Sandbox Murder at Dawn Case

The **Sandbox Murder at Dawn Case** is a murder case that occurred in a park in Tokyo.

It is the bonus case in the *Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective* series.

## Overview

At dawn, Totomaru walks past a park and sees a "strange blue thing" hovering in the air for a moment before it disappears. He tells Ron about this at six a.m., and Ron is curious to find out what this "strange blue thing" was. By seven a.m., they arrive at the park and find the following writing in the sandbox: "I was killed by Tetsu Yamada." Below the words, four stones have been placed to mark a quadratic area. Between the top two stones, a pair of glasses has been laid; between the lower two is a tube with a flower.

Ron suspects that it is a tomb, possibly an animal tomb, because of the stones and flower. The glasses indicate that it could be a human tomb though. Totomaru digs in that area and reveals Tatsuo Kinoshita's corpse. Forensics determine that Kinoshita died of asphyxiation around three a.m.

Kinoshita's friends Tetsu Yamada and Hajime Satou are questioned. Yamada becomes the prime suspect because of the writing in the sandbox, but he has an alibi: He was at home from midnight on; he only came out now to take out the trash. He invited friends to watch a movie with him and, thus, has witnesses who can confirm his testimony.

## History

In the past, Ron excelled at BLUE with his deductive prowess and it was believed that he would solve all the world's unsolved cases. Five years later, as Toto visits Ron in the Maison du Kamonohashi, he notes that a lot has changed since then. Ron's appearance has not only gotten messier, he was also prohibited from investigating any cases and now has to rely on Toto to still be able to solve mysteries.

Ron asks him why Toto has come to him at six a.m. Toto reminds him that he called him at three a.m. to ask about cases and he has now come to tell him that he has none. Disappointed, Ron flings himself onto his "Floor of Sloth" and says that he tried having a conversation with dead ants out of boredom. He then thanks Toto for his hard work; he has deduced from the ink marks on his hand, the dark circles under his eyes, and the fact that he is holding his bag with his non-dominant hand because his right one is still sore because of tendinitis that Toto did paperwork all night.

Totomaru confirms this and adds that he worked so hard, he even hallucinated when he walked past a park at dawn. Ron is intrigued by his "hallucination," and they rush to the park. There, they find a strange tomb in the sandbox and the corpse of Tatsuo Kinoshita, a college student. The police is called and the body examined; it is determined that Kinoshita died of suffocation at three in the morning.

Just past seven a.m., Kinoshita's friends Tetsu Yamada and Hajime Satou arrive and are questioned. According to the writing in the sandbox, Yamada is Kinoshita's murderer, but he has an alibi. However, Ron notes that Yamada's shoes are full of dirt and sand. Yamada says he was in the mountains recently, but his shoes are not suited for that terrain.

After seeing an antlion trap and hearing Totomaru's recounting of the events, Ron solves the case. But because Ron cannot officially solve the case, he tells his deductions to Totomaru to recite.

At 7:40 a.m., Totomaru and Ron gather Yamada, Satou, and the other police officers. Totomaru then tells them what happened: Yamada killed Kinoshita.

Before the movie started at 12 a.m., Yamada drugged Kinoshita to make him fall asleep before he dragged him to the nearby park. There, he dug a hole in the sandbox and buried Kinoshita in it, but left the space around his head free of sand. Yamada ran a hose through the sand to provide him with air and covered Kinoshita's head with a blue sheet and weighted the sheet down with four stones. In the middle of the sheet was a hole, and when Yamada placed sand on top of the sheet, it was turned into an antlion trap: The sand slowly fell through the hole and onto Kinoshita's head. The sand gradually covered his head, and Kinoshita died of asphyxiation at around 3 a.m.

Yamada had also tied a string to the sheet so that he could pull it away and to his house after Kinoshita was dead. Because of the time shift caused by the suffocation device and the fact that he could easily remove the sheet from his home, Yamada dared to write "I was killed by Tetsu Yamada" into the sand. If he did that, he would also get questioned early enough to ensure that his testimony would not fall apart.

Yamada confesses and says that his life is now over. He adds that he killed Kinoshita because he flirted with Mika with whom Yamada has been together since junior high school. His confession triggers Ron's Kill on Sight ability, and Ron pressures Yamada to stab himself. Dazed, Yamada takes an empty bottle from his trash bag and shatters it. Before he can stab himself with it, Toto stops him by tackling him to the ground. Yamada is arrested afterward.

Ron thanks Totomaru for saving Yamada and the "uneventful" arrest. Toto asks him why he thought there could be case after he had told him about his hallucination, and Ron replies that Toto's body can withstand a single all-nighter; he would not get so easily worked up and is not naive enough to have hallucinations.

Although Toto cannot understand Ron a lot of times, he trusts him and is happy that they can work together to solve cases and catch criminals.

## References

1. ↑ *Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective* manga; Chapter 15.5, page 8
2. ↑ *Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective* manga; Chapter 15.5, page 4
3. ↑ *Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective* manga; Chapter 15.5, pages 8-17
4. ↑ *Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective* manga; Chapter 15.5, pages 2-33