While taking a trip on the swankiest airplane you'd never be able to afford, Edgeworth stumbles on a dead body and is mistaken for the killer!  Who is the mysterious, handsome young victim?  Who killed him?  And why does an airplane have an elevator, a grand piano, and objecting statues!?

Date:  March 12, 2019
Victim: Akbey Hicks
COD:  Death by fall - blunt force trauma
Guilty:  Cammy Meele
 

March 12, 6:13 am.  The case opens on board an airline, where a sudden air pocket has caused turbulence.  The similarity to an earthquake tremor renders Edgeworth unconscious, and he wakes up later surrounded by spilled grape juice.  When he attempts to return to his seat he is confronted then by an elevator, and has a short flashback to the DL-6 incident in his past.  Determined to get over it, he heads for the elevator, but a wallet that isn't his drops out of his pocket.  As he picks it up the elevator opens, revealing a dead man with blood on the back of his head and his belongings strewn about him.  Before Edgeworth can fully appreciate what he's seeing flight attendant Rhoda Teneiro appears on the scene and witnesses him standing over the corpse with the wallet in hand.

Rhoda returns Edgeworth to his seat and ties him up, assuring the passengers that the criminal has been apprehended.  Edgeworth of course protests, and asks if Rhoda will describe to him just what evidence she thinks she has against him.  She stakes her pride as a flight attendant on his guilt based on seeing him holding "the bloody murder weapon," but Edgeworth shows what he actually held was only a wallet stained with grape juice.  When they discover that the wallet belongs to the victim (Akbey Hicks) he's placed under suspicion yet again, this time of killing the victim for the money.  Edgeworth points out that Akbey's money has actually been emptied from the wallet all over the crime scene, and as such theft makes no sense as a motive.

The other passengers start shouting at Rhoda for getting it wrong, but Edgeworth gracefully accepts that he seemed guilty at the time, calming them.  Rhoda apologizes for her mistake and unties him.

The two are interrupted by a man in fancy clothes shouting at them in Borginian.  Rhoda suggests they find the other attendant, who can speak the language, but the man switches to English to continue yelling at them.  He is Zinc Lablanc II, and he insists that Edgeworth is guilty.  He saw Akbey leave the first class seats right at 6 am, and since the body was discovered only fifteen minutes later and all the other passengers were seated only Edgeworth could be the killer.  He had paid special attention to Akbey because the man was playing constantly with his cell phone, which Zinc found irritating.

Edgeworth requests that he be given the chance to investigate the scene, and Rhoda leaves briefly to get permission from the captain.  She does, under the condition that she accompany Edgeworth.  He agrees and they head down to the lounge.

At the scene they discover the spilled grape juice, and foot prints leading away from the scene, but they disappear past a closed shutter.  Rhoda explains the shutter closes them off from the plane gift shop (yes the plan has a gift shop!).  At the body itself they find a small coin bank of the iFly Airline mascot, a photo of the victim standing next to some kind of large statue with red eyes, his broken glasses, and a strap around his neck that is missing the cell phone that should be at the end of it.  The blood stain on the bank convinces Edgeworth that it is the murder weapon, and that the killer must have been hiding in the elevator before Akbey came in, and then fled in the direction of the gift shop afterwards.

Zinc comes back, ranting in Borginian to a second flight attendant holding a stuffed animal.  He insists to Edgeworth again that he saw Akbey enter the elevator at 6 exactly, and there was no one already in the elevator with him.  He knows the time exactly because he was constantly checking his watch, waiting for the in flight movie to start, and getting more and more angry because it was late.  Edgeworth shows him the airline brochure: the movie was on time, but Zinc's watch was off because his watch was set to American time while the brochure is on Borginian time.  Therefore, Zinc saw Akbey at 3am, not 6am.

The second flight attendant, Cammy Meele (who can barely seem to stay awake), says that she saw Akbey in his seat at 5am when the plane stopped for an hour in Zheng Fa (from 4 to 5).  During that time no passengers got on or off the plane.  Edgeworth admits that after the plane left Zheng Fa at 5 he spent the entire time in the lounge, which again points to him as the killer, but then he shows off the coin bank that was supposedly the murder weapon.  Rhoda confirms that it's an item in the gift shop, and that she herself was in the shop at 5:40.  After leaving she passed Edgeworth in the lounge (he was reading a magazine and didn't notice) and went to the flight attendant's room.  She was on her way back when she found Edgeworth standing over the corpse.

Rhoda suggests they search the gift shop, but Cammy interrupts, saying they need the captain's permission for that.  In fact, she was just speaking to the captain, and he claims that he never talked to Rhoda about an investigation in the first place.  Rhoda leaves before she can explain why she lied, and Cammy escorts Edgeworth to the gift shop in her place.

At the gift shop they discover two hideous suitcases which were designed by Rhoda herslf, one of which almost runs Edgeworth down because it's missing the footies needed to hold it in place.  They also find the display case that the little iFly bank came from, its glass shattered.  However, the glass shards are all on the outside of the case, indicating that the bank fell out of the case during the turbulence, and was not stolen from the case.  Edgeworth determines that it is not the murder weapon after all, and was merely planted at the scene.  Cammy then suggests that Rhoda might be the killer, as she is the attendant in charge of the gift shop.

But that isn't the only strange thing about the scene.  Edgeworth goes back to the loose suitcase, wondering why they found it neatly in line when the missing footies mean it should have been all over the place when the turbulence hit.  Peeking inside, he finds a striped cloth covered in blood.  Edgeworth suspects the suitcase was used to move the body, but before he can investigate further the captain orders him to halt is investigation until after the plane has landed.

At the terminal Edgeworth worries about Rhoda being fingered for the murder, and wonders if there's a way he can get back onto the plane to continue investigating.  He's interrupted by Franziska, who has come to take over.  Having talked to the captain she at first things that Edgeworth is still the prime suspect, and has no trouble whipping him for bringing shame to his name.  She does however agree to wait to arrest him until after her investigation (how kind!).  Gumshoe shows up and he and Edgeworth make it back onto the plane to investigate.

Inside, Zinc is mad again, complaining that because of the investigation all his cargo is still held in the plane (he's an arts dealer).  Edgeworth shows him the striped fabric he found in the suitcase, and Zinc confirms that it was cloth made in Borginia.  He indicates that Rhoda is in the attendant's room, but before Edgeworth can investigate he has to prove to Franziska that he's innocent.  He does, but inadvertently puts suspicion back on Rhoda.  Franziska allows him to come with her to the flight attendant's room to question Rhoda.

Rhoda admits that she lied about getting permission from the captain to let Edgeworth investigate: not only did she not think he would agree anyway (as he only listens to Cammy - i.e. the one with her boobs hanging out) but she wanted to make up for the fact that she had accused Edgeworth wrongly.  He thanks her for that, but then has to ask what she was doing in the gift shop earlier.  When Edgeworth presses her she confesses that she went to check on her designed suitcase, as it was the last one and she was anxious about it selling.  Edgeworth points out that there were two suitcases at the shop when he checked, and in fact, he spots another in the corner of the room.  Rhoda tries to say that it's her personal suitcase, but Edgeworth finds the price tag still on it.  Rhoda at last confesses that not a single one of her suitcases has sold, and so every flight she buys one herself  to at least make it look like they're popular.  All the extra unsold suitcases are kept in the cargo hold.  It's possible the killer took one of the suitcases out of the cargo hold, rode the elevator up, then left the body and snuck the suit case back into the gift shop.

Of course, the only person who can take the elevator to and from the bottom level is Rhoda, as she has the card key, but when Edgeworth asks to see it she admits that it's missing.  They all head into the cargo hold to continue the investigation.  Sure enough there's a whole pile of Rhoda's non-selling suitcases, near which Edgeworth finds some fragments of broken glass (pieces from Ackey's broken glasses, which confirms he was down there).  They also find Akbey's briefcase, which has a profile of Franziska in it.  

When Edgeworth questions Franziska, she admits that Akbey was actually an Interpol agent, and the two of them were supposed to work together on a top secret case uncovering a group of smugglers.  It must have something to do with his death.

Looking over the evidence, Edgeworth and Franziska surmise that Ackey was murdered in the cargo hold, and the killer stuffed him into one of Rhoda's suitcases and dragged it to the elevator.  Once the elevator got to the top the turbulence hit, and Akbey's body spilled out of the suitcase.  Rather than try to pack him back up the killer moved the suitcase to the gift shop and planted the iFly bank at the scene.

Rhoda, who was in charge of the gift shop and also had the only access to the basement elevator is still the prime suspect, but Edgeworth continues to defend her.  He requests that Franziska have the body checked again, and when Gumshoe returns with the report they find that the cause of death was from trauma blows all over Akbey's back.

Just then Zinc bursts into the cargo hold demanding to see his things, but tumbles over the entrance rail and onto a huge covered box.  Watching him fall sparks inspiration in Edgeworth and he declares that Akbey must have fallen to his death.  Zinc may have landed on cargo this time, but the objects have "Zheng Fa" printed on them: they may not have been added to the hold until the stop in Zheng Fa, and the murder may have taken place before then.

They investigate the cargo and discover it's a statue known as Alif Red that Zinc was taking to its debut in America.  However, he has signed documents saying that it was loaded on the plane in Europe, crushing Edgeworth's theory.  Unsatisfied, Edgeworth insists on seeing the statue himself, and finds something wrong with it: the eyes are yellow, and don't match the red eyes the statue has in the photo Edgeworth originally found in Akbey's suit pocket.  Zinc's beloved statue is a fake.  Not only that, but it's perched on top of cargo that was loaded onto the plane at Zheng Fa, which  means it could not have been in the hold since the plane left Europe.  Zinc's documents are also fakes.

The statue is moved, and on the ground luminol picks up traces of blood, which the killer must have wiped up using the piece of Borginian cloth found in the suitcase.  It proves that the murder took place before arriving at Zheng Fa, which means that Cammy's testimony about Akbey being in his seat at 5 is also false.  They pull her down to confront her.

Cammy says she probably just made a mistake when doing the roll call.  As for her alibi, she was alone in the attendant's room from 3 to 4 and 5 to 6.  Edgeworth reminds her that Rhoda came to the room around 5:40 and did not see her, but Cammy brushes him off, saying she must have been in the bathroom at that time.  She says again that Rhoda is more suspicious, since she had the keycard to the elevator, and suggests that Edgeworth is only defending Rhoda because he likes her.  Rhoda declares she has no interest in a man who does not appreciate her design sense.

Edgeworth hurries them past that topic, presenting the forged travel documents that said Alif Red was loaded onto the plane in Europe.  Because the documents are in Borginian only Cammy could have signed for them, since Rhoda doesn't speak it.  Cammy abruptly shrugs off her apparent narcolepsy and for once challenges Edgeworth directly, claiming that even though she signed the documents she slacked off and didn't actually check to see that the goods had been loaded.  Therefore they have no proof she was part of any smuggling, let alone a murder.

Franziska interrupts angrily, saying that the smuggling alone is motive, since that's what Akbey was investigating.  Edgeworth also points out that the sheer amount of evidence against Rhoda makes it less likely that it was her.  Why would she be so careless as to move the body using a suitcase she had purchased?  But Cammy is still unfazed and asks for decisive evidence that she's done anything wrong.  Edgeworth doesn't have such evidence, but he does have a decisive lack of evidence: Akbey's missing cell phone is still unaccounted for.  Franziska dials the number, and Edgeworth follows it back into the attendant's room.  They find the phone in Rhoda's locker.

Edgeworth tries to say that someone planted the phone, but Franziska isn't buying it.  She starts to take Rhoda away, but Edgeworth stops them and insists on checking the phone: there may be a special reason that the killer thought to take it from Akbey's body.  Even though the screen is broken they're able to use Franziska's phone to retrieve it's data, and find a photo of the cargo hold that proves Alif Red was not on the plane before Zheng Fa.  However, it doesn't prove who the killer is.  Edgeworth then points out one of the pieces of cargo in the photo, which was unloaded at Zheng Fa and is labeled only in Borginian: cloth.  It was from that box that the Borginian cloth used to clean up the murder was taken from, and only someone who could read Borginian would know it held cloth at all.  Anyone else would have simply used the bed sheets, clearly labeled in a different piece of cargo (in English).  But Cammy knew that not only was the Borginian cloth there, but the cargo was about to be unloaded, and therefore no one would be able to trace it.

Cammy breaks down and confesses.  She had no choice but to lead Akbey into the cargo hold when he asked, but she was so scared about being found out that she pushed him over the rail to his death and then covered up the murder.

Cammy is taken in, and Rhoda thanks Edgeworth for clearing her name.  She even offers him one of her suitcases as a gift, which he cringes at but ultimately accepts.  It's 5:47pm by the time Edgeworth leaves the plane at last, and meets again with Franziska.  She tells him that the smuggling case was only one part of a larger criminal group she's after, and she's not the only one: there's at least one other Interpol agent also on the trail, and the "battle" is only just beginning.  As Edgeworth leaves the airport with Gumshoe he gets a call from Ernest Amano, who says that his son has been kidnapped, and he had no one else to trust...

Akbey Hicks, an Interpol agent on the trail of the smugglers, boarded the plane in Europe.  At 3am he approached Cammy and asked her to take him to the cargo hold so he could investigate the goods there.  Though scared, she couldn't refuse a request from Interpol, and escorted him to the hold.  Akbey took photos of the uncommonly empty cargo hold.  In a panic Cammy shoved him over the rail and he was killed instantly when he hit the ground.

Cammy stole the phone, and shoved Akbey's body into one of Rhoda's many ugly suitcases.  She spotted one of Zinc's other cargo pieces: a box of Borginian textiles that she knew were supposed to be unloaded when they reached Zheng Fa.  She pulled a piece of fabric from it and used it to clean the blood from the crime scene.  She then returned to the rest of the plane for when they reached Zheng Fa at 4am.

While the plane was stopped at Zheng Fa, the textiles were unloaded, and a cheap replica of Alif Red was loaded onto the plane.  At 5am they took off again and Cammy claimed Akbey was in his seat even though by then he was already dead.  As soon as they were in the air Edgeworth went down to the lounge, and Cammy returned to the cargo hold to finish her cover up.  She planted Akbey's phone in Rhoda's locker and stole her key card for the elevator.

At 5:40 Rhoda went to the gift shop and bought one of her own suitcases.  She passed Edgeworth on her way to the flight attendant's room but he did not notice her.

At 6am Cammy pulled the suitcase with Akbey's body in it into the elevator, but once she reached the lounge the plane hit an air pocket and was rocked with turbulence.  Akbey flew out of the suitcase and his belongings scattered everywhere.  When Cammy emerged from the elevator she spotted Edgeworth unconscious on the lounge floor and decided to set him up as the fall guy.  She planted Akbey's wallet on him and returned the suitcase, now containing only the blood cloth, to the gift shop.  She then snuck back to her duties, and at 6:13am Rhoda left the attendant's room and spotted Edgeworth standing over the body.