I hear the train a-comin / It's rollin round the bend [ooopen]

[jurisimpudent]

CHARACTERS: Edgeworth and the Murderettes
LOCATION: The brig, yar har
WARNINGS: Edgeworth is an emo asshole
SUMMARY: So Edgeworth is in the brig on his own insistence for a murder he didn't commit. Come make fun of him! Throw things! Pay $2 for a bag of peanuts to feed him!
NOTES: Can happen between the 17th and the 20th. If you can't get him to talk, present: badge.


[Edgeworth doesn't look up when people come to see him. He just keeps looking at his hands, quiet and still; he says little. Still, he hasn't put in a request for no visitors, and he won't; it's less from a desire for company than from a desire for people to be able to see he's getting no special treatment. In the brig, like any other criminal, no matter that he was until recently the one guarding it.

He's in his suit still. He looks exhausted.]

Comments

[magewarden]

"I am not assured." Daylen tilts his head at Edgeworth, considering his words before going on. "I have no proof until an alibi is cleared for you, if you have a concrete one. I do not know you well enough to declare myself certain, but I know enough to realise it would be out of character for you. You do not have the temperament for murder. You display anxiety in awkward situations, as you did when you interviewed me. You fluster easily. You are a neat and tidy person, if you office is anything to go by. It could of course have been an extreme reaction, and I could believe that if you had done such a thing you would indeed turn yourself in -- however the weapon use was that of a marksman. You are a secretary to security team. Do you have marksman training? I would have to investigate to find out, unless you wish to share. Likewise, there was no weapon at the scene. Considering your reputation for attention to detai it seems odd you would hide it and then turn yourself in. That would make unnecessary trouble and mess. Despite this, however, I find your reasoning unclear. I think you are afraid, on some level. You could be enforcing this simply to assure yourself of your own safety. If someone from your home was killed you could be concerned you would be next. Alternatively, you could be setting yourself aside by force to prevent your involvement: either due to a fear of bias influencing the investigation or simply because you do not desire to seek justice for this man you had some issue with."

[jurisimpudent]

And Edgeworth stares down at his hands. He speaks quietly, uncertainly. It's perhaps foolish to say this much; he knows people put too much faith in his word, and if he pleads his innocence they'll all believe he is as they say. They can't have faith in him. They must perform a thorough investigation; it's necessary. But - he must know.

"The weapon use of a marksman," he repeats quietly. "What wounds were inflicted? What was the nature of the injuries done?"

[magewarden]

He frowns at that, debating a moment. Is it wise for him to share information on the case with someone who is still, technically, a suspect -- not entirely cleared of guilt? He mulls it over a moment longer, folds an arm across his chest and strokes the fingers of his other hand along the underside of his chin in thought.

"I am told the weapon is known as a 'gun'. A projectile weapon, like a bow but more compact. They are a thing available to security and gunnery, which it is true you would be in a position to make use of. Is there a log of who has such things? There must be, of course, and it must be checked -- everyone searched to see if they have mysteriously mislaid their weapon or used ammunition. The damage itself..." He closes his eyes a moment, tilts his head back as he tries to picture the room. "There was damage to the wall; as if a shot missed. A warning shot, perhaps? Or perhaps he moved. The second hit home; killed the man." He tilts his head in thought, trying to piece together things. Motive is important; motive would help make things clearer. Opening his eyes again he regards Edgeworth calmly, as if he can understand purely by patiently waiting for the answers to show themselves. "Forgive me if I seem painfully unspecific, such things are not used where I am from."

[jurisimpudent]

"It's - fine." His voice breaks very slightly at that; he takes in a breath to steady himself a moment later. His hatred for von Karma, the man who'd taken his dad from him, is absolute. Yet for a moment he thinks of the man's figure, strong and proud, suddenly broken by that shot to the chest - thinks of him bleeding on the floor, desperate and afraid - and he thinks of the way he'd admired him. He thinks of how, when Miles was a child, he'd seemed so tall, so uncompromising. And now...

He swallows hard.

"The weapon used won't have belonged to gunnery. I - believe it will have been a firearm which appeared in my locker several months ago."

[magewarden]

Interesting. The vessel has a habit of gifting things, that much Daylen knows is true. Something gifted, that appeared out of thin air, would be harder to confirm and trace. If it is as Edgeworth says, too...

"You sound very sure," he comments -- frown deepening critically. "What leads you to believe the weapon would have been yours? Was it taken from you? Did you report it taken? Or is this conjecture, based on a theory of some sort?"

[jurisimpudent]

"I brought it into that room." And abandoned it there, hands shaking, confused and nauseated and miserable, hating himself and hating his weakness and hating the impulse that had even brought him there...Foolish of him. Incredibly foolish.

He doesn't say anything of that, though. He just keeps his eyes fixed on the ground, masochism willing the other man to come to the obvious conclusion.

[magewarden]

Certainly it doesn't paint Edgeworth in a positive light. In fact, in rather incriminates him. Yet it still makes no sense to him, a niggling puzzle where the pieces don't quite fit together -- as if more than one jigsaw has been muddled together. He drops his eyes to scan the ground a moment, head tilted as he turns over the facts in his head.

"Why?" he asks, for that is the obvious next question. If Edgeworth confesses, so be it he supposes. He was wrong. Yet he can't help feeling there is more to this, more than one intent. More than one reason why this has come to pass. A muddle of things that ended up this way.

[jurisimpudent]

He stares still resolutely down at the ground. He could confess it all, of course - could tell the full tale, could lay it out from beginning to end, starting with a cowardly boy in an elevator. There's something cruel within him, though, that spurs him to be difficult. To be unkind about this.

"What would the purpose be of bringing a weapon somewhere?"

[magewarden]

Guilt, Daylen thinks. Self-pity. He narrows his eyes slightly, irritated by the display. What good will it do, after all? What good is Edgeworth if he simply gives in and accepts defeat?

"I can think of many," he says mildly, "however I wanted to know why you were doing such a thing. If I were to play at guessing I would not need you here for it. Answer the question."

[jurisimpudent]

His answer is miserable, simple, and true. "For the purpose of revenge," he says, quietly, looking down at the floor. He can see that this man, too, wishes to think the best of him - wants to give him countless opportunities to wriggle out from under these questions. It's a miserable thing, a pathetic thing, that he should be allowed such freedom.

[magewarden]

"Revenge?" Daylen arches an eyebrow, cynical, studying the way Edgeworth keeps his eyes on the ground. "Are you, then, admitting to being the perpetrator of this crime? Are you saying you used this weapon to exact revenge upon this man for some wrong doing?"

[jurisimpudent]

He'll not do one thing: he'll not lie. And so he doesn't lift his head, but he responds quietly to that question, and truly.

"I am not, sir."

[magewarden]

"So," Daylen begins -- feeling that the conversation has become akin to pulling teeth with the way Edgeworth resists him -- "you had a grievance with this man. Something happened, I assume, to bring it to a head. You retrieved the weapon given to you by this vessel and took it to his room with the intention of revenge. You did not use it, however, and at some point discarded it there -- so what happened then?"

If he discarded it, someone else might have used it -- the man, Marty, had heard nobody else in the area, though. Perhaps the person who used it fled the scene too quickly and quietly?

[jurisimpudent]

"I fled."

And that's all he offers. That's all he can, indeed, offer, because that's all he knows. After him, someone else came in and slew his mentor. Some other person took that gun, and they -

Unless it was indeed Edgeworth himself. Unless he is mad, and...just...destroyed the memory of it, as he'd destroyed the memory of von Karma killing his father. But no matter how self-flagellating he is, he'll not voice that notion to this man.

[magewarden]

"Leaving the weapon behind?" he confirms, trying to build a clear picture, "do you have an idea of what time this was? How long before the weapon was used?"

Perhaps, if he can pin down the exact window they can try and map where everyone was on the ship at that time. There are a lot of people, though, and a lot of places for people to hide. That, and he doesn't know all of them well enough to tell when they're lying. For all he knows, Edgeworth himself might be lying.

[jurisimpudent]

Edgeworth looks down. After a moment, he confesses, "I don't know. It was not...very long in advance of the discovery of the body. Perhaps an hour."

He thinks. He hasn't any notion. After that confrontation, when he'd proven his nerves too unsteady to accomplish the deed he thought he could manage, he'd...charged blindly and foolishly forth, and he'd ended up in a kitchen staring down at cold tea. That's all he recalls.

[magewarden]

"An hour..." Daylen paces slightly, debating with himself. "A very short span of time. The man who found the body -- Marty -- told me he did not see anyone else in the area. Neither does he recall any particular commotion prior to hear the weapon discharged. Is there anyone that you know of, besides yourself, who might have had a grievance with this man?"

[jurisimpudent]

Here, his answer is ready. He's been thinking about this for some time, now, but - von Karma kept to himself, for the most part; he'd remained aloof from the petty foolishness and pointlessness of the common struggles aboard this ship. Any who knew von Karma knew him through Edgeworth, and so the only ones who might have a motive -

Might be the ones loyal to Edgeworth. And he does wonder...about Sirius, perhaps, who's always been more decisive than he is - but Sirius wouldn't, not when Edgeworth had spoken to him only elliptically and cryptically...No. No, it wasn't.

"No. None."

[magewarden]

"To your knowledge," Daylen adds carefully. After all, the tone implies a level of finality -- that Edgeworth has thought this through and drawn his own conclusions of what this means. Still, this has happened somehow... "A crime of opportunity is still possible, or that he simply had enemies you did not know of... Still, this puts us in something of a quandary. All things considered you certainly cannot be released until either you can be proven to have not been there or someone else has been proven the culprit. Did anyone see you, perhaps, after or when you left his room? Who could place you as having been elsewhere when this happened?"