November 22
Courtroom No. 6
10:00 AM
Deirdre Brigit
The courtroom, unfortunately, held much the same atmosphere as the defendant lobby before it. I could feel the anxiety hanging in the air like a thick curtain before I even settled down, and all I could do was swallow dryly in response. I could tell that there was something wrong with the prosecution as well, though I didn't need to ask what it was to know my answer.
It had to be related to the video that was captured by the camera on the side of the nearby apartment building. I simply knew it. Yuri had said that she got the information from Chief Prosecutor Bespoke, and he was undoubtedly aware of it. Even Anton seemed to be stressed, and I prayed that the case ended somewhat well for his sake as well as Lily's safety. I could tell that this wasn't the environment for him given how stressed everyone else was. Chances were that he had asked to help out and used his quiet stubbornness to wind up on the case against the wishes of those around him.
"Court is back in session for the trial of Lily Shield," Judge Diaphan declared once we were all settled down. "Yesterday, I issued a command for both the defense and prosecution to investigate the case to the best of their abilities to find the truth behind what took place the day of the crime. I trust that you followed through with such?"
Chief Prosecutor Bespoke nodded. "We did... And we found something that you're all going to believe is rather interesting," he said, his words hollow and distant. I winced at his choice of phrasing. He was right in saying as much, but it still bothered me that we were being forced to endure so much in the first place.
Prosecutor Bloom was the one who chimed in next. "You see, the witness from yesterday, Razi Lesa, told us that she witnessed a man following the victim into the crime scene. She said that the victim was likely attacked behind closed doors and implicated a man with white hair for the crime. However... Further investigation showed us that she couldn't have been in the place that she claimed to have been at the time of the crime," she explained.
Judge Diaphan's expression slipped into shock, but before she had the chance to ask about what Prosecutor Bloom was talking about, she was cut off by none other than Chief Prosecutor Bespoke. "You see, there's a camera mounted to the side of the apartment building across the street from the agency. That was where we thought the witness was waiting when she saw everything that was mentioned before, but when the footage was revealed, it came to light that she was never in the place that she claimed to have been."
"She lied about where she was at the time of the crime?" Judge Diaphan asked, a frown on her face. When she was met with a nod, she closed her eyes in contemplation. "I see... This is certainly a heavy offense. We need to hear her testimony again at once to ensure that we can find at least something truthful from her words."
"I guess that Ms. Lesa's amnesia isn't going to keep her from being accused of doing something wrong from here on out," Yuri remarked to me. I nodded lightly to say that I agreed. Judge Diaphan's sudden intensity sat strangely with me, but I couldn't blame her in the slightest. She was right in saying that there was something wrong, and I was hoping that we would be able to hear about what it was specifically as soon as possible. Our case was hinging on it.
"The prosecution calls Razi Lesa to the witness stand," Prosecutor Burke declared. She pointed to the podium in question, her expression and voice both notably pinched. I bit down on my lip, hoping that we wouldn't be met with the full force of her ire at any point during the trial.
After Ms. Lesa made her way to the stand, she glanced around the area with fear glazing in her eyes. "Um... Is something wrong...?" she asked faintly. I could tell that she was fully aware of what was happening and was simply trying to make it seem like she wasn't suspicious, but that wasn't going to fly with me. I could tell that there was something going on, and it was only a matter of time before she was made fully aware of the fact that we knew what was happening.
"We've come to understand that you lied to us about what took place during the time of the crime," I explained. "You said that you were in the bushes across the street from the building where the attack took place, but we did some digging and found out that you never appeared on the camera footage that aimed at the back side of the building for security purposes. Would you care to explain such a fact to the court? Why did you not appear on the camera's images?"
Ms. Lesa opened her mouth and shut it a few times before she was interrupted from saying anything further. Prosecutor Burke was the one to cut her off. "We have the camera footage from the time of the crime, and we would like to present it to the court as evidence to be used from here on out," she announced. "There isn't much to see, but it's very clear that the witness was never in the area. She wasn't there at any point of the day, much less the specific time of the crime. That certainly is strange, wouldn't you say?"
"There's one other thing that we want you all to be aware of," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke said next. "We have access to something else important that was uncovered at the scene of the crime. It's the identification card for the victim. It took us some time to get our hands on it, but we now have proof that the victim was the one who was attacked. Eileen Liyle was our suspect, and this proves that she was the one who was left as a victim because of the culprit's actions."
I frowned at his words and watched as he held up an identification card. I looked at it closely, and I found myself comparing it silently to the card that had been found by Mr. Morix at the time of the initial investigation. They looked somewhat similar in size and shape, but that was about all that I could say for things that they had in common. Everything else was as different as could be, and I couldn't help but wonder what the difference could have meant.
"That was probably found by Mr. Morix during the first investigation," Victoria murmured from beside me. "I can't imagine that it was just uncovered out of the blue after all of the thorough searching that was done in the first day... But if it's the one that was found by Mr. Morix, then why wasn't it revealed until recently?"
"It doesn't look like the one that Mr. Morix found," I told her. "I'm confident of that much. This is a different card, but I don't know why there would have been a need to swap them out in the first place. Something tells me that we're going to figure it out soon enough, but... There's something going on here that we aren't seeing quite yet."
"How did they get their hands on it in the first place when Mr. Morix was the one who uncovered the identification card at the beginning of the investigation?" Yuri questioned. "There we have another thing to figure out. Why don't we just throw it into the same pile as everything else that we have to put up with right now?"
"With the identification card, we can prove that the victim that we thought was attacked is the one who was hurt. Our suspicions have been confirmed," Prosecutor Burke announced. "But that does beg the question... If the witness wasn't in the position where she claimed to have been at the time of the crime, then where was she? How did she come to have such crucial information? Do you want to answer that for us Ms. Lesa? I think that it's rather important that you're honest with us about this."
Ms. Lesa's eyes immediately hardened, and her previous aura of innocence fell away in the blink of an eye. "What are you trying to say?" she asked. Her voice was oddly grounded, even compared to the previous encounters that we had gone through with her. There was something wrong, and it was as clear as could be. I simply wished that I knew how to put the pieces together regarding what was specifically happening.
"We mean that you're lying about what happened," Prosecutor Burke said with a simple yet harsh shrug. "If you weren't in the shrubbery across the street from the agency, then just where were you? Why weren't you honest about your location from the beginning? We need your answers at once."
All eyes in the courtroom locked squarely on Ms. Lesa, and she let out a small sigh. "Allow me to testify then," she murmured. I could tell that she was still going to try and put up a fight, but I didn't know what was happening behind the scenes. There was a shadow to her eye that I could see but couldn't quite pin down. I simply hoped that the answer would come to me sooner rather than later.
~ Witness Testimony ~
~ Where I Truly Was ~
-"The day of the crime is a blur to me... I don't really know much about what happened."
-"I said that I was in the shrubbery because that was where I thought I was. I didn't realize I would be wrong."
-"My head hurts just thinking about what happened... All I know is that I hurt my leg somehow. Details are hard to figure out."
-"I think that I saw the victim somewhere else... And I'm positive that the man with white hair was with her. Please believe me."
-"Regardless of where I was, I know that the victim's identity and the man with white hair are accurate."
-"I wish I could tell you where I was... But I'm afraid that I simply don't remember. Forgive me for the inconvenience."
She didn't even have to finish the testimony for me to know that she was doing nothing but lying to us. It felt as clear as day, and I could see the confusion on the faces of the others in the courtroom as well. The gallery exploded into chatter, likely with onlookers theorizing about what could have actually taken place, but Judge Diaphan beat her gavel against the podium before her with an exhausted roll of her eyes to silence everyone. Nobody wanted to bother her, so they fell silent soon afterwards.
"The defense would like to cross-examine her testimony at once," I declared, not wanting to wait for other formalities. I already knew what was going on, and I had proof that the witness was lying. Ms. Lesa wasn't doing a great job of hiding what had taken place.
Her eyes made it perfectly clear that she was fully aware of what had happened. Her gaze remained sharp despite the situation seemingly being rather confusing. Ms. Lesa was looking at me with a strange sense of intensity that I couldn't quite place, but it felt familiar somehow. The space around her eyes went glossy and shimmered unexpectedly. Once again, my frown deepened.
"Go ahead," Judge Diaphan told me. She seemed just as ready to get this over with, and she nodded in my direction as a secondary cue. I returned the gesture before focusing on the matters at hand. I didn't know what was happening, but I was determined to find out one way or another regardless of how Ms. Lesa felt about it.
~ Cross-Examination ~
~ Where I Truly Was ~
-"The day of the crime is a blur to me... I don't really know much about what happened."
-"I said that I was in the shrubbery because that was where I thought I was. I didn't realize I would be wrong."
-"My head hurts just thinking about what happened... All I know is that I hurt my leg somehow. Details are hard to figure out."
-"I think that I saw the victim somewhere else... And I'm positive that the man with white hair was with her. Please believe me."
-"Regardless of where I was, I know that the victim's identity and the man with white hair are accurate."
-"I wish I could tell you where I was... But I'm afraid that I simply don't remember. Forgive me for the inconvenience."
"Objection!"
"Witness, you claim that you don't remember what happened at the time of the crime, but I know that you're lying without a shadow of a doubt. You know what took place, but you're simply trying to keep it from all of us for some reason or another," I told her confidently.
Ms. Lesa's eyes went wide with falsified shock. "What are you talking about?" she asked slowly. "I told you that I don't know about what happened. Isn't that enough for you?"
I shook my head. "No... Remember yesterday when we were talking in the area of the bush across the street? You claimed that you were watching the building from that spot, but then you noticed the camera mounted to the side of the building. You immediately grew incredibly nervous and began to dash away when the chance presented itself. You knew that you were lying about what happened. You're aware of what took place at the time of the crime, but you don't want any of us to know," I told her.
"That's right..." Yuri murmured. "That was how we found out about the camera in the first place. Her nervous reaction made it clear that there was something there, and we were right. She knew that the camera would have been able to prove loud and clear that none of what she claimed happened took place in truth."
"But if you weren't in the bush, then where were you?" Chief Prosecutor Bespoke asked. "That's the question of the hour. You must have had a reason for wanting to keep it secret from all of us... But what could that reason be? Why don't you go on and tell us why you lied about such a crucial fact of the case?"
"It's clear that you're involved with this somehow. You wouldn't have said that you knew who the victim was if you were completely unrelated. This isn't a matter of you simply testifying for your own sense of satisfaction. You have a legitimate motive behind this, and if I had to guess, it's that motive that led you to figure out who the culprit was as well. After all, you seem pretty damn confident that the culprit was the man with white hair even now," Prosecutor Burke commented.
"Please trust me when I say that I know what I'm talking about," Ms. Lesa said, her expression strangely pinched as she eyed the prosecution. "I understand that you have every right to be wary of me after what I did, but you have to realize that I wouldn't want to lie about this. I have no reason to come in here and lie."
"And yet, you still did lie about what happened," Prosecutor Burke pointed out. "Or did you think that we would forget that little detail? Why did you want to hide your true location? The sooner that you answer, the better things will be for everyone involved with this case."
"She must have wanted to hide where she was at the time of the crime for some reason," Victoria murmured. "That's the only reason that I can think of that we're in this situation in the first place... But why would she be so desperate to keep something like this a secret?"
"There must be a reason for it, but I don't understand what it could be. Why not just say where she actually was at the time of the crime?" Yuri asked. "That would make her seem a lot less suspicious. It certainly would have kept us out of a situation like the one that we're seeing right now."
"I think that we're asking the wrong questions here," I told her. "Think about it this way. There has to be a reason that she lied about where she was, and I suspect that it's because she thought it would have been better for her to lie about what happened as opposed to being honest. There was something about her location that would have incriminated her in this case. We need to find out what this could have been... The location was working against her, and we need to figure out why as soon as possible."
"I see what you mean, but what location would have even been incriminating in the first place?" Victoria questioned. "It's not like there were all that many places to hide in the general vicinity of the agency... Everything is far to open for something like that. Where could she have been waiting?"
"There's one place I can think of that would have certainly painted her in a suspicious light, but I don't think that we can really jump to conclusions and say that was where she was quite yet," Yuri commented with a shrug. "The agency itself wouldn't have been a good place for her to hang out, right? I mean, that feels like a given, but..."
"You mean that you think she was inside of the agency at the time of the crime?" Victoria inquired, her eyes going wide. Yuri shrugged again and nodded, but her expression remained knotted with concern. "I don't know what to say about that, honestly... But that would factor in the question once again behind how someone could have gotten their hands on the key needed to get inside. We still don't know what happened with Ms. Liyle, so how can we throw somebody else into that mystery?"
"I didn't think that there was any evidence to back it up. It's the only idea that I have, but what would that even mean for us?" Yuri asked. "I really have no idea. It would mean that we'd have to crack down on turning our attention towards the subject of the keys, and I don't know how we would go about that."
I frowned as I glanced down to the wood in front of me on the desk. There had to be something that pointed to the truth behind why Ms. Lesa was acting in the way that she was. Even if we didn't have any ideas on where to start, the proof most certainly existed. Where could she have been when the crime took place? If she was inside the agency, then how did she get in? Why was she there in the first place?
"There's clearly something that you're hiding from us witness," Judge Diaphan declared. "Where were you at the time of the crime? We don't have the flexibility of moving on without your testimony. Why did you lie to us in the first place about your location?"
"If I may, Your Honor," I cut in, earning the immediate attention of everyone in the courtroom, "I have an idea regarding the reasoning for the witness' peculiar behavior. I think that there is something about the location that she was in at the time of the crime that could possibly implicate her for something unseemly. That's why she tried to hide the truth behind her location."
"What location would have made her seem suspicious?" Chief Prosecutor Bespoke questioned. "I somehow doubt that there's any place that she could have actually been that would look worse for her than lying about the truth when we questioned her about it."
"That's the thing... I have an idea, but it would completely change the way that we look at the case from here on out," I said. I watched as Prosecutor Burke's face fell into a frown, and I realized that she had probably figured out what I was going to say. Chief Prosecutor Bespoke followed suit soon afterwards as the revelation hit.
"Go on and tell the court what you mean then," Judge Diaphan instructed. "Where do you believe the witness was at the time of the crime?"
"I think that she was inside the agency building itself," I replied. "That would have made her look far more suspicious than saying that she was watching from across the street. It would completely change the facts that she would need to testify about as well, so I think it's worth saying that she's been lying about more than just the location from where she saw the crime."
"If she was inside the agency, then that means that she could have been responsible for the attack," Prosecutor Burke announced. "Why else would she lie about what she saw regarding the victim and culprit?"
"I don't think that she's lying about quite as much as we're making it sound," Victoria remarked. "If she was the culprit, then why tell us about who the victim was? That wouldn't do anything to further her own goals. In fact, it would only leave her in more trouble than before. It would have been for the best if the victim's identity was left unknown, but she brought it up anyways. Then there's the matter of the man with white hair. Why bring up someone who isn't related to the case at all in a lie? It would have been found out sooner or later, and she would have suffered the resulting consequences."
"So, if she didn't have a reason to lie about who the victim or culprit was, then why did she hide everything else involved with the case? Changing her location from across the street to inside the agency completely shifts how we've been looking at this attack up to this point," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke murmured under his breath. "If she was inside the agency, then she could have witnessed the attack. You know, if she was hiding behind something, it wouldn't have been too difficult to mask the fact that she was there and keep her presence secret from the culprit."
That was one question that I didn't have an answer to. I didn't think that she could have been at the scene of the crime. If she had witnessed what took place, then she would have told us already who the culprit was. She would have had access to details regarding something like that. Instead, all we got were vague descriptions of the person who she thought the culprit was.
"She said that she had amnesia... I'm starting to doubt that something like that could be true because of her sudden shifts in behavior, but let's assume for a moment that she was hit on the head and lost her memory. Something like that would probably draw blood, right?" Yuri questioned. "Regarding the blood at the scene of the crime... Did it all belong to one person, or were there multiple sources?"
"I see what you mean to say... If there were multiple sources of blood, then that could mean that there were two victims and we just didn't realize," Victoria concluded with a small nod. Her gaze shifted to the prosecution across the courtroom.
Chief Prosecutor Bespoke shook his head. "No... There was only one person who was attacked. All of the blood came from a single source. I found that out from the forensics testers on the first day of the investigation. There couldn't have been two victims," he said. I had to admit that I was suspecting him to say something like that, but it didn't make it any less disappointing.
"You said that you lost your memory around the time that the crime took place, didn't you?" I questioned, turning my attention up to Ms. Lesa once again. I felt like we were on the verge of a huge discovery, and all we had to do was find the final piece and slip it into place. Of course, I didn't have the slightest clue about what it could have been, but it was still a start as far as I was concerned.
Ms. Lesa nodded. "I don't remember anything from before the day of the attack. I simply have a leg injury from before I lost my memory. I don't know how it got there, what my real name is, or who I actually am... Or, rather, who I was," she explained. Her expression was still incredibly stoic, and I frowned to myself. Her phrasing struck me as odd, but I couldn't quite say why that was.
"Ms. Lesa lied about her location, and we think that it's because she was in the agency at the time," I murmured. "She couldn't have been attacked by the culprit because there was only blood from one source at the scene of the crime. She couldn't have hidden and seen the crime because then she would have had more details about the culprit. Plus, she could have very easily been discovered if she was simply hiding at the scene... What exactly am I missing here?"
I closed my eyes as I began to drown in my thoughts regarding all of this. I didn't know what I could have been missing out on, but it was clear that there was something that I wasn't seeing. Ms. Lesa was inside of the agency, but how could she have gotten in without a key? Why didn't she fall victim to what took place? If she was the culprit, she wouldn't have wanted to tell us everything about the victim. If she was a witness, then she would have been able to tell us more about the culprit. That only left one potential position for her, but...
Wait.
As soon as it hit me, I felt as if all of the air had been forced from my lungs, and my jaw dropped in surprise. I didn't want to believe that this could have been the case, but it wasn't as if I had much of a choice in the matter. The universe had already decided on what the fate of this case was meant to be, and all I could do was go along with it and uncover the truth. If my suspicions were to be believed, then that meant that this was what had taken place at the time of the attack.
"What if the witness wasn't actually a witness at all?" I questioned slowly once I had gotten the attention of the other people in the courtroom. I earned quizzical looks in response, so I decided to explain. "I'm saying that there's one other potential position that the witness could have filled. As of now, we have three people who were involved with the crime before others such as the defendant enter the picture."
"There's the culprit, the victim, and the witness... But the witness was lying about her location, and we don't know where she could have been at the time. What are you trying to say?" Prosecutor Burke questioned.
"The witness herself is a contradiction as soon as you start to look at the case critically. It wouldn't make sense if she was the culprit, but there is one other position that we have yet to figure out regarding the case," I continued. Yuri and Victoria's expressions changed into shock as they realized what I was getting at.
"You can't possibly be serious," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke remarked, his eyes narrowing. I could tell that he had already come to the same conclusion that I had, and he knew that there was no way to escape this. The truth was out in the open, and nothing was going to change it.
I nodded. "No corpse was found at the scene of the crime. That left us to wonder if the victim was perhaps alive after being attacked. It wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility. We already went over why such a conclusion was reached yesterday, so I'll spare you all the details for the time being. All that you need to know is the fact that the victim survived the attack, and we have our way to uncover the truth behind this case," I announced.
The gallery above immediately burst into chatter, and when Judge Diaphan reached for her gavel, there was an unspoken ferocity to her actions. She wasn't happy about this in the slightest, not that I could blame her. "Order in the court!" she roared. As soon as the onlookers had quieted down, she turned her attention back to me. Her gaze was incredibly sharp even behind her mask. "Please explain at once what you are trying to imply, defense."
"Of course," I responded. "The victim could have survived the attack, and we explained during the previous trial session why this was possible. No body was left behind, and the culprit didn't clean up the scene of the crime, implying that they didn't take the corpse with them to hide elsewhere after the fact. That made it clear that the victim likely survived what happened... And I believe that we've found her."
I pointed to Ms. Lesa, watching as her gaze shifted in my direction once again. There was a glare manifesting in her eyes, and I could tell that there were far more secrets to her than she was willing to admit. Suddenly, everything felt like it made sense. This was how we were going to find the truth behind this case, and the one calling herself "Ms. Lesa" couldn't run from her lies anymore.
"How do you respond, Ms. Razi Lesa? Or should I say... Ms. Eileen Liyle?"
Plot twist!
-Digital