Conan: Chief of Rice Flower's Science Points

Chapter 505 The tastes of the wealthy are hard to predict.
"What exactly does the eldest son of the Kobe family mean? Just looking for a pot lid?"

"Who knows? Who helped him? Doesn't he know anyone but pot lids?"

"Tch, haven't you heard the story of Cinderella?"

“Cinderella is a delicate and beautiful girl, why would she choose to marry a smelly vagrant like us?”

"It's hard to say what rich people's tastes are!"

"If I can screw it onto the pot lid, is it really possible to get a million?"

"I heard that more than a dozen people have already received them!"

"Anyway, ten thousand isn't a loss..."

……

Instead of verifying each one himself, Daisuke Kobe had them report to the staff what they had helped young master Kobe with.

Everyone who wins a million dollars will make up a convoluted story—after all, even if they are exposed, they won't take back the prize money, so why not give it a try?
However, none of these were what Daisuke Kobe was looking for, until...

"He said he helped me by seeing something here? Very good, have him come see me." Kobe smiled domineeringly after hearing the report.

The event was held at this location, and the tool used for verification was the pot lid handle he had left here...

The other party, of course, understood the young master Kobe's intention, and thus revealed the true "Cinderella".

The person they actually found was an elderly homeless man who was holding a pot lid that had already been packed and grinning foolishly.

"You must have been here that night, right?" Kobe asked.

"That's right! As long as... as long as it's proven to be me... I can get a hundred million, right?" the homeless man asked nervously.

"Yes, no matter how much help it is to me, as long as it's proven to be you, that's fine." Kobe understood what he meant.

“Wait, this won’t do… You’ve paid money, and such a large sum at that. How can his testimony be trusted?” Zhimo interjected at this moment.

Indeed, in this situation, the homeless man's testimony is invalid—even if we disregard the 100 million, he had already been given 10 million before.

Although Kobe did not actually make him lie, it no longer mattered. With such a large amount of money involved, the prosecution dared not accept this kind of evidence.

Kobe then said to the nervous homeless man, "Ignore him, you speak."

Zhimo glared at him angrily.

The homeless man then began to speak.

He did indeed sleep here that night, and at some point, he was awakened by the sound of two people talking.

When he came to his senses, removed the mask from his eyes, and crawled out of the tattered tent, he only saw a male corpse!

As everyone guessed, firstly, he didn't want to cause trouble; secondly, sleeping here was illegal; and thirdly, he couldn't say it out loud—as a homeless man, he was worried that the police would use him as a scapegoat!

In short, as a homeless man, he had no desire to deal with the police, so he simply packed up and left.

Zhi Mo feared that he was just a fraud, so he checked some additional information about the body's location, posture, and clothing at the time, which the homeless man also knew.

It seems he did indeed see the body at that time.

“Um…” the homeless man said, looking at Kobe with embarrassment.

"Let me confirm, so you only heard one and a half sentences of dialogue, which is 'How could you have... what do you want to do?' and 'Long time no see, it's been more than 20 years, right, Koichi?'" Kobe confirmed with him.

“That’s right.” The homeless man nodded repeatedly.

"Both voices are male, around the same age, and seem to be in their thirties?" Kobe confirmed further.

The homeless man nodded again.

"Okay, settle the bill for him." Kobe said directly to the staff on site.

If it were an ordinary person, Kobe would have simply had Shuscu transfer the money, but this homeless man didn't have a bank card.

The homeless man's testimony, at first glance, seemed to contain little important information and was not worth the price at all.

However, Kobe then remarked, "Ha, it seems that 100 million yen has opened up a new direction for the investigation."

Zhimo didn’t just refute it—although the conversation was nonsensical, he could still make some sense of it!

……

"From the way he was called 'Koichi,' we can tell that the person who spoke in the next sentence was the one who lured Hoshimiya Koichi to the scene and killed him. He did know Hoshimiya Koichi."

"As for the previous sentence, although it is vague, it can be seen that Hoshimiya Koichi was indeed threatened to go to the appointment."

"Moreover, the conversation between the two lasted only two or three sentences. After that, Mr. Tsuchidō, a homeless man at the scene, heard a sound of someone falling to the ground. When he came out of the tent, he saw a corpse!"
"It is clear that the murderer must have been determined to kill Hoshimiya Koichi from the very beginning, rather than it being due to a breakdown in negotiations or verbal conflict."

"More importantly, the murderer also said 'It's been more than 20 years since we last met,' and Hoshimiya Koichi is only 36 years old. This means that the murderer and he must have known each other since childhood and had not been in contact for a long time."

During the investigation meeting, Shima revealed the intelligence he had gathered.

Although the Kobe prince paid for this intelligence worth two hundred million, and Shima disdained to take credit, Kobe Daisuke was unwilling to report it and sat still, waiting for him to speak.

"Know each other since childhood? In that case... Uno is now a suspect again!" Haiya said at this moment.

Previously, I felt that Uno's suspicion was decreasing because I thought it was impossible for him to arrange a meeting with Hoshimiya Koichi, especially late at night in a place like that.

After all, their social circles did not overlap at all.

However, now that a "childhood acquaintance" has been created, things become unpredictable.

“Speaking of Uno… the Kobayakawa family just informed the guests that the engagement ceremony will proceed as planned, and it’s very likely that the fiancé is this Uno Kensuke,” Miwako Kobe said. “What? The engagement ceremony will proceed as planned? What are these important people thinking…” Kuroki exclaimed in surprise.

The fiancé died, but the engagement ceremony continued, only with a different "male lead"?
It has to be said that these big shots are incredibly shameless. No matter how difficult things are for ordinary families, it would be hard to be so shameless!

“Actually… when I left the Kobayakawa family today, I saw Mr. Uno visiting the Kobayakawa family. It was after that that Ms. Nahomi called to invite me to her engagement ceremony, which was held as scheduled. I think… she must have persuaded Mr. Kobayakawa.” Miwako Kobe said at this moment.

Originally, the Kobe family and the Kobayakawa family were not this familiar with each other.

After all, the Kobe family's stronghold is in Osaka, while the Kobayakawa family usually lives in Tokyo, with their base in Nagano Prefecture.

Previously, it was impossible to invite Miwako Kobe, with whom they had little contact, to the engagement ceremony. However, since Kobe had just visited them today, the Kobayakawa family added Kobe as an extra guest after confirming that the engagement ceremony would proceed as planned.

"What? He went to Kobayakawa's house? So... it must have been shortly after we went to the hospital." Kuroki said, clicking his tongue.

"How's the Silver Dragon Society doing? The headquarters team has been keeping an eye on them, hasn't they?" Zongfang asked Kuroki.

On one hand, he wanted to ask about the murder case; on the other hand, Munakata was also asking whether the attack on Uno was the work of the Silver Dragon Society.

"Hmm, this Silver Dragon Society... although it's not a large organization and has virtually no presence in Kamurocho, it's incredibly audacious, and not the kind that acts recklessly. It not only operates underground and online casinos, but it's also suspected of being involved in multiple cases of telecommunications fraud." Kuroki then began to talk about the Silver Dragon Society.

As times have changed, these violent organizations have used violence less directly, but their viciousness has not diminished at all!
They are using telecommunications and the internet to carry out more sophisticated criminal activities.

"However... judging from the current situation, they not only have no conflict with Hoshimiya Koichi, but... Hoshimiya Koichi is not even their main collaborator."

Kuroki's ability to know so much in a single day clearly indicates that he has his own information channels.

In fact, Shiraishi also knew that it was most likely the Arakawa Group's connection!

It's normal for police officers in this area to have their own information channels, and Shiraishi has always turned a blind eye, as long as he makes sure that he is using the channels within the violent organization, rather than being used by them!
After all, in this island nation, violent organizations are legal...

With members of Congress playing the violent organization card, it's difficult to make the police officers in charge of organized crime sworn enemies with all violent organizations.

Based on the information obtained by Kuroki, the Silver Dragon Society should not have a direct connection with this murder case.

Especially after learning that Hoshimiya died in Beika Town, the Silver Dragon Society no longer wanted to have anything to do with him!
“So... this Uno really is a ‘talent’,” Shiraishi said with a hint of sarcasm.

The Silver Dragon Society has absolutely no desire to get involved in this matter, and dares not cause trouble in Beika Town. More importantly...

Beating someone up in the middle of the night doesn't seem like something a violent organization would do—even if they don't drown the person in Dongdu Bay, they should at least chop off a hand or gouge out an eye, right?

Because they couldn't find anything, they just beat the person up; that's so "soft"...

The person who attacked Uno was most likely instigated by the Kobayakawa family!
Uno himself probably understood this, but even before his injuries had healed, he took the initiative to visit Kobayakawa Taizo and actually managed to persuade him to accept the marriage...

Shiraishi now feels that if he joined a violent organization, he could do very well, instead of being a low-level member of society who doesn't commit major mistakes but constantly makes minor ones.

“It seems that Kensuke Uno is now the prime suspect. So… from now on, we will focus on investigating Kensuke Uno’s past, his relationship with Koichi Hoshimiya, and we must also thoroughly investigate the loopholes in his alibi!” Munakata clearly no longer believed Uno’s alibi.

Creating a false alibi is a double-edged sword for criminals.

If this fails to dispel suspicion, and the case is later found to be fraudulent, it will become subjective evidence!

However, Uno's alibi was not detailed to begin with, making it difficult to disprove at this point—there were too many people in the bar at the time, and no one noticed whether Uno stayed in the store the whole time, nor could anyone clearly remember that he left the store.

We can't let Daisuke Kobe spend money on in-game purchases this time...

Previously, the search for homeless people was only to "find clues," not to "obtain testimony."

Now we need testimony, so we made Kobe spend money, but the result is that we don't have any usable testimony!
"Regarding this... Detective Shima, does that homeless man know the exact time of the incident?" Kuroki asked Shima to confirm.

“I don’t know, I only know that it must have been after 10 o’clock, probably after 11 o’clock, because when he left, there were very few people on the street, unlike around 8 or 9 o’clock,” Zhimo said.

The homeless man didn't have a watch, and it was impossible for him to ask anyone for the time, so his own sense of time was also very vague.

"After 11 o'clock" is just an estimate based on the fact that there are very few people on the street.

Upon hearing this, Kuroki nodded and said, "Actually, I found an acquaintance at that bar. He didn't want to testify, but he told me that he saw someone who looked like Uno drinking at the bar at 10:40, and then he disappeared shortly afterward."

It's likely that this "acquaintance" was actually his informant, who happened to be in the bar at the time.

"Possibly Uno?" Munakata noticed his uncertainty—it was one thing for him to be unwilling to give a formal testimony, but Munakata could guess that he was probably an informant with a sensitive identity.

"Yeah, he didn't know Uno either. He only recognized him by his clothes. It was only because Uno was sitting at the bar that he remembered him," Kuroki said.

"Still there at 10:40? If they left after that, it would fit the time of the incident, but... then they wouldn't have had time to get back, would they?" Ashiya frowned at this moment.

Uno's alibi originally covered the period from 8 PM to midnight, completely covering the time of his death—8 PM was when he had just arrived at the bar and asked the bartender for the time, and midnight was when he swiped his membership card to leave.

In this way, the combined testimonies of the homeless man and the informant actually solidify his alibi?

"The card swipe record is definitely from midnight?" Zongfang confirmed again at this point.

"Yes, that day was a members' day, meaning you had to pay before midnight. I saw it recorded on the computer at the time," Kuroki nodded.

Because of Shiraishi's usual teachings and example, the detectives at the Beika Police Station did not specifically avoid mentioning "unfavorable evidence" at this time.

Miwako Kobe, who had been diligently drawing a timeline of alibis in her notebook, suddenly said, "Wait a minute... Seniors, the time of the crime is actually affected by many factors, and it doesn't necessarily mean that the time of death is closer to the 'middle point,' right?"

"Of course, isn't this basic knowledge taught at police academies?" Ashiya reminded him.

"If that's the case... the autopsy estimated the time of the murder to be before 11:30, and it seems that the actual time of the crime was very close to the end of the estimate..." Miwako Kobe said, looking at her notebook.

“That’s right, so what?” Kuroki asked in return.

Shiraishi and Munakata were already laughing, but they looked at Miwako encouragingly—as expected, the more you do, the more mistakes you make. This Uno's alibi has actually revealed its flaws!

(End of this chapter)