SailorStar9: With Chapter 21 uploaded, this is Chapter 22 of this fic and I'm officially restarting this. (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: Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.
Chapter 22: The Lover Gone Missing in a Snowstorm
"Be careful." Professor Agasa warned the kids who had exited his Beetle and were frolicking in the snow field.
"Welcome to the Ice Room boarding house." the three Himuro sisters greeted their guests.
"We look forward to staying with you." Professor Agasa replied.
"Nice to meet you." Conan greeted. "Guys, don't forget to greet our hosts." he called.
"Nice to meet you!" Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi waved.
"Let's make a snowman." Genta suggested.
"I'm sorry." Professor Agasa chuckled.
"It's fine." Ryoko assured. "We three sisters loved to play in the snow when we were children."
"That's right." Aya agreed. "Children should play energetically outdoors."
"I think they have too much energy." Conan deathpanned.
"Some children don't have much." Haibara fired back.
"A snowball fight?" Juri looked on. "That sounds fun."
"Bullseye!" Ayumi cheered when a snowball hit Conan on the head.
"Now you've done it, Genta." Conan growled.
"You're still a child." Haibara sighed as Conan stormed over to avenge himself.
"And that's a bad thing, why?" Fumio questioned, setting up his canvas stand.
"Haibara, you're not going to throw snowball?" Conan asked, in the midst the snowball fight. Genta having ran back to the lodge for cover.
"I'll pass." Haibara was still working on her snow figures. "I don't feel like it."
"What are you making then?" Conan inquired.
"This isn't a game." Haibara declared proudly. "I'm making art." she presented her snow bunny sculpture. "Where's Kojima-kun?" she looked around to see Genta missing. "I don't see him anywhere."
"Oh, Genta..." Conan grinned, recalling how he had gotten Genta with an over-sized snowball. "Went inside to wipe his face."
"You're evil." Haibara noted.
"But Kojima-san sure is taking a while." Fumio looked up from his pencil sketch.
"Fine, I'll go check on him." Conan relented.
That night...
"Let's head back." Genta voiced, his stomach growling, the group was marveling over Haibara's snow sculptures. "I'm hungry."
"Hey." Aya called as the group proceeded to head back to the lodge. "Did you have fun playing in the snow?"
"Yeah, it was fun." Ayumi beamed.
"Thank you for waiting, everyone." Ryoko presented dinner in the dining hall.
"Ryoko-nee's a really good cook." Aya smiled at her older sister.
"Her two sisters are terrible, though." Fujita Masahiko added.
"Let's eat." Professor Agasa dug in.
"Ayumi, what's wrong?" Fumio stopped in mid-sip of his broth.
"I small garlic." Ayumi whispered. "I don't want to be stinky when we're staying here overnight."
"You're right." Conan agreed, taking a sniff.
"Oh yeah." Aya recalled, as the sister kept the dishes. "Juri, it's time for your medicine. Did you take it yet?"
"Oh no." Juri gasped. "No way." she searched through the drawer. "What am I going to do? It's not here."
"What's wrong?" Masahiko asked.
"My medicine is missing." Juri replied.
"Is it bad if you don't have your medicine?" Mitsuhiko inquired.
"She'll probably be fine is she misses a dose, but we've never run out before." Ryoko explained.
"I'll go get some at the hospital." Masahiko offered.
"But I couldn't ask you to do that." Juri protested.
"I'm sorry, but can you go for it?" Ryoko requested.
"Let me show off sometimes, okay?" Masahiko chided.
"All right." Juri relented. "Thank you."
"It's snowing pretty hard." Haibara noted as she and Conan looked out of the window.
"Hello, this is the Ice Room boarding house." Ryoko took the incoming call. "What? Masahiko-san still hasn't arrived?"
"You're kidding, right?" Aya was surprised. "He should've arrived a long time ago."
"I'll try calling him." Juri was on her cellphone.
"I understand." Ryoko hung up.
"He's not answering his phone." Juri looked at her eldest sister.
"Could something have happened to him?" Mitsuhiko wondered.
"We can't go looking for someone in this snow." Haibara remarked.
"Masahiko's car is still here." Aya shone the torchlight on the stationary vehicle still parked outside the lodge. "Did he walk there?"
"The weather report said it was going to snow." Ryoko pointed out. "He must've thought it would be dangerous to take a car. Masahiko-san!" she shouted, retracing their steps down the snowy trail with Aya, Professor Agasa, Conan and Fumio in tow.
"Conan, there." Fumio's flashlight was directed to a slope on the path.
"Could it be?" Conan gasped, his torchlight trailing down to Masahiko lying on the bottom of the slope.
"I see." Professor Agasa was on the phone, the group were now gathered around Masahiko. "I understand. The police can't come for a while because of the snow." he informed the two sisters. "They told us to preserve the crime scene."
"Did he slip?" Ryoko wondered.
"Looks like it." Conan's flashlight was focused on the slope. "The dirt has been scraped away. He probably fell from there."
"Well, it probably was an accident." Professor Agasa concluded, the group were now at the top of the slope.
"The place where Masahiko-san fell..." Conan voiced.
"The snow was piled up strangely at that one spot." Fumio, too, noticed the same thing. "Look," he pointed. "The mountain side is piled up high, but the snow is low on the cliff-side."
"That's not strange at all." Ryoko informed. "The snow piles up high on the shady side of the mountain."
"You're right," Conan agreed. "But..."
"Conan?" Fumio blinked, the other boy had slipped on the snow path he was running towards.
"I'm fine." Conan gave his crime-solving sidekick a thumbs-up. What's this? He scooped up a handful of snow that had something sparkly in it.
"Is something wrong?" Professor Agasa asked, Conan having swept off the snow and leaving only the piece of plastic.
"Something's not right." Conan concluded as the group returned to the lodge. "Why did Masahiko-san put himself in danger by taking the steep side road?"
"That's obvious." Aya replied. "Because it's shorter."
"Is that so?" Fumio wondered.
"Yes." Ryoko confirmed. "You can't take a car down that road, but it's a faster way to town. We rarely use it because it's so dangerous."
"Then, did you go to town this evening as well, Aya-san?" Fumio inquired.
"I had some business there." Aya answered.
"It's my fault." Juri wept after hearing Masahiko's death. "Because I forgot my medicine, Masahiko-san is..."
"It's no one's fault." Aya soothed.
"It was probably fate." Ryoko reasoned.
"That guy got unlucky." Genta noted.
"He shouldn't have taken the shortcut." Mitsuhiko agreed.
Later that night, our two male tiny sleuths-in-training were pondering over the case on the stairway when they heard a door creak.
"Is someone there?" Conan was snapped out of his thoughts.
"There's no one here." Fumio peered at the dark hallway.
Seeing the storage door slightly open, Conan looked in, spotting an opened Monaka Ice pack on the floor.
"Juri-nee-san, are you okay?" Fumio wondered, a wheezing Juri having hurried to the bathroom.
"Yes." Juri caught her breath. "Thank you. I just have some trouble breathing."
"Should we get your sisters?" Conan offered.
"I try not to worry them." Juri replied. "They both love me like a daughter."
"Enough for them to do anything for you?" Fumio questioned. "Never mind." he waved the question off.
"There we go." Professor Agasa, along with the others, dragged a cooler box into the lodge.
"What are you doing?" Conan asked.
"A cooler box?" Fumio sweatdropped.
"I said they didn't have to." Haibara sighed.
"We're going to protect them." Ayumi declared, Genta opening the box cover.
"So you put them in a cooler..." Fumio shook his head, seeing the snow figures Haibara had created earlier.
"That's it!" Conan realized. "That's how she did it."
"What do you want to discuss?" Ryoko asked, once the sisters were seated back in the dining hall.
"I actually discovered the truth behind this case." Professor Agasa declared, Conan using his voice-changing bow-tie to present the solution. "Masahiko-san's death wasn't an accident. The culprit made Masahiko-san fall to his death with a trap in this planned homicide."
"Wait a minute." Aya protested. "There were no signs of a trap at the scene of the crime."
"And we stayed together after Masahiko-san left." Ryoko reminded. "No one had the opportunity to dispose of the trap."
"No one disposed of it." Professor Agasa stated. "The trap is still there. We just can't see it. The culprit used snow and ice. First, the culprit pushed the snow on the side road towards the mountain. Then, Masahiko-san would avoid the mountain side and pass next to the cliff. The culprit restricted his path and placed a sheet of ice they froze in the freezer there."
"I see." Mitsuhiko visualized the scenario in his head. "Ice is easily hidden in the snow and eventually melts."
"Wait, that means..." Ryoko voiced.
"Yes, it leaves no physical evidence." Professor Agasa concurred. "However, the culprit made a mistake."
"Conan found this where Masahiko-san fell." Fumio presented the pieces of plastic wrapping on the table. "And this." the opened Monaka Ice pack he and Conan had found in the storage room was placed beside the plastic shards.
"That's a package of Monaka Ice that just went on sale yesterday." Mitsuhiko recognized the pack.
"And these are pieces of the ice cream bar." Fumio explained. "Kojima-san secretly took it from the boarding house freezer."
"How did you know?" Genta exclaimed.
"Conan thought it was strange." Fumio shrugged. "Ayumi smelled garlic even though there were no garlic dishes because Kojima-san was the source of the smell."
"I was so hungry." Genta defended.
"When Genta-kun secretly ate the ice cream, the culprit was freezing a pan of water in the freezer to create a sheet of ice." Conan took over. "Genta-kun's crumbs mixed into the sheet and froze into it. The culprit used the sheet without realizing the pieces were there. There's no other reason pieces of the Monaka bar would be at the crime scene. The culprit must be one of the boarding house's residents."
"I know." Mitsuhiko declared. "The culprit is Aya-san."
"We did witness Aya-san returning from the side road." Professor Agasa agreed. "She returned with nothing in her hands and her guard was down. In order to set the trap, she would need a cooler to transport the sheet of ice and a shovel to move the ice. It would be impossible without any tools. Besides, the culprit won't have called out to us. Aya-san didn't do it; she is a witness. Most like,y Aya-san simply saw the true culprit returning from the side road. Though, she inspected the side road out of curiosity, she probably didn't notice the trap that was set. If she had, she would have stopped the culprit."
"You're wrong." Aya objected. "I didn't see anything."
"That's enough, Aya." Ryoko cut in. "He's right. I did it. I'm like a parent to you, Juri. I had to exterminate the evil insect clinging to you. Please understand, Juri. I did it for you."
"This crime can't be committed unless the sheet of ice is removed from the freezer." Professor Agasa continued. "The whole time, Ryoko-san was making dinner in the kitchen where the freezer is located. The culprit must be Ryoko-san is what I'd like to say, but unfortunately, Ryoko-san, you aren't the culprit, either. You love Juri-san like a daughter. You would never cause Juri-san to suffer for the rest of her life by killing someone. You're simply protecting the true culprit, Juri-san."
"I told you I did it." Ryoko insisted. "I'm the one who hid the ice cream bag."
"You did it to protect Juri-san." Professor Agasa stated.
"No!" Ryoko pressed. "Aya, you saw me on the side road in the evening, right?"
"Stop!" Juri shouted. "That's enough. Don't protect me anymore. That's right. I killed him."
"Is that..." Fumio blinked when he saw Juri pull out her pills from her dress pocket.
"The medicine that went missing." Professor Agasa realized. "You had it the whole time."
"But Masahiko-san volunteered to get the medicine." Mitsuhiko gawked.
"And there's no way to know he'd use the side road." Genta pointed out.
"It was easy." Juri confessed.
"You instructed him to take the side road then." Professor Agasa realized what had occurred.
"I told him it was a shortcut." Juri admitted.
"Then what he said then..." Ryoko breathed.
"He was confirming our plan." Juri said. "That this was what I had in mind. It's his fault!" she snapped. "I couldn't forgive him. I'm sorry!" she broke down crying.
"Congratulations, dear." Ami deathpanned at Amuro after receiving a call from Professor Agasa to pick Fumio from his house. "Our son got wrapped up in a murder case."
"Oops." Amuro looked unapologetic.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.