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?”