Conan: Death is Watching Me

Chapter 157 Sonoko's Phone Call for Help

"Typhoon Warning..."

"Typhoon No. 11, which moved northward from Okinawa, suddenly intensified its winds, with a central pressure of..."

"Due to the typhoon, flights and ships have been significantly delayed..."

The Suzuki family villa.

Sonoko, who had been sick for a few days, was recuperating at the Izu Villa with her older sister.

It was another rainy night.

Sonoko, dressed in light pajamas, lay on the headboard. Her freshly washed hair was only half-dry, with one side hanging straight down and the other end playfully curling up.

Holding his phone, staring at his contacts for a long time, he still didn't make a call.

He looked anxious.

She really wanted to ask Gao Mo if he had been to the magic party, and if he was the missing Kuroba Rokuro.

Just like the Bandaged Strange Man's Manor before...

"Boom!"

At 11:30, Sonoko finally mustered up the courage to make a phone call, but the lights in the room suddenly went out.

A flash of lightning and a clap of thunder sounded outside the window.

"power cut?"

Sonoko walked to the window in confusion, and all the lights in the nearby villas were turned off.

At that moment, a scream came from the trees outside.

In the flash of lightning, a man wearing a raincoat and a hat swung a stone down with all his might. Perhaps sensing something, his blood-splattered face looked up at the garden upstairs, like a demon emerging from hell.

The mangled corpse beneath the man was also illuminated by the lightning.

It's Chairman Tomizawa from next door.

Murder! Murder!

Sonoko's teeth chattered, and she tried to scream but couldn't make a sound.

The man below had ordinary, even somewhat naive, eyes, but they were terrifying at that moment.

It turns out that eyes really can emit a murderous aura.

……

Kido Detective Agency.

After sending Conan away, Gao Mo continued studying "Kaito Kuroba's Treasure Appraisal Guide" and also tidied up the projected books he had previously tidied up.

As his skills improved, he found it easier to understand "The Former Metropolitan Police Department Detective's Handgun Shooting Guide," "Suwa Yuji's Kendo Guide," and "Hijikata Kozaburo's Actor Guide," and in turn, he gradually mastered them completely.

However, it seems that the corresponding book ability cannot be upgraded to level 5 simply by reading books; level 4 is already the limit, and reading books can only be used to explore horizontally up to level 4.

Currently, besides "Treasure Appraisal Guide", there are 3 five-star books and 4 four-star books remaining.

Each book is a culmination of professional knowledge and experience.

Both require a significant amount of time to learn.

Gao Mo got up, made himself a cup of coffee, and brought out a large stack of historical documents, intending to first work through the "Treasure Appraisal Guide".

Start with the easy parts and move on to the difficult ones.

"Beep!"

A sudden phone call disrupted Gao Mo's plans.

"Kido-nii," Sonoko's voice trembled, "something terrible has happened! Uncle Tomizawa was killed by Yuzuru-nii, and now the police are taking Yuzuru-nii away..."

"Slow down, what happened?"

The image of the honest-looking young man he had seen last time flashed through Gao Mo's mind.

Ayako Suzuki's fiancé, Yuzo Tomizawa.

“My sister and Yuzan have arranged to get married in the fall, and then Uncle Tomizawa said he’d meet his other two sons tomorrow,” Sonoko said, clutching the phone tightly. “After having dinner with us, Uncle Tomizawa stayed to watch the baseball game, and on his way back, he was stoned to death by Yuzan…”

"I already said it wasn't me!"

A panicked voice came from the other end of the phone.

"I've always been painting in my home studio..."

"Stop pretending!" The police officer at the scene sneered. "There was a power outage at the time, and people from the nearby villas all witnessed you committing the murder, including your fiancée!"

"It really wasn't me... Why would I kill my father right before my wedding?!" Gao Mo listened to the commotion on the other end of the phone for a while before asking Sonoko, "Are you sure the murderer is Yuzo?"

“I…I did see it,” Sonoko said sadly, “but I don’t believe that Yuzo would kill Uncle Tomizawa…My sister is hiding in her room crying now, what should I do?”

Gao Mo's memory resurfaces of the Tomizawa father and son he met a few days ago.

He foresaw Chairman Tomizawa's death at the time and felt that the other party would fall at the hands of his son.

However, it is indeed unlikely that Tomizawa Yuzo is the murderer.

The main problem was the timing.

Judging from the circumstances, it wasn't an impulsive crime.

To commit a crime at the risk of revealing one's face... one should at least cover one's face.

"How could it have turned out like this?" Sonoko choked up. "I've never seen my sister like this before... Yuzuru was really scary yesterday."

"Calm down," Gao Mo tried to speak gently. "Do you remember the details of the incident? Are you sure you saw Tomizawa Yuzo himself? There was absolutely no obstruction?"

"I...I don't remember very well. My mind was completely blank at the time, and it was nighttime...But judging from the nose and eyes, it should be Brother Xiong San."

"You only saw the nose and eyes?"

Gao Mo took a sip of coffee.

It's not that they're risking showing their faces, it's that they're deliberately showing their faces.

"What about Tomizawa Yuzo's two older brothers?"

"The police seem to have been contacted, but they haven't arrived yet," Sonoko said, gazing at the crime scene from afar, too afraid to approach. "Kido-nii, the police are also certain that the culprit is Yuzo-nii. What should we do?"

Gao Mo lightly tapped the desktop with his finger.

He wasn't at the scene and couldn't collect evidence, so his talent was completely useless.

Do you have any photos from the scene?

"No……"

"Hey, what are you doing?" Officer Yokomizo stopped Sonoko. "No photos allowed at the scene!"

trouble.

Gao Mo continued the call with Sonoko: "Now I need to borrow your eyes. Clear your mind and do as I say... Don't think about who the corpse is. Describe clearly the direction, posture, and location where he fell..."

"In addition, try to recount everything you experienced at the time of the incident, abandoning subjective judgments, and review it regardless of whether it is useful or not."

"Okay, okay," Sonoko took a deep breath, "I had just finished showering and returned to my room at that time..."

A scene of the villa area took shape in Gao Mo's mind, and he tried to recreate the scene as much as possible by combining the garden's description.

Judging from the location, it was on the way back from leaving the Suzuki house, indicating that the murderer knew the victim's whereabouts very well.

They ambushed and knocked the victim unconscious before killing him.

He deliberately screamed to attract witnesses during the incident...

"Chairman Tomizawa left at 11:30... Why would he be watching TV at your house so late?"

"Because that game needs to be received via satellite TV, and Uncle's family's satellite TV was broken."

"continue."

Gao Mo's mental simulation of the crime scene became increasingly sophisticated, even incorporating the element of a thunderstorm and power outage at the time of the incident.

"What else is different about the corpse?"

“Uncle Tomizawa’s watch is gone from his left wrist, there’s only a broken piece of blood on it,” Sonoko said after glancing at it. “Could the murderer have been tempted by the money?”

"If it were for money, we would have gone straight to the Tomizawa family villa."

Gao Mo's gaze was focused.

"The reason the perpetrator committed the crime outside the Suzuki family villa was so that you and Ayako would see it, and they even deliberately made screams to do so..."

While it can't completely eliminate the suspicion against Yuzo, it can at least reassure the police. You can tell them that the murderer might be trying to frame Yuzo... If it were Yuzo, there would be no reason for him to ambush and kill someone in that place.

"Let them find Yuzuru's two older brothers."

"Great!" Sonoko perked up. "Kido-kun, should we let the police officer speak directly with you?"

"Need not……"

Gao Mo added another candy to his coffee.

"Don't let them know it was me."

(End of this chapter)