LogFAQs > #956788482

Case 4, trial - the Beates

I'm back in on this game! I really, really enjoyed the cross examination of Roly and Pat Beate. all too often, a witness gets up on the stand and you rip out the truth while tearing them apart. that... technically happens here, but in a much more subtle, nuanced way.

when I first started this cross examination, I expected to use the pursue mechanic to divide these two overly sappy lovebirds. Pat does I think the entirety of the testifying in the first section, and is clearly the dominant one in the relationship. Roly sleeps through most of it due to what is apparently nonstop crunch. sucks to be an officer of the Yard back in 1906 or whatever it is here.

their testimony is convincing, and it triggers the jury to all vote me guilty. I audibly groaned here -- how many times can you put me on the brink like this? -- but I actually like what they did here. for the first time in the game, this felt like a true puzzle, dragging out the right dialogue, matching it with another statement and then taking that information to a new person. it wasn't *hard*, but it was fun to puzzle out the right solution. I still think the jury is kind of unnecessary and bogs things down, but it worked well here, mostly because our girl Joan is one of the jurors. it's an interesting wrinkle to have a character in the courtroom who is clearly suspicious, but not be there for witness purposes.

we appeal to the judge to cross examine the clearly suspicious juror, but he denies it. we're stuck with the Beales again. slowly, we bring out more and more evidence, something that's sorely lacking in this case. Roly's handbook, information on each officer's 'beat', and the rose. each piece of evidence drew a good picture of what happened here, and it was satisfying to figure out the major inconsistency in the case: how the body ended up with all the stuff from Joan's house.

it isn't hard to figure out, but like the Ini/Mimi twist, it's a satisfying way to solve a major riddle: Roly moved the body to the other side of the road so he could finally take a goddamn day off to celebrate his anniversary. if he can't get a day off for that, I'd like to know how he got married! but still, I thought it was a nice mini-twist that it isn't the crazy wife that caused the commotion, but the guy who just wanted to make her happy. hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn, and in this case, the dude totally screwed things up by just wanting to appease her.

van Zieks comes to the rational side here, calls out the dude for tampering with a crime scene, and joins me in demanding the maid's testimony. she blurts out that the knife came from her house in a panic. she can't run now! taking this awful domestic abuser down better be as good as mind tells me it is!

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xyzzy