Chapter Text
Miles was already beginning to realize this was a grave mistake.
As intelligent as Wright was, he was also impulsive, nosey, and almost disturbingly optimistic. This was not how Miles worked, and following Wright’s lead was starting to give him heart palpitations.
As they turned the corner down another of the hotel’s bland, beige hallways, Wright gesticulating wildly as the unclouded sun glinting off the white snow below and piercing through the grimy windows, Miles found the first fault in Wright’s plan.
He wanted to start with the prime suspect, Ms. Bella Donna.
“And how do you propose we do that?” Miles asked.
Wright blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“This is the lead suspect in a murder investigation. She’s under police observation, and likely inaccessible to visitors.”
Wright wagged a finger at him. “Ah, but we’re not just visitors, we’re attorneys. They’ll let us in.”
“I think you overestimate how many places that badge can get you,” Miles sighed.
“Just you watch.”
The halls were mostly empty, most of the police presence at the scene of the murder or down in the basement studying the body. Only one remained by a solitary door at the end of the second floor hallway. A police woman with a stern jaw, thick eyebrows, brown skin, and pissed-off twist to her lip.
“Absolutely not,” she said, before either of them could say a word.
“You don’t even know what we want!” Wright said.
The policewoman was the only other person in the hallway. Even so, her back was pressed flush against the wood, and Miles could see the lean muscles in her forearms and the gun tucked safely against her hip. No way in hell they were getting around her.
“You’re here to see Ms. Bella Donna,” she said to Wright’s outrage. “You’ve named yourself defense and prosecution even though no one has appointed you as such. You intend to start interviewing suspects, starting with Ms. Donna.” She raised an eyebrow at Wright, whose shoulders fell. “The answer is no. Ms. Donna has not requested legal counsel at this time and she certainly hasn’t asked to see either of you. I am asking you politely to leave this area before I am forced to use more decisive action.”
Miles shot Wright an I told you so look before taking him by the arm to steer them away. “Of course, ma’am. We apologize for the indiscretion.”
“Wait, wait, wait, hold on.” Wright said, digging in his heels. “Have you even told her that we’re here? She should know about our investigation.”
“You don’t have an investigation, sir,” the policewoman said. Her cool demeanor was deteriorating, and quickly. “No one has appointed you to this case, and no one will, at least until this building is cleared. Now please, leave me to do my work.”
Slowly, as if shy, the door creaked open behind her back. A small face with goggle-eyed glasses peeked through the gap. The side of the mouth that was visible grinned. “I thought I recognized that voice,” the face said meekly, and tugged open the door to reveal a woman who would have begged the doctor take her height down as five foot nothing. She was thin, pale, and enveloped in what appeared to be a hand-knit sweater, with the biggest pile of ginger curls Miles had ever seen balanced atop her head. Her red-rimmed glasses were so thick the lenses nearly touched her eyes, and a fine dusting of freckles painted her cheeks. Her smile was small, and yet it seemed to light her up from the inside. “If it isn’t Phoenix Wright.”
Wright returned her smile uneasily. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”
She shook her head, and the curls piled shook with the movement. “No, I haven’t had the pleasure. But I’m a big fan of yours.”
Wright’s eyes twinkled. Great. Just when Miles thought he’d get taken down a peg.
The policewoman made a face like her day was already bad and somehow it just got ten times worse. “Ma’am, if you would please stay inside your room until we can get the building evacuated, that would be appreciated.”
“Well, I can bring visitors inside my room, can’t I?”
“That would not be advised, ma’am.”
Ms. Donna tilted her head like a quizzical robin. “But technically allowed, yes?”
“Yes, ma’am. Under supervision.” The policewoman said with gritted teeth.
“Wonderful. Let them in, then.”
Wright turned to Miles as the women led the way into the room. He mouthed, I told you so.
This case was the worst decision Miles had ever made in his career.
Ms. Bella Donna’s hotel room was identical to the others Miles had seen. A double bed, a couple of bland paintings on the wall, a tiny closet with a few hangers welded to the rack, a carpet that had seen better days, and a small bathroom with a rusty showerhead. Standard stuff. There were only a few things of Ms. Donna’s lying around. A bag filled with neatly folded suits and a few pulp mystery novels, a hairbrush (in need of cleaning) and a tooth brush on the sink, and a briefcase on the bed with documents spilling out of it.
Ms. Donna pulled out two raggedy chairs from under the small desk and placed them in front of the bed. “Please, sit.” She looked over toward the policewoman, who was still standing in the doorway. “Do you want to come have a seat, Poppy?”
“No, thank you. I’m afraid I must still guard the door while observing your conversation.”
Wright mouthed at Miles, “Poppy???”
Miles ignored him.
Bella Donna sat down on the edge of the bed, folding her hands neatly in her lap. She smiled again. It reminded Miles of his grandmother, even though Ms. Donna couldn’t be older than fifty.
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you both, though I hate it to be under such terrible circumstances.”
“Likewise,” Wright said, reaching out for a handshake. “You said you knew of me?”
“Oh yes. I’ve followed both of your work, very impressive. But your work,” she said, waving a hand at Wright, “in particular, intrigues me. I’m always a fan of – let’s say – off the wall tactics. Court is not something I consider particularly fun, but I do say, dear, you make it quite riveting.”
Write looked like she just handed him a lollipop and gave his hair a ruffle. “Thank you very much Ms. Donna. Not everyone appreciates my…approach, so I’m happy to hear you say that.”
Miles cleared his throat, “Ms. Donna–”
“Call me Bella, please.”
“...Bella. My associate is set on solving this crime while all the suspects and evidence are in arms reach. We were hoping you could help.”
The small glow of a smile returned, like the sun peeking through a window blind. “Classic Mr. Wright, already on the case.” Wright looked like he just met Santa Claus for the first time. “I’d be happy to tell you what I know, but I’m sorry to say I don’t know much.”
Wright took out his notebook. “Anything you can give us would be helpful. Can we start with your background with the victim?”
“You may have heard Todd and I didn’t get on much. That’s true. He tended to take high profile clientele, no matter the circumstances. And he had a real knack at getting them completely off the hook. Despite us running in the same circles, I tended to avoid him outside of the courtroom. Until a few months ago. That’s where this big “motive” they have on me comes in.”
‘Poppy’ cleared her throat from the doorway. “You are not required to speak on this matter, ma’am.”
Ms. Donna waved a hand. “No, no, I know, it’s ok. We were at a big soiree for the legal officers in the area. Lots of people there, everyone I knew in the field. I’m not proud to say it, but I got a bit drunk. And I saw Todd, over there in the crowd laughing with all his buddies. After just last week, he’d gotten a serial child murderer acquitted. Everyone knew the suspect had done it. But Hemlocke struck again, and now here he was, laughing.” Ms. Donna scratched at the corner of her eye and sniffed, clearing her throat. “I knew the family of one of the children. I was friends with the girl’s mom back in high school. They’d never have justice for their baby now.”
She looked up at them and smiled, and somehow, it was the opposite of the smile she’d had before. “I’m ashamed to say I went a bit ballistic. I cussed him out in front of everyone. Called him a dirty attorney. A killer sympathizer. It’s not something I’m proud of.” She clasped her tiny hands in her lap, and leaned over them to stare into the carpet. “In the end, Todd was just doing his job. And he was damn good at it too. We lost a good attorney yesterday.”
Miles was not one to take people at their word. In his line of work, you learn quickly that this world is full of liars and cheaters and murderers. Everyone was selfish, looking out for their own skin, and if they had to throw their neighbor under the bus to get their way then they would do it. He’d seen it a thousand times. Miles had very few people in his life that he trusted. And Ms. Bella Donna was not about to become one of them.
But something about her struck him. Maybe it was the way she smiled or the way she smelled or the funny way her hair moved atop her head. Maybe it was because Miles always had a hard time with mother figures. Maybe it was the way Wright was invigorated by her story, or the trust Miles could see in his eyes. He didn’t know. But he knew that he believed every word this woman had just said.
Miles glanced down at the notes Wright had made in their now shared notebook. He really should have brought his own. “This argument, then, is why the police department suspects you?”
“I believe so, yes. That, and I was missing during the time of death.”
“And where were you at that time?” Wright asked.
“Sick, in my room. Not with anything contagious. I threw out my back when I first arrived. It’s the worst after a plane ride, and as soon as I bent down to unpack my luggage, whoop! there it went. I spent the whole day in bed before the cops came to detain me.”
Wright scowled down at his notebook, scribbling something out in the middle of the page. “And no one can corroborate this story?”
Bella shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
Unfortunate, Miles thought. For Wright, at least. A suspect with a plausible motive and a completely useless alibi. If Miles were truly prosecuting this case, he would take this interview as a success. But he couldn’t help feeling empathy for this woman. She clearly cared about her work, and even though he was naturally suspicious, he couldn’t see this tiny prosecutor stabbing a needle into a man’s neck. The downcast look in Wright’s eyes didn’t help his sentimentality, either.
He rose from his seat on the scruffy chair, and straightened the edge of his waistcoat. “Thank you for your help, ma’am. We’ll be in touch should we have any more questions for you.”
Bella shook both of their hands as they left. “It was a pleasure to meet you both. I hope the investigation goes well. Not only for me, but for Todd, too. He deserves justice just as much as anyone.”
The policewoman stayed back in the room with Ms. Donna. Miles wasn’t very good at reading facial expressions (something Franziska never failed to make fun of him about), but if he wasn’t mistaken, her eyes as she looked at Bella almost appeared soft.
The door shut behind them, and they were left with a doozy of an alibi and not much better off than when they started.
Wright looked back at him. He had that look in his eyes, the resilient one that meant he wasn’t giving up a case, no matter how bleak. That look had brought many prosecutors to their knees, Miles included. “Where next?” he said.
Hemlocke’s legal partner wasn’t hard to find. They’d only needed to ask one passing cleaning employee before he’d hooked his thumb toward the bar.
Mark Erie was a skeletal man. His bones pressed tight against his white skin, and his blue eyes seemed to roll like marbles under his hooded eyelids. His hair was long, blonde, and slicked with sweat, as was much of the rest of him. Yellow stains spread on his white button down from under his armpits, and his black tie hung like a dead fish around his neck.
He was the lone member sitting at the bar at eight in the morning. Based on the amount of bottles collected around his elbows, and the man’s sheer lack of body weight, Miles was surprised he hadn’t overdosed yet, or at least passed out.
“Perhaps we should come back another time,” Miles murmured to Wright.
“Are you kidding? Drinking makes for loose tongues.”
“Or stupid ones.”
Wright nudged him. “Trust me.”
“When has that ever worked out for me before,” he sighed, but Wright was already gone, approaching the melting form of Erie at the bar.
“Excuse me, sir,” Wright said, waving a hand. “Are you Mr. Mark Erie?”
The man didn’t even glance at him, just waved a server over for another beer. The server pointedly turned his back to them.
Wright slid into the barstool next to Erie, and Miles reluctantly took the seat next to Wright. “I’m Phoenix Wright, this is my associate, Miles Edgeworth,” Wright started, unheeded by Erie’s indifference. “We’ve been looking into the murder of your business partner, a Mr. Todd Hemlocke?”
Erie snorted, and it echoed into the empty bottle under his chin. “Stupid idea, that. Bet you were the one to come up with that, huh?”
“Uh, yes?”
“Heh. Figures.” Erie tried to wave down the waiter again. “Hey, what’s it take to get a paying customer a drink around here?”
The bartender kept his back to them, wiping down a glass. “You’ve been cut off, sir.”
Erie sputtered. “Cut off? What do you mean cut off!”
“It’s simply company policy, sir. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Company policy my ass! Who are you to refuse good business?”
“I don’t make the rules, sir. As I said, I apologize for the inconvenience,” he grabbed another glass, and began to hum under his breath. Miles thought it sounded almost like “Toxic Love,” but not quite right. Then again, he didn’t really like that song anyway.
Erie thunked his head on the bar, and began to make groaning noises in the back of his throat like a dying animal.
Wright cleared his throat. “Mr. Erie…”
“Would you shut up?” Erie spat into the tabletop. “I already have enough on my plate without listening to your pansy-ass voice.”
Miles tugged Wright’s shoulder and inclined his head to the other end of the bar. “Let me handle this one.”
Wright, who was looking awfully concerned about whether his voice was macho enough, shrugged, and moved so Miles could take his seat.
The bar was completely silent. The bartender had left a minute ago, and Wright had moved to the other end of the room, twiddling his thumbs and glancing at them nervously. It was just Miles and a drunk murder suspect. Not the best situation, but he’d been through worse. He could be alone with Wendy Oldbag. This was preferable.
“Mark Erie,” Miles began. “I’m sure you’re aware of the murder of your colleague, Todd Hemlocke, yesterday afternoon.”
Erie snorted into the bar, a thin trail of snot leaking from his nose. He wiped it away with the cuff of his shirt, staining it further. “Yeah, I’m aware. It’s not every day you find your buddy dead on the floor after he went to take a piss.”
“So you saw the body, after the conference let out.”
“Yeah. I saw him. That all?”
Miles studied the man. His slumped over posture, the rings around his eyes, the sweat leaking through his shirt. A pitiful man sulking in his own filth. Could be grief. Could be habit. Could be…something else.
“Many of the lawyers here spoke highly of Hemlocke. But I’ve hardly heard your name unless related to him. Any idea why that is?”
Erie laughed, and it was crackling and thick with phlegm. “‘Cause there’s nothing to say. I may have an attorney’s badge, but I don’t get to use it. I pushed papers for Hemlocke. Answered his mail. Delt with the ‘unsavory’ clients so he didn’t have to.”
Miles hummed sympathetically. “That must have bothered you.”
“Nah,” Erie shook his head, his wet blonde hair making a greasy curtain around his face. “I made good money. I lived comfortably. I was never in this for the glory of it all.” He dragged his finger around the lip of one of the many bottles littered about his elbows. “But the letters we got. The people knocking on our door after a trial. The newspapers. That’s what bothered me.”
Across the other end of the room, Miles spotted Wright, talking animatedly with a girl in a hotel uniform. He had his notebook out and was scribbling quickly in large swaths across the page. The girl kept throwing nervous glances toward the bar, her hands kneading nervously together by her stomach.
Curious.
“We got death threats, you know?” Erie continued. Miles reluctantly swung his gaze back to the man melting next to him. “Tons of them. Most of ‘em for Todd, but some of ‘em for me. And they’d come knocking on our door, screaming, calling us monsters. The papers wrote the same things. Day in, day out, constantly getting told you’re the scum of the earth. It gets to you.”
Miles leaned closer, even though the smell of beer and sweat nearly made him vomit. “And why did they call you that?”
Erie squinted, like he was trying to bring Miles into focus. “Don’t you know? Only guilty men hire Todd Hemlocke. They know they’ll go free.”
A hand landed on Miles’s shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Wright loomed over him, the morning sun from the windows lighting him up from behind. He had that constant, slight upward twist to his mouth aimed at him that Miles always tried to avoid looking at.
“I’ve got a new lead. You done here?”
Erie drained the last few drops from his bottle. “Yeah, we’re done.” He pushed himself onto his feet with wobbly legs, and stumbled out the double doors.
“You think he’ll be ok?” Wright said as Miles pushed back his own stool and stood, shaking Wright’s hand from his shoulder.
Miles hummed. “I’m not sure. But that’s not our job to know.”
Wright frowned at the doors, lost in thought. The employee from earlier still remained in the room, hastily wiping down tables and sending the two of them wary glances over her shoulder.
“Who is she?” Miles asked.
“Hm? Who?” Wright said, gaze swinging back towards him.
“The young woman you were talking to.”
Though they were speaking softly, Miles could still see the girl’s shoulders hunch as she wiped the table quicker.
“Oh, Essie. She’s the one who told me about the storm yesterday. She works here. I think her aunt and uncle own the place?”
“Did she let on anything useful?”
Wright grinned, shaking his notebook. “She heard the police have found the murder weapon.”