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| Zodiac Hall | |
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| Organization info | |
| Notable dates | Dec. 24, 2000 - IS-7 Incident April 2, 2019 - Gallery opened, IS-7 Incident resolved, Judy Bound arrested for attempted murder |
| Area info | |
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| Owned by | Samson Tangaroa Judy Bound |
| Entrance | Fountain room |
| Relevant cases | Turnabout Legacy |
The Zodiac Hall houses the works of the famous French sculptor Paul Halique. It is in fact a mansion previously owned by Samson Tangaroa, but it was repossessed from him after his arrest for being an accomplice to murder. However, in 2019, Judy Bound purchased the mansion and refashioned it into an art gallery dedicated to Paul Halique.
History[]
IS-7 Incident[]
In 2000, renowned confectioner Samson Tangaroa hosted a grand cookery competition in his mansion. The grand prize of the contest was a "recipe book" which was actually a list of advanced experimental drug recipes not available to the general public. Tangaroa had come to obtain it due to his close ties to the Tangaroa Group, a pharmaceutical institution which he was set to inherit. The Group had objected to Tangaroa's giving away the book, but he had not been swayed and had carried on with the contest. However, the Group sent Delicia Scone, an elite pharmacist and member, to compete in the contest and retrieve the book in a way that would please Tangaroa.
Among other notable competitors were Carmelo Gusto and Artie Frost (who was actually a famed French sculptor under the pseudonym of Paul Halique). Gusto nursed an extreme desire to become the world's greatest confectioner, but he also suffered from a disorder that caused a complete lack of ability to taste. His reason for wanting the book was that it contained a recipe for a drug that could temporarily cure his illness. Frost, however, was in financial trouble and wished to sell the "recipe book" to one of the Tangaroa Group's rivals for a lot of money. However, neither could win the contest on their own; through extreme training, Gusto had become excellent at producing superb-tasting foods, but he was severely lacking in aesthetic sense. Frost, being a sculptor, was naturally very good at design, but completely unable to produce something of good taste. As a result of this, the two agreed to collaborate; Gusto would do all the actual cooking and baking, while Frost would do the design. Using this method, the pair were able to make it to the semifinals, along with Delicia Scone. However, in the finals, Frost ended their collaboration just after Gusto had given him two batches of sherbet to sculpt, thus giving Frost everything he needed but leaving Gusto with nothing but his own ingredients and terrible design skill. Frost then anticipated that the desperate Gusto would try to "steal" the prize by taking photos of the recipe, and caught him red handed in Tangaroa's room doing just that. Frost then started to blackmail Gusto by threatening to expose him as a thief, even going so far as to deal Gusto a blow using a rock salt lamp that was in the room, in order to prove his superiority. Gusto, blind with rage, responded by killing Frost using the other salt lamp.
Gusto quickly devised a plan to give himself an alibi and frame someone else. His chosen target was Delicia Scone, as her habit of snacking on the other contestants' hard work irritated him to no end. Gusto hid the body in a chocolate treasure chest that was in Tangaroa's room, planning to retrieve it later and freeze it inside one of Frost's sherbet sculptures, so as to obfuscate the time of death and give him an alibi. He then left to have tea with the other contestants and establish his fake alibi.
However, the very bad habit of Scone's which so irritated him proved to be the undoing of his plan. Before Gusto had a chance to move the body, Scone entered Tangaroa's room and nibbled her way through the chocolate supports holding up a pastry pirate ship, which caused the ship to tip over and break the lid of the treasure chest (although Scone herself left before this happened). The breaking noise attracted Judy Bound, a servant at the mansion, and upon discovering the body, Bound ran off to call the police. Gusto bided his time until Bound was out of sight, then entered the room, stole the body, and went ahead with his plan to freeze the body inside the sherbet sculpture. He also broke down the rock salt lamp that had his own blood on it, and mixed it with the remaining sherbet to fashion a lyre for the sculpture. Gusto's plan was to melt the sculptures and have whoever was nearby "discover" the body. However, he was foiled once again, this time by Bound. Bound had learned that Artie Frost was in fact "Paul Halique", whom she was a great fan of. Fearing that the police investigation would damage Frost's work, Bound moved the sculptures down to the basement of the mansion.
Due to where the body had been found, Samson Tangaroa himself was accused of the murder, with Gregory Edgeworth taking up his defense in court. Edgeworth conducted a thorough investigation, but lead prosecutor Manfred von Karma's deliberately obstructive tactics prevented the investigation from really getting anywhere. Due to the fact that the body was missing, Chief Prosecutor Excelsius Winner provided von Karma with a forged autopsy report, which he had forced the elderly coroner Hilda Hertz to create. Edgeworth was able to prove in court that the report was forged, and Winner was forced to penalize von Karma in order to shift suspicion away from himself. However, von Karma himself avoided further punishment by directing the brunt of the blame toward Police Detective Ian Sideman, who was subsequently dismissed. In addition, von Karma's rigorous questioning tactics managed to force a false confession out of Tangaroa, thus ensuring a guilty verdict. But Edgeworth had a trump card up his sleeve; he had recorded the confession as it had really happened, and presented the tape in court to prove that the confession was false. In spite of all of Edgeworth's efforts, judgment was passed and Tangaroa was found guilty of being an accomplice to murder.
Purchase by Bound[]
After Tangaroa's arrest, the mansion was repossessed by his close relatives, and Judy Bound was kicked out due to having no blood relation to Tangaroa. Bound vowed that she would one day get the mansion back, and took up a career as an actress toward this end. In 2019, with some help from Eddie Fender, Bound was able to fulfill her goal, and set about renovating the mansion into an art gallery dedicated to Paul Halique. She was surprised to have found the sculptures she had hidden in the mansion's refrigerator 18 years ago. While inspecting the sculptures for the gallery, she finally discovered where Frost's body had gone; it was frozen inside the sculpture. Bound devised a plan based on this to catch and trap Frost's real killer, the one responsible for framing Tangaroa (or so she thought).
IS-7 solved at last[]
In order to carry out her plan, Bound removed the sculptures from the basement and placed them in the exhibit, then put the toxic chemical Asphyxion in the case. She then froze an amount of the ordinarily harmless chemical Ubiquium onto the lid. When mixed, Ubiquium and Asphyxion caused a gas that quickly became fatal to anyone who inhaled it. The idea of the plan was that the real killer would return to the mansion in order to remove the body. That person would then try to melt the sculpture case lid open (as the frozen Ubiquium would have sealed it shut). The temperature would cause the Ubiquium to melt and drip down the sides of the case, then meet with the Asphyxion already in the case and form the gas. The real killer would then lift the lid of the case, thereby releasing the gas and completing Bound's plan. It worked exactly as Bound had plotted; Carmelo Gusto mixed the chemicals and lifted the lid, but after being overcome by the gas, managed to find enough energy to drag himself to the door of the exhibit. However, he found it locked; Bound had also locked it in case the victim managed to find enough energy for an escape attempt. If not for the timely (if accidental) intervention of Larry Butz by opening the door, Gusto would have died. However, Butz opened the door, thus allowing Gusto to tumble out and escape death. Bound immediately took Gusto to the second-floor infirmary, along with Delicia Scone, in order to shift suspicion. Miles Edgeworth, who was visiting along with Eddie Fender, quickly made to investigate the cause and perpetrator of the gas, but they were stopped by Eustace Winner and Verity Gavèlle, a rival prosecutor and judge who had arrived to do their own investigation. Winner introduced Butz as a suspect, due to the fact that he had been carrying a red paint that contained Ubiquium. Edgeworth quickly dashed his logic into pieces by pointing out that Butz would not have had access to Asphyxion. Winner then placed suspicion on Delicia Scone, due to the fact that she knew how to make the gas, being a pharmacist. He added that Scone also carried a bottle of a pesticide called "Infesticide Ultra" at all times, the active ingredient of which was Asphyxion. However, Scone was able to prove that her bottle of Infesticide Ultra had in fact been stolen one week prior to the incident, thus clearing her of suspicion. Winner eventually agreed to let Edgeworth assist with the investigation, and Edgeworth used this authority to track down Bound as the real culprit of the gas. However, both Edgeworth and Fender had noticed that all the people involved with IS-7 seemed to be congregated at the gallery, and they quickly set out to finish what Gregory Edgeworth had started 18 years ago. Edgeworth suspected Gusto, due to the fact that he had set off the gas, but a lack of decisive evidence prevented a formal suspicion, and Edgeworth was forced to resort to a mixture of logic and manipulation in order for the investigation to go anywhere. Once Edgeworth had uncovered a motive, he investigated further and found that numerous pieces of evidence pointed to Gusto. Gusto, trapped, openly confessed to his crime, but pointed out that the statute of limitations on the IS-7 case had run out, meaning he could not be convicted. However, Edgeworth drove Gusto into a corner by revealing that Tangaroa had only been convicted as an accomplice, which meant that the statute was extended by a year if the accomplice's partner could not be found. As a result, Gusto was finally brought to justice.
After the resolution of IS-7 and the gas trap, Bound was presumably arrested and tried for attempted murder. Since Tangaroa was set free after Gusto's conviction, there is a high probability that the mansion is once more in his possession. Whether or not it is still an art gallery is unclear.
Layout[]
There are four main wings in the gallery, each named after a specific season. All of them are decorated and have a temperature corresponding to their seasons, and house specific sculptures made by Halique which he based on the 12 astrological constellations and are placed in the room that correspond to the season in which they are best seen in the sky.
- The Spring Wing - (12 °C/53 °F) Leo, Cancer, and Virgo
- The Summer Wing - (26 °C/78 °F) Libra, Scorpius, and Sagittarus
- The Autumn Wing - (18 °C/64 °F) Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries
- The Winter Wing - (-3 °C/27 °F) Taurus and Gemini
Additionally, all rooms are equipped with sprinklers, which are manually controlled from the security room on the first floor. On the second floor, there is a medical room, equipped fully enough to create a poison antidote on the spot.
Name[]
In the fan translation of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit, the 12 Constellations Art Gallery is slightly renamed to the "Zodiac Art Gallery".