Morix: Web of Mistrust

by digitaldreams0801

With the Emsthorpe incident behind them, the lawyers of Morix Law Offices are enjoying a brighter future. However, a new threat has appeared with hopes of destroying the Oracle of the Law once and for all. The one responsible is thriving in the shadows, unknown to all. On top of everything else, a long lost figure is on the cusp of returning at last... (Third in Morix series)

46. Turnabout Masquerade, Part 6

November 21

Courtroom No. 6

10:30 AM

Victoria von Graye

It didn't take too long for Ms. Lesa to take her place behind the witness stand, but she looked just as distant and impossible to read as she had the day before. In fact, everything about her was difficult to understand. Her eyes had gone glassy, and I could tell that she was struggling to keep herself grounded in the chaos of the courtroom. The various eyes on her from the gallery seemed to make her nervous, and she couldn't stop fidgeting with the hem of her clothing as soon as she had started.

The most curious part about her general appearance was how her hood remained up. Even in the formal environment, she managed to find a way to keep the upper half of her face hidden. I couldn't help but wonder what her motives behind such could have been, but I figured that it was best for me to not question it. She must have had a reason, and I wasn't going to poke the bear too hard to try and figure out what was going on.

"Please state your name and occupation for the court," Judge Diaphan instructed. She seemed to notice that there was something off about Ms. Lesa the same way that I had, though I doubted that she was able to place it. There was simply something strange about Ms. Lesa that seemed to have all of us feeling like something was off, but even if we couldn't quite identify the source, the sensation was more than enough to leave us curious about what to do next.

"I'm Razi Lesa... That's what I've been going by for now, anyways," Ms. Lesa remarked, shrugging to herself. She didn't seem to mind that she sounded so detached and uncaring. In fact, there was almost something deliberate about the way that she was speaking. "I don't know what my job is. I don't know much of anything about myself, as a matter of fact. I'm here now though, so... I guess that means something."

"What are you talking about?" Judge Diaphan questioned. She didn't look at Ms. Lesa when she posed the question, instead choosing to direct it towards the prosecution. She waited expectantly for an answer.

Luckily for her, Prosecutor Burke was more than happy to provide it. "We found out yesterday that the witness is currently suffering from amnesia," she explained. "We don't know for sure what could have happened to her, but she has severe memory loss and doesn't remember anything that took place up until the time before the crime. It's unfortunate, but there's not much that we can do to work around it."

"Razi Lesa is simply the placeholder name I've been using until I can figure out who I actually am," Ms. Lesa explained. She gave a small shrug of her shoulders, but the motion was jerky and unfocused. "I don't know if I'll ever find the answers that I'm looking for, but that doesn't matter much right now."

"She's going to testify for the court about what she saw regardless of if she remembers the past or not," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke continued. "Even if there are doubts about the past, she's going to do her best to tell us about the case in question. She doesn't seem to have many questions about what could have happened involving the crime, and we don't have any other witnesses to listen to about what happened the day of the crime. We're going to do what we can to factor in her words to our current explanation of events. Believe me when I say that we've already measured the risks of having her testify, and we think that it's certainly for the best that we at least hear her out regarding what she believes to have seen."

Judge Diaphan hesitated before nodding. "I understand," she said after a long pause that seemed to hang in the air for a thousand years. "If you were truly present at the scene of the crime, then please explain to us what could have happened at the time of the crime as far as you are aware."

"The fact that we have a name for the victim now is a huge step up from what happened yesterday," Yuri remarked from the other side of Deirdre. Both of us turned our attention towards the younger girl. "Yesterday, we were clueless as to who she could have been, but... I think that this would make sense."

"We might not be able to completely take everything at face value yet, but we can at least temporarily look through the facts of the case from the lens of the victim being this Eileen Liyle figure," Deirdre agreed. "I wish that we had information regarding the person who could have offered the anonymous tip, but if it's important for us to figure out, then we're undoubtedly going to find out sooner or later."

"For the time being, let's just go on and listen to her testimony," I told them. "I think that would be our best course of action, especially since we now have the potential to figure out what happened thanks to the name of the victim."

The other two members of the defense team nodded to me, and we all shifted our attention up to Ms. Lesa. She was starting to play with the edges of her light brown hair, and I couldn't help but feel that everything about her was somehow muted. Perhaps it was because she was wearing all dark colors, but she didn't seem bright in the slightest. Even her hair and skin, which should have been far brighter and sharper by comparison, seemed to blend in with the aura of gray that she possessed. A small voice in the back of my head whispered that perhaps she was sickly somehow, but I decided that it would be for the best to put such concerns to rest until after we had managed to listen to what she had to say about the case.

"Please begin your testimony at this time," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke instructed. His voice was just as hard as it had been the day before, and his eyes narrowed in the direction of Ms. Lesa. Well, at the very least, his one visible eye narrowed, but I could still sense the intensity even with hair obstructing his other eye from view.

Ms. Lesa nodded slowly, seeming to gather her bearings after her moment of not paying attention. "Okay," she eventually murmured. Once again, I couldn't help but feel that she was muted somehow. Something about her just didn't seem right, but for the time being, all that mattered was listening to what she had to say. All other concerns regarding her identity could wait for just a little while longer. They sort of had to given the circumstances, and I wasn't about to protest after we had reached this point.

~ Witness Testimony ~

~ The Woman and Man ~

-"I was walking around the area near the agency that morning, but I have to admit that I don't really remember quite why..."

-"But I guess that it doesn't matter. While I was walking, I saw two people in the same area, but something was wrong."

-"One of them was a woman with red hair while the other was a man with white hair. The man was strange, I have to say..."

-"He seemed to be following the woman, but she didn't seem to notice that he was there. If she knew, she chose to ignore him."

-"She pulled out a key from her pocket and got into the agency, and the man caught the door before it could shut behind her."

-"The man came out while I was still walking in the area, but the woman never did... She just stayed inside for ages..."

-"I wound up hiding behind a bush to watch over the area since I had a bad feeling about it all, but I never saw the woman leave the building."

-"In the end, I decided to leave, but the woman never came out, and the man didn't bother returning after he was finished."

I found my eyes going wide at the sudden expansion to her testimony. I spared a glance in the direction of Deirdre and Yuri, and I saw that they were just as surprised about all of this as I was. I swallowed dryly and tried to stifle the nerves that were starting to chatter beneath the surface.

When we last spoke to Ms. Lesa, she hadn't mentioned anything about hiding in the bushes near the agency. It was true that there were a few pieces of greenery on the other side of the street. There was an office building that had a few plants in the yard in front of the entrance, so this wasn't completely out of the picture. I was sure that the buildings would have had to be closed for the day to keep anyone from seeing her hiding in the bushes at the time of the crime. After all, they were normally up and running before the agency opened, but that didn't appear to be the case if Ms. Lesa's testimony was to be believed.

"I don't know what to do from here," Deirdre confessed. There was confusion written loud and clear on her features, and I did my best to keep from cringing at the sight of such. I couldn't blame her for wondering what the best step was to take from here. I was in much the same position, if I was being honest. The sudden addition to Ms. Lesa's testimony, while useful to have, didn't really offer us much more information than we had already been able to access before she came out with it.

"We'll figure something out," Yuri shrugged nonchalantly from her side. "I think that we can at least attempt to put together a timeline of events... The woman with red hair, Ms. Liyle, must have left the building at some point. If she didn't come out with the man with white hair, then she must have left on her own. It's not as if anybody else would have come by to take her away from the agency. That simply wouldn't make sense and couldn't fit in with what Lily did at the time."

"In other words, you believe that the victim is alive and out there somewhere," I realized. I glanced back towards Ms. Lesa and saw that she was messing with the edge of her hair once more. She didn't seem to be paying attention as Judge Diaphan commented on her testimony.

"The victim went into the building but never came out... And yet, when the scene of the crime was discovered, there was no body found where the bloodstains were located," Judge Diaphan commented. "I see... Defense, prosecution... Do either one of you have any comments on the witness' testimony?"

The prosecution was completely silent, and in my eyes, that was far worse than them having something to say. Chief Prosecutor Bespoke hadn't been able to put that restlessness away yet, and it was really starting to grate on me the longer that I didn't understand it. Prosecutor Burke's bluntness being kicked up a notch didn't help in the slightest.

"The defense would like to begin the cross-examination at this time," Deirdre announced. I wasn't sure if she had a plan for what she was going to say, but that wasn't going to stop her from trying. After all, we didn't really have much of a choice but to make an attempt.

Judge Diaphan nodded to Ms. Lesa. It took a moment for the girl to snap away from her trance, but once she did, she started speaking once again. She took her testimony from the beginning, and I couldn't help but wonder what we could do next. We didn't know enough about the case to poke a clear hole in her words, and there was no easy contradiction to be found. With all of that said, what could we do next? I just hoped that Deirdre actually had the answers like she was implying.

~ Cross-Examination ~

~ The Woman and Man ~

-"I was walking around the area near the agency that morning, but I have to admit that I don't really remember quite why..."

-"But I guess that it doesn't matter. While I was walking, I saw two people in the same area, but something was wrong."

-"One of them was a woman with red hair while the other was a man with white hair. The man was strange, I have to say..."

-"He seemed to be following the woman, but she didn't seem to notice that he was there. If she knew, she chose to ignore him."

-"She pulled out a key from her pocket and got into the agency, and the man caught the door before it could shut behind her."

-"The man came out while I was still walking in the area, but the woman never did... She just stayed inside for ages..."

-"I wound up hiding behind a bush to watch over the area since I had a bad feeling about it all, but I never saw the woman leave the building."

-"In the end, I decided to leave, but the woman never came out, and the man didn't bother returning after he was finished."

"Hold it!"

"Could you put together a timeline for the court of the rough times where you saw the man and woman?" Deirdre questioned. Her gaze was intense, but I could tell that she was clinging to desperate threads. Suddenly, her plan made sense, and I couldn't help but smile to myself. She was going to try and use this testimony to make a sequence of events that we could all follow to find the truth. It was a nice place to start, especially given how clueless we were at that point.

Ms. Lesa paused to consider before nodding. "Sure... I think it was about seven in the morning that I was walking around. I wasn't near the agency quite yet at this time though. That was about the time that the sun was coming up. I didn't have a way of checking the time directly, but the sun was starting to rise, so... That sounds about right as far as what time it was," she began to reply. "Hm... I think that I saw them around thirty minutes later, and I wound up sitting in the bushes for roughly another half hour after that. These are all estimations since I didn't have a way of checking the time for sure, but..."

"You were there for half an hour after the two went inside..." I whispered. I didn't know what to do with this information, but this left a window of about an hour where something could have happened. Lily arrived at around nine in the morning for the opening duties, and that was when she saw the bloodstains left behind. Could the victim have possibly been moved or otherwise left in the space between Ms. Lesa's departure and Lily's arrival?

"It seems to me like something must have happened to make the victim leave the scene during the hour period where you weren't there and the defendant hadn't yet arrived," Judge Diaphan declared, seeming to have come to the same conclusion that I had. "Is there any evidence that would potentially show us where the victim could have disappeared to? Even the slightest hint could be seen as useful."

"We don't have any ideas," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke replied with a shrug. "It would certainly be easier if we did have a plan to figure that out, but... Whoever took the victim away from the scene was incredibly thorough and made sure that there wasn't any evidence left behind. We don't even know what the weapon could have been or how it could have been hidden."

That gave me an idea, and I glanced over to Ms. Lesa. "That is a good question, as a matter of fact... Ms. Lesa, do you have any ideas as to what the weapon could have been? Did you see the man with white hair carrying anything when he left the building?" I questioned. It was most certainly a long shot, but I wanted to at least try to see if there was anything that could be gleaned from this line of reasoning.

Ms. Lesa hesitated, and I saw a flicker of anxiety pass through her features. She suddenly shifted back and forth between her feet, and I could have sworn that I saw her wince in pain when she moved her center of gravity over to her left leg. I hadn't even noticed that she was standing on her right leg until after she started moving around, but it seemed intentional all of a sudden. In fact, she hadn't been carrying herself normally at all the day before. She had always been skewed a bit off to the side, and I was starting to wonder if there was perhaps a reason for that.

"I-I don't think I saw anything..." she whispered, though there was clear doubt in her voice. "I'm pretty sure that it was just him walking around. There was nothing that really struck me as being notably different from the average person, so I didn't bother to commit the exact details to memory. I can say that he wasn't covered in blood or anything. He just looked... Normal, I suppose, but... There was something off about him. I don't know how to describe it though."

"Maybe it was something in the way that he carried himself," Yuri suggested, though she kept her comments primarily to me and Deirdre instead of addressing the courtroom as a whole. "I mean, you can usually tell it when something is off about a person even if they seem normal at a first glance. All it takes is a bit of critical thinking, and you can tell if something is wrong with them. Maybe they seem more tense and uptight than the average person that you're used to being around."

I bit back a comment about how it seemed to me like there was something off about Ms. Lesa herself. The way that she suddenly rocked back and forth between her legs struck me as odd, and I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps there was a specific reason for that. Maybe she had gotten hurt at some point. It probably wasn't relevant to the case at hand, but it was still something for us to keep in mind.

Or maybe it was relevant.

I raised my hand to get the attention of those around me. I knew that it wasn't precisely necessary, but since it was a habit for me, I couldn't bring myself to drop my hand until after it had already been placed in the air. An embarrassed flush threatened to overtake me, but I did what I could to keep it at bay in favor of focusing on the matter at hand. "Ms. Lesa... I have to ask you... Is there something wrong with your leg?" I questioned. I didn't bother elaborating further quite yet. It would be for the best if I gave her a chance to answer honestly before saying what I thought was going on. Besides, I didn't have any solid evidence for my theory, so this was probably the best place to start.

Ms. Lesa was once again hesitant to answer, though I really don't know why I was particularly surprised about this. It seemed to be simply par for the course with her. She swallowed dryly before offering a response. "I... I don't know what you're talking about..." she eventually whispered, though the words clearly struggled to come out.

"You just moved back and forth between your legs like something was wrong... In fact, you haven't been putting full weight on your left leg at all ever since this investigation started. I was simply wondering if perhaps there was a reason for your sudden odd behavior. I don't mean to put you on the spot or anything, but if there's something going on, you should tell us about it," I explained.

"You only did the shifting after we brought up the weapon that was used at the time of the crime," Deirdre pointed out. I internally thanked her for being as observant as she was. That was certainly going to make this a lot easier for all of us to deal with. "Is there something that's going on involving the weapon used in the crime?"

Ms. Lesa let out a sigh when she seemed to realize that she couldn't keep this quiet anymore. "I injured my leg when I was out on my walk that day. I tripped after seeing the man walk back out of the building. I guess that remembering it just made me nervous," she explained.

I could tell that there was still something wrong. I didn't have explicit proof beyond my mere gut instinct, but I was positive that she was lying to us about something else involving her injury. Much to my own distaste, I bit my lip and wondered internally about what could have caused her to get hurt in such a way. I somehow thought that it was a bit more than simply her tripping and spraining her ankle as a result. Even without evidence, I found it all rather strange.

"We still need to figure out what the murder weapon was," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke declared. "We don't have any leads on it. The scene of the crime was searched top to bottom, but we didn't find anything inside that could have even remotely been considered suspicious. Without a way of saying for sure what injuries the victim sustained, then we're sort of at a loss for ideas as well. It's unfortunate, but there's really not anything that we can do about it until we can either find the victim's body or otherwise uncover proof about what happened."

"If the weapon was a gun, chances are that Ms. Lesa would have heard the bullet being shot off from her place outside the building," Deirdre murmured. "There were no traces of a bullet or gunpowder being found at the scene, though that's significantly less incriminating of a gun not being the weapon than the lack of sound since those things could have been hidden with some effort."

"Strangulation is out of the question as well in my eyes. That wouldn't have left behind as much blood as was found at the scene. In fact, it could have very easily left behind no blood at all, and the only wounds that would likely appear from strangulation would be small cuts on the throat, but even that could be considered unlikely," I commented.

"If we're talking about weapons that could have been hidden, why don't we consider a knife?" Yuri questioned. "That would have been easy enough for the culprit to hide so that nobody saw them carrying it around. All it would take is a pocket large enough to keep it hidden. Plus, that would certainly open up a large enough injury to leave behind a lot of blood like what was seen in the agency's lobby. It's probably the best lead that we've got at this point."

"You're probably right," Deirdre agreed. "Of course, it would have been better for us to find some other form of evidence to prove this conclusively, but we don't have that option right now. The other notable cause of death that I can think of, a blow to the head, seems improbably as well. There weren't any weapons like that found at the scene of the crime, and something would have certainly been found covered in blood if this was the reason that the victim was either hurt or killed. It would have been spotted by Ms. Lesa when the culprit was trying to flee the scene as well, so that rules out yet another possibility and makes stabbing seem all the more likely."

"So... What all have we figured out so far?" Prosecutor Burke questioned. Her voice was tinged with impatience, and I could tell that she was desperate to move on and focus on another subject as soon as possible. "We believe that the murder weapon was probably a knife of some sort that the culprit hid under their clothing or in a pocket of some kind, and that was how they got away with the crime without seeming suspicious at a first glance."

"The only problem I can think of is that a stabbing would leave behind a lot of blood," Judge Diaphan pointed out. "It's not as if you can stab somebody and get away with it without any bloodstains being left behind. It's far from being that simple, and you would expect the culprit to at least have a bit of blood on their clothing when fleeing from the scene of the crime. However, the witness very clearly stated already that this did not happen, leaving us to wonder what could have happened at the time of the crime."

I cringed at the realization that she had a point there. If the culprit really did stab the victim, then what happened to the bloodstains? If they were cleaning up the scene of the crime, then why did they leave behind the massive pool on the agency's floor? It would have made far more sense to scrub it away, and that would have meant that nobody would have been able to notice that anything had taken place at all. Instead, there was more than enough proof left behind that something had happened, and the culprit's actions were still beyond questionable.

"I get the feeling that we're dealing with someone who is far from being an ordinary culprit here," Prosecutor Burke commented. She calmed down her bitterness immensely, instead choosing to cross her arms over her chest as she eyed Ms. Lesa silently. I got the feeling that she was just as positive that something was wrong as I was. There were only a few things that pointed to Ms. Lesa being off somehow, but none of them were exactly what I would have called solid evidence, and that made accusing her of anything difficult as could be.

Plus, as much as I hated to say it, staying in Ms. Lesa's good books was definitely in our best interests. She was the only witness that we had for the case, and if we irritated her, then problems could have easily appeared. We were going to have to be as careful with her as possible to ensure that we didn't accidentally poke a sore spot and risk her anger as a result. I was as desperate to figure out what was going on with her as everyone else, but I knew that we were going to have to hold back for just a little bit longer until we had more of the case pieced together.

"Is there anything else of particular significance that we should be aware of regarding what happened at the time of the crime?" Deirdre questioned, pulling me out of my paranoid thoughts. "Can you think of anything that could potentially point to the defendant being involved with this case at all?"

Ms. Lesa shook her head. "Well... I-I don't think she did it because of my natural biases towards the man that I saw walk into the agency. I wouldn't be quite so confident that he was responsible if not for the way that he was following around the woman with red hair seemingly without her noticing that he was there. He caught the door behind her, but she didn't pay any attention to him or even acknowledge that he was there. If they knew each other, then she would have definitely said something, but... No, she didn't act like he was there at all," she explained. "If you want my opinion, that should be more than enough to show that the defendant couldn't have done all of this. Besides, she would have had more than enough time to clean up the area if she was the one who did it. She didn't have to call the police when she did, but she called them at the exact time that she was meant to arrive there to get the agency ready for business hours."

"You mean that she would have held off on reporting the crime if she was responsible for it," I realized. "There wouldn't have been a reason for her to declare that something had happened right away if she was trying to clean everything up, but she did that anyways. It makes you think that she was honest about finding the scene then."

Ms. Lesa nodded. "The man wouldn't have had those luxuries as far as I can tell. He followed the woman into the agency, and when he left... He certainly seemed to be in a bit of a hurry. I said that something about him was off, and I think it was the fact that he appeared to be rushing to get away. He had been so slow and casual when he followed the victim into the building, but when he left... All of that had disappeared and was replaced by something frantic," she elaborated.

I nodded to myself. The pieces were slowly starting to slide into place, but there were still far too many blank spots for my liking. We still didn't have any proof as to who the victim was or how she was attacked in the first place. Ms. Lesa, our only witness, was starting to act strangely as well, and that didn't help our case at all. At the very least, it was seeming more and more obvious that Lily wasn't the one who did it.

Then again, sometimes, it's the small victories that wind up being the most important.

---

Last update of 2020!

-Digital