SailorStar9: So with Chapter 97 uploaded, this is Chapter 98 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 98: Picking Wild Plants and Clovers, Part One
Time passes...
The Detective Boys, along with Kobayashi-sensei and Wakasa-sensei were traveling on a train to meet up with Zenda Maika.
"You must be exhausted from your long journey." Zenda greeted her guests upon their arrival to the TR Minanokami Station. "Welcome to Gunma Prefecture. It must've been a long trip from Tokyo."
"It wasn't too bad." Wakasa-sensei assured.
"Are you kids all right?" Zenda turned to the Detective Boys. "You're not too tired?"
"I'm totally fine." Ayumi assured.
"I'm a little hungry, though." Genta piped in.
"Let's pick some wild plants today." Mitsuhiko beamed.
"Thank you for coming with us today, Zenda-sensei." Wakasa-sensei noted. "You even brought a car."
"It's fine." Zenda assured. "My own elementary school used this mountain for our own outdoor class. It comes highly recommended. Besides, I'm excited since this is my last job as a teacher."
"Your last job?" Kobayashi-sensei echoed.
"I'm actually getting married." Zenda explained. "Actually, I already quit last week."
"Congratulations." the two Teitan Elementary School teachers chorused together.
"We're taking this car, right?" Genta pointed. "Can we get in?"
"Go ahead." Zenda nodded.
"I'm first." Genta grinned, opening the back door. "There's something on the seat." he spotted the layer of flattened out cardboard lying on the backseats.
"I'm sorry." Zenda started. "I forgot that my cardboard moving boxes were still in my car. Would you mind putting them against the windows? Everyone's in, right?" she confirmed, strapping into the drivers seat after the group was situated in their seats. "Then, let's go."
On the road to their destination...
"I see." Zenda noted. "Your school has first and second years attend outdoor classes together."
"That's why we brought some children with us today to check things out beforehand." Kobayashi-sensei nodded. "We wanted to see how they'd react to the location. We chose six exceptionally precocious kids."
"There's a lot of expensive-looking houses." Genta gawked at the bungalows on the side of the road.
"They look like villas." Mitsuhiko agreed.
"This area has a lot of vacation homes." Kobayashi-sensei noted.
"Although they have nothing to do with us common folk." Zenda added. "You can come out now." she informed the kids, after parking the car.
In the designated thicket...
"It's so pretty." Ayumi gushed.
"The air here is nice, too." Mitsuhiko took a deep breath. "I bet we'll be able to pick lots of wild plants here."
"Let's pick a whole bunch and turn them into tempura." Genta declared.
"Kaa-san has always wanted to try out new edible flowers for her jellies." Fumio shrugged.
"Hold on." Zenda voiced. "As long as we're here, why don't we take a photo to commemorate the occasion?" she pulled out her camera.
"We should probably have an instructor assigned to each group." Kobayashi-sensei told Wakasa-sensei, seeing the apparent success of the field trip; even Fumio had located a patch of milk thistles.
"Maybe I got too excited." Genta was disappointed. "I'm kind of thirsty."
"I left the drinks I brought in the car." Zenda recalled. "I'll go get them. How about you kids come help? Your name is Yoshida-san?" she turned to Ayumi. "Could you help me get the drinks? All right." she handed the plastic bag to Ayumi. "Could you take this bag to the others?"
"Zenda-sensei, what's wrong?" Ayumi noticed Zenda had knelt beside the car.
"I think I dropped my earring." Zenda replied.
"I'll help you look for it." Ayumi offered.
"The direction of the wind changed." Mitsuhiko remarked, the wind started rustling the trees.
This... both Conan and Haibara noticed the scent of blood. This scent... blood?
"What is this?" Haibara gaped, she, Conan and Wakasa-sensei ran towards the car and spotted the dead Fukikoshi Toji/Uruma Shigefumi leaning against the tree behind the car.
"He probably died about five to six hours ago." Conan checked the corpse's eyes.
"Look." Haibara caught Conan's attention. "There are tracks behind the tree as though something was dragged. This body wasn't here when we got out of the car. Someone must've moved the body here while we were picking wild plants."
"But who put it here and why?" Conan wondered.
"Conan!" Genta shouted, hurrying over with Fumio, Mitsuhiko and Kobayashi-sensei in tow.
"What happened?" Ayumi asked, approaching with Zenda.
"You're kidding." Zenda gaped, dropping the plastic bag in her hand. "Darling!" she ran over and hugged Uruma.
"Darling?" Wakasa-sensei and Conan gaped.
"You don't mean..." Fumio realized who the dead body was.
"The victim is Fukikoshi Toji, 42-years-old." Inspector Yamamura was called to the scene. "He's the president of a trendy IT company. Is that correct?" he turned to the sobbing Zenda.
"Yes." Zenda nodded.
"And you happened to be at the location where the body was discovered." Inspector Yamamura added. "Zenda Maika, the victim's fiancée."
"We were supposed to get married next month." Zenda revealed. "Why did he have to die? Who would do a thing so awful? Please arrest his killer as soon as possible."
"That's what you say now, but," Inspector Yamamura stared straight at Zenda. "Perhaps you changed your mind about marrying him, killed him and left the body here. Maybe it was your plan to act surprised when the people you invited to pick wild plants discovered him."
"No..." Zenda protested.
"That's not possible." Kobayashi-sensei insisted. "When we arrived, the body wasn't here."
"When we arrived, I believe we took a photo in front of the car to commemorate the occasion." Wakasa-sensei confirmed. "You can check the photo later."
"But while all of you were distracted by picking wild plants, maybe she retrieved the body she hid in the trees..." Inspector Yamamura proposed.
"That's not possible." Ayumi spoke up. "Zenda-sensei was with us the whole time."
"The whole time?" Inspector Yamamura echoed.
"We went back to the car together to get drinks." Ayumi supplied. "She dropped her earring next to the car, so we looked for it til our hands were covered in mud."
"Besides, you always have ridiculous things to say." Genta added.
"You're right." Inspector Yamamura admitted, comparing the photo with the crime scene. "When you took this photo, there wasn't a body here."
"That's what we've been telling you." Kobayashi-sensei spoke. "Someone left the body next to that tree while we were picking wild plants."
"But there are a lot of similar trees growing in this area." Inspector Yamamura remarked. "Perhaps you initially parked your car in a very similar-looking location. And while you were distracted, she left the body here and moved the car. Maybe she did it when you went to get drinks while picking wild plants."
"I told you, I was with her when we got the drinks." Ayumi stood firm. "Zenda-sensei didn't move the car."
"And we didn't hear the sound of a car engine." Haibara added.
"The only thing Zenda-sensei did was open the rear door and got the bags of drinks out of the car." Ayumi stated.
"We didn't smell anything when we got here." Genta spoke.
"When people die, they produce a weird putrid smell.." Mitsuhiko reminded.
"Actually, that depends on the specific body and where it was left." Fumio corrected. "But normally, bodies don't smell after two days during the summer, or four days in the winter. Since the body has been left for under a day, it doesn't smell."
"You know a lot about corpses." Inspector Yamamura blinked.
"Fumio's mother works for the Public Security Bureau." Ayumi supplied.
"Excuse me, Inspector Yamamura." the forensic personal reported. "I found a large quantity of business cards inside the body's inside jacket pocket and several of them aren't his own; large numbers of each, too."
"This is certainly odd." Inspector Yamamura gave the stack of differently named business cards a look-over. "Why was it necessary for him to carry so many business that weren't his?"
"Maybe he was doing something that required him to change his name or profession depending on who he was meeting." Conan suggested. "Like a detective who assumes different titles in order to acquire information, or a spy who becomes other people in order to blend in better. Or a conman who assumes different identities in order to fool people more easily."
"This is Yamamura." Inspector Yamamura picked up his phone. "You identified the body from his face?"
"Marriage fraud?" Zenda echoed after the Inspector informed them about Uruma. "Fukikoshi-san was committing marriage fraud?"
"Yes," Inspector Yamamura confirmed. "We sent the body's face to the Gunma police headquarters and we got a hit. His real name is Uruma Shigefumi. He committed numerous cases of fraud in other prefectures, too. Apparently, he was a wanted criminal."
Something's definitely odd. Conan mused. The dirty fingers on her left hand wearing the ring can be explained by searching for the earring she dropped. But even though the fingertips of her right hand aren't particularly dirty, she's got dirt on the inside of her arm all the way up to her elbow. How did that happen? Come to think of it, when we found the body, Zenda-san and Ayumi were next to the car they were both near the front tire. "What are you doing, Ayumi?" he spotted Ayumi by the clover patch near the car.
"I'm looking for a four-leaf clover." Ayumi replied. "I found one earlier while looking for Zenda-sensei's earring, right next to this tire."
"Alright then." Fumio sighed.
"We'll help you look for it." Genta offered. "Are you sure it had four leaves?" he was skeptical after the kids scanned the patch and found nothing.
"I know I saw it." Ayumi insisted.
"Why didn't you pick it when you found it?" Haibara asked.
"I was bust looking for Zenda-sensei's earring then." Ayumi explained. "Besides, don't they say carrying a four-leaf clover is supposed to bring you good luck? So I wanted to give it to Zenda-sensei. I'm sure she was shocked that the man she was supposed to marry is dead. And it sounds like he was a bad person and she seems really down about that. So I wanted to cheer her up."
"Inspector Yamamura!" the Inspector's assistant ran in. "We followed the tracks left by the body was dragged. It led us to a villa through the woods. Apparently, it belonged to the murder victim. Please come with me."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.