Maggey jumps to the crazy, totally wrong conclusion that Phoenix is just bad at his job. “How can you talk like such an amateur!?” she asks. “I thought you were a pro, sir!” And I thought she had seen him at work before. I mean, this is bad even for Phoenix, but let’s not act like he’s Perry Mason the rest of the time. But Maggey figures she can help Phoenix out, and talks him through using the court record. Phoenix Shions his way through her entire explanation, making me want some preening fuck with a perm to leap from behind a corner and hit me in the head with a fire extinguisher. But finally, he gets it and takes a look, while praising Maggey for knowing her shit. “It’s too bad I’m a cop, right?” Maggey replies. “Just think! I could totally be a legal aide instead!” The only problem here is that Phoenix seems to be the only lawyer in this universe who requires someone to explain his own job to him. That’s a tough career path.
I hate you so much right now.
The court record contains five items at the moment, and three of them–Phoenix’s badge, the autopsy report, and the just-submitted photo–clearly don’t fit the bill. That leaves Phoenix’s cell phone (spoiler: maybe) and a broken pair glasses with blue frames. The description says they were under the victim’s body, so even Phoenix can put this together. Also, it’s multiple choice and the other two options are “a wallet” and “a police badge.” Whew! This is a tough nut to crack. “That’s simple, Your Honor,” Phoenix replies, not referring to his own brain. “A broken pair of glasses.” Gumshoe explains, probably for the second time, “The victim grabbed the criminal’s glasses as he was being shoved, sir, and held onto them as he fell.” I know you’re all thinking that sounds incredibly unlikely–who grabs at someone’s face as they fall backward?–but compared to what we’re about to hear, it’s pretty straightforward.
Obviously, Phoenix starts giving Maggey and her blue-framed glasses the hairy eyeball. I’ll just let her explain: “Nnnngh… Yes, this is my spare pair. But these glasses they found at the scene of the crime are not mine! I swear, sir!” And if Phoenix’s eyebrow weren’t already cocked all the way into his hair: “Look, it was a coincidence that on that same day, I accidentally stepped on mine!” Well, I hope she didn’t step on them on purpose. Maggey doth protest too much.
At this, Payne goes, “Eh hee hee hee hee hee hee! Your Honor. I have further evidence to present.” Okay, Albedo, no need to be a drama queen about it. He adds that this evidence is “very decisive,” which means it will be the opposite of that. Gumshoe is called upon to testify about this, though everyone is very uncool about it and refuses to refer to it as “hard evidence.” This is difficult enough for Gumshoe without letting him have any fun. “There’s something even more incriminating than the glasses under the victim’s body, sir,” Gumshoe says in the game’s first official testimony. “During his date, the victim was pushed from the bench area. But he managed to write the culprit’s name on the ground where he landed.” The most sensible possible action a victim could take! EVERYBODY DRINK. A second photo is introduced, showing a top-down view of Dustin Prince’s upper body and the ground around his head. The name “Maggie” is scrawled in the dirt, the “e” trailing off under Prince’s right index finger. Well, shit, this is open and shut! I see no problems with this evidence!
Oh, fuck this.
It suddenly makes all the sense in the world that this case involves Phoenix sustaining brain damage. It’s just too easy for him at his full powers. And Edgeworth hates it when Phoenix gets off work early, because he tries to cook them a romantic dinner and somehow uses, and scorches, every single pan in the kitchen.
The courtroom brain trust fawns over this perfect piece of evidence and its lack of any flaws whatsoever, and it’s accepted into the court record. “As if the glasses alone didn’t make you look suspicious,” Phoenix snits at poor Maggey, “the victim even wrote your name clear as day on the ground!” If nothing else, Phoenix’s memory wipe allows the writers to use this tired-ass meme again, because non-concussed Phoenix would be rolling his eyes up and down at this horseshit. Maggey argues again that the glasses are not hers, and when Phoenix asks her about “his dying message”–bitch, please–she pauses a moment before crying, “It’s a conspiracy! I’m not guilty, sir!” Oh, girl. How about, “I don’t spell my name that way!” Not that that’s the only problem here, but it’s one she of all people should pick up on immediately. What is wrong with these people? Did they all get their noggins pummeled with malicious fire extinguishers?
It’s now time for Phoenix to cross-examine Gumshoe, which Maggey also has to walk him through, in language eerily similar to Mia’s very first explanation of this process. If Maggey were more than a B-cup, I’d entertain the possibility that Mia is entering perfect strangers now. Maggey tells the dude she is ostensibly paying money for this that he needs to expose witnesses’ lies, or at least their misrememberings. “Hmm, like that detective,” Phoenix says. “He does sort of look like a scatterbrain…” Rich coming from a dude who forgot his own name. Once Maggey is done tutoring him, and the judge is fresh out of patience again, Phoenix thinks to himself while fingering his chin, “Talk about trial by fire. Here goes nothing. As long as I can ‘expose the lies‘, we should be alright.” Well, let’s practice first, Phoenix. I’ll start. Phoenix Wright is super good at his job!
No, Phoenix! Put that away!
Pressing Gumshoe immediately allows Phoenix to get back to the glasses found under Prince, because do I ever not want to get into this writing in the sand business. Phoenix asks if Gumshoe has any proof that they are Maggey’s, leading Gumshoe to reply, “The lenses are for near-sightedness, and are almost the same strength as hers. Even the frames look kinda like the ones she’s wearing in her ID, pal.” Gotta say, bad luck for Maggey if the killer just happens to wear blue-framed glasses with her same basic prescription, because that is an incredible coincidence. But Phoenix zeroes in on Gumshoe’s language and presses further. “‘Almost’ and ‘kinda’ are not good enough in a case like this!” he shouts. Does this look like horseshoes or hand grenades to you, Dick? Gumshoe adds that there are no fingerprints because the glasses were ground into the sand at the scene. Sadly, though Phoenix gets the judge on his side that the glasses are trash evidence, this ends up not mattering to the case at large and only serves to give Maggey a sliver of her confidence in Phoenix back.
But that leaves THE NAME for Phoenix to handle. Pressing the remainder of Gumshoe’s statements gets him nowhere, as he and Gumshoe just derp back and forth at each other that, yes, Officer Prince was pushed, and yes, his finger did write “Maggie,” and yes (or no!), “Maggie” is the defendant’s name. I can actually forgive Phoenix for not immediately seeing the issue here, since he’s all of a sudden a novice with the court record again, probably has not found the profiles section, and therefore has never seen his client’s name in writing. But Gumshoe has no excuse. He even cites her ID badge in his testimony! He knows how she spells it.
NO, PHOENIX! PUT THAT AWAY!
So I’ve probably made it clear by now that Phoenix must object to the effect that “Maggey” and “Maggie” are not the same. But I’m sure you smart people have also deduced that a man who died on impact from a snapped neck did not exactly have time to scratch his non-girlfriend’s name into the dirt by his head. This is, of course, the exact same problem Phoenix had when it was Mia supposedly writing Maya’s name in blood. But will Winston Payne pull a “revised” autopsy report out of his ass that indicates Dustin Prince lived long enough, WITH A BROKEN NECK, to do some sand doodling? Nope! Because that would require the court to even recognize that the time of death is a problem. Phoenix can present the autopsy report until he’s blue in the pointing finger, but no one present seems to think this is any kind of contradiction, and no one ever bothers explaining why it isn’t one.
Thus, it is with great consternation that, after Maggey explains to Phoenix how to present evidence and thrust his dick finger at Payne for great justice, I have Phoenix present Maggey’s profile at Gumshoe’s statement that the written word is the defendant’s name. (Maggey does actually helpfully point out the semi-new feature of presenting someone’s profile in addition to evidence, except the Lana Skye case totally did happen, fuck what these people say.) Phoenix shouts, “Objection!” and then spews ellipses at himself for a good minute. “What…What’s come over me…?” he wonders. “Without thinking, I just blurted out, ‘Objection!’…” He’s doing things without thinking! Our Phoenix is coming back to us!
Why yes, you are a crazy person.
“What a rush!” Phoenix blue-fonts as the music gets all triumphant, but still porny. Phoenix demands that Gumshoe state the defendant’s name. Payne jumps in to answer, and even though this is out loud, he says, “The defendant’s, uh, name is, uh…’Maggie Byrde’.” And Phoenix shakes his head, as if he can hear spellings. “I think someone needs to check the Court Record,” he tells Payne. Payne does so, reads the name out loud again, and realizes his mistake. At least he was looking at her name when he said it that time. “It looks like the bird caught the cat napping!” Phoenix crows (sorry). The judge and Gumshoe, because neither one of them can hear the obvious aural difference between “Maggie” and “Maggey,” have no idea what’s going on. Phoenix literally spells it out for them, and Gumshoe’s all, “How about that? I hadn’t even noticed!” Given what we’ll find out later, it is a real indictment of Gumshoe’s skills that, even looking for a reason not to arrest Maggey, he still couldn’t spot this one. As Jeanne pointed out, the only person who got this right is Phoenix, and he can barely read.
Payne doesn’t want to admit defeat. “But maybe the victim didn’t know how to spell her name correctly…” he says. You know, I do buy this. It is entirely possible Prince wasn’t all that into Maggey, and I’m not just saying that because he’s a handsome man in this series so he must be gay. She doesn’t especially seem into him, either. I mean, she’s on trial for his fucking murder, which only happened days ago, and she’s still acting like Selphie on caffeine pills. Even endless cheerbot Maya was a morose mess for her murder trial. Ignoring me, Phoenix points out, “May I remind you that it was you who said, ‘The defendant is accused of killing her lover.’ If they were truly lovers, it would be impossible for him to have not known her name!” And here I thought Phoenix was supposed to be an expert on thinking outside the box. He misspelled her name, so what had to be true for him to do that? I’ll stop. They were totally hetero lovers and he was very enthusiastically boning down with her six times a day. Obviously.
Payne establishes, through a back-and-forth with the judge, that Prince and Maggey were a “well-known couple in the police force.” The judge, unintentionally salting a wound, asks Detective Gumshoe to testify about the couple’s robust, incredibly perfect sex life. “Yes, sir…” he moans, slumping his shoulders. In a second testimony, Gumshoe says, frowning the entire time, “Officer Prince and Officer Byrde had been going out for about half a year. It sounded like they were even talking about marriage.” Oh, I’m so sure. Maggey Byrde is one stone-cold bitch if she’s this upbeat after losing the love of her life three days ago. “The day of the incident just happened to be the victim’s birthday, sir,” Gumshoe adds. “Maggey…I mean, Officer Byrde, had gotten Officer Prince a present. It was something she had gotten over 2 months ago. I should know, ’cause she came to me to ask what she should get for him.” Gumshoe actually perks up at this, like he’s so happy to have been helpful to this happy couple he clearly had no desire to horn in on. At this point I’m expecting Maggey’s gift to be his and hers dildos, with inscriptions reading, “Now we at least have one thing in our lives that satisfies us.”
In the cross, Gumshoe is pressed for all kinds of juicy details on the couple, and starts with an explanation of how Maggey and Prince met: “Every year in March, we have a training camp for us cops. Officer Byrde was a rookie at the time, and she and Officer Prince seemed to hit it off.” They met at camp! Who marries the dude they met at camp? Fucking nobody. And the rub, as Gumshoe goes on, “Actually, I was supposed to go, too, but…I couldn’t pay the deposit for the trip, so I didn’t. If only I had gone on that trip…” Yeah! Maybe he and Prince would now be engaged, only for Gumshoe to be accused of his murder instead! So romantic. You really missed out, Dick.
‘How could they be soulmates if they weren’t in fourth grade together?!’
Next, Phoenix has a huge fucking problem with this marriage idea, since Maggey is way younger than Prince, like that isn’t incredibly normal in large swaths of culture. “What!? You saying a guy’s gotta marry someone the same age as himself, pal!?” Gumshoe demands, only for Maggey to reveal that Gumshoe is about the same age as Prince. So clearly Phoenix would be totally fine with Gumshoe and Prince’s age-appropriate relationship. But only if Prince’s dad were murdered and Gumshoe entered the police academy to see why Prince wasn’t responding to his five-times-daily pizza and ice cream emojis.
I see brain damage didn’t take away Phoenix’s Shining powers.
Now that Gumshoe has been thoroughly humiliated for being in love with the victim victim VICTIM defendant, we can get to this present Maggey bought for Prince’s birthday. Phoenix pins down his birthday as September 6, oddly making Prince the only character appearing in the series who has a specific birthday. And only because he died on that day, which is incredibly dark, now that I think about it. Anyway, on his birthday he met up with Maggey in the park at 5:30, after he got off duty and before she went on. After Gumshoe gets made fun of a lot by both Phoenix and the judge for being a lovestruck dope who borderline stalks his subordinates, to the point that Payne has to intervene to keep the defense from badgering his witness, the detective finally gets to the goddamn point. Over two months ago, Maggey bought Prince a glove. A baseball glove, Payne has to explain, because the judge is wondering if Prince had some Michael Jackson cosplay ambitions. “Officer Prince was a huge baseball fan,” Gumshoe explains, frowning again at the memory of their trip to see the Yokohama BayStars Los Angeles Dodgers. They ate so many Samurai Wieners!
‘We splashed around in the jacuzzi together. What fun! Sigh.’
Phoenix considers this gift, and decides to press further. He is wondering, as I am, why she would buy a birthday present two months in advance. Given that her name is Maggey Byrde, I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to think of her as a magpie, i.e. a hoarder. So she probably has 200 baseball gloves littering every surface of her apartment, and screeches at anyone who tries to throw them out. “Nah, nothing like that, pal!” Gumshoe says. “She ordered it. It was custom-made!” Sure she did. I bet the Home Shopping Network let her etch his name into the thing for an extra $49.99. Phoenix, Gumshoe, and the judge all Shion about it being “custom-made” until I want to kill them all with a baseball bat (Gumshoe’s much more thematically appropriate gift for Prince), but Payne finally asks why the hell any of this matters. Phoenix has nothing else to ask about at this point, because this case is stupid, so he of course insists it does. “That glove is the key to this whole case!” Phoenix says, his inner thoughts giving away that he has no idea whether that’s true. “Yes! Bluffing to the max!” Maggey says. “Now, THIS is the Mr. Wright I know!” Haha. So she does pay attention.
They all open up for Phoenix eventually.
This exhilarating pressing seems to stir some memories in Phoenix–perhaps he’s seeing flashes of a man in fuchsia slumped and sweaty over the prosecutor’s bench–so at least it’s possible his amnesia won’t be permanent. The judge wants to hear more about the glove, based on nothing more than Phoenix saying it might be important. “Actually,” Gumshoe says, “I brought the glove with me today.” Why? I mean, I guess it’s evidence, if Maggey had it on her when she was arrested, but in his own words, “I didn’t think it had anything to do with this case…” Oh dear. I think I know what he’s been doing with it.