While Apollo and Phoenix are investigating more, Kristoph is going to interact with the other inmates and we see how they're dealing with everything. Also shenanigans. Enjoy.
Chapter 19 – Going All the Way
Apollo felt groggy when he woke up, having not slept very well. He kept going over the case in his head and all the info they had learned from the inmates yesterday. It was clear to him that the person who had entered the cell was the real murderer, but aside from testimony there was no way to prove this person existed. Also, the three inmates who had given their statements were friendly with Kristoph, so the judge and the prosecutor might not trust their statements. Hopefully when they went back to the prison they would find some evidence of a third person.
When he got to the office, Phoenix was in the main room talking to Trucy in a hushed voice. As soon as Apollo entered, Trucy turned to him and pursed her lips.
"Um, Polly," she said quietly, "I'm sorry for the way I acted yesterday. I should've stayed and supported you instead of storming out like that."
Apollo gave her a small smile. "It's ok, Truce. You don't have to apologize to me," he assured her, "I know why you don't like Mr. Gavin. It's perfectly understandable. However, I'm not the one you need to apologize to."
Trucy sighed. "Yeah, I know," she muttered, "Um, is Prosecutor Gavin coming by today? I want to tell him I'm sorry."
"I don't know," Apollo replied, "I think Mr. Edgeworth is coming to pick us up. He might stop by later though. I could tell him you want to talk to him."
Trucy gave him a small smile. "Thanks, Apollo," she said.
"Hey Mr. Wright," Athena suddenly interrupted, "Before you guys got to the prison, Apollo and I wanted to go to the courthouse and see if we couldn't get a glimpse of that new prosecutor."
"Is that all right?" Apollo asked.
"Yeah, go ahead," Phoenix replied, "We already have some testimony to go off of. Just be sure to meet Klavier and me at the prison afterwards, ok?"
"Sure thing, boss!" Athena affirmed, saluting.
Fifteen minutes later saw Apollo and Athena at the courthouse. It was only a few minutes after ten, so they missed the beginning of the trial, but they could probably catch up all right. But, as soon as they got inside they noticed a crowd of people filing out of one of the courtrooms.
"What's going on?" Apollo wondered, "Are they on recess already?"
"I'm not sure," Athena mused.
"Oh! Are you here for the trial prosecuted by Darkart?" a woman asked them as she passed by, "Well, unfortunately for you the trial is already over. Prosecutor Darkart managed to close it in just five minutes flat!"
The two lawyers stared in absolute shock. He managed to bring the trial to a close in only five minutes!? That was impossible!
"Um, pardon me, miss," Apollo said respectfully, "But do you know if he's still here or not?"
"Oh, sorry. He left as soon as the verdict was decided," she replied, "He sure was wonderful, though. Shame you didn't see it!"
With that, the woman shuffled off, leaving Apollo and Athena alone. Athena huffed.
"Well shoot!" she cursed, "I really wanted to see that guy in action! See how he acted in court."
"Yeah, me too," Apollo agreed. Then he sighed. "Well, I guess I'll see him soon enough. I'd better get to the prison and meet Mr. Wright and Klavier."
"All right then. I'll see you later, Apollo," Athena said.
The two separated and Apollo took a cab to the prison. When he got there, Klavier was just pulling up in his fancy car. Apollo paid the cab driver and quickly rushed over to the prosecutor.
"Hey, you're just getting here?" Apollo asked. Klavier removed the sunglasses he had been wearing and slipped them onto his collar.
"Greetings to you too, schatzi," he said, "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I've been really worried about my brother, so I just woke up a little while ago." He ran a hand through his bangs. "Luckily, Herr Edgeworth gave me the next few days off."
"To tell you the truth, I didn't sleep well last night either," Apollo confessed, "This case is probably going to be the toughest of my career. This is going to be a jury trial and even though they're supposed to be impartial, they're doubtlessly going to have opinions about your brother."
Klavier sighed. "Yeah," he agreed, "I'm not going to pretend that my brother hasn't done some horrible things and to the public eye he's probably a monster. But perhaps the fact that this is a jury run trial and not a judge run trial can be used to your advantage."
"What do you mean?" Apollo asked, cocking his head.
"Think about it. With the judge you always have to have decisive evidence to get an acquittal for a client, ja?" Klavier explained, "But with the jury, all you have to do is get the jury to doubt enough that my brother is the killer. It doesn't have to be decisive, you just have to have enough evidence and another suspect. Show how someone else could have done it."
For the first time since he took the case, Apollo felt his heartbeat start to calm. He let out a calm breath. "You're right," he said, "I just need to find some evidence and convince the jury that Mr. Gavin is innocent!"
Klavier smiled. "That's the spirit, schatzi!" he praised, "Now let's get in there and save my brother!"
The two went up into the prison together.
…
Like Apollo, Kristoph also had not slept very well. Then again, he hadn't slept well since the murder. It was clear to the others at breakfast that he wasn't doing so well.
"Cheer up, Gavin," Misty urged as Kristoph tried to swallow some food, "You have three eyewitnesses who swear they saw someone else go into your cell at the time of the murder."
Kristoph sighed. "Yes, but there is a mountain of evidence against me that says I killed him," he pointed out, "And testimony from known criminals probably isn't going to be worth much in the eyes of the jury."
"Hey! I am very trustworthy!" Luke insisted. Everyone gave him a skeptical look.
"Really?" Godot asked, "Didn't you lie about being Mask DeMasque so you could try to get a double jeopardy in your murder trial?"
Atmey shrunk down in his seat slightly. "All right, point taken," he muttered.
"You're still cute, though," Godot said.
"What?"
"Anyway," the masked man continued, "Even if there's only testimony right now, I'm sure Trite and that adorable little assistant of his will find more than enough evidence to find you innocent. And even if they don't, Trite can turn evidence against the prosecution. It's one of his annoying superpowers." He sighed. "I would know."
Kristoph was silent as he thought about this. Yes, Wright was particularly good at turning hopeless situations around and putting them on their heads. It's why he had initially hated Wright to begin with and was frustrated when Gramarye replaced him with Phoenix.
Then he entered into a relationship with Phoenix as part of his revenge and things got… complicated. But he preferred not to think about that.
"But that begs the question, though," White said, dragging Kristoph from his thoughts, "If Gavin didn't kill Engarde, who did?"
"Who cares?" Daryan scoffed, "I'm just glad the annoying bastard is dead."
Kristoph would agree, but he didn't want to actually acknowledge it, so he said nothing. Instead, he silently continued eating, hoping his brother and Apollo would get here soon.
"Do you really think it could've been a guard who murdered Engarde?" Frank wondered, "I mean, none of them seem to have a motivation for killing the guy. Maybe it was someone who Engarde wronged in the past who snuck in disguised as a guard."
"That's surprisingly not a bad theory," von Karma said, "It would be complicated and hard to pull off, put the guards here are rather inept, so I think it could work."
"Wait, why is that surprising?" Frank snarled.
"Are you guys all going to be there for the trial?" Kristoph suddenly asked. Though he didn't like to think of these people as his friends, he had to admit that their presence was calming.
"We sure are, Gavvy!" Gant replied enthusiastically, "We asked the warden if we could watch the trial and support you. And after yelling at us for ten minutes straight he said sure!"
Kristoph let out a breath of relief. For some reason it comforted him to know that he would have some support from the gallery. That not everyone would hate him right off the bat.
…
Apollo and Klavier met Phoenix in the lobby of the prison before heading to the cells. Phoenix complained about how he had been denied entry until Darkart was finished with his investigation. So he hadn't gotten anything done yet.
"Hopefully, this won't set us back too far," Phoenix sighed as they entered the cells.
Kristoph and the other inmates had just gotten back from breakfast and watched as the lawyers entered the block. Apollo tried not to show any nervousness with the prisoners' eyes on him. A guard let them into the crime scene, standing by to make sure they didn't cause any trouble.
Apollo got down on the floor and started looking around for anything valuable. It was kind of hard to see in this light and he didn't have any gloves on him so he didn't want to start feeling around, lest he disturb any evidence. Phoenix was inspecting the bed, carefully looking over the bedsheets that had been used to strangle Engarde.
"I wonder why Engarde didn't struggle when he was being strangled?" Phoenix suddenly pointed out. Apollo and Klavier looked at him.
"That's a good question," Apollo said, "Do we have an autopsy report?"
"Not yet," Klavier replied, "I asked for it when I went to the prosecutor's office but apparently it wasn't ready yet. Are you thinking that there's something more behind Engarde's death?"
"Maybe," Phoenix said, "I mean even if you're asleep I think you would notice being strangled. But no one mentioned hearing a sound come from Engarde or anyone from that cell."
"Huh, that is really strange," Klavier muttered.
"Maybe we should ask around about it," Apollo suggested.
"I'm on it!" Phoenix declared, shoving a finger in the air. He strode out of the cell to talk to the inmates while Apollo and Klavier stayed behind.
"Don't forget to talk to Beefy and Sahwsy!" Gant called to Phoenix as he headed to von Karma and Atmey's cell, "They might have heard something! Oh, and Chrissy and Misty as well!"
Phoenix stopped in his tracks and turned to Gant. "WHO!?" he shouted.
Godot probably rolled his eyes but no one could see it. He did sigh heavily as well, though. "He's talking about Richard Wellington, Frank Sahwit, Daryan Crescend, and Crescend's cellmate," he explained.
Both Apollo and Klavier tensed at the sound of Daryan's name, but Phoenix smiled. "Oh yeah! Those douchebags!" he chuckled, "We didn't interview them because apparently they have cells that couldn't have seen anything. Where are those two assholes?"
"We're up here and can hear every word you're saying!" someone called from the second floor. Phoenix spun around and looked up, seeing Richard and Frank glaring down at him. He grinned up at them.
"Hey guys!" he greeted happily, "What's up?"
Wellington glared down at him, Sahwit at his side. "I didn't hear anything that night," Richard informed him, "The guards insist on us being quiet at night, so really the only the thing I heard was the sound of footsteps from the patrols."
"Definitely not anything that sounded like someone being strangled," Frank added, "Not that I know what that sounds like."
"Want me to show you?" Richard asked.
"Thanks guys!" Phoenix called before Richard could start attacking Frank for no reason. He turned back to the other inmates to interrogate them.
Meanwhile, Klavier and Apollo were still searching the crime scene. "I'll be right back, schatzi," Klavier told Apollo before leaving the cell to go next door to where his brother laid on his cot. He gripped the bars and stared at Kristoph sadly.
"Hey bro," he said softly, "How are you holding up?"
Kristoph let out a small sigh. "All right, I suppose," he replied, "Find any physical evidence yet?" Klavier bit his bottom lip and shook his head but then realized he couldn't see him.
"Not yet," he answered, "But I know something is there. And the autopsy report may be of great use to us once we get it."
"Yes, I overheard Wright's theory," Kristoph muttered, "But what if he's wrong? Engarde was incredibly tired that day, maybe he wouldn't wake if he were being strangled and wouldn't struggle at all."
Klavier sighed. "You have to stop being so pessimistic all the time, bro," he encouraged.
"I'm being realistic," Kristoph insisted.
Before Klavier could say anything else, Phoenix walked over to them. "I asked the other inmates and they said they didn't hear anything either," he informed them, "I think we're pretty much done here. We just need that autopsy report."
"I'll swing by the police station then and see if they have it," Klavier decided. Phoenix nodded.
"Thanks. Meanwhile, Apollo and I will go back to the office and review the evidence and discuss our strategy," Phoenix said, "We'll meet you back there."
As the three started leaving, Apollo heard Kristoph grumble, "What evidence?"
It's been about a month since I've updated this. I really need to work on typing more. I don't know why I haven't been. Anyway, I've made a loose timeline for this story so I know what's going to happen and when. There's still a few more things that are going to happen before the trial happens. Probably two chapters at the most. In the meantime, please leave a comment and maybe contact me on twitter ThunderingWhite.