A/N: Sorry for such the long delay - I had a small case of writer's block :/ Hope you enjoy the next chapter and thank you to those who constantly review!

Chapter 10:

Greta Haze was waiting impatiently in Room 4 when Edgeworth arrived. She scowled as he entered and sat down.

"How long do I have to stay here for?" she asked agitatedly. Her arms crossed defiantly and a vein in her forehead bulged.

Miles simply smiled and opened the file Gumshoe had given him earlier.

"Hopefully not much longer, Ms. Wesson," he finally replied.

Greta's expression went from annoyance to a mixture of shock and horror at his words.

"Wesson? You mean Haze…" she said unsteadily. Not much of a liar she was.

He slid the file over to her in explanation. In the mug shot her hair had been blonde and cropped very short, but there was no mistaking the garish tattoo that snaked its way around her neck.

Her eyes flitted over the page, taking in everything they had on her. She pushed the file back over to Miles when she was done, arms crossing again for comfort rather than in defiance.

Greta Haze was actually Stasia Wesson, convicted drug smuggler. She'd been caught in 2006 in the midst of a black market drug ring and had been a suspect in a Borginian Cocoon smuggling operation in 2008. There was a warrant out for her arrest for her involvement in a crystal meth lab in 2010, which hadn't been carried out. Wesson had been off the radar ever since.

"Now, Ms. Wesson, I'd like to continue where we left off a couple hours ago."

Stasia eyed him warily, but said nothing.

Miles sighed. "If you cooperate with me now, we may be able to negotiate some sort of deal for your outstanding arrest warrant," he offered. Her silence didn't break.

"How about you tell me the nature of your relationship with Dr. Newman?" he asked.

"How about you take your questions and shove 'em where the sun don't shine," she spat none too politely.

"Were you his partner in the Atroquinine/Cyanide operation?" he queried, ignoring her outburst.

She looked down her nose at him and sneered.

I was wrong to think her a cooperative witness before. If interviewing her wasn't going to yield any answers, perhaps threatening her would.

"We have forensics searching your room as we speak," he began in a warning tone. "If you choose to answer my questions before we find anything incriminating, the DA may consider going easy on you."

Stasia Wesson smiled nastily. "No thanks," she answered.

Miles had now had enough of all this fruitless interrogation; first with Newman and now with Wesson – it was getting on his nerves. No more Mr. Nice Cop (Lawyer) routine.

He flipped Wesson's file shut and pushed it to the side angrily, leaning forward on his forearms. Stasia's only reaction was to raise her eyebrows.

"Do you have any idea what the penalty would be if you were charged for the crystal meth lab from 2010?" he demanded with a lowered voice. The angry whisper always seemed to unnerve suspects.

There was a hint of trepidation in her eyes, but Stasia shrugged nonchalantly anyway.

"25 years," he stated, answering his own question.

"25 years?"

"Imprisonment, yes." Now that got her attention. Wesson scratched the edge of the table, weighing up her options.

"If I talk… do I get immunity?" she inquired cautiously.

"Depends on what you have to say," Miles replied, feeling victorious. Finally, something was going his way.

Stasia took a steadying breath. "Alright…" she began softly. She fidgeted nervously as she thought over what she was going to say.

And then there was a frantic knock on the door.

"Not now!" Miles called menacingly. The knocking continued. "I said: not –"

"Chief Katic needs to see you urgently, sir!" the muffled voice explained quickly.

Damnit! Why does this always happen to me? If Katic needed to see him so desperately to interrupt his interrogation it must have been for something important.

He rose reluctantly from his seat. "We're not done here," he told Stasia warningly. She nodded jerkily in reply, her puffy red hair bouncing up and down. With that, Miles stormed out of the room. If there was smoke coming out of his ears, he wouldn't be surprised.

He stalked down the hallway towards the Chief of Police's office. He didn't bother to knock before entering.

In the office, the Chief was sitting at his desk, rubbing his temples wearily; Katic was pacing in front of the bookshelf and the Attorney General and Daniel van Hale were seated opposite the Chief.

Wonderful. He scolded himself for failing to realise that Katic wouldn't call him for anything else. She had warned him that van Hale had been coming, though he'd hoped their meeting wouldn't have been so soon. van Hale hadn't brought any of his 'people' with him (or so it seemed) and for that, Miles was grateful.

"Prosecutor Edgeworth," Katic announced as she stopped her pacing. Her face was blank but her inability to stand still showed how anxious she was to get this over and done with. The Chief looked up from his desk and both the Attorney General and van Hale turned and stood.

"Edgeworth," the Attorney General greeted, extending her hand. She was a very short woman, only just over 5 feet, but she exuded a very intimidating aura. The AG was wearing a mauve pantsuit, blonde hair tied in a severe bun. Her expression had been friendly enough, but her brown eyes were cold and hard.

He took her hand briefly. "Mrs. Green, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he inquired politely. Green's eyes flicked over to van Hale.

"We have a very important matter to discuss," she answered vaguely. She walked over to stand beside the Chief of Police, but Miles did not move to sit in her seat. van Hale sat down silently at his left and Katic moved closer to the desk at his right. The acting Chief Prosecutor did not look happy to be here. You and me both, Katic.

The Chief of Police cleared his throat. "I've called this meeting because Mr. van Hale has expressed his concern about the arrest of Dr. Michael Newman," he explained hesitantly. It looked like the Chief of Police didn't want to be here either. van Hale shifted in his seat, but Miles ignored him. Neither acknowledged the other's presence.

"I assure Mr. van Hale that every procedure has been followed to the letter during Newman's arrest," Edgeworth stated, his eyes never leaving Attorney General Green's.

"It's obvious he has been set up," van Hale spoke for the first time.

"Mr. van Hale, there is sufficient evidence to suggest – "

"That 'evidence' is all very circumstantial, Mr. Edgeworth," Green interrupted. The Chief of Police kept his eyes firmly fixed on his desk. He pressed his lips tightly together to avoid speaking, after all Green's comments weren't just damaging to Edgeworth, but too his own people as well. Katic sighed in frustration.

"With all do respect, Mrs. Green, the evidence easily supports Newman's arrest and is, as Edgeworth was about to say, sufficient for prosecution," Kate Katic explained, tone devoid of emotion.

AG Green glared lividly at Katic. It looked like she was extremely offended that someone would dare disagree with her. The Police Chief sunk further into his chair and looked back between the two women meekly. Miles silently thanked his boss for supporting him. Said boss stood her ground and glared right back at the AG.

"Acting Chief Katic…" Green began venomously. "You are not in a position to question me. Do you understand?"

Katic didn't answer for a moment and it seemed like the situation was about to escalate. Then her shoulders slumped slightly in resignation.

"Of course, my mistake," she finally answered, though Miles could tell she did not agree. However, Katic had to tred carefully – she was only acting Chief, her position was precarious enough without aby conflict with the Attorney General herself.

"Now that we've cleared that up…" Green turned to Edgeworth again. "I'd like you to release Dr. Newman and drop all charges."

She can't be serious! "But, Mrs. Green – "

"I know that sounded like a request, but it really wasn't," she interrupted icily.

Miles thought carefully about what he was going to say; one wrong move could cost him not only that case, but his job as well. Green wasn't known for her clemency.

"New evidence from this morning suggests that Newman was consorting with a known drug dealer," he began slowly.

"Again circumstantial," Green stated dismissively. How could she know that? She hasn't had the time to read Greta's file. Something was definitely up.

He struggled to form an adequate protest, but the Attorney General cut him off.

"Thank you for alerting us to this grave miscarriage of justice, Mr. van Hale," she said apologetically.

"That's quite alright," van Hale replied, smirking ever so slightly. Daniel's eyes flickered over to Miles and he didn't miss the satisfied gleam.

After terse parting words were exchanged, Edgeworth stormed out of the office, Chief Katic not far behind. She fell into step next to him, body language indicating that she was absolutely livid.

"Something's not right here," she said, shaking her head. Miles was thinking the exact same thing. "We've held people on far less than what we've got on Newman and that's never been a problem before." Her voice rose in anger.

"van Hale does have a lot of connections," Miles offered, though he could not dispute the truth of her statement.

Katic stopped abruptly, narrowing her eyes. "You find evidence to hold this son of a bitch a while longer, you got that Edgeworth?" She jabbed a finger in his direction.

"You don't want me to release him?" He found himself respecting this woman even more.

Katic laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. "The way I see it, if van Hale and Green want Newman out so badly, then they must be hiding something. And I'm not going to let them get away with it, are you?" she challenged.

"Of course not, Chief," he answered with a smirk. Challenge accepted.

Miles stood impatiently for twenty minutes at Gumshoe's desk, waiting for the detective to return from his assigned task. Of course, Gumshoe had left his phone on top of his mountains of paperwork, so he couldn't even be contacted for an update. Just as Miles was considering leaving, the bumbling detective burst through the precinct's doors excitedly.

As Gumshoe approached, Edgeworth held up the detective's phone accusingly. Gumshoe's excited expression fell a little and he let out a nervous laugh.

"Uh, sorry Mr. Edgeworth, sir. I'm always leaving my phone behind somewhere," the detective apologised.

Miles didn't comment and tossed the phone to Gumshoe, who fumbled with it, but didn't drop it.

"How did it go?" Miles asked, impatient for information.

Gumshoe beamed at him. "We got 'im, sir!" he exclaimed. He passed Miles a slip of paper. It was a signed affidavit from the post office confirming that Dr. Newman was 'Mr. Incog'. Edgeworth had asked Gumshoe to show Newman's picture to the post office employees in the hope that one of them would recognise him as the man who used the PO Box for Mina's blackmail money. He hadn't thought the doctor to be so sloppy.

"Excellent work, Detective. Anything else?"

"Well, Forensics is still searching Newman's room as we speak, but they've already found large amounts of chemicals used to make Atroquinine and Cyanide."

"Can you be a little more specific?" Miles inquired.

"I think they said… mercury and morphine?" Gumshoe seemed uncertain at first, but then he nodded his head vigorously. "Yeah, yeah. Mercury and morphine. Way too much to be just for research."

"Thank you, Gumshoe. Just one more thing: call Forensics and have them search Greta Haze's room as well."

"Of course, Mr. Edgeworth, sir!" Gumshoe replied enthusiastically. He sat behind his desk quickly and began punching in a phone number on his mobile.

"What are you going to do now, sir?" Gumshoe asked before he pressed 'call'.

"I'm going to find out what Greta knows about Newman," he responded.

"Uh… I don't know if that's a good idea, sir," Gumshoe said reluctantly. "She's lawyered up."

Miles closed his eyes, exercising all his self-control not to lose it then and there. When he finally calmed down, he opened his eyes and looked down on a meek Gumshoe.

"How did you know about that before I did? You only just got here," he asked, perplexed.

"Oh, I heard someone mention it on my way in," the Detective explained.

Of course he did. "I see… well, carry on Detective," he said curtly. Not waiting for a response, he turned towards the interrogation rooms. Greta wasn't going to say anything now that she had a lawyer. Miles could enact her arrest warrant, but that wouldn't help his case one bit. Now that he had proof Newman was Mina's blackmailer, there was only one thing he could do.

Elroy looked just as unimpressed as he had this morning. Miles smiled pleasantly enough, though the men in front of him did not return the gesture. Elroy glared and Newman fidgeted with his cufflinks.

Miles clicked on the recording device and opened up his file.

"I've spoken with Ms. Haze again. What she said has led me back to you, Dr. Newman."

The doctor looked up nervously at the sound of his name, ceasing his fidgeting. In fact he had ceased to move anything at all, staring at Edgeworth in disbelief.

He knows. He knows who she really is and how bad this will look for him.

"Spit it out, Prosecutor, I don't have all day," Lars Elroy said impatiently. Beside him, Newman still sat frozen.

"Greta Haze, the woman you've been having an affair with, is actually Stasia Wesson, convicted of drug smuggling in '06 and suspected many times since." Miles slid the file over and Elroy grabbed it, eyes scanning the page hungrily. When he was done, he dropped the file back on the table.

"What does this have to do with the charges against my client?" Elroy asked, bored.

"Newman was consorting with a known drug smuggler and then over 100kg of illicit substances are found in his safe. I don't think that's a coincidence."

"One moment," Elroy said. He leant over to his client, whispering something in his ear. Newman whispered in response, eyes continually darting back to Edgeworth.

"My client claims he had no knowledge of Ms. Haze's criminal past," Elroy deadpanned.

Without Wesson's statement, I have no proof that Newman knew she was a criminal. For all I know, he was as much in the dark as I had been until this morning. I just hope for the case's sake that he wasn't.

Pushing that line of questioning would just lead to further animosity between Elroy and himself. Moving on then.

"After I spoke with Ms. Wesson, I had my detective go to the post office."

Newman's eyes widened in realisation, but Elroy just rolled his.

"And what does that have to do with anything, Mr. Edgeworth?" Elroy questioned exasperatedly.

"Dr. Newman, we spoke about Mina's blackmail earlier today, but I didn't have any proof to pin you as the culprit. But that was then. Now…" He flipped through the file and pulled out the affidavit. "… I do," he finished, passing the paper to Elroy.

"What is this?" Lars Elroy demanded.

"Witness affidavit. Mina's blackmailer used a PO Box to receive their money. We traced that PO Box to a Mr. Incog. Of course, that was just a pseudonym and the man paid in cash. Detective Gumshoe showed your client's picture to the employees at the post office and three of them confirmed that Dr. Newman had opened that box."

Elroy's eyes grew wide – this was the first time he hadn't been able to cut down Edgeworth's argument. To his right, Newman was sweating bullets.

Miles stood and gathered up his file. "Though we are dropping all drug charges" for now "you are formally charged with the blackmail of Ms. Willamijna van Hale."

Elroy said nothing, though there wasn't much to say anyway.

"An arresting officer will be with you shortly to guide you through the necessary paperwork and escort you to your cell."

Newman made to protest, but Elroy silenced him with his arm.

"We shall speak soon enough," Newman's lawyer promised.

"I'm sure we will, Mr. Elroy." Miles took the recording device and let the door swish closed behind him.

The search of Newman's room hadn't yielded anything incriminating, but Wesson's room was another matter. The forensics had ripped open her mattress after observing some unusual lumps while looking under it. Instead of the mattress being filled with foam or latex, it was full of money wrapped in plastic. All up, there was about two million dollars – not nearly all the drug money if Mina's journal was correct, but a significant portion nonetheless.

Many of the bills had been tagged as stolen from a number of bank robberies across the country. Criminal Affairs' Gangs Unit had quickly concluded that Wesson would only have obtained the money from the black market.

After that, things had gone as planned. Stasia Wesson, realising that she was going away for a very long time, decided that she wouldn't be going alone. She'd confessed to dealing Atroquinine and Cyanide on the black market, implicating Newman as a key member of the operation. Wesson and Newman had worked together for months to manufacture the drugs, without raising any suspicion, and Wesson had used her connections to sell to the mafia and street dealers alike.

Stasia had directed police forensics to her records book, which detailed all the transactions over the past six months. Lisa Benson compared and confirmed that Willamijna had indeed been recording Newman and Wesson's activities in her journal.

There were a lot of things that didn't add up yet: there was far too little money in Stasia's mattress (though she claimed that was all of it), Wesson had been totally oblivious to Mina's observation and Newman hadn't told her about blackmailing Mina. There were far too many pieces of this puzzle missing for Edgeworth to get a coherent picture of what happened.

After their initial confessions, Newman and Wesson had been unwilling to cooperate any further, refusing to explain how they met, their motives for the operation and who their buyers were.

Miles didn't have much time to think about how this would affect his murder investigation (neither had admitted to killing Mina) – when he arrived back at his office, Hannah had received a flurry of calls. Chief Katic, Attorney General Green, Brigitte van Hale, Lars Elroy and even Phoenix Wright had requested his company.

Edgeworth collapsed into his desk chair. He hadn't eaten or drunk since breakfast this morning, nor had he the chance to sit and rest for a moment. Outside, Hannah's phone rang again. Miles sighed. He couldn't put off any of those calls for much longer.

Needing some sort of sustenance, he began to make some tea. As he waited for the water to boil, he pondered just whom he should see first.

To be continued...