Chapter 11 Section 11

In order to send Wakayama Hiromi home, when Utsumi Kaoru drove out of the Metropolitan Police Department, it was already past eight o'clock in the evening.Spent about two hours in the interrogation room.This time should have been much shorter than scheduled for Jiangong who was in charge of the interrogation. The reason why it ended so early was naturally that most of it was influenced by the phone call from Mashiba Ayane. According to her, her husband Mashiba Yoshitaka once told her to use bottled water when making coffee.If this is true, it is true that there is more than one person who can poison, because the murderer only needs to put the poison in the bottled water beforehand.

And Mamiya seemed to be at a loss for Hiromi who kept crying that she hadn't poisoned her, and couldn't think of an effective way to interrogate her. After listening to Kaoru's suggestion to let her go back temporarily today, she reluctantly nodded in agreement. Hiromi sat in the passenger seat and didn't say a word.Kaoru could also imagine that she was extremely exhausted right now.Under the pressure of the criminal police with a fierce face, sometimes even men will become confused due to fear and anxiety.It may take some time to get over the excitement of crying just now.No, she had calmed down today, and Xun guessed that she would not take the initiative to speak. Now that she knew that the police suspected her, she would definitely not have a good impression of the female detective who sent her home.

Suddenly Hongmei took out her mobile phone, it seemed that someone was calling. She picked up the phone and said "hello" in a low voice. "...It's over just now, and now I'm going home by car... No, that female detective drove me... No, I'm not at the Meguro Police Station, I came out of the Metropolitan Police Department, maybe it will take a while To... yes, thank you." After talking softly for a while, Hiromi hung up the phone. Kaoru adjusted her breathing, and asked her, "Is it Ms. Mashiba Ayane calling?" When she heard herself talking to her, she felt that Hiromi's body tensed up.

"Yes, what's the question?" "She called Kusanagi just now, and she seemed to be quite worried about you." "yes?" "I heard that you two talked about Mr. Mashiba Yoshitaka together, didn't you?" "How do you know?" "I heard that Kusanagi listened to Mrs. Mashiba, when they brought you to the Metropolitan Police Department." Seeing that Hiromi didn't say a word, Kaoru glanced at her quickly, and saw her silently looking at the ground.As far as she is concerned, I am afraid that she does not want that to be widely known.

"Although it sounds a little rude to say this, I always find it incredible. Generally speaking, it's not surprising that the two of you fight over this matter, but you still communicate as usual." "Well... I think it's probably because Mr. Mashiba is no longer here." "But having said that, what I said just now is the true feeling in my heart." After a while, Hiromi said "yes" lightly, it sounded like she couldn't even explain the delicate relationship between the two of them. "I have two or three questions for you, may I?"

She heard Hiromi sighing. "Is there anything else you want to ask?" Her tone sounded impatient. "I'm really sorry, you must be very tired now. My question is very simple, and I don't think it will hurt you." "what is the problem?" "You had coffee with Mr. Mashiba on Sunday morning, and you made the coffee." "It's this again?" Hongmei's voice sounded a little choked up, "I've never done anything, so I don't even know what the poison is about." "That's not what I mean. What I want to ask is the way you make your coffee, and where did you use the water?"

"water?" "I mean, did you use bottled water or tap water?" She listened, her whole body seemed to relax, "ah", and said, "I used tap water at that time." "You remember correctly, don't you?" "That's right, what's the problem?" "Why do you use tap water?" "Why... There is no particular reason, it's just that warm water boils faster." "Was Mr. Mashiba there at that time?" "Yes, haven't I said it many times, when I was teaching him how to make coffee." Her choked voice was mixed with some anxiety.

"Remember, I didn't ask you when you were making coffee, but when you were filling the kettle with tap water. Did he really stand beside you?" Hiromi was silent. Although Mamiya must have asked her many questions, this question had undoubtedly never been asked. "By the way..." he murmured, "That's true, he didn't come to my side when I boiled the water, he came to the kitchen and asked me to demonstrate it to him after I put the kettle on the stove. " "You remember correctly, right?" "It can't be wrong, I remember." Kaoru pulled over to the side of the road, turned on the hazard lights, and turned to stare at Hiromi's face in the passenger seat.

"What do you want to do?" Hongmei shrank back a little scared. "I remember you said before that you learned how to make coffee from Mrs. Mashiba, right?" Hiromi nodded yes. "Ms. Mashiba Ayane once said this to Kusanagi. She said that Mr. Mashiba Yoshitaka was very health-conscious and never drank tap water. She also told her to use water from a water purifier when cooking and to use water from a water purifier when making coffee. Use bottled water—did you know that?" Hongmei opened her eyes wide and blinked again and again all afternoon: "Speaking of which, the teacher told me this before, but she told me that I don't need to worry about it so much."

"yes?" "She said that not only is it not cost-effective to use bottled water, but it also takes more time to boil the water. If Mr. Zhenchai asks, just say that you use bottled water." Hiromi put her hand on her cheek, "I They all forgot about it..." "In other words, Mrs. Zhenchai actually uses tap water, right?" "Yes. That's why when I made coffee for Mr. Mashiba that morning, I didn't think about it." Hiromi said, looking into Kaoru's eyes. Kaoru nodded, a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth. "I see, thank you for your assistance," she said, turning off the hazard lights and putting down the handbrake.

"Excuse me...is this important? I use tap water to make coffee. Is there a problem?" "It's not a problem. As you know, we now suspect that Mr. Mashiba Yoshitaka was poisoned and killed, so we need to carefully check everything we eat and drink." "Really...Miss Utsumi, please believe me, I really haven't done anything." Kaoru stared straight ahead and swallowed.She almost blurted out that she believed her.As a criminal policeman, such words are absolutely unacceptable. "You are not the only one who is suspected by the police. It can be said that everyone in this world will be suspected. This is what makes the profession of the police annoying." Perhaps because Kaoru's answer was completely different from what she expected, Hiromi fell silent again. The car stopped in front of an apartment next to the Xueyi Station. Kaoru watched Hiromi get out of the car and walked towards the door of the apartment. She looked ahead and quickly turned off the engine: she saw Mashiba Ayane standing behind the glass door . Hiromi also saw Ayane, she seemed a little surprised.Although Ayane gave her a consoling look, when she saw Kaoru running towards her, her look immediately became unfriendly again.Hiromi therefore also turned her head, showing a confused expression. "Is there anything else?" Hiromi asked. "Because I saw Mrs. Mashiba, I wanted to come over to say hello." Kaoru said, "I'm really sorry for keeping Ms. Wakayama for so long." After she finished speaking, she bowed her head in apology. "Hiromi's suspicion has been cleared, right?" "She has already told us a lot of things. I am very grateful to Kusanagi for saying that Mrs. Mashiba has also given you an extremely important message." "It would be the best to help you all, but I hope that this kind of thing will not happen again in the future. Hiromi is innocent, and even if you continue to question her, it is meaningless." "Whether it is meaningful or not, we will naturally make a judgment. I hope that the two of you can assist us in our investigation in the future." "I will assist you, but please don't take Hiromi away from now on." Ayane's tone was uncharacteristically sour, and Kaoru looked back at her in surprise. Ayane turned to Hiromi and said, "Hiromi, you have to tell the truth. If you don't say anything, no one can protect you. Do you understand what I mean? If you are in the police station It's going to hurt your body if you stay in it for hours, right?" Hearing her words, Hiromi's expression stiffened immediately.It felt as if she had told her a secret deeply buried in her heart. When Kaoru saw this scene, an intuition flashed in her mind. "Could it be you..." Kaoru looked at Hiromi and said. "Why don't you clarify the matter now? Fortunately, this female criminal policeman was present, and I already knew about it." Ayane said. "Teacher, did you... listen to what Mr. Zhenchai said?" "He didn't say it, but I know it in my heart. After all, I am also a woman." At this moment, Kaoru already understood what the two of them were talking about, but she had to confirm it again. "Miss Ruoshan, are you pregnant?" She asked straight to the point. Hiromi was a little hesitant, but quickly nodded and said, "Two months." Kaoru caught a glimpse of Ayane's body trembling slightly out of the corner of her eye, so she was sure that she had never heard Mashiba Yoshitaka say it before.As she herself had heard, she sensed it with a female intuition.So when she heard Hongmei personally say the words that her intuition came true, even though she had already prepared in her heart, she still received quite a blow. However, in an instant, she regained her resolute expression, turned her head and said to Xun: "Now you understand? During this period, she must take good care of her body. As a woman, you also understand , right? Not to mention sending her to the police station for a few hours of interrogation." Kaoru just nodded.In fact, the police also stipulated various precautions in the interrogation of pregnant women. "I will report to my superiors, and we will pay more attention to this in the future." "Then I will trouble you." Ayane looked at Hiromi and said, "That's enough. If you keep hiding it from them, how can you go to the hospital?" Hiromi looked at Ayane with a crying expression on her face, and the corners of her mouth twitched slightly.Couldn't hear her voice and looked like she was saying "sorry". "I have one more thing to explain to you." Ayane said, "The father of the child in her womb is Yoshitaka Mashiba. That's why I think he is determined to divorce me. How could she choose her? Kill him, the father of the child in your womb, with your own hands?" Although Kaoru felt the same way, she didn't say a word.I don't know how Ayane understood, she shook her head, and continued: "I really don't understand what you policemen are thinking. She has no motive at all, and I am the one who has the motive. " Back at the Metropolitan Police Department, Mamiya and Kusanagi were still there, drinking coffee from the vending machine.The expressions of the two were equally frustrated. "What did Hiromi Wakayama say about the water?" Seeing Kaoru's face, Kusanagi hurriedly asked, "It's about her making coffee for Mashiba Yoshitaka. Have you asked her?" "I asked, and she said it was tap water." Kaoru told them what she had heard from Wakayama Hiromi. Mamiya murmured, "So they were fine after drinking coffee. If the poison was in the bottled water, then things would make sense." "What Hiromi Wakayama said may not be the truth." Kusanagi said. "Having said that, since her words are not inconsistent, there is no way to pursue it any further. Now we can only wait for a more accurate report from the forensics department." "Have you asked the forensic department about the bottled water?" Kaoru asked. Kusanagi picked up the document on the table and said: "I heard from the forensics department that there is only one bottle of water in the refrigerator of Mashiba's house, and the lid is said to have been opened. Of course, they have also checked the water in the bottle and checked it. No arsenic was detected." "Really? But didn't the chief just say that the forensics department has not given a more accurate report?" "It's not that simple." Mamiya said with a flat mouth. "You mean to say..." "There is a one-liter bottle in the refrigerator." Kusanagi looked at the file and said, "And there is about 900 milliliters of water in the bottle. Do you understand? This bottle of water has not been opened for a long time, only With 100 milliliters of water, it is too little to brew a cup of coffee. And judging from the remaining coffee powder in the filter tube, it should be two cups anyway.” Kaoru also understood what Kusanagi meant. "That is to say, there should have been another bottle of water before. Because the bottle was used up, a new bottle was opened, and now the refrigerator is filled with leftovers from this bottle." "That's what happened," Kusanagi nodded. "In other words, the poison was probably put in the previous bottle of water, right?" "From the murderer's point of view, of course this is the only way to do it." Gamiya said, "The murderer went to open the refrigerator to poison, and found two bottles of water in it, one of which had not been used. If you want to put the poison If you want to go into the bottle of water, you have to unscrew the cap, but if you do this, it may attract the attention of the victim, so it has to be the bottle that has been opened." "Then go and investigate the empty bottle, won't it be clear?" "Of course." Kusanagi flipped through the document and said, "I heard that the people from the forensic department have already roughly checked it, and I mean roughly." "Any questions?" "At that time, they replied to us like this, saying that they had checked all the empty bottles they could find in Mashiba's house, and no arsenic was detected. But they couldn't guarantee that the murderer had used those empty bottles in the murder." "What do you mean by that?" "In short, it's just not very clear." Jian Gong interjected, "It seems that the residue that can be collected from the bottle is too little. Well, it's no wonder they, after all, that thing It was originally an empty container. But they said that if they took it to Kesouyan, they might be able to analyze it with more sophisticated instruments, so let’s wait for their results for now.” Kaoru finally figured out what happened, and at the same time, she also understood why the two looked depressed. "However, I think that even if toxic substances are detected from the plastic bottle, the situation will not change much." Kusanagi said as he put the document back on the table. "Really? I think the range of suspects has expanded." Kusanagi looked down at Kaoru who retorted, and said, "Didn't you hear what the chief said just now? If the murderer really poisoned the bottled water, then the poison should have been poisoned in the bottle of water that had already been opened." .And the victim never drank the bottle of water before making the coffee, that is to say, it didn’t take too long from the murderer poisoning the water to the victim’s death.” "I do think that just because the victim hasn't had a drink of water doesn't mean it hasn't been too long. If the victim is thirsty, there are plenty of other drinks." Hearing this, Kusanagi seemed to be showing off his victory, puffed his nose and said, "You seem to have forgotten that Mr. Mashiba didn't only make coffee on Sunday night, he also made coffee once on Saturday night. Didn't Hiromi Wakayama say that it was because he cooked too bitterly the night before, so she showed him the next morning in front of Mr. Mashiba. That is to say, on Saturday night, the bottled water Still not poisonous." "When Mr. Mashiba makes coffee on Saturday night, he doesn't necessarily use bottled water." As soon as Kaoru finished speaking, Kusanagi leaned back considerably and pushed his hands away. "Are you trying to subvert the main premise? His wife has already said that Mr. Mashiba will definitely use bottled water when making coffee, so we are talking about bottled water here, aren't we?" "I think it's dangerous to be bound by the word 'sure'." Kaoru said in a flat tone, "We don't know how much Mr. Mashiba insists on himself. Maybe he just has such a habit. Even his wife , and did not faithfully follow his instructions. And it has been a long time since he made coffee by himself, even if he accidentally used tap water at that time, it is not surprising. There is a water purifier on the tap water pipe in their house , so maybe he was using tap water at the time.” Kusanagi smacked his lips loudly, and said, "Don't just make up stories just to prove your own guesses." "I'm just saying that we should judge by objective facts." She shifted her gaze from the senior criminal police to her boss. "I think that as long as we don't find out when and who was the last person to drink the bottled water from Zhenchai's house, we won't be able to determine the timing of poisoning." It's very important. I also held the same opinion as Kusanagi before, but after hearing the discussion between you two, I'm starting to favor the opinion of the newcomers." "Chief." Kusanagi's expression was a little hurt. "However," Mamiya said, looking at Kaoru with a serious face, "As for the timing of poisoning, it can be roughly determined now. You should know what happened to Mashiba's house on Friday night, right?" "I know, house party." Kaoru replied, "It is estimated that several people drank bottled water at that time." "That is to say, if you want to poison, you have to do it after that." Jian Gong raised his index finger. "I feel the same way. But I don't think the pig breeder couple would have the chance to poison, because it's probably impossible for them to enter the kitchen without anyone noticing." "In this case, there are only two suspects left." "Wait a minute." Kusanagi hurriedly interjected, "Forget it, but it would be too strange to suspect Mrs. Mashiba. She was the one who provided the information that the victim used bottled water when making coffee. How could a murderer intentionally put Did the police turn their suspicions on you?" "Maybe it's because he knew that sooner or later his secret would be exposed." Xun said, "The murderer thought to himself, anyway, it's only a matter of time before the police think of detecting toxic substances from empty plastic bottles, so it's better to speak out on their own initiative, which will make it easier for the police to avoid suspicion. She might be thinking about it too." Kusanagi curled his lips impatiently, and said, "Talk to you, people will go crazy. You seem to insist that his wife is the murderer no matter what." "No, what she said is quite reasonable." Mamiya said, "I think this opinion is calm enough. If Hiromi Wakayama is the murderer, then judging from the fact that she didn't dispose of the kettle with the poison remaining, it is contradictory. There are many places. From the aspect of murder motive, Mashiba Ayane is also the most suspicious." Just when Kusanagi was about to refute, Kaoru said first: "Speaking of motives, just now, I heard something that can better explain the motives of the deceased's wife." "Who told you that?" Mamiya said. "It's what Hiromi Wakayama said." Then, Kaoru described the changes that had taken place in Hiromi to the two men in front of him who probably never imagined things like this.