Conan: Death is Watching Me

Chapter 257 Detective Level 3
The sirens and lights of police cars flashed blindingly, and the entrance to the building was a scene of chaos.

Megure, covering his face with his hat, walked through the crowd, already used to these unpredictable murders.

However, he has recently encountered a problem he can't understand: familiar figures always appear at the crime scenes, and almost all of them are related to that mustachioed man.

That's right, when he saw Ran and Conan, Megure's eyelids drooped, and his heart, which had been hanging in suspense, died completely.

What went wrong?
"Inspector Megure, you've finally arrived."

Gao Mo had been standing at the scene for quite a while, and only felt much more relaxed when the forensic personnel arrived.

Maintaining order alone left him no time to investigate, but fortunately Conan didn't make any moves either.

Since it was a public place, this guy knew he couldn't attract too much attention.

"Good heavens," Inspector Megure was a little taken aback, "I told you to investigate a stalker and you've ended up with a murder case."

My subordinates are also talented.

“I just happened to run into him.”

Gao Mo shifted his attention to the victim's body.

Just then, photos were taken and evidence was collected at the scene.

"The deceased was Mr. Katsunori Nakajo, 43 years old. He was stabbed in the abdomen with a kitchen knife and bled to death. According to the business card he was found on, he was the president of a detective agency and a private investigator..."

Gao Mo sorted out the details amidst the reports from the police officers at the scene.

The victim was clutching a crumpled file folder tightly in his arms, as if after a struggle. The folder was empty, but a death message written in blood was clearly visible at the opening.

It's not a very regular O×△.

"Officer Matsuda," Chiba nudged Gao Mo mysteriously and whispered, "Remember that Ye Cai San gang? The one who escaped punishment in the end was Kanie Shijiu, who took a bank employee hostage to try to withdraw the money from the vault, but he was shot dead."

"Finally dead?"

"what?"

"I mean, it's not surprising at all that someone like that would die."

Gao Mo recalled Xie Jiang's last provocative glance.

His death would put an end to one of his worries.

"But what are you doing here?" Inspector Megure asked Ran and the others as usual.

“I brought them here,” Judy said, looking annoyed. “We met Officer Matsuda and stopped at the coffee shop to rest, but then this happened outside.”

"Used to it."

Megure's attention returned to the corpse, and he stroked his chin, his face full of confusion.

"But how could the detective agency owner be killed here? There are so many people around..."

There weren't many people here when the incident occurred.

Gao Mo entered a state of focus.

"I think the murderer must have hesitated and struggled before finally taking action; it was a crime of passion."

Megure was stunned: "How did you know?"

"This is an escalator going up, but the victim was facing away from the escalator and had a stab wound to the abdomen. This suggests that the victim may have known about the killer from the beginning. Judging from the situation at the scene, the killer must have been given some kind of leverage."

Gao Mo looked at the coffee shop next to the escalator on the second floor.

"The fact that the killer chose that moment to strike hastily suggests they were driven to a corner. For example, the victim might have arranged to meet someone at a coffee shop, and the killer was forced to kill to stop them, then steal some documents from the file folder—"

I think that client, like the murderer, was probably an employee or owner of one of the companies in this building.

"You know that?" Megure stared wide-eyed, bewildered.

What's it like to have a brilliant detective as a subordinate?
I suddenly miss the Mori clan; at least that made me seem smart.

Chiba, standing next to him, opened his mouth, scratching the back of his head, seemingly confused but impressed.

Anyway, he's usually just a gofer, and whether his colleagues are capable or not doesn't seem to matter to him. In fact, it's much easier for him than working with Takagi. At least he doesn't have to deal with cases for so long like before.

"Is it difficult? It's just simple logical reasoning."

"Easy?"

"Uh……"

Gao Mo also scratched the back of his head.

He didn't even use the Mind Palace, so it should be considered simple, right?

Not paying much attention, Gao Mo continued to look around at the crowd and said, "The person who was in the coffee shop at the time of the incident and had arranged to meet the detective, can you come out and talk? There shouldn't be anything to hide, right? Hiding won't help, the victim's last phone call should be able to reach you."

"Yes, it's me."

A middle-aged male employee with a large forehead walked out of the crowd cautiously, constantly wiping the sweat from his face.

“I did arrange to meet the detective, but I never imagined he would be killed… because after the agreed time, I even called him, and at that time he said there was a strange guy following him.”

The man with the large forehead looked bitterly at the empty file bag in the corpse's arms.

"That person should be the one I hired the detective to find. It seems they mentioned paying double the money, so I could only say I was willing to pay four times..."

"It really is true."

Megure's nostrils have become noticeably larger.

I don't know if Gao Mo just stumbled upon the right person or if he really had some kind of simple logical reasoning.

"Officer!" Several officers ran down from upstairs. "We found the coat, hat, and gloves that the suspect was wearing during the crime. They were all thrown away in the fifth-floor restroom, which is rarely used!"

"Furthermore, the power outage at the time of the incident was just a coincidence; it was said that the building management had an accident while inspecting the electrical equipment!"

“Hmm,” Megure nodded with his hands behind his back, regaining his composure as he asked the man with the large forehead, “Could you tell me what’s in the file folder?”

“It should be some investigation documents,” the man with the large forehead looked around. “Last month, an employee in our company embezzled public funds. After the higher-ups found out, they wanted me to find the suspect before the president found out about it, so I hired a private investigator. Today, we were supposed to exchange the target’s information and relevant evidence.”

"Which floor is your company on?"

"Our company occupies floors 8 through 11 here."

"So the murderer must have stolen the evidence and then fled back to the company? How many people are in the company?" Inspector Megure frowned deeply.

There is a direction, but it seems quite complicated.

"Regarding this," the man with the large forehead took out a document from his briefcase, "I received preliminary information a week ago. The other party provided a list of suspicious employees, a total of 58 people."

"58 people..."

Megure is still very worried.

Filtering so many people one by one is no easy task.

The main issue is that he doesn't have that much time; there's already a shortage of personnel due to various cases lately.

"Matsuda," Megure turned to Komori, who was studying the death message, as if surrendering, "have you deciphered the deceased's message?"

"It has now been confirmed that these blood-written words contain the fingerprints of the deceased, and that they were all left before their deaths..."

Gao Mo stared at the blood-written words on the file bag.

To be precise, it's not O×△, it just looks like it.

"These messages are incomplete, clearly broken in the middle. It seems the victim laid them flat on the ground, with part of the writing on the stolen documents and another part left on the escalator steps..."

First, check the escalator treads; some parts may have been worn away, but luminol should be able to restore them.

Conan, who was about to speak up, held back and couldn't say a word.

People used to complain that the police weren't smart enough, but now they're overcorrecting and saying the police are too smart.

It was even more painful than when Kido was alive.

It feels like an enhanced version of Kido?
but……

Conan curiously observed Gao Mo's profile.

More than solving the case himself, he wanted to know the truth.

He just couldn't understand those abstract blood-written words.

"When did you meet Officer Matsuda?" Sonoko suddenly bent down and tried to get information out of Conan.

"Huh?" Conan asked, surprised. "It's about the arson case from last time. I heard he was recently transferred to the First Investigation Division."

“It’s really strange,” Sonoko nodded to herself. “Ever since then, Kido-nii has been acting all mysterious; we never see him again.” “Really?”

Conan's mouth stiffened.

Kido does indeed have a criminal record; his ghost lingers, and he appears everywhere under different aliases.

But this time it's an elite active-duty detective from the Metropolitan Police Department, a police inspector...

And why?
When Conan looked at Gao Mo again, he could no longer look directly at him, especially when he met Gao Mo's familiar gaze. His eyes twitched and his cheeks hurt terribly.

Damn guy.

What exactly is this quirk?

“Chiba,” Megure assigned the task, “take some men to that company and see which people on the list don’t have an alibi at the time of the incident. Also, see if you can find the stolen documents.”

"Yes!"

“Matsuda,” Megure cleared his throat, “I’ll leave the news of his death to you.”

"It's okay, this is my specialty."

Gao Mo noticed Sonoko and Conan watching him from behind. Only Ran looked blank, while Jodie maintained an interested and observant gaze, seemingly very curious about the abilities of the Metropolitan Police Department detectives.

Never mind, it wasn't a role-playing mission. I'll just remind Conan afterwards.

If my identity is exposed, I won't have such a good opportunity to advance my criminal investigation career level next time.

"Even if I hadn't found any other clues, I could roughly guess who the murderer was."

The mental palace of Gao Mo unfolded.

Although it's unclear why the deceased didn't directly call out the murderer's name but instead went to great lengths to leave a message, that didn't stump him.

He's a pro at deciphering death messages.

"Actually, this is not an O×△, but part of someone's name, and it can be deduced that it is the lower right part. It's just that the text is slightly distorted due to the hasty sketch."

Gao Mo took the list from Megure's hand.

"Out of 58 people, only one person meets the criteria, namely 'Kuniyoshi Bunta'. The three characters on the right cover the top half, making it look like an O×△."

"Officer!" the forensic officer shouted, "We've found bloodstains, it's a gun!"

Isn't it 'country'?

"They probably didn't have time to write the country name, so they just used abbreviation."

Judy's eyes sparkled with wonder.

"Wow, that's impressive. The □ is indeed a bit larger than the text on the document bag, which means the murderer removed the text in the upper right corner of 'Kuniyoshi Bunta' from the document, right?"

She was even tempted to bring this policeman into the FBI.

Isn't it a waste of talent to have such a person as a front-line police inspector?
58 names and incomplete death messages... to crack them so quickly is practically cheating.

Are you sure you don't know the answer directly?

Even those so-called brilliant detectives outside might not be able to see the result at a glance.

Conan didn't get involved in the case anymore, standing to the side with his hands in his pockets and a helpless smile on his lips.

This is not even worth acting.

He said, "Where do you get so many expert detectives? Only Kido could solve cases with such incredible speed."

"What are you still standing there for?" Megure snapped out of his daze and turned around, shouting to Chiba, who was still standing there, "Go find this Kuniyoshi Bunta right now!"

"Yes!"

Chiba led several police officers upstairs at breakneck speed.

Gao Mo did not follow.

Logically speaking, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Crimes of passion are bound to leave too many traces; the biggest challenge is simply identifying the suspect.

If the man with the large forehead hadn't produced that list, he would have needed to put in some effort, such as personally examining the projected text information.

[Judy's Fighting Guide] 4 stars

[Detective Level 2-3, Bound Talent: Firearms Proficiency]

A flood of firearms knowledge rushed into his mind, and even Gao Mo, with his strong will, was momentarily stunned.

He also thought the case was too simple to be used to advance his professional level.

Is it simply easy for him?

Unbeknownst to him, he had indeed far surpassed ordinary people.

Gao Mo's attention returned to the note projection.

The criminal police profession is tied to the talent "firearms proficiency"... that's barely acceptable?

After all, there was bomb disposal involved.

"Firearms Proficiency" itself is alright, not a particularly rare talent, but combined with his Shooting Lv5 and Assassin Lv5, he felt much stronger.

There's also "Judy's Fighting Guide".

Unlike his karate and judo, his fighting style is more focused on practical combat with mixed martial arts.

He just didn't know where Jodie ranked in terms of fighting power in the Conan world; he had never really paid attention to this woman before.

She seemed quite sophisticated when she first appeared, and was almost mistaken for Vermouth.

That works too. He's actually lacking in real-world experience right now, so even just projecting books can be a great help.

"Officer Matsuda?"

After Chiba, Megure also left the crime scene.

Judy couldn't help but confront Gomer.

"Would you like to grab a meal sometime? I've always loved detective stories; they're like the protagonists in detective novels!"

“We also want to have dinner with the police officer,” Sonoko hurriedly pulled her best friend along, “Ran, right?”

The 15th operation began.

Although she wasn't sure if it was Kido-kun, she couldn't let go of any suspicion, no matter how small.

If possible, she wants to know more about Kido-san, and even become a detective herself...

Then he went to work at Kido Detective Agency?

Thinking of Ai, who was so arrogant in front of her, Sonoko's eyes burned with passion.

The final battle plan is finalized.

"I'm going to the bathroom first."

Gao Mo was suddenly jolted, and a blurry image of Sonoko being shot in the head flashed through his mind.

The future is changing.

"Crash!"

Standing in front of the sink, Gao Mo let the cold water wash over his fingers, closed his eyes, and fell into deep thought.

The foreseeable scene is not entirely fixed, but it is undoubtedly a possibility.

Is it because Sonoko is too close to him?
What was originally a very low probability event becomes a certain death when it is magnified.

It seems that this war has officially shifted from protecting oneself to protecting those around you.

Gao Mo stared at the projected notes.

The number of stars in the storage pool has fluctuated over this period, but overall it has been accumulating. Even after several upgrades, the total number of stars still exceeds 300 due to various miscellaneous factors.
"That teacher, Jodie, is an FBI agent, right?" Conan followed her into the restroom. "Is your disguise as a police officer related to anything? I've been sensing something strange lately. Could it be that you've already started a confrontation with the organization?"

"Don't overthink it. My enemy has never been the Black Organization."

Gao Mo did not turn around.

"If you're interested, you can cooperate with the FBI, but don't trust them too much. I don't know much about the FBI."

(End of this chapter)