The police precinct was abuzz as always with serious faces stuffed into uniforms behind desks, the sound of furious typing and chatter and, somewhere in the back, raucous laughter echoing throughout the cramped floor. Maya glanced around nervously, feeling a bit unsettled given all the negativity that had surrounded her various visits here. Pearl's hand felt tiny held in her own and she stretched up onto her toes, yearning to find her target quickly.
Just as she was about to go reaching for her cell phone to do it the most efficient way, one of the officers glanced up from his papers and fixed her with a hard stare. He was obviously there to greet visitors, as his desk sat behind a taller veranda that was positively littered with flyers, signs, warnings, and community notices. There was an imposing structure next to the desk that Maya remembered was a metal detector. She was grateful that she didn't wear any jewelry.
"Help you, miss?"
She felt Pearl shrink behind her as she attempted to paint a smile over her trepidation. "Ah, yeah! We're here to um, see Detective Gumshoe… I had…um, an appointment?"
The officer maintained his stare at her as seconds ticked by, apparently sizing her up. She wasn't entirely sure what kinds of people just randomly showed up here, but she was willing to bet it probably wasn't two young ladies in spirit medium robes, and she hoped that she didn't come off as completely weird. This just has to happen everywhere we go, doesn't it… Shouldn't they be used to us showing up here by now?! The officer nudged his coffee cup aside and grabbed a clipboard from the slide-out drawer in his desk. "Name?"
"Uh, Maya. Maya Fey. And Pearl Fey, too." When the officer raised an eyebrow at the second name, Maya pulled her cousin out from behind her. Nonplussed, the officer wrote their names on the clipboard along with a few other scribbles and replaced it in the drawer. "Secure any valuables and weapons in one of the lockers over there," he gestured vaguely behind them, "and step through the metal detector on your way in."
Fighting the urge to roll her eyes (do we have to do this EVERY time?!), Maya shook her head. "Didn't bring anything with me, kind of used to coming here by now…"
Though she had hoped it might bring a smile from the rigid man in blue, the officer's face remained serious. When she realized he was waiting for her to move forward through the secondary security measure, she detached herself from Pearl and moved under the threshold in an unnecessarily ostentatious flourish. "See? All clear. C'mon, Pearly, you're next."
Decidedly more reserved, the smaller of the Fey girls kept her hands at her sides and moved silently through the detector, unsure of what to expect but willing to follow Maya's lead just the same. When both of them were safely on the other side, the officer behind the desk scribbled their names on two adhesive name tags with VISITOR prominently labeled at the bottom. Maya took hers, first, securing it to her chest, and then helped Pearl with hers. It looked comically large on the girl's smaller frame, taking up most of the left side of her chest.
"Hey, Dick!" The officer's voice bellowed above the bowed heads and made both mediums jump harshly. "Some pretty girl and her kid's here to see you!"
Maya glared at him. "My kid!? How old do you think I am—"
Just then, she spotted Gumshoe's head poke around the corner from the direction where she'd heard the laughter earlier. "Hey, pal!" Despite her irritation at being assumed a mother, she felt herself grin impulsively as he hustled through the maze of cubicles. Same as he ever was minus his scrappy overcoat, the detective finally caught up to her and gave his usual sideways smile. "C'mon, we can go back to my office and talk."
"I hope it's alright that I've got Pearly here with me," she dragged the child back to her side, "she wants to help, too."
"The more the merrier, I say!" He waved them toward him as he started off for his office, forcing the two of them to hustle to keep up with his long strides. As he walked, he talked over his shoulder, his deep, scratchy voice carrying easily over the din of the main floor. "Gotta say, I was a little surprised to hear from you, especially about this—oop, sorry, watch it—but I'm on board for hearing what you have to say—sorry, Chief, lemme just squeeze past ya here—if you can come up with something that will work." He turned down a small, dark hallway and pushed open a door on his left. Maya could see that the frosted glass had borne many names over the years, all mostly scraped off when the detective's predecessors had moved on. She noted with a bit of sadness that they had only managed to scrounge up the letters for Det. Dic G msho.
He flipped on the flickering, yellowed light above his desk and haphazardly shoved a sloppy pile of papers across the surface of his desk. There were two very worn upholstered chairs poised in front of the ancient office furniture. Maya helped Pearl up into one and delicately sat in the other, afraid to lean backwards for fear of tumbling out of it. Gumshoe sprawled easily into his tall leather chair and swirled to face them, arms wide with anticipation. "So talk to me, pals, what's the plan?"
The spirit medium felt herself repressing a giggle while she drank in how at home the man looked surrounded by all his beat up hand-me-down things. Poor Detective Gumshoe, always getting the last pick… "We need to help Nick and Mr. Edgeworth. I don't think they know how. I wanna have a party, but I'm gonna need your help."
"A party, you say?" A meaty hand scrubbed at three-day-old stubble as Gumshoe considered the concept. "I wouldn't say Mr. Edgeworth is one for social gatherings. What makes you think a party will do the trick?"
Despite the challenge, Maya sparkled. "Are you kidding? Parties are perfect for this sort of thing! With you and me there, there's no way Mr. Edgeworth will be able to hide, and Nick can't pout his way through with all his closest friends around. Then, after a little while, we all turn our backs and give them the chance to escape, and then BAM!" She smacked a fist into her open palm, causing both of her spectators to jump. "They're stuck with each other! It can't fail!"
Pearl chewed her thumbnail briefly before tugging on Maya's sleeve. "Um, but, Mystic Maya… What will the party be about? Is it someone's birthday?"
Maya looked askance at Gumshoe. "That's where you come in, big guy."
The detective grimaced. "Me?"
"Yep, you," the spirit medium leaned her hands onto the massive, scarred desk, grinning conspiratorially. "You're the one who's closest to Edgeworth, right? So dig into his schedule and find out when he's free. I already left him a voicemail letting him know I know he snuck back into the country. If you can figure out when he has a few hours open, we can throw him a surprise 'Welcome Back' party! B-Y-O-B!"
"I don't know about that, pal—"
"Come on, you ol' fuddy duddy. Where's your sense of danger?" Maya sat back in the chair with a flourish, momentarily forgetting where she was. The old armchair groaned under the sudden assault and creaked to one side where a leg had been weakened by a screw making its way out of the base over all the years of punishment. The sudden shift in support drew an alarmed squeak from Maya as she whirled her arms to steady herself. When the imminent threat of certain death had passed, she immediately reverted to crossing her arms in victory and fixing the detective with a hard stare. "What's the worst that can happen, anyway? C'mon."
"There worst that can happen?" Gumshoe looked between Maya and Pearl for a moment, considering. "Other than being fired for muddling in Mr. Edgeworth's personal affairs? Gosh, I don't know, probably getting murdered by a furious prosecutor and his dopey rival-"
Maya didn't back down. "Better to go down a hero!" Her eyes flashed. "Or would you rather I call Ms. Von Karma to help arrange things? I bet she'd be more than happy to lend a hand, if it meant—"
"Alright! Alright," Gumshoe's voice rang out over Maya's bluff, "geeze. Just don't say her name out loud again, okay, pal?" The two girls watched in mild sympathy as the detective ran his hands over his imposing biceps, shivering at the memory of the young woman's whip having come down on him countless times. "Look, I'll see what info I can dig up for you and give you a heads up. No promises. Edgeworth is a pretty busy guy and I swear it's like he has a sixth sense for social gatherings so I wouldn't be surprised if he finds a reason to skip out."
"Hooray! Gumshoe, you're the greatest! I knew we could depend on you!" Maya leaned across the desk as best she could and wrapped the detective's head in an aggressive hug. Despite his attempts to appear gruff, Gumshoe grinned and leaned into the embrace, sputtering a bit when the medium pecked him on the cheek.
"Ah, ho ho, well, um, you know… You know I'm a sucker for punishment, anyway…" He rubbed at the back of his head as Maya sat back down, crimson red. "But I gotta ask, pal, what happens if this whole thing blows up? Pretty risky move to just cram everyone in a room together and hope things work out."
"That's impossible."
Two pairs of surprised eyes fell upon little Pearl, who was rolling up her sleeve in determination.
"Mr. Nick and Mr. Edgeworth, they're… They're two halves of the same whole!" Her hand trembled where it held her sleeve up. "There's no way it can fail because this is the way things are meant to be!"
"Hear that, Gumshoe?" Maya smirked at the man across from her. "Got any evidence to the contrary you'd like to show?"
The detective snorted and leaned back in his chair, considering his retort, but ultimately ended up showing his palms in a sign of defeat. "Alright pal, you win. I'll make sure Edgeworth gets there. The rest is up to you guys." He turned to the old CRT monitor that was shoved off to the side of the desk, wrought with notes, figurines, and assorted doodles that had been drawn in the thick layer of dust covering the equipment. He tapped impatiently at the desk while the dinosaur of a machine booted up, eventually presenting him with a flickering screen that displayed a picture of him posing with Maggie Byrd the day she was sworn into the force. "How much time do you need?"
Maya considered it. They didn't have a case right now, so it wasn't like she'd have to move things around to schedule a gathering. Still, though, too soon and it would be suspicious, but too far out and it left too much up to chance. She considered the reasons she might have to use to lure the attorney back to his own office after hours, though Phoenix typically didn't give her much trouble. "How about two weeks?"
Gumshoe's eyes narrowed at the screen in front of him as he painstakingly waited through the computer's desperate attempts to load the calendar. He'd been given access some time ago when Edgeworth had finally lost his patience with the trivialities of interviewing various secretaries and simply decided to dump the additional tasks onto the good detective. Although things were considerably calmer now, Gumshoe sort of liked the responsibilities. It made him feel closer to the man in red somehow, so he pointedly avoided reminding the prosecutor about it.
Seconds ticked past in awkward silence as the girls sat in optimistic anticipation, a definitive contrast to the detective's rising blood pressure. "Two weeks?" Maya watched as Gumshoe's meaty hand covered the mouse entirely, fingers hanging over the buttons as he tried in vain to open the application. While she wasn't particularly computer-savvy, herself, she still had to try and suppress her giggles as the detective grew exponentially more frustrated with his machine.
Click. Click click. Click-click-click-click-click-click.
"Ah, hell with this old useless thing," Gumshoe chucked the mouse across the room into the corner trash can. There was a broken basketball hoop hanging haphazardly above the wastebasket with Franziska's smirking face taped to the backboard. "What is today, Thursday? Make it two weeks from tomorrow. I'll make something up if I have to."
"We owe ya one, Detective," Maya flashed him a thumbs up. "If we pull this off, it'll be better for everybody!"
"No doubt about that, pal. You manage to cheer those two up and the crooks in this town will flat-out give up before the trials even hit. Just one more thing," he drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him, clearly thinking hard. "Who else do we invite? It would be weird just to have the five of us, wouldn't it?"
Maya paused where she was rising up out of the armchair and then sat back down abruptly, gaining another threatening lurch from the piece of furniture. "I guess you're right." Folding her arms, the medium thought long and hard about their list of VIPs. "Well, Ms. von Karma is still around, right? We could bring her—"
"Even if she hadn't gone back to Germany, I think I'd have to give that one a hard no, pal," Gumshoe's gaze was glassine, as if staring into the past. "That woman is an animal. Last thing I wanna do with a lioness is get it drunk."
"Okay… well, how about some people from past cases? I bet Lotta is a lotta fun when she parties…"
Gumshoe groaned and shook his head, but conceded and pulled out a notepad. Slipping a pen out of his shirt pocket, he tapped the back of it against his imposing chest and scratched, Lotta Hart, at the top of the list. "Alright, who's next?"
"Ooh, ooh!" Pearl lurched to the front of her seat in excitement. "Mr. Edgeworth likes the Steel Samurai, right? So why don't we invite him, too?"
"Great idea, Pearly!" Maya clapped her hands together. "Now we're on a roll!" She watched eagerly as the detective moved on to put Will Powers below Lotta Hart. The two of them bantered back and forth, partly speculating on invites but mostly reminiscing about past rivalries and the excitement of the cases in which they'd been involved. Gumshoe finally settled on extending the invitation to the police force and District Attorney's office, remarking that Edgeworth had many admirers amongst the two, even if he didn't realize it.
Satisfied that they had a solid start, Maya put Gumshoe in charge of organizing the guests' arrival while she would make sure that the office was ready to go for the day of the party. Pearl had offered to help make some snacks and cookies to put out for the guests and was motivated to be a part of the process as best she could. Between the three of them, it truly felt as though they were all collaborating on a grand, Top Secret mission to reunite the greatest justice team the city had ever known.
As she got up to leave, Maya turned and smiled warmly at the detective, who had settled for compulsively picking at some of the duct tape holding his chair together while he concentrated on his address book. "Thanks again for all your help, Detective Gumshoe, it's really good to have a friend like you on our side!" A deep blush spread across Gumshoe's face as he was overcome with bashfulness. "Hope to see you there, yourself. Maybe you should ask Maggey to come along as your date?"
The detective choked. "Maybe, ah, maybe we should just focus on one pair for that night, eh, pal?" His nervous laughter belied his hesitation and Maya smirked at him, motivated.
"Fine, but if we pull this off, you two are next. C'mon, Pearly." The smaller medium scampered after Maya as she made a swift exit, inspired by her latest matchmaking schemes. Truthfully, she did have her own doubts about the event, but if she remembered correctly, both Phoenix and Edgeworth had survived amicably enough as they had celebrated following the conclusion of the DL-6 trials. For a moment, it had even looked like Edgeworth might have accidentally enjoyed himself. If they could make it through two murder charges and a double acquittal, they could make it through an office party.
It weighed heavy on her heart to see the lawyer she had befriended so downtrodden all the time, and while she had done her own mourning for Mr. Edgeworth, it was nowhere near the obvious pain that her friend was continuing to go through. Although she had simply intended to force a confrontation between the two so that they could bury the hatchet, Gumshoe's comment had struck a chord within her. One pair, huh? She had never seen Phoenix so much as bat an eye toward another woman since she'd been his partner, and he had certainly never made a move on her… It was an awfully long shot, but the possibility was there. She glanced down at Pearl who was, as usual, transfixed by the city traffic as they walked along. "Say, Pearly…"
"Yes, Mystic Maya?"
"What did you mean when you said that Nick and Mr. Edgeworth were two halves of the same whole?"
Pearl gasped and stopped mid-step, staring up at her idol. "What do you mean? Isn't it obvious?"
"Why don't you explain it to me just the same? I'd like to hear your thoughts. Look, there's an ice cream cart—why don't we each get a cone and talk about it?"
"Oh, yes, please!" Pearl bounced briefly, enthused at the offer. "I'd like that very much!"
Gotta remember to thank Nick for the money he doesn't realize he gave me… Maya walked over to the stand and ordered two simple vanilla cones dipped in chocolate and handed one down to Pearl. After paying the man, she resumed walking, prompting Pearl to explain what was on her mind.
"Well, Mr. Nick and Mr. Edgeworth fight for different sides, right?" She wiped some ice cream off her chin. "Mr. Nick fights for the good guys, and Mr. Edgeworth is in charge of getting the bad guys."
Maya giggled despite the seriousness in Pearl's tone. She imagined that neither man would be pleased to hear their passions reduced to such a simple concept, even if she wasn't entirely wrong. "That's right, Pearls. Keep going."
"Well, Mr. Nick is clumsy and fumbles his words a lot, but he knows how to listen to his heart. And Mr. Edgeworth always knows just what to say and is really good at strategy—" Maya giggled when the word came out as "stragedy"—"but he isn't good at feelings at all. When you put them together, they complement each other, don't they?" She bit into her ice cream cone, slurping at it before it melted in the mid-day sun. "I used to think that maybe you and Mr. Nick were better for each other, but now I'm not so sure…"
Maya nodded, considering it. "Did you know that they've known each other since they were both your age?"
Pearl stopped in her tracks once again. "Really? All this time?"
"Yep. Nick says that Edgeworth was one of his first friends ever. But Edgeworth," she stopped herself from blurting out the real reason the man had left, feeling as though it would likely just upset Pearl, "well, he had to go away for a long time. Nick spent most of his life trying to find him, and when he finally did, they were super close to being friends again." She took a long lick at her ice cream cone and wagged a finger with her other hand. "But like you said, Mr. Edgeworth is bad at feelings, so he ran away for a while and tricked Nick into thinking he was dead so he wouldn't go looking for him this time. And now he's back! We're not really sure why he's back, but this is our greatest opportunity yet, Pearly!"
A fiery determination flashed in Pearl's eyes and Maya knew in that moment that she really had her, for better or worse. Amused, she silently apologized to the two men in anticipation of Hurricane Pearl…
"Then that just proves it! They have to be for each other! We must succeed, Mystic Maya!"
"Let's do it, Pearly. It's gonna take a miracle. You ready?"
The tiny medium nodded, ablaze with inspiration. "Ready."