Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ When Pandora's Box Is Opened ❯ Inevident Evidence ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter Three

Inevident Evidence

Shinichi trotted up the stairs- apparently, everyone else in the complex had congregated in one of the upstairs apartments to discuss events and be glared at by the police. Eri was right- though the murder looked simple, there was a lot that didn't make sense.

“There were seven hours between the murder and the body being discovered,” he thought, “So why did the murderer leave the knife behind- a knife that could instantly identify them? Even if they thought that someone had heard them, from what oba-san says the knife wasn't exactly wedged into the body. They could easily have yanked it out and run. Besides...”

He glanced into the cordoned-off living room of the deceased's apartment. The white outline and a lot of blood were in the middle of the living-room floor. “Everyone else was preparing the morning's hangover. Why wasn't he asleep? He was expecting someone.”

“Conan-kun? What are you doing here?”

Shinichi glanced up in surprise at the unfortunately familiar voice. “Hakuba-niichan?” he said. “What're you...” he paused and sighed. “You're the other detective that oba-san mentioned, right? The one who accused Charlotte-san.”

“If by “oba-san” you're referring to Kisaki-sensei, yes,” the blond teen Meitantei said, smirking. “Has she called in Mori-san to back her up? A little desperate.”

“She'd have to be desperate to resort to calling him, in,” Shinichi muttered.

“What was that?” Hakuba asked in confusion. Shinichi just shook his head.

“I wanna go talk to the Scottish people,” he said, deciding to play dumb. “I've never met anyone from there before!”

“First door on the right,” Hakuba said, waving his hand dismissively at the staircase. “Remember to be polite and not enter anyone's rooms unasked. Nothing's locked here.”

“Huh?” Shinichi asked, but Hakuba had already walked away to the crime scene. Shinichi mentally recalled the floor plan. “First door on the right from the stairs... Max-san. Charlotte-san's little brother, nineteen, engaged to Taylor-san.”

The room was certainly crowded. Charlotte was being interrogated in another apartment, and Adam-san was at the nearest morgue, but the thirteen remaining members of the group were all crammed onto the sofa or various beanbags scattered around the floor of Max's front room. The apartments being so small, there wasn't a lot of room for wildly varying room layouts- Charlotte had had one sofa and two armchairs circling a coffee table, the fourth side facing the TV, while Max just had one long sofa facing the TV. It wasn't on- everyone had dragged their beanbags into a semicircle around the sofa, all talking quietly, whether this was due to shock or hangovers Shinichi didn't know.

“I can't believe it, but the evidence does point to Charlotte... We just have to accept that.”

“Hey, the fat lady's still at the pre-show buffet. Don't go calling Charlotte a murderer yet...”

“Yeah... I mean, any of us could have done it.”

“Any of us would have done it, you mean. Twat.”

“Hey, show a little respect for the dead!”

“Just because he's dead doesn't mean he wasn't a twat.”

“Hey, kid,” a tall man with long brown hair- Richard- called, noticing Shinichi at the doorway, “why you here?”

“I'm here with Mori-ojisan,” Shinichi said, deciding that “cute” would be the best way to get information, given how the number of women in the group outnumbered the men. “Eri-obasan asked him to help her prove Charlotte-neechan innocent.”

“Really?” sniffed a woman with short, dark-red hair. Shinichi identified her as Taylor. She was curled up on the sofa against a man with shoulder-length dark brown hair, blue eyes and a T-shirt saying Foo Fighters. Shinichi figured he was Max. He looked startlingly like his sister. “Kisaki-sensei has own detective?” she asked- her Japanese was not entirely fluent, like Richard's.

“No good,” grumbled the heavyset woman with frizzy hair and glasses who had stolen the mic the night before, and as far as Shinichi could tell was known to the world only as “KJ”. “That English bastard, he have too many proof.”

“Can I ask you guys something?” Shinichi asked, wondering whether his English was growing rusty or if Haibara was right about scotch-English practically being a language of its own. When he got the chance, he'd have to ask what a “twat” was, although he could hazard a guess form the inflection. He also wanted to know what a “Foo” was, and why it needed fighting.

“We're not all great at Japanese,” said umbrella-girl, now known to Shinichi as Laura, who seemed pretty great at Japanese herself, “but ask away.”

“How about I speak English?” asked Shinichi. The adults all stared at him in surprise.

“Hey, the midget's good,” said heavyset man with long brown hair and a “London 2012” jumper. Shinichi figured that he had to be Douglas. According to Eri, his sister had won a gold at the London 2012 Olympics, and he was a strong swimmer himself.

“My parents live in America,” he said, not actually lying, “So they taught me.”

“Why are you asking questions? Are you helping the detective?” another woman asked. She had wavy, light-brown hair and glasses, and was sitting on the armrest of the sofa, as if she didn't want to be on the floor like the others. Hovering next to her, with very long black hair and a worried expression, was Emma. “Nosy brat.”

“No, I just wanted to tell you guys that someone left their apartment unlocked,” Shinichi said. “I put my hand on the door and it opened straight away!”

“That's no surprise,” said one of the two men who had tackled KJ last night. Shinichi spotted them curled around each other on a beanbag in an embrace that was way too close for either of those guys to have a girlfriend. Bowl-cut was Andrew, he remembered from the photo, and curly was Alex. “Since it's only us in the building, the only doors we've gotten into the habit of locking are the front door and toilet stalls. All our flats are always unlocked.”

“Really?” Shinichi said in surprise. “Then any of you could just walk in and out of each other's apartments whenever?”

“Well, some of us lock our doors when we have private business to attend to,” Alex said, grinning lecherously at Andrew- Laura mimed puking- “But Adam only did when he was writing, and I don't think Charlotte ever did. She's trusting.”

“That, and she tends to leave her key in the lock,” Max muttered. Shinichi frowned.

“So anyone could have walked into Adam-san's apartment that morning,” he thought. “He didn't even have to be expecting them. He might just have been getting a drink from the kitchen or something, and someone just walked in...” he blinked as he realized something else. “And anyone could have walked into Charlotte-san's apartment and taken the knife. I mean, when committing a murder, why use a weapon that's guaranteed to have your prints all over it? The murderer could easily have worn gloves to leave no prints of their own...”

“Need a laxative or something?” Max suddenly asked. Shinichi jerked his head up to look at him in confusion.

“Huh?” he asked. Taylor rolled her eyes.

“It's something my dad always says,” Max said with a shrug. “It means... well, you look pretty deep in thought.”

“Maybe the kid's really the great detective,” Ruaridh joked. Shinichi sighed.

“It would be cool if he was a... what's the word? Meitantei?” Hazel said. “Y'know, like that kid from that murder mystery manga she always reads...”

“Charlotte-neechan likes murder mysteries?” Shinichi asked.

“Yeah, she's always got her nose in a book,” Laura said. “One of her favourite manga is a murder mystery series, but I think she's read Sherlock Holmes and stuff as well.”

“That's even odder,” Shinichi thought. “Mystery fanatics normally know enough to cover their tracks better than that... I mean, leaving the weapon behind and making the escape route so obvious?”

“She bought all of those Agatha Christie books in Colorado, didn't she?” Taylor said. Shinichi began to back out, figuring that he needed to see the murder scene for a minute.

He slipped under the cordon outside Adam's room. The only officer inside was Takagi, who was dusting the window.

“Conan-kun?” he said in surprise. “Why are you here?”

“Oba-san asked Oji-san to look things over,” Shinichi said, giving the bloody outline a wide berth. “Where's Hakuba-niichan?”

“He went to go join the interrogation,” Takagi said. “Hey, what are you doing?”

There was a desk with a laptop on it against the wall by the door, where Charlotte and Max had their TVs. Shinichi clambered up onto the computer chair and tapped the touchpad. The screen flickered to life.

“Have you looked through the computer files yet?” Shinichi asked. “There might be a motive...”

“I was going to do that after I was done checking the windowsill,” Takagi said. “We need a footprint to verify that this was the escape route.”

“Find anything?” Shinichi asked, staring at the bottom of the screen. The guy had a good twenty files already open. “This could take a while...”

“Ah, yes...” Takagi picked up the black sheet with the white print of a shoe on it. It wasn't particularly clear, but Shinichi could just make out, along the arch of the shoe, the word EKIN.

“These are all notes of newspaper articles,” Takagi noted. “It looks like he has a bit of a portfolio already... I think he was writing a column about Japan while he was here...”

“This isn't a column,” Shinichi said as another word document opened. It was dated to nearly two years ago. A picture loaded in fits and starts, but when it had, Shinichi noticed with a jolt that Charlotte was in it, with five others.

“The six members of the One World Liberal militia who attacked the central McDonald's farm...” he read in surprise. It was an article about six people in Colorado who had snuck into a fast-food chain's central battery farm and slaughterhouse with cameras.

“I heard about that- it nearly brought the corporation down,” Takagi said, reaching over to scroll down the article. “There were some horrible violations of health and safety, immigration laws, employee welfare, so on... even if there hadn't, one of them hacked into the signals of some pretty major news stations and broadcast what exactly happens to battery animals. The conditions weren't illegal, as such, but they were pretty horrific... there was a huge public outcry...”

“And Charlotte-san was one of them?” Shinichi said in surprise. “But this can't be a motive for murdering Adam-san...”

“No, he didn't write the article, and even if it had, it clearly hasn't hurt her standing with her friends any,” Takagi noted. “They've all been running the gamut from “she didn't do it” to “I can't believe she did it”. Still, there must be a motive on here somewhere... huh?”

“What?” Shinichi looked down at the black keyboard, which Takagi was now staring at in surprise. There was something subtly wrong with it. That was when he realized: the white paint on two of the keys was missing.

Or covered.

“Seven hours between the murder and the body being discovered,” Takagi muttered. “By that time, blood would have dried to nearly black...”

Both the Ctrl and C keys were covered with a black stain, obscuring their numbers.

“Could Adam-san have saved something?” Shinichi wondered aloud.

“He can't have left blood on the keyboard,” Takagi said, shaking his head. “The murderer nearly decapitated him. No time for final messages.”

“Not if he left the message after the murderer left, no...” Shinichi thought with narrowed eyes. He clicked a new word document open, and then pressed Ctrl and V.

“Ah, Conan-kun, what are you... huh?” Takagi stared as a good twenty pages suddenly filled with data. At the bottom were someone's bank details, with a huge, highlighted figure at the bottom. Takagi's eyes widened as Conan scrolled through the rest of the notes.

“Embezzlement,” he breathed. “Adam-san was investigating someone for embezzling money from... huh?”

“Takagi-keiji,” Shinichi said, “that bank number... is it Charlotte-san's?”

“I don't know,” Takagi confessed. “I'd have to check into it. But if it is, this could well be our motive...”

Shinichi stepped out into the hall, watching Takagi hurry across the hall. For some reason or another, possibly its proximity to the murder scene, Andrew's apartment had become the interrogation room. Shinichi crept over to the door. Eri and Sato were talking fairly civilly to Charlotte as Kogoro and Hakuba argued about something. Charlotte was looking very pale and sad. Ran set teacups in front of all of the women.

“Aye, a cuppa makes everything better, so it does.”

Shinichi turned to see Max and Richard walking down the hall, glancing at the interrogation with worry and distaste respectively.

“I wonder why people do that?” Max mused. “I mean, in World War Two, your house got bombed, and what happened? They pulled you out and gave you tea and biscuits. House been bombed? Have some tea. Child been murdered? Have some tea. The end of the world? Have some tea. Charlotte doesn't even drink it. She can't cook anything more than ramen.”

“Max-niichan?” Shinichi asked. “Someone said Charlotte-neechan was in Colorado. How long was she there?”

“About a year and a half,” Max said thoughtfully. “She was only gonna be there a year-”

“But she was in jail,” Richard interjected.

“Hey!” Max said angrily. “She wasn't in jail...”

“Yeah, The Obama Administration let them go on the quiet,” Laura added, having wandered down the stairs. Shinichi faintly heard someone's mobile ring.

“Do you mind if I answer that?”

Shinichi glanced to the side and saw Charlotte put down her teacup to pick up her mobile.

“Yeah, they decided that, on balance, OW hadn't really done anything wrong,” Max said. “Besides, they had bigger fish to deep-fry in that case.”

“So why was she there for so long?” Richard asked. Shinichi thought back to part of the article.

“Human right offences, health and safety violations, security guards charged with unwarranted...”

“Hey, Max-niichan.” Shinichi said, “When Charlotte-san wasn't in jail, she was in the hospital, right?”

“How'd you know?” Max said in surprise. Laura knelt down and looked Shinichi in the eye. Something about the stare made him shiver.

“Wh-what?” He asked nervously. Laura stared at him for another long moment before smiling and standing up, shaking her head.

“Nothing,” she insisted. “Anyway, when you find the real killer, can I be in the room? I'm going to beat that cunt to a pulp for framing Chu-chan...”

“That confirms it,” Shinichi thought, “The oddness in that movement... The nickname... If I'm right, it's also the perfect alibi...”

Takagi and Sato suddenly appeared at the doorway, heading for Adam's room.

“Hey, Sato-keiji?” Shinichi said as the police passed and the three foreigners headed for their friend. “Can I ask you something?”

“Conan-kun?” she asked, crouching down for a second. “What do you want to know?”

“You found Charlotte-neechan's prints on the knife?”

“All ten,” Sato confirmed. Shinichi nodded and smiled dangerously.

“Then can I ask you about...”

“I swear, that blond's determined to prove himself right, no matter what...” Charlotte sighed. “I'm starting to worry that if something does come up to save me, he'll find some way to prove it wrong just so he doesn't have to be.”

“Smug English prick,” Richard said. “What about him?” he jerked his thumb at Kogoro, who was currently arguing about whether or not you could even fit through the windows, which didn't open all the way, with Hakuba, who was currently engaged in proving that you could.

“He doesn't strike me as that bright,” Max noted. “Is he really the great detective the papers go on about?”

“Don't worry, Chu-chan,” Laura said, hugging Charlotte's shoulders, “I think there's a real Meitantei defending your case.” She glanced back at the hall and the little boy, who was suddenly smiling at something that the female police officer had said.

“The kid?” Max said in surprise. “Come on.”

“I'm telling you, there's something strange about that kid. I can feel it.”

“Not that witch stuff again,” Richard said, rolling his eyes. Laura glared at him.

“Wicca, you idiot,” she said angrily. “But you don't have to take my word for it. Just look at that smile.”

“I see what you mean,” Charlotte agreed, smiling faintly for the first time since Ruaridh had started yelling at eleven in the morning.

“What do you mean?” Max asked.

“You never seen a grin like that before?” Laura said. “You don't know what it means?”

“It means,” Charlotte said, without waiting for an answer, “That someone- probably the murderer- is about to get very, very screwed.”

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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).