"Oh my, do all you detectives have such wildly imaginative minds?"
"How could you say I killed Saori?"
He knows nothing, he has no evidence.
Calm down, Kimie Shimabukuro.
Although the plan has changed, it should not affect the overall situation.
As long as... we can get past this detective...
All of this mental preparation was done by Junhui without changing her expression.
She's an actress too!
"You're going to dispose of the body, right?" Shinichi Kudo said, looking into her eyes.
"Miss Junhui is very good at disguises. As long as she dresses up Miss Saori's corpse to look like herself, and then destroys it by some method..."
"The person who finds the body will assume it's you."
"What are you talking about!" Junhui said with a laugh, "What corpse!"
"Didn't I tell you that Saori was still..."
"So you're going to accompany me to the dentist, huh?" Shinichi interrupted her.
"Strangely, when we called to inquire, the dentist said that the person who saw us was Ms. Saori."
"It's just that Miss Junhui's social security card was used."
“The person they recorded as a patient was Miss Junhui. You can imagine that if a body resembling Miss Junhui were found on the island, it would be easy for people to connect it to your dental visit.”
"If we compare the dental records kept by the clinic with the body, we should be able to confirm that it is the same person."
"Miss Kimie is dead. Miss Saori has simply disappeared, but the old woman will continue to exist."
"Miss Junhui, is this your plan?"
Shinichi Kudo finished speaking confidently in one breath.
I expected to see unease and frustration on Junhui's face, but to my surprise, her eyes were bright, and she started clapping.
"Kudo-kun, your reasoning is really amazing, just like Sherlock Holmes in the novels!"
She finished speaking sincerely, then tilted her head and smiled gently.
"But where is the evidence?"
"Just because I played the role of the longevity woman, you're saying I killed Saori?"
These are two completely unrelated things.
No, of course they are related!
Shinichi Kudo was certain of this.
He could always sense that almost everyone on the island had a fanatical obsession with the legends of the Longevity Woman and the mermaid.
He believed they would do anything in this state of paranoia.
but……
As the high school detective pondered, his phone rang urgently.
"Hey, Kudo-kun, how's it going on your end?"
Yoruichi Toyama's voice sounded a little heavy.
And without waiting for his reply, she continued, "Come over to the warehouse."
“I have already called the police and asked Ms. Sumi and Ms. Naoko to come and identify it.”
"The body here should be Kadowaki Saori without a doubt."
...
When Shinichi and his two companions rushed to the warehouse, they saw Kotobuki and Naoko embracing and weeping in the corner furthest from the body.
“Saori…how could this happen…the mermaid’s curse…”
"That's right, the mermaid died here..."
"What mermaid?!" Junhui suddenly burst in, glaring at them angrily. "There are no mermaids in this world!"
"But...but..." The two women, who had been inexplicably scolded by their best friend, stammered for a long time without being able to explain themselves.
"Miss Junhui knows who that 'mermaid' is, right?" Yoruichi Toyama asked softly, "The middle-aged woman who burned to death in the warehouse three years ago?"
Seeing Shimabukuro Kimie's final hesitation, he shook the phone in his hand.
"The Fukui Prefectural Police Station has received the report, but the wind and waves are too high tonight, and they will not be able to arrive until tomorrow morning."
"Besides the few of us, I don't see any signs that anyone else has been in this warehouse."
"We didn't touch the body or anything around it."
“I suspect that, regardless of whether it was the primary crime scene, the murderer intended to burn the warehouse and the body together, just like three years ago.”
"So there's no need to deal with any traces."
"Miss Junhui has attended university, so she probably knows about police forensic techniques, right?"
"The principle of material exchange, also known as Locard's principle of exchange..." Shimabukuro Kimie said softly, "I've heard of it."
"When objects come into contact, there will inevitably be an exchange of matter, leaving something behind or taking something away..."
“You’re right, I didn’t remove anything—footprints, fingerprints, smells…”
"I don't even know if I dropped any hair on her..."
She no longer concealed her feelings, raised her head to look directly at the detectives in front of her, and her eyes showed a sense of relief that everything had finally settled.
“I killed Kadowaki Saori.”
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