Ace Attorney: Secrets beneath Secrets

Turnabout Below, Part 2

May 29

Blocker Law Offices

11:30 AM

Cotoli Morix

To put it nicely, the cellar was cramped.

I had never been particularly fond of tight spaces, and the cellar did not make me feel any better. Part of me was ready to throw up, but I didn't want to make a scene or anything big like that. Instead, I clenched my hands tightly into fists and walked inside, doing my best to focus on the important things around us as opposed to how small the room was.

There was a large refrigerator on one wall. It was wide open, and cold air assaulted us when we got into the room fully. There were countless cabinets around the room, most of them pressed against the wall. They were all painted a sleek black, but the tops were coated with thick dust, and I couldn't help but cringe at thinking of how horrible it would be to clean this place.

Aside from that, there wasn't much in the room. There was a body laid out against the floor, but there wasn't anything suspicious near it. A large bag was left nearby, and the inside of it was covered with blood near the center. There were many police officers gathered around the body, and if I hadn't been so tall, I wouldn't have been able to see it. I pointed it out for Victoria, who couldn't see much around the crowd. She nodded her thanks before we turned to Detective Erikson and Detective Hayes.

"The victim was stabbed in the chest once, and the blow was fatal since it got her in the heart right off the bat. Of course, you already knew that, but I'm sure you didn't know that the body was originally found inside a bag. If you look at the corpse now, you won't see it in its original environment. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to look at the body where it was found," Detective Erikson told us. "After all, it was found standing upright in the fridge. There's no blood in the fridge because the body was kept in a large plastic bag until the forensics team arrived and pulled it out. It's something that you wouldn't expect upon first arriving."

"Why is there a fridge here?" I asked, frowning. "There has to be a reason for that. I mean, it's not as if every building has a fridge just sitting underground."

"Here, there is some evidence that needs to be stored. It's sometimes required that they are placed in a cold space, and the fridge has adjustable temperatures to allow for the evidence to be kept frozen. The temperature can range greatly, meaning it can go down below freezing. I'm sure that you're seeing why this is a problem for the forensics team. It's impossible to determine the time of death when the body was found inside the fridge since it's difficult to figure out how long it was in there. This leaves us in a bit of a rut," Detective Erikson told us.

I let out a sigh and shook my head. "Hm... How peculiar," I murmured. "Who exactly has access to this underground cellar? Surely one of the people who can come down here had to do it. It's hard to get a body inside of a fridge if the killer doesn't have access to the cellar to begin with."

"The one person who has access to the cellar is the owner of the agency... However, she just so happens to be the victim in this case, meaning it's hard to say who could come down here. When she went missing, the key to the cellar disappeared, and it didn't resurface until recently. That was how we found the body in the first place," Detective Erikson replied.

"Where did the key resurface? How did it get here?" Victoria asked eagerly. "I don't understand... The person who got into the cellar couldn't have been the victim since the key would have been on her, and unless somebody wanted to make a replica key to get inside, it would be impossible to get in. It's a locked-room case... Sort of. If you really think about it."