Thinking about it carefully, there was actually a gap between when Ayumi saw the "corpse" and when they finally showed up to investigate.
Inspector Megure glanced at his watch. "Seventeen minutes. That's enough time to move a body from the bathroom to somewhere else…"
The owner of the house let out a cold snort. "I told you—there's no dead body here! If you don't believe me, go ahead and search!"
With that, he turned and headed upstairs to the second floor.
Before disappearing around the landing, he tossed out one last parting shot. "Just don't disturb my rest. My brother should be home soon—ask him whatever you want."
And then he was gone.
Inspector Megure retracted his gaze and was about to order a search of the house.
But then he noticed Jiangxia heading straight for the stairs, completely ignoring the warning.
"Wait," Megure called, startled. "Didn't he just say—"
Jiangxia cut in quietly, "He's got a house full of strangers rummaging through his stuff, but he goes upstairs to sleep? Even if we are police, that's a little unreasonable, no? He's hurrying up there for a reason."
Sato was catching on. "…You think the body's on the second floor?"
Jiangxia nodded, listening intently for a moment.
When he heard the TV come on upstairs, he began climbing the steps, feet silent on the wood.
…
Tanaka Torofumi —the younger brother, and also the murderer—had put on a bathrobe and slippers and entered the second-floor bedroom.
Inside was a bed, a chair, and a TV.
Seated in the chair, wearing a matching bathrobe, was the corpse of his older brother. One hand held a remote; the other was propping up his chin. He looked, at a glance, like someone dozing off in front of the TV.
This was Tanaka Torofumi's master plan: the old-school "corpse double."
He'd already disguised himself as his dead brother earlier—let the police see him "alive." Then he claimed he was tired and came upstairs to "sleep."
Now, even if the police checked upstairs and saw the body "napping," they'd assume it was just the same guy they'd already seen, dozing off after a long day. The ol' brain inertia trap.
Torofumi's idea was simple: after that, he'd change into his regular clothes, sneak out the back, circle around, and enter through the front door as "himself"—the younger brother. Bam. Two brothers. Zero corpses.
And best of all, the one who'd seen the body earlier? Just a random kid. Kids can't even testify properly!
He could buy time. Time to clean up. Time to deal with the body. Time to relax.
Tanaka Torofumi smiled smugly.
He tugged off the fake beard, shed the bathrobe, and slipped into a suit. Just needed to open the window and scale down the wall, and the escape act could begin.
But just as he turned around—
He saw it.
The bedroom door. Slightly ajar.
And behind it…
Five or six people. Crammed into the doorway. Watching him.
And who knows how long they'd been there.
Tanaka Torofumi clutched the wadded-up bathrobe in one hand, thunderstruck.
His mind tried to recover—tried desperately to salvage something.
Okay, okay. Maybe they just got here. Maybe they didn't see anything yet.
As long as he could act fast, maybe he could spin this into a new plot: "The older brother went to sleep on the second floor. The younger brother's just been in the bedroom this whole time, but didn't come out because he's super socially anxious."
Totally believable. Still winnable.
Tanaka Torofumi drew a deep breath, glared at the group, and snapped, "Who are you people?! What gives you the right to barge into someone's house?!"
"…We're here for the corpse, obviously," Jiangxia said bluntly.
He stepped past the others into the room and headed toward the "sleeping" man in the chair.
Without ceremony, he pushed the corpse's shoulder.
It slumped forward, limp as a ragdoll.
Then, as it started to fall, Jiangxia casually caught it by the arm and propped it back up like nothing had happened.
That small movement was more than enough. The experienced officers behind him immediately saw what was wrong.
This wasn't someone "watching TV."
This was just straight-up a dead guy.
Tanaka Torofumi went pale.
Then he grit his teeth and bolted toward the window, planning to jump.
The Detective Boys standing in the hallway gasped. Then, like they'd practiced this before, they all turned around and covered their eyes.
They didn't see anything. They couldn't be witnesses. Nope. Not again.
A second later, there was a muffled THUD. The house shook slightly.
That was the sound of a human body hitting the floor. Hard.
…
Jiangxia, with reflexes born of many, many murder scenes, had instinctively intercepted the guy mid-escape. He now had a foot planted on Torofumi's back, the other hand holding a throwing baton.
Then he remembered the officers watching and sighed.
…Right. Can't beat people in front of the cops.
He stepped off, let the man go, and backed up half a step.
Then, much more politely, Jiangxia bent down, lifted the dizzy Tanaka Torofumi to his feet, and even patted the footprints off the man's shoulder, like a courteous customer returning a dropped shopping bag.
The ending wasn't as satisfying as taking the guy down himself, but hey—the result was the same.
As Tanaka Torofumi was dragged away, the ghost clinging to his leg fell off too.
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 31 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 12/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:2/10*