March 4
District Courthouse
Courtroom No. 2
10:45 AM
Prosecutor Gavin made his way to the witness stand in the moments that followed the declaration from Prosecutor Lin, and while he carried himself similarly to the same way as always, I could see the small differences in his demeanor. His smile was strained at the edges, and his eyes were clouded with the barest traces of exhaustion. He didn't want to admit it, but there was a lot more bothering him in that moment than he was choosing to let on. Apollo was the defendant, and given the dynamic between the two of them, that was only natural. Of course, that didn't mean that he was going to let the rest of the court know that, and so, he simply pressed his hands into his pockets and smiled easily in the direction of the judge.
"Please state your name and occupation for the court, witness," the judge instructed, clearly intent on not allowing past association to get in the way of what he had to do. Then again, I suppose that was true when it came to the entire case; there was a lot happening that the judge could have gotten involved with, and yet, he had to remain neutral as per his occupation. I had to admit that I was impressed with that. I didn't think that I would have ever been able to do something that involved that level of impartiality.
Prosecutor Gavin didn't seem to mind the fact that the judge wasn't showing open signs of recognition. Instead, he simply allowed one hand to rise up to brush a few of his blonde locks out of his face. His smile was captivating to many, but I could see the traces of sadness that he was trying to mask behind the grin that he flashed to the courtroom. "Ja. My name is Klavier Gavin, and I work as a prosecutor," he explained.
Prosecutor Lin cleared her throat to earn his attention, and I noticed that Prosecutor Gavin seemed to soften slightly when he saw her. I got the feeling that he was just as aware as we were that she wasn't going to just let Apollo be proven guilty of this murder that he clearly didn't commit. If I had to guess, there was more of a dynamic between them than they were letting on at a first glance.
Of course, that still didn't stop the flow of the trial, and Prosecutor Lin spoke a moment later. "You were one of the people who discovered the scene of the crime and the defendant next to the victim's body, were you not?" she questioned.
Prosecutor Gavin nodded, his smirk coming off as genuine to all but those who knew him well enough to see the cracks in his armor. "That would be correct," he said, clearly trying to keep his normal flowery language to a minimal to ensure that the trial wasn't dragged out any longer than it absolutely had to. After all, this case was going to be painful enough for him as it stood, and he didn't need to make it worse for himself.
"In that case, please tell the court about what happened at the time of the body's discovery," Prosecutor Lin told him. "Don't leave out any details... Though I suppose that you already know how the standard fare here is going to turn out, don't you?"
Prosecutor Gavin nodded. "Ja," he replied simply. "In that case, I'll go on and get right into it, hm?"
"Go ahead, witness," the judge instructed with a firm nod.
~ Witness Testimony ~
~ Discovering the Body ~
-"At the time of the murder, all of the prosecutors were gathered together for the sake of a meeting with the chief prosecutor."
-"It wasn't until after the meeting had concluded that I discovered the body alongside one of my coworkers."
-"We smelled blood as we were passing by a door, and when we attempted to open it, we found that the door was shut."
-"The scent was strong enough to attract our attention, so we pushed through the door to see what we could find there."
-"That was when we saw the crime scene as you can see it in the photo that was already presented."
-"Just outside of the door, we could see a small cluster of stray papers that had been tossed in every direction."
-"In a way, I suppose that you could say that is similar to what was found inside of the victim's office, hm?"
I had a small frown on my face when the testimony drew to a close, and I shifted my attention in the direction of Mr. Wright and Trucy. "You know... There's something about this whole situation that's sort of striking me as odd," I confessed. "I'm not quite sure how to go about it when it comes to revealing what it is that's upsetting me, but... There's something wrong here. That much I'm sure of."
"You might as well try to show what you think is off then," Trucy pointed out. "After all, you never know what could wind up being the key contradiction that reveals everything related to the truth of the case."
"The defendant was found on the ground when the door was pushed open. The door had been locked and jammed from the inside by a chair, meaning that there was only one person who could have been there with the victim at the time," Prosecutor Lin declared, pulling us out of our brief conversation. "The murder in question is essentially a locked room case, and there's only one way for us to explain what happened at the time of the murder."
"The defendant didn't have an alibi for the time of the crime, and on top of that, he was found at the scene of the crime by multiple witnesses... There certainly is quite the amount of evidence leveled against the suspect," the judge commented, his eyes shut in a moment of deep contemplation.
"But that doesn't necessarily mean that he was the one responsible for the murder," I interjected. "In fact, the defense would like to further assert its point by moving to the cross-examination of the witness' testimony."
"Then go right ahead," Prosecutor Lin told me with a small nod and serene smile. "I won't be stopping you."
"Do you know what you're going to do to find out the cause of your strange feeling, Athena?" Trucy questioned, hissing to me quietly enough that the other occupants of the courtroom were unable to hear what she was saying.
"I'm not entirely sure what would be the best call from here, but I do know that if we're going to find the truth, we're going to have to keep pushing," I told her. "I'm going to find out what's on my mind sooner or later, and when I do, everything is going to come together. It's just a matter of time."
"Then you should go on and get to it," Mr. Wright advised as he looked back to Prosecutor Gavin. "This isn't going to be an easy set of circumstances to push through, and this could be our best way of finding the truth given how much there is piled against Apollo."
I nodded my response. Even if I had no idea what it was that I was going to be doing next, I was confident that there was something odd going on here. All I had to do was make sure that everyone else understood that there was a mistake somewhere in the wings of this case. That was easier said than done, but I couldn't let that get in my way. After all, Apollo still needed me, and I wasn't going to let him down or falter at the first obstacle. If I did, what kind of defense attorney would I really be?
~ Cross-Examination ~
~ Discovering the Body ~
-"At the time of the murder, all of the prosecutors were gathered together for the sake of a meeting with the chief prosecutor."
-"It wasn't until after the meeting had concluded that I discovered the body alongside one of my coworkers."
-"We smelled blood as we were passing by a door, and when we attempted to open it, we found that the door was shut."
-"The scent was strong enough to attract our attention, so we pushed through the door to see what we could find there."
-"That was when we saw the crime scene as you can see it in the photo that was already presented."
-"Just outside of the door, we could see a small cluster of stray papers that had been tossed in every direction."
-"In a way, I suppose that you could say that is similar to what was found inside of the victim's office, hm?"
"Hold it!"
"You know, I have to admit... There's something that's been bothering me about this case, and I think I've figured out what it is," I declared. "You say that there were papers outside the door of the office, right? The same way that there were pages sitting in that area when the crime scene was first found by the police?"
Prosecutor Gavin nodded, though I could see the quizzical and questioning sheen to his gaze. "That is true, ja. What of it?" he asked.
"Well, the papers being outside of the office doesn't really make all that much sense in my eyes," I replied. "After all, the struggle seems to have been restricted only to the interior of the office, so why would there be papers outside the office? Besides, the door was barricaded, and that means that no pages could have gotten out there in the first place. The crime was clearly premeditated judging by the fact that the murder weapon is there, but if we take all of this into account, there's a clear gap in the story."
"Do explain what you mean from the beginning. You've caught my intrigue," Prosecutor Lin told me with a light smile.
"The struggle was only inside of the office. That's what seems to be the case, at the very least. Beyond that, the crime must have been planned in advance for the murder weapon to have been at the scene of the murder in the first place," I began to explain. "And yet, there were still papers all over the floor outside the office. It makes me wonder... Why in the world are those pages there in the first place?"
Prosecutor Lin opened her mouth only to clamp her lips shut a moment later. When she did finally respond, it was with a loose shrug. "I'm afraid that I don't have an easy explanation for that," she confessed.
"And that's where the problem lies," I replied. "If the papers couldn't have gotten there at the time of the murder-or, to be more accurate, the time when the defendant entered the office-then you have to ask... Just when did they end up on the floor? What happened for them to be scattered around the area so recklessly? The pages seem to belong to the defendant of this case rather than the victim, something that applies to every other paper that was found at the scene of the crime. You have to wonder why there's a difference there as well. It seems like nothing involving the papers out in the hallway seems to make sense."
"It wouldn't have made sense for him to drop those papers outside the office intentionally," Mr. Wright commented with a frown. "None of this seems to add up... Unless, of course, Apollo wasn't the one to commit the crime. We already know that he didn't do it, but it's hard to see where this issue of the papers is going to lead us."
"As far as I'm concerned, this is evidence that there was something foul at play at the time of the murder," I announced. "The papers that were scattered on the ground are the sign of something out of the ordinary taking place."
"Then what exactly is this sequence of events that happened out of the ordinary as you claim?" Prosecutor Lin questioned. "I believe that everyone in the courtroom is looking forward to your explanation."
The judge nodded sagely at her words. "Yes, I'm with Prosecutor Lin here," he chimed in. "Defense, please tell the court what you think the explanation is behind this issue."
"The defense asserts that there were multiple victims involved with this case," I announced.
Prosecutor Lin's eyes went wide, and she seemed to be on the verge of staggering backwards by a step or two. "Would you mind explaining what it is that you mean by that?" she questioned.
I nodded. "There were bruises all over the defendant's body when he was found. The first assumption upon seeing the scene of the crime would be to say that he got the bruises when he was supposedly fighting with the victim at the time of the murder. However, the bruises themselves are not really evidence of something like that happening. We don't have any direct proof that the bruises came from the potential struggle between him and the victim," I began to explain.
"You mean to say that the bruises came from somewhere else?" the judge asked in surprise.
"That's exactly what I'm saying, Your Honor," I told him firmly. "The bruises must have come from somewhere else, and the papers out in the hallway are the signs of a different struggle entirely... The struggle between the defendant and the culprit! In other words, we were operating under the assumption that this case had only a single victim, that being the one who was murdered in his office. However, if you follow this line of reasoning, this is the only explanation that makes sense. There were two victims on the day of the murder, one of them being the one who was killed and the other being the defendant!"
That spurred the gallery into chatter immediately, and I couldn't help but smirk to myself. I hadn't been entirely sure if this was the truth behind what happened at the time of the murder, but the more that I thought about it, the more confident I was that this had to have been what took place. The papers out in the hallway were the sign of something out of the ordinary, and the only thing that I could think of was the idea that Apollo was attacked.
"Order!" the judge announced, slamming his gavel down against the podium before him. "Defense, do you have any other evidence to back up this theory of yours?"
I nodded. "As a matter of fact, I do," I told him simply. "Remember earlier when we were debating the issue of the defendant seeming to have lost consciousness randomly? If we look at it through the lens of him having been attacked, then the pieces start to come together perfectly. His lack of consciousness was caused by the assault in the hallway!"
"Objection!"
"He didn't sustain any head wounds though," Prosecutor Lin pointed out. "I seem to recall that we've already gone over this subject in this trial. The defendant didn't receive any injuries to the area of his head, so if that's the case, then how would the attack have knocked him unconscious? Unless you can prove how it was that he wound up unconscious from this supposed attack, we're going to have to move on and focus on another aspect of the case."
Unfortunately, that was one question that I couldn't answer. No matter how hard I tried to figure out the explanation for this, I ultimately came up short, and I let out a small sigh when I recognized that I wasn't going to be able to fill in the cracks on this particular subject. "No... I'm afraid that I can't explain it," I told her quietly. I knew that we were on the right track, but I had no idea how in the world I was supposed to prove it! I just needed that one clinching piece of evidence for everything to come together. It was a shame that I didn't know what that one thing was going to be.
"In that case, I think that now would be a perfect time to move on to the next major subject of discussion," Prosecutor Lin declared. "Since the state of the crime scene appears to be our most significant concern at the moment, I think it would only be fitting if that was what we had the witness address next. Does that sound alright with you?"
Prosecutor Gavin nodded. "I would be happy to oblige," he smiled to her. I could still tell that everything about his supposed optimism was as fake as it got, but I allowed myself to fall under the spell for a few brief moments. This was going to have to be my next step in terms of finding information, after all, and as much as I hated to say it, we were going to need his testimony if we wanted to solve the issue of Apollo losing consciousness.
"There has to be an answer to this puzzle somewhere," Trucy concluded. She was staring down at the defense bench with a small frown on her face. "There has to be a reason that Polly was knocked unconscious. I think that it had something to do with the way that the papers were scattered everywhere too since that really does make it seem like he was knocked unconscious, but I guess that we just don't have the right proof to show that yet."
"There must have been another way for this to happen," Mr. Wright murmured. "But even if we did come up with a theory like that, we wouldn't have been able to show solid evidence of it. For the time being, we'll simply have to hear what Prosecutor Gavin has to say during his next testimony."
"Witness, please tell the court about the way that the scene of the crime looked at the time of your discovery of the murder," Prosecutor Lin instructed of him with a gentle smile. "Don't hold back on any details. You know what we want to hear, and this is an environment without judgement."
"I think the judge took offense to that," Trucy told me as she pointed up to the judge. The man was staring at the scene in front of him with wide eyes, though he didn't comment on Prosecutor Lin's choice of phrasing.
"I'll go on and begin then," Prosecutor Gavin declared with a nod.
~ Witness Testimony ~
~ State of the Crime Scene ~
-"We first found the crime scene as we were on our way back from the meeting with the others in the office."
-"Upon smelling blood, my companion broke down the door, and we found the area upon entering the room."
-"I saw the defendant unconscious on the ground and took him out of the room to tend to his injuries."
-"Prosecutor Blackquill, on the other hand, remained in the area and took a photo of the crime scene."
-"He joined me in the hallway a short while later as we continued looking over the defendant and waiting for him to wake up."
-"Neither one of us disturbed the crime scene after the photo was taken. Everything was exactly as you see it there."
I nodded to myself at the words that were being spoken. I could already tell exactly what it was that I was going to want to do this time around. I had no idea where it was going to be taking us, but this was at least a step in the right direction, and after the disappointment that we had faced from not being able to find the truth behind Apollo being attacked, this was the best thing that I could have possibly asked for.
"The crime scene's photo can be seen here," Prosecutor Lin declared as she held up a small page that showed off the scene of the murder. "As you can see, it was a bit of a mess when it was first discovered. There were papers thrown all over the floor, and some of them were even torn to shreds by hand. There was quite the struggle between the victim and his killer, it seems."
"And yet, some papers that didn't belong wound up in the hallway," I murmured to myself. That wasn't what we were going to be able to focus on right now, but it was still something for me to keep in mind for the time being. I was sure that we would get our chance to talk about the truth of Apollo being attacked soon enough. It was just a matter of hand before everything came out in full.
"The crime scene must have been rather difficult to investigate given the circumstances," the judge commented with wide eyes. "Though I suppose that we already knew that it was on the messy side."
"The doorknob was being held in place with a chair when we first arrived," Prosecutor Gavin continued to explain. "Prosecutor Blackquill broke down the door in order for us to get inside, and when the door fell away... You can see what it is that we saw."
"And you escorted Apollo out of the room to look after his injuries..." I murmured.
Prosecutor Gavin nodded solemnly, his expression changing ever so slightly. "We were unsure of the extent of his injuries at the time. He was somewhat difficult to look after as long as he was in the office so close to the victim's body, so we took him from the scene. Everything else remained the same between then and the time of the crime scene being discovered," he explained.
I glanced over to Mr. Wright, and judging by the look in his eyes, I could tell that he had already caught on and recognized just what it was that was sitting so strangely with me. He offered me a small nod of encouragement as I turned my attention back to the rest of the courtroom. "The defense would like to cross-examine the witness' testimony at this time," I declared.
The judge nodded as Prosecutor Lin gave me a kind smile. "Go right ahead, defense," she said simply. She didn't know what it was that was coming next, or if she did, she was doing a great job of hiding it. We had mentioned it during the investigation the day before, hadn't we? It wouldn't surprise me if she had figured it out.
Then again, I supposed that what mattered most in that moment was just articulating what was happening. I knew what everyone had to know, and they were going to hear it as soon as possible. They wouldn't be able to refute solid evidence like this. I was sure of it.
~ Cross-Examination ~
~ State of the Crime Scene ~
-"We first found the crime scene as we were on our way back from the meeting with the others in the office."
-"Upon smelling blood, my companion broke down the door, and we found the area upon entering the room."
-"I saw the defendant unconscious on the ground and took him out of the room to tend to his injuries."
-"Prosecutor Blackquill, on the other hand, remained in the area and took a photo of the crime scene."
-"He joined me in the hallway a short while later as we continued looking over the defendant and waiting for him to wake up."
-"Neither one of us disturbed the crime scene after the photo was taken. Everything was exactly as you see it there."
"Objection!"
"There was something that changed between the discovery of the crime scene and the photo that was taken by the police," I announced. "In fact, this is something that's been bothering me ever since our investigation began."
"What is it, Ms. Cykes?" the judge questioned, his expression contorted in confusion.
"Here, we have a pair of pictures that shows the crime scene as taken by two different people. First and foremost, the crime scene had its picture taken by Prosecutor Simon Blackquill as the witness stated. The crime scene was then again captured in a photo by the police, but at the time of the police's discovery of the office, there was already something that had changed," I announced. "If you will take a look at these two pictures, you will find one crucial difference between the two."
"Where is this difference in the pictures in question?" the judge asked of me next.
"Take that!"
"Look at the evidence cabinets in the two pictures," I declared. "If you'll look closely at them, you'll see that the cabinet is wide open in the picture that the police took, but at the time of the crime scene's initial discovery, the doors were pressed shut. If there were really no interferences with the crime scene during this period of time, then it makes one wonder... Just how could the cabinet's position have changed when nobody was there to move it in the first place?"
The gallery began to buzz around us, and I couldn't help but smile to myself. I had exactly zero ideas as to where this was going to take us next, but I figured that I might as well point it out. After all, we weren't going to be able to find the truth behind this case if we didn't work through the contradictions that presented themselves, and this seemed like as good a place to start as any.
"Order!" the judge announced as he hit his gavel down against the podium in front of him. "Defense, where does this contradiction come from? Who could have moved the cabinet's doors between the times when these two pictures were taken?"
I shook my head. "I'm afraid that's one question that I don't have an easy answer to. I was hoping that perhaps we would be able to stumble upon an explanation somewhere along the way to finding out what happened at the time of the murder," I replied. "Witness, if you don't mind my asking, would you be able to answer this glaring issue? Why were the doors to the evidence cabinet closed at the time of the murder's discovery but opened when the police found the scene?"
Prosecutor Gavin hesitated for a long moment before he ultimately shrugged. "I'm afraid that I'm not sure why that would be the case," he confessed. "I was out in the hallway when the picture of the crime scene was taken, so I don't know as much about this issue as Prosecutor Blackquill would."
Prosecutor Lin glanced up in my direction with a frown on her face. "I'm willing to guess that you wish to speak with the other witness who discovered the crime scene because he was the one who took the photos. He would be able to fill in the holes on this matter if he came to testify, after all," she remarked.
I nodded. "That's exactly what I'm hoping for. We can't just leave this hole in our reasoning wide open as things stand right now. We have the ability to learn what happened at the time of the crime, so we might as well take advantage of it," I pointed out. "This is one issue that we can't deny. It's hard to say what it was that happened for the cabinet's contradiction to arise, but we need to figure this out and pursue the matter to the end."
"This is a matter of grave importance," Mr. Wright agreed with a solemn frown on his face. "Realistically, the shift of the cabinet's status should not have taken place. Even if the window was open, the wind would have pushed the door closed if anything, not forced it open. There shouldn't have been a way for the door to open, so something must have happened for this shift to take place."
"In that case, I suppose we know what has to come next in this part of the trial," Prosecutor Lin declared with a loose shrug of her shoulders. She shifted her focus to Prosecutor Gavin a moment later. "Thank you for everything that you've done for us, witness. However, the time has come for you to step down."
Prosecutor Gavin simply smiled to her, but I could hear the relief in his voice that he did his best to hide. "It was my pleasure," he announced. A moment later, he walked away from the witness stand, moving much faster than his regular casual demeanor would have led one to assume. He was just as stressed as I thought, if not more so. I watched him carefully as he walked away from the stand, hoping that he would feel at least a little bit better for not being on the witness stand. That would do at least something to improve his mood since he was no longer directly testifying in the trial... Or so I was praying.
Prosecutor Lin cleared her throat once Prosecutor Gavin had evacuated the area. "In that case, I believe that it's time for us to move to the next step of this trial," she announced. "I already had this witness prepared in case it came to this. He's ready to testify as we speak, as a matter of fact."
The judge nodded his understanding. "In that case, go on and call your witness, Prosecutor Lin," he instructed.
Prosecutor Lin smiled as she pointed up to the witness stand, so charming and oddly infatuating as she did so that outside the courtroom, I never would have expected her to have the occupation that she did. "The prosecution now calls its next witness to the stand," she declared, bringing me right back down to reality. I didn't know what was going to be happening next, but I was going to have to see it through... For Apollo's sake.
Woohoo! Case time!
This case is already going much longer than I expected, I must admit. I wasn't sure of how long this case was going to take, but I didn't think that the trial was going to take up three chapters. I believe that it's going to be three, at the very least. This case will probably go for anywhere between twelve and fifteen chapters, though we'll have to see as we go along, I suppose.
This case really is a joy to work with, I must say. I'm having tons of fun with it. I've never written a strong chunk of these characters before, and it's nice for the sake of experimentation to be able to branch out of my comfort zone a bit to write for characters that I wouldn't otherwise be engaging with. I'm going to be keeping this up well into the end of the story too, so that's going to be fun on all sides for me.
With that said, I'm going to leave things off here. Next time, we'll keep going with this case and hopefully wrap up our first session of the trial! Until then, I hope you all enjoyed. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!
-Digital