Chapter Text
October 13th, 10:57 AM
Haunted House
Murder Scene
"So let me get this straight," Nick said slowly, now taking Ema's place in the doorway to try to keep his knees from collapsing. "That... thing... is a ghost? And it's been with us this whole time?"
"Oi, that thing?" The green... whatever it was seemed to squint at Nick. He assumed that was what that look was, anyway. The little face hovering over Mob's shoulder was almost comically simple, like a child's drawing, complete with two bright red circles where its cheeks would be. The only thing that was uncomfortably detailed was its mouth, which was lined with two bright pink lips and a row of yellowed teeth. It looked to be just some kind of green gaseous cloud, about the size of a fist.
The little spirit scoffed, crossing a pair of arms that Nick was fairly certain weren't there a moment ago. "Have a little respect, won't you? You have no idea who you're dealing with. Shigeo," he said, giving Mob a nudge and looking smug, "tell them who I am."
"I already did. You're Dimple."
Dimple didn't seem to have a reply to that.
Ema shoved an entire fistful of chocolate Snackoos into her mouth.
"Okay," Nick said weakly. "Putting that aside... why can we see him now?"
Mob's hand crackled with that strange energy again, sparks winding between his fingers like a coin trick. "Dimple can appear visible to people when he wants," he explained, "but it would make trouble if everyone could see him all the time. Normally only people like me would be able to see him."
"So then... is he visible right now?"
Mob shook his head. "Just to us. A little while ago, I passed some of my psychic power onto Reigen-shishou. I'm not really sure how that worked, but even after he'd burned off all of it, he could still see Dimple. So I thought that maybe if I could do the same thing with a really little amount of energy, I could let people see spirits temporarily. I guess it worked."
Nick swallowed. "You guess? Was that the first time you tried it?"
"Um... yes, but I'm sure it's fine. Just maybe don't eat with spoons for a day or two."
Ema started dumping the bag of Snackoos straight into her mouth.
"Hang on," Maya interjected suddenly, frowning. "Reigen couldn't see Dimple before?"
Nick thought he saw Mob hesitate for just a moment before he answered, "Ah... no, he said that Dimple was too weak of a spirit for him to see before."
"Of course he did," Dimple muttered. Mob's gaze flickered toward him, and suddenly the spirit looked a little guilty. "Er, I mean– he was probably messing with you, Shigeo. I'm sure he could see me before, too."
Nick raised an eyebrow, exchanging a glance with Maya. Neither of them knew what to make of the pensive look on Mob's face.
"Oh god I can't take much more of this," Ema groaned, crumpling up the empty bag of Snackoos and shoving it into the pocket of her lab coat. "I don't know anything about ghosts, but I can sure show you a crime scene. If we're gonna investigate, then let's investigate. I'll deal with the... the ghost bit in a minute when my brain isn't screaming."
Maya gave a salute. "Lead the way, Detective!"
As Ema managed to find her sea legs again (with a little help from Maya) and headed back into the room, Nick pulled Mob aside, just outside the door.
"Hey, Mob... so, is there... is there a spirit in there?"
Mob leaned around the doorframe to peer into the room. "I can't see it," he said quietly, "but I can feel it. It's probably hiding."
Nick swallowed. Wonderful. "Um, is it... y'know... dangerous?"
Mob shook his head. "I don't think it's very strong. But most spirits aren't very happy, either, or else they wouldn't be here."
"Haha... I guess not..."
"Heh, its nothing to worry about with Shigeo around," Dimple sneered. "He's so strong that he almost exorcised me, you know."
It doesn't seem like it would take much more than a strong wind to get rid of you, though, Nick thought.
"Is there any way for us to talk to it?" he said aloud, suddenly turning a little red as he realized the patent stupidity of asking a middle schooler to hold a seance in the middle of a crime scene.
"I can bring it out," Mob confirmed. "Do you want me to do it now?"
"N-No," Nick said hurriedly, holding up his hands. "Let's give Ema a break for now and wait until she leaves, I think we almost broke her."
Mob nodded, pursing his lips and looking a little troubled, and Nick cursed himself for not putting it more delicately. But before he could reassure him, he heard Maya calling out to them.
"Crime scene's a-waitin' boys! Lets get these clues while they're hot!"
"Maya..." Ema chided, but she sounded too tired to fight with her.
When they entered the room, the smell of smoke that permeated the rest of the house increased tenfold and nearly made Nick choke. There was another smell, too, that didn't bear thinking about.
Like the other rooms of the house, the bedroom was huge, but sparsely furnished. An empty bed frame in one corner, a singed bookshelf in another, and a floor length mirror hanging on the wall to the right of the door made up the room's trappings. Across from the door there was a grand French style window, which had been swung open. The wallpaper was covered in soot and burnt in some spots, but in the areas where the damage wasn't as severe, Nick could tell that it was cream with gold and deep maroon print. Or perhaps it was white and had just yellowed with age?
The floors were hardwood and just as nice as the wallpaper, but the fire had eaten away at it considerably. And in the very center of the room, surrounded by a deep black pile of ash and soot, was the outline of a body.
"Watch your step and keep close to the door," Ema warned sharply. "Thankfully the fire didn't do a whole lot of damage to the rest of the house, but it really did a number on the floor in here."
"Roger that." Nick took a cautious step closer to the spot where the body lay, trying to ignore the lingering smell of what he assumed was burnt flesh. "Why didn't it spread faster?"
"Because the house is nearly empty," Ema explained. She waved her hand around the room, looking up at the high ceiling. "The fire started in the center of the room here, and there wasn't much of anything to fuel it besides the bookshelf and the wallpaper, which it couldn't reach. You can see the ceiling started to catch fire, so the wallpaper did eventually catch too, and it spread from this room to the hallway leading to the stairwell, but that's when the firefighters arrived on the scene to put it out. If there had been rugs and furniture in here, it would have been a different story."
"I see..."
"What started the fire?" Maya asked, looking a little queasy as she tried not to stare at the ashes.
"Accelerants. We found traces of kerosene at the scene. Looks like the perp poured kerosene on the body and lit it up. He didn't douse the rest of the room, though, which is why the fire mostly stayed at the epicenter."
"Why wouldn't the killer burn the rest of the room?" Nick wondered.
Ema shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe he was in a hurry. Maybe he wanted to limit the chances of us finding accelerants so that it would look like an accident, or maybe he's just an idiot and overestimated how flammable the house was. Could be a lot of reasons."
"I guess so," Nick admitted.
The detective sighed dejectedly, taking another bag of snackoos out of her lab coat. "Either way, DNA testing the corpse is out of the question in that condition, so it's a real pain in the ass. Er- butt," she corrected, glancing at Mob.
Mob, however, didn't seem to hear her. He was staring at the outline of the body, eyes glazed and shoulders tense.
Ema raised an eyebrow. "Hey, you okay, kid?"
"Shigeo," Dimple hissed, giving his cheek a nudge. "You're zoning out."
Mob jumped, a little bit of color returning to his face, which had gone very pale a moment ago. "S-Sorry," he murmured, taking a step back toward the door. "I... don't like fires."
"Are you okay?" Maya asked, concerned. She knelt down in front of him, pressing a hand to his forehead and brushing the hair from his eyes. "Mob, you've gone all clammy..."
Dimple watched intently, his child's scrawl of a face twisted with a strange anxiety.
It all made Nick start to feel uneasy. "Mob, do you need to get some air?" he asked, hoping the boy didn't hear his worry.
"N-No," Mob said quickly, looking nervous, "It's... I'm..."
There was a long silence as Mob looked around at them all, frozen like a deer in headlights, his mouth hanging open as he tried to think of something to say. Nick's brow furrowed as he watched the boy wring his hands and realized they were shaking. But he also noticed that Mob seemed more flustered by their stares than the room, and he wondered if it was simply the sudden pressure of everyone's attention that was making him so antsy.
But after a long moment, Mob set his jaw and looked down at his feet, gently setting a hand on top of Maya's wrist. "I'm fine," he mumbled, although he was still sweating. But then, it didn't seem to take much to make Mob sweat. He was a bit like his boss, in that way.
Maya still seemed worried, but she pulled her hand away and stood back up, giving him a pat on the back. "I don't like fires much, either," she sighed. "Or crime scenes, for that matter. Nothing to be ashamed of if this place makes you nervous. If you need to take a break, you just let us know, kiddo."
Mob nodded, looking a little calmer, but Dimple didn't seem to be put at ease, still watching Mob carefully. Ema shot Nick a somewhat judgmental glance, which took a great effort not to wither under. She must have learned that glare from Edgeworth.
Finally, Ema let out a tired sigh and had another fistful of snackoos. "Anyway, that's about all I have to say about the body until I hear more from the MEs," she managed around a mouthful of chocolate. "There were a couple of... odd things I asked them to look into, which I noted in your copy of the report. I'll make sure an updated autopsy report is sent your way once I get it."
"That would be a nice change of pace," Nick mumbled.
"As for the rest of the scene, there's also what your client identified as the victim's equipment bag." She deftly thumbed through her case file for a photograph, which she held out to Nick with a somewhat disparaging look. He squinted at the picture, which showed a worn black backpack and a handful of small electronic devices that Nick didn't recognize. "EMF meter, radio frequency sweeper, audio recorder, all that jazz. The stuff you usually see on those ghost reality shows."
"You sound awfully skeptical for somebody who just saw her first ghost," Maya teased.
Ema glanced at Dimple, her nose crinkled in distaste. "Yeah, well, maybe ghosts really are out there, but this kinda tech is a crock of crap if you ask me. It's just an expensive scam aimed at thrill seekers like our vic."
"That's probably true," Mob admitted, rubbing his arm. "If a spirit really wants to communicate with you, it'll usually just show itself."
"Pretty much," Dimple agreed. "Although sometimes we have fun with it. Heh, one time some kid brought one of those spirit box things to a house I was haunting and the noise was so annoying that I made it get stuck on a radio drama about dairy farmers and let him try to puzzle out what it could mean."
Everyone stared.
Dimple coughed. "Anyway... why'd you move the equipment?"
"It was all wiped of finger prints." Ema frowned at the case file, adjusting her glasses. "Nothing on the bag or its contents. According to Reigen, the vic was wearing leather gloves all night, but it's still strange. We sent it to the lab to see if there were any prints on the interior mechanisms from changing batteries or making any kind of repairs, but we took photos of the scene before moving anything, of course." She handed Nick another handful of photographs of the room from just about every angle. "Feel free to look through those. If you need anything enlarged, let me know."
Maya and Mob drew up next to Nick, looking through the photos with him. One in particular caught his eye – a pile of ashes beside the body that appeared to have something thin and white sticking out of it.
"What's that?" Mob asked curiously, apparently noticing Nick's attention.
Ema peered over Nick's shoulder and immediately, her expression lightened up. "That," she said, almost giddy, "is very interesting."
Nick raised an eyebrow. "Interesting how?"
Ema's surliness all but melted away as she let her glasses fall down to the bridge of her nose, and the little girl who taught Nick how to test for fingerprints made her appearance. A sudden fondness tugged at the corner of Nick's mouth. There was the Ema he knew – endlessly curious and endearingly macabre.
"If you look closely, you can see that there's a sheet of paper in there," Ema pointed out, leaning in close to peer at the photo. "And if you look even closer, you can see that a lot of the ashes are still intact. Strangely, it looks like our perp decided to burn some papers at the last moment, or maybe discovered them and quickly tossed them into the fire. Either way, I don't think he lit them on fire along with the body, which is weird."
"Hmm..." Nick glanced over to where the pile of ashes should have been beside the body's outline, but they weren't there. "I'm guessing you sent it off to the lab?"
"Yep," Ema confirmed. "Moving them was risky, but it's a lot safer to do the tests down there. And that way we can test it for accelerants and the like." Her eyes twinkled. "But... before I was so rudely interrupted by Maya trying to sneak a grade schooler into my crime scene–"
"Hey," Maya said defensively, putting a protective arm around Mob's shoulders, "he's a middle schooler."
"...Right. Anyway, before they came along, I was just about to test out a new toy of mine."
With a dramatic flair, Ema pulled a camera and a small flashlight from the folds of her lab coat. "Ta-da! Meet my Infrared Reflective Photography kit."
Maya cooed, apparently approving of Ema's theatrics. "Is that gonna show you what the paper said before it was burned?"
"Indeed it will," Ema confirmed, smiling a bit smugly. She enjoyed playing the part of lecturer. "By bouncing an infrared light off the paper at an angle and taking a photo with a modified digital camera, we can see what was written on the paper. And it just so happens," she said slyly, taking a plastic evidence bag from yet another pocket within her seemingly bottomless lab coat, "that there was one piece of the page that wasn't in the pile sent to the forensics lab."
"Why not?" Nick asked.
"I didn't notice it at first. It was in a different part of the room, which makes me think it was torn off, possibly in a struggle. And I would really love to know why, wouldn't you?"
Nick wasn't entirely sure that he did, but Mob was staring intently at the burnt paper, his lips pursed and hands folded nervously in front of him. Nick tried to smooth over his expression and gave Mob a pat on the head as if to say, Don't worry. It was his job to worry. But first and foremost, it was also his job to find the truth, no matter how bad it looked for his client.
"Let's do it, then."
Ema nodded, flashing a smile. She knelt down on the ground and opened the bag, very carefully tearing the plastic at the top rather than trying to slide the paper out. When she was finished, what looked to be a small corner of a sheet of notebook paper was lying safely on a sheet of plastic on the floor between her and Nick.
"Take this," she said briskly, handing Nick the flashlight.
"Is this the infrared light?"
"It's an infrared LED, yes. If you'll shine it at an angle from... there, don't move. That's perfect."
After adjusting Nick's angle, Ema shuffled off her coat. "You there, Mob, right?"
Mob blinked. "Y-Yes?"
"Hold my coat up like a curtain between Mr. Wright and I and the light from the window, would you?"
Mob looked confused, but he took the coat anyway, holding it up between them on the tips of his toes.
"What can I do?" Maya asked.
"Um... snackoo me."
"Roger." Maya took a snackoo from the lab coat pocket and fed it to Ema, whose hands were full with the camera.
"Thank you," Ema said solemnly.
"You're welcome."
And with that, Ema snapped her picture.
Once everyone had gotten themselves sorted out with Ema back in her signature lab coat, Mob back to hanging nervously at Nick's elbow, Dimple hovering at Mob's elbow, and Maya back to munching on Ema's snackoos –
Once Ema had her snackoos back, everyone gathered round to see the writing on the camera's screen.
REIGE
The corners of Mob's mouth went funny and he stepped back, swallowing hard. As he stepped back, Nick heard a surprised grunt.
"What the– what are you doing here?"
Ema paled and Maya's eyes went wide. Nick didn't even have to turn around to know who Mob had just run into.
Shit, he thought.
"All these years and you're still bringing children to trample all over my crime scene like a pack of wildebeests, Mr. Phoenix Wright?"
When Nick turned around, he was greeted by a woman with short silver hair, a keen glare, and clutching an even keener whip.
Nick swallowed. "Long time, no see, Prosecutor von Karma."
"Not long enough," Franziska said drily, but it was difficult to tell the difference between good natured ribbing and genuine disdain with her sometimes. Maybe there wasn't much of a difference when it came to Franziska von Karma. "Miss Fey," she said politely, giving Maya a nod. It took Maya a moment to respond in kind, as she seemed to be staring at Franziska's hair – while it had been short when she was younger, she now wore it in a closely cropped pixie that framed her face rather nicely. There were new frown lines etched between her brows and under her eyes that reminded Nick of Edgeworth. For a moment, he again felt that unexpected fondness that almost made him want to smile. But he got the impression that he might have the sharp end of that whip to answer to if he didn't hurry and explain why he'd brought a middle schooler to her crime scene.
"Erm, Prosecutor, this is–"
"I know who he is," Franziska said coldly. "I was about to be on my way to his home to ask him some questions. Kageyama Shigeo, correct?"
Ema went deathly pale and looked at Nick, shocked and somewhat hurt as she realized that he'd fooled her. This time, he did wither from her glare. It wasn't going to be easy to earn her forgiveness after this.
Mob, caught dead in Franziska's icy stare, looked like he might pass out.
"Get a grip, Shigeo," Dimple whispered frantically, tugging on Mob's collar until he finally seemed to find his voice again.
"Y...Yes..." Mob said faintly.
Franziska eyed him a moment, then mercifully turned her gaze back to Nick. If looks could kill, he would be dead on the floor. Probably whipped to death.
"Detective Gumshoe said that you're representing that fool Reigen, yes?"
"Yes," Nick said hesitantly.
"And your first action as his attorney was to bring one of his colleagues to my crime scene?"
Nick flinched. There wasn't much of a defense for this one. "We... we brought him as an independent consultant."
"Independent consultants are supposed to be unbiased third parties, Mr. Phoenix Wright. Did you forget how to conduct yourself at a crime scene during your disbarment?"
It's great to see you, too, Nick thought.
Franziska didn't wait for an answer. She simply turned to Ema, her arms crossed and fingers tapping against her signature Juliet sleeve. "I assume you've shown Mr. Wright and his associates the scene?"
"Y-Yes, ma'am," Ema stammered, scrambling to quickly transferring the burnt scrap of paper into a new evidence bag. "I've given them all the documentation, as well."
"Excellent. Then I assume, Mr. Phoenix Wright," she said, her voice lowering dangerously, "that you understand the weight of the evidence against your client?"
Nick swallowed. "Yes. But I can say with full certainty that my client is innocent."
"And if he's innocent, then your case isn't airtight," Maya said, her tough tone still somewhat undermined by the way she kept staring at Franziska's hair.
Franziska raised an eyebrow, smirking a little at the challenge in spite of herself. "No? Then let me remind you, not only was your client the only person in the house by his own admission, but there are no signs of a break in or evidence of anyone else having set foot in this house for years."
"Yes, but–"
"And his fingerprints were found on the murder weapon."
"Y-Yes, but that's–"
"And the chloroform points to premeditation rather than self-defense."
"Yes, b–" Nick blinked. "Chloroform?"
Ema jumped. "A-Ah, I hadn't gotten to that yet, Prosecutor von Karma." She took back the stack of photographs from Nick and nervously shuffled through them, trying to ignore Franziska's eyes boring holes into the back of her head. "Here, beneath the mirror, we found two bottles in the room. One is just a bottle of water, and the other is chloroform."
Sure enough, in the photo that Ema pressed into Nick's unsteady hands, there were two bottles – one clear plastic, the other dark glass – sitting beneath the mirror as if they had rolled there.
"Your client's fingerprints were found on that, as well, Mr. Phoenix Wright."
Nick's heart sank to the pit of his stomach. He had no explanation for that. Even Maya bit her lip, staring hard at the photo.
"It's not his."
Everyone turned in surprise to look at Mob, who seemed to have regained his composure. If Dimple had hair, he looked like he would have been clutching it frantically.
Franziska raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" she said coldly. "You recognize it?"
"N-No," Mob said quickly, shrinking a little, but still meeting Franziska's eye with a steeliness that surprised Nick. "But... it's not Shishou's. He would never own such a thing. Reigen-shishou... isn't the type of person to harm others."
The room was filled with a heavy silence as everyone stared at Mob with various degrees of shock or horror. Franziska's expression, however, was smooth.
Then, to Nick's surprise, she knelt down in front of Mob and laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's admirable of you to defend your friend," she said, so gently that Nick nearly thought a spirit had possessed her. "But people can surprise you. I'm very sorry for what happened, but this isn't a place for children. It would be best for you to go home and let the court settle the matter. I know you want to help, but it will only make things more difficult if you get involved."
Mob looked almost as taken aback as Nick, having apparently steeled himself for a fight. But his face seemed to cycle through multiple emotions, her words catching him off guard. In the end, he simply lowered his head, his eyes hidden behind his choppy bangs, and said nothing more.
Franziska stood back up, and when she looked at Nick, she was far less gentle. "As for you," she hissed, "you ought to know better than to bring someone like him here. It will only damage both him and your case. I'll let this go just once, Mr. Phoenix Wright. For the boy's sake." She leaned in close, her whip clutched tightly in her hand. "But pull a foolish stunt like this again, and I can't guarantee another miraculous comeback after your next disbarment."
Nick swallowed. When she was seventeen, Franziska's threats had been a lot less... well, threatening.
"I'm going to meet with the medical examiners," she said finally, turning on her heel. "In the meantime, I encourage you to take that boy home so that I can send Detective Gumshoe to question him with his parents present. If he isn't there by the time Gumshoe arrives..." She slung the whip over her shoulder, casting Nick a withering glance from the corner of her eye. "I'll be visiting your office."
And with that, she stepped out of the room.
"Wait, Miss von Karma!"
Maya's shout startled everyone. Franziska halted, turning around in confusion. "Yes, Miss Fey?"
"I like your hair. It really suits you."
There was a long silence.
Then, to Nick's surprise, Franziska's cheeks turned pink. "Th... Thank you," she said awkwardly, "I also– yours is– ahem. Thanks." She tripped on the doorframe on her way out.
With great dignity, Franziska straightened back up and walked down the stairs, probably to take out her embarrassment on Gumshoe. Once she was out of earshot, the entire room seemed to sigh with great relief.
"Well," Dimple said, "that went well."
