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Maple Heights is the fifth district investigated in Criminal Case: Grimsborough.
An extremely affluent district where some of the most important and richest people in Grimsborough live, Maple Heights is a colorful place with recreation areas such as golf courses, marinas, and famous operas. The district mainly focuses on the mayoral elections of Grimsborough, with the political campaigns of Howard Johnson and Martha Price getting a great amount of focus as the story progresses and more and more characters get involved on them.
Cases Set in Maple Heights
- Blood and Glory: A club owner has his guts shredded after ingesting a cake full of razor blades.
- Troubled Waters: An heir has his legs cut off by a yacht, then gets fished out of the water during a party.
- The Scent of Death: A CEO is found in a rooftop, buried inside a flower pot after being strangled to death.
- A Shot of Beauty: A model is injected with collagen until she chokes and is left floating on her mansion's pool.
- Drive, Swing, Die: A famous golfer is found buried alive in a golf field after choking to death with a golf ball.
- One Wedding and a Funeral: A pilot crashes his jet into his own wedding after it gets sabotaged.
- Good Girls Don't Die: A teenager is cooked to death with a hair removal laser in a beauty parlor.
- All the King's Horses: A Middle Eastern king is killed by a startled horse inside a stable.
- Snakes on the Stage: An opera director is drugged and left to be devoured by a boa inside a dressing room.
- It All Ends Here: A socialite is shot in the head within the headquarters of a political party.
Tropes:
- Arc Villain: At first, it appears to be that Adam Bentley has been behind some of the murders happening across the district in his efforts to become richer and powerful, but he's killed by Chief King in the district's finale without any explanation as of why before he commits suicide. Then in the game's final case, it's revealed that the true villains of the district were Howard and Serena Johnson, members of the Crimson Order who ordered Chief King to assassinate Adam after he tried to blackmail them for some of the Crimson Order's gold.
- A Death in the Limelight: Chief King gains a fair amount of prominence during this district since he knows some of the residents of Maple Heights, up to becoming your partner for a handful of Additional Investigations. It's also the district where he ends up biting the dust.
- Disc-One Final Dungeon: In the desktop version, Maple Heights appears as the final district to be investigated, with the Airport only appearing in your map after you complete it. Averted in the mobile version, where the Airport is visible on your map before you finish with Maple Heights.
- Downer Ending: The district ends with Chief King committing suicide in the final case after being outed as a murderer, with no explanation as to why he did it being handed to you.
- Election Day Episode: The Story Arc of the district focuses on the electoral campaigns of the Red Party, led by Howard Johnson, and the Blue Party, led by Martha Price, each one with their own supporters and people involved on it.
- Gut Punch: Up to this point, Criminal Case had been a fairly comedic if slightly dark adult-oriented game about solving murders without much thought being put into its twists or making them fairly run-off-the-mill, with districts having Happy Endings at best and Bittersweet Endings at worst. Then you arrive at the end of Maple Heights, where an arguably Sudden Downer Ending hits you in the form of Chief King committing suicide right in front of you while trying to arrest him for murder without any explanation. The final moments of the district show absolutely no one in your team being happy or doing well, including your usually bubbly and upbeat partner Jones, who is going through a hard Heroic BSoD.
- Old Money: Most of the people of Maple Heights come from historical families up to the foundation of Grimsborough, solidifying their status as this.
- Recurring Character: The recurring characters for Maple Heights are Adam Bentley, Mayor Howard Johnson, Serena Johnson, Lola Vallez, Martha Price, Zack Holden, and to a lesser extent the returning Tony Marconi and Alden Greene.
- Upper-Class Twit: Even more than the residents of the Financial Center. The people of Maple Heights are so snobbish Chief King is forced to punish Jones after too many complaints about him are given by them.
- Wham Episode: Chief King dies at the end of this district after you try to arrest him for murder. In less shocking examples, Tony Marconi and Alden Greene also return after their previous arrests, though Tony with a temporary release permit.
