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At this moment, the little sister of the Karasuma family who had been watching the two of them in the room suddenly shouted.
It seemed that it was her shouting that brought Hatoyama Keiko back to her confused thoughts. She suddenly came back to her senses, turned her head to look at the worried little Karasuma, and a forced smile appeared on her face.
"I'm sorry, Karasuma-chan, I have something to do and I have to go out for a while. Can you just stay in the room?"
After saying that, Hatoyama Keiko didn't wait for Kogumaru to reply, and she and the old butler quickly left along the corridor.
"Have the people from the Metropolitan Police Department arrived yet?" Keiko Hatoyama asked, having quickly recovered from her panic and jogging down the aisle.
"Yes, I heard that it was a nearby neighbor who reported the case."
"Where's Xiaoqing? Is he there?"
"Well... when I received the news, the people from the Metropolitan Police Department didn't mention that there were any family members at the scene. I guess Mr. Shirakawa hasn't returned home yet, and he doesn't know about this news..."
The old butler's answer was within Keiko Hatoyama's expectations.
Although it is almost time for school to be over at this point, the boy has been working part-time at a nearby detective agency since he started middle school to supplement his family income.
Therefore, after school every day, the boy would not go home directly, but would go to the detective agency where he worked part-time and wait there until it was getting dark before going back.
Now, maybe it’s not too late...
"Let's go to the scene and ask them to collect Mrs. Shirakawa's body first."
As her mind gradually calmed down, Keiko Hatoyama said this.
Visual feedback often has the greatest impact on people.
Keiko Hatoyama knew very well how much the boy valued his mother, and that the mother's death could not be concealed. The matter was a foregone conclusion, and what Keiko Hatoyama was considering was how to minimize the impact of this incident on the boy.
At least, don't let the boy see the first scene of his mother being brutally murdered...
"Dong dong!"
Suddenly, a burst of hurried footsteps were heard behind them.
Keiko Hatoyama looked back and saw that it was the little Karasuma who she asked to wait for her in the room, who had somehow followed her.
"Sister Huizi, I want to help too!"
Facing her puzzled gaze, Xiao Wuhuan ran to her side and mustered up the courage to say this.
[What a naive and innocent child...]
He didn't know anything yet, but he said something like this...
Keiko Hatoyama looked at her helplessly. She wanted to stop her, but she also knew that since the child had the courage to say such words, she probably couldn't persuade her back with just a few words.
More importantly, she couldn't waste any more time here.
Thinking of this, Keiko Hatoyama said nothing in the end, which was considered as tacit approval of Kogumaru's choice.
[I just hope you won’t be scared to tears later…]
So, the three of them left the Hatoyama family.
It was still snowing at that time, but fortunately the snow on the roadside had already been cleared away, so it did not hinder the three people's progress.
The old butler held a large umbrella and followed closely behind the two young girls.
The distance between Hatoyama's house and Shirakawa's house is very close, only a few hundred meters. Instead of taking a car, it might be faster to walk there.
But Keiko Hatoyama's physical strength was very poor. She had just run a short distance from the Hatoyama family when she began to breathe heavily. White mist kept coming out of her mouth and her chest was heaving violently.
Kogumaru beside her looked worried, but Hatoyama Keiko still gritted her teeth and persisted, not slowing down her pace at all.
It was only a distance of a few hundred meters, but it seemed as if all her strength had been used up.
Only when she could see the old house with several police cars parked at the door did Keiko Hatoyama finally slow down her pace.
She took a deep breath, calmed her breathing as much as possible, concealed the strange look in her eyes, and walked calmly towards the old house.
"Miss!"
In front of the door, there were two detectives talking in low voices. They obviously knew Hatoyama Keiko, and they immediately straightened their bodies when they saw her.
"Um……"
After just responding to them lightly, Keiko Hatoyama walked straight to the door. For some reason, when she really got there, she suddenly felt a little scared and didn't dare to go in.
The scene several years ago when she shamelessly followed the boy into this house for the first time suddenly emerged in her mind.
At that time, Keiko Hatoyama never thought that one day in the future, she would be afraid to walk into this house...
To the point that she just stood at the door, stunned for a while.
Then, she finally raised her hands, which had already turned red from the cold, with trembling hands and opened the door.
The two detectives on the side now knew the situation in the house. They wanted to speak up to stop them, but when they saw the old housekeeper behind Hatoyama Keiko, they shut their mouths obediently.
The door was opened, and the entrance and corridor were covered with muddy footprints soaked in snow water.
Walking along the corridor following these footprints, Keiko Hatoyama prayed repeatedly in her heart.
[Come back later, you must come back later...]
However, God did not answer her prayers, but played the worst joke on her.
That day, the detective agency where the boy worked, coincidentally, gave him a day off.
Therefore, the boy did not go to the detective agency after school that day as he did in the past, but went straight home.
According to Keiko Hatoyama's later inquiries, it seemed that the boy returned home shortly after the old housekeeper learned the news of Mrs. Shirakawa's murder.
In the end, it turned into the worst scene that Keiko Hatoyama had ever seen.
In the dim bedroom, the boy, surrounded by several criminal police officers, squatted quietly beside his mother's body.
The expression on his face was incredibly calm.
Chapter 615: Collapse in an Instant
Keiko Hatoyama has always known that the boy is not as indifferent as he appears.
He can actually laugh, and is a mentally healthy human being who can feel happy and sad, care about others, and joke with friends.
It was only because of the poor living environment since childhood that he passively developed the attitude that always keeps people at a distance in his daily life.
Therefore, when Keiko Hatoyama actually saw the boy squatting so calmly beside his mother's body and reconstructing the process of his mother's murder bit by bit in such a calm tone, her heart was broken.
The worst finally happened.
In an instant, the redness on her face due to excessive exercise turned pale.
She suddenly felt dizzy and staggered two steps again. Fortunately, the old butler behind her came to support her in time.
Among the several detectives in the room, two noticed the movement behind them. They turned around and when they saw Keiko Hatoyama, they showed surprise on their faces.
But Keiko Hatoyama raised her hand to stop them from reacting further.
She shook her head slightly, forced herself to stand firmly, and slowly walked towards the boy in the room who had his back to her, finally stopping two meters behind him.
During this process, her sad eyes always stayed on the boy's figure.
She just watched silently as the boy perfectly reconstructed the process of his mother's death under the questioning of the surrounding criminal police.
Including how the murderer approached his mother, how he killed her, and finally how he dug out his mother's beautiful eyes...
When analyzing these, the boy's tone was extremely calm. He was like a real detective, telling a case that had nothing to do with him.
Having said this to the end, just when several detectives had already vaguely realized that something was wrong, the boy finally stood up and for the first time turned his eyes away from his mother's body.
Then, under the shocked gaze of all the unaware people present, he calmly said those words.
“My name is Shirakawa Kiyoshi, and I’m a detective assistant working part-time at a nearby detective agency.
The deceased is my mother."
And the boy's calmness ended there.
Just as he finished saying this, the boy finally saw Keiko Hatoyama who had been standing behind him for a long time.
At this moment, the initial panic in Keiko Hatoyama's eyes was no longer there. She just stood behind the boy, looking at him tenderly, but deep in this tenderness, there was a sadness hidden.
The appearance of Keiko Hatoyama seemed to be completely beyond the boy's expectations, and for the first time, a look of surprise appeared on his face.
Afterwards, the boy's forced calmness on his face quickly collapsed under Keiko Hatoyama's gaze.
"Keiko..."
Tears flowed uncontrollably from the corners of the boy's eyes. He just stared at her blankly, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, and finally he could only utter one sentence with a sob.
"She's dead..."
He stood there, crying so hard that he almost collapsed.
Keiko Hatoyama said nothing, but just walked up to him and hugged him gently.
Keiko Hatoyama has asked more than once why disasters always happen to those who are already miserable enough?
But Keiko Hatoyama never thought deeply about this question because she was always afraid that the answer to the question might be cruel.
It’s not that disasters always befall unfortunate people, but that unfortunate people are often in a fragile environment, and they can be easily crushed by just a small accident.
Since that day, the boy's heart has been broken, and it was only because of the existence of Keiko Hatoyama that he was put back together bit by bit.
After that day, little Karasuma followed Karasuma Renya back to the United States.
The boy's mother's killer has never been caught.
The murderer was very smart. On the day he committed the crime, the residents nearby did not go out because of the snow, and there were no pedestrians on the streets at that time. At the same time, the murderer carefully cleaned up all traces that he might have left in Baihe's house, leaving no clues for the police to track down.
Even the only newspapers used by the murderer to get close to the boy's mother were eventually discovered by the police to be stolen by the murderer after knocking out a newspaper seller.
According to the newspaper seller's recollection, he was attacked from behind and fell unconscious, so he did not see the murderer's appearance or physical features.
Even the murderer's last possible footprints were covered by the snow because the boy's mother was discovered murdered too late by her neighbors.
The police also tried to look for similar cases in surrounding neighborhoods in order to identify the murderer.
However, this seemed to be the murderer's first crime. Before this, the police had never encountered a similar homicide case in which the victim's eyes were gouged out, and they had no idea where to start.
There were no witnesses, no relevant clues, and no similar cases...
As time went by, the chances of solving the case became smaller and smaller, and the case was eventually shelved by the police...