Go to Sleep (Little Man Being Erased)
January 17, 2028
In the past week, Simon found himself waking up earlier with each day, meeting his niece Athena for a coffee downtown after her morning run, catching up with her regarding the latest shenanigans at the Wright Anything Agency and with her own friends. She didn't have to divulge this information to him, but seven years locked up in a cell had presumably led her to believe that Simon hadn't much by way of company.
She was right of course, and he didn't mind their conversations. At the very least they set him up in a somewhat good mood and whenever he walked into his newly refurbished office, he was met with a sense of tranquility and willingness to work hard.
Taka's presence this morning was also another motivator. He sat patiently on the windowsill as Simon set down his satchel onto his new sofa, procuring a small paper bag of beef jerky. He had spent his weekend relearning the recipe in Aura's — no —his kitchen and concluded that his batch would have to wait a couple of months before Taka could give an opinion on it and so the current batch he had in his hand was from the deli across the street that often provided sandwiches for the office at lunchtime.
He tore off a strip and gave it to the bird who munched on it happily.
"It seems that this establishment is reputable. I shall purchase from them again if you so desire," Simon muttered to him, stroking his plumage. "We also must rid of you of that striped kerchief. Perhaps a lighter colour would be more to your taste."
Taka cawed in response. Feeling satisfied with his breakfast and the attention he received, he spread his wings, and set off again. Simon wondered whether the bird still resided near the courthouse. He hadn't been there in near a month now.
He spent the majority of his first hour today working on answering emails, ignoring the requests for interviews by reporters and television crews.
It was ten in the morning when he heard a timid knock on his door, and he frowned. "Enter."
A young legal aide with mousy brown hair entered, looking thoroughly timid.
"There's a memo for you from the Chief Prosecutor," she squeaked out.
"Pray tell, why could he not relay it through his secretary?"
"He is out on business. And she asked me to hand it to you."
Simon knitted his eyebrows at that statement; he wondered if Edgeworth's absence had anything to do with the Phantom matter. But he had said he would keep him informed if anything happened there, so Simon didn't concern himself too much with this.
He dismissed the aide and took the memo and file. Flicking through it, it appeared to be a preliminary report of the murder of an unidentified man in a nearby neighbourhood.
The crime scene wasn't far from the office's location, in Exposé Park.
Exposé Park wasn't exactly known for its welcome atmosphere, notorious for its gang shootouts in decades past, but it had clearly seen better days. In the last few years, the surrounding area had emerged as a sleazy, industrial part of the city that was quietly and unhurriedly morphing into a ghost zone; abandoned buildings with broken glass windows and crude spray-painted messages on chalky-white walls.
He had visited this area before, one time when it wasn't swarming with investigators combing the grass and gravel. It had been a quick but enjoyable trip with Aura to meet Metis for the first time for lunch at a restaurant not so far from here.
But this was hardly the right time to be sifting through memories as a woman with a stony expression in a lab coat approached him from behind the police tape.
Simon produced his badge. "I apologise for appearing early but Edgeworth-dono requested my presence here. I assume you're the detective…?"
Her face lit up at the mention of his superior.
"Detective Skye. Ema Skye," she answered. Then she lifted the tape to let him through. "You're...Prosecutor Blackquill, right?"
"Yes."
She nodded. "I heard about Fulbright, by the way. I'm sorry."
"Yes, well…" he offered her a wan smile. I didn't know him.
"He was a cool guy. Didn't mind helping me out sometimes," she said, guiding him to the site. "Anyway, we got this call at six this morning. A truck driver on his break found the guy."
Simon nodded, wrapping his coat closer to him.
"Well, here he is," Skye said.
She pointed out the simple-clothed body of a man lying in a patch of dry grass with her index finger. His skin looked waxy, as though he'd emerged from a Madame Tussaud's, and his brown hair stuck to his forehead. His limbs were awkwardly splayed out, and Simon could see some very clear stab wounds on his torso. Despite the obvious signs of foul play, there was actually very little blood to be found.
Simon looked away from the sight before him, swallowing away his own recollection of discovering a body. He saw Skye approach him again, leaving behind men cloaked in white.
"The technicians had problems getting this out of his right hand. Rigor mortis, they said."
She held up an evidence bag containing a small green microchip. There were flecks of dried blood on the casing.
"Is there a likelihood of grasping what is on the microchip?"
"I'll get it sent down to the tech guys later today, but in the meantime the coroner'll be busy performing the autopsy - I'll check in on that. But it should be fairly obvious what went down here; foul play or a mugging. And I'll get some of the officers to round up any witnesses and people to ID the victim, seeing as he didn't have anything on him."
Simon nodded in reply, registering her words. He turned around so that his back faced her. "Good. You can apprise me of the latest discoveries through the office telephone, Biscuits."
Skye scoffed, an amused expression on her face. "Biscuits?"
Simon nodded. "One would be a fool not to recognise those processed snacks that you love so much."
Skye checked her bag; sure enough, a bulging packet of biscuits was preventing it from closing properly. "Oh, these? They're called snackoos. You want one?"
Simon shook his head. "No, thank you, Detective."
She snorted, zipping up her back. "Suit yourself. You're a change from that glimmerous fop. But a nice change."
Then she offered, "How about I get you some tea? I can bring it over later."
"I would not mind."
"Cool, see you later then."
After processing the crime scene and making notes, Ema was quick to get back to the precinct for the briefing and some lunch. Then, as protocol would have it, a call from the coroner to meet her. Ema grinned; this was the best part of her day when she got landed with a murder case.
The police morgue was a large rectangular room adjacent to the laboratory in the basement of the police HQ. It was a sterile room with equally sterile fluorescent lighting; a wall of metal fridges took up the left side of the room, with a dividing screen — typically used by the pathologists to put up x-rays or toxicology reports — on the right. Dead centre of the room stood two metal tables, one of which was covered in a white sheet.
Corrie Nøhr emerged from behind a curtain where one could see an operating table with various utensils adjacent to it in a small container. She was a slim woman in her forties dressed in blue scrubs, greying hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She met Ema with a smile, crow's feet appearing at the corners of her eyes.
"Ema, come in. Good day?" she asked, her accent distinctively North Germanic.
"Not really. Loud phone call woke me up and then I got stuck with that." Ema said, indicating her head at the body.
"Yes, this one was quite a challenge. I'll let you figure it out." Nøhr said. She moved to lean against the divider and crossed her arms.
Ema pulled off the cover, staring at the nude form of the victim. "There's several bruises on the ribs. I'm guessing they're broken. Punctured lung? Foul play?"
She circled the body. "Rigor mortis is still present. He was cold when the witness found him. Been dead at least seven hours by 6 AM. That makes it...11 PM when he died. There's the blood loss. But why three entry wounds? A frenzy? The bruising on the ankle means that he tried to get away and then got stabbed in the calf.
"But if the lung was punctured then he would've had about 45 minutes to live so then we take the blood loss into consideration. But the cut to his jugular vein would have drastically reduced his survival chances, meaning...it was the blood loss that effectively killed him. Right?"
Nøhr nodded, eyes glinting in the bright light.
"So hypothetically, he was attacked by an intruder who stabbed him in the ribs first and the lung got punctured, then as he fled he was slashed in the calf, grabbed again and attacked in the stomach and finally, judging by the bruising on the shoulder was finally slashed in the throat," Ema concluded.
Nøhr flashed her a grin. "I knew you'd get it eventually. Here, catch."
An astounded Ema lifted her hand to grab the folder.
"Thanks, I owe you one! I'll catch you around later," she said, grinning too as she pushed the metal bar to let herself out. Lab and the Prosecutor's Office.
It was two when Simon heard a knock on his door, and in came Detective Skye carrying several bulky folders, an evidence bag and a plastic glass of green liquid. Simon's eyes followed her as she set down the glass on his desk; she muttered something about it being a matcha milkshake, then straightened her back and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
"I thought you might wanna get the preliminary autopsy," she said, pausing the catch her breath.
Simon rested his chin in his hand, a smirk plastered on his face. "And I thought you were to inform me of developments via the phone, Biscuits."
"Yeah, well, you wouldn't want to receive these gruesome details on your cell phone. Also, you said you wanted tea."
"Oh?"
Skye dropped a large, baby-blue folder on his desk. Simon opened it, turning the paper-clipped pages, eyeing the cursive handwriting and red arrows around photographs of the crime scene and the body.
"Victim was Jacob Hawthorn, aged forty-two, worked here as a senior high prosecutor in the international division." Skye's finger tapped on a gruesome photo of the deceased male. "There were three entry wounds; one on his stomach which fractured the eleventh and twelfth ribs and punctured his left lung; another on his right calf which nicked his soleus muscle; and one on his throat. He died from the cut to the jugular vein. Forensics deduced that they were all from a long blade, and foul play is suspected judging by the various wounds. It's too soon to say how many people were involved."
"…And the microchip?" he inquired.
She produced a small evidence bag containing the green chip inside, Simon peered at it.
"The microchip has zero traces of DNA belonging to anyone other than the victim. I'll get Forensics to take another look at it, but the data relates to some court cases in Borginia that Hawthorn was handling."
"A murder with ties to the globe?"
Skye nodded. "That's what I was thinking but you'd better talk to your colleagues about it. See if anyone knew what he was working on."
"Thank you, Biscuits," Simon said, before adding with a smirk. "Ah, and thank you for the 'tea'."
"No problem. I'll keep you updated then."
"That would be helpful. If I find anything, I shall inform you as well."
Skye nodded, took away the evidence bag resting on his desk and walked out, wishing him a good rest of his day while she was at it.
A small smile crept up his lips. What was it she had said this morning? That he was a nice change. Well, so was she. He sighed. Then again, what did he know of his investigative partners?
He turned his attention to the matcha tea milkshake she'd bought him, and drank some. It...didn't taste bad at all, actually; a little too milky for his taste, but there was a hint of the tea there. He would have to ask her where she bought it, so he could return the favour.
Going back to the case at hand, and the advice Skye had left him with, the only clear option that presented itself would be to gain access to Hawthorn's office. Perhaps what was in there would aid in his investigation. Well, he would know that, wouldn't he, what with his own office being raided after Metis' murder.
Don't. He sighed. Yes, that was probably the best course of action for now.
He turned to his computer and began to draft an email when he heard soft pattering against the windows. Simon swivelled around in his chair; it was raining.
It rained the day she died, too.
A clap of thunder, and he turned back to his desk to complete his email.
