Did Someone Die or Not?

Conan felt a surge of anger. Heat swept through him, and his temples began to throb.

He snatched Ai Haibara's phone, opened the text messages, and put his husky-like brain to work.

After only a moment's thought, he said in a low voice, "There are a lot of numbers here, but strangely, they skip straight from 1031 to 1101. Read as dates, that's October 31 to November 1. Most of these numbers also fall between late October and early November."

"The katakana notes follow a pattern too. Take Kenbashi Commerce and Odoma Residence. If I'm right, those refer to Kenbashi's shopping street and Odoma's residents' committee. The others are construction companies and factories."

"The numbers after them—800, 350, 200, 400, and 150—should be amounts, in units of ten thousand. I don't know what currency, though."

Conan continued proudly, "Tokyo's assembly elections take place between late October and early November. So these codes must record some shady dealings during the election. They're a ledger of bribes!"

Ai Haibara: "..."

You usually take forever to solve a case. Why were you so fast today?

Did getting riled up finally make you give it your all?

I guess people never know their limits until someone pushes them.

Ai Haibara stared at him flatly. Conan looked back at her with pride and asked, "Well? Something this simple should've been easy to figure out, right?"

"Surely nobody couldn't work it out?"

"Right? Right?"

"You're amazing."

Ai Haibara gave him a deadpan stare and resisted the urge to smack him on the head. Then she snatched back her phone and rapidly typed out a message:

The code's been cracked. It concerns election corruption. The entries above give dates and...

"..."

Conan watched Ai Haibara ignore him and focus entirely on her message. Something suddenly felt wrong.