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"That could have gone better," Tionne said after several moments of silence.
Tionne, Luke, and Jaina were riding in a private transport toward the location of the crime scene. Luke had explained that he thought Loran would dissect the crime scene next and since none of them had even seen it yet, it might be a good idea to check it out. They had all read the police reports and seen the crime scene through holoslides, but nothing beat first hand investigation.
"I made a mistake," Luke admitted. "I'll make sure it does not happen again." He guided the transport onto a deserted landing pad. The area they were going to visit was not accessible by normal transports as it was half a kilometer below the top surface of construction.
As the three got off the transport and Luke locked it down, Jaina squinted into the setting sun and could see the Krakun Hematological Research Center in the distance. What had happened that night was slowly being revealed in the courtroom, but Luke had already revealed his theory about the events to Tionne and Jaina.
Someone had confronted Markis in the KHRC for whatever reason, and Markis had fled. The exact path he had taken was not possible to discern, but it had taken place almost exclusively below the surface. The straight line from the KHRC to the crime scene was less than a kilometer, but since the actual path taken was not known, it could have been much longer than that.
The three Jedi found a lift to take them down several hundred meters and then had to switch to another lift to take them the rest of the way. They entered the old government district outside of what used to be the capitol building. The walk to the crime scene took about two minutes, and they were happy to see that some level of guard had been left to watch over the scene until the trial had been completed.
The two security droids granted Luke and his associates access to the area when they confirmed his connection to the case. They were given strict orders not to disturb anything.
The white outline of the Markis's body was plainly visible on the ground of the dirty alley, along with the footprints that had been linked to both the dead senator and the killer. Like reported, the killer's footprints appeared almost magically in the center of the alley. They walked a short distance toward the death scene, pivoting slightly once they reached the body outline.
"This is where he swung," Tionne reasoned, pointing to the pivoting footprint.
The killer's footprints then walked toward the small building gap in the back of the alley and disappeared. The senator's footprints emerged from the same narrow gap and terminated at the spot of his death. His fallen body had covered up any shuffling or scrambling he might have done.
"Tionne," Luke said, "why don't you look around the alley. Jaina and I are going to look at where the senator came from." Tionne nodded, and Luke led Jaina toward the gap at the back of the alley. Jaina appreciated being allowed to take part in this crusade to save her brother.
"The official report says Markis came out of the third story window," Luke said once they reached the gap.
"How do they know this?" Jaina asked.
"That's where they found his communicator," Luke replied. "They figure he either tossed it aside when the secretary paged him, or it fell off his person on its own."
"Either way," Jaina said, looking up, "that's quite a drop."
Luke nodded. "The autopsy showed that he had a badly sprained ankle and his body was covered with superficial scrapes and bruises. They figured he sustained them during the fall. The walls are close enough together that he could have managed it."
Jaina had her doubts, but she kept them to herself. "Race you to the third floor," Luke said, and levitated up like a rocket. Jaina watched him step through the broken window and look back down, safely on the third floor. "Are you coming?"
Jaina could not wait until she had the skill of her uncle to use her abilities, but those days were a long way off, and her ascent was much slower. As she passed the second story window, she paused. Something inside the ancient bathroom was tugging at her senses. Luke had just zipped past this window, but Jaina took her time.
There was an eerie feeling in the Force coming from this room, and she stopped her ascent. "What is it?" Luke called from above.
"I'm going to check this room out," she replied without looking up. "You go ahead up there."
Jaina was careful not to cut herself on the broken window and carefully placed her feet on the wet and moldy floor. The smell was terrible, and Jaina wondered if the denizens of this area of the Coruscant underworld still used this room for its original intended purpose. Jaina shivered at the thought and hoped she would not find evidence to support it.
The area of the room she entered was open and looked to have contained counters and hooks where patrons could change their clothes. This was a former government building and it had probably been a very nice restroom in its day. Nothing like the refreshers of today, but that was beside the point. The toilet stalls were next in line, and Jaina was apprehensive on opening any of them.
The first one she came to relieved her of the responsibility, as the door to the stall was no longer present. Any reservation she should have felt from the filthy stall was over-shadowed by the intense tugging in the Force. She took a few tentative steps into the stall, and a shiny metal glint caught her eye.
Jaina crouched carefully in front of the toilet, gathering her cloak up about her so it did not touch the floor. She reached out toward the metal glint and picked up a syringe. Lying next to it on the floor was a small, empty glass container. She brought both objects in front of her as she stood.
The glass vial had a label on the side, and Jaina rotated it into view. She was quite shocked to see a very familiar logo marked in bold print with four letters: KHRC. Below the research center's acronym was the word "Contents," and beneath it the hand-written letters "AMCV."
As Jaina rotated the vial, she saw that it still contained a small amount of colored liquid. She brought it up to her face to smell it, but suddenly hurled it and the syringe into the toilet bowl and scurried from the stall. Her back slammed uncomfortably against the opposite wall, as her eyes stayed transfixed on the toilet in front of her. Breath was at premium right now, and it came only with great effort. Jaina's heart felt like it was going to explode from overuse as her pulse was astronomical.
A splash came from her right and Jaina exploded into action, spinning to face the noise with her lightsaber drawn. Luke stood there with both hands up. "Hold on, Jaina! Calm down. Take it easy. It's just me."
Jaina took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind from what had just happened. Luke's arrival had dramatically shaken her from the trance of fright she had just been in, and she now tried to explain it. All she had done was bring the vial up to her face to smell it and something had taken control of her reflexively, causing her to hurl the vial and syringe into the toilet.
Having regained her composure, Jaina turned to look back in the stall and saw that the objects she had found were now shattered and thoroughly contaminated in the filth that resided at the bottom of the toilet.
Luke came to stand beside her, looking into the toilet. "What is it?"
"I found a needle and a small glass container. When I tried to analyze them, I reacted oddly and threw them in there." Luke could see the remains of what she had found and had no intention of retrieving them. "The container had a Krakun Hematological Research Center label on it. I think Markis came through here and not the third floor."
"And his communicator?" Luke asked.
"He probably just tossed it in there as he was running past. Maybe it was during the page and he hoped his pursuer would be drawn to the noise and off his path, except when the communicator hit the ground, it shut off."
Luke nodded. It seemed reasonable. "So what about the glass container?"
"It still contained a small amount of gray liquid. It didn't just look like dirty water. It had a thicker consistency, like it was some type of serum. I think maybe Markis injected himself with the serum when he felt his attacker was getting too close."
"Why would he use a needle?" Luke persisted, more trying to get Jaina to think things through than to disagree with her. "The medical community did away with needles in favor of hyposprays hundreds of years ago. You probably couldn't even find a hypodermic needle in the research center. The needle was probably left by some addict that stopped in here to get a fix."
"No," Jaina disagreed, trying to recall the needle in her mind, "it looked too new."
"Maybe the addict used it today," Luke replied.
Jaina was confused. Why would Markis inject himself with the serum? If that was what the killer was after, it might be a way to keep it from him. But the only things the KHRC produced were drugs that they freely gave to the public. Why would someone kill for that? Just wait a few days and it would be available over the counter. Then Jaina remembered Kathy, the tour guide, saying that they had several dangerous viruses under lock and key. But if that was what Markis was carrying, why would he inject himself with it? And Luke had a good point: Why use a needle?
Luke put his arm around Jaina and tugged her toward the window they had both come through. "Come on, it's getting late. I've seen enough to get by tomorrow. I'll clear you with the security droids so you can come back later if you want. Okay?"
Jaina nodded, her head still spinning about what had just happened. The reflexive reaction reminded her of how she had acted on the tour. She had asked several questions then, some almost without thinking. What had happened here was similar, only on a much more severe scale, like all her free will had been removed and something else had controlled her.
Jaina shrugged. Luke was right. It was late, and it had been a stressful day. Maybe things would clear up in the morning. Tomorrow was already the final day for the prosecution to bring forth evidence, and from the little they had brought forward so far, tomorrow would be big.
***
The first witness the prosecution called in the morning session of day two was a police investigator named Hal Ulrick who had been in charge of the crime scene. Loran spent an awful long time laying out everything. The scene had been holographed to an incredible extent, and those images were shown on the court's holoviewer in an endless procession. The investigator explained everything there was.
From the footprints alone, the investigator was able to recreate the incident with surprising detail. Luke thought the detail was a little too extensive at times, making the Jedi wonder if the prosecution had the actual murder on a holocube that they would bring out later.
Luke decided not to object, though there were several times he could have questioned the investigator's testimony as being speculation, but since it did not finger Jacen, Luke let it go. Luke knew someone had killed the senator, and the play by play that the investigator presented was just as good a hypothesis as any he might have created.
"Let's get back to the footprints," Loran said after over an hour of testimony already. "You said that they appeared before the victim and then disappeared. Can you explain this phenomenon?"
"Only through process of elimination," Hal responded.
"Can you explain that to the jury?"
The witness turned to face the jury as he had been instructed to do by Loran earlier. "When unique phenomena occur in a crime investigation, several different theories are formed as to their cause and are then analyzed against the other evidence. One by one the theories are eliminated due to conflicting evidence. After a while, only one plausible explanation remains, and it is deemed as the acceptable cause of the phenomenon."
"And you say this is an official and sanctioned process conducted by the Coruscant Police?" Loran asked, looking at Luke and daring him to object to this. Loran wanted to make sure that the upcoming testimony was not speculation.
"That is correct."
"Can you remember what all the theories were?" Loran asked.
"I can. There are several different devices that would be able to transport a person through the air and place them down gently in the alley. A hoverpack, a CPT, or even a landspeeder would allow a person to make footprints that would appear to have been created out of thin air. However, each of these devices creates noise, and the victim's footprints show that he was startled by the appearance of his killer."
"How do you know that?"
"The foot prints emerge from the gap between the buildings at the end of the alleyway steadily and then retreat. In my vast experience in these types of cases, when a victim hears someone approaching and is in a state of mind as we suspect Markis Keld to have been, they are prone to scampering. This was not the case here.
"There are also non-audible devices that could allow a person to drop into the alleyway, such as a rappelling cord. However, the only perches from which the killer might launch himself were to either side of the first prints. When someone repels in from an angle, the landing prints will show a skidding effect representative of the poor traction that existed in the alley. These prints did not exhibit any such malformity.
"There are races on Coruscnat who could have performed the leap from the adjacent buildings. Noghri, Ranats, and Trecriubs are a few of the races capable of such a jump, but like with the rappelling cord, none of these races could have landed without leaving some trace in their prints. Also, the prints were no deeper than any other that the killer made, and if someone had jumped there, the prints would have been deeper.
"The only way to place one's self in the alley as smoothly and as quietly as the killer had done is with the use of the Force."
"You mean the killer must have been a Jedi?" Loran prompted. It was probably leading, but Luke stayed quiet for now. His cross-examination would take care of a lot of the objections he did not ask.
"That is correct."
"No further questions, your honor."
Icktar nodded and turned to Luke. Luke complied and worked his way to the middle of the courtroom. "This process that you spoke of earlier," Luke started, "the one where you gather a bunch of theories and then eliminate them until you are left one that fits your evidence, who thinks up the theories?"
The Hal frowned at Luke's loose interpretation of his methods. "A group of investigators who have several years of experience and have spent a long time examining the scene propose their theories."
"I see," Luke said. "Are you familiar with an item called a cord-brake?"
"No, I am not," the investigator said.
Luke used a remote to activate the holoviewer. An image of a mountain climber appeared. The climber was rappelling very rapidly down the side of a cliff, approaching the ground at a very high speed. Suddenly the climber slowed considerably and alighted very gently on the ground.
"A cord-brake is a small device that grips a rappelling cord to slow down a person rappelling down the side of a cliff. As you saw from the holoviewer, it allows the rappeller to descend very rapidly yet touchdown very gently. Was this theory presented by someone in your investigative group?"
"As I said," the Hal replied, "any such repelling would have to be done from one of the side buildings and the killer would have left skid marks on the ground regardless of how smoothly he touched down."
"What if he came from directly above?"
"The ceiling above the alley was examined and it was thought highly unlikely that someone could have rappelled from it. There would be no advantage, and it would be done at a much greater risk."
"But it would be possible, correct?" Luke insisted.
With a glance to Katie, Hal nodded. "Yes, it is possible."
"Yet this was not presented during your 'Process of Elimination Session?'"
"It was not more plausible than the result at which we arrived."
"That's not what I think," Luke said. "I believe that you took one look at the murder weapon and had your mind made up ahead of time, isn't that right?"
Luke fully expected an objection; he did not get one. That should have sent alarms off in his head, but it did not.
"No, that is not how the process works."
"How does the process work?" Luke asked, not realizing he was walking into a trap expertly set by the prosecution.
"The result of our analysis is not taken without comparing it to all the other evidence. There are several teams analyzing every portion of the crime. We have forensic scientists, psychologists, criminologists, sociologists, as well as crime scene investigators. Is it true that we could have come up with a completely different result by starting with different theory, yes. But we were not ignorant to what the other groups of investigators had uncovered.
"The forensic scientists said a Jedi had killed the senator based on the murder weapon. The psychologists said that a Jedi probably had killed him based on the senator's speeches against the current president and Jedi leaders in general. The criminologists said that based on the lack of accessories accompanying the murder, meaning the body was not looted or molested in any way other than the death wound, that the act was not committed out of malice or desperation, but was premeditated and likely political. Based on the senator's political views, a Jedi seemed like the most likely culprit. The sociologists concurred with this, stating that Jedi have a well-known history for not acting irrationally or spontaneously, but all of their actions have a clear meaning or purpose, and killing the senator for his political views fell into those social tendencies."
Luke was at a loss of how to stop this testimony. He had asked a question, and it was being answered. Luke realized that he had been used very efficiently to compress several days' worth of testimony into a few minutes. If the prosecution had tried this, Luke would have objected and forced the prosecution to bring forth a member of each group that Hal had mentioned. Since Luke had asked the question, "How does the system work?" he could not then say that the witness was not qualified to answer the question.
"So you see, our conclusion that the killer was a Jedi might seem coincidental to you, and when looking at it all by itself, anyone might wonder if there isn't another explanation, but the way the system works, every group of investigators has to agree with each other, eliminating the chance of coincidential evidence causing an arrest or conviction."
Hal shut up and let Luke try and compose another question. He tried to think of someway he could strike the testimony from the record and force Loran to call a member from each group of investigators. There might be some legal technicality out there that could help him, but Luke was not an attorney, and he did not know it. "No further questions, your honor," he said with a very defeated voice.
There were quite a few murmurs in the courtroom after this dramatic testimony, and a palpable sense of momentum was clearly evident. The next witness was the forensic scientist. The prosecution had made it pretty clear to the jury that a Jedi had killed the senator. Now they had to show which Jedi.
Phil Endridge, the forensic scientist, went on at length about the height, weight, and boot size of the killer. Loran pointed out in each case that Jacen fit each one of the descriptions. The testimony lasted over an hour, and Luke saw that it would be the last witness before lunch.
When it was the defense's turn to cross-examine the witness, Luke made it very clear how common the weight, height, and shoe size were among human males on Coruscant. A few of the jurors actually looked down at their own feet, realizing that according to the description of the killer, they might be guilty, but most of them realized what the prosecution was doing.
Luke had said in his opening statement that the prosecution would present a lot of evidence that was circumstantial. He said that apart from the existence of the lightsaber, the idea that a conviction could be made from the other evidence that would be presented was laughable. The problem was that the prosecution, with Luke's help at times, had shown that there was a lot more evidence pointing toward Jacen than just the lightsaber. Yes, the rest of it seemed a little vague, but the fact that Jacen fit each description of the killer that was presented only lent weight to the more substantial evidence.
There were four Force users in the courtroom, but Luke, Tionne, Jaina, and Leia did not fit any of the physical descriptions. They might be vague on a planet wide population, but once you narrowed the search to Jedi who were on Coruscant without an alibi for the night in question, the descriptions became very specific.
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