February 16

District Courthouse

Courtroom No. 1

1:00 PM

~ Witness Testimony ~

~ The Missing Piece ~

- "You keep saying all of this stuff about how I have to be the culprit, but there's still something that you're missing!"

- "Every crime has to have a reasoning behind it! Thieves steal for the rewards. Vandals use graffiti for satisfaction."

- "Since all of that is true, I have to ask... Why is that I would want to kill someone like this man?"

- "There was no connection between myself and the victim, and any investigation will tell you as much!"

- "Unless you can show something that will show I had a reason, then all of this just comes up short!"

"But there isn't a piece of evidence to show all of that... So you're going to be stuck here forever until you have to give up!"

"Objection!"

"Witness, I must ask... What was the motive for murder when applied to the defendant?" I questioned casually.

Mr. Barnes stared at me for a long time, almost as if he thought that I was trying to deceive him somehow. "Um... Well... The theory is that she wanted to kill him as a way of getting at the research he had about Oracle," he responded. "After all, the files about Oracle were gone when the body was discovered."

I nodded. "Exactly... But I have to ask... Is that motive really exclusive to the defendant?" I asked. When I was met with curious looks, I continued. "That motive is so broad and general that it could easily be applied to just about anyone if you look carefully enough. The witness is a reporter. Is it out of the question to say that he was trying to get his hands on this information as a way of fueling a story of his?"

"Objection!"

"Do you really think that the witness would kill someone that he didn't even know over the investigative notes?" Prosecutor Turner questioned. "That makes no sense! Even if you frame it from the perspective of a potential story, that's hardly a solid motive for murder!"

"Objection!"

"And yet, you suspected that the defendant killed someone that she was acquainted with and spent time around to have done the same thing," I countered. "His fingerprints are on the murder weapon, and that is not something that any of us can refute. This is undoubtedly suspicious no matter how you choose to look at it!"

"I would like to see some evidence that this witness looked for the files in the first place," Prosecutor Turner told me. "Do you have any proof that backs up the fact that he searched for the investigation's notes?"

"Take that!"

"The photo of the crime scene shows many pages being scattered about," I responded. "There are papers from different cabinets all over the floor. It seems that someone was searching for something that could be found within the victim's office. If the defendant had done this, then the room would not have been left in such chaos. After all, she worked at the victim's law firm. She would surely know where he kept his investigative notes about Oracle. There would have been no reason to leave everything in such a messy state if she knew what she was looking for!"

"In other words, the murderer would have had to be someone who was from outside the law firm!" the judge cried out, his eyes going wide. "And since the witness' fingerprints are on the vase, then...!"

I nodded. "It means that he could very well be the culprit trying to use this as his way of getting away from justice," I finished for him. "The culprit must have been an outsider, and this witness did not have any connections with the victim. That is part of what makes him so suspicious. He would have needed to search through the office everywhere if he was going to find the investigation's notes, and that was when the victim walked in. When he noticed that the owner of the office had returned, the witness grabbed the vase in a panic and hit the victim over the head!"

The gallery's occupants started to talk once again, and Athena grinned to me. "It really does seem like you've got him this time!" she proudly stated. "I don't think that there's a way for him to worm out of this one!"

"Objection!"

"There's one thing that you've forgotten about all of this, defense," Mr. Lenard pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're so confident in saying that the victim was killed by an outsider. First of all, you have no proof to show that the defendant knew where he was keeping his investigation's notes. For all you know, she could have been just as clueless as anyone else, and that would point to her as being suspicious once again."

"Objection!"

"If you really think that there are so many holes in my logic, then we could always go through the same song and dance as we did with the vase," I smirked. "The defendant was wearing fingerless gloves when she entered the victim's office. That means that if she was sifting through his papers, then she would have left behind fingerprints. If you're really confident that she was the one who committed the crime, then all it would take is a quick sweep of the area for fingerprints! If none of hers came back, then it would be proof that someone else looked through the papers!"

"Plus, we know that the witness wasn't wearing gloves at the time of the murder," Athena chimed in. "After all, he wound up leaving behind fingerprints on the vase, and if that's not proof that he was barehanded at the time, then I don't know what is. His prints are in the same position of him having picked up the vase before swinging it at the victim's head."

"The defense maintains its position that the witness was the one to kill the victim! He entered the office upon seeing that the door was open. From there, he started to look through the papers found in the different file cabinets to try and find the victim's investigative notes. Everyone these days is searching for the truth behind the mysterious Oracle of the Law. If the witness thought that the victim knew something that would point him to the truth, then he would have been given a reason to commit theft and search for the notes," I declared.

"Objection!"

"Do you really think that he would have committed such a grievous crime as theft over something so petty?" Prosecutor Turner questioned. "It doesn't make sense for him to break into the office to try and steal the notes without more of a reason. Curiosity would not lead to him hitting the victim in the head with a vase!"

"Objection!"

"The crime was not premeditated. It was sudden and a spur of the moment decision that was prompted by the victim appearing in the room as the witness was unsuccessfully sifting through the files," I corrected him.

"Objection!"

"You have still failed to answer my question, defense," Prosecutor Turner said flatly. "Curiosity is not a reason to commit murder, and it never will be. I request that you present solid evidence that shows that the witness would have had a reason to do all of this. Why would he commit theft over something as small as curiosity?"

"Exactly!" Mr. Barnes piped up. "I wouldn't have done that! Even if it was for the juiciest scoop on the planet, I wouldn't just break into private property and made a mess! I wouldn't have killed the victim either! You like to spew a lot of conjecture over there, but if you can't back it up, then it's not going to mean anything! After all, evidence is everything, both in court and in the world of journalism! Without solid proof, none of what you're saying has any value!"

"The prosecution has a point, defense," the judge agreed with a solemn nod. "If you don't have any evidence to show a reason for the witness to go so far, then the court will not be able to accept your reasoning."

"Do we have any evidence that can show that he's involved with this case somehow?" Athena asked. "There has to be something that would give him a motive to go after the victim like this. I'm sure that the proof of that exists somewhere, but... Do we have that sort of thing?"

I nodded. "As a matter of fact, the defense does have proof to show that the witness had a motive for breaking into the victim's office," I announced.

"But that's not possible! There isn't anything that would tie me to the victim beyond me just knowing his name!" Mr. Barnes shouted. He began to press down on the delete button on his camera rapidly, though I doubted that he was actually erasing any of his precious photos. I didn't even think that he had shifted away from the function of taking pictures.

"Go on and say it then. If you really think that there's a way to tie together the witness and the victim, then tell the court what you've got in mind," Prosecutor Turner instructed. "You had best not disappoint, defense!"

"Take that!"

"This... This is a news article, is it not?" the judge questioned, his eyes wide. "Ah, I think I remember this... It was presented earlier in the trial as a way of explaining who Oracle is."

"All it does is say that the Oracle of the Law is a spy who's been dedicating their life to exposing corruption," Prosecutor Turner scoffed. "You couldn't find any evidence, could you? That's why you decided to present this in the place of anything actually decisive."

I shook my head. "If it would be alright with you, I would like to read over what this story says for the court," I announced.

"Go ahead, Mr. Justice," the judge nodded.

I cleared my throat before starting to read the words from the page. "'The Oracle of the Law has struck again! Since first appearing roughly two years ago, the mysterious spy known only as Oracle has done much to expose corruption among high-ranking authority figures. They have claimed many victims within both the legal system and various corporations, exposing negative practices and showing that there are many high-ranking people who abuse their power rather than utilizing it for public good,'" I began to read.

"Get to the point, would you?" Prosecutor Turner asked. His previous mask of seeming as pleasant as possible had melted away, leaving him to do little more than scowl in my direction angrily.

I nodded firmly. "'This time, the victim of Oracle's investigations has been a detective. Samson Barnes is a homicide detective at the local precinct. He was exposed recently for forging evidence to aid the prosecution in receiving false guilty verdicts. Evidence was submitted to the mass media to show that he was involved with these unfortunate practices, and as soon as it came to light, he was removed from his position and arrested,'" I continued. "That's the relevant part of the article."

"What part of that are we supposed to care about?" Mr. Barnes snarled angrily. "All of that just sounded like a way for you to bide your time because you don't have a case in the first place!"

I shook my head. "As a matter of fact, I did share the most important part of that story when I was speaking," I assured him. "The crucial piece of information can be found in the second paragraph... Samson Barnes was the name of the most recent victim of Oracle's exposure. Barnes... Doesn't that name sound familiar?"

The judge let out a gasp. "That's the surname of the witness currently at the stand!" he cried out. "Are you trying to propose that there is a connection between the witness on this case and the detective that was exposed as an evidence forger?!"

"As a matter of fact, I am," I replied. "The timing of this case makes me think that perhaps the reason for the witness choosing this time to commit the crime involved the recent exposure of this Samson Barnes figure. If there is a connection between the two, then the witness would be desperate to find the truth behind Oracle. He would have a grudge to push him onward, and that would be the perfect rationale for him to sneak into the victim's office. After all, if he was a reporter, then he would probably have a way of knowing that the victim was researching Oracle. He would have ways of getting his hands on that information because finding out more about the world is part of his job."

"From there, then he tried to find the evidence that would point him in the direction of Oracle, but he didn't know how to get his hands on it. He searched through the office while it was empty and made a mess of the place," Athena continued. "That was when the victim appeared, and from there, everything was history. He picked up the vase to make sure that nobody found out he had been rifling through the room, and he hit the victim on the head."

"If anything, the witness has a stronger motive to kill than the defendant ever did!" I declared. "The fact that his fingerprints are on the vase only adds credibility to my theory! The defendant didn't leave fingerprints on the murder weapon because she never picked it up. All she did was open the door for the witness, though she didn't know it at the time. The door, in all of its stubbornness, refused to close behind her."

"We have to thank you for this, Prosecutor Turner," Athena smiled, clapping her hands together. "You said before that you thought the defendant was the one responsible for this crime because she was trying to get her hands on his research. In the end, that was in part what led us to discovering the truth behind this case!"

Prosecutor Turner flinched, anger once again flashing in his eyes. His composure had long since disappeared, leaving only seething rage across his face. He seemed too upset to even dream of speaking. There was nothing that he could say to change the truth behind this case in the first place; the fate of both him and the witness had already been sealed, and there was nothing he could do to change such a fact.

"Mr. Barnes, how do you plead?" I questioned with a smile. I pointed at the witness stand with all the gusto I possessed. "The time has come for you to confess to the truth behind this case... You were the one who killed Aloist Lenard when he found you in the process of stealing the notes on his investigation into Oracle! This was all in the name of revenge for someone else that you are related to and cared for! The victim just so happened to get in the way, and you murdered him for it to get the chance to take his investigation's results for yourself!"

Mr. Barnes was gripping tightly at the fabric just above camera. He started to tug on the fabric, putting much more tension on the strap than I knew should have been there. Somehow, he only started to pull with more force than before though, and each new tug brought with it a new snapping sound. I wasn't sure of what the snap was even meant to be, but after a moment of searching, I found what I was searching for. The threads on the strap were growing weaker, and after about twelve tugs, each one faster than the last, the strap completely snapped, leaving the camera behind in Mr. Barnes' hands along with the small portion of the strap that he had been gripping. However, he didn't register that the strap had snapped, and when he pulled up for yet another tug, he wound up hitting himself in the mouth area with the camera. His eyes went wide, and he dropped the camera to the ground a beat later. It was only by some stroke of a miracle that the camera didn't completely fall to pieces.

"Well, Mr. Barnes?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest as I smirked in his direction. "Might we take that as your confession that you are the culprit behind this case?"

Mr. Barnes was silent for a long moment before he snarled and slammed one of his hands onto the witness stand. "It isn't my fault in the first place!" he exclaimed. "It's Oracle that you should be blaming for all of this! If they hadn't started up with all of their ridiculous exposure business, then none of this would have happened to begin with!"

"I don't think that you have the ability to blame Oracle for this when you were the one to hit the victim," Athena frowned, her expression indescribable in her tense confusion.

"Oracle does nothing but stick their nose in affairs that don't involve them! If they had just kept to their own business, then none of this would have happened!" Mr. Barnes continued to shout. "My brother shouldn't have been exposed for all of that! Oracle ruined his damn life because they started looking into things that didn't matter to their life at all!"

"He was in the wrong though," I pointed out. "He was forging evidence and obscuring the truth. You cannot claim that something of that nature is just when he was actively distorting the reality behind cases. He could have ruined the lives of countless people by interfering in such a way."

"People don't deserve to have their lives ruined over mistakes!" Mr. Barnes shrieked at me. I knew that he wasn't going to be seeing reason anytime soon. He truly did think that he was in the right, and I wasn't going to be able to convince him otherwise no matter what I said. "I just wanted to see those notes... Lenard was doing research, and I wanted to see it! He turned me down when I asked to interview him, but the door... The door was open when I came back! I just had to look around!"

"And that was when you started rifling through the files," Athena concluded. "You couldn't find the papers that you were looking for, and the victim came back while the office was still a mess. He saw you at the center of the chaos, and you hit him with the vase to keep him quiet."

"Whatever happened to the files? Surely you must have taken them from the scene of the crime if that was your motive," the judge interjected, his expression stony as could be.

"They were already gone," Mr. Barnes muttered, every word dripping with pure vitriol. "I don't know who took them, but they weren't there when I started looking around. Somebody else must have already taken them before I got there. I hope that whoever does have them uses them to expose that damn spy once and for all. Oracle has overstepped too many boundaries. If you want to talk about justice, how is theft and operating illegally at all right? Oracle is the one making all of the mistakes. If they had just kept to their own business, none of this would have happened! Countless people would no longer be in jail, and life would be working the way that it should be!"

"Your brother was forging evidence to distort the truth," Athena insisted. "How is that at all right? The article we found even said that he admitted to what he had done. There's no way that you can possibly still defend-"

"Shut up!" Mr. Barnes roared. "Stay out of this! You... I hate all of you! If you had just kept to your own business... If you hadn't taken this case... Then I would be able to reveal everything about Oracle! I would be able to find out who they were and all that they had done!"

"Bailiffs!" the judge exclaimed. A moment later, a pair of bailiffs converged on Mr. Barnes. He continued roaring at them in his rage, repeating the same phrases that he had been since he was exposed as the culprit. His animosity toward Oracle was notable, and I found myself unable to do anything aside from simply stare at him. His words on Oracle were certainly striking, and I had a feeling that they were going to sit with me long after this case had been laid to rest.

"He really doesn't seem to understand justice, huh?" Athena questioned of me, pulling me free of my dizzying thought process. "He claimed that his brother was in the right no matter what, but... It seems as if his brother was responsible for forging evidence in countless cases."

"I don't know how reputable Oracle is as a source, but I can say that the man behind those forgeries did confess to his crimes," I told Athena. "I have to wonder how Oracle go their hands on this sort of information as well, but I guess that question is going to have to wait for another day. After all, we have something much more important to take care of for the time being, huh?"

I glanced up at the doors leading out of the courtroom. Mr. Barnes had just disappeared from view, and the doors fell back into order following his departure. The gallery had been claimed by chatter. I couldn't hear anything specific, but I could guess pretty easily what everyone was talking about. I assumed that quite a few of the people here were only at the trial because of their curiosity regarding this so-called legal spy, and the culprit's confession blaming such a figure only pointed them in the direction of discussing the topic further.

The judge reached for his gavel and hit it against the podium twice to attract the attention of the gallery. It took a moment for the infectious aura of the courtroom to finally calm itself. Something in my chest was lighter all of a sudden, and I knew that it was because we had once again found the truth. Even with the culprit's bold claims blaming Oracle, the truth had been revealed, and that was something that I would be able to take pride in no matter what.

"It seems that this case has come to a most unusual conclusion," the judge announced. "The trial of Samuel Barnes will have to be held at a later date, but for the time being, we can say conclusively that the innocence of the defendant has been proven."

"There has to be a way."

I glanced up to the other side of the courtroom and saw Prosecutor Turner leaning over the prosecution bench. There was a glare in his eyes, and he was pointing it directly at Athena and me. "There has to be a way for the defendant to be the culprit. You can't truly mean to resolve this trial here with a confession from a man like that. He couldn't have done it. The defendant has to be declared guilty as the one behind this crime!" Prosecutor Turner roared. He raised one hand and curled it into a fist before he slammed it against the desk. "The defendant had to have killed him!"

"The testimony of the last witness was entirely manufactured to cast blame on her. The evidence points to the truth of the matter being that Samuel Barnes was the culprit. There is no room left for doubt... Eileen Liyle is innocent," I told him, doing my best to keep my composure. I hadn't seen a prosecutor this blatantly angry before, and that was saying quite a bit given the times that I had faced off against Prosecutor Blackquill a year prior.

"All defendants must be proven guilty," Prosecutor Turner snarled under his breath, the words so quiet that they could almost be missed even in the quiet of the courtroom. "That is the truth of the matter, and you cannot change it, you ridiculous attorneys."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Mr. Barnes will definitely be proven guilty when his case goes to trial," Athena grinned, though I could see that there was something strained at the edges of her smile. She was doing her best to project an air of confidence to make it seem as if she was unaffected by his words, but I knew better than to fall under such a trap. She was nervous whether she wanted to admit it openly or not. I could see Widget turn a soft yet deep blue color as proof for my assumptions.

Prosecutor Turner simply glared up at her. "An attorney such as you could never understand the way of the prosecutor. You are meant to be crushed under the heel of us prosecutors, but you... Your show of defiance will not be forgotten, and one day, you will find punishment for it. There is no escape for either of you," he told us. Every word was darker in tone than the last, and his voice was practically dripping with acid.

"He had a perfect record before this case, didn't he?" Athena murmured to me. "I guess that's why he's taking this so hard, but... I don't think that what he's saying is true at all. I think that he's focusing on all the wrong things. The truth was found and the culprit is going to be standing trial soon enough for his crimes. That's what matters."

"That's something that he's going to have to cope with on his own time regardless of if we wind up being punished for our supposed sins," I responded. I was feeling beyond uncomfortable already at the sight of his meltdown, and I wanted nothing more than to escape the courtroom as soon as possible so that I didn't have to look at him any longer. In a way, I almost preferred his past obnoxious smirk to the disheveled, irritated expression on his face at present.

The judge cleared his throat. "Defendant, please approach the stand at this time," he announced. A moment later, Ms. Liyle rose from her seat near the defense bench and walked over in the direction of the witness stand. She briefly paused to give Athena and I a bright smile. Her eyes spoke of pure admiration, and she pressed her hands to her chest. I saw her fiddle with the edge of her black gloves as she took her place behind the stand. She was notably refusing to look over in Prosecutor Turner's direction, not that I could particularly blame her.

"Do the defense or prosecution have any lingering objections to the case?" the judge questioned. He glanced over in the direction of the defense bench first, seeming to understand that it would be much harder to get an answer out of the prosecution.

I glanced over to Athena and was met with a bright grin from her direction. Widget had been dyed a lime green color, her previous nerves having vanished in the face of her joy over the trial ending in our favor. I turned my attention up in the direction of the judge's podium once again afterward. "The defense has no objections, Your Honor," I announced.

"And the prosecution?" the judge asked. He looked over to Prosecutor Turner and saw that the man was continuing to glare down at the bench before him. His hands were both clenched into fists, pressed roughly against the wood. I felt once again as if I was intruding by being there, fearing that I was witnessing something that I shouldn't have been.

A long handful of moments passed before the judge noticed that he wasn't going to be receiving an answer from the prosecution. He simply cleared his throat to fill the space before he reached for his gavel. "Right then... I suppose that the time has come for me to render my verdict regarding this case," he proclaimed. "This court hereby finds the defendant, Eileen Liyle, not guilty."

Confetti began to rain down from above as per usual, and I smiled to myself as the blue, yellow, and pink fragments of paper touched down on the podium. Athena had a bright smile on her face the whole way through, but Prosecutor Turner remained stony and unresponsive. It seemed as if he was taking this hit to his victory record much harder than I would have anticipated, though in hindsight, it made sense considering his excessive amounts of pride.

Instead of concentrating on him though, I chose to glance up to where Ms. Liyle was standing. She was still grinning eternally, though her fingers fiddled with the edge of her gloves even at the declaration of her innocence. I felt my bracelet pulse ever so slightly even though she wasn't saying anything that she could have been trying to hide. I did my best to keep smiling despite this minor distraction though, not wanting her to catch on and notice that something was amiss. It could wait until after the trial had ended if it was a point of discussion at all.

"Court is adjourned!" the judge declared once the cheering had drawn to a close. He slammed his gavel down against the podium, a mark that everything was finished for the time being. Everyone began to stream out of the courtroom, Athena and myself included. Ms. Liyle was among the crowds as well, but even after the rest of the courtroom was emptied, Prosecutor Turner remained, statuesque and angry as he glared down at the desk before him. I chose to push him out of my mind for the time being though. After all, we had a victory to celebrate, and I wasn't going to neglect such needs after all of that.

And so ends the trial segment from this case! Woohoo!

There's still one last hoorah for us to take care of for case one before we can call it done, but for now, this is what you all get. I have to say that I really did enjoy typing this case from start to finish, and even now that we're getting ready to move into the post-case shenanigans, I look back on this case fondly. I think that it's a great start to the story as a whole. I loved sprinkling in the little bits of foreshadowing even though nobody really knows what it means right now. That's kind a theme with me though, so I guess that it's just something everybody is going to have to get used to. Whoops.

I'm not going to keep you for too long since this chapter finished off on a nice little note. Next time around though, we're going to get into the aftermath of this case, including the post-trial conversations for better or worse. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!

-Digital