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“Okay,” Athena said, as they clomped their way up the stairs to the office, “so we know that the time of death must be wrong, or else our client would definitely be guilty—”
“And that’s not possible!” Trucy agreed whole-heartedly.
“So we’ll just check in with Mr. Wright, and then head down to the…” Athena opened the office door, and then froze on the threshold at the very odd sight in front of her.
Behind her, Trucy let out a startled “eep!” and immediately covered her mouth with both hands.
The central floor space between the sofas had been cleared out, as had the junk on the two opposing sofas. Mr. Wright stood behind one of the sofas, brandishing the candelabra that usually rested atop the piano. For unknown reasons, the candelabra had a yellow sticky note on it that read, ‘Knife. Has fingerprints from defendant’s left hand on it.’
Mr. Edgeworth stood behind the second sofa. He was glaring at Mr. Wright and pointing angrily at a whiteboard that he’d propped up against Trucy’s saw-a-man-in-three box. The whiteboard had ‘AUTOPSY REPORT’ written across the top in large, red letters, underlined twice, and then beneath it in neat bullet points: ‘Time of death = 11:30 PM. Cause of death: stab wound to back, lower-right side. Blood pooling indicates victim was originally lying on back. Autopsy photo shows victim sitting in office chair.’
“But,” Mr. Wright was shouting at Mr. Edgeworth, “if the killer approached the victim from behind, as the prosecution suggests, then a left-handed assailant would naturally have driven the knife into the victim’s left side! But the autopsy report clearly shows that the wound was on the victim’s right side!” Mr. Wright slammed both hands down onto the sofa back, which in turn shoved the sofa forward halfway through the distance to Mr. Edgeworth’s sofa.
Well, at least that explained why they’d moved the coffee table out from between them.
“The defense’s theory would hold some merit,” Mr. Edgeworth scoffed, “if the defendant were, in fact, left-handed. However”—here he brandished a piece of printer paper that had ‘Profile: Defendant’ written in black sharpie across the top and then a lot of smaller text beneath that that Athena couldn’t read—“the defendant is, in fact, ambidextrous and, moreover, was wearing a glove only upon his right hand, so that that hand would not leave fingerprints on the murder weapon.” He slammed his hand down on his own sofa, causing it to lurch forward a foot or so until it collided with Mr. Wright’s sofa.
They both leaned far forward over their respective sofas, which were now abutting, so that their faces were mere inches away from each other as they continued arguing.
Mr. Wright shook his head. “But that makes no sense! If my client stabbed the victim using his right hand, which was gloved, then why would he have then grabbed the knife afterwards with his left hand? To leave his fingerprints all over the weapon in order to make this case easier for the prosecution?” He chuckled. “Of course not! The clear explanation is that someone else planted those fingerprints in an obvious effort to frame my client!”
Mr. Edgeworth sputtered. “That is far from the ‘clear’ or only explanation! You’re jumping to wild conclusions as usual, Wright, and if you’d only approach the scene logically, you’d find that there’s another, simpler interpret—”
That was as far as Athena heard because at that moment Trucy broke free of her shock, grabbed Athena about the waist from behind, and hauled her bodily back out of the office. Trucy was surprisingly strong, when she put her mind to it.
“What are you—?” Athena began.
But Trucy hissed “Shh!” furiously, and shut the door as quietly as she could behind them, before all but shoving Athena back down the stairs.
“Trucy, what’s going on?” Athena continued to protest.
Trucy groaned. “Don’t let them hear you!” she insisted. “It’s embarrassing enough that we walked in on them without them knowing that we walked in on them!”
Athena blinked at Trucy confusedly as she was hustled down the next flight of stairs. “What are you talking about? They were just—”
Trucy let out a horrified squeak. “No, don’t say it! We are never going to talk about this again! We’ll both wash it from our memories with brain-bleach, and it will all be okay.”
Athena stopped midway down the next flight of stairs and refused to budge.
Trucy gave her a wide-eyed, imploring look.
“Okay…” Athena drawled out slowly, fiddling with her moon-rock earring in one hand, “what’s going on here, Trucy? It just looked like Mr. Wright and Mr. Edgeworth were in the middle of a mock-trial…”
Except where Athena said ‘mock-trial’, Trucy embarrassedly squeaked out “sex, I know!” instead.
Athena blinked at Trucy, stunned. And then after a beat, “Wait… When your dad gave you ‘The Talk’, what exactly did he say sex was?” It occurred to Athena, in horrified afterthought, that Mr. Wright probably was not the best-qualified parent to teach sex-ed. Just what had he told Trucy, anyway?
Trucy made a face. “I know what sex sex is!” she insisted stubbornly. “They still teach that in schools here, you know.”
Well, that was a relief, at least.
“That was just the foreplay we saw now,” Trucy added, alarmingly. “Now, can we please stop talking about it and start forgetting about it?”
But…that just left Athena with even more questions!
“That’s how Mr. Wright and Mr. Edgeworth…?” Athena began slowly, trying to wrap her mind around the concept.
Trucy tugged on Athena’s sleeve, and Athena let herself be dragged down the remaining stairs.
Athena shuddered. Dawning horror was creeping upon her now. “But…” Athena argued, the denial still strong within her, “that’s exactly how they behave when they face each other in court!”
“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Trucy rolled her eyes. “Now you know why I never go watch my daddies’ cases when they’re up against each other. I don’t want to see that!” She let out a little shiver. “Did you know that at home in their bedroom they’ve got an old beach ball with a smiley face on it that they call ‘the judge’, and they put it up on the dresser to watch them argue? It’s super weird!”
“Gah!” Athena said. “I don’t need to know that! Okay, I agree with your request for brain bleach! They… Th-They”—realization came suddenly, horribly—“they were the defense and prosecution at my trial!”
Trucy shook her head sadly and patted Athena reassuringly on the shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said solemnly.
The two of them exited the building and came out onto the sidewalk. Up above, through the open window of the Wright Anything Agency, Athena could hear Mr. Wright’s and Mr. Edgeworth’s voices, still arguing.
“Did you just update the autopsy report?” Mr. Wright called out furiously.
“What are you going to do about, Wright?” Mr. Edgeworth said way too smugly.
“Give me that dry-erase marker!” Mr. Wright demanded.
Some vigorous grunting followed.
Trucy put her hands over her ears and began singing “lalala” at the top of her lungs.
Clearly, Trucy was a genius. Athena copied her, and the two of them ran as fast as they could down the block and around the corner.
“Safe!” Trucy said with relief, when they were finally out of earshot of the Wright Anything Agency.
“Whew!” Athena agreed.
“Now,” Trucy said, “do you understand?”
Athena nodded. “We never, ever mention this again!”
“We forget everything!”
“And, from now on, whenever Mr. Wright faces Mr. Edgeworth in court, he can fly solo,” Athena concluded.
“Damn straight!” Trucy agreed, and – with a healthy dose of brain-bleach – they returned to their investigation.