"Died of illness, kidnapped, beaten to death by bandits?" Hattori Heiji had only been half-listening, but when he heard that, he could not help becoming serious. He asked in disbelief, "Did all of those things really happen to the same family?"
The program director nodded and sighed sympathetically.
The corner of Hattori Heiji's eye twitched. "Was this family some enormous clan with four generations living under one roof, where every generation had eight or nine children?"
"How could that be?" The director shook his head again. "Mayor Jincheng's family had only one daughter and a few servants."
Conan counted on his fingers. "Then now... doesn't that mean there's no one left in his family?"
"That's right." The director scratched his head. "The Mayor is all alone now... and that would be one thing, but the bigger problem is that with the successive tragedies in his family, plus the strange remains that were just discovered, this once-popular island has practically become a deserted island."
"As Mayor, Mr. Kinjo was frantic, so he paid out of his own pocket to sponsor our program. He wanted to try to restore the island's image and bring its tourism industry back to life."
The people were gone, and his career had come crashing down as well. Hattori Heiji could not help sympathizing with him. "He sounds pretty pitiful..."
Jiang Xia suddenly spotted something and pointed toward the shore. "A boatload of people has arrived over there."
"Hm?" The director looked up and said happily, "It's my staff—filming officially begins tomorrow, so we need to go rehearse first today."
Hattori Heiji froze and frowned. "There's a rehearsal too? Didn't you say this was a real, difficult case? Don't tell me you wrote some detective script and want us to act it out?"
"Of course not!" The