File One Hundred and Twenty-Three: Ice
Conan was no stranger to murder.
He had been there, more times than he would've preferred, to witness the moment when life faded from a person's eyes, feel the blood sticking to his hands ─ or face, that had actually happened once ─ or hear the bone chilling scream of pain as yet another heart stopped beating…
But there was something especially disturbing about being there, yet experiencing none of the above. It was hard to get his head around the fact that he had been sleeping right through a murder ─ for hours, as indicated by the dried blood he had encountered. Really, did he even count as a witness?
Probably not, yet he knew of someone who certainly fit the bill. Someone who, though not physically, had been there, keeping an ear out from the other side of the phone. Without room for any doubt, he had to have heard something, anything.
"Hm? You're texting someone, Conan-kun?"
Not that he had any way of knowing what with Amuro right there, studying him with those seemingly harmless, curious eyes of his that hid so much more. They made the boy flinch back, automatically locking his phone before slapping that well-practiced childish smile of his onto his face ─ which did not come out as naturally as it normally would. Conan hoped that he had noticed none of it.
Who was he kidding? The guy was Bourbon, of course he would notice.
Conan repressed a shiver, "It's just my friend Genta!" and said, between awfully tense giggling. "It always happens when he's bored ─ it's like bugging me is his only source of entertainment nowadays…"
Whether or not he bought the lie was a mystery Conan wasn't eager to pursue, but at least it got Amuro to hum lightly, as if considering it for a bit, then focused his attention on something else entirely. The air he did not know he had been holding rushed out in a warm puff. That was close, thought Conan, sliding the phone back into his pocket, where it would remain, he resolved, until the case was cleared up.
Meaning, he had to manage without his brother's help. Yeah, no problem, he could totally do it.
It wasn't like there was an organization member watching his every step, or yet another incompetent inspector who had walked in and claimed it an accident even after seeing the vase ─ the alleged murder weapon ─ resting on top of the victim's shoulder after he supposedly struggling for a while and rolling onto his back…
Conan felt like crying right now.
Besides, there was little to work with besides Ishiguri's cake, left to melt at the bedside. No marks of him being dragged, but a vase that somehow toppled over on its own from a nearby shelf.
"What? A locked room murder?" And a clueless old man, self-appointed brilliant detective, unfortunately. "How come it's a murder if you found the body blocking the door?"
"Eh… but…" Sango babbled. "Conan-kun said he touched the body and the vase straight after the loud noise. The blood on both were already dried."
"How does he know for sure if he touched it right away?" Kogoro raised his eyebrow. "The kid's probably still woozy from the concussion."
Conan crossed his arms over his chest, glaring. "If I was that disoriented, then you should've already taken me to the hospital, like the doctor said." Kogoro paused after hearing it, so the kid took the opportunity to continue. "And if you bothered to take a look inside, you'd surely see there was no way the vase could've killed him."
Kogoro scowled. "If the murderer were clever enough to set a locked room, they wouldn't use a trick that's so easily recognizable-!"
"Maybe it's because there were two things the murderer didn't plan for." The little boy had no need to respond because he was beaten to it. "First, the fact that Conan-kun would be sleeping in the room. Second, I'd be able to unlock the door."
Amuro's knowing smirk was there for everyone to see, confidence so clear in each and every single word he uttered that left Conan wondering how come people still believed Kogoro was the brightest detective in the room.
"Without these two things happening, we would've found Ishiguri-san by crossing over from the balcony of the room next door and looking through the window," explained Amuro. "By the time we called the police and smashed the window, it'd be normal for Ishiguri-san's blood to be dry, given the heat."
From over his shoulder, he glanced over to where the victim's three friends stood ─ well, one of them was clearly not a friend, mused Conan. Genuine friends usually did not, like, murder each one another every other day…
"Even if somebody broke the window right after discovering the body, the focus would've been on Ishiguri-san's condition, rather than how dry the blood was," he said. "Then the murderer would just tell the police that they found the body by the door with blood pouring from his head."
Conan was pretty sure his heart skipped a beat at what happened next.
"That's what you've been thinking about, right?" Amuro was talking to him, offering him that friendly smile that now gave him the chills. "Well done, Conan-kun."
Surely he must have noticed the wince, having it struck so suddenly he did not have the time to conceal it, or how every single muscle of that small body of his had frozen solid, simply staring back blankly ─ the need to plaster an innocent smile on his face absolutely drowned by waves of panic.
If I deny the compliment, he'll realize I'm lying, he thought. But if I say I figured that out on my own, it'll draw his attention further!
Amuro was still smiling. Conan regretted ever opening his mouth today.
A pair of hands settled on his shoulders. "Conan-kun was just inside the crime scene with Inspector Yokomizo." That was Ran's voice, coming from behind. "He must have heard it from him."
Throwing his head back, indeed, he saw the girl in question ─ even upside-down, her smile was reassuring as usual. "Right, Conan-kun?"
The boy nodded dumbly.
Meanwhile, the blonde detective was fazed by any of it. "I see," he said with a nod.
Conan felt like he could breathe again the moment he turned away, and from the way Ran's hands relaxed at his shoulders, he could tell she was no different. I need to be careful around this guy, he thought, watching him approach Kogoro to keep on talking. He's always around… I doubt Ran-neechan was able to tell Occhan anything…
One thing was for sure ─ besides the case, there was something yet to figure out. How would he get Kogoro to solve the case with Amuro sticking so close to him?
All the while, Yokomizo could do nothing but stare at the little boy, head tilted and eyes blinking cluelessly.
Did I say all of that...?
Soon, he learned that the lady who threw the racket at him had a name, and it was Momozono Kotone. When interrogated, she admitted having gone to Ishiguri's room to ask if he was sure he did not want the hiyashi chuka noodles for lunch after all, but he still insisted on eating ice cream cake. Then she had lunch with everyone in the kitchen and had a shower ─ just like Ran and Sonoko.
Umejima Machi was the second girl, who had gone to check up on Ishiguri with Kotone. Before that, she had gone out of her way to tell him she was about to use the shower because he had walked in on her once.
"And was Ishiguri-san in his room at the time?" Amuro asked her.
At least he knew the right questions to ask, thought Conan, raising an eyebrow at Kogoro. Unlike others.
Kogoro wondered why the brat was glaring at him like that.
"There wasn't any response then either, but he was probably in there," replied Machi. "The AC was on, after all."
Last came the blonde guy, Takanashi Noboru. Seeking to apologize for their prior argument, he had gone up to his room before lunch. The reason for their disagreement had been their late friend Uriu, found last winter buried in the snow behind the lodge the group had been staying at. Apparently, Ishiguri had joked that it was possible to survive a jump from the second floor by landing on a two-meter-deep bunch of snow earlier that day ─ a commentary they theorized he had taken seriously.
The culprit thinks Ishiguri-san is the culprit of Uriu-san's death… Needless to say; it was scary how close to reality Conan had imagined it would happen. When there's a group of four friends with a deceased fifth member, one of them always ends up murdered by another…
He didn't resist the urge to bury his face in his hands.
Why is it always like that?!
Even without looking, he could clearly feel Ran's compassionate smile on himself.
"I see," Kogoro said. "You three certainly had enough motive to kill Ishiguri-san."
"I only went to Ishiguri's room once, and I was always with you after all!" Noboru tried to defend himself. "Hell, I was the one who told the kid to go lie down in Ishiguri's room since the AC in the living room wasn't working!"
Desperation was clear on Noboru's face as he turned to face the little boy, only so barely diminishing when Conan nodded his head. "I saw Ishiguri-san in the corridor just after that, so I asked him to take me up," he added. "He was pretty much alive, that much I could tell, even with my concussion."
A pointed glare was shot, and purposely dodged by Kogoro. Yet, the boy hardly did pursue it any longer, giving up almost instantly as the next problem arose ─ the spare key for Ishiguri's room, missing ever since that the prior evening. No doubt, the killer must have used it to commit the crime so, if found, it would naturally make things much easier.
Apparently, Noboru had asked Sonoko and Ran to take the trash out and put it on his car's boot, to be taken care of later. Thus, evidently, that became the perfect place for the police to begin their search.
A search that Conan feared would give little to no results. Because it's the perfect place to begin, it's the least likely, he reasoned. A murderer who went to such lengths to make it look like the impossible crime wouldn't just throw their most incriminating evidence there…
Eyes roamed around the room, surveying every detail and corner. It should still be here, inside this house, yet hidden from plain sight. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, they narrowed. But where?
"Did any of the others ask you to do things for them?" he heard Amuro ask.
"Let's see…" Ran hummed lightly as she tried to remember. "Kotone-san asked us to put her sports drink back in the freezer."
That caught Conan's attention. "Freezer?"
Sonoko nodded, leaning forward, closer to the young kid. "Apparently she likes to drink them frozen," she said, a slightly annoyed expression taking hold of her face as she remembered something unpleasant. "When we came out of the shower, she took it out of the freezer and let me drink some of it, and it was almost completely frozen."
Nobody thought any digged into that, moving forward into the investigation without issue. Besides, that was, Conan, who still stood there, staring at Sonoko even minutes after she had looked away. A hand rose to cradle his chin, blinking a couple of times until confusion morphed into something far sharper.
Amuro found himself smirking at the sight. There was something particularly interesting about it all ─ not only the boy, no. But the young girl that had casually moved closer to the kid, shielding him from his scrutinizing sight ─ as if she, in some unexpected turn of events, was aware of how much of a threat he was to her little protegee.
I think… this is it.
Detective Takagi lifted his gaze from the phone screen, ultimately settling it on the rundown building in front of him, and confirmed that he was right ─ it was exactly the one he had been looking for.
Far into the border of Wakasa and just barely making it to Tottori Prefecture, there was an old orphanage. Cracked windows, dark patches of mold sticking to the walls ─ it was hard to believe it was anything but a desolated house, forgotten by every soul in this world except for that of the mountain wildlife surrounding it. But he was there, standing in front of the door, knuckles ever so barely brushing against the wooden door, yet not quite knocking either.
The answers he had come pursuing after were just behind that door, and with that, his only lead to make sense of things.
Masuyama Yuji was killed by a bullet to his heart that fateful day of Tanabata, hunching over and protecting something that was still to be determined, yet Takagi had reason to suspect a certain bespectacled young boy as the original target. Conan-kun. He had been there at the time of the accident. That, and the weird way he had acted at the mere thought of getting someone killed 'again' ─ Conan's words, not Takagi's ─ had helped cement the theory in his mind.
Not to say, the bite mark found at his forearm, clearly inflicted by a child. It's highly likely Conan-kun did it in self defense, he thought. Then, that would imply that Masuyama-san was up to no good.
There in Touto Tower, Masuyama must have tried to harm Conan in some way… Something else must have happened, and he wound up protecting him instead?
The detective pinched his nose to starve off a headache. The more I think about it, the more confusing this case gets…
That was especially true after he had tried to investigate the victim's background and found absolutely nothing remotely shady about him beyond moving from his adoptive father's house at eighteen, which wasn't really all that abnormal. From what he had investigated, he had led quite a peaceful life afterwards.
The same couldn't be said about his father ─ Masuyama Kenzo, chairman of a famous car company. He had been found dead last December, victim to a fire in a wine storage room at Haido Hotel, charred beyond recognition ─ in fact, the awful conditions of the body made it difficult for the police to verify his identity. Just like him, his house was burnt down hours after the crime, the perpetrator never found.
Even if that had not happened, it was impossible to think of it as an unfortunate accident. In the autopsy reports, it had been stated the existence of a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead.
Takagi had the chills just from thinking about it.
"Excuse me, mister?" He could not stop the squeak that abandoned him as he twirled around, nor was he able to keep himself from blinking, rather dumbly so, at the tiny figure staring up at him from behind dark locks of hair. "You're blocking the door…"
He reacted quickly, moving out of the way with an awkward smile. A small nod came out from the boy, walking right past him and shuffling inside.
Since the door had not been closed back again, Takagi carefully peeked inside.
"Huh, Isamu-kun?" he heard someone say, surprise clear in his voice. "Don't tell me you came all the way from Tokyo again?"
Takagi saw the boy stop, and an older man approached the child, leaning ever so slightly to hear. "I came to visit my friends," argued the kid. "You said I could come visit, even after I was adopted."
It took a moment for the worker to react, sighing exhaustedly. Seeing it as a sign of victory, Isamu grinned, then vanished somewhere into the deepest part of the building.
"Ah, by the way!" could be heard, even though the boy had long left. "There's a strange guy at the doorway…"
Immediately, the man's attention shifted back to Takagi.
Hiding a wince, he entered the place with fake confidence.
"Hey, you sure you didn't see the killer? You were in the room the whole time, right?"
Conan perfectly mirrored that bored gaze of his as he replied, "Yeah, sleeping."
In return, the kid received an incredulous look back from Kogoro, that had him averting his gaze before he could feel irritation bubbling up. Yeah, it was disturbing that he had slept throughout it all, he did not need the older man to remind him ─ for about two to three hours, for crying out loud! If the estimated hour of death was correct, anyway.
I wonder if he stayed on the line for that long. That would be beyond embarrassing, for sure. If he was, I might be able to ask if he heard anything…
Amuro was still there ─ yeah, he didn't think so.
Ran approaching him brought him out of his internal musings. "So you wouldn't remember when Sonoko and I took hiyashi chuka up to your room?"
The clueless gaze he sent her spoke far better than any words could.
"Now that I think about it, Ran…" began Sonoko. "You said something weird back then."
"He must be sleeping, just let him be," Sonoko had said to her friend, who still stood beside the bedroom's door, long after knocking, yet expecting an answer. "It's not like he's gonna die from skipping lunch."
"Yeah," said Ran, nodding. "The AC's better in this room, anyway."
"How could you tell from outside the room?"
"The tips of my toes were feeling really cool," Ran answered. "I figured the cool air was coming through the gap beneath the door."
He… had heard that before, hadn't he? Machi-san said something like that. With that thought came the realization. Eyes widening dramatically, Conan fought hard not to let a shocked gasp escape ─ everything fit perfectly.
I see… That's how it was!
If he were to think about it, the case was not nearly as complicated as it had first appeared to be, and the clue lied in what the forensics had found out earlier. About the racket under the corpse, sporting some strings twisted out of shape, and the water found inside the vase for no rhyme or reason…
He finally got the entire picture.
The thing was Amuro, and his infuriating role of 'the apprentice' that gave him the perfect excuse to stick to 'his sensei' all the time. Smiling in a manner that rubbed it off in the wrong way, acting as the perfect, attentive student that worshiped the ground the great detective walked on ─ thus feeding Mouri's already over-inflated stupid ego and giving him plenty of reason not to chase him off.
So as it was, he could only stand in the middle of the room ─ all answers trapped inside his head, unable to escape, incapable of being shared with the world for as long as that guy was in sight.
Okay, so it's clear that I can't approach Occhan, thought Conan, frowning profusely. I could text him the answer, but with Amuro-san around, I can't even take out my phone!
With Great Detective Mouri Kogoro out of the picture, there was only one option remaining ─ though he wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea.
One glance at Amuro confirmed he was currently busy discussing the case with Kogoro. So, he put a hand near his mouth and whispered, "Sonoko-neechan…"
"Huh?" she said, much louder than he would have been comfortable with. "What do you want, brat?"
Just as he was about to begin, he was cut short by the unmistakable burning of that gaze piercing through the back of his head. He hesitated, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, while the girl in front of him raised an eyebrow, feeling her impatience grow with each second.
Eventually, his gaze dulled. "There's a spider on your shoulder."
Sonoko blinked for a split of a second, before the true meaning of his words really registered, and she began flailing. Conan stared back, shrugging as he twirled around. "Just kidding," he uttered in the same bored tone.
"H-Huh?! What's your problem?!"
Her voice easily blended with the background, drowned by the waves from the sea of utter turmoil washing over Conan's mind. Figured that Sonoko wouldn't understand subtleties ─ secretly passing her the key to the case without Bourbon being any the wiser was beyond her, and his, abilities.
Looks Deduction Queen Sonoko can't help me today, either.
He repressed a sigh, keeping well hidden inside his chest while he mulled over what to do now.
"Conan-kun, you can't do that!" Ran came right into sight, falling into her knees right in front of him ─ it was left to him to wonder if hiding Amuro from his field of view had been an arbitrary action. "Geez, would it kill you to be nice to Sonoko for one day?"
Really, was she going to reprimand him about it now? Conan effectively sighed this time, raising his head to prepare for the scolding that was surely going to happen. But nothing would ever be prepared by the odd glint in her eyes, or how her eyebrows knitted together ─ similar, yet somehow different from all those times she would scold him from misbehaving. That left Conan staring, puzzled, until he saw the faint, almost unnoticeable movement of her head. She was nodding.
Ran was nodding at him. That glint was filed in his mind as determination.
Is she…?
The confusion dispelled, and a similar expression took hold of his face. Mouthing, he entrusted her with a single word,
Ice.
Her expression did not change.
"You're apologizing to her now. Or your books are confiscated until further notice, you understand?"
But the fact that she did not find his actions strange made him feel strangely reassured.
"... I got it."
She got it.
So, even if he was to walk up to the other girl waiting with her arms crossed and a smug grin plastered in her face, and hiss out a strangled 'sorry' to her, it would be fine. Since he could see that his words had done their work perfectly as he could see her ─ frowning at space, eyes looking beyond what mortal eyes could see.
"Come to think of it, the sound we heard couldn't have been the vase falling," said Noboru.
"When we heard the noise, the only people in the room were the corpse and the kid," agreed Machi.
"It's not like the vase would just fall over by itself," added Kotone.
Eventually, Ran's head snapped back up.
"It can." Everyone's attention was brought upon the girl who, hand cupping her chin, was speaking. "I mean, there was water found inside the vase, right?"
Kogoro looked back at his daughter cluelessly, so she elaborated, "What if the water had always been there, yet initially frozen?"
"I know!" Sango suddenly exclaimed, adding to the older detective's confusion. "If someone piled up ice cubes on one side of the vase and carefully balanced it on the edge of the shelf, then once the ice melted, the vase could lose balance and fall by itself, right?"
Smiling, Ran nodded.
"But, Ran…" Kogoro began. "If someone was carrying a pile of ice cubes around, wouldn't someone have noticed?"
Amuro saved her from replying. "You could carry them empty-handed," he said. "While making hiyashi chuka, all three of them were still in their tennis wear. They have large pockets so they can carry tennis balls."
Conan, despite himself, could not help but sigh, beyond relieved to finally see some progress. With the issue of the vase resolved, there was little to be figured out ─ besides, the truth of the locked room, that was. About how the body had been moved to the door.
Ran, however, had fallen thoughtfully silent. Come on, Ran-neechan, he thought, feeling helpless ─ it was all on her hands now. You can solve it…
All the while, Ran continued to mull over it. Ice, that had to be the clue. Since the boy had not bothered to say another word, so it definitely had to be it. "It's… ice," she mumbled, loud enough for only Sonoko to hear and blink at.
Then, scream excitedly, "I figured it out!" a tad too loud for Conan's ears to enjoy it, but he supposed that was the price for having the case solved. "Someone could've placed ice under the racket and slid the body around! The strings being bent proves it!"
Ran clapped her hands together. "Amazing, Sonoko!"
The fact that she had unsarcastically praised her friend was even more amazing to Conan, yet he did not comment on it.
"But in that case, there should be water from the melted ice on the floor," Sango said. "We didn't find any signs of that, you know…"
Having witnessed her friend's flawless theory thwarted like that, Ran began to hum in thought again, struggling to see a way around it ─ because it had to be ice, that much was clear. If only it could disappear after melting…
She froze ─ there was something like that.
"Wait, what about dry ice?" she asked, facing her father for confirmation. "Since it's composed of carbon dioxide, it'd just disappear."
Kogoro was quick to turn it down. "You can't exactly carry dry ice, you know…"
But of course, Amuro had an answer for that. "They had Ishiguri-san carry instead."
More specifically, inside the box of ice cream cake Ishiguri was to eat for lunch. After that ─ and thanks to the blonde man's perfect deduction ─ it was clear how the closed room had been produced. All thanks to an ordinary rope, looped through the racket, and of course the dry ice cubes placed beneath it all. Then, everything left was to pull the rope after closing the door, effortlessly moving the body.
Once he finished, he turned to Ran. "Was that what you were thinking about, Ran-san?" he asked.
Conan swore that, for a split of a second, his eyes fell onto him, before returning to the older her, that unsettlingly polite smile touching his lips.
She nodded regardless. "That might be why I felt a chill on my toes when I went near the door," she said. "Because of the dry ice."
"That reminds me," began Sango. "Machi-san, you said something similar, didn't you?"
Yeah, she definitely did, thought Conan, eyes narrowing on the three suspects. Our culprit is not stupid ─ the thought of them promptly adding it to the testimony is inconceivable. It gives the trick away…
Not to say, it would be even dumber to commit the murder, regardless of him sleeping in the same room.
Which leaves us with one person… The culprit is-
"Momozono Kotone-san! You're the only one who could be the killer!"
Conan's head rose sharply, blinking at space, utterly lost ─ had it been Kogoro's voice, the one he had heard? Slowly, as if fearing what the answer would be, his eyes slid back up, finding the aforementioned detective's cocky smirk right away.
And continued to stare, dumbfounded, as he continued to speak. About how she had probably hidden some ice cubes inside her skirt pockets, leaving the group shortly under the excuse of making sure that Ishiguri did not want lunch. Having done the deed, she had left ─ not without preparing the trick, hoping to get away with it. Never had she noticed Conan's silent presence, blissfully unaware under borrowed blankets.
"And having completed the locked room, sat down and ate lunch as if nothing had happened. But she wasn't able to fool this great detective!"
As the boisterous laugh erupted from Kogoro's chest, Conan's shoulders slumped ─ the paralyzing shock long gone despite the still lingering, yet now manageable, bewilderment.
That just now was actually a pretty decent deduction, thought Conan. Rare as that may be.
But the case was far from over.
He got the most complicated part done. Conan wasn't particularly worried, however. Even someone like Occhan wouldn't have trouble-
"Then where's the spare key?!"
Kogoro's laugh came to an abrupt halt.
"The key! Ishiguri's room was locked, wasn't it?!"
"Ah, that… it'll turn up eventually… I guess?"
Hey, hey! It was hard to repress his urges to hit his head against the nearest wall ─ or Kogoro's, in any case. Are you serious?!
Though now free from suspicion, Kotone's friends had begun to gang up on Kogoro, defending her tooth and nail, only for him to stutter pathetically ─ all that cockiness and confidence after supposedly solving the case? They were only a ghost of what it had been seconds prior.
But it should still be okay, thought Conan. Ran could manage it, right?
That was what he would say, hadn't he spotted the girl, silently staring at the ground, deep in thought. Wait… He turned to Sonoko ─ and barely avoided gasping, noting how trouble she looked, head tilted back and eyes shut as if she could get the key to materialize if she tried hard enough. Nobody in this room knows?!
No, that was not true, he later realized. There was no doubt he had long solved it already ─ yet, the fact that he had kept it quiet was beyond alarming. More to the reason, he couldn't exactly blurt the hiding place in there…
But that did not mean he could not walk up to Ran, tugging lightly onto her dress to gather her attention, and put on the brightest childish grin he could conjure.
"You don't know where the key is, Ran-neechan?" he asked her.
A soft smile on her lips, she shook her head. "This case is a little beyond my league, it seems," she said. "If Dad can't figure it out, I don't think I-"
"Eh~?" Conan pouted, visually disillusioned. "But you were so cool back then, Ran-neechan!"
Her smile dropped, eyes widening, a meager bigger.
"Because, looking at you, I was so sure!" Just now, his smile had morphed into something closer to a smirk ─ the same one, she would realize much later, she had grown to see in a much older face, ever since she could remember. "I was sure you had the case solved!"
And casually stepped away, skipping forward to join Kogoro. From the annoyed growling that ensued, together with the glares sent over the young boy, she could infer what he was pestering him about. But, rather than going over to tell his father to be kinder or chase the kid away, she stayed silent, gazing at him.
I had… the case solved? That had to mean something, she would bet on it. Does that mean that hint he gave me is all that's needed?
Ice… For the slightest of moments, Conan turned to face her ─ nodding lightly, as if he could read her thoughts. The whereabouts of the key… is ice?
Ice… Frozen water… Her gaze shifted away from the boy, posing on her friend's face ─ and immediately was remembered of her drinking, or trying to drink, from Kotone's plastic bottle. She hadn't gotten a single droplet, she recalled, since it had been frozen solid.
A gasp must have escaped her, given the off look Sonoko sent her back.
"Dad!" Whirling around, she turned to face her father. The sudden outburst had him flinching, yet she hardly cared at all. "I think I know where the key is!"
He blinked once before realizing she was being serious. "You do?!"
Ran nodded firmly. "Inside Kotone-san's sports drink," she said. "The key is inside."
From the corner of her eye, she noticed Conan grinning in a way that assured her she had gotten it right.
"No way!" But it went away, replaced by sheer annoyance at Sonoko's argument. "I drank some of it myself, but it was all frozen and hardly anything would come out."
Ran's mouth opened to answer.
"That's exactly why it should be there!" Conan has blurted out before she could, however ─ eye twitching and everything. "She must have dropped the key inside before freezing it…"
And trailed down into silence, suddenly becoming aware of the unwanted attention he had brought upon himself ─ especially that gaze narrowing on his form.
"Come to think of it, Ran-neechan…" He turned to her abruptly. "Shouldn't you be able to see it if you look at the bottom of the plastic bottle?" His head tilted, blinking confusedly back at her. "Since the key was heavy…"
Then, said nothing ─ fully expecting her to explain everything to the rest. None of it ever happened.
But Conan continued to wait, even if the grin had fluctuated a little.
"Supercooled water."
Twirling around, he saw him again ─ Amuro, and that confident smirk caressing his lips that assured him that everything was clear in his mind.
"Water that remains a liquid instead of turning to ice even when below its freezing point of 0ºC," he explained. "If it's shaken, it quickly begins to freeze."
And... that was it. The resolution he had been seeking all this time left the boy confused, yet not about the case, per se. It was hard to determine whether Bourbon figuring the case out was good, or absolutely catastrophic. But as it was now, Conan could do nothing but to listen as the blonde detective explained how to prepare crystalized water, and how Kotone had hidden the key ─ if she were to drop the key inside as the sports drink began freezing, from the top down, then turned it upside down, the evidence would stay in the middle, making it the perfect hiding spot.
Looking at everyone's expression of true shock, Conan found himself blinking owlishly. What's with everyone's reaction?
No matter how her friends protested, Kotone, seeing that they would easily find the key with her fingerprints after melting the sports drink, was forced to confess to the crime.
"But why did you kill Ishiguri-kun?"
"To avenge Uriu-kun, of course." That much Conan had predicted a long time ago. "I loved him, after all."
Again, it was scary how accurately he had predicted the motive ─ Ishiguri had murdered this guy named Uriu. But not indirectly and through an innocent, dumb comment as they had all believed, no. Kotone had seen him with her own two eyes, digging through the pile of snow where Uriu had fallen, and had been witness to a malicious smile creeping up his face as he pulled out the scarf he had been wearing.
To say that the other two were shocked beyond belief was an understatement.
"Uriu-kun desperately held onto Ishiguri-kun's scarf as he was falling!" Tears were peeking from the rim of her eyes, rolling down her cheeks to land on the floor. "He might've planned to go and get him when he was exhausted from struggling in the snow, but two meters of freshly fallen snow would be like a bottomless swamp, robbing Uriu-kun of his strength…"
Ashamed by her actions, she averted her friends' bewildered gazes, her lips curving into a faint smile that lacked any sense of happiness. Her last confession was flinging her racket to injure someone at random, so as to increase the number of people at lunch and had Ishiguri eat the ice cream cake for lunch.
Little had she known that, in doing so, she had wound up digging her own grave.
"Perhaps I, too, fell into a bottomless swamp, falling further towards my demise the more I struggled…"
"Give me a break. How was I supposed to know?"
"You thought it was common knowledge," said Shinichi blandly. "You thought that lowering water's temperature below its freezing point so it doesn't crystallize until it's shaken was common knowledge."
"You said it twice."
"How is that common knowledge, Conan?"
"Well, I knew about it, and I'm eight."
"You learned the basics of how to fly a plane from a book you read out of boredom. You don't count."
Though not entirely convinced, Conan let go with a sigh, leaning against a tree to rest some ─ now that Amuro had bid goodbye and had driven away, at least he could relax a little. Danger averted, I guess.
At least, Ran had let him off to talk with his brother in private, and hadn't come to check why his 'bathroom trip' was taking this long.
"So… Were you there?"
Shinichi made a confused noise, so he huffed.
"At the moment of the murder, were you still there?"
"I never left, not even for a second."
"You must have heard those two sounds at least. That of Kotone-san striking Ishiguri-san with a vase, and the sound of him falling."
A long period of silence ensued, confirming his suspicions far better than any words could, causing his forehead to scrunch up, little fingers tightening their grip around the phone without being prompted to.
"Then, why didn't you call Ran-neechan?" He really did try to keep the accusatory tone from slipping through his words, yet it had most certainly been heard. "You were witness to a murder! Why didn't you-?"
"Because I could still hear you breathing through the phone."
The phone almost slipped away from his grasp.
"In order to call Ran, I'd have to hang up," said Shinichi. "If something were to happen to you in the meantime, I wouldn't have known."
Every word he might have wanted to say, just, died down quietly ─ mercilessly murdered by the unforeseen earnestness that colored each and every single one of his, sliding past his ears to numb his brain. Eventually, though, the mouth left hanging uselessly closed shut, his head lowering ever so slightly.
Those last golden rays of the settling sun fell onto his lenses, masking his expression from the rest of the world.
"I made a promise to you, Conan." It came out ridiculously soft ─ much weaker than Conan was used to. "If something happened to you despite that, I…"
I wouldn't have forgiven myself, was never uttered, yet to Conan, he might as well have heard it. They were those unspoken words, it would seem like, what conceded his lips a life on their own, drawing a timid little smile as if his face was an empty canvas.
"Besides, I wasn't entirely certain it was a murder," Shinichi was saying. "I heard none of their voices, so I presume Momozono-san attacked Ishiguri-san from behind-"
"Oniichan."
Noting the abrupt pause, Conan felt like snickering just by imagining his startled face ─ which, most likely, would have only become more prominent, had he been able to see his head rising again, together with the warm gaze that, at the lack of his actual presence, fixed onto a random spot far onto the horizon.
"Thank you. For having my back."
It took a while for his message to get through, yet he knew the exact moment when it did, before the notorious chuckle that followed, accompanied by a gentle, "Anytime."
Unbeknownst to any of the brothers, even though Shinichi wasn't there to witness any of it, the brilliant grin that seized Conan's features did not go exactly as unnoticed as he would've guessed.
As the day finally came to an end, amid the enlarging shadows, there was a sneer. Blue pierced through the darkness, anchoring to that curious, unassuming little boy, contently chatting away through the phone ─ naïve, too, oblivious to the potential dangers of the approaching night.
As I thought… Bourbon mused. You never cease to surprise me, Shinichi-kun.
Like struck by lightning, the boy twitched violently, twirling around the next moment. As Bourbon receded once more into the shadows, just narrowly avoiding detection, he kept on observing him ─ his eyes remained on its previous spot, squinting ever so marginally.
Maybe this child wasn't as oblivious as he had thought him to be.
And, perhaps, that was irrefutable proof about why he should stick around for a little longer.
My interest has been piqued more than ever. Silently, he started on his way back to his car. By Great Detective Mouri Kogoro, that is.
Even long after he had been effectively left alone, Conan did not move a single muscle. Gaze stubbornly kept on that place, he waited for any sign that would reveal his presumed stalker. A sound, maybe a faint shifting of leaves ─ anything.
Seconds became minutes, and nothing had happened so far.
"Conan? Is everything okay there?"
He sent that empty spot one last glance, eyes narrowing before closing with a long sigh. "I need another nap," he said, passing a hand to his face. "On my way home, maybe..."
"Well, at least with Ran and the others in the car with you, there's no chance of a murder happening, right?"
For a beat, it was dead silent.
"Don't say it too loudly," said Conan.
"Tottori?" Unable to conceal it, Sato could only voice her confusion. "What are you doing all the way over there?"
From the other side of the phone, he could hear Takagi's awkward call. She eventually shrugged it off, settling a steaming cup of coffee aside to gaze down at the envelope sitting in front of her, still awaiting to be opened.
"I tried to investigate Masuyama Yuji like you told me to, but there was nothing of use," continued Takagi. "So I proceeded to look into his adoptive father, Masuyama Kenzo."
"Masuyama Kenzo was his father?"
"It was a dead end. It seems he had been involved in money laundering, but it was impossible to connect anyone with them, so charges had been dropped after his death."
"What about his biological parents?" Sato asked back. "Do you know who they are?"
Not necessarily that information would clear up all mysteries surrounding their son's death, but it wasn't like there was any other lead to pursue either. Better get the entire picture of this man's life, including the circumstances of birth and adoption, then figure out what step to take next. Or at least, that was what Sato believed.
Speaking of which…
Once more, her attention was drawn by the envelope she had picked up minutes ago. A frown took over her every expression, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder, she gathered it between her own two hands.
"That's exactly what I came to find out." All of her movements halted when Takagi added, "I went to the orphanage where, according to the files, he had been living in before Masuyama Kenzo-san took him in, but…"
Takagi's words trailed into silence. "Takagi-kun?"
"The worker in there was confused ─ he had been working there for decades, but had never heard of that name," he finally said. "He checked the orphanage's database, just in case. Masuyama Yuji-san has never been there."
She was quiet for a while, presumably trying to make sense of his words. "Are you sure?"
"He wasn't lying. He showed me everything so I can say for sure ─ there had never been a child named like that."
Once more, another dead end that left more questions than answers ─ Sato sighed tiredly, her head already aching at the thought of what that might imply. Thus far, Takagi had never uttered another word after that, but she could infer that his case was not any different from hers.
But, I still have this.
Firmly shoving it to the back of her head, to be thoroughly analyzed later, she finally opened the enveloped ─ paper sliding right into existence, and for her eyes to skim through it, until they finally zeroed on what she had been desperately looking for.
"Probability of Paternity: 0%"
"Sato-san?"
It had been his voice what jolted her back into reality, allowing her lungs to work again, and free the air she had unconsciously been retaining. She did not talk right away, giving the entire file another quick read over to confirm what revelation had just been presented to her.
Conan-kun is not Kudo-san's son. She set the results back down, eyes sliding shut. Edogawa Conan-kun and Kudo Conan-kun are not the same person.
"Is everything okay there, Sato-san?"
Her silence was obviously worrying Takagi, so she decided to soothe him by saying, "It's nothing at all." A small smile, which he could obviously not see, settled onto her features. "Just another dead end."
He made a confusing noise, which stole a chuckle out of her, and proceeded to patiently explain the details of her futile investigation. Placing a bill on the table, she gathered all her files under her arm and stood up to leave.
From the farthest corner of the small café, a sharp gaze followed her until the moment she disappeared behind the door. A smirk escaped from their owner's control, focusing back on the phone he, too, was pressing against his ear.
"It's a success," he said. "Splendid work, as always."
A male, obviously familiar snicker, was heard from the other side. "There's no need to thank me, Kudo-san," he said, even though Kudo was sure he had not expressed his gratitude ─ verbally, that was. "Does this make us even?"
Kudo shrugged. "Who knows?"
He spotted the same woman again, moving to the window to take a break, and comfortably finished the conversation he had been engaging in for a while now. She was huffing for some reason as she finally hung up, and zeroed to the many papers she was carrying, then to her far too small handbag ─ shoulders dropping in defeat before even starting.
"I'm afraid I might have said too much," Yusaku's friend said. "I had to tell her about the incident. The traffic incident story wouldn't satisfy her curiosity."
Instead of being bothered, Yusaku felt his smirk widening.
"It's alright."
As the woman struggled to put all her files inside the tiny handbag, Yusaku's gaze fixated on a certain newspaper clipping, just barely sticking out. Or rather, the young teenager's cocky grin that covered over half of the entire page.
"Middle school student takes child trafficking group down!"
"She would've eventually figured it out on her own, either way."
A/N:
Hey, I'm just gonna say this. From now on, if you see there's no new chapter on the day I usually update, it doesn't mean I'm abandoning this. I just didn't have time to write it, and it should be done by the following week (hopefully)
CherryGirl 21-6: Well, it's hard to pick one, for sure xD And yeah, I stumbled across that one. Such a talented artist, for sure!
F.C. Meyer: I'm still trying to figure out what to do with that. At the moment, I'm not sure if to somehow change the festival to another occasion (yeah, not cherry blossoms involved) or just skip the case and have the most important events happen in another situation whatsoever.
Thanks for telling me! I had to google it, and apparently it works whether you use 'have' or 'have got'. The latter looks a bit unnatural to me, though…