(Nara-chan is back! Just came back from a Sales Inventory contest...Have you solved the code?)
(I made such a difficult trick for the following murders, that I will respect the person that will get the trick!)
Chapter 4- The Silhouette
Ran's POV
"What's taking Conan-kun so long? It's been almost three hours, and Hattori-kun isn't the type of person to talk with you straight for such a long period of time.." I muttered.
"There he is!" said Amuro-san. Conan-kun had a face like he had already solved the case.
"He's scary, isn't he?" whispered Amuro-san. I didn't respond.
"Kyaaaa..." I heard a familiar sound. After three hours, Nemuri no Kogoro had finally appeared!
"Keibu, I have finally found the truth behind this bloody murder."
"Ahh! Mouri-kun! What is it?"
"When Conan talked to Tsunju-san and he reported back to me, my senses hit me."
"Chotto mate-yo! Are you saying I'm the murderer?" said Tsunju-san.
"No. The murderer is: Kawakana Nansai-san!"
"Wait! Show me proof!" cried Nansai-san.
"Tsunju-san said that Ayari-san was a technosapien, a code lover and a clumsy person, ne?"
"Hai."
"So she was the one who spilled paint all over your fingers?"
"How did you know?" asked Tsunju-san.
"Since she was clumsy, is highly probable that she did spill something. But the paint in your rooms prove my point. All three of your rooms have paint on the doorknobs facing the hallway."
"Tsunju-san also said that Matthew-san was also a technosapien. According to his alibi, he was searching for a restaurant famous in America here. Since he is a technosapien, he would probably not want his computer, or tablet, or anything be damaged by paint, so he washed his hands."
Conan-kun came out from behind otou-san and handed Megure-keibu a picture."This is a picture of Matthew-san's faucet. It had a big paint stain on the faucet knob that I found when oji-san sent me upstairs!"
He ran back into the shadows, and otou-san continued. "Tsunju-san said she was sightseeing on her balcony. She left paint stains on the curtains leading to the balcony and on the base of one of the balcony's rails, meaning she was holding on to the rails." Once again, Conan-kun appeared and gave Keibu two pictures.
"Nansai-san said he was taking a bath, but why would paint be on the other side of the bathroom doorknob when taking a bath should have washed it away? Furthermore, there should be paint on the knob of the shower."
"My hypothesis is that after Ayari sent you all up, you called her to meet you at a certain place, which is this dear tree over here. When you saw through your window that she was there, you shot her in the right foot with a silenced pistol, and jumped down. Normally, this would result in probable death, but since you were on the second floor, it was probably no sweat. You then hung her upside down, and shot her three more times. After painting the tree red, you then climbed back up with this."
Otou-san held up a rope ladder. "As I said, I had Conan ransack the suspects' rooms. He then found this."
Nansai-san huffed. "So what if I have paint stains on the back side. I was dizzy back then, and I accidentally touched the doorknob while the paint was still wet! And that rope ladder is for emergencies, like a burglary, for a quick escape! And even if I jumped down from my room, I would have been sprained! What weak proof."
"The jumping-down part? Oh, that's easy. You were wearing padded shoes. Tsunju-san was surprised when you were behind her, because she didn't hear you. Men technically should produce louder footsteps than women, but when you were walking away, you didn't make a sound. Also, the dying message."
"Huh?"
")92 is connected to this." He held up a gadget. "This is an Ipad from the US. It has a hardware problem, that's why it's moving by itself. I tried to type something, but then, I solved the code. Conan!"
Conan-kun once again came from the darkness. "The first keyboard is QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM, the second 1234567890-/:;()$&@(undo symbol).,?!'". If you exclude z and x, which is occupied by the undo sign, every letter in the alphabet has an equivalent in the second keyboard. If you find a letter equivalent of the open parenthesis, it would be the letter 'H', the 9, 'O', and the 2, 'W'. 'H', 'O' and 'W' are English letters that spell "How". If 'Nansai' is translated to English, it would be 'How old?' Probably Nansai-san killed her before she could finish."
Nansai-san had his head down. "Wait! Then that means HE is the serial murderer?!" said Tsunju.
"No. This case is different." answered otou-san.
"It was all for Tomi...." muttered Nansai-san.
"Tomi? Miura Tomi, your former koibito?" asked Tsunju-san
"She was killed in a suicide-like way by that vile serial murderer, Nateru Ayari! She was the only suspect without an alibi, so it's obvious that it's her! But those stupid police acquitted her, and Tomi still hasn't had her justice! Yes, I left some tracks, but I thought the police were still as stupid as ever. Boy, I was wrong." he chuckled.
"Ayari was really not the culprit!She gave up her alibi for you and your sister, because you were out at that time, so she feared they might suspect you two! She did it.....because she loved you." said Tsunju-san with tears in her eyes.
"Lies!"
Tsunju-san took the gadget and removed the case. A piece of paper fell to the grass. Tears started to form in Nansai-san's eyes. I got curious and bent over to read.
Nansai,
I'm really sorry about Miura-san. I could tell that you were both very happy with each other. But then...
I must be really selfish to write this, but I was actually kind of happy, because then I could have you.
Right, all of those visits to your house for "projects" was actually just an excuse to see you.
I like you. A lot.
-Ayari
As the police took him away, he wailed, "Is love really that blind?!"
I couldn't help but feel sorry for him..
Amuro-san woke up otou-san and he was back in baka mode again.
"Mouri-sensei, how did you know it was just a connected case and not a real one?" he asked.
"Ahh..." stammered otou-san.
"It was because of Ayari-san's body!" exclaimed Conan-kun.
"The tree was painted red because the car the serial murderer left at the scene was red. There were four bullet wounds, meaning four wheels!" he explained.
"Wow! You sure know a lot about this case, Conan-kun!" I said.
"Uhhh..Heiji-niisan told it to me!" he said.
Now I'm really getting suspicious of him...
I looked at my watch. "Oh gosh! It's almost 23;00! We better go!"
So we piled into Amuro-san's car and started off.
"Say, Ran-neechan? Do you know who that silhouette earlier was?" asked Conan-kun.
"Dunno," I answered.
We continued driving.
(Very cheesy...drat. Also, that part about the Ipad, PM me if you don't get it!)
Next Chapter's Hint: All weathers.
