Chapter 20 third chapter

On the Friday morning of the second week, the homicide body was found in the apartment at Nishinohara 3-chome, Kita Ward - "Mansion · Hamaoka".A fifty-six-year-old man named Tetsuo Kishimoto who lived in Room 103 was shot dead. The beginning of the matter was an anonymous call to the Metropolitan Police Department at 10:30 in the morning: "I killed a man named Tetsuo Kishimoto who lives in the Nishinohara apartment in the Kita Ward - Room 103 of "Mansion Hamaoka"" , After finishing speaking, the other party immediately hung up the phone.The voice could not be identified as male or female, it was very vague.

The person in charge of the communication command office who received the call was dubious at first, but he still contacted the nearest police station and asked the patrol to go to "Mansion · Hamaoka".The inspector arrived at the scene on a bicycle and found that the entrance door of Room 103 was locked. After ringing the doorbell several times, no one came out.Going around to the back of the apartment, I found that one of the two rooms facing the balcony of Room 103, that is, the room on the left hand side from the front, had a gap between the curtains and the curtains.The inspector flipped over the railing and jumped onto the balcony, peered into the room through the gap in the curtains, and saw the man lying on his back on the floor.

The inspector tried to open the window, but both the windows on the left and right were locked.Therefore, the inspector broke the window glass of the left room and stretched his hand into the room to open the crescent lock. After entering the room, he found the body.The body was shot in the left chest and appeared to have been dead for some time. At 10:50, the third searcher from the First Search Section of the Metropolitan Police Department arrived at the scene and sealed off the entrance of "Mansion · Hamaoka" with a rope, and asked the patrol to guard it.Suddenly, many spectators gathered around.

This is a beautifully decorated five-story building, and it is conceivable that the rent is not a small amount.Headed by the Hayase Police Department in charge, the investigators crossed the cordon and entered the entrance of the apartment.Ryoko, the youngest among them, came last. "Why did the prisoner call to announce the crime?" Ryoko said to herself. Colleague Fujimoto detective replied: "In order to let the body be discovered as soon as possible, so as to calculate the correct estimated time of death? Assuming that the prisoner has already figured out some means of producing an alibi, in case the body is found late and the estimated time of death is delayed The scope is too wide, and the alibi made by myself may be ruined. The purpose of leaving a gap between the curtains is to let the inspector know that this is not an ordinary prank call, so that the inspector can be sure. Body found."

"However, if you really want people to find the body as soon as possible, shouldn't you call earlier? According to the report, when the discoverer's patrol arrived at the scene, the deceased had been dead for at least a few hours. The prisoner obviously didn't have to wait until 10:30 in the morning , just call immediately after committing the crime. The sooner the body is found, the more accurate the estimated time of death will be, right?" "Indeed." "So I think that the prisoner's declaration call was not to let people find the body earlier, but there were other reasons."

"Is this what you call a woman's intuition?" Fujimoto joked.Ryoko suddenly became angry.This man always said something that looked down on Ryoko. The third-serving investigators walked into Room 103.Entering the porch, you will immediately see the suite of the dining room and kitchen, and inside the house are two rooms separated from the left and right, and the doors are all open.The room on the left can see a wardrobe and a bed, so it seems to be used as a bedroom.The room on the right is the scene of the incident, a spacious room about thirteen square meters.The floor was covered with a rouge-coloured rug.There is a table next to the wall.There are bookshelves and a large safe on the lower wall on the left hand side.There are many kites hanging on the wall on the right.Seems to be a hobby of the victim.And the inner wall of the room has a balcony window.

Chef Kishimoto fell on his back to the floor.A small man about 160 centimeters tall, with a poor face with a stubble on his face. Wearing a white and black chess pattern sweater and camel cotton trousers.The left breast was stained with crimson blood.There was the wound where the pistol had penetrated. "The bullet was stuck here after passing through the victim's body." The detective of the Takinogawa Bureau in the jurisdiction where he is located said, pointing to the wall with his right hand.On the beige wall between the kites, a black stain-like bullet was embedded. At this moment, the coroner and the forensics class entered the room, so the third investigator and the criminal police from the Takinogawa Bureau avoided the corridor for the time being.

"Is this the key?" When walking back to the entrance, the police found the wooden box on the side cabinet next to the door.There are car keys and bicycle keys inside. It can be said that it is used to hold keys. However, there was no Portkey to be found inside.Probably the prisoner took the key from here, locked the door and took it away. "A woman who claimed to be a housewife commuting to the victim's house came here." The inspector in charge of guarding the entrance came to inform.The police immediately ordered him to bring her here. The person who was brought forward by the patrol was a plump woman in her forties, named Yoko Nishikawa, who was said to have been dispatched by the Women's Federation from Tokyo, from 11 am to 2 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Responsible for house cleaning and lunch preparation.From the way her face turned blue, it could be seen that it came from uncontrollable excitement.That's a common reaction of people who encounter homicide.

You must be freaking out.The police department comforted her. "What does Mr. Chef Kishimoto do?" "I heard that he is a freelance writer." "Freelance writer? What kind of profession can afford to live in such a luxurious apartment and hire a housekeeper like you?" "I don't know very well...but it is indeed very profitable. Although it is second-hand, he has a Mercedes-Benz of his own." "Is Kishimoto-san married?" "He is single. It is said that he does not want to be bound by marriage, and he has never been married once."

"Do you have any clues about the characters who hate Mr. Kishimoto?" No.The housewife shook her head and replied. "What about getting into a dispute with someone, or having a fight with someone?" "nor." "About the kite hanging on the wall of the study, is that Mr. Kishimoto's hobby?" "Yeah. He also likes to go to the Sento to take a bath." "Sentou?" "He goes to his favorite Sento once or twice a week. It is a Sento called "Goldfish Soup" that takes five minutes by car." Ryoko was surprised when she heard the name "Goldfish Soup".The victim often went to that Sento too?Imagine driving a Mercedes-Benz to the Sento, Ryoko couldn't help but almost burst out laughing.

"The wooden box on the side cabinet next to the entrance door is for Mr. Kishimoto to keep the keys, right?" "Yes. The keys to the house and the keys to the cars and bicycles are all there." It seems that Yoko Nishikawa doesn't know very much about her employer, and it won't gain anything if she continues to ask. So the police department said "thank you for your cooperation" and let the housewife go home. "Well, there is something I am very concerned about." Ryoko said. "you say." "The housewife just came here at eleven o'clock in the morning, right?" "Well, so what?" "That means, if the prisoner didn't call at 10:30, it would be the housekeeper who found the body. The housekeeper would come to find the body at 11:00, why did the prisoner inform the police department before that? The prisoner called The time of the phone call was half past ten, thirty minutes before the housewife came. Why didn't the prisoner wait for thirty minutes for the housewife to find the body?" "What an interesting point of view." It seems to have aroused the interest of the police department. "It must be that the prisoner didn't know that the housewife was coming at eleven o'clock." Fujimoto detective said abruptly.It seems that he was unhappy with the police department's praise of Ryoko's "good focus". "That possibility is also possible. However, judging from the planned crime that the prisoner prepared the pistol in advance, the prisoner should have investigated the daily life of the victim in advance. Then of course, it is very likely to know that the housewife It will come at eleven o'clock in the morning on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So why didn't the prisoner let the housewife find the body?" "As for 'why the prisoner didn't let the housewife find the body', it is necessary to review it in the search conference room." Then, the investigators in charge of the third and the criminal police from the Takinogawa Bureau began to take statements from other residents of the apartment.I asked them if they had heard gunshots or seen suspicious people this morning, and asked Kishimoto Tetsuo how he was. However, no one heard the gunshots.It is said that the sound insulation measures of this apartment are very good, if it is not very loud, it cannot be heard.So if the silencer is used, it is not surprising that the surrounding residents cannot hear the gunshots.In addition, Room 103 is a corner house, and the wall on the right hand side where the bullet is embedded is the outer wall, so the impact of the bullet hitting the wall will not be noticed by the residents next door.No one found anyone suspicious, and no one could say what the victim was like. The search by the coroner and the forensics class is over, and Ryoko and others return to the scene. "What is the estimated time of death?" Hayase Police Department asked the coroner. "He was killed between about 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. last night. There was a penetrating gunshot wound on his left chest, and he basically died on the spot." Then there is the report of the forensics class member: "After we took out the bullet embedded in the wall and did the luminol test, we found bloodstains on the bullet. This bullet is undoubtedly the bullet that took the victim's life. The victim We also detected the front part of the sweater that was attached to it with a lot of gunpowder flying out from the muzzle of the gun. It must have been shot to death at a very close range." "Can you tell the type of pistol from the bullets?" "Judging from the 7.62mm bullet, it should be a Togarev pistol. After all, there were many Chinese-made replicas smuggled into Japan in the early 1980s." "Where are the fingerprints on the safe?" "Only the victim's fingerprints." On the bookshelf to the left of the safe, there are books and gentlemen's records that expose the inside story of various industries, and there are also weekly magazines from past issues.Probably all the issue numbers that recorded the victim's article? Then, the Police Department turned its gaze to the table.On the table is a machine with a keyboard connected to a CRT screen.Ryoko had seen the introduction on a TV commercial.I remember correctly, it was a machine called a "word processor", and text was displayed on the CRT screen. "It seems that the victim retrieved the notes he wrote from the floppy disk." The criminal police officer of the Takinogawa Bureau who had already investigated said. "Floppy disk? Call out? What do you mean? I don't know much about word processors, can you give me a brief explanation?" the police department said. "The floppy disk is the recording medium used to save the text generated by the word processor. When you want to do a word processing operation, you put the floppy disk into the floppy drive and call up the text you want to work on. Now the screen is called out, which is a file name. The text is called "The President Goes to Las Vegas for a Grand Tour? The Real State of a First-Class Securities Company." The text was created in June and July of this year. I think it should be a weekly magazine. Since it was written half a year ago Yes, it has already been published, so the reason why he brought this up should not be for writing but for reading." "Since it has been published, why not just read the printed version of the weekly magazine? There are past issues of the weekly magazine on the bookshelf, right?" "Maybe it's the manuscript that wasn't accepted, or maybe it's the only journal lacking to publish it." "Look into this carefully." Then, the police department turned its attention to the large safe.The door was open, and there was nothing inside. "It seems that the prisoner pointed a pistol at the victim and threatened him to open the door and take away the things inside." "What's in it?" Ryoko said. "Important items that are enough for the criminals to exterminate - probably materials for intimidation? Looking at the victim's affluent life, the possibility of the victim's intimidation and extortion is very high. Of course, there is also the kind of steady and high annual income. A popular freelance writer, but this empty safe implies the fact that intimidation exists. The prisoner uses a pistol to coerce the victim to open the safe and get back the intimidating materials. Then he shoots the victim..." "The victim probably got the intimidation information during the work of collecting materials. If we want to find the target of his intimidation, we have to investigate what materials the victim has done so far." makes sense.The police department nodded. The investigators then began looking for the whereabouts of the pistol.However, the murder weapon appeared to have been taken away by the prisoner, and the pistol was nowhere to be found. On the other hand, detective Fujimoto, who is investigating the possessions of the victim, discovered a strange fact. In the wallet in Tetsuo Kishimoto's trouser pocket, there were only a few thousand-yen bills and some small change, but no 10,000-yen bills or credit cards. Judging from his interior decoration and his personality, Kishimoto should be quite rich. However, it is a bit strange why he doesn't even have a 10,000 yuan bill or a credit card in his wallet. Although it is possible that the prisoner shot away, that would not understand why the purse should be put back in the victim's pocket. The prisoner's psychology should be to leave the scene as soon as possible, so he should just throw it aside.As a result of further searching, investigators found five 10,000-yen banknotes and credit cards from the drawer. Generally speaking, credit cards are placed in the wallet. It can be seen that Tetsuo Kishimoto moved it from the wallet to the drawer. But why do that?