After leaving the Muraki family, the boy and Karasuma came to the "Hanada family" again.
The Hanada family is the family of the classmate who was rumored to have been bullied by Kyoko, the deceased classmate, to the point where she jumped off the building and committed suicide.
According to what the boy learned, the Hanada family seems to be a single-parent family. Mrs. Hanada died young and there are only Mr. Hanada and his daughter in the family.
A few months ago, Hanada's classmate committed suicide by jumping off a building. After Mr. Hanada went to Muraki's house to ask for an explanation but failed, he lived alone in this house and drank alcohol all day long.
The Hanada family's house is similar to the Muraki family's. They are all old-style Japanese-style houses. Because of their remote location, there are only a few small neighbors in twos and threes.
By the time the boy and Karasuma arrived, the sky was already a little dark.
"Mr. Hanada."
Just like before, the boy walked up and knocked on the door. Behind him were Karasuma and two other detectives.
There was no response from the room.
"Mr. Hanada, are you there?" After waiting for a while, the boy knocked on the door again with a little force.
However, there was still no response from the room.
"Wooden man, no one seems to be inside..." Xiao Karasuma said.
Frowning slightly, the boy did not try to knock on the door again, but directly reached out and twisted the door handle.
"Click!"
Contrary to his expectation, the door was opened directly after he twisted it like this?
[The door is not locked? 】
Blowing by the airflow, the door slowly opened towards the house, revealing the dark and lightless corridor behind the door.
For a moment, a bad premonition arose in the boy's heart.
He did not rush in, but first turned to look at the two detectives behind him.
"Leave one person watching at the door, while the other person goes to find all the neighbors around here. I have something to ask them."
"Yes." One of the two detectives immediately turned around and left.
After giving the instructions, under the shocked look in Karasuma's eyes, the boy took out a pistol from the pocket of his windbreaker and turned on the safety.
"Did you, you, you always carry a gun with you?!"
Karasumaru's eyes widened. Seeing the boy's skillful movements, it was obvious that this was not the first time he had used a gun.
"Just for self-defense, stay outside, or follow me."
With a casual reply, the boy opened the door and walked in.
"Wait, wait for me! I'll come too!" Xiao Karasuma quickly followed.
The two walked into the house, and the boy first took a look at the shoe cabinet in the entrance.
In the shoe cabinet, there are various styles of men's shoes, including several pairs of obviously women's shoes, but the only key thing is missing - men's indoor slippers.
In Japan at that time, as long as there were men in the family, this kind of thing was indispensable, but there was no shoe cabinet in the Hanada family.
The most likely possibility is that this pair of slippers has been used by someone else. In other words... is it possible that Mr. Hanada is still in this home now?
Realizing this, the uneasy premonition in the boy's heart became even stronger.
The two of them continued walking forward, and in the living room they saw on the dining table a few dirty dishes that had not been cleared away after the meal, as well as a pile of beer bottles.
The boy stepped forward, first looked down at the oil stains on the plate, and then picked up some of the beer bottles and smelled them.
"It's been there for at least a day."
The stove and cupboard next to it showed no signs of being touched since then, which meant that at least today, Mr. Hanada had not cooked for himself.
The answer was ready to come out, so the boy didn't waste any more time and hurried upstairs with Karasuma. After looking through every room, he finally came to Mr. Hanada's bedroom.
However, it once again exceeded the boy's expectations.
There was no corpse lying on the ground in the bedroom as the boy had guessed before. On the contrary, Mr. Hanada's bedroom was clean and tidy, with the bedding neatly folded aside, and there were no unnecessary dirty stains in the room.
It can be seen that the owner who lives here is a person who pays great attention to personal hygiene.
Would such a person leave his finished rice bowl for a whole day without washing it?
"The wooden man, this Mr. Hanada, did he encounter any accident?" Even Xiao Karasuma had already noticed something was wrong.
The boy slowly put away the gun, and after a brief moment of contemplation, he said, "Look in this house and see if you can find indoor slippers used by men."
"Oh, okay..." Nodding, Karasuma turned around and left quickly without asking any more questions.
Of course, the end result was that she searched through several rooms in the house but could not find the pair of indoor slippers that should be used by Mr. Hanada himself.
He and his slippers were missing from the house.
"..."
The surrounding neighbors were quickly called over by the criminal police, and the boy roughly got some useful information from these people's mouths.
Mr. Hanada came home from get off work last night, which was witnessed by several neighbors. At that time, Mr. Hanada seemed to be carrying several bottles of beer.
It is said that before his daughter committed suicide by jumping off a building, Mr. Hanada had no habit of drinking. But since his daughter committed suicide, he began to drink alcohol all day long. Neighbors around him could see him bringing alcohol home from get off work almost every day.
Despite this, Mr. Hanada did not take any further extraordinary actions, at least it did not affect the surrounding neighbors.
At the same time, from the mouths of these neighbors, the boy also learned something similar to the Muraki couple.
After his daughter committed suicide by jumping off a building, Mr. Hanada did go to the Muraki family to ask for an explanation, but in the end nothing happened. In the end, the criminal police who came to investigate even gave a warning not to affect the stability of the community.
Since then, Mr. Hanada has been in a state of depression. Apart from going to work, he drinks all day long, or holds his daughter's portrait and cries. The neighbors around him feel pity for him, so they don't say much.
In addition, when Mr. Hanada came home from get off work last night, it was the last time these neighbors saw him.
In other words, they had never seen Mr. Hanada in person throughout the entire day today.
The boy also asked tentatively whether Mr. Hanada had any thoughts of seeking revenge against the Muraki family privately after his daughter's death.
However, neighbors have different opinions on this point.
Some people say that Mr. Hanada always has a resentful expression every time he mentions the Muraki family. This is definitely the case.
Some people also say that Mr. Hanada has always been law-abiding and never remarried after the death of his wife. His daughter was also well-behaved and sensible under his influence. It is impossible for such a person to do such a thing that violates the law.
In short, there were various explanations. Although there were not many useful things among them, the boy still roughly understood that Mr. Hanada should be the kind of "honest person" generally recognized by the public.
Under normal circumstances, the likelihood of committing a private murder to seek revenge is relatively low.
"Idiot, I think the murderer who killed Kyoko's classmate must be Mr. Hanada."
It was getting late. After finishing today's investigation, Xiao Karasuma suddenly said after sitting in the police car going home after thinking for a long time.
Then, before the boy could speak, she explained herself:
"Didn't they say that Mr. Hanada has never gotten over the grief of his daughter's murder? And he drank a lot last night.
So I think it is very likely that Mr. Hanada got drunk at home last night and thought of his daughter's death and the police's perfunctory response. He impulsively ran to Muraki's house and bumped into the man who had gone home last night. Kyoko's classmate, who happened to be going to a friend's house to spend the night, eventually killed him and then fled in fear of the crime...
That's why his bedroom is so tidy, because he didn't sleep at all last night, so there are dirty dishes and chopsticks piled up on the table in his living room, and his indoor slippers can't be found, and there's not even a door. close.
Because after he got home drunk, he left the house directly and committed this murder. "
Karasumaru's reasoning was very logical, and he had basically put together most of the clues and information they had obtained so far.
This made the boy feel a little relieved. This kid did have a lot of potential as a detective. If he really couldn't survive elsewhere in the future, he might consider developing in this direction.
Of course, the boy did not say these words, because what he was thinking at this time was slightly different from Karasuma.
"Little Karasuma."
Turning to look out the window at the dark streets, the boy called out Karasuma's surname very rarely.
"Have you ever seen a tree with only a trunk and no branches?"
(˙ー˙)
(End of chapter)
