"Exactly. He was terrified that if too much time passed without anyone passing by, unpredictable variables would ruin his plan. So, he took matters into his own hands and personally 'summoned' a witness via a phone call." Hattori chuckled at the question, casting a knowing glance toward Conan.
"Uncle Kogoro said that Inspector Otaki has already finished the questioning," Conan added, looking up after lowering his earring-shaped cell phone.
"Mr. Fukushima confirmed he received a call from the 'police' earlier, instructing him to go to the Tenshukaku for questioning. The figure Ran and the others saw sprinting away earlier was him."
This revelation fit the puzzle perfectly. Shigehiko Wakisaka had calculated the timing to the second. By disguising his voice, he had lured Toshiaki Fukushima into position, effectively manufacturing his own witness to the 'suicide.'
"We found it suspicious from the start," Ikumi Kyosuke noted, reaching down to playfully ruffle Conan's hair. She smiled as she spoke, "Inspector Otaki never once mentioned that Maho Katagiri had set herself on fire. So why, the moment Mr. Fukushima appeared, did he ask that exact question?"
She continued, her eyes sharp, "As the events began to clarify, we finally realized the role Mr. Fukushima was unwittingly forced to play." She glanced at the array of gadgets Conan possessed. The boy certainly has a lot of strange toys, she thought.
"Everything you're saying sounds plausible in theory," Arihiro Kasuya said, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Wakisaka. "But when Wakisaka appeared back then, his clothes and hair weren't wet. There wasn't a single singe mark on him."
Kasuya gestured toward the crime scene. "The three of us arrived shortly after the incident with Katagiri. In a window of barely ten minutes, you're suggesting he climbed out of the river, soaked to the bone, ran back to the hotel to change, and managed to blow-dry his hair? That's impossible."
He added grimly, "And self-immolation is no joke. Even a single scorched strand of hair would have made him a primary suspect."
"We only have a hypothesis regarding that for now," Hattori said, resting his chin on his hand. "We'll need the forensics team to confirm it. However, Mr. Wakisaka was likely wearing a professional diving drysuit beneath his outer coat—the kind that includes a hood to keep the hair completely dry."
While that detail was still a bit fuzzy, there weren't many options that provided both fire resistance and waterproof capabilities simultaneously.
"You're right. It shouldn't be hard for the police to find where I stashed it," Shigehiko Wakisaka said, letting out a long, weary breath as he tilted his head back.
Listening to these detectives dissect his plan, he realized that what he thought was a flawless masterpiece was actually riddled with holes.
"By the way... did you look into that website?" Wakisaka asked. He was referring to the page about the legendary 'Golden King' he had mentioned to Inspector Otaki before leaving.
"We checked," Hattori said, his voice dropping an octave. "That was Mr. Hirano's website, wasn't it? The diary he updated daily stopped abruptly three weeks ago. Comparing the timeline, I'm afraid the charred body the police found in the drainage channel earlier was..."
"Aside from that, I'm quite curious about the other two people in that photograph," Ikumi Kyosuke added, nodding.
What was the motive? Was it the Sennari Hyotan?
Had all five people in that photograph been targeted for elimination? Hirano, Kato, and Katagiri were confirmed dead. That left only one middle-aged man and the elderly man in the center holding the scroll, whose identities remained a mystery.
Conan stared intently at Wakisaka, waiting for the final piece of the puzzle. That photograph was undoubtedly the eye of the storm.
"It's exactly as you've deduced," Wakisaka said, his head bowed. "I killed Hirano, Kato, and Katagiri. It was all for the sake of avenging my grandfather—a man who loved the history of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, only to be brutally murdered for it."
"Your grandfather?" The three detectives asked in unison.
"You've all seen him. He's the old man in the center of the photo, the one unfurling the Dragon Scroll," Wakisaka explained. "Before he died, he often told me about the scroll he found and the lost treasure of Hideyoshi. He told me how he had eventually given up on the hunt and decided to donate the scroll to an Osaka collection. But his treasure-hunting partners... they couldn't let it go. They argued incessantly."
His voice trembled with a decade of suppressed grief. "Thirteen years ago, after my grandfather finally convinced them to travel to Osaka together, he vanished. I never heard from him again."
"Thirteen years ago..." Hattori muttered. "Wait, don't tell me... the charred body found in the drainage channel back then was...?"
"Yes," Wakisaka nodded. "I was only able to confirm it through a specific fragment found on the body. My grandfather obtained it after finding the Toranomaki (Tiger Scroll). No one else knew about that fragment except for me."
"The secret of the fourth person is finally out," Ikumi Kyosuke whispered, her brow furrowing.
"Heh... something feels off, doesn't it?" Wakisaka looked at the detectives' expressions and smiled bitterly. "You're wondering why my final target is Kasuya."
Logically, the final victim should have been the remaining middle-aged man from the photo. In the shadows, Arihiro Kasuya's bloated face grew increasingly grim.
"The reason it took me so long to find all of my grandfather's former companions," Wakisaka said, his eyes turning sharp and piercing as he glared at Kasuya, "is because I never imagined someone would change their appearance so... thoroughly."
Thirteen years had passed. The middle-aged man from the photograph had transformed into a fat old man with entirely different facial features.
"The parlor games end here." Kasuya's aura shifted instantly. The image of a harmless, portly man vanished, replaced by the predatory coldness of a wolf.
The primary source of his newfound confidence, however, was the handgun he now leveled at the group.
"I never would have guessed that was your reason for wanting me dead," Kasuya sneered. "Come to think of it, Katagiri probably suspected who I was, too. I suppose I should thank you for doing my dirty work and getting her out of the way for me."
Kasuya had never even considered revenge as a motive. He had assumed Kato and Katagiri were killed over the secret of the treasure.
"I see. So it was plastic surgery," Ikumi noted calmly. She turned to Conan and Hattori. "One last thing—how did you finally lock on to Wakisaka as the culprit?"
"The umbrella," Conan said with a small smile. He held his hand out, curling his fingers save for his index finger, which he pointed upward.
When Mr. Kato fell from the building, he still had a dying breath left in him. At the time, Conan and Hattori thought the man's hand gesture was a reference to the rain. In reality, it had two layers of meaning: the rain itself, and the umbrella.
"A Kasa (umbrella)?" Ikumi nodded, catching on.
"The Imabashi-zue (Walking Stick) of Oda Nobunaga."
It was a direct pointer to the culprit. Today, Wakisaka had been playing the role of Oda Nobunaga, whose iconic accessory was that very umbrella-style staff.
"Hey, you two are a bit too relaxed..." Hattori muttered, instinctively moving to shield Wakisaka behind him. He looked at Conan and Ikumi with exasperation. How are they still doing deductions at a time like this? There's a fat old man with a gun pointed right at us!
Kasuya, still holding the gun, shouted a command into the darkness, but received no response.
"Confused?" Ikumi leaned against the wall, crossing her arms. "You're wondering where all those henchmen who were following you in the shadows have disappeared to, aren't you?"
"What did you do?!" Kasuya's eyes widened with sudden alarm.
"Who knows..."
In a narrow alleyway just outside the abandoned factory grounds.
Tsuneo stood looking down at a pile of muscular men lying on the ground, their eyes rolled back in their heads. He sighed, falling into a brief state of contemplation.
What's the deal with this? Every single one of them was packing heat.
He felt lucky he had picked up two "meat shields" to deal with the initial encounter.
This case seems bigger than I thought... Looks like dinner and late-night snacks are going to be served at the police station tonight.
"Ugh..."
As Tsuneo was thinking, one of the men at his feet groaned, appearing as though he were about to regain consciousness.
THUD!
Tsuneo promptly delivered a swift, silencing kick.
"There," he muttered. "Now he's sleeping soundly."
(End of Chapter)
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