Episode 1088: The Unfortunate and Suspicious Victim
Scenario: Inside the Doterasu Shrine, a lad named Jupita Okamoto seemed to be praying for something. Just as he was about to leave, he encountered a pungent, rubbery thief who had a knife held in their hand, provoking Jupita to hand them all of his money. Jupita got scared and started to run in the opposite direction, towards the staircase that leads to the exit of the shrine, going down. The theif then swiftly gripped Jupita's wallet and cut the iron chain attached to it, attempting to steal the wallet. With a slight kick from the theif, Jupita fell off the stone staircase from the shrine.
The Detective Boys, who heard that fatal scream established by the victim, arrived to check it out instantly. There was also a witness, who was an old woman who saw Jupita fall from the top of the shrine pavement with her own eyes. Conan instructed others to call the police and an ambulance, although the theif had already fled.
Accordingly, Jupita, the injured man, got sent to Beika Central Hospital, and when his older sister, Juria Okamoto, asked about her brother's condition, the doctor claimed that he did not pose a danger to his life. Nevertheless, Juria could never come up with a reasonable explanation for his brother's ending up in Beika City, as per previous phone calls, Jupita told her that he was in Waiha City from beginning to end. And the most suspicious thing is that these two cities are in fact situated in entirely opposite directions. With this incredulous doubt in mind, their teacher, Kotaro Saimon, arrived to check Jupita's condition. From their words and deeds, Conan noticed that both of them seemed to hate the city of Beika. When Conan inquired about it, they explained that their enemy, Yuzuru Kariba, was currently living in Beika City. He was also a songwriter and was formerly Kotaro's strudent. However, due to some issues, Kotaro dismissed him because he was fed up with Kotaro. Somehow, he got quite popular after he left his teacher and was even appointed chairman of the Japanese Songwriters Association. And by using his position inside the industry, he started to spread slander about Kotaro since he wanted to get revenge for the dismissal. Another disgraceful thing is that most of Yuzuru's works were plagiarised, he claimed that he could not endure that, as this brought some negative impacts among the association, and made more songwriters attempt to imitate his success. Juria also mumbled that it was all because of Yuzuru that she broke up with his ex-fiance, Ren Mizutani.
Although Juria had some connections with Beika City, the victim, Jupita, surprisingly did not have any connections with Beika. Why would he come to Beika out of nowhere? Well, Conan thought of an explanation for it: since Ren must have met Jupita when he was engaging with Juria, he must be thinking of going and finding Ren in Beika and trying to make them together once again. This speculation was then supported by Kotaro's testimony, he disclosed that one day Jupita murmured about putting them back together to him. For further acknowledgement, Juria decided to phone Ren and ask if Jupita really intended to visit him. But anyhow, Ren said no in a scornful manner.
To get more clues, they went to the nurse's station, where they had Jupita's possessions. And on the back of Jupita's clothes, it was fairly dirty. Kotaro deduced it might have been stained onto it during his fall. A receipt from a general store near the station was also found in his pockets, so they got there and consulted about Jupita. The store clerk admitted seeing a Jupita in the store and recalled him buying a knife earlier. He placed the newly purchased knife inside his daypack after the purchase. Then where was the daypack? It was not found inside the nurse's station. Luckily, the shrine caretaker handed in the daypack that Jupita was wearing when he visited the shrine and claimed it to be a lost item. The Detective Boys then showed all of their investigation progress to Juria and Kotaro. Conan also asked Juria to check Jupita's call history and confirm something. Strangely, the last number he called was their association. When she asked what the content of the call was to the association staff, the staff said they were unsure if it was from her brother, but the association really received an anonymous, disturbing call from a withheld number. A sentence was uttered through the speakers, with their voice altered: "Kariba Yuzuru will suffer the warth of god!"
With this shocking clue, everyone had to think that it was Jupita who threatened Yuzuru and tried to plot his murder. This could also explain why he came to Beika, why he would buy a knife in the general store, and why he was most likely praying for his murder to succeed in the shrine, moreover, the motive would be easy as well, as he loved his sister so much, thus, he wanted to get rid of the nasty guy and make his sister and Ren together. Yet, Conan felt that there were some flaws in this assumption. If he did all of this, then the alibi he tried fabricating in the phone call would be of no use, also the police could also easily track the phone number that phoned the association, and the most puzzling thing, if he wanted to conceal his intent, then why would he reveal his face when purchasing the knife?
The two of them were now convinced Jupita was the culprit and intended to plot a murder in Beika City. Kotaro helped carry the dayapck into the station for evidence preservation. Even so, Conan still felt that Jupita's actions were quite inconsistent if he was the culprit. And when he checked Jupita's daypack again inside the nurse's station, a bandanna abruptly appeared, and he remembered very clearly that this bandanna was not inside the daypack when he got it from the shrine. The Detective Boys decided to split up and investigate the case separately, Haibara and Conan got the information that Jupita loved cooking. Genta, Mitsuhiko, and Ayumi visited Yuzuru's mansion and learned that Yuzuru still had not returned since he left this morning; and the household maid also pointed out that an extra metal pipe appeared leaning near the entrance wall with no reason. They then went to the shrine and knew where the daypack was found, and it happened to be behind the shrine. At the back of the main shrine, they found some weird marks on the ground; random leaves are located on top of the land. The Detective Boys then reached the conclusion that Jupita was once here since the ground marks matched the dirt stain on Jupita's clothes they saw. On the other side, Conan found Ren and informed him that Jupita would never show up, no matter how long he waited. Ren looked at him in perplexity.
