Edgeworth finally cuts off the judge by slamming his palm on the bench. “It…can’t…be!!” he shrieks. “This…can’t…happen!” The judge attempts to ignore him and get back on track with the tailpipe, but Edgeworth interrupts again: “Th-this is unacceptable!” And right when the judge is going to start criticizing every hair out of place on Edgeworth’s head, a mystery person asks, “Ah, er, excuse me. Knock knock?” The judge goes, “…? Who’s there?” because of course he does.
The mystery person appears behind the witness stand, even though he’s probably just leaning in the doorway or something. His very own portentous, stately theme music announces him, so we know this person is a big fucking deal. This becomes even more apparent when he comes into view. First off, he is sending some strange signals in Anal Attorney universe terms: he is wearing pink-tinted glasses straight out of the Sears for Murderers Catalog, but also a bright orange double-breasted suit jacket that could easily hold two Larry Butzes snugly inside. To up the massive clashing ante, his tie is a behemoth crimson number, buttoned at his collarbone with the same police department Lucia pendant Marshall wears, and tied inexplicably into a cross shape. I literally don’t know how you do that and I am curious what it would look like if he took his coat off. He is tanned to nearly the same shade of orange as his suit and is sporting a close-cropped, salt-and-pepper beard and hairstyle, with one massive, phallic, lightning-bolt shaped forelock. “What’s with this guy?” Phoenix blue-fonts, and I am inclined to echo that sentiment. Phoenix, perhaps hearing the theme music, also notes that the courtroom is now overcome by “a strange, stuffy aura.”
I have to admit, my brain did some arithmetic when I had to break down this man’s appearance. It went like this:
(Flamboyant, perfectly tailored suit + obvious care put into hair and tan) / (crucifix necktie + creepy, stuffy, buttoned-up aura) = Marcus Bachmann
After Mr. Bachmann has spent a couple minutes standing there, blinking infuriatingly slowly, and saying nothing–I am sad to report, a quirk he will exhibit throughout this case–the judge finally says, “Ah, it’s you…” Some more long, creepy staring, and then he finally breaks into a smile and claps his black-gloved hands. “Oh! Oh, heh heh. Sorry I’m late, Udgey!” Udgey? Really? “The roads were packed. It’s just me!” He claps some more and laughs, exposing rows of too-white teeth. “Long time no see, eh, Udgey? How ya been? Swim much these days?” Wow. Thanks for the mental image of the judge in a speedo. It’s worth noting that his theme music has dropped in favor of the dippy happy chatty time music. He’s nice! We’re all friends here!
Already with the lying!
The judge sighs that he is way too busy to go swimming, but Mr. Bachmann insists, “Busy! Busy-smizzy, Udgey, my boy! You have to make time to relax!” Yeah! Look at all the time he spends tanning! Ema picks up after all this that “Udgey” is his pet name for the judge–thanks, Ema!–and Phoenix finally nuts up enough to ask, “Um…sorry, but…who are you?” Mr. Bachmann turns his attention to Phoenix, claps some more, refers to him as “Wrighto” (of course), and compliments him on his, uh, lawyering? Phoenix looks all bashful at this praise from a man he’s never met and who might be bent on hypnotizing him into loving women. Mr. Bachmann goes on, “So sorry about our little Worthy giving you all that trouble, eh? You know, we should all go swimming together sometime! Jolly!” He has some great water therapy techniques that totally don’t involve underwater handjobs!
Phoenix seems to have abandoned his original question thanks to all this sidetracking, since all he can do is grunt, “Little…Little Worthy?” Nobody is allowed to have pet names for Edgeworth’s penis but him! But the judge snaps him out of it. “Mr. Wright! You don’t know the district Chief of Police?” Your honor, what on earth has given you the idea that Phoenix Wright knows anything he’s supposed to? Chief Bachmann stares at Wrighto some more, letting him get nice and uncomfortable, before introducing himself as Damon Gant. His name sounds like “demon”! But he’s so nice! He obviously loves Jesus, and vaginas! Everybody smile!
The judge points out that it’s been about two years–everybody drink!–since Gant last made an appearance in court. “Well,” Gant explains, “it’s Worthy, here. Look at the poor fellow!” We get another requisite shot of Edgeworth looking like he’s contracted swine flu. “I just thought I’d help out…by bringing this.” And he presents a long red strip of cloth to the court. Phoenix and Ema simultaneously realize it’s Lana’s scarf. That’s right, the pun just got even worse: Lana stuffed her muffler in a muffler! Kill me.
Phoenix and Ema were doing this in the lobby, too, but now that the scarf is sitting in front of him, Phoenix points out again that this means Angel was not mistaken about seeing it. I can’t believe I’m actually delving backward into Angel’s testimony, but there are some problems here and I can’t resist punishing myself. The timeline we were given is that, at 5:15, Angel witnessed Lana stabbing Niceguy and then attempting to use the emergency phone. We know both those things happened in Angel’s view, since the phone incident is the only reason Phoenix deduced where she was at the time. It took Angel five minutes to reach and apprehend her while she was on her cell phone, at 5:20. We now also know that in those five minutes, Lana stuffed her scarf, for reasons yet unknown, into Edgeworth’s tailpipe, and that at 5:18 she called Ema to issue her “muffler” double entendre. But her call to Ema only lasted a few seconds, leaving a near two-minute gap in Angel’s account. Even forgiving this issue, this means Lana thought to use a phone right away, and then, when it didn’t work, decided to do something else entirely for several minutes before attempting to use the phone she had on her. It also means Angel stood with her thumb up her ass while Lana stabbed a guy and waited long enough to also witness her travails with the broken phone before thinking to run down there and do something. Bruce Niceguy thanks her from beyond the grave for her immediate action!
Back to Gant, who is confused about The Mystery of Edgeworth’s Tailpipe, to the point that he’s tugging at and fondling his forelock. I don’t know. It might be a substitute for masturbation, like chewing gum instead of smoking. Casually, as he wonders about poor Worthy’s tailpipe, he shows them another piece of evidence that was bundled with the scarf: a switchblade. The peanut gallery murmurs wildly at this news, while Edgeworth objects, asking how the investigators on the scene could be so shitty as to miss this phallic object in his tailpipe. “If your investigators are so lax,” he shouts, jabbing his finger at Gant, “how do you expect us to do our job?” Edgeworth bowls right over Gant telling him to wait, but Gant bowls over him right back, and the music gets sinister as he asserts the divine authority inherent in his necktie. “I’m telling you to wait! Or didn’t you hear me?” he sneers at Edgeworth. “Have a look at this document, where it says ‘person in charge of investigation’… There’s no mistaking that signature… Miles Edgeworth?” Ooh, that’s a burn.
‘…a ton of sex with Phoenix Wright in my office!’
Edgeworth’s only comeback was that he was riding Phoenix high on the award he’d just received, but Gant obviously doesn’t give a fuck. “I’ll expect a written apology,” he says, smiling but with absolutely no mirth in his eyes, and goes on that Daddy is here to clean up the mess little Worthy has made. Ema is like, “Oh my God, I am so embarrassed for him!” It is pretty mortifying, and there is no way Phoenix isn’t using this to his advantage later.
As for the switchblade, the judge accepts it into evidence and politely asks Phoenix to help him pop it open so he can look at the blade. Phoenix tells him to just press the button, but the judge thunders back, “If I cut my finger Mr. Wright, I wouldn’t be able to pound my gavel anymore.” Oh my. Better, Phoenix thinks, “Yeah. But if I cut my finger, I wouldn’t be able to point it at people anymore…” I don’t know whether to giggle at Phoenix’s fear of a sliced appendage or to be sad for him that he thinks you can’t point with a finger that has a bandage on it. Obviously, this is all just belabored setup for Phoenix to “scientifically” examine the knife. When he presses the gold button on the drab brown handle, the blade thrusts out erotically, revealing a broken tip stained with old blood.
Edgeworth, though, refuses to admit defeat and demands an explanation from Gant, leading the judge to ask the chief to testify. “About the split between the prosecutors and the police…and this knife.” But their trust for each other is so deep and penetrating! Just like…this knife! Oh my God, I just blew my own mind.
Gant’s testimony is a master class in statements masked as secretive but overtly designed to prompt information-begging from Phoenix. Count them yourself! In full: “This knife is special…but I can’t say how here. Unless there’s evidence to prove a connection between this knife and [Niceguy]… That was a bad day for the Department. We weren’t in any shape to do an investigation. A detective was killed at the Police Department, see…what a mess! The time of the crime? 5:15. Scary coincidence, eh? It’s not officially linked to this here case, so I can’t talk much about it.” Good lord. He may as well have stamped “ASK ME ABOUT THIS OTHER MURDER” on Lana’s scarf and flown it above the courtroom with an RC plane.
Naturally, that’s what everyone wants to ask about. Gant tells the judge, “That’s hush-hush information, Udgey! We haven’t exactly announced it yet.” Dude, I think you just did, unless everyone in the peanut gallery is actually a police officer. And given their intelligence level as a group, that would explain a lot. Edgeworth wins the “DURRRRRRR” gold medal for being the first to figure out that the murder was at the exact same time as Lana’s murder of Niceguy. But they’re totally different and unrelated! That’s why Gant brought it up, to demonstrate how not related they are! Phoenix blue-fonts about this, and Ema replies to him, “The chances of that are really slim. Scientifically speaking, of course.” That’s more mathematically speaking, but whatever. So even though this testimony is very boring and not at all relevant, Phoenix asks to exercise his right to cross-examine Gant.
First, since it’s obvious he needs to present evidence regarding the switchblade to move this thing forward, Phoenix presses on all the statements related to the other murder. In the process, Gant agrees to tell him “one thing and one thing only” about the crime, allowing Phoenix to choose from a multiple choice list. Except he can just keep pressing that statement and hear all of it, and one of the choices is “when the victim died,” which we already know. But Gant doesn’t care, because he is blessed with the gift of gab, shall we say. Anyway, he tells the court that the victim was stabbed with a knife–what a coincidence!–and while he won’t speak to where the victim was found, HINT HINT, he will tell them that “the crime took place in the evidence room at the Police Department.” As we will see later, this is not nearly specific enough. Gant also tells them that they do have a suspect, who was “just arrested,” but more on his sad self later.
Edgeworth’s a magic man?
Once he’s mined everything else out of the chief, Phoenix turns his attention to the switchblade, and the small white tag tied to it, which reads “SL-9 2.” Phoenix manages to grind enough working brain cells together to figure out that this is probably a case designation, like DL-6. Ema, though, takes a look at it and mutters, “I’m not certain… But I get the feeling I’ve seen this somewhere before! Letters like this…or letters that looked a lot like this…somehow.” Just in case anyone is not to the finish line yet, when Phoenix presses on the knife, and Gant is done anviling him to near death again, Phoenix thinks, “I should try presenting that piece of evidence that’s had me stumped all this time!” Not that that isn’t going to work, but what’s insanely frustrating is that Phoenix opens by asking Gant, “This knife was found at the scene of our crime! I think that makes it connected to this case, don’t you!?” This is a super good point and I’m so proud of him, but Gant basically waves him off. So stupid.