SailorStar9: With Chapter 193 uploaded, I present Chapter 194 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 194: The Man Who Camped Out at the Police Station
Sometime later...
"Katsuki Yosuke, you're under arrest for the murder of Odawara Shuhei." Megure declared.
"Gotcha." Katsuki beamed, much to the detectives' surprise.
Two days later...
"Inspector." Mouri called out, exiting Café Poirot and spotting Megure walk by. "I heard you solved the Sebundai case in record time." he applauded.
"We arrested the wrong man." Megure sighed.
"Why don't you tell me what happened in my office?" Mouri insisted, dragging Megure off.
In the Mouri Detective Agency...
"The murder was discovered two days ago on the afternoon of the 29th." Megure related. "The victim was Odawara Shuhei, 27 years old. Mizuno estimated the time of death to be the previous afternoon between one to three. There are no signs the room has been searched, so it is believed his killer was motivated by a grudge. The body was first discovered by a woman named Yaguchi Tomoko, who had just become engaged to the victim the other day."
Flashback to the crime scene...
"There is a contusion on the back of the body's head and rope marks around his neck." Ami began her reported.
"What we believe are the weapons are over there." Takagi pointed to the bagged evidence.
"A vinyl rope and a metal pipe?" Megure blinked.
"Also, there was a hole in the window of that Japanese-style room." Takagi added.
"In other words, yesterday afternoon, the culprit opened a hole on the Japanese-style room and snuck inside." Megure concluded. "After knocking out the victim with the metal pipe, they strangled him to death using the vinyl rope."
"Oddly, while there were fingerprints on the metal pipe, there were apparently none on the vinyl rope." Takagi pointed out.
"Inspector Megure." Chiba called Megure away.
After interviewing Yaguchi, she pointed them to Katsuki Yosuke, her ex-boyfriend.
"When we went to talk to Katsuki himself..." Megure continued, revealing that the man had right-out admitted to killing Odawara; the reason being he wanted Yaguchi to regret choosing Odawara over him. "Later, because the fingerprints on the metal pipe and Katsuki's were found to be a match..." he added, disclosing that they had placed Katsuki under arrest. "That's when everything stopped going smoothly. His testimony didn't match the situation at the crime scene."
"That's certainly odd." Mouri admitted, after Megure explained that the timing did not match.
"Once Mizuno finishes up her autopsy, the mystery will be solved." Megure was confident in their coroner's ability. "Her initial examination had determined the cause of death was suffocation due to strangulation by the vinyl rope and the time of death was between 1pm to 3pm as determined on the scene. But she later found out the contusion on the victim's head was made several hours after his death. There were probably two culprits; a second culprit, X."
"Is that Katsuki fellow..." Mouri blinked, Megure explaining that Katsuki had been insistent that he was Odawara's murderer.
"Two days later, he's still camping out at the station." Megure sighed. "He's claiming that there's no X and that he did it."
In a cab after Megure left...
"Katsuki figured out who X is." Mouri declared. "He's camping out at the police station in order to protect them. Odawara's old friend must know Katsuki too."
After entering Odawara's unit after receiving no new information...
"Even if X snuck in, wouldn't the victim have noticed someone approaching him?" Conan wondered. "Maybe X visited as a guest. A guest would be invited into the living room and could wait for an opportunity to killed Odawara-san."
"Then, how would you explain the hole in the Japanese-room window?" Takagi reminded.
"it's camouflage." Mouri declared. "So, the police wouldn't realize they knew the victim."
Later that evening...
"In any case, while you were prevented from committing a murder by coincidence, what you did was..." Megure started, ready to free Katsuki when Conan tranquilized Mouri.
"Don't you find it odd, Inspector?" Conan began. "The phone threat to the victim and the suspicious man in the middle of the afternoon. It seems to me that X was trying to convince everyone of their existence. There is no X. The person who killed Odawara is indeed Katsuki Yosuke-kun. The afternoon of the day of the murder, you visited Odawara's home as a guest. You waited for an opportunity to don gloves and kill Odawara from behind and then remained at the crime scene. That evening, you struck Odawara with a metal pipe you held in your bare hands. Furthermore, you took steps beforehand hinting at X's existence. The phone threat to Odawara was one of them. You created a witness by dressing suspiciously. You also opened a hole in the window of Odawara's home so we'd think there was another culprit besides you. You also waited several hours after killing him with the rope t hit him with the metal pipe for the same reason. Finally, in order to mislead the police, you had them arrest you."
"Are you listening, Mouri-san?" Katsuki mocked. "If I wanted to evade the police, wouldn't it be simpler to make it look like he'd been killed in a random attack?"
"No matter how careful you are, you can't reduce the possibility of leaving some sign of yourself at the scene to zero." Conan reminded. "That's why you came up with this plan. Since you snuck into Odawara's home to kill him, it was only natural you'd leave something behind. However, someone beat you to it. That would allow you to escape suspicion of murder."
"This is all just your imagination, Mouri-san." Katsuki scoffed. "You don't have a single piece of physical evidence."
"Katsuki-kun, when did you make the spare key you used to sneak in?" Conan inquired.
"I think it was about a week or two ago.?" Katsuki shrugged.
"When she was told about the phone call from the possible culprit, Yaguchi-san apparently recommended Odawara talk to a security company." Conan smirked. "I confirmed with her that she had the front door lock changed to be safe on the morning of the murder. Even if you had a spare key, it wouldn't have unlocked that front door."
"I found it, Mouri-san." Chiba entered the interrogation room.
"I asked him to check the security camera footage of Sebundai Station." Conan clarified.
"On September 29th at 12:59pm, Katsuki-san passed through the ticket gate at Sebundai Station." Chiba confirmed, showing the copied footage on his tablet.
"For several hours, between 1pm on the day of the murder when you exited Sebundai Station and that evening when you struck Odawara's body, where were you and what were you doing, Katsuki Yosuke-kun?" Conan inquired.
"I suppose I'll head back into that police cell now." Katsuki relented.
Later that night...
"Inspector Megure sounded frustrated." Amuro noted amusedly, setting down a plate of matsutake meat rolls.
"After all that twists and turns, turns out Katsuki Yosuke is indeed Odawara Shuhei's murderer." Ami snorted, setting two bowls of rose custard into the refrigerator, the half-tossed mint salad was still on the kitchen counter.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.