Bluffing

"Mr. Washinuma, can you explain what these negatives are? Don't tell me you stole them from Ootaka Kazuhiro?" Shiraishi held a stack of negatives and stared coldly at Washinuma Noboru.

Because of his height, Shiraishi stood before Washinuma Noboru and completely blocked the overhead cabin lights. His face was nothing but a dark silhouette as he looked down at him...

Gulp—

Washinuma Noboru immediately crumbled under the pressure and hastily explained, "No! I took these photos myself. They aren't very clear, but I thought they might still sell for a little money... Tachikawa, you've seen the negatives Ootaka took before, right? Those were much clearer than these, weren't they?"

Right!

Exactly!

What the hell was this garbage you took?

Shiraishi Kuro cursed inwardly as well...

Earlier, prompted by Shinichi's reminder, he had decided to temporarily conceal the fact that the negatives were already gone and bluff these people—mainly Edward. He had also searched the luggage of the other two.

That was when he discovered that Washinuma Noboru's luggage contained negatives too!

They were only negatives, but with Shiraishi Kuro's [Insight], holding them up to the light was nearly the same as looking at photographs. He could even make out the color differences perfectly.

But...

Shiraishi Kuro found that while the American Congressman's face could barely be made out, the woman's face was completely unrecognizable!

Negatives like these could not meet Shiraishi Kuro's needs.

That was why he deliberately said this in front of Edward, hoping to bait him. At the same time...

"We didn't find any negatives in anyone else's luggage. It's hard for us to believe what you're saying..." Shiraishi Kuro said deliberately.

"Huh? But..." Washinuma panicked at once.

"How about this? Since you say you took them, tell us everything—where you took them, how you took them. We'll verify it afterward." Shiraishi Kuro put on an expression as though he were looking out for him.

Shinichi watched from the side, speechless...

He could tell that Officer Shiraishi was targeting this "scandal," not the murder case at hand. Shiraishi had no intention of producing that fragment just yet.

At that moment, Shiraishi ignored the murder case and pulled Washinuma Noboru aside for questioning...

Shinichi still did not know what Shiraishi was trying to accomplish. He only assumed it was some sort of internal power struggle, so he did not pay much attention.

What Shiraishi was doing suited Shinichi perfectly. This was the first murder case he had encountered, and he wanted to reason out the truth completely instead of simply "solving" it with one or two pieces of evidence or clues.

Detectives—or rather, these "great deduction masters"—solved cases very differently from the police.

Most great deduction masters relied on reasoning to reconstruct the course of the crime and force the culprit into confessing, whereas the police did not need to know every detail perfectly.

For the police, solving a case was less about "deduction." Or rather, deduction was only used in the first step—"determining the direction of the investigation."

There was no need for airtight reasoning. As long as they came up with several possibilities, they could conduct interviews and gather evidence along each investigative path. Once they had evidence and motive, they could apply for a "search warrant" and an "arrest warrant." During searches and interrogations, they could obtain more statements and decisive evidence, build an evidentiary chain, and write an "inspection referral report."

Once the prosecution received the report, they would file charges if they thought it was sufficient. If not, they would chew out the officer who submitted it and specify what further investigation was needed...

So a "great deduction master" was not necessarily an excellent criminal investigator, and vice versa. Great deduction masters had simply strengthened their ability to "determine the direction of the investigation" to an extreme degree. From the police's perspective, some of them relied on that ability too heavily.

The cases Megure asked Kudo to help with were all cases where there were "no leads at all," where the police could not even find an "investigative direction." Only then would they seek help from great deduction masters.

Shinichi's goal—or rather, his hobby—was clearly "deduction"...

So Shinichi did not mention the crucial clue in Shiraishi's pocket. Instead, his mind was filled with thoughts of how Amano Tsubame had disposed of the murder weapon and fabricated her alibi—with her relationship to the victim, it was not strange that she could drug him. The key was that the murder weapon had not been found, and she had an alibi!

Shiraishi, meanwhile, paid no attention to his detective game. He simply took Washinuma Noboru away to record his statement, while... his real attention remained on Edward nearby.

Just then...

Ding ding ding—

"Dear passengers, due to weather conditions, this flight will be returning to Yokohama Airport in Kanagawa Prefecture to land. Our airline will provide complimentary accommodation and meals, and will arrange for you to resume your journey as soon as possible. Please wait patiently..."

The plane announced that it would be turning back, but...

After relaxing slightly, Shiraishi's heart immediately tightened again—Yokohama Airport? It was normal enough to find an airport on the east coast to land at, but...

What Shiraishi had been investigating was the Minister of Justice's connection to local Violent Organizations in Kanagawa Prefecture. The "Metropolitan Police Department" where Shiraishi worked was, plainly speaking, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. It had no authority to investigate cases in Kanagawa Prefecture, which was why he had to strike at them indirectly.

And now...

They were landing him right in the enemy's stronghold. Wasn't that a little too deliberate?

But then Shiraishi had a thought, and the corner of his mouth actually curled upward—he had not found any usable negatives at all. Under these circumstances, if the other side did not make a move, Shiraishi would have no way forward!

If this emergency landing site really had been arranged to target him...

Then all the better!

Want to use force?

As long as they had some martial ethics and did not bring out heavy weapons, Shiraishi Kuro would not back down!

Gulp—

Watching Officer Shiraishi sneer before him, Washinuma Noboru grew even more nervous and hurriedly continued his statement!

As for Shinichi...

He was busy cracking her alibi!

According to the flight attendant's statement, she had gone to the restroom before the victim—of course, that was only a "little trick."

"I see! I understand now... So that mark was... Ran! I need to ask you something!" Shinichi finally figured out what had happened with the murder weapon.

Passengers had to go through security, so an overly conspicuous murder weapon could not have been brought aboard in the first place.

The victim's wound should have been...

The result of sharpening the steel wire from "Kyocho" into a point!

But Shinichi, who did not know much about such things, still had to ask Ran first...

Ran's face flushed bright red, and she shoved him away. "Y-you! What are you talking about, you pervert!"

"No... I'm investigating normally... Can you just tell me..." Shinichi immediately tried to explain himself to Ran.

"Hey, what are you two doing?" Megure looked at the "young couple" flirting and immediately became annoyed.

"No! Inspector Megure, I already know who the murderer is!" Shinichi said brightly.

Amano Tsubame had actually left clues long ago. Because the wire inside Kyocho had been pulled out, she would scratch herself whenever she made large movements—actually, even without Shinichi's reasoning, once the plane landed, they would have found it if they arranged for a female officer to search her thoroughly!

As for the "false alibi"...

There was blood on the steel ring of your Kyocho. That was ironclad evidence. Sooner or later, they could interrogate the flaw in the alibi out of her. The alibi itself was not strong enough to overturn the evidence that she had concealed the murder weapon on her person. They could even ignore the flight attendant's testimony and refer the case for prosecution directly. Unless her lawyer could dig up the flight attendant's testimony again, that would become a matter for courtroom confrontation.

But with Shinichi there, things were indeed more convenient. He directly cracked her method, using "deduction" to forcibly make up for the lack of an "interrogation" stage in detective work...

"Wait, but Tsubame doesn't have any negatives on her either, does she?" Chikawa still could not believe his friend had committed murder.

"About that..." Shinichi glanced at Shiraishi Kuro, only to discover... that the latter was glaring at him, so he did not reveal that "the negatives had already been cut up and flushed away."

Amano Tsubame no longer wished to resist stubbornly and directly confessed to the crime.

At the same time, Shinichi did not forget to expose the fact that Edward had tampered with the corpse. Shinichi also knew that Edward could understand Japanese.

As the plane landed at Yokohama Airport, Edward immediately called the embassy and requested bail—his crime was not particularly serious. He had merely touched the corpse...

As for the "scandal negatives," he and the American Congressman were the victims of blackmail!

After all, the police had no jurisdiction over "scandals involving one's private life."

"I'll be taking your negatives as evidence." Shiraishi Kuro told Washinuma Noboru without room for argument.

"Hm? Oh... okay..." Washinuma Noboru did not dare argue...

Although it had nothing to do with the murder case, he really had been planning to commit blackmail and extortion.

After taking down a mountain of Washinuma Noboru's statements and confiscating the "negatives," Shiraishi Kuro carried the statements and negatives with him, then checked into the hotel arranged by the airline with a deliberately smug air...

Judging by the look Edward gave him... Edward believed that he had truly obtained the key evidence!