Chapter 8: 8

Chapter 8: The rooftop is a locked-room

“Aren’t detectives supposed to work in pairs?” Ayano asked Detective Tanimoto Hikaru while showing him the way to the garden where the dead body was.

“Uhm- My partner has another matter to take care of so he told me to go first,” Tanimoto, who had a baby face, replied sheepishly. “He’s a middle age guy named Shimizu. He said the cases at this mansion can’t be solved anyway.”

Then, he apologized in a haste. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that when I just arrived.”

Ayano nodded her head and said, “But you might be right. It might be difficult to solve this case. Especially since this time it’s a locked-room murder.”

Tanimoto looked at Ayano in surprise. “What?! It’s a locked room murder?” Then he looked up at the roof and muttered to himself, “…Uh-? A locked room?”

It wasn’t a closed space at all. Tanimoto looked at the wide-open rooftop and wondered which part of it was considered as a locked room. He couldn’t solve the puzzle and felt that Ayano was a mysterious pretty woman…

Earlier that day, his partner had told him to go to the haunted mansion by himself. There were no good rumors about that place. After arriving at the mansion, he was surprised when he saw a beautiful lady greeted him at the door. Her beauty made him nervous. The woman had told him her name, so he nervously gave a self-introduction too but she only gave him a curt response before leading him to the crime scene.

Oh, I shouldn’t say it was a curt response. She’s quite talkative anyway. It was just that Tanimoto felt she didn’t show much expression. Perhaps the reason he felt she was cold towards him was simply because he wanted to talk more with the beautiful lady.

Ayano: “By the way, it seems that the detectives from Mihara Police Station are already here.”

“Oh, there is a high possibility that this was an accident but the Prefectural Police Department[1] haven’t received a report yet. It’s just that because of Takamura-sensei, so…” Tanimoto spoke ambiguously and then forced a laugh.

He had heard that Takato, the heir of Sudo family, was engaged to the daughter of the local congressman. That was why the Prefecture Police Department also had to be involved in the murder investigation. And so, he and Shimizu was told by the higher-ups to follow the case.

Shimizu was a senior detective. Although he was a little bit younger that Tanimoto’s father, he looked much older than his age because of his muscular body and his unshaven face. Tanimoto was reminded of Shimizu’s words: “There’s no use going to that mansion. None of the cases occurred there was ever solved.”

He looked up at the rooftop and wondered if he should say what he had been curious about since earlier. After a while, he made up his mind and said, “Uh- Ayano-san. You said just now it’s a locked-room murder – but the roof doesn’t seem to be a closed space.”

Ayano looked up at the rooftop and gave him a strong nod. “But there is no sign that the murderer had went up or left the rooftop terrace. It seems that no one had used the stairs to the rooftop, and no one was lurking on the second floor either. In a sense, it’s a locked-room mystery.”

Could it be… Is she a hardcore mystery mania? Tanimoto thought to himself and decided to verify her deduction.

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Tanimoto: “Where did you get the information?”

Ayano: “From the person who always stay at the stairs and another person who always wander around the hallway in front of the stairs.”

Tanimoto: “But those people aren’t guarding those places around the clock, right?”

“Actually, they are guarding those places around the clock,” Ayano stated flatly.

Tanimoto looked up at the big mansion, wondering if they had hired security guards. He had heard that the company managed by the eldest son of Sudo family was not doing so good. But considering how big the mansion was, it was not that strange if they really hired security guards.

Tanimoto looked at the wooden clothesline on the rooftop. In modern terms, it should be something called a rooftop terrace or a roof balcony. It was like a large balcony with a few clotheslines. It seemed that Yamamura fell from there and hit his head against the thick stepping stone on the ground and died. There were large round stepping stones scattered on the path from the entrance towards the pond[2].

“Hmm. I think it’s an accident. What do you think?” It seemed weird for a detective to ask a civilian for an opinion but Tanimoto felt helpless without Shimizu around so he asked the question for no particular reason. Besides, Ayano looked very calm despite of the situation.

After thinking for a while, Ayano answered, “I don’t think it was an accident. But I think the murderer is not someone you can catch…” Ayano was tilting her head while saying such mysterious words.

Tanimoto stared at her face and noticed something. “Huh? Ayano-san, you aren’t wearing any makeup?”

Her beautiful white skin seemed to have never been exposed to the sun, and her lips was slightly reddish. If he didn’t look closely, he wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t wearing any makeup.

After asking the question, Tanimoto felt bad because it might sound rude. However, Ayano seemed to not really care about it. “Yeah, I rarely wear makeup. I can’t put on makeup by myself,” she replied indifferently.

Tanimoto wondered if she meant she was clumsy and couldn’t put on makeup by herself.

At that moment, a woman wearing a flashy kimono walked up to them while shouting, “Detective, hurry up and catch the murderer!”

[1] Prefectural Police Department had higher authority than Mihara Police Station (local police station). I think it’s Hiroshima Prefecture. 

[2] This pond refers to a normal pond in the garden, not shichinin bishaku mentioned earlier. 

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