Fifth Trial

[bathymetric]

[ There's a long while of examination before the Mayor speaks up. There's plenty of evidence to pick up yet again this week, after all. ]

Annnd that's going to do it. Wrap it up and head to the bathyspheres, kids, you've got some business to attend to.

[ The bathyspheres take you all down, down, into the now-familiar dome below the city. The similarly familiar red glow persists until the lights properly turn on - the projection of Fontaine's silhouette is gone, of course, replaced by that same flickering "please stand by" message. But your mayor's voice is still the one that speaks over the increasingly empty circle of podiums. ]

If you somehow need a reminder of why you're here, three of you are dead. Get away with it, killer or killers, and the execution room gets to really work overtime today. But I guess if you wanna live, you should find who murdered three people. Could be important for you guys.

[ Welcome to your fifth trial. ]

Comments

[inaclearing]

Misfire did weigh somewhere around three thousand pounds. Are we sure there wasn't a...I don't know. A cart or something involved?

[sastruga]

...Did you find a cart?

[inaclearing]

No. That just seems like a lot of weight, dragged or not.

[sastruga]

Definitely. But I don't think we have any evidence of tools used for this. If nothing else... you'd expect there to have been tracks in the field.

[inaclearing]

[He chews on the end of his pen for a second, looking over his notes.]

I have here that there were smashed vegetables on his feet? It seems like he was really hurt by then, but...maybe he just...pulled free from the chipper himself and tried to run.

[visiblepattern]

That would help move him to the field... Did he fall and drag himself, then? In the way that one might when trying to get away from someone or something but unable to get up.

And then they would have stabbed him and removed the head afterwards. Does that sound plausible?

[inaclearing]

Maybe - he would have been bleeding a lot. Does...that make sense with how the tracks and the vegetables were? Whoever saw that?

[allatonce]

Not if you used a sheet or something, maybe. Sort of like how you're supposed to drag people if they're passed out.

[visiblepattern]

Someone used force to remove the arm and the head, correct? Am I to assume that they were torn off, because that also seems incredibly difficult for the average person. There's also the problem of his feet having vegetables from the fields on them in a way that implies they were stepped in and not just dragged through - was he still alive when he was dragged out there? Because if you think of struggling as one would if dragged on their back, it's possible they could step in things like that...

I'm sorry if this is just raising complications, but...

[We really haven't discussed Misfire. We probably should discuss Misfire.]

[allatonce]

....... Are we sure he was dragged out there at all?

[visiblepattern]

Do you have another explanation for drag marks?

[allatonce]

Well, that's what I'm saying. It looked a lot more like an animal crashed through the field than the damage I'd expect if something that big and heavy got dragged over it. You'd expect everything to be crushed flat like a crop circle.

[visiblepattern]

...I have no idea what a crop circle is, but I'll take your word for it.

[inaclearing]

So we may very well be looking at Misfire attempting to flee. Explains how the arm happened, too...like that guy with the rock.

[You know what he means, Joy.]

And, uh... [Brett squints at his notes.] ...there were pumpkins with holes in them? What, were they trying to throw the pitchfork at him?

[No offense but he's not sure Misfire was nimble enough to dodge a lot of pitchfork stabs even when he had all his body parts attached.]

[onemillion]

You don't think the pitchfork that impaled him was thrown, do you? Though I suppose it would be... rather difficult to miss stabbing him with a pitchfork at close range...

[inaclearing]

That was my thought. I also do think the throwing thing sounds insane, but...that's a lot of misses for something like that.

[visiblepattern]

I think it's more likely that he was stabbed...

[Than, like, javelined.]

[onemillion]

I agree that it seems more likely he was stabbed, but Brett does have a good point. Perhaps the killer threw the pitchfork at first and then caught up to Misfire and stabbed him?

[allatonce]

[She's about to, like, get distracted talking about something else because it's much more fun to ask Brett about the guy with the rock but. Focus!!]

I think, given Misfire's distinctly nonhuman biology, maybe he was able to get away from the initial pitchforking, stumbled through the field some and stepped in a few of the crops, and then fell and tried to drag himself away.

[inaclearing]

[Brett presses his lips together for a moment, looking pale. But:]

Okay. Okay. I think, um. I think Mafuyu is right, we should maybe look at the stronger people first. I didn't exactly see pink blood on anyone just now, but...is there anything else we could look for? Was there anything about the angle of the pitchfork that could maybe tell us something about height?

[He's spitballing here.]

[capreelcious]

Uh... does the woodchipper move?

[inaclearing]

I don't...know, I haven't really looked at it.

[sastruga]

It could. But I didn't see any signs it was moved at all.

Moving something like that would leave some marks...

[howveryglib]

That leaves me wondering if some of the mutilation was in the efforts of making him easier to move.

[inaclearing]

Do we have...

[.........sigh..............]

Do we have any idea where he was when his head was removed?