Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright: The Frigid Melody

The Bloodstained House pt. 1

Phoenix kept his hands in his pockets as they entered the house. With how cold he remembered this place being the last time he was there, he wanted to be prepared in case he had to freeze again.

But when he crossed the threshold, he couldn't help but notice a lack of drop in temperature.

Was the cooling system broken? Or had it been switched off? Either way, it was a relief.

Luke, however, gave a powerful shudder.

"Is it just me," he said, "or is it just as cold in here as it is outside?"

"Not just you," Phoenix assured him. "A couple of days ago, last time I was here, it was actually colder."

"What?!" Luke gaped in astonishment. "That's insane!"

"The mayor made ice sculptures," Phoenix explained. "I think she wanted to preserve them. Michaela told us it was because her mother wanted to keep a sharp mind, but I think it was more about the sculptures than anything else."

"Who goes there? Is that you, Mr Wright?"

Oh, now that was a voice he recognised by now.

Phoenix slowly pushed the nearby door open to reveal the office beyond, and the white-clad man who straightened to his feet upon seeing him.

"Ah, hey Doc," he said casually. "How's it going?"

"How do you bloody well think?" spat Dr Wallace. "I'm a doctor, not a detective!" He picked a small white plastic bag up off the floor. "Thank Christ you two showed up! Perhaps now I can get back to my clinic and do my actual job!"

"We're sorry!" cried Luke. "We can take it from here, I promise!"

"Yes, we can," said Phoenix as he entered the office, "but do you think you could tell us what you've learned before you go? Anything you can tell us would be super helpful for our case. The more we learn, the better."

He kept his attention on the doctor, but to the side of his vision, he could tell there was a large red puddle on the floor and the mantlepiece was a lot barer than the last time he had seen it. Hopefully he'd have plenty of time to get a better look and figure out what had happened.

The doctor, meanwhile, heaved an exhausted sigh.

"If I must," he groaned. "You likely already know by now, but the victim was this village's mayor, Angela Skellig. Time of death was around 9:52pm last night."

Behind Phoenix, Luke hummed in thought.

"Mr Wright, we were already back at the cottage by then, weren't we?" he asked.

Phoenix, however, had other things on his mind.

"That's a pretty precise time estimate," he pointed out. "Am I right to assume you had some way of telling?"

Dr Wallace nodded.

"She wore a watch and it broke when she hit the floor," he explained. "I've yet to perform a full post-mortem examination, but preliminary findings indicate cerebral haemorrhaging via blunt force trauma to the back of the head as the cause of death."

"So someone hit her with a blunt object," Phoenix translated for Luke.

"I'll give you these now." Dr Wallace held up a pair of photos for Phoenix to take. "Photos I took of the crime scene when I first arrived."

Phoenix didn't want to linger on evidence that he'd have plenty of time to examine later on down the line, but he gave them a quick glance for the sake of later reference.