You would expect Edgeworth to know better than to pick up a weapon used for a crime with his hands... but then, where would be the mystery? |
Edgeworth doesn’t want Phoenix to take this case. But
Phoenix decides to nonetheless. Off to Gourd Lake Natural Park, where we will
be investigating around the scene of the murder. Gumshoe’s here again, but
aside from a witness, they’ve found little to no clues. Have I mentioned that
this first investigation for murder takes place on Christmas Day? Merry Christmas! Phoenix
and Maya soon find someone camping near the lake, an intrepid photographer
named Lotta Hart, with a thick southern accent. She seems nice! Lot of heart on
this girl. Dunno if she’s the witness… but her camera triggers when it hears a
loud noise, it may have taken a picture of the event! That’s bound to help us,
right? When she remembers she’s a witness, Lotta suddenly becomes very
unhelpful. Gee, what a surprise. Okay then, time to head back. Something smells
here… it’s gotta be the Butz. Indeed, Larry Butz is here, dressed as Santa.
He’s working his day job, he has a new girlfriend, he seems pretty happy. Plus,
there’s a boom in business since the reveal of a possible monster in the lake –
nicknamed Gourdy.
Since Larry is a good friend of both Phoenix and
Miles, we get some backstory. Edgeworth’s father was a defense attorney and the
kid wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps. The three found themselves in the midst of a class trial in
elementary school, where Phoenix was falsely accused of stealing a chocolate bar
and Miles defended him, while Butz offered moral support. This is what gave
Phoenix a desire to be a defense attorney as well. That was fifteen years
prior. A lot of things have happened since then…
Maya soon remembers she knows about the victim
in the case – he worked with Mia back when she was at Grossberg Law Offices.
There, we meet again with the partly-jovial Grossberg, who is shocked at
the news, and who remembers well the man: Robert Hammond. Turns out, the guy
was the defense attorney in the infamous DL-6 incident. Oh, so Hammond was involved in that trial that used a spirit
medium, huh? And who was the victim in the DL-6 incident, exactly? It was
Miles’ own father, Gregory Edgeworth. Sheesh, it's like everybody around here is involved in a way or another around that friggin’
case… Either it’s a small world, or Lady Coincidence decided she wanted to work
overtime.
Talking to Edgeworth later reveals that the DL-6
incident happened almost exactly 15 years ago, and past December 28th,
that case will be null. The AA universe has something called the Statute of limitations, where a case that has been hanging for 15 years will be closed forever That’s not how things go in real life, thank God, but we need that
drama for this plot. We get Edgeworth’s request to be defended by Phoenix in court, then a
convenient earthquake happens and Edgeworth is left as a terrified mess on the
floor. O-kay… bringing the request to Gumshoe, he mentions the earthquake again
and says he’s worried about Edgeworth, since the prosecutor has a real phobia of
earthquakes.
Don't you hate when some people are so confident that they start bossing everyone else around? |
Gumshoe’s testimony in court is rock-solid. Victim
found in the lake, bullet found in the heart, gun found in the boat, ballistic
markings (the gun’s “fingerprints”, as the game informs those who didn’t know)
match the found weapon, Edgeworth’s right hand fingerprints found on the weapon
that fired the shot, Edgeworth himself found at the lake. This looks bad… Von
Karma would say it’s enough, but despite his tendency to frequently yell
“OBJECTION!” with his deep, demon-like voice, he is charitable enough to make
the first witness, Lotta Hart, testify on the stand. After a first 10-minute
recess that he tells the Judge to order. Hey, who the Hell is running this
courtroom? You’re not above the justice system, von Karma! I can’t wait to see,
erm… well, karma, hit you back! Christ, what a sinister creep. He’s
left-handed, too, that actually makes him doubly sinister.
A testimony made of a single line. This is gonna be pretty tough. |
From there, we manage to pick apart Lotta’s next
testimony on why she was at the lake; not to photograph meteor showers, but to
try and take a picture of the elusive Gourdy! Further
questioning reveals that she didn’t really see who was who on the boat, but an
enlargement of her original photo is brought to the court… An enlargement where
we see the shooter aiming with the left hand – even though Edgeworth’s right
hand fingerprints were found on the gun. Someone else must have shot, then.
Maybe the victim shot himself. Or someone else shot him… This is apparently
good enough as proof to bring doubt into the case, and the Judge ends the trial
for that day. Phew! That was a close one! Actually, it felt like the entire
trial section was a close one, at every step of the way. You could probably cut
a rift towards another dimension with tension this sharp. A small part of Lotta’s
testimony is kept, and then we can resume investigation.
Oh yrah, because that is totally something we can spend time doing! Urgh... seems we don't have a choice... |
The fishing pole doesn’t do much, while Missile’s biggest contribution is to eat Larry Butz’s entire stock of Samurai Hot Dogs. Well, at least I can always tell Gumshoe that we fed it. Okay then, steel detector it is. Near the boat rental
shop, we find an air tank. It’s Larry’s. He used it once to inflate
the Steel Samurai decoration, but it blew away with a bang. And the tank, plus
the half-deflated Steel Samurai, are the thing people mistook for Gourdy. Poor
Lotta, she looks so sad once we tell her. In exchange for the truth about
Gourdy, we learn from Lotta that the second witness is the owner of the boat
rental place. We can go meet him, but he’s… kinda out there.
Also, this guy believes that Phoenix and Maya, whom he believes to be his kids, will become the pasta shop's employees. Yet there is no pasta shop. |
Let’s go back to Gumshoe, he probably knows something.
He says that we will need to prove that DL-6 is linked to this case, if we want
to know more about the guy. Phoenix and Maya are given access to the records
room, and in there we get the general details of DL-6: Miles, his dad, and a
District Court clerk named Yanni Yogi got stuck in an elevator of the District
Court during an earthquake, and spent 5 hours there before being rescued. A
gunshot happened, Gregory Edgeworth was found dead of a bullet to the heart,
and Yanni Yogi was accused. Oh, he was declared not guilty on account of brain
damage caused by the oxygen loss in the elevator. Yogi’s fiancée Polly committed
suicide afterwards… Okay, that’s dark, for such a story…
For a guy who has severe memory issues, he sure remembers some details inordinately well. |
Which is when someone comes into the courtroom, vocal chords
akimbo: “WAAAAAAAIIIIIIITTT!” It’s none other than Larry! Ah, that Butz Ex
Machina couldn’t have happened at a better time! That’s what we needed for this
case, a witness who hasn’t been briefed by von Karma into hiding the most
important truths.
I mean, it's not every day that a total of three gunshots are heard around a lake. Unless a mafia somewhere has a warehouse by the sea. |
I can see why there was that case at Global Studios
now – somehow, it fits perfectly into this last one. Phoenix deducts that, of
the two shootings that night, the first one, before Christmas, is when Robert
Hammond actually died – after which the killer took Hammond’s clothes and
pretended to be him, to meet Edgeworth in the middle of the lake. The boat shop
is a perfect place for that murder of Hammond, too. And then the murderer fired
shots away from Edgeworth and jumped in the lake to flee, to create witnesses.
How contrived is that? Oh, contrived alright, but that’s the most plausible thing
so far!
The Judge demands that the old man witness comes back,
but he has mysteriously disappeared. On this, the Judge ends proceedings for
the day, meaning we have still tomorrow to figure everything out. In the lobby,
Edgeworth is now feeling safe, saying he will likely be declared not guilty in
this case… but then he references a nightmare, based on a possibly real event, where he
may have actually murdered someone… and that he might not be able to escape
that one… Oh, crap…
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