March 3
Prosecutor's Office
Room 708
2:10 PM
The first thing that stuck out to me when I saw the office's interior was how messy it was.
I would be lying if I said that I was the best person to talk to when it came to keeping a specific space clean, but at the very least, my apartment didn't look anything like this. Somehow, seeing the crime scene was even more overwhelming than hearing about it or seeing a picture of it ever could have been, and all I could do was stare at the countless files that were sprawled out on the ground. So many of them had been overturned and scattered everywhere that it was hard to see what individual pages matched what folder. The cabinet at the back of the room had its doors wide open, and I assumed that, judging by the way that the shelves from inside of the cabinet had been removed and seemed to have suffered damage, they had once held all these files. The shelves were sitting against the wall nearby, and there were a few dents in the wood to show that they had been put through some type of wringer at the time of the crime.
"Wow," was all Trucy could bring herself to say at first. Not even the agency, in all of its messy, unclean glory, could at all compare to the destruction that had been brought upon this office. It looked as if a tornado had come through and deliberately pulled everything apart until there were no signs of dignity left behind, and that was coming from someone who was already messy enough as it was.
"The files were likely knocked everywhere in the struggle between the victim and killer," Detective Skye explained as she looked down at the floor. She took a careful step to keep from accidentally trampling on a few of the files below. "That doesn't make walking around this place any easier though."
It took a surprising amount of work to navigate around the files to the space over by the body. The victim was sprawled out on the ground in front of the desk, his body facing the floor below while his head was tilted off to one side. Not much of his skin was visible, but what could be seen was covered in bruises. In all honesty, it was jarring to see someone that I knew, albeit briefly, in this condition. It was sickening, and I did my best to shove all images of the past involving Prosecutor Turner out of my mind to concentrate on the case, knowing that I had a job to do.
The space around his neck had been covered with blood, but that wasn't the only thing that stood out about this area. The victim's finger was stretched up away from the rest of his body, and it was in fact connected to bloodied writing that was apart from the regular pool of crimson that stretched across the floor of the office. It wasn't hard to pick out the letters from the floor below, and I couldn't help but wince at the sight of Apollo's name being written there. I knew that this couldn't have actually been written by the victim given the circumstances since Apollo wasn't guilty of this crime, but it bothered me regardless.
"Polly's name is written here..." Trucy remarked, crouching down next to the bloody writing just like I did. "But he couldn't have done it, so this must have been left behind by the killer to frame him, right?"
"That's not the only interesting thing to be found here," Detective Skye interjected. "As a matter of fact, if you look at the victim's fingernails, you can see some blood crusted there. It's on all of his nails too, not just the pointer finger that he supposedly wrote that message with. His body doesn't have any scratches on it, so it's safe to say that the blood doesn't belong to him. If it did, then the blood would be all over his hand rather than just being on his fingertips."
I nodded, following along with the logic quietly. If the victim had tried to reach up to stop the bleeding at his neck, then his hands would have been covered in blood, and that certainly would have been a reason for blood to be under his fingernails. And yet, that clearly wasn't the case since his palms weren't at all stained with crimson. That meant that there had to be some other explanation for the blood under his nails, but that didn't mean that I had the slightest idea as to what it was supposed to be.
"We aren't sure whose blood it is that can be found on his hand," Detective Skye continued. "We haven't been given all that much in terms of information regarding whose blood it is, but we can be confident that the blood isn't Apollo's at the very least. We've already conducted those sorts of tests, and they ultimately came up negative."
"In other words, someone else was here at the scene of the crime, and that was the clue that was left behind," Mr. Wright remarked. "Do you know of anyone else who could have gotten into this office at the time of the murder?"
"I'm afraid not. Everyone who was at the Prosecutor's Office at the time had an alibi, and it was only after the meeting Mr. Edgeworth set up ended that the body was found," Detective Skye replied.
Trucy, who had been scanning the room throughout all of this, glanced outside of the room, a frown on her face. "Hey... Is it just me, or did a few pages from these files wind up outside the office?" she asked.
Trucy didn't wait for an answer as she pushed herself to her feet and started to walk in the direction of the door, stepping over the files that dared to get in her way. I followed her, and the closer that I got, the more that I was sure that she was right. There were a few papers scattered in the hallway, though there weren't anywhere near as many compared to the pages within the office.
Trucy leaned down and picked up a few of the papers to examine them, and I looked over her shoulder as she tried to learn anything that she could from the words found on the pages. "Hey... These have Polly's name on them," Trucy told me, pointing to the top of the paper with a gloved finger.
When I looked at the place she was gesturing to, I saw that she was right. Upon closer examination, I could see that the papers were seemingly referring to the case that we had taken on a few weeks prior against Prosecutor Turner. I realized that these were probably the pages from the file that Apollo had been bringing to Prosecutor Gavin and Simon at the time of the murder. Still, that didn't really explain how it was that they had wound up scattered on the floor outside of the office.
"That's not the only strange thing," Mr. Wright murmured. He was examining a small scrap of paper that couldn't have been any larger than half of my thumb. In other words, it was tiny, and when I glanced around the room, I saw that other shredded pieces of the page were scattered on the floor in between the full pieces of paper. It was impossible to see much from these papers though, and only a few letters could be gleaned from the surface of the pages. In other words, we wouldn't be able to figure out what the full product of these scraps once had been without solving the world's most excruciating and frustrating puzzle.
Trucy started to gather together the papers that had been scattered around on the floor outside the office as I made my way in Mr. Wright's direction. The closer that I got, the more confident I was that we weren't going to be able to figure out what this set of pages had once said. It would take too long to put them together, and there was no guarantee that all of the tiny pieces would even be there. It wasn't as if they had been deliberately put through a shredder or anything; instead, they had been ripped to pieces by someone using their own two hands. Somehow, that made this whole idea of figuring out what the papers said even more impossible, and I decided that the task wasn't worth it.
Still, I did make a mental note of all that seemed to revolve around the set of pages that was waiting all over the room. I was just going to have to hope that we were able to figure out what it was that the papers said at another point later in the investigation. That did give me an idea though, and I snapped my fingers together as I turned in Detective Skye's direction. "Do you think that you would be able to help us to figure out what these papers once were?" I questioned. "I bet that they were a case file at one point, but putting the scraps together is going to take way too long and might not even be possible. But if we could find a copy of this file, then maybe we would be able to figure out what was going through the culprit's head at the time of the murder."
Detective Skye hesitated before she shrugged. "I'll do what I can, but I haven't found anything here that could say what the pages were once supposed to contribute to. I've been searching for quite some time, and I've still come up short. Maybe there's someone out there who has a better idea of what these papers once said, but I don't know what they could have said right now," she told me.
"We'll look into it later in the investigation then," Mr. Wright declared. He shifted his attention in my direction, a light smile on his face. "We'll look around at everything else that we can for the time being. We can come back to this when we think that we have clues as to what the file could possibly mean."
I nodded, but I had a sneaking suspicion that this file was going to be much more important to the case than we were seeing at face value. That just had to be the case, right? I was sure of it. There had to have been a reason for these pages to wind up completely eviscerated this way, and yet, we didn't know quite what that rationale was yet. It was something that we were going to have to search for throughout the rest of the investigation, I supposed.
Trucy returned from the hallway a moment later, and she handed me the pages that she had gathered from the floor of the area outside the office. "These are definitely the files that Polly was planning on dropping off at the time of the murder," she told me. "They talk about all of the details between the Eileen Liyle case and then the more recent investigation surrounding Samuel Barnes' trial."
"Prosecutor Blackquill and I were set to take up the prosecution given the sudden news regarding Prosecutor Turner and his unfortunate habits as an evidence forger," Prosecutor Gavin said. "He said that he was intending on leaving them with me today, but that didn't come to pass between the meeting that the chief prosecutor called and the murder taking place."
I nodded to myself. I still didn't know why it was that the files had been found scattered on the floor, but I supposed that I was just going to have to be patient until the answers showed themselves throughout the investigation. It was just a matter of time before the truth came out. That much I could say with complete confidence.
"Before we look into that though, I want to point you to this little detail," Detective Skye interjected as she pointed down at the black jacket that was sitting on the ground at her feet. "Forensics has tested this for bloodstains and found that it's covered in blood splatter from the victim. It's pretty easy to assume that the culprit used this to soak up the bloodstains to make sure that they didn't show outwardly. That way, the hoodie could be discarded when the culprit made their escape, and nobody would think anything of the person in question as they navigated the world."
"That means that the murder was premeditated then," Mr. Wright frowned. "I somehow doubt that someone would just wear an oversized hoodie like this to a crime scene if they weren't planning on committing a crime. If you add to that the fact that a knife was smuggled into the Prosecutor's Office, it's clear that whoever did this had been planning on killing the victim before they stumbled upon him. They knew that he was going to be here and were ready to take his life by any means necessary."
That sent a shiver up my spine even though I knew that he was right. I supposed that there was part of me who was still incredibly surprised by the fact that Prosecutor Turner had wound up dead so soon after he had been exposed for his hand in forging evidence during the most recent trial, but I couldn't let that get in my way, not when there was still a case to investigate. We had to take the jacket on the floor as a sign of what had taken place at the time of the murder so that we could move on and figure out exactly how it was used in the grand scheme of the crime.
Prosecutor Gavin cleared his throat before he took a step backwards to the door. His expression was as calm and composed as he could manage forcing it to be, but I could tell that there was still something more on his mind than he was willing to outwardly admit. It didn't take a genius to put the pieces together to say that he was worried about Apollo. "I believe that I'll be taking my leave at this time," he told us. "You can find me in my office if you need to speak with me further, but I'll be leaving you to your investigation in the meantime."
"Bye, Prosecutor Gavin!" Trucy chirped, waving in his direction. Somehow, that simple action was more than enough to remove some of the tension from Prosecutor Gavin's body, and he returned the gesture before he took another step away and vanished around the corner.
In the wake of Prosecutor Gavin's departure, I looked back to the rest of the crime scene, desperately searching for anything that could be considered a clue. The picture of the room was identical to the scene that I was looking at in all of its messy glory. I was still left to wonder how the files that Apollo was bringing to the office had wound up all over the floor, and I was curious as to what the shredded papers on the floor meant as well. There had to be an explanation out there for both of these facts, but I hoped that they would come sooner rather than later to help the investigation progress in a simpler fashion.
"Wright... I knew that I would find you here."
A halfway familiar voice reached my ears to pull me out of my thoughts, and I turned around to see that a new person had appeared in the doorway of the room. My jaw dropped at the sight of none other than Chief Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. He was wearing his typical wine-colored suit, and his glasses sat atop the bridge of his nose as he addressed Mr. Wright, Trucy, and myself with something that I assumed was supposed to be quiet recognition masked by a gentle smile. I could hear a small amount of joy in his voice regardless of how hard he tried to hide it. To many, Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth was inscrutable and difficult to understand, but since my ears were so finely-tuned to the emotions of others, I was able to glean all the information that I needed from him.
"Edgeworth," Mr. Wright greeted with a sideways smile. There was affection to his tone as well, and I couldn't help but smile as Mr. Wright started to walk closer to the newcomer. This was a situation that I hadn't expected to come across, but at the same time, I wasn't complaining in the slightest. Mr. Wright and Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth had been in something of a strange situation for quite some time, not quite saying that they were in a relationship but not denying the way that everybody knew that was the case at the same time. It was an odd paradox, but I already knew how much they cared about each other, and as far as I was concerned, that was what mattered most.
"Uncle Miles!" Trucy grinned, bouncing up and down slightly on the spot as she addressed him. "It's good to see you again." I could tell that there were a thousand other questions racing through her mind, but she chose to hold off on them for a short while longer, likely waiting for Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth to offer his words on the matter at hand.
"The same to you, Trucy," Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth told her with a light smile so filled with fondness that it overwhelmed my chest with relief and joy as well despite our lack of a direct connection. I hadn't spoken with Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth all that much, especially when compared to some of the other members of the agency, but it was still nice to see another familiar face in the midst of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the day.
"Judging by the fact that you're here, I take it that you've already learned all that you really need to know about the case at hand," Mr. Wright said, his face slipping into a frown just as quickly as his smile had appeared. He glanced down at the body that was stretched out on the floor beside him. "Prosecutor Huber Turner is dead, and with him, his evidence forgeries."
"It was certainly surprising to hear of his murder," Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth remarked, his expression also finding an outward appearance of only business the same way that Mr. Wright's had a few moments prior. "He was set to be packing his things to be taken out of the office once and for all. The rest of the office was together, and he was killed while we were distracted by other matters."
"You're talking about the meeting between the prosecutors, right?" I questioned even though I already knew the answer to that question. We had heard about this fated meeting quite a few times from other people involved with the case, and that had to be it.
Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth nodded his confirmation as he crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes slipping together into a look of contemplation. "I was hoping to see if I could find traces of any other forgers among the prosecutors here," he explained. "I had a bit of help to see if there were others in the office that have been making illegal deals in the name of a guilty verdict, and bringing everyone together was the starting point for finding the truth. Every prosecutor save for one was gathered in my office at the time with the other person in question having already been in a meeting of her own. From there, the 'interrogation' as it were began."
"You had help?" I echoed. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but something deep down told me that it was going to be related to the rest of the case in some way or another. Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth opened his mouth to say something in response, but he was ultimately cut off by another person appearing behind him in the doorway of the office.
"Don't tell me that the party began without us! This feels like a betrayal, Mr. Edgeworth!"
Unlike last time, this was most certainly not a voice that I recognized. Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth took a step to the side to get out of the way, and I saw a dark-haired girl wearing navy and pink clothing come into view. Her eyes were a bright green color, shining in the lighting of the office. Her hands were pressed on her hips, the show of complete confidence as she grinned at the occupants of the room.
"Kay!" Detective Skye, managing to somehow get a word in before Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth could get the chance. "I didn't realize that you were going to be here. Why are you here, actually? I didn't hear anything about you being involved with this case."
The new arrival, Kay, walked into the room, her scarf swaying behind her as she made her way to Detective Skye's side. I saw the brown-haired detective grow flushed under the shining gaze of the mysterious woman known as Kay, but she did her best to hide it as her companion continued. "Gummy and I did a thing or two to help out Mr. Edgeworth this morning. Speaking of Gummy-"
As if on cue, a man appeared in the doorway behind Mr. Edgeworth. This newcomer was much larger than Kay was in terms of dimensions, having broad shoulders and immense height that almost made him resemble a brick wall. Well, he would have been a brick wall if he didn't have a pencil tucked behind his ear in a way that almost seemed cuddly. His smile was as bright as the sun itself, so overwhelmed with light that it was surprising in a strange way given how large he was.
"There he is!" Kay cried out, clapping her hands together. "He really does have the makings of a great performer, huh? Right on time, there he is!" She grinned over at the man, this 'Gummy' character, and placed one hand on her hip. "We've got a case to look into, Gummy!"
Gummy didn't have the chance to respond before Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth chuckled with a shake of his head. This was the least intense that I had ever seen him, and it was a bit surprising given what I already knew about him. "Hello, Kay. You as well, Detective Gumshoe," he greeted, his voice an almost casual drawl. His face seemed to lose a decade with how light he seemed all of a sudden, and I couldn't help but stare given the strange set of circumstances that had led to this shift.
Mr. Wright was the first one to notice the perplexed expression on my face, and he glanced over in my direction with a light smile. "Athena, allow me to introduce you to Detectives Kay Faraday and Dick Gumshoe. They're working as private investigators at the moment, but in the past, they helped both myself and Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth to solve a variety of cases," he explained.
"That's us!" Detective Faraday declared with a grin and a snap of her fingers. She glanced over in Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth's direction next. "And we're here for what I think is a pretty important reason."
Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth cleared his throat before he glanced in the direction of me and the others working at my agency. "Kay and Detective Gumshoe were helping me out with my investigation this morning. I had them overlooking the meeting to see if they were able to see anything out of the ordinary that would point to something happening that shouldn't have been," he explained. "As such, they were here at the office at the time of the crime, though they have an alibi for the murder itself."
"You were helping Uncle Miles to find out more about the prosecutors around here?" Trucy echoed as she glanced up to Detective Faraday. She pressed her hands behind her back and smiled up at the dark-haired girl.
Detective Faraday put one finger below her nose triumphantly. "As a matter of fact, we were!" she replied boldly and confidently. "We did what we could to try and find new information, but we weren't able to see anything out of the ordinary. We're just going to have to stay on edge in case anything else happens in the near future to make other prosecutors suspicious."
"Other incidents have taken place along these lines?" I questioned, my eyes going wide. That was certainly news to me. If something like this had happened, then it was out of my line of sight, and it was undoubtedly less obvious than the declaration of Prosecutor Turner's had been.
"I guess that we should explain what our recent investigation has been focusing on, Kay," Detective Gumshoe told his coworker, reaching up to rub at the back of his head with a somewhat sheepish smile.
Detective Faraday nodded before she shoved one hand into a bag that was strapped around her waist, and when she pulled her fingers free of the container, she had a paper in her hand. "We're here to investigate the murder of Huber Turner and how it relates to the Oracle of the Law," she proclaimed.
"He was exposed by Oracle just a short while ago... And it sounds like this isn't the first time that a person was exposed for negative conduct by Oracle either," Trucy chimed in.
"It most certainly is not," Detective Faraday announced. She handed the paper over to Trucy a moment later, and I stepped behind the young magician to get a look at the contents of the page. "In fact, this report describes exactly what happened the last time that Oracle got involved with the work of a prosecutor."
"Oracle is the reason that Mr. Edgeworth here currently holds the position of chief prosecutor, if you can believe it," Detective Gumshoe chimed in. "It was about a year and a half ago when a report was sent out to the media from both Oracle and the Yatagarasu, a noble thief set on exposing the truth of corruption to the world. The chief prosecutor was shown to have been forging evidence and covering up other forgeries taking place within the office, and he was removed from his position. That was when Mr. Edgeworth was given the chance to step up and take the job."
"What?!" I cried out, my eyes going wide. It certainly explained why I hadn't heard about any of this before now; I had still been completing my legal training in Germany at the time of this exposure, and even if it had been after I moved, I doubt that I would have known where to look for information like this.
"It's true," Detective Faraday confirmed. "Oracle was working together with the Yatagarasu at the time, but there's no evidence to show that they're connected beyond that. A lot of people think that they just so happened to be cooperating on a common goal at the time, and that was why they worked together. After all, every other exposure has taken place independent of the other save for this one."
"I can't believe that I never knew about this," Trucy frowned as she glanced up to Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth once again. "I would have expected tons of people to know about something like this."
"There were quite a few attempts to cover this up. It's pretty sensitive information when it comes down to it," Detective Faraday explained casually. "That was how so many people were able to go about life without knowing about it. After all, faith in the legal system was starting to slip, so this was done to make sure that people didn't panic too much. It was made information on a need to know basis, and not very many people needed to know. The person holding the chief prosecutor position switched quietly in the background, and nobody was at all the wiser to it."
"Wow," was all I could bring myself to say. "I guess that this was before Oracle really started to gain popularity as a subject of discussion too given how this flew under the radar so easily..."
"Oracle is a much more popular topic now, and that's why we're here, pal!" Detective Gumshoe proclaimed with a proud smile. "Kay and I have been looking into Oracle for a short while now, and we're on our way to finding the truth. Prosecutor Turner is our best lead for information given that he was the last person to be exposed."
"And yet, nobody will be able to talk to him any time soon," Mr. Wright frowned as he looked down to the body.
"I believe that three of us have important matters to discuss, both related to the murder and otherwise," Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth cut in as he glanced to the two private investigators. "Let's leave these four to the investigation for the time being. The trial is tomorrow, and we don't want to interfere."
"Got it," Detective Faraday nodded as she started towards the door. "It was nice to see you again, Trucy! You too, Mr. Wright." She offered a wink in Detective Skye's direction, and the brown-haired woman immediately flushed under the influence of the action. "Until we meet again, Ema." Detective Skye was too stunned silent to say much of anything in response as Detective Faraday rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth and Detective Gumshoe both offered their own waves in the direction of the rest of us in the room before they left as well. I watched them go with a light smile on my face. That had been a nice reprieve from the rest of the investigation, but it was time for us to get down to business again. Apollo was counting on us to pull this off, and I wasn't going to let him down.
Woohoo! Kay and Gummy are here! Hell to the yeah!
There's only one clarification that I really feel that I need to make in this chapter: Kay isn't going by the title of the Yatagarasu openly anymore. The word openly is the key here, as she still is using the name to continue the work of the great thief. Instead, she's simply keeping her job on the down low so that she can carry out her heists without any outside interference.
With that out of the way, Gummy and Kay are private investigators! I always liked the idea of Kay being a private investigator better than any other head canons out there because I personally couldn't see her getting involved with legal affairs given how much she wants to stop legal corruption. And so, I made her a private investigator so that she can operate on her own while still doing what she does best: kicking ass and taking names as the Yatagarasu. I already knew that Ema was going to be the lead detective of this story, so I decided to make Gummy another private investigators. As for the attentive readers who are wondering, yes, this is also the same place that Maggey works, something that will be brought up in the story at a later date.
Anyways, with all of that said, I'm going to be signing off for the time being. I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter. Next week, we'll press on with the investigation once again. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!
-Digital