"Ding dong~"
The doorbell rang, and Mrs. Matsushita hurriedly went to the door and opened it.
"We apologize for disturbing you continuously these past few days," Senichi and Takagi bowed slightly and greeted each other first.
"Do you have any other business today?" Mrs. Matsushita asked in response to seeing the two individuals.
"We're here again today primarily to see your fur coat," Takagi explained.
"Fur coat?"
Although Mrs. Matsushita was puzzled, she ultimately invited the two inside and handed them the fur coat from before.
"Ah... It's not this one. There should be others, fur-related items," Takagi examined the coat briefly and made a judgment.
"I only have this one now," Mrs. Matsushita replied, "Didn't I already tell you that before?"
"That's correct. You did say so," Senichi nodded, then turned and walked towards the photos placed on the side.
"So, where is this one?"
Senichi picked up a photo and pointed to the gray-black scarf wrapped around Mrs. Matsushita's mother's neck, "Mrs. Matsushita, could you please get this scarf for us to see?"
"Well... I couldn't find it some time ago," Mrs. Matsushita's face showed some uneasiness.
"If I remember correctly, that is your mother's heirloom, right?" Senichi asked.
"Yes... Although it is, it was unintentional..."
"You've taken good care of this black coat and the brooch you're wearing, but why is it only the scarf?"
"Well, that's how it is."
Faced with Senichi's questioning, Mrs. Matsushita calmly bit her lip and threw away the scarf.
In response to this situation, Senichi did not panic. Instead, he put down the photo and approached Mrs. Matsushita.
His proximity made her unnaturally move two steps to the side, unconsciously looking down at the ground, and her hands tightly clenched together.
"You actually gave it to someone else, right? You gave it to Mrs. Sannitori ," Senichi looked at the silent Mrs. Matsushita and said, "After all, you never refuse when someone asks something from you.
But the item you gave to Mrs. Sannitori was carelessly sold in a department store without her cherishing it."
Pausing for a moment, Senichi looked at her and said, "You must know about it, right?"
"If it's something you gave to someone else, then how they handle it is their right. It's their freedom, isn't it?" Mrs. Matsushita glanced at Senichi and said impatiently.
"Can you accept that?" Takagi looked at Mrs. Matsushita and questioned, "Even if it's an heirloom left by your mother?"
"..."
Seeing her silence, Takagi spoke again, "Before visiting you, we were searching for things at Mrs. Sannitori 's house. Her husband mentioned it.
Sannitori Saena used to wear a fur scarf made of a material he had never seen before."
"So you believe it's mine?" Mrs. Matsushita retorted, "It's a baseless assumption..."
"If it's made of gray squirrel fur, then it would be yours," Senichi interrupted her, "Don't you have one? A scarf made of gray squirrel fur?"
"No, I don't," Mrs. Matsushita denied.
"That's strange then."
As Senichi spoke, he took out a certain black ladies' hat from his pocket. When Mrs. Matsushita saw the hat, she looked at Senichi in astonishment, seemingly surprised by how he had that hat.
"It's yours, isn't it?"
"Well... But why is this hat in your possession?" Mrs. Matsushita asked, puzzled.
"It was entrusted to us by your daughter, May," Takagi explained.
"This child... always meddling with my things..."
"Please don't blame her," Senichi interjected.
"Because May-chan really loves this hat," Senichi said, "So, what are you planning to do now that I've shown you this hat?"
"Actually, after I obtained this hat from May-san, I found the fur you claimed not to have on it," Senichi's eyes sharpened like a sword, "Why is that?"
"I can't believe it..."
"That's right, it's gray squirrel fur," Senichi interrupted Mrs. Matsushita, who was getting flustered and about to say something, his tone serious, "And the same fur was found on the neck of the murdered Sannitori Saena!"
As Senichi spoke, Takagi timely took out a piece of evidence from his pocket, which contained the gray squirrel fur extracted from the hat.
Thanks to May-chan entrusting her hat to Senichi, he discovered the fur on the hat while eating his meal.
Initially, he wasn't too sure, so he asked Uncle Toshiro to help with the analysis. The results came out urgently before they came here, and the two of them made a special trip back to the police headquarters.
Faced with this solid evidence, Mrs. Matsushita had no more power to argue.
The scarf that had been given away earlier had its fur stuck to the hat that her daughter had asked to be preserved.
In other words, the evidence had made the decision.
"Can you please bring out the scarf?"
After Senichi finished speaking, Mrs. Matsushita stumbled and held onto the nearby table, "It seems that the truth can no longer be concealed..."
Mrs. Matsushita, with an unsteady expression, walked towards the floor-to-ceiling window on the side, her eyes lifeless as she choked out, "But if someone asks for something I possess... I am unable to refuse..."
"Why are you like this? You can just refuse to give things you don't want to," Takagi said heavily, "If that's the case, you wouldn't have encountered this situation."
"Eraser..."
"A classmate asked for my eraser..."
Mrs. Matsushita seemed to have returned to her childhood, the beginning of her painful life.
When she was in elementary school, she had a beautiful eraser, and a classmate liked it and asked for it.
At that time, she firmly refused the unreasonable request. She had plenty of erasers, and who would simply give their belongings to others for no reason?
Especially when it was the other person who initiated the request, with no exchange involved.
And it was this normal refusal that brought about an unexpected outcome.
Her classmate was reported and criticized by the school for stealing the eraser.
Then, she committed suicide.
Speaking of this, Mrs. Matsushita cried out, tears uncontrollably streaming down her face.
Thus, that memory turned into an eternal nightmare, constantly tormenting her and making her involuntarily wonder what would have happened if she had given the eraser back then.
She constantly regretted it and believed it was her fault.
In the end, it became her "abnormality."