The unscrupulous detective in Conan

Chapter 1363 Rising to the Top 1 of the Rice Flower Kill List
Well, she's not just a rich woman, she's a powerful and influential tycoon.

After all, it's a bit outrageous that a single phone call could bring down the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

After thinking about it, Sato Miwako realized that this little girl was really too extraordinary.

This isn't just an ordinary rich woman; this is an outrageously wealthy heiress and aristocrat!

Inspector Megure was quite satisfied with his younger brother and his subordinates.

He took their speculations seriously, of course.

Police officers who arrived from nearby ordered a thorough search of everyone present, including all the plates, the kitchen staff, and the crime scene.

Suddenly remembering something, Inspector Megure pressed Fujino for an answer: "By the way, Fujino, I just heard that besides the conflict with you, the deceased also seemed to have a conflict with the owner of this shop before he died. What exactly happened?"

"I mean, is it related to the case?"

Fujino naturally understood what Inspector Megure meant. He organized his thoughts and explained, "The situation is roughly as I just described. The guy sitting next to him probably knows him. Then there's the shop manager, and finally, there's the woman sitting in the corner. It seems she also has some connection with this guy."

"You know all three of them?"

When Inspector Megure heard this, he was suddenly stunned.

What a coincidence...

If all three people know each other, doesn't that mean these three people are the murderers?
Is it really that easy to find the suspect in this case?

After hearing what Fujino said, Inspector Megure found his suspects. After all, logically speaking, it should be these three people who had conflicts with the victim.

Having handled cases for so long, he has come to a deep understanding of this point.

So he immediately summoned the three men and began questioning them: "Who are you? What is your relationship with the deceased? And if so, what grudge do you have against him?"

The skinny man sitting next to the now-deceased food critic, Akihisa Ho, is named Aihara Osamu. He's quite thin and wears a baseball cap. According to him, he used to bring his wife here to eat often, saying that the halibut here is cheap but very delicious.

Then, my wife, the food critic who's already dead, starts babbling on, saying that it's not a flounder but a sea bass.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem.

It was just a small misunderstanding, nothing serious.

But that beast even went to leave a comment on someone's food website saying things like, "This blogger has never eaten anything good, he's just a poor wretch, and everything he says is utter nonsense!"

Mr. Aihara spoke of the food critic's actions with an expression of extreme anger.

However, in the end, it was clear that Mr. Aihara Osamu claimed that he did not hate him that much, only saying, "Although he did this, it doesn't mean that I hate him enough to want to kill him!"

Fujino: "..."

Mu Mu Thirteen: "..."

Sato Miwako: "..."

The way you were gritting your teeth when you said that seemed completely at odds with your final conclusion.

Do you think we'd believe your nonsense?
Seeing that the others were still doubting him, Aihara Osamu said anxiously, "But think about it, the conveyor belt sushi here rotates from right to left, and I was sitting to his left. How could I possibly poison him?"

Upon hearing this, Inspector Megure paused for a moment in confusion and asked Fujino beside him, "Is that so?"

"That's roughly it, all from right to left." Fujino thought for a moment, "But I'm not sure about the others."

"Our bar counters today are all arranged from right to left, not from left to right."

At that moment, the chef suddenly spoke up.

Inspector Megure nodded upon hearing this: "In that case, only the person on the right is a suspect."

As he spoke, he turned to look at the fat woman behind him.

However, the fat woman panicked when she heard this.

She said, "Hey, officer, you can't say that! Even if I poisoned it, how could I know whether that deadbeat would take it or not!"

"Dead goods?"

Inspector Megure paused for a moment in confusion: "So, you really do know that guy, and even hate him, right?"

"Of course!"

The plump woman nodded, introduced herself, and said with great certainty, "My name is Takemura Kaneko. I used to own a sushi restaurant, but he ended up making it go bankrupt..."

"Make it go bankrupt?"

Inspector Megure was slightly puzzled.

At this moment, Sato Miwako, who was standing next to him, explained, "This guy is a food critic, and he's quite famous. He has a lot of loyal readers. I heard that any restaurant he praises will immediately become very successful, and any restaurant he criticizes will immediately go out of business."

"There really are companies that he's driven to bankruptcy?" Inspector Megure was speechless, feeling increasingly out of touch with the times.

Miwako Sato chuckled: "Of course, after all, I've read his comments too."

Fujino glanced at Sato and pondered, "I didn't expect you to be interested in these things, Sato-nee-san?"

"Of course..."

Upon hearing this, Miwako Sato sounded a little resentful: "Otherwise, what do you think I usually watch?"

"I thought it would be something, well, something with a more violent aesthetic."

"..."

Sato Miwako narrowed her eyes, feeling unusually complicated. She felt that what this kid said was somewhat unpleasant to hear and a bit irritating.

What do you mean by violent aesthetics? What do you take me for?
I'm a young woman in the prime of my life, you know!
What's wrong with me looking at some food? What's wrong with me reading some food reviews? Who are you calling a shrew?! (Yawns)

Megure Juzo still doesn't quite understand how a single comment could bankrupt a shop.

After all, he had no experience with food.

He then turned to the main victim of the incident and asked:
"Did you really shut down your business because of just one comment?"

“Really.” The fat woman, Takemura Kaneko, nodded, and you could tell from her expression that it was true: “This guy, I don’t know what he was thinking. He often comes to our restaurant to eat, but suddenly he said something like ‘the taste here has plummeted, and it’s not even as good as the boxed sushi in the supermarket.’”

"It's precisely because they're regular customers that people trust them even more. Suddenly, all the old acquaintances in the shop stopped coming, all thanks to this guy."

Inspector Megure scratched his head: "Is that so?"

Fujino pondered for a moment, then immediately pointed out the blind spot: "Even so, normally, your shop's regular customers wouldn't believe these things based on just a few words, right?"

"Ultimately, is it because the quality of the sushi in your restaurant has really plummeted?"

Takeda Murakami neither confirmed nor denied this: "Of course, that's a factor involved, but mainly it's because our old chef suddenly resigned due to his age..."

As she spoke, she glanced at the shop manager and said, "I had already found a new chef, but he suddenly turned me down."

"That's why..."

Upon hearing this, everyone's attention turned to the store manager.

Then, the store manager began to explain.

I guess I declined because of wrist pain.

As for the reason, he sighed and explained, "That Mr. Wagatsuma got into an argument with a customer at my previous shop, and while trying to break up the fight, I accidentally cut my wrist..." "Since then, I've been unable to make sushi anymore, so there was nothing I could do about refusing."

As he spoke, a hint of despair appeared on his face: "But even if I can't make sushi, I don't want to give up sushi, so I opened this shop."

"But now this guy is dead in the shop..."

At this point, the store manager became furious: "I really don't know what grudge I have against this guy. Why is he always following me around trying to ruin me?!"

When Inspector Megure put himself in the boss's shoes, he also felt that the boss seemed to be in a bad mood.

Then he asked, "So, you really hate my husband?"

"Of course I hate it."

The store manager made no attempt to hide it: "But I can't kill him over something like this. After all, this is my store. If he dies here, my little shop will go out of business."

Inspector Megure nodded: "That's true..."

Fujino, who was standing nearby, remained silent as he listened to the descriptions from the others.

So, this guy offended three people in one go?

And it looks like there are more than three...

Goodness, it's gone straight to the top of the Mihana Killer Ranking!
In Fujino's mind, there is a list of people who have been killed by the people of Beika. The number 1 is basically someone who has angered the public and died as soon as they stepped out of their house. Even a dog passing by on the street would try to bite them to death.

TOP2 means that even if you don't die today, you'll probably die tomorrow. In any case, you're destined to be killed by the Mikado people sooner or later.

The top three are all personal grudges, the kind that are targeted.

TOP4 is rather abstract, and there's a low probability of being eliminated.

As for the TOP5, in the eyes of the Mikado people, they are just ordinary citizens who live on the side of the road and are basically not targeted by anyone unless they are accidentally killed.

At that moment, a police officer came over with the investigation results.

According to the officer's report, no one at the scene had any suspicious drugs on them, and no drugs were found at or around the crime scene.

Meanwhile, news also came from the forensic team.

Upon receiving the news, Inspector Megure sighed, "There was a poison reaction at the bottom of the plate, but not on the other plates. There was also a poison reaction on the victim's hands, but no poison reaction in his stomach..."

"How exactly did the murderer poison the victim?"

"Could it be on the plate?"

Miwako Sato speculated, "If that's the case, then the possibility of poisoning the sushi and the plate is much less likely."

"No toxins were found in his stomach from the sushi, and the only poison was on that plate."

"It was as if they had smeared poison directly on that guy's hands and then poisoned him to death..."

Fujino was speechless upon hearing this.

So, applying poison to your hands or something like that...

Why does it feel so familiar?
In his memory, there was a male celebrity who died from poison on his hands while eating rice balls.

However, that male celebrity is still alive...

If you think about it that way, it does have a similar feel to that case.

But what exactly is it that comes into contact with the hand?

Fujino began to ponder, then glanced at the system interface out of the corner of his eye:
[System Task: The Murder Weapon That Vanished from the Conveyor Belt Sushi]

[Mission Summary: A mysterious poisoning method, a universally disliked food critic poisoned to death, the perfect use of poison in the world of Detective Conan, a masterful method of destroying evidence, and the only one who saw through the truth...]

[Mission Rewards: 5 million yen, 500 detective coins, 500 detective reputation points]

Fujino looked away, glanced at the mission summary, and knew that this case was somewhat difficult to solve.

Given the nature of the Detective Conan world, this case is bound to be another outrageous one.

In the world of Detective Conan, the use of poison is such that almost a tiny amount is enough to kill someone.

Don't ask where this toxic cyanide comes from.

The question is just a little bit of the ruthless stuff in the mysterious world of Detective Conan.

Thinking this, Fujino turned his head, intending to check if there were any clues in the spot where the dead Wagatsuma had been sitting.

No other toxins were detected on the body at the time, so it's assumed that there were none.

Although he had tried, it was clear that their equipment was not as professional as that of the forensic experts. Of course, it could also be that the forensic experts in the forensic science class were not professional enough and overlooked something.

Just as he turned around and came to the spot where my wife had sat before she died.

He suddenly realized that Momiji and Ai were also there.

The two of them stared at the seat, seemingly lost in thought.

Fujino thought for a moment, then asked the two of them, "What are you looking at?"

"We're seeing if we can find any clues."

Hongye turned around and responded to Fujino with a smile.

Fujino glanced at the cups on the table and asked the two of them, "So, what did you figure out?"

"not yet……"

Hongye sighed: "Apart from the lack of chopsticks, there doesn't seem to be anything strange about his table."

"No chopsticks?"

“Hmm…” Hongye nodded: “Maybe he’s the retro type who makes sushi by hand. After all, some people like to eat sushi with their bare hands and feel awkward using chopsticks.”

"If there's anything else, it's wet wipes."

Ai Haibara turned around and said calmly, "There's a wet wipe wrapper on this table, but there aren't any wet wipes there..."

You mean, wet wipes?

"Ah."

Ai Haibara nodded and pointed to a small corner of the packaging on the table: "Since he didn't use chopsticks, there should normally be wet wipes. Otherwise, it would be really uncomfortable to have rice grains and sauce oil on your hands after eating sushi."

As she spoke, she shook her head slightly with a helpless expression, and said in a very deliberate tone, "Even so, it doesn't prove anything."

"Maybe he threw away that wet wipe, or maybe someone else just tossed it away and it just floated over."

"Don't you think so, brother?"

Upon hearing this, Fujino sensed that Ai Haibara's words implied something else entirely.

After a moment's thought, he glanced at the wet tissue paper on the table and understood what Ai Haibara was talking about.

You're poisoning the wet wipes, aren't you?
(End of this chapter)