Investigation (June 16, 2026)

On June 16, 2026, Apollo Justice and Trucy Wright returned to the agency to discuss the events of the trial of Wocky Kitaki earlier that day. Alita Tiala thanked Justice for his defense, mentioning her upcoming wedding the following month. She said she had met Wocky while working and that she wasn't bothered by marrying into the Kitaki family, but didn't want to explain the origin of their relationship, simply saying it was something that happened at her work. She also mentioned that Winfred had announced recently he was attempting to shift his family's assets into legitimate business ventures, despite Wocky's objections over leading them away from their roots. After discussing Wocky's treatment by Dr. Pal Meraktis, Justice and Trucy decided they needed to investigate the Meraktis Clinic.

Stopping over at the detention center, Justice and Trucy were disheartened to find their client was unavailable for visitation. However, Wesley Stickler was available, so they decided to make the best of it and talk with him. Stickler reaffirmed his words at the trial: he had seen Wocky pointing a gun at the victim and had shouted to the pair, causing Meraktis to turn his head and get shot in the temple. There was little doubt to be rendered that, in the very least, their client had been present at the scene at the time the victim died.

Having finished with Stickler, the pair ventured back to Kitaki Mansion, where they met Plum Kitaki at the gate. Asking about Wocky, Plum said that her son put up a mean front but inside he didn't have the killer's instinct to pull the trigger on another person, which Justice agreed sounded reasonable coming from the defendant's mother. Unfortunately, because of the restrictions at the Kitaki estate, the weapons cabinet was only accessible by herself, her husband, and their son, which made Wocky's defense that much harder. Plum also talked of her son's relationship with Alita Tiala, who in her eyes wasn't the ideal mate for Wocky, and she suspected something about her, but wrote it off as being in the crime business for too long. She repeated Tiala's words from earlier that the family was trying to reshape themselves, adding that they were in need of some "clean" money, despite their vast fortune built up as gangsters. Justice and Trucy re-examined the trash can where they found the broken mirror and retrieved the other item they couldn't carry last time from inside, the pair of paint-smeared slippers, then headed over to Guy Eldoon's house.

Eldoon thanked them for finding his noodle cart, but griped that, because it was the scene of a crime, it was still in police custody. He remarked that he didn't want to be a noodle vendor, but had been forced into it after Meraktis opened his clinic next door. Meraktis's success came off his connection with the Kitaki family mafia, making money off their turf battles with other crime families and treating their wounded. Based on his dislike of Meraktis, despite simply being a noodle vendor, Justice managed to decipher that Eldoon had been in a different profession prior to Eldoon's Noodles: surgery. Eldoon offered his support in their investigation of Dr. Meraktis, and Justice and Trucy returned to the detention center.

Now available for visitation, Wocky sat down with his attorney to discuss the case and to air his unhappiness over finding out how serious his condition was. When asked about his upcoming wedding to Alita Tiala and how unwilling she was to talk about what brought them together, Wocky said he would respect her decision and didn't divulge the circumstances either. Wocky reestablished for Justice his reason for his grudge towards the victim, claiming that the "botch" was actually Meraktis being paid off by the Rivales crime family. Wocky began complaining about his father's vision for the future of the Kitakis, and said that once he was on top, things would be going back to the way they were, the way he believed they should be. Wocky also confirmed that the weapons belonged to the Kitaki family and he had snuck them out of the house. Wocky had gone to the park, where he had run into Meraktis, who was pulling Eldoon's stand. At that point Wocky's recollection became uncertain on the order of events, but since Wocky himself remembered being at the scene when the victim was shot, he conceded that the most likely one to have done it was him.

Having investigated their existing leads as far as they could take them, Justice and Trucy agreed it was time to go into the Meraktis Clinic to learn more. However, they found they were barred from entering, so they returned to People Park. At the park, a crowd of screaming girls was gathering around Klavier Gavin. Gavin mentioned that his motorcycle had stopped working due to a tailpipe clog, as any motorized vehicle would, and that he was taking it to be fixed so he could avoid running into Detective Ema Skye, who had a distaste for him. Inside the park, Skye was glumly carrying on her investigation, hopelessly trying to work on something on the ground. She told the duo that her dislike for Prosecutor Gavin stemmed from his involvement with Phoenix Wright's disbarment seven years prior, but said that if they wanted to know more, it would be better for them to find out on their own. Skye revealed what she had been trying to do when Justice and Trucy arrived: use a forensic kit designed to identify shoeprints. With Justice's help, she managed to pull some shoeprints from the scene, which confirmed the positions of all the known individuals in the park shooting (Wocky Kitaki and Wesley Stickler). However, one shoeprint on the scene didn't match any known participant. Bearing the silhouette of a leaf on the underside as if someone had one stuck to their shoe, Justice took a closer look at the pair of slippers in their possession and noticed a very similar pattern on one of the slippers. Skye agreed the slippers were the ones that made the impression. Skye read the name on the slippers, which said "Meraktis Clinic". As gratitude for the help with the shoeprint identification, Skye offered to get Justice and Trucy into the clinic to continue their investigation and gave them a letter of authorization.

Back at the Meraktis Clinic, Trucy handed the guard on duty Detective Skye's letter of permission and he was forced to yield access to the building. At the reception desk, Justice and Trucy began their investigation. They located an abandoned pair of sandals laying loosely near the desk, a mountain of noodle bowls from Eldoon's noodle cart, and a missing pair of sandals on the shoe rack. Just then the sound of an intruder was heard back in Dr. Meraktis's office. The pair entered the office, but the intruder had already escaped through the window. Justice suggested calling the authorities, but Trucy replied that they'd be better off investigating while they had the chance, which Justice conceded was for the best. A lamp on the floor with a broken bulb caught their attention and they noticed a small red-pinkish mark on the cord.

Upon examining the safe at the back of the office in closer detail, Justice discovered that whoever had been there before them had entered two digits before leaving. Realizing they had a tool at their disposal that could reveal what buttons had been touched, Trucy and Justice swabbed the safe keypad with fingerprint powder and revealed what buttons had been pressed. Decoding the combination unlocked a number of files and a small statute of a cat inside the safe. The topmost file was contained in an envelope and inside was an x-ray report for one Wocky Kitaki. Further inspection revealed it had been signed off by "Pal Meraktis" and, most tellingly of all, the name of the nurse assigned to Wocky was "Alita Tiala"! Unfortunately Trucy and Justice didn't have the understanding to interpret the information on the chart but they took it anyway in the hopes of finding someone who could. Justice also noticed a squashed bullet wedged into the back of the safe. Trucy loosened it and the pair kept it as possible evidence.

Having completed a sweep of the clinic, Trucy and Justice returned to People Park to meet with Ema Skye. Before speaking with her, the pair examined the slippers they had found in the trash and the sandals they had found at the clinic. Discovering toe prints in each, they dusted the prints, but realized that there was no database for toeprints, so direct identification would be impossible. Skye suggested comparing the prints to each other, and by doing so, they discovered that whoever had worn the sandals also had worn the slippers at some point, as the prints matched. Justice and Trucy took their results and went to the Hickfield Clinic to meet with Phoenix. Justice asked Phoenix about the fateful trial that had ended his career, to which Phoenix said that he had been bested by a 17-year old Klavier Gavin and resigned. Justice didn't buy such a base explanation and pushed for more details, bringing up the fact that the trial had reportedly involved evidence forgery. He was reminded of his own first trial where Phoenix had pushed him to use illegal evidence but Phoenix refused to go any deeper so Justice and Trucy left.

The two returned to the detention center to talk to Wocky, who continued to proclaim his desire to take the fall for the "cred" and how disappointed he was in his father's change of direction. Justice showed his client the pair of sandals from the Meraktis Clinic, which Wocky identified as a gift he had given to his fiancée. Justice then showed Wocky the results from his examination by Dr. Meraktis and Tiala's name on the page, which confirmed how she and Wocky first met. Wocky said it had been during the incident six months prior, when he had been shot during the Rivales turf war. Tiala wanted to leave the clinic and asked Wocky to marry her if she did.

Justice and Trucy set back out for Eldoon's house. Justice showed Eldoon Wocky's chart and asked for his expertise on the matter. Upon reading the chart, Eldoon was horrified to learn that Wocky's condition was far worse than anyone believed. Eldoon stoically explained that the operation to remove the bullet from Wocky's heart had been too complex for Dr. Meraktis to handle. Given Wocky's status as the Kitakis' only son, Meraktis couldn't simply admit that he was incapable of helping, so he had covered it up. With the operation being six months prior, the normal activity of Wocky's body would have pushed the bullet even further in, and now it was very nearly killing him. Eldoon stated that Wocky was in no condition to be on trial, but in emergency care. Eldoon's explanation also made clear that Alita Tiala was aware of the complication with Wocky's initial surgery and had never told him how bad things were, leaving her motives for marrying him more uncertain.