A Killer Who Didn't Play by the Rules

After examining Suzuki Sonoko's injuries, Lin Xinyi quickly rushed to the crime scene.

By then, Detective Kudo had already beaten him to the "arena" by over a minute.

With his intelligence, that should have been enough time for him to deduce quite a few things.

However, when Lin Xinyi slowly walked into that women's restroom and arrived at the murder scene,

he found Kudo Shinichi standing stiffly beside the body, his brow tightly furrowed as he pondered something.

"How's the situation, Kudo?"

Lin Xinyi had a bad feeling about this.

Yesterday, when he had seen Kudo at the crime scene, the famous detective's expression had constantly said, "I get it," and "Now I understand."

But now, Kudo Shinichi's reaction was:

"(╯＿╰)"

Kudo's gaze no longer looked excited. Instead, it had become grave and serious.

He seemed to have forgotten that this was a contest he himself had started, and even took the initiative to lower his stance.

"Mr. Lin Xinyi, take a look too."

"Maybe you'll notice something here that I missed."

One minute later.

Suzuki Sonoko gently pressed a bottle of iced cola she had bought against her injured neck as she eagerly returned to the women's restroom she had only just escaped from.

She was no high school detective, so naturally she did not enjoy looking at a bloody corpse or a murder scene.

But things were different now. After all, Lin Xinyi was investigating the case there.

Suzuki Sonoko had first taken an interest in Lin Xinyi because of an article about his past cases. As his fan, she naturally would not miss the perfect opportunity to watch her idol display his knowledge and charm.

"If it's Lord Lin Xinyi, he'll definitely see through the truth faster."

"Hahaha, Kudo is going to get embarrassed again!"

Suzuki Sonoko instantly forgot her many years of friendship with Kudo Shinichi and took her idol's side.

Thus, imagining Lin Xinyi's cool appearance as he displayed his wisdom, solved the puzzle, pursued the real killer, and crushed Kudo, she excitedly hurried back to the crime scene.

Then she saw that, inside the women's restroom,

Kudo stood there in a daze, and Lin Xinyi stood there in a daze too.

Neither of them spoke. They were merely thinking in silence.

"What's wrong?"

Suzuki Sonoko sensed the gravity in the air.

"Is there a problem with this case?"

Lin Xinyi was still studying the scene thoughtfully and did not respond at once.

Kudo, however, sighed softly. "This case is a little tricky."

"Huh?"

Suzuki Sonoko was somewhat surprised—or rather, shocked.

She believed Kudo might be slower than Lin Xinyi in finding the truth, but she had never doubted that Kudo would be unable to solve a case.

After all, they had known each other for so long. In her impression, no case had ever been able to trouble this famous detective.

No matter the case, as long as Kudo Shinichi got involved, the criminal would be like a shellfish drenched in saltwater, exposing the true face hidden beneath its shell.

But now, he really had been stumped by a case.

"Could it be that even you can't see through the killer's method?"

Suzuki Sonoko could not help exclaiming in surprise.

"No, the killer's method is actually easy to understand."

"And I did find quite a few things at the scene."

Kudo Shinichi sighed softly, then slowly explained his discoveries.

"For example, the victim's handbag clearly showed signs of having been rummaged through."

"Her wallet was taken from the bag and thrown onto the floor. Her identification and bank cards were still inside, but the cash had vanished."

"You mean..." Suzuki Sonoko understood Kudo's reasoning. "This might have been a robbery?"

"That's right."

Kudo Shinichi nodded and continued.

"If it was premeditated murder, it would usually require a long time to plan and prepare."

"The time and location of the crime would all have to be carefully chosen in advance."

"Before coming to investigate the scene, I asked the station staff."

"That warning sign was put up about an hour ago because the restroom's ventilation system had malfunctioned. They temporarily closed it off to prevent odors from building up and contaminating the station environment."

"In other words, this restroom has only been unused for a single hour."

"Before that, passengers had constantly been coming and going. There was no way it could have been selected as the crime scene in advance."

"So that somewhat reduces the possibility that this was premeditated murder."

"But..." Sonoko still felt that something was off.

"This restroom was closed because of damaged equipment—"

"Although only the ventilation system was damaged, the passengers didn't know that."

"If the victim had not been lured here by a killer who had already planned to murder her, why would she enter a restroom that might not even be usable?"

"The reason is simple."

As he spoke, Kudo Shinichi pointed to a portable makeup case scattered across the floor not far from the body.

"Do you see it? The victim was a young woman dressed fashionably and meticulously groomed. Her makeup tools were left at the scene, knocked over onto the floor."

"This..."

Suzuki Sonoko suddenly realized.

"The victim was actually like me earlier—she came in here to put on makeup?"

Putting on makeup only required a mirror. Even if the restroom equipment was damaged, it would not affect that.

That was why the victim had entered this unused restroom.

"That's very likely."

Kudo Shinichi nodded in reply.

"In any case, based on the clues currently available..."

"I can only infer that the victim caught the killer's attention when she entered the restroom alone. The killer followed her in to rob her, lost control of the situation, and accidentally killed her."

"I see..."

"So this was just a simple robbery-murder case?"

But Miss Suzuki suddenly realized something else.

"Wait—then haven't you already seen through the whole case?"

"The killer's method was so simple. Why are you still frowning?"

"..."

Kudo Shinichi fell silent, helplessness written across his face.

"Knowing the method of murder doesn't help."

"There are no surveillance cameras across the large area in front of the restroom. We have no idea who entered or left around the time of the crime."

"And the killer most likely did not know the victim. He stabbed her on impulse, which means I can't investigate through the victim's social relationships."

"The victim was also unable to put up any effective resistance before her death. She didn't leave any of the killer's skin under her nails."

"Mm..." Suzuki Sonoko thought blankly for a moment.

Indeed, merely knowing the murder method seemed useless. They still needed physical evidence that could identify the killer.

"What about the weapon?"

"The weapon should have the killer's fingerprints on it, right?"

She immediately came up with a direction for Kudo Shinichi to investigate.

But naturally, the great detective had already thought of what she could think of.

"The weapon was indeed left at the crime scene."

"And it was thrown into that restroom stall over there."

As he spoke, Kudo Shinichi deliberately raised a hand and pointed at the restroom stall in the distance.

Suzuki Sonoko looked in that direction.

There were roughly three or four meters between the body lying in front of the sink and that restroom stall.

And across those three or four meters of floor lay a long trail of scattered crimson droplets.

"The victim suffered severe bleeding from the stab wound to her chest and abdomen. If she had walked, the bloodstains she left would never have been so sparse."

"So that long trail of tiny blood droplets must have been left by the killer."

"After killing her in front of the sink, he quickly realized that he needed to clean up the scene."

"So he carried the bloodied blade to that restroom stall, opened the door, and casually threw the dagger inside."

Kudo Shinichi explained in detail.

"Why did he specifically throw the knife into that stall?" Suzuki Sonoko asked in confusion.

"Throwing away the knife was merely something he did along the way."

"I infer that his real purpose was to throw the gloves most likely contaminated with his skin cells into the toilet and flush them away—"

"Yes, the killer wore gloves when he committed the robbery and murder."

Although he was describing his own discoveries, Kudo Shinichi looked extremely helpless.

"Because of the bloody fingerprints he left on the restroom stall door and the toilet flush button..."

"Those bloody fingerprints were all smooth and flat, with no fingerprint ridges whatsoever."

"Only someone wearing latex gloves could leave prints like that."

"This suggests that the killer was probably an experienced robber. He had prepared latex gloves from the very beginning."

"That way, he would not leave fingerprints anywhere."

"And with latex gloves on, the victim's blood would not get on his hands or leave bloodstains on his body."

"Finally, once he threw the gloves that could easily have picked up his skin cells into the toilet and flushed them away, it would become even harder for the police to find physical evidence that could identify him."

After saying all that, Kudo Shinichi felt even more stifled.

Because this case was completely different from all the ones he had encountered before.

He had solved many cases in the past, but for some reason, those cases all generally followed the same pattern.

The killers liked to cleverly devise complicated murder mechanisms and elaborate alibis. After killing someone, they would not even run away. Instead, they would stay at the scene and battle wits with the detective.

And every time Kudo Shinichi appeared, he could basically immediately narrow things down to three suspects from the victim's social relationships—usually three, though there were occasional exceptions.

In the end, the great detective would use his wisdom to unravel the killer's murder trick and identify the true culprit among those three suspects.

That was the investigation process Kudo Shinichi was used to.

But this time...

Because the scene had been sealed off promptly, the potential suspects had been identified too.

But there were more than a hundred of them altogether. There was no way to play the old three-choices-one routine.

And the killer most likely did not know the victim. He had stabbed her on impulse, cleaned up the scene, and simply disappeared.

The method was simple and brutal. It did not require deduction at all.

What they needed now was not some highly intelligent detective, but technical methods capable of finding the criminal's traces—a pair of scientific eyes that knew how to search for evidence.

Sigh.

Kudo Shinichi could not help feeling deep resentment toward the killer.

This bastard...

He killed someone without even using a trick.

How could he refuse to play by the rules?!