July 29
Courtroom No. 5
10:00 AM
Lily Shield
The inside of the courtroom was the same as I had expected given the context of the day before. Nobody could bring themselves to sit still for long, instead just vibrating on the spot and looking down on the main area of the courtroom. Neptune's suggestion about an assassin walking among us and committing the crime hadn't been well-received even though we knew she had a point. If the Emsthorpe family wanted information, they would go to the people they hate the most just to get back at them for what had happened years prior. The family was petty to the core, and this was just another example of it.
Across the courtroom, Prosecutor Wood couldn't seem to hold still for longer than a few seconds at a time. She fit in with the way everybody in the gallery felt, at the very least, but I wished there was something I could do to help her feel a little bit better. She deserved better than to be faced with a disaster like this when she was already in a fragile enough place because of the recent events. Hopefully she would calm down and start to feel better after the trial was over, but until then, I was wishing her nothing but the best.
Judge Frost raised her gavel before bringing it down solemnly, and everybody looked over in her direction. "Court is now in session for the trial of Buddy Bradshaw," she announced. "I take it the defense and prosecution both investigated the scene of the crime as per my previous instructions, yes?"
"We did," Prosecutor Lin confirmed. "And we were able to find something incredibly interesting along the way. As a matter of fact, proof exists of another person having snuck in and out of the crime scene."
Judge Frost's eyes widened in curiosity. "You have my attention," she said carefully. "What exactly did you find that points to this conclusion?"
"It was a small smear of blood on the wall," Prosecutor Kalles explained. "It seems to me that the criminal hid behind the door and used that as their method of sneaking in and out without being caught. As long as there was a way for them to hide behind the door without anyone seeing them, then they could have gotten away with it fairly painlessly. It wouldn't have been comfortable given how tight a squeeze it was, and the blood on the wall shows that, but they were able to get away."
"The blood is probably from the victim given that we don't know who else it could have come from," Prosecutor Lin went on. "I can only imagine that the criminal's clothing was covered in blood from the numerous stabbings, and then they hid behind the door to make sure nobody saw them before they slipped out. Unfortunately, they were trying to be stealthy, and that meant ensuring the others in the building were unaware of their presence. In trying to hide, they accidentally smeared some blood against the door."
"What exactly do you think the timeline was like as far as the criminal sneaking in and out of the file room?" Judge Frost asked. "That seems like the most important thing for us to examine at the moment."
Prosecutor Kalles nodded with a hum. "As far as I can tell, the criminal snuck in with the defendant, shoved him in the closet, and started to look through the files. When the victim appeared, they lashed out for the sake of hiding the fact that they had been in the area at all. When somebody else entered the room-Neptune and Clarith, if I had to guess-then they slipped out while the new witnesses were distracted by the fact that a murder had taken place."
"That certainly all seems plausible," Judge Frost murmured to herself. She thought it through for a long moment before looking over to me, Pieter, and Sky. "What about you, defense? Were you able to find anything else of note from the scene of the crime?"
"Aside from the detail you just heard from the prosecution, most of what we know comes down to a single witness being discovered at the scene of the crime yesterday," I replied. "She says that she wasn't in the area at the time of the crime, but I'm not entirely sure if we can listen to that. She was helping with the search for the missing files, but I don't think she was making any more progress than the detectives assigned to it."
"What makes you so sure this witness' behavior was suspicious?" Judge Frost asked. "You must have a reason for suspecting her for something she wasn't talking about, so what is it?"
I hesitated before looking up to her carefully. We hadn't exactly talked to Ms. Grange the day before, not that much, because of how focused we were on other topics. Between the blood on the wall and Sky's breakdown about everything he and Mr. Wood had discussed, we hadn't been able to hear her entire testimony. Then again, if she was up to something unsavory, then it made sense for us to wait. She was going to lie to us anyway if she knew what we were trying to get her to do, so we had to wait for the courtroom to give us the chance to break her words apart.
I didn't say any of that out loud though, instead just offering a loose shrug. "We heard that she works in the building the crime took place, and as far as I can tell, she doesn't have the same cushion of an alibi that everybody else does," I said even though I wasn't entirely sure this was accurate. Then again, the prosecution and detectives had looked into every employee to make sure that they had an alibi going into this investigation so they could rule out any other suspects. That meant Ms. Grange must have gone under their reach if they didn't know her at all when they first heard about her being there.
"I see," Judge Frost murmured, turning her attention to the prosecution. "I suppose this is a perfect time for you to call your first witness. Please summon them to the stand."
The three prosecutors gave one another anxious glances, and I noticed Prosecutor Wood was staring up at the rim of the gallery. There were extra guards positioned throughout the area, but I didn't know if that was going to be enough when push came to shove. If there really was an assassin here, then we were going to be in trouble no matter what happened, and security could only do so much when we knew what the Emsthorpe family was capable of.
"The prosecution calls Mattie Grange to the witness stand," Prosecutor Kalles eventually announced. She pulled her shoulders together firmly, though I could tell it was a false display of confidence. Of course it was. Not even Chrysalis could pretend to be fearless in the face of assassins when they had done so much to ruin her life in the past. It might not have been the Emsthorpe family specifically that had torn her apart, but I knew other assassins had most certainly ruined everything for her. Of course she was nervous.
Still, that didn't stop her from watching carefully as Ms. Grange walked to the witness stand, everything about her just as refined as it had been the day before. Pieter watched her carefully, and I could tell he was trying to figure out something new about her. I couldn't say what he was looking for specifically, but it was something notable. I was on the verge of asking him about it when Prosecutor Lin's voice cut in asking for the witness' name and occupation. I was going to have to talk to Pieter about it later, it seemed.
"My name is Mattie Grange, and I work at Gather Law," Ms. Grange replied. She tapped her foot impatiently against the floor below. "Are you here to ask me about the investigation into the stolen evidence? I've been helping with that over the course of the last day, so that's the most I'm going to be able to tell you about all of this."
"Not precisely," Prosecutor Kalles said slowly. "We were hoping to hear what you were doing at the time of the crime on the date the victim was murdered. You were in the building at the time, yes?"
Ms. Grange's eyes went wide. "What are you trying to get at?" she asked anxiously. "Are you trying to say that I'm a suspect? What grounds do you have to accuse me on?"
"I never said we were accusing you," Prosecutor Kalles interjected, remaining calm despite how much Ms. Grange was trying to bait her into raising her voice. "We need to gather as much information about the case as we possibly can, and that all begins here. Would you please share what you were doing at the time of the murder with the court?"
Ms. Grange stared at her for a long moment, her gaze unreadable. I felt Pieter shift anxiously beside me, but I said nothing in response to either one of them, knowing it would only end in failure. Ms. Grange nodded after a few tense beats of silence. "If that's what you want, I suppose I can't object... You never can object to you fancy courtroom types."
"Something is wrong," Pieter murmured, and I couldn't tell if he was talking to himself or if he was trying to get Sky and I to listen to him. "I don't know what's going on with her, but she's not... She's not supposed to be here. None of this is right."
"What are you talking about?" Sky asked, immediately paling at the thought of something out of the ordinary happening with a potential assassin. "You can't mean that she's... She wouldn't just expose herself that soon if she's really behind something, right?"
"I don't know. I'm just going to ask that everybody stay on their guards for as much of the trial as possible," Pieter replied. He took in a careful breath before focusing in on the case at hand. "She has something up her sleeve. I know it."
When I focused in on the trial once again, I was met with Judge Frost's voice. "Please begin your testimony at this time, witness," she instructed. Ms. Grange nodded, the action small and almost imperceptible, before she began to speak once more.
~ Witness Testimony ~
~ Working the Day of the Murder ~
-"I said yesterday that I was in the building at the time of the crime, but I still had nothing to do with it."
-"I was doing my regular work, and that has nothing to do with the scene of the crime. There's nothing for me to say here."
-"The work at the Gather Law headquarters is a lot of gathering information, as I'm sure you would imagine, but that doesn't mean anything."
-"Only longtime employees are able to get into the file room where the victim was killed, and I'm not one of the people allowed in there. I've never been allowed inside."
-"How exactly could I commit the crime when I wasn't even allowed in the room to begin with? It makes no sense."
-"Me being in the building doesn't make me a suspect. I don't know who you think you are, but I'm not the criminal, and you can't prove otherwise no matter how high and mighty you act."
"This lines up with what you told us yesterday at the scene of the crime," Prosecutor Lin began. "You said that you were in the building at the time of the murder but had nothing to do with the crime as it was being committed."
"And I meant it. Why in the world would I kill somebody I worked with? I didn't even know him all that well, so it's not like there would have been any bad blood between us," Ms. Grange said with a shrug. "I promise you that I'm not responsible for any of this. If you suspect me even after all that, then that's something for you to deal with on your own time, not something I should need to convince you of."
"I believe now is the perfect time for the cross-examination then," Judge Frost interjected before Ms. Grange's rage could boil over. She was right to intervene; Ms. Grange was starting to get more upset as the seconds passed by, and she was going to explode if we gave her the chance to do so. Hopefully the cross-examination would keep her on track.
I didn't have high hopes though, and I gave another nervous glance to the security guards lining the room.
"We'll begin the examination of the testimony now then," I announced with a nod. I had no idea what we were getting into, but I could say with certainty that it wasn't good. I couldn't tell if I should just hold back to stop it or if I should want to get it over with. Either way, I hated the situation with everything I had.
"Go ahead, defense," Judge Frost nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pieter swallow anxiously, and I knew he could feel it too. For better or worse, we were getting closer to the end, and we had no idea where it was going to take us.
~ Cross-Examination ~
~ Working the Day of the Murder ~
-"I said yesterday that I was in the building at the time of the crime, but I still had nothing to do with it."
-"I was doing my regular work, and that has nothing to do with the scene of the crime. There's nothing for me to say here."
-"The work at the Gather Law headquarters is a lot of gathering information, as I'm sure you would imagine, but that doesn't mean anything."
-"Only longtime employees are able to get into the file room where the victim was killed, and I'm not one of the people allowed in there. I've never been allowed inside."
-"How exactly could I commit the crime when I wasn't even allowed in the room to begin with? It makes no sense."
-"Me being in the building doesn't make me a suspect. I don't know who you think you are, but I'm not the criminal, and you can't prove otherwise no matter how high and mighty you act."
"Objection!"
"I have a question for the prosecution, if you don't mind," I began.
"Why are you interrupting my testimony to ask the prosecution something?" Ms. Grange asked, her eyes narrowing in my direction. "I would ask you to at least be a bit more polite about it."
"It's a question that pertains to your testimony," I assured her before looking to Prosecutor Lin. "You said that you investigated everybody who was in the building on the day of the crime, yes? That was part of your initial investigation to narrow down the suspects to only the defendant."
"That is true," Prosecutor Lin confirmed. "I wanted to make sure everybody had an alibi before we moved forward with the investigation, and everyone in the building seems to have had an alibi."
"In that case, did you hear anything about the witness having an alibi that day?" Pieter questioned. "Surely you would have heard something about her being in the building with somebody if you were looking into everyone."
"I didn't hear anything about her," Prosecutor Lin said with a shake of her head. "I was just as surprised to see her at the scene of the crime yesterday as you were. I haven't the slightest idea what she was up to, but if she managed to elude our gaze previously, then that's certainly impressive. Either way, I hadn't heard of her ahead of this."
"Would you have an explanation for a contradiction like this, witness?" Judge Frost questioned. "How is it that you could have been there at the scene of the crime without anyone being aware of your presence?"
Ms. Grange hesitated for a long time before she shrugged to herself. "They could have just missed something," she pointed out. "You have no idea what my life is like. I think it would be for the best if you refrained from jumping to conclusions prematurely. I already know what all of you are thinking. You believe that I'm the one behind the crime because you hadn't heard of me being at the scene of the crime. You must hear yourselves and register just how ridiculous that is. How in the world would that be enough to make me a criminal?"
"We should have known you were there," I told her. "There should have been at least somebody who was aware of your presence in the building at the time of the murder. If you were completely out of the line of sight of others though... Then that only leaves us with one conclusion to make."
"What are you talking about?" Ms. Grange asked. She already seemed to know exactly where this was headed, but she didn't tell us that, instead waiting for us to approach the subject on our own terms. "What does this mean?"
"The criminal behind this case would have been someone who snuck into the scene of the crime without being caught, and if you didn't have an alibi at the time of the murder, then it seems rather clear where you must have been if you were in the building at this point," Pieter frowned. "You were there in the file room, weren't you?"
Ms. Grange was quiet for a long moment before she simply shrugged. "You have no evidence that would put me there," she pointed out. "You can say all you want that I was the one behind it, but you know that you don't have the evidence to back it up."
"We know somebody was in there though," Prosecutor Lin pointed out. "We found a small smear of blood behind the door that goes into the file room. In other words, somebody had a reason to hide behind the door with blood on them. The best explanation I can think of for that is that the criminal was covered in blood and decided to hide so they could slip out of the scene of the crime without being seen by anyone else in the room."
"We already know the criminal didn't have the ability to use the keycard scanner, so it would make sense," Judge Frost murmured. "I doubt we would be having this problem now if the culprit could just use the scanner to come and go. That's one reason we know for a fact that the defendant wasn't the one behind all of this."
"Your logic isn't going to change the fact of the matter. He could have done all of this and just acted irrationally after the fact," Ms. Grange shrugged. "But I suppose you're not in the mood to hear something like that. After all, if it's going to break your precious case, you couldn't care less what I have to say about all of this."
"We have reason to believe that the criminal snuck into the scene of the crime at the time of the murder and killed the victim while pushing the defendant into the small closet at the back of the room. Right now, it seems as if you had something to do with this too. If you have no alibi, then we have no choice but to suspect you, especially if you claim to have been there at the time of the murder but managed to avoid the rest of the investigation up to this point," Prosecutor Kalles went on. "I would ask for your honesty on the matter. Where were you specifically in the building?"
"I was in my office working on my regular duties there," Ms. Grange countered. "You can say it all you want that you find me to be suspicious. That won't change the fact that I did nothing."
"Interesting..." Prosecutor Lin murmured with a shake of her head. "I don't think that's right at all. If you were conducting your regular work, then you would have been with other people."
"What are you talking about?" Ms. Grange questioned, her eyes going wide. "But I was-"
Prosecutor Lin held up one hand to stop her before she could continue. "I know you weren't with anybody else. The duties that day involved different workers meeting up in small groups to discuss what they were going to be doing over the course of the next few weeks. You should have been with others at the time. The fact that these meetings were taking place at all helped us to figure out who didn't have an alibi at the time of the crime, and now, it narrows you down too," she interjected. "You would have known this was your duty at the time... If you even worked there to begin with."
"You can't mean to say that I don't work at the place where I'm employed. If this is your roundabout way of saying that I've been fired, then it's not cute or funny," Ms. Grange snorted with a shake of her head. "I don't know what you're trying to get at here, but you're not going to get away with it."
"I'm not trying to get at anything you don't already know about, witness," Prosecutor Lin said. Beside her, Prosecutor Wood was staring at the table before her, eyes wide as could be. She was practically shaking on the spot no matter how desperately she tried to hide it. She knew we were in a bad situation, and she couldn't bring herself to calm down regardless of how hard she tried. "You don't work there because you have another job entirely."
Beside me, Pieter and Sky were both fidgeting nervously, not that it was anything out of the ordinary. We had known where this was going before the trial could even come in session, and now, all we could do was brace ourselves for the moment when the impact finally hit. She had to be an Emsthrope assassin, and we were going to have to push through that in order to find the truth behind this case.
"You infiltrated the building that day with the intentions of sneaking into the evidence room," Prosecutor Kalles began. "That's why you were there. It had nothing to do with a potential job. Instead, you lied your way inside, snuck into the file room to take a look at what information you could find, and then shot the person who saw you when he walked in at the wrong time."
"What reason would I have to kill him though?" Ms. Grange countered. "I had never met him before today. We worked in completely different divisions. If you're going to continue insisting that I don't work there, then I'm just going to have to defend my honor. I wouldn't have had a reason to strike against him if I didn't know him."
"The fact that the victim was the one who died isn't what matters here," I said. "The reason for all of this comes in the form of you being seen in the building at all. You were trying to slip in and out without anyone seeing you, and that was how all of this started. You wanted to get information in your hands, but you couldn't just let others walk away as long as they knew you had been in there. You shot him because he was the one who saw you."
"If I had to guess, I would say that the defendant was lucky when he didn't get attacked," Prosecutor Lin admitted. "Think about it this way. The culprit probably followed him into the file room and then incapacitated him by drugging him and pushing him into the closet to make sure he wouldn't be able to intervene with what was happening. After that, the criminal moved on to look around the rest of the room. They weren't counting on anybody else showing up, so when the victim appeared, they panicked and shot him to make sure they didn't talk."
"There was a plan in place for keeping the defendant out of trouble, but that wasn't the case for the victim," Pieter agreed with a small nod. "It makes sense... Though there are a few questions about it as well."
"Let's assume for a moment that I was there because I was hoping to get my hands on information in the file room. Why wouldn't I have just killed him if I saw him there?" Ms. Grange cut in before Pieter could explain his thoughts. "It doesn't make any sense. I would have just wanted to get rid of him as soon as I crossed paths with him. Sure, he let me into the evidence room, but that doesn't mean much if I have other goals in mind such as the theft of information."
"I would assume it's because killing him would only draw attention to you prematurely," I told her. "After all, if somebody knew that you had killed someone so soon after arriving in the file room, then you would be in a world of trouble if someone walked in. It was risky enough as it was, but if you were seen in the same area as a dead body, then that would have been a disaster for you. If nobody else walked in, then you would have been able to get in and out of the file room without anyone realizing you were there at all beyond the defendant you had drugged."
Ms. Grange shook her head after a heavy moment of silence. "You're all awfully insistent on saying that I was the one behind all of this," she murmured. "It's getting frustrating just how much you want to pin this on me. I understand that you're desperate and don't know what you're doing, but this... It's obnoxious."
"I think we know exactly what we're doing," I interjected, slamming my hands against the defense bench before me. "You snuck into the building because you wanted to get your hands on some important information, but you were caught before you could get away. You shot the victim in a moment of panic before he could report you. The only reason you hadn't killed the defendant before this was because it would only make your circumstances worse if you were caught by chance. A lot of this was riding on luck, and in the end, multiple people made awful rolls... You and the victim both."
"You probably had to leave without getting all the information you were looking for," Pieter concluded, his eyes going wide. "You weren't able to track down everything you had been hoping to find, and that was why you came back to help with the investigation. Or, at the very least, that was what you told everybody whenever they tried to ask what you were up to. If you said that you were in the area to help with the search for the missing files, then they wouldn't be able to ask any questions, not really."
"And you would have been able to grab what you were looking for without anyone knowing for sure what was happening until it was too late. Again, it was a gamble, but what other choice did you have if you wanted to get your hands on the information you needed so desperately?" I asked. "You were there because you wanted to get in and out without anyone catching you, but you made a few fatal miscalculations and now, you're standing here before the court. Even if you won't admit it, we know the truth."
"Anybody could have done something like this," Ms. Grange pointed out. "Anyone could have snuck into the building and done everything you're saying I was responsible for. You have no conclusive evidence of me being involved with it. If you don't want to admit it though, then that's alright, I suppose. As long as you can figure it out before the trial is over. All of your logic is flimsy and based on something that doesn't even conclusively declare me as the one behind the crime."
Pieter stared at her for a long moment, and I could see something new flickering in his eyes that I hadn't registered throughout the rest of the trial. "What's going on?" I asked softly. I had no idea where this was coming from, but if his expression was anything to go off, he had recognized something in the current testimony, and it was bothering him much more than he would have ever expected.
"I think... I think something about this is familiar," Pieter told me. "Just give me a little bit of time. Keep her talking, and I'm going to try and figure out what's going on. Can you do that for me?"
I nodded, albeit hesitantly. I was sure that Pieter knew what he was doing here, but I couldn't hold back the feeling of something about this just being... Wrong. He was a capable person, yes, but this... It left an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"You're right in that we don't have any conclusive proof that you were the one behind it," Prosecutor Lin began. "But the details right now certainly seem to point to you being responsible whether you want to admit it or not. You don't have an alibi, and you've already claimed to be in the building at the time of the murder. You didn't know anything about the group workshop, something everyone would have known if they were actually working at the crime scene."
Ms. Grange took in a careful breath before looking off to the side. "Things happen," she said simply. "And unless you can come up with some hard evidence of me being involved with this, I admit to nothing."
And just like that, the courtroom door swung wide open. KJ was standing at the center of the double doors, his arms spread outward. He was breathing heavily, a small smile on his face.
I had no idea what he was going to say, but whatever it was, I was confident it would be a good sign. I could feel it.
update time
-Digital