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Relative Truth
by Becky Tailweaver
File 21: Transposition
As if to mourn the fallen dead, the cloudy sky had opened up into a gray, dismal drizzle of raindrops. Not quite enough fell to be considered rain, but the small drops were persistant, continuing to splatter onto concrete, gravel, and mud, dampening both the clothes and the spirits of anyone who stood out in it.
Keeping a safe distance, hood pulled up against the thin shower, Kaito observed the tense gathering around the gruesomely dead body. Conan, his coat not posessing any sort of hood, stood on the leeward side of his taller cousin, tucked in rather close to him for what protection that would afford. Red and blue lights reflected in the lenses of his glasses, their flashing dimmed by the grayness of the sky and the tragedy that had called them here.
Kaito watched the police move with practiced efficiency around the corpse, noting that their faces were far grimmer and less animated than most he'd ever seen. Then again, when he dealt with cops they were usually flushed, sweating, and swearing vociferously as they chased him around in the dark. Death never hung over his heists.
During the chaos that had ensued the moment someone got the site's main gate open, Conan had demanded to be let down from Kaito's shoulders and began shouting commands to him--ordering him to get a rein on these people, calm them down and keep them away from the body while the boy ran around the corner to find a telephone. He was already a little off-kilter himself at the horrible event--a man had just died, right there--and Conan's sharp, shrill voice had cut through the shock and jolted him into action. He hadn't even thought to question.
He was no policeman, just a teenage kid--and right now, not even the Kid. But controlling crowds was something a magician did, whether on a stage or in a group, so control them he would. He surged into the site after the panicked workers, marshalling his voice for volume and authority--and did the very best Shinichi Kudo impression he could muster under the circumstances.
He was pretty damn proud of himself for that bit of work, all things considered. He pulled off Shinichi's cool confidence and aura of command excellently, his calm, sharp voice barking out a repeat of the orders Conan had given him. The frightened men--and a few women, as well--listened to him, having no other source of stability during this tragedy. Once everyone was gathered, well clear of the corpse, the rain had begun to fall; Kaito kept his eyes open and his act up until Conan reappeared--much to his great relief--to tell him what to do next.
Conan told him they would wait. Until the police arrived, they could do nothing, and no one should leave the scene.
Well, now the police were there, and Kaito wanted to scram. Now. Perhaps it was because of his night job, but cops made him nervous. Especially with Conan back in full Detective Mode and a dead body not six meters away. Corpses gave him the shivers too.
And death just upset him. Death was something he couldn't control, couldn't trick, couldn't undo, couldn't stop. Death took people's lives away, and not even a phantom thief could steal them back. At times like this, he could understand why Shinichi was so passionate about his work. No one should be able to get away with a thing like murder.
But that still didn't mean he enjoyed hanging around dead bodies, nervous cops, and bewildered witnesses. He'd leave the crook-catching to his cousin, thank you very much.
Speaking of cousins... Kaito eyed the antsy boy beside him warily, easily recognizing the keen stare and focused expression. Somebody's going to pop if he doesn't get to go investigate. "Um, look," he ventured cautiously. "You know cops and I don't get along so well, so...why don't I slip outta here while you--?"
Conan's piercing blue eyes snapped up to him so quickly and so sharply that Kaito swallowed his own words in a gulp, blinking in surprise. "You can't leave," the small boy said, voice just quiet enough not to carry. "This is a homicide, baka--we can't just walk out of here, we're witnesses."
"We didn't even see it!" Kaito complained. "And none of those idiots think it's a murder, so--"
"Even so, it's still a murder--and once they find that out, we're also suspects," Conan went on with a wry smile at Kaito's sudden freeze. "The instant we walked in here, we became part of this. Get used to it. With any luck, you'll just get interviewed by a uniform, and they'll send you on your--"
"Hah! There you are!"
Kaito's startled yelp derailed the conversation when a large hand fell on his shoulder, making him jump around like a scalded cat. The hand was accompanied by a yellow trenchcoat sleeve--which was attached to a yellow trenchcoat, of course, and worn by a rather portly man with a thick black moustache.
"Inspector Megure!" Conan blurted, almost as surprised as his cousin to see the man there. He would have thought this area beyond the reach of Megure's jurisdiction.
But the trenchcoated inspector completely ignored the little boy at his feet, instead vigorously patting the shoulders of the teen in front of him, grinning enormously. "If it isn't Kudo-kun! Where on earth have you been for so long? I haven't seen you in ages! And wouldn't you know it--I can depend on a situation like this to bring you running...!"
Kaito had such an utterly astonished look on his face that Conan would have burst out laughing--if it weren't for the fact that he himself was equally boggled.
"K-K-K-Kudo--m-me--?" He stared blankly at the Inspector, completely bowled over by the enormity of the mistake, as the older man chattered cheerfully on.
"...and I almost didn't recognize you, standing over here in the rain with your hood on. Good thing I spotted Conan-kun, or I might've missed you..." Megure paused, taking in the dumbstruck boys. "What's the matter with you two?"
Kaito blinked for a moment more, the question finally knocking him out of his astonished daze. He drew himself up, coughed once to clear his throat, and fixed Megure with a level gaze and a pleasant smile. "Nothing's wrong, Inspector. I'm just a little surprised to see you in this part of town."
Conan's head jerked up, once more staring in shock--but this time it was at his cousin's abrupt transformation from startled teenager to accomplished performer. Though his volume didn't change, Kaito's voice softened noticeably, coming up a bit in pitch, his diction and grammar becoming precise and definite. His usual rough, sloppy speech and cheerfully careless personality was instantly replaced by Shinichi Kudo's calm, smooth tones and confident, unwavering composure.
"This isn't quite outside of my jurisdiction," Megure confessed, "and the man who'd usually handle it is out of town this week, so I thought I might as well come. Especially since the operator informed us she'd gotten a call from a little boy." He smiled down at Conan, who did his best to look innocent.
"So then, Inspector," Kaito went on, his "mask" completely perfect, "what have your men found so far?"
Megure cleared his throat and produced his police notebook. "Let's see....the deceased is one Noboru Otomo, age thirty-two, and a worker here at this site. Seems he fell from quite a height, and his safety rope snapped. The fall was what killed him, as you can see..."
"I don't think so," Kaito interjected. "You see, Conan-kun and I were walking outside the fence at the time the man fell, and we didn't hear a sound except for the crash when he hit the ground. Isn't that right, Conan?"
"Huh?" The boy blinked at his cousin, then caught on, dropping into "Conan" with practiced ease. "Yup, that's right! I didn't hear anything either."
Megure looked briefly puzzled. "What were you supposed to hear?"
Kaito barely glanced down at Conan once more. "A scream, Inspector. I should think a man falling to his death from such a height would scream on the way down--wouldn't you? I may be wrong, but I think Otomo-san may have already been dead when he fell off the scaffolding."
"I see!" The Inspector had already gone wide-eyed. "That means someone had to have...!"
"Possibly, Inspector. Again, I could be wrong. I'd have to investigate more thoroughly to be sure." Kaito didn't even twitch--didn't show a single iota of hesitation, nothing out of character. His acting was flawless.
Do I really sound like that? Conan had to wonder once again, staring up at this remarkable transformation. Even without makeup and masks, just this change in manner had made it seem as though it really was Shinichi standing there--cool, unruffled, almost imposing, his keen blue gaze startling in its intelligence and intensity... Is that really how I am--how people see me from the outside?
"I understand," Megure replied, his fingers going thoughtfully to his chin. "I'll have the men question the witnesses for their alibis in case this is murder...in the meantime, feel free to have a look--I'd appreciate your help on this one if that does turn out to be the case." The Inspector wandered back toward the huddle of damp officers and worried-looking workers, already calling out to his lieutenants.
There was a deep sigh that made Conan look up--and suddenly the youth standing next to him was Kaito again, looking somewhat troubled. "That was..." the boy tried to say. "That was so...completely..."
"Completely stupid," Kaito finished for him, eyes fixed on the gaggle of people across from them. "I just stuck my neck in a noose. I'm no detective, dammit--I can't believe I just walked into that! But I had to pretend to be you--"
"You didn't have to," Conan interjected quietly. "You could have just said..."
"What, that I'm Kudo's cousin? Yeah, explain that." Kaito snorted derisively. "No thanks. I'd rather be anonymous and let you take the heat for this. Inspector Megure knows by now not to use your name, right?"
Conan nodded, quickly realizing why Kaito would rather appear as Shinichi. "But he doesn't know not to use yours--and two near-identical high school detective cousins would be suspicious if any of them found out..."
"Exactly." Kaito offered a weak but game smile. "Which is why I'm gonna hafta grit my teeth and live through this."
"It's not that hard," Conan said, his brows drawing down. "But listen carefully--you have to do as I say. Remember the rules? Don't do anything unless I tell you--we can do this, but we have to do it right."
The teen sighed and shrugged. "I can do Shinichi Kudo, but I can't do the high school detective."
"Never thought I'd see you nervous about a performance," Conan said wryly, offering an encouraging grin. "Don't worry, I'll be right beside you. Conan Edogawa, your humble apprentice-in-training and future high school detective. Just so long as no one knows it's me teaching you."
Kaito rolled his eyes. "Great. Well, c'mon squirt, let's get this flying circus off the ground."
Conan grinned, increasingly cheerful, as he followed Kaito toward the scene. "It's not so bad, you know. It's actually fun! I'll show you--come on, hurry up--" He practically bounced at Kaito's heels, a scant inch away from grabbing his reluctant cousin by the hand and dragging him along faster. He hadn't had a murder to solve in what seemed like forever, and it felt good to be diving into another investigation.
This was something he could do. It wasn't dark, intangible depression or the pain of raw emotions; it wasn't mired in family problems and hurtful partings. This was his place, his element; this was where he belonged--at the scene of a homicide, just minutes away from uncovering the killer and seeing justice done.
Inspector Megure was already organizing his men and sorting out witnesses; now it was their turn. As they came to the site of the might-be murder, both Kaito and Shinichi donned their masks and set their shoulders.
They were ready--it was Showtime.
Apparently Megure had warned his men well; they stepped back from the young man as he approached the body, looking oddly respectful and not offering the slightest hindrance as Kaito and his small companion stopped next to the dead man.
The body had leaked a lot of blood, split open due to its rough landing on the crates and pallets. Limbs bent at odd angles, and here and there glistened a pale white tip of bone. The face, cheek-down on a slat of wood, was crushed sideways in a ghastly manner.
Ooooh boy... Feeling suddenly queasy, Kaito closed his eyes for a moment, swallowed hard once--then went on with the show. Glad that most of the busy cops didn't pay them much mind beyond a few glances, he squatted next to Conan, who was already leaning over the corpse with an analytical eye. "So..." he whispered, trying not to look in the direction of the body's mangled face. "What have you got?"
Behind Conan's eyes, the mind of Shinichi Kudo was already spinning out facts. "He fell face-down, for one thing...most of the time, the only way people come off buildings like this is backwards--you know, stepping off scaffolding by accident. And he is wearing a harness--look." He gestured to the nylon web safety harness still buckled around the legs and torso.
"I'd rather do as little looking as possible," Kaito replied, keeping his voice low so that the subject matter of this conversation would stay between them. "But yeah...I see it. Look, there's the end of his rope--it's broken. But...that's gotta be at least two hundred kilo test--"
"Exactly," Conan replied, scooting around to look at the trailing end of the rope that had once secured the victim's harness. "That's weird. A nylon web line like this doesn't just snap from one man's weight, and the end's not frayed like it would be if it was cut. And the rope wasn't burned off either, or it would be melted."
"It looks sort of...sizzled," Kaito commented, quirking an eyebrow.
"Yeah. I can't figure it out..." The look on his face showed that the boy was distinctly unhappy about that fact.
"We need to get up there where he was working and check it out," the youth stated, rising once again, as Conan glanced at him in surprise--his cousin had taken the words right out of his mouth. "Hey, Inspector! Just a second of your time..."
Incredulous, Conan stared after him as he donned his Shinichi persona to speak quickly and succinctly to Megure, getting permission for them to head up to the work area. As Kaito discussed the matter with the Inspector--who still hadn't a clue who he was really talking to--Conan frowned and stood up to look over the body one more time.
His sharp eyes checked every inch, never letting one detail go to waste. Anything, no matter how inconsequential, could be evidence. Besides the corpse falling face-down and the fact that the rope was not cut or burned, there were numerous tiny, almost unnoticeable holes in the victim's clothing on his back. There was also blood on the back of his head, Conan noted as he stepped around, and that blood had dripped in an odd direction--toward his face, instead of the ground...
Wait, that's it--what if he--? "Ka--um, Shinichi-niichan!" he called quickly, whirling about.
Kaito was already on his way back, looking a bit proud of himself. "What's the matter? Megure says we can go up--"
"I think someone rigged him to stay up there for a while before he fell," Conan interrupted, his voice a low hiss that wouldn't carry. "The blood on his head must be from the blow that killed him!"
"Are you sure?" Kaito asked, glancing at the body. "He's bloody all over, from what I can see."
"No--baka! The blood on his head is older," Conan snapped out quickly, with a quick gesture at his cousin. "Get down here--we've gotta check for rigor mortis."
Kaito instantly balked. "We what? Oh hell no--"
"Shut up," Conan hissed. "There's people watching! I'm not asking you to do it--just get down here and cover me while I do."
With a gulp, Kaito squatted near Conan's position, effectively blocking the line of sight from Megure and most of the officers. He tried to look industrious and unaffected, but most of that failed when Conan reached down without an ounce of hesitation, and with absolute indifference picked up one of the hands of the deceased and began testing the fingers for stiffness. "Urgh..."
Setting the lifeless limb back down--and hoping nobody saw who was doing the fiddling--Conan glanced up at his partner's rather pale face. "Sissy."
"Shut up," Kaito growled, barely suppressing his shudder. This was not something he dealt with on a regular basis--nor was it something he really wanted to.
"Just think about finding the bastard who did this," the boy replied in a low, utterly serious voice that made Kaito's nauseous scowl vanish in a trice. "Get sick later--you've got to concentrate now."
"I am," Kaito shot back, swallowing most of his unease and turning his attention back to the task at hand. "What did you find out?"
"I'm not sure," the boy replied. "From the time of the fall and how long it took the police to get here...I dunno. He seems a bit cold, but he's not too stiff--and rigor mortis varies from body to body due to diet, metabolism, or other circumstances. He could have died anywhere from thirty minutes ago--the fall--up to about two hours ago."
"That sure tells us a lot," Kaito grumbled. "You had to go and do something that gross just to..."
"Oh hush," Conan retorted. "It's part of the procedure. Now we need to get up there to the place he fell from and see if we can find anything." He grabbed his cousin by the hand, much to Kaito's surprise, hauling him to his feet and toward the lift at the other end of the half-constructed building. "Hurry up, would you?"
"Sheesh, don't get your bowtie in a twist!" Kaito growled, shaking off the boy's hand. "I'm going already."
They rode the lift up to the topmost floor, Conan tapping his foot impatiently at the creaky, cage-sided elevator's slow ascent. Kaito watched him with brows high; once again, Shinichi Kudo was champing at the bit to solve another case.
When they reached the top and the doors were slid back, Conan pelted out--only to be snagged by the scruff and jerked to a stop. "Hey, let go!"
"Idiot, do you wanna end up like that guy on the ground?" Kaito snorted. "Stop and look for once. There's no floor up here."
The boy blinked, then turned to the place he'd intended to run. There was no flooring, only structual beams and conveniently-placed scaffolding suspended many meters in the air. True floor didn't even begin to exist until way down on the second story, and then only partially. He gulped, realizing he might have gone tearing out there only to trip and go splat--quite literally.
"This is more like it--my kind of territory," Kaito commented with a rather pleased look, releasing him. "Stick close, squirt, and watch your step."
Letting his cousin go first, Conan grumbled something about not needing anybody's help to walk, thankyouverymuch. Scowling, he followed the youth out onto the plywood ramp of the first scaffold, keeping an eye out for slippery spots from the rain. Kaito walked with breezy steps, without a care in the world, and Conan had to hurry to keep up.
It was a bit of a maze to reach the place where the man had apparently fallen from; they'd had to navigate several different platforms and even the building beams themselves. "Here we are!" Kaito announced cheerfully, as if he'd just led a group of tourists to a picnic spot. "Okay, what're we looking for?"
"Anything unusual," Conan replied, already beginning to scan the place. "Anything that doesn't belong--or anything that should be here and isn't. And not just here, but anywhere around here--anywhere on this floor, even."
Kaito's brows went up again. "That's a pretty tall order."
"Too tall for you?" Conan challenged with a rather dark grin.
"Watch it, small fry." Kaito matched the grin with his own. "Betcha I can get this one before you."
"Don't you start that--Hattori's bad enough," Conan grumbled. "Just find what you can. I'll look around here."
"Roger that." The young thief sauntered off, apparently oblivious to the sheer drop immediately to either side.
Conan rolled his eyes and got back to the task at hand. "Okay, here's the other end of his rope..." He watched the dangling end hanging over empty space, the tip of it sporting that same sizzled look as the one on the ground.
And if he was killed around here, there has to be blood, or proof that someone wiped away the blood. Even in this drizzle, it won't just wash away. Keen eyes catching every detail around him, the boy began to move along the beams and scaffolding surrounding the place where the man had fallen. There was nothing in the immediate area, so he began to hurry around the narrow walkways in an ever-increasing radius, searching for any clues. Quite a lot of time passed, but he hardly noticed, absorbed in the case.
It wasn't until he found the faint smudges of wiped-up blood on a beam a great distance from Otomo's point of fall that it crashed into his mind to check the rag-bins he'd seen at the elevator. It would be far too easy to hide a dark, bloodstained cloth amongst hundreds of other greasy, dirty rags.
Conan went sprinting back along the rain-slick catwalks and beams at top speed, leaping some gaps he didn't want to bother going around, skidding in to a stop at the plywood platform that formed the elevator bay. Without pausing, he hiked himself up on the side of the rag bin and began to shovel through it, tossing unwanted specimens aside.
"Gosh, what got into you?"
Kaito's voice startled him almost to the point of tipping headfirst into the box--he'd almost completely forgotten his cousin was still there. "I think it's in here," he replied quickly, regaining his balance and resuming his search. "The rag the murderer used..."
"Ah..." Kaito didn't think he had to ask why his small cousin had gone tearing across the building like that--he'd been a bit startled to hear the boy going full-speed through the obstacle course of narrow, suspended paths with the same careless agility that he prided himself on. "Then...I suppose you don't want these gloves."
"Gloves?" With a light thud, Conan dropped off the bin and whirled to him. "What did you find?"
With a smug grin, Kaito held up the pair of gloves he'd found, gripping them by the corners so he didn't mar any more evidence than necessary. "These. Somebody's old abandoned work gloves--with all these drops of blood on them..."
"Baka! Put them down! Don't touch them!" Conan leaped at him, waving his small hands. "Be more careful! Wrap them in your handkerchief or something!"
"Sheesh...!" A bit disgruntled at the welcome he'd received, Kaito crouched next to Conan, who produced his own handkerchief to rest the gloves on. Kaito put them down on the clean white cloth, watching the boy scrutinize them.
"This could be the most important thing yet!" Conan informed him, a definite glee tingeing his tones. "Where did you find them?"
"Down there." Kaito gestured to the floor below. "Looks like somebody tossed them off and they landed on a pile of wall frames."
Conan stopped to blink at him. "Do not tell me you were clambering around the scaffolding down there."
"Okay, I won't tell you I was..."
"You overgrown monkey." The phony gradeschooler shook his head with an ironic half-smile. "No wonder you give flat-footed cops the slip."
"Why, thank you." Kaito grinned, and failed to mention that Conan had been doing a lateral version of the same thing just minutes ago. "What were you trying to find in the box?"
"I found what might be the murder site," Conan replied. "Way over there--and our man apparently chose a place with a metal surface so that it would be easier to clean up." His expression turned to a small, almost predatory smile. "But blood's hard to clean up, if you give it even the slightest chance to dry out--even in this rain. If I had Luminol, I could make it even more visible--we have to send a policeman up to check it out."
"What's that got to do with the--? Oh..." Kaito felt like smacking himself in the forehead. "He must've wiped it up and thrown the rag in there with all the rest."
"Bingo!" Conan just kept himself from sniggering at the duh! look Kaito was suddenly sporting. "Help me find it--do you know what it will look like?"
"I can take a pretty good guess," Kaito replied, digging into the box right beside his small cousin.
It was silent but for the patter of rain on the canvas tarp roof above the elevator area, the two boys keeping quiet except for murmured questions and comments pertaining to their hunt. It took a few minutes, carefully searching, scrutinizing a few likely candidates before discarding them as false alarms. There was a fairly sizeable pile of rags strewn about their feet by the time they found what they were looking for. Grinning, the two held the corners of a large, torn, brown-stained towel that might once have been beige.
"Yes!" Conan crowed, as he and Kaito gingerly set this new piece of evidence down beside the gloves.
"We've got the towel and the gloves," Kaito listed, ticking them off on his fingers. "And we've got the location of the murder plus the fact that we already knew he was dead before he hit the ground, and that means..." He paused, scratching his head. "Uh...hell if I know what that means..."
"Use your brain, baka," Conan laughed, half in amusement and half just for the sheer euphoria of unfolding the case. "Otomo-san was killed, probably by blunt cranial trauma, on the other side of the building, carried over there--" He pointed to the fall site. "--and somehow rigged to fall without the rope being cut or burned. This towel was used to wipe up the blood at the site, and these bloodstained gloves were dropped off a scaffold to hide any evidence."
Kaito raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it have been smarter to throw the gloves into the rag bins and hide them there?"
"Maybe," Conan admitted, "but it might be less suspicious to find someone's discarded gloves lying about the worksite, especially with drops of blood on them. And with these holes in the gloves, someone might just assume the blood came from whoever was wearing them, who might have injured their hands. But the blood isn't from the places on the gloves where there are all these holes... The trick is to use what we've got here to figure out who might have been able to do this."
"I might be going out on a limb here," Kaito began softly, looking supremely thoughtful. "But...I think it's logical to assume the killer's one of the people on the ground right now--someone who works at this construction site. Just speaking for myself, if I was gonna go to all the trouble of rigging someone to fall after he's dead, I'd want to make sure I was seen during his fall by lots of my friends and coworkers so I'd have a good tight alibi."
"That's a good thought," Conan reassured him with a grin. "I was thinking the same thing."
Kaito actually brightened. "Really?"
"Really!" The boy paused for a moment to regard his cousin. "Huh, whaddya know--you've actually got a knack for this. Not everyone could spot those gloves or come to those conclusions."
"Do not tell me I could be a detective on my weekends."
Conan's mouth quirked. "You told me I could be a phantom thief."
"Touche..."
"But...even with all this," Conan went on, returning to the subject at hand, "that still leaves us with no real evidence. Sure, with this we can prove it's a murder, but if we go down there unprepared we'll just get someone in trouble who might not be our culprit."
"I've seen that happen," Kaito acknowledged, going from a crouch to a cross-legged sit with a small plop. "What do you need?"
"Evidence," the small boy sighed, unconsciously mimicking his cousin's actions. "I've got to be able to connect these pieces of evidence to a person--and I have to be able to prove it without doubt. No guessing, no conjecture. I have to know."
"How can we be sure this time?" Kaito asked. "It's got me boggled. There's gotta be fifty people working at this site, and even when Otomo fell--and even before then--there had to be a couple dozen men running around on the ground."
"True..." Conan frowned, staring from gloves to towel and back again. "And my cases don't usually seem to go quite like this. Say what you like about murders following me around--"
"They say trouble goes where there's people who can fix it," Kaito murmured helpfully.
Conan shot him a look and cleared his throat loudly. "--but I always seem to be able to get a look at what's going on beforehand, who's doing what and where--even what kind of people they are. In this case, I haven't talked to a single person, and all I've got is what's in front of me."
Kaito frowned. "That sounds familiar..."
"But that's not to say I can't do it..." The boy leaned forward to peer at the gloves. "Something's bugging me about these holes. They don't look like normal wear-and-tear."
Kaito resisted the temptation to pick up one of the gloves to examine it, instead following his cousin's example and leaning over to look. The two dark heads nearly touched, the damp, tousled bangs brushing against each other. "It's almost random," the larger of the two commented thoughtfully. "And it kinda has that same sizzled look--"
"Gosh, you're right!" Conan jolted, coming within a hair of bumping forheads with his cousin. "I didn't notice because the materials are different, but it's got the same weird edge to it!"
Kaito met the boy's eyes as they sat back. "What do you think it means? Whatever cut the rope cut the gloves too?"
"But this isn't a cut..." Conan stated, staring down at the gloves again, growing oddly, unchildishly still, as if he'd suddenly withdrawn; his hand had gone to his chin, fingers set in a distinct L-shape that traced his jawline--and his eyes narrowed, taking on that pensive, contemplative edge that Kaito recognized all too well.
The mind of Shinichi Kudo had begun to work, poring through reams of information at hundreds of "pages" per second--file after mental file of raw data. Past experience, scientific knowledge, logical deduction, police forensics--and far beyond; not one fact unturned, no correlation unexplored. Realms of information the likes of which even Kaito had never studied--and the sheer amount of which he would likely never be able to fully accumulate--were sifted, sorted, chosen, and discarded in mere instants. Relevant facts were tallied, likely scenarios created, most probable concepts were noted...continuing until a short list of most likely conclusions was formulated--and out of which, a single answer could be drawn.
Kaito remained unmoving, watching the unseen flash by in rapid streams behind his small cousin's distant, almost unseeing eyes. He stayed absolutely silent, to let the boy's mind do its work without interruption--trying not to shudder in rememberance of all the times that too-sharp brain was turned against him. He knew his own intelligence was equal to Shinichi's own--but for sheer volume of data and experience in regards to this particular situation, he knew he couldn't compare. Clock Tower notwithstanding--that hadn't been too serious of a heist in his opinion, and Shinichi hadn't really come in prepared--a one-on-one between the two of them would have been frightening.
And thrilling, too, he caught himself thinking. The Clock Tower was a warmup--Queen Elizabeth and all those other times were just a taste...and if he hadn't been Conan...what would the real thing be like?
Kaito sensed a change in his companion, focusing on the small form once more as the boy's eyes sharpened again, directed at the gloves. "Got anything?" he asked quietly.
"Only one answer seems to work," Conan replied. "The gloves and the rope weren't cut or burned, and the only other way I know of to get through something like this is by using acid."
"Acid?" The teen thief blinked. "Holy cow, you're right! That would explain why it looks sizzled without looking burned--!"
"And it also explains the small holes I saw on the victim's clothes around his back," Conan interjected, looking up at his cousin again. "These gloves were not only worn to kill Otomo-san, but to hang him up and rig the trick as well. Drops of acid from what was being poured on the rope got onto the gloves and the back of the victim's shirt. The drops ate through those materials just like the acid ate through the rope--and dropped Otomo-san after the murderer left the scene."
"That's it right there, isn't it?" Kaito breathed. "A way to make yourself a time-delay 'tragic fall'--and then you've got a perfect alibi."
"Unless someone notices," Conan said, looking up at him with a small, tight grin. "Like us. Most people wouldn't--but our murderer was just unlucky enough you happened to invite me over today."
Kaito snorted in amusement. "You have the damndest luck, you know that? I bet you were just dying for a mystery."
"I don't look forward to people getting killed--"
"But you'll sure as hell step in and take the case when they do," the teen interjected with a humorous grin. "Anyway, now that we've got the method, what do we do? I still don't see how we can figure out who did it."
"That's the really tricky part," Conan admitted. "We've got two items--towel and gloves--in two different places, an acid-melted rope, and we're still missing a murder weapon. A hammer, a pipe, a bar--anything heavy like that..."
"I don't think anybody would carry that around with them," Kaito mused aloud. "I mean, they killed someone with it. Who'd want to keep something like that, especially with cops around?"
"You'd be surprised," the small boy replied, leaning back from the gloves to regard Kaito. "A lot of murderers don't ditch the weapon because they're afraid someone will find it. With this rag here and the gloves thrown below...and if the container the acid was in happened to be glass, it could be shattered anywhere...it's almost like our man was trying to scatter the evidence, instead of hiding it all in one place--where it could all easily be found and connected."
"But that means somebody ditched their gloves," Kaito observed with a thoughtful glance at the physical evidence in front of them. His eyes grew slightly distant as well, sifting through a well of laser-keen memory that backtracked itself clear to his first steps into the construction site. "Everybody who came back in with us wasn't wearing gloves, but all the men who were in the site to begin with were wearing both gloves and hardhats."
Conan blinked, his gaze jerking up to his cousin in a flash, surprised; he listened intently, his own mental video footage going over many of the same sequences, equally sharp, yet his focus had been on different things at the time. Kaito's line of reasoning began to highlight what he'd missed before.
"The only people within the site from the beginning who weren't wearing gloves," Kaito went on, half-absently, "were the ladies working at the station by the gate--in charge of time cards or something I guess--and the guys lined up to sign out, and I saw only one guy near the back end of the line who was still wearing his gloves. When everyone was running around the body, they all mingled so by the time the police got here, the gloves and no gloves bunches got mixed up."
"But we couldn't tell just by the gloves," Conan reminded him. "These don't have any name on them, not even on the insides of the cuffs. We can't narrow it down to 'shirts and skins' like that quite so easily."
Kaito drew a breath, chewing his lip. "The victim didn't have any gloves on, either."
Conan's small head jerked up yet again. "What? You're right--it is the gloves! Dammit, why didn't I think of that? If he was up here working until the time he fell, he'd still be wearing his gloves! So why isn't he?"
The youth across from him began to smile, light dawning in his own eyes. "Because the murderer got his first set all covered with blood and acid and decided to borrow Otomo-san's instead!"
"Bingo!" Both of them were grinning widely now. "We can maybe start to guess who it is, if the glove sizes are mismatched--but honestly, I don't think a killer would take that kind of chance unless he had to."
"Yeah," Kaito agreed. "It'd be pretty suspicious if he was caught with the gloves of a murder victim."
"So something must have happened," the small boy continued eagerly. "Severe enough that he had to risk discovery just to hide something even more apparent than stolen gloves."
The teen thief--currently practicing detective--glanced at the gloves once more. "From the stuff going on here, I'd have to guess our man got his fingers burned by his own acid--and he's probably covering it up with Otomo-san's gloves."
"You took the words right out of my mouth, Kaito," Conan agreed with a half-grin. "There's our evidence. We can have the rope tested for the presence of the acid, and these bloody gloves will have the same kind of acid on them. Once the time-delay fall is revealed, the alibis disappear..."
"...and the culprit will have acid burns on his fingers that will match the holes in these gloves," Kaito finished, matching his small cousin grin for grin. "Hot damn...we got him!"
"Not yet," Conan cautioned, his knowing smile sharpening as he prepared to go for the kill. "But we will."
"Hey, let's get down there and tell the Inspector," Kaito said, popping to his feet and adjusting the hood more firmly on his head. "I don't wanna waste any time getting the killer behind bars."
"Yeah, me either--ack!" Conan stood up as well, but it was with a look of sudden horror. "Aw, crap! Inspector Megure doesn't know--he's been down there questioning the witnesses, and they'll only hold anyone without an alibi for the time of the fall! He'll let the real culprit go without ever--!"
"Oh, don't worry about that," Kaito interjected with a wave of one hand. "I asked him not to let anyone go yet, whether they had an alibi or not. I thought it was something you would do--in case something weird turned up. And it did."
Conan blinked and stared at him for several seconds, both astonished and relieved. "Kaito, you...you...you're an absolute genius, you know that?"
His cousin shrugged with a grin. "I've been accused of that occasionally, yes."
"Yeah, well, don't let it go to your head," Conan chuckled. "But honestly, that was a smart move--sorry I didn't think you'd think of it. Thanks a lot."
"Let's just get down there and catch the bastard, huh?" Kaito replied, his grin getting a bit eager. "Can't wait to see his face when you lay it all out."
"'Scuse me, genius, but that's gonna be your job," the boy reminded him with a snort. "You ready for your performance?"
Kaito looked a bit abashed, but his shoulders straightened. "I better be. I'm not letting anyone get away with murder, that's for sure--so I don't want to screw this up."
Conan actually smiled, appreciative of Kaito's determination; really, in these sorts of matters, he and his cousin weren't all that different. "Great. Now we've just got to get this evidence down there in one piece, and we'll work out what you'll say before we go--that way you'll know what to cover and how you need to say it. And you said you've seen me do it as myself at least once, so you know that part; just make sure not to leave out anything we've discovered."
Kaito crouched once again next to his small cousin, listening as the boy began to talk. Amidst the patter of the rain on the canvas above, Conan explained the particulars of the evidence and the process of snaring the culprit using what they'd found here, detailing the presentation and how the youth would go about his performance. Kaito absorbed the information quietly, asking the occasional question for brief clarification, already formulating his little stageplay in his own mind.
By the time the two rode the elevator back down to the ground, evidence in hand, both Conan and Kaito were ready to begin the show.
Inspector Megure was waiting for them the moment the elevator descended. "Ah, there you are--some of these people are getting rather impatient, you know..."
"Sorry for the delay, Inspector," Kaito replied, once again doing a flawless impression of Shinichi Kudo. "But fortunately, I was able to figure out the trick the murderer used."
"That's great!" Megure exclaimed, patting "Kudo" on the shoulder again. "Glad to hear it! I was wondering about--" With a pause, the portly inspector looked down at the small boy at Kaito's side. "Wait a second, Kudo-kun--you took Conan-kun up there with you without a harness or anything?"
"It's okay, Inspector-san!" Conan chirped, smiling innocently. "Shinichi-niichan didn't let me fall."
"But still--"
"Inspector, I really need to see your suspects," Kaito interjected smoothly, politely, diverting Megure's attention back to the subject at hand. "I have evidence here for murder--" He held up the gloves and the towel, protected from his touch by the handkerchief. "--but before we jump to any conclusions I'll need to see what you've acquired so far."
"Er, yes, of course, certainly..." Megure led them back to where the body still lay--and where the large group of workers still waited, looking angry and annoyed. "So far we have three people without an alibi for the time of the fall--"
"You! Inspector!" growled a large man with a rather gorilla-like face. "How much longer do we have to stand here in the rain? Isn't this an accident? What do you need to keep interrogating us for?"
"Eh? Ah, just a few minutes more, Yamada-san..." Megure looked vaguely apologetic with his placating gesture, glancing at Kaito and Conan for support. "I think this case is going to be wrapped up very shortly now."
"Um, 'case,' you said?" asked a younger, thinner man with a rather tremulous voice. "So...it really is a murder?"
"We can't be suspects, can we?" The third member of those without alibis was a short, balding man with a large nose and an obvious paunch.
"I'm afraid that's the case here," Megure replied sternly. "You three are the only people so far who don't have a solid alibi for the time that Otomo-san fell. Well then, for Kudo-kun's benefit, would you all be so kind as to repeat what you were doing at approximately five-thirty today?"
"Che! Why does some brat and his kid brother need to hear about this so-called 'murder?'" the large man snorted.
Kaito didn't respond to the jab, his Shinichi act preventing him from resorting to his usual reaction to such rudeness--such as a nice trick or two. Instead, he ignored the large man and turned his pointed gaze on the tall young man next to him--who blanched slightly but stuttered to begin.
"Er, my name is Yutaka Shimoyama," said the youngest of the suspects, with a nervous glance at the irate "gorilla." "I, um, went to the trailer office around that time to get a snack since I didn't have much time for lunch. I was there until I heard people screaming, and when I came out, he had already fallen..."
"And no one saw him during that whole time, either inside or outside the trailer," Megure added.
"I see," Kaito replied, resisting the urge to look down at Conan for some sort of confirmation or reassurance. He wished he could see his small cousin's face at least, just as a kind of indicator on his progress, but Shinichi Kudo didn't waver when conducting an investigation, so he turned his gaze to the next man in line--the large, irate gentleman with the rather apelike countenance. "And you?"
"Hmph. Kojiro Yamada, and I work the crane. I was up there all afternoon since lunch, and I was shutting the crane down about the time he fell. See? It couldn't have been me because for safety reasons, someone always has to be watching over the crane cab."
"Thank you," Kaito responded neutrally, turning to the last man in line, who seemed a bit more jovial than Yamada.
"I'm Yoshi Ishikawa," said the balding man, looking sad, "and I was actually on the floor that Otomo-kun fell from, but I never saw anything--I never even knew someone else was up there with us, and I couldn't help him."
"You were there?" Kaito blurted, almost losing his act. "You were on the same floor when it happened?"
"Yeah...but I wasn't anywhere near him," Ishikawa replied. "I was at the elevator bay, getting ready to head down for the day. By the time I heard the screams down below, I was already in the elevator and going down."
"But no one saw when he got out of the elevator, so we can't confirm the timing," Megure interjected.
"Well done, Inspector," Kaito praised, actually taking this opportunity to glance down at his cousin, but got no support there; Conan was focused on the suspects and the other witnesses, his eyes flashing to and fro as if searching for something--or someone. His own eyes flicked back up to Megure, darkening as he continued. "However, if the murder was not actually comitted at five-thirty, but in fact took place earlier--wouldn't that change the circumstances a bit?"
Megure gasped. "Wh--what are you saying, Kudo-kun?"
Kaito allowed a small smile to slip through, rather enjoying the chance to boggle a cop face-to-face. "What if the culprit actually killed Otomo-san much earlier, and rigged him up with his safety harness so that when the body fell, he would have an airtight alibi?"
The Inspector's features went slack with surprise. "Then...then these three..."
"--might not actually be the suspects we want," Kaito finished for him, when Megure's voice trailed off. The three men in front of them looked supremely relieved.
Below the radar of the three "suspects" and the cops all around, Conan was peering intently at the other witnesses, still huddled under the meager shelter of the building's structure as they waited out the investigation. The rain was indeed making them miserable and ill-tempered, by the rather unpleasant glances sent in Megure's direction. But by expression alone, he couldn't tell who was the culprit.
"Inspector," Kaito said, bringing everyone's attention back to himself. "If you would be so kind as to have everyone raise their hands--I'd like to check for something."
"Will do," Megure replied, and turned to call orders to his officers and the witnesses. Looking bewildered and rebellious, the group of damp construction workers put up both hands like a crowd of prisoners surrendering.
"Thank you, everyone," Kaito said loudly, walking toward the large group, Conan and Megure splashing after him. "Now, everyone who's wearing any sort of gloves--please step forward."
Conan pulled up short. No--baka! What if he takes them off? Stupid, stupid, stupid--oh... Suddenly feeling rather stupid himself, resisting the urge to whack himself in the forehead. If all their hands are in the air, it'd look pretty suspicious if somebody suddenly needed to take off his gloves. Someone would speak up...
Roughly a quarter of the witnesses gathered stepped out from the group, hands still raised--all of them gloved. Kaito's eyes swept over them, but nothing jumped out at him--and his performance wavered a bit with hesitation.
Conan, however, went unnoticed as he casually strolled past the group up to his cousin's side--and he spotted the culprit in a single moment, his eyes sharpening to blue lasers. All that was left was to point out the murderer and use the evidence for a solid conviction...but Kaito was the one who had to do it.
He's right there, just look. Just like we talked about, remember? Keep it calm, keep your eyes open... Standing near his cousin's legs, Conan glanced up as the youth's silence went on a beat too long. Kaito, looking a little discomfited, glanced down at him for the barest instant, as Conan met his gaze with eyes full of hidden urgency. Come on! Conan can't help--I can't say anything, you have to do this by yourself! The guy with the acid holes in his clothes, right there...right there! Come on, Kaito, you can do it...!
Swallowing, Kaito stepped forward, his gaze intent on the group, as he tried his hardest to become--if even for an instant--Shinichi's equal at this. Mind working rapidly, he remembered the facts they'd gone over, the evidence they had...and with a deep breath and a prayer, he focused on a single individual.
"You," Kaito said evenly, leveling one finger at the person he'd singled out. "The murderer is you."
To be continued...
AN: And the Episode Door slams shut...
Don't kill me! Please! I'll get the next file out ASAP! Just wait a little longer...please? Pretty please? Eeeep!