"So, are you ready for your trial?" Tyler asked, arm still in the sling. The atmosphere was tense as this was the first time in many years that the accused was their own defense attorney. The crowd for the gallery was pouring in, preparing themselves for what they thought would be an easy open and shut case.
"As ready as I'll possibly be," Cammie replied, adjusting her lab coat. She looked around the lobby at the walls and columns. "I still have some questions about how the court system works here."
"Ask away. I'll be happy to answer whatever questions I can," Tyler said, adjusting his arm in the sling.
"First of all, where is all the evidence for the trial being held? More specifically, where is my evidence?" Cammie asked.
"You don't have any evidence," Tyler flatly said.
"I know," Cammie said, "but, last time, Magdalena had a copy of evidence for the defense. I was wondering where that was being kept."
"That would be in the Defense Evidence Storage," Tyler said, pointing to a door where a security guard stood, "however, you'll need a lawyer badge to get in."
"So, you mean I can't?" Cammie asked, a tad surprised, "even though I'm the defense attorney for today?"
"No," Tyler replied, "since you aren't an official one. I'm still surprised that they're even allowing you to be your own lawyer."
"It's that unorthodox?" Cammie asked.
"It's certainly not been seen here in our courts for a long time," Tyler said, adjusting his hat. His phone began to ring and he pulled it out of his shirt pocket. "Excuse me, I have to take this," he said, "I'll be watching from the gallery." With that, he walked away.
Alright, there's just a bit of time before the trial starts. Now's a good time to organize my-
Cammie's thoughts were interrupted by a woman approaching her, carrying a large paper bag. Cammie immediately recognized the woman as Magdalena. "May I help you?" Cammie asked.
"I came to give you this," Magdalena said, shoving the bag into Cammie's chest. Cammie opened it and pulled out her sCAn Pad.
"Why are you returning this now?" Cammie asked, surprised.
"We reviewed the facts and information about the case. This device has no bearing to the crime at hand," Magdalena said, "If I were you, I'd make sure my jail cell bed was nice and cozy." With that, she left towards the prosecutor's side of the building. Cammie opened up her sCAn Pad, checking to make sure that all her information was still there. Thankfully, it all was. As she was checking for her information, time passed by quicker than she thought.
"Miss Cammie," said a security guard, "The trial is about to begin."
"Oh?" Cammie asked, surprised by how fast time passed by, "That time already?" She got up from the bench she was sitting on and entered the courtroom.
The gallery was completely full of citizens from both Swan Valley and Clarksburg. Murmurs rose as Cammie took her place at the defense's bench. Magdalena was already at the prosecution's bench with Martin by her side. Judge James took his seat and slammed his gavel down.
"Court is now in session for the trial of Cammie," The judge paused in thought. "Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure we are aware of your last name. Accused, please tell the court your last name."
Cammie paused a bit before she replied, "Staub. Cammie Staub is my full name." She knew she was lying, partly. Cammie didn't legally have Snipe's last name yet, since they weren't actually married; however, she also didn't legally have her own last name. Her parents died and was separated from her before Cammie learned what thair surname was.
"Alright then. Court is now in session for the trial of Cammie Staub. Is the defense ready?"
Cammie nodded her head. "The defense is ready, Your Honor."
"Is the prosecution ready?"
Martin fiddled with is bolo as he responded, "Yes, the prosecution is ready."
"Good," Judge James said, "You may now begin with your opening statements. Prosecution?"
Martin stood up from his chair and turned to the gallery and judge. "Ladies and gentlemen of the court. I stand here bfore you in order to prove one thing. I will prove that this woman," Martin pointed to Cammie, "poisoned my dear sister, Mikayla." Martin took his seat at the prosecutions bench as mururs rose from the gallery.
"Order! Order!" Judge James said, slamming his gavel down, "Defense, your opening statement?"
"Your Honor and members of the gallery, I, Cammie Staub, am innocent of all charges. I will prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was framed for the poisoning of Mikayla Barquette."
Less murmurs arose from the crowd this time. Cammie felt a tad awkward that no one believed her, but she planned to prove her innocence. "Now then," Judge James began, "The lead detective of the case will review the facts of the case."
Magdalena stood up from her chair and took her seat at the witness stand. "Before you ask, yes. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now that that's out of the way, let's proceed to my testimoy."
"You seem awfully eager to move this trial along, Magdalena," Judge James said.
"The woman poisoned my sister. I wish to bring her punishment as swiftly and as soon as possible," Magdalena sternly said.
"Alright," Judge James said, "Please proceed with your testimony."
"Thank you," Magdalena said, "The poisoning happened yesterday at exactly 11:15 AM. The victim, as I'm sure you're all aware, is Mikayla Barquette, sheriff of Swan Valley. The accused is Cammie Staub, standing over there at the defense's bench. There was one witness who saw the crime as it occurred. Her name is Khloe Calaverni. The weapon was a teacup laced with Hydroxidaticasotocin, or as it's more commonly known, BoD. We have two main pieces of evidence that incriminate Cammie as the culprit. The first is the weapon itself and the second is a phone call that occured during the time of the poisoning. The teacup has both Cammie and Mikayla's fingerprints, as well as contained amounts of BoD."
"HOLD IT!" Cammie exclaimed, "Exactly how much BoD was found?"
Magdalena gestured to the bailiff by the defense. The bailiff walked over to Cammie and put a piece of paper in front of her. "We found and exact amount of 6.00 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in the tea that was still in the teacup," Magdalena explained.
"Understood. Please continue with your testimony," Cammie said.
"The phone call was recorded from the time between 11:10 AM and 11:17 AM."
"HOLD IT!" Cammie exclaimed, "In order to record a phone call, you would have had to start the recording process before the phone call occurs. Did you have some sort of notification to record the phone call?"
"My phone automatically records every call I make," Magdalena explained, "The phone call recorded the exact time that the poisoning occurred, since it takes exactly 15 minutes after ingestion for the poison to show symptoms. Mikayla began to show symptoms at exactly 11:45 AM. At 11:15 AM, Mikayla can clearly be heard taking a sip of tea. I have a copy avaliable for both the defense and prosecution if they wish to listen. There were three teacups at the scene, but only the one laced with BoD had Mikayla's fingerprints on it. Those are the facts of the case. Any questions?"
"Well, given that the defendant's fingerprints were on the weapon, along with the phone call, I can certainly see why Miss Cammie would be the culprit. Does the defense have an argument?" Judge James asked.
"Of course I do, Your Honor," Cammie replied, opening up her sCAn Pad.
"I say, I have not seen that device on any market shelves before. What, pray tell, is that?" Judge James asked.
"This is my sCAn Pad. It's just a homemade tablet computer, Your Honor," Cammie explained, "Now then, when Mikayla was admitted to the hospital, did they run any sort of test with recordable results?"
"Yes, of course," Magdalena said.
"Do you have a copy of the results on hand?" Cammie asked. Magdalena gestured to the Defense Bailiff and he handed Cammie a copy of Mikayla's report. All it said was when Mikayla was admitted and that she had a Hydroxidaticasotocin level of exactly 4.99 mg.
"All I have presented to the court are the hard and irrefutable facts," Magdalena explained, "Exact numbers and pure hard data. This is not some eyewitness testimony, this is a report. You can't cross-examine the facts."
"Oh can't I?" Cammie asked with a rather smug look.
"What are you getting at?" Magdalena asked.
"Thanks to you and your testimony, you've caught yourself in your own contradiction," Cammie said.
"The defense will stop speaking in riddles and explain to the court what she means," Judge James said in his authoritative voice.
"Of course. You see, Magdalena testified that there was exactly 6.00 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in Mikayla's teacup," Cammie explained, "however, only 4.99 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin was found in Mikayla!" The gallery was oddly silent after Cammie finished her explaination. She could feel sweat beginning to form on her brow. "Why is everyone so quiet?"
Magdalena laughed and put her Yazaka feather in her mouth. "You do realize how simple the explaination for that is, right?"
"No, why don't you explain it to me," Cammie said, luring Magdalena towards the trap.
"I have for the court a photograph of the sink with the three teacups in it," Magdalena said, gesturing to the Defense Bailiff. The bailiff handed Cammie a picture of the sink. "The teacup with Mikayla's fingerprints is in the center, her fingerprints in orange while Cammie's are in blue. As you can plainly see, there is still tea in Mikayla's cup. The answer to this alleged 'contradiction' is that she merely didn't drink all her tea."
Cammie smirked at Magdalena's explaination. "It would be so simple if it was that easy, wouldn't it?"
"What are you talking about, Cammie?" Martin asked, hands by his side.
"It seems that you aren't aware of this property of Hydroxidaticasotocin, though I'm not surprised," Cammie said, "You did leave the hospital before Doctor Octavio gave out the updated sheets."
"Updated sheets?" Martin asked, a bit lost.
"Yes," Cammie said with a smile, "though I don't have it on my now. Magdalena took it from me at the hospital."
"What? You mean this thing?" Magdalena asked, gesturing to the Prosecutor Bailiff. The bailiff opened up a paper bag and pulled out a laminated sheet of paper. He handed it to Martin, who proceeded to look it over.
"Well, notice anything different than the previous versions of these sheets about Hydroxidaticasotocin?" Cammie asked rather smugly.
"Lethal Dissovability?" Martin asked, shocked.
"Wait, what?" Magdalena exclaimed, rushed to Martin's side and looking at the paper.
"Doctor Octavio, are you here?" Cammie asked into the gallery. Doctor Octavio stood up. "The defense calls Doctor Octavio to the stand to clarify what Lethal Dissovability means in regards to this poison."
Doctor Octavio entered the court section and took his place at the witness stand. "The name's Octavio. I'm a doctor at the Clarksburg hospital and I mainly work in the ER and trauma care."
"Please testify to the court about this Lethal Dissovability," Cammie requested calmly.
"No problem," Doctor Octavio said, "Lethal Dissovability is a new property of Hydroxidaticasotocin that we just recently discovered. Essentially, what it means is that until you put it in a solution with a volume greater than 5 liters, all parts of the solution you do put it in has the same lethality as how much that was put in. Thankfully, we also found that this doesn't stack up, so to speak."
"Explain in easier laymens terms," Martin requested.
"If I put 3.00 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in one liter of water, no matter how much you drink or what part of the one liter you drink, you'll only have a poisoning level of 3.00 mg," Doctor Octavio explained.
"WHAT!?" Martin and Magdalena exclaimed simultaneously.
"With this new information at hand," Cammie said confidently, "this means that at the time of the poisoning, there was only 4.99 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in Mikayla's tea."
"OBJECTION!" Martin exclaimed, "This doesn't change the fact that you were the one who put the poison in the tea. You merely just put more Hydroxidaticasotocin in after Mikayla drank it."
"HOLD IT! If I wanted to poison Mikayla, would I have not just put all the poison in at one time?" Cammie asked.
"That has no bearing," Martin stated, "No one can truly understand the mind of a killer but the killer him or herself."
"You still have yet to provide a motive to the court," Cammie said, grasping at ideas now.
"Did you not just hear me?" Martin asked, "No one can truly understand a killer's mind. You don't need a motive to poison or murder someone."
"Argh," Cammie exclaimed. He's right. I can't prove my innocence by that alone. I'm running out of ways to lead this trial.
"You see, Your Honor, Cammie was the only one with the opportunity for poisoning Mikayla," Martin said firmly, fiddling with his bolo tie.
"HOLD IT!" Cammie exclaimed, "Khloe was there at the scene of the crime. Doesn't that make her a suspect?"
"Have you forgotten?" Magdalena quipped, "The phone call shows the time of the poisoning, and clearly only you are the one to come in contact with the tea. That phone call is Khloe's alibi."
"Wait a minute," Cammie said, tring to recall a memory, "Khloe went back inside Mikayla's house before we left so she could get her phone. Is it not possible then for Khloe to have put the excess poison at that time?"
"It's possible," Martin stated, "however, that doesn't change the fact that the poison was present before that time."
"Khloe was at Mikayla's before I was. Isn't it possible she could have laced the teacup when she went to get her own cup of tea?" Cammie asked.
"Aren't you the one who got the teacup?" Magdalena asked.
"Well, yes," Cammie relutantly admitted.
"How could Khloe possibly know which teacup you'd use for Mikayla?" Magdalena retorted.
"Maybe her intention wasn't to poison Mikayla," Cammie said, "but instead, to poison me."
"OBJECTION!" Martin exclaimed, "Even if that was her intention, she could not have possibly known which teacups you'd use."
"Is it not possible?" Cammie asked, "Magdalena, when you and your men investigated the kitchen, how were the teacups arranged?"
"We didn't really bother with those. They were stacked up in the cabinet in two columns, one on top of each- Ack!" Magdalena exclaimed as she came to the realization.
"Exactly," Cammie said, "the cups were stacked so that any reasonable person would take the top ones."
"OBJECTION!" Martin exclaimed, "If the cups were stacked as such, that means there was three options for which cups to use. She still could not possibly have known which teacups you were going to use."
"NOT SO FAST!" Cammie retorted, "Actually, she didn't need to know which ones I used."
"And why not?" Martin asked, stopping fiddling with his bolo tie.
"All she had to do was lace two of the teacups, the first one of one stack and the second of the other. This would ensure that whatever logical combination any sane person would take would have one laced teacup."
"Argh!" Martin exclaimed, shocked, "Magdalena! Send your men to investigate the other teacups!"
"Yes, sir," Magdalena said, speaking into a walkie-talkie, "Men, investigate the other cups. Check for evidence of Hydroxidaticasotocin."
"Well, until this evidence gets back," Judge James said, "I cannot see how this trial will proceed. I hereby call a brief recess until we get word back from-"
"OBJECTION!" exclaimed another voice.
"Who said that?" Judge James asked, looking over the scene.
"Wait a minute, that voice," Cammie said to herself.
"You?" Martin exclaimed in surprise.
Standing defiantly in the gallery was none other than a young girl, only about 19 or 20. She had long, wavy brunette hair that came all the way down to just below her shoulder blades. Her face was lightly tan, accentuating her lavender irises. "Like, I did, Khloe Calaverni, and I can, like, clear up all this discrepency without need for, like, that report."
"As ready as I'll possibly be," Cammie replied, adjusting her lab coat. She looked around the lobby at the walls and columns. "I still have some questions about how the court system works here."
"Ask away. I'll be happy to answer whatever questions I can," Tyler said, adjusting his arm in the sling.
"First of all, where is all the evidence for the trial being held? More specifically, where is my evidence?" Cammie asked.
"You don't have any evidence," Tyler flatly said.
"I know," Cammie said, "but, last time, Magdalena had a copy of evidence for the defense. I was wondering where that was being kept."
"That would be in the Defense Evidence Storage," Tyler said, pointing to a door where a security guard stood, "however, you'll need a lawyer badge to get in."
"So, you mean I can't?" Cammie asked, a tad surprised, "even though I'm the defense attorney for today?"
"No," Tyler replied, "since you aren't an official one. I'm still surprised that they're even allowing you to be your own lawyer."
"It's that unorthodox?" Cammie asked.
"It's certainly not been seen here in our courts for a long time," Tyler said, adjusting his hat. His phone began to ring and he pulled it out of his shirt pocket. "Excuse me, I have to take this," he said, "I'll be watching from the gallery." With that, he walked away.
Alright, there's just a bit of time before the trial starts. Now's a good time to organize my-
Cammie's thoughts were interrupted by a woman approaching her, carrying a large paper bag. Cammie immediately recognized the woman as Magdalena. "May I help you?" Cammie asked.
"I came to give you this," Magdalena said, shoving the bag into Cammie's chest. Cammie opened it and pulled out her sCAn Pad.
"Why are you returning this now?" Cammie asked, surprised.
"We reviewed the facts and information about the case. This device has no bearing to the crime at hand," Magdalena said, "If I were you, I'd make sure my jail cell bed was nice and cozy." With that, she left towards the prosecutor's side of the building. Cammie opened up her sCAn Pad, checking to make sure that all her information was still there. Thankfully, it all was. As she was checking for her information, time passed by quicker than she thought.
"Miss Cammie," said a security guard, "The trial is about to begin."
"Oh?" Cammie asked, surprised by how fast time passed by, "That time already?" She got up from the bench she was sitting on and entered the courtroom.
The gallery was completely full of citizens from both Swan Valley and Clarksburg. Murmurs rose as Cammie took her place at the defense's bench. Magdalena was already at the prosecution's bench with Martin by her side. Judge James took his seat and slammed his gavel down.
"Court is now in session for the trial of Cammie," The judge paused in thought. "Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure we are aware of your last name. Accused, please tell the court your last name."
Cammie paused a bit before she replied, "Staub. Cammie Staub is my full name." She knew she was lying, partly. Cammie didn't legally have Snipe's last name yet, since they weren't actually married; however, she also didn't legally have her own last name. Her parents died and was separated from her before Cammie learned what thair surname was.
"Alright then. Court is now in session for the trial of Cammie Staub. Is the defense ready?"
Cammie nodded her head. "The defense is ready, Your Honor."
"Is the prosecution ready?"
Martin fiddled with is bolo as he responded, "Yes, the prosecution is ready."
"Good," Judge James said, "You may now begin with your opening statements. Prosecution?"
Martin stood up from his chair and turned to the gallery and judge. "Ladies and gentlemen of the court. I stand here bfore you in order to prove one thing. I will prove that this woman," Martin pointed to Cammie, "poisoned my dear sister, Mikayla." Martin took his seat at the prosecutions bench as mururs rose from the gallery.
"Order! Order!" Judge James said, slamming his gavel down, "Defense, your opening statement?"
"Your Honor and members of the gallery, I, Cammie Staub, am innocent of all charges. I will prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was framed for the poisoning of Mikayla Barquette."
Less murmurs arose from the crowd this time. Cammie felt a tad awkward that no one believed her, but she planned to prove her innocence. "Now then," Judge James began, "The lead detective of the case will review the facts of the case."
Magdalena stood up from her chair and took her seat at the witness stand. "Before you ask, yes. I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now that that's out of the way, let's proceed to my testimoy."
"You seem awfully eager to move this trial along, Magdalena," Judge James said.
"The woman poisoned my sister. I wish to bring her punishment as swiftly and as soon as possible," Magdalena sternly said.
"Alright," Judge James said, "Please proceed with your testimony."
"Thank you," Magdalena said, "The poisoning happened yesterday at exactly 11:15 AM. The victim, as I'm sure you're all aware, is Mikayla Barquette, sheriff of Swan Valley. The accused is Cammie Staub, standing over there at the defense's bench. There was one witness who saw the crime as it occurred. Her name is Khloe Calaverni. The weapon was a teacup laced with Hydroxidaticasotocin, or as it's more commonly known, BoD. We have two main pieces of evidence that incriminate Cammie as the culprit. The first is the weapon itself and the second is a phone call that occured during the time of the poisoning. The teacup has both Cammie and Mikayla's fingerprints, as well as contained amounts of BoD."
"HOLD IT!" Cammie exclaimed, "Exactly how much BoD was found?"
Magdalena gestured to the bailiff by the defense. The bailiff walked over to Cammie and put a piece of paper in front of her. "We found and exact amount of 6.00 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in the tea that was still in the teacup," Magdalena explained.
"Understood. Please continue with your testimony," Cammie said.
"The phone call was recorded from the time between 11:10 AM and 11:17 AM."
"HOLD IT!" Cammie exclaimed, "In order to record a phone call, you would have had to start the recording process before the phone call occurs. Did you have some sort of notification to record the phone call?"
"My phone automatically records every call I make," Magdalena explained, "The phone call recorded the exact time that the poisoning occurred, since it takes exactly 15 minutes after ingestion for the poison to show symptoms. Mikayla began to show symptoms at exactly 11:45 AM. At 11:15 AM, Mikayla can clearly be heard taking a sip of tea. I have a copy avaliable for both the defense and prosecution if they wish to listen. There were three teacups at the scene, but only the one laced with BoD had Mikayla's fingerprints on it. Those are the facts of the case. Any questions?"
"Well, given that the defendant's fingerprints were on the weapon, along with the phone call, I can certainly see why Miss Cammie would be the culprit. Does the defense have an argument?" Judge James asked.
"Of course I do, Your Honor," Cammie replied, opening up her sCAn Pad.
"I say, I have not seen that device on any market shelves before. What, pray tell, is that?" Judge James asked.
"This is my sCAn Pad. It's just a homemade tablet computer, Your Honor," Cammie explained, "Now then, when Mikayla was admitted to the hospital, did they run any sort of test with recordable results?"
"Yes, of course," Magdalena said.
"Do you have a copy of the results on hand?" Cammie asked. Magdalena gestured to the Defense Bailiff and he handed Cammie a copy of Mikayla's report. All it said was when Mikayla was admitted and that she had a Hydroxidaticasotocin level of exactly 4.99 mg.
"All I have presented to the court are the hard and irrefutable facts," Magdalena explained, "Exact numbers and pure hard data. This is not some eyewitness testimony, this is a report. You can't cross-examine the facts."
"Oh can't I?" Cammie asked with a rather smug look.
"What are you getting at?" Magdalena asked.
"Thanks to you and your testimony, you've caught yourself in your own contradiction," Cammie said.
"The defense will stop speaking in riddles and explain to the court what she means," Judge James said in his authoritative voice.
"Of course. You see, Magdalena testified that there was exactly 6.00 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in Mikayla's teacup," Cammie explained, "however, only 4.99 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin was found in Mikayla!" The gallery was oddly silent after Cammie finished her explaination. She could feel sweat beginning to form on her brow. "Why is everyone so quiet?"
Magdalena laughed and put her Yazaka feather in her mouth. "You do realize how simple the explaination for that is, right?"
"No, why don't you explain it to me," Cammie said, luring Magdalena towards the trap.
"I have for the court a photograph of the sink with the three teacups in it," Magdalena said, gesturing to the Defense Bailiff. The bailiff handed Cammie a picture of the sink. "The teacup with Mikayla's fingerprints is in the center, her fingerprints in orange while Cammie's are in blue. As you can plainly see, there is still tea in Mikayla's cup. The answer to this alleged 'contradiction' is that she merely didn't drink all her tea."
Cammie smirked at Magdalena's explaination. "It would be so simple if it was that easy, wouldn't it?"
"What are you talking about, Cammie?" Martin asked, hands by his side.
"It seems that you aren't aware of this property of Hydroxidaticasotocin, though I'm not surprised," Cammie said, "You did leave the hospital before Doctor Octavio gave out the updated sheets."
"Updated sheets?" Martin asked, a bit lost.
"Yes," Cammie said with a smile, "though I don't have it on my now. Magdalena took it from me at the hospital."
"What? You mean this thing?" Magdalena asked, gesturing to the Prosecutor Bailiff. The bailiff opened up a paper bag and pulled out a laminated sheet of paper. He handed it to Martin, who proceeded to look it over.
"Well, notice anything different than the previous versions of these sheets about Hydroxidaticasotocin?" Cammie asked rather smugly.
"Lethal Dissovability?" Martin asked, shocked.
"Wait, what?" Magdalena exclaimed, rushed to Martin's side and looking at the paper.
"Doctor Octavio, are you here?" Cammie asked into the gallery. Doctor Octavio stood up. "The defense calls Doctor Octavio to the stand to clarify what Lethal Dissovability means in regards to this poison."
Doctor Octavio entered the court section and took his place at the witness stand. "The name's Octavio. I'm a doctor at the Clarksburg hospital and I mainly work in the ER and trauma care."
"Please testify to the court about this Lethal Dissovability," Cammie requested calmly.
"No problem," Doctor Octavio said, "Lethal Dissovability is a new property of Hydroxidaticasotocin that we just recently discovered. Essentially, what it means is that until you put it in a solution with a volume greater than 5 liters, all parts of the solution you do put it in has the same lethality as how much that was put in. Thankfully, we also found that this doesn't stack up, so to speak."
"Explain in easier laymens terms," Martin requested.
"If I put 3.00 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in one liter of water, no matter how much you drink or what part of the one liter you drink, you'll only have a poisoning level of 3.00 mg," Doctor Octavio explained.
"WHAT!?" Martin and Magdalena exclaimed simultaneously.
"With this new information at hand," Cammie said confidently, "this means that at the time of the poisoning, there was only 4.99 mg of Hydroxidaticasotocin in Mikayla's tea."
"OBJECTION!" Martin exclaimed, "This doesn't change the fact that you were the one who put the poison in the tea. You merely just put more Hydroxidaticasotocin in after Mikayla drank it."
"HOLD IT! If I wanted to poison Mikayla, would I have not just put all the poison in at one time?" Cammie asked.
"That has no bearing," Martin stated, "No one can truly understand the mind of a killer but the killer him or herself."
"You still have yet to provide a motive to the court," Cammie said, grasping at ideas now.
"Did you not just hear me?" Martin asked, "No one can truly understand a killer's mind. You don't need a motive to poison or murder someone."
"Argh," Cammie exclaimed. He's right. I can't prove my innocence by that alone. I'm running out of ways to lead this trial.
"You see, Your Honor, Cammie was the only one with the opportunity for poisoning Mikayla," Martin said firmly, fiddling with his bolo tie.
"HOLD IT!" Cammie exclaimed, "Khloe was there at the scene of the crime. Doesn't that make her a suspect?"
"Have you forgotten?" Magdalena quipped, "The phone call shows the time of the poisoning, and clearly only you are the one to come in contact with the tea. That phone call is Khloe's alibi."
"Wait a minute," Cammie said, tring to recall a memory, "Khloe went back inside Mikayla's house before we left so she could get her phone. Is it not possible then for Khloe to have put the excess poison at that time?"
"It's possible," Martin stated, "however, that doesn't change the fact that the poison was present before that time."
"Khloe was at Mikayla's before I was. Isn't it possible she could have laced the teacup when she went to get her own cup of tea?" Cammie asked.
"Aren't you the one who got the teacup?" Magdalena asked.
"Well, yes," Cammie relutantly admitted.
"How could Khloe possibly know which teacup you'd use for Mikayla?" Magdalena retorted.
"Maybe her intention wasn't to poison Mikayla," Cammie said, "but instead, to poison me."
"OBJECTION!" Martin exclaimed, "Even if that was her intention, she could not have possibly known which teacups you'd use."
"Is it not possible?" Cammie asked, "Magdalena, when you and your men investigated the kitchen, how were the teacups arranged?"
"We didn't really bother with those. They were stacked up in the cabinet in two columns, one on top of each- Ack!" Magdalena exclaimed as she came to the realization.
"Exactly," Cammie said, "the cups were stacked so that any reasonable person would take the top ones."
"OBJECTION!" Martin exclaimed, "If the cups were stacked as such, that means there was three options for which cups to use. She still could not possibly have known which teacups you were going to use."
"NOT SO FAST!" Cammie retorted, "Actually, she didn't need to know which ones I used."
"And why not?" Martin asked, stopping fiddling with his bolo tie.
"All she had to do was lace two of the teacups, the first one of one stack and the second of the other. This would ensure that whatever logical combination any sane person would take would have one laced teacup."
"Argh!" Martin exclaimed, shocked, "Magdalena! Send your men to investigate the other teacups!"
"Yes, sir," Magdalena said, speaking into a walkie-talkie, "Men, investigate the other cups. Check for evidence of Hydroxidaticasotocin."
"Well, until this evidence gets back," Judge James said, "I cannot see how this trial will proceed. I hereby call a brief recess until we get word back from-"
"OBJECTION!" exclaimed another voice.
"Who said that?" Judge James asked, looking over the scene.
"Wait a minute, that voice," Cammie said to herself.
"You?" Martin exclaimed in surprise.
Standing defiantly in the gallery was none other than a young girl, only about 19 or 20. She had long, wavy brunette hair that came all the way down to just below her shoulder blades. Her face was lightly tan, accentuating her lavender irises. "Like, I did, Khloe Calaverni, and I can, like, clear up all this discrepency without need for, like, that report."