moment, she was not going to make a fast decision, she was not going to turn in her resignation. When her leave of absence ended, she would go back to the FBI. In that moment, Naomi Misora made up her mind. And the killer from this case might make a nice souvenir.
“So, in one hour, I have to call Ryuzaki... hope he’s okay.”
Blackberry Brown and Blues-harp Babysplit. Two B.B.s. Room 1313 and room 404... Had there really been nothing in the third scene that could have eliminated one of them from consideration? She
couldn’t shake the idea that there had been. They had not been able to trim the possibilities down all the way because they had not done everything they could, they had not done everything they should...
“Oh. I see. That’s why Q.Q.?”
She had hit upon something. The reason why the second victim had been Q.Q., not B.B. The reason he had turned the child over, turning b into q. To prevent the possibility of there being someone else with the same name. The type of message left behind at the first scene... a message pointing not at the place, but at the victim targeted... that kind of message always left the possibility of someone else with that name. Which is why he had chosen Q.Q.—much less common than B.B. Quarter Queen. Misora had no idea how many other Believe Bridesmaids or Backyard Bottomslashes there were in Los Angeles
B.B.
But even though the killer had worked so hard to make sure the message could only be one person, why had the final problem allowed for two candidates? She must be overlooking some critical piece of the puzzle. There must be something she should have done...
The crossword puzzle. She had never tried it.
Now that she thought about it, there were any number of problems she had been putting off thinking about. Not only the problem of which room. If they caught the killer, then everything would be explained, or...
“...The locked rooms. Did he really just have a key?”
In that case, he must have gone about his murders after preparing the key in advance... he must have investigated his victims for some time before the murders took place. They had done everything they could to avoid detection, but it was more than possible he knew Misora was waiting here for him... “A needle and thread locked room.. .and the needle ended up being a useful hint at the third scene. Even if it was just free association...”
Needle hand. Clock hand.
And she had been surprised to find that the Wara Ningyo had a practical meaning... the previous scenes had suggested they were nothing but a metaphor for the victims. But they had been counted with the stuffed animals, adding up to the numbers of the four clock sides. So perhaps some of those stuffed animals didn’t belong to the victim... to make sure the numbers matched. Seemed likely.
Four, three, two... the number of Wara Ningyo was decreasing. The last one would appear at the fourth murder scene.
If there was a fourth.
“The final Wara Ningyo... I assume it’ll be placed directly opposite the door? Seems most likely... most significant... but what is the significance? The first thing you see when you step into the locked room… catches your eye before you see the body...”
Without any clear idea what she was thinking, Misora stood up and moved over to the door. Turning her back to the door, she looked around the room—it was just a room, nothing out of the ordinary. At the moment, it wasn’t even a crime scene. Nothing here but the signs of Blackberry Brown’s life.
“The Wara Ningyo were always nailed at about the same height... the horizontal placement was all over the place, but the vertical was basically the same. About waist height on me... so about this high...” Misora crouched down.
Naturally this meant she was sitting in a position very like Ryuzaki’s habitual knee hug, but she tried not to think about that. If he was right, and this did make deduction easier, then it was even a good thing. She was alone in the room anyway. Assuming the fourth scene would follow the rule, and the Wara
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