I am getting close to the ending of this story. Three or two more chapters left until the end of this story.
XXX
Knowing Ran, Conan figured it was probably some plan to get her parents together. Since this is an onsen, the most obvious choice would be the mixed baths here. Luckily, for Ran, her father had asked the beautiful hostess if there were any mixed baths which there were as well as separate ones. The outdoor baths doubles as the mixed baths location, but only at certain times. The bath times for the outdoor baths is separated by genders for each time slot. Once, the male and female bath times are done. The outdoor baths is open for mixed bathing. And that will mostly like what Ran's going for.
Conan didn't have to be a Holmes fanatic to figure that out.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Don't go!"
"It's no use. I'm sick of this. As long as I'm here, you'll never be safe."
"I don't care! Even if it means making the whole world my enemy, I'll let you go!"
"How boring..." Kogoro commented in pure boredom at the cliche soap opera being playing. Why did he have to watch this? Normally, he would have preferred watching one of Yoko Okino's movies or tv shows, but apparently, his daughter said otherwise.
"This just shows how poor in taste you are. This must a little bit too sophisticated for an incompetent, womanizing drunkard who wouldn't know the finer things in life." Eri remarked at her husband as she too had been forced to watch the same movie.
"Unlike you, I have more modern tastes. I'm not into films for old hags."
"You mean those idol concerts where you shout at the top of your lungs like a fool..."
Despite the thermostat not being touched, the room felt 10 degrees colder.
The peanut gallery could only watch the drama between the two married couple. Ran was thinking of a way to get the two of them on the same page while Conan was doubting the two of them were gong to make up any time soon.
"H-Hey, Conan. Want to go get some juice with me? There's a vending machine in the hallway." Ran suggested to Conan who already knew where this was going.
And might he add, that there was no way things were going to go so easily as she thinks.
Either way, Conan nods his head in agreement since he'd rather go with Ran than be stuck in a room with those two. He was definitely not getting caught up in that mess.
And so, Ran took Conan out with her to get some juice leaving her parents alone in the room with a cliche romantic movie as she planned. Surely, there were going to be some sparks this time... hopefully.
XXXXXXXXXX
Yoru knew that Conan was way above his level, in academics and just basically the brains. He was pretty sure the rumor that Conan was high-school level in all his grades wasn't fake. It all mattered and yet it was all just something that disparaged the other kids from working hard.
Yoru had to admit, he had a pretty low grade on math right now. His low grades were still better than others. It was so far away though where good grades mean anything for the two elementary school boys.
To Yoru, one bad grade was nothing. Too good grades were bad. It was weird but judging grades was a personal favorite of his. After all, grades were something meant to be judged. He often heard adults say don't work too hard and don't think too much. If that was true, life was going to be really easy.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Walking down the hallway to the baths while humming a cheerful tune in light of her high spirits, Ran couldn't wait to see the moment her parents reconcile as they romantically meet with each other under the beautiful, bright moon gazing at the stars. And finally, return back to the family of three they once were.
Her expression said it all. Though, Conan doubts things will go the way she thinks. When it comes to the two of them, the chances of Ran's scenarios happening are close to none.
"Ne, Conan. Let's get some milk after the bath." Ran suggested after spotting a long, black haired, bespectacled woman, Rose Miller, purchasing some drinks and quite a lot. Must be for a whole group.
"Sure." Conan nods in agreement.
Off to their designated bath, Conan entered the male baths while Ran went to the next door female baths. Aside from Conan, there were barely anyone else in. Just an elderly, a couple of kids with their father, and a young IT worker, Russel Duke.
Finished with their baths, Conan and Ran went back to their room. Ran hopes that her parents finally made up and decided to live together. However contrary to Ran's thoughts, she found just her drunken father a mess in their room and her mother nowhere in sight.
Seeing her so called Great Detective father in his currently sloppy appearance, it's no wonder her mother wasn't there. If anything, her father probably hadn't gone to the baths yet and just spent the whole time drinking.
After teaching her father a lesson through karate, Ran got her mother to at least join them for dinner in their room.
Kisaki was sitting down when she found her and rubbing her head as if alleviating a headache. Kisaki was never someone who let a headache ruin her work. Unless, of course, there was a drunk maniac who 'solved' cases breathing the headache into you.
"Now doesn't this feel like a proper family!" Ran commented. "Nothing better than sitting down and having a meal with the people you love. If only this could last forever, or maybe... unless a certain couple started living back together again, then that wouldn't be a problem."
'How much more obvious do you have to be...' Conan internally retorted as he couldn't help but let out a forced smile.
"I think the main 'problem' lies in the womanizing drunkard." Eri nonchalantly pointed out.
"Are you sure it doesn't have anything to do with a certain old bat's nagging?" Kogoro let on.
The atmosphere was so tense that Ran and Conan could see lightning between the two 'technically' married couple.
Conan had a feeling something like this was going to happen.
The night continued on. Blissfully unaware of the horror that awaited them the next morning.
XXXXXXX
The next morning, a bloodcurdling scream shrieked throughout the whole inn waking up everyone.
Conan would have been scared out of his mind hearing that scream if he wasn't use to it. Conan being use to that sound stemmed from him hearing about it everyday.
No detective would be taken serious wearing there pajamas. Although Conan wasn't sure if the scream was from a murder he was sure he couldn't go if Ran stopped him or if his pajamas raised any questions.
On instinct, Conan bolted out of the room and headed right to the source of the scream which was outside. Maneuvering his way through the grassy terrain and around the trees, Conan comes across the crime scene. The body of a man who appeared to be in his late twenties to early thirties. From the looks of it, it looked like he drowned. Based on his attire, he was a guest at the inn Conan along with Ran and her father were staying at.
"Hey kid, you shouldn't go near that man!" One of the onlookers exclaimed.
His detective instincts took over him as he started examining the man's body to see if he was still alive if possible.
However it was no good. The man was dead. And for a long time, he might add. Rigorous mortis had already set in.
"Kyyyaaaa!" Screamed a woman, Ruri Blythe. "Takano-san!"
The fact that she screamed out the victim's name meant that she knew the man.
"What's going on?" Russel Duke questioned wondering what the whole commotion was about. "Takano!"
So the guy knew the victim too. Conan eyed both the IT workers in suspicion.
Was this an accident or maybe...
XXXXXXX
Not long after the police showed up, several of them being familiar faces Conan knew.
"Why am I not surprised..." Inspector Megure retorted the moment he sees a certain famous sleeping detective. By his side were his two subordinates officer Takagi and officer Satou. Seeing how his former subordinate keeps running into so many crime scenes, he wouldn't surprised if the man was possessed by the grim reaper.
"What a coincidence I tell you..." Kogoro greeted Megure. "Who would have imagined that I'd come across a case in the middle of my vacation? Cases just can't seem to stop coming to be me!"
'I can.' Megure internally deadpanned. 'You really are the grim reaper.'
While Kogoro was imagining how he was lucky and Megure was imagining how he was unlucky the subordinates tried their best to help the detective and the officer solve the case.
Beginning the investigation, Megure started questioning the eye witnesses who found the body starting with a couple who like Kogoro were on vacation.
"S-Since it was a nice day, we decided to go out for a short walk." The woman first spoke. "A-And when we were following the river so that we wouldn't get lost, w-we found a drowned man. We weren't sure if he was alive or not. But before I knew it, I had screamed out of the top of my lungs."
"I see. And what time did you start your walk as well as the time you found the deceased?" Megure asked.
"I think it was around 7 that we left." The man answered for his shaken up wife. "Then about fifteen minutes later we found that man there."
"And did you notice anything unusual?"
"I don't think so. As soon as I saw the man in the river, I pulled him and gave him cpr, but it was no use. I was in too big of a rush to get him out of there to notice anything, and my wife was too frightened to notice anything."
Megure proceeded on with the questioning until he started to question Ruri Blythe and Russel Duke.
"So you two knew the deceased?" Megure repeated.
"Y-Yes, that's right." Ruri answered as she wiped her teary eyes. Russel did his best to comfort his close companion. "The three of us along with two of our coworkers checked in. We wanted to have a birthday party for a dear friend of our's. And Takano-san ended up really drunk last night. I don't know what happened after we ate since I went to take a bath and slept in my room last night."
"The same for me too. I went to take a bath after we finished dinner. But when I got back to our room, I didn't see Takano there so I thought he was taking a bath or something. Then I went to sleep too."
"You shared a room with the victim?"
"Yeah, we booked two rooms. Both separated by gender. It was me, Takano, and Nicholas in one room. Ruri and Rose in another."
Megure could see the fear in everyone's eyes but he was certain one person's fear was a lie. They all were close to the victim so maybe some of them felt responsible for the death; Megure tried to protect the people close to him but keeping the people close to her safe never weighed heavily on her mind.
" So your all sure you might have heard a loud sound before finding your co-worker dead?" Megure asked.
"Th-That's right." Ruri said. "The both of us are early risers so we went out for a walk although we took our's separately so we didn't meet each other until we arrived here."
Russel nodded his head in confirmation of Ruri's story.
"And may I ask what that is for?" Inspector Megure pointed to the digital camera in Russel's hands.
"Just a camera. I wanted to take some pictures of the scenery to show to the rest of my pals. The nature view here is amazing." Russel informed the inspector.
"You don't mind if I go through your pictures, do you?"
Russel shook his head as he nonchalantly handed Inspector Megure the camera.
"Nothing suspicious here." Kogoro whispered to his former superior as he peeked over the inspector's shoulder to examine the pictures much to the inspector's chagrin.
Despite Kogoro's presence, Megure continued on through the examination. As Russel said, he had taken pictures of the nature scene when he went out. The nature pictures soon came to an end when Megure went back one picture too many and came across an interesting picture.
"And this is?" Inspector Megure inquired about the picture in the camera.
"Oh, that's from last night." Russel answered. "I took a lot of pictures from the party last night. I was going to print them out and give them to the others after we leave."
"That's right. Nicholas-san was quite enthusiastic about today's party." Ruri commented. "He wanted to make it perfect, but now with what happened to Takano-san. He'll be devastated once he hears about this."
Inspector Megure didn't feel sad the same way Russell and Ruri felt sad, nor did Megure believe they really were sad. Maybe if this was only a case of drugs or theft the inspector could feel sorry for them but with the killer still out there he could only look at them and remember their truths and lies.
"And this 'Nichola-san' he's one of your companions, is that correct?" Megure inquired.
"That's right, he's one our coworkers." Russel answered.
"Then I suppose he's the one who organized this party?"
"No, that was Rose-san." Ruri added. "We came up with the idea of setting up a party as a group while Rose was the one who organized the whole thing and set up the reservation."
"Inspector, you don't think that Rose woman pretended to cooperate while planning the victim's death. It is fishy how she took on the trouble of setting up the trip." Kogoro whispered into the inspector's ear as they interview Rose and Russel.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Mouri-kun."
There was still much that they had to unravel first.
"Inspector!" A forensics member calls out to Inspector Megure. "We've found a strange bruise mark around the victim's left ankle."
"What?"
"Yes, a large hand shaped bruise was found. We speculate that he was grabbed by someone in that area."
"Then the culprit must be a man! Only a man would have a strong enough grip to do such a thing. He probably dragged him from the original crime scene and moved him here by dragging him here to conceal the dastardly deed as an accident! Isn't that right, Inspector!" Kogoro hypothesized.
For once, Megure had to admit that what Kogoro said sounded very plausible compared to his usual nonsense.
"That's impossible, Oji-san." Conan interjected.
"Why you little... How many times have I told you not to interfere with police work!" Kogoro yelled at Conan.
'That should be my line.' Inspector Megure wanted to say the same thing to his former subordinate but refrained from doing so.
"I mean look at him." Conan innocently points to the diseased. "He doesn't look like he was dragged around."
"He's right." The forensics member said. "We found numerous of injuries on the diseased's body, but they were all around the body. The back was heavily damaged or showed any signs of being dragged."
"Ack!" There goes Kogoro's idea.
"Not to mention, there isn't a path around here that showed signs of something being dragged here either." Conan added. "Also, the hand bruise belonged to a right hand so if the victim was dragged normally the criminal would use their left hand if they were dragging the victim by his left ankle. It'd be harder to drag the victim with his right hand in that case."