Chapter 45: Speedrun

This case seemed a bit too simple for Conan.

So simple that merely stepping into the crime scene and glancing at the reenactments of the incident across the four rooms allowed him to deduce the entire truth of the case—

"What nonsense are you talking about? How could the victim possibly walk back to his own room?"

An elderly detective from Shizuoka Prefecture asked with a heavy frown.

Ignoring him entirely, the Death-God elementary schooler led everyone to the fourth room of the lounge area—the spot where the victim, Taiji Komiyama, was found by the primary witness, Director Hideo Tsuda.

Fixing his gaze on the deceased Taiji Komiyama, he pointed at the victim's posture and said calmly.

"I just heard the self-accounts of the other three suspects."

"They all claimed that the victim died after being struck in the back of the head with a standard lounge vase. But a single glance is enough to tell that the injury on the back of the victim's head is not fatal."

"In other words, all three suspects merely knocked the victim unconscious rather than killing him outright."

...Knocked unconscious? Rather than killed outright?

Everyone shifted their gaze to the three suspects in the case, but the suspects looked just as astonished as the rest.

These three suspects—Kengo Katsumata, Yumiko Niikura, and Kengo Hoshino—had each described a different version of the events leading up to the crime, yet all of them ultimately ended with the vase striking the victim's occiput.

"Miss Niikura said that Komiyama tried to force himself on her in her room, and in a moment of panic, she grabbed a vase and struck his head, causing his death, after which she immediately left."

"Brother Hoshino claimed that he, too, was pursuing Miss Niikura. On that day, the victim inexplicably barged into the lounge to demand that he give up on Miss Niikura. During the argument, Hoshino used the vase to kill him, and then carried the victim back to his own lounge."

"Uncle Katsumata stated that because the victim entered his lounge and continuously mocked him, coupled with the fact that the victim had stolen a certain important role from him, he attacked the victim with the vase in a fit of rage and eventually carried the victim back to his own room."

"All three of these events actually happened, separated only by the order of occurrence."

Conan adjusted his glasses.

"The reason the victim suddenly confronted Brother Hoshino and told him to give up on Miss Niikura was because the victim's earlier romantic advances in Miss Niikura's room had been rejected, leading him to believe that Brother Hoshino was sabotaging him behind the scenes."

"After Brother Hoshino knocked the victim out and carried him back to his room, the victim happened to push open Uncle Katsumata's door, mocking him as well, only to be knocked out by Uncle Katsumata and carried back to his own room once again."

"None of these three blows to the head were fatal, as can be seen from the state of the corpse—"

Accompanied by his words, everyone's eyes fell upon the posture of the corpse.

The body's hands were clutching its chest, with a small bottle rolled nearby.

"If the victim had died from head trauma, he would have been clutching his head at the time of death, not his chest."

The Death-God elementary schooler squatted down, scanned the name of the medicine on the bottle, and continued.

"This is a heart-condition medication. Obviously, the victim must have suffered from a cardiac ailment, which is why he carried such medicine with him."

"The true cause of the victim's death was a heart attack. As for why neither the staff inside the Shizuoka Prefecture Cultural Hall nor Director Tsuda heard the victim cry out—"

"It's a matter of the 【medicine】."

Hearing this, the veteran Shizuoka detective immediately chimed in.

"Then this is simply an accidental death! The victim suffered a heart attack, but died because he didn't have his medicine with him."

"He couldn't call out because the pain at the moment of death was too excruciating, so we can close the case right here."

As soon as the old detective said this, a flash of white light abruptly crossed the lenses of the Death-God elementary schooler's glasses.

Every nuance in the expressions of those present was captured by his eyes. Then, he stated with absolute certainty.

"Not necessarily."

"A victim capable of recovering his cognitive and physical functions without any medical treatment after enduring three heavy blows to the back of the head cannot possibly have a physical constitution so frail that a heart attack would instantly rob him of his speech."

"Furthermore, before leaving home, the victim would undoubtedly have checked whether there were any pills left in his medicine bottle."

"In my opinion, someone swapped the pills inside this bottle, which directly led to Mr. Komiyama's death."

Director Hideo Tsuda, who had previously advanced the theory that the victim had walked back on his own, finally caught on.

He slapped his palm and said loudly.

"I remember last night, when Mr. Komiyama and I were having dinner together, he took his medicine. There were about four or five pills left in the bottle at the time; it's impossible that it was empty—yet Mr. Komiyama went straight home after the meal."

"He said he was going to take a quick shower before coming back to the lounge to discuss the upcoming performance schedule!"

"Therefore, there is only one truth—"

Conan adjusted his glasses once more. He stood up and looked toward a specific person in the crowd.

He pointed his hand straight at that person's backpack and said bluntly.

"The real culprit in this case is you! Mrs. Komiyama!"

Among the crowd, Mrs. Komiyama—Atsuko Komiyama, who had attended as a family member of the deceased—saw her expression shift instantly.

However, before she could offer any defense, she heard Conan's extremely resolute voice ring out.

"Mrs. Komiyama, I just noticed that there is a bottle of stomach medicine inside your shoulder bag."

"Moreover, the victim's medicine bottle had pills in it before dinner, but was empty after his death. That means someone must have emptied the pills from the bottle sometime between his return home after dinner and his return to the Cultural Hall."

"Coupled with the victim's statement after dinner that he was going home to shower and bathe, you, as his spouse who shared the same household and was able to share the same private space, were in a position to swap the pills in his victimized bottle. I imagine you probably substituted a stomachache tablet, didn't you?"

"That is why, when the heart attack struck, the victim didn't call out for help immediately, but instead opened the bottle to take his medicine, ultimately missing the window to call for rescue and dying of his cardiac condition."

"To verify whether the truth is indeed as I've stated, the forensics department only needs to determine whether there are stomach medicine components in the bottle, and ascertain your precise whereabouts during that exact timeframe last night... Mrs. Komiyama, do you have anything left to say?"

A commotion rippled through the crowd as all eyes instantly converged upon Atsuko Komiyama.

Yet Atsuko Komiyama merely let out a sigh, as if a heavy burden had finally been lifted from her shoulders, and said calmly.

"Just as you said, if those people hadn't been in the lounge, this would indeed have looked like an accidental death..."

She looked toward the Death-God elementary schooler and asked her final question.

"Still, just who on earth are you?"

The Death-God elementary schooler adjusted his non-prescription glasses, pressed the chronograph button on his wristwatch, and replied serenely.

"Edogawa Conan, a detective."

—Watch timer: Four minutes and fifty-three seconds.