June 7
District Courthouse
Courtroom No. 5
12:45 PM
Apollo Justice
The gallery couldn't seem to halt its chattering no matter how long we waited for everything to calm down. My heart was screaming in my chest with Athena's words even though I knew there had to be some truth to them. This was where the path of the truth had led us, and I believed that it was the right way for us to go.
Judge Courtney frantically slammed her gavel against the podium, though it took at least ten strikes for the gallery to even come close to falling silent. "Order in the court! I will have order!" she roared before looking down to Athena. "What proof can you provide, defense? If you're so certain of the witness being Hugo Osborne, then we need to hear what evidence you have."
"There won't be any evidence," Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth frowned. "Hugo Osborne died years ago, and everyone knows it. How in the world could the witness we see before us be the same as the one who was killed in the PN-6 Incident?"
"If I recall correctly, no body was ever found after the victim of PN-6 passed away," Mr. Wright pointed out. "Unless something changed without my knowledge, I'm certain that the corpse of Hugo Osborne was never uncovered. In fact, I believe we mentioned that just a few minutes ago. If the corpse was never found, then it's perfectly feasible for the victim to have survived and decided to change his life into something new."
"There were very few leads left behind at the end of the PN-6 investigation too. Nobody knew quite where to go, and that led to the case being completely dropped soon after it came to light that the victim was dead," I remarked. "It wouldn't be entirely out of the question for the victim to have run away after the supposed killing."
"Gordon Ponce worked as a detective long before Hugo Osborne's death. If you really mean to suggest that the man on the witness stand is Hugo Osborne, then how do you explain such a massive discrepancy?" Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth questioned.
"He could have killed the real Gordon Ponce and replaced him," Mr. Wright suggested. "The blood found at the scene of the PN-6 Incident was likely too plentiful for the person to have survived. As far as I'm concerned, Gordon Ponce was likely the real victim, and the killer got rid of his body after the fact before falsifying that Hugo Osborne had been killed."
"The only way anyone knew that the victim of the PN-6 Incident was Hugo Osborne was because of his ID being found at the scene of the crime," Judge Courtney murmured under her breath. "It seems possible that all of this is true... Though I think we should search for evidence of the witness being Hugo Osborne before we come to any conclusions."
"Look at this picture," Athena announced as she held up the photo that had sparked all of this in the first place. "I didn't see it at first, but there are still a few traces of when the witness still lived as part of his old life. If I had to guess, he killed Gordon Ponce-the real one, that is-and assumed his life by having surgery to alter his appearance. Still, no surgery could make him look perfectly like another person, and all it took was him smiling for everything to come right into place."
"You can't be serious about this!" Detective Ponce exclaimed with a harsh, bitter bark of a laugh. "You can't just go around accusing people of crimes without any evidence. You think that I'm Hugo Osborne? I'm looking for hard proof of a connection between the two of us. You've just been theorizing all this time, but that's not going to cut it. You say that I killed someone and took over his life. Where's your proof then? Come out here and say it if you're so confident this is the case."
The courtroom fell silent for a few moments, and Detective Ponce snorted and shook his head. "I see that's the truth of it then. You don't know what's going on at all. You're convinced that I killed somebody, but all you have as proof is a picture that doesn't entirely look like me," he muttered. "It's pathetic how easily you've fallen from grace."
"Maybe we don't have any hard proof yet," Mr. Wright began slowly. "But you can't deny that your behavior has been suspicious. In fact, everything about this case has been odd. The fact that the PN-6 knife of all things resurfaced at the scene of the crime is an odd choice, almost like the killer was trying to make people think of what happened back then."
"Also, I don't think it's entirely fair of you to say that we have no evidence for everything we've been saying," I chimed in. "This entire case, and even long before that, you've been saying that the defendant has to be the criminal behind the PN-6 Incident because you think she has a motive for murder. A motive isn't enough to say conclusively that she's the killer, but you've been treating it that way."
"Beyond that, you would have been able to do one thing that has fueled our thoughts and curiosity behind this case up to now," Mr. Wright pointed out. "You would have been able to erase the evidence left behind the PN-6 Incident. You have the perfect position of power to do it... Just as you have the perfect position of power to push people to leave behind PN-6 unless it fits your current agenda."
"The one behind this case must have been the thief who took the evidence from the train murder too," Athena remarked. "We know that the evidence from the transfer was stolen by someone involved with the investigation. You were a detective in that case, and you could have taken the evidence without anyone raising an eyebrow at you."
"And you could have taken the remote control used in that murder too," I said. "I learned yesterday that the remote was a piece of advanced hacking technology stolen from Sparx Factory during the GC-9 Incident. You were the leading detective on the GC-9 Incident, so you would have been able to take the most important pieces of evidence from that case."
"A few pieces of technology went missing in the aftermath of the GC-9 Incident, as a matter of fact," Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth murmured as he crossed his arms, tapping one finger against the brook of his elbow. "Because of the much more pressing matter of the murder though, everyone glossed over it and did little to push the matter beyond that."
"But the witness that stands before us right now would have had the perfect string of events to take the important technology from the GC-9 case and then steal the evidence that was used in the transfer," Mr. Wright declared. "Even if we don't have hard evidence at the moment, the fact remains that everything is set up in a perfect way that would have fit only with you, Detective Ponce. What do you have to say to all of this?"
For a long time, Detective Ponce was completely silent. He let out a snort and shook his head. "You haven't said or done anything that could prove that I'm responsible for the crime," he said simply. "You've offered a theory, yes, but a theory isn't enough to say that I'm the one behind all of this. If you really want me to believe everything that you're saying, then you should come out with the proof that you know I'm searching for. If you can't do that though... I'm afraid we're going to have to call this line of reasoning finished. You know how the courtroom works... Evidence is everything. It always has been, and it always will be."
"You're the common line between all of the cases at hand," I pointed out. "You would have been there to take the technology from the GC-9 Incident, you were involved with the train murder, and you're here now. That doesn't even factor in the idea that could possibly have been wrapped up in PN-6 and SR-3 before that. You're the one person who all of these cases have in common. You have to be the one behind all of this."
"You're still only talking in hypotheticals," Detective Ponce frowned. "You say that I'm the only common line, but that doesn't mean much when you don't have any hard proof that I was the one who was responsible for any of this. Saying that you have a theory doesn't mean that you're right about it."
"Then let's tackle this from a slightly different angle," Mr. Wright suggested. "We heard a bit more about Hugo Osborne during our investigation yesterday. As it turns out, he had a lot more to him than met the eye. He seemed to be an evidence forger, and that could have very easily been the motive behind the murder of May Lin during the SR-3 Incident."
"And what exactly does that have to do with me?" Detective Ponce asked with a raised eyebrow. "Talking around the subject isn't going to change the fact that you don't have an idea what you're doing."
"Gordon Ponce might not have had much of an interest in the technology found at Sparx Factory, but I would argue that Hugo Osborne would be interested in it," Mr. Wright said. "I can only imagine that as an evidence forger, Hugo Osborne was at least a bit tech savvy. He would know exactly what to do with such important technology and how to factor it in with his forgeries... Something that carries over to you as well."
I knew he was bluffing at least to some small degree. We had run into an evidence forger of our own before now, but she hadn't necessarily been great with technology. In fact, Vera knew very little about those sorts of things as far as I was aware. Still, as long as this point hit home about Detective Ponce knowing what he was doing because of his past in evidence forgery, then it was going to be fine. We knew where this was leading, and we just had to prove it, even if it took a little bit of out of the box thinking to do so.
"I know what you mean," Trucy realized, her eyes going wide. Her words brought me bacak to reality as I turned to look at her. "If Detective Ponce is Hugo Osborne, then he could have used the important technology from Sparx Factory to cover his tracks. He would have been able to hack into the police systems and erase any proof that could have been left behind. That was how he was able to cover everything up about his previous actions."
"You still don't have any hard evidence of me being Hugo Osborne, you know," Detective Ponce countered. "Even if he would have had a reason to take all of this evidence, you don't have any hard proof that I was the one behind all of that. Until you can find a strong tie between the two of us, all of this means absolutely nothing."
"Maybe we could try some sort of handwriting analysis," Athena suggested. "If we could get a sample of Hugo Osborne's handwriting and compare it to Detective Ponce's patterns of writing, then we would have hard proof of the two being one and the same."
Detective Ponce shook his head casually. "You're not going to be able to find anything like that. After all, the evidence that once existed about Hugo Osborne's life has gone missing since then," he said. "You can say all you want that I was the one who got rid of it, but I feel like we know better than to fall for that right off the bat. For all you know, the defendant was responsible for it all and has been trying to cover her tracks. You can't keep accusing me of crimes because you can't accept that she's spent all this time lying to you."
"Then let's look at the handwriting of Gordon Ponce from a few years ago before the PN-6 Incident took place," Athena pressed. "There has to be at least a little something there that could point us to the truth. If the two sets of handwriting don't match up, then that should be proof of something being amiss here."
"That still won't show that I'm the Hugo Osborne you've been claiming exists all this time," Detective Ponce frowned. "You're going to need to dig a little bit deeper than that if you're going to find anything that you're searching for... Not that it's going to help you out. There is no evidence of me being Hugo Osborne, and you know it just as well as I do."
Judge Courtney hit her gavel against the podium before her, and the court fell silent. "Bailiff, come here," she instructed. One of the bailiffs stationed in the courtroom faltered with confusion before following her directions and coming up to her side. Judge Courtney leaned over and whispered something into the man's ear, and he listened solemnly before perking up, finally understanding what she was trying to ask for. The man saluted her before dashing out of the courtroom, earning everyone's attention along the way.
"What was that about, if you don't mind my asking?" Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth questioned. "I didn't expect you would shift your attention so drastically during a trial, Your Honor." The way he bantered with her caught me by surprise, and I was confident the two had some degree of history even before they met in the courtroom. That was a question for another day though, so I chose to linger on it as little as possible before looking up to Judge Courtney once again.
"I've sent him to fetch something for me. The details are unimportant," Judge Courtney assured him with a shake of her head. "You don't need to worry about that. For the time being... Defense, I would like to ask you once more... Are you confident that the witness standing before us is truly Hugo Osborne?"
I glanced to Athena, Trucy, and Mr. Wright at that. All of us already knew the answer, and even if we didn't have any hard evidence, it was clear that the path that had brought us here was the right one. I looked up to Judge Courtney once again a moment later before nodding. "Yes... We're certain of it."
Judge Courtney nodded and turned her focus down to Detective Ponce. "The court would like to ask for your testimony, witness," she began. "Please tell everyone here all that you know about the PN-6 Incident and the SR-3 Incident leading up to it."
Detective Ponce's eyes went wide with shock. "Do you really believe in the defense's accusations?" he questioned, anxiety pulling at the edges of his voice. "They haven't offered any conclusive evidence that I could have anything to do with this."
"Their theories are compelling though, and it is the duty of the court to explore as much as possible in the name of finding the truth," Judge Courtney countered. "I don't wish to antagonize you. I simply want to understand what it is that really happened back then. If the PN-6 and SR-3 Incidents are as important to this case as it seems, then we must explore every avenue of investigation. Evidence from those cases was found at the scene of the crime in this murder, and we can take that as a definitive connection between them. I want to see where this takes us so that we can learn the truth behind those past cases as well after the secrets have been buried for so many years."
Detective Ponce hesitated before he nodded, already able to see that he wouldn't be able to work his way out of this. "If that is what you desire, Your Honor... So be it," he agreed.
"This is going to be where he slips up, I'm sure," Athena said firmly. "If he really is behind all of this, then we're going to be able to prove it here and now. He won't be able to stay consistent with the testimony of a person who he didn't know at the time."
"A cornered witness is when they're most dangerous though," Trucy pointed out with a small frown. "I feel like he probably has something up his sleeve if he agreed to it without putting up a fight."
"We'll just have to be ready for it then," I returned with a firm frown on my face. I didn't know what Detective Ponce was going to try next, but he wasn't going to get away with it. We knew there was more to this case than met the eye, and his excuses wouldn't be able to help him escape for any longer than he already had. We would make sure of it.
~ Witness Testimony ~
~ Cases Years Ago ~
-"I didn't have much of anything to do with the SR-3 or PN-6 cases, though I don't think anyone is going to buy that quite so easily."
-"In fact, there's no clear connection between those incidents and what I'm doing right now. There never was, and there never will be."
-"The only link between me and PN-6 is that I was the one who decided that Hugo Osborne should be declared dead."
-"He had been missing for years, and given that we found his ID next to a pool of blood, it felt obvious what happened to him."
-"Anybody could have declared Hugo Osborne as being dead though, and that's not evidence of me being the man you claim is behind all of this."
-"I was busy with other cases back then, and I'm busy with other cases now. Me having other matters on my plate doesn't make me the criminal."
-"Your desperation is entertaining, but this is where it all ends. You have no evidence that I was responsible for anything, and it's time you wake up to it."
"You claim that you were occupied with other cases when the SR-3 and PN-6 cases took place then," Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth remarked, his eyes narrowing. "You had absolutely nothing to do with either case as far as you're claiming, yes?"
"If I didn't mean that, then I wouldn't have said it," Detective Ponce confirmed with a nod. "I had nothing to do with these incidents, and the defense is grasping at straws for saying that I was involved with the death of either one of the victims."
"We have to have some proof that could refute this," Trucy hissed to the rest of us. "If we can't show that he had something to do with the incidents years ago, then we're not going to be able to pin him down and make him confess."
"There has to be something around here," Athena murmured. She glanced around the defense bench in desperate search of anything that could help us before her gaze found one particular piece of evidence: the small box she and Pearl had found in the storage unit the day before. It was full of evidence from Natasha Morix's investigation into Hugo Osborne and the SR-3 Incident, and it had to have something else interesting in it aside from the picture that had sparked all of this to begin with.
"Defense, please begin your cross-examination at this time," Judge Courtney instructed. "The court is waiting."
I glanced over to the other members of the defense team, my gaze briefly flicking down to the small box Athena had grabbed. This would hopefully be everything we were searching for... Or at least, that was what I was hoping for. "Of course, Your Honor."
~ Cross-Examination ~
~ Cases Years Ago ~
-"I didn't have much of anything to do with the SR-3 or PN-6 cases, though I don't think anyone is going to buy that quite so easily."
-"In fact, there's no clear connection between those incidents and what I'm doing right now. There never was, and there never will be."
"Objection!"
Athena was the one who had called out the word this time around, and she raised the small box up for everyone to see before her gaze fell on Detective Ponce. "Witness, do you have any idea what this is?" she questioned.
Detective Ponce's expression twisted with confusion. "No, not in the slightest," he replied slowly. "Am I supposed to know what that box is meant to be?"
"No... You're not," Athena confirmed with a smile. "In fact, the fact that you don't know anything about it is exactly what I would have expected. This box is something that was put together by Natasha Morix, the victim of the GC-9 Incident."
"What exactly can be found inside then?" Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth asked. "And why has the rest of the court not been made aware of this evidence before now?"
"It was found at the bottom of a storage unit filled with her belongings. Everything she owned was moved there after her death, and we uncovered this hiding among everything else," Athena explained. "She was investigating the truth behind SR-3 and PN-6 because she was hoping to help out the search for the killer. She was trying to assist the defendant of this case in finding out all of that, and she gathered as much information as she possibly could have."
Detective Ponce immediately went tense at that. "She was..." He trailed off before he could say anything else, and I could tell that we had struck a nerve with bringing up the box. In fact, something in his eyes flashed like recognition, and I couldn't help wondering if perhaps he had already known about this, at least to some degree, before everything began in terms of the trial.
"She was searching for the culprit behind the SR-3 Incident for the sake of helping Prosecutor Lin," Athena reiterated with a nod. "She wanted to do everything she could to help the defendant lay the past to rest, though it seems she chose to keep her research secret from the rest of the world. She hid it all in a small box, and that was where we found the last surviving picture of Hugo Osborne. It seems that she found it by chance before her death, but before she had the chance to share it with Prosecutor Lin, she was killed. As such, the photo went forgotten and unrevealed."
"And the rest of the box was left unopened too," Trucy realized as she began to look through the box. Her eyes went wide when she found something among the small scraps of paper, and I realized it was a set of notes about SR-3. "Wait a moment... This page right here..."
"It says exactly what I was hoping it would," Athena smiled. "It's not written on any official case files, but these notes right here seem to be from the time of the SR-3 trial, and they state that Gordon Ponce had something to do with the investigation process."
The courtroom immediately exploded into chatter, and Judge Courtney hit her gavel against the podium before her. "Order in the court!" she roared before looking down to Athena. "You mean to say that the witness truly was involved with the SR-3 case and that we didn't know about it before now?!"
Athena nodded. "He was part of the preliminary investigation and seemed to have helped out a little bit behind the scenes if these notes are anything to go by," she explained. "I'm not sure what he did, but his role in the case was minor enough that it wasn't noted on any case files. I don't even know where these notes came from, but-"
"Then how do you know they're not forged to pin the blame on me?" Detective Ponce cut in. "For all we know, you could have falsified those notes for the express purpose of saying that I was the one behind the crime even though I had nothing to do with it. You've been trying to say that I'm the culprit this entire time, and if you can't say where those notes came from, then-"
"Hold it!"
Prosecutor Lin stood up from her place in the defendant's seat, her expression hardened with determination. "My apologies for interrupting the trial, Your Honor, but... I know exactly where those notes came from," she began to say. "I was the one who wrote them when the case was first taking place."
Judge Courtney's eyes went wide. "You were the one who wrote these notes?" she echoed in shock.
"Yes," Prosecutor Lin nodded. "I never saw or met Detective Gordon Ponce back there, but his name came up in passing. It was such a small detail that I forgot he had been involved with the case at all, but he did something behind the scenes of the investigation even if we never spoke. I copied my notes and gave them to Natasha Morix when she expressed passing interest in helping me figure out what happened in the SR-3 Incident. If you don't believe me, you can run a handwriting analysis."
Detective Ponce's shoulders once again went tense, and I slammed my hands against the defense bench. "I think this all makes the truth rather clear," I declared. "The notes we see right now were written by the defendant at the time of the SR-3 case, and she even noted Detective Ponce as being involved with the investigation, even if it was only briefly. I have to wonder, witness... Why did you lie about such a detail?"
"Could it be that you didn't know about the involvement at all?" Mr. Wright asked. "After all, if Detective Ponce was involved with the case in passing, and it was before you killed him and took his place, you wouldn't have known about it. Lying about it now only makes you more suspicious, so tell me, witness... Just why have you been hiding such an important detail from this court?!"
Detective Ponce remained silent and tense for a long moment before he cleared his throat. "I don't have anything to say that I haven't already mentioned," he finally forced himself to reply. "I was busy with other cases at the time, and that fact hasn't changed. Even if I was involved with SR-3, the part I played was so brief and unimportant that it simply slipped my mind. I was busy with other investigations at the time, and that meant I was focused on other matters too much to double back and think about the murder of May Lin when I was barely involved with it."
"You can't be serious," I said with a harsh glare. "We know that you were involved with that case, but you still refuse to change your stance?"
"I did so little during SR-3 that it slipped my mind. That's all there is to it," Detective Ponce shrugged. "I don't have anything else to say. I believe I've made myself perfectly clear that I've said everything of note up to this point. You cross-examined me one more time, and you were still unable to find anything that could prove my involvement with the victim's death in this case."
The courtroom burst into chatter once again, and Judge Courtney hit her gavel down once more, irritation starting to spread across her features. "I must say that you were right about us not being able to uncover anything new of note regarding your connection to those two cases... As much as I don't like the idea of you having forgotten something so important, we have no way of proving that you were hiding it maliciously," she said, though I could tell she didn't like the idea of having to admit this at all.
"Is this where it ends then?" Athena asked, her eyes wide as could be. "We've come this far, and we really don't have any evidence to tie him into everything we know happened? We're confident that he was involved with everything back then, but without the last piece of evidence..."
"The photo isn't enough then," Mr. Wright concluded with a small frown. "We thought that was going to be the last piece we needed, but it just opened the floodgates for an entirely new puzzle. He's been erasing the evidence of his crimes for years, and now, we have no way of pushing back against it."
I glared down at the grain of the wood before me, trying to figure out just what we were missing. As much as I hated to admit it, we didn't have the evidence we were searching for. There simply wasn't enough in terms of proof for us to pin him down as the culprit behind all of this... But how were we supposed to find the truth when it seemed as if there was nothing to be found in the first place?
"You have no evidence of anything you've said up to this point," Detective Ponce announced with a shake of his head. "You've come this far for nothing. Everything has been crumbling beneath your feet from the start, and you have no way of tying me to this case. I'm sorry to have to be the one to break this to you, but all this work has been in vain."
Did we really not have anything that could fix this? If there was no evidence, then was there some other line of reasoning that could lead us to the truth we had been searching for? We had gone around in so many circles only to come back to the same problem of the evidence being completely erased... So what was it that we were missing?
Wait... There was one thing we were missing about this current construction of the case, and it brought us right back to the murder of Reva Nyde. It wouldn't fix our problem regarding the past cases, but it might finally pull together the pieces we had been searching for when all of this began.
"Your Honor, the defense has a proposal," I announced before I could stop myself. I had no idea if this was going to work, but I couldn't let it stop me now. This was our last straw, and I refused to let the truth vanish now.
We were so close, and this was all we had been waiting for. I knew it.
We're getting closer to the end of the trial, everyone! Woohoo!
Once again, I don't really. have all that much to say about this case. I can imagine that there are at least a few people who are getting frustrated by the continuous lack of evidence though, so I want to assure you that all of this does have a purpose. There is a greater point this is all working toward, and the frustration of Gordon's crap is going to end soon enough. You'll just have to hold out a little bit longer.
I wish I had more to say about this chapter, but... Well, I'm kind of running out of things to say the closer we get to the end. The end of the story is finally within reach, and I'm so excited to get there. Only a few chapters are left, and I'm hoping you're all just as excited for it as I am. I feel like I have to bite my hand to keep from saying something that might wind up spoiling the homestretch. God, I'm so hyped up about this.
Next week, we'll keep the hype going and press right on through the next bit of the trial. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!
-Digital