Part 6: Episode 06: Unexpected Reunion

This update covers:

Naomi Kimishima 1 - Unexpected Reunion
Naomi Kimishima 2 - Locked-Room Mystery(part 1 of 3)

Intro (Watch it or you won't know what's going on)




Little Guy: I had the body taken to the evidence room. Feel free to examine it whenever you want.

Naomi: I'll head over there now.

LG: Ah, one more thing before you go! The information we know up to this point has been sent to your computer. Would you please check it out?

Naomi: Hm, all right.



Naomi's office is similar to Gabe's. You can save, and do the work of piecing together evidence here. You can also listen to voice recordings, but we don't have any of those yet. For starters, we'll do as we're told and check the computer.



All these cards represent knowledge we have about the case. The cell phone card is a constant in any investigation, as it contains the victim's last words. You can't actually do anything with it, though. Other cards can be combined by dragging them onto each other, or analyzed by dropping them onto Little Guy's Mii. You can also talk to him directly, though he's never very useful.

I already mentioned the cell phone. The other two cards we have now are the knife found in Dennis' hand, and general information on the body, namely that he was a 30-year-old male and was found on his bed. The game tells you to examine the knife before you can continue.

LG: I'll look into it over here. Could you give me some time?

Now we can go check out the body.



This is Naomi's map. Besides her office, the evidence room is where you can check the bodies and personal effects, and any other location is a crime scene. We will eventually get to those, but for now we have to content ourselves with CIFM locations.



And this is what the evidence room looks like. You can view the corpse, as well as its clothes, and check for anything unusual, like wounds. For starters, we'll look at his clothes.



You can freely rotate and zoom in order to find evidence. Actually, there's nothing to be found on the clothes right now, but I thought you should see them. Let's check out the corpse (the role of the corpse is played by Dr. Manhattan).





Whenever Naomi has to use her brain a bit, you'll get to answer one of these questions. The vast majority are multiple-choice. Getting them wrong results in losing a half heart off of your life. I don't think I need to tell you the result of losing all of them, but I'll mention that you can back out of almost any question and go save. A great number of these are brain-dead easy, so I won't show you a screenshot of every single one. Any time there's a tough one or an amusing answer choice, I'll throw it up for you to think about. In any event, anything obtained from a multiple choice will be written underlined.



Naomi: I can't say what's wrong with it for sure until I have it analysed.



Naomi: It looks like a self-inflicted wound, but there's something unnatural about it.



This one is a little harder, but at least two of the options are obviously wrong.

By the way, if your first thought was "down the highway…" then congrats! You are the internet.

Naomi: This is a single wound, deep enough to pierce an artery. No matter who it is, pain is an immediate response to a cut. Nobody should be able to make a wound this clean and deep without flinching. I can't say this is proof of homicide, but I can't ignore the incongruity.



No question for this. You just get a card for the "flower-shaped bruise."



Naomi: There appear to be spots of hemorrhaging in the eyeballs. This isn't a common condition. Perhaps I should ask Little Guy about it.

We're done here for now. The next step is to go back and sort through all this new info. Little Guy contacts you once you get back into the computer.

LG: Ah, Doctor Kimishima. The results of the examination of the knife have come in. Let's see… the knife itself is a cheap, common brand sold all over the country. It'll be difficulty to locate where it came from. The blood on the blade matches the deceased. Only his fingerprints are on the handle, as well.

Naomi: I see. At least one thing is clear now. That is, the knife cut Dennis. Even then, we can't prove it unless we compare the blade to the wound.



We now have evidence for all the incongruities we found on the body. For starters, we'll follow Naomi's thought process and compare the knife and wound by dragging one card onto the other and releasing. There's no penalty for trying an invalid combination or analysis, so it's a valid tactic to try everything if you get stuck.

Naomi: The shape of the knife matches the wound on the wrist. This proves that the knife was used on the wrist. This seems like an open-and-shut case, but it all seems a little too convenient for me.

Note that the knife being used on the wrist doesn't imply Dennis himself used it. Next, we'll have Little Guy take a look at a few things. Namely, the bloody spots we found in the eyes.

LG: Hemorrhaging in the eyes, you say? It's a condition called petechia, caused by increased blood pressure and spasms in the blood vessels. It's commonly found as a sign of death by asphyxiation.

Naomi: That doesn't sound right. If I remember correctly, the victim died of a slashed wrist. If he died of asphyxiation, it's possible we're dealing with a homicide.

It's not as exciting, but we'll have him look at the finger, too.

LG: There's no mistake. This finger is fractured. We'll have an X-ray as soon as possible. Oh, and I have one more piece of good news: I've received a recording from HQ of a witness' account. It's the deceased neighbor. We've asked her some questions about the incident.

Naomi: Perfect timing. Maybe we can determine when the fire started.



The recorder lets you listen to voice recordings for more clues. You can just examine every line until you get the right answer without penalty, but Naomi will only notice things if she's looking for them. What I mean is, you have to select a topic before you listen, with new ones becoming available over time. The recording remains the same, but the information you can gain will change. Right now, we're looking for information on Dennis' condition.



Langley: I've been keeping the window that faces out into the street open because of the heat. That's how I could hear my neighbour so clearly. It was… let me think… around 3 in the afternoon? Yes, it must have been. I was watching "Farewell, Danny" at the time. I heard this loud noise from my neighbour's room. A fire alarm started going off a little after that. I was really surprised! Oh, uh… I think it was about 10 minutes. I looked out the window and saw smoke coming from next door! I ran over to my neighbours door, but nobody answered when I pounded on it. I had to see if there was anyone in there, so I pulled on the door. It was chained from the inside, and no one answered when I yelled. Yes, the fire truck came soon after that. They cut the chain on the door and went inside. No, it seems he lived alone. Oh, but I remember an electrician came at around noon. I heard him talking outside the front door.

Okay, there's a lot there, and you can have Naomi think about any part of it. Most of the time she has nothing to add, but in this case you want to check the part about the fire alarm going off.

Naomi: A loud noise, followed by a fire. This might be a clue. It doesn't seem to have been an explosion, based on how she described it. Was it in the room or somewhere else?



You can combine the testimony with the information on the body to try and narrow down the time of death.

Naomi: The room was sealed, and the fire started at around 3PM. From that, we can deduce that Dennis was alive until 3PM. At least, that's all we can determine with the current information. We need to know if there was anyone else in the room at the time.

This adds a new topic to the recording. Namely, "Was anyone else there?"



Naomi: That was much earlier than the fire, but we should still investigate it. Little Guy, there was an electrician at the deceased's home around noon. If he's talked to your people, can you ask them for the recordings of the interview?

LG: I'll contact them immediately. And regarding the fracture on the corpse's finger… the right index finger was fractured by an external force. There are no signs of healing in the fractured area.

Naomi: That would mean the bone broke after he died. Reactions to injury, like minute healing and hypodermic hemorrhaging, are "vital reactions." They only occur while the body is alive.

LG: That would have to be the case. And, to be clear, there's no chance the body was damaged during transport. We take the utmost precaustions when moving bodies.

Naomi: I hadn't considered that until you brought it up, but I'll take your word for it.

Naomi forgets that she just established the bone broke after death… now.

Naomi: If his index finger was broken, using the hand would have caused him a great deal of pain. To cut his left wrist, the deceased would have to hold the knife in his injured hand, and apply enough pressure to sever the artery. It just doesn't add up.

Yeah, I'm confused too. Best to ignore it. At this point, nothing can happen until you back out of the computer. It's a bit annoying, but if you're stuck it's always a good idea to try moving to the main office screen. Sometimes the plot will only advance once you go there.



Naomi: Cut the small talk. What do you want?

LG: So cold… HQ's questioned the electrician. I've sent you recordings. It seems HQ already knew who it was, so it was no problem.



This one, luckily, is shorter than the neighbour's.



Richardson: A murder? Y-yes, that's fine. He said his air was broken, and needed to be fixed. That was around noon, I think. I got the call earlier in the day. He said he needed it fixed that day, so I went straight there when I finished the job I was doing. Yeah, it was really quick. All I had to do was swap out a cable. I think I was only there for a about an hour. Yes, I fixed his heater. …Well, the way he looked, I wouldn't be surprised if he commited suicide. Around 3PM? I wouldn't have a clue. I was already fixing a washing machine at my next appointment's house by then.

This is simple enough. He entered the room to fix the air.

Naomi: We should focus on that. There's nothing odd about having a repairman come to fix the ventilation, but we need to learn about the deceased's condition at the time.

The game actually kicks you out of the recorder entirely at this point, forcing you to re-enter all the menus to get to the next topic: Dennis' condition. If you read the whole recording, you know about that.



Now, we go back to the computer to do more logicing. The two witness accounts can be combined to confirm that the repairman was there from 12-1. Besides that, we combine the proposed time of death with the testimony that he was depressed.



Naomi: The last time the deceased was seen alive was between noon and 1PM, The electrician said that when he saw him, Dennis seemed depressed. The last time he could have been alive was 3PM, when his neighbour heard a loud noise come from the room. …I've gathered a lot of information, but there are too many uncertainties to draw a conclusion at this point. I'm going to have to investigate the scene for myself. Little Guy, get me approval to enter the area.

LG: You shouldn't have any problem. I'm sure my bosses will approve you right away.

Naomi: Yes, but I don't intend to waste any time. I'm going there right now. You deal with the rest on your end.

We can now visit the crime scene. Next time: We'll do some serious investigating, and uncover some of the secrets hidden in Dennis' apartment.

EDIT: