Early the following morning.
Mori Detective Agency.
"I showed Genda the photograph of Keiko Gondo. It's confirmed—he visited her for fortune-telling sessions on numerous occasions," Inspector Yumiura stated with a grim nod.
To be honest, this development wasn't particularly welcome. It meant they could no longer rule the fortune-teller out of the equation.
Heh, Tsuneo thought to himself, sometimes these 'seers' understand human psychology better than professional doctors do.
"There's one more thing," Yumiura continued. "When the firefighters carried Ryoko Morozumi out of the blaze, they found her clutching this tightly, even in her final moments."
It was clear that Inspector Yumiura desperately wanted to prove Genda's innocence; he had brought the physical evidence along specifically to show Conan and the others.
Inside the evidence bag lay a small green cushion. It wasn't thin; it was padded with cotton and roughly the size of a palm. Its intended purpose wasn't immediately obvious.
"Has the victim's husband identified it?" Hattori asked, picking up the bag to inspect it. He couldn't see anything particularly significant about the object.
Is it just because the green color is nice? he wondered.
"Yes. And not just him—I showed it to all three suspects. Only Keiko Gondo seemed a bit flustered when she saw it," the Inspector noted. He had a growing suspicion that this item was linked to the victim's sister...
After breakfast, the group drove to Genda's residence. Ran and Kazuha came along as well. They had originally planned to spend the day at the theme park, but those plans had gone up in smoke—literally—due to the arson investigation.
Although he didn't have a search warrant, Inspector Yumiura had obtained the house keys directly from Takanori Genda. Seeing the confused looks on everyone's faces, he explained, "I told Genda I needed them to prove he's innocent."
"Does Mr. Genda live here alone?" Conan asked as they stepped into the entryway. The house felt remarkably large for a single occupant.
"Yes," Yumiura replied. "His father passed away while fighting a fire, and I heard his mother died of an illness two years ago."
"These footprints..."
Hattori and Tsuneo knelt on the floor, examining the messy prints left on the hardwood. They matched the leather shoes sitting in the rack perfectly.
"So, he really does walk around the house with his shoes on?" Kogoro mused, imagining a scene of Genda pacing the halls in the middle of the night, fully dressed.
"Compared to sleep-walking arson, walking around the house in shoes isn't that bizarre," Tsuneo remarked, flipping through the other pairs of shoes in the rack.
But why would he specifically pick the pair with the filthiest soles? No one had an answer for that yet.
"Hey, everyone! Come look at this!"
Conan's voice rang out from a nearby room. He was holding a large trash can. Inside was a shirt, clearly marked with scorch stains.
"Is this... what he wore during the arson?" Kogoro frowned. It felt almost too convenient. "Leaving something like this just sitting here... isn't that a bit sloppy?"
"No. The more obvious the evidence is, the more suspicious it feels," Yumiura said, shaking his head. "Mori, that man isn't the type to break into someone's home and set it on fire."
"..." Kogoro wondered where the Inspector got such unshakable faith in the man.
"A thirty-thousand yen phone bill?" Hattori and Tsuneo were sifting through the mail left in the entryway.
On top of the shoe cabinet sat a telephone and a very familiar-looking vase. The rest was just a jumble of letters and bills. The amount on the phone notification was staggering.
"Exactly. For a man living alone, that cost is completely abnormal," Conan added, walking over.
Even at the Mori Detective Agency—where business calls were frequent and Ran and Sonoko spent hours chatting on the line—the monthly bill rarely reached that amount.
"This vase... if I remember correctly, it's identical to the one in the Morozumi residence," Tsuneo said, picking it up to examine it.
The 'feng shui master' probably sold it to Genda too, right?
"Hey, there's something strange in here," Tsuneo muttered. As a handyman by trade, his eyes were sharp. He looked into the mouth of the vase and addressed the two detectives who were still debating the phone bill.
"What is it?"
The opening of the vase was wide enough to see that the color at the very bottom was slightly off.
"Talk about careless," Tsuneo reached in and peeled off a piece of white adhesive tape, pulling out the object hidden beneath it.
A wiretap!
Hattori and Conan's expressions shifted instantly. Did the feng shui master put this in here?!
"Hey, Heiji! We've been hearing weird noises from the radio since a few minutes ago!" Ran and Kazuha, who had been waiting in the car, opened the front door to report in.
It seemed that while sitting in the car, they had picked up voices from inside the villa through the car radio. It was very strange.
"Probably a frequency interference issue?" Tsuneo guessed. He wasn't an expert on electronics; that was a question for Professor Agasa.
"I don't know, it sounded a bit garbled," Ran said, shaking her head. "We were sitting there, and one second we heard Conan's voice, and the next we heard Tsuneo and Heiji. It was like we were on a conference call with two different places at once."
"My voice?" Conan scratched his head. What does she mean? The three of us are standing right here.
"Yeah, you were saying something about a trash can and a shirt," Kazuha recalled.
"It's in that room!"
Conan and Hattori shared a look and bolted toward the room where they had found the scorched shirt. There wasn't just one bug; there were multiple!
"It looks like this telephone was tampered with too," Tsuneo said, inspecting the device. Takanori Genda spent his days at his shop or running around visiting clients; there was no way he could have racked up such a massive bill on his own...
"Heiji, it's this crystal ball."
Inside the room where they found the trash can, Conan pointed to a storage cabinet filled with various antiques and crafts. Among them was one object that felt entirely out of place.
"Wait a second... that cushion?!" Hattori's eyes locked onto the purple cushion beneath the crystal ball.
The thickness and size were an exact match for the green one Inspector Yumiura was carrying!
"It's inside."
Using his hands to tear it open, they found exactly what they expected hidden among the cotton stuffing: another wiretap.
"People who play with others' hearts like this..." Tsuneo muttered, his eyes cold. He had no patience for frauds. Planting bugs in the homes of wealthy clients—it wasn't hard to guess what they intended to do with the information.
"I recognize that crystal ball! They say that fortune-teller is incredibly accurate!" Ran stood outside the door, unaware of the wiretaps, and started telling Kazuha about the famous seer from Beika Town.
The trio inside: "..."
No, she doesn't 'foresee' accurately. She 'hears' accurately!
"It seems you've found something interesting," Inspector Yumiura said, stepping into the room. He looked down at the torn purple cushion, then pulled the green one from his pocket.
"Looks like we've struck gold!" Hattori didn't hesitate. He grabbed the green cushion and ripped it open, a grin spreading across his face.
It wasn't a wiretap.
It was a small plaque engraved with the words "Red Hare."
No—to be precise, it was the base for a certain red horse figurine!
(End of Chapter)
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