Chapter 3131 3143 [Detective Hibiki Eri]
The waiter sighed: "There are fewer people at night, and it is easy to remember the guests coming and going. I don't remember the deceased lady going out, so I thought she should still be in the hotel.
"Plus, Lawyer Lin seemed to have something important to discuss with her, so I went to her room and rang the doorbell—twice in total."
"Twice?" Officer Yokomizo looked at the waitress and instinctively felt that she had become suspicious as well.
Fortunately, the answer hidden in his heart once again helped him avoid detours. The police officer did not doubt or examine Conan. He only asked and recorded efficiently in Conan's surprised eyes: "Why did you come twice? Did you find anything strange at that time?"
The waiter knew that the matter was of great importance, and recalled carefully: "The first time I came, because no one answered the door after I rang the doorbell, I went back to the front desk to tell Lawyer Lin that Miss Usui should have gone to bed."
"But Lawyer Lin didn't give up. He said maybe Miss Usui was just in the bathroom and didn't hear it, so he asked me to go find her once."
The waiter shook his head helplessly: "Although I might be complained about for disturbing customers' rest late at night, I will be complained about if I refuse the request of the customer's friends and cause the customer to miss something important... So even though I felt bad, I had no choice but to go upstairs and come to Usui's door again."
"But this time, just as I was about to ring the doorbell, I suddenly found a sign hanging on the door. There was also a piece of paper on the sign with a slightly scribbled handwriting saying 'Sorry, please tell him I will pay'."
Inspector Yokomizo: "...pay?"
"Isn't this a murder case between colleagues? Why is money involved?" He became more and more confused as he listened, and couldn't help muttering in his heart, "Let's take a step back and say that even if there was some financial dealings between the deceased and the murderer, why would the murderer post such a message on the door?"
This look of having the answer but not knowing the process is what an ordinary police inspector should look like.
Conan withdrew his gaze from Inspector Yokomizo and felt that the indescribable sense of disharmony just now seemed to have disappeared a little.
The fake child looked back at the waiter: "Did you tell him?"
The waiter nodded and said, "It would be best if we could not disturb the customers. So after seeing the note, I immediately went back to the front desk and conveyed the news to Lawyer Lin."
Inspector Yokomizo came back to his senses and asked curiously, "Did he say anything?"
Waiter: "Lawyer Lin is just as confused as you were just now. He doesn't know why the deceased lady mentioned paying. He said that he called just to discuss a meeting with Miss Usui. They had agreed to meet at 2 pm the next day, but now he wants to change the time to 4 pm."
Eri Kisaki touched her chin. "I see. It seems that the note with 'ha', 'ya', 'shi' and '2' written on it in the trash can means 'Meet with Lawyer Lin at 2 pm tomorrow'... But what about the note on the door?"
Inspector Yokomizo was also confused, but fortunately he knew where the end point was, so he quietly rushed in that direction: "But this way, we can clearly know the time of death of the deceased - the specific time when she was killed by the murderer should be when the waiter went upstairs to find her.
"And the note on the door was posted by the murderer to disrupt our investigation. So no matter how strange the words written on it are, it's normal."
Kisaki Eri nodded, then shook her head: "If that's the case, then the murderer's behavior is too strange."
Officer Yokomizo was a little confused: "What's strange about that?"
Looking at this strange police officer with a strange temperament, who seemed sharp at one moment and a bit silly at another, Hibiki Eri showed the patience she usually had when dealing with clients and spoke clearly:
"Jiang Xia and Lawyer Usui don't know each other, and the kid isn't someone who would kill someone on impulse. Add to that all the doubts we've seen before, and overall, he's not the murderer in this case - that's the premise."
Of course, this is nonsense... Officer Yokomizo was about to nod, but suddenly came to his senses and said with a straight face: "Whether it is true or not, we still need to investigate."
Fei Yingli glanced at him and said in a slightly cold voice: "I am not trying to convince you, I am just stating my point of view, please listen to it first."
She was clearly using honorifics, but Officer Yokomizo shuddered quietly and responded instinctively, as if he were being reprimanded by his superior: "Okay!"
Without the distraction, Hibiki pushed up her gold-rimmed glasses and continued slowly, "Jiang Xia is not the murderer, but he was in the same 'secret room' with the deceased, and when we found him, Jiang Xia's cell phone was placed by the door, so we could listen for the ringtone.
"All this shows that the real murderer who created this secret room intends to frame Jiang Xia for the murderer's identity."
"If that's the case, then it's very strange that he would imitate Miss Usui's tone and put a note on the door when he knew the waiter might come back."
Hearing this, Officer Yokomizo finally understood something: "The purpose of putting up the note was to pretend that Miss Usui was still alive at the time. But in fact, since he was planning to frame Jiang Xia for everything, he didn't need to cover up the murder here. He just needed to slip away after the waiter left and before the police arrived."
Kisaki Eri nodded, thinking that this police officer from Izu was not completely stupid, unlike the indifferent Inspector Megure in Tokyo:
"Besides, it was already late. If the 'Do Not Disturb' sign was hung on the door, the waiter would naturally think that the guest did not want to open the door, and would not immediately think that someone was dead in the house. The murderer still had enough time to commit the crime and clean up the mess. So the strange thing is, why did the murderer put such a piece of paper on the door?"
"Yes, why?" Officer Yokomizo scratched his head with his pen, and suddenly an idea flashed in his mind:
"Perhaps our starting point is wrong. This note was not written by the murderer, but was posted by the deceased herself! - She really had some kind of financial transaction with Lawyer Lin, and there was a conflict. After that, the murderer came to her door, but she thought it was Lawyer Lin, so she opened the door out of guilt, and then she was suddenly killed!"
Although judging from the answer given by Jiang Xia, Lawyer Lin was not the murderer, the deceased's network of relationships was not a straight line - perhaps her capital chain was broken due to her transaction with Lawyer Lin, or she offended another colleague, which led to her tragic death!
(End of this chapter)
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