radicalducati Page 11
Page 11
Sato Miwako stated unequivocally, "Mukai Yukina last left the apartment the afternoon before the incident, and she only took a small amount of the drug."
"On the night of the incident, before Mizuno Ai was murdered, she had not touched those things."
All the clues were suddenly tightened by an invisible force at this moment, twisting into a rope pointing to the same goal.
"Bring Jiro Ono back," Yuuki Takada said coldly. "Now."
……
The bright lights in the interrogation room came on again, this time shining on one person's face.
Jiro Ono sat on the cold metal chair, his expensive custom-made suit still impeccably tailored, his hair slicked back.
His face held just the right amount of sorrow, with a hint of displeasure at being offended. He placed his hands clasped on the table, his posture composed, as if he were the master of the house.
“Inspector Takada, Officer Sato, haven’t I already told your police that I have absolutely no reason to lay a hand on Mizuno Ai?”
"Are you police officers just sitting around doing nothing all day?!" Jiro Ono said, his voice magnetic and carrying the composure of someone who had long held a high position.
"I and everyone in the company are deeply saddened by the unfortunate passing of Ms. Mizuno Ai."
"As the president, I understand the police's eagerness to solve the case, but is it too hasty to suspect and summon me without any basis? This is a huge damage to my personal reputation and the company's reputation."
Yuuki Takada didn't look at him, but slowly opened the pink diary in front of her.
The sound of paper rubbing together was unusually jarring in the silence.
"President Ono, you should recognize this diary, right?" Yuki Takada's voice was calm and even.
“Miss Mizuno Ai recorded your ‘special care’ for her many times in her diary.”
"For example, summoning someone alone late at night to discuss 'career development'?"
Chapter 16 Was it you who caused Matsui Shoyu's death?
"Absurd!?" Jiro Ono glanced coldly at Yuki Takada and said in a cold voice, "Officer Takada, what you are doing is simply too absurd."
"Let's not even talk about whether someone is trying to frame me by putting this diary in Mizuno Ai's house."
"Oh!?" Takada Yuuki turned to a page, pointed to a line of text, and said, "Is that so? Then how do you explain the things recorded in this diary?"
"You don't want to tell us police that these things were all made up by the owner of the diary, do you?"
Yuki Takada paused, his cold gaze piercing into the depths of Jiro Ono's violently contracting pupils: "Of course, you can deny what happened in the diary."
Jiro Ono froze, his furious expression frozen on his face, tinged with a hint of bewilderment and fear.
Yuuki Takada picked up the diary again, and this time, he turned to the last few pages.
Tucked inside was a small, inconspicuous note, seemingly a shopping list jotted down hastily, the handwriting messy.
However, on the back of the sticky note, there were several lines of very small, almost illegible handwriting, as if hastily written in a state of extreme fatigue or tension:
He's back again... and he's more terrifying than ever before.
Those eyes looked like they wanted to devour me alive.
What should I do? Sister Xue Nai...who should I believe?
But when she thinks of her two children and Xue Nai's expectations for her over the years, she is motivated to work hard and strive to become a popular idol.
The writing abruptly ends here, seemingly carrying a chilling sense of despair.
"This diary was found by our police at the crime scene of the deceased, Ai Mizuno."
Yuuki Takada spoke coldly, his voice seemingly proclaiming a verdict, echoing in the deathly silent interrogation room:
"In the final moments of her life, Mizuno Ai felt threatened. If I'm not mistaken, it was because you failed to threaten her that day that you decided to kill her, right?"
Yuuki Takada's gaze, sharp as a tempered blade, was fixed on Jiro Ono's instantly pale face: "Furthermore, your despicable acts are clearly recorded in your diary. Who else could it be but you, President Ono?!"
"No—!!!" Jiro Ono let out a beast-like howl, completely collapsing.
He staggered backward, crashing into the back of the chair. His expensive suit was crumpled, and his meticulously styled hair was disheveled.
He clutched his head with both hands, his body trembling violently. It was no longer anger, but fear and despair after his disguise had been completely torn away.
“I…I didn’t mean to kill her…” Jiro Ono raised his head, tears streaming down his face, his facial muscles contorted and twitching, all traces of the president’s authority gone.
"She forced me to do this! She's insane!"
"She told me she didn't have a boyfriend, but after that day, I slowly discovered she actually had two children! That night, I secretly followed her until late at night before I went up to talk to Mizuno Ai, and then..."
"Officer, you know how popular our idols are. If they're discovered by outsiders, the consequences will be unimaginable! Even the most famous people before could have their company pushed to the peak of public opinion because of these scandals!"
"Of course, as long as I only ask her to do something very ordinary... it was she who refused me."
Jiro Ono screamed incoherently, his voice hoarse and broken, filled with twisted resentment and fear:
"I'm doing this for her own good! She doesn't understand! She has no idea about the rules of this industry!"
"She thinks she can still stand on stage as a single mother? Dream on!! I'm helping her! Helping her end with dignity!"
"And her! That Yukina Mukai! Idiot!" Jiro Ono slammed his fist on the table, speaking angrily.
"If it weren't for her, how could Mizuno Ai have kept this from me for so many years?"
"It was just a hint... a hint to her to find a chance to carefully get rid of the two children... and she actually drugged them! A golden opportunity!"
"All I need to do is... just add a little extra when I take one last look at 'Ai-chan'... to make sure those two little ones don't cry... don't get in the way..."
Jiro Ono's voice grew softer and softer until it turned into a nervous muttering, his once dignified face smeared with murmured tears and snot.
He slumped in the chair, like a lump of mud, only heavy, desperate breathing remaining.
The interrogation room was deathly silent, with only his rough breathing echoing in the background.
Under the bright light, his distorted and broken face looked like a demon crawling out of hell.
Yuuki Takada stared expressionlessly at the man before him who had completely collapsed.
He slowly stood up, walked to the one-way glass, and looked out into the deep darkness.
The glass blurred the reflection of his cold, icy profile, and also revealed the ugly shadow behind him, which, under the bright light, was unseen and could not be concealed. It was called "Jiro Ono".
Yuuki Takada slowly looked at him and said coldly, "Alright, after we've finished discussing Ai Mizuno's case, let's talk about another case now?"
As he spoke, Yuuki Takada pulled a photo of Shoyu Matsui from the file folder. "President Ono, you should know this person, right?"
Jiro Ono looked at the person in front of him and shook his head, saying, "Sorry, I don't know this person. And about that other case you just mentioned, I'm warning you, don't think I'm afraid of you just because you're a police officer..."
"...I accidentally killed Mizuno Ai, but I don't know who you're talking about at all?"
Yuki Takada exhaled a puff of smoke, and through the swirling smoke, his sharp gaze pierced the thin mist, locking firmly onto Jiro Ono's face.
It was a gaze that saw through everything, carrying a cold scrutiny.
He pulled another cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and nodded. "This man is Matsui Shoyu, the one you hired to break into Mizuno's house and steal the diary. He's now dead in our Metropolitan Police Department."
"If I'm not mistaken, you're the one who repeatedly hired people to infiltrate Ai Komachi's home in search of this crucial evidence, right?"
Jiro Ono didn't speak, but simply nodded silently. "That's right. After Ai Mizuno died, I did send people to her house to search for the evidence I've always wanted."
"However, the man clearly explained to me that he had searched for a long time without finding anything, and then he left in a hurry."
“Officer, you can’t say now that I orchestrated the death of this Matsui Shoyu. My relationship with Matsui Shoyu was purely that of employer and employee. We only communicated by phone and had hardly ever met in person.”
"Contacted by phone? Never met in person?"
Yuuki Takada spoke softly, yet with a strange penetrating power, sounding exceptionally clear in the deathly silent interrogation room, "President Ono, your memory seems to be failing you..."
"...Or perhaps it's selective amnesia?"
He slowly walked to the table, pulled out an enlarged photograph from another file folder, and slammed it down in front of Jiro Ono.
The photo is a bit blurry, but it's clear enough that it shows two men talking in hushed tones in a corner of an underground parking lot.
One of them, wearing an inconspicuous hoodie and with a thin build, was none other than the deceased Matsui Shoyu.
The other one, though wearing a baseball cap with the brim deliberately pulled low, had a striking profile, a habitual slightly forward-leaning posture, and a valuable limited-edition watch on his wrist—it was none other than Jiro Ono!
Chapter 17 Arrest of Jiro Ono (Please continue reading)
Jiro Ono's pupils suddenly contracted, like a venomous snake stung by a bright light.
He instinctively tried to turn his face away, but Yuuki Takada's cold gaze was like a tangible chain, pinning him firmly to the spot.
"This photo was taken three nights before Matsui Shoyu broke into Mizuno Ai's apartment. The location is the VIP parking area on the third basement floor of your company building, which is reserved for high-rise residents."
Yuuki Takada's words were precise and unambiguous: "Tell him that there is a diary in Ai Mizuno's apartment that 'may be detrimental to the company,' and that it must be retrieved 'without leaving a trace,' and that 'no one but you' should know of its existence'..."
"...The reward is high enough to make him take the risk, right?"
"I...I..." Jiro Ono's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and cold sweat instantly soaked his temples.
His carefully constructed lie of "employment relationship, limited to mobile phones" was easily shattered by this photo.
Jiro Ono tried to explain, his lips trembling, but he couldn't utter a single complete syllable.
The distortion and fear that were just revealed by the collapse caused by the Ai Mizuno case have not yet completely subsided.
Now that another lie had been exposed, his expression became extremely complex, a mixture of horror, despair, and a dying struggle.
"Shosuke Matsui is dead."
Yuki Takada coldly shattered Jiro Ono's last glimmer of hope, "It was less than twelve hours after he broke into Ai Mizuno's apartment."
He died of cyanide poisoning, right there in our Metropolitan Police Department's temporary detention cell. His death was extremely agonizing.
Yuki Takada leaned forward, his imposing presence looming over Jiro Ono's pale, distorted face:
"He died, after he got his hands on that diary that could threaten you, and before he could become a key witness in your murder of Ai Mizuno!"
President Ono, tell me, is this really just a coincidence?
Jiro Ono suddenly looked up, his eyes flashing with a trapped beast-like ferocity and a final madness:
"Nonsense! I had no idea he was dead!"
"I paid him to do things! It's only right! What does his death have to do with me?! Maybe he was his enemy, or maybe it was an accident!"
"You police officers are trying to frame me because you can't find the real killer? Don't even think about it! I admit to what happened to Mizuno Ai, but this person's death has absolutely nothing to do with me!"
Jiro Ono roared, his body twisting violently in the chair, the handcuffs making a grating metallic scraping sound.