The Shakespeare Incident

by Jonathan Miller

  They wiped their faces and tried to man up—whatever that meant. “What’s your secret? Why didn’t you throw up, Sheriff?” Beatrice asked.

  “You’re not bleeding either,” Antonio said.

  “I’m grounded,” the Sheriff said. “One of the benefits of being old school.”

  “Well, Sheriff Old School, you better watch what’s going on below the drone, on the ground,” Beatrice said, “I don’t know how you see anything with those glasses.”

  She pointed at two figures on the ridge. She would be a good border patrol agent—if they survived the night.

  “He’s up there!” the sheriff yelled, pointing a powerful flashlight at the ridge. “By the water tower. It’s Denny and Cordelia!”

  Lightning ricocheted around the canyon again. Earl whined. A scream came from the direction of the ridge and the sheriff saw Cordelia collapse to the ground. Denny started marching toward the sheriff and his crew.

  “Are you sure it’s him?” Beatrice asked. “He looks funny.”

  “Funny how? Like a clown?” the sheriff asked. He hated the word “funny” on principle. Nothing was funny to him.

  “No, like funny scary,” Claudio said. Claudio had already drawn his gun.

  “He’s like a zombie,” Antonio added. “He’s walking so slow, like he weighs a million pounds.”

  “Alert the ambulance, just in case,” the sheriff said. The ambulance was at the fire station over the ridge, less than a minute away. A hearse was parked in town if it came to that.

  Denny kept coming.

  “Denny, stop or we’ll shoot!” the sheriff yelled. “We’ll take out Cordelia too!”

  Denny walked more like a robot than a zombie, his steps precise as if on a balance beam. He held the gun straight out from his body and his slow steps were in perfect beat.

  “Try to take him alive,” the sheriff said to his team. “But if you shoot him, take him out, he sure has it coming. Do NOT let him touch the grail under any circumstances!”

  He directed the beefy Antonio off to the right. Beatrice Baca stood behind him; she was a mom after all. The wiry Claudio guarded the left flank. The canine, Earl, was still at his side. Earl was still spooked by something they couldn’t hear, he continued whining softly.

  “Good dog,” the sheriff said, patting Earl’s forehead. The dog didn’t stop whining.

  “Should we wake whoever’s in the van?” Antonio asked.

  “No,” the sheriff said. “They don’t need to see this.”

  The black van’s doors were closed tight. At first the sheriff had thought the device on top was some kind of extraterrestrial transmitter, but it turned out to be a mountain bike. The man inside had claimed to be from the agency who “verified the prize.” The man had shown the sheriff some fancy ID that had a military logo.

  Why would the military be in charge of a silly grail contest? The answer was obvious to the sheriff—it was all part of the greater plan. No one told him anything, other than a text that Denny must not reach the grail, but they shouldn’t kill him. He didn’t know who sent the text, but knew he was supposed to obey.

  But then again, if Denny died accidentally, that was on Denny, not him.

  The van had darkly tinted windows. Did the man inside know what was going on?

  Earl now started barking, in a slow but rhythmic pattern, as if keeping time with some cosmic metronome.

  Denny kept coming. He was heading straight toward the grail, staying in the middle of the dirt road as if guided from above. Cordelia screamed his name, but he didn’t respond.

  “Denny, stop right there!” Sheriff Diamond yelled. Denny was now forty yards away and the Sheriff noticed that Denny had his eyes closed. Had they been closed the whole time? “That’s an order. The grail ain’t worth dying for. It’s all some kinda bullshit.”

  The sheriff could now arrest Denny on a trespass charge alone. With another step, the sheriff could hang a “refusal to obey a lawful order” on Denny which would give them grounds to shoot to wound at least. With a second step, they had grounds to shoot to kill, despite what the text had ordered.

  The UFO was still hovering above the ridge, the screeching sounds of the UFO were now at an audible frequency that made their skin crawl. The sheriff turned and shouted at Antonio, “Tackle him!”

  Antonio had played middle linebacker for the Lordsburg High Mavericks. Antonio holstered his gun and headed toward Denny from the side, going for a tackle, just as they’d done in practice on that dirt field. Denny continued the robot-like slow march toward the grail. He ignored the beefy deputy on his flank.

  Antonio dove toward Denny’s legs, but it seemed like a switch was turned on from slow to fast. Denny whipped around and shot at him. Antonio went down face first, not moving.

  Eyes still closed, Denny silently turned back toward the grail and kept walking. Earl now barked wildly. The Sheriff didn’t want to release Earl and put his dog in danger, so he turned to Beatrice and told her to take the shot. “Phasers on stun,” he said. Their code for a shot in the leg.

  She fired.

  Distracted by the barking dog and the glare of the drone’s spotlight, her shot went wild. Denny, without missing a step, pointed his gun directly at Beatrice and fired. She went down hard. Was she dead? What would happen to her daughters? The sheriff didn’t have time to find out.

  “Claudio!” the sheriff yelled. “It’s all you. Take him out!”

  Claudio fired. He was supposed to be the sharpshooter of the bunch. Every shot missed Denny as if he had some kind of a force-field that deflected the bullets. Eyes still closed, Denny fired a single shot at Claudio’s general direction. Even though it hit him, Claudio took another step from sheer momentum and then fell to the ground.

  Denny didn’t change his expression.

  No, Denny definitely wasn’t funny anymore. It was now just Sheriff JC Diamond and Earl the German Shephard.

  “You don’t want to do this, Denny,” Sheriff Diamond said. He gestured to Earl to stay and put both of his hands on his weapon. The dog stayed but didn’t stop barking. He could live without his deputies, but he couldn’t live without Earl. He had been Sheriff for years, and while he had drawn his weapon before, this would be his first shoot-out. About time.

  He had always thought he would take Denny down for good, sooner rather than later, and now it would be his chance. It had to be part of the plan.

  Denny kept walking toward him, his weapon out…

  The sheriff lifted up his gun, ready to fire…

  The sheriff heard the door of the van open. He heard footsteps behind him but dared not take his eyes off Denny. He sure hoped that the guy in the van was on their side.

  The sheriff took a final deep breath as he stared at Denny, this was it.

  Suddenly Earl stopped barking and the UFO vanished, disappearing back over the ridge. The pink spotlight was gone from the grail. Even the water tower went dark.

  Before the sheriff could squeeze the trigger, Denny dropped the gun and collapsed. If he was the marionette, the puppeteer had loosened the strings.

  “Denny!” Cordelia’s wail echoed through the rocky hills. “You killed him!”

  The sheriff had a clean shot, but Denny was clearly on the ground, his hand off his gun. The sheriff could no longer claim self-defense if Cordelia was somehow recording this.

  “I didn’t do shit,” the sheriff said as he hurried over to Denny and slapped cuffs on the prone man from behind.

  He looked over at his deputies. They were still breathing. That was a good sign. “Hang in there! The ambulance is on its way!”

  Right on cue, an ambulance pulled into the compound after speeding from the other side of the hill.

  “Three down,” he shouted to the two EMTs as they emerged out of the ambulance. Denny was down too, but he didn’t count.

 
“Nothing happened,” said a voice behind him.

  The stranger was in his late twenties, Asian, and dressed in a black jacket over one of those tight black cycling jerseys with a small icon over the left breast. His black hair was long, and sweaty, as if he’d just run a mile.

  Now that he had a good look at him, the sheriff noticed the stranger had a scraggly beard, and a lanyard with some kind of picture badge featuring a blurry photo. If he worked for the military, he was clearly not active duty. The nearby bases—Holloman Air Force Base, White Sands Missile Range and the ones over in Arizona—all had civilian employees. This guy must be one of them, and not one of us. The sheriff hated him at first sight.

  “Nothing happened? What the hell are you talking about?” the sheriff growled at the stranger.

  “Nothing happened with the grail.” The stranger was talking into his oversized phone. He finally noticed the sheriff’s deputies down on the ground. “Oh my God! This wasn’t supposed to happen! Are your deputies all right?”

  “They’re going to be fine,” an EMT said. “None of these wounds looks fatal if we get ‘em to the hospital.”

  The stranger listened to someone on his phone. “All right, I’ll let you know. I’ll put the sheriff on.”

  The stranger handed the phone to the sheriff. “You better take this, it’s the big boss.”

  The sheriff frowned and took the call. This stranger wasn’t one of them, but he had a line to the big boss and that bothered the sheriff. The sheriff himself hadn’t talked to the boss in years. Who was this guy?

  “We’re gonna say it’s a military drone, right?” the sheriff said and then nodded at the response. He recounted the story into the phone, nodded again and handed the phone back to the stranger, who listened for a moment and then hung up.

  It still didn’t make sense, but it was becoming a little clearer. Just a little.

  “What was supposed to happen?” the sheriff asked, his attention torn between his squad and the stranger. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

  “That’s not important right now.” The man moved to the grail and looked puzzled. He hadn’t noticed Denny’s body on the other side of the ambulance.

  The EMT shooed the sheriff away, so the sheriff walked closer to the stranger and the grail.

  “I’m so sorry, this wasn’t supposed to happen!” the man said again. “None of this.”

  “Was that one of our drones up there over the water tower?” the sheriff asked.

  “We do a lot of work with drones,” the stranger said. That didn’t really answer the question of course. “That guy was supposed to trigger the grail. Are your men all right?”

  The sheriff winced by the man’s use of the word “trigger.” This stranger obviously didn’t get it, whoever he was.

  The EMTs attended to his downed troops, but the immediate crisis was over. The deputies were alive, for now, and probably would survive. “They’re stable,” an EMT said.

  “Do you want us to take the shooter to the hospital?” the other one asked the sheriff.

  “No, Denny can die right here.”

  “Denny?” The stranger knew the name. He walked around the ambulance and saw Denny lying in the dirt. “Oh my God, you’ve got to help him.”

  “He wasn’t shot,” the sheriff said. He just fainted. I don’t care who you are, he shot my men and that wasn’t part of no plan, text or no text. It’s my bust. He dies, he dies.”

  “Sheriff, that guy you want to let die was clearly affected by the grail.” The man was really upset. He clearly wasn’t one of them. “He didn’t know what he was doing. This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

  “I don’t care,” the sheriff said. He took off his sunglasses at last, if only to make eye contact with the stranger. “The big boss says I’ve got to keep him in custody and make sure he never comes close to here again. He might trigger the grail for real next time and the whole world will go to hell.”

  The stranger nodded as if he finally understood. The sheriff put his glasses back on.

  The EMTs loaded the fallen deputies into the ambulance and sped away.

  “What was supposed to happen today?” the sheriff asked the stranger. “No one tells us anything way out here at the end of America. You can tell me the real truth now that everyone else is gone. I won’t tell the big boss.”

  The stranger was trying to revive Denny. “Is there any way you can release your prisoner to me?”

  The sheriff pointed his gun directly at the stranger.

  “I don’t care who the hell you are. You’re alone. My county, my courthouse. Unless you have a court-order taking custody of my prisoner, he’s going to Hidalgo County Detention Center, here in Lordsburg. Text or no text. We do things differently out here. This is Lordsburg, baby.”

  The man looked at his phone one more time, and then back at the gun. “Your bust, sheriff.”

  Still on the ground, Denny finally revived. He strained to lift his neck, opened his eyes and stared blankly at the sheriff. “Did I win?”

  “You won a life sentence. You shot three cops,” the sheriff said. “I should shoot your ass right now.”

  “I don’t have any recollection of that.”

  “That makes sense,” the stranger said.

  Denny stared at the stranger, recognizing him. “You!”

  “Not now, Denny,” the stranger said, putting a finger to his lips indicating silence. He glanced at his phone one last time. “I’m going to do everything I can to get you out, but it might take a while.”

  “Do you know him?” the sheriff asked the stranger.

  “He used to work with me on base.”

  “This piece of shit mether? I just know him as Denny. He’s one of the usual suspects that somehow never gets popped for good even though we know he’s dirty. Gonna do a little search incident to arrest if you don’t mind.”

  The stranger nodded. “Like I said, your bust sheriff. Denny, I’m going to try to get you out.”

  The sheriff holstered his gun, came over to Denny and put a foot on his back. He gave a look over at the stranger and realized that he’d have to do this by the book. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer…”

  “I want my lawyer!”

  “Who’s your lawyer?” said the sheriff.

  “Call my sister, Denise Song,” Denny said to the stranger. “Find her for me. She’s my lawyer, I’m not saying shit without her, I know my rights.”

  “Denise Song?” The stranger smiled a knowing, guilty smile. “It all makes sense now, why the grail didn’t trigger. Sheriff, you can hold him for the moment, but I’ll find his sister. Denny, I promise you. This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

  The stranger tapped on his phone. “Find Denise Song,” he said out loud to his large phone that looked like it could be used as a laser. He smiled when he saw the result.

  Chapter 3

  Wednesday, July 8

  “Young lady, I’m sorry, but no unaccompanied minors can be here at the memorial wall.” Hotspur, the cemetery guard at Encantado Gardens, scolded the petite woman in front of him. The memorial wall was littered with pebbles, flowers and toys—usually toy arrows for some reason. Had this girl left such an offering? Hotspur was still hoping to become a real cop someday. He needed to prove himself here on the literal graveyard shift this afternoon. “Is your mother around?”

  “I’m not a minor,” the girl said. “I’m a lawyer. Kinda.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Denise.”

  Barely five feet tall, this Denise probably didn’t weigh over a hundred pounds in her goth clothes and matching black running shoes. She had an accent of pink on a few strands of her long black hair which was tied into a bun, and a similar streak on her shoes. In her dark colors and round
glasses, she could be the someone who hung out at cemeteries for fun. He noticed the barest hint of crows’ feet around her eyes; perhaps she was older than she looked.

  Hotspur made sure his Taser was activated; in case Denise was a modern-day witch on a scavenger hunt. She might seem mild-mannered, but there was definitely something suspicious about her. People shouldn’t wear black in the heat of the afternoon in Albuquerque. It was almost a hundred degrees out.

  “Who are you here to see, miss?” the guard asked, probing.

  “My cousin Marley Cruz Shepard,” the older-than-a girl said. “He’s right up there in the corner.”

  The guard looked at the shiny white brick. “You don’t look like a Cruz,” he said. “Or a Shepard. What are you?”

  This big white cop was asking about her ethnicity, his racism painfully obvious. “I’m part Asian. Korean. I’m also part Hispanic. And some other stuff I’m not sure about.”

  Hotspur looked up at the brick with vague recognition. “Marley Cruz, he was a school shooter or something down south. The one with the crossbow, right?”

  That explained the toy arrows then. His supervisor had warned him about the “Marley Fan Club.” Like the graves of the Columbine shooters, Marley’s memorial brick had become something of a beacon for the lost souls of New Mexico. He was an unlikely hero, and possible role model to losers everywhere. A weird girl in black coming to see this memorial certainly aroused his suspicion. Hotspur flipped on his lapel cam.

  “He’s a bad guy,” Hotspur said. He looked down at the various offerings on the ground. “Did you leave this stuff here? Are you a groupie or something?”

  “This stuff was all here before me.”

  “And you want to see him? This crossbow shooter?”

  “He was innocent,” she said. “I was there.

  “You were there for a school shooting?” This girl was more than a mere groupie. His lapel camera now on, Hotspur now fingered his taser. “Were you and this Marley Cruz kid close?”

  “I lived with the family. I was his nanny. He was at a talent show when they gunned him down. He didn’t kill anyone.”