Kisaragi Hōzui: Artistry Achieved

"The house was set on fire, and the owner is missing... Other than that, there are no discernible clues. To be honest, Kogoro Mori, if you can't solve this case through deduction, it'll be very difficult to get the First Investigation Division to assign more manpower to a case like this."

After arriving at the scene and conducting a preliminary survey, Juzo Megure gave this far from optimistic conclusion.

"Because it won't be handled as a homicide case?" Mori Kogoro frowned as he examined Yoshikaki Hara's house, burned in scattered patches. He knew Megure was right.

Having once worked in the First Investigation Division, he knew very well that cases involving fires and disappearances received far fewer police resources and much less attention than homicide cases. Even arson, though more serious, was unlikely to reach the more elite teams unless it escalated into a serial arson case.

The First Investigation Division had more than two hundred officers, with over half working in homicide-related teams. Fewer than thirty officers in total specialized in arson cases.

If Mori Kogoro and the others had not been so familiar with Juzo Megure that they had called him on instinct, the current state of this case would never have been enough to alert him.

"Right now, you claim this was a break-in that escalated into murder, but based on the scene, we still have no evidence that the homeowner may be dead." Juzo Megure adjusted his hat, equally troubled.

Tokyo's public safety was a complete mess. Without detectives using deduction to rapidly push investigations forward, the First Investigation Division's limited manpower would be run ragged just handling current cases, let alone the files that had already piled up.

Police methods for handling criminal cases were similar everywhere. Aside from technical means, it all came down