Unforeseen Disaster

At nine-thirty that evening, Shiraishi slightly parted the blinds and looked outside. There were basically no reporters visibly lingering outside the police station anymore.

However...

With Shiraishi's Lv7 [Counter-Surveillance], he easily spotted two bastards hiding outside through the window!

[Counter-Surveillance] and [Tracking and Surveillance] were highly complementary abilities. As long as [Tracking and Surveillance] was leveled up, [Counter-Surveillance] could be raised to the same level with only one-tenth the points...

Of course, although Shiraishi's "tracking and surveillance" showed Lv7 on the panel, its actual effect was Lv7 (-4).

It could only perform at Lv3, roughly equivalent to the standard level of a police academy graduate, below the average level of the First Investigation Division...

It could not be helped. A two-meter-thirty, three-hundred-pound Little Giant had a hard time hiding himself. Even doing nothing, he was already extremely conspicuous.

Being able to achieve Lv3 effectiveness despite that was already a sign of skillful technique...

The main reason he had "wasted" points on that area was for [Counter-Surveillance]!

"They really are persistent." Shiraishi curled his lip.

Let them lie in wait if they wanted...

Shiraishi was not planning to get off work yet. Not only was he waiting for news from the Criminal Affairs Division, he was also working overtime.

A police chief's usual workload was not light, especially at a large station like the one in Beika Town.

In summary, it was "stamping, shaking hands, waving"...

Major cases were rare under normal circumstances, but the chief had mountains of documents to process. Stamping alone consumed most of each workday.

Shiraishi had it relatively easy for now. After all, Ebihara had not retired yet, and his main task every day was teaching Shiraishi how to sort documents—which ones required careful reading, which needed speed-reading, and which... could simply be stamped without hesitation!

This had also given Shiraishi two new abilities: [Document Organization] and [Document Speed-Reading]. However, both were only Lv2. If Shiraishi had as many spare points as before, he would definitely have leveled them up now.

Besides that sort of desk work, the chief also had to regularly meet important people in the district, conduct public relations, and be the recipient of public relations—in other words, "shaking hands."

Additionally, to raise the district residents' "favorability," he had to organize public events every month and deliberately boost his visibility. That was "waving."

For now, Shiraishi had no time at all for the latter two. He was working overtime "stamping"!

Having only just taken office, Shiraishi did not dare be careless with any document...

It was not that he distrusted Chief Ebihara. It was just... as a "newcomer," Shiraishi could not help feeling uneasy about stamping documents without reading them!

As a result, he easily ended up working into the night, especially since he had spent the entire day dealing with the case.

Knock, knock, knock—

Someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

Aoki walked in.

"Thank you for your hard work. Did you find anything?" Shiraishi immediately saw the conflicted look on Aoki's face.

"We did find something... but sorry, we weren't the ones who found it," Aoki said helplessly.

"Oh?" Shiraishi looked over curiously.

"Here's the situation... We discovered that Miki Law Firm seems to have an important witness. They have already submitted the witness directly to the prosecution, and the prosecution has questioned them. We wanted to contact the witness, but the prosecution..." Aoki sounded troubled.

Shiraishi nodded upon hearing that and gestured for him to stop. This was not Aoki's problem. Shiraishi himself had refused to take orders from the prosecution, so naturally they would not cooperate with him now!

"However, this witness should be unfavorable to Tsubokura," Aoki added, revealing the information he had learned.

"Miki Law Firm... If I remember correctly, that was the firm originally appointed to represent Tsubokura, right?" Shiraishi's Lv7 [Memory] could remember people, but naturally it could remember documents as well.

He had reviewed the case file before. After Tsubokura was prosecuted, he had no money to hire his own lawyer, so the bar association assigned him to Miki Law Firm and had them provide an attorney.

That was standard procedure. Those who could not afford a lawyer were generally assigned to large law firms through the bar association.

Of course, Miki would not personally take on a case with no profit in it. He merely handed it to one of the junior lawyers at the firm.

That "junior lawyer" had been a hotheaded rookie. Because of disagreements over [Not Guilty Defense] and [Sentencing Defense], he had actually gone behind the firm's back to ask Komikado to take over. According to rumors, that junior lawyer had even paid Komikado's fee out of pocket.

It was precisely because someone like Komikado, a Legal Scavenger of that caliber, had gotten involved that the doubts in the case were exposed.

Otherwise, an ordinary appointed criminal defense lawyer's job was generally to "advise a guilty plea, show a good attitude, and ask for a reduced sentence"... They had no fighting spirit when it came to defense, merely going through the motions. It could even be called a disguised plea bargain!

Shiraishi had previously reprimanded Shirai as well. The details of his investigation made it clear that he had been counting on Tsubokura having only an "Appointed Public Defense Lawyer," which was why he had handled things so crudely!

From that perspective, Shiraishi still did not know whether Tsubokura had been wronged, but Shirai certainly had not been unfairly criticized.

"Miki Law Firm... has a witness unfavorable to the defendant? Was that why they had not pursued a Not Guilty Defense from the beginning? No, that doesn't make sense... Then why did they let one of their own junior lawyers run wild?" Shiraishi found Miki Law Firm's behavior bizarre and completely illogical!

Miki Law Firm was the defense side for the defendant. They would not voluntarily reveal a witness unfavorable to their client, because that would undoubtedly damage the firm's reputation. Therefore, concealing that witness was logically consistent.

But what happened afterward?

Why did they allow one of their junior lawyers to pursue a Not Guilty Defense?

Had they even kept it from their own people?

Aoki then explained, "Oh, we looked into that too... That Komikado used to be with Miki Law Firm, but later he fell out with Miki... My guess is that Miki deliberately wanted to set Komikado up. Komikado becoming the lawyer in this case was probably part of Miki's design."

In order to find that "witness" whom the police had never contacted, Aoki had worked both the prosecution and Miki Law Firm. Naturally, he had noticed how strange Miki Law Firm's actions were and investigated the matter along the way.

"Huh?" Shiraishi was briefly speechless, then sighed. "That really is an unforeseen disaster..."

With Lv7 [Reasoning] as well, Shiraishi had already sorted everything out in his mind based on the clues currently available!

Miki was also an old Legal Scavenger. If he took the case seriously, he could naturally spot that it had doubts and that the prosecution's materials contained glaring holes!

However, he had also discovered an important witness whom even the prosecution and police did not know about—one who could prove the defendant's guilt!

So... Miki had most likely deliberately used this opportunity to pull "Kurokawa Kenji" into the trap!

After Komikado became the defendant's attorney and discovered the holes in the prosecution's evidence, Miki had then voluntarily handed the "unfavorable evidence" he possessed over to the prosecution.

That way, the defense attorney had already been changed. Turning the witness over to the prosecution at that point would neither damage Miki Law Firm's reputation nor earn it favor with the prosecution. More importantly... it would screw over Komikado, his enemy!

Seen that way, this was completely an "unforeseen disaster" for Beika Town—they had gotten dragged into a conflict between lawyers and ended up taking two hard punches...

"Still... if this witness can really confirm Tsubokura's guilt, it would be a good thing for us. Let's hope Section Chief Shirai was merely too eager for results," Aoki said, trying to comfort Shiraishi.

"Miki Law Firm found a witness that Section Chief Shirai somehow failed to find... Even if he was eager, that's not the kind of eager he should have been!" Shiraishi was even more dissatisfied with Shirai now. There had not been a lack of leads, so how had a law firm found one that he had missed? Had all his thoughts been focused on those shameful interrogation techniques?

Knock, knock, knock—

Just then, another knock sounded at the door.

Akasaka entered, carrying a laptop.

To Shiraishi's surprise, Fujisato Seiko, dressed in plain clothes, followed behind him...