SailorStar9: So with Chapter 80 uploaded, this is Chapter 81 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 81: The Whistling Bookstore 2

"I've come from Tamaki Book Cafe to buy books." Tamaki Yujiro rang the doorbell of the Mizutani household.

"I've been waiting for you." Mizutani Akiko opened the door. "Please come in."

"There are so many books." Ayumi gushed after they were led into the study.

"So, which books would you like to sell?" Yujiro asked.

"All of them, please." Akiko requested.

"Very well." Yujiro pulled on his gloves to appraise the books. "Let me take a look. Even the cheapest are worth 5000 yen." he reported. "The expensive ones are worth over 20000 yen."

"No way." Akiko gasped. "They're that valuable?"

"They're rare books." Yujiro explained. "They're worth at least that much."

"Valuable books that aren't very common because they're old and unusual or limited editions." Conan piped in.

"Indeed." Yujiro confirmed. "For example, only 500 copies of this book were published in 1920. There are currently many copies on the market, but this one is in good condition."

"I don't care what they are." Akiko insisted. "Will you buy all of them?"

"Excuse me, but are these books yours?" Yujiro questioned.

"No, they belong to my husband." Akiko blinked.

"Does your husband know you're selling them?" Yujiro inquired.

"Seems you don't have his permission." Haibara spotted Akiko's look.

"It's fine." Akiko insisted. "He's in hospital. They're just taking up space. Are you saying you won't buy them?" she pressed.

"Personally, I'd very much like to purchase them." Yujiro answered. "But please get your husband's permission to sell them."

"What happened?" Mitsuhiko turned, hearing Ayumi's scream when she dropped a book the Detective Boys were putting back.

"There was a little bug in the book." Ayumi replied.

"That's a silverfish." Yujiro explained.

"Silverfish, written using characters for 'paper' and 'fish'," Fumio went into lecture mode. "They're bugs that like to eat the glue in the binding of books. These guys are relatively easy to deal with. Silverfish dislike the smell of herbs, especially lavender." he added, Yujiro setting to work by dropping several drops of lavender essence he brought with him onto a pink piece of scrap paper Ayumi gave me.

"Simply place a lavender-scented piece of paper on the bookshelf, and the silverfish will go away." Yujiro walked over the shelf and put the scented paper on the books.

The next day...

"Dad, someone named Mizutani is calling for you." Yoshikawa Michiko informed Yujiro who was working in the backroom, restoring the books he bought the previous day.

"It's me." Yujiro took the call. "Really?" he frowned. "No, nonsense. I understand. I'll head there immediately. The rare books were stolen." he informed the visiting Detective Boys. "And it seems she believes I stole them."

"Hand over the books you stole." Akiko demanded.

"Calm down." Yujiro soothed. "Start by telling me what happened when the books were stolen."

"I went out for lunch with a friend today." Akiko related. "We finished eating around 1pm. I came home immediately and discovered the window was broken and the books were missing."

"You called the police, right?" Conan asked.

"Yes," Akiko nodded. "The police said it must've been a professional based on how the window was broken."

"I was at the store all day today." Yujiro voiced. "I couldn't have stolen from you."

Later that night...

"Did something happen?" Mitsuhiko turned to the gathered crowd in the Steam Train Park.

"Is it a case?" Genta piped in, entering the crime scene.

"Yujiro-oji-san." Ayumi blinked.

"Yujiro, are you hurt?" Conan spotted the blood splatter in the book cafe owner's apron.

"This isn't my blood." Yujiro assured.

"Then..." Conan turned to see Sawada Ryosuke lying on the ground, face-down.

"He's a suspect in this case." Inspector Megure supplied.

"I called the police." Akiko stepped forward.

"She discovered the body." Takagi informed.

"I clearly saw him standing over the body." Akiko insisted.

"Inspector Megure, we've identified the man." Chiba reported. "The victim is Sawada Ryosuke, thirty-five years old. He lives nearby is unemployed. The cause of death is a cerebral contusion caused by a blow to the head. The weapon is almost certainly this bloody rock found at he crime scene."

"Were there fingerprints on the weapon?" Inspector Megure looked at the bagged rock.

"None, but we found traces of hand cream on the weapon." Chiba added.

"Come to think of it, I heard those who work with books frequently apply hand cream to prevent chapped hands." Takagi pointed out.

"Do you have some with you right now?" Inspector Megure asked. "Do you mind if we examine this?" he looked at the tube of cream Yujiro handed over.

"Go ahead." Yujiro replied.

"Chiba, take this to forensics." Inspector Megure handed the tube over. "Now then," he turned to Yujiro. "Could you explain what happened?"

"I received a phone call from him." Yujiro started. "He asked me to come to the park at around 7 pm. When I arrived, he was on the ground. I ran to him, but he was already..."

"And your clothes got bloody then?" Inspector Megure asked.

"Yes." Yujiro nodded.

"But why did the victim call you" Inspector Megure questioned.

"He didn't tell me." Yujiro answered. "But I think it had something to do with those books."

"Officer, those are them." Yujiro led the police into the cafe and showed them the bag the books were in.

"There are about ten books inside." Takagi inspected the bag.

"This evening, he brought them to be appraised." Yujiro explained.

"Come to think of it," Takagi recalled. "I think there was a picture of these books on the victim's phone. This is it." he pulled out the relevant photo.

"He showed it to me when he came to my store." Yujiro supplied. "The first time he came in, he only showed me the photo. I told him I couldn't appraise them without seeing them in person."

"By the way, how much are these books worth?" Inspector Megure asked.

"2500000 all together." Yujiro answered.

"That's the paper I gave you." Ayumi noticed the pink paper float down when Inspector Megure flipped open a book.

"Ayumi gave him that notepaper at Mizutani's house to combat silverfish." Conan stepped in.

"I noticed the same thing and suspected he was the thief." Yujiro admitted.

"Thief?" Inspector Megure echoed.

"This afternoon, some rare books were stolen from Mizutani's house." Conan explained.

"Is it true?" Inspector Megure turned to Akiko who nodded. "So, the victim stole the books from Mizutani's house and came here to sell them."

"That's why I attempted to call the police." Yujiro interjected. "But he rushed out of the store. Later, he called me to tell me to come to the park."

"What's this?" Genta spotted a button on the floor as Conan was inspecting Sawada's phone he had borrowed from Takagi. "A button?"

"Wait." Chiba stopped the boy. "There were signs the victim were involved in a struggle. One of his buttons was missing. This must be it." he picked up the torn off button.

"Tamaki, how do you explain this?" Inspector Megure questioned.

"We got into a bit of a tussle when I tried to call the police." Yujiro admitted. "It's possible it came off then."

"Hello?" just then, Chiba's phone rang and he took the call. "Yes. Understood. It was a match to the hand cream on the weapon." he informed.

"You fought with the victim and your hand cream matched the cream found on the weapon." Inspector Megure took over. "Given all the circumstantial evidence, Tamaki Yujiro, could you come down to the station with us?"

"There must be some mistake." Mitsuhiko insisted.

"I left the water boiling." Michiko realized she had left the kettle on.

"Looks like you've figured it out." Fumio recognized Conan's grin when he saw Akiko's misted spectacle lens after she headed over to the counter to turn off the gas.

"Wait one moment," using his voice-changing bow tie, Conan took on Professor Agasa's voice. "Yujiro isn't the culprit. Hand cream is oil-based; it repels water. If he held the weapon with a hand coated in cream and bludgeoned the victim, the section the cream stuck to will repel water. No blood will be on it."

"But forensics reported that there was cream found on the bloody section." Chiba pointed out.

"What if the cream was applied after the victim was struck?" Fumio suggested.

"But why?" Takagi was confused.

"So the real culprit could frame Yujiro." Professor Agasa answered. "And the real culprit is the other person involved in the book theft. Take another look at the picture on the victim's phone. See the dark spot on the photo? But there is no stain on the book. In other words, the stain was caused by a scratch or stain on the lens. However, I didn't find a scratch on the victim's phone lens. In other words, a different camera was used to take the photo."

"I saw a photo with a similar dark spot in Mizutani's house." Conan piped in.

"Then, the person who took this photo..." Takagi realized.

"Mizutani, could we take a look at your phone?" Inspector Megure requested.

"There's a scratch on the lens." Takagi peered closer and spotted the scratch on the camera lens.

"This proves Mizutani sent the photo of the rare books to the victim and instructed him to steal them." Professor Agasa continued.

"It's true." Akiko confessed. "I had him steal them. You were right about the book theft. But the murder is different. Or do you have evidence proving I killed him?"

"Your glasses." Professor Agasa cut in. "When you turned off the stove, the steam from the kettle hit your face. Only one of your lends fogged up. Hand creams are sometimes used to prevent fogging. When you applied the same hand cream as Yujiro's to the weapon in order to frame him, perhaps you accidentally got some of the cream on one of your glasses lenses."

"You're wrong." Akiko protested.

"If you applied the cream after striking him, some blood would be mixed in with the cream." Professor Agasa continued. If you carefully examine Mizutani's glasses, I'm sure you'll find traces of the victim's blood."

"I did it." Akiko confessed. "I planned to have Sawada sell the books and give him a bit of the money. But when he learned the true value of the books, he realized I was trying to cheat him. He threatened to tell my husband everything if I didn't give him more."

"So you killed him to keep him quiet?" Inspector Megure pressed.

"Yes." Akiko replied. "Even if I paid him a fair share, he might continue to blackmail me. Besides, if I paid him that much, that would leave less for me."

"But why frame Tamaki?" Inspector Megure was confused.

"If he'd just bought the books, I wouldn't have needed him to steal them." Akiko retorted. "So I deliberately hid that paper in the books I had Sawada take them to be appraised. I did it so he'd immediately realize he was the thief. I calculated that they would get into a fight. Then I bought Sawada to the park and had him make the call. I killed Sawada before Tamaki arrived and called the police when he found the body."

SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.