Conan: Chief of Rice Flower's Science Points

Chapter 370 Merged Investigation
"My name is Yasuda Teruyuki, and I am the security butler in Professor Takada's household," Yasuda introduced himself to Shiraishi.

"Mr. Yasuda used to be a member of the police... or some special agency, right?" Shiraishi asked directly.

"Huh?" Yasuda was taken aback when he heard this.

"The overall vibe looks... well," Shiraishi said calmly.

Yasuda was not so calm. He simply said, "Well, I used to work in the Security Department. When Professor Takada was the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Department, I started to follow him."

Few police officers go on to enter politics after retirement. However, it is common for officers in the security forces to follow the retired politicians in charge of security to become their private bodyguards. This is also the main re-employment direction for junior officers in the security forces, and it usually happens before their own retirement.

Those who can achieve this must be police officers who have gained the trust of politicians and are also capable.

Koichiro Takada is a politician with a background in the police force, so his security butler must be an elite among elites!

However, Yasuda was also anxious: "Chief Shiraishi, Professor Takada's granddaughter has been taken away by someone impersonating a police officer! I suspect that the arson that happened earlier was also the work of the kidnappers, whose purpose was to destroy the garage exit, which is why the driver was unable to arrive in time today."

Although he initially thought it was a prank, Yasuda immediately realized after the incident at the school that the so-called serial arson was aimed at the Takada family and was a premeditated attack!

The earlier act of setting fire to the trash cans was merely a prelude to lowering people's guard and paving the way for burning down the Takada family's garage door.

The purpose was to sabotage the garage door's electrical system, which resulted in Manami having to be picked up and dropped off at school by other vehicles today.

In retrospect, the reason for blowing up the school gates was to create chaos and force the school to take the students to a refuge.

As a result, the school's management is bound to be a bit chaotic. Teitan Elementary School is usually quite safe. Although it's not a prestigious school, its security is impeccable. Otherwise, the Suzuki family wouldn't have let Sonoko attend school there before.

At the same time, parents would come to the shelter to pick up their children and take them home. It was at this time that the criminals would disguise themselves as police officers and take Manami away directly. Because of her grandfather, it wasn't uncommon for police officers to do things for the Takada family and pick up little Manami. However, Manami, who was just a primary school student, naturally trusted the police officers.

As a result, the culprit seized upon this loophole and took Manami away...

Just then, Shiraishi glanced at Ai and saw that she was comforting four little kids—three of them were members of the Junior Detective League, whose parents Shiraishi had previously contacted, and the other one Shiraishi also recognized… was Sakuraba Kotomi, the daughter of Munakata Sakutaro!

She's the same age as the three little detectives, and...

As you can tell from the name, it was actually adopted.

When Ai saw Shiraishi looking at her, she gave him a subtle nod, indicating that nothing had happened.

Seeing Ai's reaction, Shiraishi became even more certain that Conan had "disappeared intentionally"!
"Director Shiraishi, Manami is Professor Takada's only granddaughter, please, please..." Yasuda wanted to emphasize the urgency of the matter.

Shiraishi looked down at him and said, "Don't worry, we will do our best to find Manami. We also need the Takada family to cooperate with our police work. The other party went to such lengths to kidnap Manami, so they definitely didn't want to kill her. They must have some ulterior motive."

After a moment of silence, Yasuda said, "Yes, I will also... advise Professor Takada."

Yasuda's main concern was whether there might be something else going on, but...

As Yasuda just said, Manami is Koichiro Takada's only granddaughter, and her parents have long since passed away. Under these circumstances, Yasuda feels that even if there are some difficult things, Mr. Takada should be able to back down.

……

Not long ago.

In a white van, a middle-aged woman wearing an "awkward police uniform" was nervously driving, while in the passenger seat was a third-grade girl—Takada Manami!

"Officer, have we taken the wrong road?" Manami realized something at that moment—the way home was obviously wrong, and... it shouldn't be this far!
“That’s right, Mr. Takada asked me to pick you up, not to take you home,” the middle-aged woman said in a low voice.

"Officer...I want to get off the bus," Manami said softly.

"You can't get off the bus now!" the middle-aged woman said sternly.

Manami shuddered in fright and dared not say anything more, appearing quite introverted.

But just then, a boy's voice came from the back seat: "Auntie, you're not a police officer at all, are you?"

Middle-aged auntie: !!!
"Who are you? What are you doing on the bus?" the middle-aged woman exclaimed in surprise.

“My name is Conan Edogawa, and I am… a detective!” Conan said matter-of-factly.

He had just realized that this person's identity was incorrect, but...

Unsure whether the gun on her waist was real, Conan didn't dare to make a sound immediately, lest things get more complicated, so... he simply got into the car.

Thanks to the spaciousness of the van and the fact that the kidnapper was clearly nervous, he didn't notice him for a moment.

"Detective...so you're playing a detective game...but little friend, you've got it wrong. I'm a police officer." The middle-aged woman didn't reveal herself directly, but instead hoped to continue deceiving him.

"No, Auntie, the police uniforms in Dongdu were altered two years ago. What you're wearing is completely wrong. It should be a prop costume from some film crew, right?" Conan said sharply.

Seeing that the old lady didn't speak, Conan continued, "And the model of this car is not the type that the Dongdu police purchased. It's definitely not a police car or an undercover police car. Also... Auntie, you're wearing a patrol officer's uniform, but the way you're wearing the walkie-talkie is completely wrong."

Seeing that the older woman had stopped talking, Manami said nervously, "I want to get off the bus!"

"Shut up!" The middle-aged woman then drew her gun.

He held the steering wheel with one hand and pointed a gun at Manami with the other.

Oops!

When Conan saw her draw her gun, he already knew something was wrong—there was no safety cord between the gun and its holster, and the model wasn't one of the common police firearms...

While it cannot be confirmed that it is real, this at least proves that the gun is not part of the costume and may be a real gun prepared by the kidnappers!
"Auntie, you'd better calm down. I saw on TV that the chances of a kidnapper getting the money and escaping successfully are almost zero..." Conan still wanted to persuade her to turn herself in.

but……

"Who wants the Takada family's filthy money!" the woman exclaimed excitedly.

boom--

The woman fired immediately, and the bullet flew out of the open passenger window.

By then, they had driven to a secluded area and hadn't attracted any attention.

Conan quickly shut up...

Because he was in such a hurry to seek refuge, his detective club badge was still in his backpack—at this point, he hadn't yet developed the habit of carrying it with him.

And because he had been pulling weeds, he had specifically changed his boots, and his reinforced shoes were gone... Of course, even so, Conan still had some confidence—at least his glasses, which he never took off, were still there!

Although unable to contact the outside world, and with his body less than eight years old, he couldn't directly control the prisoner, but...

If the glasses are there, it means that Professor Agasa and Shiraishi can find themselves through location tracking!

Professor Agasa probably doesn't know what happened yet, but...

After the kidnapping, Shiraishi probably quickly realized that he was likely with the kidnappers and used his glasses to pinpoint his location.

Just before he opened his mouth, Conan had already turned off the location protection on his glasses. Previously, Conan didn't want Shiraishi to be able to find him at any time, so after Professor Agasa installed the location software on Shiraishi, he asked Professor Agasa to install a protection switch on his glasses!
In this way, Shiraishi should be able to better understand his desire for him to come.

……

Indeed, after talking with Yasuda, Shiraishi's first reaction was to contact Conan.

"Chief, regarding the kidnapping case of Manami Takada..." After confirming that his daughter was safe, Munakata finally returned to normal, and with his daughter by his side, he was no longer in a hurry to leave work.

"Wait a minute, let me try contacting an informant," Shiraishi said, and went to the side to make a phone call.

Munakata:? ? ?
Informant?

How come you have informants in elementary school?

Is this the kind of dedication that "teams" have to show to their informants?
but……

"Hello, is this Conan?" Ran's voice came from the phone.

"Hmm?" Upon seeing this, Shiraishi turned his head to look in the direction of Ran and Mori.

Xiaolan also realized what was going on, looked over at Baishi, and then gave an awkward smile.

Ran couldn't help but feel a little jealous seeing Chief Shiraishi only concerned about the missing little girl and ignoring Conan, but...

Seeing that Shiraishi was still calling Conan at this time, Ran quickly ran over and said, "Officer Shiraishi! Don't worry about it, Conan probably left on his own... You should focus on the kidnapping case first."

Based on what everyone at the school saw, Conan left the shrine on his own, while the other missing little girl was taken away by a "suspected fake police officer."

Therefore, Ran felt embarrassed to distract the Mikado Police Department from looking for Conan.

……

Just then, Fuji and Kawai arrived—they had already finished their early shift, but Fuji felt something was off about the arson case, so after questioning about the theft, he went to the scenes of the previous fires to ask questions.

Now, Fuji has returned from questioning people at one of the crime scenes...

The fire involved a bicycle, which was discovered by its owner. Fortunately, the owner was on his way to work at the construction site at the time, so the fire did not spread.

Fuji and Kawai had just received a notification about the explosion at Teitan Elementary School. Fuji immediately thought of something important and, without even having time to go back to the police station to change, went straight to the scene in his casual clothes.

"Chief! Was the kidnapped child abducted by someone wearing a policewoman's uniform?" Teng came directly to him.

"Hmm? Is she a policewoman?" Shiraishi asked Yasuda.

"That's right! How did you know?" Yasuda looked at Fuji expectantly.

“Then it must be... Ando Saki, the one who kidnapped the child must be Ando Saki!” Fuji said confidently.

"Ando Saki? Who's that?" Shiraishi asked, puzzled.

At the same time, Shiraishi noticed that although Yasuda tried his best to hide it, his eyes wavered for a moment.

"Previously, a film crew reported a prop theft to the police, and a newly hired cleaner also went missing. It was later discovered that the cleaner's identity was also fake; she had stolen her dentist's health certificate to impersonate her, and..."

"According to the dentist, she had previously brought up the matter of 'giving a physical examination to Teitan Elementary School,' which shows that she is very concerned about Teitan Elementary School."

"We've just checked her medical insurance card records. Her real identity is a middle-aged woman named Ando Saki, 44 years old, currently unemployed..."

Then Teng began to explain.

She had already handed over the findings of her investigation to the Thieves Mountain section chief, but...

Because of the bombing, the thief officers were very busy today. Since the film crew didn't care much about the stolen items and only reported the missing persons, they didn't search further when they saw that no one was at Ando Saki's current address. They decided to wait until tonight or tomorrow to look for her again—after all, she only stole some props and clothes, so she wouldn't have to run away, right?

However, Fuji always felt that there was something wrong with Ando Saki, so he secretly took her seriously.

Upon hearing that "an explosion occurred at Teitan Elementary School," Fuji immediately realized that the incident was likely related to Saki Ando!
"Hmm? Mr. Yasuda? The kidnapped one... could it be Mr. Takada's granddaughter?" Fuji was also somewhat surprised to see Yasuda, after all, he had just seen him that morning.

At that time, the Takada family didn't really want to get involved with the police... or rather, they didn't really want to get involved with the Beika Police Station!

However, upon seeing Yasuda there, Fujiya realized—indeed, those arsonists weren't the work of some naughty child.

Just then, Shiraishi's phone rang again. Shiraishi glanced at it and saw that it was a call from the forensic department.

"Hello, this is Shiraishi."

"Chief, this is Kanzaki! We've just made an important discovery... The explosives found at the entrance of Teitan Elementary School have been tested and their composition is highly similar to the explosives used in the port bombing. They were likely made together!" Kanzaki quickly reported to the chief.

"What?" Upon hearing this, Shiraishi instinctively looked at Yasuda.

Just as Yasuda was getting nervous, Shiraishi nodded, put down the phone, and then walked over to Yasuda, looking down at him and asking, "Mr. Yasuda, there is something I would like to ask you."

"You say……"

"Former Minister Takada, were you on good terms with former Minister Ejiri?" Shiraishi asked directly—the person who kidnapped his granddaughter and the one who bombed Ejiri's son were likely the same person, indicating that their relationship was probably good…

"Well... how should I put it..." Yasuda hesitated upon hearing this.

“Now it concerns Manami’s safety! You were already working for Takada when he was still the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Department, right? How could you not know about his political allies?” Shiraishi asked sternly.

Upon hearing this, Yasuda said helplessly, "That's right, and... former Minister Ejiri was the one who first recommended Professor Takada to enter politics."

(End of this chapter)