Ghostly Hauntings:
Chapter 8:
Lin came over to join her and handed her a red pen. She dutifully circled the faces in red and showed the photo to the omnouji who rifled through the staff files to match up the faces with their headshots.
"The first one is Urado, the second is Matsuyama and the third is Ariade..." he informed her.
Three suspects. It was like a detective Conan filler murder case. The difference was that Naru wasn't genuinely dead.
"Are they still teachers at that school?" Yasuhara called out.
Lin checked their files again. "Two are currently still teaching there."
The four of them came over to see who the suspects are.
"Ew, I remember Urado-sensei," Keiko cringed. "He was my biology teacher. He was obsessed with trying to look young and he got plastic surgery during the holidays once-that's why he looks younger than he really is."
"Do you remember the other two?" Michiru asked.
"Ariade-sensei was a trainee teacher for a while before he qualified and one of my friends had the other teacher for homeroom."
"They all look to be around the same age," John said. "Of course, we know about Urado now..."
The three of them had black hair and looked to be in their late thirties to early forties. None of them looked like murderers, they just looked like they had no sense of humour and would be no nonsense teachers.
"How are we going to investigate them?" Yasuhara asked. "You can go the Police because Mai is an eyewitness and she hasn't used anything psychic to identify them."
Mai could understand him perfectly. The Police would be able to interview them properly and collect evidence legally. None of them would be able to that without getting in legal trouble later on. She didn't want a prison sentence for breaking and entering or something even worse. Although they had done exactly that when they had gone looking for the ghost. Mai was trying not to think about that part.
"Brown-san, that is true. The stumbling block is something else. It was Noll that used paranormal abilities to find the murderer first. That said, I do know someone that can help us investigate the three suspects. She is a Police officer in section one that used to work in England for the SPR. Noll knows her as well, she was his mentor until she decided she liked the investigative part more and wanted to move back to her home country," Lin explained. "She can do the part that we can't do."
Yet again Mai was grateful for Lin's presence. He was the adult they could rely on. Well, they were all adults, but not proper adults. John appeared to be thinking of the same thing.
"If we need some more adults that can investigate without seeming suspicious, I know a monk and a priestess. I met them on a case a while back," he said and pulled out his phone. "I have a photo of them."
Mai let a smile slip when she saw how much they did not meet the criteria for non-suspicious. The man that she assumed to be a monk had brown long hair tied back in a ponytail instead of a completely bald head. In fact, he looked more like a rock star than a monk. The priestess had dyed red hair, matching nails and was wearing too much make up. A priestess as far as Mai knew, was not someone that would be caught dying their hair.
"Um, John-san, do you know what a monk should look like?" Michiru asked awkwardly.
"I know they aren't the most conventional looking priest and priestess, but they get the job done," he paused. "After some bickering."
It wasn't that they doubted John's intelligence, he had been the one that had deduced Naru's true identity and brought them to his body after all. He just had a lot of trust in people that didn't always look worthy of it.
"If we need some extra people, I will let you know," Lin assured him.
John really did have some unexpected friends, Mai reflected. He even knew Masako Hara. An idea to her mind suddenly.
"Can we get Masako Hara to communicate with Naru's brother and ask him who killed him?" She suggested.
"No, he didn't see anything significant," Lin dismissed it immediately. "Or at least Noll told me that and I believe him because of the nature of the accident. There might have been some small detail he noticed the second time round, but I don't think talking to Gene would do much. Additionally, he appears to have passed straight on, she wouldn't be able to reach out to him anyway."
Mai felt a little disappointed, but she could see that he was correct in his criticism.
"That said, you have given me an idea," the omnouji said.
He refused to say anything further on the topic when pressed and they all soon gave up. Mai passed the time by helping the others with their proofreading and suggesting places to find information. She had gained a head start on her work by having Naru proofread it the day before.
Naru soon appeared in the same way as he had before. Now everyone was used to his appearance and didn't bat an eyelid when he arrived. They all just greeted him and returned to their work.
Right after he had appeared, Mai was pulled into a disagreement between Yasuhara and Keiko over which connective word would be best to for use in the penultimate paragraph which left Naru alone with Lin.
"Do you enjoy living with Taniyama-san?" The omnouji asked with a shade of awkwardness.
Naru winked at Mai. "She has good reading material lying around."
Lin looked extremely confused and then appeared to decide that he really didn't want to know the full details. This was good because Mai didn't want to have to explain it.
"Taniyama-san has identified some potential suspects from photos," Lin said. "Do you feel like you recognise anything?"
He brought over the circled photos and Naru took hold of them to have a look. His eyes rested on Urado and then he raised his eyebrows.
"Plastic surgery?"
Mai nodded and then took a look for herself. Now that she knew about it, Urado's face did look plastic. Naru was just more observant and faster on the uptake than her.
"I do feel a little familiarity with them," he admitted. "I can't tell you which one it is though."
As he spoke Lin's phone started to vibrate and the omnouji carefully drew it out of his pocket.
"I'm going outside to take the call," he said and hurried out of the hospital room after taking back the photos from Naru.
Mai's posture slumped. She was disappointed that she couldn't narrow down the suspect any further. If only she had remembered more about him.
"Don't berate yourself," Naru said softly. "Narrowing down the suspects to three is not bad progress. Lin has been here for a year and has never found anything."
Mai frowned. "I know..."
Naru's pale finger flicked her forehead and she winced. For a flick from a ghost it was painful.
"Stop dwelling over it. Investigating them will probably bring up some evidence."
Mai rubbed the painful area on her forehead and sighed. Naru was right. She couldn't do anymore right now. It was Lin's turn now to start investigating the three teachers that she had identified.
The man in question returned 10 minutes later looking to be slightly optimistic. Mai couldn't be sure because she hadn't known him for very long and he had a poker face most of the time, but she could sense that he had more hope than he had before.
"That was the nurse. She agrees with Taniyama-san's identification after seeing the photos. It has to be one of those three," he announced with a note of triumph in his voice.
Mai smiled in relief. She had done a good job after all.
"It's not that I didn't believe you," Lin said to her later on. "We needed a second opinion."
***
She didn't feel grudgeful and she went to bed feeling relieved instead of worried. They had made progress and she had made an important contribution. Her body was tired from the long day, but her mind was not so she lay awake in bed looking at the ceiling.
What had Naru seen during the psychometry? Could it be that he had run into the murderer by pure chance instead? Why had he gone to the school that day?
The glowing numbers of her alarm clock caught her eye in the darkness and she groaned. It was two in the morning and she hadn't fallen asleep yet. She also had a lecture at 9am.
It was time to see Naru. She had quietly removed the harlequins and replaced them with her more serious reading material earlier yesterday and she was intrigued to see his reaction. It appeared that Naru had gone for the historical books first. He was midway through a thick book on British crime and punishment through the ages when she poked her head out of her bedroom door.
"Having fun?" she asked, hoping to surprise him for once.
"A little," he replied, sounding like he had been expecting her at any time. "Having trouble sleeping?"
"Unfortunately. I can't stop thinking about everything," she said and plopped herself down on the sofa next to the ghost.
If this case went on for longer than she was expecting it was going to start affecting her studies. Having Naru as her proof-reader was an advantage admittedly, but she needed time to collect the information and she never felt like doing any work when she had a sleepless night.
Naru was silent as if he was trying to work out exactly what to say to her.
"I can read you something to relax you," he offered.
That made Mai feel sad inside. The last person to read her a story at bedtime had been her mother. No one had done that ever since.
"I'll read a harlequin aloud," he added. "I'll even do accents."
Mai snorted at the image of Naru reading out the romantic lead's lines with their appropriate accent. It would be funny to see the look on Lin's face when she told him about it afterwards.
"It's very tempting, but no," she decided. "I will laugh too loudly and wake the neighbours up."
"I'll tell you all about capital punishment then," he said. "I already knew most of this and you have read this book before, but it can be some light bedtime reading."
Mai felt too embarrassed to admit that she had never reached the end of the book. If she remembered right, she hadn't even got halfway before giving up. It hadn't really been high school Mai reading material. She was sure that it had been a present from a teacher at her high school.
"The death penalty was completely abolished in 1998 although the death penalty for murder was previously abolished in 1965 for Great Britain," he started.
His voice was good for reading aloud. As he continued Mai's eyelids began to feel heavy and her head soon found itself resting on Naru's shoulder.
Her vision slowly went black and Naru's face momentarily appeared in front of her. Then his face faded into a scene of a quiet country road with a mountain in the distance. She was walking down the road at a crisp pace when she heard a car approach.
She turned to check how far away it was and realised that it was speeding towards her at a very fast pace. The impact of the car hitting her was mercifully short and she only realised it when she fell to the ground.
Distantly she heard footsteps and the lower half of someone's legs came into view. Whoever it was wearing jeans. She waited for them to call an ambulance when they gasped abruptly turned and walked back to the car.
The sound of an engine starting up was audible and then the car moved towards her again. Her vision exploded into green and she felt herself being manhandled into a small confined space.
The sound of shrill beep dragged her out of her dream and she woke up to find herself on the sofa with her alarm clock next to her.
What had she just dreamt about?