Episode 1102: The Akabeko and the Three Lucky Men
Scenario: Conan, Ran, and Sonoko visited an exhibition by an up-and-coming artist, Motoko Bekobe. Motoko has been releasing avant-garde works that combine traditional akabe with modern art, and are evidently attracting further attention across the globe. The three of them first saw a ceremony in the New Beika Modern Art Museum, there were several men dancing, wearing loincloths, cheering up for the big day. They constantly uttered the peculiar motto "Akabeko Bekoe", hinting everyone about Bekobe's success.
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| Bekobe's exhibition ceremony with dancers wearing loincloths. |
After the event had ended, they shifted their steps and diverted their sight onto the actual exhibition. Within the hall, they could clearly see all kinds of Akabekos, which varied in size and colour and all possessed extraordinary imagination and creativity, despite the fact that there were barely any of those classical red ones. Conan thus began to explain the legend of this craft: it was apparently a folk craft from the Fukushima Prefecture, with persistant wobbling heads; it was a toy made for children around the Aizu region of Fukushima; during the Edo Period, a temple named Enzo-ji Temple was destroyed by earthquakes and needed reconstruction; it became an elusive issue back then since it was hard to transport materials up the cliff, which supposedly a red cow turned up out of nowhere to help the workers transporting these materials contributed to the rebuild of the temple. Just as Ran and Sonoko were astonished by the "weird facts" Conan knows, an abrupt scream kicked in from the staff room. When they dashed towards there to check the situation out, they found Motoko Bekobe's body lying on the floor, accompanied by some sort of "dying message".
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| Her left hand was holding an akabeko, and she wrote the katakana word "Fuku" with blood using her right hand. |
At first they thought it would be a piece of cake to target the culprit, since the hint "Fuku" may tell it all. However, the three possible candidates for this murder all contain the initial "Fuku" in their names, so the dying message is quite meaningless in this aspect. The only way for cracking this case is to interrogate them with questions.
- Junya Fukui, Bekobe's ex-boyfriend, now working as her dancer, although they broke up some years ago, he still treated her as a business co-worker as he claims "he does not like mixing business matters with personal affairs". (Additional clue found out by Conan: he is currently on debt, and was urged for the return of the money)
- Toshiharu Fukumoto, Bekobe's business partner, runs everything for Motoko, including handling negotiations, aquiring materials, and managing her schedule. He occasionally slips out Hakata dialect, since he was originally from Kurume in Fukuoka, although he intended to speak standard Japanese. (Additional clue found out by Conan: he went to the bathroom after some time, went into one of the compartments and caught Conan's attention)
- Hajime Fukura, Bekobe's former co-worker, but his attitude was fairly atrocious when he was answering the police's inquiries. Also made Sonoko suspect him to be the culprit.
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| Conan reviewing the clues. |
After some time, Sonoko found a shocking clue on the internet - the webpage of Bekobe's art workshop had quite conservative statements, which completely contravened Bekobe's creative concept as an artist who mingles both traditional Akabeko and modern art. Sonoko deduced that the two of them were probably at odds in some matters. "I must hurry. Before anyone else interferes," Fukura thought. He was holding a metal stick and was about to smash the most famous "blue cow" masterpiece by Bekobe.
