Case Closed AU
By: FunahoMisaki
(A/N: I own nothing and read last chapter)
It had been a month since the train bomb case and right now Irene sighed as she sat at a diner while Rachel ran out to get a piece of cake to bribe her with, in order to get the younger girl to go home. Rachel had at first told Irene that she had been going on a date with Jimmy, or 'tou-san' as she referred to him now just to see how red Rachel could turn, but Irene knew it was a lie so she followed her 'kaa-san' to the diner she was meeting him at. That was when Rachel had told her that she wasn't meeting Jimmy and instead was meeting someone important to her, Irene had about to ask if it was a boyfriend when Rachel decided to go get some cake for Irene so that she could go home and eat it, an obvious bribe.
Irene looked up at the woman that had just walked in and blinked, she looked slightly familiar although she couldn't tell where from. She was a tall pretty woman, wearing glasses over blue eyes and wearing a purple dress suit. The woman sat in the booth in front of Conan and ordered some coffee and a scone.
"Wow you're pretty miss." Irene said over the back of the booth as the woman took out some legal documents, the woman was probably a lawyer from how Irene saw it. The woman looked up sharply, causing Irene to blink at her even as a shiver ran down her spine. That look, she had gotten it once before but from where?
"Thank you little one. That's very kind of you to say." The woman said suddenly softening up and smiling at Irene who smiled back while a light laugh was heard from nearby as someone new walked into the diner.
"Irene-chan are you complimenting another woman? I swear you compliment all the women that look like your 'kaa-san'." The business woman that had been the one with the briefcase on the train a month ago said giggling as she walked in just in time to hear what Irene had said.
"Oh. Seiko-san I didn't know you were here." Irene said smiling up at the kind woman who had offered to babysit Irene anytime Rachel wanted her too. The woman had grown quite attached to the small girl that had kept her from being arrested.
"Hehe. I was on my lunch break and I decided to come here today although I wasn't expecting you here Irene-chan. Especially not on your own. Where'd your kaa-san run off to?" Seiko asked sitting in the booth across the aisle way from Irene who turned to face her.
"Kaa-san told me earlier she was meeting tou-san here for a date so I followed kaa-san here to see tou-san but then kaa-san told me that she wasn't meeting tou-san. She was meeting someone more important than him. I wanted to know who she was meeting and for some reason she said she was going to go buy me a nice big slice of cake so I could go home and eat it, although I don't know why." Irene said innocently and stubbornly not tilting her head to the side, she found out that every time she did that if Seiko didn't glomp her then some other woman would.
"I see and if she was coming here for a date with someone other than your tou-san you wanted to know who he was and just how badly you could terrorize him without your kaa-san's knowledge right?" Seiko teased causing Irene to grin widely without remorse.
"Here why don't you come sit with me until your kaa-san gets back? I can try to help you find the guy and terrorize him some, or at least keep you from getting into too much trouble." Seiko said patting the seat beside her while Irene smiled brightly and jumped down from her seat, gently carrying her glass of juice across the aisle and over to Seiko's table, causing the pendant around her neck to bounce slightly, drawing the lawyers attention.
"That's a strange and beautiful pendant little one. Wherever did you get it?" The lawyer asked causing Seiko and Irene to look at the pendant in question. It was a weapon in disguise actually. When a professional assassin had gotten arrested thanks to Irene cause she was hired to kill Richard thanks to a criminal he put away, the woman Mia had stopped when she was about to pass Irene and kneeled down. With her handcuffs still one Mia had removed her weapon necklace and placed it around Irene's neck instead.
"Here little one. You're cute and very smart for a child and there are a lot of people who would want to hurt such a smart and pretty little girl. It'll take some practice but you can use this to protect yourself. I certainly won't be able to keep it with me in prison so I'd rather give it to someone who can use it to defend themselves." That was what Mia had said as she smiled softly at a confused Irene…who was promptly squished into a hug by the assassin when Irene had only tilted her head to the side before smiling. When Richard questioned if Inspector McGuire and the officer that had, at the time, been set to guard him, Rachel and Irene would let her keep the weapon…Inspector McGuire and Yumi merely grinned mischievously and asked 'what weapon it was just a harmless necklace' and so the matter was dropped.
"It was a gift. Mia-san was arrested and said that she wouldn't be able to keep her necklace with her in prison so she'd rather I kept it safe for her!" Irene said smiling down at the necklace and it was true when Irene had tried to give it back to the woman, Mia had merely smiled and told Irene to think of it like she was just keeping the necklace safe for her. That was about when a large man with a bandage wrapped around his wedding finger walked in and immediately sat at the counter, complaining to the owner about his wife getting angry cause he couldn't fit his wedding band on it anymore. Irene and Seiko both watched as the woman with an attitude walked up and asked where the rest room was before going towards it after a rude 'I got it I got it' after the owners warning about it still being wet.
"That woman has quite the attitude." Seiko commented idly while Irene nodded in agreement.
"Hope she doesn't say anything bad to or about you. If I don't kick her ass then your kaa-san would when she learns about it." Seiko said causing Irene to pale and nod in agreement while the lawyer looked up at the two and raised an eyebrow curiously.
"I first met Irene-chan here on a train, she and her friends were exploring and she was looking for a bomb that someone else had stashed on the train in my briefcase without my knowledge. A man in the seat ahead of me got a bit angry at all the noise and called her and her three friends 'bastards' in front of Irene's kaa-san…he ended up thrown clear across the cabin and according to Irene-chan he got off lightly." Seiko said shivering a bit as she remembered how pissed off Rachel had looked when the man insulted Irene and her friends.
"Yeah he only got thrown a little ways. He better be glad kaa-san didn't use her karate on him." Irene said nodding in agreement while a man with long hair wearing a white-tannish suit walked into the diner humming and said that he was supposed to meet a girl here before taking a seat at the booth just behind where Irene and Rachel had sat. Irene and Seiko suddenly quit talking as they watched the man, Irene glaring at him since he was the main suspect at the moment while the lawyer watched everything out the corner of her eye in amusement as the guy's phone rang.
"Yo Darren what's up my man? It's cool I'm meeting a fine female at the diner here in a few. Yeah man she's smoking. Nah you met her before. She was part of the tour at the TV station that day the producer was murdered." The man said answering his phone while the lawyer got up and went to the restroom as another man was leaving. Irene and Seiko exchanged glances, Rachel had been part of that tour and had nearly murdered Richard for using Irene during his explanation although she understood the reason behind it. Seiko had been there in the audience as well, she had been invited by one of the workers who she was friends with, and had fallen out of the stands laughing when Irene threw an empty can of orange juice at Richards head and knocked him over.
"It's hard to find a girl as innocent as she is now a days. Nahh innocent girls aren't prudes they're just naive, just the way I like them! AHAH!" The man said causing both Irene and Seiko to scowled angrily as he gave a disgusting laugh.
"Don't worry she won't find out about any of this man. Later dude." The guy said hanging up as the lawyer walked out of the restroom and the big guy walked into it.
"What a creep! If this guy is the one kaa-san's meeting I'm going to kick him clear across the room!" Irene said literally growling as she adjusted the dial on her shoe and began to stand up as the man put his hair back into a ponytail. Irene was about to make good on her threat too when the waitress interrupted her.
"Ms. Edogawa? I have a phone call here for a miss Edogawa." The waitress called out as the man Irene was about to kick rose and went to the bathroom.
"Down here that's my name!" Irene piped up as she walked over, causing the waitress to squeal and glomp her. This caused the lawyer to raise an eyebrow in amusement, Seiko to fall out of the booth laughing, and Irene to merely sigh.
"That happens way too often." Irene said as the waitress finally set her down and apologized. Almost every woman or teenage girl Irene met…squealed and glomped her almost immediately hell even Serena did it…as had some murderers and one man disguise as a woman. Irene picked up the fallen phone and talked into it for a moment while Seiko composed herself. Irene talked into it for a minute and mentioned Seiko was here too before hanging up.
"I swear when that guy get's outta there I'm gonna-" Irene began but was cut off by a loud scream from the guy in the bathroom causing everyone to jump as Irene ran to the bathroom with Seiko not far behind along with the big guy.
"Blood." Irene said looking where the guy was the moment she ran into the room.
"Not again. I'll go call the police and a medic." Seiko said pushing the big guy out of her way as she went for the phone while Irene jumped up to look over the top of the stall.
"You can forget the medic Seiko-san. She's already dead!" Irene shouted causing a few of the men in the diner to panic or be shocked while the lawyer merely walked into the room and looked at the girl curiously while Seiko shouted back an affirmative.
"This is how you found her right Irene-chan?" Inspector McGuire asked as he and his men showed up and he showed Irene a picture of where the body had been before they moved it to access the crime scene.
"Uh-huh. The door was unlocked but it wouldn't open so I jumped up to see over the stall. She was already dead when I found her." Irene said nodding while Inspector McGuire sighed.
"We need to keep a team on standby anytime you go anywhere, something always happens usually a murder. Alright kid what do you think happened here?" Inspector McGuire asked since he knew for a fact that Irene was quite smart and could rival Richard and even Jimmy Kudo when it came to her detective skills.
"Well it's a confined space and the knife was stained with blood but the window is too clean so the guy didn't go out the window cause if he did it'd have blood on it cause the guy would be covered in it too! Also can I see the bag with the knife in it please?" Irene asked noticing the window sills pristine appearance and speaking her thoughts aloud as she paced in the bathroom. She wasn't worried about being known as a child detective, the men in black would be looking for a boy not a girl if they even knew she was alive. She only used Richard as a dummy for most of the cases so that he would get more cases and therefore more opportunities to hear something about the men in black.
"Uh yeah sure. Show her the knife." Inspector McGuire ordered the no name cop holding the bag with the knife in it.
"Huh looks like the bad guy wasn't holding the knife when he killed her. See there's blood all over the handle which wouldn't be there if that's where the killer held it." Irene said aloud causing Inspector McGuire to look closer and notice she was right.
"My my you sound like an experienced detective." The lawyer said walking calmly into the room as she stared at Irene who merely grinned up at her.
"Eva Kadan what are you doing here?" McGuire asked turning towards the woman who smiled at him as Seiko also walked onto the scene, quickly walking over to Irene and placing a hand on her head protectively as she surveyed those around her.
"Came by for an early lunch. Now what were you about to say little cutie?" Eva asked turning to look at Irene while Seiko told Irene that she looked familiar because she was a famous attorney.
"Well if the person isn't covered in blood and couldn't take the weapon with him that means the killer is still in the diner. I only saw four people other than the victim enter the bathroom." Irene said causing McGuire to stare at her.
"Can you point them out Irene-chan?" McGuire asked causing her to nod and push open the bathroom door.
"Let's see. There was the big guy over there, the guy in the blue jacket and the idiot with the ponytail. The only other one that entered the restroom was…"Irene said pointing out each person in turn before spinning around to point at Ms. Kadan.
"Ms. Kadan herself." Irene said causing McGuire to ask Eva what she was doing there, causing Eva to tell him he should never ask a woman that before complimenting Irene on her memory.
"And look. When I jumped up to see why the door wouldn't open I noticed some blood drops on the top of the stall and since the murderer wasn't covered in the blood then that means it had to come from the victim." Irene said climbing up to look at the top of the stall post before jumping down, causing McGuire to nearly have a heart attack before Seiko caught her.
"Don't do things like that Irene-chan! If you were to get hurt while I'm around and can prevent it your kaa-san will murder me and hide all the evidence!" McGuire said sighing in relief and causing Seiko to nod in agreement while Irene merely grinned as the other three suspects were brought into the room and spoke up in which order they had gone and why they were at the diner.
"Hm that's the right order but something seems off about one of them. He seems different than he did when he walked into the diner." Irene said tilting her head as she surveyed the three male suspects closely, causing Eva to bite back a squeal while Seiko didn't even fight it as she squealed and hugged Irene again as the suspects tried going over the adjacent stall door one at a time, the only ones able to make it without getting stuck were Ms. Kadan and the student Keith.
"That happens to you way too often." McGuire commented idly to Irene after she had been released from the hug of death.
"I know. It's pretty disturbing when a killer does it…or a professional assassin." Irene said bluntly as she sighed as she was set back down on her feet just as a man ran in with a piece of rope that the student used to tie his books together.
"It wasn't him Inspector. Nor was it Ms. Kadan. The piece of rope has no traces of blood on it and the only thing Ms. Kadan could use to strangle the victim other than her hands, which we know wasn't the strangulation weapon due to the marks on the victims neck, is her hair tie but it's not big enough to fit around someone's head." Irene said when McGuire talked about Keith possibly being the murderer. Irene noticed something glinting in the light on Ms. Kadan's finger, a wedding ring…wait…That's it!
"Let me see this again!" Irene said snatching the bag with the knife in it from the guy holding it and reinspecting the knife. Just as she thought there was one part of the knife that was clean. Everyone was waiting in silence when Irene suddenly started laughing.
"Irene-chan?" McGuire asked the laughing girl as she handed the bag back to the guy she had taken it from.
"I know who the killer is, I know how he did it…and I even have proof." Irene said grinning viciously over her shoulder as her glasses caught the light and reflected it ominously.
"First off we've been going about it wrong. It wasn't the killer that went over the door it was the victim. She was already dead when she was stabbed. She was strangled to death first then the guy stabbed her and tied the knife to a rope or something like it. He then threw the victim over the door, thereby blocking it and tugged on the string or rope, pulling the knife out and causing the blood to splatter all over the knife and all. He probably pulled the knife back over the railing, untied the rope or string and then threw it back over the door again, leaving it with the body. Doing this way even the suspects still inside the diner but unable to climb over the door, and therefore unable to be freely blamed, could be the killer." Irene explained standing up and grinning while Ms. Kadan caught on to her train of thought.
"I see in that case the only one who could of done this is…Mr. Tongan." Kadan said causing the man to back away from her when the police tried to arrest him, he didn't really notice that he ended up less than three feet away from Irene and Seiko.
"But you don't have any proof! I just came here today to talk to the guy who owns the place, he's a good pal of mine." Tongan said causing Inspector McGuire to stop, he was right so far there was no actual proof.
"I heard you saying something about that. You said you had jammed your finger during Rugby practice." Irene said grinning while the man agreed with her quickly.
"Right and I was saying how my wedding ring wouldn't fit." Tongan said showing his hands and causing Irene's grin to widen as he looked scared all of a sudden and hid his left hand.
"Ms. Kadan? Can you hold up your left hand for me real quick? I wanna check something." Irene said causing the woman to blink before shrugging slightly and holding up her left hand where her wedding ring glinted in the light that hit the fourth finger of her left hand.
"Thank you. Mister…earlier when you came in your bandage was on the fourth finger on your left hand, where the wedding band goes. So why is it on your middle finger now? Did you retie it in the bathroom?" Irene asked causing Eva's eyes to widen, she didn't even notice that the mans bandage was on the wrong finger for a wedding ring!
"I see! You used that bandage to strangle the helpless victim and then tied it to the knife. If that's correct then there are still traces of the victims blood on it!" McGuire said pointing at the man while Eva looked amused.
"It never ceases to amaze me how stupid criminals can be, leaving such a portent piece of evidence like that. Even a veteran lawyer like me, wouldn't be able to get you out of a conviction." Eva said mocking the man who then charged for her, pushing past the police officers in his way.
"Oh no you don't!" Irene said grabbing her necklace and already throwing the end of it so that it wrapped around the man's neck before he could get to Eva. The man was stopped dead less than a foot away from Eva with the wire wrapped firmly around his neck and Irene holding the other end of it tightly.
"Heh. It took me a while to be able to pull this trick off but looks like all that training I did came in handy. I'll need to thank Mia-san next time I visit her in prison, I never expected to use the gift she gave me, especially not so soon after learning how to properly use it." Irene said smirking as she tugged on the wire a little, causing the guy to grasp at his neck while the cops quickly restrained him and Eva stared at the girl in surprise. The necklace doubled as a weapon?!
"We got him good sir. She can release the wire now!" One of the cops said as he helped hold the large man down, causing Inspector McGuire to nod and undo the wire around the man's neck before he was strangled to death.
"Heh you've gotten pretty handy with that thing. Glad I let you keep it." McGuire said as he released his end of the wire, causing it to retract into the necklace that Irene had put back around her neck.
"You've solved another one Irene-chan. I'll see if I can't send Yumi-san by with another medal for you. I dare say this is almost as good as when you and your three friends solved those string of department store robberies." McGuire said patting Irene on the head and causing her to grin up at him. Every time she solved a case he made it a point to give her a new medal, and usually had either Officer Sato or Patrol Officer Yumi give it to her so that they could sneak her some candy too.
The suspect was struggling to get loose from the officers as they forced him into one of the patrol cars when Rachel finally found Irene and stopped to look her over for any injuries.
"Hey there Rachel. You missed it. Irene solved another murder case all by herself and even got to use that necklace that the assassin gave her to keep the suspect from hurting anyone." McGuire said noticing Rachel running up as he watched his men try to force the large rugby player into the patrol car.
"She had to use that necklace on the suspect?!" Rachel asked shocked and horrified while Seiko nodded in confirmation, causing Rachel to scowl.
"Here officers let me give you a hand." Rachel said storming over to where the two officers were still trying to get the struggling man into the car. The two officers stiffened and looked at each other before looking up at Rachel in horror as a deadly aura enveloped her.
"Think she heard about Irene-chan having to use the necklace?" One of them questioned the other causing him to gulp and nod.
"Sucks to be you man. DIVE!" The other said patting the confused suspect on the back before he and his partner dove to the side just in time. The whole crowd 'eep'ed and stared shocked as Rachel knocked out the large man with a single punch to the face…which also broke some of his teeth.
"Wow…go kaa-san!" Irene cheered before noticing Steve, the man with the ponytail, was nearby and so was an approaching Serena and Rachel. She looked up at Seiko who also noticed this and they both shared a grin.
"Hey Seiko-san didn't Steve say that innocent girls aren't prudes just naïve, which is the way he likes him right?" Irene asked loudly, causing nearby people in the crowd to stare while Seiko nodded.
"I don't get it. What's he mean by that Seiko-san?" Irene asked 'innocently' causing both Rachel and Serena to be pissed off.
"I'll tell you when you're older Irene-chan. First though I need to have a little 'talk' with this guy on what he can and can't say around a child." Rachel said standing behind Steve and cracking her knuckles, causing him to pale while Serena stormed up with fire dancing around her.
"Allow me Rachel." Serena said causing Steve to turn towards her and eep.
"H-Hey Serena. So does this mean we aren't going to go see the concert?" Steve asked and was answered by a quick slap to the face by Serena who stormed off with Steve running after her…until he was subtly tripped up by Irene.
"Come on you're dressed in that same outfit again? I think it's about time you got a whole new wardrobe honey. Sound good?" Eva asked walking up to them and causing Rachel to sigh while Irene looked confused.
"Mother, as long as you agree to put everything on your credit card count me in." Rachel said causing both Seiko and Irene to blink in shock.
"Eh? Ms. Kadan is your kaa-san?" Irene asked tugging on Rachels dress to get her kaa-san's attention.
"That's right I never told you my Kaa-san's name did I?" Rachel asked smiling down at Irene who blinked before motioning to herself and then to Ms. Kadan who watched everything with a raised eyebrow.
"Go ahead. I'm sure she won't mind. In fact I think she's been dying to hug you since she saw you in the diner." Rachel said smiling reassuringly down at Irene, apparently understanding what the girl was asking without saying a word, who grinned back up at her. The next thing Eva knew she was tackled in a hug by a grinning six year old.
"Hi…baa-chan!"