Stories: All-New Tales

The gasp throughout the courtroom was loud.

“I’m convinced that Martin Kobel is right. Nemes exist. Think about it, ladies and gentlemen: what else can explain the random acts of violence and abuse and rage we find in people who were previously incapable of them.”

Yes…some of the jurors were actually nodding. They were with him!

Hollow’s voice rose. “Think about it! Disembodied forces of energy that affect us. We can’t see them but doesn’t the moon’s gravitation affect us? Doesn’t radiation affect us? We can’t see them either. These nemes are the perfect explanation for behaviors we otherwise would find impossible to understand.

“There was a time when the concept of flight by airplane would have been considered sorcery. The same with GPS. The same with modern medical treatments. The same with lightbulbs, computers, thousands of products that we now know are rooted in scientific fact but when first conceived would seem like black magic.”

Hollow walked close to the rapt members of the jury. “But…but…if that’s the case, if nemes exist, as Mr. Kobel and I believe, then that means they’re part of the real world. They are part of our society, our connection with one another, for good or for bad. Then to say that Annabelle Young was infected with one is exactly the same as saying that she had a case of the flu and might infect other people. Some of those infected people, the elderly or young, could die. Which would be a shame, tragic…But does that mean it would be all right to preemptively murder her to save those people? Emphatically no! That’s not the way the world works, ladies and gentlemen. If, as I now believe, Annabelle Young was affected by these nemes, then as a trained professional, Martin Kobel’s responsibility was to get her into treatment and help her. Help her, ladies and gentlemen. Not murder her.

“Please, honor the memory of Annabelle Young. Honor the institution of law. Honor personal responsibility. Find the defendant in this case sane. And find him guilty of murder in the first degree for taking the life of a young woman whose only flaw was to be sick, and whose only chance to get well and live a content and happy and productive life was snatched from her grasp by a vicious killer. Thank you.”

His heart pounding, Glenn Hollow strode to the prosecution table through an utterly quiet courtroom, aware that everyone was staring at him.

He sat. Still, no voices, no rustling. Nothing. Pin-drop time.

After what seemed like an hour, though it was probably only thirty seconds, Bob Ringling rose, cleared his throat, and delivered his closing statement. Hollow didn’t pay much attention. And it seemed no one else did either. Every soul in the courtroom was staring at Glenn Hollow, and, the prosecutor believed, replaying in their minds what was the most articulate and dramatic closing argument he’d ever made. Turning the whole case on its ear at the last minute.

If, as I now believe, Annabelle Young was affected by these nemes, then as a trained professional, Martin Kobel’s responsibility was to get her into treatment and help her. Help her, ladies and gentlemen. Not murder her.

Glenn Hollow was inherently a modest man but he couldn’t help but believe he’d pulled off the coup of his career.

And so it was a surprise, to say the least, when the good men and woman on the jury panel rejected Hollow’s argument completely and came back with a verdict finding Martin Kobel not guilty by reason of insanity after one of the shortest deliberations in Wetherby County history.

Three

I AVOIDED THE SUNROOM as much as I could.

Mostly because it was full of crazy people. Lip-chewing, Haldol-popping, delusional crazies. They smelled bad, they ate like pigs at a trough, they screamed, they wore football helmets so they didn’t do any more damage to their heads. As if that were possible. At my trial I was worried that I was overacting the schizo part. I shouldn’t have worried. My performance in the courtroom didn’t come close to being over the top.

The Butler State Hospital doesn’t include the words “for the criminally insane” in the name because it doesn’t need to. Anybody who sees the place will get the idea pretty fast.

The sunroom was a place to avoid. But I’d come to enjoy the small library and this was where I’d spent most of my time in the past two months since I was committed here.

Today I was sitting in the library’s one armchair, near the one window. I usually vie for the chair with a skinny patient, Jack. The man was committed because he suspected his wife of selling his secrets to the Union army—which would’ve been funny except that as punishment for her crime he tortured her for six hours before killing and dismembering her.

Jack was a curious man. Smart in some ways and a true expert on Civil War history. But he’d never quite figured out the rules of the game: that whoever got into the library first got the armchair.

I’d been looking forward to sitting here today and catching up on my reading.

But then something happened to disrupt those plans. I opened this morning’s paper and noticed a reference to the prosecutor in the case against me, Glenn Hollow, whose name, I joked with my attorney Bob Ringling, sounded like a real estate development. Alarming Ringling somewhat since I wasn’t sounding as crazy as he would have liked—because, of course, I’m not.

The article was about party officials pulling all support for Hollow’s bid for attorney general. He’d dropped out of the race. I continued to read, learning that his life had fallen apart completely after failing to get me convicted on murder one. He’d had to step down as county prosecutor and no law firm in the state would hire him. In fact, he couldn’t find work anywhere.

The problem wasn’t that he’d lost the case, but that he’d introduced evidence about the existence of spirits that possessed people and made them commit crimes. It hadn’t helped that he was on record as stating that nemes were real. And his expert was a bit of a crackpot. Though I still hold that Pheder’s a genius. After all, for every successful invention, da Vinci came up with a hundred duds.

In fact, Hollow’s strategy was brilliant and had given me some very uncomfortable moments in court. Bob Ringling, too. Part of me was surprised that the jury hadn’t bought his argument and sent me to death row.

These revelations were troubling and I felt sorry for the man—I never had anything personal against him—but it was when I read the last paragraph that the whole shocking implication of what had happened struck home.

Before the Kobel trial, Hollow had been a shoo-in to become the attorney general of the state. He had the best conviction record of any prosecutor in North Carolina, particularly in violent crimes such as rape and domestic abuse. He actually won a premeditated murder case some years ago for a road rage incident, the first time any prosecutor had convinced a jury to do so.