March 17

Prison Courtyard

10:30 AM

Deirdre Brigit

"Y-Yuri Rinko?" I asked. It took me a moment before I realized where I had heard the name before. Mr. Morix and Chrysalis had mentioned a 'Yuri' character back when the introductions at the office were beginning. They had said that she would likely be a bit late, but in the end, she never showed up. Mr. Morix had said that he would send her my way, but that still hadn't happened... Perhaps it was because she had ended up arrested for this murder.

"Yeah. Do you know her?" Detective Erikson questioned with a raised eyebrow.

I nodded. "I know of her at least. She seems to work as an assistant at the law office that I was recently asked to join," I explained. "Why did you arrest her for this murder?"

"She was found by the witness at the scene of the crime. On top of that, she's the only one without an alibi about when we believe the murder was committed. The time is listed in the autopsy report I gave you," Detective Erikson said.

I decided that now would be a good time for me to open up the autopsy report. I hadn't ever seen one of these before. I just hoped it was easy enough to understand for a newbie like me.

Name: Buff Guiy

Age: 42

Gender: Male

Cause of Death: Bullet wound to heart killed victim instantly

Time of Death: 5-6 AM

Other: Victim was shot in left thigh prior to death by another bullet

~ Jasper Kent

"So he was shot twice..." I murmured. "The time of death says that he died early this morning. What was the defendant doing here at that time?"

"The victim in this case was the one who killed her oldest sister, Venus Rinko. She died in a stabbing case last month. The current victim's trial wasn't until recently, so he was in the detention center until that point. About a week ago, he was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life in prison. In questioning, the defendant said that she was here to speak with him about the murder of her sister to extract more information from him on the subject," Detective Erikson explained. "Later, she found the body and was seen in front of it by our witness, the warden's assistant named Pandora Rell."

"And you believe that the defendant's wish to speak with the victim ended up changing into murderous intent?" I asked.

Detective Erikson nodded. "We think that she wanted revenge on him for being the one to take her sister away from her. Since she has no alibi, a motive, and was found with the body, we have to say that she's the most probably suspect at the moment," he said next.

"I'll have to speak with the witness later on," I murmured. "As for now, do you think I'd be able to examine the crime scene a bit? I'm going to need to make sure that I have a good understanding of it for the trial."

"Yeah. The trial is tomorrow," Detective Erikson remarked. "I feel bad for the lawyers involved since they never get much time to investigate for the trial."

"I hope I'll be able to get all the necessary information from what we have available today," I said.

"Hey! Deirdre!"

Before I could get started on my investigation, I turned upon hearing my name. Chrysalis was running towards me. Once she had caught up, she began panting as she held her chest. "C-Cotoli... Cotoli told me to... To help you investigate..." she told me between heavy breaths.

"Was it because he learned who the defendant was?" I asked.

Chrysalis nodded as she regained her composure. "Yeah... Since I was already here, he thought it would be best for me to help you."

"What were you even doing here?" I couldn't help but question.

"I was looking for Anton and Polly... Anton, one of my close friends from school, said that they were prosecuting this case. I was going to see if I could find him to hear any other details," she explained. "I couldn't find him, though. That means you'll have to get me up to speed on what you've heard so far abut the case."

"It was a murder. The victim, Buff Guiy, was shot in the heart and killed this morning. Because the defendant has no alibi, a motive, and an eyewitness account stated that she was with the body, she's the suspect for killing him. The police think it's revenge since the victim killed her sister," I told her.

"Venus..." Chrysalis whispered, looking down at the ground with a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Well, now we have to defend her. We can't let her end up in trouble because of all this when she didn't do it. Yuri wouldn't hurt a fly. Sure, she's a bit odd at times, but she's still harmless. You know, unless you take the TV remote from her when she's trying to watch her favorite cartoon..."

"That's not all to the case, I'm afraid," Detective Erikson cut in. He pointed to the nearby prison watchtower. "You see that tower, right? The victim was found suspended from it. His legs were tangled in the guard rail to keep people from falling off the balcony up top. We had to take the body down so we could perform the autopsy, but there's still tape up there to outline where he was when the body was discovered."

"Was it like that when Yuri was found with it?" Chrysalis asked with a slight tilt of her head.

Detective Erikson nodded. "Yes. The eyewitness claimed that the body was hanging from the tower even when she saw the suspect with the corpse. It's doubtful that he was shot while up there since there's a lot of blood down here on the lawn. He was likely killed down here and then taken up to the watchtower after he had already died to be suspended," he explained to us.

"Let's start our investigation, speaking of the body," Chrysalis said. "We should be him with the watchtower and then move to the body before looking around he rest of the courtyard."

"It doesn't seem like this is your first time doing this, Chrysalis," I commented.

She shook her head. "No. I've always been working with Cotoli as one of his primary investigative partners. I've been at it since I was fifteen and the agency was founded two years ago," she told me.

"Wow. In that case, I guess you'll be the one leading me around for now. I have a bit to learn," I said.

"It really isn't that hard... You just need to make sure that you know what you need to look into. Leave no stone unturned and you'll be fine," Chrysalis assured me as we walked over to the prison watchtower to look into the situation with the body's previous suspension.

The watchtower did indeed have the outline of a corpse the same stature as the victim. The arms were dangling down towards the ground. The feet did appear to have been caught between the railing's metal bars. They were the perfect width from what I could tell. Some blood was smeared on the watchtower, spelling out a short phrase.

"'Oracle will die,'" I read with a frown. "This must be talking about the Oracle of the Law. I'm sure that you've heard of the Oracle, right, Chrysalis? They've been all over the media for quite some time now."

Chrysalis let out a small gasp upon seeing the words. Shortly after, she began to glare at the message. "Oracle... It's their fault Venus is gone. I'll never forgive them," I heard her whisper, her voice now much darker and filled with hate.

"We believe that this message was left by the killer. We are sure that the defendant is aware of the reason that her sister was killed and its involvement with Oracle, so it would make sense if she had left it for the spy to say that she was going to get her revenge for being indirectly responsible for her sister's untimely demise," Detective Erikson told us.

"I can see why the police would think that..." I said under my breath. "Do you think that Oracle themselves is involved with this case in any way?"

"I doubt it. Oracle is a big spy and stuff. I don't know why they'd want to involve themselves in something like this. If their life is on the line and somebody has written a threat to them, they'll want to stay away. Oracle isn't stupid since they haven't been caught, so they'll avoid the prison for a while," Chrysalis told me. "Coming is like asking for trouble."

"I agree that it would be a bad idea," I nodded. "Let's go on and look at the body. There doesn't seem to be much of anything left to note here. We should keep this note in mind. It might prove to be important later on."

We approached the body next. The victim had dark hair over his closed eyes. He looked to be in pain. I noticed that there was a large wound on his chest. Well, it was a small wound, but there was a lot of blood. This was likely where the bullet had entered his body as was mentioned in the autopsy report. There was a similar wound on his upper leg, but it was much smaller and there was less blood. This wound had the bullet still inside. The wound on his chest was lacking in bullets, so I assumed that it had been taken by the police.

"The bullet was taken by the police, yes?" Chrysalis asked.

"Yeah. We've been unable to figure out where the bullet came from though. There are no guns around here that match the bullets that we're shot. The ballistic markings don't match anything, so we are unable to discern what the weapon is. The killer either hid it or took it with them," Detective Erikson explained. "It'll be hard to figure out which one of those it is until we actually find the gun though."

Chrysalis crouched down next to the body and looked at the body with a frown. "There are a lot of tears in his clothing. Did something happen to rip him up like this?" she questioned.

"A window was broken the time of the crime. The width of the cuts is roughly the same as the thickness of the glass that made up the window," Detective Erikson told her. We don't know what broke the glass, but it was something that happened the time of the crime since the witness mentioned hearing the sound of glass breaking."

"I'm betting that this has some sort of relevance on the crime. We should keep it in mind," I said. Chrysalis responded with a simple nod.

"His hand is clasped into a fist," I commented. I crouched down next to Chrysalis to get a closer look. "Would we be able to see if he's holding something, Detective Erikson?"

"I don't see why not. We've already gotten photos of the body and such, so unfolding his hand shouldn't hurt," he responded.

I gently uncurled the victim's fingers. The first thing I saw was blood. There was a shard of glass in the victim's hand that had cut his hand open. The cut was still open likely since he had died before his body could heal it.

"I bet this came from the window that was broken," Chrysalis said as I rotated the glass shard around. It was covered in dried blood, probably from the victim's hand wound.

"I bet you're right," I agreed. "I just don't see why he'd be holding this. It's a bit odd for someone to want to hold onto a sharp piece of glass when they could so easily be cut. The victim was cut all over his body, so it makes even less sense that he'd want to hold onto this."

"Odd as it may be, we need to remember it. I'm positive that it will be important during the trial tomorrow. No criminal is perfect, so their crimes aren't either. Everything is important in some way. We just need to see how all the puzzle pieces fit together," Chrysalis told me.

"I wonder what sort of relevance it has. It has to mean something. It wouldn't be here if it didn't," I agreed.

"It looks like there's something in his pocket," Chrysalis observed. She pointed to the one and only pocket on the front of the victim's shirt. There did appear to be something of a bulge inside the pocket.

Detective Erikson pulled whatever was inside of his pocket out. "I don't know what this is for, but it's a key," he said, holding it up. "It's rather small, so we must have missed it in our first investigation of the area. I'll have to get it tested for prints to see who's been holding it recently."

"Why did the victim have it? He's a convicted murderer. I don't see how anybody like that would be allowed to have anything with a key. The state just wouldn't trust them enough to have anything that might be dangerous, and that definitely includes secrets," Chrysalis frowned. "It doesn't make much sense, but it has to mean something."

"It's not just the one key in there, it looks like," I commented. I reached into the pocket and pulled out a key ring with a few other keys on it. It had been on the opposite side of the pocket from where Detective Erikson had retrieved his key, so he had missed it.

"That looks like the key ring they keep prisoner cell keys on," Detective Erikson remarked. "I've seen them a few times when taking people in and out of questioning. However, if this really is a key ring for a cell block here in the prison, what was it doing in the hands of the victim? The guards are strictly forbidden from allowing anyone who is convicted of a crime access to these keys. People would be escaping if they got their mitts on these and had the opportunity."

Chrysalis let out a small gasp. "Hey... I have a quick question, if you don't mind my asking. I think it might have to do with the case," she said to the detective.

"Fire away," Detective Erikson said. He handed off the keys that we had found to a police officer that had approached. "Give these to the forensics team. They'll be able to hear if there are any prints on these." The officer saluted before dashing away.

"There wouldn't happen to have been any prison breakouts last night, would there?" Chrysalis questioned. "I mean, if it was really so early in the morning when the victim was killed, I doubt that he was supposed to be out of his cell..."

"Believe it or not, no," Detective Erikson responded. "We checked this morning during our initial investigation if there were any reports of breakouts. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single breakout reported at all last night. Plus, the warden's assistant said that she didn't see any signs of misbehavior at all. Well, aside from the power outage."

"Power outage?" I echoed. "There was a power outage in the prison last night?"

"Yeah. Somebody got to the main breaker out here in the courtyard and turned it off. A set of prints was lifted from it, but we don't know who they belong to yet. It isn't the defendant, victim, or witness at the very least. There's not much else we can say aside from that," Detective Erikson explained. "The power outage lasted roughly fifteen minutes at around 5:00 in the morning. Once the power was back, the witness checked all the cameras to make sure that nobody had escaped. She said that there was every cell door was shut, so we have no idea what in the world happened last night."

"It sounds like this is going to be a tough case to crack," I frowned.

"To make things even more peculiar, the witness was watching the cameras after the blackout to make sure everything was okay. That was when she heard two gunshots, likely the two that rang out when the victim was killed," Detective Erikson continued. "The witness stayed in her office for a little while longer, checking the cameras to see where the gunshots had come from, before figuring out that they had come from the hall near the courtyard where there were no guards at night due to the vacancy of the courtyard. She ran to the source of the sound and saw the body in the courtyard with the suspect standing just in front of it."

"This is all rather incriminating... It's going to be hard to prove that our client didn't do this," I told Chrysalis.

She shook her head. "Well, there is one thing that we have on our side. Yuri is small and scrawny compared to the victim. He looks like he was around five feet and eight inches tall. Yuri isn't even five feet tall. Do we really think that she could have killed somebody that large and dragged the body up to the watchtower? She's tiny compared to him," Chrysalis said.

"Sounds like that will be our first piece of evidence to use in the trial," I nodded in response.

"I probably should head off to other areas of the prison to question any other potential witnesses," Detective Erikson told us. "But before I go, perhaps I should tell you the last little bit of information you two will probably need to conduct your investigation."

"What is it?" Chrysalis questioned.

"We had one of the guards who works here in the prison do a metal detection sweep of the courtyard. We didn't find any traces of a gun or anything metallic in his search, so you don't need to try and look around in hopes that you'll find the murder weapon," Detective Erikson explained. "The only metal was found inside of the metal bars that make up the gate of the courtyard. The bullets set off the detector as well. Aside from that, I'm afraid that we came up short in the metal department. Everything metallic that was found was supposed to be here, which means that the gun likely isn't here in the courtyard."

"Alright. Thank you for all the information you've given us, Detective Erikson," I said, bowing my head slightly.

"It was my pleasure," Detective Erikson responded, a small smile on his face.

"Would you please give Mukuro my greetings?" Chrysalis questioned.

Detective Erikson nodded as he walked away. "I will. I'll see you two around."

Once Detective Erikson had disappeared from view, I turned to Chrysalis, tilting my head in curiosity. "Who's Mukuro?" I couldn't help but ask.

"That's Detective Erikson's daughter. She's in my grade at school. We have a few classes together. I suppose that you might be able to call us friends," Chrysalis replied. "She's a sweet girl, but she hasn't been investigating as many cases lately. I'm not entirely sure why, but if she wants to take a break, that's up to her."

"I see..." I murmured with a nod.

"Let's get started with our investigation into the crime scene. There has to be something important around here somewhere," Chrysalis said. "Just look around for anything suspicious."

I nodded and turned around. We both scoured half of the courtyard to get things over with faster. Once Chrysalis was done, she let out a sigh. "I haven't found anything. I guess that there really isn't anything of note left in the courtyard."

I shook my head as I crouched down to the grass. There was something black sitting on top of the lawn, but I wasn't sure what it was. I picked it up and held it to the sun to get a better look.

"It's a patch of fabric," I murmured. "Look at this. It's a little piece of fabric. I'm not entirely sure what it goes to, but it doesn't look like it matches what the victim was wearing."

"Let's see if Yuri's clothes are at all torn when we see her. She normally wears a dark jacket of a similar fabric, so if that's not torn at all, we'll have another piece of ammunition to use against the prosecution tomorrow," Chrysalis said. "Maybe we can ask the witness if it's at all familiar to her. Somebody around here has to recognize it."

I sniffed the fabric upon realizing that something about it had a distinct smell. "It smells like blood... This definitely has something to do with the case. I can't say whose blood it is, but I'm willing to bet that it's the victim's blood," I told her.

Chrysalis pulled off her backpack before reaching in and pulling out a plastic bag. "Put it in here. We can keep it from being at all damaged this way," she instructed.

I accepted the plastic bag from her and unzipped it. "Thanks." I dropped the square of fabric into the bag before returning it to her. She put it into her bag before swinging the backpack into its proper position. There were seams around the edges of the fabric, but it wasn't anything too major. It looked like the sort of patch you'd be able to buy at a craft store that you'd use to cover up a hole in a garment of clothing. I wasn't entirely sure of that, but it was most certainly something to keep in mind.

"Ch-Chrysalis!"

Upon hearing the voice, Chrysalis and I both turned to see two people walking towards us. One of them was a blonde boy with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, said blanket being red with yellow spots here and there. The other person was a woman who looked to be about my age with dark hair and a serious expression.

"Anton!" Chrysalis gasped. She dashed over to the boy and pulled him into a hug, which he returned. "There you are! I was looking for you earlier!"

"S-Sorry... I-I wasn't sure if you'd b-be coming..." the boy, whose name seemed to be Anton, stuttered.

"I texted her and said that we should meet up," the woman told him. "Of course, I was hoping that she'd bring her brother along with her... Who would this be?"

"This is Deirdre Brigit," Chrysalis explained. She seemed to be a lot more bright and cheerful now that Anton and this new woman were here. "She's the other new lawyer Cotoli hired recently. When we heard about the case, he sent her in to defend Yuri. I'm going to be helping her out in court."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss...?" I began to say, my voice trailing off when I realized that I didn't know the newcomer's name.

"Polly Burke," the woman replied. "Prosecutor Polly Burke. This is Anton Burke, my son. We're going to be on the prosecution tomorrow."

"Y-You won't get a-all scary and g-glare at me, right...?" Anton asked softly.

"I promise I won't let her. You're as sweet as can be, so we can't really get mad at you," Chrysalis smiled. She tapped him on the nose with one finger, making the boy giggle happily. He clapped his hands, though he was still grasping the blanket, which resulted in the sound coming out rather muffled.

"You had better not upset your boss with this case," Prosecutor Burke told me. Her gaze was harsh as she met my eyes. I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least a bit startled by her intensity. "You really don't want to see him upset."

"N-Not that he'll get mad or anything when he's upset... He's mostly relaxed, so you don't need to worry. Besides, we won't be upsetting Cotoli one bit. We're going to win this case and prove that Yuri didn't commit this crime. We all know that she wouldn't even have the muscles to hurt a fly, much less pull the trigger on a gun twice to kill a man," Chrysalis said. "We're going to make sure that she gets off the hook for this, isn't that right, Deirdre?"

I nodded. "Of course. Our client will be back home and back to her regular life in no time," I told Prosecutor Burke.

"Have you even stopped by to see her? She didn't know that she had a lawyer last I checked. It wasn't until I mentioned it to her that she heard that you were going to be defending her," Prosecutor Burke said.

"We weren't sure when her questioning would be done. We're going to wrap up our investigation and then go check on her. I hope she's happy to see us... Anyways, we're going to be winning this case, and there's nothing you can do about it!" Chrysalis chirped.

Prosecutor Burke rolled her eyes. "If you say so... This case is a lot more complicated than most other murders. It'll be hard if you want to figure out how the murder was committed. Are you sure you'll be up for the challenge, Ms. Brigit?" she asked, addressing me once again.

"I'll get to the bottom of what happened the night of the crime. That much I can promise you," I assured her with a confident nod. At the very least, I was hoping it came off as confident. In truth, I was quietly scared out of my mind that Prosecutor Burke was able to tell how nervous I was. She seemed rather intense and focused on her work, which could easily spell trouble for me in the courtroom tomorrow. I was praying that I'd be able to avoid getting on her bad side, as she came off as the type that would get somewhat scary when angered.

"I'll be looking forward to it," Prosecutor Burke said. "Now, if you don't mind, we're going to be starting our investigation. You got peace to look around here, so now we expect the same. Go on. Scat."

"Alright, we'll get out of your hair. You don't need to get all angry with us," Chrysalis told her. She gave Anton one last hug and smile. "Bye, Anton. I'll see you later on. You stay out of trouble until then, okay?"

"Okay!" Anton exclaimed happily. "Bye!" He waved to us as Chrysalis gestured to the door back into the main building, as if to escort me away from the prosecution's investigation.

"What should we do next?" I asked Chrysalis once we were out of earshot and vision of the prosecution.

"I think that we should go on and talk to the witness. We should see Yuri last since she'll want a complete explanation of what we found in our investigation, so we might as well spare ourselves the extra trip back there and go see the witness now," Chrysalis responded. "I bet that she'll be in her office. I've been to the prison a few times before now on business, so I can lead you there. The warden is out of town from what I heard before meeting up with you. That's why only his assistant is in the office as of now."

"I see... We might as well talk to her and get as much information as we can out of her before we go and see our client," I agreed. "Go on and lead the way."

Chrysalis nodded and began leading me to the office where the warden and his assistant worked. I have to admit that I spaced out while we were on our way. I wasn't entirely sure how this case was going to turn out at that moment. I hadn't even met the suspect yet, which was a roadblock in and of itself. On top of that, this case wasn't your orthodox murder. Even Prosecutor Burke had admitted it to me when we were speaking before. This was going to be a difficult murder to unwind. Proving our client innocent on top of figuring out all that happened this morning was going to be quite the ordeal, but I was hoping that we'd be able to pull it off. On top of that, I was practically ready to make a deal with whatever higher beings were out there that the witness would be able to give us some sort of useful information. From what Detective Erikson had told us, that seemed to be the case, but I was still a bit concerned.

Well, there was nothing I could do about it then. I just had to talk to the witness and see how everything went down with her before starting to make my theories on how the crime was committed.

This one is a bit late because I was doing a lot of babysitting today and the children didn't leave until later on. Plus, I had to look after one of the contributors to this story (the one who made Venus and Yuri) to make sure she didn't scream and launch her 3DS across the room while playing Fire Emblem Awakening. Even so, it was fun.

It made this update a bit late, but it's not even 1 AM on Friday yet, so I'm going to let it pass.

Speaking of, it's 1 AM so I'm going to go to sleep. I hope you guys enjoyed this update!

-Digital