"The victim is Miyazawa Haruka, a second-year Class C student at Teitan High School. She was also the owner of this villa. According to our interviews, she and her boyfriend used this place as their private residence."
Living together at just seventeen?
And the two of them were living here alone. The victim's family must have been fairly wealthy.
Ritsu's gaze settled on Hino. As the villa's master of the house, he should know the layout inside and out. He would need to pay close attention to his alibi later.
"The bespectacled boy is Wataru Hino, the class representative of the same class. He's the first person who discovered the body. According to his statement, he went to a nearby convenience store to buy snacks during the incident. When he came back, his girlfriend still hadn't gotten out of bed, so he went upstairs alone and found her dead."
'So Hino had an alibi?'
But that alone wasn't enough to dispel Ritsu's suspicions. He first needed to determine a plausible motive. After all, the victim had been struck in the head more than twenty times. Only someone driven by an overwhelming motive could commit such a frenzied attack.
"The girl on the left is Hirata Haruko, the victim's best friend. At the time of the incident, she was chatting with everyone in the living room. Ran and the others can confirm that. The same goes for Nakanishi Kotono, although Ran said Nakanishi left the living room twice, once to use the restroom, and another time after receiving a phone call from Hino."
Having caught his first point of interest, Ritsu quietly made a mental note to question it later.
He pointed at the pale-faced young man nearby and asked,
"So who's he? He looks even more heartbroken than Hino, the victim's boyfriend. Her younger brother?"
"No. He's Aoki Ryohei, a first-year Class B student. He's the victim's underclassman. They knew each other through the basketball club, the victim was the team's manager, and he's one of the club members."
'I see. That explained why he looked so devastated.'
Ritsu couldn't help imagining a melodramatic soap opera. Most likely, this underclassman had secretly been in love with the victim, which was why he looked so grief-stricken.
Real grief and fake grief were easy for Ritsu to distinguish. He could tell Ryohei's sorrow over the victim's death came from the heart.
As for the fakes, there was Hino, who hadn't managed to squeeze out even a single proper tear after all this time.
And Haruko, who kept calling herself the victim's best friend... she was even worse. She had actually smirked.
As for the remaining suspect, Nakanishi wasn't innocent either. He had caught the affectionate way she looked at Hino. She had even boldly hooked her pinky lightly against his palm.
'Tsk.'
The relationship chart among these suspects was messy enough to make anyone's brain throb.
Removing his glasses to wipe the lenses, Ritsu stepped forward.
"Hello. Could the four of you cooperate by giving me a complete timeline of what happened during the incident?"
The moment the question left his mouth, every suspect eagerly rushed to distance themselves from the crime.
It felt like chickens talking to ducks.
He had asked for the timeline of the murder. Instead, every single one of them was busy insisting they couldn't possibly be the killer.
'If your Japanese language teacher knew your listening comprehension was this bad, they'd probably cry.'
Feeling someone tugging at his pant leg, Ritsu looked down. It was Conan, whose face practically screamed, "Let me answer!"
Then came the deliberately adorable voice.
"Onizawa-nii, I know!"
"Conan, don't interrupt. This is—"
Ran reached out to pull Conan away, but the little troublemaker darted behind Ritsu, tightly hugged his right leg, and peeked out from behind him.
"I'm not interrupting, Ran! I really do know!"
Playing along, Ritsu picked Conan up with one hand and smiled.
"Sometimes children notice things adults overlook. Go ahead, Conan."
Conan immediately launched into an eloquent explanation.
He summarized the timeline remarkably well, mentioning that Hino had once carried the victim upstairs by himself. Not long after coming back downstairs, he left the villa to buy snacks for everyone.
During that time, he called Nakanishi.
After receiving the call, Nakanishi went upstairs herself and disappeared for about three minutes before returning to the others.
After hearing Conan's reconstruction of the timeline, Ritsu realized that every suspect had, at some point, been alone and out of everyone's sight.
In other words, every one of them had an opportunity to commit the murder.
Turning toward Nakanishi, he asked,
"Nakanishi-san, could you tell me what you and Hino-san talked about? Why did you have to leave after receiving the call? Was it something that couldn't be said in front of everyone?"
That final question caused both of their expressions to change. Nakanishi, whose nerves were clearly weaker, froze on the spot.
"Hmph. It must've been something they didn't want anyone else hearing. Nakanishi is Hino's ex-girlfriend. Haruka didn't even know about it."
The one who finally spoke was Haruko, casually dropping the bombshell.
'Just as I suspected.'
And it probably wasn't just that they were exes. There was likely... a chance that old feelings had been rekindled.
Fixing Nakanishi with a sharp stare, Ritsu took a deliberate step forward, applying enough pressure to force the truth out of her.
"Nakanishi-san, care to explain?"
"I'll explain."
Hino pushed up his glasses and frowned.
"Nakanishi is indeed my ex-girlfriend, but we've long since become just ordinary friends. As for the phone call you asked about, Officer... I simply forgot to ask Haruka what kind of snacks she wanted.
Knowing her personality, she'd definitely get upset if I bought the wrong ones. So I asked Nakanishi to go upstairs and ask her for me."
Ritsu raised an eyebrow slightly.
His mental composure really was impressive. The first half of that statement was a lie, yet he delivered it as naturally as if it were the truth.
Still, he had tried too hard.
That phone call had been a serious mistake.
Not wanting to alert him, Ritsu deliberately turned toward Nakanishi.
"Is that what happened?"
"Yes. I knocked on the bedroom door when I went upstairs. As soon as I asked Haruka, she answered impatiently, 'Just buy whatever! I'm so sleepy! Stop bothering me!' Then I came back downstairs."
Making the phone call in advance, sending someone upstairs afterward, it successfully created his own alibi while also delaying the estimated time of death.
'What an old-fashioned trick.'
Ritsu guessed that the raincoat Hino had worn during the murder had probably been used to wrap the murder weapon before being hidden somewhere.
And the weapon itself had most likely been planted to frame one of the other suspects.
Unfortunately...
'You're nearsighted.'
A raincoat might protect your clothes, but it couldn't protect your glasses.
Judging from the amount of blood the victim had lost, even the killer's gloves should have been soaked through. The odds of blood ending up on the glasses were simply too high.
Rather than solving the case immediately, Ritsu looked toward Conan, who was standing there deep in thought.
He was genuinely curious how Kogoro had become the famous Sleeping Kogoro.
'Kudo, with Mr. Mouri absent today... How are you going to solve this one?'
Suddenly, Takagi came running over in a panic, carrying several items in his arms.
"Inspector! We found a bloodstained raincoat and the murder weapon inside Hino-san's closet!"
"What?!"
Seeing the stunned look on Hino's face, Ritsu smiled and shook his head.
That performance was completely unconvincing. Far too exaggerated.
'Now then... What are you going to do next, great detective trapped in a child's body?'
He was genuinely curious.
How exactly did Shinichi use Kogoro to solve cases?