As Jiang Xia pressed play, a cheerful voice immediately came through the receiver.
The victim warmly invited someone: "So? Want to come to my room and keep talking about Detective?"
"Wait." He suddenly seemed to notice something strange and muttered to himself, "What's this...?"
Then came a bang—a gunshot.
Amid a jumble of noises, Jiang Xia stopped the recording. "Well? Sound familiar?"
"This..." The female manager was the first to recognize it. "Those are lines from the television drama airing tonight! Everything he said was something Sunaoka said to the heroine!"
Because of the snow, everyone had been huddled in the lobby watching television that evening. The words had already sounded vaguely familiar, and once she pointed it out, they all remembered.
Worse still, the store manager raised a hand. "I have a recording of tonight's program. Shall we play it?"
Officer Yamamura paused. "Wait, didn't you say you weren't his fan? Then why did you record his show?"
The inn manager gave an awkward laugh. "I-I mean, the guests like watching it. Some get tired of the Hunting Ground and shooting range and prefer staying in their rooms to watch videotapes, so I have to prepare them."
"Hmm..." The suspicious policeman reluctantly accepted that explanation and nodded. "Play it."
The store manager hurried back to his room and found the videotape he had recorded that night.
Before long, the exact same lines played before them once more.
As the screenwriter's face darkened, Jiang Xia said, "The victim's actual time of death was before that phone call. During that period, many people's alibis don't hold up—for instance, the screenwriter who supposedly returned to his room to write down inspiration."
He turned to look at him. "Your room should still contain the tools you used to polish the Bullet, as well