Chapter 3 2. The competent police department and the melancholy criminal police

Detective Hakamada Yusaku of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police Investigation Section 1 got out of the car and looked up at the white school building in front of him, sighing. "What's wrong?" Xiantang from the police department asked him. Hakamada said "it's okay" and mumbled the past.Personal problems do not need to be reported to the boss one by one. "Hmm. I can understand your sigh. Most of the incidents at school are nothing serious." "Yeah..." Hakamada's worries were slightly different, but he generally agreed with Xiantang's opinion.

A murder that took place in a high school gym.Although I don't know the details yet, as long as I think about "the incident happened at the school", I can foresee that the search will become very troublesome, and various media will come to make troubles. Coupled with Hakamada's own reasons, the bad feeling is getting worse. "Ah, it's over here." There is no need to inquire about the location of the scene, thanks to the noisy students who fully interpret the nature of human beings who love to watch, they immediately know where the incident happened.Follow them to the back of the teaching building, there is an old gymnasium, the white paint on the outer wall is seriously peeling off.

"There are a lot of students gathered. I heard that all irrelevant people have been sent home." "If it's still raining, there should be fewer students watching." Xiantang glanced at the sky, and blamed the weather for not knowing the timing. Thirty minutes ago, the heavy rain, which seemed to be showing at the bottom of the basket, had completely stopped now, and only thin clouds remained in the sky.The animated character forecasting the weather on the morning news told with a smile that the rain would last until nine o'clock at night. It seemed that the forecast had completely failed.

Hakamada squeezed through the students and finally ran into the yellow cordon with "KEEPOUT" printed on it. He showed his police card to a policeman who was trying his best to calm the crowd, and then walked into the cordon. "Well, can you tell me what happened, hello?" When they crossed the cordon, a girl with glasses approached her. Because she didn't have time to answer everyone's questions one by one, she ignored her.The girl held a single-lens reflex camera in front of her chest, and her posture was not inferior to that of a professional media person.Probably someone from the news department.

The girl then turned to the police officer maintaining vigilance and shouted, "It's okay to tell me, don't underestimate our right to know!". High school students are really... Hakamada involuntarily smiled wryly. Reconfirming that this place is indeed "Wind Hill High School" made him fall into a melancholy mood again. Entering the gym from the outer hallway, there was a nostalgic mix of wood, sweat, and ball dust. After the high school graduation ceremony, this is the first time Hakamada has visited the school's gymnasium.Hakamada was not born in this high school, but the structure of the building is exactly the same as the "gymnasium" in his mind, which further fueled his nostalgia.

Slightly reflective floors with lines of different colors extend from the facade to the distance.The second-story aisle along the wall is made of iron and has been rusted. Looking to the left, one block above is a huge stage.Most of the investigators walked back and forth on the stage, which seemed to be the literal "stage" of this incident. There are doors leading to the backstage on the left and right sides of the stage, and on the door on the left side, there is a small window on the second floor.Probably there is a broadcast room used to adjust the sound of the stage.There is no small window on the door on the right, but instead there are wooden school song lyrics and a clock.

Hakamada looked at his watch and the clock alternately, and checked the time.Four thirty.Both watches are accurate. "Let's go." Xiantang strode towards the stage, and Hakamada followed behind.The question of whether it is appropriate to wear leather shoes to step on it made him hesitate for a while, but he didn't care too much about the emergency. "Hello. Is this the county sheriff?" A man who had just entered old age noticed this and walked off the stage, his suit was very worn.Hakamada and Sentao nodded to him. "Hello. I'm Sendo, the prefectural police officer, and this is my subordinate Hakamada."

"That's it, hello. I'm Shirato, the inspector general of Hodogaya." Hello, hello, Bai Hu, who gave his name, bowed his head and kept saying hello.He is about fifty and a half years old, and looks four or five years older than Xiantang, so Hakamata feels a little kind. "I heard it was a murder case. Is the scene on the stage?" "Yes, come here." Shirato smiled like a God of Wealth who was easy to get close to, nodded and led the two of them to the stage.When the Precinct Police and the First Search Unit get together, it's likely to cause a feud, but this man doesn't seem to care about that.Hakamada was relieved for now.Because he was still very young, only twenty-five years old, he was often teased by the old policemen in the area.

Lifting off the blue tarpaulin next to the podium, the corpse underneath was exposed. The corpse was not particularly cruel. If one ignores the slender knife stabbed in the chest, as well as the bleeding and pale face, it seems that there is not much difference from when it was alive. He was a very serious boy with neatly cut black front hair, and his face was relatively calm when he died.The school badge was hung on the dark blue waistcoat and tie, which proved cruelly that he was a student of this school. "What's his name?" Xiantang asked after clapping his hands lightly.

"Tomoki Asashima. He's a third-year student at this school. He seems to be the director of the broadcasting department." Shirato replied without looking at the notes.Hakamada recorded this information in the handbook. "I found the student handbook in my pocket, and confirmed to the teacher who found it, it should be correct." "The cause of death? Is it the wound on the chest?" "Well, we were discussing this issue just now. Forensic doctor, please explain." The man in white who was standing by took a step forward.Shirato gave the impression of being chubby, but this man had sharp edges and corners on the whole, both in outline and in the width of his shoulders.The man rudely reported his name, saying that he was forensic doctor Yumizu.

"Cause of death was a stab wound to the chest. Unmistakable. No other external injuries. Poisoning, though." "So that's it....Did he die on the spot? There doesn't seem to be any signs of pain or struggle on the body." "Almost instant death. A blow to the heart. If the kid did it, it was a neat move." Yumizu snorted, and seemed to be the prisoner who freed the dead with a single blow on the surface. "You think the prisoner is a child?" "I don't know. The scene is in this kind of place, probably so." "Ah, that's it." "This is not necessarily a joke. The anti-theft cameras at the main entrance and the north gate do not seem to have captured any strange figures." Shirato interjected from the side. "Even if it cannot be confirmed that the culprit is a student, there is a high possibility that it is someone from the school. After all, the scene is here." Xiantang looked up at the ceiling of the gymnasium, then turned to the victim.The left half of the vest has been stained black by the blood that flowed out, the source of which is a knife that is still shining with silver light. "Yuminaga, what is the estimated time of death?" "An hour and thirty minutes ago." "It's four thirty-five, or three past five in the afternoon?" "I guess so." "Consistent with eyewitness testimony. . . . probably." Bai Hu's face remained unchanged, and he used a very meaningful expression.Xiantang frowned, "...Let's record the testimony in detail later. Have the remains of the scene been preserved? Please hand it over to the autopsy. Also, please ask for the investigation of the murder weapon." The searchers who were instructed lifted the stretcher on which the body was being transported and headed outside.Gong Yong followed closely behind.The victim, who was the protagonist of the incident, disappeared from the stage. Hakamada looked elsewhere. "...Shirato, who is that?" "As you can see, it's blood." "Bloodstains..." A line of black blood was left on the right side of the stage. The bloodstains stretched straight from the side backstage separating the stage from the right backstage to the white line on the side of the podium marking the position of the victim. "After the assassination, it was dragged all the way here. So the real murder scene should be over there." Shirato walked to the right side of the stage and lifted the crimson curtain. There was a pool of blood there. "Sure enough." Xianchang confirmed this by Hakamada's side. "I just felt that if it was stabbed in the heart with one blow, the amount of bleeding would be too little. It seems that most of the bleeding has accumulated here." "That is, the body was moved after the killing." Why move? Hakamada, who was thinking, suddenly "forget it, don't think about it" and interrupted his thinking. Right now, there is too little information to use our brains to analyze.Reasoning when intelligence is insufficient is often easy to fall into an unnecessary trap. So my current job is to collect intelligence and keep records.This is the method taught by Sendo, and Hakamada also believes in the rationality of this method.So far, Hakamada and the capable police department have always solved the incident in this way. Just collect the facts one by one and discover without doing any extra work.These discoveries must be the truth. "Then go and take the testimony." I don't know if Xiantang saw Hakamada's thoughts, and urged Shirato to collect more information. "Understood. I asked the relevant personnel who were on the scene to wait in the empty classroom. Should I take you there? Or call them here?" "Please call here one by one. As long as this place is spacious enough, it is more convenient for them to explain directly here." "OK." "Speaking of the relevant personnel at the scene, are they all students?" Hakamada asked unintentionally. "Well. There's a teacher, and everyone else is students. The drama club, and the table tennis club." "Ping, table tennis club..." Hakamada seemed to hear a terrible word, and couldn't help but staggered a few steps. "Huh? What's the matter?" "No, nothing. I'm fine." Hakamada desperately controlled his emotions. --no problem.The kind of situation I imagined can't happen.no need to worry. The inspector general of the Hodogaya Police Station glanced at Hakamada in confusion, but immediately regained his spirits and spoke a few words to the investigators around him.Then he showed a smile like the God of Wealth in this direction. "Bring here a list of the names of the relevant personnel and the remnants found at the scene." "Okay....By the way, Shirato, you also said it just now." While speaking, Xiantang stabbed his subordinates who kept saying "no problem, no problem" to themselves.This is the body language of "please make a note".Hakamada came back to his senses and got ready. "You said just now?" "You just said that the estimated time of death is 'probably' consistent with eyewitness testimony. What do you mean by 'probably'?" "Ah...no deep meaning." Shirato scratched his head boredly. "It's not a big deal. Maybe I've misunderstood." "Your tone makes me even more concerned. Is there anything strange about the incident?" "Yeah, that..." At the same time, Xiantang also belonged to the violent group response room, and after being glared at by his sharp eyes, Shirato mumbled "I surrendered" and told something. "The first person to arrive at the scene was the male policeman on duty at the guard box behind the high school, called Tsuchiya. He seized the remnants of the scene and briefly recorded a statement... It seemed that there was a strange testimony." "Oh. What testimony?" "The stage in this stadium was a back room at the time of the incident." "The secret room?" The usually cool police department couldn't help raising its tone at this time. "Well. The entrance and exit are locked, and there are people watching." Chamber of Secrets. Although Xianchang asked to record it, Hakamada still hesitated, wondering if he should write these two words in his notebook. This gigantic arena was a secret room at the time of the event? but-- "However, there is no doubt about the murder, right? The victim was stabbed to death with a knife, and was dragged a distance of more than five meters after death." Hakamata confirmed to Shirato, who nodded vigorously. "Well, that's right. It's definitely a homicide. But it's a secret room, isn't it strange?" The criminal policeman's face fully showed his inner curiosity, and he laughed hahaha.Then he noticed the discordant atmosphere around him, seemed to think of something suddenly, and clapped his hands, "Ah, it's better to have a few chairs for the statement here. I'll get them." As he said that, he walked off the stage by himself, and left the gymnasium without calling his subordinates. It looks like running away. "Xiantang, what you just said..." There were only two people left on the stage, and Hakamada asked for his superior's opinion.Xiantang pursed his lips and fell into deep thought. "Without hearing the testimony with my own ears, I can't judge anything... Just like Shirato said, there must be something wrong." "Yes, yes." "Speaking of which, if not..." Xiantang didn't go on, but Hakamada could guess what happened next. If not—it's a locked room murder. Can't imagine, don't want to imagine.The incident already happened in high school, plus it was still in Fengqiu High School, in the gymnasium, and it was related to the table tennis club. The current situation can be described as extremely depressing.If it's still impossible to commit a crime, it's ridiculous. what. Hakamata sighed again. It seems to have a stomachache.