A/N: *Jeb Bush voice* Please review...
July 11, 2:45 PM, District Court, Prosecutor's Lobby no. 1
"Good job in there today, kid," Armando said.
Miguel gave a half-laugh. "I lost."
"The truth came out. Ked Napp is innocent."
"We didn't find the real culprit, though."
"There wasn't anyone else there to be the real culprit," Maria said, walking into the room. She took a swig of her coffee. "The real culprit got away clean."
"Not for long," Miguel said, putting one hand on his hip. "Since Napp wasn't guilty, that means the case is ongoing - and I'm in charge of it." He grinned maliciously. "I'm going to find the person who was really behind this, and I'm going to make sure they get the death sentence."
"Settle down, Miguel," Armando said, although he was smiling too.
"Yeah, we all know about your personal stake in this case," Maria said, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, I'd be fired up even if every single victim had been a complete stranger. I'm a prosecutor, it's my job to put these lunatics behind bars." He shook his head. "My goal is to find this lunatic before my kitten gets out of his psychiatric hold at the hospital."
"And if you can't?" Armando said, taking a sip of his own coffee.
An overconfidently insincere answer: "Then I'll just ask those religious nutjobs Maria's always hanging out with to say a prayer for me."
"Hey!" Maria said, nudging him, "I'll have you know they're the nicest damn people I've ever met. Don't be so harsh!"
"Maria, they think coffee is of the devil!"…
April 29 (2054), 11:30 PM, Gavin Estate, Jana's room
Since Jana couldn't actually see the time door itself, her future self stepping through it looked more like someone materializing in her room. It was weird. Future Jana seemed unsurprised to see that Jana was still up, dressed, and sitting on her bed with the lamp on.
"I have been waiting for you," she said.
Future Jana nodded. "Then we must go."
April 30, 9:50 AM, District Court, Defendant's Lobby no. 9
"Are you ready for this?" Apollo asked Lars Ennie.
Ennie shook his head. "They really think I did it… I'm telling you, I don't know what happened!"
"We'll get this cleared up," Apollo said. "Now, tell me again what happened the night of the crime…?" Ennie had, in the detention center, been too much of an upset, nervous wreck to tell Apollo much of anything useful.
"I - I just came home, and, well, I know I was drunk but everything was normal!" Ennie insisted, "no blood, no dead bodies, nothing. I went straight to bed - er, actually, I fell asleep on the couch, but still. I got up the next morning and I'd overslept a bit so I had to run out so I could drive up to Tracy. I just grabbed my suitcase, which was next to the door, and left. But… my apartment was totally clean when I left… no blood… I didn't kill her!"
"I believe you, Mr. Ennie," Apollo said, "calm down."
"Actually, now that I think about it," Ennie said abruptly, "I don't actually remember leaving my suitcase right next to my front door. Yeah, I had it packed before I went out to grab a few drinks, but… I left it in my bedroom… maybe I moved it while I was drunk…?" he trailed off.
"Maybe," Apollo said. Internally, he filed that comment away. Maybe that meant something.
April 30, 10:00 AM, District Court, Courtroom no. 9
"Court is now in session for the trial of Lars Ennie."
"The prosecution is ready, your Honor," said Alois.
"The defense is ready as well… your Honor," Apollo said. He always felt awkward defending at trials where his ex-wife was presiding - especially after the last time their son had gotten arrested - but they both managed to stay professional in court, no matter their shared past.
"Mr. Gavin," said the Judge, "your opening statement, please."
Alois nodded once. "On the night of the night of the twenty-sixth, a… drifter going by the name of 'Jantje' was murdered in the defendant, Lars Ennie's, home, room 280 of Grape Water Apartment Complex. Around the time of the crime, Mr. Ennie was witnessed returning to his room after an evening of drinking."
"I see," said the Judge, "any questions so far, defense?"
"None, your Honor," Apollo said.
"Very well. Mr. Gavin, your first witness please."
"To outline the case, the prosecution calls Detective Noir to the stand… witness, name and occupation."
"Blanche Noir," said the detective, "LAPD dick, reporting directly to Prosecutor Alois."
Apollo had always kind of wondered about that. He was long used to prosecutors having 'pet' detectives - like the chief prosecutor and the current chief of police, for a time, or Alois' father and Apollo's estranged wife, for a shorter time - but he figured a direct assignment was an unusual circumstance. Apollo chalked it up to nepotism; after all, both of Alois' parents were prosecutors, and his mother was the adopted sister of the chief prosecutor…
"Please tell us about the evidence recovered, detective," Alois was saying.
"The thing that clued us on to the defendant was the quarter found in the abdominal cavity of the vic," Detective Noir said, "it must have fallen from his pocket while he was blipping her off. The quarter had a perfect thumbprint on it, which we matched to Ennie alright. So we checked his elbows.
"In his joint we found the victim's blood all over the place, along with the shiv used to kill her - came from his kitchen, and he'd put his flippers all over it. Additionally, when he was dropping the stiff in the dumpster, he'd wrapped her in his jacket so she wouldn't drip blood all over the hallway. So we also recovered the jacket with Jantje's blood on it from Ennie's apartment."
The Judge nodded gravely. "Mr. Justice, your cross-examination, please."
Apollo pressed a finger against his forehead. "Detective," he said, "can you elaborate on the witness testimony Prosecutor von Karma-Gavin mentioned?"
"Sure," she said, "we got two witnesses, the jasper who lives in room 281 and the jane who lives in room 279. They both saw Ennie coming back from out on the roof around the time of the crime, and they both heard screaming coming from his place."
"Out on the roof?" Apollo said.
Detective Noir rolled her eyes. "You know, dipping the bill. Putting down some giggle juice."
Drinking, Apollo realized. He knew that. "Did these witnesses hear the screaming before or after my client returned to his apartment?"
"The cat in room 281 was sleeping when he heard the commotion, so he isn't sure," Detective Noir said.
"But the woman in room 279 is prepared as a witness," Alois said smugly, "so perhaps you should save your questions, Mr. Justice."
Told off by a kid about a third my age, Apollo thought, exasperated. "Detective," he continued, "can you tell us how exactly the crime went down?"
"That's a little uncertain," she said, "since neither of our witnesses could tell us how Jantje got in Ennie's room. Judging by her coat, which we found perfectly intact at the crime scene, that frail went into Ennie's apartment of her own accord."
"She entered, she removed her coat as one does with any social visit," Alois said, "and then he killed her and moved her body to the dumpster."
"The Chinese angle on this is that Jantje was apparently in Ennie's joint before he was," Detective Noir said, "although the doors at Grape Water lock electronically - anyone with the code can step in. Jantje must have had it."
"Did my client know Jantje?" Apollo said.
"A connection to her has yet to be proven," Alois said, "although she was killed in his apartment…"
"And one more thing," Apollo said, "if my client were the real killer, then doesn't his behavior seem a little… odd to anyone else?"
"What do you mean?" said the Judge.
"Well, for one thing, if he left for Tracy immediately after the crime, why would he return to Los Angeles?" Apollo said, "especially since there aren't any signs that anyone tried to clean up the crime scene… at all. What kind of murderer would just leave it like that?"
"I think the question is less 'Why would Mr. Ennie return to Los Angeles,'" Alois said, "and more 'What would have made Mr. Ennie return to Los Angeles?'"
Apollo narrowed his eyes. That sounded exactly like something Mr. Wright would say; he wondered if Alois were mocking him.
"Furthermore," he continued regardless, pulling out the autopsy report, "witness testimony has established that the defendant was drunk the night of the crime. I'm not saying a drunk person can't stab someone to death, but making such precise cuts?" He slammed his fists on the defense bench. "Maybe I could buy it if my client were a surgeon, but Mr. Ennie is a banker! There's no way he'd be able to do this while drunk - even if he could do it while sober!"
The gallery started talking amongst themselves. The Judge quickly silenced them.
Alois sure had his father's grin alright.
"You're making a lot of assumptions, aren't you, Mr. Justice?" he said.
"What?" Apollo said.
"You don't actually have a way of proving that the defendant was drunk the night of the crime, and neither do we. After all, he spent two days in Tracy before getting arrested - we can't test his BAC. So, is it not possible that Mr. Ennie played off of his reputation of being a bit of a drunkard to make himself seem less suspicious to his neighbors?"
"Are you saying my client faked being drunk the night of the twenty-sixth?"
"I'm saying it's a possibility."
Apollo frowned. "Fine," he said, "but I still think it's impossible for a man with no medical background to make cuts like these."
"Actually," Detective Noir said, and Apollo's frown deepened, "while it isn't a medical background per se, within the past five years Mr. Ennie was taking some night classes down at Ivy U. Specifically, biology classes."
"So he certainly would have experience with dissecting things," Alois said.
Welp, that contradiction just went up in smoke. "…I have no further questions for this witness," he said at length.
"Very well," the Judge said, "Detective Noir, you are dismissed. Mr. Gavin?"
"The prosecution calls Jackie Proserpine, the resident of room 279, to the stand."
A scrawny woman with a slightly crooked nose and straight black hair covering one eye took the stand. She looked tired, and Apollo wondered if it was because of the murder in the apartment next to hers, or if she just always looked like that.
"Witness, name and occupation."
"My name is Jackie Proserpine," she said in dull matter-of-factness, "I'm the coroner's assistant at the Los Angeles County Morgue."
"Coroner's assistant…?" Apollo said, "you mean, under Dr. Kamosinko?" He looked at the autopsy report that listed that man as the one to perform the autopsy.
"Yes," she said, "I work for Dr. Kamosinko. He and I were actually the ones who performed the autopsy on the Jane Doe - I mean, Jantje. I assume you were about to ask that."
Apollo nodded.
"Witness," Alois said pointedly, "you're here to tell the court about what you saw and heard the night of the crime."
"Although if the defense wishes to cross-examine you about the autopsy itself," the Judge said, "he may do so. After your testimony."
Jackie nodded, putting her hands on her hips. "On the night of the twenty-sixth, around nine o'clock-ish, I was just putting my trash out when I saw Ennie returning from, I presume, the bar. He was most certainly drunk. He went into apartment 280, and I went to bed. I heard screaming. Didn't think anything of it, though."
"The screaming the witness heard was almost definitely Jantje," Alois said. "Since it was, after all, coming from the crime scene, at the time of the crime…"
This really didn't look good for Ennie…
"Mr. Justice, your cross-examination, please."
Apollo took a breath. "Witness," he said, "first off, why exactly didn't you think anything of the screaming? Personally, I don't think I wouldn't think anything of it if someone in the apartment next to me were getting murdered."
"It wasn't like she was screaming 'Stop it' or 'Help me' or anything," Jackie said dismissively.
"Really?" Apollo said, looking at the autopsy report again. "She had defensive wounds - she clearly tried to fight back. I find it hard to believe that-"
"The other witness, the man from room 281, also said that he didn't hear any cries for help," Apollo said, "just screams."
"…well, I still think a woman screaming in a single man's apartment would be suspicious," Apollo said, "although I suppose the witness doesn't agree with me."
Jackie half-rolled her eyes. "I didn't even think it was a woman," she said, "I thought it was Ennie… that he'd found a spider or something in his living room."
Apollo's bracelet contracted slightly, although he dismissed it. She had been apparently truthful so far, so he figured she was just saying "I thought it was a spider" to cover what she had really thought, which was potentially… inappropriate?
"His living room?" he said. "Why do you say his living room?"
"It sounded like the screams were coming from his living room," Jackie said.
Apollo pondered this for a second. That would be right, yes, since it was living room area of the apartment where Jantje had been murdered. But how was Jackie able to identify the screams as coming specifically from the living room? She must know the layout of Ennie's apartment, in that case… perhaps she had been there before? They were neighbors, after all.
"How long did it take for the screams to stop?" Apollo said.
"Longer than I thought they would," Jackie said, "with the kind of stab wounds she had, I would have expected Jantje to bleed out within a minute, but the screaming continued for almost five."
Apollo blinked. What an odd way to phrase that, he thought, almost suspiciously. "Are you just saying that because you did the autopsy, Ms. Proserpine?" Alois said.
"Oh, of course. Again, at the time, I thought it was Ennie and a spider."
Apollo nodded absent-mindedly, thinking again. The time of death on the autopsy report - 9:00 PM - was pretty much absolute due to how little time had passed between the murder itself and when it was reported. What wasn't so absolute was when Jackie (and the man in apartment 281) had seen Ennie return home. Both of them had just said around nine o'clock.
But then the problem was: if he had returned before the murder, did that mean that the murder took place while he was sleeping on the couch? Perhaps the alcohol in his system could explain why he wouldn't have woken up during the murder, but then, why would the murderer let him live? To have a fall guy? And if he had returned after the murder, well, that had its own problems, namely that it was hard to believe that anyone could get drunk enough to not notice that their apartment was covered in blood.
"Witness," Apollo pressed on, "you said you saw the defendant while you were putting the trash out. Do you mean you were putting your trash in the dumpster, or…?"
"In the dumpster," Jackie said with a bored nod. "and before you ask, if I had seen a corpse there I would have absolutely called the police."
"Maybe the corpse was already covered by other trash," he suggested.
"That's unlikely," said Alois, "when the homeless man who reported the crime discovered it, Jantje was lying on top of everything else in the dumpster. Therefore she had been thrown in there after Ms. Proserpine had taken out her garbage."
Time to change tracks. "After the crime took place, my client allegedly slept on the couch before leaving for Tracy the next morning," Apollo said.
"How do you know he slept on the couch?" the Judge said.
"No one entered the defendant's bedroom after the morning of the twenty-sixth," Alois said, "we can tell because, as Detective Noir said earlier, the doors at the Grape Water Apartment Complex use electronic locks. All of them, not just the front door - and there's a record of when they open and close."
"So no one opened the bedroom door after the morning of the twenty-sixth," Apollo said.
"No one at all," Alois said, and he presented room 280's door records. "Therefore, he must have slept on his couch last night."
Apollo put where he was going with that on pause as he looked over the door records. "There's something strange here," he said, pointing at the record of when the front door opened and closed, "the front door opened at 8:49 PM, but didn't close until 9:09. Was the door just open for 20 minutes? Witness, did you see that?"
"The door looked closed to me," Jackie said with a shrug.
Alois produced a slightly bent business card bearing the logo of Ennie's bank. "This was found at the crime scene," he said, "from the looks of it, it was placed between the door and the electronic sensors, keeping it technically 'open' until it was removed."
"And… the murderer put it there?" Apollo said.
"Since it was most likely put there at 8:49, we assume Jantje did it," Alois said, "why exactly, we don't know. The defendant must have noticed the card and removed it - or unintentionally dislodged it - on his return from dumping the body."
Yeah, or maybe something else happened, Apollo thought, but he didn't know what. "As I was saying," he said, "I seem to recall the couch my client allegedly slept on having blood on it. Did the police recover the clothes he was wearing that night, and if so, did they have blood on them?"
Alois was silent for a moment, then said, grimacing slightly - Apollo noticed at that that he was a bit peaky where he hadn't been before, and wondered what was up with that - "No. We couldn't find the clothes he wore the night of the crime. Our best guess is that he loaded them into his suitcase the following morning, and either destroyed them or left them in Tracy."
"His suitcase?" said the Judge, "come to think of it, if he hadn't entered his room…"
"His suitcase was waiting for him by the door, your Honor," Apollo said, then addressed Alois: "Prosecutor von Karma-Gavin, if the suitcase was at the crime scene, then I assume forensics has gone over it?"
"Yes," Alois said, playing a fringe of hair that hung down by his ear and frowning, "strangely enough, there was no blood on it at all, even though there should have been. In addition, while we would have expected trace amounts of blood on the other clothes in the suitcase from coming in contact with the clothes worn for the murder, we found nothing. Perhaps Mr. Ennie had a different way of transporting…?"
"Actually, speaking of blood on clothing, I heard from someone in the forensics department that there was fresh blood on the victim's clothing that didn't belong to either her or Mr. Ennie," Apollo suddenly remembered, and was glad that his daughter was on friendly terms with so many people in the department - meaning they were willing to throw her father a bone once in a while.
"Yes," Alois said, "it wasn't much, though…"
"I'd say it still introduces the possibility of a third party, doesn't it?" Apollo said, crossing his arms.
"Strange," said the Judge, "this all sounds very familiar…"
"Yeah, actually," Apollo said, suddenly off-put, "I think I've read this case file before."
"What?" said Alois.
"Oh, I know what you're talking about," Jackie said, a strange light in her eyes, "the one that got away."
November 17 (2057), 3:00 PM, People Park
"There is no one here," Jana said in surprise.
Future Jana shrugged. "This park was hardly ever popular, not even in your time." She had a point there. "We will not be disturbed here, and are free to discuss our plan of action." She sat down on an old bench, crossing one long leg gracefully over the other, and gestured for Jana to sit next to her.
Jana did so, pulling out her notebook. "First," she said, "I have a question about what you said last time we met."
"Go ahead," future Jana said with an imperious wave of her hand.
"You said the timing was 'too convenient,' what did you mean by that?"
"It has been seven years since the case… just over, in fact," future Jana said, "After seven years with no leads, new evidence, or further arrests, a case gets transferred to the cold case unit. After that, it… usually does not get solved. I am sure the murderer felt threatened by the fact that they were so close to going cold case, yet there was still a living witness aside from Ked Napp, who is even now still committed to LA Central's psychiatric ward."
"I see…" said Jana, "but the massacre happened in July, and it is November." As if to emphasize this, she rubbed the bare skin of her arms. It was chilly and she'd forgotten a coat.
"Miguel reopened the investigation last June," future Jana said, "that delayed it by a few months. The transfer over to the cold case unit was - is supposed to happen next week." She set her jaw. "We must drag it out in the open."
"Well, I have started work on deciphering Alois' dying message," Jana said seriously, "and I think I have part of it." She showed future Jana the page, which had written on it:
MF-A ご んりしいるくざ
ざくるいしりんご
ZAKURUISHI RINGO
GARNET APPLE ?
And she explained how she got there.
"That's clever of him," future Jana said, closing her eyes to think. "Although it seems we are not done solving it."
Jana frowned. "To be honest, he should have assumed the killer, if they returned, would erase his message, no matter if it was nonsense or not."
"Perhaps he just wanted to make sure we would know that it was really him who left the message," future Jana said, "after all, if you were a murderer, would you not simply write someone else's name as the victim's fake dying message?"
"That is true," Jana said, "although I suppose only your Alois would know for sure."
"I wonder what he would say if he were here right now," future Jana said, and Jana could just hear the misery in her voice.
"Probably some quip in German," Jana said, attempting to lighten the mood.
Future Jana's eyes shot open. "Wait!" she exclaimed, "that is it!"
"What?" Jana said, just as future Jana turned her around and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"German!" she said, shaking her, "we did not follow through the last step in Alois' riddle! We must translate 'garnet apple' into German!"
"Garnet apple, Granat Apfel… Granatapfel!" Jana said, her eyes widening. "…he was trying to tell us… pomegranate?" What did that mean?
"Pomegranate…" future Jana said, looking like she was turning something over in her mind, which she certainly was. "I think perhaps the police were right about one thing."
"What?"
"'MF-A' did stand for Miguel Fey-Armando," future Jana said, "but not to implicate him - rather, to point us in his direction. To point us towards a witness from the case that was interrupted by his arrest."
"And the word 'pomegranate' somehow tells us who this witness is?"
"Of course," future Jana said firmly, standing up, "the pomegranate was the fruit eaten by Hades' wife - Persephone. And the Roman version of Persephone is…"
"…Proserpine?"
April 30 (2054), 11:00 AM, District Court, Courtroom no. 9
"The hostage massacre case," Jackie said, "four years ago. I remember that - I remember it very well, in fact."
"Surely this case isn't related," Apollo started.
Alois cut him off. "Actually, a piece of evidence related to that case was found on the victim's person. I don't actually know much about the hostage massacre myself, so by all means, witness, enlighten us."
Jackie smiled at Alois, and even from across the courtroom Apollo could see his involuntary flinch as she did that, and his subsequent confused expression of Why did I do that?
"There isn't too much to say about it," Jackie said, although the odd gleam in her eyes didn't go away, "except that it had a few bare similarities to my favorite serial killer, H. H. Holmes."
Favorite serial killer? Apollo thought, his hair spikes drooping. Then again, considering what kind of person Dr. Kamosinko was…
"The mass murderer that's come to be known as 'L. A. Holmes' got their start as a serial kidnapper," Jackie explained, "for ten years they targeted pubescent males, mostly runaways, some from Los Angeles and some from as far away as Cheyenne. They would keep them hostage in the converted hotel where they lived - rather like H. H. Holmes. Also like H. H. Holmes, they had 27 victims-"
"26," the Judge corrected, "L. A. Holmes had 26 victims. 25 were killed, and one survived."
Jackie was silent. She was glaring at the Judge with such ferocity that Apollo almost felt like he should take a step back.
"No, your Honor," came a faint voice from the prosecution stand. Apollo glanced back at Alois - and saw that he was trembling, eyes wide and fixed on Jackie, and leaning heavily on his desk. Despite the distance between them, Apollo could see him struggling to breathe. "Th-that hostage massacre had… es hatte… it had- es hatte zwei Überlebenden. Two survivors… ich erinnere mich jetzt."
He collapsed.
Sith told me that the twist of Jackie Proserpine being L. A. Holmes was obvious. Was it really? He was tipped off by the fact that she has a favorite serial killer. But, it's common for people who go into forensics/law enforcement to get there by being interested in true crime!
Also. "Jackie" is referential to Jack the Ripper, Proserpine was after my ex-girlfriend. If it seems cruel or petty to name a crazy serial kidnapper/mass murderer after my ex, then you don't know my ex.
Translations: besides the ones translated in-text:
ich erinnere mich jetzt. (DE) I remember now.
