The store manager's wife, staring straight at Jiang Xia, went, "?!"
She froze for several seconds before snapping back to her senses and retorting in panic, "Don't talk nonsense!"
The other two employees hurriedly added, "The store manager and his wife had a very good relationship. Could there be some mistake?"
Jiang Xia shook his head and continued like an emotionless deduction machine. "The store manager's wife tampered with a few things and disguised this murder as a suicide. Earlier, when the hawk flew into the mountains and swooped at the decoy, it suddenly changed direction. That wasn't because it wanted to attack the store manager—it was because someone had set up a fishing line in front of the bait."
"The glint Conan saw earlier was the flash of light caused when the hawk tripped over the line."
The falconer froze, immediately recalling the wound on his beloved hawk's leg. "That's what I thought! How could my hawk possibly attack someone for no reason?!"
"..." The old farmer nudged him with an elbow.
"!" The falconer came back to his senses and belatedly realized that if he admitted that... then the store manager's wife really was the murderer?
"Uh..." He looked at the innocent-faced hawk, then at the innocent-faced store manager's wife, his mind a complete mess.
Beside them, Inspector Otaki suddenly remembered something and asked Jiang Xia for confirmation. "This fishing line you're talking about—could it be the ones found beside the Sniper Rifle?"
"..." Jiang Xia did not particularly want to discuss that topic. He gave Hattori Heiji a gloomy look and nodded briefly.
Hattori Heiji jolted. "...?" Why are you looking at me? What did I do now?
Before he could ask, Jiang Xia casually continued, "When that fishing line was discovered, it was tangled around a