"Really?" Ran and Sonoko exchanged glances, their beautiful eyes filled with confusion.
Kurosawa Hoshino slapped his forehead, almost forgetting that they didn't know the plot. Before the truth was revealed, they didn't think it looked plausible. He had really been jumping to conclusions.
Eri Kisaki asked curiously, "Ran, did you encounter a case the day before yesterday?"
"Yes." Ran nodded and recounted the events of the night before.
After listening, Tsukumo and the others lowered their heads in thought.
Eri pushed up her glasses, looked at Kurosawa, and asked uncertainly, "Hoshino, are you saying this might also be a revenge plot—and that the murderer is related to the person in the photo?"
"That's right." Kurosawa's gaze fell on the three students of Tsukumo Motoyasu. "Actually, investigating this shouldn't be difficult. I suspect the murderer is among the three of you. It's very likely that one of you is related to Mr. Kinoshita Yoshiro in the photo."
"You brat, you're getting more and more outrageous." Kogorō complained. "You used to at least look for clues. Now you're too lazy to even look. How can you solve a case like this?"
Sanada Ichizo, Miyoshi Asako, and Momochi Yuji also looked bewildered, unsure what to say.
Conan said, "Hoshino-nii, but these older sisters and brothers don't have the same surname as Mr. Kinoshita in the photo."
"That's simple. Just change your name. Usually, people who change their names are those whose parents have passed away and who were adopted by relatives. So—" Kurosawa calmly looked at the three of them. "Although it may be a bit rude, I'd like to ask: which of you three lost your parents at a young age and was raised by relatives? By the way, please don't lie. I'll call and ask later."
Will it really be true? Conan stopped looking for clues at the scene and stared straight at the three of them, eager to know their answer.
Ran and the others also held their breath, not daring to make a sound.
"Asako—" Tsukumo suddenly spoke. Her gaze was fixed on Miyoshi Asako.
As Tsukumo Motoyasu's wife, she knew the basic information about his students very well. So after hearing Kurosawa's words, she immediately thought of Miyoshi—because the other person's information did not include anything about their parents, only relatives. This further confirmed that what Kurosawa said was completely accurate.
"Ms. Asako?" A group of people looked at Miyoshi.
"That's right. My parents passed away when I was very young." Miyoshi's tone was very calm. "But I have an older brother. We relied on each other from a young age. My brother later became an apprentice to a very skilled magician. One day, I went to the place where my brother practiced escape magic. Backstage, I saw someone tampering with the hand prop my brother was going to use. At the time, I was too young to understand what he was doing. Later, when my brother was performing the escape magic, the hand prop wouldn't open, and he drowned in the tank. That's when I gradually understood everything. And that incident ended hastily in the hands of the police as an accident during practice."
She looked at the wide-eyed crowd, then turned her gaze to Tsukumo. "The day my brother died was my seventh birthday. From then on, every year on my birthday, I was all alone. Yes, my brother—the genius among geniuses you speak of—was Kinoshita Yoshiro. Tsukumo Motoyasu was jealous of my brother's talent and, in the prime of his life, had him laid to rest in the ground. As for me, I was later adopted by relatives and renamed Miyoshi Asako."
Tsukumo Nanako, upon hearing this, couldn't help but take a few steps back and fall to the ground.
Miyoshi smiled sadly. "So, before he could happily celebrate his daughter's seventh birthday, I killed him in the basement."
These words were tantamount to admitting she was the murderer.
For a moment, the scene was silent. Sanada and Momochi opened their mouths but couldn't utter a word. Tsukumo, thinking of how her husband had killed the other woman's brother first, was also speechless.
"Ms. Asako," Conan said, his voice filled with confusion, "it's obvious that Hoshino-nii only guessed that you were connected to the person in the photo. So why did you immediately admit to being the murderer? Even if those guesses were right, it wouldn't prove you were the murderer, would it?"
Actually, it wasn't just him. Kogorō and the others had the same question.
"Because when Kurosawa-kun saw the outline of the body, he already guessed that the murderer was one of the three of us. He gestured with his hands there—exactly like when I tied Tsukumo Motoyasu's hands—and he even glanced at the three of us. Add the information he deduced from the photo, and the news I'd seen about Hoshino-kun... I gave up. Anyway, I've gotten my revenge. It's all over."
Conan fell silent, feeling like he was going to vomit blood. Wasn't this just saying that she didn't bother to defend herself because of Kurosawa's fame?
No way! When I was so famous, why didn't any murderer confess to me? Conan felt extremely unbalanced. Even his supposedly strong heart was showing signs of cracking.
Kogorō was equally bewildered, but he felt that Kurosawa often seemed to solve cases by talking nonsense. So this situation didn't seem so unacceptable.
"But," Miyoshi continued, "Tsukumo Motoyasu was such an idiot. I told him I'd show him a new magic trick, and he obediently stretched out his hands so I could tie them up—and he swallowed a poisoned capsule. And he calls himself the best magician in the country? It's laughable."
"Asako, it's not like that." Sanada said slowly. "Motoyasu-sensei actually let you kill him on purpose. Didn't I tell you before? I saw you crying while holding a picture of your brother. Actually, Motoyasu-sensei was right next to me at that time. He told me not to tell anyone."
Miyoshi was stunned for a while, then said softly, "Getting old? Feeling guilty? If guilt were useful, would it bring my brother back to life? My mercy toward him was only in not harming Fumino. But it was also cruel to Fumino. She, like me, lost her closest relative at the age of seven."
Kogorō sighed and subconsciously said, "Eri, call the police."
Ran and Eri both reached for their phones in their pockets—then froze.
"Hmph. You still think it's like before? Call the police yourself." Eri snapped out of her daze and turned her head away haughtily.
Shouldn't Dad usually call me? Ran thought, but still took out her phone and dialed the police.