ʙᴏʀᴇᴅ | ʙᴜɴɢᴏᴜ sᴛʀᴀʏ ᴅᴏɢs

Chapter 4

"Weird, shady warehouse. Yeah, I could see myself murdering someone here too. Wait- I'm not a murderer or anything, " Okada chuckled.

Her partner today was Tanizaki, the red-headed boy who acted as the kid who tried to blow up the entire building. Kaboom. Yay, that guy. If Okada hadn't witnessed the relationship him and his sister possessed, she would have thought that he was a pretty average person.

~flashback~

Naomi, the blue-headed girl who had been acting as a hostage during Okada's entrance exam, clung onto Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's arm tightly. At first, Okada thought nothing of it. Perhaps they were just really close siblings.

The younger Tanizaki daintily traced her fingers upon her brother's neck, whispering sweet nothings into his ear. Okada was pretty sure that the boy was turned on. Really, did siblings do this?

All of a sudden, the younger Tanizaki tackled her older brother. They were behind a desk, so Okada couldn't see what was going on. However, just by hearing a loud moan from the older Tanizaki, she made sure to keep her distance away from her scene. In other words, she skedaddled out of there before it turned into a porn scene, which she was absolutely 100% sure she did not want to see her two colleagues doing.

~end of flashback~

Okada could never look the same way at the red-headed boy ever again. Now, she was being paired up with him. Hopefully she could bring herself to look him in the eye, since they were now solving a murder together.

"You're from the detective agency, right? You might want to come and see this, " a man with a police uniform came by to inform them.

The police officer led them both to the corpse of the lady. Okada's eyes widened. Right in her heart, there was a red camellia. There was no mistaking it. She was sure about this. And she knew exactly what it meant.

You're a flame in my heart.

Red camellias often meant love, but to see it stuck into the poor woman's heart... How tragic. Okada had once received a red camellia before by her parents, who had picked it for her. Too bad they were both 6 feet under.

The victim's name was Hiroto Rei. She had gone missing a few days ago, and her family suspected that she had just gone to elope with her new lover. The body of the woman had been frozen, and her eyes had been carved out.

"If only the amazing Ranpo-sama was here, we could solve it in mere seconds, " Okada groaned.

"Yes, but he isn't. Let's focus on the case first, yeah?" Tanizaki replied to Okada's complaints.

Tanizaki was right. They couldn't bother Ranpo with such trivial matters like this. After all, he was the greatest detective in the world! How could he have time to oversee all of their boring cases?

"Actually, she wasn't the first victim like this. There were 6 other girls found around the town with the same flower in their hearts and different part of their body removed. One girl had her hair removed, another had her hands removed. Basically, all of them had a different body part removed. Another thing that might be worth mentioning is that all of them were found in a puddle of water, and their deaths were all one month apart, " the police officer informed us.

Wow. That seemed brutal. Okada couldn't even begin to wonder why anyone would do that.

"Tanizaki, can you help me pull up all the most recent deaths, mysterious disappearances and murders of young women? Thanks, " Okada instructed, before walking towards the dead body.

Okada gazed at the woman who was missing her eyes, lying in a puddle of water. Poor, unfortunate soul. Averting her eyes, she looked around the warehouse for clues. Right now, the police have yet to find any evidence, so they were looking for witness statements. Or something. Okada couldn't care less.

"If I were a killer, how would I escape? If it were through the front door, that would be way too obvious. The warehouse is for rent and right outside is a busy street. If two people came in here together it would be awfully suspicious, " Okada muttered to herself.

So he would have to have come here by foot. Like she had just mentioned, the warehouse was for sale, so they couldn't have just driven in. Which meant...

"The killer got in another way. Not by the front door, not by a vehicle. But there's only the loading area and the main door, " Okada said to herself.

The loading area was no use either. It was locked. Unless the killer was the owner of the warehouse. But the puddle of water... How could she explain that? Perhaps the killer killed her beforehand, and froze her? That was the most logical explanation she could think of.

"Who the hell can fit a human body in their fridge?" she then asked herself.

That would narrow it down to the places like where the preserved fish or whatever. Places which had one giant thermostat that could make it seem like it was freezing. That there was only one in the area.

"Hey, Okada, apparently there was a wedding ring in her pocket! They found it just now when they were sweeping the body, " Tanizaki commented.

That was strange. The case file said she wasn't married, and that her relatives said she was only dating for a month. However, surely enough, there was a wedding band. Upon further scrutinizing, it had a few scratches but was well polished, which meant that the person who owned it had been married for a long time and treasured the band enough to keep it polished and it good condition.

"Tanizaki, help me pull up all married women who have died in the past few months. I think I have a rough idea on what's going on, but I don't really like it, "