SailorStar9: With Chapter 70 uploaded, this is Chapter 71 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?

Pairings: Established!Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami

Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.

Chapter 71: A Woman Standing by the Window, Part Two

"Looks like she fell to her death." Haibara noted.

"Looks like it." Fumio agreed.

"Did she fall from the roof?" Conan wondered, looking upwards.

"I knew it." Nakabayashi Naka muttered.

"Obaa-san, you were at the intersection yesterday, right?" Conan recognized the 73-year-old woman. "What did you know?"

"The same thing happened to her yesterday." Nakabayashi replied.

"Did someone push her?" Ayumi pressed.

"So she was nearly killed yesterday, too." Conan mused when Nakabayashi nodded. "Sounds like Saki may have been murdered." he informed the others after Nakabayashi went off.

"The culprit came back to finish her off." Mitsuhiko surmised.

"But who and why?" Ayumi asked.

"Those three..." Fumio frowned, spotting Dojima, Tachibana and Konno being questioned by the police officers.

"They're suspicious." Genta noted.

"Saki hid the attempt on her life." Conan went into thinking mode. "It would have been natural for her to report it to the police."

"In other words, she had a reason she won't." Fumio guessed.

"But what would that be?" Ayumi pressed.

"We don't know that yet." Conan admitted.

"She was here at the time of the incident." Mitsuhiko's suspicions was piqued when Dojima wasted no time in reporting her statement to the arriving Megure.

"Apparently." Conan agreed. "Detective Takagi, about Midorikawa Saki..." he called out to Takagi.

"Inspector Megure, the victim seems to have fallen from the roof." Chiba reported. "There were scratch marks on the railing of the roof. We also found a woman's earring on the ground."

"They match." Megure compared the earrings.

"The building's security cameras also captured the victim heading to the roof." Chiba added.

"Was Saki wearing gloves at that time?" Conan interjected.

"No, she wasn't." Chiba shook his head. "The victim took the elevator to the 11th floor and got off there." he continued. "The stairs have to be taken to reach the roof, but she didn't fall off the roof until an hour later. Then, there's her phone. Her last incoming call was from a nearby payphone. She came to this building shortly after receiving it."

"Which means, the person who called invited her up to the roof, where they got into a fight." Megure concluded. "So, it's possible that she was pushed."

"According to the victim's colleagues, she used to be a good-natured woman well-liked by everyone." Chiba informed Megure after receiving a report from the officers at Midorikawa's workplace. "But for whatever reason, her personality suddenly changed about three years ago. She started extorting coworkers and customers. People didn't think highly of her."

"I see." Megure noted. "I'm going to watch the autopsy. You two question the people she was extorting."

"Detective Takagi." Conan called out. "Saki was pushed at an intersection yesterday. And there are three people who have been glaring at her."

"We should talk to the three of them." Chiba remarked, after Manager Ogi opened the apartment for them.

"Yeah." Takagi agreed. "Although Dojima has an alibi."

"I don't know anything about her." Tachibana insisted.

"She saw you doing something unsavory from that window, didn't she?" Conan asked.

"And she was blackmailing you with it, right, Tachibana?" Takagi took over.

"I did receive a threatening letter yesterday." Tachibana confessed.

"Could we take a look at it" Chiba requested. "So you hastily attempted to silence her yesterday." he reasoned after reading the letter, but when you failed, you tried again today."

"No." Tachibana protested. "I was here in my apartment when she fell. And I have an abili for yesterday."

"Then, what exactly did she see?" Fumio asked. "You're still under suspicion for murder, you know."

"I took this off without thinking." Tachibana sighed, pulling off his wig that covered the bald top of his head.

"This arrived today." Konno showed the two detectives the similar letter she received. "But I'd never do that. I was here when that woman died. After all, Saki called me and told me to stay here."

"What did she say?" Takagi pressed.

"I suppose it can't be helped." Konno relented and related that Midorikawa had known that it was her who pushed her at the intersection the day before. "If she told anyone..."

"What did she see you doing?" Chiba inquired.

"I heard a wealthy man was looking for a love child he conceived a long time ago." Konno answered. "I disguised myself as Konno Michiyo in order to blackmail him, but..." 'she' pulled 'her' bathrobe apart to reveal that 'she' was actually male. "My real name is Numagaki Daihachi. I'm a man. And she saw me."

"They found sedatives in her body?" Takagi echoed after the autopsy report came in, Chiba was arresting Numagaki for suspected murder.

"So, it was him." Genta declared.

"But that letter and phone call were clearly..." Conan frowned.

"I see." Ayumi realized. "She may have seen their secrets while I was over."

"A friend?" Conan echoed after Ayumi relayed the unusual statement.

"Maybe she thought he was someone else since he looked different from usual." Mitsuhiko suggested.

"No, wait..." Conan frowned. "That's..."

"Sounds like she was robbed." Haibara noted, after Akabane Towa dashed out of the apartment to make a robbery report to the arriving police officers.

"We saw her this morning too." Conan agreed. "Come to think of it... and Room 202... then the friend Saki saw was..." his mind churning, he returned to Midorikawa's unit to confirm his suspicions.

"So she saw the thief." Ayumi concluded.

"But isn't that unrelated to the murder?" Genta pointed out. "Numagaki's the one who killed her."

"But we still don't know..." Conan frowned.

"Anyway, she lived quite frugally for someone blackmailing people." Haibara looked around.

"Maybe that's her boyfriend." Ayumi peered over Fumio's shoulder, the blond boy having picked up a photo frame.

"His name is Suenaga Ryo." Omori Hiroe, the landlady supplied. "They lived here together. But he suddenly moved out. He forced his shady debts onto Saki. That was three autumns ago."

"Then, the reason she resorted to blackmailing is because..." Fumio's eyes widened.

"She started extorting people to pay off his debts." Conan came to the same conclusion.

"Saki must have really loved Suenaga." Omori reminisced. "She waited for him, believing he's someday return."

"It sounds like she often looked out her window, but was that..." Conan mused. "Did you tell anyone that Saki was waiting for Suenaga to return?" he asked Omori.

"I told that detective woman last night." Omori recalled. "She asked me to tell her all about it since her investigation was very important to Saki."

"I've got it." Conan breathed, all the dots were now connected. "It even explains how they got Saki to come to the crime scene." with that, he returned back to the crime scene, with the others following closely behind.

Later that evening...

"What do you mean, you need my advice?" Dojima was called up to the roof by the kids.

"Apparently, Midorikawa Saki was murdered." Genta began. "But there are some thing us Detective Boys can't figure out."

"Since you're such a great social critic, we thought we could use your advice." Mitsuhiko cut in.

"Fine then." Dojima relented.

"When she died, Saki was wearing gloves." Conan started. "I wonder why."

"To protect her hands from UV rays, right?" Dojima reasoned.

"Or maybe the culprit put them on her." Fumio commented.

"Why would they do that to push her off the roof?" Dojima retorted.

"Because she didn't come to the roof." Conan declared. "That's why they put the gloves on her. They needed it to make sense that Saki's fingerprints weren't on the door to the roof. After exiting the elevator on the 11th floor, she visited you in Room 1107. On a whim, you made a spare of the key you found and robbed Room 202. And then, Saki saw you. Your theft would surely bye discovered, and even if Saki's memory was hazy, if you started appearing on TV, she was sure to notice."

"And in a hurry to silence her, you also noticed others who didn't like her." Fumio continued. "It was then you realized she had seen their secrets as well."

"And you used that against them." Mitsuhiko cut in.

"Impersonating Saki, you delivered the letters so they would silence her." Conan added.

"And Numagaki fell for it." Genta stated.

"But he failed and Saki his the attempt on her life." Conan commented. "Since she knew she incurred the ire of others, she thought that's what it was. Next, you plotted the frame Numagaki. You impersonated Saki and called Numagaki on the phone so he wouldn't have an alibi. Then, you invited Saki to your own apartment, using the information you got from the landlady the night before to lie about having information about Suenaga. When Saki ran over and you put her to sleep with sedatives, you made look like she was pushed from the roof. You placed Saki on the platform made of the materials and ice you bought last night. Then, you pretended to look for a lost item on the ground and waited for the ice to melt and Saki to fall. That gave you an alibi and nobody noticed the contraption on your balcony because of the balloons you used to hide her."

"This is ridiculous." Dojima chuckled. "It's all just conjecture. You don't have a single piece of evidence."

"One of the balloons is missing from its string." Fumio supplied. "There was a thin scratch on Saki's neck; so maybe it got caught on her when she fell. So, we searched for the missing balloon."

"You kids were right about this." Takagi voiced, entering the rooftop with Chiba in tow and the recovered balloon in hand. "The abrasion on Midorikawa Saki's neck and the shape of the string were a perfect match."

"And we found fingerprints matching the ones on your lease on the balloon." Chiba added.

"A single balloon isn't evidence." Dojima laughed.

"But that in itself connects you to the deceased Saki." Fumio pointed out. "The police can search your apartment now. And I'm quite sure they'll be able to find all kinds of things.""

"The woman in Room 02 is an eyesore." Dojima growled. "Despite being so stupid, she wore all those jewels. I swiped them because she needed to be brought down a peg. But she..."

"Once the robbery is discovered, Saki might have blackmailed you." Conan agreed.

"That woman was evil!" Dojima screeched.

"Being evil doesn't give you the right to kill her." Conan snapped. "She was also a kind person, waiting for her beloved to return."

SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.