My neighbor's name is Conan

Aoki Matsu knew about this thing because the gas furnaces in his home and his parents' home were installed with it.

Coincidentally, Tokyo just had an earthquake at 3 pm today, it was only a 4.9 magnitude earthquake, just a slight shake, and then everyone continued to work as if nothing had happened.

In other words, Ms. Umeda stopped using the gas stove after the 3 o'clock earthquake.

Aoki Matsu felt that the beef in the pot was not cooked enough.

In this case, Ms. Umeda would have been unable to respond, which means that Ms. Umeda was most likely dead around 3 o'clock when the earthquake occurred.

Thinking about it this way, the murderer has much more time, at least two hours, which is enough for the murderer to take jewelry and the like.

The medical examiner estimated the time of death to be between 4:30 and 5:00. If Ms. Umeda had died at 3:00, it would be impossible for the medical examiner to mistake the rigor mortis of the corpse.

Therefore, Ms. Umeda's body must have been tampered with by the murderer.

What could it be?

Qing Musong thought about it and checked the body again, but found nothing.

There were no signs of frostbite on the body.

The refrigerator in Miss Umeda's house is also filled with wine, drinks, vegetables, fruits, etc.

Then how do we delay rigor mortis in this room with the heater on?

Logically speaking, such a warm room would actually accelerate stiffness.

This is exactly the opposite result!

Something is wrong. There must be something wrong here.

and many more!

Aoki Matsu suddenly realized something.

The forensic doctor's judgment of rigor mortis should take the environment into consideration, which means that the forensic doctor's estimate of the time when Ms. Umeda was murdered has a premise that has never been stated.

The prerequisite is - in this well-heated room.

What if the body wasn't in this well-heated room at the time?

The Umeda family has an outward-facing balcony.

The weather now is also winter.

Even Conan doesn't wear shorts + a blazer anymore, but instead wears long pants + underwear + a hooded sweatshirt.

This temperature is higher than the temperature in the refrigerator, but only slightly.

According to the testimonies of Minoru Kijima and the other two, as well as the testimony of Masataka Shimizu, when the four of them walked in, the lights in the room were off, the curtains were drawn, and the entire room was very dark.

It was Minoru Kimura who first discovered the body, and it was he who went up to check, and he stayed at the scene for 15 minutes.

If he was the murderer, then Kijima Minoru could have done it easily, killing Miss Umeda before three o'clock, then placing the body on the balcony, drawing the curtains, and then making it look real.

After Jiro Ishikawa and Yoko Nakamura left, they moved the body from the balcony to the living room, cleaned up the scene, and waited for Jiro Ishikawa and the police to arrive.

15 minutes is really enough time.

Is this the truth?

More evidence is needed.

Because all this is Aoki Matsu's assumption.

So now we still have to find evidence.

Aoki Matsu walked to the living room window, ready to open it and go out to the balcony to take a look.

Unexpectedly, I found white oil paint on the curtains next to the floor-to-ceiling glass window and the window handle, and the traces were still very new.

Then Aoki Matsu opened the window, and a cold wind blew in his face, causing Maori Kogoro next to him to sneeze, "It's so cold!"

Aoki Matsu turned on the flashlight and began to search.

Then some traces and residues were found on the balcony railing.

Qing Musong quickly asked someone to come and take a picture, then he took it down and put it in the evidence bag, and then he looked at it carefully.

"This is artificial hair." Qing Musong took a look and said, "It looks like it came from a clown's costume."

[Sure enough, my reasoning was correct. The clown once appeared here.]

[The problem now is... the thing pretending to be a corpse. Mr. Ishikawa and Ms. Yoko are not fools. Even if they didn't see the true face of the corpse, they should still be able to see the outline clearly, so it is most likely a doll or something like that.

You can't just throw this thing around randomly, because the target is so big, so there are only a limited number of places to hide it. 】

After thinking for a while, Aoki Matsu turned around and gave Maruta Ayumi a few instructions, asking him to lead a search of the entire apartment and the surroundings. In addition, he searched the trunk of Kijima's car, the ventilation duct and earthquake escape passage in the house.

Only these few places could the dolls be hidden.

Then Aoki Matsu made a phone call to the forensic pathologist.

There is no way to avoid the shortage of forensic pathologists in Japan. He is the boss and will leave after performing the autopsy.

"Forensic Doctor Tsujimura, my name is Aoki Matsu. I would like to ask you a question. If Ms. Umeda's body was left at today's outdoor temperature, given the stiffness of her body, how long is the estimated time of death?" Aoki Matsu asked bluntly.

Upon hearing this, Medical Examiner Tsujimura was stunned for a moment, then realized something, thought carefully and replied, "If it was today's outdoor temperature, then the time of death would be pushed back two and a half hours, probably between 2pm and 2:30pm."

"I understand. Thank you, Forensic Doctor Tsujimura. I have something else to do here, so I'll hang up now." Aoki Matsu said.

Then Aoki Matsu had someone call Ishikawa Jiro over alone, looked at him and said, "Mr. Ishikawa, we have a few questions that we want to ask you alone."

"Excuse me." Ishikawa Jiro responded.

"Did Miss Umeda tell you about this masquerade ball in person?" asked Aoki Matsu.

Ishikawa Jiro answered directly: "No, it was Mr. Kijima who told me and Yoko that it was Editor-in-Chief Umeda's idea. By the way, at about 4:30, Editor-in-Chief Umeda also sent an email to Yoko with a photo of Editor-in-Chief Umeda dressed up as a clown."

Qing Musong nodded, and then asked: "I would like to ask, when you walked in, did you see the face of the body? Note that I am talking about the face, not the picture you imagined in your mind."

Ishikawa Jiro thought for a moment and said, "No, neither Yoko nor I saw the face of the body. Mr. Kijima was the first to enter the room, and he was the one who went forward to check on Editor-in-Chief Umeda.

Because there was no light in the room, I didn't see the face of the body clearly. At that time, I saw Mr. Kijima suddenly called out "Editor-in-Chief" in a sad voice, and then bent down.

When I was about to go forward, Mr. Kijima stopped me and said, "Don't move. It will be bad if you destroy the criminal's footprints." Then I didn't go forward. Then Mr. Kijima looked for the phone, but found that the phone line was cut. "

Aoki Matsu keenly grasped a detail in Ishikawa Jiro's words and asked hurriedly, "You mean, after he found out that Ms. Umeda was dead, he directly stopped your behavior instead of saying things like 'Editor-in-Chief Umeda is dead', 'Someone's dead', 'Someone's been murdered', and he didn't ask you to turn on the lights?"

This is very strange.

Even someone as "battle-hardened" as Mao Lilan would subconsciously scream when seeing a corpse.

There was something completely wrong with Kijima's reaction.

Unless... he already knew that Miss Umeda was dead.

Ishikawa Jiro thought about it carefully and said, "That's right, Mr. Kijima's first words were to stop me from going forward. At that time, he never said, 'Editor-in-Chief Umeda is dead,' nor did he say anything like, 'He was murdered.'

Instead, he immediately went to find a phone and didn't ask us to turn on the lights. We then discussed calling the police, and Yoko and I left the house."

"So how did you get here today? Did you walk or take a car? Whose car did you take?" Aoki Matsu asked.

Ishikawa Jiro replied, "It was Mr. Kijima's car. We met in front of the Beika Department Store at three o'clock, then changed our clothes together, and then took his car to come here."

"I understand, thank you, you can go back. Please ask Miss Yoko to come over." Aoki Matsu said.

"Okay." Ishikawa Jiro responded.

Yoko Nakamura's words are exactly the same as Jiro Ishikawa's.

In this way, the murderer was identified as Minoru Kijima.

"Inspector Aoki." Chiba Kazunobu came over at this time, holding a document and said, "Inspector, the Forest Company cooperated with us to read the data on Shimizu Masataka's LINE account, and confirmed that at 10 o'clock this morning, someone did leave him a message, asking him to come to this place at o'clock and take the jewelry on the table to the park in front of the station. The reward was very high, yen."

No wonder Shimizu Masataka still did it even though he knew there was a problem.

You have to know that Aoki Matsu's high-paying job in Japan, if you only count the salary, doesn't even reach 10,000 yen a day. But with all kinds of benefits and subsidies, it's more than double that.

"Inspector!" Maruta Ayumi ran in hurriedly and said a few words in Aoki Matsu's ear.

Aoki Matsu's mouth curled up when he heard this. He found the evidence. He looked at Maruta Ayumi and said, "I know. Thank you for your hard work."

Then Aoki Song invited Kijima and the other two out, looked at them and said, "After searching, we have found the murderer. Mr. Kijima, the murderer is you, right!"

Kijima Minoru's face changed when he heard this. "Officer, what nonsense are you talking about? I was with Ishikawa and the others from 3 to 5 o'clock. Editor-in-Chief Umeda died between 4:30 and 5 o'clock. I didn't have the time to commit the crime."

"Then before three o'clock?" Aoki Matsu looked at Kijima Minoru and said, "Where are you?"

Kijima was stunned for a moment, then quickly said, "Well, I'm doing some chores."

"But no one gave you proof, right!" Aoki Matsu said with a sneer looking at Kimura Minoru.

"But Mr. Kimura has been with us since three o'clock. How could he have the time to come and kill Editor-in-Chief Umeda?" said Jiro Ishikawa.

Nakamura Yoko heard Ishikawa Jiro say this and said, "Even if we acted separately, we only had to go to a pay phone, but Editor-in-Chief Umeda was already dead by then!"

"Yes, Miss Umeda was already dead at that time, but she did not die between 4:30 and 5:00 in the afternoon. She was killed earlier," said Aoki Matsu.

"As for the estimated time of death by the medical examiner just now, he actually had a premise that he didn't mention, which is that it must be in such a warm temperature at Umeda's house. I have just asked him again, if it is under today's outdoor temperature, the time of death should be between 2 and 2:30.

It just so happened that when you came to the room, the curtains were drawn and the lights were off. It was impossible to see what was happening on the balcony outside the living room. As long as the body was placed on the balcony, the onset of rigor mortis could be delayed. "

Nakamura Yoko frowned when she heard this. "But, Editor-in-Chief Umeda sent me an email at 4:30!"

"This is very simple. You can do it by taking Ms. Umeda's cell phone after killing her." Aoki Matsu replied: "Similarly, because the curtains were drawn and the lights were off, Mr. Ishikawa and Ms. Yoko only saw a thing in clown clothes lying on the ground, and did not see the front.

You didn't get close at that time, and were stopped by Mr. Kijima. So you weren't sure whether the thing you saw on the ground was Ms. Umeda's body or not. "

At this time, Kijima Minoru was a little overwhelmed. He was anxious, staring at Aoki Matsu and said loudly: "What are you talking about? I saw the body here with them. If it's not the body of Editor-in-Chief Umeda, then what do you think the body of the clown is?"

"It's a puppet! It's made up like a clown and is the same size as Miss Umeda." Aoki Matsu looked at Kijima and said, "I asked Mr. Ishikawa and Miss Yoko. Miss Umeda didn't tell them about this party herself, but you, Mr. Kijima, relayed it to them. So if you prepare in advance, it's easy.

And Mr. Kijima, when you implemented this plan, you probably didn't expect that a 3 magnitude earthquake would occur at 4.9 o'clock this afternoon. Ms. Umeda's gas stove is equipped with an earthquake sensor, which will automatically shut down when the earthquake exceeds level .

Therefore, when we police took over, we found that the gas stove was not turned off and was still on low heat. In addition, the beef stew in the pot was not cooked yet and could not be ready in time for the 5 o'clock party. After the 3 o'clock earthquake, the fire was not lit again, which is enough to prove that Ms. Umeda had died at the time of the 3 o'clock earthquake.

"This...you said I am the murderer, then do you have any evidence?" Kimura Minoru used his last trick, "You are so stupid, I want to go back first." As he said that, he was about to leave, but was stopped by Maruta Ayumi and Chiba Kazunobu.

"Of course I have evidence." Aoki Matsu looked at Kijima Minoru and said, "When you brought the body back, you were worried that Mr. Ishikawa and the others might come back at any time, and you were also worried about being seen. So you just threw the doll off the balcony.

The paint on the puppet clown's face rubbed onto the curtains. In addition, when you hid the puppet, you were obviously in a panic, so the clown's clothes on the puppet leaked out from the trunk door and were seen by us police at a glance. If you don't believe me, you can go to the balcony to see it."

"No, this is impossible." Kimura was completely panicked. He hurriedly ran to the balcony, looked down, and suddenly his whole body began to tremble.