Post by Saphira on May 4, 2016 17:39:22 GMT
Case 3 - Turnabout Serenade
Apollo and Trucy were invited to Klavier’s concert at 20% off (stop complaining Apollo you should feel honored). They meet Lamiroir and Machi, and LeTouse.
They watch the second set with Lamiroir. She disappears and reappears on another platform. Klavier’s guitar explodes into fire.
They go backstage. Klavier gives them a lyrics sheet and a postcard. He’s real mad about the firey guitar. Apollo and Trucy learn he didn’t plan it. Trucy mentions it went well with the lyrics at the time.
The third set starts. Apollo and Ema, who is a security guard for the night, are talking when they hear a gunshot in Lamiroir’s dressing room.
They find LeTouse dying. With a dying breath, he tells Apollo “Cold... Can’t see... The witness... is siren...”
In the back hallway, Apollo finds Klavier, who asks him and Trucy to keep his death a secret. Apollo signs a document to agree. Since they can’t go home, Apollo and Trucy investigate. They find a headset on the floor, and its turned on.
They go into the dressing room. Letouse was shot once in the shoulder from a 45-caliber revolver. The first shot missed, the second hit and went through to the wall. They find a familiar brooch on the floor. LeTouse was holding a heart shaped key ring. They debate another exit since the killer had already left once Ema and Apollo had burst in.
They leave the crime scene and meet a man in a magician’s outfit similar to Trucy’s. “Friend of yours?”
They go to the stage and meet Daryan and Klaver arguing. Klavier gets his keyring back; it had been missing since the morning. They go back to arguing about a missed cue. Apollo does Klavier’s job and finds out that Daryan missed the cue.
Trucy finds another connection with the lyrics. The murder, the missing keys, and the firey guitar. The lyric writers can see the future.
Lamiroir can speak English. She know’s LeTouse is dead, but not that he was murdered. Machi leaves to get fresh air. Apollo shows Lamiroir the brooch he found. It’s hers, she lost it earlier.
Apollo stops being stupid and makes the connection - Lamiroir is the Siren. She didn’t answer when asked if she witnessed the crime.
Ema yells at Apollo for not keeping an eye on the crime scene, and that the body did a vanish and was gone. Dayran shows up and says his guitar is gone.
They go to the stage and find the platform lifted. They lower it and find the body, the guitar, and the missing Machi.
Machi is arrested because he’s the only one who could have done it. He’s a tiny little child who could fit through the vent.
Next day, Klavier visits the duo and tells Apollo that Machi wants him to represent him.
Trial. Ema’s called to testify. She says that cause Machi’s tiny, he’s the only person who could have done it. Since the judge likes putting Apollo on the spot, he gives him one chance to prove his case.
Apollo asks to cross Lamiroir. Klavier says there were no eyewitnesses, but she comes in anyways.
Klavier explains Lamiroir’s amnesia, that she doesn’t remember anything before her time on the stage.
Lamiroir says she saw nothing. She hadn’t gone backstage after the second set. Apollo objects and presents the brooch. Lamiroir immediately admits she went backstange, but it was only for a moment. She only had a glance in.
Apollo asks what she saw, and she said she saw the bullet holes in the wall, but Apollo points out they were on the same wall as the door, so she was lying.
Lamiroir says she looked in from the window on the other side of the room. She heard two shots. She didn’t see anyone, but heard their voice. It was an adult man.
Two problems. Apollo points out that a grown man couldn’t have escaped the crime scene. Klavier explains that the window was closed and is soundproof.
Judge declares Lamiroir’s testimony indecisive. End cross.
Ema comes back. Judge asks about the circumstances of arresting Machi.
Klavier asks Ema why Machi would have moved the body. Ema says it was to match the lyrics. She also says that nobody in the country would have a motive, and that Machi left his signature at the scene.
Apollo asks about the signature. Ema says that cause the victim and shooter were close together, they couldn’t have been more than five feet apart, but the first shot missed. Apollo points out that Machi couldn’t have known about the air vent. Ema bursts his bubble and says everyone knew maintenance was happening that day.
Apollo uses his brain and remembers the wiped out letters from LeTouse. If Machi was blind, he wouldn’t have known about the writing.
Klavier presents a report that turns everything around. Machi isn’t blind, it’s just a publicity ploy. Apollo accuses him of lying, but he retorts that only Ema had said he was.
Machi could have rubbed out the dying message, could have seen the ladder, and didn’t miss because he was blind, but instead because of the powerful gun.
Ema brings out her precious Luminol, and recovers the message. “IPXX314206” Klavier says this is an Interpol number.
In comes Daryan and his crazy hair. He looks up the agent it belonged to.
Klavier reveals why Machi lied - He’s not blind, but Lamiroir is. He guided her, while pretending to be guided himself.
Lamiroir’s called again. She confirmed the truth. Everyone on her staff knew, including LeTouse. When he said “can’t... see...” he meant Lamiroir.
Daryan comes back and says that the Interpol number was LeTouse himself. He was revealing himself in death. The murder weapon was his too.
Daryan goes to leave, but Lamiroir stops him and says she recognizes his voice from the room. She accuses him, and court adjorns for the day cause its so crazy.
Back at the office. Apollo asks Trucy where Phoenix is, but she just says he’s off on a secret mission. Super spy Phoenix.
Apollo’s skeptical about the accusation against Daryan. He had an obvious alibi, being on stage for the third set.
Apollo and Trucy are visited by the mysterious man in the cape, who turns out to be related(kinda) to Trucy like Apollo thought. Valant gives them a recording of the magic trick at the concert, saying he was behind it. He leaves for the Coliseum.
They visit Machi, but language barriers. Apollo and Trucy talk to each other about the case in front of him. Apollo thinks he feels his bracelet react, but he ignores it.
They meet Lamiroir at the Coliseum and ask about the trick, but a magician can never reveal their tricks! She shows them a headset that had been laying on the floor since the day of the crime. It only works within a 30 foot radius.
Apollo goes to the stage and meets Valant again, who tells them about Troup Gramarye. He also mentions something was weird with the piano. Apollo checks it and finds a switch in it. He thinks it was hidden there after the concert.
They go to Lamiroir’s dressing room where Ema shows them a device she found. Wondering if they were connected, Apollo pressed his switch and almost set Ema’s hand on fire.
Ema yells at him, then looks at it. It has a weak signal that only reaches about 30 feet. The distance between the dressing room and the stage is less than that.
Outside, Apollo runs into Daryan, who’s annoyed that Klavier won’t let him, a man accused of murder, work. He insisted on his alibi. When asked about Klavier, Daryan says he’s at his office.
At the office, they overhear Klavier’s conversation with someone on the phone, talking about LeTouse.
After he sees them, he shares his info on a strange lump of plastic. It’s a replica of what LeTouse was after. He also talked about his guitar and how it was vacuum packed and sent from Borginia. Inside it, he found an igniter.
Klavier shows them an article from the Borginian Daily Bugle about the crime. It doesn’t mention the crime follows the lyrics.
Klavier thanks Apollo for being so open about the case, and Apollo returns the sentiment.
Back to the Coliseum. Ema can’t find Lamiroir anywhere. They go to the stage and notice the lights are off. The bass case is closed, and a piece of cloth is sticking out. They open it, and find Lamiroir unconscious inside.
She’s taken to the hospital. She was hit on the forehead by someone unknown.
When she wakes up, she thanks Apollo for saving her life. She was attacked in her dressing room, then she ran to the stage and hid in the case. She didn’t hear a voice, but she assumed it was a man because the hit came from above her. Apollo wonders if Daryan attacked her.
Apollo shows her the plastic lump, which she tells him is a Borginian cocoon. Apollo figures out that LeTouse was investigating cocoon smuggling. He asks Lamiroir to be a translator for Machi.
Machi’s scared when he sees the cocoon replica, and asks what Apollo knows. Machi tells Apollo that the cocoon is used as a cure for Incuritis. Apollo asks if he had been smuggling them, but Machi replies only by saying he can’t go home. He realizes it’s cause of the death penalty for smuggling in Borginia.
They’re interrupted by Daryan, who says there’s a call for Machi from the Borginian Embassy. Apollo is suspiscious and wonders why Daryan took Machi away.
Before the trial, they meet up with Valant. He tells Apollo and Trucy that a Gramarye trick is behind everything, then leaves.
The bailiff tells the two that the trial will start in 30 minutes because the Judge went to visit the Chief Justice’s son. He’s sick with Incuritis, and it’s the first case in the country.
Trial starts. Klavier starts by refuting Lamiroir’s accusation by repeating Daryan’s alibi. With that, the Judge starts to declare Machi guilty. Apollo remembers that Machi was going to say something before and calls him to the stand, with Lamiroir interpreting.
Machi and Lamiroir come to the stand. Machi tells the court that he couldn’t have known about the lyrics to the song because of the language barrier, thus proving he didn’t commit the crime.
Apollo’s bracelet reacts to the word “English.” Apollo has a counterargument - Machi couldn’t have known that the lyrics followed the crime in the first place.
Machi said he read it in the newspaper. Apollo presents it and shows it doesn’t mention the lyrics anywhere.
He switches stories and says Lamiroir told him. She says she did, but Apollo’s bracelet reacts. He knows she’s lying, and he tells Lamiroir to trust him instead of lying to protect each other.
Machi confesses he understands English a bit. He tells the court he went to the dressing room and found LeTouse. Hearing Ema and Apollo’s voices, he got scared and left through the vent.
Klavier ignores this story. He points out that Machi does understand English, so he could have followed the lyrics.
Apollo tries to get him to testify about the cocoon, but he refuses. With the court in chaos, the judge declares a recess.
Recess. Machi tells Apollo he went to the dressing room, found the body, and then heard gunshots. The air vents connect to both the stage and backstage, something he heard from Valant.
Trial resumes. Machi still refuses to testify about the cocoon, so Apollo calls Lamiroir.
Klavier objects, saying Lamiroir already testified. Apollo reveals her attack the day prior. She was a foreign speaker, with no enemies in this country, yet she was attacked. There was something in her testimony that made someone mad. Her attacker must have been the same person who killed LeTouse.
Lamiroir takes the stand. She testifies the same thing - she heard LeTouse and Daryan talking, followed by the shots. Apollo asks what they were talking about. Lamiroir says she heard “It’s over. Press the switch! Now!”
Apollo presents the remote trigger on stage, calling it the switch. Klavier objects, saying a yell couldn’t reach to the stage. Apollo presents the headset. Klavier says Apollo can’t know the switch was on stage at the time. Apollo shows the igniter, connected to the switch.
Klavier realizes what Apollo’s talking about - his guitar catching on fire during the set. The problem is the timing, since the guitar set fire in the second set.
Apollo presents a counterargument that the crime didn’t happen during the third set, but rather the second. People heard the shots, but nobody saw the crime, The shooting didn’t happen during the third set, but rather the second.
The judge says the lyrics contradict that, but Apollo says the crime didn’t actually follow the lyrics. Everyone just assumed they had, so the criminal took the risk of moving the body to make it seem like that was the intention. The real crime happened during the second set, so the criminal must have been someone without an alibi for that time.
One problem. At the time, the window in the hall to Lamiroir’s dressing room was closed. Apollo realizes she must have been somewhere else. Klavier says there is only one window at the scene, but Apollo says there is another. The air vent.
Klavier asks why. Apollo points the question to Lamiroir, who admits that’s where she was. She can’t say why, however.
Apollo presents the tape of the performance, where Lamiroir disappeared. Apollo says she was moving in the air vent at the time she disappeared. Lamiroir agrees with this, but can’t explain further.
Apollo takes it upon himself. He realizes that the Lamiroir on stage before and after the disappearance are two different people, and that she had dropped her brooch while going through the vent. Lamiroir confirms this. Klavier, who knows part of the trick, says the fake Lamiroir was Valant.
They wonder how her voice stayed the same, and she says she kept singing in the air vent. The judge asks how the people in the dressing room wouldn’t have heard her, but Klavier explains the speakers in the room. Her voice would have sounded like it was coming from stage.
Lamiroir remembers that when she heard the shots, she stopped singing for a moment. They watch the recording again, and find the error. The beginning of the second verse, she didn’t sing the first “Pleasure...” It confirms the time of the shooting, meaning Daryan didn’t have an alibi. They call in Daryan.
Recess. Apollo and Trucy are greeted by Phoenix. Phoenix says he was confident that Apollo could prove Machi innocent, but wasn’t sure he could prove Daryan guilty under the current system. He also gives Apollo the remains of a firecracker that Ema found.
Daryan’s summoned. He starts by saying Lamiroir’s lying. She couldn’t have recognized his voice cause she never heard it. Plus, Ema heard the shots in the third set. Apollo counters by presenting the igniter and the firecracker. The sounds they assumed to be gunshots were actually just the cracker. Daryan made the sounds to fake a scene and create witnesses.
Daryan says this is too convenient. It’s unlikely anyone could have known there were witnessed in the hallway. Apollo counters by presenting the headset that had been in the hall, which was turned on. He could have known if someone was there by having a headset on.
Klavier helped him with this connection, and Daryan asks whose side he’s on. Klavier says there are no sides in a court of law. He then talks to Apollo, saying the plan he proposed was only a possibility. He had to prove it had happened.
Apollo proves the time with the mixing board, listening to her headset. Right when she didn’t come in, there were two gunshots. Klavier accepts this as evidence.
Since Daryan wasn’t on stage at the time, he could have been the shooter. There’s another piece that points to him - the 45-caliber weapon, that would have injured even an experienced shooter. His playing could have been affected.
Daryan says he’s fired plenty of guns and wouldn’t have been affected. Klavier, who’s now helping Apollo more and more, says the standard police issue is smaller caliber. And the weapon had been LeTouse’s, meaning there would have been a struggle and the shooter wasn’t holding the gun correctly when he fired.
Daryan says none of this evidence is decisive. And he had no motive. Apollo presents the cocoon, explained it’s used as a cure for incuritis and it was illegal to take out of the country. When the judge asks why, Klavier explains that when the cocoon is processed slightly different, it creates a deadly poison. That’s why Interpol was after them.
Daryan says selling the cocoons on the black market is too dangerous, but Apollo presents a different buyer, the Chief Justice, whose son was inflicted with Incuritis.
Daryan argues that smuggling them out is near impossible. Apollo explains that he could have done it through Klavier’s guitar, who had a service provided to him for transporting evidene. It’s not checked by customs and through the band, he could have used it. That’s why the keys were stolen.
There was one problem. The guitar was wrapped, which would have raised suspicion. So he had no choice but to burn the whole guitar, with the cocoon inside.
He argues by saying he’s never been to Borginia, so he couldn’t have gotten the cocoon. He said he only needed an accomplice, and the only person who could have fit that bill was Machi.
The judge is shocked he’d name his client as a criminal. Apollo says his job is proving Machi innocent of murder. The judge suggests Lamiroir might have been the accomplice, but Apoll says its impossible. When the guitar caught fire, Lamiroir was in the air vent, too far away to have pressed the switch. Only someone on stage could have done it, and that was Machi.
Daryan asks to see the video and points out a problem. If Machi was playing at the time, he couldn’t have pressed the switch. Apollo gets depressed, but Klavier points out that Machi’s playing sounds off. They listen again, and realize Machi had only been playing with one hand. He could have pressed the switch.
Apollo compares the two verses, which should have been the same. He realizes that the first has high and low notes, while the second only had low. He could have been playing with one hand. Daryan says it could have just been a different arrangement, but Klavier says there was no reason for it to change, so he didn’t.
Apollo finally has a solid case, but Klavier laughs. He explains that nothing is decisive. Apollo argues that everything points to him, but that’s not enough. The court can’t do anything without decisive evidence.
Apollo remembers what Phoenix says, and instead of evidence, he calls a witness. Someone who knew the whole plane. Machi.
With permission from Borginia, they could get a cocoon and burn it, leaving a residue that they could compare with the residue inside the guitar. All Machi had to do was admit to the smuggling.
Daryan laughs, saying Machi won’t talk. Cocoon smuggling is punishable by death in Borginia, so it would be suicide to talk. Apollo points out the only way he could avoid death was admitting the crime in the US, where he’d only be tried for smuggling. Since news of LeTouse’s death already reached Borginia, Machi would eventually be taken back to Borginia. With everything that had been proven, he was in no risk of being proven guilty of murder.
Daryan realizes he’s screwed. He tries to bargain with Machi to not talk, until he broke down on the stand, begging Machi not to talk.
Machi’s called up. Apollo says he’s sorry, but he’s not the kind of person to overlook a crime. Machi said he’d known from the beginning he would have to confess. Taking off his glasses, he thanks Apollo for defending him. The judge hands down a not guilty.
In the lobby, Apollo and Trucy meet Phoenix and Lamiroir. The singer is calm, saying that she loved Machi but he had to pay for what he did. She also told them she was thinking of having an eye operation to regain her sight.
Lamiroir lost her sight in an accident. She wants to take up painting if she could once again see.
Phoenix tells Apollo and Trucy that he still had to work on his secret mission. Lamiroir leaves, hoping she will meet them again soon.