Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ The Pieces Begin To Move ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter Two

The Pieces Begin To Move

I am as honest as the day is long, so you can take it to be as true as the sky is blue that the Sunrise Ruby will be mine before its time- a jewel truly fit for a king.

Kaitou Kid

And then there was that damn grinning caricature.

“Aw, shit,” Heiji grumbled, slapping his forehead with the note his father had handed him. “Him.”

“The Sunrise Ruby is being brought to Osaka Museum next week, Heiji,” Hattori Heizo said. “Nakamori-keibu is bringing out his own unit before then. But we need to figure out this code.”

“Well, at first look, all I can get is that Kid'll be stealin' it pre-dawn- before sunrise, see?” Heiji said, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. “But exactly when, I dunno...”

“Perhaps you should call Mori-san,” Heizo suggested. “After all, he's dealt with Kid before... now go to school.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Heiji said, hopping off of the desk and reaching for his mobile as he left, but inwardly he was thinking “It ain't oji-san we need...”

So it wasn't the number of the Mori Detective Agency that he dialled.

He picked up after only a couple of rings. “Moshi moshi?”

“Oi, Kudo,” Heiji said, stepping into his shoes in the entryway. “What's up?”

“Not much, for once. What about you? Why're you calling?”

“'Cause our old pal with the snappy dress sense an' a head fer heights just sent Oyaji a letter,” Heiji said. He heard Kudo's very audible groan on the other end of the line.

“What's he after?”

“Th' Sunrise Ruby,” Heiji said, rereading the note as he grabbed his book bag and headed out the door. “Here, I'll read it to ya...”

“Wait a moment. Let me get a pen... okay. Shoot.”

Heiji reread the note slowly, giving Kudo time to scribble down a copy, making certain to explain which characters were used. After he was done, there was a long silence on the other end of the line. Heiji grinned. Kudo loved codes. If anyone could figure out the Kid's cryptic notes, it would be him.

“Hey, Hattori,” he finally said, “What's the shortest day of the year this year?”

“This year?” Heiji said. “December 21st, I think. Ah...”

“He said “as honest as the day is long”,” Kudo explained. “In English, it's a figure of speech meant to imply that someone is very honest.”

“My ass that thief is honest,” Heiji snorted, ambling down the road, in no hurry to meet up with Kazuha and get to school. This was more interesting.

“Of course,” Shinichi said. “A day as long as a thief is honest would have to be the shortest day of the year, wouldn't it?”

“Before dawn, December 21st...” Heiji mused. Sure enough, Kudo had easily figured out the “before its time” part.

“Yes, and we can presumably make it after midnight if that's the case,” he agreed, “but that's still eight to nine hours that the Kid has time to come in, and we don't know where from...”

“The jewel's bein' displayed at Osaka Museum,” Heiji said. “Guess I'll see ya on the 20th, eh?”

“Actually, the weird thing is, I was gonna call you...”

In Tokyo, Shinichi pored over the letter that had been in the Mori's mailbox when they returned after Karaoke the previous evening. It was from his mother, something which had surprised Ran.

“We're already coming to Osaka on the 18th,” he explained. “We got invited to a mystery novel convention...”

“Really? Hey, cool. 18th... next week. See ya then. Lemme know if ya get anythin' more on Kid, alright?”

“Sure. Later, Hattori.”

Shinichi hung up. He stared down at the copy of Kid's note, twirling his pen in his fingers irritably. “Him again? Damn thief...”

“Conan-kun! Come on! You're going to be late for school!” Ran called up the stairs.

“I'm coming, Ran-neechan!” He called. He shoved the piece of paper and his phone into his pocket, grabbing up his schoolbag as he ran down the stairs.

“What took you so long?” she asked. “Couldn't you find your scarf?”

“No, I found it all right,” Shinichi said, reverting from the adult tones that he used when talking to people In The Know to the high, childish voice that was part of his “Conan-kun” act. “Heiji-niichan called. He said that Kid's coming to Osaka too. He's going to steal something on the 21st!”

“What? Really?” Ran said. “What timing... just when we were going to see Shinichi's parents...” she tipped her head back thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, Shinichi's Otou-san went up against Kid a couple of times, years ago... I wonder if he'd go for a rematch...”

“That would be something to see,” Shinichi agreed privately, but he didn't say anything- strictly speaking, as far as Ran knew, Edogawa Conan had yet to meet Kudo Yuusaku. He turned back to the note instead of dwelling on that particular thought.

“What the hell does he mean by “truly fit for a king...?”

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“Osaka, Bocchama?” Jii asked in surprise. “I understand the target is high-priority, but how are you going to find a pretext for going there?”

“I just made one, Jii-san,” Kaito said, carefully lighting a Bunsen. He could just buy smoke-bombs, of course- Jii knew people who could arrange that sort of thing- but he loved playing around with chemicals, and it also gave him the option to add colour and, when he really wanted to mess with Nakamori or Tantei-kun, confetti. “Nakamori-keibu invited me along in an advisory context. I love it when he does that. It gives me an excuse to be at the scene and free reign to mess with the security arrangements. Hiding in plain sight...” He sniffed the spoonful of power that he was measuring out, then shrugged and dumped it in the bowl. “Do you want to come with?”

“I'm sure someone should,” Jii said, shaking his head. “Not to worry, I'll stay out of sight of Nakamori-keibu and Aoko-san.”

“You're a godsend, Jii-san,” Kaito said, pouring the whole mixture- gently- into a little metal capsule. “Yeah, the target's high-priority, but the main motive is getting away from Tokyo. That prick Hakuba's back, but I've been to Osaka and he hasn't. Plus, with any luck, him and that Hattori-tantei'll get in each other's way long enough for me to leg it. It's a full moon that night, so I shouldn't have to try and sneak the ruby back to Tokyo right under Nakamori-keibu's nose.”

“Bocchama, what about them?” Jii said worriedly. “I looked at news reports concerning the Osaka Museum over the past couple of weeks, and someone has hacked into the computer systems- didn't touch anything, but... they think the museum itself has been broken into as well. Again, nothing taken...”

“Sounds like someone casing the joint before the real prize gets there,” Kaito confirmed. “That just makes me even more sure that this could be it. I'll just have to be that little bit more careful, that's all.”

“You'd better be. When are you leaving?” Jii asked. Kaito yelped as he put a little too much of something in the beaker, causing a short flash and a puff of smoke. He hurriedly blew at the Bunsen burner.

“19th,” he said. “Nakamori-keibu just got called and informed that the jewel goes on display on the 20th, so he wants to be there every moment it's in Osaka. That gives me two days to case the place- not hard, been there, done that- and set up.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Of course,” Kaito said with a grin, pulling out a set of museum plans covered in marks. “Check it out...”

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Eri twirled her pen in her fingers irritatedly. She couldn't figure it out. There were a few holes in the accusation, no alibi for anyone and more or less everybody seemed to have a motive, but, ultimately, there was an opportunity and evidence against her, and none of the above for anyone else. Still...

“There must be something that I'm missing,” she thought, “Some form of alibi... damn, what is it?”

She flipped very quickly past the face of the young detective who was accusing. “Hakuba Saguru... a good detective, I've heard, but what a smug little prick... It would be interesting if I could pit Kudo-kun against him...”

She sighed as the theory returned to her. Fight fire with fire, it always said; if anyone could find the flaws in Hakuba's deduction, it would be another detective. But Kudo-kun was still missing, and that only left her with...

“I'm not calling him,” she thought stubbornly. “I'm not, I'm not, I'm not...”

Her secretary stuck her head around the door. “Sensei, it's a call from Laura-san,” she said. “They're starting to draw up official charges, so they're pushing even harder for a confession. She wants to know if you've found anything to defend her friend with.”

Eri sighed in defeat. “No,” she admitted, “but tell her... I'm bringing in a detective of my own to look things over.”

The young woman grinned evilly, but just nodded. “Of course. When shall I tell her to expect Mori-san?”

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“A call from Okaa-san?” Ran said in surprise as she met her father coming out of the Mori Detective Agency. “What's happened?”

“She wants me to look over one of her cases,” Kogoro grumbled. “She says she's certain that her client is innocent but can't find the holes in the other detective's theory. Calls me all the way out to Haido...”

“She's gotta be pretty desperate if she's calling in oji-san,” Conan observed. Ran privately had to agree. It had to be a pretty serious case, which, as Ran could have predicted, clearly interested Conan-kun. So she wasn't particularly surprised when he turned and followed Kogoro.

“C'mon, Ran-neechan!” he said happily. “Let's go see Oba-san!”

“All right,” she chuckled. She was secretly quite pleased that her mother had called her father in. “Maybe they're starting to reconcile,” she hoped.

To her joy and her father's ostensible disappointment, Eri was waiting for them outside of the small, 3-floored apartment complex in Haido City.

“Finally,” she said, looking at her watch with a snort of annoyance. “If you're making the fortunes you claim from your cases, maybe you should buy a car. Or is it all going on Mahjongg and horses?”

“Just give me the details,” Kogoro growled. Eri beckoned him inside.

There were six doors and a stairwell inside. Eri led them inside the second door on the left, which opened into the cluttered and messy living room of a small apartment. There was a kitchenette merging into the living room and a door leading into a tiny bedroom which made the living room look positively spotless. There was no bathroom, but one of the doors outside presumably was, the others apartments.

“Whose apartment is this?” Kogoro said, looking around at the mess before sitting down on the sofa by the coffee table. Eri sat on an armchair across from him, picking up one of the folders on the table which were presumably hers.

“The accused,” she said. “One Charlotte-san, from Scotland. She and fourteen of her friends are here on a rather large group holiday- I believe they won a Euromillions jackpot with pooled lottery tickets. They are the only ones living in this building.”

“Don't tell me all fifteen are suspects,” Kogoro groaned.

“Well, I'm asking you to rule out Charlotte-san,” Eri replied, flicking through the folder and pulling out a photograph, “and I'm presuming that we can exclude the deceased, Adam-san. Here's a photo that they took when in Kyoto.”

Ran sat down next to her father, with Conan wedged in between them, to look at the photo. It showed fifteen smiling people, none of whom looked more than twenty.

“Back left is Adam-san,” Eri said, indicating a tall, heavyset boy with short dark hair who appeared to be taking a photo of the camera. “Journalist, twenty years old. Found dead early this morning in his apartment, which is directly above this one. It was found by the person in the apartment next to his, Ruaridh-san, who called the police straight away. The knife in his neck made it eminently clear that an ambulance was not needed. There's Ruaridh-san there, with his cousin, Emily-san. They are twenty-one and twenty respectively, both going to college when they return to Scotland.” She indicated a skinny young man with dark hair and glasses being hugged around the neck by a similar-looking but less skinny girl with long dark hair. She also had glasses. “The police believe that Adam-san was killed by the first blow to the neck, but whoever it was clearly hated him- they kept hacking at his neck even after he was dead until he was nearly beheaded. The estimated time of death is around four AM this morning.”

“Ran-neechan,” Conan suddenly said, tugging the picture out of Kogoro's hands, “aren't these the people we saw at the Karaoke box last night?”

“Huh?” Ran looked at where Conan was pointing. She gasped in surprise. “You're right!” she said. “We did see some of these people last night. She was the one I met in the bathroom.” She indicated necklace-girl in the picture, front and centre, arm-in-arm with umbrella-girl and a third woman that she didn't recognize, with long, deep red hair.

“Really, Ran?” Eri said in surprise. “What was she like?”

“She seemed very kind,” Ran remembered, “and a little shy. But a nice person. Why?”

“That's Charlotte-san,” Eri said. “She's the one being accused.”

Ran's jaw dropped. “That kind woman? I mean, when her friend attacked her, she didn't get angry with her or anything... My English isn't that good, but I don't think she said anything really mean...”

“I know what you mean,” Eri said. “Her friends hired me to prove her innocent, but at the moment, all I've got is gut feeling from when I've talked to her. She has no alibi.”

“What does she say she was doing at the time?” Kogoro asked.

“As Ran and Conan said, they'd been at Karaoke last night,” Eri said, “and when the box closed they went to a disco in Shibuya. They didn't get in until 3 am, and from then until about eleven, when the body was discovered, all of them were sleeping like the dead, if you'll pardon the expression.”

“So nobody has an alibi,” Kogoro mused. “What pins it on her?”

“The knife used came from her kitchenette,” Eri said, “and only her prints were found on it. Also...” she walked over to the open window, leaning out of it and pointing up. Kogoro, Ran and Conan followed, all craning to see out of the window. The end of a rope was dangling outside the window, the other end of it disappearing into the apartment above- the victim's.

“Couldn't you have gone anywhere else in the complex once you'd gotten down here, though?” Kogoro observed. Eri sighed.

“Yes,” she said, “but look at the flowerbed below.”

“No footprints,” Kogoro instantly noticed. “And the flowers are in perfect shape. Which means that the murderer abseiled down from Adam-san's apartment into this window.”

“Oba-san,” Conan suddenly said, “who are the other people in the building?”

“Well,” Eri said, turning back to the photograph and digging out a floorplan, “There's...”

Floorplan: ~ means across from

Ground Floor

Bathroom~Emily

Charlotte~Taylor

Laura~Hazel

Middle Floor

Bathroom~Douglas

Adam~Andrew

Ruaridh~Alex

Top Floor

Btahrrom~Max

Heather~Richard

Emma~KJ

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Most of the clues are going to crop up over the next couple of chapters, so why not have a go at figuring out whodunit? Post answers in the comments!

I do not claim to own any of the characters in Meitantei Conan. They are the intellectual property of Aoyama Gosho. All characters, couples and locations, if Canon, will be faithful to the manga, so if you're into fics with weird pairings like Ran and Heiji, the back button is at the top there. The fic may not make sense if you have not read up to chapter 679, which you can do at Onemanga.com, but I advise you to buy the official Tankoban novels (up to volume 27 are out in English at the time of writing) so that Aoyama-sensei can afford to continue gracing us with his imagination. Now, I hope you enjoy the fic! (If you don't, please see my previous comments re the back button).