SailorStar9: We finally hit Chapter 40 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: Furuya Rei (Amuro Tooru)/Mizuno Ami
Disclaimers: I own absolutely nothing, except this plot and pairing.
Chapter 40: The Detective Boys Get Out of the Rain
Two days later...
"You really don't recognize him?" Conan asked, the Detective Boys were walking home from school.
"Recognize who?" Haibara asked.
"Commissioner Kuroda." Conan clarified.
"No." Haibara replied.
"Considering you don't, you were clinging to me pretty tightly." Conan pointed out.
"Seeing his horrifying face up close would have an effect on anybody." Haibara argued.
"That's right." Mitsuhiko agreed. "His face was horrifying."
"I was seriously scared." Genta concurred.
"I almost cried." Ayumi confessed.
"Really?" Conan blinked.
"But it's kind of weird." Fumio mused. "When he saw me, he told me to send his regards to tou-san and kaa-san. I wonder if the Commissioner was their superior before?"
"It's probably fine." Haibara assured, the group was crossing the road. "If Kuroda was really Rum like you suspect and saw my face from that close, he would've realized I was Sherry, the woman who betrayed the Organization. And they'd be forcing their way into the Professor's house by now. But the email the Professor just sent me was all about dinner." she referred back to her phone.
"That's fine, then." Conan noted. "But you can never be too careful. What's wrong?" he asked when Haibara suddenly stopped in his tracks with a stunned expression on her face. "Did something happen to the Professor?" he grabbed the phone and blinked when he saw the tabloid article. "Seriously? It's just a gossip article. You scared me."
"Is this true?" Ayumi gushed.
"This is a major couple." Mitsuhiko fanboyed over the Higo Ryusuke and Okino Yoko dating rumor. "I bet they'll make beautiful J-Leaguer babies."
"If they're girls, they'd be idol singers." Genta piped in.
"Ai-chan, don't you agree?" Ayumi turned to Haibara.
"We won't be getting any reaction out of her." Fumio waved a hand in front of Haibara's face. "She's totally out of it."
In Cafe Poirot...
Amuro looked on amused as he watched his son slam his head repeatedly on the counter. "The gossip tabloid?" he unlocked Fumio's phone. "I didn't know you were interested in this kind of thing, Fumio-kun."
"It isn't me." Fumio raised his head. "It's Haibara-san."
"She's a Higo fan, isn't she?" Amuro asked, wiping the counter.
"Yeah" Fumio nodded. "Wait a minute... if the female is Okino Yoko, then..." he tilted his head to the ceiling. "That man upstairs..."
"Probably..." Amuro agreed, looking at the ceiling.
Time passes...
"Excuse me." Mitsuhiko shouted, knocking on the door of a three-story house. "Is anyone home?"
"It's open." Conan noted, opening the door.
"Excuse the intrusion!" Genta hurried in. "Bathroom..." he looked around.
"There are so many toys." Ayumi gushed, seeing the numerous toys on display.
"This place is truly a toy museum." Mitsuhiko agreed.
"There's someone there." Genta spotted the two robbers hiding behind the spiral staircase. "Please let me use your bathroom."
"Isn't that Gomera?" Ayumi pointed to the figurine hanging from the ceiling.
"Isn't that the bathroom?" Conan spotted a slightly open door.
"This isn't the bathroom." the robber boss shut the door.
"Oji-san, you're Amamiya Masaki-san, right?" Conan asked. "It was written on the sign out front. And this is your brother, Sho-san, right? You were calling him 'aniki' before."
"That's right." the robber boss feigned. "I'm Amamiya Sho, the older brother."
"And I'm the younger brother, Amamiya Masaki." the second robber played along.
"The two of you live in this house together?" Conan wondered.
"Yeah." the head robber replied. "We're best friends and brothers who love toys."
"Forget that." Genta protested. "Where's the bathroom?"
"Here it is." the head robber opened the bathroom door, letting Genta in.
"As long as we are here, why don't we stay here until the rain lets up?" Ayumi suggested.
"We can't." Fumio cut in.
"Let's head back." Conan agreed. "The Professor will worry if we don't get back soon."
"Sorry to bother you." the kids apologized and prepared to head out.
"Someone help!" a female voice suddenly called out.
"This isn't good." Conan hissed. "Guys, hurry!"
Screaming, the others hurried towards the door.
"What's going on?" Ayumi wailed.
"You're not getting away." the head robber flashed out a knife.
"Run!" Conan barked. "They're robbers."
"Scatter!" Fumio shouted. "Up the stairs." he led the group up to the second story.
"The initials on the matching sweatshirts were K and M?" Mitsuhiko echoed, once Conan explained.
"Yeah, and there was a woman's dress, too." Conan confirmed. "The actual residents are probably a man named Kakeru and a woman named Maki."
"Then, that scream we heard earlier?" Ayumi gasped.
"Let go!" Genta yelled, the head robber having grabbed him by the leg.
"Damn it." Conan cursed. "Isn't there something we can use?"
"Get down, Genta!" Fumio shouted, clutching a white ball. In a pitcher's pose, he tossed the ball like a baseball, hitting the robber right on the nose. "Strike!" the blond boy flashed a victory pose.
"Please help!" Maki shouted from the doorless cabinet she was stuffed in.
"She's in here." Conan found the bound Maki.
"Are you okay?" Ayumi asked.
"Yeah." Maki replied. "I just lost consciousness."
"You're Amamiya Maki-san, right?" Conan confirmed.
"Crap, they're here!" Genta warned, Ayumi having untied Maki. "Anyway, this house is amazing." he noted, the group having hid under a pile of stuff toys to hide from the two robbers.
"I know." Ayumi agreed. "It's full of toys."
"My husband is like a child in an adult's body." Maki remarked "He's a toy collector."
"Where is your husband now?" Conan asked.
"I don't know." Maki answered. "He should've been home, but I was taking a shower."
"Where's your phone?" Conan requested.
"They said they cut the phone line." Maki shook her head. "They took my cellphone, too."
"And we left our phones at the campsite." Mitsuhiko reminded.
"It's strange, though." Maki voiced. "Normally, a patrol officer stops by around this time."
"It's raining pretty heavily today." Conan reasoned. "Maybe the patrol officer is running late, or he's bust handling a landslide somewhere else."
"I heard voices over there." the second robber reported.
The group ran out, Conan pausing in his step to dodge the head robber's grip. Ducking under the robber's arm, he looked around for a weapon as the others scattered to escape the robbers.
"I'm sorry." Maki apologized, Conan having found what seemed to be a weapons room. "For getting you involved, too."
"It's not your fault, Maki-san." Conan assured, taking a handgun from its display case which was revealed to be a cigarette lighter.
"Hold it right there!" Maki declared, bursting from the weaponry room with a machine gun in her hands.
"Seriously?" the second robber stammered.
"You idiot, it's just a toy." the head robber chided.
"It used to be." Maki corrected. "But my husband enjoys modifying these kinds of toys. Would you like to try it out?"
"She got me!" the second robber wailed, the rain of rubber pellets hitting them continuously.
"Hurry!" Conan urged the group upstairs after getting the brief reprieve and hindering the robbers some more by tossing a bucket full of balls down the steps.
Finally, after some maneuvering, the group managed to take down the two robbers.
"Conan?" Fumio blinked, seeing the bespectacled boy head over another room with a bloodied door frame.
"You guys leave without me." Conan shouted. Opening the door, he discovered the stabbed Amamiya Kakeru lying on the ground.
"Kakeru-san!" Maki gasped.
"Are we going to end up like her husband?" Mitsuhiko wondered, the recovered robbers having tied the group up and tossed them into a room.
"That's up to you." the head robber snorted. "Some guy called 'God' online said there's a bunch of gold in this house. Where's the gold? If you don't tell us, we'll kill you."
"It's a monster!" the second robber stammered, the two robbers heading back to finish off the hostages, only to be greeted by a towering monster at the door.
"Don't run, you idiot." the head robber snapped, holding his partner back. "Just kill it."
"Shut up." the second robber shook him off. "You've done nothing but order me around. I'm sick of it."
"What did you say, bastard?" the head robber growled.
Grinning, Genta pulled the covers apart, Ayumi placing a punch-in-a-box between the head robber's legs, the sprung out boxing punch hitting him on the crotch.
"Guys, let's run." Conan shed off the disguise.
"Guys, the police will be here soon." Maki informed, the kids having tied up the robbers to a pillar.
"Wait a minute, we didn't kill anyone." the head robber protested.
"We aren't lying." the second robber confirmed. "We just pretended to kill him to scare you."
"Where's the other two boys?" Maki blinked, noticing Conan and Fumio missing.
"They were here a second ago." Genta noted.
"What are you two doing?" Maki entered the shower, seeing both Conan and Fumio inspecting the hanging dress.
"Just as we thought, you were the one who killed your husband." Fumio declared. "Maki-san."
"Rather, the one who planned this crime and the mastermind of the robbery, 'God'," Conan corrected.
"Where is this coming from?" Maki inquired.
"It totally fell into place." Fumio stated.
"The name 'God' came from those two who hardly seemed like the religious type." Conan explained. "But if you assume the God they referred to was the online handler of the person who planned this crime, it all makes sense. They were commanded by a mastermind named God. And if you rearrange the letters of the romanized spelling, you get Maki. Your name, Maki-san. People often rearrange the letters of their names and use anagrams when creating an online handle."
"That's a far-fetched argument." Maki remarked.
"But then, you're the only one who've killed your husband, Maki-san." Fumio pointed out. "Your husband's body lost a lot of blood. And judging by his appearance, the murderer must also have gotten quite a lot of blood on themselves, too. Enough that they had to take a shower to wash it off."
"But neither of the robbers had the victim's blood on them." Conan continued.
"Then, maybe they took showers..." Maki voiced.
"That's right." Conan grinned, catching Maki on the lie. "They haven't bathed recently. Naturally, they haven't taken showers in this bathroom, either. They even mistook this shower room for the bathroom. They probably didn't even know where it was. In other words, there's only one person who took a shower here."
"That doesn't prove anything." Maki stated.
"The victim's blood should have gotten not just on your body." Conan added. "But also the clothes you're wearing. I thought it was strange. Only the dress is damp. You must've washed the blood off in a hurry. I'm sure you know, but no matter how much you wash something a blood test will..."
"That's enough." Maki cut him off. "That's right. I killed my husband. That freak who kept turning the wealth he was supposed to will to me on stupid toys. I was supposed to frame those two who came to rob the house at the time I indicated by telling them were to find the fake gold bars. I was going to have the patrol officer arrest them when he arrived while they were wasting time. Under the circumstances, it would've appeared that my husband was killed by the robbers and I was a miserable victim. The situation has changed because of this damned rain, but it doesn't matter. You two are going to die, too." she smirked, flashing out a knife. "At the hands of those robbers."
Conan tossed the drying clothes at Maki and the two boys fled the scene.
"Run, guys!" Conan shouted a warning as he and Fumio ran up the staircase.
"The two of them are in trouble!" Mitsuhiko then saw Maki chased after the two with a knife.
"Oh no!" Conan gasped, seeing Maki turn her attention to the other three.
Turning to find a handful of darts on the dartboard on the wall, Fumio then tossed the darts at the strings that supported the Gomera figurine, causing it to crash into Maki.
"That was too close." Conan heaved in relief.
SailorStar9: Any OOC-ness is regretted, by the way. *Sighs* Don't you just hate plot bunnies sometimes? Read and review.