SailorStar9: With Chapter 47 uploaded, this is Chapter 48 of this fic. (Sighs) Guys and girls, is it too hard for you to leave a review, instead of just putting this fic up on your favorited list and story alerts?
Pairings: Established!Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.
Chapter 48: The Dark Mountain Route
Time passes...
"Wow!" Genta gushed, witnessing Ikeguchi Eiko scaling up the side of a cliff, the Detective Boys, alongside with Professor Agasa, were heading to the mountains on a camping trip. "She's climbing up that cliff."
"There's a river on this side." Conan peered over the railing. "Someone's kayaking down it."
"Let's hurry up and go." Mitsuhiko urged.
"Aren't you going to take a panoramic shot of the city for your science project?" Professor Agasa reminded. "Now, let's go."
"That's enough!" Ashizuka Tokunori snapped. "Why do you always act like this?" you show up late and demand we cook for you.
"Shut up." Yamakura Takemi retorted, uncaringly. "Who cares? Eiko-san said she'd cook for me."
"Yeah, I said I would." Ikeguchi confirmed.
"That's irrelevant." Ashizuka fired back. "Takemi, you always do this."
"Calm own, Ashizuka-san." Hayashida Taro came between both arguing parties, trying to diffuse the situation.
"No, I'm going to let her have it." Ashizuka stood firm. "She's always inconveniencing the group with her selfishness."
"You're right." Yamakura shrugged. "That's why Motoki-san is dead, too."
"You're wrong." Hayashida assured. "That's an accident."
"I'm not so sure." Yamakura glared. "You think what happened three years ago is my fault, don't you?"
"Wait, Takemi-san." Ikeguchi tried to stop Yamakura from leaving. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
Ignoring her, Yamakura walked past the kids and went down the mountain trail.
"Apparently, she's sleeping at the bottom of the cliff tonight." Haibara espied on Yamakura who had taken up a resting spot underneath the group's camping site.
"It seemed like they really hate each other." Genta noted, Professor Agasa was stirring the pot of curry on the portable stove and Fumio was frying up onions on the other cooktop.
"I'm sure they have their reasons." Professor Agasa hushed the overweight boy.
"Sorry, guys." Hayashida apologized, bringing in a helium gas tank. "I'm sorry you have to see that."
"Hey, what's the accident that happened three years ago?" Conan asked.
"We were part of the same club." Ikeguchi explained. "Three years ago, one of our members had an accident."
"Takemi ran off by herself." Ashizuka added. "When Motoki went after her, he fell from the top of the cliff. Motoki was my childhood friend. We'd climbed several mountains together. We were going to keep climbing, too. But because of Takemi..." he slammed a furious fist on the table.
"So, we get together every year to commemorate his death." Hayashida remarked.
"What's that sound?" Genta blinked, hearing the sound of a balloon filling up.
"Could it be?" Mitsuhiko beamed, the kids gathering around the pumped up weather balloon. "That's a research balloon, right?"
"Yeah." Hayashida nodded. "I'm sending it up to the stratosphere to collect meteorological data."
"Hayashida-san, you're a weather station employee, right?" Conan guessed.
"That's right." Hayashida confirmed. "For the next ten days, I'm going to be sending up my balloon every day. I brought enough for the job."
"Something smells weird." Ayumi sniffed.
"Yeah." Hayashida explained. "Each time we increase the power, it's coated with kerosene. Done." he cut off the helium.
"Wow." Genta gushed. "Couldn't you use one of those to fly up to the peak?"
"That's impossible." Mitsuhiko replied. "A single balloon can only carry five or six kilograms at most."
"There." Hayashida let his research balloon loose.
The next day...
"We're leaving as soon as we finish breakfast." Mitsuhiko declared, Fumio was already at the stove, frying up four sunny-side-up eggs. "To the peak!" he was cut off by Genta's horrified shout.
"What's wrong, Genta?" Conan hurried over.
"That." Genta pointed down.
"Takemi-san is on the ground." Conan informed the mountain-climbing group after using the binoculars to ascertain what Genta had seen.
"Over there!" Hayashida shouted, as he, Ashizuka and Conan hurried over to the site where Yamakura had collapsed. "Takemi!"
"She's dead." Conan informed, feeling for a pulse. "Look at this." he pointed to the compass on the ground beside Yamakura.
"That's her hiking compass." Ashizuka explained.
Some time later...
"Is that a drone?" Mitsuhiko gushed, Inspector Megure's team was called to the crime scene and Takagi was using the remote control to drive the helicopter drone.
"Yeah." Takagi replied. "We're using it to search the mountains."
"Are the three of you the late Yamakura Takemi-san's acquaintances?" Inspector Megure began the questioning. "We found a backpack in the forest three kilometers from the crime scene. We'd like you to confirm if it belonged to Yamakura-san."
"That's definitely it." Ikeguchi confirmed, once the forensic personnel showed he a red backpack. "It's Takemi-san's."
"I see." Inspector Megure noted. "Inside were the knife we believe is the murder weapon and an empty wallet."
"The killer must've abandoned it." Ashizuka concluded.
"Then, the killer fled down the mountain after killing Takemi-san at the bottom." Hayashida reasoned.
"Well, actually..." Inspector Megure started and cast a look at Takagi.
"According to the mountain guard, he's been in the cottage at the entrance to the foot of the mountain since about 4 am, but no one suspicious left the mountain ." Takagi stated.
"Someone may have left the bag in the forest to make it as though an outsider killed her." Inspector Megure expressed.
"Which means one of us did it." Hayashida realized.
"Wait." Ashizuka protested. "We couldn't have done it. Takemi was live until 3am. You were there, too." he looked at Conan.
"Yeah." Conan nodded. "That's when Eiko-san called her on the phone."
"The body was found around 5am." Ashizuka argued. "In other words, the crime was committed during those two hours." he spread out a map of the mountains. "But no matter how much you hurry, it takes about forty to fifty minutes to take the path down to the crime scene."
"That's about how long it took when we went." Conan concurred.
"Killing Takemi-san and leaving the bag in the forest, three kilo away would add another thirty or forty minutes." Professor Agasa added.
"And since the return trip is uphill, it will take more than sixty minutes." Fumio concluded. "All in all, that's more than 120 minutes. Therefore, it couldn't be done within two hours."
"And they were sleeping in the cottage with us." Mitsuhiko supplied.
"Eiko-san was sleeping with me." Ayumi clarified.
"Eiko and I couldn't have done it." Ashizuka reasoned. "But, Hayashida, you..."
"I was surveying another mountain." Hayashida defended.
"I see." Inspector Megure noted. "Could we ask you a few questions about the late Yamakura-san?"
"If one of them is the killer, that means they snuck out of the cottage, went to the crime scene and forest and returned within two hours." Mitsuhiko went into pondering mode after the police led the three adults into the cottage. "However, that's actually not possible. But what if they climbed? Instead of taking the mountain path, if they climbed straight up and down the cliff, they could've done it within two hours."
"Eiko-san was climbing yesterday." Genta noted.
"No, that cliff was fifty meters tall." Conan shot down Mitsuhiko's theory. "Even an expert would take an hour one way."
"Then, they used the river." Ayumi proposed. "Ashizuka-san was kayaking, right? If he rode down the rapids in the river next to this field..."
"And how would he return?" Fumio posted the damning question. "He couldn't have kayaked up the river, not to mention, he'll also need time to bring it back."
"They used the sky." Genta declared. "The balloon. He flew through the air like a bird to reach the crime scene and the forest."
"Since the wind was blowing south to north, a balloon would get you there." Conan conceded.
"But a single balloon can barely carry five or six kilograms." Mitsuhiko pointed out. "A person couldn't have used them to fly."
"That's why he inflated all of them." Genta concluded.
"Hayashida-san did say he had enough balloon for ten days." Fumio recalled. "And he has nine of them left now. But it would still be difficult even he used all his balloons."
"It's dislodged." Conan walked to the back of the cottage and spotted the displaced wooden plank that was part of the wall. "Mud?" he hurried over to the discarded helium tank and sampled the patch of dirt on the bottom of the gas tank with his fingers. "This is it." he hurried behind the shed and found a indented spot underneath a nearby tree. "Rope marks?" he looked up and saw the telltale marks on a tree branch.
"Conan-kun." Ayumi called, walking towards the thinking detective with Haibara. "What's wrong?"
"What's this?" Conan plucked a flower fluff from Ayumi's sweater.
"Wait, Edogawa-kun." Haibara was on her I-pad. "The fluff..."
"There's something going on at the cottage." Fumio informed.
"Balloons... kerosene... wool..." Conan was in deep thought as the others eavesdropped on the interrogation inside the cottage.
"There's something bothering you, right?" Fumio recognized their leader's deep thought mode.
Could it be... inspiration stuck Conan when he witnessed a hawk swooping down from the sky. "Detective Takagi. Stop it there." he instructed, having Takagi operate the drone. "I knew it." he realized what happened as the image projected by the drone's camera showed on the remote control's screen. So that's how it is.
"Wait a minute, Inspector." using Professor Agasa's voice, Conan presented the case's conclusion. "There are a few things I'm wondering about. Hayashida-san, did you wipe your hands and body thoroughly yesterday?"
"I did." Hayashida replied.
"That's why you don't smell of kerosene." Conan noted "Kerosene is used to increase the strength of rubber balloons. If anyone used the balloons, the smell will remain on them."
"Couldn't he have wiped his hands immediately after committing the crime?" Inspector Megure asked.
"Even if Hayashida-san did it, he barely had two hours." Conan reasoned. "Did he have that kind of time?"
"You mean someone else is the killer?" Inspector Megure blinked.
"That's what that would mean." Conan agreed. "There's something I'd like all of you to see. This." he showed the group the dislodged plank from the cottage wall. "This plank is designed to come off. There's something else. Detective Takagi, could you search the shed behind me for balloons?"
"There's three left." Takagi reported,
"Hayashida-san, how many balloons are supposed to be there?" Conan inquired.
"Nine." Hayashida replied.
"So, six are missing." Conan noted. "The killer used those balloons. The killer left the cottage before 3am when everyone had fallen asleep and prepared six of the balloons."
"But inflating them made a lot of noise." Genta pointed out.
"That's why they had to move away from the cottage." Conan explained. "I found evidence of their activities. After 3am, they offered a silent prayer to Motoki-san, waited for everyone to fall asleep, left the cottage, retrieved the six balloons they had prepared and leaped from the top of the cliff."
"That's impossible." Hayashida objected. "Only six balloons aren't enough for a person to fly."
"You're right." Conan agreed. "But that's the key to this trick. They won't make a person fly, but it's enough to reduce their falling speed, like a bird spreading their wings to decelerate. They reduced their speed by landing on the rocks partway down the cliff, before jumping the rest of the way down. They reached the crime scene quickly this way."
"That's ridiculous." Ashizuka laughed. "They couldn't have done that."
"Look at this." Haibara showed them the photo taken by the drone camera. "It's a photo of the rocks in the middle of the cliff. There are some strange footprints pointing towards the edge."
"Wait." Hayashida voiced. "With only six balloons, it would've have to have been someone extremely light to..."
"That's right." Conan confirmed. "Ikeguchi Eiko-san, you killed her."
"You're wrong." Ayumi was immediate to protest. "It isn't her."
"No." Conan assured. "After reaching the bottom of the cliff, you released five of the six balloons. The balloons floated north on the wind to the lake, where no one would find them. You deflated the remaining balloon, cut it and kept it with you. You killed Takemi-san, left Motoki-san's compass at the crime scene and headed north with Takemi-san's bag and wallet. At the forest three kilometers away, you left the bag and beyond that, you left the deflated balloon. Once you returned, you put the surveying equipment with Takemi-san's blood in Hayashida-san's bag."
"You're wrong." Ikeguchi insisted. "I didn't do it."
"Onee-san, you smell like kerosene." Fumio took a whiff of Ikeguchi. "Now that I think of it, there was meaning behind all your actions. You instigated the fight and called her phone, just so Takemi-san would head to the bottom of the cliff and you could confirm she was alive at 3am."
"Don't be stupid." Ikeguchi argued. "I was sleeping with Ayumi-chan when she was killed."
"You planned that, too." Haibara cut in. "You wanted Yoshida-san to confirm your alibi."
"I've had enough." Ikeguchi snapped. "I didn't kill her and I didn't go to the forest."
"We found this, too." Haibara produced the flower fluff that was stuck on Ayumi's sweater. "It's a species of horse thistle. Around here, it only grows in that forest. It was Yoshida-san's sweater. It probably came from you while you were sleeping together.
"See?" Fumio squatted down to reveal the horse thistle flowers stuck around Ikeguchi's shoes. "You did go to the forest. After going to the forest, you came to right below here. All you had to do is return. But since using the mountain path could leave more evidence, you began climbing back up the cliff. But you were in such a hurry, you made a mistake right at the end."
"This is blood." Inspector Megure looked closer at the stained rock in front of them.
"Excuse me." on cue, Takagi pried Ikeguchi's hand open to reveal a wound on her palm and string marks around her arms. "This mark must have been left by the balloons' rope."
"Eiko, why did you kill her?" Ashizuka asked.
"Motoki-san and I were secretly dating." Ikeguchi confessed. "I couldn't forgive Takemi-san for forcing him into that accident."
"But why would you frame Hayashida?" Ashizuka pressed.
"Hayashida-san, you knew about us." Ikeguchi turned to the bespectacled male. "You were always jealous. That's why you didn't tell Motoki-san he was heading towards a dangerous cliff." with that, she broke down weeping.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.