SailorStar9: With Chapter 189 uploaded, I present Chapter 190 of this fic. (Sighs) Guys and girls, is it too" hard for you to leave a review, instead of just putting this fic up on your favorited list and story alerts?
Disclaimers: I do not own Sailor Moon or Detective Conan, I only own this plotline and the pairing.
Pairing: Established!Furuya Rei/Mizuno Ami
Chapter 190: The Red Sheep's Eerie Game, Part Two
Back in the La Mucho restaurant...
"Mouri-kun, is it true you've figured out who the culprit is?" Megure asked.
"I've tracked down some decisive evidence." Mouri was confident. "You're the one who kill Wakabayashi Tetsusaburo, Hirasawa Motojiro-san." he declared. "Hirasawa-san, three weeks ago, you rented this red sheep costume from Beika Costume Rental. Your name was in the rental records."
"I did rent that costume." Hirasawa admitted. "But I didn't kill Wakabayashi. This year is this restaurant's fifth year anniversary. I thought I'd use the red sheep for our anniversary event. I designed this costume. When I told Wakabayashi I wanted to use this costume for our event, he was unusually strongly opposed to the idea and I tearfully backed down from the idea. Wakabayashi-san and I are co-owners; he was important to me as my business partner."
"If you were partners, then you must know everything about Wakabayashi-san." Conan pointed out. "The threatening message on Wakabayashi-san's computer was received at 10pm. Banks would've been closed by then. How would he have gotten 50 million yen? And I saw you glance toward the kitchen when you heard the ransom was 50 million yen. You looked without thinking because you knew there were 50 million yen in the kitchen."
"Inspector, there are marks on the floor indicating this shelf was moved." Takagi confirmed.
"Inspector, there is a hidden safe." Mouri reported, after he and Takagi moved the shelf to reveal a safe in the wall.
"There's no cash inside." Takagi opened the safe. "There is this one notebook, though. It looks like an account book."
"Every year, we under-reported our profits and hid it as cash." Hirasawa confessed. "Only Wakabayashi and I knew about it."
"But if Hirasawa-san is the culprit, I doubt he'd use his name when he rented the costume." Conan pointed out. "It was only a few weeks ago that people started talking about the red sheep. Since the costume was returned three weeks ago, the timing is off."
"The rental company owner said the costume had been taken several times after it was returned." Mouri recalled. "Maybe someone's trying to frame Hirasawa-san."
"Didn't I ask you to hold onto the cardboard box the costume was stored in?" Hirasawa turned to Beppu and Takigawa. "I told you a delivery service was coming by to pick it up."
"There was no way for us to know that." Takigawa protested.
"Hirasawa-san, was that a shipping slip on the box?" Conan asked. "Shipping slips have a field for the package's contents. What did you write there?"
"One costume." Hirasawa recalled.
"I never saw any slip." Takigawa insisted.
"The storeroom used to store the costumes were old and the door isn't even locked." Mouri stated. "It would be easy to take a costume if you wanted to."
"There would've been no way for us to know the storeroom's lock was broken." Beppu objected.
"All he said was that the storeroom wasn't locked." Conan immediately spotted the slip. "He never mentioned it was broken."
"There's a padlock on the storeroom door, but it comes undone easily." Mouri smirked. "Only the culprit would know that."
"Detective, we are the red sheep." Beppu confessed. "Ami would wear the red sheep costume and I would film it. We uploaded the videos on a video sharing site."
"This is all your fault." Takigawa glared at Hirasawa. "We heard you were going to make us hand out fliers in that costume, so we ruined the sheep's image."
"Who told you you'd be handing out fliers in costume?" Mouri frowned.
"I only told Wakabayashi." Hirasawa blinked.
"You eavesdropped on their conversation." Mouri turned to Takigawa. "And you heard about the 50 million yen in the hidden safe then, too."
"Mouri-san, weren't they with you when the murder occurred?" Takagi pointed out.
Rather than let Mouri continue rambling on, Conan tranquilized the detective. "Everyone, allow me to make a correction." he took on Mouri's voice. "The red sheep featured in the threatening message on the tablet wasn't Ami-san. She isn't the red sheep, but the girlfriend being held hostage; the woman named Anri-san who met Wakabayashi-san on the dating app and became his girlfriend was actually Ami-san. Wakabayashi-san didn't know the faces and names of the part-time employees. He wouldn't have noticed if Ami-san called herself Anri instead. Hirasawa-san, didn't you say you made Wakabayashi-san's title at this restaurant head cook? Perhaps, because of that, he called himself 'Chef' on the dating app. There are two people here who accidentally called him 'chef'. One of them is Ami-san, and the other one is you, Kamio-san. Conan, could you use the costume's head to explain to them? The head of this costume has a helmet inside that makes it easier to wear." he ran out from his hiding place. "Kamio-san, can you put this on? Kamio-san, that hairstyle you're so proud of has been ruined." he reverted to Mouri's voice, after removing the helmet from Kamio's head. "Yesterday, your hair was flattened the same way. Finally, the final piece of conclusive evidence; Detective Takagi, could you examine Kamio-san's watch? Are there red fibers stuck in the band?"
"There seem to be something that looks like thin red string." Takagi peered closely at the lock.
"Those are probably nylon fibers covering the surface of the costume." Conan related. "They would only be stuck to his watch's band if he wore this costume. Kamio-san, you most likely bugged the kitchen to gather information about the restaurant. That's how you learned about the hidden 50 million yen."
"Ami, you were with Kamio-san?" Beppu was shocked.
"Since a long time ago." Takigawa shrugged. "'I was just having a little fun with you. I used the Red Sheep game to lure you into the park so that I will have an alibi."
"It's true that Ami and I planned to steal 50 million yen from the chef and sent him a threatening letter." Kamio admitted. "But that was the only part that went according to plan. We never got the ransom money. We didn't kill the chef, either. After Ami headed for Beika Park, I put the costume in the trunk of our car and took a break. But then..." he related how he was knocked unconscious from the back. "When I woke up, the sheep was gone."
In deep thought, Conan realized there was another person who could be the culprit.
In the rental storeroom...
The red sheep suddenly appeared behind the real culprit's back when he was attempting to get the hidden 50 million yen.
"You're the one who killed Wakabayashi Tetsusaburo-san and stole 50 million yen." Megure declared, the culprit was revealed to be Iwami.
50 million yen in cash weighs about five kilograms." Conan explained. "Just that penguin was hanging lower than the other costumes, so I hit my head on it."
"I was trying to catch the culprit." Iwami confessed. "I staked out this place so I could catch the scoundrel taking costumes in the middle of the night without paying a rental fee. That's when I happen to overhear their plan to steal 50 million yen from a man called Wakabayashi. My company's about to go bankrupt and they're trying to get their heads on a huge sum of money like it's some kind of game. I figured there'd be nothing wrong with swiping that money, so I followed them. When I opened the bag to check its contents, I found a knife inside. When I looked up without thinking..." he recalled the helmet falling off and revealing his face to Wakabayashi. In a frantic attempt to save himself, he stabbed the chef.
Later that night...
"Well, there are only two things that are certain in life—death and taxes." Amuro remarked, after Ami related their most recent case to him.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.