SailorStar9: With Chapter 37 uploaded, this is Chapter 38 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: Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.
Chapter 38: The Actress Blogger's Locked Room Case, Part Two
"I"m hungry again." Genta looked down at his growling stomach.
"Didn't you just say you were full?" Mitsuhiko glared.
"Genta-kun, you're such a glutton." Ayumi whined.
"Would you like some cheesecake then?" Haibara asked. "I bought the ingredients so I could try making it tomorrow. Professor, yours is for breakfast tomorrow." she shot Professor Agasa a glare.
"But won't it take time to finish?" Genta asked.
"Actually, it takes only thirty to forty minutes in a rice cooker." Fumio supplied. "Cooking rice isn't the only thing a rice cooker can do, you know? It can even steam cakes."
That's it. Inspiration stuck Conan. So that's how it is. The culprit locked the room without using it for its intended purpose to seal away the mistakes of the past.
Later that evening...
"This case certainly is full of mysteries." Takagi noted. "The victim said she wouldn't open the door for anyone but her assistant, Sakurako-san, but the culprit entered the room and murdered the victim. And despite the doors of this room not automatically locking, the key card was in the bedroom, that was far from the door. We have no idea how the culprit escaped after committing the murder. On top of that, we still haven't found the rod-like weapon used to kill the victim."
"All we know that is the victim is the actress Shono Kyona-san and there will be a great commotion about this later." Inspector Megure summarized.
"Should we ask the commissioner for instruction?" Takagi inquired.
"Yeah." Inspector Megure concurred. "Who is it?" he wondered, the two officers hearing the doorbell ring. "Agasa-san?" he viewed through the peephole to see Professor Agasa at the door. "What do you want?" he opened the door. "Conan-kun?" he blinked at the grinning boy at the door. "Where's Agasa-san?"
"Professor Agasa is waiting for you in Room 504." Conan replied. "Directly under this one in the murderer's room."
"That's actress Kitami Saya-san's room." Inspector Megure gasped. "Listen, Conan-kun. I'm sure it's difficult for you to understand, but the room was locked, and..."
"Inspector." Takagi cut in, receiving further instructions from the higher-ups. "The commissioner just called to say to do as Conan-kun says."
"I demand an explanation." Kitami retorted. "Why am I being suspected of killing Kyona-san? The key card was in the middle of her room, so it's a locked room case, right? On top of that, Kyona-san said she'd only open the door for Sakurako-san. Shouldn't she be your prime suspect?"
"Well, yes." Inspector Megure conceded. "But Agasa-san..."
Just then, the doorbell rang.
"You'll see how she entered the room if you look through the peephole." Professor Agasa supplied.
"Who is it this time?" Inspector Megure peered through the peephole. "Agasa-san?" he gaped. "That's impossible. What on earth is going on?" he opened the door.
"The experiment is a great success." Fumio beamed, Haibara holding out the short video of Professor Agasa on her cellphone.
"We recorded a video of the professor on a phone and played it in front of the peephole." Haibara explained.
"Then, when I saw the professor earlier, was that..." Inspector Megure trailed.
"That's right." using the voice-changing bow-tie, Conan borrowed the professor's voice. "I had Conan-kun do the same thing. Just like Saya-san did when she entered Kyona-san's room."
"But I just met Sakurako-san today." Kitami protested. "I didn't have time to record a video like that.
"Sakurako-san, when Saya-san asked you to come to her room, wasn't something stuck to her door?" Conan asked.
"An envelope." Sakurako answered. "There was an envelope with a large black heart drawn on it stuck to Saya-san's door just below the peephole. Saya-san said it was from a fan."
"There was a phone inside the envelope." Conan took over. "By opening a heart-shaped hole in the case, lining the phone's camera with the hole, and setting it to record, she was able to take a video of Sakurako-san ringing the doorbell. Both Kyona-san's and Saya-san's rooms are at the end of the hallway. The background of the video will look just like her hallway."
"But, what about the key card?" Kitami pressed. "It was next to the body in the bedroom. This hotel's rooms don't automatically lock, so how did the culprit lock the room after leaving?"
"By using this toy helicopter you were flying around the cake buffet." Conan held out the Petite Falcon. "Could I borrow this room's key card? First, you tape a long string to the rotor shaft of the propeller and the end of the helicopter." he demonstrated. "After wrapping the tape around the end of the string attached to the rotor shaft, stick the tape to the key card. Once you gently tape the helicopter to the bedroom floor, you're ready to go. All you need to do is pass the two strings under the door, slide the key card into the slot of the locked door, and turn on the helicopter. The rest is up to you guys." he handed the strings to the group outside. "All right. Start it up." he declared, after Haibara gave him the go-ahead.
"Ignition, on." Fumio grinned, switching on the control's activation switch.
"When you turn on the helicopter, the string is wound around the rotor shaft, and the key card slides under the door. Once all the string has been wound up, the force detaches the key card from the string and falls to the floor. To finish the trick, you just pull the string attached to the back from outside the room. Pull, you guys." he shouted. "The helicopter would be pulled off the floor and towards the entrance." he continued, Genta tugging the string outside. "If you pull really hard once it reaches the door... now you can retrieve the string." he added, Genta giving the string one hard tug and detached it. "As proof, remember the white cream on the floor next to the key card? That's because there was cream on the skids of the bottom of the helicopter." he picked up the Petite Falcon. "Saya-san's helicopter crashed in the cake Genta was about to eat."
"But Conan-kun, the helicopter's still in the room." Takagi pointed out.
"That's why Saya-san dropped her hat the moment she entered Kyona-san's room." Conan stated. "She pretended to miss the hat rack. And if stuck double-sided tape on the inside, it should stay even if she put it on the rack. So it's probably still there. Inside her hat is the Petite Falcon she used to commit her crime."
Pulling on his gloves, Takagi removed Kitami's hat from the rack and discovered the still-intact helicopter. "There's even string wrapped around it." he reported to Inspector Megure.
"You're wrong." Kitami stammered. "It wasn't me. I stuck the double-sided tape on there so my hat wouldn't slip. It must've gotten stuck there by coincidence when I dropped it."
"Then, why did you stand on the table?" Conan questioned. "When my Petite Falcon got caught in the AC vent, you stood on the table to get it for me. There were cups on the table, so normally a person wouldn't stand on it. And right in front of us, there was a selfie stick." he turned to the pink rod on the counter.
"A selfie stick?" Inspector Megure echoed.
"You can attach the stick to the end of a selfie stick to take pictures of yourself." Takagi explained. "It's a kind of tool. You can extend it to take pictures of yourself from far away." he pulled out the extensible handle and was stunned to see the bloodied metal rod
"And it doubles as a weapon." Conan concluded, using Professor Agasa's voice. "Most of the pictures on Kyona-san's blog are selfies, but Saya-san's has none at all. So that's most likely Kyona-san's selfie stick. Tell us, Kitami Saya-san, what is Kyona-san's selfie stick doing in your room covered in blood?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Kitami snorted. "She discovered my secret, so I used her stick to make sure she'd never open her mouth again. Look, she uploaded my secret to the blog." she showed the detectives Shono's blog. "While pretending to introduce her favorite manga."
"Where's the secret?" Inspector Megure inquired.
"It's right next to her face." Kitami snapped. "'The Hit and Run of Love'. In Japanese, 'hit and run' is a baseball term, but aboard..."
"It means to hit someone with your car." Conan finished.
"That's right." Kitami admitted. "Two years ago, I ran over some drunk man with my car. I'd been hiding it, but when I forced my way into her room, she told me."
"Saya-san, I'm not sure that Kyona-san knew about the hit-and-run." Conan expressed.
"But the photo." Kitami protested. "She said there was a code in the manga."
"The code wasn't 'The Hit and Run of Love', but the series next to it called 'Looking At You'." Conan replied. "She's usually precise, but that series alone was arranged out of order and there are two copies of volume 11. If you match the volumes of the 50 characters in the Japanese alphabet, read volume 29 as it is, and read it from the left, it forms a sentence, 'Saya is 29 years old.' That's the only code she created. That you've taken five years off your age. But blinded by bias, all you could see were the words 'hit and run'. In baseball terms, a hit and run is a risky play. It seems your risk didn't pay off."
"Agasa-san, that was another impressive display of detective work." Inspector Megure praised after Kitami was taken into custody.
"By the way, Conan-kun." Takagi stated. "I'm surprised to learn you know the commissioner."
"But isn't the commissioner of Section One, Matsumoto?" Conan blinked.
"Actually..." Takagi stated.
"I knew you'd help solve the case." Kuroda Hyoue entered the scene. "The Sleeping Kogoro's Bag of Wisdom."
"Who are you?" Professor Agasa asked.
"I'm Kuroda Hyoue." Kuroda introduced himself. "I've taken over as commissioner of Section One of the MPD. And it's nice to see you again, Edogawa Conan-kun. " he reached out a hand.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.