“The time between the second and third murders was also nine days. August 4th to August 13th. It’s possible the killer likes the number nine.”
“But there are only four days between the first and second murders... pure chance?”
“A reasonable interpretation. But it seems worth remembering that time lag. Nine days, four days, nine days. Either way, the killer is the type to advertise his actions to the police. Even if he was just pre034 tending to be that type of killer, there remains a very good chance that there is some kind of message in the room, something besides the Wara Ningyo.”
“Hmm... so...” Something deliberate.
A message much harder to understand than the Wara Ningyo... something like a very challenging crossword puzzle. Misora felt like she was at last starting to understand why L needed her help. There was no way an armchair detective would be able to find something like this on his own. You had to see the scene with your own eyes, be able to reach out and touch things... and it required quality over quantity. Someone who could look at the scene from his own perspective, his own way of thinking... But she also thought he was putting too much stock in her. If she had to be L’s eyes as well... that was too much for an ordinary I:II agent to handle.
“Something wrong, Naomi Misora?” “No... never mind.”
“Okay. For the moment, let us cease communication. I have many things I must attend to.” “Certainly.”
This was L, so he was undoubtedly solving several other difficult cases all at once. Cases all over the world. For him, this case was just one of many parallel investigations. How else could he maintain his reputation as the world’s greatest detective?
The century’s greatest detective, L. The detective with no clients.
“I’ll be waiting to hear good things from you. The next time you call me, please use the number five line, Naomi Misora,” L said, and hung up.
Misora folded her phone and put it back in her bag. Then she moved over to the bookshelves to start her investigation. There was nothing in the bedroom but the bed and the bookshelves, so there wasn’t much else to investigate.
“Not as bad as his killer, but it looks like Believe Bridesmaid was reasonably obsessive himself...”
The books were packed tightly onto the shelves with no excess space. Misora did a quick count—fifty- seven volumes. She tried to pull one out at random, but this was rather difficult to do. Her index huger alone proved inadequate, and she had to use her thumb and mime lever principle to pry it Out. She flipped through the pages, well aware that this was pointless. She was just keeping her hands busy while she tried to figure out what to do. It would be nice and simple ml there were a message hidden between the pages of the book, but that was too much to hope for. According to the files, like the light bulb sockets, each page of every book had been wiped, removing all fingerprints—suggesting not only that the killer was extremely finicky, but that the police had in fact gone through all of the books. One could assume there had been no messages.
Or the message had been arranged in a way the police had not noticed... something that looked like an ordinary bookmark, but actually had a code hidden on it... But after flipping through another few books, she dismissed this theory as well. The books here did not have bookmarks. Believe Bridesmaid did not appear to be the bookmark type. Many fussy readers detest the slight curve in the page a bookmark can leave.
Which meant that even the most fastidious killer would never dream of placing anything inside a book. Misora moved away from the shelves. She glanced down at the bed, but there seemed to be even less to investigate here. There was nothing to do but pull the sheets off and look under the mattress. And she didn’t even need to check the file to know that the police had already done that, it seemed virtually impossible to hide a message on the bed that the police would not notice.
“Under the carpet... behind the wallpaper. . . no, no, why would he hide the message? He wants it to be found. It’s not a message if it isn’t found. He sent the crossword puzzle to the police... very egotistical. He wants the puzzles to be difficult... to prove that we’re stupid.”
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