SailorStar9: With Chapter 11 uploaded, this is Chapter 12 of this fic. Sorry for the wait, everyone, I've finally figured out where Ami comes in the official timeline... and it's episode 734. (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/Mizuno Ami
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.
Chapter 12: Jodie's Memories and the Cherry Blossom Viewing Trap
"Oh, the sakura are in full bloom." Professor Agasa remarked, scrolling down the stone-path with the Detective Boys. "Going flower-viewing at a shrine's really nice."
"Yeah, and the weather's good, too." Ayumi agreed.
"It's the perfect weather for flower-viewing." Mitsuhiko concurred.
"And those lunches would be perfect in my stomach." Genta drooled.
"Oh, Genta..." Ayumi sighed.
"He really would go for dumplings over flowers." Mitsuhiko teased.
"Professor, how about we go look around and get our fortunes told and you spread out a sheet and save us a space?" Haibara suggested.
"Right, got it." Professor Agasa nodded.
"What is it?" Haibara inquired, seeing Conan look around as the others ran off. "Weren't you looking for someone?"
"Not really." Conan replied and walked off.
I just had to get bad luck, didn't I? Conan winced, opening his fortune slip.
"I got 'fairly good luck'." Genta reported.
"I got 'good luck'." Ayumi added.
"I got 'delayed good luck', which isn't too great." Mitsuhiko remarked.
"Then, let's tie up our fortunes." Ayumi looked at the rows of knotted fortunes at the side of the shrine.
"Hey!" Sakamaki Shigemori stopped the three children. "You managed to get good fortunes, so you should take them home with you. You only tie up your fortune to leave bad luck behind and change your luck. Though in recent years, some people have taken up the bad habit of tying up whatever fortune they get."
"Then, Edogawa-kun's the only one who has to tie up his fortune." Haibara mocked.
"So what did you get" Conan asked.
"You really want to know?" Haibara retorted. "If you're so interested, then I guess I'll just have to show you."
"Great luck?" Conan gaped when Haibara showed him her fortune slip.
"But you know, 'bad luck' is really rare." Jodie stated. "So I hear some people take getting it as a sign of good luck. So don't feel disappointed, Cool Kid."
"Jodie-sensei." Conan blinked.
"Hi!" Jodie greeted the kids.
"Are you here to see the flowers too?" Ayumi asked.
"Oh yes." Jodie beamed. "I love sakura."
"That's mainly because I dragged you to the National Sakura Festival in Washington D.C four years ago." Ami stated plainly.
"Jodie-sensei, is she..." Conan looked at the newcomer then at the FBI agent.
"Me?" Ami smiled and revealed her official badge.
"The Public Security Bureau..." Conan gaped.
"Mizuno Ami," the older woman grinned. "The newly instated fukubuchō of the Public Security Bureau's Cyber-Security Department. So," she looked at her partner for the last five years. "This is the kid you and Shishou have been raving about."
"I get it." Haibara noted. "You called her out so you could talk in secret, didn't you? Well, parks and shrines are often used by spies to exchange information. So why don't we give them some space. It looks like they want to have a private talk. But don't forget, you often find Public Security officers watching places like that, so be careful."
"I like her snark." Ami grinned. "Fumio, go with them." she told her son.
"Kay." Fumio nodded.
"So?" Jodie asked, once they were left alone. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"Yeah." Conan nodded. "You said you saw Akai-san with a burn scar, right?"
"It was at that bank robbery." Jodie confirmed.
"That..." Conan started. "That wasn't Akai-san but Bourbon, one of the man in black, in disguise. He was wandering around like that near people who know Akai-san to check whether or not Akai-san was truly dead. Since if the FBI had faked his death, he's know by your reactions. Though on the Bell Tree Express, Vermouth wore the Akai disguise herself, instead of applying it to Bourbon."
"The Bell Tree Express?" Jodie gasped. "You mean they were behind that train bombing?"
"It seems that way." Conan confirmed.
"Hold on..." Jodie grabbed his shoulders. "If that man with the burn scar was one of them, the that means Shu... really is..."
"Jodie," Ami rested a hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'd have wasted four hours at the shooting range if that wasn't the case."
"Then, the next time I see that man with the burn scar prancing around, I'll catch him, rip off his disguise and find out who he really is." Jodie swore.
"I know who he is." Conan cut in. "As well as where you can find him. He calls himself Amuro Tooru." he showed the two women Amuro's photo. "And he works part-time at Cafe Poirot under the Mouri Detective Agency."
"But why?" Jodie gaped.
"I don't know." Conan admitted. "That's why I had you come here. I wanted to have the FBI investigate him. He should have achieved his objective, so why is he still at Poirot?"
"Ami, that guy..." Jodie looked at her companion. "He looks like..."
"Yeah." Ami twitched. "That guy... I'm so killing that idiot for not telling me."
"Mizuno-san, you know Amuro-san?" Conan wondered.
"You're that foreign lady who was a hostage in that bank robbery just like me, right?" the muffled Benzaki Tohei recognized Jodie. "I was one row behind you to the side." he pulled down his mask. "And it was my wife who covered up your eyes and mouth with tape, don't you remember?"
"I do, kind of." Jodie replied.
"Then was that man with a burn scar next to you your boyfriend?" Tohei inquired.
"He's not." Jodie protested.
"If he isn't, then don't worry." Tohei assured. "I saw him two or three days ago, that's all."
"Where?" Conan demanded. "Where did you see him?"
"Answer the question." Jodie pulled Tohei back.
"A pickpocket!" a shout came. "There's a pickpocket!" Yatani Ikuyo ran through the crowd and knocked Jodie over.
"Are you okay?" Jodie asked.
"You okay, miss?" Ayumi helped Yatani to her feet.
"I'll be fine." Yatani assured. "I was just panicking since someone put their hand in my bag."
"You do often find pickpockets lurking in crowds." Tohei stated.
"Yes." Yatani agreed, before gaping in shock when she saw Tohei. "You're right. I'll have to be more careful. Well then, excuse me." she took off.
"I wonder..." Ami mused outloud.
"So?" Jodie questioned, the group moving to the chōzuya. "You still can't remember? Where you saw him, I mean."
"Right." Tohei noted. "I was stuck in bed all day yesterday with this cold, so my memory is fuzzy."
"You do have a very hoarse voice." Conan pointed out.
"Then, why don't you raise your mouth with this water, too?" Genta suggested.
"I'll be fine." Tohei assured. "I wouldn't want anyone to catch my cold, and I washed my hands earlier."
"You wouldn't have seen him by a can vending machine selling coffee by any chance, would you?" Jodie asked.
"Did he like canned coffee?" Tohei inquired.
"Well, I'll see him with a black coffee can more often than not." Ami recalled.
"Even back when we were expecting them to attack the hospital at any moment..." Jodie added. "That's enough." she pulled herself out of the memory. "Contract me if you remember, okay?"
"No, Genta." Mitsuhiko scolded as Genta rang the suzu loudly. "Don't ring it so loudly."
"But dad said I should ring with all my might." Genta protested.
"That's right." Danno Yoriko agreed, ringing the suzu beside the children. "You ring these bells to tell the gods that you're here. So if you don't ring it loud enough, the gods might not notice you, you know?"
"Hey," Haibara voiced. "What sort of man was that Akai guy you were talking about?"
"Why?" Conan asked.
"I get the feeling he greatly resembles someone I know." Haibara replied.
"You're probably just imagining it." Conan chuckled. "Besides, Akai-san's already..."
"What?" a man behind them echoed. "Dead?"
"Yeah." his companion confirmed. "There's a big ruckus about it behind the toilets."
"Professor?" Conan took the call. "What's up?"
"It's terrible Shinichi!" Professor Agasa sounded over the cellphone. "A murder! I just witnessed a murder taking place."
"What?" Conan echoed. "You witnessed a murder?"
"Anyway, come quickly!" Professor Agasa urged. "There's a big crowd forming, so it won't be hard to find."
"So?" Conan questioned as he, Jodie and Ami hurried over to the gathering crowd. "Did you see the murderer?"
"They were shaded by the trees." Professor Agasa replied. "So I cam just see a silhouette, but they were attacking again and again with a rod about 30 centimeters long."
"Let us through." Jodie pushed through the crowd.
"It can't be!" Ayumi gaped, the others having rushed to the scene and seeing the bludgeoned Yatani laying against the toilet wall.
"That's the lady who ran into sensei earlier." Genta recognized.
"But why?" Mitsuhiko wondered.
"It hasn't been long since she was murdered." Ami slipped on her surgical gloves and gave the dead woman a look-over.
"Five yen coins colored black with a marker pen?" Conan spotted the three coins beside Yatani's hand. "Could it be Kurobee?"
"Kurobee?" Jodie echoed.
"A nickname for a pickpocket." Ami explained.
"She's named that because she puts three black five yen coins into the bags of her victims." Conan added.
"But why do something like that?" Jodie wondered.
"The rumor goes 'five' of five yen coins, the 'black' of the pen and the 'three' of three coins could be read as 'gokurosan'." Conan related.
"So, she's expressing 'thank you' to her victims for earning her money, huh?" Ami frowned.
"Officer, it's here." Professor Agasa led the guard on duty over. " Over here."
"What are you doing?" the officer questioned. "Step away from the body."
"I'm Jodie Starling." Jodie presented her badge. "An FBI agent."
"Mizuno Ami." Ami flashed her identification badge. " Public Security Bureau Cyber-Security."
"Public Security Bureau?" the officer stammered." Madam!" he saluted.
"Seal the exit of this shrine immediately." Ami barked out. "And call for the CID detectives."
"Then, she was murdered by Kurobee?" Jodie turned back to the body.
"No..." Conan corrected, opening the victim's purse to reveal it full of black five yen coins. "She had a purse full of black five yen coins in her bag, which means..."
"She's probably Kurobee herself." Ami came to the same conclusion.
"Look at this bundle of noted wrapped in a rubber band that was in her wallet." Conan removed the stack of notes. "Inside it..." he took out the electric device. "Is that a GSP transmitter? With a phone, you can locate it within five meters."
"But for a pickpocket to have that wrapped in notes in her wallet..." Jodie trailed.
"Probably not hers." Ami concluded.
"Yeah." Conan agreed. "It's likely that one of her victims murdered her."
"You can't just do this, Jodie-san." Takagi chided. "You may be an FBI agent, but this is Japan, and you're only here because you took a day to fly over here, right? If you go ordering around the Japanese police, think about how it looks for us."
"To be fair, it wasn't Jodie this time." Ami cut in. "That would be me."
"You're the one from the..." Takagi gaped.
"But the crime scene's quite far from the shrine exit, and it hasn't been that long since she was murdered." Ami related. "So, I figured sealing the shrine exit to trap her murderer in. Isn't that right, Edogawa-kun?"
"I guess you did help by giving the right orders." Takagi relented.
"But are you sure?" Megure inquired. "Is this woman really the pickpocket Kurobee that Division Three of the Criminal Investigation Department spent years looking for?"
"I'm pretty sure of it." Conan was certain. "The purse she had was filled with five yen coins colored black with a marker pen."
"Kurobee is said to leave three black five yen coins in her victim's bags." Takagi mused.
"And did you really see Kurobee get beaten to death, Agasa-san?" Megure turned to the Professor.
"Yeah." Professor Agasa nodded. "I witnessed it when passing by after leaving the toilet. But it was dark with the shade from the trees, and at first I thought they were hammering in a post or something."
"Then, what did her killer look like?" Megure continued his questioning.
"All I really saw was their silhouette." Professor Agasa admitted. "Though they were wearing a hat, and holding a thin rod about 30 centimeters long."
"I see." Megure noted. "So that's the murder weapon."
"Did they have any other unusual traits?" Takagi cut in.
"Right..." Professor Agasa recalled. "Now you mention it, they were dragging their feet lightly as they left. I even called out and asked if they were okay."
"Dragging their feet?" Megure echoed.
"Then what did they do?" Takagi pressed.
"They ignored me and walked away, and by the time I realized that they had been beating this woman, they'd already mixed in with the crowd." Agasa replied.
"Inspector, if they were dragging their feet at a situation they should want to run away from..." Takagi whispered to his superior.
"I doubt it would be an act to try avoid suspicion." Megure agreed. "But to find the killer among all the people at this shrine with so few clues..."
"It's nearly impossible." Takagi finished.
"You should be able to narrow it down." Conan interjected. "That woman had something strange in her wallet."
"A GSP transmitter wrapped in bank notes." Jodie offered.
"Why would she have that?" Megure blinked.
"The pickpocket Kurobee has never been caught." Ami explained. "So there's no way to identify her, other than the black five yen coins in your bag. Consider this, if someone deliberately had notes with a transmitter stolen by her, they could easily track her using a mobile phone, wait for Kurobee to go somewhere quiet, ambush her, and then beat her to death."
"Then, the killer is one of Kurobee's victims?" Takagi exclaimed.
"Still, pickpockets often commit thefts in groups, so we can't ignore the possibility of her killer being one of her accomplices." Megure pointed out.
"I think Kurobee is working alone." Conan commented. "She herself yelled out that there was a pickpocket here, after all."
"What do you mean?" Jodie blinked.
"It a common tactic used by pickpockets." Conan explained. "If you heard there was a pickpocket nearby, you'd check your wallet was safe without thinking, right? Pickpockets use it to find where their victims keep their wallets, but if she had accomplices, wouldn't she have one of them yell out instead?"
"And on that line of thought," Ami stated. "Jodie, you might want to check your wallet."
"My wallet is gone!" Jodie searched inside her coat to find her wallet was missing.
"She probably took it when you helped her up." Conan guessed.
"Still if the pickpocket's dead, then how are we going to find her victims?" Megure wondered, turning back to the body."
"Well, that shouldn't take too long." Conan remarked, when his Detective Badge peeped, the other four kids informing him that they had found the stolen wallets in the trash-bins.
"I got it." Takagi realized. "The wallets. Pickpockets just take the money out of wallets, then abandon them, so if we check those wallets..."
"We may be able to find their owners." Megure concluded. "And those four were the only wallets you found in the bins?" he noted, kneeling by the retrieved wallets.
"The blue wallet's mine." Jodie pointed out.
"Then, that makes you a suspect, too." Megure noted.
"It wasn't Jodie-sensei!" Ayumi protested.
"She never left our side after that woman bumped into her." Genta added.
"She didn't have a chance to murder someone!" Mitsuhiko objected.
"That means that the murderer..." Megure mused.
"Is likely the owner of one of the other three wallets." Takagi came to the same conclusion.
"Well, it's easy to tell who owned this wallet." Megure picked up the black wallet. "It has a driving license in it."
"We saw that guy earlier." Genta cut in.
"He talked with Jodie-sensei and Mizuno-fukubuchō." Mitsuhiko added.
"He had a cold, so he was wearing a mask." Ayumi supplied.
"Though I doubt we'll find licenses so easily in the other wallets." Megure remarked, picking up the brown wallet.
"A photo sticker?" Fumio blinked, seeing the photo stick-on.
"We know that lady too!" Ayumi exclaimed.
"She taught us how to ring the bells." Mitsuhiko added.
"Maybe she's still over there?" Genta suggested.
"And the final red wallet is empty except for a 'pretty good luck' fortune..." Megure picked up the last wallet. "I doubt you'll be able to tell who owned that."
"Wouldn't it belong to that old man?" Ayumi wondered outloud.
"He told us to take our good fortunes home, right?" Genta remarked.
"And I saw it." Mitsuhiko added. "I saw him take out that red wallet to buy his fortune when he was lined up in front of us.
"Takagi, go with them." Megure instructed, seeing the three kids ran off to find Sakamaki. "If any of them have a 30 centimeter-long rod, then it'll be the clincher, but..."
"We'll know soon enough even if they don't have a rod." Conan remarked. "The murderer left three black five yen coins by the corpse, as if to say 'you can have them back.' It won't be easy to find distinctive five yen coins like this, right?"
"I see." Jodie grinned. "Then whoever doesn't have the black five yen coins that Kurobee gave them would be the murderer."
"Before I ask you for your statements could I ask each of you if you have five yen colored black with a marker pen in your pockets or bag?" Megure inquired.
"Five yen colored black?" Tohei echoed.
"Why are these here?" Yoriko dug into her pocket to find the mentioned black five yen coins.
"I have some too." Sakamaki voiced.
"Me too." Tohei added.
"What exactly are these creepy black five yen coins?" Yoriko asked.
"They're souvenirs left by a pickpocket known as Kurobee." Takagi replied.
"I didn't have much in my wallet, so I don't mind losing it." Sakamaki noted. "But have you caught that pickpocket then?"
"The truth is..." Takagi trailed.
"We found her dead body not long ago." Megure turned back to the body. "And we suspect her killer is one of you three. For now, we'd like to conduct body checks on each of you, and inspect your belongings and phones. Of course, it is at your discretion, so you can refuse..."
"But if you do, it may cause trouble later, so we'd advise you to comply." Takagi suggested.
"Jodie-sensei?" Conan looked at the blanked out FBI agent. "Did you figure something out?"
"No." Jodie replied. "I was just thinking of the men in the video you took before. Remember, when we tried to identify the spy they sent to infiltrate the hospital, you deliberately dropped a phone and had them pic it up, right? The fat man who picked it up first had greasy skin. But in the end, the next man to pick it up was the spy, and the last old man had a pacemaker. And that's the phone that Shu..."
"Jodie-sensei, that doesn't matter at all right now, right?" Conan asked.
"Right." Jodie nodded. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just feeling the shock from finding out the man with the burn isn't Shu."
"Kaa-san," Fumio tugged his mother's dress. "Jodie-baa-san is having that look again."
"What look?" Jodie blinked at her 'unofficial' nephew.
"The 'I'm remembering stuff since my most important person isn't here' look." Fumio stated matter-of-factly. "Kaa-san has the same look every Christmas."
"So, how about it, Professor?" Jodie walked over to Professor Agasa. "Is any of those three the killer you saw?"
"That old man with a cane does look very suspicious, but the murderer had a 30 centimeter-long rod, not a cane." Professor Agasa turned to the three suspects. "The hat the killer was wearing wasn't a hunting cap like the old man was wearing or a knit hat like that woman was wearing. But something like an alpinst's hat. And the murderer didn't have a cough like that man there."
"But couldn't he just be faking his cold?" Haibara suggested.
"I doubt that." Conan objected. "When we first met him, he had no way we knew the Professor, right? He wouldn't have had to pretend to have a cold in front of us."
"Then, how about the way they walk, Professor?" Jodie pressed. "You said they dragged their feet slightly, didn't you?"
"Without his cane, it looks like the old man can't walk at all, let alone drag his feet." Professor Agasa conceded. "And the other two don't seem to be dragging their feet at all."
"What?" Megure exclaimed. "You can't find the weapon? Have you checked everywhere?"
"Yes." Chiba nodded. "We even checked the drain of the purification trough and inside the offering box. None of these three were carrying it, then?"
"Right." Megure confirmed. "We checked the old man's cane, but it doesn't seem to have been used as a weapon. And we checked all their phones, but none of them has any app that could track a GPS transmitter. Though the killer could have predicted they'd be checked and deleted it."
"But we need a warrant to conduct any further checks." Chiba reminded.
"Hey, kids." Takagi went over to the Detective Boys. "When you met those three, were any of them acting strangely? For example, if they had someone following them, who handled them some sort of thin rod?"
"All three of them were alone." Ayumi replied. "The old man told us that if we drew good fortunes, we should take them home."
"The woman said that we should ring the bells loudly so that the gods can hear us when we ring them." Genta added.
"The other man said he already washed his hands at the purification trough." Mitsuhiko reported. "So he must've been at the shrine for quite a while before meeting us."
"Inspector Megure!" one of the officers ran in. "We believe we've found the killer's hat and coat. They've got blood splatters on them, so there's no mistaking that."
"They're covered in flower petals." Megure took the hat and examined it.
"They appear to have been hidden under the sakura petals." the officer presented the coat.
"Then the weapon might be hidden in the same way." Megure surmised. "Find it if you have to kick through the petals."
"And they make such a pretty pink carpet." Ayumi whined, the officers running off.
"That's right." Haibara concurred. "They may be small, by themselves, but when many petals fall, they're almost like a pink carpet."
I see. Conan smirked. So that's what happened. That's why that person said that to the kids. Which means the reason they dragged their feet was probably...
"Inspector Megure!" Takagi ran back. "It's getting difficult to keep the shrine's exit sealed. Any luck with the murder weapon?"
"Unfortunately, it hasn't been found yet." Megure replied.
"Maybe the killer already escaped with the murder weapon." Takagi suggested.
"No," Megure objected. "Taking into account the time between the murder and when we sealed the exit, and that the culprit was dragging their feet, it's very likely that the killer's still on the ground of the shrine. They must have hidden the roughly 30 centimeter-long rod that Agasa-san saw somewhere."
"That means the three people who were pick-pocketed are the best suspects after all." Takagi concluded.
"And since we found a GPS transmitter hidden in the notes of the wallet of the murdered pickpocket, it must be like Mizuno-fukubuchō said; the killer let their wallet with the GPS transmitter get stolen, tracked the thief and killed her in a deserted location."
"But none of the three seem to have any problem with their feet." Takagi noted. "And it seems the old man needs his cane to walk, not because his feet are hurting. And if we assume that the killer had an accomplice and slipped them the murder weapon, we would have to search everyone who came to this shrine to watch the flower blossoms."
"There's no need for that." Professor Agasa stated, Conan using his voice-changing bow-tie to mimic the Professor's voice. "There's one part of the murder weapon that the killer still has on them. The killer used it to tie together the murder weapon."
"The weapon you saw was in one piece, right?" Jodie reminded. "It wasn't tied together or anything."
"The killer constructed the murder weapon using a large quantity of a certain object." Professor Agasa remarked. "And even if you find the many parts, they're hidden in such a way that they aren't suspicious. Approaching the kids, they managed to camouflage their actions smoothly."
"Do you mean the old man who talked to us when we were drawing fortunes?" Ayumi guessed.
"But no matter how you tie fortunes together, you can't make a weapon that can beat a person to death, right?" Haibara shot the suggestion down.
"Then you mean that man?" Ayumi suggested. "The man who refused to ladle Genta-kun tried handing him when we were washing our hands."
"There were lots of ladles at the purification trough." Mitsuhiko put in his two cents. "If you slip a ladle with an iron handle in there..."
"The police would have found that, don't you think?" Haibara deathpanned.
"It goes without saying that there was no such ladle in there." Takagi supplied.
"That only leaves the lady we met when we were ringing the bell." Ayumi recalled.
"Didn't you guys do something else before ringing the bell?" Conan reminded.
"The offering!" Ayumi exclaimed.
"Yup." Conan nodded. "Due to the saying 'May you find good ties and good fortune.', most of the offerings are five yen coins, which have a hole in the center."
"I see." Haibara realized. If you pass a wire or string through the hole and bind a lot of coins together, you get a long rod. What's more, even if you find a large quantity of five yen coins in the offering box afterwards, they're mixed up with the other offerings and not suspicious, which means it easily deceives the police, who are looking for a long metallic rod."
"But in order to produce a 30 centimeter-long rod, you' need around 200 five yen coins." Takagi pointed out.
"And if you throw such a large quantity of coins into the box, you'll stand out and people around you will certainly notice." Megure added.
"That is why the killer approached the children." Conan, still using Professor Agasa's voice, continued. "Saying the gods wouldn't hear them if they don't ring the bell loudly."
"Then..." Takagi stammered.
"The killer is..." Megure gaped.
"Right." Professor Agasa confirmed. "You found her through a GPS transmitter in the wallet you had stolen, then bashed her to death with a rod made from many five yen coins tied together. The killer of Ikuyo Yatani-san, or rather the pickpocket Kurobee, is none other than you: Danno Yoriko-san. You called out the kids to ring the bell loudly to hide the noise of lots of five yen coins clanking into the offering box. You untied the knot tying the five yen coins together, then holding the end of it, dangling it over the offering box, you could get rid of all the five yen coins in an instant. What's more, the murder occurred before you rang the bell. Meaning that as a victim of the pickpocket, your wallet must already been stolen. The fact you apparently made an offering and rang the bell without noticing that is proof that you were lying."
"You certainly would have noticed that your purse had been stolen when you tried to take it out to make an offering." Megure agreed.
"Don't you know that you shouldn't open your wallet in front of the offering box?" Yoriko shrugged. "If the gods see the contents of your wallet, it might anger them, because you have so much an yet put in so little. That is why I always put a five yen coin in my pocket before visiting the shrine."
"And that's why you didn't notice your wallet had been stolen, right?" Professor Agasa noted.
"Exactly." Yoriko replied. "If you'd seen me put a large amount of five yen coins into the box, that might mean something, but like this?"
"Even if I didn't see it, I can be sure." Professor Agasa was certain. "If we take a look at your shoelaces. Most likely, you used one of your shoelaces to tie the coins together. That's why you couldn't immediately flee from the crime scene. One of your shoelaces was missing, so you'd have lost your shoe if you'd walked normally. It seems that you put your shoelace back in and tied it after ringing the bell, but if you used that shoelace for committing the crime, it should be there. The victim's blood, that spurted when you killed her."
"If you'll excuse me." Takagi knelt down and rolled up Yoriko's pants. "I found bloodstains."
"But why did she still have her black five yen coins?" Megure wondered. "Weren't the five yen coins beside the body the ones Kurobee had left in your pocket when she stole your wallet."
"Those were the coins I showed to you earlier." Yoriko admitted.
"Then what were those coins?" Megure asked.
"The ones left behind were the ones I found in my pocket when I was pick-pocketed last year." Yoriko admitted. "The five yen coins that killed my son! The wallet that was stolen last year also had my car keys. Because I didn't have them anymore, my son, who had asthma, was locked in the car for several hours. By the time we got to the hospital, it was too late, and he died. So I researched that pickpocket on the net and hung out in places where she frequently appeared."
"But why did you put that photo in your wallet?" Takagi wondered. "If it hadn't been in your wallet, we might not have known it was yours."
"The photo was the first thing you see when you open the wallet, right?" Ami explained. "What Yoriko-san wanted the pickpocket to see is probably..."
"I just wanted her to see that what she stole wasn't just money, but also the life of a little boy." Yoriko broke down.
"Hey, mister." Conan approached Tohei after Yoriko was led off. "Do you happen to have bad eyesight?"
"Why did you ask?" Tohei asked.
"Because when that pickpocket lady saw your face, she was surprised." Conan stated. "I think that's because she stole your wallet earlier. But why didn't you say anything at that time? It must've been your second time meeting her, after all."
"That's it." Tohei fibbed. "My eyesight is bad."
"If your eyesight is bad, you should wear eyeglasses, or you won't see the sakura." Genta pointed out.
"Did you come to the flower-viewing by yourself?" Ayumi asked.
"Actually, I came to buy a good luck charm." Tohei admitted.
"It's for me, isn't it?" the pregnant Benzaki Motoe entered the scene. "For the little one, you know."
"Then, were you the person who taped me up during the bank robbery?" Jodie asked.
"Were you the foreigner from back then?" Motoe realized. "I'm so sorry. But we were threatened, so I had no choice..."
"Are you okay?" Jodie inquired when Motoe suddenly fell on her; unbeknownst to her, Motoe sneaked out the hearing aid her partner had slipped into Jodie's folded sleeve earlier on.
"Morning sickness is a condition that you have in the first stage of pregnancy, right?" Haibara looked up at the lone mother in the group after the Benzaki couple walked off.
"That's right." Ami confirmed. "But looking at her size, I'll say she's at least six months pregnant."
"Couldn't the nausea be caused by something else?" Conan suggested.
"I wonder." Ami mused, her mouth quirking up in a slow, secretive smile. You're so busted, Rei.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.