"I suspect that while the rest of you were drinking during the celebration, Mr. Kawakami made an excuse—perhaps saying he needed to use the restroom—and slipped into this bedroom to quietly rearrange the furniture."
Hattori gave the deceased Mr. Takai's single bed a firm pat for emphasis.
"The structure of a single bed like this is quite simple; it's just a frame and a mattress. An adult man, if he's careful, could disassemble and move it without making much noise at all. The whole process wouldn't take more than five or six minutes."
Of course, if the situation had been like earlier with Ms. Jodie—passed out cold on the mattress—Tsuneo and the others would have had no choice but to lift both the person and the bed together.
"Once the scene was set, the next step was easy," Hattori continued. "He simply returned to the living room, waited for Mr. Takai to drink himself into a stupor, and then took it upon himself to 'helpfully' escort him back to his room to sleep."
Hattori turned his gaze toward Ms. Shimada and Mr. Nakamachi.
"...Yes, it was indeed Mr. Kawakami who took him back to the room," Chika Shimada murmured, biting her lip.
Looking at Nakamachi's expression, it was clear he remembered the moment as well. He had offered to help at the time, but Noboru Kawakami had insisted he could handle it alone, asking Nakamachi to help clear the table instead.
"The final step was to turn the mobile phone's ringer to maximum volume, place it right by Mr. Takai's ear, and wait until he got home to make the call."
With that, Hattori's deduction was complete.
The actual content of that phone call was likely nothing like what Mr. Kawakami had claimed. If he had opened with the topic of Sumiyo Hiraya's suicide, Mr. Takai probably would have snapped at him and hung up immediately.
"Evidence."
Kawakami's voice was cold. "Tell me, do you actually have any proof?"
"I don't exactly have a habit of running into other people's homes to help them move their beds." Kawakami's face remained remarkably composed, showing no sign of panic as he stared down the dark-skinned high schooler.
How does any of this prove I moved the bed? Couldn't Takai have decided on a whim to change the style of his bedroom, only to die in a drunken daze afterward?
Suddenly, a recording began to play.
"No one is coming to save you!"
"Takai, you bastard... just die in despair!"
"Go to the afterlife and apologize to Hiraya!"
Director Conan had taken the stage. Holding a transparent evidence bag containing the phone, he played back the chilling audio clip.
"This—this is?!" Kawakami's eyes widened in genuine shock.
"That's right. After the forensics team carefully examined the phone, they discovered this call recording," Hattori said, his voice dropping an octave.
In his final moments of desperation, as he clung to the curtains, Mr. Takai must have managed to hit the record button. He likely tried to throw the phone back into the room to preserve the evidence, but it hit the glass instead and plummeted to the ground.
This also explained the photo Ms. Shimada had taken. The point of light—the phone—had appeared right above Mr. Takai's head.
"It's not like that! I—I only said those things because I heard him screaming for help! It has nothing to do with me!" After a brief lapse in composure, Kawakami immediately began to shout his defense.
Jodie rested a finger against her chin, a thoughtful expression on her face. This is going to be a tough one to prosecute. Those few lines recorded on the phone aren't quite enough to prove murder definitively.
A moment later, she noticed the look of absolute victory on Hattori's face. Conan looked the same. She frowned slightly. Is there something else I missed?
"You claim you never moved the bed, correct?" Hattori asked, a small smile playing on his lips as he reached out and grabbed Kawakami's right wrist.
"What is the meaning of this?" Kawakami's face darkened as he tried to yank his hand back.
"I believe everyone present can testify to your statement," Inspector Megure stepped forward, his eyes scanning the room with professional gravity.
"Yes, yes! I'll testify. He definitely just said he didn't move any furniture," Ms. Jodie chimed in, nodding repeatedly. She was clearly enjoying the interaction.
"Then would you mind explaining why you have a band-aid on the edge of your palm?" Hattori's grip was surprisingly strong; he forced the man's wrist around to display the adhesive strip to the group.
"This... this is..." Kawakami found himself momentarily speechless.
"What does that prove?" Megure asked, looking at the band-aid with confusion.
"Well, Brother Tsuneo did say the floorboards need replacing, didn't he?" Conan looked up, a bright smile on his face.
"He did say that, but... they're not that old, are they?" Officer Takagi looked down at the floor, then at the handyman, feeling entirely out of the loop.
"One of them definitely needs replacing," Tsuneo said, looking at Kawakami and shaking his head slowly.
"Listen, stop talking in riddles!" Megure snapped, his patience wearing thin. At the most critical moment, everyone was acting like a cryptic poet.
"After he finished moving the bed, he must have noticed something that could easily expose the trick," Hattori explained, letting go of the man's wrist and looking down at the single bed.
"Expose it? You mean dust?" Takagi asked. A spark of realization flickered in his mind, though it wasn't quite a flame yet.
"Close enough. This bed frame is completely hollow underneath, making it easy to sweep. There might not have been much dust, but the indentations where the bed legs used to sit were obvious on the wood." Hattori nodded.
"You mean, he used his hand to..." Reaching the same conclusion, Megure knelt down exactly where Tsuneo had been crouching earlier, scrutinizing the floor.
"Exactly. He was likely trying to rub away the marks with his palm, but his hand was sliced by a protruding splinter in the wood," Hattori finished, turning his gaze back to Kawakami.
Furthermore, judging by the fact that the man had gone out of his way to apply a band-aid, that blood-stained splinter was likely still tucked away in a corner of the scene.
Initially, Hattori and Conan thought Tsuneo had only noticed the bed-moving trick, just as they had. They hadn't expected the man's observation skills to be so keen as to spot such a minute, physical detail.
"Inspector!" Officer Takagi called out. He had successfully found a slight discoloration in a gap between the floorboards. The splinter Hattori mentioned had likely come from right there.
To be honest, if you weren't lying flat on the floor looking for it, you'd never see the tiny discrepancy in color. But the mark was fresh. There was no mistaking it.
"I didn't do it on purpose," Tsuneo said, walking over to Kawakami and giving his shoulder a light, almost sympathetic pat.
The two detectives had spent forever crouching on the floor to find it.
"Forget it. It doesn't matter anymore. He's dead anyway," Kawakami let out a long, weary breath. He ripped the band-aid off the edge of his palm and tossed it onto the floor.
In truth, it wasn't much of a wound. He had been quite drunk at the time and hadn't even felt any pain while cleaning up the marks. As for where the splinter that pricked him had ended up, who knew?
It was only out of a sense of paranoia that he had slapped on the band-aid—and that very paranoia had led to his downfall.
"I guess you were right. Today really wasn't a good day." As Kawakami was led away in handcuffs, he suddenly remembered the cryptic words the handyman had said downstairs while he was cursing at Takai. He couldn't help but let out a bitter chuckle.
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