Conan: Chief of Rice Flower's Science Points

Chapter 295 Motive for murder

After receiving Shiraishi's call and hearing his question, Igari recalled, "It was a Japanese kitchen knife... The knife that the victim, Okada Shogo, used when he was learning to cook. He must have worked very hard to learn. I remember the blade of the knife was only 12 centimeters long."

"A Japanese kitchen knife that has been used for a long time? Okay, I get it... Did the family take such a commemorative knife back home?" Shiraishi looked at the knife in the evidence bag and his heart sank.

"That's right. After the trial, the father of the deceased applied to retrieve the evidence, and I was the one who submitted the application to the court on his behalf." Igari felt very sympathetic towards the victim's family at the time, so he helped do some things.

"I see..." Bai Shi looked at the evidence bag and became more silent.

"What's wrong?" Ikariri noticed that Shiraishi's tone was different.

"It's nothing. The case is progressing steadily. The real culprit will definitely be caught. Don't worry." Shiraishi did not tell Ikariri immediately.

Although there is no forensic evidence yet, after Shiraishi confirmed with Ihori, it is basically certain - the murder weapon is most likely the same one from ten years ago!
"Really?... I'll leave it to you then." Of course Ishihara could tell that Shiraishi was hiding something, but as a professional, he also understood that in this situation, the more questions he asked, the worse it would be. Shiraishi certainly had his reasons for not saying anything.

After hanging up the phone, Shiraishi discovered that Kuroki was reading a book on the bookshelf in confusion...

"What's wrong?" Bai Shi asked curiously.

"Director, all the famous books on the bookshelf have only book covers. Only these few are real. Some of them have just been published... There are also the authors' autographs on them. I guess they may be gifts." Kuroki made his guess and handed the book to Shiraishi.

Shiraishi looked at these books and found that the author was a man named "Mineki Akira". The identity marked on his name was not a writer but a "documentary reporter". As for these books... they were not novels, philosophy or the like, but interview records claiming to be "documentaries", and they were all interview records of eyewitnesses of sensitive events!

"This Mineki Akira... seems to be a correspondent who often interviews special events and publishes them afterwards?" Shiraishi had an impression of this name.

Shiraishi had met her during the "Team Pairing" when she wanted to interview the "Organized Crime Countermeasures Department" that was beginning to make achievements, but...

Minister Odagiri felt that she had ulterior motives and actually wanted to interview the inside story of a violent organization out of curiosity, so he found an excuse to refuse.

Afterwards, she privately found a group of police officers to interview, which gave Shiraishi the impression that she was an unscrupulous female reporter!
"I think so..." Hei Mu couldn't answer either, he didn't know this person.

"Try to contact her. These may indeed be gifted books, which means that she may have been in contact with the deceased not long ago," said Shiraishi.

These books are placed on the table without being sorted out. They must have been given to me not long ago!
It would be great if I could find someone who has been in contact with Yuya Kono recently...

After all, his mother has no idea what her son has been doing recently.

Shiraishi did not stay at the scene for long, but simply "recorded" everything about the room - in his mind.

Before leaving, Shiraishi specifically told Kanzaki: "Kanzaki, the person who was in charge of the investigation of the Xiangye murder case ten years ago was Mr. Igari. He is also very concerned about this case. If there is anything that needs to be confirmed by the case ten years ago, you can go and talk to him."

"Yes!" Kanzaki was of course very familiar with Ikarii because he had also gone to the head office for training before.

Kanzaki also has great respect for this old forensic expert.

……

Meanwhile, Gen and Yamada's inquiries at "Okada Shokudo" yielded little results...

When Shiraishi returned to the Beika Police Station, he happened to see Gen and Yamada had also returned.

When he saw their police car pull up, Bai Shi frowned - not because of the technical problem of reversing into the parking space, but...

Coming back so soon, I'm afraid there won't be any progress!
"Aren't you going to Okada Shokudo?" Shiraishi asked directly after getting off the car.

Yuan was not surprised as to why Shiraishi knew about the case, and replied with a little embarrassment: "Yes, but... Mr. Okada is very repulsive to the police and refuses to communicate at all."

Because Okada Hiroshi had previously dealt with the police in his son's case, he knew that under the current circumstances, the police could not arrest him...

Moreover, he will hate the police and has good reasons. It is difficult to say that he is guilty just because he does not cooperate.

but……

Yamada then added: "Director, when we went there, Okada was indeed preparing to completely close the restaurant."

Because of what happened to the store owner Okada, Yuan didn't want to talk about these uncertain but suggestive things, but Yamada said it directly!
Indeed, although his son’s death happened ten years ago, it is hard to say that it was just a coincidence that he was going to close the small restaurant he had run for decades just after his “enemy” died…

Shiraishi nodded and said, "Well... the murder weapon found at the scene is very likely the same one from ten years ago. And after the trial ten years ago, Mr. Okada applied to get this evidence back in memory of his son."

"Huh?" Yuan was stunned when he heard that.

Shiraishi sympathizes with suspects like Okada Hiroshi, and if possible, he doesn't want to take any radical measures, but...

The premise is "if possible". If the case cannot be advanced due to the other party's non-cooperation, Shiraishi will have to think of some solutions - now the head of the Criminal Division is Kunikida, and when "thinking of solutions", there is no need to worry about being radical. Any methods that are slightly illegal will not be implemented.

The "weapon" mentioned by Shiraishi is undoubtedly the "formal method"!
With this as evidence, if Okada is still unwilling to cooperate, Kunikida can apply for an arrest warrant...

"I will go and have a good talk with Mr. Okada. He does seem to know something." At this time, Yuan was still willing to believe that Okada was not the murderer.

Bai Shi had no intention of instructing him. He just reminded him of the card. It was up to him to decide how to play it.

The only favorable factor that Okada has in the case right now is "ten years" - his son died ten years ago. If there was nothing unusual about him during this period, then those who had a grudge against the deceased recently would be the most suspicious.

Revenge for the murder of his son is indeed a sufficient motive, but since ten years have passed, if we want to testify against him, we have to consider "why he suddenly wanted revenge ten years later".

But now Okada is in a hurry to close the store, which obviously has something to do with the case. Coupled with the kitchen knife, he is even more suspicious...

Because of Mr. Igari's commission, Shiraishi paid closer attention to the case, but he did not do it himself. He just asked the Criminal Investigation Division to inform him when there were any new discoveries.

What Bai Shi didn't expect was that there were quite a few new discoveries!

Just as Shiraishi was about to get off work, Kunikida called him on the internal line: "Director, this is Kunikida... In the case of Yuya Kono, the Criminal Division has discovered several new investigative ideas and is about to hold a small investigation meeting. Would you like to come and give us your guidance?"

Shiraishi looked at the time. There were still five minutes left before get off work ended...

Bai Shi always felt that he did it on purpose!

"Okay, in the third conference room at five o'clock, right? I'll go." Bai Shi agreed.

Then Shiraishi called Ayako again and asked her to wait for him in the lounge - after all, everyone in the police station knew Ayako, and someone from the General Affairs Section would take her there.

Bai Shi didn't rush to the meeting room, but changed his clothes first, preparing to leave work after the meeting...

When we arrived at the meeting room, the criminal police involved in the investigation had already prepared for the meeting.

Three groups of detectives are involved in the investigation of this case, namely the "Kuroki Kanzaki Group", the "Makiko Suzuki Group" and the "Gen Yamada Group".

"The director is here... let's get straight to the point! Kuroki." Kunikida pointed to Kuroki first.

At this time, Kuroki stood up and connected the projector to his mobile phone. Shiraishi had provided training to the entire agency on the basic use of similar electronic devices and basic office software!

In order to prevent it from happening again, a large stack of Word documents was printed out, and then the entire class spent the entire day visually searching for the situation. Even the free time of the general affairs class was assigned the task of entering the old documents into electronic files...

After Kuroki's phone was connected, he saw a video playing on the projector - it was the content of a popular video platform recently.

Judging from the background, it should be a small restaurant, but the people captured by the camera have been censored and their voices have been changed.

Yuan saw this and said, "That's right, Okada Shokudo!"

He had been there today and knew the decoration and layout there.

And in the camera, it was a young man who walked into the restaurant and then "interviewed" the restaurant owner inside...

"Old man, do you still remember me?"

"You...you? Get out! You are not welcome here!"

"Hahaha, don't be anxious! If your son had let me go back then, I wouldn't have killed him. Tsk tsk..."

"W-what did you say?"

"Don't you understand yet? I said that I killed your son. I just lied a little and changed my confession, and then those people were fooled. Hahaha..."

"You murderer!"

"No violence! We are recording... Old man, please cooperate! How does it feel to talk to the enemy who killed your son? Is there anything you want to say to the idiot prosecutor and stupid judge back then?"

"You...I'll call the police! You admitted it, didn't you? You recorded it, didn't you?"

"Tsk tsk, you really don't understand anything... Don't you understand that there should be no double jeopardy? The case from ten years ago has already been sentenced. Even if I confess, no one can arrest me. Otherwise, why would I come to interview you?"

…Although the image is covered by mosaics and the sound is processed, it can still be seen that it is a stress-raising scene…

"This guy...what is he doing?" Bai Shi frowned.

"At the moment, it seems that the video was recorded in order to gain traffic and income on 'Youtubo'... This video was uploaded three days ago. The identity of the uploader has been identified by Yuto, and we will go to talk to him later." Kuroki explained.

The video was recorded from a third person's perspective. Apparently, in addition to Boss Okada and that little bastard Kanno, there was a third person recording the video - otherwise, Shiraishi estimated that he would not be able to leave the store!
The account that uploaded it was not Kano's, which was good news. Yuto was already opening his box...

After all, "Youtubo" is not a dark web. If the procedures are correct, its background authentication can be checked directly. However, the Beika Police Department now has a faster way - because Yuto is not a criminal policeman, Kunikida did not say much.

As expected, Yuya Kano is in a bad financial situation now, and...

This guy is hopeless. After his family cut off his source of income, he actually came up with such a way to monetize traffic.

As a result, the case has also undergone subtle changes - Okada's suspicion has been further expanded, and the only motive flaw, "Why did he suddenly choose revenge ten years later", has a perfect answer.

Although this is not good news for Yuan who sympathizes with Okada, but...

Facts are facts!

"But Mr. Okada is not the only one who is suspicious..." Yuan said at this time.

"Huh?" Bai Shi looked over with a little surprise when he heard that.

Yuan also stood up and said, "Yamada and I found the organization that Okada borrowed money from this afternoon. We learned that he recently repaid part of the money, and they haven't looked for him in the past few days..."

"Doesn't that mean there is no motive?" Kuroki looked at Yuan in confusion.

"Listen to me, the problem is his source of income... 'You Tubo' hasn't had time to cash out yet, right? After investigation, it was found that this is related to a reporter named Mineki Akira." Yuan suddenly mentioned the name of the reporter.

"Eh? That reporter?" Kuroki was stunned when he heard that.

Earlier at the scene, he discovered that "Mineki Akira" should have met the deceased Yuya Kanno recently, so he tried to find this Mineki Akira, but failed.

Although the middleman was found, Mineki Akira's phone was turned off and he had lost contact with the person.

Afterwards, Kanzaki was driving and Kuroki was in the car, watching videos at leisure, when he found this clue about Okada...

And Gen didn't know about Minegi Akira before, and he should have been investigating Okada, but he found information about Minegi Akira instead?

"Huh? Do you also know this reporter?" Yuan was also surprised.

"What's going on?" Bai Shi asked directly.

“It’s like this… When investigating Xiangye’s recent source of income, we discovered that in addition to shooting short videos, he also contacted this reporter Mingmu Ming, saying that he was willing to provide her with exclusive news, that is… the story of how he killed Okada Shougo!
"As expected, Mingmu Ming was very interested in this, and met with him several times to discuss it in detail, and even paid him a lot of 'information fees' in advance.

"Although I didn't find Minegi Akira himself, I met the owner of the bar where they met in the afternoon. Minegi Akira is a frequent customer there. According to the bar owner...

"It seems that Akira Minegi was fooled by him. Yuya Kanno just wanted to keep asking for money and kept hanging on to reporter Akira Minegi. When they last met at the bar two days ago, he threatened to find other reporters to cooperate with him and demanded a bribe from Akira Minegi.

"The reporter actually gave him another sum of money, but... the bar owner heard that after Xiangye left, she not only lost her temper, but also said to herself that if he couldn't publish the book after paying so much money, he would have to pay back the principal and interest."

Yuan found nothing at "Okada Shokudo" and "Loan Organization", but accidentally dug up another glorious story of Yuya Kano...

After hearing this, everyone remained silent.

"What does this guy want to do? If it's published, he will definitely get a big share, right?" Kanzaki said in confusion.

His partner Kuroki at the side shook his head and said, "No, you still don't understand traffic... I guess he's worried that after the book is written, everyone's attention will be shifted to reporter Mineki Akira. As long as it's not published, Mineki Akira will continue to give him money because of the sunk cost!"

"Why not just stop investigating..." Suzuki Atsushi muttered quietly - probably because he felt that this kind of person deserved to be put to death, and killing him would not only do more good than harm, but would be like getting rid of a scourge for the people.

However, his whispered muttering was immediately met with Kunikida's piercing glare.

Suzuki was startled by the glare and quickly stood up and said, "Ah! That... I also found a clue!"

Seeing him in a panic, Mu Gao rolled his eyes and handed him the correct document.

"Ah...that...we checked the deceased's call records before his death...By the way, his cell phone password is not his birthday, nor his parents' birthdays, but the date of the day he killed someone...ahem...let me continue..." Suzuki noticed that the section chief was still glaring at him, and quickly stopped talking nonsense.

"In the call records, in addition to the phone numbers of his bad friends and the reporter Ming Muming who couldn't be reached, there were two records that surprised us. One was a call that was connected three days ago, and it turned out to be the external affairs number of the Dongdu District Court. The other... was the number of the Demon Hunter's Office of the Dongdu Prosecutor's Office!"

As Suzuki was talking, Kunikida seemed to have noticed something and interrupted him, asking, "Does 'you' refer to you and Detective Makiko?"

"Um...this..."

"Yes, I was surprised too!"

Suzuki panicked when he heard that, but Makukao spoke up for him.

Shiraishi guessed it...

In all likelihood, it was his "special skill" that took effect and "summoned" the White Horse Detective!
But this kind of investigation is not the detective's specialty. He has completely missed the scene, and...

Jianggutian High School should not have a holiday today!
Therefore, the assistance provided by Baima Detective is very limited...

Kunikida certainly saw something, but he didn't say it out loud. After all, this didn't seem to be a problem of investigation ethics. He just continued to ask, "So do you know why he called the Toudou Court and the Toudou Prosecutor's Office? By the way... the case from ten years ago was decided by the Toudou Court, right?"

"Yes, we...I and the operator of Dongdu Court found out the content of the call."

When Suzuki said this, Yuan, Kuroki, and Yamada, who were originally taking notes, all looked up. When did you become so stupid? You even went to the Toudou Court to inquire about this? When did the people in the court become so easy to talk to?

Bai Shi was even more clear about it - it must have been Bai Ma Tan who went to ask!

After all, he is the son of the director, and even if he is not in the same system, the people in the court have to give him some face. Moreover, Bai Ma Tan might also know the "second generation" of the court, so it will definitely not be difficult for him to find out the content of a phone call.

Suzuki noticed the awkward atmosphere and was sweating when Kunikida asked, "The call from three days ago...does the court operator remember it? Is there a record of it?"

"No! It's all thanks to Makio! Detective Makio helped him recall it, he's so awesome..." Suzuki quickly praised Makio.

Hearing this, Mu Gao said embarrassedly: "Just pick something useful to say!"

Bai Shi glanced at Mu Gao - this should indeed be the credit of Mu Gao, as Mu Gao had studied psychology before and had asked Bai Shi for advice.

Helping the person being questioned recall their memory is also an application of psychology!
"Oh...anyway, the call three days ago was from a person who wanted to talk to Judge Hasegawa, but after being told that the call couldn't be transferred to the judge, the other party hung up." Suzuki told the operator what he remembered about the call.

"That's all? I guess you remembered it right?" Hei Mu asked.

Kanzaki on the side had already answered him: "No, Judge Hasegawa... is the judge who found him not guilty!"

Kanzaki had read the records from that year and still remembered the judge's name.

At this time, Shiraishi couldn't help but mutter to himself with a strange look on his face: "Could it be that he... wants to blackmail Judge Hasegawa?"

Indeed, if the person who was judged “not guilty” by me suddenly shouted “You are all idiots, I took the initiative to kill people” ten years later…

For Xiangye, because of the principle of "no double jeopardy", he cannot be held accountable at the legal level. As for morally... he has obviously given up.

On the contrary, for Hasegawa, if this happens, his career prospects can basically be declared over!
The same reasoning also applies to the prosecutor in charge of the case back then...

To sum it up, Yuya Kanno was short of money recently, so he mocked the victim's family in an attempt to shoot a short video and cash in on the traffic; at the same time, he hooked a factual reporter into taking money without doing anything; and... he also tried to extort money from the judge and prosecutor at the time!
"Then...what about the Demon Hunter Prosecutor?" Yuan asked tentatively.

The prosecutor of the case ten years ago was of course not Karma Go, but it seemed that this guy Xiangye found out the phone number and called...

Suzuki looked at him with a look of despair...

If you want to know, why not ask yourself?

"Well... I haven't had time to go to the prosecutor's office yet." Suzuki said embarrassedly.

It's no use going there!
Not only is Karma Hao the second-in-command of the Dongdu Prosecutor's Office, he doesn't have to give face to Director Bai Ma, and his personality also determines that... let alone being a Bai Ma detective, even if Director Bai Ma has something to do, he has to give in to him.

Upon hearing this, Bai Shi took out his cell phone...

"Wait for me..." Bai Shi said and started making a phone call.

Everyone was puzzled at first, then seemed to have thought of something, and an incredible expression appeared on their faces...

(End of this chapter)