The Place Where They Mated...

Friday evening, August 25; Tokyo, Nishitokyo Musashino City, Suzuran Apartment.

"Hm? Most of the spiders Mr. Kuwashima kept were Tarantula Spiders..." Shiraishi suddenly sighed as he looked at the photos on his phone.

These were the crime-scene photos Shiraishi had just asked Inspector Mori for. Since they were only photos, Inspector Mori had sent them over without hesitation, and they were far more detailed than the ones he had given Misumi.

Looking at the photos, Shiraishi noticed that there were many terrariums at the crime scene, and indeed, they contained plenty of spiders. However, most of them were "Tarantula Spiders."

"Misumi?" Shiraishi called out to her in confusion.

Misumi had seemed distracted for a while now.

"Ah! That's not it—uh... What is it?" Misumi was startled when she suddenly heard Shiraishi call her.

Seeing that she really had been distracted, Shiraishi asked, "You went into the scene, right? What were the spiders like at the time?"

Misumi really had been startled.

After all—

She was still thinking about Shiraishi answering Ayako's call!

What kind of misleading way of putting that is?

After hanging up just now, Shiraishi had also said that Ayako happened to be free that evening and happened to be nearby, so she had decided to come over and find him—

They were clearly only investigating a case, but somehow Misumi felt inexplicably guilty.

"The spiders... were crawling." Misumi shuddered as she spoke.

Misumi's nerve was, of course, far beyond that of an ordinary woman. Otherwise, she could never have become a forensic pathologist.

But being able to endure corpses in all kinds of conditions and stages of decomposition did not mean she could tolerate arthropods!

Misumi had not looked closely at the time. She only remembered that when she saw all kinds of hairy spiders crawling around