DONA DIPRIMA: ACE APPRENTICE ATTORNEY

Case 1 – Turnabout Apprentice

Trial: Part 5

Diva blew her folding fan against her face as she contemplated her sister's question. "There's no denying that he should be arrested for evidence spoliation and obstruction of justice. I would also recommend a thorough investigation of the hospital he works at to see if any of this sux stuff has gone missing from their inventory."

"Indeed," the judge agreed. "I simply can't overlook your flagrant misdeeds during these course of events, doctor."

"I understand, Your Honor," Lude conceded. "I simply wish not to be arrested on false charges as the defense is attempting to do with me."

"The charges won't be as false as you think," Phoenix interjected.

"What do you mean!?"

"The prosecution seeks Ms. Eve's arrest as the direct killer, while we seek yours as the real mastermind possessing the guilty conscience needed to commit the act. Since she couldn't have known she had killed Forst, it means she isn't legally responsible for murder. The full responsibility for it would rest upon your shoulders alone, since you were anticipating that she would act according to your plan."

"But Ms. Eve killed him! I was nowhere near the house at the time, so my alibi is perfect! Isn't it the court's job to put the actual killers behind bars!?"

"It depends on the culprit's level of mens rea."

"What is that supposed to be?"

"Let's say for example that I gave you a bottle of ColdKiller X and said it was cold medicine, but you had no idea it really contained atroquinine. You unknowingly took a fatal dose of the poison, and the police discovered you dead the next day. Sure, they would label it as suicide at first, but once the facts are established, they would realize that the mens rea, or the guilty conscience required to commit a crime, actually falls upon me because I knew that bottle contained enough poison to kill you. Therefore, the result is that I had murdered you, not that you had committed suicide."

"So this mens rea thing is what the courts rely on more than the actual deed?" Lude looked genuinely surprised.

"Exactly. All criminal actions require forethought, not necessarily all manners of deaths. Ms. Eve has not demonstrated any level of criminal intent, nor is there any proof that she colluded with you in administering the sux to Forst. In contrast, my partner has proven your level of involvement with tampering the evidence, as well as preparing the murder weapon with the intent to smuggle it into the house and use Ms. Eve as a patsy for the crime."

"Ugh…!" the doctor was astonished at what Phoenix was telling him. But then he appeared to have an idea as he argued, "Then I will admit that I was an accomplice in Ms. Eve's crime."

"What!?" Nye barked. "That's insane-!"

"Calm down," Phoenix assured her. "This is obviously another one of his stall tactics. We'll get to the bottom of this no matter what."

Dona asked Lude, "On what grounds are you saying this?"

"We met up during her week off in September, and she told me all about Forst's abuse toward her. She wanted to have him killed so she could be free to have the agency transfer her to another home that would treat her better. She bribed me into providing her with the sux in such a manner that it could be delivered to her without anyone being suspicious."

Talk about being painfully desperate. Next thing you know, he'll be claiming that Moozilla is real.

"So, if I understand you correctly," Diva raised her fan before her, "you're saying that Ms. Eve is the real mastermind, and you're the one being used as the fall guy."

"Exactly, Miss Prosecutor. I'm surprised you hadn't come up with this argument yet," Lude replied snidely. "I agreed to be an accomplice with only one condition; that my alibi be perfect. So after my delivery at noon, I left the execution of the crime to be carried out by Ms. Eve on her own time. As you all may recall, I also wasn't present when she started the fire. I only arrived to perform the initial autopsy after the fire department had extinguished the blaze."

"Dr. Impressa, you can understand why I doubt the veracity of your story," Dona sighed. "If she really wanted to quit being Forst's caretaker, all she had to do was tell her agency about the house being too dangerous for her to live in. She didn't even need to discuss her patient's abuse toward her and the other neighbors."

"She told me that Forst was blackmailing her into staying as his nurse, so she must have felt too threatened to think as rationally as you would believe."

"Can you provide any substantial evidence to back up anything you just said?"

"Ms. Eve kept our meeting private, so I cannot provide proof of that."

The judge shook his head. "I'm sorry, doctor, but if you have no evidence to support your claim, then it cannot be accepted in this trial."

"I understand that, Your Honor. I can, however, direct your attention to the fire that she caused."

Hm… Although we've definitely established his involvement in the murder, we still can't rule out that Ms. Eve had committed arson. Detective Skye and I hadn't found any sort of trigger yesterday, so Dr. Impressa is using that as his basis for blaming the nurse, Dona pondered.

"I wonder about that!" Diva remarked. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have here the arson detective's report in conjunction with the homicide detective's findings as to the most likely cause of the fire."

"Was there a reasonable trigger they found despite the level of destruction that occurred in the bedroom?" her sister asked.

"The arson detective who took over when the homicide team left reports that no external triggers were discovered, so the origin was positively the bedroom. In particular, their attention was focused on the desk lamp and that there were signs of burnt tissues and papers surrounding the desk."

"Tissues can leave different residues than papers?"

"Of course they can. It's true that tissue paper practically 'disappears' while burning, but there still can be embers or even unburned tissue remaining. In contrast, the papers from the thick magazine on that desk remained relatively intact, especially near the binding."

"A thick magazine?" Nye wondered. "I know Forst was into pornographic magazines, but I don't think any of them were thick enough to survive such a blaze."

Oh, right. Although her actions for the afternoon hours are questionable, I can still use her morning activities as backup!

"Remember what you testified to Mrs. Impressa and I at the detention center last night. You said that while Forst was out for his morning walk, you did some cleaning in his bedroom. You were quite thorough with your work apparently, as you said you dusted and wiped down every possible surface you could see," Dona said.

"Yeah, I did that."

"Since the arson detective found trace evidence of a set-up with the desk lamp, I want to be sure that you weren't the one who created and/or set off this trigger after Forst died. When Detective Skye and I investigated the bedroom together, one of her forensic specialists had found this on the night stand." The student showed her client a photo of the evidence bag containing the thick Chinese-language magazine that had nearly been burnt to ash. "Was this present when you did your cleaning?"

"What is that?" the nurse wondered, examining the evidence closely for a minute. "No, I don't remember this being there at all. But I remember seeing this before somewhere else."

"You do!? Where!?" Diva demanded.

"At Dr. Impressa's house."

"Wha-!?"

"If I recall correctly, he has a collection of annual medical magazines that he imports from China. He is bilingual after all, knowing how to read English and Chinese."

Dona asked, "Did Forst know Chinese?"

"I don't think so. He had some dyslexia on top of his other mental conditions, so even English gave him a lot of trouble."

"So there was no reason for a Chinese magazine to be there in the first place."

"Hah!" Lude barked angrily. "Forst had a habit of stealing things, remember!? It shouldn't be so strange that one of my volumes would be found there after he had come to my house!"

"But Ms. Eve just said the magazine wasn't in your brother's bedroom when she cleaned in there, nor did the police find evidence of any other Chinese magazines in his possession."

"Then it was Ms. Eve who stole it from me! I had been looking for my missing Volume No. 46 everywhere! To think she would use it as kindling for her arson!"

"OH HOH HOH HOH!" Diva laughed. "I thought you were exercising your right to remain silent! Are you revoking that now!?"

"Urgh… I, uh…"

"Either be a pierrot or a mime! You can't jump between one or the other as you like!"

"Grrr…" Lude snarled at the young prosecutor.

"Hate me as you will, but I will not tolerate bringing a witness to the stand if he insists upon weaving tall tales to protect himself! If you keep flapping your lips so grandiosely without anything to back you up, my little sister will tear you apart with sound logic that will thoroughly debunk your petty fallacies! You will only speak when directed to, do you understand!?"

After enduring Diva's verbal lashings, Lude finally decided to keep his mouth shut, although the violent glare in his eyes and vividly shuddering body demonstrated his livid fury.

"Now that our witness will keep his tongue under control, we can debate about Ms. Eve's fate with hard facts without interruption," the prosecuting student smiled with haughty relief. "I will admit that the method for how this magazine wound up in Forst's house remains an unknown at this time. However, there is no denying that it was definitely there during the fire."

"Since it wasn't present in the room while Ms. Eve did her cleaning in the morning, it had to have appeared sometime right before the fire broke out," Dona said. "Unfortunately, there's no way for us to establish beyond a reasonable doubt as to when or how it was placed there, as the prosecution just said."

"I'm afraid so. So now we must approach this from a different perspective that can provide us with evidence."

"But Prosecutor DiPrima," the judge said worriedly, "from what I can see with these crime scene photos, the damage to that part of the bedroom was incredibly extensive. How are either of you going to prove who started the fire?"

"Then let's take a much harder look at the photos, Your Honor. Mr. Wright, I assume you're familiar with the notion of 'turning things around', right?"

"Of course," Phoenix nodded. "What we need to do is not focus on what was destroyed, but rather what remained intact."

"Good!" Diva smirked. "In that case, let's examine the photos with that mindset instead!"

Dona adjusted her glasses and stared hard at the pictures laid out on the table before her. She could tell that Diva was trying to direct her attention to something critical without actually saying it on account of being her debating opponent. She then realized what her sister was guiding her toward and pointed out one thing that survived the fire.

"I see it now. The object that managed to remain relatively intact… was the desk lamp!" she finally declared.

Diva fanned her face and huffed, "My goodness, I'm starting to feel the heat this fire has left behind for us. And how exactly will the lamp help us prove once and for all who the arsonist was?"

Dona rested a finger upon her chin in contemplation as she read through her notebook. "According to my notes regarding Mrs. Impressa and I's interview with Ms. Eve at the detention center, she told us that she did a huge cleaning of Forst's bedroom during the morning hours while he was out for a walk. Mrs. Impressa also had a habit of recording her meetings with her clients, so that was likewise delivered to me this morning. Allow me to play back the relevant part."

She took out a digital recording device and fiddled with the time bar until she hit upon the part she wanted. She set it upon the table and turned the volume up as loud as possible so everyone could hear:

"NYE EVE: Forst had gone out for his usual walk during the morning, so I had taken that chance to go through his room and give it a good wipe down before he would come back for his lunch and nap.

"CYBIL IMPRESSA: How well did you clean his room? A little dusting, or a complete cleaning?

"NE: I take pride in my cleaning skills thanks to my previous job as a maid. It's what carried me through my university years until I became a nurse and was hired by the agency. Even now, I still have the habit of leaving no spot unwiped.

"CI: Yes, habits are powerful forces to be reckoned with. I still peel potatoes the same way as when I worked as a prep cook at Dona's age.

"NE: You betcha! And with Forst being the slob that he was, it was an absolute nightmare to keep up with him. I straightened his bed, swept the floor, organized his laundry, and wiped every possible surface I could see – night table, lamp, dresser, chair, bed legs and all – until he came back.

"CI: Oh, speaking of lamps, the detective at the scene was wondering if anything was wrong with that desk lamp since it could have been used as a trigger for starting the fire. Did you see anything out of the ordinary during your cleaning spree?

"NE: No, not that I know of. It certainly was a lot better than the house itself.

"CI: Was it ever turned on at any point?

"NE: No, it hardly ever gets used. That's why I have to go in and clean the dust off the bulb and ceramic.

"CI: But it functions properly, yes?

"NE: It does, even though it's probably older than me and your student put together."

"Oh!" Nye shouted as if she had a eureka moment. "That's right! I wiped the lamp down because a lot of dust had gathered on the bulb and underside! Forst never used it, so it just sat on the desk as a decoration!"

"And if she had done such a complete cleaning job, that would mean that any fingerprints that had previously been on the ceramic portion, no matter how young or old they may have been, would have been eliminated that very morning!" Dona declared.

"If the lamp really had been the trigger that set the fire, then the arsonist would have gotten their prints on it while setting up the trick!" Diva added.

"Well, well!" the judge was surprised by the twins' advanced level of reasoning. "But I need to ask for clarification's sake about whether or not fingerprints can survive from such an intense blaze."

"Your Honor, you have too little faith in our constabulary," the prosecutor smiled broadly. "Arson detectives have many tools at their disposal for finding DNA evidence, no matter how faint it may be."

"In addition," Phoenix grinned, "we have someone here who is very well-versed in finding fingerprints, as demonstrated with the insulin pens earlier."

Ema lowered her pink sunglasses and chuckled, "Hee hee! If even the smallest trace remains, science will find it! You just leave the analysis to me!"

The detective got to work examining the actual lamp from Diva's collection of evidence. The process took a few minutes, but everyone in the courtroom dared not even cough or breathe too hard.

"Okay, I've lifted only one set of good prints from both hands!" she announced. "Who should I compare them with first?"

This is it… Dona thought. This will solidify once and for all if Ms. Eve really was an accomplice to the crime.

"Just to cover our bases, please check Forst's prints on file so we can conclusively say that he never used it that day."

"Sure thing!" Ema ran the first comparison, then said, "No, they don't belong to him."

"So that backs up Ms. Eve's claim. Next, let's compare them with hers."

The detective performed the second check. For once, Dona's heart raced with anticipation, and her vision went blurry for a split second. She groaned quietly and leaned on the table.

"Are you okay?" Phoenix asked.

"I'm just a little tired…"

Nye also noticed her attorney's fatigue and said, "If you're not feeling well, you can sit down and let Mr. Wright take over."

"N-No… I want to see this to the end…"

"I'm done!" Ema announced. "According to the comparison, Ms. Eve's fingerprints don't match the ones lifted from the lamp."

"Well then!" Diva exclaimed. "Let's examine Dr. Impressa's prints this time!"

"Are you sure? He wasn't near the house when-"

"Just do it already! If they match, then we've obviously caught the good doctor in the biggest lie yet!"

"R-Right! Give me a minute!"

Nye's heart fluttered with joy from the good news as she chirped, "That means I'm not guilty, right!?"

"At least we've proven that Dr. Impressa's story about you being an accomplice who started the fire is entirely false," Phoenix assured her. "With the lack of a suitable mens rea to prove you had the intent to kill Forst, plus all of the evidence stacked against him with the murder weapon and forged autopsy report, the judge will have to acquit you of all your charges."

"Even though I killed my own patient?"

"There was no way for you to know you injected sux into him. Whatever your personal guilt may be, you can't be held criminally responsible."

Nye sniffled a little, but felt somewhat better from the experienced attorney's words. Meanwhile, Ema finished analyzing and paused for an uncomfortably long time.

"Well, Detective Skye? What did you find?" the judge asked.

"I'm running the check again, sir…"

"Don't keep us in suspense like this! One check should be sufficient enough for you, right!?"

"Yes, Your Honor. But with these results the way they are, I'm just a little confused… Okay, the second check is done, and there's no mistaking it."

"Do those prints belong to Dr. Impressa?" Dona asked.

"… Yes, they do."

Wha-!? That can't-! Wait… Actually, it could work!

The baffled student nodded and explained, "Let's review what we know about Dr. Impressa's actions that day. We know he went to the house at noon and left five minutes later. From there, we assumed that the next time he visited was when he was suddenly requested by the chief medical examiner to perform the on-site autopsy. Thus he arrived at around 2:00 to perform that job, then went to the hospital, then returned at 3:45 to deliver the false report. But now we have his fingerprints on the lamp, which had been involved in the blaze that was discovered at 1:45.

"The only thing it tells me," she said while fixing her glasses, "is that he didn't visit the house three times in total, but rather four times. This was the period between 12:00 and 2:00, when he was supposed to have been out doing other deliveries. Shortly before the fire was reported at 1:45, he secretly returned to the house and verified that Forst was dead before setting up whatever trick he had with the lamp to eliminate both evidence from the body and that he had been there without Ms. Eve's knowledge.

"Unfortunately for you, Dr. Impressa," Dona declared, "you didn't know that the nurse had thoroughly cleaned in there earlier this morning, so she had inadvertently erased any past fingerprints from the lamp. Plus you weren't aware that fingerprints on ceramic can survive such a potent blaze. Any prints that had gotten on there had to have come from after she finished cleaning, and she testified that no one ever used the lamp. So how could your prints have gotten on there other than you being the one and only arsonist who wanted to cover up his crime and pin the blame on Ms. Eve?"

Lude's teeth clattered as he widened his eyes in horror, unable to argue any further.

"Dr. Lude Impressa. I have no choice…"

The student, confident in her argument, raised her left arm and gracefully pointed at him.

"But to indict you for the first degree murder of your brother, Forst Impressa!"

He stood there in total silence. Then he unveiled one of his Chinese magazines from his coat pocket and opened it up as if he was going to read it. Suddenly, he grabbed the pages and tore them apart in a manic display of howling anger, scattering loose papers all over the courtroom!

If the gallery hadn't been in an uproar before, it was now! Dona's eyes felt like they were spinning in their sockets. Not even the judge could calm the crowd, so he ordered a five minute recess for everyone to recollect their thoughts and calm down.