Hello everybody! Here's a new chapter for you all to read. I know I said in the last one that I might take another month or so to update, but I just got a sudden rush last night on an idea and went typing like crazy to get it all down on paper. It's about time that I can finally get the case moving down it's original course.
To be very honest with all of you, I have been trying to put parts into the story in an attempt to get it going forward, but the last version of the cross-examinations had close to nothing to do with the actual case. That was because I was running out of ideas there and wanted to find some way to bring Shadow into the story. I was basically trying to stall while trying to see how to get the case to the point where the real perpetrator would be revealed.
Anyway, now that you all know that little detail, I hope that you'll all end up enjoying this new chapter. Trust me when I say this; this particular case was and still is hard to close up from the moment I posted the first chapter for it. I'm slowly getting to the ending of this while also introducing another mystery that was meant to be the crux of this story. For those of you wondering what it is, I gave small mentions of it every now and then in the last two cases. This chapter will be the one to have the most mention of it.
Hope that you all enjoy this chapter as much as I had staying up til half past three just to write this. It was worth it for me. Until the next update to this or any of my other stories everybody!
Evidence:
Newspaper Article: A clipping talking about Ms. Kuro Rose, a woman running for the position of senator in her district. It talks about how she served her country in the military's Special Forces team before being forced out because of a battle injury rendering her incapable of conducting anything overly stressful or strenuous. She promises to try and reduce the crime rate in her represented district if elected.
Silver's Shoe: The circular mark underneath the detective's shoe was made when it stepped on the front of Sonic's Attorney's Badge. It shows that the badge was not fully drenched in blood sometime during the scuffle in the office.
Attorney's Badge: Sonic lost it during the party earlier in the evening. It was found underneath Silver's desk and drenched in blood. However, Silver's Shoe proved that it was not bloodied on both sides at some point during the murder.
Knife: The weapon that was used in the murder of Ms. Rose. The evidence found at the scene suggests that it was used on the woman twice; It was also probably used on the fight against Silver since the blade was found underneath the door rather than on her body. Sonic's fingerprints are on the wooden handle due to a rookie mistake on his part when he first discovered the scene.
White Fragment: A small white piece found underneath Silver's desk. It is smooth with rough and jagged edges, almost as if it were broken off of some kind of clay figure. It is unclear as to where it originally came from.
Silver's Assault Report: The detective was beaten into unconsciousness due to heavy blows, although the marks on his fists show that he did fight back. Besides the bruises from said punches, there are no other wounds present on his body and the blood on his fur is most likely from Ms. Rose's wounds. He's expected to wake up in a couple of hours, but Vector, the detective who doesn't have much doctor skills, isn't completely sure.
Ms. Rose's Autopsy Report: She was murdered between midnight and one in the morning on 5/7. The cause of death was from two stab wounds, the first one suspected to be the abdomen and the second close to her heart. As such, she's suspected to have survived the first attack. Death was immediate on the second blow.
Bloody Hand Print: A print formed by blood that was found on one of the racks on the currently empty bookshelf. It's suspected to belong to Ms. Rose since she was the only two in the room to have lost blood. When compared to the distance from where it was found to where her body was, it's reasonable to believe that she was alive and moved around a bit before being killed.
Profiles:
Sonic Hedgehog: A seventeen year old blue furred male hedgehog. He and Tails were the first to discover Kuro Rose and Silver in his office, one dead and the other unconscious. He was considered to be the prime suspect by Espio, but has since been downgraded to person of interest with the help of his little brother.
Miles Prower: Best known by his nickname Tails. He's a twelve-year-old yellow-orange furred fox with two tails. He and Sonic were the first to discover Kuro Rose and Silver in his office. He helped his older brother escape grave suspicion under Espio's eyes.
Knuckles Echidna: He is an eighteen-year-old red furred echidna detective who works at the local precinct and is good friends with Sonic and Tails. He paid attention to the exchange between Tails and Espio regarding Sonic's innocence and sides with the two's side of events. He plans to take over the initial investigation.
Silver Hedgehog: An eighteen year old senior detective who worked hard for his current position. He was found in his office severely beaten up with bruises all over him. It is currently unclear as to who it was that caused his extensive injuries.
Kuro Rose: A woman of Japanese decent who speaks very fluent English. She was a running candidate for her district's senatorial race and a former Special Forces member in the army. She was found stabbed to death in Silver's office. It is unclear as to who it was that murdered her.
Espio: He's a purple chameleon with a white horn on his forehead. He's skilled in Japanese ninja arts and has his own dojo for teaching others said techniques. He was the first to appear on the scene after Sonic and Tails discovered it and considers himself to be an eyewitness to the whole ordeal.
Vector Crocodile: A twenty-year-old crocodile prosecutor. He loves the gold chain necklace that rests against his neck along with listening to music through his headset, including during his time in the courtroom. He can sometimes be a bit rash in making decisions and has a sort of stubborn side, but he always strives for the truth within the heart of any matter.
Charmy Bee: A hyper little bee who's attitude sometimes surpasses his eight-year-old body. He works alongside Prosecutor Vector as a sort of small rag-tag group of detectives that work apart from the local precinct detectives.
Dr. Ivo Robotnik: A fifty-three year old defense attorney of some renown. He owns his own law firm, albeit a small business version, and hired Sonic to be his understudy. He's usually too busy working on some kind of case to be seen in the office much. He allows Tails to hang out in the office regardless if he does any work in there or not. He's currently out of town on business and entrusted the upkeep of the office to Sonic and Tails.
Shadow Hedgehog: A seventeen-year-old hedgehog prosecutor who studied abroad to earn his Prosecutor's Badge. His office is located on the upper floors of the local Precinct. As such, he just happened upon the scene while making his way up to his office. He is currently accusing Knuckles of misconduct on his part and requesting he forfeit his control on the investigation and subject himself to an internal conduct investigation.
Chapter 12: Dangerous Twists and Turns Pt. 6
"Alright, let's hurry up and get back to what we were doing before we were forced to take a break," Tails stated as he made his way back to the bookshelf that had previously been occupied by an officer taking pictures of the area. "We've already wasted half an hour waiting for them to finish preserving the scene."
"Not to mention that we had to protect Knuckles against a claim of doing something illegal in terms of his work," Sonic added in an undertone as he made sure to not make eye contact with Shadow who was, as he stated earlier, standing in a corner and keeping an eye on the three. "I didn't think that he would've tried to pull a fast one like that on us. Can't he tell that we're trying to solve a murder here?"
"Well, you can't really blame him for doing his job, Sonic," Knuckles stated as he looked over towards the ebon furred hedgehog and shot him a quick apologetic glance. "He was only doing what he thought was right at the time. Would you rather that he got in trouble for not trying to report what he felt was wrong on my part?"
"Still, he could've at least not acted so serious like he was going to put you in jail or something like that," the cobalt hedgehog responded as he allowed a sigh to audibly escape his lips. The prosecutor simply shook his head at this gesture. "He's already done that once before, and I rather that he didn't try it again with you."
"Sonic, could you just forget about it already?" the two tailed fox stated more than asked as he began to move some of the books away into a neater pile. "How about you help me move these books so we can see what's underneath them? That's what we were doing earlier before the officer told us he wanted to take some photographs."
"…Remind me again on why we figured that poking around this pile of boring-looking books would be a good idea," the attorney said with a sigh as he crouched down along with the detective and began helping to move the books.
"First of all, some of these happen to be files on cases that past detectives have worked on," the echidna quickly corrected before he began to summarize their reasoning for digging through the pile. "They're like the Holy Grail for us detectives and prosecutors whenever we want to review something from the past. That and we can sometimes find those miraculous connections and case breakers to current cases."
"And some of them can't afford to be destroyed because they're the only one of its kind," Shadow added as he stayed in the corner with his arms crossed and back leaning against the wall. "I really don't want to have to drag your sorry behind to the detention center because I saw you purposefully destroying treasured police documents."
"Alright, there's no need for you to start threatening me with jail time, Shadow. I think you've already done enough of that for one night."
Secondly, we figured that when Ms. Rose was first stabbed by her murderer, she was most likely somewhere around here," Knuckles continued on with a sigh as if the mini exchange did not take place. "It's because of the Bloody hand Print we found on one of the shelves that we even considered the possibility. With that in mind, we found it strange that the books themselves weren't covered in blood. This meant that they were most likely knocked to the ground after the first attack. We were about to move them before remembering that the officers hadn't had a chance to preserve the scene through their photographs."
"And we're now moving them away with the hope that we can find some new evidence buried under all this now that he's done," Sonic finished as he finally got the drift of what they were trying to do. "I remember now. Let's just hope that we don't end up having to suffer through any more strong distractions."
"Now that you remember what we're doing, please make sure that you stack them up in a neat pile instead of just throwing them to the side, Sonic," the fox stated as he picked up a couple of the thick files that the hedgehog had thrown to the side without a second thought. "Don't forget that we still might need to examine the room some more. We don't want to accidentally mess things up or anything like that."
"That and most of these files hold some significant importance," the detective added as he raised an eyebrow at the hedgehog just as he was about to throw another book off to the side. This along with the ever watchful eyes of the ebon furred hedgehog had him change his mind and stack it neatly on the pile with a roll of his eyes. "Some of these haven't even been solved yet and stuck in cold case mode. Also, there's that one case that the four of us were involved in somewhere in here just waiting to be solved."
"Don't tell me you've been sneaking in here whenever you had the chance just to look up on it," the blue furred hedgehog stated as he absent-mindedly started to skim through another file he had picked up. This caused the other two to simply roll their eyes and let out an annoyed sigh at his inattentiveness to their current activities.
"I assure you; I've only been in here ever since Silver got promoted to senior detective and moved into this office a couple of days ago. Because the two of us are good friends, he allowed me to come in and take a look at the files regarding the LK-9 incident. That's the case we were involved in over two years ago."
For a couple of moments, the three of them were silent; Tails and Knuckles continued to move the files away from their intended viewing space while Sonic simply stared out into nothingness with a file still in his hands. He also noticed out of the very corners of his eyes that the prosecutor also had a sort of far off look to his eyes as if he were trying to remember something. However, this quickly disappeared as he shook his head a bit and continued to keep watch over the three at the bookshelf.
"…Hey," the cobalt hedgehog suddenly spoke up as he paid attention to the file in his hands and took note of the title on the front. "It looks like this particular file has some details on the case we were just talking about. Looks like it might be interesting to read about. You mind if I took a look at it, Shadow?"
"So this is where that other file was at," the ebon furred hedgehog said to himself as he once again had that distant look to his eyes. He then said with the gaze staying with him, "Just make sure you hand it off to me when you're done reading it. I've been looking for all the files on the LK-9 incident for a while. I can't believe that whoever took care of these things actually saw it fit to break it up into little pieces and send them everywhere. Just what the heck is this disorganized district thinking these days?"
With nothing more than a raised eyebrow at the prosecutor's quiet mumbling, the defense attorney cracked open the file and turned towards the section concerning the LK-9 incident. However, when he had made it to the designated session, he was shocked at what he had found. Rather, it was the lack of what he found. The entire section dedicated to the case was removed from the file and nowhere to be seen!
"Uh, we kind of have a little problem here Shadow. The entire section that has the LK-9 Files in it is gone! They're nowhere in this thing."
"You got to be kidding me!" the prosecutor exclaimed while Tails and Knuckles looked up at the two hedgehogs and momentarily stopped what they were doing. "Those files couldn't possibly be missing from there. Did you check that entire file to see if it was just misplaced or something like that?"
"Did you just say those files are missing?" Knuckles asked as he caught wind of the two's discussion. "But that's impossible. I came in here just this afternoon to take a look at them, and those files were most definitely still in there."
"Did you just say that there's a missing case file?" Tails asked as he stopped what he was doing and looked over at what the other three were looking at. "But how could it be missing? You just said you saw it this afternoon. It couldn't be missing after such a short amount of time between then and now. Who could possibly have any reason to want to steal these files? Wait a minute; what if the person who attacked Silver and Ms. Rose went and stole the files after taking care of them both?"
"If that's the case, then that would mean our murderer has some kind of connection with that case and doesn't want any of us to get any further with it," the echidna concluded with a sigh as he shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to catch wind that Silver and I were planning a collaborative effort with that case."
"At least this discovery is giving us a new clue to work with," Shadow mused as he took the file out of Sonic's hands and quickly skimmed through it before putting it down on the table. "Only the people who have clear access to both you and Silver would've had a chance to know you were planning to take on the LK-9 case. At this point, I'm comfortable in saying that we might be dealing with an inside job here. Somebody who works here must've wanted to steal those files before you two got anywhere with it."
For a few moments, the other three were busy thinking about what the ebon furred hedgehog had just suggested. None of them could deny the possibility that what he said was true nor were they able to come up with another plausible scenario.
"…I don't think us thinking about it will get us anywhere right now," the two tailed fox spoke up after their small moment of contemplative silence. "Let's just get back to moving these files and see what's hiding underneath it. It's really the only thing we can do that could possibly give us some kind of answers."
"You're right, Tails," the detective agreed as they both went back to the pile of files and continued with their previous mission of cleaning it up. "We'll figure more about the missing LK-9 Files later. Let's just concentrate on seeing what's underneath here."
At about the same time they went back to their original reason for being here, Vector walked back into the room without the accompaniment of the two officers he had been talking to the whole time. The crocodile was busy tugging lightly at the gold chain hanging on his neck in an absentminded fashion as he had a sort of thoughtful look to his face. He soon stopped this action as he found himself next to Silver's unconscious form and knelt down to further examine him and the surrounding area.
"Hey buddy, your cop friends told me to tell you that they wanted to see you outside," the crocodile prosecutor announced without looking up to the photographer officer that was still taking pictures of other areas he felt was necessary to preserve. He then said before placing his headphones over his ears, "They said to make it snappy."
"Got it, sir!" the officer responded as he stopped what he was doing and immediately made his way out of the office and talk to his fellow officers.
"I swear; those stupid cops were just trying to find some excuse to keep me out of this place or something like that," the croc stated in an annoyed undertone to himself once he saw the officer out of the office. "They just kept talking my ear off on these cases they're working on when I don't even have any info on them. Don't they know that I have a right to be here since I'm a registered private detective and all that working with Knuckles?"
Knowing that he was just talking to himself, none of the four others in the room chose to answer or even pay attention to his rhetorical question. That and they figured that he would not be able to hear it since he had his ears plugged and listening to whatever kind of music he had blasting out of them. Clearly not noticing them ignoring him, the private detective continued on with his examination of the area around Silver.
"Hey, I'm starting to see some blood on the floor here!" Tails suddenly exclaimed as he finally saw the floor underneath the pile of files and saw said stain. "Something definitely took place around this area."
"I'm seeing some blood on my end, too," Knuckles responded as he stacked up the rest of the files on his end and went to help the two-tailed fox. "In a few more seconds, we'll be able to see if there's anything new to discover under all this mess."
"Alright, now we'll be able to get this investigation rolling again!" Sonic exclaimed excitedly as he threw his hands up in the air and accidentally let the file he was holding fly away and straight towards Shadow.
"I thought I warned you to be careful with the files, Sonic!" Shadow sharply chastised the cobalt blue hedgehog as he thankfully caught the flying object before it struck him. "You almost just killed me with one!"
The ebon furred hedgehog's verbal punishment fell on death ears, however. The attorney only became more excited when the mess was finally cleared and the floor underneath it was revealed for all to see. As expected, there was a Pool of Blood hidden underneath the pile of fallen files, although there was not so much that one would expect from a person who had just gotten killed. There was also a pair of shoe prints clear in the center of the pool; these clearly belonged to the person who lost all that blood.
"Looks like our hunch was right here," the red furred echidna responded as he examined the area closely. "Ms. Rose was first stabbed around here before being killed in front of the desk where we found her. She must've held her hand around the entry point of the wound as a natural reaction, hence the Bloody Hand Print on the shelf. She then probably pulled the Knife out of her in an attempt to use it as a weapon against her attacker, hence the rather large amount of blood here."
"If you think the blood we found here is interesting, then just take a look at what I discovered," the two-tailed fox said as he pointed to what appeared to be a print of some sort right next to the shelf. It was so close to the blood pool that it was almost completely obscured by it. "I actually found a stray Shoe Print here! We're so lucky to have found it since it's so close to the pool of blood."
"A stray Shoe Print?" both Sonic and Shadow asked simultaneously as they walked over to where the fox was pointing at. Then the prosecutor said with great intrigue lacing his voice, "I can't believe that you two actually found something like that in here. It isn't every day that you get such a lucky break in a case."
"But it's interesting in how that's the only one of its kind," the cobalt hedgehog stated thoughtfully as he began to look around the general area and behind the desk once more to see if there were any more prints. "You would expect that there would probably be more than just this one around here."
"Maybe the murderer failed to notice he had made the print before he knew his shoe had blood on it," Tails suggested as he clearly also found it weird. "That might be because by the time he had noticed his shoe, these files were already on the floor and keeping him from finding this print he had made."
"Let's hurry up and see if this belongs to either Silver or Ms. Rose," the detective suggested quickly as he burned the marks into his mind and began looking at the soles of them. It was almost as if he failed to hear Tails' explanation. After spending a quick couple seconds with the action, and earning a strange look from Vector at his space being suddenly invaded, he came back and shook his head. "Nope, it doesn't belong to either of them."
"And just for idle curiosity, can I see the bottom of your shoe, Sonic?" Shadow asked as he also memorized the pattern of the print. "Last I remember, you were being accused of these gruesome acts. These prints clearly belong to the murderer. If it doesn't match with your shoes, then I don't see any better way to clear your name."
"Hey, that's a good idea!" Sonic agreed as he quickly sat on the floor, being careful not to sit on the blood, and lifted his shoes up for the ebon furred hedgehog to see. "Now I'm finally out of the woods here baby! Hurry up and check away so I can finally start living my life without having to be accused of some stupid murder I never did."
"…Well, this proves that you weren't the one to have murdered her," the prosecutor concluded after spending a couple of seconds comparing. "Now that we finally got that cleared up, we have another question to answer: just who was it that came in here and made that Shoe Print with Ms. Rose's blood?"
"Unfortunately, that print could belong to anybody," Vector suddenly spoke up, startling the four at his sudden entrance into the conversation. "Anyone could easily pick up a Knife and stab her to death with it."
"I see you're done examining Silver's unconscious form, Vector," Knuckles stated as he had a thoughtful gleam in his eyes. "Did you manage to figure out anything new that we could use to our advantage?"
"It isn't much, but I did manage to find something that looks like a Scale resting on his gloved hand," the detective/prosecutor said as he showed them what was in his hand. It was small and could not be distinguished color-wise because of it. "Remember when I said that the detective fought back a bit before being knocked out? I'm thinking that this belongs to whoever attacked him and murdered the woman."
"Sounds like we're starting to get more leads by the minute," the red furred echidna said as he carefully took the Scale and placed it into the folds of a napkin he found lying around and most likely coming from the party earlier that evening. "Now if only we could get all these things connected somehow and get some kind of answer here. That would really be a case breaker for us right now.
"Anyway, you're wrong in when you said earlier that anybody could've had a chance to murder the senatorial candidate," he continued on as he placed the napkin carefully into his glove and changed the subject back to what they were previously talking about. "Don't forget that she happened to be well versed in hand-to-hand combat and had knife skills that were unmatched by her fellow military friends. It says so in that Newspaper Article published yesterday. I would suspect that someone with great close-combat skills close to or above her proficiency level was the one who killed her. It's the only thing that makes sense when you take into consideration the senatorial candidate's military background."
"Knuckles' is right on that," Tails agreed as he started to shuffle the idea around in his mind. "Even if the murderer managed to take her by surprise the first time around, I don't think she would've been able to be stabbed a second time, especially with Silver still in the room with her. Military people are generally tough, and I doubt she would've forgotten about her previous training just because she was in a life-and-death situation."
"Hmm, it's clear then that the murderer was better at martial arts skills than her and could take on both of them at the same time," Sonic surmised as he looked thoughtful and allowed his eyes to wander around. He then added more to himself in an attempt to get all the stray thoughts into their correct order, "But who in the entire city of Mobius could possibly house that much skill in them to actually pull off something like this?"
Suddenly, his eyes rested on a framed photo resting on the desk. Most likely because of all the chaos that had ensued ever since he came back to the office, he had failed to notice it entirely. However, as his eyes began to scan the people expressed in the photo, Detective Silver posing with the Chaotix Detective Agency group, an idea suddenly sprouted into his head. As a result, he let out a sharp gasp as he felt it was both the most improbable yet only logical answer he could possibly come up with.
"What is it, Sonic?" the yellow furred fox asked as he and the others turned to look at the attorney upon hearing his sharp intake of air. "Did you get an idea on what happened here or something like that?"
"Uh, I-I… Not really, no!" the cobalt hedgehog stuttered out as he tried to keep a calm demeanor and failing his attempt miserably. "I-I mean, I…have more of a…a theory than anything else! It isn't really that good for thinking purposes."
"Then what's your theory?" Vector asked with raised eyebrows at the other's strange behavior. "It must be quite amazing if you're actually acting like this. Maybe you managed to figure out who's the real murderer. Anything that any of us can possibly come up with is going to be better than nothing."
"Or maybe he's just trying to grasp at straws like he usually does in the courtroom," Shadow stated as he could not help but to let a yawn leave his mouth. He then said as he stole a glance at the clock on the wall, "It's already almost four in the morning. He's got only four hours or until he crashes to solve this case before the police decides to make a big stink out of everything."
"Oh, if only that were the real reason," the attorney whined out under his breath so that the others would not hear him.
"Sonic, could you please just get on with it and tell us what your theory is?" the red furred detective asked as he rolled his eyes and was quickly getting impatient with how the attorney was acting all weird and seemingly dodging their questions for no good reason. "You beating around the bush like this isn't something that you normally do. That and we're running out of time here."
"Oh fine, I'll tell you. I doubt you guys are really going to like it. My theory on who could've done all this tonight is…is…"
For a couple of moments, everybody in the room stood silent with their eyes on Sonic as they waited for him to say what was on his mind. When they received nothing except for a blank stare, Shadow quickly got annoyed and slammed his fist on the desk. This quickly drew all of the attention towards him.
"Gosh darn it, Sonic; if you don't have a theory to go spewing out to us, then don't go about keeping us here and wasting our time!" the ebon furred hedgehog angrily exclaimed as he growled out in frustration. "Some of us would like to call it a day since we obviously can't go any further than this on this case."
"…Espio," Sonic whispered so softly that almost all of them did not catch it. "I…think that with all the things we found in this office, Espio was the one who murdered Ms. Rose and assaulted Silver before taking the LK-9 Files."
"Y-you say who did what?" Vector exclaimed loudly, so loud that the officers that were still talking outside poked their heads in to see what was going on. Shadow, while also shocked at this exclamation, was composed enough to see that they were concerned and waved them off in motion that everything was alright with them. With raised eyebrows, their heads disappeared from the corner and they were alone once more. However, this was something the cobalt hedgehog did not want since this meant that he would have to suffer the eyes that were currently burning holes right through him because of his accusation.
"You're not being serious here, are you?" Knuckles asked with eyes slightly bugged out in amazement as he rolled around what he had just heard in his head. "You're not talking about the same Espio that I sometimes work with on the field, are you?"
"With everything that we have, it's really only a theory at this point," Tails said in a remarkably calm voice as he thought back to the things they have discovered during their investigation. "And with no disrespect to you Sonic, it sounds like a pretty weak one since there isn't any evidence even pointing him to this."
"I know that it's a wild thing for me to claim, but I don't see any other possibility," the cobalt hedgehog explained with a shake of his head. "While the evidence doesn't really have any substantiality against him, you have to admit that his behavior when he first saw me in here was strange. He's supposed to be a detective. As such, he knows that he can't be making claims and accusations as weak as the ones he came up with against me. He didn't even do a clear investigation of the area before he went down my throat."
"Still, it sounds like you got nothing more than your own 'theory' to go along with you," the crocodile said as he nervously fiddled with his gold chain. "The evidence is too scattered right now to even hold up in a proper court proceeding."
"…I suppose I could indulge you on your little idea, Sonic," the ebon furred hedgehog stated as he crossed his arms and looked thoughtful. "However, you're going to have to find another way to approach your idea. If you feel that what you say is true, then how do you propose to go about proving it?"
"…There's only one way we could possibly get the answers that we need right now," the attorney admitted as he started to feel nervous with all four pairs of eyes in the room on him like he were some kind of freak. "We'll have to ask Espio ourselves and figure out just what he was doing around the time Silver and Ms. Rose were attacked."
"I figured you would say that," the prosecutor said without any surprise in his voice. "Vector, go ahead and bring Espio in here. I last heard that he was waiting in the cafeteria in case he needed to be called on to talk about this. Knuckles, I want you to take the evidence gathered here and examine them with the things that the officers brought with them. The police won't stop you since I'll tell them that I gave you permission to do so. Now hurry up and get going you two!"
Before anybody had a chance to act on the commands of the ebon furred hedgehog, they suddenly heard a groan coming from somewhere in the room. Instinctively, they all turned to where Silver was and saw him actually starting to snap out of his unconsciousness and trying to bring himself to a seated position.
New Evidence:
LK-9 Files: Documents about a case that Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow were involved in over two years ago. For some reason, they are missing from their original placements. It's believed that the person who attacked Silver and murdered Ms. Rose stole the files.
Pool of Blood: Blood found hidden underneath the mess of files. There are a pair of shoe prints situated close to the bookshelf. They are from Ms. Rose and prove that she was still on her feet despite being stabbed. She must have pulled the Knife out of her body for that amount of blood to be present.
Shoe Print: A single print left by a shoe. It belongs to neither of the victims, and it proves that Sonic had nothing to do with the incident since it doesn't match with his shoes. This means that it could only belong to the murderer. It's also clear that the murderer cleaned the bottom of his shoe since there's only a single print. It's believed that the murderer failed to notice he made the print because of the files already covering it.
Scale: Found by Prosecutor/Detective Vector when he spent great time examining Silver's unconscious body and the area around him. He found it on one of his gloved hands and surmised it came from the murderer when the two were fighting. Because of it's small size, the color is unreadable.