Chapter 110: You Have to Sleep in the Morgue to Stay Cool |
"The real culprit is you, Nishizono Shinichi!"
"What nonsense are you spouting, Mr. Mouri? Hayakawa Ryosuke has already confessed to being the culprit!"
"No, he never planned to kill anyone. He was merely taking the fall for Miss Tanaka Yuko," Sleeping Kogoro declared. "Please take a look at their hands. Mr. Hayakawa and Miss Tanaka are wearing a pair of matching rings."
"The one who actually plotted the murder is Tanaka Yuko. She likely poisoned the coffee, and afterward, she sought out Hayakawa Ryosuke to make him take the blame."
"Men are easily deceived. When a beloved woman cries and pleads, he naturally wants to step up. That is why he arrived at the studio early to dispose of the coffee cup and clean up the traces around the body."
"But on the other hand, he was terrified of carrying the guilt of a murder charge. That is why his face looked so pale when he came in just now."
"If that is the case, the true culprit should be Tanaka Yuko! Why are you suspecting me?!"
Nishizono Shinichi demanded.
Tanaka Yuko's expression also changed. "Great detective, deciding I am the murderer based solely on a ring makes your deduction far too far-fetched, do you not think?"
Hayakawa Ryosuke hesitated for a moment before dropping to his knees. Bai Mu suddenly heard some mysterious background music swell up from out of nowhere.
Yet, everyone else at the scene acted as if they could not hear it, quietly listening to the man's confession.
Bai Mu did not even know where to begin pointing out the absurdity. Between his sobs, the man spilled out a hidden, dramatic family soap opera.
"Yes, when I arrived this morning, my sister was already dead..." Hayakawa Ryosuke choked out. "I only dealt with Yuko's coffee cup, and then I was so scared that I locked the door and fled as fast as I could."
"Hayakawa, what nonsense are you babbling about?!" Tanaka Yuko shouted.
"Just confess, Yuko. I finally understand. You never loved me. You only had your eyes on my status as the younger brother of the famous painter, Nishizono Misaki. You knew that after my sister died, as her only brother, I would inherit her wealth. That is the only reason you married me, right?"
"It is true that you are young and beautiful. Falling in love with a woman like you was something I could never have imagined in my entire life. But you never loved me. Earlier, when I took the blame, I saw it—you breathed a sigh of relief. You thought you could finally get rid of me, take your cut of the money, and go live your own life!"
Tanaka Yuko fell silent, entirely speechless.
Following that, Sleeping Kogoro continued to analyze the evidence found in the bedroom.
Soon after, Nishizono Shinichi also fell to his knees, weeping bitterly as he confessed his sins. It turned out that Tanaka Yuko was his cousin using an alias. The two of them had conspired together to send Hayakawa Ryosuke to prison.
The victim's cause of death was a heart attack triggered by hypothermia. The evidence was the chiller and air conditioning in the bedroom. As long as they checked the meter, they would undoubtedly find an abnormal spike in the apartment's electricity usage that morning.
Kogoro pointed out that an autopsy report would prove the victim was not poisoned at all. The coffee on the easel was also completely free of toxins; it was just a regular cup of coffee.
From beginning to end, the ones being played were the two siblings. In reality, it was an outsider trying to scheme away their family's entire fortune.
Before the deduction completely wrapped up, Bai Mu and Misty Rain put their masks back on and returned to their posts.
"They sure are crying a river right now," Bai Mu muttered. "Were they not quite enthusiastic when they were framing someone for murder?"
"Beika Town is truly a place bursting with extraordinary individuals," Misty Rain noted. "Perfectly ordinary-looking people might be plotting to kill someone with some bizarre method at any given moment."
The incident concluded smoothly. Ultimately, all three individuals were handcuffed and escorted to the Police Headquarters for interrogation and detention.
Bai Mu and Misty Rain rode in Endo's car back to the Police Headquarters. By this time, the sky had already grown dark. The two of them tossed the body into the freezer of the medical examiner's department. Then, at midnight, Hayakawa Ryosuke was released. He made a phone call to arrange for a funeral parlor van to transport the body away for cremation.
"My sister was my only remaining family in this world. I am such a fool," Hayakawa Ryosuke cursed himself bitterly. "At the very least, let me give her a proper and beautiful funeral."
The man had not thought of treating his sister better while she was alive, yet now that she was dead, he had suddenly come to his senses. Bai Mu found it hard to judge him. After all, this was basically a television drama set. A soap opera of this magnitude was something one might never encounter in a whole lifetime of reality. However, Bai Mu figured that over the next hundred days, there would definitely be no shortage of similar cases.
Once the body was transported away, their work for the day came to an end.
However, the Police Headquarters did not have staff dormitories. They either had to rent a place of their own or sleep at the station.
Bai Mu was not picky. He casually found a bed in the morgue and lay down.
"Do you not feel a chilling draft sleeping in here?" Misty Rain rubbed her arms.
"You have to sleep in the morgue to stay cool during the summer," Bai Mu stated matter-of-factly before closing his eyes.
Seeing him sleep so soundly, Misty Rain eventually overcame her psychological hurdle and found another bed nearby to settle into.
In truth, the spot Bai Mu picked was quite excellent. In the massive Police Headquarters, only the morgue had actual beds. Plus, due to the unique nature of the room, nobody came to disturb them the entire night.
The two of them actually got a fairly good rest. However, after a brief discussion the next day, they still decided to head out and rent an apartment.
The personnel at the Police Headquarters were simply too numerous and diverse. As the saying goes, if you walk by the river often enough, your shoes are bound to get wet. Staying there constantly would inevitably invite trouble.
They visited a real estate agency in the morning and found that the rent in the area was surprisingly cheap. A high-end apartment close to the subway only cost twenty thousand yen a month.
Of course, it was cheap for a reason. This was a stigmatized property where someone had died.
"Right over there, some scumbag golfer bludgeoned his Model girlfriend to death with a golf club," the agent explained with a bright smile. "Ah, this place was completely covered in blood at the time. It really took a lot of effort to clean off all the stains."
"So, what do you think? Can the two of you accept this apartment?" the agent asked cheerfully. "Aside from the fact that someone died here, you will not find a single flaw."
"We will take it," Bai Mu agreed readily, handing over the money.
He had lost count of how many so-called haunted houses he had slept in throughout his life. He had never once seen a ghost with bleeding eyes crawl onto his shoulders in the middle of the night. Well, a Zombie maybe, but no ghosts.
"By the way, are all these cheap apartments stigmatized properties?" Misty Rain inquired.
"They sure are," the agent sighed. "It seems like ever since that Mouri Kogoro became famous, property values in Beika Town have just been plummeting. It is quite a headache for those of us in the real estate business. The number of murder houses in Beika Town is on the verge of exceeding the number of normal houses. Perhaps in my lifetime, every single building in Beika Town will end up as a stigmatized property."
The agent offered a poignant sigh as he pulled out the contract, having Bai Mu and Misty Rain sign on the dotted line.
"Well then, I shall take my leave. I wish you a pleasant stay."
Misty Rain stretched lazily before bouncing onto the large bed and rolling around.
It had to be said that the apartment's infrastructure was truly excellent. The large floor-to-ceiling windows offered a fantastic view, overlooking the bustling streets of Beika Town.
"Cruising through the background while getting to live in a place like this for a hundred days... this feels great," Misty Rain beamed.
Unfortunately, they had not rested for long before their phone rang once again.
"Ishikawa, my boy, another murder has occurred. I have already sent Endo to pick you up," Inspector Megure's voice boomed. "Come over quickly."
Only a day had passed, and the daily murder case had already struck again.
The duo had no choice but to head out once more, but this time, Bai Mu decided to disrupt the typical flow of the investigation.
"Although these murder cases follow a fixed formula, I believe this process is not completely indestructible. If we can uncover the culprit before that elementary schooler does, our final rating might end up a bit higher," he explained.
"But how do you plan to find the killer before that little grim reaper elementary schooler?" Misty Rain asked.
"By discovering the rules and exploiting them, of course," Bai Mu grinned. "Since this is essentially an anime theater setting with fixed rules, tampering with things within the boundaries of those rules certainly cannot be considered a violation."