Chapter 324: Kamon Hatsune's Testimony
The investigation had reached a suffocating bottleneck. Mouri's thumb hovered over the red 'reject' button on his ringing terminal, ready to dismiss the distraction. Then, the caller ID flashed across the screen: Natsume. Since she was currently stationed at the hospital keeping watch over Hatsune Kamon, the implications hit him instantly. Hatsune must have regained consciousness. He swiped to answer, pressing the device tightly against his ear.
Natsume's crisp voice filtered through the speaker, confirming his exact theory.
"That's fantastic news! Miss Kamon is awake?" Mouri blurted out, his booming voice echoing across the tense room.
Instantly, the heavy murmur of the crime scene vanished. Every pair of eyes in the vicinity snapped toward the veteran detective.
Bamba's shoulders jerked. A desperate, fragile hope illuminated his exhausted features. He took a hasty step forward, fully intending to grab Mouri by the lapels and beg for an update on his fiancée's condition.
He never closed the distance.
Mouri's expression darkened drastically. The detective's thick brows knitted together, and his gaze shifted, locking onto Bamba with a strange, unreadable intensity. That heavy, scrutinizing stare acted like a physical wall. Bamba froze in his tracks, the blood draining from his face as a cold knot of dread tightened in his stomach.
Raising a hand to signal Inspector Megure for patience, Mouri pivoted on his heel. He strode deliberately toward a secluded corner of the room, putting as much distance as possible between the terminal and the eager ears of the bystanders.
From his lower vantage point, Conan tracked Mouri's retreating back. His fingers twitched with restless energy. The young detective desperately wanted to casually wander over and eavesdrop on whatever bombshell Natsume was dropping on the older man.
He took a half-step, then stopped. The entire room was dead silent, their collective focus glued to Mouri's isolated figure. If a small boy suddenly decided to play in that exact corner, it would set off alarm bells in everyone's heads. He was trapped in place.
Bathed in the ambient light of the room, Mouri tapped a sequence on his terminal's screen. A faint, localized hum engaged. Despite standing only a dozen paces away, his voice was completely swallowed by the device's acoustic dampening field.
Conan adjusted his glasses, a flicker of begrudging respect crossing his features. He still harbored deep suspicions regarding the absolute security of those high-tech communication terminals, but he had to admit—their privacy mode was ruthlessly effective.
Mouri stood with his broad shoulders angled away from the crowd. He nodded rhythmically, his jaw tight with absolute concentration as he absorbed Natsume's rapid-fire report.
Minutes dragged by like hours. Then, Mouri whipped his head around. His sharp gaze pierced straight through the room, landing squarely on Bamba. The seasoned detective's face was a canvas of conflicting emotions—deep hesitation warring with absolute, raw disbelief. It was the look of a man who had just had his entire understanding of reality flipped upside down.
Bamba flinched under the weight of that stare, his hands dropping limply to his sides in quiet desperation.
Slowly, the deep creases on Mouri's forehead began to smooth out. He stared at the floor tiles, chewing on his lower lip as he processed the impossible information. A heavy sigh escaped his nose, his posture losing its defensive rigidity. He had clearly reached a silent verdict.
With a decisive click, Mouri terminated the connection and slipped the device into his breast pocket.
"Mouri, please!" Bamba's voice cracked, the agonizing suspense finally breaking his restraint. "What's wrong? Is Hatsune okay?"
Conan narrowed his eyes, analyzing the older man's micro-expressions. Mouri carried a heavy burden in his posture, but the frantic urgency and grim sorrow of a fatal outcome were entirely absent. That meant Hatsune's physical condition was stable.
Mouri's next words proved the young detective's deduction flawless.
"Hatsune is fine. She's fully conscious," Mouri announced, his tone measured and calm. "Natsume called to relay her official statement. Hatsune admitted that she attempted suicide tonight. Bamba never laid a single finger on her."
"But..." Inspector Megure stepped forward, adjusting his trench coat, his round face etched with professional skepticism. "Are we certain she isn't just protecting him? It wouldn't be the first time a victim lied to cover for a lover. Forensics explicitly found Bamba's DNA scraped under her fingernails."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the gathered officers. They all turned their skeptical gazes back to the private detective.
Before Megure could fully articulate his theory of false testimony, Mouri raised a single finger, cutting him off completely. "I have physical evidence."
He shifted his attention to the earnest young officer standing just behind the Inspector. "Takagi. Have Bamba remove his shoes and inspect the soles."
Officer Takagi blinked, then quickly complied, kneeling to examine the footwear. Once the young officer nodded in confirmation at the sticky residue clinging to the treads, Mouri continued.
"That stain on the bottom of his shoe is frosting. He accidentally stepped on a dropped piece of cake right before Hatsune left the restaurant. That single smear of sugar proves he never stepped foot outside. If he had actually walked all the way to the crime scene in this torrential rain, the water would have washed that cream completely clean off the rubber."
"Oh, I see!" Takagi exclaimed, his eyes widening as the simple logic clicked into place.
"That doesn't completely clear him, does it?" Matsuda leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. His dark eyes glinted with sharp challenge behind his tinted shades. "What if he intentionally stepped in the cake to manufacture a watertight alibi?"
"A fair point," Mouri conceded smoothly. "However, the cake in question was accidentally dropped by our observant waiter here." He gestured toward Amuro, who stood quietly near the tables. "Bamba couldn't have predicted that clumsy mistake. He didn't know the cake would be on the floor, making it impossible to prepare as a premeditated alibi., he hasn't uttered a single word about his shoes to anyone tonight. If this were a trap he set to save his own skin, he would have pointed it out the second he became a suspect."
Conan ducked his head, his brilliant mind racing through the variables. True. Just as the old man reasoned, the physical evidence makes it highly improbable that Bamba attacked her. But it still doesn't explain the core mystery.
His small hands clenched into fists. Why did Hatsune attempt suicide in the first place? Until we uncover the psychological trigger behind her actions, Bamba can't be completely absolved of driving her to it.
He cast a sideways glance at Mouri. The older detective was far too calm, his logic far too airtight for his usual bumbling standard. Did Natsume feed him the entire deduction over the phone?
Conan gritted his teeth, a flash of competitive frustration burning in his chest. Damn it. Did she manage to unearth another critical clue ahead of me again?
", Bamba has absolutely no motive to harm the woman he loves. As for the actual reason behind her tragic decision..." Mouri's voice echoed through the room, cutting through Conan's internal grumbling.
But right as he reached the climax of his deduction, Mouri's serious demeanor vanished. A sudden, awkward grin stretched across his face. He lunged forward, throwing a heavy arm over Inspector Megure's stout shoulders.
"M-Mouri? What are you doing?" Megure sputtered, struggling against the sudden embrace.
Ignoring the Inspector's protests, Mouri half-pushed, half-dragged the bewildered police veteran back into the secluded corner. Leaning in close, Mouri began to whisper frantically into Megure's ear.
The entire room watched in baffled silence as Inspector Megure's face underwent a spectacular transformation. The annoyance melted into shock, followed quickly by the exact same look of horrified disbelief that had paralyzed Mouri only minutes before.
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