"Hey, hey, you're one of the suspects too. Why do you look so listless?" Conan secretly nudged Tangze, who was leaning against the wall, with his elbow.
Tangze let out a deep sigh. "Because this case is really boring."
"You've already figured out who the killer is?" Conan frowned as his gaze swept across the suspects' faces. "Then why aren't you pointing them out?"
"I don't have any evidence." Tangze shrugged and listlessly gestured toward Jusaburo Tono with his chin. "Actually, once the police investigate the victim's relationships, they'll find him soon enough."
Conan was somewhat surprised. In the previous museum case, Tangze had displayed an incredibly meticulous eye for the crime scene. Conan had therefore classified him as the same sort of orthodox detective as himself—someone who valued physical evidence and deduction. He had not expected Tangze to identify the killer while saying he had no evidence.
"How did you figure it out without evidence? Intuition? Experience?" Conan pressed.
"This was most likely a crime of passion," Tangze said, dropping a bombshell.
"What is your basis for that judgment?" Eri Kisaki, who had been watching Tangze all along, had just finished answering the police's questions and walked over in time to hear the latter half of their conversation.
Tangze politely nodded to her before answering. "You may have heard of criminal psychology. It's a branch of psychology that examines criminals' behavior and psychological traits, analyzing patterns and factors that may exist in criminal acts to assist the judicial system and criminal investigations."
"So you reached that conclusion from the perspective of criminal psychology?" Eri Kisaki looked at Tangze curiously. As a lawyer, she rarely heard this angle. After all, criminal trials and verdicts primarily relied on established chains of evidence, and auxiliary disciplines like this were seldom used for indirect arguments.
This was the new direction Tangze had decided on after learning the Tang Ze couple's professions. That way, even if he accidentally let something slip and spoiled information he should not have known next time, he could bluff his way through it with psychology.
Don't ask. The answer was psychology.
After all, this was Conan's world. Victims in Conan's world could leave behind flashy dying messages, killers could devise bizarre methods that challenged classical physics, and detectives could crack those methods with a flash of inspiration. So it was perfectly reasonable for psychologists in Conan's world to expose the truth as though they could read minds, right?
And strictly speaking, that wasn't even wrong. Weren't Phantom Thieves of Hearts basically professionals who solved psychological problems through physical means? As long as he could solve psychological problems, he was a psychologist. Nothing wrong with that, right?
"Stabbing someone with a sharp weapon, like the killer in this case did," Tangze said, miming gripping something and driving it downward, "is considered an injury action with sexual implications in criminal psychology. Killing a woman with such an action can even serve as a profile indicator of the killer's sexual inadequacy in some serial murder cases. The killer was very likely romantically involved with the victim. Furthermore—"
Tangze pointed at the door he had completely torn off, now lying forlornly against the wall. Conan did not need to climb up to inspect it this time; the blood droplets on its upper edge were clearly visible.
"If the killer had no direct relationship with the victim, there would have been no need to disguise the scene as a robbery-murder. It wouldn't be difficult to identify the killer."
Tangze turned to look at Jusan Tono, who had started sweating.
Four people had entered the restroom so far. Excluding the long-haired man who had been frightened into screaming by Tangze, only three could barely count as suspects.
Tangze, still a high school student, and Yuichi Ki, the scruffy graduate student who looked as though his thesis had beaten him half to death, did not seem like people who could have had a romantic dispute with the victim.
"You should be responsible for what you say, kid," Jusan Tono gruffly said. "I'm a regular at this shop. I only came to chat with the owner. I don't know this woman at all! And with my build, there's no way I could crawl in there. How could I have committed the crime?"
Compared with the thin Yuichi Ki and Tangze's standard slender, paper-thin build, Jusan Tono was broad-shouldered and burly. Of the three, he was the only one who could not possibly have squeezed through from above.
But after seeing the tiny bloodstains Tangze had pointed out, Conan's mind began racing. He ignored Jusan Tono's excuses entirely and shouted, "The one who climbed over the door wasn't the killer! It was the corpse!"
Only after shouting did he glance at Eri Kisaki and Ran Mouri, hurriedly adding, "Ah, right, Brother Tang Ze?"
Given Conan's lack of self-awareness, Ran Mouri could hardly be blamed for beginning to suspect his identity so quickly. Tangze shot him a glance and casually nodded. "That's right. So Mr. Jusan Tono, you still could have committed the crime. Considering the killer had enough strength to throw an adult woman over the door, you are even more likely to be the culprit than Mr. Yuichi Ki."
Eri Kisaki took the evidence bag containing the murder weapon from an officer and held it up, turning it over as she said, "The condition of the weapon is strange as well. If the killer had held it while committing the murder, the handle could not have been stained with blood like this."
"There's a strange blank section near the base of the blade. It looks like it was covered by something before," Conan said, also studying it.
"So the killer stabbed the victim to death first, then stuffed her into the stall over the door..."
"...They tied something like a rope to the knife beforehand, then pulled it from outside, causing the victim's blood to spray throughout the stall."
The two of them worked through the method in tandem. Tangze stopped interrupting the ongoing deduction and, having predicted what would happen, positioned himself by the restroom entrance.
When Conan innocently pointed at the bandage wrapped around his hand and asked why he had removed his wedding ring but bandaged his middle finger instead, Jusan Tono finally snapped. His expression gradually twisted as he shoved Eri Kisaki aside and tried to flee outside.
I've been waiting for this!
Tangze's spirits lifted. He set his stance and threw a punch straight at Jusan Tono's face.
Behind Tangze, seeing the vicious look on Jusan Tono's face, Ran Mouri let out a short cry and kicked him in the abdomen.
And behind Jusan Tono, Eri Kisaki drove an elbow into his back, trying to knock him down and restrain him.
Standing off to the side, Conan watched in horror as Jusan Tono was caught between attacks from the front and back. With an agonized scream, his body seemed to fold into several segments before he crumpled to the floor without suspense, looking distinctly unpeaceful.
Hiss... Conan could not help pressing a hand to his own face and stomach, seized by intense phantom pain.
Getting hit like that probably felt about the same as being caught in the middle of a beam clash...
Thank you, everyone, for the tips and monthly tickets ヾ(@^▽^@)ノ!
I'll try to add one or two extra chapters tomorrow or the day after! It depends on how busy work is, but there will definitely be extra chapters!
Before you continue