SailorStar9: After almost 2 months with no update, I present Chapter 121 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 121: Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko's Detective Notes
Time passes...
"The last question's a little difficult." the female clerk at the Makishima's Pizza shop addressed Genta, who had taken on the pizza store's challenge to win one extra pizza. "This is enough dough for one pizza." she handed Genta a pouch. "How many grams is it?"
"215 grams." Genta declared.
"Let's see." the clerk weighed the pouch on the weighing machine. "You're correct. Congratulations. You've won a free pizza."
"That's Genta-kun for you." Fumio gawked.
"He's exceptionally skilled when it comes to anything food-related." Mitsuhiko agreed.
"Be careful taking them home." the clerk cautioned, having split the pizza into six pieces for the kids to take home.
It was not long before a mysterious figure snatched all six pizza boxes from the children's hands.
Afterwards...
"So, they escaped." Mitsuhiko noted, the group meeting at the park Haibara was in.
"All I found was this box." Conan confirmed.
"Me too." Ayumi added. "Mine was on the ground a few steps away."
"So did I." Haibara stated. "The contents were untouched, though."
"They won't get away with this." Genta swore.
"What do you suppose is the meaning of this?" Mitsuhiko looked at Conan. "It doesn't seem as though the culprit is hungry."
"Perhaps what the culprit is really after are the boxes." Fumio realized, giving the peeled opened cardboard strip a closer look. "Could they have hidden something inside? Coincidence?" he mused, the group returning to the Makishima's Pizza shop and seeing Takagi and Chiba leave the entrance after interviewing the store's manager. "I think not."
"The police just came to ask if we'd seen anyone suspicious in the area." Makishima Chuya informed the Detective Boys. "Last night, a jewelry store was robbed. According to the police, they chased after the culprits as soon as the alarm sounded, but they escaped as they were just about to arrest them."
"Was something stolen?" Conan asked.
"I think they said ten diamonds were taken." Makishima recalled.
"And how big were those diamonds?" Fumio pressed.
"I don't know." Makishima replied. "I think they said they were for rings."
"If they're one carat diamonds, it'd come up to about 6.5 milligrams." Fumio pondered.
"Manager, do you know where the robbery took place?" Conan asked.
"Let me a minute." Makishima entered his store and took out a map pinned to a clipboard hanging at the door. "This is the jewelry store." he pointed. "And this is our store."
"i knew it." Haibara noted. "It's possible they fled this way."
"And they found this store." Conan started to piece together what happened. "It was the middle of the night and no one was around. They probably decided to temporarily hide the jewels here and flee."
"Are you saying the jewels are in here somewhere?" Makishima gaped.
"No, we already know where they are." Mitsuhiko corrected. "Take a look at this." he showed Makishima the deformed pizza boxes.
"After we left the store..." Genta started.
"But why did the thief hide the jewels inside the pizza boxes?" Makishima wondered.
"There was a benefit for doing so." Haibara explained.
"They were going to have it delivered." Ayumi realized.
"They were probably watching from nearby." Haibara noted.
"In other words, this case is the same as 'The Adventure of the Six Napoleons'." Mitsuhiko declared.
"It's a Sherlock Holmes story written by Conan Doyle." Fumio cleared his throat and went into lecture mode. "The story goes like this: several Napoleon busts had been stolen around town and smashed into pieces. The culprit, Beppo, who was an Italian immigrant, had hid the jewel, a Borgian black pearl inside the plaster before it dried right before he was arrested for a street-fight stabbing. When he went to retrieve it after he was released from prison one year later, all the busts had already been sold to various buyers. All Beppo had to do now was collect all six Napoleon busts that were made at the same time."
"There was no signs that anyone broke into this store." Makishima pointed out.
"What's that notebook?" Conan spotted an opened spiral notebook on the glass panel on the door.
"Yesterday, the manager left work before me, so I locked up, put the key in the mailbox and went home." the female clerk explained. "Since I start my shift this afternoon today, I left that note for the next person."
"The culprit read the notebook from outside and took the key out of the mailbox." Conan surmised. "Then, they put it back. That's why there were no signs anyone had broken in."
"But the mailbox is locked." Ayumi stated.
"Take a close look at the padlock." Fumio pointed to the padlock on the postbox.
"Could it be..." Mitsuko saw the faded-out numbers of the combination lock and started to turn the dials to the right numerical combination.
"That's careless of you." Genta chided.
"You should replace the padlock as soon as possible." Haibara advised.
"Are all your boxes gone?" Conan wondered.
"Unusually, we had three big orders this morning and they were just delivered earlier." Makishima answered.
At that, everyone gasped in realization.
At a neighborhood crossroad...
"According to the delivery man, it was around here." Conan glanced at the neighborhood.
"I still think it's weird to accept pizzas outside your house." Genta remarked.
"The thief placed the orders so they could retrieve the jewels." Conan reminded.
"In here." Ayumi had climbed onto the hood of a parked car
"First, the thief accepted the pizzas here as Tanaka-san and checked the contents of the boxes inside their car." Mitsuhiko surmised, peering into the back of the car and seeing the scattered pizza boxes. "What about that car?" he spotted another car nearby.
"Edogawa-kun, look." Haibara pointed, spotting a leg sticking out from some bushes.
"Haibara, call an ambulance." Conan instructed, she and Haibara running over and finding a main lying face-up on the grass, a gaping wound on his forehead.
After Takagi and Chiba came to the scene...
"So, you discovered a connection between your stolen pizzas and the jewelry theft and were visiting the drop-off locations." Takagi repeated.
"We then discovered that person." Fumio pointed to the spot where the man used to lay.
"Isn't that last night's jewel thief?" Haibara wondered. "There was cardboard from the pizza boxes stuck beneath his nails."
"Probably." Takagi confirmed. "He matched the description of one of the thieves spotted last night."
"There were two thieves?" Conan blinked.
"Did they have a falling out?" Fumio wondered.
"Probably." Chiba nodded.
After the kids split to return home...
"Conan-kun, I've made a terrible discovery." Mitsuhiko contacted Conan via the Detective Boys Badge. "The thieves may not have acquired the jewels yet. Fumio-kun remembered something: the sample pizza box was missing when we checked the pizza boxes earlier. So, Fumio-kun had us go back to the pizza shop to ask about the sample. The sample box was the one they had on the counter this morning that they chose at random to display on the easel. Since today's the last day of the campaign, they used it in a delivery since they were short on boxes. We're currently on our way to the home that placed that order. We're almost there, so I'm hanging up."
"Yes?" Sakuragawa Mariko opened her door after she heard her doorbell.
"We came from the pizza shop." Mitsuhiko told the older woman. "It's about the pizza you ordered today."
"I already ate it." Sakuragawa replied. "Is something wrong with it?"
"Actually, we just need the box." Fumio explained.
"Give me a minute." Sakuragawa reentered her unit to retrieve the box. "Is this it?"
Just then, the second robber burst out from the bushes he was hiding under and held Mitsuhiko at knife-point. "Don't move." he growled. "Hand over that box. He's my hostage." he claimed the box and backed off with Mitsuhiko still in his grasp. "He's coming with me."
"You're not getting away." Conan droned. "I already know who are you. Prepare yourself. Take this." using the Power-Enhancing Kick Shoes, he sent the soccer ball at his foot flying towards the robber's face, knocking him out.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.