Chapter 42 Section 8

White smoke curled up toward the blackened ceiling.It is the smoke exhaled by Taniguchi.There were people smoking everywhere, and the conference room was filled with smoke.Suffocating silence and unusual stuffiness.But no one came out of the conference room.Someone knocked on the table with their fingers, making a "knock, knock, knock" sound. There was a sound of "click" opening the door, and everyone's eyes gathered together.The one who walked into the meeting room was the young detective who had just gone to the bathroom.There was a sound of "huh" exhaling from all around, and the young criminal policeman returned to his seat with an apologetic expression.Sayama sat obliquely in front of Taniguchi, staring at his nails. The nails have grown a lot unconsciously. When was the last time you cut your nails?

There was the sound of quick footsteps in the hallway.Sayama thought to himself: Here we come. The door swung open, and Xin Tang walked in.He walked straight to Taniguchi and put the documents in his hand on the table. "I found the blue wool fiber, and there are five hairs, each of which matches Naoki Nishina's hair." "Oh!" The investigators cheered in unison. The forensics section conducted an investigation on the vans of the Yamanaka wood processing plant in Toyohashi, and the results were released today.Xintang's words showed that Sayama's reasoning was correct.Taniguchi looked at the report and nodded vigorously, then looked up slightly at Sayama and grinned. "Hey, you have a gloating expression on your face."

"I'm happy in the open and aboveboard. It's great for a blind cat to meet a dead mouse." Sayama also smiled. Someone brought out the blackboard. Taniguchi stood in front of the blackboard and wrote down Osaka, Toyohashi, and Tokyo in order from left to right. There was a little space between each place name, and then he sorted out the things he had found so far, and explained that they were in Osaka and Tokyo respectively. Write PeopleSoft and Hashimoto underneath. "The possibility now is that PeopleSoft conspired with an accomplice to kill someone. They prepared a van and made an almost unnatural alibi, which can also be said to be part of the plan."

When a detective asked a question, Taniguchi responded immediately. "Can Toyohashi's van be easily stolen?" "Considering that the doors are automatically locked and it is troublesome to get the keys, I fixed the spare key on the rear bumper with screws in advance. So as long as it is someone who knows what happened, it will be fine." Of course, Naoki should have already known about this. Taniguchi went on to say: "The person who made this plan was Naoki who was actually killed. He was probably betrayed by an accomplice. And the prisoner moved his body from Osaka to Tokyo according to the plan that Naoki himself had drawn up. Okay. , the problem lies in this plan, please Sayama explain this to everyone.”

After Taniguchi sat down, Sayama stood up.He looked around the conference room for a week, and then spoke: "Naoki Nishina made an alibi before six o'clock in the evening in a very deliberate way. I think that he assigned a room in the hotel to deepen the impression of the counter staff on him. In addition, he also planned to let his friend call his room at ten o'clock that night. In other words, what Naoki planned to do from six o'clock to ten o'clock. In short, it was to kill someone and move the body to a certain place. It was the van that was intended to move the body. Here, we assume that Nishina moved the body to the first point A, and then he took the train back to Osaka. On the other hand, the accomplice took the body from Moving from point A to point B—I think it’s probably Atsugi, and then turning back. The last accomplice moved the body from Atsugi to Tokyo.”

"The last accomplice is Hashimoto," Taniguchi added. Sayama nodded. "But it turned out that Nishina was murdered and the body was transported to Tokyo. This should be because two accomplices betrayed him." "Are there any clues about the person who wanted to kill Nishina, and who is the other accomplice besides Hashimoto?" asked the detective from the Komae Bureau. "Unfortunately, even what I've said so far is at the stage of reasoning, and there is no physical evidence. But according to this reasoning, the target can be locked." After finishing speaking, Sayama turned to the blackboard. "We must also determine the alibi of another accomplice before he took the body at point A. That is to say, this accomplice should be not far from point A. As for where point A is, Naoki Nishina plans to find out at six Between 10:00 and 10:00, after carrying the body back to the hotel. That is to say, from a distance, Nagoya is at most.”

Sayama brought up Nagoya for a reason.Because he was thinking about Sue Yong.But in fact, if you want to kill people and go back and forth between Osaka and Nagoya, it will take four hours to do it.Regarding this point, Sayama thinks whether Naoki himself has miscalculated the time when he planned.Taniguchi didn't say a word, just being an audience. "So, the people around Nagoya that day were suspicious?" The Komae detective who asked Sayama the question nodded as if accepting, and then asked, "As for the person who killed Naoki, can't we use this method to lock the target?"

"There is no way at the moment." Sayama replied. "Is it possible that it is Yasuko Amamiya?" This question was asked to Taniguchi. "Maybe," Taniguchi replied while sitting down, "because that woman asked for leave from the company that day. But there are also people who claim that it cannot be done with the strength of a woman." Everyone nodded. At this moment, Taniguchi stood up, looked around the meeting room and said, "What Sayama said just now is a reasoning, I don't know if it is correct. There should be other possibilities to consider. But someone used the wood processing box in Toyohashi. It is an indisputable fact that the body was moved by a small car, and it was probably carried out in the middle of the night. Then, how did the person who moved the body leave there? Should he drive another car back to Tokyo? Wait until the morning to take the train? Or use other means of transportation What? I think, if we start from this direction, we should be able to find out something."

Sayama thought to himself: I see, this is a good idea.If it was Sue Yong, what would he do?That man has to go back to Nagoya.And...by the way, he asked the counter staff to wake him up at seven— Taxi—?At this moment, Sayama remembered the scene in front of Toyohashi Station.