Intertwined Paths | Shin Soukoku | BSD AU

VII

Chapter seven: Frustration.
As sweet as a piece of candy.
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Kanagawa police station
Kanagawa Ward, Yokohama.

“That's the thing. He only solves the cases he's interested in," said Yamagiwa, a woman in her early thirties. She had a set of wide hazel eyes, matching her long brown hair. Her outfit consisted of a white undershirt with a ruffled collar, a pink V-neck top, and a white suit jacket left unbuttoned.

"Huh? Why's that?" asked Sugimoto, a young man with short, choppy brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a standard police uniform. He was a rookie, completely unaware of the childlike quirks of their top detective—a man who boldly declared himself 'the greatest detective in the world.'

"That's Ranpo for you, Sugimoto. Says he'll waste precious time on boring cases when he could be eating candy and playing video games instead," said Minoura, the vice commissioner of the police department. A tall man in his 40s, he had short black hair and wore a white button-up shirt, tie, and slacks with a long coat. He always had a stern expression, one that had etched deep wrinkles on his face. He listened intently as his subordinates discussed the great detective. "I've learned my lesson. Trust me, that kid's no joke." said he.

“He’s on vacation in Tokyo, isn't he?” asked Yamagiwa.

“That would be correct,” replied Minoura.

Yamagiwa began, “I’ve got a case that could potentially be of interest to him… It's a two year-old cold case of homicide. Apparently, the victim, who seemed to be a pretty well known model, was found dead in her apartment’s kitchen. There were no signs of an intruder and all the doors and windows were locked from the inside.”

“Couldn't it have just been a suicide then?” questioned Sugimoto, puzzled by the perplexity of the words coming out from his senior’s mouth.

Minoura began explaining to his subordinate, “That's what you'd think. I've heard about this case. The victim was found on her kitchen floor. Not to mention, her fingers were burnt to destroy the fingerprints and her teeth had been taken out using pliers so that we couldn't identify her. And the face? The killer had distorted it so badly that you couldn't distinguish between her face and a bag of flesh and bones.”

“…and how did we ID her then?” asked Sugimoto.

“It took us a while. You see, the victim was originally a runaway case from Otaru, who was living here under the fake identity of a 20 year old named Sayaka Mitamura. We were eventually able to identify her as Misaki Nakajima by doing some digging. Seems like she was the reason for her modelling agency's skyrocket to fame. ” explained Yamagiwa.

“Oh! So that means someone was probably jealous of her, and that's why they comitted the crime!” exclaimed the young officer.

“That's what we thought as well. But, her coworkers and managers were cleared of their alibis, so were the people she was close with.”

“Then what about the family members?”

“They were cleared as well.”

“Why wasn't that so called 'greatest detective in the world' of yours able to solve it then?” asked Sugimoto again.

Officer Minoura chuckled. “It's not that simple, Sugimoto. Ranpo was assigned to a different case back then, the one case that made him known as 'the greatest detective in the world' by everyone.” said he.