itscurtains | second trial

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second trial

[Just as with last week, once the investigation finishes, that slow, ominous sound from the main lobby rumbles through the opera house.

The doors to the court room have opened and the time has come for a trial.

The court room looks just as it did before: the grand chandelier glittering above your heads, the fine red velvet seats. In the orchestra pit your circle of wooden podiums awaits you, just the same as before save for a few recent additions. Like Valjean before them, D-ne, Gabe, and Hime's podiums have been draped in black crepe with their greyscale funerary portraits. Behind them, where the performers themselves stood only a week ago, a metal pole stands with a softly glowing lightbulb atop it.

The curtain is closed, waiting to open when a decision has been reached and an execution can commence.

When everyone is in their places, the Balladeer's voice echoes loud and clear through the theatre. He still sounds slightly bewildered by all of this.]

Okay, everyone, you all know how this works now. Trial rules are the same, still no time limit, just...keep at it until you figure out what happened. You can do this.

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...Is there any chance the attacker would have splinters in their hands, too? Or... I guess they would have taken them out by now, but maybe there are scratches left behind or something.

I'm not sure. The wood is rather hastily made, but the worst of the splintering is around the bloodied part.

[ He pauses, considering. ]

Then again, they tried to hide this thing under that dummy, using rope, so it's possible they may have come in contact with that part too, I suppose.

[ Ah, but then-- he looks down at his hands. He's wearing gloves, like he does every day. He's gonna regret saying this. ]

Unless the killer was wearing gloves?

Yeah... We found rope at the top of the stairs. It was tied to the grate.

[Hm.]

It's probably still worth checking, right?

The rope I found was stained with blood where it was tied to the cow, so I think it was used after the murder. It's hard to say.

But you're right, it's certainly worth checking. Just, uh... I wear gloves every day, so I promise it wasn't me?

[ Always with the bright ideas, Hans. ]

Oh, you promise. Wow, I'm so convinced. Want to take them off for a second just in case?

[ Hans glowers, but he does indeed take off his gloves. His hands are clean, uninjured (and unsplintered. ]

See? I only take off my gloves for special occasions. It's a germ thing.

[ More like it's a "people are gross" thing. ]

Cool. Thanks.

Miss Goodman, Hans, if I could go on a tangent for a second - the rope you found on at the top of the stairs and tied to the cow...were they intact at the ends, by any chance?

Natalie, and yeah, I don't think it was ripped or frayed.

I don't remember there being anything particular about the ends of the rope. I only noticed the blood that transferred over from the cow.

How much blood are we talking?

[like is it a proper transfer, was the rope on the cow for some godforsaken reason when it hit somebody, what are we looking at.]

There wasn't much blood on the rope itself, it only got stained where it was tied to the cow. So I think it was added after the cow became splintered like this.

[ guess who just noticed I didn't link the thread, oops ]

What dummy was that, exactly? I only just awoke for the day.

[how did he manage to miss an entire investigation??]

There was a dummy next to the body of Gabriel Goodman. It was, well, in a dress and had a blonde wig and gave us all quite a fright. But ultimately it was a decoy to hide the stunt cow, I think. Which is why I assumed that it might be the murder weapon.

[ Get it, Pirate King! Hans is totally king of this cow. ]

[Look at you go, Hans. You're doing so well.]

...Surely they would have known that someone would examine the dummy? There are better places to hide things here, are there not?

They might have thought that, once confirmed to be a decoy, we might have deemed it simply a decoy. I was the one who discovered it was fake, and in honesty, I do not know if I would have thought to check it myself.

[Thank goodness there are other smart people over here.]

Edited 2016-10-29 17:01 (UTC)

It seems to be a bit early to assume anything just yet. Whether it was a decoy or not, it was an object left there. What else did we learn about it?

["we" oh my god]

The dress it was in was from the costume shop, as well as the wig and the dummy head, which came from the prop room, I believe. So the killer must have been running around quite a bit to pull it all together.

The biggest find was the stunt cow, which was hiding under the dress as if it were the dummy's "legs."

It seems like an awful lot of effort to go through even if it was to hide the cow. Perhaps it was meant as a distraction, to throw us off as we discuss everything we found?

It's certainly possible. It did a good job of distracting us, everyone immediately assumed the worse when they saw two "bodies" laying side by side.

(no subject)

catliketread - 2016-10-29 17:39 (UTC) - Expand

True... I can't imagine why they set up a fake body downstairs, otherwise. It would have taken time, after all they they tied a dress dummy to the cow with rope and even found time to place a wig and head on it.

[ Like, that's some weird planning. ]

Perhaps they just wanted to move the cow out of the second floor lobby? It seems it left marks in the carpet upstairs.

Is it heavy? If it is then I can certainly see why they would wheel it when possible.

The cow itself isn't all that heavy. Perhaps there was something resting on top of it, upstairs?

[ I mean, unless... ]

Unless our murderer pushed someone into the cow? A body resting on top of it might leave a mark.

Could it have been used to move a body? That would explain why it was wheeled instead of carried... but that would also leave blood on the cow, wouldn't it?

The only blood on the cow seems to be on the splintered side, so I don't think that would be the case.

[ What did you even do, cow. ]

Plus, I think the marks in the carpet are only stationary, the weren't dragged... though I didn't get as good a look as Natalie or Javert.