Chapter 90: Witness Testimony

Weary eyes casted Asher suspicion. All of a sudden, at the snap of a finger, he took the stand. Asher Trent became the prime suspect.

“It wasn’t me! It wasn’t!” Asher craned his head left and right, a deer struck by lights. His footsteps were unsteady and he carried himself too close to the evidence. William furrowed his brow. If he tried to mess up the evidence…

“Save it for your testimony,” Detective Matasaburō said. “You are our first official suspect.”

“A-and not Kazi?” Asher pointed at the aforementioned man. “He had motive! Right Nash? He was—”

“That was nothing more than squabble,” Nash interjected. “I let my emotions get the best of me, I admit it. But my priority is catching the killer. I don’t give a shit if it’s you or Kazi or anyone else in this room. Tony deserves better. He deserves for the killer to be exposed.”

“It’s Kazi!” Asher continued pointing at the innocent man. It did not make him look better. “It’s him! It has to be!”

Kazi didn’t speak. He remained neutral, a small smile on his face. Danzaburou clapped his hands together to get attention. He failed as the lone suspect grew more and more desperate.

“H-he had a motivation and look! An unknown level! He has to be strong.” Asher pointed harder. Danzaburou clapped again. The internet celebrity didn’t care and kept going, “Where was he anyway? He also could have been fabricating evidence with the detective—”

Frustrated, Danzaburou yelled, “Okay, okay! We get it! Testimony first!”

“No,” Detective Matasaburō said. “Timeline first. Allow me to summarize what has happened from our understanding. Ari, are you writing everything down?”

“Yes, sir!” The idol saluted him.

“We need a base. Numbers. So far, has there been a time?” The detective’s inquiry was met with a shake of the head from Ari. “Does anybody have a good estimate of the time then?”

“Oh, um, I might?” Jules, the woman with the cat on her lap, cleared her throat. “Lily over here, my cat, she always sleeps at four o’clock in the afternoon. That was right before we entered the tunnel.”

“Isn’t that suspicious?” Asher asked.

No one answered him. Instead, the detective adjusted his shades and moved on.

“A pet’s internal clock. I suppose we can go with that. Does anybody have any objections?” Detective Matasaburō paused to let his words linger. “Alright, then. Now, the train took about twenty minutes—”

“Thirty,” Kazi corrected. “We were going slow at first, remember? And I doubt even at top speed this thing matches a modern bullet train.”

“It went up to two hundred kilometres an hour,” Danzaburou supplied. Kazi stood in triumph.

“Fine. Thirty minutes.” Detective Matasaburō gestured at the paper indicating everybody’s position. “Now, we have a general idea of where everyone was after we left the tunnel, but not before. Tell me, did any of you move compartments in that time?”

“I did,” Noor said. “Me and Lala went from the diner to the fourth compartment. We bumped into a lot of people.”

“I can confirm,” John added. “Somebody grabbed me from my seat, in fact.”

“Yep, that happened,” William confirmed. “I heard it.”

“So chaos ensued in the fourth compartment.” Detective Matasaburō nodded. “Any other events?”

Again, Jules cleared her throat. “A-actually, um, yes. Anansi, he, um, ran away.”

The detective delved straight into interrogation mode. “A new player? Where is he now?”

“He’s not a player, he’s…a monkey.” Jules shrank in embarrassment when she heard the confused whispers. “I was hiding him. I think some of you noticed. Uh, he might have stolen some of your food.”

“A monkey,” Detective Matasaburō repeated. William had never seen the investigator so stunned and so far he had kept his composure. “That…that does complicate things. A monkey. A monkey…”

“What kind?” Kazi asked.

“A marmoset,” Jules replied. “A little guy, really. Very harmless, but he does have this nasty habit of stealing. I’ve tried to reprimand him but he never listens. O-oh, but don’t worry, he listens to me! Just not when it comes to stealing…” She hung her head, sighing, and looked back up.

“A monkey…” Detective Matasaburō was still muttering the word. “An actual monkey…”

At this point, William was curious. “Is there some significance to that?”

“I thought…” The detective shook his head, hands in his trench coat. “I saw something flying out. Something dark. I assumed it was liquid, but…”

“Oh.” Jules flushed. “Y-yeah, he’s potty-trained. He probably peed outside. S-sorry if you saw that.”

’I do not want to visualize that,’ William thought.

“Uh, hello!” Asher slapped his chest. “I’m still under suspicion here—”

“We are establishing a timeline, so shut up and listen,” the detective snapped. “There is a chance you may come innocent out of this.”

Asher piped down, the grueling man too intimidating to counter. William felt him. His level might have been lower than his own, but he looked mad scary. It reminded him of his dad.

“Events, everyone. Please, we must establish all movement during the tunnel. Starting with you.” The detective pointed at William.

“O-oh, um…” William went into thought. “I was just sitting and holding onto dear life. Uhh, someone stepped on my foot pretty early-on.”

“That was me,” Hugo admitted. “Sorry, bro.”

William was quick to accept his apology. “You’re fine.”

“So you were there the entire time?” The detective asked.

“Yep. I was still there when the lights came on.” William paused and looked up at the detective. “You were there so you should know.”

“Explain your view anyway.”

“I was at the window seat. In front of me was Kazi and John.” William furrowed his brows as he recalled the view. “You and Hugo were tussling, right? Noor was…well, she was at the door but she was coming from the third compartment, not the dining area.”

“Okay, wait,” Noor interrupted, “I went to the third compartment, yeah, but I quickly came back—”

“You will get your turn,” Detective Matasaburō said, irritated.

Noor scoffed. “Excuse me? I don’t mind shutting up but have some goddamn class. I’m just trying to remove unwarranted suspicion here.”

The detective glared at her. Noor glared back. William didn’t think it was a good idea to continue with his testimony. However, somebody was dead. Now wasn’t the time to be meek. “U-uh, yeah, um…I can’t really remember much else.”

The detective turned back. His eyes darted to Sun-young. “And you?”

“I saw the same thing, except I was at an empty table by myself.” Sun-young drew in a breath. She sat on the seat backwards, using the back of the chair as an armrest. “You were fighting Hugo or something? I don’t remember anything else.”

“Hrn.”

Detective Matasaburō went to each person, confirming and prodding at their positions. In William’s view, most of it seemed airtight. Also, it was hard to lie when a rugged detective in shades questioned you in a guttural tone.

Ksenia testimony came. She had a bit to say. “After the train left the tunnel, I checked on the bathroom twice. I didn’t get much of an answer.”

“The bathroom that Paul went to shortly before the tunnel? The same bathroom that Tony died in? How strange.” The detective pushed his rectangular sunglasses. “This is huge. You were at the cusp of the crime scene. Are you sure you didn’t hear anything?”

“No, it was deathly quiet. I almost thought he wasn’t there,” Ksenia replied. “But someone was definitely inside. I heard a couple groans. I assumed he was taking a massive shit, so I left him. I didn’t think to consider that he was…dying.”

“Any smells?”

“Not really? I don’t really remember, to be honest. I had no reason to believe anyone else but Paul was in there,” Ksenia said.

That was that. No further information, just a footnote that Ksneia had indeed visited the bathroom after leaving the tunnel.

Nash’s turn arrived. He was the calmest of them, surprisingly. “I was sitting there too. During turbulence, moving seemed like suicide so I strapped myself in.”

“And shortly before the tunnel? You were close to the victim, yes? Did you keep track of his movements?”

Nash didn’t immediately answer the detective’s inquiry. “…he left sometime before the tunnel.”

“Yes, we know. However, nobody can confirm when he left. They didn’t care, after all. You, as the man closest to him, should know.”

“I don’t,” Nash said. “I don’t know when he got up and left.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a shitty sense of time.” Nash’s words, despite their profanity, were deadly calm. “I was looking at the window, bored. Simple at that.”

Nash didn’t elaborate. While some were not convinced, William was. He might have been the so-called cool leader of the group, but jocks were jocks. They were dumb as bricks no matter how they tried to hide that fact.

With the exception of Noor and Nash, there wasn’t much to argue on. Everybody was vague, courtesy of the darkness and turmoil, and generally consistent. That was until they got to Kazi.

People weren’t perfect. Memories and conversations, especially in times of stress, were regularly forgotten. After the death of Tony, after seeing his corpse, even William had a hard time remembering exactly what went on. The voices were muffled from the screeches of the train and the darkness prevented his brain from formulating presumptions.

Kazi did not have such imperfections.

“So, when the darkness hit, I asked, ’Is someone leaving? John? Hello?’ Then John replied: ’I’m right here. Someone grabbed my arm.” He was cut off and another person mentioned they were grabbed.” Pause and a sweeping glance. Kazi asked plainly, “Who was that?”

“Oh, that was me,” Hugo said. “Somebody’s claws were practically digging into me. When the lights came on,” his eyes went to Detective Matasaburō, “it was this dude, apparently.”

“Hrn.” The detective didn’t comment on the accusation. He let Kazi continue.

“I heard more voices. Panic, mostly, nothing important, and I yelled, ’Is everybody alright!?’ It was then that Hugo stood up and stepped on William’s foot. Following that was the announcement to strap up.”

Right. Chaos.

’Now I remember. Man, that was crazy.’ William shook his head. ’I don’t ever want to go through that again. I got intense motion sickness.’

“Fifteen minutes passed, I believe. I could be wrong but it feels about right,” Kazi continued. “That was when Ksenia bumped into someone. She said, ’Watch where you’re going!’”

“Thought it was just some dude, then thought it was Paul,” Ksenia added. She had mentioned as much in her testimony. “The same height, a beanpole, but…I think clothes were different. I think. I can’t exactly say why though.”

“A couple minutes passed, the lights came on. You ended up on the floor, I remember.” Kazi nodded at Ksenia. “Noor and Lala, as William mentioned, appeared from the third compartment. Sun-young looked like she was vomiting.”

“My stomach hit the edge of the table,” Sun-young explained.

It was strange. All of a sudden, the conversation flipped. Instead of being questioned, Kazi was questioning everyone else. They didn’t even notice it until the silence settled.

“Asher Trent.” Detective Matasaburō turned to him. “We’ve gone through the testimony. We’ve gone through the chaos in the fourth compartment. There was a lot, for sure. However, it seems that your guilt has worsened.”

Asher panicked again. “H-how? Wait, let me testify—”

“If you testify, it will be as a suspect, not a witness,” the detective cut off. “Why? Because there was a consistency in the testimonials here so far. Somebody was walking through the middle of the train. A lone individual caused chaos. They grabbed Hugo. They tussled with Ksenia. We have officially established that somebody not supposed to be there was there.”

“And the only person whose location cannot be confirmed…” Dariush’s voice echoed like a righteous judge. “…is you, Asher Trent—AT.”

Danzaburou grinned. “Well, well, well. Here we are again.”

Asher’s eyes fell into despair. “I…wait, that’s not…it wasn’t me!”

“Defend yourself then. Where were you?”

“At the front with Danzaburou—”

“Nope, nope, nope! No, you weren’t!”

“Stop lying!” Asher yelled. “I was there! I was! Why does nobody believe me!?”

His words spoke for themselves. He had no alibi, his initials were at the crime scene, he had gone to the kitchen at some point, his body type was tall like Paul’s, and, most of all, his location was unknown. William wasn’t sure whether to be surprised. He was an internet celebrity, of course he was weirdo.

“If you do not defend yourself adequately,” said Kintaro, his deep bass growling, “then you will be handed the guilty verdict.”

“Agreed.”

“Mhm, mhm!”

Danzaburou and his lackey Haruka were convinced. Momoji was silent. The blue tanuki hadn’t said a word. But the bartender, Kintaro, the level-headed jury, seemed convinced. A majority jury would spell the end for the former e-celebrity.

“Does anybody object?” Kintaro asked. “Because at this rate—”

“Objection! I do!” Slamming the evidence table, finger pointed at the jury, was none other than Kazi Hossain. “I don’t think Asher Trent did it, and I can definitively prove it!”

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