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Legally Blind


"Furthermore, your honor," Edgeworth continued, ruthlessly, "the caretaker of the museum states that he saw 'a flash of green' in the downstairs window at 5:25 PM on the day of the murder. This is clearly the scarf worn by my witness, Miss Donnit, and so the only person who could possibly have murdered the vice-director upstairs is the defendant, Ina Cent!"

"Come on, Nick," Maya whispered, bracingly. "You can't let him get away with that! You have to say something!"

"It's like I told my ma," Phoenix said, blearily paging through his evidence files. "There's nothing wrong with being a barista. It's an honorable trade, with a long history of carefully crafted beverages!"

Maya's eyebrows drew together in the middle. It was never a good sign when Phoenix brought up the Barista Argument.

"There's plenty of lawyers in the world, after all," Phoenix said, shuffling aside an assortment of gristly crime scene photos. "They wouldn't notice the loss of me, right? And I'd get free drinks, and I'd get to wear that cute little green apron, and...." His eyes lit on a photograph of the witness, on the day of the murder. "Waitaminnute. Green?"

"It appears the defense has nothing to say," Edgeworth cooed, spreading his hands. "Therefore, your honor, if you would be so kind as to pronounce the verdict--"

"Hold it!"

Phoenix could swear that some of Edgeworth's hairspray deflated; it was a certain thing that his cravat did. "What."

"I've found a crucial error in the testimony, your honor!" Phoenix snapped out the glossy color photo, taping it with his hand. "The caretaker says he saw a flash of green in the downstairs window. However! The scarf Miss Donnit is wearing in this picture is blue!"

Edgeworth flinched. There was a murmur of surprise from the court, and the Judge banged his gavel, bellowing for order. "Mr. Edgeworth! Please verify that the caretaker said green!"

Edgeworth was snarling, shaking the prosecution's copy of the crime scene photo. "Of course he did!" he retorted. "Because it was Miss Donnit he saw! Look, anyone can see that this scarf is green!"

There was a ringing silence in the courtroom. Phoenix folded his arms, and smiled for the first time in the entire trial. "...can we?"

"It's totally blue," Maya muttered.

Edgeworth was sweating. "Well maybe it's teal, or peacock, or one of those other pansy in-between colors, I personally don't make a habit of knowing about such things--"

"Objection!" Phoenix shouted. "It is a verifiable fact, your honor, that the counsel for the prosecution has seventeen distinct shades of mauve in his office alone!"

Edgeworth recoiled and then recovered almost instantly, one after the other so quickly that it was like one smooth motion. He held up one finger, in warning, or chastisement. "Maybe I had an interior decorator," he purred. Even his cravat had perked up again.

"That's a very good point," the judge admitted. "Mr. Wright, do you have proof of your claims that Mr. Edgeworth is a proponent of complementary shades?"

"Like his suit wasn't proof enough?" Maya wondered to herself. "But do you have anything, Nick?"

[X] Yes, I do!

[ ] No, I don't.

"Yes, I do, your honor!" Phoenix reached for his proof, not in his evidence file, but from his jacket pocket, and slammed several strips of card stock down onto the desktop. "I have here an assortment of paint chips, taken from the back of Mr. Edgeworth's car! As you can see, it is apparent to anyone that he is waffling between 'lavender mint' and 'blushing nun' for the trim in his bathroom!"

"Dammit, Wright," Edgeworth growled, punching his desk. "When did you get those?"

"Sorry," Phoenix said, shrugging sheepishly. "They must have fallen in my briefcase yesterday. I was gonna give them to you this afternoon. But I have to say, personally, I think 'frosted rhododendron' would look the best with your tile--"

"Mr. Wright," the judge interrupted, fondling his gavel. "You know you cannot present evidence that was gained illegally. Can you tell me what, exactly, you were doing in the back of the Prosecution's car?"

"Er," Phoenix said, and then stood up straight. Nothing for it but the truth, really. "I was screwing the Prosecution, your honor."

Edgeworth put his face in his hands, making a noise suspiciously like a pained moan. On the stand, Miss Donnit began to nervously twist her indisputably blue scarf in her bony hands.

"Phoe-/nix/!" Maya said, scolding. "During a /trial/?"

"It was during /recess/," Phoenix protested, defensively.

"Ah, that's all right, then," the judge said, smiling and nodding in a way that was far too understanding. "I used to get up to a bit of woodworking with my friends when I was a younger man, myself."

Edgeworth took his face out of his hands long enough to exchange a glance with Phoenix. "...Woodworking."

"Oh yes," the judge continued blithely. "We'd build all sorts of things. Birdhouses, shapeless boxes, more birdhouses, it was jolly good fun. 'I've got a bit of woody here, Tim,' I'd say, and he'd say, 'Oh, how keen, let's screw it!'"

Phoenix rolled his eyes heavenward.

"...and then sometimes we'd go out in my back yard with a few nails and both get hammered--"

"Your. Honor." It was amazing that Edgeworth could still talk, with his teeth gritted together so tightly. "If we may please get on with the trial."

"Oh, right. You had a point, I believe, Mr. Wright?"

"I did! But first, I'd like to ask the prosecution a question!"

"For the millionth time, Wright," Edgeworth said, "I'm not getting a hummer, I don't care how much room there is in its back seat--"

"That's not my question, though it would be a lot nicer on my back if you did, honestly." Phoenix flung out his arm. "The question is.... What color is my suit?!"

"Um," Edgeworth said, knitting his fingers together on the desk. "Deep-sea turquoise?"

"Wrong!" Phoenix shouted. "My suit is blue, and Miles Edgeworth... you are colorblind!"

"Ooooh," Maya said. "I get it, that's why his suits are all those purply pink colors! He can see the difference in them, but not in blues and greens."

"Actually," Phoenix muttered, "I think he wears a pink suit because he's fruitier than a nutcake."

Edgeworth staggered back as though he had been struck. "Fine! So what if I am! Blue, Green, you know in Japanese there's no difference!"

"But there is a difference in this /trial/," Phoenix said. "For one thing, the caretaker said he saw a flash of green! That would have been the green dress of the defendant, Ina Cent, as she was downstairs in the museum trying to find the paw of the spotted china dog she had broken earlier in the day!" Phoenix pulled out a whole sheaf of evidence photos. "Which means that really, the only person who could have been upstairs, strangling the vice-director with the cord from the Bayeux tapestry is /you/, Miss Imthawanna Donnit!"

"Noooooo!" the witness screamed, shredding her tell-tale scarf.

"Order, Order!" the judge roared, pounding his gavel like the hammers of his childhood. "You will come to order or I'll hang the whole bally lot of you!" The court subsided, and there was no sound except for Miss Donnit's guilty sobs and the muffled noise of Miles Edgeworth scrawling large angry circles on his legal pad. "In light of this last evidence, I no longer see any case to sustain against Miss Ina Cent. I therefore declare the defendant of this trial..."

NOT

GUILTY.

"Court is adjourned!"

The judge pounded his gavel and the bailiff led away a shrieking Miss Donnit, while Edgeworth put his face down on his desk.

"Come on, Miles," Phoenix said, walking over to the prosecution's side of the emptying courtroom. "This one seriously wasn't your fault. Over seven percent of all males have some form of color blindness, you know? Though the blue-yellow kind is more rare..."

"Thank you, Encyclopedia Brown," Edgeworth said, without sitting up. "That just makes me feel so much better about losing a case to you... again."

"But that's not what matters, Mr. Edgeworth!" Maya said, cajoling. "What matters is the real murderer was put away, an innocent person goes free, and justice was done, right? Right?"

Edgeworth kind of... grunted. "Forgive me if I don't start leaping around saying Yippee."

"Hey," Phoenix held out his hand. "Let's go. I'll buy you lunch."

"Cheeseburgers!" Maya said, in raptures. "C'mon!"

Edgeworth looked at Phoenix's hand, and the sleeve attached to it, and began to scrape his paperwork together. "Well, there is one thing I'm glad to know," he admitted, as they all left the courtroom together.

"Really?" Phoenix said, "What's that?"

"...The two of us don't clash near so badly as I once thought we did," Edgeworth said. "Although," he added in a whisper to Phoenix, "You really should tell Maya to wear something other than that orange kimono. It looks terrible, on a redhead like her."

~o~




NB: In Japanese, midori is used for the color green, but for the color of green traffic lights and vegetation, /aoi/, or 'blue' is commonly used. (source: Oxford Japanese/English dictionary)