Read Nightmare in Night Court for Free Online

back into the courtroom, Mr. Brenner informed me that an agent from the Immigration and Naturalization Service had finally shown up, and that, as an added bonus, he had brought an agent from the Department of Homeland Security with him.  He pointed out a bland-looking guy in a blue suit, who stood next to a bland-looking woman in a blue suit, who stood next to a stack of papers that they must have brought in with a wheelbarrow. I took a deep breath and the two of us went over to brief Uncle Sam.
    “Hello, I’m Matt Brenner, from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. This is Gabrielle Pierce, who represents Mr. Smith.”
    “Mike Fisher from INS. This is Susan Brooks from the Department of Homeland Security. We understand you have a foreign national here charged with a crime.”
    “I wouldn’t say he’s a foreign national, more an interplanetary visitor.” I smiled.
    Mr. Fisher looked at Ms. Brooks. Then both of them looked at Mr. Brenner. I had a feeling they didn’t have much in way of a sense of humor, or possibly a pulse. 
    “He’s in need of a psychiatric evaluation,” Mr. Brenner explained slowly, in case the words were too big for the Stepford agents, “But apparently, the fact that he claims to be from another planet, is enough to trigger a federal investigation.”
    “Well, he’s going to have to fill out some paperwork,” Ms. Brooks offered in a monotone voice. Interestingly, I noted that she actually kind of resembled the paperwork piled next to her, at least in personality.
    I decided to give it a try, “Folks, what Mr. Brenner is saying, is that Mr. Smith isn’t really from another planet; he’s mentally ill. He needs to go to a hospital.”
    “He’s still going to have to fill out the paperwork,” Mr. Fisher replied and I sighed. Okay, they wanted Captain Kirk to fill out paperwork, that was fine with me. I went off in search of Mr. Smith. I found him in the vending machine room, talking to a beverage dispenser, and I led him back to meet Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber.
    When I got back to the courtroom, it was immediately clear that there was some kind of situation going on. A group of deputies were meeting with the Spirit Hunters Team. Burt was gesturing wildly and the rest of them were nodding. I didn’t see Ernie anywhere, though. I led Mr. Smith over to the government think tank, and tracked down Braden to ask him what was going on.
    “Is there some sort of crisis in the spirit realm?” I asked.
    “Ernie is missing.”
    “Missing?” I raised an eyebrow, inquisitively.
    “Missing. He went off to retrieve some equipment and he never came back. I’m thinking that maybe he’s with Mr. Marley, who is also still MIA.”
    “Oh hey, that reminds me, Edna Manson said something weird.”
    “That’s not really surprising. Edna Manson’s pretty weird in general, Gabrielle.”
    “Yeah, she is kind of creepy,” I agreed, “but listen to this, she claims that Mr. Marley’s case is just supposed to be administrative, because Mr. Marley died of a heart attack before it could be resolved.”
    “What?” he asked turning to look at me. “He was sitting right over there, in the vortex area. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
    “Wait, it gets better. This fatal heart attack happened in, you guessed it, 1905, in this very courtroom.”
    “Yeah, right,” Braden replied skeptically. “What is this a horror movie?”
    Suddenly, as if on cue, the lights went out, leaving us in total darkness. There was a second of silence, and the room filled with sounds of chairs scraping and falling over as people started yelling. The lights immediately came back on. Everyone froze and stopped yelling. The lights went back off. They started moving and yelling again. They came back on! Back off! Back on! That happened three more times, until finally everyone just shut up, and they came back on and stayed on, illuminating a bunch of bored, pissed off looking people. At that moment,