"You... how can you be so certain—"
"So far, I haven't found any evidence supporting the presence of a third person at the scene." Hoshikawa Teru merely shook his head, with no intention of listening to Hikawa Moegi any further. "Unless you can offer arguments beyond the claim that the village chief's reason for suicide doesn't hold up, my view is that Shinichi Kudo's judgment was not wrong."
He was the first detective to give an affirmative answer. Everyone present immediately turned their eyes toward him.
"You sure sound certain..." Heiji Hattori furrowed his brow, visibly irritated as though he had somehow lost a round. "I've never seen you trust Kudo's judgment this much before."
"Don't get it wrong. I'm not trusting his judgment." Hoshikawa Teru shot him a sideways glance.
He simply trusted Tangze's judgment. Before they set out, Tangze had declared that Shinichi Kudo was not an idiot like Jun'ya Tokitsu. He would never casually report a flawed conclusion to the police; he must have verified it from multiple angles and confirmed it was correct before submitting his answer.
Of course, he could not say that aloud. He merely replied flatly, "I simply reached my own conclusion, and it happened to match Kudo's. That's why I think he wasn't wrong."
"Interesting. Then what do you make of the possibility that the village chief's reason for suicide differs from the official explanation?" Natsuki Koshi pressed her lips together.
"That? There are probably other unknown circumstances involved." As he said this, Hoshikawa Teru deliberately looked toward Tangze. "You know more about Kudo than I do. What do you think?"
He clearly did not want to remain at the forefront and draw fire anymore. He was preparing to redirect the trouble elsewhere.
Tangze, who had already finished taking pictures of the