The Shakespeare Incident

by Jonathan Miller

  They walked upstairs into the apartment and Denise noticed several opened pill bottles labeled Crotaladone. Was Crotaladone legal in America? The markings on the bottles sure looked suspicious and seemed to be in both Spanish and Korean. She couldn’t read the name on the bottle, but it had way too many letters to spell out Dew Cruz.

  Before Denise could ask the details about the drug, a sleepy star cat rubbed against Denise’s leg. Had the cat taken the pills too?

  “I’m sorry, kitty,” Denise staring at the cat’s piercing green eyes. “Good girl, Suri.”

  “Suri’s the one that died,” Dew said. “That’s Sahar.”

  Sahar kept rubbing against her, regardless. Could a cat have a spark?

  “Are you all right, Dew?”

  “No, I’m not all right,” Dew said, popping two more Crotaladone and threw down the empty bottle, missing the trash. “Rayne was probably abducted by aliens and blames me, and I have no recollection of shit. Plus, my cat died. It was probably the aliens who killed my cat.”

  “I’m sure the two aren’t related,” Denise said. “I really need your help to try to figure out what happened.”

  “I don’t want to see you for a while,” Dew said. “I’m sorry about your brother, sorry about your mother, but ever since you came into my life here, you’ve been nothing but bad luck for me and my cats.”

  Dew was now looking up “treatment centers” online. Some glossy videos ran on the screen. Lots of beaches and mountains and smiling, sober faces illuminated the dankness of this crappy apartment.

  “Do you have any recollection of anything?”

  “It’s worse than that. If I even think about it, I feel intense pain,” Dew said.

  “Do you mind if I umm… try to find out what happened?”

  “I know what you’re talking about,” Dew said. “I know you can do the Vulcan mind meld shit or whatever, but I think it would be better if you got the hell out of here.”

  Sahar purred as if defending Denise, but then looked startled. There were footsteps. Denise was nervous as well and didn’t know whether to be relieved when it was only Petro who entered, without knocking.

  “Hey Petro,” Dew said.

  “Hey Dew, hey cousin,” he said to Denise. “Dr. Petro is here to save the day.”

  Denise now had some idea how Dew got the Crotaladone. But still she was curious about the man. “How did you get your name, Petro?”

  “It’s short for Petruchio, from Taming of the Shrew, which was like a play. Where I come from, near the Shakespeare ghost town, a lot of us get these names from the old plays.”

  Denise looked at this strange man and his shorts, cowboy boots, beer belly and pink sombrero. Sahar was now rubbing against him like an old friend.

  He was holding a glossy brochure in his hand. “I got accepted into that good rehab center Rancho Carrizozo! Wanna join me, Dew?”

  “I’m not really an addict,” Dew replied. “But thanks for your last few crotaladones.”

  “You don’t really have to be as long as you got issues.”

  “I’ve got issues all right,” Dew said. She glanced at the brochure, brought up the “Rancho Carrizozo” website on her computer screen and then picked up her phone. “Oh, mother, I’ve got this really good idea for treating my PTSD…”

  After stepping on a hair ball on the way out the door, Denise knew she shouldn’t judge her cousin. If anyone needed treatment, it was Dew. Hell, perhaps she should go to Rancho Carrizozo herself. Did they treat mommy issues?

  She was on the freeway headed to Lordsburg when a pic came from Hikaru: an ID badge falling into the trash.

  She called him immediately. “I’ve been fired!” he said.

  “Because of me?”

  “No, well not just you. My big boss is pissed after the judge let you guys in. All hell is breaking loose. Even my dad can’t save me. I might be taking a permanent vacation from America. From Earth even.”

  The phone went dead. So much for Team Turquoise.

  Chapter 46

  Tuesday, August 4

  First thing Tuesday morning, Denise received an email with Dr. Romero’s four-page “Forensic Evaluation of Denny Song.” Four pages for a whole life? The doctor concluded her report by saying her prognosis regarding Denny was inconclusive as to his competency to stand trial because of the lack of secondary documentation. She didn’t bother to discuss his ability to form specific intent as he didn’t provide enough information to make a determination on that point. She wrote that Mr. Song was not a reliable narrator, and perhaps even a malingerer.

  Being a malingerer was apparently worse than being an attempted murderer. Denise had barely finished reading the report when Luna called.

  “I’ve got the report,” Luna said. Hurricane Luna had become an ice storm. “What the hell happened? You were supposed to get his psych records on base.”

  “What did Dew tell you?”

  “She doesn’t have any recollection of anything. And now she’s locked down in Rancho Carrizozo for twenty-eight days! What happened?”

  “Everything went wrong on base,” Denise said. “When are you coming down for the hearing?”

  “Denise, I have a case up in Clayton, New Mexico. The prison wrongful deaths thing. It’s like a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against a private jail company with two dozen plaintiffs.”

  “Where’s Clayton?”

  “It’s on the Oklahoma border.”

  “I didn’t know we had an Oklahoma border.”

  “I have to interview every inmate and every guard, so I’m going to let you handle the competency hearing yourself.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Frankly Denise, I don’t give a damn. Either he’s competent to stand trial and he will be convicted—I saw the video—or he’s incompetent to stand trial and because of the nature of the charges he will be considered dangerous and spend the rest of his life in a secure facility.”

  “But suppose he isn’t dangerous?”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “By the way, I tried to find out about my mom at the hospital, but apparently I’m not on the list of authorized…”

  Luna had already hung up.

  Dejected, Denise didn’t bother to go to breakfast over at the Holiday Comfort. She had a vending machine chocolate bar from the Last Palm lobby and washed it down with a Diet Coke.

  She picked up her briefcase and drove down Motel Boulevard to meet with Denny. She noticed the skin beneath his tattoos was bursting with newfound muscle tone.

  “I’m ready to fight them aliens,” he said. “You with me?”

  “Kinda.”

  He talked about his workout regimen in his cell, and even challenged her to try some isometric exercises. Leaning hard against the wall while squatting was apparently effective for your glutes. She tried it to humor him.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said, her back against the wall.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Denise mentioned Rayne and her so-called abduction and told him about saving her life. “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew her?”

  “That was a long time ago. I was on a break from Cordelia and I hear about this party at the motel with this girls’ basketball team. I forgot her name. This beautiful girl, really tall, hooked up with me, but I guess she was slumming.”

  “Then what?”

  “And I say, let’s go to Puerto Penasco. We can make it by midnight, sleep on the beach and wake up to see the sunrise. And she does. Whenever I try to think of her, it’s like there’s a forcefield inside my brain cutting off the thoughts. I get in physical pain.”

  “There’s something I really need to tell you,” Denise said. “Something else must have happened on that beach. She had a daughter, your daughter.”

  The whole building
shook. Denise put her hand to the glass and that calmed him down. “I get this weird shaking lately, so I knew something was up, but I had no idea it was from her. What’s her name?”

  “Rita Herring, and I know her. I’ve been hanging out with her the last few weeks. We just figured it out ourselves.”

  He touched his head. “She’s been reaching out to me, with her mind, but I didn’t let her in. I didn’t trust her. What’s she like?”

  “You would be proud of her,” Denise said, getting up from against the wall and sitting back down again.

  “Put your hand against the glass again,” Denny said.

  She put her hand against the glass, he put his hand against it as well. She knew what to do. She concentrated on Rita and let the image pass through her hand, through the glass and over to Denny.

  “She’s so beautiful,” he said. “And so tall. I’m so proud of her. If I could have been there for her, she would have saved me.”

  “Saved you?”

  “I would have been there for her,” he said. “She would have been there for me.”

  A warm current passed between them. He was right. Denny and Rita would have been stronger together.

  “It seems like too much of a coincidence, that everything, everyone is umm… related,” Denise said.

  “Don’t you see, there are no coincidences. That was all part of a plan somehow.”

  Denny went on for fifteen minutes about how the aliens sometimes bred people for this or that. “Even that team you were on,” he said. “Team Turquoise? I bet that is part of the plan too.”

  “I don’t think anyone would set up a silly mock trial team as part of an alien conspiracy.”

  “A team where everyone on it is a psychic?”

  “Dew isn’t a psychic.”

  “But she’s very smart, right?”

  “Just a coincidence,” she said. But as she left the jail, she wasn’t so sure...

  * * *

  After leaving Denny, Denise spent the next few days doing her best to fit into Lordsburg. She spent her days at the small library reading up on New Mexico’s standards on mental health law, and the librarian helped her learn more about the local history. She visited Denny at the jail each day right before closing, to tell him about his daughter. Every afternoon, she would burn off steam doing her katas with the staff. Every night, she ate at the Shiprock Wok and tried Wu’s incredible fusions like the kim chi chalupas. She would end the night with another installment of a Korean soap opera on her room TV before she fell asleep.

  Every morning, Hikaru texted her a picture. He was mountain biking all over New Mexico—she saw Sierra Blanca, White Sands, even Carlsbad Caverns. Given the lighting on the last pic, he must have been inside one of the caverns.

  She texted pics back of Lordsburg’s sunsets. The town did have nice sunsets, especially after a dust storm. She didn’t love it, but she was adapting.

  Still, it was a lonely life. She might as well be stuck down in the darkness of the Caverns. Team Turquoise was broken. Could she ever put it back together again?

  The competency hearing was coming up. She was wondering if she would be competent enough to handle it.

  Chapter 47

  Monday, August 10

  At dawn on the morning of the competency hearing, Denise wore one of her charcoal outfits—she didn’t want to be too flashy—and arrived at the courthouse early.

  There was plenty of parking on Shakespeare street. Too much parking. Wasn’t Jane Dark going to call a bunch of witnesses? There weren’t even any vehicles from the Sheriff’s Department here, not even the Sheriff’s.

  Inside, the courtroom was empty. Denise sat at the defense table and spread out all her exhibits for the hearing. Moments later, Denny was brought into the courtroom by jail staff rather than the Sheriff’s Department.

  “What’s going to happen today?” Denny asked. “When are they going to let me out?”

  He must still be working out, doing his isometric exercises in his solitary cell over the last week. He looked bigger, or maybe he was just sitting up straight.

  Jane Dark entered next. She had dressed down today in a casual maternity outfit. She was empty handed except for a pen bearing the logo of a big Arizona law firm with a matching travel mug. Was the firm name Nasty, Brutish & Short? Denise couldn’t make it out.

  Judge Shahrazad Sanchez came in without a robe and signaled that they didn’t even have to rise. The judge had a new piercing, over her eye. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Jane Dark rose. “The State of New Mexico stipulates that the defendant, Denny Song, is incompetent to stand trial.”

  “Counsel?” the judge asked Denise.

  “Well, I stipulate to him being incompetent as well,” Denise said.

  “So, can I get out now?” Denny asked.

  The judge looked over at Jane Dark, momentarily confused. “Does he get to be released?”

  “Your honor, both parties can stipulate to dangerousness right here, right now,” Jane Dark said. “That saves us the expense of having what’s called a ‘1.5 hearing.’ And this matter will be resolved immediately.”

  “If we stipulate or whatever can I get out now?” Denny’s excitement was tinged with panic. “We stipulate! I don’t want to have a 1.5 hearing whatever that is. What does stipulate mean?”

  “As attempted murder, and most three counts of attempted murder on police officers are considered the crimes of violence under the statute,” Jane Dark said, “Not to mention the felony endangerment of the police dog. He would remain in custody at the behavioral health unit for the duration of the maximum possible sentence of his charges.”

  “The duration?” Denny asked.

  Jane Dark had to rub it in. “With the firearm enhancements, and aggravating circumstances, it could be seventy years.”

  “Seventy years? That’s when the alien invasion will happen! I wanna get out of here right now.”

  “Like I said, Ms. Song could always stipulate to dangerousness,” Jane Dark said. “As attempted murder is one of the enumerated crimes, there’s a presumption of dangerousness. That way we don’t have to have a hearing, and they send him up to the locked unit of the behavioral health institute up north and they can keep him, indefinitely. Your honor, I know you are supposed to start that new cabinet job up in Santa Fe and I will be moving to Phoenix after my maternity leave. I’m sure Ms. Song has places she would rather be as well.”

  Denise pictured biking on the beach on Puerto Penasco with Hikaru.

  “I say we resolve this today,” Jane Dark said.

  “I want to see my daughter!” Denny said, pulling Denise back from the beach.

  “No, your honor,” Denise said. “We will not stipulate that my client is dangerous. We will have a full hearing on dangerousness under Rule 1.5.”

  “Can you be ready on Wednesday?” the judge asked.

  “I can have my witnesses here,” Jane Dark said.

  “Does the defense have any witnesses?” the judge asked.

  Denise looked down. “None that I know of, your honor.”

  Chapter 48

  Denise didn’t bother to call Luna; she knew she would have to do this by herself. She re-read the 1.5 statute at the library. Under the 31-9-1.5, the state merely had to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Denny had done the crime and that the crime was violent. Jane Dark could do that without a file. It would be a hearing with a judge and not a jury. With a violent crime like attempted murder, the presumption was dangerousness. Denise had her work cut out for her to overcome that presumption.

  Denise had dinner that night at Shiprock Wok and talked with the handsome Mr. Wu. They were the only ones there. She learned that Wu and his buddy had purchased marijuana legally in Colorado and were transporting it to California where it was also legal. Unfortunately, recreationa
l marijuana was illegal in New Mexico, and the amount they held made it a fourth-degree felony.

  Wu had been placed on something called Pre-Prosecution Diversion or PPD. If he completed the program, PPD canceled the felony conviction and it came off his record.

  Without asking, he prepared some bulgogi fry bread in honor of her mixed heritage. Since the place was empty, he joined her at the table.

  “Do you also have some pasta and some bagels for the other parts of my DNA?” she asked.

  “I’ve never met someone with that mix,” he said.

  “My twin brother,” she said.

  He took a deep breath. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  She glanced at her phone. Hikaru’s latest pic was of him biking out of Carlsbad Caverns. The bats were following him out.

  “Kinda,” she said. He didn’t say another word and hurried back to the kitchen. Did he like her too?

  * * *

  When she returned to the room that night, she stared at her blank TV screen for an hour. She was part of a team, right? She tried Dew. Dew’s message indicated that she was unavailable for the next 28 days. She tried Rancho Carrizozo, but they wouldn’t connect her to their “guest.”

  Rayne didn’t pick up, so she couldn’t talk to Rita. Hikaru didn’t return her texts. Perhaps he had returned to the caverns. She had missed his last pic—one of darkness. So much for her kinda having a boyfriend.

  She received a call from Dr. Romero just before bed. “The state has subpoenaed me to testify at the dangerousness hearing,” the doctor told her. “In person.”

  “Are you going to say he’s dangerous?”

  “He shot three people and threatened a sheriff and his dog without any explanation or provocation. He blames the military for doing experiments on him and yet there is no evidence whatsoever of any of that and that there’s an imminent alien invasion. What do you think I’m going to say?”

  “But what about what happened to my friends? They can prove that these drones do affect behavior.”