Chapter 42: Air Force
After the interrogation ended, Natsukawa headed to the observation room only to find that Franky wasn't there.
He checked the time—it was almost six in the morning.
The sun would be up soon.
The interrogation with Tequila hadn't gone very smoothly. Natsukawa had extracted some information, but its value was... well, let's just say it wasn't great. Better than nothing, he could only console himself with that thought.
Franky, who had been catching up on sleep in the villa's living room, was rudely awakened by Natsukawa.
Since he'd handled all the arrangements yesterday while Natsukawa conducted the interrogation, Franky hadn't needed to do anything and had retreated to the living room for some rest.
"How did it go?" Franky asked expectantly, rubbing his eyes.
Natsukawa shrugged, tossed himself onto the sofa, and closed his eyes. "I found out some things."
Franky perked up immediately. "What did you find out? Tell me quickly!"
"Tequila has an excellent tolerance for alcohol. He drank four bottles of Mexican tequila."
"..."
"Anything else?"
"And that he drank too much and died of alcohol poisoning. You need to seal up the body quickly and put it in the cellar for refrigeration. We'll deal with disposal after the Mantendo press conference."
"Damn it, you're so careless." Franky put his hand to his forehead. He'd just borrowed a helicopter a couple of days ago, and now he needed another one. This was getting too frequent. He should have waited until after dealing with Tequila before handling this mess.
"That's all?"
Natsukawa lazily raised his hand. "Oh, right, there's also this document. It's a list of drug dealers who were exporting products through Tequila to the US. We can pass it along to the actual IRS later if needed."
Franky took the document, flipped through it, and grinned. "This is a treasure! Why would we give it to the IRS? These people listed here are at least somewhat influential in Japan. We can make a quick profit from them."
"You handle it. I'm going to rest for fifteen minutes. I still need to get back and take Anya and Conan to school."
Conan had been a bit weak from his fever, so Natsukawa had been driving them around for the past couple of days.
Anya had enthusiastically suggested taking Conan to school on Bond's back, but Natsukawa had firmly refused.
One Anya riding the dog wasn't a problem, but adding Conan was another matter entirely. Whether Bond could even carry both of them was questionable, but more importantly, even if the dog was willing, there was no way Natsukawa would allow his daughter to ride a Great Pyrenees to school with a boy on the back.
The protective father disagreed.
Back Home
Back at the apartment, Anya was still sprawled in bed.
"It's already 6:50, Anya. Time to get up."
"Anya hasn't slept long. How is it morning already?"
Anya, wearing her lake-blue star-patterned pajamas, rubbed her sleepy eyes. Her drooping nightcap mirrored her current mood—she wished she could sleep for another five hundred years.
After learning two days ago that the beautiful blonde woman might be her future mother, she'd been stationed by her window since returning home last night, watching to see if the woman would reappear at Café Poirot.
But the result wasn't ideal.
Aside from a drunk Kogoro Mouri repeatedly stumbling past the window, the woman didn't show up at Café Poirot.
Not even to walk by.
She hadn't gone to sleep until after the café closed.
She was really trying hard for her father's sake.
Because she'd been so focused on her surveillance mission, she was incredibly exhausted.
But the thought of seeing the woman again and becoming a family of three still excited her.
"Bond, do you know when she'll show up?"
"Woof!"
"You don't know either? Next time, tell Anya earlier when you see the future. Maybe Mama's cooking is even better than Papa's, and then you can eat different food too."
Bond scratched his fluffy head with his hind leg, looking puzzled.
His dog food was all store-bought anyway.
And why did the word "cooking" give him such an ominous chill?
After washing up, Anya changed into a red dress and pulled on a light yellow cardigan. A new day had begun.
"Papa's cooking is so good! Today's breakfast is different again!"
The dumplings in front of Anya were a delightful novelty. Since coming to Japan, her father had made different food every day.
Compared to the standard Japanese breakfast fare of miso soup, pickled vegetables, rice balls, tamagoyaki, natto, and grilled fish, her father's loving breakfasts were much better, and never repeated.
Of course, her absolute favorite was peanuts.
Especially the peanuts that Papa fried—they were golden-brown and crispy, crunchy with every bite, and incredibly fragrant. Absolutely delicious!
"Eat as much as you like."
The dumplings had been made in advance, and Natsukawa had simply boiled them that morning.
The real star was the dipping sauce, specially crafted for the dumplings.
Besides some secret ingredients, it included sesame paste and Anya's beloved peanut sauce, which was why she loved these dumplings so much.
Natsukawa casually removed Anya's drooping nightcap from her head. "You can't wear your pajama hat outside, remember?"
"Okay!"
Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang.
That must be Conan.
"Uncle Natsukawa, I saw you driving back this morning. Where did you go so early?"
Conan asked the moment he entered, giving off the distinct impression of catching someone in a suspicious act.
He didn't have great luck, but he did have a deeply suspicious nature. Seeing Natsukawa return early in the morning, Conan had already started deducing where he might have been.
Since Natsukawa wasn't working regular hours, it obviously wasn't because he'd just gotten off a shift.
If he'd been exercising, he wouldn't need to drive, and when Natsukawa had gotten out of the car, his clothes weren't sweaty and he wasn't dressed for sports.
Combining this with his own experience at the Tsujimura family incident, Conan's suspicions were aroused again.
"Fishing," Natsukawa replied casually.
"Fishing? But you—" Conan was about to point out something when Natsukawa shot him a sharp look.
"Didn't catch anything."
"Never mind then." Conan smiled sheepishly.
He remembered someone in Hawaii once telling him that you should never anger a fisherman who comes home empty-handed.
"Try some of these dumplings. They're freshly made—should taste good." Natsukawa gestured toward the table, indicating Conan should sit down.
Making a guest stand wasn't very hospitable, especially when that guest was practically a patient who needed some care.
"Oh, thanks!"
Conan had already caught the delicious aroma of the dumplings. Hearing Natsukawa's invitation, he immediately came over, dropped his backpack, sat down, and picked up his chopsticks to grab a dumpling.
"Hmph! No food for Conan!"
Anya deployed her ultimate food-protection technique, snatching the dumpling Conan was about to eat right out from under his chopsticks.
He doubted Papa? Then why should he eat Papa's dumplings? Go eat air, you ungrateful detective!
Conan didn't really care—he was used to Anya's quirky antics by now.
"Give Conan some, Anya. You're all members of the Detective Boys together." Natsukawa placed several dumplings in front of Conan. "I also packed a big portion for you to take to school and share with Ayumi and the others at lunchtime."
Seeing Natsukawa's generous actions, Conan suddenly felt guilty.
Anya's father was clearly a good father and a kind person. Maybe he had been overly suspicious. That incident at the Tsujimura house—it was most likely Hattori Heiji's doing. No wonder he'd left in such a hurry.
Natsukawa's kindness and Conan's guilty inner thoughts left Anya utterly speechless.
She hadn't expected that a few dumplings would so easily dispel Conan's doubts about her father's true identity.
Is this what they show on TV? Using your own tolerance and magnanimity to make others feel ashamed?
"If I want to become the leader of the Detective Boys, I need to know how to win people's hearts. Papa, I understand now!" Anya looked enlightened.
Did I say something about that? Natsukawa looked confused.
Leader of the Detective Boys?
Well, having a goal was good, he supposed.
Conan ate his dumplings silently, partly because they were delicious, and partly because he didn't want to engage with Anya's strange declarations.
He couldn't understand how such a good person as Uncle Natsukawa could have such a mischievous and odd daughter.
And Anya seemed to have some kind of intellectual... gap.
Just yesterday, Anya had come in dead last in math class.
Ms. Kobayashi had been incredibly worried, saying as she handed out the test papers, "She got perfect marks on the entrance exam, and her previous scores were acceptable, so what happened? What went wrong?"
Clearly, Ms. Kobayashi was attributing Anya's dramatic drop in grades to her own teaching abilities.
However, Conan had known Anya for a while now and had already noticed something suspicious.
He strongly suspected that Anya had somehow cheated on the entrance exam and that these current scores represented her true academic ability.
Though how she managed to cheat on an entrance exam without getting caught is beyond me...
(End of Chapter 42)