SailorStar9: With Chapter 24 uploaded, this is Chapter 25 of this fic and I'm officially restarting this. (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?
Pairings: Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.
Chapter 25: The Tense Tea Party, Part 1
"Eri!" Mouri hurried to Haido General Hospital after reading Ran's short letter and going through his list of unread text messages. "Eri!" he burst into the hospital room.
"Why are you making so much noise?" Eri chided.
"Why?" Mouri tried to catch his breath. "You had surgery."
"It was just appendicitis." Eri deathpanned. "The surgery ended a while ago. The anesthesia wore off, and I just woke up."
"It was just your appendix?" Mouri sighed.
"It wasn't 'just' her appendix?" Ran retorted. "What were you doing with your phone off?"
"I'm sure it was horses, mahjong or pachinko." Eri stated.
"You idiot, I was working..." Mouri protested.
"Wasn't it pachinko?" Conan cut in. "Your jacket has a weird wrinkle near your butt. Doesn't that mean you were sitting in a chair for a long time? Also, your phone must been off because you were somewhere loud enough that you couldn't hear your phone ringing. You don't like to set you phone on vibrate because you think it's gross. And also, between your shoelaces, you have a pachinko ball. You were definitely playing pachinko."
"I see." Eri muttered. "You were captivated by pachinko while I was having an emergency."
"I just meant to go for a little while, but I was having such unusually good luck..." Mouri defended. "Anyway, you should just squeeze one out so you can leave. You know, when you experience appendix troubles, they say you can leave the hospital once you fart."
"Don't tell me you think you're being clever." Eri twitched. "Get out, you hack detective!" she tossed a pillow at Mouri, throwing him and Conan out.
"Sheesh," Mouri muttered. "I came here because I was worried about her, and she's getting mad at me?"
"Is that you, Mouri-sensei?" Amuro approached Mouri and Conan. "What are you doing here? Are you not feeling well?"
"No, it's my wife." Mouri replied. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard one of my friends was hospitalized and came to see him, but he apparently disappeared." Amuro replied. "The nurses told me you'd been here before, so maybe you know." he turned to Conan. "A man named Kusuda Rikumichi."
"Who is that?" Conan feigned ignorance. "I don't know him."
"I was hoping he'd return the money I lent him." Amuro remarked. "Are you sure you don't know him? You're amazing." he noted after Conan nodded.
"So, waiting for kaa-san to get her Pap Smear results was just an excuse, right, tou-san?" Fumio droned.
"Not really." Amuro corrected himself. "And do I even want to know how you know that term, Fumio-kun?"
"Kaa-san gave me the desensitized version of 'The Talk, Part Two' a while back." Fumio replied.
"And here she tells me you're growing up too fast." Amuro shook his head. "Excuse me." he turned his attention to Happo Tokie and Beppu Katsuki who were visiting Kosaka Juri in hospital. "Do you know a patient called Kusuda Rikumichi?"
"Kusuda Rikumichi-san..." Beppu trailed. "I'm not sure. Who is he?"
"Do you have a photo of him?" Happo asked.
"No, it's fine." Amuro assured. "What about you, Mouri-sensei?" he asked as the two women left. "What would do you if someone suddenly asked if you knew someone by name?"
"I'd probably respond like those ladies did." Mouri replied.
"That's right." Amuro concluded. "Most people don't have totally confidence in their own memory. That's why before answering no, they ask for information about the person beside their name. That's why you're amazing, Conan-kun. You knew he was a stranger based on just his name."
"You shouldn't take children so seriously." Mouri snorted. "Plenty of people would say they don't recognize someone by name even when they've met them. Some people only know others by a nickname."
"Tou-san?" Fumio blinked, noticing Amuro's startled expression.
"Is something wrong?" Mouri had also noticed Amuro's unusual reaction to a young boy's countdown of the hospital's elevator.
"No, nothing." Amuro assured. "My nickname is 'Zero', so I thought someone was calling me."
"Why Zero?" Mouri was puzzled. "Isn't your name Tooru?"
"Being transparent means there's nothing there." Amuro explained. "Hence Zero. That's how children come up with nicknames."
"Your wife suddenly developed appendicitis?" Amuro mused, after Mouri informed him of Eri's condition.
"I shouldn't have worried." Mouri remarked.
"Not true." Ami corrected.
"I suppose." Mouri concurred.
"So, how's it?" Amuro asked his lover.
"I'm clean." Ami responded.
"For now, kaa-san." Fumio pointed out. "How would we know what would happen next year?"
"I think I taught you a little too well." Ami looked at her son.
Just then, an unison scream of horror sounded from Kosaka Juri's room.
On cue, the four male detectives hurried back to the room.
"Did that scream come from this room?" Mouri asked, the quartet stopping in front of Kosaka's room.
"Is something wrong?" Amuro knocked on the door.
"Reina?" Beppu exclaimed, the three women were gathered around the fallen Suto Reina as Amuro pushed the door open.
"Kaa-san..." Fumio looked at his mother who had also arrived to the scene.
"Already on it." Ami produced her flip-phone.
"I can't believe someone was poisoned at the hospital." Inspector Megure was called to the crime scene.
"By the time the doctor arrived, it was already too late." Takagi reported.
"Who's the victim?" Inspector Megure asked.
"Haido resident, Suto Reina." Takagi referred to his notes. "Forty-two years old. Today, she came to the hospital with two of her high school classmates to see Kosaka Juri, another one of her classmates. Suto-san arrived before her other two friends."
"The cause of death seems to be asphyxiation caused by cyanide poisoning." Inspector Megure concluded. "But why was she drinking tea at a hospital?"
"The patient Kosaka-san liked tea." Takagi responded. "And they always held tea parties when the four of them got together."
"Then, that means those three had the opportunity to poison the victim." Inspector Megure narrowed down their suspects.
"But the victim drank several cups of tea without any problem when she suddenly seemed to be in pain." Takagi pointed out. "It's possible she had been made to swallow a poison capsule beforehand."
"Then, it's possible the crime wasn't committed here." Inspector Megure remarked.
"Something's not right." Conan cut in, both he and Fumio had their heads over Suto's phone. "Look." he turned the screen to the detectives. "The phone dropped over here had lots of pictures on it, but the dead lady has chopsticks in her right hand."
"You can't touch things at a crime scene." Mouri scolded Conan as Inspector Megure claimed the phone.
"What's strange about it, though?" Inspector Megure peered at the phone screen. "It's normal for people to hold chopsticks in their right hand."
"But the cup that broke on the floor..." Fumio pointed to the shattered cup. "Take a closer look; there's a lipstick stain on the right side of the handle. Won't that mean she's drinking tea with her left hand?"
"But why would the victim use her left hand?" Mouri wondered.
"It's because she had something in her right hand." Amuro answered. "For example, she may have been looking at pictures on her phone. When people are focused on one thing, they ignore all others. Even if the position of the cup or its handle were changed, she would pick it up without noticing. The culprit must have used this tendency to make the victim drink the poison by switching their own poisoned cup with the victim's. Putting poison in your own cup and switching it with the victim's is safer than directly poisoning the victim's cup. No one seemed to be using saucers, so it would be easy to adjust the cups' positions."
"There's no way we could've switched them." Beppu protested.
"Only her tea had lemon slices in it." Kosaka stated.
"And look closely at the color of everyone's tea." Happo added.
"All three are different." Inspector Megure noted, looking at the three different types of tea on the serving table. "From right to left, there's brown, blue and yellow."
"The victim is drinking a reddish tea." Takagi pointed out.
"You couldn't get those teas confused." Inspector Megure agreed.
"In any case, if someone poisoned the tea, there must be a container or bag used to contain the poison." Mouri reasoned. "Maybe a thorough search of the room will turn up something."
"The culprit may still have it on its person, too." Inspector Megure concurred. "After we search the three of you, we'll question you separately in another room."
"I made everyone's tea." Kosaka admitted. "After all, they were my guests. But all I did was put the tea bags in cups and add water."
"Are you the only one who touched the cups?" Inspector Megure questioned.
"No," Kosaka replied. "Happo-san and Beppu-san got the cups out of the cupboard."
"In other words, it would make sense to find everyone's fingerprints on the cups." Inspector Megure concluded.
"But why would you make so many different types of tea?" Takagi asked. "Normally, you only use one."
"Everyone knows I like herb tea, so I had received quite a few as gifts." Kosaka explained.
"Happo-san bought some as well. I thought we could compare teas."
"I see." Mouri noted. "As the person who suggested you compare teas and then made the tea, it was easiest for you to poison the tea."
"I didn't do anything like that." Kosaka protested. "Everyone saw me pour the water and Suto-san drank nearly half her tea before she collapsed. Besides, as I told you before, she would have noticed immediately if I switched my poisoned cup with hers."
"Why?" Inspector Megure questioned.
"I was drinking a blue herb tea called 'Butterfly Tea'." Kosaka replied. "She would have noticed if I had switched ours. Suto-san was drinking a red herb tea called 'Hibiscus Tea'."
"Do you know what the other two were drinking?" Amuro asked.
"Happo-san was drinking a brown herb tea called 'Peppermint', and Beppu-san was drinking a yellow herb tea called 'Chamomile'." Kosaka answered.
"I was drinking Peppermint." Happo confirmed. "I thought it would be green, but I was disappointed when I saw it was brown. You know, because of the color 'peppermint green'. Juri, who knows more about tea than I do, was giggling."
"But red and brown look pretty similar." Mouri pointed out. "It would've been easiest for you to switch..."
"They look nothing alike." Happo snapped. "Mine was a common brown, but Reina's was a garish red. Surely, she couldn't have confused these."
"Did everyone choose their own tea?" Amuro asked.
"Yes." Happo nodded. "We lined them up on the table and chose what we wanted. Once we finished drinking, we wiped the cups with tissues for our next cup. Juri had been drinking a blue tea before we arrived. She said it was healthy but bitter, so she didn't recommend it."
"How were the four of you seated?" Inspector Megure questioned.
"Let's see." Happo recalled. "Clockwise, it was me, Reina, Katsuki and Juri, I believe. Katsuki and I looked from either side of Reina at the cellphone photos she was looked at."
"Who suggested you look at the photos?" Takagi asked.
"Katsuki." Happo answered. "Apparently, Juri had shown them to her before. She wanted to show everyone the next time we visited. But Reina wouldn't let go of her phone. Katsuki and I had to look over her shoulder. She's always been that way. She's possessive, self-absorbed, and indifferent. Her current husband is my ex-boyfriend. She took him from me. But I didn't want to hurt her." she recanted. "Katsuki probably hated her more than I did. She was upset about the heavy loss she suffered because of Reina."
"Of course I was upset." Beppu retorted. "The stock Reina recommended to me crashed. I nearly lost a fortune, but Reina made a killing selling all her stock before it dropped."
"You have our sympathies..." Inspector Megure and Mouri chorused.
"Now I'm drowning in debt." Beppu complained. "She could've told me if she knew it was going to fall."
"Is that why you killed her?" Inspector Megure asked.
"If that would've brought my money back, I might have considered it." Beppu snorted. "I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but I think Juri might have hated her, too. Juri's son failed his entrance exam because of Reina."
"What do you mean, failed?" Inspector Megure pressed.
"Juri and Reina's children are classmates." Beppu explained. "They are trying to get into the same middle school, but Reina's son, who came over to study the day before the exam, was sick with the flu. Juri's son got it from him, and he didn't have time to worry about the entrance exam anymore."
"You have our sympathies..." Inspector Megure and Mouri repeated.
"Juri seemed so optimistic about the results before the exam." Beppu sighed.
"In other words, everyone had a motive to kill the victim." Mouri concluded.
"We told you." Beppu insisted. "None of us would ever do that. We all resented her, but Reina had always been that way, so we just dealt with it."
"Hey." Conan whispered, hiding behind a white screen with Fumio beside him. "Did anyone leave the room once you started drinking tea?"
"Yes," Beppu nodded. "Tokie and I each left once separately. I went to the restroom. Tokie went to buy snacks for the tea. I believe Juri and Reina were in the room the whole time. Reina went to get hot water, but that was before Tokie and I arrived."
"When did you two..." Mouri fumed at the two boys.
"Did the cups belong to the hospital?" Fumio asked, as Conan nursed the bump Mouri's punch had caused.
"Those were Juri's cups." Beppu replied. "She said she keeps them sparkling clean with baking soda."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.