"Blockhead?!"
In the cemetery cordoned off by the police, while the boy was observing the condition of the corpse, a familiar voice suddenly sounded behind him.
The boy looked back and saw two young girls in school uniforms outside the cordon, one of whom he happened to know.
It was Karasumaru.
Now it seems to be the time to go to school. Karasuma is wearing a school uniform and holding a black schoolbag in his hand. He is standing outside the cordon and looking at the boy doubtfully.
Next to Karasuma was a girl wearing the same uniform as her. They were similar in age and were obviously classmates.
"Go back to class."
After just glancing at Karasuma, the boy looked away and spoke at the same time.
Strange, where did he think just now?
"Wait! Did you encounter another case?"
But Karasuma didn't listen to the boy's words and leave obediently. Instead, he approached the cordon and tried to climb in.
"Karasuma-san..." Seeing this, the classmate who was traveling with her tugged on her sleeves with some worry, as if she felt that it was not good to get involved in the police matter like this.
"It's okay, Qiuna, I know that person..."
As Kokarasuma said this, she actually raised the cordon and walked in. The classmate she called Akina was also helpless and could only walk in behind her.
Several criminal policemen around saw this, and although they wanted to step forward to stop him, they did not take any further action. Instead, they looked at each other and looked at the boy who was still squatting next to the body.
After all, over the past six months or so, Karasumaru had been regularly working with the boy and Hatoyama Keiko. Even the slowest detective could figure out the identity of this girl who looked like a foreigner through various interactions.
Although it was indeed not in compliance with the rules and regulations to trespass on the murder scene, without the support of the boy, they would not dare to stop them forcefully.
"How's it going? Is it troublesome? Do you need my help?" Just as the detectives hesitated for a moment, Karasuma quickly jumped to the boy's side and asked excitedly.
Since the incident on the set half a year ago, she seemed to have suddenly opened the door to a new world. She began to like the feeling of detective solving crimes. Whenever she was caught with a chance, she would definitely come forward with all her strength. Come.
It's just that because the boy's whereabouts are not fixed, he is often nowhere to be found in the university when he is busy. Coupled with the boy's abnormal reasoning ability, even if he occasionally encounters a case with the boy, he will eventually become her. Just after getting some clues, the boy has already "passed the level", which is a situation with no sense of experience.
We finally bumped into him today, and Karasuma would never let this opportunity pass him by.
"babble!!"
However, Karasuma, who had this idea, just took a look at the corpse in front of the boy. Suddenly her face turned pale with fright, and her body shook subconsciously. The classmate who followed her in even covered it with her hands. Close your eyes.
After all, the corpse at the scene, with its strange and terrifying appearance and blood spread all over the floor, does have quite a visual impact.
Although he had followed the boy to several murder scenes in the past six months, this was the first time that Karasuma had seen such a dead body.
"Is she, is she dead?" At the moment when his mind was stuck, Karasuma stuttered and asked a question that even he felt was stupid.
"Well, if she doesn't have any special powers that can save herself, then I think she must be dead."
After saying this, I don't know if it was a joke or not, the boy finally stood up and once again turned his attention to the two girls beside him.
"Okay, if you've seen enough, go back to class quickly."
The boy's voice was still calm and indifferent, but there seemed to be some concern in his words.
"me……"
"Mr. Shirakawa! People are here!"
At this moment, the criminal policeman who had been ordered by the boy to bring the body back first and who was also the one who reported the crime came back.
Behind the detective was an ordinary middle-aged man. The man was dressed in ordinary clothes, had an ordinary appearance, and had an ordinary build. He was a character who would be forgotten at a glance if he was thrown into a crowd.
He seemed to be the gravekeeper of the nearby cemetery.
"Are you the first person to discover the body?" The boy looked at the gravekeeper and asked without looking at Karasuma and her classmates.
"Yes, Mr. Officer."
The gravekeeper looked up at the boy, then lowered his head and replied.
His tone was steady and his expression was very calm. He was not affected by the situation of the corpse next to him. I don’t know if it was because he had seen it before, or because he had been dealing with cemeteries for many years and was used to being numb to these things...
"When did you find the body?" The boy continued to ask without correcting the tombkeeper's wrong name.
"Almost an hour ago, when I was about to go back to sleep after inspecting the cemetery for the last time, I noticed that there was an extra 'person' here.
Because this 'person' was kneeling here for several minutes without moving, I was a little worried so I came over to take a look, and then I found out that she was dead..."
"What time do you usually visit cemeteries at night?"
"This is usually not fixed. Anyway, between midnight and six in the morning, we usually patrol once or twice every night."
"What about last night?"
"Twice, the first time was at one o'clock in the morning, and the second time was at five o'clock in the morning, which was also when I found this body..." the tombkeeper replied.
One o'clock and five o'clock... The deceased's death time was probably around three or four o'clock. The time he visited the cemetery twice in the morning coincided with the time when the murderer committed the murder in the cemetery.
Of course, this doesn't mean anything. Since the murderer plans to commit murder in this place, he will naturally observe the tombkeeper's patrol habits every night.
Although the tombkeepers say that the inspection time is not fixed, those who have been doing this kind of work for a long time will usually gradually form their own customary time. It is impossible to really have no fixed time and just do it casually.
The murderer may have determined this and knew that the tombkeeper would not appear at that time, so he chose to commit the murder at that time.
There is no obvious breakthrough in terms of time, so the next step is to make a breakthrough from the identity of the deceased and the scene of the murder.
Who is the deceased? Why did the murderer choose to kill her here? What is the special meaning of tying the corpse of the deceased in this "praying" posture?
"Hey, Qiuna, look at the face of this corpse..."
Just as the boy was thinking about this in his mind, Karasumaru, who had been listening silently, suddenly spoke.
"She looks... similar to Kyoko-san?"
(˙ー˙)
(End of chapter)
