Chapter 3: There's No Doubt, It's Murder

Conan and Sera Masumi followed Detective Miwako Sato to the national road in front of the apartment where they had been earlier. This was the site of a car accident that happened while they were arresting a suspect.

"Yumi!"

"Miwako, you got here so fast!"

The beautiful traffic police officer Yumi Miyamoto ran up to Miwako Sato, greeting her.

As soon as she saw Conan and Sera Masumi stepping out of Miwako Sato's police car, a very surprised expression appeared on Yumi Miyamoto's usually serious face.

"Is this little brother Conan and Miss Sera...?"

"Hello, Officer Miyamoto~"

Conan greeted her sweetly with a childlike voice.

Meanwhile, Sera Masumi crossed her arms and stroked her chin with her other hand, looking at Yumi Miyamoto with interest.

"So, this is the Miss Miyamoto who captivated Hideyoshi-nii. She's really beautiful."

Yumi Miyamoto was taken aback by the pure gaze of Sera.

She shifted her gaze back to Miwako Sato, her elegant crescent-shaped eyebrows furrowing slightly.

"Miwako, have you already informed the detective about the situation?"

Unless they were facing a case difficult to resolve, the Metropolitan Police Department typically wouldn't allow outsiders to intervene in a case.

Miwako Sato had brought the detective as soon as she heard it was a murder case. If the truth got out, wouldn't it seem like the Metropolitan Police Department was incompetent, consulting a detective immediately at the first sign of trouble?

"No, Officer Sato didn't reveal any details of the case. We asked Officer Sato to bring us here."

Conan answered Yumi Miyamoto's question with his innocent voice before Miwako Sato could speak.

"Eh?"

Yumi Miyamoto was stunned.

She didn't understand why they had followed them, especially since Miwako Sato hadn't disclosed any information.

From an outsider's perspective, shouldn't this just be a regular traffic accident?

"The officer Sato is from the First Investigation Division, responsible for homicide cases. Since Officer Sato is here, there's a high likelihood that a murder occurred."

Conan, sensing Yumi Miyamoto's doubts, spoke with a smile.

"Could it be that they called Miwako just because she was nearby?"

"If this were a normal incident, there would be no need to trouble someone from the police department like Officer Sato for a special trip."

Miwako Sato, the beautiful police officer from the Metropolitan Police Department, was the assistant in the department, and her police rank was surpassed only by the head of the Megure police station.

For a case like this, normally, only inspection officers like Takagi Wataru or Chiba Kazunobu would have been sent.

"Eh?" Yumi Miyamoto turned to Conan with a suspicious look on her face.

"How do you, a grade-school student, know so much about the Metropolitan Police Department's situation?"

"Uh... it's what Miss Sera told me."

Realizing he might have said something unnecessary, Conan quickly threw the blame on Sera Masumi.

Yumi Miyamoto didn't have any doubts about this. After all, Sera Masumi was also quite a famous detective.

"Don't waste time. Yumi said someone was stabbed to death. What happened?"

Miwako Sato interrupted the irrelevant chatter with a serious face.

Yumi Miyamoto regained her focus and led everyone to the scene of the accident.

"The cause of the accident was that the K-Car (light vehicle) in front braked suddenly, causing a series of rear-end collisions with several cars."

"The 'culprit' in front lost control after being hit from behind and crashed into the guardrail, so the damage was pretty severe."

Yumi Miyamoto said as she led everyone to the driver's seat of the car in front.

"But when I went to check on the condition of the driver and passengers, I saw this scene—"

At that moment, everyone who saw the situation in the car clearly couldn't help but turn pale.

The woman in the driver's seat had her head tilted to the side, her whole body soaked in blood.

Her neck, chest, and abdomen were covered in wounds.

There was even a dagger stabbed into her abdomen.

"Dead."

Miwako Sato shook her head after extending her hand and feeling the woman's pulse.

Sera Masumi approached the woman after putting on white gloves that Miwako Sato lent her. She carefully opened the woman's clothing and began examining her wounds.

"Almost all of the wounds show signs of life around them, which suggests that the woman didn't die in the car accident, but from a stabbing."

"There's no doubt, this was a murder."

"Just looking at the number of wounds and the force of the knife, it's clear the murderer must have had immense hatred towards the victim."

"This is at least a premeditated murder."

Everyone agreed with Sera Masumi's reasoning.

After all, it was hard to imagine someone being so enraged while driving a newly bought car and then killing someone over an accident.

"Then the next step is to see if the deceased left any last words and ask the owners of the cars behind if they saw the killer..."

Conan murmured in his mind and tiptoed to get a better look inside the car.

However, just one glance made his eyes widen suddenly.

He realized that in the car, which was filled with blood splatter, only the passenger seat had very little blood.

Conan quickly looked at Yumi Miyamoto and asked loudly:

"Officer Miyamoto, did you see the passenger in the passenger seat?"

"Ah, little brother Conan, how did you know there was someone in the passenger seat?"

Yumi Miyamoto was puzzled.

"There was a young passenger in the passenger seat. I thought they were dead too. After checking, we found they weren't dead, but the situation was pretty bad. So Miike and I took them out of the car, and now they're lying on their back."

Yumi Miyamoto turned her head to one side, and everyone looked in the direction she was facing, where they indeed saw a man covered in blood lying on the ground.

Next to him, another traffic officer, Miike Naeko, was speaking anxiously on the phone.

Conan, Miwako Sato, and Sera Masumi were surprised when they heard this.

Sera Masumi couldn't contain herself and asked directly:

"Officer Miyamoto, after confirming it was a murder and not just an accident, shouldn't the most important thing be to protect the crime scene?"

After confirming there was someone in the passenger seat, it was obvious that the prime suspect in this murder was the person in that seat.

However, Yumi Miyamoto and Miike Naeko had removed the suspect from the car before the criminal police arrived, so it was likely that the crime scene had been compromised.

"Of course I know about that."

"Then why...?"

After Sera Masumi asked her question, speculation began to form in her mind.

Since Yumi Miyamoto was aware of the need to protect the crime scene but still removed the prime suspect from the car,

it meant she had a reason to take the other person out of the car at the risk of destroying the scene.

Looking at the stopped engine of the car, a thought occurred to Sera Masumi.

"Officer Miyamoto, the carbon monoxide leaked from the car, didn't it?" Conan looked at Yumi Miyamoto and said with a serious voice.

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(End of this chapter)