Takao Ohga felt so uncomfortable that his anger and resentment made him a little dizzy.
But to avoid suspicion as much as possible, he still thought quickly, searching for flaws in Sera Masumi's words.
"I'm the best doctor! If I injected myself with morphine and naloxone, how could I have made a dosage mistake?"
Takao Ohga once again loudly refuted Sera Masumi's reasoning.
"Since Mr. Ohga is so outstanding, you should also know that after a person is injected with morphine, their thinking, judgment, and actions are all impaired, right?"
Sera asked with a pure smile.
But her words once again struck a "thud" in Takao Ohga's heart.
"The ampoule itself contains an excessive dose of naloxone. In such a case, it's entirely possible for an overdose to occur due to impaired judgment."
"It's not uncommon to see cases where drug abuse affects someone's ability to control the dosage, leading to accidents, right?"
Hearing Sera's straightforward words, Megure Juzo and the detectives around them nodded.
"Sera-san is right. Cases like these are not rare worldwide; there are many," said Megure Juzo.
"Many drug abusers overdose because they fail to judge the correct safe dosage, which endangers their lives. Such incidents happen frequently across the globe, especially with high-risk drugs like opioids, including heroin."
Sera Masumi nodded slightly and looked at Takao Ohga again.
"Morphine is derived from opium, and when refined, it turns into heroin. As a doctor, Mr. Ohga, you must be aware of this, correct?"
"Miss, that's absurd!"
The anger in Takao Ohga's chest gradually turned into extreme panic.
He didn't understand why the detective in front of him could still find a logical explanation for such misguided reasoning.
Seeing that Takao Ohga didn't refute her further, Sera Masumi continued speaking.
"Admit it, Mr. Ohga. This gun and morphine belong to you, don't they? To frame Director Hotta for today's incident, you hid these items in his personal lounge.
"The reason you shot Director Hotta and Souma was to cover up the fact that you supplied them with morphine.
"And the reason you decided to frame Director Hotta must be because you were the doctor who caused his facial paralysis, isn't that right?"
"You believed the police and detectives would uncover what happened back then and therefore concluded that Hotta was the prime suspect trying to kill you, so you planned all of this."
Sera's straightforward words felt like a lightning strike to Ohga Takao.
He looked at Sera Masumi in front of him with a horrified expression.
He realized that, in his mind, these detectives—whom he had previously considered slightly better than the incompetent Metropolitan Police Department officers—turned out to be terrifyingly sharp.
It was evident that the person before him was just a high school student.
How could she deduce the truth so accurately when the cause of Kosaka Tsunekazu's death hadn't even been clarified yet?!
If she reasoned this way, then this detective must have conducted a detailed investigation into Tsunekazu Kosaka's sudden death yesterday and investigated today's crime scene of Ryo Sogabe and Miho Souma.
Later, after finding morphine and a gun in Hotta Yoshitoki's personal lounge where Ohga was found, she made her inference.
It all seemed logical.
But yesterday afternoon, she hadn't witnessed Kosaka Tsunekazu's death up close.
And Akikawa Kyousuke, who couldn't enter or exit the crime scene at will like a detective,
how on earth could he know your motives, purposes, and modus operandi?!
'Could it be that he guessed Kosaka and others were abusing morphine just from a casual interaction yesterday?! How is that possible?!'
Takao Ohga felt horrified.
He realized that his once-proud intellect, especially when compared to Akikawa Kyousuke's, felt like a rusty, poorly maintained machine with clogged gears operating at an extremely slow pace.
"You claim the pillbox and gun are mine. Do you have any evidence?
"Just because something is found in Hotta's lounge, does that mean it belongs to me? Couldn't I also be a victim?
"Assuming that my hospital uses morphine doesn't mean I'm illegally supplying it, let alone killing people over it! What nonsense!"
Takao Ohga looked at Sera Masumi and made one final desperate attempt, like a drowning man grasping for a lifeline.
"I honestly didn't expect you, Mr. Ohga, to still deny it at this point.
"Regardless, the forensic division officer has already extracted fingerprints from both the gun and the pillbox. If we use the mobile fingerprint comparison system, we'll know the results soon enough."
Sera Masumi turned to the officer comparing the fingerprints and spoke softly.
Hearing this, Takao Ohga sneered inwardly.
How could there be any fingerprint flaws?
It was Akikawa Kyousuke who touched his pillbox.
There should only be his fingerprints.
A few moments passed.
The forensics officer confirmed the results of the comparison.
"The comparison results show that only Mr. Ohga's fingerprints are present on both the gun and the pillbox."
"Ah--?!?"
Hearing this, Takao Ohga felt his breath catch, as if his heart had stopped.
"Fingerprints? How could there be fingerprints?
"You're lying! You're trying to coerce a confession, aren't you?
"You'll all go to jail for this!"
After a brief moment of shock, Takao Ohga suddenly shouted hysterically, convinced the police and detectives were colluding to deceive him.
As he yelled, he quietly rubbed his fingertips, trying to feel for the paraffin wax.
But instead of the hard texture of the wax, he only felt the soft touch of his bare fingertips.
Takao Ohga felt his head explode with a loud "boom," plunging him into utter confusion.
"I'm also a little surprised. At first, I thought Mr. Ohga's method of committing the crime was quite sophisticated, but in the end, there were flaws with the fingerprints."
Sera Masumi said lightly.
"No, no, that's not it. It wasn't me.
"I really don't know what happened. I passed out! I swear I never touched the gun or the pillbox!"
"Someone must have grabbed my hand and forced me to touch the gun and pillbox. You can't falsely accuse an innocent person!"
Takao Ohga panicked, his words becoming incoherent.
Megure Juzo, annoyed by Ohga Takao's behavior, walked straight toward him.
Takao Ohga only saw darkness as Megure's large figure stood before him like a mountain, blocking almost all the light.
"Takao Ohga, according to Sera-san's reasoning, you must have come here immediately after killing Director Souma to attack Akikawa-san.
"This means you wouldn't have had time to return to the hotel.
"Since you deny being the killer, then there shouldn't be any gunshot residue reaction, right?"
Megure Juzo's words were like the final blow, completely crushing Takao Ohga's last glimmer of hope.
(End of Chapter)