When the Detective Work is Done, I'll Die

Chapter 2

After she screamed a question, I started digging through the ten-thousand-yen bills. I wasn't trying to disturb the crime scene. I just had to be sure whether the person under the money was really dead.

Miiko had only confirmed the arm sticking out of the money.

Calming down and thinking it over, it was possible the landlord had prepared a mannequin warmed to human temperature along with the cash to scare us.

"Please say it's a lie..."

That was the hope I clung to, but reality was merciless. After me, Miiko also murmured.

"Face reality. He has no pulse. This person really is dead."

One old man's face appeared, lying face-up beneath the ten-thousand-yen bills. A single cut on his forehead, the blood already dried into a visible trail. From the back of the head, invisible from above, dark red liquid had splattered and soaked the nearby floor.

Seeing that state, I couldn't stay calm. He hadn't died from some internal cause like a cerebral infarction, subarachnoid hemorrhage, or heart attack.

"Hey, Miiko... this person... was killed by someone, right...!?"

The bleeding at the back of the head was worse than at the front; it was clear he'd been killed by a blow to the occipital bone. Answering my words was Miiko.

She muttered something strange under her breath.

"So it's a murder case."

"Miiko...?"

She smiled as though she were enjoying the situation. Even her shadow seemed to be grinning ominously.

This wasn't the first time I'd felt this mysterious aura from her. Especially whenever she dove head-first into a case.

Her attitude could only be called inappropriate. And I couldn't help finding it unpleasant. I could already see what she was about to start.

"Don't tell me you're planning to play detective in a situation like this...? And, as usual, you're not thinking of fighting the murderer or anything, right?"

She solves mysteries of murders she carries out somewhere I don't know about. I occasionally get dragged into them too. Since I'm not involved, I try not to get too close.

But this time is different. I'm also the first discoverer. She's definitely thinking of starting an investigation together with me, now that I'm part of the case.

While I was trying to think of how to reject her incomprehensible behavior, she replied.

"Let me ask you the opposite—don't you want to?"

"I don't. Don't you want to mourn this person's death?"

"Detective work is one way of mourning the dead. That's why we have the police, isn't it?"

"...Even so, I hate detectives. Professional detectives, and those who barge into cases without being involved—none of them have ever left a good impression on me."

"I see."

While I called the police with the smartphone I pulled from my back pocket, memories came flooding back.

All the worst treatment I'd ever received from detectives.

It might rival the grudge of having my parents killed. After all, they were the ones who first ruined my family.

Detectives. Some track cheating spouses or find lost dogs; others show up at crime scenes claiming to assist the police these days.

I'm talking about both kinds.

Thanks to a detective's investigation, all sorts of facts about my father came to light, and he was fired. The detective then published my father's misdeeds online, writing that almost everything was his doing. After that, online vigilantes slandered him; he couldn't live a normal life in society anymore. He left a note and vanished. Might as well have been killed.

The company my father worked for was apparently rotten too. So it's not that the detective was entirely to blame.

My mother was also killed.

No, she's still alive. She's alive, but she was killed.

My mother, a mystery novelist, had earned the reputation of "the genius of the Reiwa era, the reincarnation of the famous mystery writer Agatha Christie." One day, someone died using the tricks she'd written. The case should have ended quietly as a normal incident. But a detective showed up with great fanfare. A high-school detective currently the talk of the town. The media made a huge fuss, and the detective, carried away, said, "The culprit is bad, but the person who created this trick must also be punished. After all, they became the reason the culprit longed to commit the crime." Whether it was intentional or he simply had no other words, my mother was condemned by society as well.

She stopped writing the mystery novels she loved. The kind mother I knew was killed.

Now she barely speaks to me, shut away in a villa writing romance novels nonstop.

Even after all this, claiming it's the detectives' fault may sound presumptuous.

No, not yet.

Not just my parents— even my older sister fell victim to a detective.

It's simple. A detective told a stalker where she lived. After the stalker attacked her, she became a shut-in with a broken mind. Even after the stalker was arrested, her heart never healed.

I think the detective is completely at fault here.

What I personally suffered from detectives doesn't end there. Just recalling the smallest troubles makes my guts boil.

After I finished calling the police, I barked at her as she started imitating a detective.

"Sorry, but stop doing detective stuff in front of me."

What came back was a single pointed remark, sharp as a needle, piercing my heart.

"But when you were thinking about the dog outside, weren't you reasoning things out? Isn't that detective make-believe?"

"Huh!?"

After I spoke, I realized. The exchange I'd had outside—things I'd said.

I was disgusted with myself for unconsciously acting like a detective. This is how I've always been. I claim I hate detectives, yet I move the same way.

When a corpse drops in front of me, I say "It's none of my business," yet I dive into the case with Miiko. I act aloof and standoffish, but when push comes to shove, I show my dere side by solving the case. Am I aiming to be tsundere or something?

As I drooped my shoulders in despair at my own foolishness, she patted my back.

"You're a mystery writer. The son of Professor Toragawa. You've got a talent for solving mysteries. It's a waste not to use it!"

"B-but..."

"Detectives are great! In manga and novels they solve cases with style and give us happy endings!"

"That's wrong!"

She tilted her head at my denial. "What's wrong?" came her calm voice.

"There's no happy ending like you're talking about in mysteries. Detectives know someone will be killed, yet they do nothing to prevent it, learn nothing from experience, and let people die! Suspects end up having their most important secrets exposed to the detective!"

"And then?"

"Whether suspects end up unhappy or happy after the case is over is almost never written. Even if they become unhappy because of the detective, everyone just accepts it because it was necessary to solve the case..."

"Hmm... I see. Then, can I ask one thing?"

Even after all I'd said, she didn't seem discouraged about being a detective. She simply asked a question.

"Then... what?"

"Then... what if we don't uncover anyone's secrets and we don't solve the case? The murderer just keeps on living free and easy... is that really okay?"

A question that struck me from an unexpected angle.

While grimacing, I still had to answer. That answer had been decided long before I was born.

"Of course not! I can't forgive detectives who barge into cases and ruin people's lives, but murderers are the same. How many lives are ruined by murder... how many people grieve...!?"

"Then, will you solve the mystery of this case? Won't you use it as a lead to catch the culprit? Won't you at least help the police?"

I quietly nodded. As long as it's just helping catch a murderer, and as long as I'm not putting on some unnecessary detective act, but conducting a modest investigation...

While I was rationalizing my own actions and motives...

The front door burst open violently, and I heard the footsteps of several intruders. At first I thought it was the police, but the police wouldn't barge in so noisily and disturb the scene. Besides, I hadn't heard any sirens.

If it wasn't the police, had the culprit come back to the scene?

If we'd arrived while they were in the middle of hiding the body, we'd have to run— or be silenced...!

"Miiko! Run!"

I tried to flee in terror, but it was too late. A young man who seemed to be one of the intruders stood blocking the entrance to the parlor. He snickered and studied us, cutting off our escape.

"Huh? Run? What do you mean... hmm?"

The young man in the brown cap looked not just at me, but at Miiko too. Then, after grinning, he suddenly widened his eyes.

...Could it be... could it be!?

My bad premonition was confirmed when the bastard spoke up.

"Running because you accidentally got someone all bloodied up... is that what you're trying to do!?"

He's got the wrong idea!?