“A word of warning for the youngest daughter before we begin,” said Ms. Futarishizuka. “Mechanical life-forms can’t lie, so be careful not to answer any questions without thinking. If you let the game slip, our carefully prepared locked-room murder will go right out the window.”
“Acknowledged. The youngest daughter will be careful not to give away any important information.”
Type Twelve must have been thinking of my neighbor, because she easily assented, even though the advice had come from Ms. Futarishizuka.
Getting the perpetrator away from the scene was simple.
While I stalled for time at the room’s entrance, the other bureau employee used their psychic power to turn invisible and infiltrate. The perpetrator then stayed in the room. The plan was for them to slip out while still invisible, just as we came in, shocked at the sight of Mr. Kuga.
Everyone with us would testify that the room was locked, thus completing the perfect crime. Considering the circumstances, Mr. Kuga’s death would likely be ruled a suicide.
While the culprits escaped, Type Twelve would handle the security cameras. Even after the psychic became visible again, it would be some time before the facility manager or the staff caught sight of them. In effect, the psychic would have just pulled off a locked-room murder.
Everything went off without a hitch.
After meeting up with my neighbor, we received a key to the conference room. Not only did we liberate the perpetrator isolated at the scene, the steps taken by the other bureau employees successfully made Mr. Kuga’s death look like a suicide. All that remained was to contact the police. From there, people in league with the bureau would deal with the situation as necessary.
I’d mentioned the stench as we entered the room to give the invisible psychic a chance to slip in to the reception area.
I felt guilty about my neighbor’s dismayed colleagues and the facility staff. That said, this was all to maintain public order and to keep Winterfest going—as well as to protect our social positions. And so I did my best to feign ignorance at the scene of the crime, acting like a well-intentioned first witness.
But then one among us daringly challenged our work.
Yes—my neighbor.
“There could be other reasons, though. If Mr. Kuga was distressed enough to consider suicide, perhaps he wasn’t composed enough to think any of this through. But if that isn’t the case, it’s possible someone else wrote these letters.”
“W-wait just one minute, Miss Kareki! Doesn’t that mean…?”
“Or it could be that Mr. Kuga wrote these specifically to imply someone else was involved. In either case, he probably didn’t intend to wind up like this.”
My neighbor looked around at everyone in the room as she spoke. For a moment, silence fell over the scene of the crime. Then someone gasped, and it rang in my ears, oddly loud. But even that only lasted a moment; her coworkers quickly began to speak up.
“Are you trying to say someone killed Mr. Kugaaa?” asked Miss Rolling.
“But this room was locked when we got here! I’m sure of it,” insisted Miss Kihouin.
“Yeeeah, that’s riiight. If this isn’t suicide, wouldn’t that make it a locked-room murderrr?”
With their boss dead, the two of them seemed to be at their wits’ ends. The facility manager’s face was a ghastly white as he stared at Mr. Kuga’s remains in astonishment.
Meanwhile, my neighbor continued gravely, “The phrase locked-room murder comes up a lot in works of fiction, and there are all sorts of different ways to set one up. But I would say that in general, you can separate them in two categories: Either the scene wasn’t a locked room at all, or the culprit committed the murder from outside the room.”
Her gaze shifted to the window frame and the rope Mr. Kuga had been hanging from.
“It would be hard for him to wind up in a position like that by himself if he didn’t intend to commit suicide, so I think it’s most likely we’ve misjudged something, and this room wasn’t locked at the time he was killed.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t, but this room only has fixed windows, darling.” insisted Miss Kihouin.
“Sooo there’s only one way innn!” Miss Rolling exclaimed.
My neighbor responded instantly. “In that case, the usual solution is that the culprit, or their friends, are still hidden at the scene of the crime.”
“Wha—?”
“They’re still heeere?!”
Upon hearing my neighbor’s statement, her two colleagues and the facility manager suddenly started looking all around the room. Ms. Futarishizuka and I, who knew what had happened behind the scenes, couldn’t afford to simply stand there; we began looking around the room, feigning concern.
A brilliant detective was about to unmask our evil deeds, and we criminals were now in quite a pinch.
My neighbor had been spending most of her time in libraries since she was an elementary schooler, so she must have read quite a few mystery novels. She might not even think of herself as a detective. She might just be saying whatever came to mind.
But everything she said was exactly right.
“Even so, the entrance was closed off. How could this be anything but suicide?” Ms. Futarishizuka jumped in to help, probably hoping to stop my neighbor before things got bad.
Type Twelve, unable to tell a lie, kept her mouth shut tight. A single casual remark from her could bring the whole charade crashing down.
“What about the reception space between the office and hallway? It’s a separate room. After killing the target, the criminal could have hidden in there, then snuck past us to get out of the room. Everything would fit.”
“But was there anywhere for them to hide?” mused Ms. Futarishizuka.
Everyone shifted their gaze to the adjoining room. There, separated from the office by a door, was another space of about thirty square meters. A rack of hangers stood right inside the entrance, and behind it was a private bathroom. It was the perfect spot for the culprit to hide.
“Yes, Miss Kareki is right. If the criminal hid in the bathroom, for example, we wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Yeeeah, we sort of came straight into the office from the hallway, huuuh…?”
My neighbor’s coworkers quickly voiced their agreement.
Meanwhile, Ms. Futarishizuka kept objecting. She’d headed straight through the entry space into the office, and she was also the first one to discover the body.
“But look at all the security cameras in the hallway,” she said, still trying. “There’s no way they could have gotten past those. Of course, I suppose if the facility’s staff all colluded, it’s not impossible.”
“They could have worn a mask,” my neighbor pointed out. “Then at least their identity would be safe. Fortunately for them, a lot of people are attending the event today. I think it would have been easy for them to blend in with the crowd and escape.”
“Oh? Hmm? I—I see what you mean,” stammered Ms. Futarishizuka.
She seemed a little put out that my neighbor had defeated her argument so quickly. But we could end things here pretty quickly.
I turned to the facility manager. “We should check the security cameras, then.”
He nodded without a second thought and invited us to do so. The criminals, including myself, took this opportunity to press the detective into a corner.
“If nobody shows up on the cameras, then I think we can assume this was a suicide,” I said. “I still have doubts about the messages on his laptop, but I don’t believe that’s enough evidence to point to murder.”
Thanks to the mechanical life-form’s rule-breaking super-science, we’d hung on by a thread.
If Type Twelve hadn’t been here, we would have been in very hot water. I glanced over at Ms. Futarishizuka, who was looking at me as if to say, “good lord.”
“Oh…”
At the same time, a little cry escaped my neighbor’s mouth. It seemed she’d realized something. She looked taken aback.
And then, not a moment later, she turned to look at me. The words “Huh? Are you for real?” were written all over her face. She was more surprised now than she’d been when we discovered Mr. Kuga’s corpse.
Was it possible she’d already figured out the real culprit?
I turned to her and asked, “Is something wrong, Miss Kareki?”
“No, um, w-well, it’s just…”
If she had, then my neighbor truly was a brilliant detective.