Conan: Science Cartoonist Kudo Yuji

"Why aren't you saying anything? You two are just trying to pin the blame on me because you heard about the official monopoly!"

In the earpiece, Kudo Yuji's dissatisfaction with the noise only annoyed Hattori Heiji. He told Kudo Yuji to shut up, arguing that the other person's voice was drowning out what was happening on his son's side, and then patiently waited for Okita to speak.

"After her daughter's death, Ms. Uchitake called Ono's mother many times, wanting her to come to the school to talk, but Ono's mother refused."

"Is this happening?"

Hattori Mamoru was taken aback: "How did you know?"

"A new student wants to join the detective club, so I took my application to the teacher for a signature."

Okita looked ahead at the car, pondering how far they were from the police headquarters, while recounting the events of that day.

"At the time, all I knew was that her daughter had drowned in the school pool and about the bear doll, so I asked the club members to collect information at the school and then stayed in the club room for a while."

Okita mentioned a boy in Sasaki's mansion: "That guy was the first one to take on a mission that day, so he made a special trip to Uchitake-sensei's office. When he came to hand in his documents, he told me that Uchitake-sensei hadn't gone home yet and wanted me to go find the teacher to sign off on his joining the club as soon as possible."

"So you went to Ms. Uchitake's office, right, and overheard her talking to Ono's mother on the phone."

Hattori Mamoru looked at Okita, whose face had turned pale, and realized that the girl was struggling with whether or not to tell him the information that might further deepen the suspicion against Uchitake-sensei.

“It’s not a good thing to help the teacher cover it up. Since even the Tokyo Public Security Police are investigating the case here, this matter can’t be kept secret.” Hattori Mamoru reminded him, “My father told me that the higher-ups in Tokyo are all petty people. Rather than solving the problem, they often directly deal with the person who caused the problem.”

"What Hattori-senpai means is..." "This matter must be resolved as soon as possible. With so many casualties, no matter how much Hattori-sama tries to cause trouble, the people of Osaka are unlikely to believe him anymore. The higher-ups will definitely demand that a culprit be found as soon as possible to appease the public. Now it seems very likely to be Uchitake-sensei."

"You mean we have to thoroughly investigate Ms. Uchitake to prove she's not the perpetrator of the bombing?"

If there is even the slightest suspicion against a teacher, they could be publicly executed as the perpetrator in all cases.

Okita immediately panicked, wanting to tell his senior the last bit of information he knew about Uchitake-sensei before reaching the police headquarters.

"Ono's mother was eventually worn down by Uchitake-sensei, so she apparently gave Uchitake-sensei her address. All I know is that it wasn't Xicheng District."

That's Sasaki's residence.

Upon hearing Okita's point, Hattori Heiji pressed the recorder next to him as a backup of the first recording.

"Ms. Uchitake didn't write about this home visit in the home visit book." Conan remembered that the records provided by the school about this class did not mention Ms. Uchitake's home visit.

"Because she decided to resign after the home visit, there was no need to record it, or would recording it have exposed some purpose of hers?"

After the police car stopped, Kudo Yuji looked at Hattori Mamoru's car, which instead of driving into the parking lot, chose to drive around the police headquarters again.

"At least we know that this wasn't the first time Uchitake-sensei had visited the Sasaki residence." (End of Chapter)