Stories: All-New Tales ngss-1

by Neil Gaiman

  Biblical Evidence of Malevolent

  Emotional ENERGY Incorporated into Psyches

  By Martin Kobel

  © All rights reserved

  “All rights reserved?” Hollow snorted. “Who’s going to plagiarize this crap? And what’s with the capitalization?”

  “Glenn, this is one of about thirty volumes. He’s been writing these things for twenty years. And it’s the smallest one.”

  The prosecutor repeated, “He’s faking.”

  But the judge was skeptical. “Going back all those years?”

  “Okay, he’s quirky. But this man is dangerous. Two of his patients killed themselves under circumstances that make it seem like he suggested they do it. Another one’s serving five years because he attacked Kobel in his office. He claimed the doctor provoked him. And Kobel broke into a funeral home six years ago and was caught fucking around with the corpses.”

  “What?”

  “Not that way. He was dissecting them. Looking for evidence of these things, these nemes.”

  Ringling said happily, “There’s another book he wrote on the autopsy. Eighteen hundred pages. Illustrated.”

  “It wasn’t an autopsy, Bob. It was breaking into a funeral home and fucking around with corpses.” Hollow was getting angry. But maybe it’s just a neme, he thought cynically. “He goes to conferences.”

  “Paranormal conferences. Wacko conferences. Full of wackos just like him.”

  “Jesus Christ, Bob. The people who cop insanity pleas’re paranoid schizos. They don’t bathe, they take Haldol and lithium, they’re delusional. They don’t go to fucking Starbucks and ask for an extra shot of syrup.”

  Hollow had used the f word more times today than in the past year.

  Ringling said, “They kill people because they’re possessed by ghosts. That’s not sane. End of story.”

  The judge lifted his hand. “You gentlemen know that when the earth was young, Africa and South America were right next to each other. I mean, fifty feet away. Think about that. And here you are, same thing. You’re real close, I can tell. You can work it out. Come together. There’s a song about that. It’s in your interest. If we go to trial, you two’re doing all the work. All I’m gonna be doing is saying ‘sustained’ and ‘overruled.’”

  “Bob, he killed that girl, a schoolteacher. In cold blood. I want him away forever. He’s a danger and he’s sick…What I can do, but only this, I’ll go with life. Drop special circumstances. But no parole.”

  The judge looked expectantly toward Bob Ringling. “That’s something.”

  “I knew it’d come up,” Ringling said. “I asked my client about it. He says he didn’t do anything wrong and he has faith in the system. He’s convinced there’re these things floating around and they glom onto you and make you do bad stuff. No, we’re going for insanity.”

  Hollow grimaced. “You want to play it that way, you get your expert and I’ll get mine.”

  The judge grumbled. “Pick a date, gentlemen. We’re going to trial. And, for Christ sake, somebody tell me, what the hell is a neme?”

  THE PEOPLE OF THE State of North Carolina v. Kobel began on a Wednesday in July.

  Glenn Hollow kicked it off with a string of witnesses and police reports regarding the forensic evidence, which was irrefutable. Bob Ringling let most of it go and just got a few errant bits of trace evidence removed, which Hollow didn’t care about anyway.

  Another of Hollow’s witnesses was a clerk from Starbucks in Raleigh, who testified about the business card exchange. (Hollow noted the troubled looks on the faces of several jurors and people in the gallery, leaving them wondering, he supposed, about the wisdom of affairs and other indiscreet behavior in places with observant baristas.)

  Other witnesses testified about behavior consistent with stalking, including several who’d seen Kobel in Wetherby on the days before the murder. Several had seen his car parked outside the school where Annabelle Young taught. If there’s any way to put your location on record, it’s to be a middle-aged man parked outside a middle school. Eight concerned citizens gave the police his tag number.

  The busboy at Etta’s Diner gave some very helpful testimony with the help of a Spanish translator.

  As for Kobel himself, sitting at the defense table, his hair was askew and his suit didn’t fit right. He frantically filled notebook after notebook with writing like ant tracks.

  Son of a bitch, thought Hollow. It was pure performance, orchestrated by Bob Ringling, Esq., of course, with Martin Kobel in the role of schizophrenic. Hollow had seen the police interview video. On screen the defendant had been well scrubbed, well spoken, and no twitchier than Hollow’s ten-year-old Lab, known to take naps in the middle of tornados.

  Any other case, the trial would’ve been over with on the second day-with a verdict for the People, followed by a lengthy appeal and an uncomfortable few minutes while the executioner figured out which was the better vein, right arm or left.

  But there was more, of course. Where the real battle would be fought.

  Ringling’s expert psychiatrist testified that the defendant was, in his opinion, legally insane and unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. Kobel honestly believed that Annabelle Young was a threat to students and her son because she was infested by a neme, some spirit or force that he truly believed existed.

  “He’s paranoid, delusional. His reality is very, very different from ours,” was the expert’s conclusion.

  The shrink’s credentials were good, and since that was about the only way to attack him, Hollow let him go.

  “Your Honor,” Ringling next said. “I move to introduce defense exhibits numbers one through twenty-eight.”

  And wheeled up to the bench-literally, in carts-Kobel’s notebooks and self-published treatises on nemes, more than anybody could possibly be interested in.

  A second expert for the defense testified about these writings. “These are typical of a delusional mind.” Everything Kobel had written was typical of a paranoid and delusional individual who had lost touch with reality. He stated that there was no scientific basis for the concept of neme. “It’s like voodoo, it’s like vampires, werewolves.”

  Ringling tried to seal the deal by having the doctor read a portion from one of these “scientific treatises,” a page of utterly incomprehensible nonsense. Judge Rollins, on the edge of sleep, cut him off. “We get the idea, Counselor. Enough.”

  On cross-examination, Hollow couldn’t do much to deflate this testimony. The best he could do was: “Doctor, do you read the Harry Potter books?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I have.”

  “The fourth was my favorite. What was yours?”

  “Umm, I don’t know really.”

  “Is it possible,” the prosecutor asked the witness, “that those writings of Mr. Kobel are merely attempts at writing a novel? Some big fantasy book.”

  “I…I can’t imagine it.”

  “But it’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose. But I’ll tell you, he’ll never sell the movie rights.”

  Amid the laughter, the judge dismissed the witness.

  There was testimony about the bizarre autopsy, which Hollow didn’t bother to refute.

  Bob Ringling also introduced two of Kobel’s patients, who testified that they had been so troubled by his obsessive talk about these ghosts or spirits inhabiting their bodies that they quit seeing him.

  And then Ringling had Kobel himself take the stand, dressed in the part of a madman in his premeditatedly wrinkled and dirty clothes, chewing his lip, looking twitchy and weird.

  This idea-insane in its own right-was a huge risk, because on cross-examination Hollow would ask the man point-blank if he’d killed Annabelle Young. Since he’d confessed once, he would have to confess again-or Hollow would read the sentence from his statement. Either way the jury would actually hear the man admit to the crime.

  But Ringling met the problem head-on. His first question:
“Mr. Kobel, did you kill Annabelle Young?”

  “Oh, yes, of course I did.” He sounded surprised.

  A gasp filled the courtroom.

  “And why did you do that, Mr. Kobel.”

  “For the sake of the children.”

  “How do you mean that?”

  “She was a teacher, you know. Oh, God! Every year, thirty or forty students, impressionable young people, would come under her influence. She was going to poison their minds. She might even hurt them, abuse them, spread hatred.” He closed his eyes and shivered.

  And the Academy Award for best performance on the part of a crazed murder suspect goes to…

  “Now, tell me, Mr. Kobel, why did you think she would hurt the children?”

  “Oh, she’d come under the influence of a neme.”

  “That’s what we heard a little about earlier, right? In your writings?”

  “Yes, in my writings.”

  “Could you tell us, briefly, what a neme is?”

  “You could call it an energy force. Malevolent energy. It attaches to your mind and it won’t let go. It’s terrible. It causes you to commit crimes, abuse people, fall into rages. A lot of temper tantrums and road rage are caused by nemes. They’re all over the place. Millions of them.”

  “And you were convinced she was possessed?”

  “It’s not possession,” Kobel said adamantly. “That’s a theological concept. Nemes are purely scientific. Like viruses.”

  “You think they’re as real as viruses?”

  “They are! You have to believe me! They are!”

  “And Ms. Young was being influenced by nemes.”

  “One, just one.”

  “And was going to hurt her students.”

  “And her son. Oh, yes, I could see it. I have this ability to see nemes. I had to save the children.”

  “You weren’t stalking her because you were attracted to her?”

  Kobel’s voice cracked. “No, no. Nothing like that. I wanted to get her into counseling. I could have saved her. But she was too far gone. The last thing I wanted to do was kill her. But it was a blessing. It really was. I had to.” Tears glistened.

  Oh, brother…

  “Prosecution’s witness.”

  Hollow did the best he could. He decided not to ask about Annabelle Young. Kobel’s murdering her was no longer the issue in this case. The whole question was Kobel’s state of mind. Hollow got the defendant to admit that he’d been in a mental hospital only once, as a teenager, and hadn’t seen a mental health professional since then. He’d taken no antipsychotic drugs. “They take my edge off. You have to be sharp when you’re fighting nemes.”

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  Hollow then produced Kobel’s tax returns for the past three years.

  When Ringling objected, Hollow said to Judge Rollins, “Your Honor, a man who files a tax return is of sound mind.”

  “That’s debatable,” said the ultraconservative judge, drawing laughter from the courtroom.

  Oh, to be on the bench, thought Glenn Hollow. And maybe after a few years’ stint as the attorney general I will be.

  Rollins said, “I’ll let ’em in.”

  “These are your returns, aren’t they, sir?”

  “I guess. Yes.”

  “They indicate you made a fair amount of money at your practice. About forty thousand dollars a year.”

  “Maybe. I suppose so.”

  “So despite those other two patients who testified earlier, you must have a much larger number of patients you treat regularly and who are satisfied with your services.”

  Kobel looked him in the eyes. “There’re a lot of nemes out there. Somebody’s gotta fight ’em.”

  Hollow sighed. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  The prosecutor then called his own expert, a psychiatrist who’d examined Kobel. The testimony was that, though quirky, he was not legally insane. He was well aware of what he was doing, that he was committing a crime when he killed the victim.

  Ringling asked a few questions, but didn’t belabor the cross-examination.

  Toward the end of the day, during a short break, Glenn Hollow sneaked a look at the jury box; he’d been a prosecutor and a trial lawyer for a long time and was an expert not only at the law but at reading juries.

  And, goddamn it, they were reacting just the way Bob Ringling wanted them to. Hollow could tell they hated and feared Martin Kobel, but because he was such a monster and the things he was saying were so bizarre, he couldn’t be held to the jury’s standards of ethics and behavior. Oh, Ringling had been smart. He wasn’t playing his client as a victim, he wasn’t playing him as somebody who’d been abused or suffered a traumatic childhood (he barely referred to the deaths of Kobel’s parents and brother).

  No, he was showing that this thing at the defense table was not even human.

  Like his expert said, “Mr. Kobel’s reality is not our reality.”

  Hollow stretched his skinny legs out in front of him and watched the tassels on his loafers lean to the side. I’m going to lose this case, he reflected. I’m going to lose it. And that son of a bitch’ll be out in five or six years, looking for other women to stalk.

  He was in despair.

  Nemes…shit.

  Then the judge turned away from his clerk and said, “Mr. Hollow? Shall we continue with your rebuttal of Mr. Ringling’s affirmative defense?”

  It was then that a thought occurred to the prosecutor. He considered it for a moment and gasped at where the idea led.

  “Mr. Hollow?”

  “Your Honor, if possible, could we recess until tomorrow? The prosecution would appreciate the time.”

  Judge Rollins debated. He looked at his watch. “All right. We’ll recess until nine A.M. tomorrow.”

  Glenn Hollow thanked the judge and told his young associates to gather up the papers and take them back to the office. The prosecutor rose and headed out the door. But he didn’t start sprinting until he was well out of the courthouse; he believed that you never let jurors see anything but your dignified self.

  AT A LITTLE AFTER nine the next morning, Glenn Hollow rose to his feet. “I’d like to call to the stand Dr. James Pheder.”

  “Objection, Your Honor.” Bob Ringling was on his feet.

  “Reasons?”

  “We received notice of this witness last night at eight P.M. We haven’t had adequate time to prepare.”

  “Where were you at eight?”

  Ringling blinked. “Well, Your Honor, I…the wife and I were out to dinner.”

  “At eight I was reading documents in this case, Mr. Ringling. And Mr. Hollow was-obviously-sending you notices about impending witnesses. Neither of us were enjoying the buffet line at House O’Ribs.”

  “But-”

  “Think on your feet, Counselor. That’s what you get paid those big bucks for. Objection overruled. Proceed, Mr. Hollow.”

  Pheder, a dark-complexioned man with a curly mop of black hair and a lean face, took the oath and sat.

  “Now, Mr. Pheder, could you tell us about your credentials?”

  “Yessir. I have degrees in psychology and biology from the University of Eastern Virginia, the University of Albany, and Northern Arizona University.”

  “All of which are accredited four-year colleges, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m an author and lecturer.”

  “Are you published?”

  “Yessir. I’ve published dozens of books.”

  “Are those self-published?”

  “Nosir. I’m with established publishing companies.”

  “And where do you lecture?”

  “All over the country. At schools, libraries, bookstores, private venues.”

  “How many people attend these lectures?” Hollow asked.

  “Each one is probably attended by four to six hundred people.”

  “And how many lectures
a year do you give?”

  “About one hundred.”

  Hollow paused and then asked, “Are you familiar with the concept of neme?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Is it true that you coined that term?”

  “Yessir.”

  “What does it refer to?”

  “I combined the words ‘negative’ and ‘meme.’ ‘Negative’ is just what it sounds like. ‘Meme’ is a common phenomenon in society, like a song or catchphrase, that captures the popular imagination. It spreads.”

  “Give us the gist of the concept of neme, that’s n-e-m-e, if you would.”

  “In a nutshell?”

  “Oh, yessir. I got Cs in science. Make it nice and simple.”

  Nice touch, Hollow thought of his improvisation. Science.

  Pheder continued. “It’s like a cloud of energy that affects people’s emotions in destructive ways. You know how you’re walking down the street and you suddenly feel different? For no reason at all. Your mood swings. It could be caused by any number of things. But it might be a neme incorporating itself into your cerebrum.”

  “And you say, ‘negative.’ So nemes are bad?”

  “Well, bad is a human judgment. They’re neutral, but they tend to make us behave in ways society characterizes as bad. Take a case of swimming in the ocean. Sharks and jellyfish aren’t bad; they’re simply doing what nature intended, existing. But when they take a bite out of us or sting us, we call that bad. Nemes are the same. They make us do things that to them are natural but that we call evil.”

  “And you’re convinced these nemes are real?”

  “Oh, yessir. Absolutely.”

  “Are other people?”

  “Yes, many, many are.”

  “Are these people scientists?”

  “Some, yes. Therapists, chemists, biologists, psychologists.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Ringling.”

  The defense lawyer couldn’t, as it turned out, think on his feet, not very well. He was prepared for Hollow to introduce testimony by experts attacking his client’s claim of insanity.

  He wasn’t prepared for Hollow to try to prove nemes were real. Ringling asked a few meaningless questions and let it go at that.