Conan and Masumi Sera followed Sato Miwako to the National Highway opposite the apartment building where they had been.
This was the scene of the car accident that occurred when they had just apprehended the culprit.
"Yumi!!"
"Miwako, you arrived so quickly!"
The beautiful Traffic Division police officer named Miyamoto Yumi waved at Sato Miwako as she ran towards them.
When she then saw Conan and Masumi Sera getting out of Sato Miwako's patrol car, a very surprised expression appeared on Miyamoto Yumi's well-defined face.
"This is Conan, and Miss Masumi Sera?"
"Hello, Officer Miyamoto!"
Conan greeted Miyamoto Yumi sweetly with his tender voice.
Beside him, Masumi Sera stood with one arm crossed over her chest and the other stroking her chin, observing Miyamoto Yumi with a look of great interest.
"So this is the Miss Miyamoto who has my brother Hideyoshi utterly smitten; she really is very beautiful."
Miyamoto Yumi was the fiancée of Masumi Sera's second older brother, Haneda Hideyoshi, and Masumi Sera had only recently heard this news.
Miyamoto Yumi felt a little unnerved by Masumi Sera's gaze.
She turned her attention to Sato Miwako, her beautiful crescent-moon eyebrows furrowing slightly.
"Miwako, have you already revealed the situation to the Detective?"
Unless it's a difficult case to solve, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department generally doesn't allow outsiders to interfere with their investigations.
Sato Miwako brought a Detective with her as soon as she heard it was a murder case; if this got out, wouldn't it make the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department seem very incompetent, always having to rely on a Detective at the first sign of trouble?
"No, Officer Sato hasn't revealed the situation here to us; we asked Officer Sato to bring us over."
Conan, with his innocent voice, answered Miyamoto Yumi's question before Sato Miwako could.
"Huh?"
Miyamoto Yumi was stunned.
She didn't understand. Since Sato Miwako hadn't revealed any case information, why did they follow along?
To outsiders, shouldn't this just be an ordinary traffic accident?
"Officer Sato is a Detective from Division One Investigation Unit, which specializes in murder cases. Since Officer Sato had to rush here, it's highly probable that a murder occurred."
Conan saw Miyamoto Yumi's confusion and said with a smile.
"Couldn't it just be that Miwako was nearby, so she was called over?"
"If it were just an ordinary incident, it certainly wouldn't require an Assistant Inspector like Officer Sato to come all the way here."
Sato Miwako, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's 'police flower,' is an Assistant Inspector, with a rank second only to Inspector Megure.
If it were just an ordinary case, at most, someone like Takagi Wataru or Chiba Kazunobu, who are patrol chiefs, would be sent.
"Hmm?" Miyamoto Yumi leaned her face close to Conan with a suspicious look. "How do you, a primary school student, know so much about the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's situation?"
"Uh... Masumi Sera sister told me all of this."
Realizing he had once again unintentionally said too much, Conan quickly shifted the blame to Masumi Sera beside him.
Miyamoto Yumi didn't doubt this, as Masumi Sera was also a rather well-known Detective.
"Don't waste time, Yumi!. What's this about someone being stabbed to death?"
Sato Miwako interrupted the severely off-topic group with a serious expression.
Miyamoto Yumi also came back to her senses and led everyone towards the scene of the car accident.
"The cause of the accident was the sudden emergency braking of the K-Car (kei car) at the very front, which led to a multi-car pile-up."
"The 'culprit' car at the very front lost balance after being rear-ended and crashed into the guardrail on the side of the road, so it's quite severely damaged."
As Miyamoto Yumi spoke, she led everyone to the driver's side of the car at the very front.
"However, when I went to check on the driver and passengers, I saw this scene—"
At this moment, everyone, finally able to clearly see the situation inside the car, couldn't help but turn pale.
The woman in the driver's seat had her head tilted to one side, her entire body soaked in blood.
Her neck, chest, and abdomen were covered in wounds.
There was even a dagger still stuck in her abdomen.
"She's dead."
Sato Miwako shook her head after reaching out to feel the pulse of the woman in the driver's seat.
Masumi Sera came to the woman's side, and after putting on white gloves borrowed from Sato Miwako, she carefully lifted the woman's clothing and began to examine her wounds.
"Almost all the wounds show vital reactions, which indicates that the woman did not die from the car accident, but from stab wounds."
"Without a doubt, this is murder."
"Just by looking at the number of wounds and the force of the stabs, it's clear that the killer harbored a considerable amount of hatred towards the victim."
"Without a doubt, this should be a premeditated murder."
Everyone had no objections to Masumi Sera's deduction.
After all, there aren't that many road rage incidents where someone who just got a new car and had an accident would immediately commit murder.
"So next, we need to see if the deceased left a dying message, and ask the drivers of the cars behind if they saw the killer..."
Conan muttered to himself, and at the same time, stood on tiptoe to peek inside the car.
However, that one glance caused his eyes to suddenly widen.
He noticed that in the car, which was full of splashed blood, only the passenger seat had very little blood.
Conan quickly looked at Miyamoto Yumi and asked loudly:
"Officer Miyamoto, did you see the passenger in the front passenger seat?"
"Ah, Conan, how did you know there was someone in the front passenger seat?"
Miyamoto Yumi was puzzled.
"There was originally a young male passenger in the front passenger seat. I thought he had also died, but after checking, I found he wasn't dead, though his condition was also quite bad. So Miike Naeko and I got him out of the car, and he's lying over there now."
Miyamoto Yumi turned her head to the side, and everyone looked in the direction she indicated, and indeed, they saw a blood-soaked male lying on the ground.
Beside him, another Traffic Division police officer, Miike Naeko, was anxiously making a phone call.
Conan, Sato Miwako, and Masumi Sera were all very surprised by this.
Masumi Sera couldn't help but ask directly:
"Miss Miyamoto, when it's determined to be a murder case rather than just an accident, isn't the most important thing to protect the crime scene?"
Given that there was someone in the front passenger seat, the biggest suspect in this murder was already obvious.
But Miyamoto Yumi and Miike Naeko had taken the suspect out of the car before the Detectives arrived, which meant the crime scene could very likely be compromised.
"Of course I know that."
"Then why...?"
As Masumi Sera's question blurted out, she also had a guess in her mind.
Since Miyamoto Yumi had the awareness to protect the scene, but still took the biggest suspect out of the car,
that meant she had a reason to risk damaging the scene by taking the person out of the car.
Looking at the car's stopped engine, a guess arose in Masumi Sera's mind.
"Officer Miyamoto, carbon monoxide leaked inside the car, didn't it?" Conan looked at Miyamoto Yumi and said in a deep voice.
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