Conan: Chief of Rice Flower's Science Points

Chapter 250: The Yellow Spring River of the Rice Flower People

Shiraishi ignored Conan who left with Takagi. After confirming that Ayako and Sonoko had returned home safely, he also prepared to drive back to the apartment to rest...

Not long after driving out of the police station, Shiraishi's cell phone rang. He glanced and found that the caller was Iwata.

Shiraishi looked around quickly, and although he didn't see Yumi nearby, he still pulled over to the side of the road before picking her up.

"Hello, I'm Shiraishi... I'm back in the city now. Let's go out for a drink tonight? Eh? That Ninomiya guy... Okay, I get it... Then let's talk about it when we meet!"

Iwata was not just exchanging pleasantries, but had "important information" to tell Shiraishi - not long ago, the Criminal Division's Director Ninomiya took the case related to Beika Town from the case file library...

Naturally, this matter could not be hidden from the eyes of the head of the secretarial department, so he came to remind Shiraishi.

Shiraishi also invited Iwata out for a drink at a pub in the evening.

"It's not just one or two cases, it's all the cases in the past year... I guess someone wants to report you during the ministers' regular meeting!" Iwata's speculation was very reasonable.

As for what he wanted to ask Bai Shi about?
Isn't it obvious...

The number of unnatural deaths in Beika Town is indeed far ahead!
Next Monday is the regular meeting of the directors of the General Office, and Iwata suspects that someone wants to make an example of Beika Town.

Of course, the one who can speak at the regular meeting will not be Ninomiya. He is just the chairman of "Souichi" and his rank is not high enough.

Shiraishi and Iwata both had suspicions in their hearts... and were even certain that it was Toshio Moroboshi's doing, but they didn't say it out loud.

"This kind of thing... blame me? He might as well blame the publicity department of the General Affairs Department." Shiraishi paused with his beer cup in dissatisfaction.

Iwata shook his head and said, "How do you know he's not blaming me? I think he was targeting Deputy Director Kinugasa. You were just hit by a stray bullet."

The two deputy directors of the Metropolitan Police Department, Toshio Moroboshi is in charge of the front line and actual investigations, while Fujiharu Ikasa is in charge of administrative affairs. The main departments they represent are the Criminal Department and the General Affairs Department.

Iwata estimated that although Shiraishi had offended Deputy Director Moroboshi, there was no need for Moroboshi to specifically target Shiraishi, a local director, at the regular meeting. After all, for such a person, attacking his colleagues was much more important than punishing a "small director" who had offended him.

only……

Since they are going to use the rising crime rate and inadequate legal publicity as their excuse, of course they can't miss mentioning "Beika Town", especially with Ninomiya instigating them in real time!

This is killing two birds with one stone - although Bai Shi is big, he is at most the "little bird".

"It's such a big fuss... is there some important position that has been vacated?" After hearing what Iwata said, Shiraishi had a rough guess in his mind.

"You really don't pay any attention to these things at all..." Iwata shook his head helplessly - it is said that the "professional group" is the one who pays the most attention to these things.

After all, there are only a dozen people in the same period. If nothing unexpected happens, there will be a Metropolitan Police Department Director and a Police Agency Commissioner in each session!

The "first" and "second" people in the police force usually only serve for one to one and a half years, and the competition is very fierce, so basically every professional group has a chance.

Although there seem to be so many police officers in the entire Touto and Tou Island, only two out of a dozen people in each professional group have the opportunity to become "Commissioner of the National Police Agency" and "Superintendent General"!
Because even for the young "professional group" of only superintendents and deputy superintendents, being one step ahead of their peers at a critical juncture means being one step closer to the throne of superintendent general or chief of the National Police Agency. This is not "ambitious" but a future that can be looked forward to...

Therefore, police officers in the "professional group", regardless of their rank, will basically keep an eye on these.

"It's none of my business. I'd be thankful if there were fewer cases in Beika Town!" Shiraishi rolled his eyes.

Indeed, for a "superintendent" like Shiraishi who broke into the local police station, generally speaking, he had already been eliminated early in the final competition of the same class.

Unless there is some chance to change your fate, you can get back into the promotion sequence.

"Actually, you still have a chance. You're hooking up with a rich woman..." Iwata whispered.

When they knew that Shiraishi's girlfriend was Miss Suzuki, many of his classmates were envious and jealous to the point of despair - getting married has always been an important help for professionals of common origin, and people like Iwata who married early are basically a big step behind. However, Iwata is not an ungrateful person who would kill his beloved first after getting ashore, otherwise Shiraishi would not have been friends with him.

Fortunately, news soon spread that Shiraishi had broken up with Miss Suzuki and had joined the Organized Crime Countermeasures Department. His classmates breathed a sigh of relief - with this first step, Shiraishi went from being a hot favorite to a dark horse.

Later, Shiraishi was transferred to the local police station. Among his peers, he was basically ignored. Only Iwata knew about him because of his good relationship with him. He recently got back together with Miss Suzuki...

If one day he really changes his fate and fights his way back into the promotion sequence, Iwata won't find it strange.

However, in front of Bai Shi, he only dared to whisper.

"What did you say?"

"Well, I mean... recently a position in the Personnel Section of the National Police Agency's Chief's Office became vacant."

Moroboshi and Kinugasa are obviously from the same professional group who are still in the sequence and are still competing in the final round!
But don't underestimate them as deputy commissioners. In fact, they are far from being superintendents...

In recent decades, nine out of ten Superintendents General of Police have been promoted from core directors of the National Police Agency. At this time, if someone from the same class is promoted to Chief Cabinet Secretary, there is a high probability that this police officer who seems to be "temporarily behind" will be the next Commissioner of the National Police Agency.

Historically, the Commissioner of Police has always been one year older than the Superintendent General, and there is no promotion relationship between the two. For example, the next steps for Superintendent Baiba are only three options: "enjoying the rest of his life" after retirement, "entering the revolving door" and "entering politics". There is no precedent for a superintendent being promoted to Commissioner of Police.

In the National Police Agency, the Chief of Personnel of the Chief's Secretariat, although just a section chief, has always been a "core reserve for bureau chiefs". Only those with the rank of "Superintendent" are qualified to be here. After all, if they are promoted to this position, there is a high probability that they can get the position of "Superintendent General" or "Commissioner of the National Police Agency" in the future.

For this position, the two deputy directors had to fight to the death. Shiraishi was injured by a stray bullet, but based on Moroboshi's impression of him, he was the kind of person who was happy to accidentally injure him...

"Deputy Director Kinugasa doesn't have any bullets to kill him?" Shiraishi asked back unhappily.

At this level, it is difficult for Shiraishi to influence Moroboshi, and he can only hope that Kinugasa can be more powerful, although before this, Shiraishi did not have a deep impression of them.

"How could it be missing? Those are the three major cases in Toudou! Otherwise, why are they being reported everywhere in the news now?" Iwata said as a matter of course.

Shiraishi:……

Indeed, the unstoppable growth in crime rate is the responsibility of the General Affairs Department. However, if a case occurs, especially a series of crimes with huge social impact, and the detectives are slow to solve the case, then that is the responsibility of the Criminal Department!
The problem is that the Kamikakushi case, one of the three major cases, has now affected Beika Town...

So you two deputy directors pulled out your guns and shot at each other, and all the stray bullets hit me, right?

At the same time, Shiraishi finally understood why the "three major cases" had such a strong momentum in the public opinion - on the one hand, the Metropolitan Police Department responded very little, and on the other hand, there was no control over the news, basically letting the people of Dongdu panic...

"These politicians only think about their own future and have no sense of responsibility at all!" Bai Shi scolded the two of them unhappily.

"But only people like this can climb up." Iwata shrugged, his mentality was very calm - among his peers, he was also in the "second tier" who lagged behind the first tier.

Iwata even felt that the probability of Shiraishi taking advantage of the situation after being a gigolo was greater than that of him rushing in...

Of course, if this factor is not taken into consideration, Iwata's prospects are still brighter than Shiraishi's.

Just after three rounds of drinking, Bai Shi's cell phone suddenly rang...

……

"Hello, I'm Shiraishi... What? A body was found? Is it Mitsuru Suruga? Okay, speed up the salvage... I'll be right there!"

After Shiraishi answered the phone, he apologized to Iwata and said, "Sorry, I have to go to the scene."

"Eh? You're already the director, why are you still going to the scene?" Iwata didn't dislike Shiraishi for standing him up, but he was wondering how tiring it was for Shiraishi to be the director.

"It's the Kamisaki case...a body has been found!" Bai Shi said solemnly.

Originally, the case of the serial disappearances should have come to an end for the Beihua Police Department. After that, the Beihua Police Department's job was to assist Souichi and collect eyewitness testimonies near the scene. Who would have thought...

Not long ago, a fisherman in Beika Town reported that he had caught... a female corpse in the Tsutsu River!
And it was the victim of the Hidden God case...

So, even though it was already past ten o'clock in the evening, Kunikida still called Shiraishi - apparently, Section Chief Kunikida was also disrupted by this case and was unable to leave work on time.

"Corpse? Dumping the body in Beihua? Well...you're on your own." Iwata said helplessly on his behalf.

Originally, the rice flower was only "scraped off the edge", but now the criminals actually dumped the bodies here?

"You can't drive anymore?" Iwata reminded.

"It's okay, I'll run over there." Although Bai Shi can't drink and drive, he can run at night.

The location is right by the Tsutsumi River!

It has to be said that in the past six months alone, two people died from falling off the embankment stairs of the Mujin River where the Beika Town is located. Bodies were thrown into the grass by the river and into the river water once... It can be called the Yellow Springs River of the Beika people!
……

The first person to discover the body tonight was a middle-aged fisherman.

When he found it was a dead body, he was shocked and called the police immediately.

Originally, the Mihua Police Station was on a normal police call. It was not the first time for the patrol officers here to see a corpse or encounter a murder case. They very skillfully set up a cordon and waited for the criminal police to arrive...

However, Kuroki and Kanzaki, who were the first to arrive at the scene, immediately discovered after a preliminary inspection that... the body was not someone else's, but none other than Suruga Mitsuru, who had been looked for for a long time at the Beika Police Station today, and the third missing person in the Kamikakushi case!
In this way, the Mihua Department doesn't need to rest...

All the police forces that can be mobilized are now at Dimujinchuan.

When Shiraishi arrived at the scene, he saw searchlights on the shore and police officers in the river wading in shallow water in boots or floating in deep water in boats, holding tools such as nets in their hands, obviously trying to... retrieve a body!
Since one of the bodies is here, could the other two be here too?

With this idea in mind, all the police forces that could be mobilized from the Mihua Police Station, including the Mobile Squad, were mobilized to work overtime.

……

The reason why Shiraishi came to the scene was, on the one hand, because the case was important, and on the other hand, it was also to "boost morale" - after all, the entire police station was working overtime and many civilian staff had been transferred over. How could the chief not be there in person at this time?

"I was going to go night fishing. I just made a nest and I caught this with my hook... I felt something was wrong when I lifted the weight. It was so heavy even without struggling... I thought it was hooked by debris, but luckily I didn't abandon the line directly, so I pulled it up to take a look..."

When Shiraishi arrived, he saw Inspector Megure, who had also arrived, verifying the events with the first discoverer.

Compared to Matsumiya, this middle-aged fisherman doesn't seem that suspicious. If I must say...

"Mr. Uoya, you don't seem to be that scared?" Takagi asked directly while recording.

The fishmonger, who looked to be in his 50s, was also startled when he heard this, then smiled and said, "Young man, I have lived in Mihua for more than 50 years, and have been fishing here for 30 years. Although this is the first time I have caught a fish myself, I have seen this kind of scene countless times. When I was young, I even helped you fish out corpses!"

Takagi:……

"Thank you so much..." Takagi said awkwardly.

When Shiraishi saw that the person was found here and there were no more clues, he nodded and said hello to Megure, then went to look through the body bag.

After opening it, there was indeed a corpse inside that had been soaked to a pale color. The person wearing it was a rather low-key work suit, like the kind that factory workers wear.

"Huh?" Bai Shi couldn't help but let out a slight exclamation when he saw the corpse for the first time.

Then, without caring about the peculiar smell of the soaked corpse, Shiraishi took out her hand and took a look - he had seen the remains of her manicure at the scene of the disappearance, but now there was no sign of damage to the nails of the corpse.

At this moment, there was a commotion on the river...

Bai Shi quickly looked up and saw... another body had been fished out!
At the same time, the fishmonger who had been questioned, after some hesitation, dumped the fish he had caught back - probably because he felt that the fish here recently had a somewhat unacceptable diet...

"Officer, is there another body? You have to try hard..." Yuya urged Takagi a little worriedly.

The three major cases in Dongdu have now caused a sensation in the city, and the people have also been affected!

Even the fishermen from Mihua probably won't come out for wild fishing in the next two days. People in other places in Dongdu are probably even more panicked.

Soon another body was placed on the shore. Kenmochi and Kanzaki from the Beika Police Station, and Tomi from Souichi, and other forensic personnel, conducted a preliminary inspection together.

"It should be the first victim... no, the first missing person, Juri Aihara. Although the DNA has not been compared yet, it seems to be the case based on his height and appearance." Kanzaki came over to report to Shiraishi.

After being soaked in the water for almost a day, it is not easy to identify him by appearance, but... because of the characteristic of "bald head", people can directly think of the "Misaki Case" - at the scene of the Misaki Case, there is the victim's hair left!

Since the hair is left, the person is naturally bald.

The same thing happened to the first corpse. After Kanzaki and Kuroki discovered that it was a bald man, they immediately guessed in the direction of the "Spiritual Hidden Case". Then they used some feature comparisons to lock in the identity of the corpse.

"Although we have to wait for the autopsy results, but... roughly speaking, the two bodies died less than a day ago. The fatal wounds were stabbed in the abdomen, which caused the abdominal artery to rupture and excessive blood loss. They were thrown into the river after death." Kanzaki then reported the basic situation to the director.

"The first missing case... was a week ago, right?" Bai Shi looked a little confused at this time.

Of the two bodies found, one had gone missing a week ago, and the other had gone missing this morning, but the time of death was almost the same - if the bodies had been dumped a week ago, it would have been difficult to identify them.

Because the time of death of the two bodies was almost the same, and the time span was not as large as their disappearance, Kanzaki did not use the term "the first victim", but said "the first missing person" - she survived for a long time after her disappearance!
When Kanzaki heard the chief asking for details, he handed his notebook to Chief Shiraishi. As a new detective with less than a year’s experience, the words on this notebook were still very clear, unlike the old policeman’s notebook full of symbols, which no one could understand except himself...

The three victims of the Kamikakushi case are 26-year-old Juri Aihara, who disappeared in Kabukicho a week ago and worked as an online cosmetics seller. The second victim is Kirara Ikoma, 32-year-old nurse, who disappeared in an alley near Shin-Okubo three days ago. The third is Mitsuru Suruga, 25-year-old, who ran a women's bar, who disappeared in Yūka-cho today.

The only thing the three victims had in common was that they were all fans of Matsumiya Ryuwei...

Now that the bodies of the first and third missing persons have been found, the police officers from the Mihua Police Station are even more convinced that there must be a third body in the river and are stepping up their search downstream.

At the same time, the police officers of the Mihua Police Department also had another task - there were already many people surrounding the scene, including many media reporters...

The scene had been discovered for so long that not only did passers-by gather around to watch the fun, but the media also got wind of it.

It’s okay for passersby, after all, there aren’t many people at night, and they won’t rush the cordon. But the reporters from these media outlets have really been trying to enter the scene for interviews!

Therefore, half of the police officers on the scene had to stop these reporters.

"We don't accept interviews here, please stop taking photos..."

"For these questions, please go to the Publicity Department for consultation."

“I’m sorry I won’t accept the interview!”

……

"Sorry for causing trouble to the Beika Police Department again." Megure looked at the crowd with a headache.

"It's nothing, but it's better to contact the police station downstream and ask them to try to salvage it as well." Shiraishi reminded.

"Don't worry, the Cup Office has been notified." Megure nodded.

At this moment, Bai Shi suddenly discovered...

"Hmm? Kuroki, Kanzaki, Matsumiya is in the crowd, go over quietly and bring him here!" Shiraishi discovered that suspect number one was also mixed in the crowd.

Although the other party immediately reacted after Kuroki and Kanzaki approached the crowd and turned around to leave, he was directly held down by the two and brought back to the scene...

When Megure saw this guy, he became even more indignant - as everyone knows, many criminals like to return to the scene after committing a crime!
"Mr. Matsumiya, what are you doing here?" Shiraishi asked with a stern face.

"I...I heard that the bodies recovered here were from the Kamisaki case...How is that possible? I mean...they should have all been dragged in by the Shadow Man...Ah!"

At this time, Matsumiya saw the body that the police officers were carrying away and screamed in fright.

"Wait a minute, since he is someone Mr. Matsumiya knows, it's a good opportunity to help him identify the body." Shiraishi looked at his reaction and seemed to have discovered something.

The police officers carrying the bodies naturally listened to the chief and placed the two bodies in front of him...

Although they have been soaking in the water for a long time, Matsumiya should be very familiar with them!

After seeing it clearly, I saw that Matsumiya was so scared that he fell to the ground...

"It's them! It's her! It's it! Shadow man! The shadow man is coming..." Matsumiya seemed to be frightened and a little dazed.

Megure frowned upon seeing this - although he could not rule out the possibility that he was pretending, but... he did look a little weird, and the level of fear and trance he displayed did not fit his image of a perverted murderer.

After Shiraishi had someone help him leave, Megure still muttered: "Is he a psychopath? That would be too abominable!"

If a mentally ill person kills someone and meets the requirements, he or she can even be exempted from responsibility...

At the same time, news spread all over the Internet - the bodies of the victims of the disappearance case were found, which meant that the "disappearance case" was officially confirmed as a "serial murder case"!
……

The Mihua Police Department was also working overtime. It was almost midnight and the third body had not been fished out yet. The police officers suspected that it might have been washed downstream.

at this time……

"Inspector Megure, Chief Shiraishi...there's new news on the Internet!" Takagi said in surprise.

"New news?" Megure glared at him - what new news could there be on the Internet? Isn't the first-hand information here at the scene?
As a result, when I took the phone that Gao Mu handed over, I saw that it was indeed "new news"...

A reporter from "Observer Weekly" just interviewed Matsumiya Hikazu, Matsumiya's secretly married wife. It is said that it was Matsumiya Hikazu who took the initiative to accept the interview and used the live broadcast traffic of "Observer Weekly" to clarify recent events!

During the live broadcast, Matsumiya Hiyori formally apologized and admitted that the content on Matsumiya’s online channel was fake. She also admitted that she was secretly married.

Shiraishi was sharp-eyed and saw the corner of Conan's clothes during the live broadcast. It was obvious that he was also at the scene. Shiraishi even suspected that he was the one who persuaded Matsumiya Hiyori to admit these things...

At the same time, Kuroki came over and said, "Director! Matsumiya just checked his phone for a while and then sneaked away under the pretext of going to the toilet!"

(End of this chapter)