Chapter Text
Klavier is in France when it happens. They took the tour bus to the ferry after the UK leg of their tour, and something is wrong on the three hour drive from Calais to Paris. He can see it on his manager’s face. Kitty Poes has worked with him since Klavier was eighteen, since Klavier fired his first manager who didn’t take the sudden rise to teenage fame very well, and they clicked right away. Kitty knows when Klavier is being a diva for fun versus when he is actually close to snapping, and Klavier knows when something is wrong on the tour bus.
She frowns at her phone, she fidgets in her seat, she throws glances. At Klavier, at the other four, even at the driver, like she’s debating the possibility of asking him to pull over. Klavier has seen it all before, years ago in questioning rooms in Los Angeles. Something’s on her mind, and she knows it’ll come to light at some point, but it doesn’t feel quite safe enough to divulge yet. Klavier keeps his cool. Few things are ever impossible to deal with.
The Paris Gatewater is honored as always to have them. All band members share the same suite they’ve shared during their last world tours, the staff takes the neighboring one. They’re all that mixture of travel-exhausted and hotel-excited that Klavier nearly forgets about it, until Kitty pokes her head in through the door right the second he sits down on the couch.
“Klav,” she says. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Ooh, what’d you do?” Seth, their drummer, murmurs. Klavier rolls his eyes.
“Aw, c’mon,” says Daryan, “we just ordered pizza.”
“I’ll have him back by the time your pizza arrives, Daryan, calm down,” Kitty says. Klavier is already getting up anyway, and she holds the door open for him. Once it closes, she considers him, and states, “You don’t like pizza.”
Klavier smiles. He doesn’t handle the grease well, especially not during travel. “I ordered some of those delightful little baguette sandwiches instead,” he says. “What’s up?”
“Only you would go to one of the most prestigious hotels in Paris, France, and order bread,” Kitty sighs. She motions toward the neighboring door. “Come. Not in the hallway.”
That doesn’t particularly make Klavier feel any better about whatever this is, but at least, he tells himself, it’s almost over now. He follows Kitty to the staff suite, and watches her usher everyone else to their bedrooms so she and Klavier can settle down in the infuriatingly gaudy sitting area by the wall-to-wall TV. Kitty takes a breath and rips off the band-aid.
“It’s about your brother,” she says. “He’s in jail for murder.”
Klavier feels the give of the plush velvet chair under him. He feels the collar of his shirt around the back of his neck, and the waistband of his pants dig into his lower abdomen. He feels the breath go into his lungs, then back out. He says, “At the detention center? Do you know who’s defending him?”
“No, no.” Kitty shakes her head. “Not the detention center. Jail. He’s already been convicted. It was a one-day trial.”
“Okay,” Klavier says. Okay. “Who is he alleged to have killed?”
Softly, soft enough to make Klavier’s eyes burn, Kitty says, “Klavier, he’s confessed. I’m not telling you this because he needs legal help. The case doesn’t need solving anymore.”
Why are you telling me, then. Klavier shifts, raises a hand to adjust his bangs, and remembers who he is. “Has the press made the connection yet?”
Clearly, that was the right thing to ask, because Kitty’s voice shifts back to professional, and Klavier stops feeling like he’s about to pass out. “PR is keeping a handle on it. I don’t suspect the carnage to turn out huge, frankly, since he and you pretty much literally never talk about each other. And I know you don’t like hearing this, but in certain circles, this will only cement your image.”
“Yeah,” Klavier says. Yeah, it will. Yeah, he doesn’t like hearing it. “Thank you for letting me know, Kitty. I suppose I’ll pay him a visit when we’re back in LA.”
“There’s another thing,” Kitty says. She crosses her legs, and wakes the screen of the tablet she’s holding in her lap. Klavier watches her pull up some sort of document he can’t read from where he’s sitting. “Your… Kristoph has requested you take custody of his dog.”
The backrest of the chair against his spine. The socks on the soles of his feet. The weight of the rings on his fingers. Breath going in, breath going out. He says, “What dog?”
“She is a five year old golden retriever named Vongole,” Kitty reads off her tablet. “A shelter is currently taking care of her until you’re back in the country. Kristoph has specifically named you as the person he wants to take care of her in a case like this.”
“Why?” Klavier blurts out. Kitty looks up.
“I don’t know. All I know is that you have a dog now.”
“And that my brother has killed someone.”
Kitty looks back at her tablet, quiet until the screen goes black. This isn’t the sort of situation she’s trained for. Kitty has had plenty of murder-related conversations with Klavier, but they were never about someone else. As many accusations and rumors about Klavier she’s dealt with in the past years, this isn’t something either of them were prepared for.
Right?
Kitty’s shoulders move with her sigh when she looks up at him again. “I’m sorry, Klav.”
“It’s okay,” Klavier says. I thought this might happen at some point, he thinks. Then he promptly discards the thought. It’s nonsense. He’s tired, and in shock. Easily forgiven. “I’ll call the prosecutor’s office and request the court transcript. What time is it in LA?”
“You don’t… Klav, you really don’t have to do that. I just wanted you to know, from me, before you read it on Twitter tomorrow or something. Let’s keep focusing on the tour, alright? And as soon as we get back to Los Angeles, you’ll get acquainted with this… uh, Vongole, and that’s all the business you have with this. Agreed?”
Klavier drums his hands against his knee. There is a lot to consider here, but there is also still a lot of music to be played in the coming months. This is his job, his sole job, and has been for years. He needs to talk to Kristoph, but he… quite literally isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, is he. “Right,” Klavier says, and slowly rises from his seat. “Okay. Ja, you’re right. Thanks, Kitty.”
“Of course.” Kitty gets up, too, just barely on eye level with Klavier’s chin. “Do you need a hug?”
The answer to that, in just about any situation, is usually yes. Klavier feels hair tickle the back of his neck. “I think,” he says, “mostly I just need baguette.”
Four pairs of eyes are on him as soon as he enters the band suite again. Klavier doesn’t want to talk, but he remembers what Kitty said. From me, before you read it on Twitter tomorrow. All of these men work in LA law enforcement. They’ll hear about it sooner rather than later.
“Ach,” Klavier says, and inclines his head with a perfect dismissive smile. “Apparently my older brother got arrested. Don’t ask.”
“Oh, the really posh one?” says Lance, their bassist. “What’s his face. Karl?”
“Kristian,” says Daryan. “You idiot.”
Yeah, this works. Klavier sits down between the rest of them, leaning forward to nudge Seth’s feet off the coffee table to grab the menu from under them. Vongole, he thinks. Kristoph never struck him as much of a dog person, and he never mentioned her in the past five years. Not that they’ve talked much. It’s just another inscrutable thing his brother has done, apparently, but that name has to mean something. Klavier knows he’s seen it somewhere before, very recently. He just has to remember…
His finger stops on its way down the pasta menu. There.
Spaghetti Vongole.
Was zur Hölle?
As is usually the case, Kitty was right. Klavier doesn’t have to request the court transcripts, there is nothing in there that he actually needs, that would do anything for him. But then, maybe there is.
Klavier calls the prosecutor’s office and then has to hang up again before anyone there even picks up the phone, because he realizes that they’ll ask for his badge number, and he can’t remember what it was. He sits by the window in the stupidly opulent living area of their suite, the phone still in his hand, and stares blankly out into the blinking Paris night. He can’t look it up here, he doesn’t have his badge with him. Why would he? He hasn’t prosecuted in years, and even then he frequently forgot it at home. People knew who he was, anyway.
He remembers where the badge is. That doesn’t help him. It’s at home, in his LA apartment, in the kitchen, in the cutlery drawer next to the bottle opener. He doesn’t know why. He just knows it’s there. The mental image alone isn’t enough to summon the number on its back, though. That has never been how Klavier’s brain works.
It had a melody. The badge number, there was some melody to it. Klavier’s fingers tap against his knee again, trying to hear it in his mind. That’s how he remembered it, by singing the numbers like a little jingle in his head every time he needed it for something. It’s gotta be up there somewhere. Klavier is almost sure that it started on a low note, heavy on the first beat, as if in three-four time…
Yes. He leans forward to grab the rest of the phone again, because of course the Gatewater Hotel has phones that look like they’re dial-operated, only they aren’t, you can’t turn the dial because the numbers are touch screens, it’s a modern phone in an antique casing, it’s so stupid, Klavier hates coming to the Gatew--
“Los Angeles County prosecutor’s office, how may I help you?”
Smooth as butter, Klavier says, “Guten Abend, this is Klavier Gavin. I’d like to request a court transcript.”
A minute later, the PDF is on his phone, although at first Klavier thinks it didn’t download all the way. It is a very short document. Kitty wasn’t underselling it; not only was it a one-day trial, it was a one-testimony trial. Kristoph came to the stand, confessed, left. He said nothing about his motive, or about the victim, or what the entire fuck happened between them before the murder. He only correctly reminded the court of his right to remain silent. And then he got sentenced to life in prison.
The judge and prosecution also don’t have much to say, but they keep referencing another trial. It takes Klavier a moment to make sense of what they’re talking about, why they’re so hung up on “yesterday’s trial” when Kristoph’s only started that day. Names of parties unrelated to proceedings are blacked out in the transcript, but eventually, Klavier understands that there was a different trial, one where Kristoph was defending, until what he did came to light.
Under the hotel’s plush white robe, Klavier pulls his knees to his chest and curls into the chair. He knows his eyes are straining against the phone screen in the dark, but the suite is so blissfully quiet now that the others are asleep, and he won’t have an opportunity to do this until after their three Paris gigs are over. And he doesn’t feel tired, anyway. He needs to find out what trial this was, and it’s going to take some digging.
It didn’t make headlines--Phoenix Wright hasn’t made headlines in a long time--but one newspaper did write about it. The article is brief, less about news and more about the curiosity of what happened. ‘Coolest Defense in the West’ Kristoph Gavin’s Own Apprentice Indicts Him for Murder, Gets Ex-Attorney Phoenix Wright off the Hook. There’s a court sketch included, so tiny that Klavier has to zoom in ridiculously close and squint his eyes at the screen to make out what’s going on. Some kid in an incomplete suit is at the defense bench. Klavier barely pays him any mind. Next to him, allegedly, is Phoenix Wright, and Klavier has to wonder if it’s some sort of misprint, or if the artist needed glasses. But sure enough, through the pixels, Klavier recognizes spiky hair poking out underneath that awful beanie.
He locks his phone, and the entire room turns dark. It feels like closing his eyes, and Klavier revels in it for a few moments, listens to his quiet breath, allows himself to unfocus. Then he blinks, and sees his reflection in the windowpane. There’s a stain somewhere, but he can’t tell if it’s the window or his glasses. Considering where he is, it’s probably the latter.
Klavier puts his own phone down and grabs the hotel phone again. He slides a little laugh into his voice and says, “Hallo, it’s me again.”
“Mister Gavin!” The receptionist giggles. “Have you grown bored with your transcript already?”
“Ja, unfortunately.” In the window, through the stain, Klavier watches himself run a hand through his hair, as if the receptionist could see him. “Could you get me State v. Wright from April 20?”
“Sure!” trills the receptionist.
“Besten Dank.”
It takes much longer to download, and Klavier is satisfied to watch the page count go up. His eyes flick up to the time on the top right corner of his phone screen, and he really should sleep. As if he could. He should at least lie down, he supposes, but if he lay in bed reading on his phone in the middle of the night, Daryan would immediately wake up next to him, and he doesn’t want that. No, he’ll stay right here and read through this. However long it takes. There has got to be something in there that will clear things up.
Later on, Klavier will barely remember anything about this tour. He’ll know it was good. Good as in successful, good as in sold out, good as in stellar reviews. Good as in the live DVD will be out soon. And good as in the band had fun. He remembers that, that it wasn’t a terrible time by a long shot. They’re his friends and Klavier likes traveling with them, creating music with them, and this tour was no different. Well, a little different. But not enough to keep him from enjoying himself.
But it’s all a blur. The transcript cleared up nothing. It just made things more confusing, and sometimes, Klavier found himself on stage, sweat running down his back, zoning out under the lights and the screams of the fans, playing his riffs from muscle memory and wondering how much he knows about dog care. Golden retrievers are big. And he’ll get hair all over his suits.
Six weeks later, they all shout, “Goodbye, Europe! We love you!” before leaving the stage and taking the flight back to the States. Their tour continues there, but as they make their way down the West coast, Klavier can no longer wait until it’s over. As soon as they’re close enough to make it a day trip, he takes one of his few free days in between concerts and drives to the Los Angeles County jail.
“Klavier,” Kristoph says, standing perfectly upright behind the bars, his hands clasped behind his back, suit immaculate. He looks like he’s welcoming Klavier into his plush parlor at home. “How sweet of you to visit. That only took you nearly two months.”
“I was in Europe,” Klavier says.
Whenever Kristoph smiles and tilts his head like that, he looks like their mother. It makes a chill run down Klavier’s spine. “And, what, you took a steamship here? Don’t you have a private plane?”
“I--No, Kris, I don’t.” Should he? Maybe he’ll ask Kitty to look into purchasing a plane. “We’re in the middle of a tour, I couldn’t just leave.”
“Ah. Your,” Kristoph waves a hand around, “little music project. I understand.”
Clearly, he does not. But Klavier isn’t here to have that conversation again. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”
Surprisingly, hauntingly, Kristoph’s posture softens. “Vongole,” he sighs. “Have you met her yet?”
“No. Again, middle of a tour. I’ll take her in as soon as I’m back to sleeping in my own bed,” Klavier says. Kristoph makes a noise of acknowledgement, and Klavier feels like he’s swimming in the open ocean. He doesn’t know what any of this means. “You vetoed me getting a dog when I was younger.”
“Well,” Kristoph says, “you were twelve, at the time.”
Fair point, unfortunately. Klavier shifts on his feet, trying and failing to will the frown off his face. “Still,” he says. He very much feels like he is still twelve, actually. “You never struck me as much of a dog person.”
“Oh,” says Kristoph, “is that why you’re here? To cross-examine me on my motivations as a dog owner?”
“What I’m trying to understand is your motivation to leave her with me,” Klavier says, “of all people.”
Again, something about Kristoph softens. Again, it instead feels like he is punching Klavier in the guts. “Klavier, Klavier,” he says, gentle, sweet. “Ever so humble. I chose you because I know how good you are with animals. I chose you because I think she will like you, and I care about her a great deal. Is that so hard to imagine?” Klavier opens his mouth, to apologize, to ask forgiveness for thinking so lowly of his brother for that one brief moment, for that awfully cold lapse in judgment. But Kristoph continues, “And I chose you because you have the space, and the time. Making sure she was being babysat for all of my court appearances was quite the ordeal. So I thought, at least, you won’t be having to go through that trouble. It’s not like you’ll be returning to the courtroom, after all.”
Klavier decides it’s not worth the effort to remind Kristoph of his tour for the third time. No, he doesn’t prosecute anymore, but he’s really not sure what gave his brother the idea that all he does is sit at home twiddling his thumbs since he quit. He doesn’t bother trying to figure it out, either. Kristoph is incomprehensible to him, and Klavier has long since given up, only taking solace in the knowledge that he is also incomprehensible to Kristoph. And, it’s alright. Klavier still visits him in prison, and Kristoph still trusts him with his dog. It’s not so bad.
It’s only when Klavier walks across the prison parking lot that he remembers that Kristoph bludgeoned a seemingly random man to death with a wine bottle, and that somehow, they made it through their entire conversation without bringing that up even once.
Kristoph has always been a damn good attorney.
The thing is, Klavier was also a good prosecutor. He never cared about winning or losing, and he never understood why others would. Cases were meant to be solved, not won, Klavier has always believed that, to this day. Through it all, his own confidence in that creed never wavered. But of course, other people slowly started doubting him on it. And he couldn’t even blame them.
That’s what hurt the most. Well, maybe not the most, but it was up there. Seeing the whole affair through the eyes of a prosecutor. Knowing what it looked like. Klavier has seen the wildest truths come to light in the most surprising ways, he doesn’t believe in ‘looking guilty,’ but he understands the logic behind it. He understands that one person can only be in the wrong place at the wrong time so many times until people start to talk. Until people start to point fingers. When every single one of the defendants he didn’t put in jail disappeared mere weeks after their trials, Klavier understands why people would assume it was him.
It wasn’t, of course. No, of course it wasn’t, the mere notion makes him sick to think about, even today, still. But here are two more things he knows on a professional level: One, it’s much harder to prove that someone didn’t do something than to prove that they did. Two, the cleanest way to prove someone’s innocence is to prove someone else’s guilt.
Klavier has no evidence in his favor and no evidence against anyone else, and there is no way to win a case without evidence. His brother would surely have something to say about that, but Klavier can’t remember the catchphrase.
Over the years, he has had many different theories. All of the disappearances have been investigated, and Klavier has gone over all the cases, has tried to find connections, other connections, connections that don’t just lead back to him. Most were dead ends, though, or fell apart as soon as a new case was added. Eventually, the decision to drop his law career and focus on music alone, where no more cases could be added, was beyond easy. Quitting was a relief.
He’s had a new theory, for the past few weeks. Although Klavier isn’t sure if it really deserves that name. It could be a hunch, but Klavier isn’t sure if he believes in hunches, either. It’s just this feeling he got, the more he read through the transcript of Phoenix Wright’s trial, even though he’s started thinking of it as Kristoph’s trial. Klavier has read it front to back more often than he cares to count by now, could probably recite parts of it by heart, and there is just something about it. About the nonsensical, random way this coldblooded murder was carried out. A man dies a sudden death in a strange place, and nobody quite knows why. It just feels familiar.
That’s flimsy. It wouldn’t hold up in court, but Klavier isn’t in court, and he wouldn’t dream of actually presenting this “theory” of his to anyone. Not even Kitty, not even the boys from the band. In the end, it’s a useless thing to be thinking about, because if Klavier never goes back to prosecuting, there will be no new murders, and no grounds to test his theory on. And that is perfectly alright, because Klavier is not going to take on a case and prosecute again only to test a theory. He’d never play with a human life like that.
“Hey, so,” Lance says one day, on the tour bus down the coastline, holding his phone in one hand and a terrible sandwich in the other. “I heard something from my guy in forensics that I thought might interest you.”
“Ja?” Klavier prompts.
“Yeah. Apparently Phoenix Wright got hit by a car.”
Klavier nearly chokes on awful dry white bread. “What?”
“Oh, he’s fine, he’s fine. My guy just heard about it because it happened right between a crime scene and the Kitaki house. And now that little Justice guy is poking around there, in Wright’s name.”
Lance is a good guy. He’s nice, he’s quiet, and he has no idea what he’s just done to Klavier. “Car accident, Kitaki house, and crime scene,” he echoes. “All three unrelated?”
“I think so?” Lance shrugs. “I dunno, I didn’t dig that far. I just heard Wright and Justice, and I know you’ve been reading about--”
“When was this?”
“The car accident was just last night.”
Klavier drums his fingers against the little table they’re sitting at, and stares out at the plain road rushing past them outside the bus. They’re going south, having passed Monterey a day ago already. His bike is faster than the bus, and if he asked the driver to stop and get it out of the back, he could make it to Los Angeles before the others, and just have a quick look around. It’s fine. They don’t play until tomorrow night, and it’s not like Klavier will take any cases. He’ll make it to the concert with the others, he just wants to look at--at whatever is going on there. At what Wright and Justice are up to now, two months after putting Kristoph behind bars.
Nobody is really pleased about this, and Klavier doesn’t pull this card often, but it’s still his name the band is running under, and if he wants to bike ahead to LA, he will. And he does. The scene outside People Park is pandemonium, clearly chaotic enough for the Chief Prosecutor to not even question why Klavier Gavin is here.
“Gavin,” he all but wheezes, looking just about ready to keel over after the morning he’s had. “Are you back in the ring? Come, come, look at this crime scene, I need a prosecutor. I do not have any prosecutors! Swear to god, why do you guys keep going abroad? You’re here to take the case, aren’t you?”
“Um,” says Klavier.
“Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry.” The Chief slaps his back, weakly. “It’s perfectly open-and-shut. It’s the Kitaki kid, Wacky, or something? He shot someone, it’s the family’s gun, he’s owning up to it, you’ll be fine. I just need someone to prosecute this, for heaven’s sake.”
Klavier has to admit that it sounds solid. If the defendant is confessing, he’ll end up in jail, and nothing else will happen to him. If he really is the Kitaki kid, he will probably even have a fairly plush time in prison. The trial will likely only take a few hours at maximum, Klavier will make it to the concert in time, and it is just very hard to say no to a Chief Prosecutor who apparently does not have any other prosecutors left.
“Ja, alright,” he says. “Just this one.”
“Thank you. Good grief. Here, come on, I’ll show you to the crime scene…”
It’s instantaneous. Klavier sets foot on the scene and immediately knows that he has made a grave mistake.
Nothing about it makes sense. There is a noodle stand pointed right at the river. Despite the murder weapon being a gun, there is a shiv stuck in the ground. A solitary shoe print has been left in a place that has no business bearing a shoe print. This is not an open-and-shut case.
Klavier is going to get someone killed.