Ace Attorney: Secrets beneath Secrets

The Explosive Turnabout, Part 2

April 23

Prosecutor's Office

1:45 PM

Lily Shield

We didn't take long to find Prosecutor Wood. She was standing alone in a hallway, fiddling nervously with the edge of her hair. I could see her pacing back and forth, likely because she thought nobody could see her. I frowned and raised up one hand. I waved it around briefly with hopes of catching her attention. "Prosecutor Wood?" I asked.

Prosecutor Wood halted her pacing immediately to stare at me, her face suddenly an odd pale shade. Despite this, she walked closer. Color seemed to return to her face when she realized that it was just me and Yuri. "Um... Hello," Prosecutor Wood murmured, swallowing nervously. "What are you doing here?"

"We're the lawyers on this case," Yuri explained. "We heard that you were here at the time of the crime, and we want to hear about what you saw at the time. Is that okay?"

Prosecutor Wood nodded slowly. "Y-Yes... Yes, of course," she murmured.

"You seem flustered," Yuri suddenly remarked. "Are you sure you're alright? You look like you're going to pass out any second now."

"I'm fine... Just... I haven't been feeling very good all day," Prosecutor Wood explained. "I haven't been able to figure out a way to do my work. I haven't gotten anything done in so long, and I'm worried about my deadlines. I don't know what to do, and I'm not feeling all that good about it... You'll have to forgive me for not seeming like my normal self..."

"Why don't you go on and sit down?" I suggested, gesturing to a nearby bench stationed in the hallway.

Prosecutor Wood nodded slowly and took a seat on it. Yuri and I sat down on a bench on the opposite side of the hallway to look at her. Even after we sat down, she didn't seem to be able to stop moving, fidgeting nervously in her seat and fiddling with everything that could be fiddled with. I could only stare in surprise, not sure of what to think of how unsettled she was all of a sudden.

"Why don't you go on and tell us about what you saw at the time of the crime?" Yuri asked, getting us back on topic seamlessly.

Prosecutor Wood nodded again. "Okay... Well... You're going to have to trust me on this, but... I don't remember what I was doing at the time of this murder," she admitted.

"You don't remember?" I repeated, my eyes going wide. "You can't be serious... What happened that could make you forget about everything you had seen?"

"I don't know... I just know that I don't remember anything that happened at the time of the crime. It... It's all a blur. I remember being here and preparing to go to the trial and testify about what I saw about the previous case here at the Prosecutor's Office. However, when I went into the lobby, everything just goes black... Next thing I remembered, there were police everywhere, and I was sleeping on the bench up here," Prosecutor Wood explained.

"Wow... I didn't see that one coming," I commented, shaking my head. "It's strange that you'd just randomly not remember what you saw at the time of the murder... There must have been something that would cause you to forget. Do you remember being drugged at the time of the murder? If somebody had used chloroform or some other type of drug, maybe it knocked you unconscious and caused you to forget everything that happened from around that time."

"I don't know... I don't think I was drugged. I'm sure there would have been some traces of it around my neck or clothing, but there wasn't anything on me when I asked forensics to check me over. Besides, no drugs were found either at the scene of the crime or throughout the Prosecutor's Office as a whole," Prosecutor Wood replied with a small shrug.