Chapter Text
You’ve just got home from work when you get the call from your little brother that turns everything on its head.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” he says. “It’s about your father.”
“Papa? He’s not…?” Your mind immediately goes to an accident.
“Do you remember the DL-6 incident?”
“Yes.” Of course you do. That’s what led to Miles Edgeworth coming to live with you and your papa.
“The statute of limitations was about to run out. Some more information about it came to light in connection with another case that came to trial recently. There was a new trial, but the defendant this time wasn’t guilty either.”
You wonder where this is going. Also, who the defendant could have been—there were only three people in that elevator—and what he means by “either”. Miles Edgeworth has always maintained that the defendant from the first trial, the bailiff, was guilty, even though he was acquitted.
“That trial too turned up some fresh evidence. And although it wasn’t the defendant, it did finally establish the guilty party. It was someone who was standing outside the elevator, who was hit by the bullet that fired when-when I threw the gun. The power came back on, the elevator doors opened, and he picked up the gun and shot my father.”
He pauses and takes a deep breath before going on.
“I’m so sorry, Franziska. But that person was Manfred von Karma.”
“Papa?!” you gasp.
“I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. They found the bullet that hit him, still lodged in his shoulder. And he’s confessed.”
“Why would he do such a foolish thing?” you ask.
“He was furious with my father. My father had been trying for a long time to expose his use of faked evidence and false testimony. Earlier that day, von Karma received a penalty after my father drew the judge’s attention to some flaws in the evidence he presented. I think he simply lost control.”
You don’t have anything to say to that. It seems incredible that a von Karma could suffer such a lapse; but if he has confessed you suppose you will have to accept that it is true.
You knew about the penalty, of course; the only penalty of his career. The one blotch on his shining record. He’d always led you to believe it was on account of some trifling technicality of procedure that he didn’t deign to follow on that occasion.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” you say. A von Karma never shows weakness. Not even to her little brother. Not even when she’s just found out her father will almost certainly be executed. Or that the man she thought he was might never have existed in the first place.
“I’ve been finding it rough myself,” he says, with surprising openness and a bit of shakiness to his voice. “I greatly respected your father. I thought he was a brilliant prosecutor. I aspired to be like him. All my wins in court have been through using the tactics he taught me. To find out that he’d make up whatever he needed to get a guilty verdict—it’s shaken not just my understanding of who he is, but of who I am myself.”
“Only a fool allows another fool’s foolishness to change his view of himself,” you say. You can’t admit that his thoughts somewhat echo your own. “You are Miles Edgeworth, and you are an excellent prosecutor.”
“I’m not sure any more if that’s true,” he says. “I’ve never presented fabricated evidence, or asked the court to believe anything I knew was an outright lie. But I’ve conducted my cases the way von Karma taught us to. When something cast doubt on my interpretation of the facts, I held it back. I asked witnesses not to mention certain things, or refrained from presenting certain pieces of evidence. I was always trying to convince the court that the crime happened the way I thought it did so I could get my guilty verdict, rather than aiming to find the truth by examining all of the information impartially. Is that what it means to be a good prosecutor?”
“Of course it is,” you say. “It’s your job to make a convincing case for the defendant’s guilt, just as it’s the defense’s job to make a convincing case for their innocence. It’s for the judge to be impartial and take everything into consideration.”
“I wonder,” he says.
“Do you know what happens now with my papa?” you ask. “When does his trial start?”
“Today. I’ll call you this evening to let you know how it went. Say, 7am your time—would that work for you?”
“That’s fine. I’ll look forward to your call, Miles Edgeworth,” you say.
“Franziska,” he says, sounding a little awkward. “You do know that you can call me any time, don’t you? If you want to talk. It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the night for me. You should never worry about picking up the phone.”
“The only thing more foolish than needing to talk to a foolish fool to deal with one’s own foolish feelings is thinking that a von Karma would be foolish enough to be in that position,” you assert.
But as you hang up, you think there’s a reasonable chance you might just be that foolish after all, some time over the next few days.