In Detective Conan: Intercepting Miwako Sato at the Start

Page 125

Yuki Takada nodded slightly. This was within his expectations. Public arguments rarely led to such a murder in a back alley.

“The second thing…” Sato Miwako’s expression turned serious. “The technical department has completed its preliminary analysis of the printed note. The paper and ink are very ordinary, and the source cannot be traced. However, some anomalies were found during the preliminary financial audit of the ‘Sakura-tei’ Hotel.”

"In the past three months, there have been several large sums of money flowing into the personal and hotel accounts of Tomohisa Ishikawa, with the source accounts all overseas, and the operations were very covert. At the same time, several substantial sums of money have also been transferred out, with the recipient being a shell company."

Yuuki Takada's eyes narrowed: "Money laundering?"

“The possibility is extremely high.” Sato Miwako lowered her voice. “Moreover, the background check shows that although Nishimura Toshiya is just a waiter, he has an older brother who was previously imprisoned for financial fraud and was recently released on parole. We found that his brother’s account recently received a remittance from overseas, and the amount is not small.”

The clues seem to be intertwining. Toshiya Nishimura's panic, his brother's criminal record for fraud, Tomohisa Ishikawa's possible involvement in money laundering... that broken lighter might be more than just a cigarette.

Yuki Takada returned to the interrogation room. He did not sit down immediately, but stood in front of Toshiya Nishimura, looking down at him.

"Nishimura Toshiya, your brother, Nishimura Tatsuya, was released on parole last week, right?"

Nishimura Shunya looked up abruptly, his eyes filled with disbelief and terror.

“We found out he received a sum of money. And you, you lied about your whereabouts today, and you likely left your lighter at the crime scene.” Yuuki Takada's voice wasn't loud, but it carried immense weight, cold and forceful:

"The matter involving the death of Manager Ishikawa is far more complex and dangerous than you can imagine."

"What you're protecting now might not be your brother, but the real mastermind dragging both of you into the abyss. Do you want to become a scapegoat in a murder case?"

"No! It wasn't me! I don't know what happened either!"

Nishimura Shunya finally broke down. He slammed his hands on the table and cried out, "It was my brother! My brother told me to find a way to lure Manager Ishikawa to the back alley this afternoon!"

Chapter 155 Hotel Warehouse

"He said he just wanted to talk, to scare him a little, about money! He gave me this lighter and said if things got weird, I should press it and he would know... But when I got to the back door, I heard some noise outside. I was scared, so I didn't go out. The lighter accidentally fell to the ground and broke. I picked up the pieces and ran... I really didn't kill anyone!"

"Where is your brother now?" Yuki Takada immediately asked.

"I...I don't know. He told me not to contact him after I finished, and that he would contact me when the time came..."

Yuki Takada immediately ordered Miwako Sato: "Issue an arrest warrant for Tatsuya Nishimura immediately!"

"Focus on investigating his possible hiding places, as well as all financial and communication exchanges between him and Tomohisa Ishikawa!"

The nature of the case appears to have changed, shifting from an internal dispute to a murder related to financial crimes.

Tatsuya Nishimura's suspicion has risen sharply. He was also the financial manager of the same hotel and had a strong motive for committing the crime.

However, deep down, Yuuki Takada still harbored a lingering doubt.

The unfinished message of death—"mouth".

If the murderer was Tatsuya Nishimura, would Tomohisa Ishikawa have wanted to write the character "Nishi" before he died?

Or?

Or perhaps he wasn't pointing at the murderer himself, but at something else entirely?

The sudden phone call from Ryunosuke Mishima suggests that, given the current situation, there must be some powerful figure behind him. Otherwise, based on his previous interactions with the other party, he wouldn't seem like someone who would actively cause trouble.

As for why the powerful figures behind him would ask him to make a phone call at this time?

And what is this so-called "surprise"?

We can only find out the other party's purpose later.

Yuuki Takada arrived at the back alley of "Sakura-tei" and looked at the case file in his hand, which contained photos, relationship diagrams, and clue records related to the case that the police currently had.

The deceased was Tomohisa Ishikawa, the suspect was Tatsuya Nishimura, the waiter was Toshiya Nishimura, Watanabe was from Yamazaki Suisan... and there was that ambiguous "mouth" shaped scratch.

Sato Miwako's eyes were serious as she glanced at Takada Yuki and handed him a can of coffee: "Still thinking about the death message left behind by the deceased?"

“Hmm…” Takada Yuuki nodded, took a small sip, and with a snap, pulled the tab. The slightly bitter liquid invigorated him. “‘口’… It can be a radical of a character, or it can represent a range, a place, or even a ‘frame’, a kind of constraint.”

He picked up a pen, wrote a "口" (mouth) in his notebook, and then drew a larger square around it.

“Sato, do you remember what the foreman said? Ishikawa Tomohisa has been paying special attention to the warehouse inventory lately, especially the alcohol.”

"I remember, but what does that have to do with the mouth?"

“A warehouse… in a sense, is also a closed space shaped like the character ‘口’. And the character for ‘sake’…” Takada Yuki wrote the character for ‘sake’ next to the mouth, “and on its right is the character ‘酉’, which looks like a wine jar with a lid, or rather, a special kind of mouth.”

Miwako Sato pondered, "You mean, the death information might point to the warehouse? Or to people or things related to alcohol?"

“Uncertain, but it’s a possibility.” Yuki Takada put down his pen. “While managing the hotel, Mr. Ishikawa may have been using his position to launder money. Funds flowed in and out through fictitious food and beverage purchases.”

Currently, besides Watanabe of Yamazaki Suisan, who has a clear alibi, the two most suspicious individuals are the Nishimura brothers.

Yuki Takada crushed the empty coffee can, the metallic twisting sound particularly jarring in the quiet back alley.

He stared at the lone "口" mark on the case file, feeling as if it were a silent prison, imprisoning the truth.

“Sato…” Takada Yuki issued the subsequent orders in a low voice, “The arrest warrant for Nishimura Tatsuya will be issued as usual, but our investigation direction needs to be adjusted. What Ishikawa wanted to write before he died was definitely not the character ‘Nishi’.”

"Why are you so sure?" Sato Miwako put away her phone; she had just relayed the order.

“Intuition, and logic.” Yuki Takada tapped the ground with his toes. “If Tatsuya Nishimura had been there and wanted to kill Ishikawa, would Ishikawa have written a character with so many strokes and such a complex structure as the character ‘西’? A person on the verge of death will only choose the simplest and most direct expression. This ‘mouth’ must point to a more core, more deadly secret.”

He took out his phone, pulled up a floor plan of "Sakura-tei," and pointed to the area marked as a warehouse. "The foreman said Ishikawa has been paying unusual attention to the warehouse inventory lately, especially the alcohol. Let's go check it out."

The warehouse of the "Sakura-tei" Hotel is located at the rear of the building and is connected to the main building by a narrow passage.

The interior was dimly lit and filled with a mixture of smells from food, cleaning agents, and old wood.

Rows of shelves are neatly arranged, with various supplies categorized and placed on them.

The beverage section occupies a large area at the back, with a wide variety of sake, shochu, whiskey, and more.

Yuki Takada's sharp gaze swept over each bottle of wine and each label.

Miwako Sato was checking the purchase orders and inventory records.

Time passed in the silent search.

“Inspector Takada…” Miwako Sato picked up a thick, hardcover ledger. “The liquor purchase records here don’t match the data from the finance department.”

Especially for these high-priced whiskies and sakes, the books show that the purchase volume far exceeds the actual inventory and consumption, with a significant discrepancy.

Yuki Takada walked over, flipped through the ledger, and ran his finger over several lines of numbers.

"Falsely reporting purchases to obtain cash... This is a typical money laundering tactic. Through shell companies or collusion with suppliers, illicit funds are paid under the guise of payment for goods, when the actual goods do not exist, or, like this, inferior goods are passed off as superior ones, and the amount is exaggerated."

Yuuki Takada closed the ledger. "Watanabe of Yamazaki Suisan, is his alibi reliable?"

“Very reliable,” Miwako Sato said confidently. “At the time of the incident, he was having a video conference with several clients, and there are complete records and multiple witnesses.”

"So, Nishimura Tatsuya's decision to send his younger brother to talk to him was probably not just to scare him."

“As the finance director, Tatsuya Nishimura is a key figure in the actual money laundering operation. He may have discovered some of Ishikawa's actions, or Ishikawa may have wanted to get rid of him, which could have led to some internal strife between them,” Yuki Takada pondered. “But that death information…”

His gaze fell on the wine rack again.

A slightly worn wooden sake box placed in a corner caught his attention.

The box itself is very ordinary, but the character "酉" is written on the lid in ink, with an antique style.

He walked over, opened the box, and found it empty, but there seemed to be a dark red stain on the bottom, which didn't look like a wine stain.

Chapter 156 New clues

"Call the evidence collection department over..." Yuki Takada immediately called out, "Warehouse beverage section, shelf D-7, an empty empty liquor box with the character '酉' written on it, check it carefully, especially the marks on the bottom of the box."

While waiting for the evidence to be collected, Yuki Takada and his companion questioned Toshiya Nishimura again.

Nishimura Shunya looked even more haggard, with a vacant look in his eyes.

“Nishimura Toshiya,” Takada said calmly, yet with an undeniable pressure, “your brother asked you to talk to him. Is it really just about money? Or is it about… the things in the warehouse? About those bottles of wine that don’t even exist, or that have been switched?”

Nishimura Toshiya's body trembled violently, and he whispered, "I...I don't know..."

"And how do you explain that lighter?" Takada Yuuki pressed closer, moving towards Nishimura Shunya. "Did you make it to transmit some kind of communication signal? Or did it have another purpose? For example, what information is it that we, the police, don't know? Or was it a small detonator? And you were so scared because it broke?"

"No! It's not a detonator!" Nishimura Shunya blurted out, then realized his mistake and turned pale.

"What is that?" Miwako Sato asked sharply.

Nishimura Shunya lowered his head, his hands tightly clasped together.

After nearly a minute of silence, he spoke in an almost inaudible voice, "My brother said... that's... that's something that interferes with the nearby surveillance signals... If you press it, the surveillance will malfunction briefly for a few minutes... He told me to create an opportunity for him to go to the warehouse... to get something..."

"What to take?"

"He...he didn't say. He only said it was very important, related to his life...and told me to create chaos and leave quickly, and not to worry about him..."

"You went to the back door, heard a noise, got scared, smashed your lighter, and ran away. You didn't see your brother enter the warehouse, nor did you see him contact President Ishikawa, right?"

"Yes, it is……"

Just then, Yuki Takada's cell phone rang. It was a call from the evidence collection department.

"Inspector Takada, preliminary testing of the traces on the bottom of that sake box indicates it's human blood, and it matches the DNA of the deceased, Tomohisa Ishikawa."

"In addition, we found a very blurry mark on the inside of the box near the bottom, which looks like it was scratched with a fingernail. The shape... resembles an incomplete 'bird' character, only the left part, and it looks very similar to the 'mouth' character, but the strokes are slightly different."

"A bird?" It was as if lightning had struck Yuki Takada's mind.

unitary……

Birds... wine...

He abruptly hung up the phone and said to Sato Miwako, "Investigate immediately! Among those associated with the 'Sakura-tei' restaurant, Ishikawa Tomohisa, or Nishimura Tatsuya, anyone whose name or nickname contains the character 'bird' or is related to 'bird'! Also, focus on investigating those whose names contain the radical '酉' (you, meaning 'rooster')! Beverage suppliers, customers, everyone!"

Miwako Sato immediately took action.

Yuki Takada fell into deep thought once again.

The death message is neither "西" (xi) nor a complete "口" (kou), but most likely an incomplete "酉" (you) or "鸟" (niao).

“酉” refers to a wine jar and is also related to wine and time.

What about the bird? What does it represent?

Last name?

Codename?

Sato Miwako's footsteps echoed hurriedly in the corridor of the "Sakura-tei" Hotel, and in her case notebook, a list of beverage suppliers was clearly written.

She started by looking up the character "bird," tracing names one by one with her fingertips—Yuichi Torii, Akiko Toriyama, Torosuke Watanabe… Among them, Yuichi Torii's name stood out.