"Fell asleep again?"
Most of Sato Miwako's skills were invested in street racing and Combat Power, but among the police, she was already considered quick-witted.
Hearing Yoshida Ayumi's words, the female police officer quickly grasped the key point. "In other words, after having your tooth pulled, you fell asleep twice?"
Yoshida Ayumi nodded, then remembered that the person on the other end of the phone could not see her and hurriedly said, "Mm-hm." Then she continued, "When I woke up, Kamen Rider had already ended, and Sister Sawaki drove me home. It was just past eight when I got there."
Officer Sato looked at the key times recorded in her notebook and nodded. "I understand."
After hanging up, she looked at the timeline she had organized and muttered to Jiang Xia, "It takes about fifteen minutes to drive from Sawaki Dental Clinic to this apartment, so a round trip would take half an hour. Add the time needed to go upstairs and commit the murder, and it would take more than forty minutes in total.
"Ayumi had her tooth pulled sometime after seven. She saw Doctor Sawaki before Kamen Rider began at seven-thirty, fell asleep, and then woke up again before eight...
"None of the gaps lasted more than half an hour. Although Miss Sawaki's time with Ayumi was intermittent, it does count as an alibi."
Jiang Xia nodded. "But it's too much of a coincidence. It's practically a tailor-made alibi—compared to that, Miss Shirai's alibi is more complete."
Curacao: "..." Just talk. Why point at me?
Yet following Jiang Xia's words, the officers really did all glance at her in unison, then all withdrew their gazes and continued listening to Jiang Xia's deductions.
Feeling all those eyes converge on her in that instant, goosebumps silently rose along Curacao's arms.