The Kidnapped Turnabout

When Edgeworth learns that his friend's son has been kidnapped, he goes to the theme park Gatewater Land to deliver the ransom and almost becomes a victim himself. He's rescued by Kay Faraday, self proclaimed thief, and together they battle Interpol for the rights to chase down the criminals responsible.

Date: March 13, 2019
Victim: Oliver Deacon
COD: Gunshot wound
MW: Handgun
Guilty: Lance Amano

March 13, 10:11am. Edgeworth arrives at the theme park Gatewater Land, which is owned by Gatewater Company (they own Hotel Gatewateru, known in the US as Gatewater Hotel) but features the Blue Badger. He has been hired by an old friend, Ernest Amano, to deliver the ransom to the kidnappers who took his son, Lance Amano. With Gumshoe playing lookout Edgeworth gets a call from the kidnappers and is directed to the stage area of the park, where a stage is set up with the Gavinner's G (unfortunately we don't get to see the band). Edgeworth is then called again and this time directed to the funhouse. Inside he spots a lot of broken mirrors and what looks like a life sized Blue Badger doll shoved in a far corner. He leaves the money in the appointed room and hears glass break. On his way out he's ambushed behind by the creepiest damn Badger ever and is knocked unconscious.

As Edgeworth gradually regains consciousness he overhears two people talking about being betrayed, and planning to meet up later. By the time he's fully aware he's alone, tied up in a back room with part of a Bad Badger costume sitting next to him. As he struggles to free himself, someone laughs at him from above. A pink ninja girl leaps down from the open window and introduces herself as the vigilante thief Yatagarasu, otherwise known as Kay Faraday. She teases Edgeworth at first but finally unties him.

Kay insists that despite her looks she's a full fledged thief, but when Edgeworth then threatens to arrest her, she admits that she hasn't actually stolen anything yet. More importantly, Yatagarasu is only interested in one kind of "prey" anyway.

They try to leave but find the door locked, and Kay can't reach the window she leapt down from. Edgeworth tries his cell phone and reaches Gumshoe, but the detective is cut off by a stranger claiming to be Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang. He tells Edgeworth he should have gone to the police properly in the first place, and that's why they can't spare to help him now: he'll have to find a way out of the room on his own. The phone cuts out.

Edgeworth and Kay investigate the room and find: a small key; 8 costume boxes, only one of them full with a Pink Badger costume; a Bad Badger costume head without a body; and an advertisement saying that if you can take pictures of all four Badgers within the park during your visit, you'll win a prize. The four are Blue Badger, his girlfriend Pink Badger, the rival Bad Badger, and the original Proto Badger. The park only has one of each circulating at any time and they each manage different areas of the park.

Through the only door they can see the next room, which seems to be set up in a similar way, along with a trap door. They find another trap door in their own room (unlocked with the small key), and though the space below doesn't lend a way out, they do find a ladder (not a step ladder) which they're able to use to climb out of the room and escape.

Outside they find themselves in the western themed area of the park. It seems to have just stopped raining. Gumshoe runs up to them, but is interrupted by the approach of 99 men in suits. They do a roll call by shouting out their numbers and once all of them have been accounted for Lang and Shih-na come out of the nearby saloon. Lang admonishes them, saying, "All men have names given to them by their parents. They're not meant to be numbers!" The men are deeply moved. Lang and Edgeworth then exchange business cards in a very polite manner, which Lang drills into his men.

Edgeworth remembers that he's familiar with the reputation of Lang and his group of elite investigators from Zheng Fa. Lang is not any less informed about Edgeworth, and tells him to run back to the courthouse where he belongs, claiming prosecutors are filthy and that all they do is twist the truth. Before Edgeworth can ask what his deal is, Lang and his investigators march off.

With Lang gone Edgeworth turns his attention back on Gumshoe, threatening to dock his pay for allowing him to get kidnapped and also for calling in Interpol. Gumshoe insists he only called the police--Lang and the rest showed up on their own. Kay offers to help Edgeworth investigate the kidnappers, as it's Yatagarasu's duty to uncover "truth." She and Gumshoe get into a brief fight over who Edgeworth's partner really is, but are stopped by the appearance of Ernest.

Edgeworth confesses that not only have they failed to recover his son Lance, the ransom money was taken too. He asks Ernest to explain the case again. Ernest says that the day before he got a call from Lance calling for help, followed by the ransom demands. Since then he hasn't been able to get a hold of his butler, Oliver Deacon, either. Edgeworth promises to return Lance to him safe and sound.

Gumshoe volunteers to help investigate, but is dragged off by Lang's investigators, who insist that the police station promised the full cooperation of its detectives. That leaves Kay as Edgeworth's assistant, and the first thing they discover is a man in a Blue Badger suit. Kay takes his picture (as part of the Photo Rally game set up by the park) and then pops his mask off, revealing none other than Mike Meekins.

Meekins says he's been at the "Saloon" for the past hour, investigating incognito, and in that time he's seen nothing suspicious other than another Blue Badger. Edgeworth points out that there's only supposed to be one of each Badger in any given area of the park, so the second one might be suspicious. Continuing their investigation Edgeworth spots a pair of foot prints in the mud leading away from the building he was being held captive in which look like costume prints instead of normal shoes. Kay follows them, and they lead to the closed garage door that Meekins himself is standing in front of. There are tire tracks leading away from it, and when they open the door itself they find inside a dead body. Ernest recognizes the man as his butler, Deacon.

Edgeworth takes the opportunity to check out the body before Lang can come back. Deacon seems to have been killed by a gunshot, with the entrance wound in his stomach and an exit wound by his shoulder. He's wearing a silver pendant (the same pendant Jacques tried to steal in case 1, which takes place after this case) with the name Colin Devorae written on the back.

As they back off to compose themselves, they're approached by Lauren Paups, a skittish young woman who introduces herself as Lance's girlfriend (not his lover, his female friend, she specifies). Her women's intuition told her that Lance was in trouble and that's why she came to the park. As she wanders off Lang returns, and upon seeing the dead body immediately tries to put Meekins under arrest. Edgeworth objects, insisting that Lang needs at least some kind of basis. Lang's reasoning is that because guns are illegal in Japan, only a cop like Meekins would have one, and therefore it must be him (someone let Meekins have a gun!?). He also brags that his family, the Lang Family, lead a school for investigators and have been fighting crime for over a thousand years in his home country of Zheng Fa.

Edgeworth scoffs at his reasoning--surely Lang isn't going to arrest every police officer in the city on the basis of them owning a gun. But Lang says he's already checked the guns of every other carrying officer in the area, and none of them have been fired recently (his men work damn fast!). Meekins is the last one left to check, but he confesses he lost his weapon somewhere. He was supposed to be investigating somewhere else (while selling dreams to park visitors - "Innocent Candy" and "Guilty Cookies") but just kind of wandered off with the Blue Badger Car and ended up at the saloon.

Edgeworth asks him if he's been selling from the car all this time, why was it in the garage when he and Kay showed up? Meekins admits that he lost track of that, too. Lang won't accept his excuse that it was simply stolen and is determined to take him in. Edgeworth tries to point out that there's not enough blood in the garage for it to have been the scene of the murder, and until they find the real crime scene they won't know the truth, but Lang brushes him aside. He claims that as police it's their job to arrest bad guys; he doesn't have time to waste on "truth." He and his men run Edgeworth and Kay out of the crime scene. Back at the park entrance Edgeworth and Kay have this exchange:

Kay: There's one thing a thief absolutely must not steal. Do you know what it is?

Edgeworth: You're not supposed to steal anything...

Kay: You mustn't steal life. It's too heavy; you can't get away with it.

Edgeworth agrees and promises to get to the bottom of the case. They're met briefly by Gumshoe, who tells them there may be a witness over at the stage area, but he's soon dragged off again. Edgeworth and Kay head to the stage.

By then the stage has been taken down, and instead a Pink Badger car is nearby. There they find Ema Skye, home for vacation. When she heard Edgeworth was back in town she tried to meet him at the airport but he was already gone, so she used scientific spray and a fluorescent light to follow his footsteps to the park (stalker much?).

As they talk, someone in a Pink Badger suit runs up to them and reveals herself to be Wendy Oldbag. She scorns Edgeworth for hanging out with other women but admits she did witness the murder and has important information for him. She was resting at the stage area when she saw one man point a gun at another and shoot him dead. However, she can't tell them any details about either man. Kay volunteers to let Edgeworth use her special device Little Thief to help recreate the crime, and it shows an image of two men stand right where Oldbag indicated. However, there's not enough blood at the scene for it to be where the murder happened, either. Edgeworth supposes that maybe the victim was wearing another of the Badger costumes when he was shot, and that's why the blood was soaked up and doesn't appear on the ground.

Ema uses her spray and light to find the victim's footprints, which lead into the area from the steps, and again look like costumed feet. Kay puts it into her device. They then ask Oldbag why she didn't mention the fact that one of the men was in a costume, and she confesses she witnessed the crime from further away than she originally admitted: from the VIP room on the second story. She was too far away to see clearly, and they were also in the shadow of the stage, but she's certain she heard a loud bang and saw one of the two keel over.

Kay whips out Little Thief again, this time putting in the stage that had been up earlier, but it appears to go right through where Oldbag said the killer was. They determine that the killer was actually standing on the stage (which also explains why there are no footprints leading up to him). As they finish, Lang reappears. His helpers set the stage back up so they can better investigate, and though he admits this must be the actual murder scene, he hasn't cleared Meekins of suspicion yet. He deduces that Meekins shot the victim from the stage, but Edgeworth reminds him that the victim's gunshot wounds contradict this. In fact, the positions must be reversed: it was the victim on the stage, and the killer on the ground who left the footprints. Both killer and victim were in costume.

Lang still insists that it was Meekins, and that he used the Blue Badger car to take the body back to the garage. There are even tracks in the mud indicating as much. However Edgeworth points out that there are three Badger cars, and the Blue Badger car's wheels are not covered in mud. With the Pink Badger car accounted for at the stage area it must have been the Proto Badger car, which is missing from the garage. Tire marks at the garage confirm this.

As Lang at last agrees to at least look for the Proto Badger Car, they're interrupted by a quiet voice calling for help. Lance Amano stumbles towards them and collapses. Before passing out he manages to tell them that he was being held hostage in the Western themed area (the room next to where Edgeworth was tied up) but he managed to escape through an underground passageway and make his way there. He didn't see his two abductors, as they were both wearing Badger suits, but he's sure one of them was a woman. Lang then chases Edgeworth and Kay away again.

Over at the Western area again, they're met by Ernest and Lauren. Ernest is overjoyed to hear that his son has been found, and shows off some love letters that arrived at the house which he's anxious to pass on to him (Lance is very popular, after all). Edgeworth takes a look but what he finds looks more like a vague death threat than a love letter, signed by Viola of Tender Lender.

Lauren explains that she and Lance are childhood friends, as her father used to work at Ernest's business, Amano Inc. His job involved flying around the world on Pegasus...the jet, not the mythical horse. But 10 years ago he flew away and didn't come back. She was so young she's not sure she would remember his face if she ever saw him again.

One of the officers on the scene hands Edgeworth a document that is actually an arrest report for Colin Devorae, but the picture on the report is of Deacon. It says he was arrested ten years ago and put in jail. Setting that mystery aside, Edgeworth asks the officer if they can be allowed into the room where Lance was being held captive. He agrees, saying it took ten of Lang's men earlier to break the door down.

Inside the room, they discover that it was not the door's lock that broke when Lang's men knocked the door down, it was the handle on the inside. There's also a prop sword lying on the ground inside, snapped in two. They determine that the door was not locked, but barred shut from the inside using the sword. Further in the room three chairs are set around a table, and three used cups sit on top, indicating three kidnappers instead of two. There's also an old Bad Badger costume in the trash, missing its head.

A man in a Proto Badger suit pops out of the trap door in the floor: a park employee who claims all the Badgers use the trap door to move around the park. When he looks into the next room he declares that another costume is missing. The police had thought that only three costumes were missing (one Blue, one Proto, and one Bad) but the employee explains that there should be another Bad Badger costume. Everyone just assumed the second Bad Badger would be out in the park somewhere, but apparently they only use it for special stage shows.

Edgeworth takes a closer look at the Bad Badger costume in the trash. There's a depression in the right hand of the costume, and after looking at an illustration of the Bad Badger he realizes it's supposed to be holding a gun. According to the employee it's no more than a pop gun attached directly to the costume.

They leave the room and immediately run into Gumshoe, who claims they found one of the missing Badger suits at the park entrance. With Lang somewhere else they have a chance to investigate without his interference, and they hurry over. What they find is another Blue Badger suit, and tucked inside is another silver pendant, this one a pair of wings.

Lang shows up and ruins the party. Turning the pendant over, he finds the name Lauren written, and accuses her of the kidnapping and murder (apparently Meekins was cleared when they discovered his gun lost in the park with no signs of having been fired). When they show it to Lauren she breaks down crying and confesses to having been part of the kidnapping. Edgeworth tries to say this doesn't mean she's also a murderer, but Lauren confesses to that too! She says she and Deacon came up with the plan to kidnap Lance for the money, but as soon as they had it Deacon betrayed and tried to kill her, so she had no choice.

Edgeworth objects, saying there's no way that Deacon would try to kill Lauren. He shows her Deacon's horse pendant, which combines with hers to make a Pegasus, and also the old arrest report with his real name. In the report it mentions that "Colin Devorae" had a single daughter, and he thinks that daughter is Lauren.

Lang argues there's a chance that father and daughter didn't recognize each other, and the two of them just happened to come together to plan the abduction, but Edgeworth changes gears on him and argues that there were three criminals in their little hide out that day. Lang says that's it's forgivable that Lance, being a hostage, wouldn't know the exact number of kidnappers, but Edgeworth isn't so sure. He has Lance testify about his capture.

Lance claims that he was locked into the Badger room but not tied up, which is why he was able to escape through the underground passage. But Edgeworth shows off the broken sword, claiming that the door was not locked, it was barred from the inside, which means Lance should have had no trouble escaping. As for motive, Viola's little "love letter" proves Lance was in debt; the entire kidnapping was staged to get daddy's money.

Lance admits it. He claims he wanted to pay off his debt and escape with Lauren to a new town and a new life. However, Deacon betrayed them after they got the money, and Lance was just barely able to trap him in a back room. Lance and Lauren split up, both in costume, but Deacon caught up to Lance and knocked him out to get the money back. When Lance woke up he called Lauren and warned her that Deacon was running around with a gun. He had no idea that Deacon was really Lauren's father.

Lauren confirms the story, and tearfully admits to having shot Bad Badger Deacon at the stage, after he tried to shoot her - with his left hand. Edgeworth points out in Deacon's arrest report that he's right handed (do the police really keep track of that?). More importantly, because the Bad Badger costume has a fake gun attached to its right hand, there's no way Deacon could have shot at Lauren with his left hand and hold onto the suitcase with the money with the other.

Lauren says that she's sure it was Bad Badger because he was wearing sunglasses, but Edgeworth then presents the separated costume head he found way back at the beginning of the case. He surmises that whoever threatened Lauren was wearing a normal Badger body and the Bad Badger head to throw her off. Because the Pink Badger suit would have been too obvious and both Blue Badger costumes were being used, it only could have been the Proto Badger suit - which Lance had. Edgeworth then accuses Lance of murdering Deacon and trying to make Lauren believe she had done it. He even gave Lauren the pop gun from the trashed Bad Badger suit, telling her it was real. By then Deacon was already long dead and Lance needed someone to pin the blame on.

Lauren says this can't be true, because she saw Deacon trapped in the back room, just like Lance's story. Edgeworth informs her that was actually him with the Bad Badger stuck on his head. Lance took him hostage so that he would be able to convince Lauren that at that point Deacon was still alive--otherwise he would have no way to trick her into "killing" him.

They're interrupted by Ernest, who has special evidence to deliver them. He had some of his own men join the investigation, and they were able to discover the Bad Badger suit the victim had been wearing and a pair of guns, all of which had been thrown into the ocean. Lang is pissed at the interference but Ernest then hands over documents signed by the Police Commissioner saying "Don't cause trouble for Amano."

Edgeworth investigates the suit and finds that the holes in it match the wounds on the victim. The murder weapon is there as well (a pistol Deacon stole from the police) and shards of glass in the suit's head. Ernest then says they've already found Lauren's prints on the gun, but Edgeworth says that's not possible, as Lauren was in full costume when she shot Deacon. Lauren admits that she only handled the gun bare handed when she passed it to Deacon, just before he and Lance left for the fun house to get the money.

Edgeworth continues to press, explaining that the burn marks on the Bad Badger indicate that it was shot at close range, which would not have been possible if Deacon was standing on the stage and Lauren below him. He declares the murder actually took place at the funhouse, and that the glass shards discovered in the costume are parts of broken mirror. He asks Lang to let him investigate the funhouse, but Ernest stops them. He denies them the right to investigate the funhouse: after all, he just purchased it from Gatewater Land's owner less than an hour ago. He just happened to have the money prepared, since Lance already confessed everything to him and gave back the ransom. Lucky Edgeworth even gets his suitcase back.

The investigation seems to be at a standstill, but then Kay jumps forward and volunteers Little Thief. Using the data Gumshoe and his officers gained during their initial investigation, she recreates the hall of the funhouse where Edgeworth was attacked. Lance claims he never even went inside it, and so it must have been Deacon that smashed Edgeworth in the head. Because Deacon was wearing the Bad Badger suit, the fake gun attached to his hand means he held his weapon in his left hand. Edgeworth offers up the broken sword they found in the "hideout" as a possible weapon, and a quick luminol test proves there's a small trace of Edgeworth's blood on it from when he was hit. However, because of the hilt on the sword and the position of the blow on Edgeworth, whoever hit him must have used his right hand to do it. This would not be possible with the Bad Badger suit. Lance admits to hitting Edgeworth, using his right hand to make it seem like Deacon had done it.

However, Lang is still convinced that Little Thief and everything they've determined from it is crap. The brochure for the funhouse shows that there is also a broken down badger doll at the end of the hall as part of their "disappearing Badger" trick: just because Edgeworth saw it there does not mean there was anyone inside it, let alone that it was someone in a Badger suit that hit him.

Edgeworth compares the Badger in the brochure to the scene, and realizes that it is actually a mirror image. Using the glass shards he found earlier, he figures out that the trick behind the "disappearing Badger" is actually a moving mirror wall: the funhouse has a side corridor that is sometimes closed to look like a solid wall, and sometimes open, reflecting the "dead" Badger. Therefore, when Edgeworth entered the funhouse the door was open, and that's why he saw only the dead Badger, but when he was on his way out the door was closed, and that's when he was attacked.

Of course, since they found shattered pieces of this wall, that means it was broken at some point. Edgeworth assumes this was the shattering noise he heard when he dropped off the money. It was actually shattered by the gun going off when Lance shot and killed Deacon.

Lance breaks down and confesses. He says that as soon as he got off the phone with Edgeworth Deacon jumped him and pinned him down, and he had no choice but to shoot him. He and his father demand it was self defense, but Edgeworth tells them that's for the courts to decide. The police come to haul them both away, since Ernest may be guilty of forging evidence for his son's sake (and if nothing else, obstruction of justice). Lang admits this is a perfect ending for him, because he needed an excuse to bring Ernest in for questioning anyway: concerning a case that happened ten years ago, KG-8. Apparently Amano Inc. was suspected of a smuggling scandal, and Ernest's own secretary, Deacon, was arrested and imprisoned for it.

Just as he starts to drag father and son off, they're interrupted by Jacques Portsman and his partner Buddy Faith (this is the day before Buddy's murder). Ernest is pleased to see him. Jacques says he's been put in charge of the case and asks that he and Lang try to get along, but Lang sneers that he hates prosecutors and refuses. He does manage to thank Edgeworth for "playing along" with his ultimate goal. At the same time though he accuses Edgeworth's office of having a prosecutor connected to the smuggling group he's after, and that he doesn't trust any of them. He even brings up Manfred von Karma, Edgeworth's old mentor who is infamous now for his crimes in the courthouse. He promises their showdown isn't finished and stalks off.

Edgeworth detains Shih-na for a moment and asks why it is that Lang hates prosecutors so much. She says that in Lang's home country of Zheng Fa, it used to be that members of his family made up a huge portion of their law enforcement, but not anymore. At one point they handed in evidence for an important case, but the prosecutor in charge replaced it with forged evidence. It ended up not being enough, and in the end the Lang family took the blame and was disgraced. Ever since then Lang has not been able to forgive the courts, and especially prosecutors.

Portsman and Buddy leave as well, and Lauren thanks Edgeworth and his friends for helping her, even if she's devastated over Lance betraying her and losing her father without even realizing. Edgeworth reassures her that Deacon was looking out for her all along. Lauren is very grateful for his kind words, and Edgeworth is completely oblivious to the fact that she may have fallen for him.

Kay laments that Edgeworth is not very perceptive in general, and hands him a white cloth that Edgeworth recognizes. It takes him back 7 years, to when he first met Dick Gumshoe, and Kay Faraday...