The Shakespeare Incident Read online

  Was she lying? Hotspur liked to play detective. He detected that something wasn’t quite right with the girl. He usually worked guarding Walmart parking lots, checking IDs to bust the convicted shoplifters who’d been banned for life. He loved trading his lapel cam videos with the other guards and Denise was clearly more than the typical banned shoplifter. Still he wasn’t sure what she was trying to lift.

  She was staring at the brick in the corner, mouthing a few words.

  Was she casting a spell? “What’s your full name miss?”

  “Denise Song.”

  “Are you trying to talk to him over in the great beyond, or something, Miss Denise Song?” he asked.

  “Kinda,” she said.

  “What are you going to talk to him about?”

  That was a rude question, but Denise forced a smile. “He’s going to tell me how to find my long-lost twin brother, Denny.”

  “Denny and Denise Song? That’s funny.”

  She turned to look at him directly, as if playing lawyer for real. “It’s even funnier than that,” Denise said, not laughing. “My Auntie Luna named us—me Denise and my brother De-nephew as a joke and my mom went with it. I think he’s calling himself Denny. I’ve never met him.”

  That was an original answer all right, thought Hotspur. “Your dead cousin knows about your long-lost twin brother, De-nephew?”

  “Denny. My cousin Marley knows a lot now that he’s passed over.”

  “And you can communicate with him? Your dead cousin?”

  “Kinda.”

  Hotspur pounced, feeling a “Gotcha” moment. “But you can’t talk to your long-lost twin brother, De-nephew or whatever?”

  “He’s lost, somewhere in New Mexico. I’ve never met my brother. I need my cousin to help find him.”

  “Find him in that?” Hotspur pointed to a black Lexus on the side of the road. The girl wasn’t dressed nice enough to have a car like that. “Is that your daddy’s car?”

  “My mommy’s,” Denise said.

  “Is your mommy here?”

  “She’s in Korea,” she said. “But I have her permission.”

  That definitely was a tell for the guard. And this girl said she was a lawyer, right? He had testified in enough trespassing cases to sniff out a real attorney-at-law. “Could I see some identification, Counsel?”

  The young woman handed him an ID card, listing her name as “Denise Song, Clinical Law Student.” He was amazed to see that she was indeed not a minor. The ID listed her as twenty-seven years old.

  He was confused. “So, you are a lawyer?”

  “Clinical Law Student pursuant to Rule 5.110.1 of the New Mexico Rules for Criminal Procedure for the District Courts.”

  Before he could ask her anything more, Hotspur suddenly had an intense headache and the overpowering urge to get on with his rounds. His lapel cam shorted and the Taser was suddenly too hot to touch.

  “Shit!”

  Had this bitch, this witch, cast a spell on him?

  The girl stared at him. “This is a public place, I don’t need authorization to be here,” she said. “I might not be a lawyer. Yet. But I work for a lawyer and she will be pissed if you keep wasting my time.”

  He didn’t like lawyers, or the people who worked for them. He shrugged, turned around and then he talked into a walkie-talkie to the main office downtown which finally worked on the third try once he was a hundred yards away. “Some Goth girl seeing the school shooter’s brick or whatever.”

  From the other side of the cemetery, he gave Denise one more look. She was standing still, as if lost in thought. Suddenly his headache came back. He turned away and the headache went away. Was this girl casting a spell on him or what?

  If she wasn’t a lawyer, maybe she was indeed a witch. Then again, lawyers and witches could be the same thing. Kinda.

  Chapter 4

  Denise let out a deep breath when the guard finally walked away. Satisfied that the coast was now clear, she closed her eyes and touched the brick in the top corner. She had to stand on her tip toes.

  “Marley,” she said out loud to the brick. “Is there anything new with Denny?”

  Even though she was visiting Marley’s brick at the cemetery, Denise Song knew this visit would somehow be about her brother, Denny. For the last few months, it was always about her finding her brother.

  She’d indeed been Marley’s nanny and had watched the boy die during an incident at his high school over a year ago. Like many young people lost before their time, Marley could still reach out to the living. Denise was one of the few people who could reach back.

  Still, what she called her “spark” wasn’t all that impressive, at least in Denise’s mind. She certainly wasn’t worthy of a lesser Stephen King novel or becoming an X-Men trainee. She could “read” people here and there, but only if she had direct contact with an object associated with them. Maybe a trinket or a strand of hair. She couldn’t see dead people, but she could hear them if she touched something personal to them. Her psychic powers had something to do with electricity. Or DNA samples. Or both.

  She sometimes had issues with electricity and occasionally burst a small lightbulb unwittingly in times of stress. And like today, she could make a Taser heat up, but certainly not make it fire. She could even give people like Hotspur a mild headache, but that could be cured by an aspirin or two. No, she wasn’t much of a psychic.

  Still, her current was flowing smoothly today. “Go see that client in Roswell,” Marley said, as if talking through the brick. “Right now. She knows the location of your brother. Time is running out!”

  A fighter jet roared overhead from nearby Kirtland Air Force Base. That must have upset her telepathic link to her cousin because the brick stayed silent after that.

  Hotspur was now walking back towards her from the other side of the cemetery after nodding at his walkie-talkie. Denise had subtle powers of persuasion on people like Hotspur, but they wouldn’t work against a Taser, and not against a gun which he probably had somewhere nearby. It was time to go.

  As she turned to leave Marley’s wall, her phone beeped indicating a text.

  NEED TO SEE YOU IMMEDIATELY! MEET ME AT ROSWELL MUSEUM AT 5.

  She recognized the number of her new client, Nastia Kowalski. Marley thought it was important to see Nastia, so Denise would go. Roswell less than three hours away by car.

  ON MY WAY!

  She stared at the brick one last time. “Hasta la vista, Marley.”

  Marley didn’t respond.

  The black Lexus sat alone in the far corner of the dirt cemetery parking lot. It started at her touch. Inside the car, she turned on some K-pop music with sappy vocals in Korean about lost love.

  She left the lot and quickly took the Lexus past the turn-off for the Albuquerque Sunport. She would be traveling by land.

  On impulse, she voice-dialed the number for her mom with its long international prefix and let it ring a few times.

  “Can I take the car to Roswell, mom?” she asked the ringing phone.

  It was her mommy’s car all right. Her mother, the famed lawyer Jen Song, had rented this Lexus for the family when she’d flown in for Marley’s memorial services a year ago. In her Asian haute couture, Jen always made a statement. She didn’t really know her nephew. Jen was there ostensibly as emotional support for her sister, Luna—Marley’s mother and Denise’s aunt. Since her mother’s rapid ascent into high society, Jen Song always made a grand entrance and an even grander exit.

  Before that, Denise hadn’t seen her mother since her grandmother’s funeral, which seemed like another lifetime ago. After her grandmother died, Jen had returned to Asia and Denise had moved in with Auntie Luna’s family for the duration of high school as Luna became her only slightly evil stepmother while her mom was overseas.

  “Boy are we a close family,”
Luna had said whenever the extended family went on trips. But Denise never felt close to anyone.

  To Denise, her mother was a half-Korean Jackie Kennedy—beautiful, but distant. The beautiful Jen Song had exhibited some mental illness issues when Denise was growing up. Her mother was the one who had steered Denise into the whole “laser geishas” thing and had actually told her that the animated show was “real.”

  Denise knew that her mom had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which had caused her to lose custody of her daughter in those early years. Jen Song eventually became highly functional with medication, but Denise was never close to her mom. Perhaps it was a good thing that Denise was mainly raised by her grandmother and then by her Auntie Luna—her cousins Dew and Marley’s family—for much of high school.

  The very last moment Denise had seen her real mom in the flesh was that day a year ago, at the car rental return parking lot at the Albuquerque International Airport (“Sunport”) a few blocks from this cemetery. Running late as always, Jen showed up with the Lexus sporting a very recent and very visible dent on the driver’s side. Jen had great fashion sense, but lousy depth perception and had scraped a parked car with said Lexus in the rental return parking lot.

  “Why did you do that mom?” Denise had asked. “Aren’t you paying attention?”

  “I’ve got something important in Seoul!”

  Denise had hoped that she could reconnect with her mother on the trip back to the airport and then Uber home. Unfortunately, her mom had been on the phone the entire time.

  “Got to run, dear,” her mom had said as she left the door open, kept the motor running and hurried toward the bus.

  “What do I do with the car, mom?” Denise had asked. A running car with the keys in it was strangely tempting. Denise didn’t want to take another Uber home to the ghetto.

  “Here. Just keep the corporate credit card,” her mom had said from the doorway of the shuttle bus as it lurched forward then stopped. Her mom motioned her over and gave her the card. “And deal with the dent in the car.”

  The shuttle door closed. There hadn’t even been a hug, there had never been a hug during any of the good-byes between her and her mother.

  Deal with the dent? After her mom was safely out of sight, the keys still in the car and the motor running, Denise sat in the passenger seat as she observed the customer in front of her talk with a rental agent in a crisp green uniform. The agent hadn’t noticed the dent on the passenger side of her mom’s Lexus yet.

  “Something came up,” the man said in the car up ahead. “Can I keep the car indefinitely?”

  “We will just keep it on the card,” the agent had said to the man. “You’re good to go.” He drove off.

  Extend the agreement indefinitely? That sounded better than hailing an Uber during peak hour and explaining a dent in the car on the passenger side. At that moment, Denise moved to the driver’s seat, and smiled at the agent.

  “Are you returning the car?” the agent came over to her on the driver’s side.

  “Something’s come up. I’d like to extend it indefinitely,” Denise said and handed the agent the magic card. The agent smiled as she took the card and put it through a Point-of-Sale device. “You’re Ms. Song?”

  “Kinda,” Denise said. Her mom’s pin was always 66666 after her attorney number. She punched in the code and smiled back at the agent.

  The card was black, as if the plastic had been coated with a sleek metallic alloy. It was issued by the Korean Swan Bank with a logo of a black swan etched in gold on the front.

  “You’re good to go,” the agent said.

  Good to go indeed. Denise took the card and had driven off from the lot without another word, or the agent noticing the dent.

  Automatic payments on the magic card for the Lexus rental had led to fifty-two weekly rental extensions, but still no stop at the body shop. Denise was always terrified that the mechanics would check on the rental’s uncertain status and she’d lose both the car and the card forever.

  Denise had tried calling her mom, using the Bluetooth connection on her phone. Her mom didn’t pick up. Within a week, her mom’s number was unavailable. That was just as well. The next month Denise had traded a studio in the UNM student ghetto and moved into an “extended stay” hotel that she paid for weekly thanks to Korean Swan Bank.

  If her mom really didn’t want me to have the magic credit card, she would have said something right? Someone was paying the credit card bills, so her mom or someone still loved her. She could sense things from her dead cousin from beyond the grave; why couldn’t she ever sense anything from her living mom from across the Pacific?

  Back in the present, Denise put her finger over the red icon on the car’s console. “Last chance, mom?”

  The phone rang again on the other side. Unavailable. Denise pressed the red icon and hung up.

  The Lexus raced down the six lanes of Gibson Boulevard and merged onto Interstate 25. Denise always carried a garment bag with three interchangeable charcoal outfits, and a small suitcase with toiletries and underwear, in the trunk. She also had a gym bag with two pairs of workout clothes and a martial arts staff as well as a computer bag that contained her laptop and accessories. In the cupholder she kept a skinny silver thermos usually filled with an energy drink. Along with her phone and its charger, everything she owned was here in this car.

  She stepped on the gas, heading north toward the crossroads of the Big I—the massive intersection between Interstates 25 and 40. Although they couldn’t communicate directly, she sensed that her brother was alive, somewhere in New Mexico, and that after all these years he wanted to connect. New Mexico was a big state, and she hadn’t seen him in twenty-seven years. Her spark regarding Denny was a vague ping or two on her forehead.

  A few miles east, now on Interstate 40, the Lexus entered the unfriendly confines of Tijeras Canyon—the gap between the towering granite Sandia Mountains to the north and the wooded Manzanos to the south.

  Her phone rang on the Bluetooth connection to the Lexus. Unknown number the screen announced. Was it her mother? Was it her brother?”

  “Hello?” she asked.

  “It’s me,” her cousin Dew said. “I’ve got a new phone. Did Marley say anything to you about the client in Roswell?”

  “Not much. Just that I should go there right away.”

  “Your being psychic is like the least interesting thing about you,” Dew said.

  “You’ve never told me what the most interesting thing about me is.”

  Dew didn’t respond. It was always Dew and Denise, never Denise and Dew. Dew was also half-Hispanic and the half something else, but certainly nothing from Asia. They looked the same except Dew was an inch taller, a pound curvier and her green eyes lacked Denise’s Asian influence. Dew also favored a wide variety of styles—from sloppy prep to glamorous Lolita, depending on her mood and her bank account balance. Around Dew, Denise was the red-headed stepchild, except her hair was often pink.

  They had gone to the same high school, the same college, the same law school. But after they both failed out of law school together, Denise feared that they were drifting apart as Dew had moved down south to Las Cruces. With Marley gone and her mom in Asia, Dew was her only family. Other than her friend from high school, Rayne, Dew was the only person who even knew she was alive.

  Rayne and Dew, she laughed at the moisture implied in their names as she drove through this desert.

  The Lexus vibrated over the rumble strips on the side of the road before Denise jerked it back into her lane. She had better concentrate on the road.

  “I wish I was psychic like you,” Dew said.

  “I’m a psychic who can’t even locate my own brother without help from a fake website.”

  “Well, I told you this lasergeishalaw site would finally work,” Dew said, referring to their web site. “It would be a way to
focus your powers or whatever they are.”

  Now that the car was firmly back in a lane, Denise could drive and surf the web on her phone at the same time. Well, she hoped she could. Still going ninety, Denise clicked on the bookmark for their site.

  The home page had a motif of “Laser Geisha Pink”—the most powerful of the Laser Geishas—holding a lightsaber in one hand and the scales of justice in another. Underneath the animated laser geisha lightsaber gif, the site boasted a photograph of Jen Song standing next to Denise in front of her law school, taken the first day of school.

  LaserGeishaLaw.com was perfectly kosher as it promised free legal work from the legendary (and licensed) attorney Jen Song, New Mexico bar number 66666, winner of the billion-dollar verdict. Well, the verdict wasn’t a billion after taxes and costs, but a newspaper had used the “b word” and a legend was born.

  Jen had won the verdict for their cousin Susie, the famed golfer, after a near-tragic auto accident. The Song name was famous around these parts, and hopefully the residual glow would envelope Denise Song as a clinical law student under Jen Song’s direct supervision.

  “I just hope this really works like you said,” Denise said. “All those other calls were BS.”

  “Well third time’s the charm. I told you that if you promised free legal work by the world-famous Jen Song people will call because of the ‘law of attraction’ or whatever. Then you get to use your shine or spark or whatever to find your brother. You’re feeling a spark from this new client, right? Marley confirmed, no?”

  Denise touched the screen and it sizzled. “This woman can take me to Denny. I just know it, but…”

  “You’re worried that she’ll learn you’re not a real lawyer.”

  “Since I freaked out in Professor Kang’s class and walked out of law school, I’m not really a lawyer. I don’t know the rules of evidence without a cheat sheet, much less the twenty-three exceptions to the hearsay rule. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

  “You’re still reeling from the cheetah mom,” Dew said. “I was there, remember?”