"Inspector Yokomizo, if I may be blunt, nine out of ten people here likely have a motive for murder. Furthermore, we cannot rule out the possibility of an outsider committing the crime."
Kogoro Mouri turned, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the main production staff and the various actors gathered in the room.
Judging by how Kazami Yoshiki had treated everyone, it wouldn't be a surprise if any one of them had suddenly decided to jump out and give him a taste of cold steel.
"Was his reputation really that abysmal?" Inspector Yokomizo asked, his brow furrowing as he took in the grim atmosphere.
They were gathered here to film a detective drama, only for a real murder to occur. It felt like a macabre "play within a play."
Next, the police began the arduous task of questioning everyone for alibis. With dozens of staff members present, it was going to take a significant amount of time.
"Don't even think about leading the police astray," Conan whispered, his eyes fixed on Tsuneo.
The Great Detective could feel it in his bones; the killer was hiding among them. This was absolutely not a crime committed by some random intruder.
Even if someone had simply given Kazami a well-deserved beating, Conan might have been willing to look the other way while Tsuneo tried to cover it up. But this was murder. Regardless of the motive, once a person crosses that red line, there's no telling if they'll cross it again.
"And how do you know," Tsuneo replied with a cold, mocking smirk, "that it wasn't me who did it?"
In his eyes, the more scumbags like that died, the better.
"..."
Conan stared at the handyman's back, a flicker of confusion crossing his mind.
I've been following you the whole time, how could you have done anything? he thought. Besides, Kazami only insulted Tsuneo verbally. Surely he wouldn't hold a grudge to that extreme... would he?
Twenty or thirty minutes later, the police completed their preliminary interrogations.
"Mr. Mouri, we've basically cleared the staff of suspicion," Inspector Yokomizo reported to his idol, flipping through his notes.
Since the break had only lasted thirty minutes, the staff had mostly stayed in groups of two or three. They were all able to provide alibis for one another.
That left only four suspects: the three actors who had stayed in their private rooms, and Ruri Ujo, the one who discovered the body.
"What about the murder weapon?"
Mouri's expression actually looked reliable for once, his face set in a mask of serious contemplation. After all, the innocence of his old classmate, Ruri, was on the line.
"We've searched the entire villa, inside and out," Yokomizo said, shaking his head. "We haven't found a sharp blade roughly ten centimeters long that would match the wound."
The inability to find the physical evidence of the weapon was a major headache. Every sharp object in the villa had been tested for blood, and the police had conducted a thorough search of the four suspects' personal belongings. They had found nothing.
"Blast..." Mouri patted his pockets, only to realize his cigarettes and lighter were missing. He must have left them in Tsuneo's car.
"Kogoro, what are you looking for?" Ruri asked curiously.
"It's nothing, I just forgot my smokes," Mouri said with a sheepish grin.
Hearing this, Nagumo Shinmei asked the smoking Kasumi Namihara for a cigarette and a lighter, then handed them over to Mouri.
"Thanks. Don't you guys smoke?"
Mouri's impression of this mild-mannered young man was actually quite good; at least he was observant and polite.
"No. Because of that, it's actually quite a headache when I have to play certain roles," Shinmei replied with a nod.
Those scenes that required acting "deep" while smoking were particularly difficult for him to pull off.
"At times like that, you have to learn how to play hardball with the director and the screenwriter," Ruri added, clearly speaking from experience.
The character she was playing today—the mistress of the villa—had a scene where she was supposed to light a cigarette during her final confession.
"It's precisely because you're like that that no matter how long you've been acting, you only ever get supporting roles," Kasumi Namihara interjected, glancing at Nagumo Shinmei. There was a hint of "hating that the iron wouldn't turn to steel" in her eyes.
"Kasumi..."
"However," Kasumi continued, "for someone who claims to sing 'healing' songs, I suppose maintaining a healthy image has its benefits for his public persona."
Now that Kazami Yoshiki was dead, Kasumi seemed to have regained her sharp tongue.
"What is with her..." Mouri watched as Shinmei and Kasumi walked off to speak privately, looking utterly bewildered.
What are these actors made of? One after another, they're all so prickly.
"I think she's just jealous," Ruri said with a soft laugh. "Because Mr. Nagumo and I hit it off while talking about not smoking."
The way she phrased it made everyone feel that there was indeed something flirtatious or ambiguous between Nagumo Shinmei and Kasumi Namihara. It seemed Kazami's "insider info" had been well-founded after all.
Conan looked up, his gaze shifting constantly between the suspects.
As far as motives went, Kazami had kicked and trampled on Nagumo Shinmei (who played the victim in the drama) and had repeatedly insulted Kasumi Namihara. Neither of them lacked a reason to want him dead.
As for Nagumo Akira, who played the old butler, the same applied. The victim had even threatened him regarding the affair.
And Ruri Ujo had been called an "old hag" by the deceased; it was hard to say what other grievances she might have had with him in private.
Wait...
Where did Tsuneo go?!
The Great Detective's face paled. After Kazami died, the atmosphere had become significantly more harmonious, and Conan had been so focused on observing the suspects that he hadn't noticed the handyman slip away.
"Conan, where are you going?" Ran asked as she saw him heading for the door.
"I—I'm going to look for Tsuneo-niichan!"
With that, Conan bolted out of the room.
Tsuneo stood outside the villa, wearing headphones and apparently speaking to someone on the phone.
"Is this really okay?"
The voice on the other end was a familiar, youthful one: Hiroki.
"There's nothing 'not okay' about it. Didn't you look into Mr. Kazami's history a bit?" Tsuneo asked with a faint smile.
"Yes... I have to say, the things that man did... killing him outright was almost too merciful," Hiroki said after a moment of silence.
"I've handled things on my end. The police won't find the murder weapon," Tsuneo said, glancing back at the brightly lit villa. "As for whether or not you want to expose that dead guy's dirty laundry, I'll leave that up to you."
He noticed Conan standing by the window, watching him.
Suddenly feeling a wave of inexplicable irritability, Tsuneo spoke to a few of the officers, then got into his car and drove away. He wasn't among the suspects to begin with, and since the police had already searched him and his vehicle earlier, Inspector Yokomizo simply waved him off and let him go.
"Tsuneo-kun? What happened?"
Professor Agasa looked on with concern as the handyman walked through the door and immediately finished off two pieces of cake on the table without saying a single word.
"Broken-hearted, are you?" Haibara Ai guessed, looking up from a reference book she was holding.
It was just like the scenes in TV dramas; "foodies" often used sweets to numb their pain.
"No. I just ran into a minor case tonight."
Tsuneo shook his head. Lately, Ikumi had been working abroad, and the two of them exchanged messages every day. I just ate two pieces of cake; how did you jump to 'broken-hearted'? he wondered.
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