May 2

Blackgate Community Center

11:45 AM

Venus Rinko

Returning to the community center was, in all honesty, a massive relief. Given how little information we had gone into this situation with, I was glad that we were going to be able to take a step back to decompress and think about everything that we would have to get next. I knew that this trial wasn't going to be easy per se, but we had already taken a few steps in the right direction thanks to the testimony of Prosecutor Lin as well as my gamble near the end of the trial.

I couldn't even really tell you where that idea came from. It simply came to me, and I couldn't help but feel as if there was something going on that I had yet to uncover behind the scenes of the case. I'm glad that I did wind up deciding to go through with it though; it certainly did help us out when it came to being able to show that KJ wasn't the culprit. From here, all we were going to have to do was push it through to the end. That wasn't going to be simple, of course, but I had faith that we were going to be able to do it one way or another.

"I think that I know where we should start by looking," Mr. Morix declared to myself, Yuri, and Chrysalis. We had been able to get the latter to come along with us by a stroke of luck when Prosecutor Bespoke messaged us and said that he wasn't going to have to talk to Chrysalis. She was certainly looking forward to being back in her element at our side during the investigation even if she wasn't going to be able to take to the defense bench with us in court.

"And where is that?" Yuri questioned with a small tilt of her head as she glanced up in his direction.

"The women's locker room. KJ said that he was in there at the time, and I'm sure that there has to be something in the locker room that could either prove that he was actually cleaning up the way that he claimed or that will show us something about the victim. After all, we know that she would have been there at some point on the day of the murder, and that might just be the clue we need," Mr. Morix replied.

"Understood," Chrysalis nodded. She started to lead us in the direction of the locker room soon afterwards, and I followed after her silently as she pushed the door open carefully, not using her hands at all. "I think that we should figure out where Detective Wattson is too. If we need proof that KJ was in here, then all we have to do is get the door area tested for fingerprints so that we can be sure that he was telling the truth."

"And it's not as if we really need to be convinced," Yuri chimed in. "We already believe him, but there are others who aren't going to go along with it quite so easily, so we have to prove this for their sakes."

I nodded, and once we got into the locker room proper, I glanced around the area, trying to find anything that could be considered out of the ordinary. There wasn't much of anything that seemed to be too particularly strange, and it left a frown on my face. The lockers were all a blue color, and for the most part, their small locks had been clamped shut. I didn't know whose lockers were whose though, and I assumed that I was going to be left in the dark for quite some time. After all, it wasn't as if I was going to be able to force anybody to share that sort of information.

"Hey, look over there," Yuri commented as she pointed to the far wall of the locker room. I could see that she was gesturing to a locker that was still cracked open with its lock not done properly. In other words, that was our one clue in terms of investigation, and I assumed that it was going to be our next target. We didn't have any evidence that it was going to be what we were searching for, but it was still worth checking out as far as I was concerned.

As we all crowded around the locker, I frowned to myself. There was a set of clothes inside, and I could see that a sleeve had been poking out to keep the door from properly shutting. In other words, the person who had this locker had been in a bit of a rush and didn't notice that they weren't able to shut the locker in full while they were hastily trying to run out of the locker room.

"Let's see what we can find in here..." Yuri murmured as she opened the locker and began to sift through the clothing that could be found inside. When she pulled out the lump of fabric, something fell between her fingers before hitting the ground below. I frowned before leaning down to pick up the strange object that had managed to escape her grasp.

"Hey... This is a lanyard," I remarked to myself. I examined it in full and let out a gasp. "Not only that, but it seems to belong to the victim! The ID found within the plastic certainly looks like the victim, and her name is listed out here too!"

"The fact that the sleeve is sticking out to keep the door from shutting... I don't know about what you guys think, but I find it peculiar that there was something going on to prevent the locker from closing in full. I know that I may be jumping to conclusions, but it isn't as if shutting the locker as a complicated affair. There has to be a reason that the door was left ajar," Chrysalis frowned.

Mr. Morix nodded. "I agree with you completely on that, Chrysalis... Unfortunately, I don't know what it is that could have motivated someone to not properly close the door. We can't just ask the victim, so that's certainly going to throw a wrench in our plans," he frowned.

"What are you doing here?"

A voice from behind us startled me out of my mind, and I nearly jumped three feet in the air. My eyes were wide as I turned around to face the newcomer. It wasn't anybody that I recognized, that was for sure. The person in question was a woman on the taller side with notably bright red hair tied into low ponytail. She was wearing all black, similar attire to what we had seen with KJ, and her arms were crossed over her chest. One finger drummed out a rhythmic pattern against her upper arm, and I could already tell that she was the picture of impatience.

Mr. Morix was quick to step up to speak with her, taking a small step in front of the rest of us. "We're the defense team for the current trial regarding the murder of Hanan Lee," he explained. "My apologies if we did something to startle you. My name is Cotoli Morix, and these three are Chrysalis, Venus, and Yuri."

"I see," the woman commented with a light snort. She glanced behind us at the locker before her eyes narrowed. "What are you doing messing around in the victim's locker?"

"How did you know that it was the victim's locker to begin with?" Chrysalis questioned in response, the question immediate and cutting. "On that subject, just who are you? I believe that I would have remembered seeing an investigator that looked so distinct during the first stage of our search yesterday."

"I'm not an investigator," the woman said with a heavy sigh and a shake of her head. "My name is Eris Rowland, and I helped out with the gymnastics competition on the day of the murder. That's one reason that I'm so bothered by the fact that you're messing around in the locker of someone who was part of the competition. It's even worse given that she was the victim."

"You want us to leave?" I echoed, my eyes going wide. "But we can't just do that. We have to carry out our investigation so that we're able to find the truth behind the crime. There's too much for us to do right now, and we can't just walk away when KJ is counting on us."

"You aren't going to find anything in there," Ms. Rowland told us, her glare growing only sharper. "Now get out before I make you leave. You don't have any investigative authority unlike the prosecution, and you aren't going to be able to order me around just because you think that you're going to be able to look around this place. Too bad, so sad. Now, get out of here."

I glanced up to Mr. Morix, desperately pleading with him as I tried to find a way out of this situation. I knew that it wasn't going to be quite so easy for us to worm our way out from under Ms. Rowland's gaze, but I didn't think that we were going to be giving up quite so easily. We still had to see what we could find from the locker, and even if it ultimately didn't lead us anywhere, we had to try.

Mr. Morix examined Ms. Rowland for a long moment before he nodded. "Come on, everyone," he said as he started to walk away. Yuri began to sputter wordlessly at his willingness to surrender while Chrysalis shot a silent glare in the direction of Ms. Rowland. The redheaded woman was all too happy to return the gesture as we made our way to the doors of the locker room to leave the space behind.

"What was that about?!" Yuri cried once we were out of the locker room. "We should have been able to keep looking around! We have a right to look around this place, and she... She can't just order us around like that!"

"I knew that fighting her was only going to waste valuable time. We'll be able to go back at a later point when she isn't trying to order us around," Mr. Morix told her. "Besides, there are still a few things that we have to do out here. Detective Wattson wasn't in the locker room, so I think that it's safe enough to say that she's somewhere in this area."

I immediately began to scan the gym in desperate search of the detective who would hopefully be able to help us prove that KJ wasn't the culprit. As soon as I caught sight of her, I tapped Mr. Morix on the arm and pointed in her direction. He understood what I was trying to get across and immediately began to walk over to her, the rest of us following in his footsteps.

Detective Wattson, who had previously been speaking with a few of the other investigators on this case, turned around as soon as she realized that we were coming to talk to her. A smile was on her face, and she offered us a small wave. "Hey there, you four," she greeted kindly. "I see that you've come back to continue with your search of the area for the trial."

Mr. Morix nodded. "As a matter of fact, we are," he confirmed. "We have a question for you, if you don't mind. We were wondering if perhaps you would be able to communicate with the forensics team so that we could get a test done somewhere in this area."

"Oh? What is it that you're looking for specifically?" Detective Wattson questioned, one eyebrow quirking up in curiosity.

"Could you do a fingerprint test on the door leading to the locker room?" Chrysalis asked. "We learned during the trial that the defendant was in there at the time of the murder, and if we can prove that he was the one who opened the door shortly after the killing took place, then we'll have an alibi for him."

"I can do that," Detective Wattson nodded. She glanced over in the direction of the locker room a moment later. "I don't think that he could have done something like this... The defendant, I mean. He was arrested before I got here to start the investigation, and he's so young. I know that there are some teenagers who are capable of doing a lot to harm others, but I don't think that he could have done this."

"I agree," I told her. "KJ seems like such a nice person, and it doesn't seem right at all to assume that he could have killed the victim. I know that this is just sort of how the investigation goes at this point, but... Still, I don't think that he did it, and I'm going to do what I can to make sure that everybody knows it."

The conversation fell quiet for a moment before Mr. Morix cleared his throat to earn Detective Wattson's attention. "I have to ask though... Do you know anything about an Eris Rowland who may be involved with this case?" he questioned.

Detective Wattson nodded without a beat of hesitation. "As a matter of fact, I do. She was part of the team that helped to run the competition on the day of the murder," she explained. "She claimed to not know anything about the time of the crime, saying that she was off in another part of the building at the moment of the murder. I didn't realize that she was still set to be around here though. I would have expected her to go home if she was really as unrelated to the case at hand as she claims to be..."

"What do you know about her?" Yuri asked with a frown. "We were in the locker room trying to search for clues, and she seemed all too excited to kick us out. I don't even know why she would have wanted us gone, but she claimed that we didn't have the power to investigate there, and we had to leave before she started an argument with us that wasted all our time."

"She's certainly... A unique individual," Detective Wattson replied. "She has a bit of a sharp tongue, and that much is clear the instant that you start to speak with her. I can't say why it is that she would have kicked you out though... She didn't even go to the trial today. She showed up here early in the morning for some reason or another, though I admittedly thought that she had left at some point before now since I didn't know where she was. She could technically classify as a witness given the fact that she helped the competition to run on the day of the murder, so that's how she's been able to get away with staying around here for so long despite the community center being closed to the public."

"In that case, it sounds like we're going to have to talk to her about what she saw on the day of the murder," Chrysalis concluded. "If she knows anything, we're going to have to figure it out. Any clues are helpful at this point. Of course, I don't know if she's going to be quite so receptive to answering our questions after she so willingly threw us out of the locker room. She didn't even want to seem to listen to us for two minutes, so talking to her is bound to be frustrating."

"So it appears," I murmured with a shake of my head. "I just want to know why she was being so hostile to us in the first place. It's not like we did anything to her to merit that sort of behavior in the first place. Then again, I guess that some people just don't need much of a reason to lash out others. Sometimes, people are just kind of jerks, and she could certainly fall into that category."

"We can go back and talk to her in a little while after she's cooled down a little bit," Mr. Morix suggested. "For the time being, we can look around the area and see if there's anything else that we can find. Sora will probably be here soon, and we can ask her more about what she might be able to tell us about the time of the murder."

Chrysalis nodded her agreement as Detective Wattson shot us a small smile. "In that case, I'm going to leave you to your own investigation. I've got to head off and take care of the fingerprinting matter on the door, so I'll let you do what you think is best when it comes to finding the truth behind this case. I trust that you can all stay out of trouble and keep from getting involved with anything that you think might be bad to get into," she said. "Until we meet again."

Detective Wattson retreated from there, and I nodded as I watched her to before I looked to Chrysalis once again. "Do you think that you would be able to tell us anything about what you saw at the time of the murder?" I questioned. "I know that it was pretty dark in the gymnasium, but you said that you heard the door close from the locker room behind you, right?"

Chrysalis hesitated before nodding. "I didn't really register the sound at the time since I was a bit busy freaking out over other matters. I'm sure that you can understand why that was without me having to go into detail," she replied. "From there, Sora and I got out of there, and it wasn't until after we were out of the situation that I fully realized that I had heard something like that. I didn't realize that it was going to be important until Sora mentioned it, and that was when I realized that such a thing had happened in the first place."

"In other words, you forgot about it up to that point because you were focused on not winding up as the next victim," Yuri murmured with a small nod. "I certainly understand what happened better now, but I guess that we aren't going to be able to prove it until we can get fingerprint results to show that KJ was in the locker room at the time of the murder."

"Even that isn't going to be enough," Mr. Morix frowned. "As much as I hate to say it, we're going to have to do a bit more if we want to make it clear to everyone that he wasn't the culprit. We have to find out who actually did this and make sure that the world understands everything that they did at the time of the murder. KJ's prints could have wound up on the door at any point in time, after all, and that's not a fact that anybody is going to be quite so willing to overlook."

"Then we'll just have to start looking for the truth!" Yuri declared as she clapped her hands together. "I know that we've still got to actually start the search in full, but I'm sure that we're going to be able to pull this off. With that said, let's go out and see what we can find."

I glanced up and started to look around the gym before my eyes fell on the door. I could see a trio of familiar figures engaged in conversation, and I already knew that this was going to be our next destination. Judging by the way that the rest of the party trailed after me, they certainly agreed.

"Hey there, you three," I smiled upon seeing Cassidy with the two prosecutors involved with this case. "It's good to see that you finally decided to drop by and see what you could do to help figure out this case."

Prosecutor Bespoke began to reach into a small bag that he had strapped across his body at those words. "Sorry that we're late. We wound up dropping by the Prosecutor's Office for a little while to look around and see what we could find relating to this case," he explained. He ultimately pulled a file free of its place in his bag before passing it over to Mr. Morix. "I guess that you could call it instinct that made us want to look around at what we could find."

"To be fair, it did work in the past," Chrysalis pointed out with a small shrug. "That was how we were able to figure out the truth behind the case at the skating rink, wasn't it? We realized that every case like this is fueled by past actions, and from there, it was just a matter of using the process of elimination to find the culprit."

"And I'm hoping that this is going to be helpful for us now," Prosecutor Bespoke told her. "I decided to see what I could find about this victim of ours since, as seems to be normal for the cases that we take on together, I couldn't find anything that could lead to a potential motive. That is, I couldn't find anything until I started to look into matters that could have happened before this murder took place."

"And we were able to find something," Cassidy finished for him. "The victim of this case was also a witness in a past case that went to court, this time involving some sort of back alley deal. The victim apparently caught an incident on a video recording using her phone, and she testified about it to the court. Unfortunately, the culprit got away, and we don't know much in terms of details beyond what was on that phone."

"We aren't entirely sure what was happening at the time of the recording though," Prosecutor Lin admitted with a shake of her head. "However, there is one thing that we found in the file that could certainly be used as something interesting in this case... And that would be the person who was the lawyer behind the case involving the mysterious deal."

"It was none other than Elton Middleton," Prosecutor Bespoke finished, his eyes narrowing at the words. "It seems as if the victim didn't give her phone to him out of mere random selection. The two of them are connected, and as far as I can tell, it goes a bit deeper than that as well. There's mutual trust between them, and that's the reason that the victim decided to trust him of all people with something like recording her performance without needing to worry about him betraying her and stealing the phone."

"No way!" Yuri exclaimed. "We've got to find him and talk to him then! I don't know how this back alley deal incident is going to at all involve this current case, but I feel like there has to be a link between the two, and it's up to us to figure out just what that connection could possibly be."

"Both of the figures who were in the video were obscured thanks to the shadows. The victim of this case managed to get away before either one of them saw her, and from there, the evidence went to the police. It was taken to court, but the trial was left unresolved when the video wasn't enough to figure out who it was that was featured within the frame," Prosecutor Bespoke continued to say. "It's a strange case, I have to say... But I do think that it's somehow involved with the current incident that we're faced with. It would be difficult for anyone to say in good conscience at this point that the two cases are completely unrelated, especially given that there isn't much of any other reason that the victim would wind up being killed. It's not as if we know of anybody else having a grudge against her."

"We have to ask Mr. Middleton about this," Mr. Morix said darkly, his eyes cast to the ground. "If that incident really is related to this current case, then we have a lot to consider before we're able to take the incident back to court. He's bound to know something about this if he was really the defense attorney on that case, and that means that he's going to be able to help us out at least something regarding what we're supposed to be doing next."

"That also means that he's been hiding something from us, and if we're going to get the information that we want, we're going to have to confront him about it," Chrysalis pointed out, crossing her arms as she glared at the flooring below. "He should have told the truth from the beginning, but I guess that was out of the question."

"He's probably around here somewhere, so I'm sure that you'll be able to talk to him about this without any issues," Prosecutor Lin assured her. "As for the other details of the case, I'm afraid that we aren't entirely sure of anything else that took place at the time of the trade. I'm sure that the culprit is aware of it though. The case wasn't exactly made into public news or anything because of the nature of the trial, but I still imagine that the culprit heard about it one way or another."

"That means that the one behind that deal would have wanted nothing more than to get rid of the evidence that could have incriminated them," I concluded. "That's probably the motive behind this case then. If the culprit figured out that the victim still had the recording, then they would probably try to get their hands on it and make sure that the evidence was never spread beyond where it already had gotten."

"You say culprit, but the more accurate term would be to say culprits, plural," Chrysalis pointed out. "After all, there were multiple people featured in that video as far as I can tell. There would have had to be two people at minimum in order for the deal to be carried out, so there are multiple people who would have wanted all of this from the victim."

"She was undoubtedly killed as a way of silencing witnesses," Prosecutor Bespoke concluded. "I can't think of any other reason for her to die this way. The murder was undoubtedly public as a way of making the culprit seemingly impossible to figure out, but hopefully we'll be able to find a way to bite at the beast that did this one way or another. It might not be the easiest thing out there, but we have our goal in mind, and that's a good place to start."

I closed my eyes in contemplation. I didn't have any ideas as to who the culprit could have been at this point, and I supposed that was the point behind the culprit committing the crime in such a public place. Of course it would be hard for the culprit to be found if there were so many people around. Any one of them could have been made out to be the one behind everything, and finding the culprit was bound to present its own problems even if we knew the general area where they had been sitting along with the fact that they were left-handed. We had a lot left to fill int eh gaps about, and that was going to be a quest in and of itself.

"For now, our best option would undoubtedly be to go and speak with Mr. Middleton," Chrysalis declared. "I don't like that he hid so much from us in the first place, but I guess that complaining about that now isn't going to do much to help us from here on, is it? All we can do is confront him head on and make sure that he tells us the truth."

"I'm sure that he just didn't think that it would be related," Cassidy said, though everybody in the area knew fully well how weak of an excuse this was given that there was no other motive that we knew of for anybody to hold a grudge against the victim, much less kill her. There was no way to say for sure that Mr. Middleton had done this maliciously, but at the very least, we knew he wasn't the culprit. He was the one who had recorded the murder from an outside perspective, after all, and he wouldn't have been able to hide that fact from the world no matter how hard he tried.

Mr. Morix cleared his throat and pointed across the gymnasium where the man himself was standing by himself. He was examining his phone, scrolling through some thing or another. I didn't have to even look at the other members of the group to know that this was where we were headed next. I wasn't entirely sure what was going to be next, but I knew that we had to talk to him as soon as possible.

I was glad for the new information that Prosecutor Bespoke had presented to us, but I was still confused about what all of this was supposed to mean. It seemed as if we had just gotten ourselves wrapped up in even more mysteries as time went on, and there was still tons more that we had yet to figure out. There were so many unanswered questions behind this case, and I had no idea where I was supposed to start in finding the truth behind this murder. We were just going to have to start small by talking to Mr. Middleton and see where it took us from there. I could only hope that it wouldn't wind up pushing us down a rabbit hole of confusion, because that had already happened more than enough up to that point for my tastes.

My back hurts ouch

-Digital