"As soon as I felt that strange breeze, I went to the breaker box to turn on the lights. Then, I walked through the museum and checked the exhibits to see if someone was hiding, but didn't find a trace of anyone. I returned to the central hall, and that's when I saw it.
"It was a ghost, I think. Its body was a faceless white cloak with the antlers of a deer and the wings of a duck. With every step, it left bright blue footprints that would disappear seconds later. As I stood frozen still with fright, it soundlessly brushed past me and walked to the back of the museum. Since I was so scared, I didn't immediately chase after it. I thought of involving the authorities right away, but I was worried about the statues being damaged in the meantime. It might seem silly to someone who's not a local, but those statues are worth more than you could imagine… Especially since this was supposed to be my trial run to eventually replace Inka, I couldn't let her down, even if a ghost was involved.
"I wasn't sure if flames would work on a ghost, but I grabbed the blowtorch anyway. Then, I walked to the back of the museum and tried to locate the ghost, but it had disappeared. I checked all the rooms twice, and it wasn't in any of them. Since there's only one central hallway, it's impossible it could've slipped by without me noticing, even if it doesn't make any noise.
"When I went to the exhibit of the Four Explorers, the worst outcome had already happened. You saw the damage to the statues… There was no recovering their value. I know I should have stayed calm and retrieved the proper authorities to sort things out, but when I saw those four statues in that state, I felt like running for my life. I ran into the woods, but they found me in the morning. Nobody believed my story about the ghost…"
Enza didn't reply for a good while.
"While you were in the woods, did you happen to sit down or lie down at all?"
Dirt was confused. "Well, yes, I did."
"How many uniforms do you have?"
"They just gave me the one, since I was only doing the job for a few nights."
Enza picked up the uniform from the evidence box, then looked at the judge's stand. "Was my client apprehended in the woods?"
The four nodded.
"Then please tell me, why is this uniform so clean? There may be wax, but there isn't a speck of dirt on it. If he really spent hours in the woods, it should be obvious from his clothing."
Jari immediately replied, "He was by the edge of the woods. He must have been just entering when he was found."
"Even if he didn't walk that far in, there should certainly be some signs on the clothes, like a piece of a leaf or a speck of dirt. He was sitting down when you found him, wasn't he? I don't think this uniform is the real one."
"What reason would we have to present you a fake uniform? The uniform getting dirty while Dirt was running away doesn't contradict him being a suspect."
Enza held up the photos.
"The residual wax on the uniform doesn't match the statue. Look, these are solid bits of wax stuck to the uniform. Now compare that to the photos, where the faces are clearly melted. If hot wax landed on the uniform while Dirt was committing this crime, it would have soaked in and dried as a droplet. Also, these wax flakes are even on the back of the uniform; do you suppose he turned around halfway through defacing the statue to see if he could do it backwards? You probably realized it would be suspicious for the uniform to be clean, but I bet you had to go with it since you couldn't get the wax to stick while it was dirty."
I've seen through the seams of this fabric fabrication!
Everyone on the stand looked at each other.
"Whose job was that?"
"Damn it, Arto!"
Arto hung his head.
Jari sighed disappointedly. "Fine, that piece of evidence was planted. One point to the defense. Now, let's continue."
They admitted to creating false evidence, and the case isn't thrown out? What kind of court is this? What do you mean, let's continue? Azarias's letter said they couldn't lie.
…No, to be specific, he said they couldn't lie if I presented a compelling argument. Does that mean they're allowed to create false evidence, but if I can find fault with it, they have to concede fairly? Furthermore, with the way they phrase their replies, it seems like any statement that comes directly out of their mouths has to be technically true. Are they only allowed to lie between the lines?
Enza turned to whisper to Dirt again. "About that ghost you saw. Did it really leave nothing behind? Not a trace?"
Dirt shook his head sadly. "However, as it brushed past me, I swear I felt it touch me, then I felt a sharp pain like a line across my forehead. Maybe I'm going crazy…"
"You said you felt it touch you? That's interesting. Are you sure this was really a ghost, and not a human in disguise? Also, by the way, do you have arthritis?"
Dirt rubbed his chin. "If it were a disguise, how do you explain the disappearing blue footprints, the gust of wind that came from inside, and that it moved soundlessly? And yes, I do have arthritis."
Enza's green eyes glinted. "Nobody's hearing is perfect, and anyone can learn to move quietly with training and the right pair of shoes. Consider it touched you, along with the mismatched antlers and wings; that ghost seems more like a costume to me than a true apparition. Who knows, maybe the ghost's white body was just a bed sheet. I don't blame you for thinking it was supernatural, though; a normal museum intruder would react in shock if they were caught red-handed by a staff member. As for the blue footprints, that's harder to explain. Maybe it was just a trick of the light? Either way, I believe in your innocence now that it's been made clear they're faking evidence. I just have to make a compelling argument."
I'm already up one 'point', apparently. If there are two pieces of physical evidence, does that mean this game is best of two? In other words, if I prove the blowtorch to be a false or unusable piece of evidence, it's my victory, and I'll be able to claim my prize of an Instrument? Hmm, if there were a tie, I wonder what the tiebreaker would be.
Enza raised her head and made eye contact with Jari. "First of all, is the blowtorch in the same condition it was at the time of the crime?"
Jari nodded, and Enza continued. "I figured out the problem with this blowtorch when I first picked it up. It's completely empty right now, which makes no sense at all. If the vandal needed to use the last bit of fuel to finish the job, one statue's face should be melted differently from the others, as the intensity of the flame would have gradually decreased. However, if you look at the pictures, the faces are melted in the exact same way. Even an observer like me can tell, so what about the candle-maker's analysis?
"You said before he could accurately match tiny scraps of wax to specific statues. That's quite impressive, so confirming or denying this inquiry should be a piece of cake, right? Of course, since I proved the first piece of evidence to be made up, doesn't that make this professional of yours a total fraud? The blowtorch is a pretty weak piece of evidence, so if that's all you've got, I think this case goes to me. The final nail in the coffin is this crime would take time to commit. Do you really think Dirt—a man with arthritis—would be able to grip a blowtorch and press the button for that long?"
The four on the judge's stand muttered to each other. As Enza watched them, she saw Arto's eyes fly wide open as he seemingly realized something. While the others were still talking, he stood up and waved his hand in the air. "We're using our privilege of summoning one expert, for the purpose of defending the second piece of evidence—the torch. Bring out the candle-maker."
The other three looked at him with wide eyes and shouted, "That wasn't what we agreed on!"
Arto smiled gently. "There's no rule saying I can't do this. A unanimous decision isn't required when calling for an expert."
From a dark hallway in a far corner, a massive plume of flame suddenly exploded out. A man ran out of the hallway laughing while holding a flamethrower, the carrying of which didn't seem to slow him down at all. Everyone in the judge's stand glared at him, other than Arto, who watched on with a resigned expression.
The man with the flamethrower ignored the judge's stand and ran over to Enza. He had short, combed-out hair with too much grease, and thick turtleshell glasses. "Hello, my name is Richard Fiedler. You had a question?"
Why the hell does he have that thing? Who let him skip the metal detector?
Enza nodded. "Yeah, my question is about the damage to the faces of the statues…"
Before she could continue, Richard tilted his head. "What statues? What are you talking about?"
There was a shout from the judge's stand, "You forgot already? You idiot, you're worse than useless!"
Enza's eyes flashed. Memory loss? That should work in my favor; it'll make him unprepared and unable to scheme, and possibly unbiased.
"I mean these statues," Enza said while holding up the photos of the vandalism to show Richard.
Richard, while ignoring the shouts from the stand, squinted at the photos and hmm-ed. After a moment, he said, "The varying lengths of the trails of wax tell me the heating implement was likely a direct flame. Furthermore, it wasn't a very powerful flame, as there aren't any burn marks. The flame was moved slowly and gently across the statue's forehead, which began to melt into the rest of the face…"
He paused as his eyes flitted from statue to statue.
"Actually, it's the same on all of them. I don't mean the same method of vandalism, but the same exact patterns made by the trails of wax. How is that even possible? You couldn't make that happen even with the steadiest hand in the world. Fluid dynamics is fundamentally deterministic, but it's extremely sensitive to tiny changes in initial parameters that are out of human control. This is like seeing two identical snowflakes. Surely these photographs are altered?"
I don't have the answers to that myself. Maybe a ghost is the culprit, maybe not…
While fiddling with the tattered blue ribbon stuck in her hair, Enza looked at the four people at the crowded judge's stand, who—all except for Arto—were fuming over Richard being nothing but helpful to her.
"There you have it," said Enza. "Whatever caused the one in a billion damage, it wasn't an arthritic hand holding a heavy blowtorch."
Inka, the original caretaker, stood up and pulled four plastic straws from her pocket. One straw was shorter than the rest, so naturally, the four on the stand proceeded to draw straws.
Enza was confused. What are they doing? Why aren't they saying anything to me? Did I win? Where's my prize?
After they all drew straws, Arto's was the shortest. When Arthur saw this, he sighed and held tightly to a locket around his neck.
Arto leaned on the banister, laughing softly with his head in his hands. "I've never lost a gamble before, but I guess we all have our unlucky days. Azarias, did I act well enough for you?"
There was a blur of movement in the corner of Enza's eye. Richard Fiedler was rushing toward the stand. With shocking agility, he climbed up the stand and grabbed Arto by the wrist, flinging him across the room to land at Enza's feet. A fraction of a second later, Richard was towering over Arto's trembling body. He pinned him in place with a boot on the chest, pointing the flamethrower downward and cranking it to full blast with a bright smile on his face. Arto screamed, but it was only for a second, as the raging flames had already melted his nose into his mouth. After his entire face was covered in black crust, Richard stamped on it with a loud crunch, digging in his heel.
When he was done charring the body, he looked at Enza, whose suit had protected her from the flames. He was severely burned himself, but didn't seem to care, and laughed as he talked. "See, when a human holds the tool, you get a result that's beautifully imperfect. Whatever melted those statues wasn't human."
Enza couldn't hear a word, only the ringing in her ears. She stared in horror at the blackened mess that lay a footstep's distance away from her, the foul-smelling flesh that was a living person just moments ago. She stared, and stared, and stared…
Finally, she was forcefully snapped out of her reverie. From a loudspeaker hidden in the ceiling, a robotic voice blared, "Five minutes remaining."
Five minutes remaining? Wait, I've been in the courtroom for 55 minutes in total? How long was I in a daze? Hold on, if the timer's still going, that means I haven't won yet.
"What more is there to this trial? I already proved it all false." Enza shouted at the judge's stand.
The three remaining on the stand wore dark expressions. They were thinking, "If only she had stayed in a daze a little longer… But there's still hope; there are only 5 minutes left. How much can she really do?"
Arthur stood up and spoke with deep layers of anger and sadness in his voice. "Enza, all you've done so far is prove our evidence to be false. In this court, it's the defense's responsibility to give a follow-up explanation for how the crime happened and who committed it—an explanation that covers all loopholes. Only then will Dirt be allowed to speak his name."
Enza wanted to exclaim in outrage, but remembered Azarias's letter.
'The burden of proof normally falls on the prosecution…'
In this court, it falls on the defense!