Chapter 4 Section 4

Maybe the criminal hasn't killed Morino yet, but just locked him at home.The only way to prove whether such a hypothesis is true is to directly question the prisoner.If Morino had already been killed at this time, he would have to ask the prisoner where the corpse was abandoned. The reason is simple, because I want to see what the body looks like. In any case, the first thing to do is to go down the mountain to meet the prisoner.Of course, I have decided to do so. Walk straight in from the bar street in front of the station, and you will find the coffee shop that Morino often goes to.I've known this place for a long time, but I've never been there before.

As I had heard, the interior was dimly lit and the guests were enveloped in comfortable dimness.There is still soft music playing in the store, and the seemingly absent notes seem to have melted into the air. I took a seat at the bar. There is a sign for restrooms in the lobby.I looked at the floor near there.According to Morino, the notebook was left there at the time. Besides me, there was another customer in the store, a young woman in a suit.She was sitting in the window seat, drinking coffee and reading a magazine. The shopkeeper came to ask me what I needed, and I asked this by the way: "Does the person sitting over there come here often?"

The shopkeeper nodded.A trace of doubt appeared on his face. "Ah, nothing else... so, can you shake my hand?" "Handshake? Why?" "Ah, I want to keep a souvenir..." The owner is a seemingly honest man.Although he is no longer young, he is not yet middle-aged.He has fair skin and wears a black T-shirt that can be bought everywhere. The beard is clean shaven. At first, he probably thought I was an odd customer because I kept staring at him. The coffee I ordered arrived in no time. "Know a girl named Morino? I'm her friend." "She's a regular here."

I tried again, is she still alive? The owner froze. He gently put the coffee he brought on the table, and stared at my face from the front.His eyeballs were as black as caves, unable to see any light. I had long felt that this man was more likely to be the criminal than any of the customers who had been in the shop that evening.At this time, I knew that my judgment was correct. "...What the hell is going on?" He pretended not to know. I took out the notebook.Upon seeing it, the shopkeeper smiled, revealing a pair of sharp white canines. "This was picked up by Morino a few days ago." He picked up the notebook and flipped through it.

"Didn't expect you to see it was mine." "In fact, more than half of it is my guess." I told him exactly how I went to Mount N to find the corpse, and what I thought of on the mountain. What was the prisoner thinking? First, I began to imagine what kind of person the prisoner who lost the notebook was. Why did the prisoner make this notebook? Is it to keep a memory? Is it for a reminder? I think the prisoner must hope that through reflexive reading, he can indulge himself in the memories of the past. Because of this, it is impossible for the prisoner not to be aware of the loss of the notebook.

Where did you put the notebook in the first place? Generally speaking, it was either in your pocket or in your bag.If it is easy to drop, it may be placed in a pocket.The situation at that time may be that the prisoner accidentally took out the notebook when he took out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his hands after washing his hands in the bathroom. So, when did the prisoner discover this problem? It may be tens of minutes later, or it may be several hours later... Anyway, it should not exceed a day. Next, the prisoner may recall when he last used the notebook, so that he can determine the approximate time when the notebook was lost.In other words, by comparing it with the scope of my activities that day, I can determine the approximate location of the lost notebook to a certain extent.

And, of course, this is my own guess, maybe the prisoner can limit the location of the lost notebook to a narrow range.Why do you say this? Because he probably uses this notebook very frequently every day. Whenever dark and chaotic thoughts arise in his mind, he needs to take out the notebook and read it again in order to restore his peace of mind.The more frequently the prisoner used the notebook, the clearer it became when and where it was lost. Later, the prisoner looked around to get up.Check the floor to see if the laptop has fallen.Unfortunately not. In this case, the prisoner will think that the notebook may have been picked up by someone else.If the contents of the notebook are discovered, it will be over.Police may launch a search for a third victim and eventually find the body.If that's all it is, it doesn't matter.The key problem is that the police are likely to extract their fingerprints from the notebook and expose their handwriting.

Thinking of this, what would I do if I were a prisoner? I'm afraid I won't attack the fourth target for the time being. Maybe the police are investigating nearby, because the notebook was lost in the range of their usual activities, so the police will think that the criminal is haunting this area, so they can't act rashly. However, after some time, the body of the third victim, Nanami Mizuguchi, was still not found.This is because Morino and I did not hand over the notebook to the police.The prisoner may have been waiting for news of the discovery of the body to be broadcast on television.If it were me, I would also wait patiently until the weather is calm before attacking the fourth target.

However, Morino disappeared at this time. I think Morino's disappearance should not be a prank directed or performed by her.I tried hard to think about the cause of this contradiction. If I were the prisoner, when would I hit the fourth target? ●When you can't control your inner impulse. ●When you believe too much in yourself and despise the police's ability to solve crimes. ●When you are not afraid of being arrested by the police. ●When you think that the notebook has not been picked up by others and no one knows the contents. ●When you feel that the person who finds the notebook will not believe what is inside.

Otherwise, the prisoner might not have noticed the loss of the notebook at all.None of the above possibilities can be completely dismissed.Still, I'm betting on another possibility.Would the prisoner think so? ●Although the notebook was checked by someone, the contents in it were not cracked.As a result, the police were not notified, and Nanami Mizuguchi remained undiscovered. The owner of the coffee shop nodded enthusiastically while listening to my analysis. "Then how did you know that the culprit was me?" I took the notebook from him and turned to a page.The writing on it was already illegible because it was soaked in sweat.

"You know that the ink is water-soluble, and the text will disappear once it gets wet. I guess the prisoner may have thought that the notebook was lost outside instead of in the store. Morino once told me that when the prisoner lost the notebook, it happened to be raining outside. .The prisoner must have taken this into consideration." According to general logic, assuming the notebook was lost in the store, it is most reasonable for the finder to hand it over to the police.However, there has been no report of Nanami Mizuguchi's body being found on TV. "Therefore, I guess the prisoner came to the conclusion that the notebook was lost in the rainstorm. If so, no one could find any traces of the crime in that rain-soaked notebook. " According to Morino, only the shopkeeper went outside during the rainstorm that day.When I finished my reasoning, which was like a castle in the air, like walking a tightrope, the shopkeeper smiled. "Yes, I did think the notebook was dropped in the heavy rain." Morino was at my house.He said so. The second and third floors of this coffee shop are his home. The owner carefully put the notebook into his pocket, then turned around and walked to the entrance of the coffee room and opened the door. The summer sun shone through the clouds, and the long-gloomy sky became suddenly bright.Accustomed to the dim light inside the store, the outside world felt a bit harsh.At this time, he had already gone out of the store and walked towards the street, and soon disappeared in a vast expanse of white light. The female customer who used to come here stood up from the table and walked to the cash register to pay.After looking around the store for a week, she asked me, "Where's the boss?" I shook my head. Since the stairs are located outside the house, you have to run outside the store to go upstairs. On the third floor, I found Morino tied up, still dressed like Nanami Mizuguchi, lying on the ground with ropes tied to her hands and feet, but she didn't seem to have been violated. When she saw me, her eyes narrowed slightly, which was her happy look.She was unable to speak at this time due to the towel stuffed in her mouth. When I got the towel out, she gasped heavily. "The shopkeeper pretended to be broken and asked me to carry his luggage. When I woke up, I was like this." The ropes tied to her hands and feet seemed difficult to untie, so I left her alone for now, but turned my attention to the furnishings in the house.Judging from the appearance of the house, the owner seems to live alone. On the table were some white sticky notes with lots of little crosses drawn on them. There was a set of knives on the shelf, obviously they were used to kill people.The word "knife" often appears in the description of the notebook. Morino, who was lying on the ground, couldn't move her hands and feet, so she started to complain to me. I picked a suitable knife from the knives on the shelf and cut the rope with it. "Go, or the shopkeeper will find out." "He won't come." I'm afraid it will never appear in this area again.I have no doubts about this.Maybe he would kill Morino and me to kill people, but for some reason, I don't think he will. Because while talking at the counter in the coffee shop, I found myself in a kind of psychic connection with that weirdo. Perhaps, based on his own instinct, he knew that I would not tell others about his quiet departure from here. When I told her that the shop owner would not come back, Morino looked at me with an incredulous look.She stood up and straightened her clothes. "I only sent you a message, and you found it..." Morino's cell phone was on the table, but the power had been cut off.Nanami Mizuguchi's handbag is also there.At that time, Morino must have brought it with him.Did the prisoner discover that the handbag carried by Morino, who is about to become the fourth victim, was once used by the third victim? Morino lying on the ground was imprisoned for a whole day.She walked towards the stairs with trembling steps. When I left the room, I took the knife set from the shelf, and the note on the desk, as a memento.When the police find out the truth and search the house, they may be troubled because they cannot find the murder weapon.Of course I don't care about that. When I came to the ground, I looked at the situation in the store.Soft music was playing in the empty store. I flipped the sign over the door and replaced "OPEN" with "CLOSE". Morino stood behind me, stroking his wrist while observing the scene in front of him.There were rope marks on her wrists. "It's a pain this time." She murmured. "I will never come to this store again." "However, isn't it good? I can meet that person." Morino showed a puzzled expression on his face. "That man...why on earth did that shopkeeper do this to me?" She didn't seem to realize that the shopkeeper was a murderer. Picking up the note in my hand, the many small crosses written on it came into my eyes again. ————01 DARK GOTH·END