Rattlesnake & Son

by Jonathan Miller

  “You can get the jury now,” he told the bailiff. This bailiff wore a purple blazer, the same color as those Caldera blazers. For a moment, I feared we’d get home-towned, even here in the promised land.

  Judge Comanche had been there for my trial with Sam Marlow and saw me nearly have a nervous breakdown. He had just seen my debacle with Anna Maria and Chuy play out in his courtroom and given Chuy eighteen years without batting an eye. And of course, he had signed my divorce to Luna. Would he judge me as a bad father, a bad husband, and a bad lawyer?

  Today, the judge wore one of his famous bolo ties, and the silver skull bolo shined just like his shaved bald head. It was probably inappropriate for a judge to wear a silver skull bolo tie, but I sure didn’t want to protest.

  Shaharazad was at her station. Her hair seemed grayer than before. Was it that the trial was so long, or was it just aging all of us so quickly?

  Jane Dark sat at the far end of her table. Her red blazer had faded a bit, as if she was handing off to someone else. She was already prepping a bald man who had his back to me. I knew I had seen the man before but couldn’t place him. The man snuck out before Marley saw him.

  “Can we call Denise as a witness?” Marley asked me. “She’ll back me up.”

  I scanned the gallery of the “barn.” It was empty. Still no Luna, Dew, or Denise. There was no Team Marley; they had abandoned us. Would they visit Marley in jail if we lost? Would they be there for him if ever paroled? Hell, if I was held in contempt by the judge, would they visit me in jail?

  The ground vibrated as the jurors started to come in. Feeling agitated, I considered hitting the bathroom before the jury came in, but an armed deputy stood by the back door, and his stern look indicated that I needed to stay in the room. Oh well, Marley wouldn’t take that long on the stand. I could hold it for a half-hour or so, right?

  The last of jurors finally came in. It was the man I called “Gollum” who had been on one of my juries before. I had wondered why Dark hadn’t excused him. Considering that he deliberately avoided eye contact with me, it didn’t really matter.

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

  “Your honor, we call my son,” I said. “Excuse me, we call my client, the defendant, Marley Cruz Shepard aka Cruiser Arnold.”

  Marley’s blue blazer was crisp, his purple tie was straight, and he walked straight and proud in his rattlesnake boots. Once, he almost tripped, but he caught himself. By the time he got on the stand he was already sweating through his suit, but he did his best to convey confidence.

  No, my son wasn’t a psychic. He was just a kid, a kid in a man’s suit.

  I nodded at him, tried to make him feel at ease. “Please state your name for the record.”

  “Marley Cruz Shepard. Cruiser Arnold is my slave name.”

  I felt incredible pride when he said that. “Could you clear up the confusion regarding your legal name?”

  “I was adopted by Sir Nathaniel Arnold, and since his nickname for me was ‘Cruiser’ he made that my legal name on the paperwork, without telling me or my mom. I’ve since been un-adopted.”

  “Are you related to me?”

  “You are my biological father.”

  “And you’ve waived any conflict by my representation?”

  “As long as you keep your promise to finish this trial no matter what.”

  I didn’t bother to make the promise again; time to keep going. “Where were you born?”

  “I was born in Albuquerque. Believe it or not, even with this accent, I’m a native New Mexican.”

  “Where else have you lived?

  “I lived in India while I was in the hospital for a few years, and then in Scarsdale, New York before moving to T or C a short time ago.”

  I had Marley describe his medical conditions, and the treatment he received in India. As shoplifting was a crime that involved dishonesty, he had to relate the prior shoplifting conviction to the jury. “So why did you steal from a Walmart in Sierra County?” I asked.

  “I wanted to make something for you, Dad,” he said. “That’s why I stole those action figures.”

  “Tell me about your time at Caldera Academy,” I said to Marley.

  “I hated it. I didn’t fit in. I was the only one from out of state, not counting El Paso. Everybody seemed to know everybody from the lower school, so I was totally out of place.”

  “We heard testimony from Ms. Castaneda earlier, did she really rip up your diary?”

  “She ripped up a page, page 237.”

  “What was on the page she ripped?”

  “It was about hazing and how the school knew about it. She caught me writing about it and ripped up the page.” Marley took a breath. “The page was about being hazed on Hell Day number one. The kids from my barracks beat me up, pushed me into an open grave, pissed on me while my mouth was open, and took a dump on me. Then they left me out in the cold, warning me that I was a dead man if I ever left the grave that night.”

  “And this was at Caldera Academy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What is hell week? Is it sanctioned by the school?”

  “It’s supposed to be a team building exercise according to our resident advisor, Mr. Ermey, but it’s really about picking on the weakest kid.”

  “So Mr. Ermey he knew about it?”

  “He practically set me up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He told me there was a girl outside, after hours, but he said it was cool. This girl flirted with me, asked me to hang with her. I followed her out all the way to the cemetery and got slammed by the kids and thrown into the empty grave.”

  “How did that feel?”

  “Relevance?” Dark asked.

  “This goes to the reasons he might have expressed anger in his diary,” I said.

  “I’ll allow it,” said the judge.

  “I was scared, and I was angry. But most of all, I was in shock, especially when they took a dump on me.”

  “They defecated on you?”

  “They did. And then pissed on me. Three of them. Right on my face. Some of it got it in my mouth, and I threw up.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “They told me to stay in the grave until morning. Then they left. For an hour, then two. Eventually I got cold and scared and sick of smelling of, ummm...poop. I finally went back to the barracks. I washed my face with the hose on the wall of the building before I went in, but that made me even later. Then I got in trouble with Mr. Ermey for being out after curfew, even though he was the one who let me out and told me it was cool.”

  “Did you knock over any graves?”

  “It’s an old cemetery, they just fell over when I was in the open grave. Must have been a military truck convoy passing by.”

  “Did you go to the infirmary on campus?”

  “Yes, I did, but Mr. Ermey works there and since there was no doctor, I was discharged right away. He wrote that my story was not credible.”

  It now was time to be very careful. “You wrote some things in your diary on the next page, 239. Did you really mean to kill anybody?”

  “Not even.” He sounded like his mother when he said that.

  “Then why did you write those things?”

  “I’m a writer, it was just a fantasy. Hasn’t everyone wanted to blow up their school or kill a teacher at one time or another?”

  “So, when you made the cratercross device at the school, what was your intent?” I asked.

  “I wanted to do the trick I saw on Penn & Teller’s YouTube. It was incredible. It’s a card trick that they took to the next level. But you’ve got to understand, the safety on the cratercross was on the whole time, I was just going to pretend to fire it, and people would use their imagination to see the dart hit the card.”

 
“Why was that so important to do that trick in the showcase?”

  Marley looked at the jury. “I’m human and I want to be liked. Just like everyone else does.”

  “What happened on that day, September 22?”

  “I got the cratercross from my class. It had a safety on it with the balls on the tips, and then I went to rehearsal. I was about to show them the trick, when Dean Korn grabbed the cratercross. As I said, I had the safety on. There were rubber balls on the tips of the darts. I was never going to fire it. It was just a trick. Somehow, when he grabbed it he messed everything up. He broke the wooden safety, not me. The darts fell and bounced on the floor. They didn’t hit anybody. And if I turned the cratercross toward the crowd, it shouldn’t have scared anyone, the darts were already gone! And it was pointed down.”

  Still if you aim an empty weapon, it’s aggravated assault with a deadly weapon under the New Mexico Revised Statutes if you have specific intent to frighten them, especially if you say, “I’ll kill you all!” I needed to clear that point up for the jurors.

  “Did you say, ‘I’ll kill each and every one of you!’”

  “No, of course not,” he said. “The darts fell on the floor too. Everyone could see that the weapon was empty, and I wasn’t near any darts.”

  “So are you saying everyone is lying?”

  “Dean Korn told them to say that. If you get my phone, I can prove that he sent out a text that told them to lie.”

  “Objection, hearsay!” Dark said. “A text could still be hearsay if it is being offered for the truth of the matter asserted.”

  I tried to think of an exception to the hearsay rule, but my mind drew a blank.

  “Objection sustained,” the judge said.

  “What were you doing when you ran away from the auditorium?” I asked. “What was your intent at that moment?”

  “I was scared.”

  “Did you pick up the box of darts?”

  “Yes, but I dropped them the minute I got off stage. They were too heavy. I couldn’t carry both the box and the cratercross. The cratercross wasn’t loaded. I was just trying to get off campus and call you! I was yelling. Did you hear me?”

  I didn’t want to tell them that I did hear him through my car stereo. That would be too weird for any court, even this one.

  “You didn’t intend to hurt anybody then, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t not.”

  “So, Marley, is Pat Chino lying about what happened when he shot you?”

  “Yes. He shot me in the back as I was running toward the front gate.”

  Marley was hyperventilating again. With a glance, the judge indicated that he wouldn’t let us take a break.

  “Is there anyone who can back up your story?”

  “Denise,” he said. “She’s my cousin, and she’s like my nanny. Why isn’t Denise here?”

  I didn’t know. Had I forgotten to subpoena our key witness? It’s not like I couldn’t find Denise to get her here. Was I the worst lawyer in the world?

  But then again, maybe we didn’t need her. Marley had stood up to the challenge. He was not a boy, he was a man indeed.

  “Pass the witness,” I said. I felt the urge to go to the bathroom. “Your honor, can we take a break? I really need to use the facilities.”

  “No, counsel,” the judge said. “I want to finish this up right now, one way or another. I have just been informed that due to some technical difficulties with the statewide computer system, this entire trial might have to be shut down at any moment.”

  The entire court system would be shut down statewide? Well, with the advent of the new supercomputers, everything was linked, and a glitch could indeed shut down the entire system. If the trial was stopped, Marley would have to go into custody until the case resumed. I didn’t know if he could make it.

  Could this get any worse?

  The judge banged his gavel. The light hit the skull bolo so it looked even bigger and shinier. Were the skull’s eyes glowing red? “Madam Dark, are you ready to proceed with cross-examination?”

  “Your honor,” she said. “The cross-examination of this witness will be handled by someone else.”

  Marley let out a girlish scream when the bald man re-entered the room. “Not him!”

  Chapter 28

  Daddy Dearest

  Dark stayed at her table. “Your honor, the cross-examination of this witness will be conducted by Sir Nathaniel Arnold. He is admitted to the Queen’s Bench in the United Kingdom, as well as the State of New York and can practice in New Mexico today pro hac vice.”

  Pro hac vice meant that an out of state lawyer could practice in New Mexico in association with another, in-state, lawyer. Had I stipulated to that along with all the other shit? Did I even prepare for this case, the most important case of my life?

  Sir Nathaniel Arnold? It took me a moment to recognize the bald man sitting at the table. This was Luna’s ex, all the way from England, by way of India. The man who had adopted and un-adopted Marley.

  Why was he here? Dark must have anticipated that the jurors would feel sympathy for poor Marley, especially if she roughed him up on cross. She knew that Sir Nathaniel would intimidate Marley in front of the jury, so he’d be a blubbering idiot.

  There was a South Asian woman in a gray suit sitting behind him, wearing a white barrister wig. She handed him a bound set of files that looked worthy of a Congressional briefing. I presumed she was his solicitor, Ms. Sharma, who had sent me the cease and desist letter. These guys meant business.

  “But your honor!” I yelled. “He adopted the boy for a few years and then un-adopted him. That’s a conflict on so many levels.”

  Dark was prepared. “As you know, counsel already waived any potential conflict on each and every one of those levels in the pre-trial order that he signed.”

  Sharma displayed the order on the Mondopad. I had stipulated to waiving conflict all right. Not only in New Mexico, but in England as well. Damn. With all these stipulations, I felt I was stipulating to my son’s execution.

  Marley was now crying up on the stand. If having his former father cross examine him was a move meant to intimidate the boy, it was sure working.

  “Please expedite your questioning,” the judge said. “The system could be shut down at any second.”

  Sir Nathaniel looked at the judge. “Your honor, force of habit, do you mind if I wear a wig?” He had one of those voices that indicated that he had come from sewer rat to Sir-hood, from nobody to nobility.

  “Go right ahead,” the judge said. “I’ve always wanted to see what real lawyers do.”

  Sir Nathaniel put on his white barrister wig. He was the Lord High Executioner. He didn’t bother to ask permission to approach the witness, he got right in Marley’s face. Marley was looking around the courtroom for his mommy. She still wasn’t here.

  “No one else is here for you in the gallery,” Sir Nathaniel said. “It’s just you and me, son.”

  “And me!” I said, but no one heard me.

  “You testified in direct examination that your legal name was Marley Cruz Shepard, but that’s a lie isn’t it, Cruiser Arnold?”

  “My name will be Marley Cruz Shepard.”

  “It’s your testimony that all the state’s witnesses, those ten students, your classmates, are violating their honor code, committing perjury by lying?”

  “Korn told them what to say. He texted them!”

  “However, all those mysterious texts have self-destructed, vanished into the electronic ether, that’s your testimony?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t your lawyer subpoena the phone records to prove this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Getting text records, especially of deleted texts, without knowing specific dates or phone numbers, was next to impossible. But without Marley’s
phone and the texts, I was sunk. Sir Nathaniel knew that.

  I wanted to do something, anything, before I wet my pants. “Objection your honor!” I shouted.

  “What’s your objection?” the judge asked.

  I was stunned. “I don’t know. Ineffective assistance of counsel on my part.”

  “Your client can deal with that when he files his disciplinary complaint against you. For now, I’ll allow the state to continue this line of questioning,” the judge said.

  “So,” Sir Nathanial continued, “the witnesses who testified, all those witnesses are lying that you threatened to kill them?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Didn’t say that they are lying or didn’t say that you threatened to kill them?”

  “I don’t know. I’m confused,” Marley shot me a look of panic. He kept looking in the gallery, but Sir Nathaniel moved to the left to block his view.

  “You wrote in your diary, on page 239, that you wanted to kill everyone, correct?”

  “I didn’t mean it. I was just venting after they hazed me.”

  “You made a lethal weapon; a medieval crossbow called a cratercross?”

  “It’s not really medieval, it’s from a fantasy video game. But I put a safety on it. With balls on the darts. It was supposed to be safe. It wasn’t going to really fire!”

  “But you still showed reckless disregard for the safety of others by bringing a lethal weapon to a school auditorium, did you not?”

  “It was totally safe.”

  “So you say. But this ‘totally safe’ incident with the cratercross occurred after you said you were ‘hazed’ by your classmates?”

  “I guess so.”

  “In your diary, there’s nothing about this alleged hazing, is there?”

  “The page was ripped out by Ms. Castaneda, page 237. She crumpled it up and threw the page out the window.”