March 14

Prison Break Room

2:00 PM

Deirdre Brigit

Chrysalis and I ended up heading to the prison's break room after our chat with Detective Erikson. We needed to figure out where Mr. Kyllar was so that we could ask him a few other questions about the case. He had seemed rather put off after Chrysalis had pressed him earlier in our investigation, but it was critical that we got at least a little bit of information out of him before the trial tomorrow. If we wanted to help Yuri, we'd need as much information as possible, and Mr. Kyllar was our best shot at getting what we needed. Even if he was uncooperative, it was our best option, so what choice did we really have in the matter?

Luckily for us, we didn't have to go on a lengthy search to try and track him down. Standing in the break room was none other than Mr. Ulysses Kyllar himself. He was standing up against the wall as he played on his phone. He didn't seem to notice us at first. It wasn't until Chrysalis cleared her throat to get his attention that he looked up. He rolled his eyes and glared at Chrysalis, recognizing us from earlier on. "Great. What do you want from me this time? Do you want to accuse me of murder or some stupid crap like that? If you're going to do that, keep it to yourself. This case has nothing to do with me, and that's final."

I could sense that he was lying thanks to my superior hearing. The extra sound that I heard behind his speech, which I had dubbed discord, said loud and clear that the case had something to do with him. However, there was no point arguing that in a situation like this one. Chrysalis had already pressed that much out of him, so why bother? We'd be able to confront him for real in the trial tomorrow anyways, so we might as well save our arguments for then when he couldn't leave or get away without facing serious consequences.

"We just have a few more questions for you. It's nothing major," I assured him, praying internally that he wouldn't lash out and try to do something regarding Chrysalis and her earlier accusations. "I promise you that we don't have anything life-changing to ask you regarding this murder. Will you please answer our questions? We'll be able to leave you alone sooner if you try and cooperate with us for the time being. How does that sound to you, Mr. Kyllar?"

The man paused for a moment before turning off his phone and stuffing it into his back pocket. "Alright. What do you want to ask? But don't be long. I have other things to take care of. I'd rather not be late since I was busy talking to you two sad sacks. What is it that's up first?"

"Will you be testifying in the trial tomorrow?" asked Chrysalis. "I don't think that we heard if you were when we spoke earlier on."

"Yeah. The prosecutor wants me to talk a little bit about the metal detection sweep I did the day of the initial investigation. What does it mean to you? Are you going to do something to keep me from testifying, Chrissy?" Mr. Kyllar asked, clearly still a bit peeved with his interactions with Chrysalis from earlier on.

"No, we were just curious as to if we'd be seeing you again when court went back in session tomorrow," I told him. "It's nothing to be concerned with."

"Next up... Do you know of anybody who ripped their uniform lately? We found a small patch of fabric at the scene of the crime that Pandora says is from a prison uniform that needed to be repaired. We figured that a high-ranking guard would know better than anyone if something happened to rip a uniform of one of his coworkers," Chrysalis said next. "If you do know, would you be able to tell us their name so that we can go on and talk to them about it?"

Mr. Kyllar's eyes went wide with shock for a moment. However, this didn't last very long. He returned to normal quickly and shook his head furiously. "No, I don't know anybody who might have ripped their uniform. If I did, I'd be telling you two just to get you both off my back once and for all," he said. "Are you guys done yet? I still have other stuff to do, and I can't exactly hop to it if I'm occupied telling you guys about stupid things to do with the murder."

"I don't know if I can think of any immediate things to ask... But I suppose I should inform you that the murder weapon, or at least what the police suspect is the murder weapon, was found. It was discovered in a bush out in the courtyard. Did you hear about that already?" I questioned of him. I intentionally left out the key situation, wanting to save it for the trial. Plus, I didn't know how he'd react if we told him that the key had been found at the crime scene.

"No. Nobody told me about it. Of course I'm left out of the loop," huffed Mr. Kyllar. "Thanks for telling, I guess. That's the first good thing that's happened since I've crossed paths with you two. If my intuition is correct, it'll probably be the last two. You both annoy me to no end. Dairy and Chris, the super irritating pair that can give even the most patient people a run for their money. Congratulations on your extreme levels of irritation, you two. You should be proud of yourselves for this wonderful achievement."

Chrysalis and I continued to look at him, choosing to ignore his butchering of our names. I didn't see how Deirdre was at all similar to Dairy besides the opening letter, but I didn't want to drive him away ahead of time. We still needed to see him for a little while longer, so pushing him off by further angering him wouldn't do us any good. As I was looking at him, trying my best to suppress a glare, I noticed something peculiar about his sleeve down near his wrist...

A small section of fabric was missing. It was rather oddly shaped, like the bottom of the sleeve had gotten caught on something sharp, perhaps a chained fence, and ripped of. I stared at it for a moment until Mr. Kyllar noticed. He stared at his hand before looking up at me. "What? Is there something on my hand, Daisy? I'd prefer it if you didn't stare at me like I was an alien from Mars. I'm very much from Eartha and I'm positive that even somebody as stupid as you can figure that out in the blink of an eye," he said, his voice overwhelmed with anger. I got the feeling that he was an all around cranky person from our interactions.

"It's nothing," I told him, hoping that he wasn't at all suspicious. "I think that we're done asking you our questions. You can go on about your life now, Mr. Kyllar. We'll come and find you if something else comes around in our investigation that we need answers to. But for now, you're free to go."

"Finally," Mr. Kyllar groaned. He rolled his eyes as he walked out of the door. He intentionally bumped into me with his shoulder on the way out, not even bothering to apologize. Cross-examining him in court would most certainly be an experience in and of itself. With how angered he could get on top of how gave everyone the cold shoulder, he'd be a difficult witness to contend with. At least Ms. Rell was willing to help us and answer any questions that we had...

"Did you see that?" I asked Chrysalis once he was gone. "On his wrist. There was something there, or rather, something that wasn't there."

"It wouldn't happen to relate to the torn piece of his sleeve, would it?" Chrysalis inquired. "Because if so, I saw it too. A piece of his sleeve was torn off... If you ask me, that has to do with this case in some fashion. Do you have any ideas? I can't think of anything immediately off the top of my head."

"I think I know something," I nodded. "Remember how we found that torn fabric patch at the scene of the crime? Ms. Rell told us that it was the same type of fabric that was used to patch up any holes or tears in uniforms at the prison. I doubt that this is a coincidence. Between it being his key that went missing, the metal detection and his convenient skipping of that bush, and now the fabric patch, he's certainly being made out to be a suspect at the moment."

"I agree. The evidence against Yuri has come crashing down. Her lack of an alibi and having a motive mean nothing when put up against the hard facts of this case. She didn't take the key to get into the courtyard. She also couldn't turn off the power box. With that working in our favor, we can easily determine the killer. But I think that there's one other thing that we'll need to do before we can say that this case is closed and that Mr. Kyllar did it," Chrysalis said.

"What is it? I can't think of anything else important that we'll need to know before we can go into court tomorrow," I remarked with a small frown.

"Well, Pandora said that she could check out the size of the hole cut by the killer in the power box report. If his name matches up with the hole, then we can most certainly accuse him of the murder in court. I doubt that Polly and Anton can worm their way out of something like that when there's this much evidence piled up against Mr. Kyllar. If you ask me, he's going to get the jail time that he deserves, and it all starts with tomorrow's trial," Chrysalis told me.

"You're right. Maybe she's made some progress in that by now. We should go and find Ms. Rell to ask her about it. If she's done, then we can take her results with us to be used in the trial tomorrow. After that, we can see if Detective Erikson has the test results yet. If so, we can keep those as well. If not, we'll just have to wait for the trial to kick off. Then we can go and see Yuri to tell her about what we found today. Do you think we can get going now?" I asked.

Chrysalis opened her mouth to say something, but she never got the chance to speak. Detective Erikson knocked on the door and walked in slowly. "I heard that some guards saw you two coming this way," he remarked. "I have the test results from the gun, hair, and key. I figured you'd want the results now."

"Yeah. We do. It's great that they're done so soon," Chrysalis said. "But... You told us before that the chances of the results coming out earlier were rather slim since the hair likely didn't belong to Yuri, so a bunch more tests would need to be done. You seem to be here a bit earlier on than we could have expected."

"There's a reason for that, but I'll hold off for now. First, there's the gun. There were no prints found on it, but it is in fact the murder weapon. The ballistic markings show that the bullets were fired by this gun, so we don't need to search around for the missing murder weapon anymore," Detective Erikson began.

"That's good to hear. Now that the murder weapon has been found, that's just another weapon in our arsenal for the trial tomorrow," Chrysalis smiled. "What else do you have for us? Is that it as far as the gun is concerned, or is there a bit more for you to explain?"

"As a matter of fact, there is. Another thing was discovered about the gun during our testing. One of the other prison guards who works here recognized it. He told us that the gun is the same type that all guards are given," Detective Erikson told us. "That means that it came from one of the prison workers here."

Chrysalis and I met eyes for a moment, instantly thinking about who it was that likely owned the gun. It had to be Mr. Kyllar given all the evidence that we had received so far about this case. There wasn't another explanation that we could think of. I turned back to Detective Erikson and spoke. "Anything else?"

"When it comes to the gun, not really. There's a bit of stuff about the key and hair piece though. The key had the prints of Ulysses Kyllar, the one who did the metal detection sweep in the courtyard yesterday," Detective Erikson went on. "I suppose that's natural though. I mean, he is the one who owns the key."

"I guess that you'd see that one coming... Is that it about the key?" I questioned. "Were any other prints lifted from the surface of it?"

"More importantly, were Yuri's prints found on the key?" Chrysalis inquired. "If they weren't we can prove in court that she never handled the key."

"No. No other prints were found on the key, just Mr. Kyllar's," Detective Erikson responded. "That's about it as far as the key goes. The piece of hair has a little bit more to it though. The hair does not belong to Yuri, but there is still something rather peculiar about it... We have no doubt that it's involved with this case, but as for how, we don't know. What we found makes no sense, so we don't really know how to put it in with our summary of the murder thus far..."

"You're making it sound like whatever you found will change this case for the worse," I frowned. "Is it really that bad? Who does the hair belong to?"

"We don't know. That's the issue," Detective Erikson said with a sigh and a shake of head. "No DNA could be lifted from the hair. The texture of it is a bit odd, almost like it isn't real hair. It might be a wig or something of that nature. We don't know why there would be hair from a wig at the scene of the crime, though. I mean, there were no other signs of a wig being present. We never found a clump of it or anything at the scene, so it doesn't make much sense now."

"Hair from a wig?" Chrysalis echoed. Her eyes had gone wide in surprise. "That's... That's most certainly unique. I've seen many cases in my day, but I don't remember one off the top of my head that had a wig at the scene of the crime... Guess this is going to be a bit more complicated than we thought."

"Do you know anybody else around here who has white hair? Maybe the white hair they have is just a wig, which would mean that they must be the killer," I suggested. I already had a little bit of an idea who the hair belonged to, but I wasn't going to voice my suspicions until Chrysalis and I were alone.

"No, I'm afraid not. None of the police investigating have run into anybody that has white hair. The guards we spoke to never mentioned anyone either," Detective Erikson told us with a shake of his head. "We believe that whoever used the wig has a different hair color beneath the wig, so narrowing down who used it is going to be impossible. Not even a strand of their hair rubbed off onto the clump, which means that you guys are going to need to find the killer without the DNA from the hair in your evidence stack. I'm afraid that we can't do anything about it at the moment, so sorry about that."

"It's alright. The information that we've gotten from you so far is quite enough," I smiled at him. "Thank you for telling us what you've found. We'll be sure to put it to good use in court tomorrow. Does Prosecutor Burke know any of what you've told us regarding the test results from the forensics team?"

"Not yet. I'm going to see her next so that I can tell her what I've found," Detective Erikson responded. "I'll need to figure out where she is first. I was looking around for quite a while before I found you guys and never saw a trace of her. I really wish that I had her phone number so I could text her about it..."

"Lucky for you, I do have her phone number," Chrysalis said. She pulled out her phone and powered it on before typing something up quickly. "I'll tell her to head out to the courtyard. You'll probably be able to find her there in a matter of minutes. Does that sound good to you?"

"Yes. Thank you for the help," Detective Erikson smiled. "I'll be on my way. Good luck with the rest of your investigation, you two. I trust you'll find something."

Detective Erikson exited the room with a wave. We returned the gesture before looking to one another. Chrysalis looked like she had something to say, as her eyes were downcast as she placed her hand on her chin in thought. I decided to ask her about it. "What's up?" I questioned. "It looks to me like you have something on your mind. Did you realize something about the new evidence that Detective Erikson brought us? Does it have anything to do with the gun?"

"I actually do have something on my mind, yeah. I was thinking about the wig hair... I can't think of any reason that there would be for the hair to not have any DNA," Chrysalis told me. "I can't seem to come up with an explanation, though. I guess that we'll just have to wait until the trial to figure it all out."

"Hey! There you two are!"

We both looked to the door to see Ms. Rell poking her head in. She waved to us and approached. "I looked through all of the names that might fit the hole that was cut out by the culprit. Lucky for us, only about seven of them fit the gap. I compiled a list for you so that you can take it with you," she said. Ms. Rell handed us a paper with a few names on it. I noticed that it was in the same font as the report that stated who had used the fingerprint scanner from the trial earlier on in the day. I bet that was intentional so that we could compare them in the trial if we found that we would need to do so later on.

"Thank you for this," I smiled to her. "Your help is much appreciated. We'll be sure to use this in the trail tomorrow when we get the chance to."

"I'm glad to hear it," Ms. Rell grinned. As I tucked the paper away, she put her hands on her hips. "Do you know who the killer might be? I can't think of anybody, but that might be since I'm not a full-on investigator looking into this case. You guys undoubtedly have a bit more information than I do."

"We have one idea, but we won't be able to prove it until the trial rolls around," Chrysalis told her. "Will you be in court tomorrow? I doubt that Polly will be willing to let you off the hook when you're such a key witness in this case. She's always been on the more intense side as far as prosecutors go."

"I'll be in the gallery. Prosecutor Burke said that she wanted me present so that she could call me up to the witness stand if she found need of me. She was pretty irritated when she told me about it too. Is she always that angry or is this just how she gets when it comes to cases? If that's how it goes, maybe she should find a different profession if she's so miserable... Her agony is contagious," Ms. Rell said with a shake of her head in disapproval.

"She's normally a lot calmer, if you can find it inside yourself to really believe that. She can be a bit rough around the edges, but she's ultimately caring of those that she's close with. If you give her the chance, then she'll be a kind person to you. However, if you're not in her closer circle, the chances of you seeing that side of her are rather slim. She's... She's unique in that way, I suppose," Chrysalis explained. "I promise that she's not this way on a daily basis, Pandora."

"I'm glad to hear it. I'd pity her coworkers if that was the case," Ms. Rell laughed. "I might go on and pity them anyways despite her other attitude."

Chrysalis laughed along with her before stopping. "Well... You probably have other things to attend to aside from talk to us. As the woman in charge for the time being, you have a lot of responsibilities. I'm sure that you have more things to do," she said. "We need to go on and visit Yuri in the detention center anyways."

"Yeah, you're right on me having other stuff to do. I'm sure that Prosecutor Burke will be after my head if I don't do my work. She seems a bit irked with how she's losing this case, so I don't want to fuel the fire and just make her even more angry," Ms. Rell joked. Even if she was saying such things in jest, I couldn't help but think about how her words really weren't all that far from the truth... Prosecutor Burke was a difficult opponent, to say the least.

"Thank you for the information, Ms. Rell. We'll see you tomorrow," said with a small bow of my head. I waved as Ms. Rell cheerily skipped from the room.

"Let's go on and see Yuri now. She'll be wanting to hear about how our investigation is turning out," Chrysalis told me. "I'm sure that it will ease her worries to know that we have a suspect, though we shouldn't tell her who our suspect is. You never know who might be listening. We can reveal the truth in court tomorrow where Mr. Kyllar won't be able to escape his sins. But for the time being, let's go and tell her about our results. She's probably bored out of her mind after being in the detention center for so long."

I nodded my agreement and headed for the door. Chrysalis trailed after me a few feet behind as we walked to the prison's detention center.

March 14

Detention Center

3:00 PM

Yuri Rinko

I was sprawled out on my bed in my holding cell until a guard entered and told me I had visitors. I was dragged off to the detention center, praying all the way that it was Deirdre and Chrysalis. Visiting hours were close to over, which meant that the chances of me seeing them if this wasn't them were very slim.

Luckily for me, it was Deirdre and Chrysalis. The latter was trying to hide her emotions the best that she could, but I could tell that she was still excited behind her mask. "So? How is it going?" I asked, eager to hear of what was making her so happy. "Do you know who committed the crime and framed me?"

"We have a suspect at the very least," Deirdre told me. "I'm afraid that we won't be able to tell you much else unless we can wait until the trial. We don't want the culprit suspecting that we think they did it. However, I'm sure that you'll catch on early in the trial when we indict them for murder."

"Sounds good to me. I don't want you guys getting in any trouble because you told me," I shrugged. "Did you guys find anything interesting while looking?"

"We found the murder weapon and the missing key at the scene of the crime for one," Chrysalis said. "The gun we found is the kind used by the guards around here. The ballistic markings match the bullets found in the victim's body. We don't know who the owner of the gun is, I'm afraid. Sorry about that."

"It's okay," I assured her. "Promise. What about the key? Is it the one who went missing the day before the murder? The one that guy is accusing me of stealing? If so, I might have to kick that guy's face in for good measure, because I clearly did not take it if it was found at the scene of the murder."

"You got it right on the nose. It is in fact the same key that went missing. His prints were found all over it. That undoubtedly tells us that you didn't touch it at all, which keeps you from being suspected. I'm glad that we at least have that on our side going into tomorrow," Deirdre told me next.

"Thank the lord. I never saw any keys like that. I don't even know what the key looks like, so I couldn't have really taken it," I said. "Is that all you found?"

"No. There was final piece of evidence in the bush that we came across during our investigation. However, its helpfulness is a bit... How do I put this...? It's a bit less sure to be helpful," Chrysalis frowned. "We found a small piece of white hair, but not just any white hair... Fake white hair from a wig."

"A wig? That's weird. I don't think I saw a wig at the scene of the crime when I found it," I frowned. "Did you find anything else to do with a wig?"

"Sadly, no. The only piece of the wig that we found was inside of the bush. The hair was bright white as Chrysalis mentioned, which means that it would easily stick out at the crime scene or if it was on anyone's head. Unfortunately for us, we haven't come across anybody at the prison with white hair. Detective Erikson doesn't know of anybody either, which means that there's not much we can do with it as of now. No DNA was found in the hair either, which means that it's pretty much just sitting in our evidence stack until we can figure out how it connects into the larger puzzle that is this case," Deirdre told me.

"That's not good. The less that you guys have figured out, the less secure my fate is. I know that you guys will fight to the end, but... You know, it's still hard knowing that there's a chance the prosecution could win out and get me a guilty verdict," I frowned, my eyes falling down to the ground. I had been trying to avoid such dismal thoughts, but at times, it just felt unavoidable. I mean, how could you keep the negativity away in a situation like this? One trial would decide my fate once and for all. If I was found guilty, I'd be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty. Venus would be mad that I joined her so soon. Plus, Cassidy and my mother would be upset that I died early on or ended up in jail... God, this was so stressful! I just wanted this whole incident to end already!

"We'll be able to get you a not guilty verdict for sure," Deirdre assured me. "We promise you that much. You'll be home tomorrow without a doubt."

"Thanks... I'm glad that you guys are so confident in me," I smiled, though I was sure that they could tell a well as I could that it was more than a little forced.

"We're going to head out to look over the details of the case one last time before the trial," Chrysalis told me. "You try and get some sleep tonight, okay? I don't want you tired during the trial tomorrow. I know that you were exhausted when everything was going on during today's proceedings."

"Alright. I'll see you guys later," I said. I rose to my feet and waved as I was escorted back to my room by the guard. Sleeping was much easier said than done in this sort of environment... Man, the things I wouldn't do to be home in my own bed for the first time in a few days. I didn't know how much I loved it until I no longer had access to it and was stuck in this crappy little detention center.

Is it late? Yes. Is this update still out? Yes.

I typed this one a bit late because I had somebody over most of the day. Oops.

If any of you guys reading this like Fire Emblem, you should check out my Fates rewrite. I finished it last night, so it's officially wrapped up. Nice.

Well, I'm going to be off to sleep. Hope you guys enjoyed!

-Digital