She testified that her job was to “help kids achieve their dreams.”
A creative artist whose job was to help kids achieve their dreams? She was the mother that he’d wished he’d had.
Castaneda was certainly not hot for Marley, though, and her rejection of him probably hurt more than the rejection of the girl at the graveyard.
After a few introductory questions, Castaneda testified that Marley had made an inappropriate joke in her English class. She wasn’t sure she could recall it, and yes, she was the one who saw his messy diary.
“What did you do when he was writing in his diary when he was supposed to be studying?” Dark asked.
“I ripped out the page he was scribbling, crumpled it up and then threw the page out the window,” she said, “That was on September 8.”
Marley winced. When his teacher ripped his page out and crumpled it, she had crumpled up his heart. Throwing the page out the window was like throwing out his soul.
“Did something else happen that day in that class?”
“He was using his phone during class, texting under his desk. That is strictly forbidden, so I threw the phone out the window as well.”
A mystery solved. Marley must have been texting me that day. I whispered to him. “Did you ever get your phone back?”
“No, it got stuck in the palm tree and we aren’t allowed to climb trees.”
I pictured that one lonely palm, which was indeed right below a classroom window. If the phone took a bad bounce or two it could wind up wedged against something and stay there stuck in the fronds forever unless someone dislodged it.
Dark continued. “Ms. Castaneda, do you teach any other classes that he defendant attended?”
“I teach an industrial art class, and it includes 3D modeling.”
“Did the defendant make something in that class?”
“He did.”
Dark had Castaneda use the Mondopad to post various pictures of the cratercross while it was under construction. They were identical to the ones I had received on my phone. I searched for my phone again in every pocket and then down below the table. Still missing. Dark then picked up the cratercross, and with the aid of the bailiff, brought it to Ms. Castaneda.
“Be careful with that,” Dark said. “This is the device, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything as he was making it?’
“He said he wanted to kill everyone at the Freshman Showcase,” she wiped away a tear. “I thought he was kidding.”
When I looked down and turned the page to castaneda I found a note: she’s lying.
How do I prove that?
There was no more writing on the yellow pad, so I was on my own when it was my turn to examine the witness. “Ma’am, you say Marley built a potential weapon of mass destruction, stated he would use it to kill people and you didn’t tell anyone in authority until after the fact?”
“I wanted to protect him.”
“Ma’am, isn’t there a school policy that you have to report such incidents?” I sure hoped there was.
“Yes, but it’s not often enforced.”
“And I assume you have no recordings of his alleged statements?” I asked.
“No, of course not.”
I then walked to the witness stand and pointed to the safety on the cratercross. “My client put a ‘safety’ on the device? This piece over here that blocks the drawstrings, right?”
“Yes.”
“He put rubber balls on the ends of the darts, did he not?”
“He did, but he could take those rubber balls off and make it totally lethal.”
“Still, when he left with the cratercross, it had a safety on and rubber balls on the darts?”
“Yes.”
“So, the device wasn’t lethal when he left your classroom?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So, other than mumbled threats, there’s nothing to show my client had an intent to kill?”
“Well, he said to everyone he was going to kill each of them. There’s that.”
“You weren’t there for the rehearsal, were you?” I sure hoped that she wasn’t.
“No,” she said, “I wasn’t.”
“So how do you know my client said that?”
“Someone told me.”
Marley gestured to me to come over and whispered in my ear. “They’re covering up!”
I shrugged. How could I prove that? “One more question, your honor. Are you covering up? Is the school covering up?”
“That’s two questions,” she smiled. “And as my students would say, the answer is not even to both questions.”
I sat down. “Let me ask the questions,” I whispered to my son “I’m the lawyer, not you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. Dark gave us a look before she faced Castaneda again. “Is it your opinion that when the defendant took the cratercross from the lab, at four o’clock that afternoon, he wanted to kill people?”
“It is now.”
A tremendous burst of sound came from outside the walls, as if emphasizing Castaneda’s point. If they were renovating the courthouse, they were using jackhammers.
After the witness left the courtroom, the judge faced us. “I’m afraid we have to move again.”
Chapter 25
Make My Day
Somehow, we were magically moved to another courtroom, but apparently, it was in the same building. This courtroom resembled the one in Tucumcari, right down to the painting of Coronado hanging on the wall.
The biggest mall in New Mexico was Coronado Center in Albuquerque, which was near my house. It had been there longer than I had been alive and had survived the demise of chain store after chain store. Coronado Center would probably still be there in some form in the year 2112. Talk about leaving your mark by having the biggest mall in New Mexico named after you. What kind of mark had I left? What kind of mark would Marley leave?
Still no Luna, no Dew, no Denise. Tucumcari was a long drive from T or C, but they should be here for Team Marley, even as cheerleaders. Luna would be able to find out the court from the Shoftim system, right?
I didn’t want to tell Marley I’d lost my phone. “I’m sorry, son,” I said. “I don’t know why they aren’t here.”
Marley wiped away a tear. He was looking pale, as if he was in jail and hadn’t seen the sun in years.
The Clint Eastwood judge had taken over, but Shaharazad had stayed put. Thankfully, her hair hadn’t grown over the break. This judge mentioned that he too had caught up to the case via the Shoftim system and had reviewed all the testimony and exhibits. This Shoftim system could take over the world someday. Neither Jane Dark nor myself had any objection to his taking over.
The state’s next witness was Patrick “Pistol Pat” Chino, head of campus security. He wore a denim suit, and a red, white, and blue striped tie, rather than a uniform, but one could not mistake his ramrod stature. If you were a parent, this was the cowboy you wanted guarding your school, guarding your herd. After he took the oath, he instinctively reached down for his guns, as if he’d heard the hoof beats of bad hombres around the corner. The holsters were thankfully empty.
After going through the preliminary questions, Dark had Pistol Pat describe how he missed the rehearsal as he was at the front gate, standing guard. He got a text from Dean Korn that he they had a school shooter situation. Someone had engaged an alarm, but the alarm indicated an extreme emergency.
“What did you do next?” Dark asked.
“I drop everything when my Caldera kids are in danger. I drew my weapons and headed toward Old Main.”
He used the plural of weapons, he had both guns drawn.
Dark had an aerial photo of the campus displayed on the Mondopad, and I could i
magine Chino running through it like a sheriff in an old west town.
“Where did you find Mr. Arnold that day?”
He pointed toward a spot near the kiosk where Marley had seen the flyer on our first visit to campus. I could see it in my mind’s eye. “Right here.”
“Which direction was he heading?”
“He was heading toward the girls’ barracks. He was still carrying the other box of darts. He could have taken out another twenty kids.”
“He’s lying!” Marley said out loud. Chino gave him that dead-eye stare and Marley sank beneath his chair. “I was trying to run away. I didn’t want to kill anyone. I dropped the box as soon as I got to the stage door.”
“Objection! Calls for speculation!” I said.
“Sustained,” the Clint Eastwood look-alike said. “The witness is not to speculate how many more innocent students the defendant might have killed that day.”
Dark continued. “Sir, what did you do next?”
“I told him to stop where he was, but he kept going. I gave him one more warning and then I subdued him.”
“How did you subdue him?”
“I shot him.”
It took me a second to process that. Chino didn’t say “Shot at the boy,” he said “shot,” implying that a bullet had hit something, a bullet had hit Marley.
“Wait, you got shot?” I asked Marley.
“Duh,” Marley said.
I looked down under the table and opened the banker’s box. The Mobius strip rubber band flew out into space, but thankfully didn’t hit anything. I rummaged through the box and quickly read through Chino’s statement. He had used the word “subdued” in his statement as opposed to “shot.” That’s what I had thought. Dark had said “subdued” in her opening.
Suddenly, there was an odd smell, almost like a gaping wound that had rotted. The whole courtroom gagged at the smell that seemed to be coming from the HVAC pipes. Even worse, the sound of ambulances became overpowering.
Moments later, the bailiff, the one in the blue blazer, came into the courtroom. I hadn’t realized he had left.
“There was an incident in one of the courthouse holding cells with an inmate,” the bailiff said. “But it’s under control.”
Had court security used deadly force to “subdue” one of the inmates as he tried to escape? Had the inmate bled out directly into the ventilation? It sure smelled that way.
As if by magic, the gangrenous wound smell abated, the ambulance sounds tapered off in the distance. The HVAC units kicked into high gear and became white noise. The judge banged the gavel, our ears and noises adjusted, and court resumed.
I kept searching through the banker’s box of files. There weren’t any medical records for Marley. I didn’t recall him telling me that he’d been to the hospital.
I looked at Marley, he didn’t appear to be injured in any way.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had been shot?”
“I thought you knew.”
“Your honor, may we approach?” I said. Dark and I made it up to the judge’s bench. “Your honor, I’ve not been provided any hospital records about my son’s injuries.” Right now, Marley wasn’t my client, he was my son.
“He did not go to the hospital,” Dark said. “He was not examined by any medical personnel. And besides, the actions of Mr. Chino in the courtyard would have no bearing on the actions of the defendant in the auditorium.”
“Mr. Shepard,” the judge said. “You cannot ask any questions regarding the shooting unless you lay the proper foundation or counsel opens the door.”
We returned to our places, Dark asked a few more questions, and then turned it over to me.
“Let’s talk about how you ‘subdued’ the boy,” I said to Chino.
“Objection!” Dark said.
“Mr. Shepard, you must lay the proper foundation.”
I tried several different times to find out about the shooting, but each time, the judge deflected me.
“Please move along counsel,” the judge said. “Whether the Defendant was injured after he left the auditorium is not at issue here. Unless you lay the proper foundation, or counsel opens the door, the actions of Mr. Chino in the courtyard are not relevant to the issue before the jury, the issue whether the defendant had the specific intent to commit the crimes inside the auditorium.”
What the hell was the proper foundation for shooting my son? It was certainly relevant to me if my son had been hurt by this trigger-happy asshole, but I had to move on.
I drew a blank. What should I ask next?
I looked down at my notes and turned the page where there was fresh writing. ask him about his record at other schools.
“Have you ever been fired from other schools because of disciplinary issues?’
“Objection, lack of foundation.”
“If defense counsel doesn’t have any proof whatsoever, I will sustain the objection,” the judge said.
I turned the pages of the yellow pad, hoping for some explanation, something, anything. I knew that Pistol Pat Chino was dirty, was violent, and overreacted when he shot my son. Unfortunately, the pages were blank.
“I’ll withdraw the question,” I said. “Pass the witness.”
I sat down. Marley looked pale. I heard a drip, as if something was falling from the ceiling. I looked up and didn’t see anything. Was there a stain down below? I wondered if Marley had wet his pants. The bad smell was still lingering in the air.
I had to ignore it. My attention was drawn to the front of the court for the next hour or so. Dark then called the ten or so students who were supposedly threatened by Marley with the cratercross. Each of the boys and girls looked exactly the same with short haircuts and rigidly upright posture. Each wore a purple Caldera blazer with a purple and yellow tie. It felt like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice with the brooms coming in as the witnesses and their purple and yellow ties kept coming and coming.
Each of them corroborated the dean’s account, that Marley fired the cratercross before the dean reached him. Each of them denied that there were rubber balls on the darts. Each of them got on the witness stand said the magic words “I was scared.” Each recited verbatim Marley’s quote that he would “kill each and every one of them.”
Each time, Dark had them cite the school’s honor code, which mandated them to tell the truth, and each time Marley leaned over and told me they were lying.
I didn’t know what to believe. These were good kids who wanted a good, safe education in a school with a little more structure than the crazed public schools of New Mexico. Some reminded me of students I went to school with. Some reminded me of me.
On all my cross-examinations, I asked each one if they could see that the safety was engaged on the device. Dark responded each time by pointing out to the judge that it didn’t matter, if a witness thought they were being assaulted, they were being assaulted.
“Your honor, if someone points a toy gun at you, it is still aggravated assault with a deadly weapon if you reasonably think the gun is real,” she said on her re-direct after each witness, “as long as the defendant had the intent to cause that fear.”
“Korn told them all what to say,” Marley whispered. “It’s a cover-up. Notice how they all say exactly the same thing?”
I had noticed. It could mean that Marley said those exact words. It could also be that there was indeed a cover-up, and someone had rehearsed the students in what to say on the stand. After the cross of the third witness, I started to ask. “Did anyone tell you how to testify?”
Each witness denied rehearsing their testimony or receiving specific instruction on how to testify. Each also denied any cover-up. Absent a written memo, or a print-out of a text or e-mail from Korn, or someone else from the administration, indicating specific instruction on what to say, I couldn’t prove a cover-up. I told Marley that dur
ing a break after the third student.
“Maybe Korn texted everybody to lie,” he said.
“Do you want me to check their phones?”
“No. Certain texts from the administration automatically self-destruct, like Snapchat.”
I had never used Snapchat, but I was vaguely aware you could send a message or image and that message could automatically self-destruct once someone opened it. A school sending a self-destructive text seemed unlikely, but I didn’t want to tell him that. “How would I find out?”
“I’d get these mass texts from the dean back when I had a cell phone. They took my phone away, but those texts would still be on my phone since I never opened the messages.”
“But wouldn’t they be deleted by now?”
“No. Because I never opened them, they would stay on my phone.”
“But couldn’t the school delete them from their side?”
“No, it doesn’t work that way. The message is saved on my phone and it's only deleted if I open it on my end.”
“And where’s your phone again?”
“Stuck way up in that scraggly palm tree by Ms. Castaneda’s classroom. Maybe you can go look for it.”
I certainly wasn’t going to climb a tree to look for a phone that probably was no longer there and that missing phone had a message that no longer existed. I recognized the final witness, the bully from orientation. He had a memorable name—Robert Nelson Zabka—but I would call him Bobby the Bully.
“He was one of the ones who hazed me,” Marley said out loud. “He shit on me.”
I didn’t bother to repeat my cross examination from the other witnesses. I tried to concentrate on the hazing.
“Tell me what happened that night, Hell Night number 1.”
“Cruiser was lured out to the cemetery by a local girl we sneaked onto campus. She told him she heard he was cute. We didn’t know whether we should use a boy or a girl to lure him out there, to be honest, but the girl did the trick. Probably never kissed a girl before. Might not kiss one again.”
The bully smirked, and then kept going. “Right as they’re about to kiss, we jump out of the grave. He nearly wets his pants. We told him to wait in an open grave and then left him there. It was weird, but as we were leaving we heard him knock down all the graves, so we ran back.”
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