April, now forced to answer Phoenix’s question, says she heard the clock from her hotel room. Edgeworth says she could have “easily” heard the clock, from across the street, from several floors above, when both her window at the hotel and Mia’s window at the office, I believe, were closed. Yeah. Of course, we know there’s another reason she could not have heard it, which Phoenix will present now. “That clock is missing its clockwork!” Phoenix shouts, to the excited buzz of the peanut gallery. The judge examines the clock himself and finds that Phoenix is correct. Reaching up into the bronzed ass of “The Thinker,” he sees that it has indeed been given a colonic. Phoenix calls April May a “big, fat liar” as a vein goes off above her eyebrow. I mean, hello! She isn’t fat!

Edgeworth, though, is still smirking. He brings up a valid point–one that Phoenix can easily counter, but whatever. “However, we must ask: when was the clockwork removed?” he poses to the court. “If it was after the witness heard the clock, then there is no contradiction!” Phoenix, smirking himself, is obviously relishing Edgeworth’s look of discomfort when he announces that he has proof that the clockwork was removed before the murder. He presents Maya’s cell phone to the court. “Hmm,” says the judge. “That’s a very cute cell phone.” As usual, fashion reigns supreme in this courtroom. April assumes that the phone belongs to Phoenix, and accuses him of having a “girlie phone.” Which, yeah, it’s not his phone, but I bet he totally does have a girlie phone. Navy with a pink strap, if I had to guess.

‘In the butt.’

Flustered now, Phoenix ushers the discussion onto the conversation recorded on the phone. Edgeworth isn’t looking so good now. His eyes are bulging grotesquely out of their sockets, and he’s hunched over his table like Quasimodo. Yet his hair still looks fantastic. Edgeworth complains that this phone was not brought to his attention. “Perhaps Detective Gumshoe overlooked it?” Phoenix snits back at him, as Edgeworth curses the detective under his breath. Poor Gumshoe–if he thought he was getting a sensual pat on the back from Edgeworth for his work on this case, he is wildly mistaken.

Phoenix plays the conversation for the court, and it very conveniently skips everything but the relevant lines about the clock and the timestamp. Phoenix gets all Pointy Finger as he asks April May, “Just how did you know that weapon was a clock!?” And now the lies just start getting ridiculous. April thinks for a moment and then claims she had seen the clock before, when she was out shopping. Of course, the judge laps this up too. It’s kind of scary to think how these proceedings would go without the defense lawyer. Even the most obvious of lies fly right over the judge’s head. Given Edgeworth’s sterling reputation for making shit up in court, and the judge’s tendency to believe anything he is told without the slightest bit of skepticism, this game must feature some massively overcrowded prisons.

But now Phoenix smells blood in the water. Presenting the murder weapon again, Phoenix reminds the judge and the witness that the clock is handmade. “I-impossible!” April shrieks. “Everything is sold in stores!” Especially, it seems, pink business suits. Phoenix responds, “Miss May, I think it’s high time you went shopping for a better excuse…?” Oh, Phoenix. I have just cut myself on your razor-sharp wit. At April’s stammering, he goes on, “Oh? Excuses not on sale today?” Someone make him stop! Edgeworth is finding him less attractive with every word!

This is the objection that breaks April May. Screaming, she covers her face with her arms while the heart-shaped buttons on her suit start spinning around. Don’t look at me. Finally, she throws her arms down, to show a twisted, ugly face. Also, her boobs are sagging now, and not pert and perky. The lies must have been holding them up. “What’s it to you, porcupine-head!?” she screams at Phoenix. “That stupid clock doesn’t matter, okay!? She did it! And she should die for it! Die!” Even the judge–who I expected to respond, “Yes, die! Quite right, young lady!”–finds this over the line.

April tries to compose herself, but it’s pretty much too late. She can’t explain about the clock, and she can’t get her boobs back under control, either. Phoenix steps in to wrap things up, trying to look his most dignified. He has a choice of how to explain April’s knowledge of the clock, and chooses to say, “Miss May held that very clock in her hands!” He has no proof of this, of course, but he’s on a roll and he wants Edgeworth to be impressed. She must have held it when she used it to strike the victim, he goes on. “April May, you killed Mia Fey, I say!” He’s a poet and he doesn’t even know it. “And when you struck, the force of the impact made ‘The Thinker’ ring! That’s when you heard it!”

If, at this point, Phoenix was expecting a raging, hormonal confession out of the witness, and a big kiss on the lips from the man across the aisle, then he’ll be waiting for a while. Instead, Edgeworth objects. “Tsk, tsk,” he says. “You truly are a work of art, Mr. Phoenix Wright.” Is he ever! Phoenix, possibly deaf to the sexual subtext here, stammers, “W-what’s that supposed to mean!?” Edgeworth smiles at his dumb little man. “It was you who just proved that ‘The Thinker’ was empty!” he says. Too late, Phoenix is like, “Oh. Right. With the not ringing.” Further, Edgeworth explains that April has an alibi, as she was at the hotel that night. Phoenix is very confident that she can’t prove anything, even though he himself saw her in her room, through the window, right after the murder. Even Phoenix, as much as he wants to nail this girl (not like that), should realize that she didn’t do it. But now we have to waste our time with her testimony regarding her alibi. April tells the court where she was at 9:00 that night. “Gee, that’s the exact time I ordered some room service from the hotel bellboy!” Edgeworth notes that the bellboy can back up this story. Edgeworth declares this alibi to be “rock solid.” Hee hee.

But Phoenix is not done. He has one more piece of evidence he can fall back on, which shows how April knew about the clock. He shows the court the wiretapping device, going on to explain his illegal search of the witness’s hotel room and illegal seizure of her property. But the judge isn’t worried about that–he just wants to know what the thing is. Phoenix ignores him. “You were tapping the victim, Ms. Mia Fey’s phone, were you not?” he asks April. Edgeworth, fairly in my opinion, asks how this is relevant. Yes, this is how she knew about the clock, but beyond that, it doesn’t really matter yet. Of course, this is Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which means totally irrelevant things get brought up in court just so Phoenix can point to them later in busting the true killer, when dogs can figure it out by that point. In that spirit, the judge overrules Edgeworth’s objection.

Edgeworth, again with the logic, asks if Phoenix is seriously accusing the witness of wiretapping Mia’s phone. Okay, so we know that there was evidence of tampering on Mia’s office phone. But Phoenix has no proof of that here. Plus, the conversation took place in the morning, which, Phoenix himself points out, was before April had even checked into the room where he found the wiretap in the first place. So…he’s right, but he has zero proof of it. Of course, Edgeworth, instead of pointing out any of this, says, “Did the victim ever say that the weapon was a clock on the phone?” Well…yes. You just heard about that. The silver hair dye must be leaking into his brain. But he still insists, with the Caps-Lock of Skepticism and everything, that Phoenix can’t prove shit. Phoenix, deploying his own Caps-Lock of Righteousness, retorts that he can. Their faces are both close-up on the screen at this point, and I fully expect them to start making out any second.

‘This hair color is NATURAL!’

Phoenix and Edgeworth go back and forth like this for a minute or so, sparks of barely concealed sexual tension flying everywhere. Finally, Phoenix has the upper hand, but instead of answering the question, April freaks out and screams at everyone again, and then starts crying. Phoenix knows he’s got her now, but he has another choice to make. He can either accuse her of the murder again, or ask about the wiretap. Well, the accusation didn’t go so well the first time. “Miss May… Why did you tap her phone?” he asks. She hems and haws, trying to avoid the question, and finally says, “At the time of the murder… I was in my hotel room, getting room service! How could I have killed her?” Does it even matter when I make these choices with my little stylus? Sigh.

Speaking of, Phoenix gets another choice. He can keep grilling April, or call the bellboy to the stand. The bellboy is certainly the more attractive option…but what if Edgeworth likes the bellboy more than him? Dilemma! Phoenix finally decides to go with the bellboy, just so he can stop looking at April May’s hooters. To his delight, Edgeworth objects (“Yay! Edgey likes ME better!” his blue text might say at this point), saying again that the wiretapping is irrelevant. But, he says he will allow the bellboy to come–hee–under one condition on Phoenix’s part. Hoping it involves chocolate sauce and a wooden spoon, Phoenix asks what the condition is. “If Miss April May’s alibi is not called into question after you examine the bellboy… Then you will recognize that Miss April May was not the killer, thus she is innocent! Therefore you must accept the verdict of ‘guilty’ for Ms. Maya Fey!” Phoenix is not at all in love with that condition. It puts him at a distinct disadvantage, and it revolves around girls. But he has no choice. “Fool…” says Edgeworth. “You’ve walked right into my trap.” Hmm, maybe all hope for the chocolate sauce scenario isn’t lost!

A black screen later, Edgeworth informs us that this new witness is ready to testify. “He certainly does look like a bellboy,” he adds, noting the tasteful fuchsia accents on his uniform. The bellboy is still carrying his tray of tea and cookies while on the stand, by the way. He says he was on his shift when the summons to court arrived, hence the tray, but we know he probably wants to have Phoenix and Edgeworth eating scones out of his well-manicured hands.

The bellboy gets on with his testimony, which takes us through his visit to April May’s room. He brought her an iced coffee at, according to him, precisely 9:00 that evening. His recollection includes a black-and-white still of him and April in the hallway outside her room, April thrusting her boobs at him, his face frozen in a lecherous wink. Obviously he’s looking past her at the gay porn playing on the TV in her room. Look at this guy–there is no way he was looking at her like that.

As Phoenix prepares to jump into his cross-examination, he thinks to himself, “This is it… If I can’t prove Miss May was involved with the murder somehow…Maya will be finished!” At least it’s “involved” now and not “That big-boobed chick did this shit.” He’s coming back to earth. But there’s still this flirtatious bellboy to deal with. At one press, Phoenix asks the bellboy what he does at the hotel. Instead of responding, “I’m a bellboy, what the hell do you think?” the bellboy says, “Why, anything required of me, sir.” Phoenix is intrigued by this, and is on the point of asking about Gatewater Hotel’s in-room massage service, when the judge warns him not to ask “frivolous” questions. What a buzzkill!

You mean, a lisp.

The only other information Phoenix can get out of the bellboy by pressing is that he is completely, positively sure of the time he arrived at April’s door, and that the sight of April May’s giant gazongas is burned into his memory. He will only refer to said gazongas as “THEM,” of course, because mentioning female parts by name obviously terrifies him. The bellboy blushes the same color as his lapels as he relates this to the court. I’m sure it is a bit embarrassing to admit to a room full of people that you find a pair of boobs intimidating. The bellboy blushes again, later in the testimony, when Phoenix asks him if he was absolutely sure that he handed the iced coffee to April herself. He remembers quite well. “S-she…the guest, sir, favored me w-with a, um, an ’embrasser,’ sir,” he tells Phoenix, and informs him that “embrasser” is French for “kiss.” He describes said “embrasser” as a peck on the cheek, not a real kiss. So…he’s completely into her womanly charms, but goes fuchsia in the face over one peck, and also employs random French words in daily conversation? Even dimwitted Phoenix thinks that doesn’t add up. Sweating and blanching, Phoenix thinks, “I think our Miss May was up to something and wanted the bellboy to remember her!” No, you’re totally wrong, Phoenix. She just really wanted to have hot sex with the bellboy. Oh, wait, that’s you.

When Phoenix has pressed everything, he comes to the conclusion that there is not one detail he can pick on in the bellboy’s testimony. “This bellboy has absolutely no reason to lie!” Edgeworth gloats. “Now… If you have any decency, you will end this rather tedious cross-examination here!” The judge agrees that Phoenix is extremely tedious, and tells the witness he can leave. But no! This guy is trying to act straight! Something must be up! Phoenix slams his hands on the table and asks the bellboy to wait. The judge gives Phoenix the chance to ask a single question of the bellboy. He can choose to ask about the bellboy’s expertise in checking in guests, delivering room service, or making beds. The second option is both the most obvious and the most intriguing. Phoenix doesn’t care if he makes the bed afterward or not.

Sighing at Phoenix, who obviously needs to hear things several times before comprehending them, the bellboy basically repeats his testimony that he delivered room service to April May at 9:00. He adds, however, that her iced coffee cost a whopping eighteen dollars. Jesus, even an airport Starbucks isn’t that bad. Phoenix realizes this as well. “Y-yes, well,” the bellboy says, “ice coffee for two, you know. And we don’t skimp on the ice, sir.” Phoenix’s face gets this “Ding ding ding” expression as he realizes what the bellboy just said. He demands the truth this time from the bellboy, and the music seems to be demanding it too. “Was someone else staying in Miss May’s room?” he yells. Edgeworth loses his cool a bit. “I object!” he retorts. “That was…objectionable!” Poor Edgeworth–his witness is falling apart on the stand and bringing up the completely “objectionable” topic of April May having company in her hotel room. Ew!

The judge makes the bellboy explain why he didn’t mention this detail before. The bellboy stammers and blushes a bit, before blurting out, “It was the, er, good barrister there, Mr. Edgeworth, who… He asked me not to mention it if I wasn’t specifically asked, sir.” Oh, Miles, you naughty boy! The bellboy’s face is still a deep magenta, leading me to wonder how Edgeworth compensated the bellboy for his silence. Bringing it up in open court would lose this game its Teen rating, I don’t doubt.

“Miss April May checked into a twin room…with a man,” Phoenix says, barely suppressing a shudder. “Correct?” The bellboy confirms this, as well as the fact that he didn’t see this other guest when he delivered the room service. Phoenix thinks this is enough to hold off judgment on Maya, since this man could have been involved in the murder. “Who!” Edgeworth cries, slamming his hand on the table. “Who is this ‘other person’!” Didn’t we just spell out exactly who? I was going to say Edgeworth is all flustered from a combination of the case turning against him and Phoenix looking all hot across the way, but then Phoenix has to select a response to the query, like this is a real question. Oh well. I stab “the man with Miss May” with my stylus, and watch with incredulity as Edgeworth bugs out. Who did he think Phoenix meant, the judge?