“You get to practice what you preach,” answered Bascomb, briefcase in hand.
Halverson shook his head, not getting Bascomb. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re having a trial for one of the infected today. You’re gonna be the acting DA.”
“I thought that was gonna be my job,” said Reno.
“You’ve been demoted,” said Bascomb without even looking at Reno.
Halverson could not believe his ears. “I’m not a lawyer.”
“Well, I am. I’m also the judge presiding over today’s trial.”
“How am I supposed to present my case if I’ve never been a DA?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen enough lawyer shows on TV to know the basics of a trial.”
Reno put his oar in. “Is that your idea of a joke?”
“Trials are not joking matters. Just ask the accused. And what about the victims of the accused? If they could speak from the grave, they wouldn’t be laughing.”
“Just shoot the ghouls,” said Reno. “They don’t deserve a trial.”
“Everyone deserves a fair trial. It’s in the Fifth Amendment and it’s what sets a democracy apart from other forms of government.”
“What’s going on?” asked a female voice from a nearby cell. “You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.”
Halverson glanced in the direction of the voice. He saw Victoria and smiled. He thought he had recognized her voice.
“We’re going to trial,” answered Bascomb.
“Where have you been?” Halverson asked Victoria.
She yawned and stretched. “I feel like I’ve been sleeping for two days.”
“Welcome back to paradise,” said Reno.
“Hey! What about me?” called out a voice three cells away from Halverson’s.
Halverson recognized Parnell waving at him from the cell.
“You can all come along,” said Bascomb. “Everybody attends the trials. They make people feel safe and secure knowing that there’s still law and order left in the world despite the chaos and anarchy surrounding us.”
“A likely story,” grumped Reno in an aside to Halverson.
Bascomb entered Halverson’s cell and laid his briefcase on the bunk. He snapped open the hasps on the briefcase, flipped it open, withdrew a sheaf of papers, and presented the bundle to Halverson.
“What’s this?” asked Halverson.
“This is the testimony of the eyewitnesses who observed the crime.”
Halverson accepted the papers listlessly. “There’s only one thing I want to know. Did the infected kill anyone?”
“Actually, he killed three persons.”
Halverson jiggled the papers in his hand. “Then I don’t even need to read this.”
“You’re not gonna present a very good case, if you don’t study the testimony.”
Bascomb shut his briefcase, swung it off the bunk, and exited Halverson’s cell.
“This is too much,” said Reno.
“Follow me,” said Bascomb and marched down Broadway, followed by his ever-present retinue of guards. “We’re holding the trial in the cafeteria.”
“Good,” said Reno. “Maybe I can finally grab a java there.”
“Who’s the ghoul’s lawyer?” asked Halverson.
“If you’re talking about the infected, I am,” answered Kobe Jones, who was trailing a few steps behind Bascomb.
“Have you ever practiced law?”
“No. I used to work at UPS before this apocalypse mess started.”
“Wonderful,” said Reno. “A UPS driver is defending a zombie, and a reporter is prosecuting it.”
“That’s sort of like having a doctor digging a ditch,” said Halverson.
“I know the difference between right and wrong,” said Jones. “That’s all you need to know as a lawyer.”
“Right and wrong have nothing to do with being a lawyer,” said Reno. “You need to know how to lie with conviction and to have no conscience.”
“They’re pretty much one in the same,” said Halverson.
“You don’t know squat,” said Jones. “Neither one of you. Just a couple of hacks.”
Bascomb reached Times Square, walked under the West Gun Gallery, and entered the dining hall.
“You know what the Alcatraz convicts used to call the dining hall?” asked Bascomb, cracking a smile.
“I’m dying to know,” deadpanned Reno.
Bascomb chuckled. “The gas chamber.”
Chapter 43
The capacious refectory stretched before Halverson. At the opposite end of it a Jumbotron loomed behind a large mahogany desk that sat on a dais. On the Jumbotron Halverson could see the images of Bascomb and the rest of their group entering the cafeteria.
The dining hall was equipped with CCTV as were the cells, Halverson could see.
Grey deal tables were situated lengthwise in the room so the people sitting at them were facing the dais and the Jumbotron. Many of the crowd had cups of coffee and other drinks set before them on the tabletops.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Reno, spying a cup of steaming hot coffee on a table to his right and sniffing the tang of its aroma.
“There’ll be a coffeepot at your table,” said Bascomb.
“The simple pleasures of the poor.”
Bascomb ushered them to a table in the front of the room near the dais.
“That’s the district attorney’s table,” he said and gestured to his left.
Halverson, Reno, Victoria, and Parnell took seats at the table.
Reno helped himself to a Styrofoam cup and poured a hot cup of coffee from the copper coffeepot before he sat down.
Halverson planked down his sheaf of papers on the tabletop, sat down, and perused the testimonies of the eyewitnesses to the three murders.
Kobe Jones, the accused’s counselor, took a seat at the table to Halverson’s right. Halverson saw no sign of the accused.
Bascomb disappeared into a room behind the dais.
“Now all we need is some popcorn,” said Reno, held his cup up to his lips with both hands, elbows propped on the tabletop, and sipped his coffee.
Clad in a judge’s black robe, Bascomb reappeared on the dais and stood behind the mahogany desk. “You may all rise.”
Everyone in the cafeteria stood up.
Everyone except Reno.
Grudgingly, Halverson got to his feet. He could not blame Reno for not standing. After all, this trial was a farce. How could you try a ghoul for murder?
Bascomb acted like he didn’t notice Reno sitting down.
“Court is now in session,” said Bascomb, sat down behind his desk, and pounded his gavel.
Everybody followed his lead and took their seats.
On the Jumbotron Halverson could see a figure in a wheelchair being wheeled by a short, wiry guard through the back entrance of the cafeteria. The guard ushered the wheelchair down the center aisle, rolling it toward the judge.
As the wheelchair neared the front of the cafeteria, Halverson could see on the Jumbotron that there was a ghoul squirming in the seat, arms chained to the arms of the chair. The male creature pushing forty wore a tattered, grime-streaked white guayabera shirt. Writhing, the ghoul grimaced, baring its large green broken teeth.
As the guard trundled the ghoul by him to the defense’s table, Halverson could see that shackles fettered the creature’s legs to the base of the wheelchair.
The guard parked the wheelchair beside Kobe Jones’s seat.
Jones pulled his seat away from the wheelchair so he was out of reach of the creature.
“You may proceed with your case against the accused, Mr. Halverson,” intoned Bascomb.
“Is this what passes for entertainment around here?” Reno said dryly to Halverson.
Shoving the sheaf of papers away from him on the tabletop, Halverson stood up, kicking the chair back behind him.
“There’s no point in having this trial,” he told Bascomb.<
br />
“Are you addressing me, Mr. Halverson?” asked Bascomb.
“Yeah.”
“In a court of law the judge is addressed as ‘Your Honor.’”
Halverson hung fire. He didn’t want to proceed. He saw this whole trial as a farce. It was a dog and pony show for the residents of the prison. He could not understand why Bascomb staged this charade—unless it was to make him look like a benevolent leader, or something like that. Still, why go to such lengths?
Halverson decided to play along with Bascomb, not wanting to look like the villain in this piece.
“Your Honor,” said Halverson, “I see no need for this trial.”
“You don’t believe in the jurisprudence system of our country? You don’t believe that everyone is entitled to a fair trial? You reject the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments?”
Again, Bascomb was painting him as the villain, Halverson could see. “I believe every person has the right to a fair trial.”
“Please explain.”
“The accused is not a person.”
Bascomb made a show of gazing at the ghoul shackled to the wheelchair. “He looks like a person to me.”
“I would like to call the accused to the stand.”
Bascomb cast an inquisitive glance at Kobe Jones.
“No objection, Your Honor,” said Jones.
The bailiff, a gum-chewing statuesque brunette over six feet tall with a direct, masculine gait, wheeled the ghoul to the witness stand. She made no attempt to unshackle the creature and stepped several yards away from the wheelchair after she parked it.
“I would like to call Dr. Parnell to approach the accused,” said Halverson.
“Objection!” said Jones, standing up behind his desk.
Bascomb turned to Halverson. “I hope there’s some point to this line of questioning. I can’t say that I see it.”
“There is, Your Honor,” said Halverson.
“This better not be a theatrical stunt you’re trying to pull, Mr. Halverson.”
“It isn’t.”
“Mr. Halverson is trying to make this court look like a joke,” chimed in Jones.
“Objection overruled,” said Bascomb.
Jones sat down indignantly.
“Dr. Parnell,” said Halverson, “would you approach the accused?”
Bemused, Parnell stood up and ambled toward the ghoul. He stopped about a yard from the creature for safety’s sake.
“Does somebody have a pair of latex surgical gloves?” Halverson asked the courtroom.
“Objection!” said Jones.
“This is highly irregular, Mr. Halverson,” said Bascomb. “I’m warning you this better be on the level.”
“It is, Your Honor,” said Halverson. “You’ll see.”
As far as Halverson was concerned, this entire court was highly irregular.
“I have some,” said Parnell, reaching into his trouser pocket. “I always carry a pair in case of a medical emergency.”
Halverson nodded. “Could you put the gloves on?”
“Objection!” cried Jones and bolted to his feet. “What do latex gloves have to do with the accused’s guilt? I must protest.”
Bascomb gave Halverson the onceover. “If you’re trying to make a mockery of this court, I’ll have no problem citing you in contempt, Mr. Halverson.” As if to indicate the sincerity of his words, Bascomb snapped up his gavel and held it in front of him, prepared to pound it.
“I’m trying to show why there is no need for this trial.”
“But you’re the prosecuting attorney. I don’t understand.”
“May I proceed?”
Bascomb thought about it. “Yes.”
Shaking his head, a frown on his face, Jones took his seat.
“Could you put on the latex gloves?” Halverson asked Parnell.
Parnell slipped the gloves on his hands.
“Now could you take the accused’s pulse?” asked Halverson.
“Objection!” said Jones. “This isn’t a hospital. It’s a court of law.”
“Overruled!” said Bascomb. He glowered at Halverson. “I want to see where this is going, and it better be good, Mr. Halverson.”
“Go ahead, Doctor,” said Halverson.
Circumspectly, Parnell stepped closer to the ghoul that was writhing in its wheelchair. He reached for the creature’s wrist, careful not to place his hand too close to the clenching and unclenching dirty, desiccated fingers.
Parnell found he could not insert his fingers under the ghoul’s wrist as the shackles to the arm of the wheelchair bound the wrist too tightly. He changed his plan and reached for the pulse in the ghoul’s decomposing neck, careful to avoid the yawning jaws and jagged teeth that snapped at his hand as the creature twisted its neck to bite him.
Parnell placed his fingers on the carotid artery, what he could feel of it under the diseased, sloughing flesh that covered it. But he felt no pulse.
“What do you feel, Doctor?” asked Halverson.
“I don’t feel anything,” answered Parnell, sliding his fingers along the scabrous throat trying to detect any sign of a pulse.
Perplexed, Jones leapt to his feet. “What does this prove? I’ll tell you. It proves nothing.”
“It proves this is not a living human being,” said Halverson. “Without a living human being to put on trial, we have no need of a trial. I ask that this case be dismissed, Your Honor.”
“You’re saying we should let the accused go free?” asked Bascomb.
“Hell no. Shoot it in the head and burn its diseased body to a crisp in a bonfire!”
Reno clapped in approval.
“Objection! Objection!” bellowed Jones, all but overturning his table as he sprang to his feet.
An uproar in the courtroom built to a crescendo as spectators muttered among themselves.
“Order in the courtroom!” Bascomb demanded.
He slammed his gavel down.
Silence ensued.
“There will be no more talking in my court,” said Bascomb, addressing the crowd. “This trial must proceed.”
“You can’t try a corpse,” said Halverson.
Bascomb rounded angrily on Halverson. “Did I ask your opinion, Mr. Halverson?”
Halverson said nothing, deciding Bascomb might fly off the handle if challenged.
“Is that your entire case against the accused?” asked Bascomb.
Halverson nodded and returned to his seat.
“What about the three people the defendant is accused of killing?” asked Bascomb.
Before he sat down, Halverson answered, “The defendant killed them to eat them. The testimonies of the eyewitnesses confirm that.”
“Then you’re accusing the defendant of murder in the first?”
“The walking corpse is a killer and needs to be destroyed.”
“Mr. Jones, it’s your turn to present the defense.”
Chapter 44
Jones stood up and took the floor. “Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Please proceed,” said Bascomb.
“There are a number of reasons why the defendant, one William Brisco, is not guilty of murder. First, he acted in self-defense when set upon by the three deceased.” Jones approached the squirming ghoul in the wheelchair. “Killing in self-defense is not murder. It is not a crime.”
“Eyewitnesses say the ghoul attacked the three victims without provocation,” said Halverson.
“Silence!” said Bascomb. “If you have an objection, Mr. Halverson, say so. Otherwise, don’t interrupt the proceedings.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Jones.
He strutted back and forth in front of the ghoul, his thumbs hooked in the armholes of his T-shirt, his AK slung over his shoulder.
“The fatuous idiot,” Reno muttered to Halverson, leaning toward Halverson’s ear as they sat at their desk.
“There is an even better reason why the defendant is innocent of murder,” said Jones. “The defendant is sick. He i
s suffering from the plague and has no idea what he’s doing. He doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong. If he doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong, he cannot be held responsible for his acts.”
“Objection,” said Halverson.
“On what grounds?” asked Bascomb.
“The defendant can’t know the difference between right and wrong because he’s a corpse. A corpse can’t plead insanity.”
“Objection overruled.”
“In his sickened state, the defendant has no idea what he’s doing,” Jones went on. “His disease has rendered him legally insane. He is therefore innocent of these three charges of first-degree murder.”
“Objection,” said Halverson.
“On what grounds?” asked Bascomb.
“On the grounds that a corpse cannot be considered innocent or guilty, because a corpse is dead and can’t make any decisions, period.”
“Overruled.”
“As everyone here can plainly see,” said Jones, making a sweeping gesture with his hands toward the audience, “the defendant is not a corpse. See how he moves. A corpse can’t move.”
“I feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland,” said Reno more to himself than to anyone else, watching the spectacle.
“Why don’t we just let the creature go, so it can go out and eat more people?” said Halverson mordantly.
“Silence, Mr. Halverson,” said Bascomb. “You have presented a very weak and poorly prepared case against the accused, one William Brisco. Do your homework next time, sir.”
Seething in frustration Halverson held his tongue.
“I am therefore ruling the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity,” declared Bascomb.
“This is a joke!” cried Reno. “Are you seriously going to let this creature go so it can kill again?”
“The defendant has been found innocent due to the poorly prepared case presented by the prosecuting attorney.”
“Oh sure. Blame your own idiocy on the prosecuting attorney.”
“I will hold you in contempt, sir, if you continue!”
“I want to be miles away when you let that thing free, I’m telling you!” ranted Reno.
Bascomb slammed his gavel against his desk. “That will be enough.”
At that moment, a teenage brunette in yellow culottes and a white blouse, whipped through the back door into the courtroom, her perspiring face twisted with excitement.
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