"The victim is Okazaki Sumie-san, age 39. She was strangled to death with a rope of some sort. She appears to have been stabbed after being strangled," Sakata observed. "What time did you find the body?"
"Three or four minutes before you arrived," Heiji said. "This bathroom cleaner guy found her. But why does the killer stab their wallets every time? You told this lady not to go outside, but it looks like she died here."
Inside Okazaki's apartment, they were listening to the messages on her home phone.
"Come to the Shinsai Bridge now if you want to see some old friends."
A beep.
"1:08 PM."
A beep.
"See that? You're the next to wind up like that."
A beep.
"1:10 PM."
"There's no question that's the killer!" Sakata determined.
"In other words, the lady heard the first message and went to the Shinsai Bridge," Heiji said. "Then, when she came back, she heard the second message and trembled in fear inside." He frowned. "But what does "old friends" mean?"
"Could it refer to the people who've been killed so far?" Sakata suggested.
"Detective Sakata. There's a call from headquarters," an officer said, holding up a phone.
"Oh, thanks." Sakata took the phone.
"Heiji." He looked at Suzume. "These answering machine messages are strange."
"How so?"
"The times and contents of the messages," she said. "There were only two minutes between the "come" message and the "see that" message."
"Does that mean the killer was watching her?" Heiji frowned.
"Something's also odd about those four numbers," she told him. "I'm getting the bad feeling that the killer is playing with us."
"Bad feeling?" Heiji murmured as he remembered the dream he mentioned to her earlier in the day, about her solving a case and then getting stabbed by the murderer. He let out a gasp, horrified at the thought.
Suzume looked at him when she heard him gasp. "You okay?"
He waved his hands. "Don't sweat it!" Yikes! I just remembered that ominous dream from the other day.
She frowned at him but didn't comment on it, just letting her arm brush against his as a silent sign that she was standing next to him.
~ — — — ~
"So, Heiji-kun. Where to next?" Sakata asked as they drove down the road. "Shall we visit Goshi-san's office?" He looked at the teenager when he didn't answer. "Heiji-kun?"
Heiji startled and smiled nervously. "Oh, right."
"These sure are strange cases," Sakata commented. "There are no witnesses and it's not clear how they're all connected, yet we can ID the victims easily enough."
"Yeah, now that you mention it," Heiji hummed. "The victims' names were on the news right after the first two killings."
"That's only natural. All four had their driver's licenses in their stabbed wallets," Sakata said.
"Driver's licenses?" Suzume and Heiji chorused. "That's it!"
~ — — — ~
They stopped off at Kadoma Driver's License Testing Grounds and met with someone who works there.
"So all four have clean driving records," Sakata said as he looked over the file in his hands.
"Yes."
"I thought there might be a car connection," Heiji sighed, leaning back on the couch. "Guess I was wrong again."
"They also all got their licenses different years at different places," Sakata added.
"Listen to this," Suzume said, getting their attention. "It says Okazaki learned to drive in Hyogo and not Osaka."
Heiji looked over the paper in her hands. "So it does. Why that far away?"
The worker looks at the paper and hums. "Oh, that place is famous for its cheap license school," he told them.
"License school?!" Suzume exclaimed. "Does that mean—?!"
"That's her friends!" Heiji realized. "Do you have the number for that place, Mister?"
"Yes."
~ — — — ~
"Eh? Okazaki Sumie and Nishiguchi Tayo shared a room at the school?!" Sakata exclaimed into the phone. "Seriously?!"
"Alright! We're starting to connect the four victims now!" Heiji grinned.
"It's a little strange, though," Suzume said. "Okazaki-san got her license that same year, but Nishiguchi got hers three years later."
"Maybe she sucked at driving and didn't graduate that year?" Heiji suggested.
Suzume frowned.
"That's crazy!" Sakata's shout made them look at him. "You're really sure about that?!"
"Huh? What is it?"
"The others were at that school twenty years ago, too!" Sakata told them. "The first victim, Nagao Hidetoshi-san, the third victim Noyasu Kazuto-san, and Assemblyman Goshi-san! They were all at the same place!"
"What?!" Heiji gasped.
"And that's not all. There was also a man whose name is all too familiar now."
"Familiar?! Who?!"
"Numabuchi. Numabuchi Kiichiro."
Suzume's eyes widened. "Wait, you don't mean—! The robber and murderer..."
"...who's on the run?!" Heiji finished, just as shocked as her.
~ — — — ~
Sakata had the class photo printed out to show them. "Here it is! The school photo!"
Heiji pulled it from the tray and looked at it. "No question about it! It's Numabuchi! The faces and names of the other five match, too!"
"But this is strange," Suzume murmured. August 23, 1978 graduates. "See? It says they all graduated then, but only Okazaki-san went on and got her license."
"Something happened at this school twenty years ago," Heiji said. "Something..."
"I see. Thanks." Sakata hung up his phone. "None of the current staff know anything that happened twenty years ago."
"I figured as much," Heiji said.
~ — — — ~
They went to the Prefectural Nakanoshima Library to look it up.
"But there had to have been some sort of accident involving that training ground twenty years ago," Heiji murmured, tapping away at the keyboard.
"Wait, wait!" Suzume said, pointing at the screen at a news article. "Right there!"
Heiji grinned. "Bingo! This is it!" He enlarged the image.
Driving Instructor Dies in Accident
Drunk Driver Suspended
"On that day twenty years ago when those six graduated, one of the instructors died in a drunk driving accident!" Heiji read off.
"His name was Inaba Tetsuji," Suzume murmured. "The strictest instructor at the school..."
"Hey, how does this sound to you?" Heiji asked her. "Numabuchi, broke and in trouble, decided to use the old incident to blackmail the assemblyman out of money but was refused. So he killed off everyone involved in the incident and then repeated his threat." He leaned back in his seat. "That, or Goshi used Numabuchi to kill off everyone to keep the scandal from interfering with his Diet member campaign."
"Both sound plausible enough," Sakata said as Suzume thought it over. "When Nagao-san and Noyasu-san quit working for him, they received a lot of severance pay."
"Mention the instructor's death and his companions back then, and I bet that cop-hater will start talking!" Heiji said, turning off the computer and standing up. "Okay! Let's go!"
As they exited the library, they were confronted by Ran and Kogoro.
"Suzume! You could have at least emailed about what you were doing!" Ran complained, narrowing her eyes at Suzume, who just gave her a nervous smile.
"Sorry, Ran," she apologized.
"Hey, Hei-chan!" a man with Kazuha called out. "Long time, no see!"
Heiji blinked. "Otaki-han from Headquarters?! Why are you here?!"
Inspector Otaki Goro smiled. "Kazuha-chan asked me to be a driver."
"Sakata-han called us about Kudo-san," Kazuha said.
"Now why'd you do that?" Heiji muttered, side-eyeing Sakata before looking back at Kazuha. "Must be convenient, always having the cops at your beck and call!"
"Who're you to talk? You were touring Osaka in a police car!" Kazuha retorted.
"Now, now!" Otaki interrupted. "I can drive Kudo-san to the chief's house if you'd like."
Heiji glanced at Suzume, who gave him a shrug. "I'm okay with it," she said, starting to feel slightly fatigued.
He sighed before pulling her off to the side. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly.
She tilted her head and leaned against the outside of the library. "Just a bit," she answered. "Nothing some rest can't fix."
"Well, if you decide to get yourself involved again," Heiji said, pulling his charm off and putting it on Suzume, "I'll let you hold onto this."
"Your good luck charm?" she murmured, looking down at it.
He smiled at her. "Try to get some rest though," he requested. "When I come home, I'll tell you all about what happened."
She sighed before tucking the charm into her shirt. "It's a bad idea for you not to have this and you know it," she muttered, giving him a look.
"I heard about the rumors," Heiji said quietly and she stilled, looking at him cautiously. He gave her a reassuring smile. "I don't believe a single one of them."
She blinked before they rejoined the group, Heiji going with Sakata and Suzume heading to Chief Hattori's house with the others. She frowned as she watched Heiji drive off. I've got a really bad feeling about this...
"I'm starving," Kogoro muttered.
"We'll be at the chief's house in Neyagawa in half an hour," Otaki said.
"Heiji's mom is making blowfish stew tonight!" Kazuha told the other two girls.
"Oh?"
"I can't wait!" Kogoro cheered.
Otaki's phone rang and the inspector went to answer it. "Otaki. What?! You found the car of Numabuchi, the fugitive, in the Mino Mountains?! I'll be right there!" He gave Kogoro an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Mouri-han, but you'll have to wait longer for the blowfish stew." He put a police siren on the roof of his car. "I'm taking a side trip!"
Suzume grunted as the inspector made a quick U-turn.
~ — — — ~
Otaki parked his car and got out. "Sorry! I'll have a youngster come get you in a minute," he told them.
"Okay..."
"Isn't Numabuchi that murderer who escaped with a gun?" Kazuha asked.
"Things have gotten really bad. Right, Suzu—" Ran cut herself off when she saw the door open and Suzume not in her seat. Her eyes widened. "Suzume!"
~ — — — ~
"How's it look?" Otaki asked the officers.
"Oh, Inspector Otaki!"
"We found the car covered in plants, but Numabuchi is still..."
"And that shack?" Otaki asked, looking at the building not too far from them.
"It was empty when I peeked inside."
"Maybe he ditched the car and ran off somewhere else?"
"He's in there," Suzume said, catching them off guard.
"Kudo-san!" Otaki said. "When did you get here?!"
Suzume gave him a smile. "Take a look here." She led them to what she found. "I found these burned at the bottom of this can. They're convenience store receipts from five and three days ago, and stickers from lots of convenience store lunches that expire today." She looked at them. "Not many people would eat convenience store lunches at a place like this every day, right?"
Otaki smiled at her. "But if a wanted man showed up at a convenience store..."
"Someone else probably bought it," she told him. "Someone's sheltering him for some reason."
They went to the shack and searched it once again.
"Hey! You find Numabuchi? Well?!"
"No! There are signs that someone lived here a while ago, but..."
Suzume took a look out the window when she noticed something. There's mud on the windowsill... She looked up. That pillar and those beams don't have any cobwebs... She frowned. He stood on the windowsill and... She stood on the windowsill and jumped up, grabbing onto the beam nearest to her.
"Eh? Kudo-san!" Otaki shouted when he noticed what she was doing, aiming his flashlight at her.
She stared at the ceiling and felt around before removing a panel. "Oh? Looks like this leads to an attic!"
"Kudo-san, I'll have to ask that you leave the rest to us," Otaki said, frowning.
She obliged and hopped down onto the floor, letting Otaki climb up and look around the attic. "Numabuchi!" He climbed into the attic. "Numabuchi Kiichiro! You're under arrest for robbery and murder!"
"F-Food!" Otaki frowned. "Hurry, give me food!"
~ — — — ~
"You really need to stop running towards danger, Suzume," Ran sighed from her spot next to Suzume inside the shack. "You're gonna give me gray hairs while we're still in high school."
Suzume smiled sheepishly as Otaki and one of the officers led Numabuchi toward the exit in handcuffs. Numabuchi fell into a pile of trash, catching the two girls' attention.
"Hey, you alright?" Otaki asked, only to move back as Numabuchi swung the knife he picked up when he fell. "Hey, you!"
Numabuchi ran towards the two teenagers, whose eyes widened. "Outta the way!" he screamed at them.
He went straight for Ran, but before he could stab her, Suzume got in front of her and bit back a gasp as she felt the tip of the knife. Kazuha quickly grabbed Numabuchi's wrist, made him release the knife, and twisted his arms behind his back painfully.
"Suzume!" Ran cried as Suzume panted. "Are you okay?!"
Suzume nodded her head, lifting her shirt to reveal a small scratch and the lucky charm Heiji gave her. "Just a scratch," she said, looking at the charm with a worried frown.
"A good luck charm?" Ran asked.
"Heiji lent it to me," Suzume said.
"Heiji did?" Kazuha murmured.
Suzume opened the cloth. "The knife got caught in the chain link, so it didn't stab me," she explained.
Everyone, sans Suzume and Kazuha, let out sighs of relief.
"Never do that again!" Ran told her. It's supposed to be my job to protect you!
"Up, you!" Otaki said, pulling Numabuchi to his feet by the back of his shirt. "No funny business!"
Suzume got to her feet and relaxed as Ran's Rain Flames washed over her. "Why does he have two handcuffs on one wrist?" she asked as she looked at Numabuchi with a frown.
"Oh, this? I'm not sure why, but he was handcuffed to a pillar," Otaki said. "We had to get him free, so we cut the chain and put our cuffs on him."
Suzume's eyes widened as they led Numabuchi out. He was handcuffed?
"Looks like you were right about someone bringing him food, Kudo-san," Otaki told her.
Wait a damn minute! She pulled out her copy of the class photo. It can't be, can it? She looked at the instructor...who had a striking resemblance to Sakata. "Shit!"
~ — — — ~
Suzume paced the hospital room as she waited for her friend to pick up.
"Hello?" his voice rang through her earpiece.
She grinned. "Hey, I need a favor," she said.
This earned her an immediate groan. "What did you do this time?" he asked.
"Pierrot-san!" she whined, pouting and ignoring the odd looks she was getting from both Heiji and Kazuha. Ran just smiled at them reassuringly. "It wasn't me this time. It was a friend. He was shot during a case and is now in the hospital."
"I can't really do much about that, Suzume, you know that."
"Can you get the security cameras on a loop for five minutes?" she asked quietly, glancing at the door and watching the nurses, patients, and visitors all walk by the room. "We're going to try something out."
He was silent. "Okay. You've got four minutes, fifty-five seconds."
She immediately shut the door and locked it before pulling the curtain around the bed. "Do it," she said to Kazuha and Ran.
Heiji just grit his teeth and held in his yells and screams of pain as his skin was forcefully pieced together with Kazuha's Sun Flames with Ran's Rain trying to keep him calm and somewhat relaxed.
Suzume looked away and looked at her watch, counting the ticks of the second hand. "Two minutes, twenty-one seconds," she called.
"Oh, give me a second!" Kazuha groaned before stopping. She panted and wiped her hand across her forehead with a smile. "That should do it for now!"
"Alright, your loop's over," Pierrot-san said and Suzume smiled. "Did you get what you needed done?"
"All done. Thanks Pierrot-san."
"Of course."
"...I really need to get your name, Pierrot-san."
He laughed. "One day, Suzume. One day."
Fun Facts —
— Again. Polyamorous shit. Suzume and Heiji and Kazuha... God, I'm a fucking mess.
— The rumors Heiji alluded to will be addressed later on. Not sure when, but they will be.