Ace Attorney: Secrets beneath Secrets

Return to the Turnabout, Part 3

January 26

Courtroom No. 1

11:15 AM

Deirdre Brigit

Detective Erikson flicked open the folder before him and read over it for a moment before looking up at the courtroom. "There was paint found on the floor of the gymnasium, just as the defendant described. A few flecks were left behind on the ground, and they were confirmed to be green as well. It appears she was telling the truth on the matter," he announced. "There was one other thing we noticed in the gymnasium though during our investigation."

"What is it?" Prosecutor Burke frowned. I could sense her ongoing hostility, but it seemed to have lessened significantly compared to how it had been before. She met eyes with Mr. Morix and shared a telling glance with him.

"We found a dent in the wall on one side of the gymnasium, the side opposite the glass commentary box," Detective Erikson replied. "We can't say for sure, but we believe that this hole, which had previously been hidden by the basketball goal, is where the first bullet from the scene of the crime wound up."

"The first bullet?" I echoed. Since we had been assigned to this case so late in the investigative process, Mr. Morix and I weren't given time to look at the crime scene in detail. It was in convenient, but there wasn't much we could do about it. We would just have to take what the other people involved said and use it to our advantage.

"There were two shots fired by the murder weapon. The first one missed the victim and hit the glass window of the commentary room. The bullet flew through the gymnasium and hit the opposite wall," Detective Erikson explained. "You see, before today, the basketball goal on the opposite edge of the gymnasium had been moved to cover up the bullet hole. We hadn't noticed it up until this investigation because of that when somebody suggested we move it."

"If the bullet hit the wall, that means the basketball wasn't covering the bullet at the crime of the crime," I murmured. "Can the goal be moved by easy means?"

"There's a lever that you can pull on the bottom floor of the gym. If you push on it with enough force, the basketball goal will be raised and will be tucked against the ceiling. If you pull back, the goal returns to its regular location," Detective Erikson explained. "We don't know when the basketball goal was moved, I'm afraid. There's nothing that could show when the goal was moved in the physical evidence. The only person in the gymnasium at the time was the defendant."

I felt a smirk play on my lips. "Let's call the defendant to the witness stand to testify then," I told the court, prompting chatter to burst out in the gallery.

Judge Diaphan had to slam her gavel against the bench multiple times to get the court to relax. "Order!" she roared, seeming more like a lion than a human for a brief moment. "Why would you call the defendant to the stand? Her innocence has not been firmly proven yet!"

"However, we showed that at the time of the crime, the defendant was in the lower area of the gymnasium. Since we have firm evidence that the murder took place while both the culprit and victim were in the commentary room, we can make the assumption that the defendant did not kill the victim. It's something to consider at the very least, and it isn't like we have much of an idea for where to go next," I pointed out. "She was in the gymnasium. She can tell us if the basketball goal was moved while she was in the gym."

"I must agree with the defense on this one. If we can get the defendant to tell us about the basketball goal, then we can figure out when it was moved," Detective Erikson pointed out. "The basketball goal was tucked near the ceiling at the time of the murder, but in order for it to be covered, somebody would have had to return to the gymnasium and flip the switch in the other direction."