Conan: I'm really not the mastermind behind the scenes

At the Eto family's home in Nakano Ward, the public security officer in charge of questioning was looking at the nanny sitting opposite him, still sobbing with her hands covering her face.

"Da Zang-kun is really a good kid. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have been able to get this job. It's also thanks to him that I have the money to treat my child's illness..."

"..."

The public security officer sighed heavily in his heart.

There are two types of people who are the most troublesome in the inquiry work. One is stubborn and refuses to reveal any intelligence; the other is the complete opposite and will provide a lot of information, but this information is fragmented and messy, and there may be only one or two useful information out of hundreds of pieces, which need to be carefully checked.

He thought of Eto Daizo, whose life or death was unknown, and the two colleagues who had suddenly left, and became increasingly annoyed by the lack of progress in the interrogation. He shifted his gaze from the babysitter to the coffee table in front of him.

There lay a desk calendar quietly.

His colleague left fifteen minutes ago. After Zhu Fu Jingguang went downstairs, he made a phone call at the entrance of the living room. Another person came in with the desk calendar. However, before he could ask any questions, Zhu Fu made the call. Then he casually put the calendar on the table, and the two of them hurried away together.

The police officer picked up the desk calendar and turned the date to this month.

"Why did he have to go through such a terrible thing..."

"——Are there any special days this Monday and today?"

The public security officer finally interrupted the nanny. He looked up at the stunned woman opposite him, put the calendar face up back on the coffee table, and tapped the two obvious circles on it with his fingers.

The nanny stopped her meaningless mumbling and looked at the two dates pointed out by the police.

"Well..." She frowned, "I remember Monday was the anniversary of Daizo's mother's death. He also took a day off that day and went to the cemetery to pay respects early in the morning. He came back with Mr. Katsuhiko very late."

The public security officer remembered that their management officer had to leave early on Monday afternoon instead of working overtime, so they nodded and accepted this explanation.

"What about today?" he asked. "Is it an anniversary or some other special date? Please think carefully about it."

In his previous questioning, he was only concerned with asking whether the other party knew Eto's schedule, and almost overlooked whether today itself had any special significance.

“Today… today…”

The nanny looked at the date.

Daizo Eto used a red marker to draw a circle on today's date that was bigger than Monday's. The bright red color seemed to be able to bleed.

"Today is……"

I don’t know what she was thinking about, but she suddenly raised her head and met the police officer’s gaze.

Her face turned pale, and her lips trembled a few times: "...also, the anniversary of his death."

"What?" The police officer didn't hear clearly for a moment.

"Actually, I came here to work six years ago..."

The woman who had been timid and fearful with tears in her eyes just now, looked at the date and her expression became uneasy.

"Because Daizo-kun has just been brought back, Mr. Katsuhiko feels that he needs someone to take care of him for a while."

"..."

The policeman sat up straight without realizing it.

He had a premonition that he was going to hear something extraordinary next.

"Where did you get it from?" he asked.

"Juvenile Detention Center."

The nanny lowered her head, and her voice was like a drop of water falling into an endless deep pool.

"He killed someone, and today... is that person's death anniversary."

……

Beihua Town, animal shelter.

"There was an extremely heinous murder case in Beika Town."

In the lounge that was temporarily occupied by two outsiders to facilitate conversation, the middle-aged woman who came to pick up her daughter from get off work returned the cell phone to Conan Edogawa.

The boy just showed her the live broadcast, and her expression was extremely complicated at this moment.

Edogawa Conan took the phone and looked up at her: "There have always been many murder cases in Mika... What exactly is this case?"

"A housewife was attacked by a bad boy on her way home from school to pick up her son. She was pushed into a roadside pond and drowned. It happened seven years ago today."

Edogawa Conan frowned, he realized something.

"Could that bad boy be...?"

"it's him."

The woman looked down at her phone.

At this time, the phone screen had been turned off, but the painful face of the victim in the live broadcast had already been clearly imprinted in her mind, and gradually overlapped with another face in her memory.

"Although the name and photo of the juvenile offender cannot be published in the media and can only be referred to as 'Juvenile A'... I was the prosecutor who almost took over the case at the time and I saw his real name."

"His name is Daizo Eto, I won't remember it wrong." When talking about the case of that year, the former prosecutor lowered his eyes and his hands at his sides clenched unconsciously.

Edogawa Conan fell silent.

After a long while, he whispered, "So the victim... is Brother Kadokawa's mother?"

"Correct."

She nodded imperceptibly.

"The victim's name is Kadokaya Yume. She is a single mother who has been raising her son alone and supporting the two of them by doing odd jobs."

"At the time of the incident, she had just picked up her child from primary school. On the way home, the two passed by a nearby middle school and happened to see the criminal climbing over the wall to skip class and was attacked."

"A few days ago, I heard Anna complain about a strange boy who wanted to adopt an animal, but he never filled in any guardian information, which made the adoption impossible. He even came to bother him for a few days."

"I didn't expect it to be him..."

……

seven years.

The woman stood in the small lounge, surrounded by the smell of animal products, but her thoughts seemed to have gone back seven years.

——"This case...ah, I don't know how to put it, it's just very difficult. If possible, I advise you not to take it over. Even if you really want to take it over, try to handle it leniently."

——"Why?! This is torture! In front of a child, they pushed his mother back into the water again and again when she tried to climb ashore, and finally drowned her!! Do we have to tolerate their crimes just because they are minors?!"

——"No, that's not what I meant..."

In my memory, the senior who always took care of the newcomers but was always swift and decisive in the courtroom, making the prisoners tremble with fear, had fatigue and helplessness that were difficult to conceal between his brows.

——"You know the identity of the suspect this time, right? He is the only son of a senior public security official. His father got involved as soon as the case happened. If the sentence is too heavy, it will offend the public security and cause trouble in the future."

——"And take a look at the evidence submitted... There is no surveillance on the campus, the surveillance on the nearby roads is damaged, the blood in the soil was contaminated due to the police's error in the extraction process, and the skin flakes under the nails of the deceased were also found to be someone else's after DNA testing. As for the child..."

The senior sighed:
——"The credibility of children's testimony is always limited, and he was hospitalized after the incident and is said to have suffered severe psychological trauma... His testimony has no legal effect."

——"Forget it. This case is too difficult. You, a newcomer, can't handle it at all. Why don't you hand it over to Maehara? He has offended the police before anyway. He sent a tainted witness they wanted to protect to jail..."

The woman slowly clenched her hands, her nails almost digging into her palms, and she stared at Edogawa Conan in front of her.

This boy seemed to have some magical power that brought back the memories she wanted to forget, causing her to blurt out all the things that she shouldn't say to outsiders, especially to unrelated children.

"…How many years was Officer Eto finally sentenced to?" She heard him continue to ask in a calm voice.

"One year."

She spoke quite calmly.

"This is the result of Senior Maehara's hard work despite the great pressure."

As the case involved a minor, including the son of a public security officer whose identity needed to be kept confidential, the trial process was not open to the public.

Even the media, which always like to laugh at jokes, kept quiet and did not expose this case. They dared to call the police useless, the lawyers litigation thugs, and their colleagues shameless vultures, but they dared not say a bad word about the police who could violate the law.

But this case is no secret in police and legal circles.

When she couldn't stand the verdict and resigned, they discussed it for a few minutes when Kisaki Eri came to ask her the reason.

While she was silent, Conan Edogawa on the opposite side turned on his mobile phone. The light from the screen fell on the lenses of his glasses, flashing a cold reflection.

He pressed the volume button a few times, and a voice came from the phone:
"The windmill sways, pointing to ninety-two; the white pagoda depicts the snow-capped mountains, and the swing swings in the clouds..."

A hooded man hummed a strange song. He turned his back to the camera and picked up the unconscious Eto Daizo with one hand.

And beside him, Kadokawa Nobuyuki was laughing loudly, and the sharp laughter pierced the air, passed through the video, and penetrated into the ears of every viewer.

"The cicadas are chirping, the pendulum is swinging across the old axle; the lotus leaves are green, and the reflection of the pond is reflected in the pupils..."

The hooded man was still singing. His voice was beautiful, but the meaningless words gave people goose bumps.

He casually shook Eto Daizo's body, shaking off a lot of water, and then put him into the half-person-high bucket.

"Fourteen years of life for life, eighty days of reincarnation; the cicada sheds its shell without a trace, and the end of the pendulum never returns."

"——Let's go find him! I've given you all the clues. If we rescue him in time, he might still be saved...?"

The teasing words stopped abruptly, and the entire screen turned black. The live broadcast was turned off.

"..."

The former prosecutor looked at this scene with no emotion in his heart.

After recognizing Eto Daizo and Kadokami Nobuyuki, the shock and worry she had felt when she first saw the live broadcast about the brutal destruction of a life had completely disappeared. It was difficult for her to sympathize with the people above.

Edogawa Conan silently turned off his phone and looked up at her again.

"Auntie, I have another question." He said, "Was it lawyer Masayoshi Sakaguchi who defended Officer Eto at the time?" (End of this chapter)