inner thoughts. Every good idea he has is either gone or distracted by his father's own buffoonery. " Look, Yoru, I think you should leave the security room. We've already seen most of the crime scene—what more is there to look for?"
"The suspects' themselves. And I'd like to look more into the relationship between Shimizu-san and the client." Yoru remarked as he had a feeling that there was more to their relationship that meets the eye.
"Make yourself useful for once and test the cake for any drugs or sleeping medication." Yoru deadpanned.
"How mean!" Yoru's father whined as he cried.
Someone knocks on the door and enters.
"Excuse me, Mr. Detective." The client comes in. The moment she shows up Yoru immediately hides and gestures his father not to give him away since the client would probably take him away telling him that he shouldn't be interfering with his father's work. "My husband would like a word with you."
The client looks around thinking she saw something.
"Was there someone else in here?" The client asked.
"Nope, just me. Now about your husband." Yoru's father slightly pushes the client out of the room keep her away from Yoru. "We can't keep him waiting."
Once Yoru's father and the client leave, Yoru comes out his hiding place and goes out to find more information for their investigation. He'll let his father handle the client and see what information he can get from her and possibly her relationship with Shimizu while he looks for more clues to the case.
His first priority should be to find Shimizu and ask her questions. He can't help but find the whole thing odd. If the culprit was smart enough to drug his father with some sleeping medicine and make it look like someone had knocked him out with a bat. Then why was it that the earring found in the potted plant. It was way too suspicious and any good culprit would never make such an amateurish mistake. It looked more like it was placed there on purpose.
Caught deep in his thoughts, Yoru overhears a couple of female employees chatting with each other. One of them had brown hair and other with blonde hair.
"I can't stand it! Why do we have to work with such a stick in the mud!" The brown haired woman complained.
"Same here. That Shimizu-san is really so strict. I made one mistake and she yells at me for a ten minutes. Then tells me to redo the whole thing." The blonde huffed.
"I know right! She's the complete opposite of Kaneko-san." (Manager's full name: Megumi Kaneko)
"She even helped me refill the paper for the printer in my place."
"Just because she's the president's mistress. She thinks she's better than us."
"Shhh!" The other woman shushes her partner. "That's only a rumor. We don't know if it's actually her."
"Oh, please. It's so obvious that it's her. Who else could it be? I mean why else would she act like she's better than us."
"Well, technically, she is. Although her character is very problematic, she does her work very diligently even before all those rumors about the president's mistress came out."
"And when was that?"
"I think about two or three months ago."
"Still doesn't change the fact that I don't like her." The brown haired woman declared.
She wondered why her coworker was so quiet all of a sudden.
"It doesn't matter how you feel about me as long as you get your work done." Shimizu who appeared behind the brown haired woman informed her.
"Shimizu-san!" The brown haired woman turned around to see Shimizu behind her.
"Your break has been long over. If you have time to mindlessly gossip over ridiculous rumors, then you have time to work." Shimizu pushes up her glasses causing a sharp gleam to sparkle.
"Yes! Madam!"
Both of the women scrambled and left the vicinity.
"And as for you, children shouldn't be in this area." Shimizu walks over to Yoru.
Yoru didn't know why Shimizu didn't get mad at those ladies for badmouthing her. If someone was talking to him like that he would show them. He would show them what they said about him was false. Shimizu was escorting him back to the office. They passed a secretaries house with a vase full of flowers that looked like wildflowers.
" Shimizu?"
" What is it?"
" I'm just curious why you didn't get mad at those ladies for badmouthing you? They called you problematic."
" It's nothing new to me." She said that but stopped and looked away from Yoru. "Things have always been like this for me. I worked very work to get to where I am and they had plenty of chances of getting where I am but they blew them. "
Yoru was surprised by her answer. Sure she worked hard, but did she even enjoy working here? Yoru enjoyed detective work. It wasn't everything like Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, or the Hardy Boys but it always paid off when Yoru finished a case. The ending was always dramatic, like when he gets to announce the culprit, and then see their denial. His father represents Yoru's report and ends the case. That boy Conan in his class—the genius—he hoped they could work in a case together.
Yoru asked Shimizu a question. " Why don't you quit working here if you don't like it?" Shimizu acted like a proper lady giving Yoru her answer.
" This job may lack entertainment, but before any of this there's someone I care about very deeply. He's in this company. I don't care about this company. I don't care what other think of me."
Shimizu was more resolved than Yoru originally thought. It was good to see a woman who could sacrifice something for someone other than herself. It was a shame though that she had to put him in a waiting room and his father had to pick him up.
He was there for five minutes. He was thinking hard about the case. He was wondering why the culprit wanted those tapes. Thanks to his incompetent father there was no way he could solve the mystery figuring out which of the deserts had sleeping agents in them. He had to look at the case in a different angel.
' Now that I think about it, wouldn't the culprit only need one surveillance tape; the tape from the president's office. Why take all of them...' Yoru felt something tickling his nose. Somehow the pollen from the secretary's desk got into his nose. Yoru let out a big sneeze as tiny droplets dripped over the wall. After wiping the water out of his nose an idea popped in his head. ' The picture of the Cheshire Cat. The culprit had a mask…we wouldn't see their face. There shouldn't have been any point to all this unless they had some kind of a reason. The best reason is the reason that cannot be found. What's in the office?'
Yoru needed to powerwalk. He walked through the office, avoiding the attention of the lady who told him he shouldn't be walking around here. Yoru walked by one room, stopped. He saw on the wall a clock with the second hand ticking by.
' Time? Was it time? Could the culprit have taken them all in a hurry?'
"Shimizu-san, do you by any chance have a record of all the people who come in and out of this room."
"Why, yes, I do... I always keep track of the company's activities including those who enter this room be it an appointment or for an errand. But why do you ask?" Shimizu didn't see why a child would want to know that.
"The lady I was with before asked me to."
Not seeing the harm in letting Yoru see, Shimizu takes Yoru to her desk and shows him the records of the people who come in. Yoru scans through the file and found what he was looking for.
"Thanks, Shimizu-san." Yoru thanked the woman. He found the culprit, but the only problem was that he lacked evidence.
Then something caught his eye. He saw a large brown stain on the nice carpet.
"What's that?" Yoru points to the large brown stain.
"Oh some careless idiot accidentally spilled coffee on the floor. I thought he already cleaned it up by now. On top of being incompetent, he foolishly allowed his child to play baseball inside. The kid even broke a window. Naturally, I gave him a severe scolding for his foolishness. Although I had him take his child to the nursery, I had to put the baseball bat away in the security room as a precaution."
Now the pieces were starting to fall into place. Yoru runs off to the printer. He saw a stack of unopened printer paper by the printer. He then opens the paper compartment where he finds a new stack of printing paper there. This was just as he suspected. Yoru looks around and sees a small trash can near the printer.
"Children, shouldn't play with trash!"
Searching through the trash despite Shimizu's protests, Yoru found the piece of evidence he was looking for. Now all that was left was to gather up the suspects and unveil the truth behind the threatening letters.
Yoru was waiting inside the president's office. As per Yoru's instructions, Yoru's father gathered all the suspects in the scene of the crime where they found the letter, outside the president's office. Yoru's father soon walked in with the three suspects. First the client walked in, followed by the managed, and the secretary who was fiddling with her fingers.
" Why did you bring us here?" The secretary asked nervously rubbing her fingers together.
They were all confused as why Yoru's father called them there. Yoru played his part. He handed his father all the evidence he compiled through their search, now all he had to do was waiting on the desk and see how he presented information given to him by him.
" Ladies, you are all here under the suspicion that one of you is the culprit sending threatening leaders to our client."
" You idiot!" The client yelled. " I'm the client! I told you to solve this mystery, not blame it all on me!"
" Exactly. You're not the killer. I brought you here to show you who wrote you those letters."
" Oh? Thank you." The client's face was red in embarrassment as she coughed into her left elbow. " Carry on then."
" Thank you." Yoru's father pulled out the notes written by his son. He only showed them the front side because the backside had what he should say. " Megumi Kaneko, how long have you been in this company?"
Megumi started to look suspiciously to the ground. " T-Three months."
" Thank you. I am looking for someone who has known the president for a long time. Someone who was close to the president, maybe even too close. Three months…that's around the time all the rumors of the president's mistress came out."
" That doesn't mean anything!" Megumi argued.
" It does mean one thing. If my (his sons) suspicions are correct the person is…" All three of the girls leaned forward to hear. Yoru paid attention, but only turning his head to the left. Yoru's father pointed at one of the girls and shouted their name. " Megumi Kaneko, the manager of this company."
There were gasps between Megumi. Megumi's eyes widened when she was accused. Yoru looked at his fingernails and breathed air.
" That is an absurd accusation," the manager said getting all uppity about it. " I have done no such thing and have no reason to do so in the first place."
" I also agree with Megumi," said Shimizu. " I find it hard to believe that she was threatening your client."
Yoru's father paused, looked at the back of his paper and continued in a way Yoru would speak if he was the one explaining it to them.
" I have to tell you otherwise. She has more than enough reason to harass our client with her threatening letters."
" What makes you think that?"
" Because…Because…" Yoru's father was losing his train of thought. He couldn't look at Yoru's paper because all the women were looking at him expecting an answer out of him. It finally came to him. " You are the president's rumored mistress."
The manager was shocked to hear Yoru's father's words.
"That should be more than enough reason for you to want to threaten our client."
"How cruel, Mr. Detective... You're singling me out just because of a coincidence." The manager starts to tear up.
"No, I assure you, Kaneko-san. You are by definition not being singled out. I admit that your work ethnic is quite impressive, however it was nothing remarkable compared to Shimizu-san whose work could easily promote her to any position in no time which leaves the question..."
The manager starts to feel uncomfortable as Yoru's father continues to talk.
"How on earth did you achieve your position in such a short amount of time?"
"Th-That's because I worked hard for it. I put in a lot of effort to get where I am! You can't accuse me of being a criminal just because I was trying my best!" The manager rebukes.
"It's true that effort and hard work is what earns people their positions. However reality is not so kind. No matter how much sweat, blood, and tears you put in, if your results aren't good, your efforts are meaningless."
"Then in that case, wouldn't Shimizu-san be the most suspicious out of us?" The manager declared pointing at Shimizu. "Isn't it suspicious how dedicated she is to her work?"
Shimizu was shocked to see that the manager was doubting her and thought that she was the culprit.
"Kaneko-san, how long have you been in the company?" Yoru's father asked changing the topic.
Not sure what that had to do with anything, Kaneko just answered Yoru's father's question, "About three months..."
"I see..." Yoru's father takes in the information he received. "Isn't that around the same time the rumors of the president's mistress came out?"
The manager's face pales as Yoru's father continues on.
"If the mistress had been Shimizu-san, then the rumors would have come out earlier."
The manager regains her composure.
"I see your point, but that's just pure coincidence."
Feeling a slight tug on her skirt, the manager looks down to see Yoru.
"Ne, ne..." Yoru innocently says. "You forgot some papers in the hallway. Don't worry I put them back on your desk. But I found something strange."
Yoru holds out video tape more specifically one that looked like the video tapes from the security room.
" What my son is holding is a video tape of someone stepping on a coffee stain. Chances are the first few sheet of paper got stained with coffee." Yoru shows the papers he found in the trash with a coffee stain. One of them had an imprint of a high heel on them.
" What's that suppose to prove?" Shimizu asked.
" It means the client who came to us couldn't be involved. Shimizu either." Yoru's father was so convincing. No one would know that Yoru told him beforehand. Yoru even knew their reactions. " You knew about the coffee stain and made sure to avoid the spot. This makes the manager the only possible culprit."
The manager was biting her nails. She was starting to feel nervous about him. Yoru's father walked up to her and stared at her. " You were also the one who knocked me out. Not at first however. You originally intended to use a light sleeping drug in my tea to put me to sleep."
Yoru plays the video tape and watches it as his father interrogates the manager.
"But unfortunately, for you, Shimizu-san came beforehand and offered me some cake. And after your arrival, our client gave me some wagashi. Thanks to the sugar in both of the sweets, I managed to retain my consciousness, but that was a problem for you. For you were pressed for time, therefore had no choice but to takes matters into your own hands. Fortunately for you, there was a bat inside the security room that was placed there by Shimizu as I heard from my son. Using it, you knocked me out before I could finish watching over all the videos. Then used the screwdriver from the security room's tool box to unscrew the screws on the air vent to make it look like it was done by an outsider."
"Can you prove that!" The manager desperately rebuked. "Can you prove that I had a motive for knocking you out? For stealing those tapes? How can you be sure that it was me? Someone could have put the tape on my desk to frame me! So I wear high heels big deal! So does everyone woman in this company!"
Yoru's father could see that the manager was getting desperate. She was practically already confessing that she was the criminal.
"Hey, what's that?" Yoru said as he pointing at a scene on the video.
The scene surprised Shimizu, the client, and most of all the manager. They saw the president, the client's husband, making out with the manager in an empty conference room. Shimizu was the first one to react as she covered Yoru's eyes so that he couldn't see anymore. That was not something a child should be seeing.
"Nothing, to do with you? I beg to differ." Yoru's father taunted.
"Ke... Ke... Hehehehe..." The manager starts to giggle.
"Kaneko-san?" Like the client, Shimizu was puzzled by the manager's strange reaction.
"Fine, I admit it. I am indeed the president's mistress, Mr. Detective." The manager admitted.
"Finally, some truth." Yoru's father said.
"But that does not prove that I am the culprit. While it does prove I have a motive, but that's about it. Unless, you have evidence that I actually did it. You can't prove that I'm the culprit based only on a video of our private affairs."
"Being a mistress is enough proof that it couldn't be anyone else but you."
"So I'm a mistress. We all have our own dirty secrets that we wish to keep hidden. You, Mr. Detective, are no exception."
Yoru's father flinches a bit but goes unnoticed by the manager who continues.
"I'm sure even you too have at least one or two skeletons in your closet."
"That's right, Dad." Yoru said agreeing with the manager. "It can't be her. She's too nice to do it."
Yoru's father didn't get what Yoru was doing by siding with the manager when he knows for sure that she's guilty.
"After all, if she was the bad person, then she would have coffee stains on her shoes. Since the bad person was using the printing paper as a stand."
The manager's face pales.
That's it. Yoru's father got what his son was trying to tell him.
"Then Kaneko-san, I hope you don't mind removing your heels and show us whether or not you're truly innocent." Yoru's father knew what it was. It was her heels. Since the culprit stepped in the coffee stain, there should be some stains left or at least some left for them analysis. They are also likely to left a faint scent of coffee on them.
Kaneko-San was more than willing to take off her heels and showed them what was beneath her foot. It was the same coffee stain they were looking for.
" It was me all along," she confessed. " I was the one who sent those blackmail messages to your client. I am unimpressed at how unintelligent she was to not know it was me." She chuckled lightly. " Congratulations for figuring out it was me, detective."
" Why...?" The client let out when she learned who the blackmailer was. " Why were you sending those letters to me?"
" How about letting the detective solve it himself. That's what we are here for, listening to the detectives theories and finding the blackmailer. If you know its me does that mean we can leave."
" You knocked me out and stole the tapes because there's a tape that would have exposed you as the blackmailer."
"That's right. I was careless. To think I would have been exposed like this was a miscalculation on my part." The manager chuckled.
"But why?" The client asked.
"Why?" The manager repeated with a hint of annoyance.
"Why!" The manager yelled out. "Because you had everything I wanted. I didn't care about money or position. I just wanted his love, but you already took that from me. No matter what I did I couldn't get his attention not even as his mistress. I was only his plaything while loved you from the bottom of his heart. Something I could never obtain no matter how hard I tried. I even tried to work as hard as Shimizu but I couldn't do it. She was perfect. She could get anything done or whatever she wanted without any effort at all."
Envy is a terrible thing. Admiration and adoration could easily turn into jealousy making them lose their way.
"You're wrong." Shimizu spoke as she held a melancholic look on her face. "My results were not from my hard work or dedication but from my pain and sorrow. I wanted to forget about everything. My pain. My grief. And my lost love."
The manager saw it in Shimizu's eyes they were the eyes of a brokenhearted woman. She knew that better than anyone in the room for she saw the same look in her eyes every time she looked in a mirror. The pain of losing your love was too much for any woman to bear.
"I guess. We were not so different after all." The manger gently smiled.
Yoru had to get out of the room. Why he left was to call the police and tell them everything. They didn't believe a kid like him until he played the tape that was hidden in his jacket. Any minute the police would be running in to put the manager in jail.
Then the manager was taken by the security guards to be handed over to the police. But not before asking Yoru's father one last thing.
"Why didn't you think Shimizu-san was the culprit? She hated your client and acted rude to her. Not to mention, your kid found one of her earrings in the plant near the camera."
"Because she cared for her friend..." Yoru's father answered.
The manager wasn't expecting that answer.
"A woman who's willing to accept the harsh treatment of her coworkers all for the sake of her friend even after losing her love to that friend... How on earth could such a woman be capable of threatening her precious friend..."
The manager's mouth slightly hung open until she closed it again. And then continued her way to the police station.
"I still hate that woman, and I don't regret what I did one bit." The manager said as she is escorted out. "But I do regret involving a fellow heartbroken woman in this... I pity her for having such a sad fate."
And with thus came an end to the sad brokenhearted tale of a woman who lost her love.