Chapter 65

The evening before the day after Detective Chikage was hospitalized.

I visited her hospital room empty-handed. Hearing from the president who'd been in contact with her that she'd been admitted, I came.

The cause was supposedly that she'd been attacked by someone, or was in shock over failing to protect a victim—so I'd thought, but my guess was way off. It was food poisoning, they said.

That was why, the moment I stepped into the room, I asked right away.

"Detective Chikage, did you eat anything strange?"

Lying on the bed and staring at her smartphone screen, she made a disgusted face.

"Of course not! Do I look like someone who'd scavenge food? There's no idiot who'd get a stomach ache from that."

"Then... you've absolutely no idea what it could be?"

"Right. I don't remember eating anything raw at all these past few days... and yet the doctor keeps saying it's food poisoning from raw food or something. Um, I think it was Vibrio enteritis."

I gave a thoughtful "hmm" and checked as well. Vibrio is indeed one of the bacteria that cause food poisoning; found mostly in raw fish.

From what I could gather after asking about the past few days' menus, her memory didn't seem fuzzy, and it really looked like she hadn't eaten any raw seafood. Mysterious was the only word for it.

"A riddle..."

Detective Chikage reacted to those words and spoke up. A certain person's name appeared.

"Come to think of it, Detective Akaba said something about the case still having unanswered questions."

"... Detective Akaba... ah!"

That was the female detective who'd helped us during the Werewolf Academy case. She hadn't been among the detectives we met at the crime scene that day.

According to Detective Chikage, "Detective Akaba feels uneasy about the way this incident was labeled a suicide." She's raising objections and investigating alone, or something like that.

"She came earlier, saying it was because of something I'd said, but in this state I can't help or anything... so I turned her down. I wonder if she'll be all right..."

A question. That word wouldn't leave my head no matter how I tried to forget it. What about the case made Detective Akaba feel something was off?

Honestly, I had my doubts too.

Hadn't the poison acted too quickly on Uchima-san? If he'd taken a fast-acting poison into his mouth, it wouldn't be strange for it to have an effect. Yet he died two days later. It didn't seem to be the tetrodotoxin often seen on TV or potassium cyanide, but some agricultural chemical or other poison.

In that case, it felt like it should have taken at least some time before he started feeling bad.

In other words, maybe he'd originally been made to drink some poison or other. That's what I thought, but there were facts that refuted it. The poison had been in the food and drink he'd consumed. I'd heard that much from the detectives I was consulting.

Was that the very point Detective Akaba found questionable? No, maybe not. Perhaps the poison simply acted quickly. There are individual differences after all.

I probably wouldn't have strong doubts to that extent myself.

So... why...?

Bothered, I borrowed Detective Chikage's smartphone. I'd gotten Detective Akaba's contact info during the previous case. I didn't hesitate to call.

"Um, Detective Akaba... do you have a moment?"

"Oh...? It's been a while."

A slightly timid voice. It was definitely Detective Akaba.

It was sudden, but I asked about her investigation policy.

"I'd like to talk about the incident at the café a few days ago..."

"Ah... yes, the case where you and Chikage-chan were at the scene. Honestly, I was hoping to get some advice from you too... but it didn't seem like you were very eager to cooperate..."

Her perceptiveness shocked me. Once someone becomes a detective, many can't see through the thoughts or secrets a detective carries. In mysteries you often see bumbling detectives spouting flimsy deductions at the scene. But she was different.

"Well, there are things about this case that really bother me... like the police's thinking... and I want to study why this happened so we can prevent it next time. Please let me help."

I knew full well she couldn't see me, but I bowed my head anyway and told her so.

"Really!? I'm the one who wants to ask! Please. I'll support you however I can!"

And so I took responsibility. Since I'd be hearing police information, I had to solve the riddle no matter what. For now I'd forget about hating detectives and devote myself to solving mysteries.

"Thank you very much. So, Detective Akaba, you said you had objections to the investigation—about what exactly?"

That was the mystery to think about now. Thinking so, I opened my ears wide and listened.

"As you know, the police closed the investigation because there was a suicide note and it was deemed a suicide, right?"

"Yes."

"But one thing was strange. Agricultural chemicals were detected in the coffee he drank. So that means the lethal dose of pesticide was either in the coffee itself or in the sugar he added."

"That's..."

"There were several sugar packets laced with pesticide in his bag... but the problem is, none of the sugar packets scattered on the table had pesticide on them."

"...What?"

It was certainly a mystery.

If the pesticide-laced sugar had been added to the coffee, a packet containing pesticide-laced sugar should have been found.

And yet it wasn't.

"And yet nothing besides the sugar had pesticide in it. In the drink bar or the sugar. Nothing else he could have put in his mouth besides the sugar tested positive for pesticide..."

"That's what's bothering you... wait, then why didn't the other detectives..."

"Well, their view is that it just so happened all the pesticide had been emptied from the packet, so no traces were detected in the bag."

"Does something like that really happen?"

"I don't think so... but here's what I think. Uchima-san never intended to die at all. But someone took a packet of sugar laced with the same pesticide from a different location and put it in his coffee. Then the culprit took home the packet with their fingerprints on it... that's why there was no pesticide-laced sugar packet left on the table."

"In short... this case has a hidden poisoner."

"That's what I think!"

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