August 7

Lady Bird Studios

3:00 PM

Chrysalis Starr

In the grand scheme of the investigation, it really didn't take us all that long to track down Mr. Gassman. We found him lingering outside the building where the rest of the media-related personnel were, but he wasn't desperately trying to snap pictures of everything. Instead, he was simply rocking back and forth on his feet, waiting for something to pull him out of his trance. At first, he didn't even notice that I had arrived, and it took Felicity tapping him on the shoulder to snap him out of it. He nearly dropped his camera, and the bag on his back shook mightily as he attempted to catch his balance in the seconds that followed. His breathing was heavy in his moment of stress.

"I didn't see you there!" Mr. Gassman declared in surprise, pressing one hand against his chest while the other held tightly to his camera. "You should have told me that you were coming!"

"You weren't exactly going to listen to us even if we did say that we were going to talk to you," I pointed out simply. "You looked pretty lost in thought, and I don't know if I would have wanted to poke that bear when there was the danger of you losing it in surprise."

Mr. Gassman hesitated in an attempt to form a cohesive response, but he gave up a moment and let out a sigh. "You can be a bit prickly at times, you know that?" he questioned. I looked away with a frown. I hadn't thought that I was too rude when I approached him, but it seemed that I was wrong.

"That isn't important right now," Felicity suddenly cut in, placing her hands on her hips. "We were hoping to ask you more about everything that's been happening as of late. We know that you were there when the body was discovered, so you must have seen something during the chaos. Plus, you were recording everything, and we'd like to have access to that video, if it's alright with you."

Mr. Gassman nodded slowly. "Yeah... I guess I was there," he muttered. "It was pretty stressful to see, I have to say. I never would have imagined that someone who seems so kind on television could be responsible for the death of somebody they cared about... He's a talented actor, you know. He could just be pretending that none of this was his fault when he actually shot the victim."

"How would a sixteen-year-old get his hands on a gun?" I asked. I knew that this wasn't helping my image as someone who was supposedly 'prickly', but I couldn't have cared less. He was the one blaming James, and if he was going to do that, then I thought I had full rights to get snippy after we had already shown in court that he likely wasn't the culprit.

Mr. Gassman shrugged. "There are lots of ways to get a weapon these days," he pointed out. "Besides, think about it. This set is pretty big... Imagine if he hid the gun somewhere that he knew nobody was going to search through. That would allow him to get away with it all. I bet he's just using you to make sure that he doesn't get caught."

"What makes you so sure that James committed this crime?" Felicity inquired. "You seem to be jumping to a lot of conclusions right now..."

Mr. Gassman raised his camera and took a picture of the nearby crowd. The flash was enough to temporarily blind me, and I stumbled backwards a foot or so before regaining my balance. I had no idea how James could deal with stuff like that all the time, because after just one photo, I thought I was going to never see again. "I'm part of the media industry. You have to know what makes for a good story in order to make it, and that's not even factoring in the juicy tidbits that you need to get. That's how you draw in your readers."

"Still, reporting about things that you don't know are true or not doesn't sound all that honest," I pointed out. "You should take a step back to look at everything critically. All of the people here are trying to get gossip for magazines that thrive off rumors, but it isn't honest business. You're deceiving people in order to get their money."

"I have bills to pay," Mr. Gassman said after a brief pause. "I know what I have to do in order to get by. Sometimes, you have to do a little bending of the truth in order to get a good scoop. It's all about dramatics. People don't want to hear that a star was framed for murder. It's not as glamorous as the potential of betrayal."

"Glamorous?" I echoed, raising an eyebrow. He called me prickly before going into all of this crap? He was already starting to grate on my nerves, though perhaps that was primarily because of his offhand comment. Either way, could you blame me?

"That doesn't matter right now," Felicity cut in, placing a hand between me and Mr. Gassman. "We're just here to ask you about what you saw at the time of the crime, so how about you answer our questions? We'll move right along as soon as we're finished here, and then you can get back to your regular business."

Mr. Gassman seemed to relax as soon as Felicity stepped in, and an easy smile returned to his features. The sight of him grinning like that made me want to roll my eyes until they fell out of my skull, but I did no such thing. Instead, I simply watched him as he took another picture of the crowd. I was prepared this time, so I forced my eyes shut just before the flash went off. Afterwards, he tilted his head to the side and looked to both me and Felicity before speaking. "So... What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Please tell us about what you saw when the body was discovered," Felicity told him with a grin. I could tell that she was trying to get him to open up, and a smile appeared to be the easiest way to accomplish that. I tried to follow her example, but I could only spread my lips so far while the bitterness of his comment lingered in my veins. I didn't know why it bothered me so much, but it most certainly did bug me. Maybe it was because of how clearly he had jumped to conclusions. He had done it with James, and it seemed that he had made that mistake me as well. For someone so friendly, Mr. Gassman sure did know how to be frustrating.

Mr. Gassman nodded in response, and he began fiddling around with his camera as he rocked back and forth. When he moved, I heard the sound of metal hitting metal, but I couldn't quite say for sure what it was. My eyes fell upon his bag, and I tried to figure out what could possibly be hiding inside. Felicity didn't seem to pick up on the noise. If she did, she was doing a masterful job at hiding it.

"I was asked by the radio station to record a video of everything that happened here today," Mr. Gassman began to explain. "We had a lot of fans enter the lottery for a tour of the set of the show, you know? Even if they didn't win, most of them would still be interested in watching the tour. It wound up being kind of disappointing given that only one person showed up, but I still decided to follow through and record it for the sake of our loyal fans."

"How long were you at the set before it started?" Felicity questioned, tilting her head to the side. "You must have arrived early to make sure that you were prepared for everything that was going to be happening during the tour, right?"

Mr. Gassman stopped playing with his camera in favor of cupping one hand around his chin. "Hm... That's a good question," he remarked before shrugging. "I have to say that I don't remember. I didn't think that it would be an important fact to keep track of, and I wasn't really checking my watch at the time, so I'm afraid I don't have an answer to that question. Sorry."

The air around him seemed to go dark, and my eyes narrowed as I saw chains slide into view. Psyche-Locks. I looked to Felicity out of the corner of my eye, but she didn't seem bothered at all by his words. After all, she didn't have a Magatama, so it wasn't as if she had a way of knowing that this was happening. I was going to have to bring it up with her later along with the metallic clashing sounds. As soon as this discussion ended, we were going to need to have a long talk about the strange habits of Mr. Gassman.

Felicity frowned in his direction at those words, but she didn't seem to want to push it. Well, I knew that she wanted to, but without any evidence, he wouldn't have been willing to listen. He already showed that he didn't want to get involved with the idea that James was innocent even with proof, so the chances of him actually acknowledging our ideas were slim. Moving on was likely for the best regardless of how much we wanted to press him on it.

"Before we go, can we ask you for one more thing?" Felicity questioned. When Mr. Gassman nodded in response, she continued. "Could you let us look into your bag? Chrysalis says that you were wearing it at the time the body was discovered, and we're just curious about if anything could have been caught on it. After all, your bag is on the larger side, and we'd rather stay safe than sorry."

Mr. Gassman frowned at her before looking down at the ground. "You know... You're making it sound like you don't trust me," he muttered. "It seems to me like you think I'm suspicious, and you think that my bag could have something unsavory in it. You really don't think that I committed the crime, do you?"

His words caught me by surprise, and judging by the shock that painted Felicity's face, she was in the same boat. She looked over at me in an attempt to gauge my response, but I didn't give her my attention. Instead, I shook my head and frowned. He was dodging the question, and that was just as telling as an actual answer as far as I could tell.

However, I didn't say any of this, and I instead let a nervous smile appear on my face to make myself seem as innocent as possible. "No, of course not," I replied with as much honesty as I could manage for something that was so blatantly a lie. "We just wanted to make sure that nothing happened the day of the crime. There are lots of pointed edges on your bag, and we want to ensure that nothing was caught on them. You could have accidentally run into something and gotten a piece of evidence stuck to your bag. We simply want to make sure that nothing like that happened. There's nothing to worry about."

Mr. Gassman shook his head. "I don't think that you need to worry about it. If something got stuck on my bag, I'm sure I would have noticed it by now. This thing has a very distinctive weight, and if there was anything extra holding me down, I would have caught on already. I don't think that there's anything on here, so you shouldn't concern yourself with it. Sorry for the inconvenience," he told us with an awkward grin of his own. He scratched at the back of his head with his free hand before looking over to the crowd. "Is that everything you wanted to ask me? I think I'm going to try and get the opinions of other people here about the case."

Felicity frowned in my direction before covering it up with a seamless smile. "I think that we're done. See you later!" she exclaimed, waving at him. Mr. Gassman grinned in response before waving back and retreating into the crowd. He vanished nearly completely a moment later, and the only thing that told me that he was still there at all was his gigantic bag.

I glanced up to Felicity, and I noticed immediately that her smile had slipped away, giving way to firm doubt. "So... There's something going on here," Felicity said before I had the chance to kick off the conversation for myself.

"Let's find a quieter spot to talk," I suggested, gesturing for her to follow me. It didn't take me long to curl around to the back of the building where there weren't any reporters to be seen. Internally, I released a sigh of relief, glad beyond imagination that I was away from all of that damn noise. There was only so much of it that I could take at a given moment, and I had more than exceeded my limits by then. Didn't those people ever know when to zip it? Some of us were trying to take care of other business and, you know, not have panic attacks over how damn loud it was.

As soon as we were settled, I looked up to Felicity with a frown. "I don't know if you heard it, but there was a clinging sound coming from his bag," I began. "It sounded like two metal objects hitting each other. I don't know exactly what they could have been, but I think that sound is rather strange, and we should keep it in mind in case it turns out to be important."

"Are you sure that it was coming from him and not anyone else in the crowd?" Felicity questioned, tilting her head to the side. "We were close to a lot of people out there, and it wouldn't do at all for us to come to a conclusion about this only for another person to be the culprit of the noise."

I nodded my affirmation. "I'm positive. When we started the conversation, he rocked back and forth on his feet, and the metal clinging was in time with his movements. It must have been him making that noise. There's something in that bag that he doesn't want us knowing about, and he pulled that whole manipulation thing to try and throw us off the scent. He turned it back on us as soon as we asked him about the bag because he didn't want to get into it. He put us into a corner and offered no escape aside from agreeing that he couldn't have been the culprit. It's fishy."

Felicity nodded in response. "Alright... You know, I think that we're just going to have to deal with him in the courtroom tomorrow. He wasn't going to be letting us get through to him out here, so all we can do is wait until we go back into court," she commented. "Still, I suppose that leaves us time to take care of other matters. There's not all that much that we can do around here aside from coming up with our battle plan for the next session of the trial, so maybe it's time for us to branch out and take care of something else. I'm sure that you know exactly what I'm talking about." She shot me a brief wink soon after.

"Alright," I said simply. We were going to have to go to the detention center to give James and everyone else there an update on the case. I could text Sora later and tell her about what we had discovered about Mr. Gassman. His behavior was most certainly strange, and he was acting surprisingly antagonistic given how sweet and awkward he had originally made himself seem. This seemed like as good a time as any, especially given that we weren't going to be able to uncover anything else as long as we were still at the scene of the crime.

Felicity paused before we could get going though, and one of her hands wrapped around her chin as she contemplated our situation. "So... We need to figure out where the gun is next, right?" she asked. "I don't think that we're going to be able to do that next, I'm afraid. I mean, if the gun was really in this area, I feel like we would have found it by now, and yet, here we are, just as clueless as ever."

I hesitated before nodding my agreement. "Yeah. There's nothing we can do to find the gun now, and it's not as if we know where anything else could be. The victim's phone wound up being a dead end, but at least we figured out without a shadow of a doubt where the crime actually took place. We already had a theory that the body was moved, but we're getting closer to unraveling the full truth now that we're aware everything started off in the director's office," I explained to her.

"In that case, all we can really do is get out of here," Felicity murmured. "I really do hate to leave the scene of the crime on this note, but there's not a way for us to officially uncover the murder weapon right now, so all we can do is talk to James and see if he knows anything. Then again, how could he uncover any new information given that he's been locked up all day?"

"The trial is going to be our chance," I told her firmly. "We might not have the murder weapon on hand, but that hopefully won't matter much in the grand scheme of things. We're going to try and get the truth out of Mr. Gassman during the trial tomorrow, and then the pieces should slide into place... That's what I'm hoping for, at the very least. After that, we'll just have to hope that the murder weapon turns up."

"Mukuro will probably be searching until the case is closed, so I think that we can leave this in her capable hands," Felicity concluded. "For now though, we should get going and see what's going on at the detention center. There are tons of people waiting for an update on the case, and I don't think that we should leave them in the dark for much longer than we already have."

"You're right," I agreed simply before starting to walk out from behind the building. Felicity trailed after me, but I didn't look up at her. Mr. Gassman was really starting to bug me, and I was going to find out why before this case ended.

August 7

Detention Center

4:30 PM

Chrysalis Starr

When we arrived at the detention center, James wasn't there yet. Anton and Yuri were already in the visiting area, and they were sitting in the chairs against the wall silently. I cleared my throat as soon as we got there, and Yuri looked up. "Hey there, you two!" she chirped. "How is the investigation going?"

"We're getting closer to figure out the truth," I replied, though I didn't know if I could get into much more detail than that given how clueless we were in the grand scheme of things. I shrugged it off in the end though, figuring that there were other matters that were far more important.

"We may have found a motive," Felicity explained. "It'll take us a little while longer to put the full puzzle together, and when we do, everything should come together. We'll wait until after the trial has started to unveil that information though. It's important that it stays as quiet as possible until the time is right, so forgive us for keeping this secret for a bit longer."

Anton's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands together in excitement. I smiled over at him, watching as Yuri threw one arm around his shoulders. Anton didn't object to the contact like I would have expected, so I smiled from afar at the wide smile that had appeared on his face.

As soon as I realized that Anton was distracted with other matters, I allowed my gaze to drop to the floor. We did have a motive, but we hadn't been given the chance to ask Mr. Gassman about it. Maybe it was for the best this way. He couldn't dodge the subject if we asked him about it in court, so we could simply save the topic for the next day. Still, I had to admit that I was a bit worried about how everything was going to come together. What if he really didn't know anything? Would we be forced to try and work out a solution to the case when nobody else we encountered could have done it?

I knew that I was probably jumping to conclusions, but as soon as the thought entered my mind, I couldn't make it leave. I let out a small sigh, making sure to keep it soft enough so that nobody else noticed how distracted I was. Trying to figure out a way to connect Interpol with this case wasn't going to be easy, but it wasn't as if we really had much of an option in the matter. If we wanted to save James, we were going to have to figure out a way to make the pieces come together.

The idea of this case being tied in with Interpol made me upset on its own, but I tried not to show it. I didn't exactly have a reason to show my distaste as far as the rest of the world was concerned, so I was going to have to shove it aside and ignore it in favor of focusing on the case. I could curse the name of Cade Green for dragging everybody into this mess later on, but I didn't have the time for that yet. James was counting on me, and I didn't want to let him down when we had come so far.

As if on cue, James showed up on the other side of the glass, and I looked up slowly at him. I tried to shove all the worry off my expression as quickly as possible. Luckily, nobody was looking at me, so it didn't appear that anyone noticed my moment of panic. I let out an internal sigh of relief before turning my full attention to our client for this case, correcting any nerves that might have been attempting to slip out.

"Hey, James," Felicity greeted with a gentle wave. "I have a question for you, if that's alright." James nodded in response, prompting Felicity to continue. "Would you happen to know anything about what the victim was doing before he decided to become a director? We've come under the impression that perhaps he was involved with something else before he moved to work as part of show business."

James frowned to himself before shaking his head. "No, he never mentioned it. I got the feeling that there was something he didn't want us asking about, but I never pressed it. I didn't have a reason to mistrust him, and I understand that everyone has a secret or two that they'd rather not have getting out. I figured that if it was something that we desperately needed to know, we would find a way to hear about it," he replied.

"Your show has been running for about two and a half years now," I murmured. "It started filming when you were fourteen, if I recall correctly. If he's kept this secret for so long, then it's safe to assume that he would keep it hidden from nearly everybody for far longer. I doubt that he would tell anybody about his previous activities unless he absolutely had to."

"Why are you asking about this?" James questioned after a moment of hesitation. "Is there something about him that you think needs investigation? I have to admit, you're kind of worrying me with the way that you're talking about his previous activities, but I suppose it can't really be helped..."

"We think that the motive behind this case could have something to do with his previous occupation, that's all," Felicity answered with a loose shrug. "There's nothing for you to worry about regarding it though. We're going to work this all out, and then everything will be fine. We'll figure out who committed this crime, and they're not going to get away with anything else like this ever again. That much is a promise from us both. Isn't that right, Chrysalis?"

Upon being addressed, I nodded. "Of course," I agreed. I was halfway expecting James to grow tense and nervous at my words given how detached I knew I was acting, but he didn't react in that way at all. Instead, his shoulders slumped with relief, and a light smile appeared on his face. I never would have guessed something like that would happen, but I wasn't going to complain at all. After all, the happier he was, the better it was for all of us.

"Are you really not going to tell us about what you think the victim was up to before he became a director?" Yuri asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Maybe we could help you if we knew what we were searching for, but we can't exactly do that as long as you're keeping all these secrets from us."

"We think it would be for the best if we kept this information under wraps for as long as possible," I explained. "It's not meant to be a personal offense against anyone here. Instead, our priority is ensuring that nobody figures out something that they shouldn't be aware of. Trust me whenever I say that this is important to the strategy for this case."

Yuri watched me for a moment, and I almost expected her to say that she wanted to know anyways, but she instead shrugged it off and nodded. "Alright, I trust you," she told me, and I let out an internal sigh of relief. Thank goodness that Yuri knew how to back off when she absolutely had to.

I glanced up to Felicity to see if she had anything to ask them about, but she didn't look over in my direction at all. Instead, her full attention was on James. "Have you learned anything new about the case? Has the prosecution stopped by to speak with you?" she questioned.

James nodded. "I wouldn't exactly say that I've learned anything new, but the two prosecutors were here earlier. They were far nicer than I would have expected, to put it simply... That isn't to say that I thought they were going to be mean, but..."

"Prosecutor Lin can be a bit overwhelming at times, and Prosecutor Wood isn't the best about talking to others," I finished for him, knowing what he was trying to get at before he even came close to finishing his explanation.

"Yes, exactly," James agreed, heaving a sigh of relief that I understood. "They didn't have anything new for me to hear about, but I still believe that they think I'm innocent. I believe that works out well for us in the grand scheme of things, so perhaps we should remember this throughout the rest of the case."

"We're going to work with them to find the truth behind this case," Felicity assured the trio with a wide grin. "I promise you. There's nothing for you to worry about at all. In fact, I think that you're alright to go home if you wanted to. Tomorrow, James, we're going to work everything out."

I was surprised that Felicity was declaring with such confidence that James was going home the next day, but I didn't say anything about it. Instead, I simply looked at her out of the corner of my eye with an expression that was as passive as I could manage. After I was finished examining her though, I shifted my focus back to James, Anton, and Yuri, and I found that they were all smiling brightly.

"Thank you for all of this," James told us with a gentle bow of his head. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow's segment of the trial, and I trust that you'll be able to get me out of here without any further issues. I'm going to owe you for everything that you've done to help me."

"Don't worry about it," I shrugged. Yuri's jaw dropped at the fact that I was brushing off his claims of debt, but I didn't give her a second glance. "Try to get some sleep before the trial tomorrow. I know that it can be exhausting, and the detention center beds aren't exactly comfortable." I did my best to hold back a cringe at the memory of the previous case our agency had tackled. I just hoped that James' luck in the detention center was at least a little bit better than mine had been. Then again, chances were high that I was worrying for nothing given that he didn't seem to have any enemies the way that I did.

James nodded and smiled. He gave us a gentle wave as we all headed for the door, and I returned the gesture before leaving the area behind. We were almost to the end of this case if Felicity's words were to be believed, and I wasn't going to drag this out any longer than necessary. There were too many people counting on us at this point, and I refused to let any of them down. James was going to be set free, and the truth was going to be uncovered. I was going to make sure of it.

Yay for updates!

-Digital