SailorStar9: With Chapter 63 uploaded, this is Chapter 64 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 64: Mystery of the Burning Tent, Part Two
"By the time I visited Urushibara's tent, he was already hammered." Furuoka stated. "No matter what I said, he just shouted, 'Shut up, go away!' at me. We didn't have a proper conversation."
"Were the lights inside the tent off, then?" Kuroda asked.
"Yes," Fukuoka answered. "It was still lights out and he said he was going to read comics before going to sleep."
"But why did he have some many candles inside his tent?" Yuminaga inquired. "No matter how you look at it, that's way too much."
"It was his job to bring matches and candles." Furuoka replied.
"In that case, was it also Urushibara-san's duty to bring all those comics?" Fumio asked.
"Those are mine." Furuoka answered. "Urushibara said he wanted to read them while camping. But if I'd known those would happen, I would've dragged him out of the tent. I should've made him eat curry with us instead of reading comics."
"When I visited the tent, he didn't respond, no matte how many times I call him." Ashizawa told the two officers. "At first, I thought he was ignoring me, but after hearing Furuoka 's story, I thought he must've gotten drunk and fallen asleep. He never wakes up once he passes out from drinking. It's so bad, people would draw things on his face during training camps."
"Wee the lights on inside the tent, then?" Kuroda inquired.
"I don't think so." Ashizawa recalled. "But after I left his tent, the lights suddenly came on. He was doing squats inside the tent. He said he always did squats before going to bed."
"We saw that, too." Genta piped in. "He had his hands behind his head like this." he demonstrated.
"He was repeatedly doing bending exercises." Mitsuhiko added.
"We saw his shadow on the tent wall." Ayumi added.
"If that's true, then that would mean the victim was still awake then." Yuminaga mused.
"Yeah." Kuroda agreed. "Which means the last person to visit the victim's tent..." he turned to Danno.
"Hold on." Danno protested. "I didn't set Urushibara's tent on fire. When I went to his tent to lure him out with the smell of curry, he didn't say anything, just like when Ashizawa visited. I tried talking to him, but he just silently did his squats. I thought he was doing them while using headphone to listen to music or something. Now that I think about it, maybe he did hear me. It was like he was telling me to go away. His squatting movements got more and more intense."
"Why did the victim Urushibara stay in his tent, instead of eating curry with everyone else?" Yuminaga inquired.
"We got into an argument." Danno admitted. "He and I had a complicated relationship. During basketball practice, his elbow..."
"Furuoka-san," Fumio looked at the older woman. "Is it true that Danno-san used to be the basketball team's ace?"
"Yeah, he was." Furuoka nodded. "He received a lot of attention from professional teams for being able to dunk at his height. But..."
"If not for the injury he suffered to his right eye at Urushibara's hands, he may have ended up playing for a foreign team." Ashizawa cut in. "But ironically, thanks to that injury, I was promoted from sub to starter. Now I'm the ace. And since Danno quit playing, he started spending more time with our manager, Furuoka-san, and now they're dating. Danno was always surrounded by groupies, but the moment he became a manager, every last one of them left."
"Inspector Yuminaga." one of the Arson Division's officers reported in. "It's about the tape on the victim's fingers you asked about. The surface was burnt but most of the adhesive side survived, so we removed it. We didn't find any trick or mechanism."
"Inspector Yuminaga." Conan voiced. "Could we see that photo? Did you notice something again?" he reclaimed the phone back.
"I could be confused." Conan admitted. "Guys!" he ran back to the rest of the group.
"They've completely forgotten about the case, haven't they?" Fumio deathpanned.
"Sheesh." Conan chided, approached the rest. "What are you doing?"
"Wakasa-sensei just showed us." Genta informed.
"So, we've been making it together." Mitsuhiko added.
"Look." Ayumi held out her index finger with an acorn balanced on it and two smaller acorns keeping the larger acorn steady. "A balancing acorn."
"Conan." Fumio exchanged a knowing grin at the group leader.
"This is what that culprit used." Conan nodded in agreement.
"Give us a break, Detective." Danno complained. "We're not the ones who set fire to Urushibara's tent. We did visit his tent one by one before it caught fire, but he didn't answer any of us."
"We all knew Urushibara was inside since we saw his shadow doing squats on the tent wall, bur we couldn't have set the tent on fire from the inside, unless we'd go inside." Ashizawa added.
"And the zipper on the tent entrance was zipped all the way down and locked, right?" Furuoka reminded.
"Doesn't that make the tent a locked room?" Ashizawa argued.
"Urushibara was pretty drunk." Furuoka admitted.
"Maybe he got drunk while doing squats and kicked the lantern over?" Danno suggested.
"But what if those candles could be used to create an automatic ignition device?" Kuroda prompted.
"That's absurd." Danno objected.
"I think he would've noticed it immediately if there was something like that." Furuoka agreed.
"By that time, Urushibara-san was probably already drunk and asleep." Conan cut in. "If you think I'm lying, we'll show you how to make a sleeping man do squats and set his tent on fire."
"First," Conan explained, as Fumio set up the apparatus. "Stick a bamboo skewer into the end of the candle. Then drip wax from another candle onto it. And stick the candles together. Sandwich the candle between them so they make a straight line. Next, since we poked holes on the tops of candles set on top of the books, if you stick both ends of the skewer into the holes, the candle see-saw is complete. Now set fire to both ends of the stuck together candles. The side that burns faster will become lighter and rise. The side that falls will be exposed to a lot of flame, making it drip more wax. Now this end becomes lighter and rises. When you repeat the process..." he trailed as the extended candles started see-sawing. "If you use the books to block the flame on one side, only one flame can be see rising and falling. Take a look behind you." he told the rest. "Our shadows on the tent are rising and falling, too."
"I see." Yuminaga noted. "By linking the victim's hands behind his head, sitting him in the legless chair and placing a large bag against the wall to cover his lower body, they used the rising and falling flame to make his shadow look like he's doing squats."
"In other words, the strange V-shaped burn on the magazine was created because it was placed on top of the laptop in order to block the light from one end of the candle, and only the inside was exposed to the flame when it first caught fire." Kuroda realized.
"Then, what about all the candles that melted together?" Yuminaga asked.
"The culprit probably scattered them next to the contraption beforehand in order to conceal their trick." Kuroda guessed. "Finally, by knocking the laptop over with water while putting out the flames, they were able to reduce all evidence of their trick to ashes."
"But that candle was just moving up and down." Danno reminded.
"That wouldn't set fire to anything." Furuoka agreed.
"It does." Fumio corrected. "As time goes on, the movements of the contraption become more intense. Once you set some flammable clothes on the floor..."
"It caught fire." Mitsuhiko gaped when the wool towel was set aflame.
"It's dangerous, so don't try this at home." Haibara deathpanned, dousing the fire.
"Please don't break the fourth wall, Haibara-san." Fumio gave the stern girl a calm look. "If we manage to scatter that, the authoress might decide to put in a fifth wall."
"And how often do we do that?" Haibara asked, only to be met by a pair of deathpan looks from Conan and Fumio.
"Which means this trick..." Yuminaga returned to the case in hand. "Furuoka Midori-san, who claimed the light was out so the victim could sleep when she visited his tent, and Danno Kuninori-san, who visited the tent after the victim started doing squats, couldn't have set it up. Which means, the man claiming the lights were out when he visited the tent, but looking back after he left, saw that the victim had turned on the lights and begun doing squats, Ashizawa Sumito-san, you're the only one."
"Is that true, Ashizawa?" Furuoka gasped.
"No." Ashizawa protested. "Urushibara's tent was zipped all the way shut and locked, right? How could I have gotten inside?"
"The mud on your right elbow." Kuroda replied. "When did that get there? Most likely, it happened while the victim was passed out, you made a cut in the tent with a sharp object and touched the ground with your right elbow while forcing your way in."
"I see." Yuminaga nodded. "Once the tent burned, the cut would disappear along with it."
"No, this mud got on me when I tripped earlier." Ashizawa argued.
"Then, why did you remove the tape from your right hand?" Conan posted a question. "This guy had tape on his right hand, right?" he looked at the rest of the Detective Boys.
"On his index finger." Fumio confirmed. "I recall seeing Urushibara having some on his right index and middle fingers, too."
"What about Urushibara's left hand?" Conan asked.
"He didn't have any tape on his left hand." Haibara interjected.
"But Urushibara's charred corpse had taping on both hands, which means..." Conan turned back to Ashizawa. "The culprit removed their own tape and put it on him in order to keep the passed out Urushibara's hands linked behind his head."
"If that's true, the- we might find on the adhesive surface of the tape on the body's left hand, bits of your skin and hair that contain your DNA." Yuminaga stated. "If you haven't thrown away the knife you use to cut the tent, the fibers from the victim's tent should be on that, too."
"Yeah, I've still got it." Ashizawa admitted, pulling out the cutter and extended the blade.
"Ayumi!" Fumio pulled the girl behind him, just as Ashizawa reached for her. Ducking the arsonist's outstretched arm, he aimed a kick on Ashizawa's wrist and forcing him to drop the cutter. With Ashizawa's back open, Kuroda moved in and restrained the killer.
"I'm the one who set fire to Urushibara's tent." defeated and captured. Ashizawa confessed. "He had dirt on me. I'm the one who asked Urushibara to hurt Danno so I could play. I wasn't expecting it to be a career-ending injury, but he was constantly threatening me. When I went to his tent today, he drunkenly slurred: if you don't want me to spill the beans, you'd better make lots of money for me once you go pro. Since he stopped responding, I entered his tent and start up that trick. Fortunately, everything I needed for it was inside the tent."
"Thank you, Mizuno Fumio, for disarming the suspect." Kuroda nodded as Yuminaga hurried forward to apprehend Ashizawa. "Your mother has taught you well."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.