Chapter Four The Case in the Restaurant
Minami and her mates went to a Chinese restaurant. They couldn’t have imagined that a tragedy would occur...
“Wow, it’s beautiful!”
Minami turned around to see Naoko linking arms with Hideki and pointing at the restaurant in an exaggerated way.
Naoko’s every action got in Minami’s nerves, and it was getting impossible for Minami to hide her frustration.
Just then, there was a familiar voice that said, “Why hello, Sho. It's been a while.” Minami turned around, and to her disbelief, the beautiful actress Saori Kobayashi was standing in front of Sho. Hiroko was eyeing the actress warily as she said, “Sho, I didn’t know you were friends with her.”
“Oh, we were in the same university,” Sho said delightedly.
They turned out to have dinner with Saori and the others. Hiroko seemed quite unhappy, and Minami had to stifle a laugh. ‘Maybe everybody sees me acting just like Hiroko,’ she thought.
Since there were many people, they decided to eat in a private room. There were many famous people in the group. Sho, the sportscaster, Saori, the actress, and Yohei Kobayashi, the president of the company MILKYWAY and also Saori’s husband. As for the Matsumotos, there was Sho, Hiroko, Yukiko, Naoko, Hideki, Ayaka, Chiharu, Minami and even the gardener Mr. Takagi. Also, Makoto Kobayashi, who was Yohei and Saori’s child, was there as well. Makoto was the same age as Minami and Chiharu.
They sat in a round table and talked loudly.
Makoto was sitting between Chiharu and Minami.
“Chiharu, which school do you go to now?” Makoto asked.
Chiharu looked at him coldly and said in an equally icy tone, “Azuki Middle School.”
“Really.” Makoto seemed a little sad.
Minami was too obsessed about what was going on in the other side of the table, where Hideki and Naoko sat, that she didn’t pay much attention to Makoto and Chiharu’s conversation. Naoko was laughing and talking in an exaggerated manner as always. Minami was even more frustrated that Hideki was laughing too.
“I’ll be going to the restroom,” Chiharu said.
“Go ahead,” Minami said dismissively. Minami came up with a plan to take revenge on Hideki. As she watched Hideki not even glancing at her direction, she decided to take the plan into action. She said to Makoto, who was eating in a bored way, in her sweetest voice, “Hi, are you Makoto?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m Minami Hoshino. It’s nice to meet you.”
Saori, who was sitting close by, said to Hiroko, “You have many children.”
“Actually, they're my niece and her friends.” Hiroko still showed some rivalry against Saori, but she seemed a little relieved after knowing that Saori had a husband.
“Oh really.”
After a long while, the next plate was served on the table. Minami watched as the waitress with her hat covering her face leave the room very quickly and felt something strange.
As they were eating the delicious food, Yohei suddenly shouted, “Oof!” and coughed loudly.
“What happened, Yohei!” Minami sprang from her seat and shouted.
“I feel bad...”
Yohei collapsed and didn’t move.
“Yohei...” Saori tried to touch him with trembling hands.
“Don’t touch him!” Minami shouted. Her face was serious. “This is a case of murder...”
“What the...” Saori started crying.
“The cause of his death is probably potassium cyanide. The smell of almonds is the evidence.”
“What happened?”
Everybody turned their attention to Chiharu, who was standing by the door.
“Yohei... Yohei...” Saori was crying so hard that she couldn’t speak.
“Yohei was killed by potassium cyanide just now. The waitress who came before seemed suspicious. Her hat hid her face. Chiharu, didn’t you see such waitress?”
“No, I didn’t.” Chiharu said coolly, though her eyes were round.
“We need to call the police!” Hiroko brushed past Chiharu and went to the public telephone booth outside the room.
Minami studied Chiharu carefully. Chiharu diverted her eyes from Minami’s. 'Could it be that Chiharu...' Minami thought. The others in the room had alibis.
“We should interrogate all restaurant workers!” Naoko said.
'Oh yeah, everybody who work in the restaurant from the chefs to the waitresses can be suspects.' Minami was surprised by Naoko’s insight and felt some approval towards her.
However, at that moment, Naoko linked her arm with Hideki’s and said, “It’s getting exciting!” to Hideki.
Minami made a face. She felt disappointed by Naoko’s lack of seriousness. 'Naoko is still Naoko,' she thought.
The police arrived. As Naoko had said before, all restaurant workers were interrogated. However, nobody had such motivation to kill, and the case ended up being unsolved.
The next day, Minami and Hideki were riding on a small boat in Azuki Bay, and suddenly the boat collapsed. Fortunately, Minami and Hideki were both athletic, so they were able to get to the shore.
“Hideki, are you alright?” Naoko clung onto Hideki.
Minami felt so much hatred towards Naoko that she stepped on Naoko’s foot.
“Ouch! Why don’t you apologize Minami?”
“Your foot was in the wrong place!”
“What! You fake detective!”
“You’re the fake detective!”
“Hey, you guys,” Hideki seemed troubled as he tried to stop the fight between these two.
In this way, the two detectives’ fight became a bigger issue than the boat accident, and Hiroko seemed a bit fed up with the two girls’ animosity towards each other.
