( No Title )
In Justice We Trust (104203 words) thesavagesabretooth
With Simon Blackquill and Athena Cykes assigned as their psychologists, the Phantom and Fulbright must grapple with their identity, their deeds, their future, and their love for the twisted samurai whom they betrayed.
All the while, Edgeworth and Wright find their relationship tested as they walk the narrow path between pursuing real justice, and the dark age of the law.
–
December 25, 9:30 am
Robert affected Bobby’s bright, shining smile as the interpol agent touched his arm. He snapped to a salute and Athena saw him nod at her as she opened the mood matrix.
“Well, Ms. Kelso,” he began, “at the moment it looks to me like the first car must have belonged to the target the agents were following. I’d guess that someone in that car shot at the agents in the following car, and then swerved to make it look like they were killed in a wreck.”
“Tracks to me…” Agent Kelso mused as she pulled the bullets back out from her sleeve to flick between her fingers. “Though it still seems too easy to me…I’m worried , you know? These bastards killed two good, honest men. If we’re not smart about this they’ll get away unpunished.”
Athena’s eyes flicked to the mood matrix as she tuned out all but the conversation before her. It barely registered anything at all despite the agent’s proclamation.
There was a sudden shadow over her, and she realized that Simon had stepped up behind her elbow and was watching her work. He didn’t interrupt, either her, or the conversation, but gave her a nod of greeting.
“Is that too easy, though? If they thought they did away with both the agents, then they’d only have to deal with local police,” Robert said. “No offense to the amazing justice officers they have here, but if they see two bodies in two wrecked cars on the highway, well, I don’t know if they’d even have gotten to the gunshots. Nobody guesses there was another guy in the first car and he makes a clean getaway, right?”
Kelso flicked a rifle round in the air with her thumb, and caught it between her fingers with a pensive look on her face.
“You could make that assumption, yeah. The scene’s designed to make you forget about the shooting.”
It was a non-committal answer, drawing Athena’s attention back to the matrix as she sensed…something.
It wasn’t quite discord between them. Not a tumultuous tangle of emotion that was dying to break free into the truth and understanding, nor the confused misfiring of emotions during a time of stress.
There was not a single ripple across the screen.
It was a glassy lake, providing a clear image of Robert and Kelso chatting behind it. It was a sensation of absence, notable for its familiar strangeness.
"Exactly,” Halblicht nodded. “The scene is set up to make you come to an immediate conclusion, without feeling the need to look any deeper.”
Kelso chuckled as she flicked the bullets between her fingers again with the rhythmic click against her rings. “So the killer makes it look like a wreck and slips away while we’re too busy making assumptions. If that’s the case, sir, we could be wasting time here while the guy vanishes back into his network.”
“What do you make of it?” Simon murmured quietly in Athena’s ear.
Athena frowned and leaned her head back to whisper.
“Nothing good, Simon. I’m not picking anything up– normally I’d think Widget was malfunctioning, but …” she tapped her ear “…I haven’t been hearing anything , either. I’ve been picking up a lot from Agent Ash, but..”
Kelso glanced her way for a moment, the bullet pinging as it flipped in the air and landed between her fingers again.
Simon’s eyebrows raised and Athena could feel his mixed emotions, anxiousness, as well as an interest and curiosity. “But not Kelso. Fascinating.”
“I agree, Agent Kelso!” Halblicht nodded, breaming broadly and bringing Kelso’s attention back to him. He adjusted his glasses. “I can’t say I’m familiar with how interpol operates unfortunately– how would you advise picking up the trail from here?”
Athena shook her head quietly, feeling much the same as the emotions radiated between them. “It’s very fascinating. I can’t help but wonder…”
Kelso flashed a bright smile at Halblicht in return as her hands went up to her own sunglasses in her hair.
“Honestly? I think we should tell Agent Ash that we’ve found all we have here and join the team in the nearest town. It’s likely the survivor of the fake crash slipped there to try and contact backup or extraction. If it was back in the day we woulda sent one of the mass-investigation teams but…well. Things change.”
She glanced Athena’s way again with an expression of casual amusement without a ripple of emotion behind it “I’ve been meaning to ask…what’s that gizmo you got there, pretty?”
“Interesting device, isn’t it, Agent Kelso?” Simon purred. “Cykes-dono, would you like to explain it, or shall I?”
Neither of them got a chance, however, because that was when Ema came back.
“Took some doing,” Ema’s voice was grim…and as Athena turned towards her, Widget picked up a strong undercurrent of sadness and fear in pulsing blue waves. “But it’s open.”
Halblicht looked up. “I take it it isn’t good news, Ms. Skye?”
Kelso’s smile fell from her face. “…whatta we got?”
“A complication,” Ema snorted as she stepped aside and gestured towards the trunk, “that completely fucks our whole perception of the case.”
Athena’s heart sank, and it showed on her face as she muttered “….the classic turnabout at last. Mierda.” She hopped up to inspect the trunk with nervous anticipation.
Simon followed along with her, and Halblicht, she noticed, brought up the rear behind Kelso.
When Athena peered into the trunk, what she saw was a blackened lump. A large blackened lump. And then she started to make out features.
It was a body. Burned and destroyed, but very recognizably a body. More recognizably even than the ones in the front seats of the cars, having enjoyed some small protection due to having been shielded by the trunk from the worst of the flames.
Athena shuddered, her eyes going wide as she took a photograph with Widget’s internal camera. Her eyes scanned what features and details she could as her heart hammered in her chest.
“A third body…”
Kelso whistled as she leaned over her shoulder. “…well that ain’t good, is it?”
“I’d say not,” Simon drawled, peering over Athena’s shoulder. “We have two missing agents, and three bodies. And a very manipulated crime scene.”
Halblicht spoke up. “Could the target they were following have had some unfortunate soul in the trunk in the first place, Prosecutor Blackquill?”
“Grim idea, detective,” Simon drawled. “This is the agents’ car, however.”
“Maybe it’s one of the assailants.” Kelso mused.
Athena tuned them out for a moment as she leaned in to pick whatever details she could from the charred corpse. Face…hair…clothing…identifying markers. Anything the fire had not destroyed.
There was nothing on the corpse that had survived the fire. No clothes, no jewelry, no shoes.
Actually… that was very odd. They’d found fragments of clothing on the other corpses, but this one– better preserved– had nothing.
“The corpse is naked.” Athena said out loud. “There’s not a single trace of clothing, burnt or not. There was a naked corpse shoved in the trunk.”
Kelso put her hand on her chest with a little gasp , ponytail bouncing around her face as she grimaced. “….eeesh. Grim.”
“Grim indeed,” Simon murmured, his hands behind his back. He spoke up sharply. “Detective Halblicht– why might our suspect have stripped this body naked and not the other two?”
Halblicht affected a guileless, puzzled expression, touching his chin. “Tricky question, prosecutor Blackquill! Could be an obscure fetish?”
“Ha! interesting perspective, but doubtful, half wit,” Simon sneered. Athena, astonished, realized that they were doing some kind of bit. “Cykes-dono, improve on Halblicht’s answer for me.”
Athena choked, as Simon pulled her into it– coughing for a moment before she lowered the holoscreen after taking another picture.
“There’s not a lot of direct evidence about it being a fetish, aside from the nudity…” she mused before continuing. “If I was to guess, it’d be either to attain them for themselves or to hide a fact about the body. Clothes are an identifying marker, after all…Agent Ash said the same thing earlier.”
She turned towards the others. “But what are clothes, but an outward expression? The image of what you’d like the world to see as you.’ Which is true both from a personality standpoint, and from a literal…I think the clothes were taken either to remove the identifying marker…or to divert it onto another.”
Agent Kelso started flipping the rifle rounds through her fingers again, multiple now at once as she tilted her head. “I’m not following you, Miss Cykes.”
Halblicht saluted. "I think Miss Cykes might mean, either they took the clothes so the body wouldn’t be recognized, or so some other body would be– Agent Kelso. Uh, was that right?"
He grinned hopefully at her and there was no emotion in it– which meant that the smile wasn’t an accident, it was as all deliberate things are, communication.
Athena’s smile in return was the same as his as she nodded. “That’s right. What we have here is someone the killer didn’t want recognized…or wanted to be recognized as!”
“Like a fucking disguise?” Ema Skye grumbled from beside Simon.
Kelso whistled low, before she put her hand to her chest and laughed, pointing a lazy finger…and the tip of a rifle round… at Athena as the quiet chuckle hung in the air.
“Good one, Miss Cykes! I mean, I know we’re dealing with spies here, but isn’t it a little short notice for a disguise? You can’t just throw on someone’s clothes and call it a disguise, you’d be caught in a second. Right?”
"I’d wager it depends on the skill of the spy,” Simon offered. “And how well the person being impersonated was known to others. Still, we have no proof that’s what was done with the clothes. They could have been used in some other way. Perhaps you have a suggestion, Agent Kelso?”
Agent Kelso chuckled as she started tapping the bullet through the space of her fingers. “Easy. Something got on the clothes that the killer didn’t want seen. Blood, hair, something like that. They didn’t have time to clean it up so…into the fire it went. Or hell, maybe they took it with them.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Halblicht nodded enthusiastically. “After all, the body didn’t burn as well in the trunk, so they probably put the clothes in the main part of the car so it would be destroyed.”
“Interesting premise,” Simon purred. “Athena, you’re our defense– can you poke any holes in that argument?”
“Well…even burned clothes leave things behind. There were scraps of clothing inside the cars, right? But was there enough residual to imply a whole other set of clothes? And on top of that…” She smiled despite the growing pulse of muffled concern through the static. “Why strip the whole body? Why not just remove the tainted clothing?”
Kelso tapped another bullet through her fingers, a second joining the first as she nodded “I guess…but it’s possible the remainder of the clothing’s mostly ash on the bottom of the car. There’s no way we could tell what outfit it came from.”
As they were chatting, Athena heard the distinctive musical trill of Agent Ash’s cell phone ring again.
Simon meanwhile, tapped his chin. “There’s no way to tell indeed– but dental records identified the other two bodies. It’s likely they’ll identify this one too, given time. However, as you mentioned, time is exactly what we’re short of. So perhaps we can figure it out by logical process of elimination.”
Athena nodded seriously, glancing at Simon “We’ve done it before…we just need to look at this case from every angle…maybe we can crack it before the dental records come in.”
Agent Ash answered the phone in the corner of her vision, and Athena’s keen ears heard her start to laugh again, picking up only a snippet of her reply through the barely stifled snickering “… you heard me. Your best chess metaphor, for old times sake.”
For a moment Kelso seemed distracted, her reply cut off as she strained to listen to Agent Ash.
“Something wrong, Agent Kelso?” Halblicht asked with a doggish cock of his head.
“Looks like the pack leader’s got a call, that’s all.” Kelso’s tired smile returned to her face. “Probably just from an old friend, it sounds like.”
Sheila Ash had begun laughing again, leaning against the side of the van with her arms around her stomach, cackling away as she thumped its side with the palm of her hand.
“…a real funny old friend,” Kelso finished “where uh…where were we, guys?”
Simon folded his arms. “We were about to try to deduce the identity of the stripped body. Why don’t we start with who was at the scene. Half bright, what information are we starting with?”
Halblicht saluted. “Sir! Uh, we know for certain that the two agents would have been at the scene. We have the target and potentially a second person that the target met up with at the airport.”
“Good. So that’s potentially four individuals at the scene of the crime. Athena– any insight?”
Athena tapped her cheek with her gloved finger as the mood matrix hovered…pointed towards Kelso.
“C’estBizzare …” she mused as she tapped away. “we have four potential individuals on the scene, with two interpol agents and potentially two agents of the Organization. The target and a handler presumably, oui? And yet we have three bodies. One was clearly moved from the Agent’s car to the target’s car…and another shoved in the trunk and stripped naked. Meaning one of the bodies has to be from the Organization.”
Athena tilted her head to the side “…specifically the one that was stripped and stuffed in the trunk. But that leads to an obvious puzzle…”
Kelso’s brow furrowed. “…mmm…maybe the target was killed and the organization wanted to be rid of the body?”
“That’s possible,” Halblicht said, stroking his chin, “If the target was killed in the crash that their compatriot initiated to hide the bodies.”
“Oh, good theory,” Simon said. “Too bad that this body has a gunshot wound.” He pointed to the corpses’ temple.
“Then maybe the organization executed their agent.” Kelso countered as she pushed rounds through her fingers again.
“We all saw firsthand what happened when the agent wearing Bobby Fulbright was compromised…failed the mission.” She hissed through her teeth with her hands raised up .“they might have decided the target failed the mission, or figured out interpol was on to them and disposed of old trash.”
Despite her hiss of concern and ‘uncomfortable horror’…Athena registered nothing again. She frowned at the display. “…mm.”
“Seems like adding a body might complicate the scene though,” Halblicht considered. “Wouldn’t it have been more practical to keep the failed agent around and execute him where he wouldn’t draw extra suspicion?”
“Everyone makes mistakes, Detective. Maybe he had no choice?” Kelso countered with a roll of her shoulders.
“…Agent Kelso?” Athena spoke up. She saw Sheila moving out of the corner of her eye, gathering something from the trunk of the SUV. “How’s it make you feel? The state of the scene, the third body…the executions of your comrades?”
Kelso turned towards her with a tilt of her head.
“…I don’t think right now’s the time for that kinda thing, miss. We’ve got a third body on site and a lot of unanswered questions. Let’s save the ‘feelings’ talk for the post-mission therapy sessions.”
Athena’s reply was interrupted by Sheila, who walked over with a wolfish smile on her beautiful face.
“Hello, cubs~. I have some distressing news!”
“It’s been a day for that,” Simon said. “Why don’t you enlighten us.”
The quiet, almost imperceptible jangle of metal caught Athena’s keen ears…and she saw the glint under Sheila’s coat of something metal. It was when the woman stopped and crossed her arms, that she saw it was a pair of handcuffs newly clipped on her belt.
“Agent Kelso, darling?” she cooed cheerfully as the Agent’s head snapped up.
“Yes ma’am?” Keslo saluted sharply to her, only for Sheila to wave her hand.
“At ease, cub…bad news…someone’s broken into your car! My dear, old friend Miles Edgeworth reported it in to me just now.”
Kelso’s eyes widened. “…wait, really?? Shit…shit, as if my luck wasn’t already terrible!”
Despite her words, hidden deep within them…Athena saw nothing on the matrix. Nothing but the faintest flicker, there and then gone, of fear.
“That is bad luck,” Halblicht agreed, frowning. He stroked his chin. He was another placid mirror of nothing. “Were you keeping valuables in there?”
Kelso shook her head, running her hand through her hair and grabbing her sunglasses a little more firmly. “No sir, just my suitcase. I dunno why someone would break in…”
Athena leaned on her hands, listening in as the mirror of emotions stayed near-still before her. The only emotion registered was Agent Ash’s near present, overwhelming joy, which she tuned out of the Mood Matrix with a few taps of the screen.
Ash leaned forward, smiling thinly. “Maybe they thought they could steal your gun. You have it on you, cub?”
“I should hope so,” Simon murmured. “Very bad form to leave those lying around."
His gaze flicked over to Halblicht, and Athena felt a sting of mingled emotions. She noticed his eyes linger on where Bobby Fulbright used to keep his shoulder holster. He had very much not been given a gun for this case.
Athena noticed the gesture, and a dark worry grew inside her. Halblicht wasn’t armed. She wasn’t armed…Simon wasn’t armed, not even with a wooden sword.
Kelso pulled out a pistol from a holster under her coat…and lazily spun it around her finger with the rifle rounds clutched between the fingers of her other hand like some sort of claws. It was a large, nasty looking gun.
It was bigger than any she’d seen in the states with the strict gun laws, with a strangely thick pistol grip where the clip was inserted and a muzzle longer than her hand.
“Of course I brought it, ma’am. I’d never be stupid enough to leave it behind.” Kelso chuckled “…looks like they must have gone through the trouble of breaking in for nothing.”
Sheila shifted, her hands on her hips– one by the pair of handcuffs Athena had seen, and the other by the grip of a silver-etched pistol of her own in her thigh holster. She smiled brightly at Kelso before she nodded.
“Good girl…but that’s not the only bad news I got.”
Simon’s eyebrows rose. "Oh no? And here I thought things were going poorly enough.”
“Agent Kelso~” Sheila began with a chirp in her voice. “…can you tell me about your movements when you landed yesterday?”
Kelso spun her gun around her finger, “my movements, ma’am? I arrived at the airport and departed the plane. I tried to follow the target and the other agents, but was delayed on the way out by some airport foot traffic. I wasn’t able to catch up, and lost sight of them.”
“Probably saved your life, by the look of it,” Halblicht sniffled, giving an artfully tragic look over the burnt and twisted cars. It was interesting, really, to see when he was performing like now, and when he was genuinely emoting.
“Yeah…” Tears brimmed in Kelso’s eyes as she turned her eyes downcast with a scuff of her foot. “Poor guys. They were good agents. Maybe if I were there I coulda done something to help. Saved them, maybe, or died trying.”
Athena was fascinated by it– this interplay of false emotion, when she’d seen Halblicht, both sides of him, truly emote over the last few days– and Kelso, a placid lake of emotions so quiet she could barely pick them up aside from easily missed flickers buried in the sea of static.
“Oooh…” Sheila wagged her finger, before she broke out laughing again, half doubling over “Bzzzt! Wrong answer! You are NOT our lucky winner, Agent Kelso!”
She stifled her laughter long enough to lean forward with a wicked grin. “You were seen pulling out of the parking lot in your car directly behind Agents Fish and St. John. By security camera no less.”
Simon turned more fully toward Kelso, and Taka’s wings fluttered restlessly. “Agent Kelso, that’s quite the discrepancy.”
Kelso’s gun spun faster around her finger as she smiled nervously, glancing off to the side. “Guess it is, huh?”
“Do you have an explanation for your pack leader, Kelso?” Sheila purred. “Or do I need to call in the interrogation team?”
“I got scared!” Kelso suddenly said, an expression of fear etching onto her face as she put her hand to her chest. The gun stopped spinning, dangling from her fingertip by the trigger guard as she leaned forward with a plaintive edge to her voice. “I’ve only been in Interpol for a little bit…and I’m doing my best…but when I saw what those people did to their own agent? I got scared. I slowed down on the highway and let them slip away.”
“…so it was dereliction of duty?” Sheila tutted her tongue. “I remember you during training…you were always so much stronger than that.”
Despite the woman’s tone and face there was nothing in the matrix– ripples so small she could only barely feel them.
“We all get nervous sometimes, Agent Ash, you should give her a break,” Halblicht said gently. “I can’t blame anyone for being afraid of these people. Even an interpol agent– that’s an interesting side arm you’ve got by the way, Agent Kelso.”
“Huh? T-thanks, sir.” Kelso blinked away her tears, wiping at her face with the back of her hand before she held up the gun. “This? Thanks. It’s a custom Five Seven, sir.”
Sheila put her hand on her chin with a smile. “You’re right, of course. We’re only human…fear is appropriate.”
Athena glanced at Halblicht with a significant smile before she waved her hand…’go on’.
Halblicht looked delighted. “A Five Seven! Custom! Well that explains the bullets you’ve been playing with, doesn’t it? Unmodified Five seven doesn’t use such big rounds!”
Simon slipped away from Athena’s elbow, and disappeared out of her sight as the discussion continued.
“Sure doesn’t, sir.” She slipped the clip out of the gun, and began casually loading the rounds from her fingers into its feeder. “But this one does. It’s a little hard to handle, but worth the trouble.”
Athena watched the gun carefully, just in case. “But even with such a powerful gun, you didn’t follow your fellow agents that night? Where’d you pull off?”
“Hmm??” Kelso looked her way. “sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
"I think Ms. Cykes was wondering how far you went along before you got cold feet,” Halblicht said, still smiling. He watched the gun carefully, as she was loading it, and Athena felt a glimmer of almost unnoticeable anxiety flash through him. “You didn’t witness the wreck, did you?”
“If I had, don’t you think I would have called it in?” Kelso said. “I…didn’t get much further than the edge of town. I pulled off into a roadside rest area and tried to compose myself.”
She clicked the clip solidly into the gun with a loud clacking sound.
Athena’s anxiety matched his, and she tensed up a little at the sound, a breath escaping her lips. “So you didn’t see any of it.”
“It is a shame…” Sheila sighed. “We could have used a firsthand witness in this little sordid affair. We really thought you’d have been able to handle the job, Agent Kelso…”
Athena felt Simon’s mixture of smug pleasure and deep anxiety before she saw him step back in behind her.
“It is a tragedy,” Simon said. “But as the detective said, I suppose it saved her life in the end. We should probably move on with the investigation.”
“Welcome back, Simon.” Athena murmured as she tapped on the screen.
Kelso rubbed her arm “…I’ll put in my resignation papers when we get back to the office, ma’am. Sorry for letting you all down.”
Athena gave her a smile. “it’s okay, miss Kelso. The investigation’s not over yet…let’s see what we can do, right?”
“I got a little more information from Skye-dono while you were talking,” Simon said. “Interestingly, our fellow in the trunk wasn’t shot with the same kind of weapon as the unfortunate agents.”
Athena gasped deliberately, her hand going to her lips. “Really?? What was the victim shot with?”
She was beginning to have an inkling– and Simon confirmed it.
“Rifle rounds, in fact. Which is fascinating because our third body was also shot at much closer range than the other two.”
The cartridges that Kelso had been playing with… were rifle rounds.
Athena tensed, glancing at Simon and Halblicht out of the corner of her eye. She could hear Kelso take a soft intake of breath.
“Well…shit.” she heard Kelso muse.
Simon held up a hand sized portable UV light that he must have gotten from Ema. “Agent Kelso, would you mind if I looked you over. As a formality?”
“I’d mind a lot actually.” Kelso said with a quiet chuckle, her arms crossing over her chest. “…what, do you suspect me or something?”
“It’s just a formality, Agent Kelso.” Athena soothed with a wave of her hand. “…nothing’s going to come up, and we can move on with the investigation.”
“I should probably go over Agent Ash as well, while we’re at it,” Simon said with that thin, mean smile of his. Athena could feel his rising anxiety.
Halblicht had very carefully and subtly moved closer to Kelso.
“If you must!” Agent Ash chuckled, her hands raising from her hips.
Kelso reached up to grab her sunglasses, pulling them off and into her hands as she held them up. “…alright, fine. Go on. I got nothing to hide.”
Simon stepped over to Agent Ash first, and swept over her with the UV light. “Thank you both.”
Agent Ash was patient, winking at Simon as he shined the light over her to no visible reaction.
“If you’d like a closer look, Samurai, just ask after this whole mess gets sorted out.”
Simon flushed and Athena could sense his embarrassment. He shook his head.
“I’m afraid I’m somewhat booked up, Ash-dono. But thank you all the same.” He turned toward Kelso. “Agent Kelso– your turn.”
Kelso rubbed her thumb along the side of her glasses as she walked towards him, right near the corner, with a lazy smile. “Hope you’re ready for a big surprise…I’m clean as a whistle, sir.”
“You know,” Halblicht said, “That saying’s always confused me a bit. I don’t know why a whistle of all things would be clean in the first place.”
Simon huffed a laugh as he shined the UV light over Kelso, carefully and slowly. Athena could sense his deep attention as he held it over, looking for anything amiss.
Athena frowned/ As the UV light went towards her neck, up over her chest, Agent Kelso seemed to fidget with the edge of her glasses all the more.
Action spoke louder than words. It was easier than emotion…just like in the restaurant she let herself move on instinct to hop forward and snatch the glasses out of Kelso’s hand.
“I’ll hold onto those for you, Agent! We don’t want them getting in the way!”
As Kelso turned with a sharp retort on her tongue, the light passed over the inside of her collar– illuminating a small stain across the back of it.
“Hey, give those back, Miss Cyk–”
“Cut yourself shaving this morning, Agent Kelso?” Simon drawled, flashing the light on the drops of blood.
“As a matter of fact I did…” she said with a thin smile. She took the opportunity to hop a few steps away from Simon with a cold look in her grey eyes.
“But I seem to recall…” Sheila mused with a rub of her chin, “that you didn’t have time to even shower this morning, Agent. That’s why you haven’t changed since last night. We kept you pretty busy, after all.”
Kelso’s two steps carried her closer to Halblicht’s bulky form. He leaned in, peering at her through his amber sunglasses with a thin, cold smile. “Admittedly, your jaw looks clean as a baby’s bottom, Agent Kelso. An admirably close shave.”
Athena looked up from the mood matrix. “I’m not registering much in the way of emotion, Detective. I’m maybe picking up a little fear, though.”
Kelso’s sleepy, affable demeanor crumpled into a cold stare
“I’m not afraid. As for the shave…” She backed towards Athena instead with a smile Athena knew was faker than all the rest. “I’ve got a steady hand and a good blade. That’s all.”
“…then why’d you cut yourself? And where’s the cut?” Athena asked quietly as Ema and Sheila took the perimeter around her, moving just on the edge of her vision.
“I have a theory, if I may,” Simon said. He didn’t wait for permission. “I think perhaps that Agent Kelso did in fact follow the other agents. I think perhaps that Agent Kelso was at the scene of this very crime.”
“Which leads one to wonder…” Sheila put her fingers to her lips with a smile. “just why she chose to lie about it…my, my…unless…”
Athena nodded at Simon “…it’s a good theory. A solid one that has a…concerning conclusion, non?”
Her fingers tested the edge of the glasses, finding a strange spot where the meal yielded more than it should. Like a switch.
“Bullshit,” Agent Kelso began spinning her gun again around her fingertip, the other hand sticking in her pocket. “I wasn’t there. You’ve got nothing but theory and speculation. I let myself fall behind.”
“Silence, Agent Kelso,” Simon said with a thin smirk. “In fact have two pieces of evidence which you are not yet privy to. The first, is that the bullet from the third corpse matches the ammunition that you’ve got in your hand.”
She jolted– and a handful of bullets came tumbling from her fingers to ping upon the ground as she yanked it from her pocket.
“You can’t possibly have done the rifling tests so fast! Just because it’s similar…two of my friends…my comrades…are dead, Prosecutor Blackquill. You can’t possibly think I killed someone” Her voice carried a plaintive note…but Athena still registered nothing but performance to her ears and to the matrix.
Just like the Phantom of the Courtroom before Robert’s true emotions had been drawn forth.
“Silence!” Simon repeated, louder this time. “The second piece of evidence– traces of blood were found in your car. All over the console and passenger seat. Quite a great deal of blood, in fact, which must have been cleaned up in quite a hurry. Much more blood than one would get, cutting oneself shaving.”
Kelso jerked back , nearly tripping as her foot stepped atop one of the bullets and caused her to slip…conveniently, Athena noticed, further away from them and towards the car.
She opened her mouth to protest, her eyes brimming with tears.
“I…I…” It was gone in an instant, smoothed out with a neutral sigh of breath as her thumb clicked the safety of her gun.
“Well.” Agent Kelso said blandly with a listless smile. “not much I can say to that, is there?”
“I’m afraid not, agent,” Simon said. “Would you like to come quietly for further questioning?”
Sheila had her hand on her hip again, against the grip of her pistol, as she stepped forward.
“It’s in your best interest, sweetie. I told you earlier… I’d know if there were a traitor in the pack. And it’s checkmate.” She smiled wolfishly as she clicked the strap off her holster. “No room to wriggle away now, I’m afraid.”
Athena gasped suddenly, but not at Ash. For the first time, a strong emotion radiated off Kelso. Despair. Sadness, fear. It came in a sudden flicker of emotion that lit up Widget’s screen before the woman smiled with a shrug.
“No can do, friend,” Kelso glanced towards Halblicht. “he knows that’s not an option.”
Before Athena could act on the ping of emotion, Kelso raised her gun in a smooth motion to press it to her own temple.
Three noises split the air at almost the same time.
The cry of a man. The rapport of a gun. And the scream of a hawk.
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