SailorStar9: After 2 weeks with no update, I present Chapter 120 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 120: The Spiral of Rain and Malice
Time passes...
"I found it." Mitsuhiko located the missing soccer ball.
"What is this?" Ayumi wondered, seeing the burnt-out convertible nearby.
"The license plate has been removed." Haibara noted. "Perhaps it was dumped illegally. Apparently, disposing of an old car is pretty expensive nowadays."
"Unbelievable." Genta complained. "What if some kids got into it?"
"Kids like us?" Fumio deathpanned.
"Let's go back to our games." Conan suggested. "Didn't the weather report say it'd rain this evening?"
"Is that a voice recorder?" Fumio noticed Onda Tamaki speaking onto a portable voice recorder on a bench, the Detective Boys had returned to their soccer game.
"Looks like it." Conan noted.
"Watch out!" Haibara shouted a warning, seeing Genta's misdirected shot heading towards Onda.
"You should be more careful." Onda chided, catching the waylaid ball. "I can't believe myself." she sighed. "I get angry so quickly. It's a bad habit of mine." clipping her glasses onto her blouse, she started performing soccer ball tricks. "Despite how I look now, I actually used to play on my college soccer team. Here we go." she sent the ball flying via a long kick.
"That doesn't look good." Genta noted, hearing the thunder in the distance.
"It's best we call it a day." Fumio remarked.
"Look at the time." Onda glanced at her wristwatch. "They're late."
"Are you waiting for someone?" Conan asked.
"I'm going to stick around here a little longer." Onda informed. "You kids should go on home. You wouldn't want to get rained on and catch a cold."
The next day...
"The weather is so nice today, you'd hardly believe it rained last night." the newscaster reported. "And now for the news, early this morning, a woman's body was discovered inside an abandoned vehicle by the Shikigawa River. Based on her possessions, she's been identified as Onda Tamaki—san. 38-years-old, the representative of a designer company located nearby."
"You guys came." Conan had hurried to the crime scene, finding the Detective Boys were already there.
"I was shocked to see the news on the TV." Mitsuhiko stated.
"Tamaki-san was that woman, isn't she?" Ayumi asked.
"What's going on?" Genta inquired. "Why was she inside the car?"
"You know the deceased, Onda Tamaki-san?" Takagi overheard the kids.
"She played soccer with us here yesterday." Genta confirmed.
"What time was that?" Takagi asked.
"About an hour just after three." Mitsuhiko recalled.
"Sounds about right." Fumio agreed. "It started raining less than 30 minutes after that. Detective Takagi, what's the estimated time of death?"
"We're still waiting on the autopsy results for the details." Takagi answered. "But it was probably between midnight to 2 am last night."
"Is the cause of death still unknown?" Haibara pressed.
"Yeah." Takagi nodded. "We found one contusion on her head and several on her body, but she's been exposed to water, so it's unclear which of the wounds is fatal."
"What about personal possessions?" Conan asked.
"Her valuables like her phone and wallet were still on her person." Takagi related. Do you recognize this?" he showed the kids a photo of a dangling earring on his tablet. "The deceased Onda Tamaki-san was holding it in her hand."
"An earring?" Conan blinked. "And only one at that."
"Was she wearing this yesterday?" Takagi inquired.
"No." Haibara answered. "At the very least, she wasn't wearing that earring."
"Perhaps it belongs to the culprit." Mitsuhiko suggested.
"Was that lady killed?" Genta gaped.
"Not necessarily." Takagi assured. "It's possible the earrings were hers even though she wasn't wearing them and dropped one somewhere. She was holding it in her hand. Forensics told me only her fingerprints were found."
"Were those the only possessions on her?" Fumio inquired. "Wasn't there a voice recorder?"
"This type of recorder." Haibara showed the detective the photo of the keychain voice recorder on her phone.
"We didn't find one." Takagi admitted. "Maybe she dropped it somewhere."
"We haven't found any witnesses." Chiba sighed. "It was pouring rain last night. Nobody was out walking around. Was it an accident, after all?"
"The question is, what did she do after we left?" Haibara pointed out.
"Wouldn't it be on the safe side to investigate this as both an accident and murder?" Fumio suggested. "Or that's what Mom's experience working with the FBI says."
"That definitely sounds like Mizuno-fukubuchō." Takagi agreed and he and Chiba split up.
"What is it?" Haibara noticed Conan looking at a Cheetah Refrigerated Transport van parked nearby.
The driver, Koyabu Ryuji, seeing Conan's attention was on him, got back into his vehicle and drove off.
At the Cheetah Delivery company...
"That's enough." Takagi cut in the argument between Koyabu and his boss.
"We're the police." Chiba informed.
"Detective Takagi." Genta gawked.
At the police station...
"You found a match to the fingerprints?" Conan blinked.
"The fingerprints on the deceased Onda-san's glasses matched his fingerprints that were collected a year ago." Takagi informed. "Koyabu Ryuji, 32-years-old. A year ago, he badly injured someone in a fight and was arrested. He was serving time in prison until last month."
"Was that lady killed by him and stuffed inside that car?" Genta pressed.
"Genta, don't be so quick to jump to conclusions." Fumio chided. "For all we know, he could have an alibi."
"Actually, Fumio-kun is right on that." Takagi spoke. "During the estimated time of death between midnight and 2 am, he was making deliveries. There's even testimony verifying that."
"Chiba here." Chiba made a call to Takagi. "I checked out the deceased Onda-san's company and made an unbelievable discovery."
In front of a store...
"You're Shirosaki Yurina-san, right?" Chiba interrupted Onda's subordinate at work.
At the police station...
"This belongs to you, doesn't it?" Chiba showed Shirosaki the bagged earring.
"No." Shirosaki turned her head.
"We've been told you wore them at your company's presentation yesterday." Chiba informed.
"Does she have an alibi, too?" Fumio wondered.
"During the estimated time of death, she was supervising a project at that shopping center." Takagi stated. "If this was a murder, it's likely one of them is the culprit, but..."
"Both suspects have an alibi." Fumio sighed.
"We're stumped." Chiba admitted.
"Then, we should reexamine the case." Conan suggested.
"As the last people who saw her alive, we might notice something." Haibara pointed out.
"And we have yet to find the voice recorder." Fumio reminded.
"That's true..." Takagi conceded.
Later in the evening...
"Koyabu-san, could you explain that yourself?" Takagi asked Koyabu, he and Chiba having requested Koyabu, Shirosaki and Inspector Megure back to the crime scene, after Chiba showed their superior the two videos captured by the dash cams showing Koyabu driving Onda back and forth.
"If it hadn't been raining so hard, I could've avoided her." Koyabu confessed. "I thought I'd run her over, but then..." he related how Onda had stood back up, got into the passenger seat and requested him to take her to hospital. "I've got a criminal record, so I figured it was better than going to the police. While looking for a hospital, suddenly..." he recalled Onda's rebuking words. "After getting out of prison, I was planning on starting over this time, but my old friends threatened me. So, I'd been stealing valuables from the cargo. She told me to turn back so she could look for something important she'd dropped. I tried to stop her from getting out of the truck when we stopped by the river." he recalled Onda slamming the passenger door close. "After that, the rain starting coming down even harder." he added, realizing he was behind schedule and had to drive off. "I was worried, but by the time I arrived in the morning..."
"Shirosaki Yurina-san," Chiba turned to Shirosaki. "Didn't you meet Onda Tamaki-san here yesterday?"
"We found the other earring." Takagi revealed. Your fingerprints were found on them."
"She rejected my presentation." Shirosaki admitted. "She was jealous of my talent. So, she stole my designs and tried to pass them off as her own." she recollected how she and Onda argued and snatched her tablet from Onda's hands and used the device to knock the older woman to the ground. "But the rain started coming down hard, and I got worried about her. I went back a while later, but no one was there. I thought it wasn't a big deal after all and went back to work."
"After that, Onda-san probably decided she needed to go to the hospital based on the pain and blood loss." Takagi reasoned. "She unsteadily made her way to the road where she encountered Koyabu-san's vehicle."
"But is she hadn't said such awful things in the first place..." Shirosaki muttered.
"I don't think that's it." Conan piped in.
"She was actually talking about herself." Fumio elaborated. "Detective Takagi, was the voice recorder located?"
"Not yet." Takagi replied.
"And since one of your earrings was found in Tamaki-san's hand, it's very likely the voice recorder is in your bag." Fumio informed Shirosaki.
"Nice work, Fumio-kun." Takagi was impressed when Shirosaki dug out the recorder.
"She knew?" Shirosaki gasped in shock when Takagi played the recording.
"A colleague who's known Onda-san for a long time told us she was considering Shirosaki-san as her successor." Chiba explained. "It's the reason why she was so hard on her."
"I was the thief." Shirosaki broke down. "I stole anonymous designs from the Internet."
"Then, what about when I saw her?" Koyabu asked.
"She was probably disorientated and didn't know who you were." Takagi explained. "She entered the abandoned car to get out of the rain. And then, she lost consciousness."
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.