(Well, great job, Cykes. You gave yourself the simple task of keeping a low profile, and in the space of two days, you've managed to not only get yourself involved in a murder case, but you even found the time to attract the romantic attention of your future boss. Really great stuff you're doing here.)
Something close to ten minutes had passed since Mia's disappearance into her office. Athena, having properly taken in the rather alarming news Mia had delivered to her, was now lying in a graceless heap on one of the office's armchairs. She had a pillow pressed firmly against her face, which she had spent considerable time issuing a series of muffled self-disparaging grumblings into.
When she pulled the pillow away, it dragged a few errant strands of hair along with it, which fell gently against her scowling face. She made only a few half-hearted attempts to push them away with her breath.
She'd handled worse. Stranger, no, but definitely worse. Compared to some of the things she'd dealt with in her fledgling legal career, rejecting the advances of one boy couldn't be too hard.
Part of her hoped for the unlikely event that Phoenix would see fit to get it over with immediately once he arrived. That would afford her the luxury of not having to worry about it while they went through with their investigation, but she wasn't holding her breath. Unless he secretly valued his dating aspirations over his professionalism, it seemed unlikely he would get around to asking her out until they were at least through with the day's investigative work.
She almost laughed for a moment as she reflected on this current train of thought. Truly remarkable was the set of circumstances that could lead her to prioritizing the matters of somebody else's love life over the solving of a murder.
From beyond the closed door of Mia's office, she heard the distinctive noise of a ring tone. Mia's voice sounded a moment later, though her words were indistinct through the wall.
When her voice fell silent, Athena heard her approaching the door. It swung open.
"Phoenix just called. He's right outside; should be up in just a minute."
Athena faked a smile at this news.
Apparently getting the completely wrong idea from this, Mia said, "I feel like I should warn you. I'm hardly qualified to judge him on it, but from what I've seen, Phoenix can be a bit… odd about his girlfriends."
"… Uh huh." Athena grunted, trying her best to give the impression that she didn't want to pursue this line of conversation.
In a pleasant surprise, Mia went on, "But, I shouldn't be talking behind his back. I'll just go and meet him halfway. You don't need to hear my whole explanation of the case a second time." She made for the door, but stopped once she had it open to say, "Just wanted you to know what you might be getting into."
Watching the door swing shut, Athena forced out a false laugh that gradually faded into a bitter one before ceasing entirely as the door snapped shut, punctuated by a low grumble of "…Verdammt."
She was rejoined a few minutes later by both Mia and Phoenix, the former just reaching the tail-end of her description of the impending case.
Not wanting to interrupt, Phoenix waved to Athena as he entered. Still holding to her false smile, Athena returned the gesture.
"So," Mia said once she finished her explanation, "Now that we're all here, are you two ready to get out there?"
"Absolutely."
"Ready as I'll ever be."
Predictably, there was still some police presence around the crime scene. Mia led Athena and Phoenix past the police perimeter cordoning off the alleyway, and almost immediately a detective approached them.
"Hello there." said the detective, a bald man with a slightly gruff edge to his voice. "You must be Ms. Mia Fey."
"That's right." Mia replied. "You knew I was coming?"
"I guessed so, after I spoke with your client an hour ago. And these two?" The detective motioned to Athena and Phoenix standing behind Mia. "I'm guessing she'll be our star witness, Ms. Simons, but I've got nothing for him."
"Phoenix Wright, sir. Law student." Phoenix said, offering a hand to the detective. Athena barely concealed a grin at the stark difference between the sound of his personal introduction now and the more confident and professional tone she was used to.
The detective shook his hand and said, "Crack defence team you've got, then, Ms. Fey. Nice to see. I'm Detective West, second-in-command for this investigation."
"Nice you meet you." Mia replied. "Any chance we could take a look around the scene?"
"You'll want to take that up with Detective Gumshoe. He's hanging around the other end of the street there."
"Will do. Thanks for that." Mia said. She was just starting past Detective West when he said, "Ah, there's one more thing." He gestured towards Athena, saying, "Since you're here, Ms. Simons, I need to have a chat with you."
Athena had been expecting this somewhere in the back of her mind. She didn't suspect that the lead witness for a trial showing up as part of the defence team was a terribly frequent occurrence.
"Can I catch up with them later?" she asked as Mia and Phoenix turned back to face them.
"I'd like to think so." West said with a nod. "This shouldn't take too long."
"Right. See you then, Andrea." Mia said, motioning for Phoenix to follow as she resumed her walk down past the scattered police officers lining the alleyway.
Detective West brought Athena to the back staircase of a nearby building.
"So," he said, leaning against the nearest wall and drawing a notepad from his pocket, "I've got some notes here from Detective Gumshoe, listing everything he got from you down at the station yesterday." Athena nodded in acknowledgement, and he went on with, "Says you are… Oh, another defence attorney, huh? Guess that clears up why you're here with Ms. Fey. Now, you told him that you saw another woman at the crime scene right at the time of the murder?"
"That's right." Athena said. "I was walking down the alley and I could hear a couple of voices. One of them was Mr. Eisley, and I think the other was the other woman."
"Who you said ran from the scene right after the gunshot… Sounds good. Only problem is, we haven't been able to find any solid leads on this mystery woman, or the murder weapon. Course, that suggests that she ran off with it, but you'd have a hell of a time convincing the boys at the scene of that."
"What do you mean?" Athena asked.
"Aah, I've seen it a million times." West said bitterly. "You get thrown onto an investigation packed with lazy people who'd rather take shortcuts than see a decent job done. No, it's easier for them to just throw together some line about the weapon being hidden somewhere. It's as unprofessional as it gets, but it's the least of the problems with this system." He chuckled. "You defense guys have a habit of dredging up unknowns like that, though, don't you?"
"Comes with the territory." Athena said.
"Can't say fairer than that." West agreed.
Their conversation continued in this vein for some time. Athena reviewed every one of her statements from the previous day, clarifying whenever necessary.
"So," West said once they finally ended the page, "That covers everything Dick put down on his notes. So long as you're down at the courthouse tomorrow morning, we should be OK."
"No problem." said Athena. West was just beginning to move away from his spot against the wall to return to the alleyway proper when Athena added, "Who's the prosecutor for the trial tomorrow?"
West stuffed the notepad back into his pocket and answered, "You guys might've dodged a bullet on that one. Prosecutor Edgeworth was asked to take the case first thing after they arrested Eisley yesterday, - hence Detective Gumshoe being here - but last I heard, he's held up at the moment. 'Fraid I don't know who they'll get. Whoever it is has their work cut out for them, seeing as we've still got nothing on your mystery witness. Anything else, Ms. Simons?"
"No, that should about do it." Athena said.
Athena found Mia and Phoenix back in the alleyway, near to the doorstep where the victim was shot. Phoenix was watching intently as Mia examined the area surrounding the doorway.
"How are things on this end?" Athena asked.
"Andrea, you're back!" Phoenix said brightly. "We've been looking over the whole area right around here. Like, really combing at it."
"And," Mia said, turning around, "We've found something interesting."
"Hey, don't leave me hanging on something like that," Athena said when Mia paused, "What'd you find?"
"There were some scattered fragments of damaged metal lying all around the area. The police figured they were just your average discarded scrap, but Phoenix noticed that a lot of them had the same kind of residue on them." Mia said. "The forensics team suspects that it's gunpowder, which would be promising, but the metal itself still just looks like random junk. Unless our killer wanted to practice taking a few shots at piece of sheet metal,"
"It doesn't seem connected to the gun itself." Athena guessed, eliciting a disappointed nod from Mia.
"Still, they're looking into it a bit more, and that means we can as well. It's a slim lead, but that's better than nothing."
"What'd that detective want to talk about?" Phoenix asked, spotting an opening.
"Oh, just reviewing my account of the moment that the gunshot went off." Athena said. "Just a repeat of last night's questioning, really."
"And they're bringing you in to say it third time in the trial tomorrow?" Mia asked.
"You know it." Athena replied.
"Sorry about that." Mia said. "I'll try and keep the questioning to a minimum once you're on the stand."
"I'd appreciate that. Speaking of, I don't know how they can justify starting the trial tomorrow, considering that they haven't found the third person from the scene yet." Athena remarked.
Mia frowned. "I'd like to say there's a reason that doesn't make the whole case look like a complete sham, but…"
"But you'd be lying." Athena said.
Mia flashed a coy smile, saying, "Well, aren't you on point today, Ms. Simons." Leaning toward Phoenix, she added, "I think I'm starting to see what all your gushing yesterday was about."
It took all the strength Athena could summon to keep from outwardly displaying her mortification as Phoenix actually blushed.
"I-I don't know what you mean." he said. Even to the untrained ear, he would have sounded unconvincing, but to Athena, his words were a veritable waterfall of embarrassment and other emotional feedback that she desperately hoped she would never have to hear beneath Mr. Wright's voice again.
She was saved a few seconds later, when the detective she'd met the previous day approached them.
"Hey, we've got word from the forensics team on that gunpowder stain, pal." Detective Gumshoe said.
"How does it look, Detective?" Phoenix asked, apparently also wanting to dodge the subject they had just been nearing.
"Definitely gunpowder, like you guys thought." Detective Gumshoe replied. "Now, normally, without our murder weapon, we still wouldn't be able to connect it to the killing just like that, but…"
"There's something else, isn't there?" Mia pressed.
Detective Gumshoe rubbed a palm against the back of his head. "Yeah. Turns out that forensics called the station to run a check of the suspect's clothing, and they found traces of gunpowder all over the front.
"Uh oh." Athena said.
"Hold on a minute," Mia interjected, "I might be able to understand arresting Mr. Eisley based on that, but how can you people justify taking him in like you did yesterday? Was there really any evidence to tie him to the murder before that? And what about the second witness Andrea told you about?"
Her forceful tone looked to be making Detective Gumshoe rather uncomfortable.
"It wasn't my order…" he said quietly, dropping his gaze toward the ground. "I was just moved to the case once they tried to get Mr. Edgeworth to prosecute."
"Edgeworth?" Mia repeated. Athena twitched. She could've sworn, just for a second, that she'd heard Phoenix repeating the name under his breath as well.
"Yeah." Gumshoe replied. "The brass wanted Prosecutor Edgeworth on the case, but he says he's busy with something. Listen, I've gotta get back to the investigation. Just come over if you need something else, OK, pal?"
He hurriedly turned to walk back to the other end of the alley. Once he was well out of earshot, Mia grumbled to herself out loud.
"What's up?" Athena asked, though she had a guess already.
"I have half a mind to walk right over to the police station and tell 'the brass' exactly what I think of their methods right now." Mia said in an undertone. "At this point, it looks like they did the opposite of what the evidence at the scene yesterday suggested they should do."
Athena had to agree. There hadn't been anything she'd noticed to suggest that it was worthwhile to arrest Mr. Eisley immediately, at least not until they tracked down the other person who had been on the scene.
There was little else to do at the crime scene beyond that point. The three of them made one more check over the vicinity of the doorway where the victim was shot, but they were unable to turn up any further leads.
"I need some time to think this through." Mia said once they agreed that it was time to leave. "Andrea, could you meet me at the detention centre later? I'd like to hear how your account of the scene compares to Mr. Eisley's."
"You bet." Athena said. They were just now passing by the police line surrounding the area. "You got my message about my new phone, right?"
"I did. Phoenix, can you make it down there, too?"
"Probably. I should head home for a few things first, but…"
"I'll give you both a call once I'm ready." Mia said. "Just let me know then."
(...!)
It came out of nowhere. Without the slightest warning, what could only be called an explosion of pain cut across Athena's forehead.
"Aaa-aaugh-!" Athena clamped her hands to her head, her reflexive shout cutting short into a whimper at the intensity of the sudden onset of pain.
"Andrea-!" Phoenix shouted in alarm, uncertain of whether he could do anything to help.
Athena could hear Widget emitting a high-pitched noise of distress in place of the shout she wanted to let out. She was on the verge of losing her balance; such was the extent of the ongoing pulsating agony splitting across her head.
And then it was gone.
As quickly and abruptly as it had started, the pain ceased. Widget's shrill whine cut off, leaving Athena with her knees shaking violently and her eyes wide, staring down at the concrete beneath her feet. She became aware of Phoenix's alarmed voice ringing out beside her.
"-an ambulance, or something, I-I don't know-!"
Athena summoned the strength to look up at Phoenix and Mia, who were both in equal states of panic at her outburst.
"N-no, you don't need to-…" Her low voice was barely audible. She took in a steadying breath. Mia was just taking her phone from her pocket when Athena raised a hand toward her and said, "I'll be OK. Don't worry about it."
She was the only one who needed to worry, she imagined. The horrific pain had vanished completely, as if was never there, but she hardly explain that to them.
"It was just another headache." she said. "You remember from yesterday, Nick?"
Phoenix looked aghast. "A-Andrea, y-you just screamed out loud, and-…"
"It'd be best for us to get you to a hospital, Andrea." Mia said, her phone open and waiting.
"No." Athena said more firmly. "It's… It's normal. Just something I'm dealing with right now." She looked around. The police presence in the area had cleared the space around the alley of most of its civilian population, but most of the few passersby she could see had also stopped to look over toward her, curious about her sudden shout. "I'll go home and get something for it, just call me when you want to talk to Mr. Eisley, OK?"
With that, Athena turned on her heel and took off at a run down the mostly vacant sidewalk. She didn't look back to see how her companions reacted.
She hated to abandon the investigation and leave them there without a proper answer, but she felt there was something else taking priority at the moment.