“I love you too, Braden. I can’t even express how much.”
“Let’s get pregnant,” he said, watching my reaction carefully.
“I think our half hour’s almost up,” I joked.
“Not now.” He laughed. “Even though I’ve always loved these sexy courthouse trysts of ours, I don’t want our child to be conceived in Night Court. Why don’t you make an appointment with your doctor? We’ll find out the healthy way to have you off the pill.”
“You’re serious,” I said, feeling a tingling down my spine and a nervous flutter in my tummy.
“Yeah, I’m serious. We’ve been happily married for a year. Adam and Lily are already trying,” he said, reminding me that two of our closest friends had decided that they wanted to start a family.
“But, what about our practice? We’ll be short two lawyers if both Lily and I are out on maternity leave.”
“Drew will be graduating in May,” he said, mentioning his younger brother who was in his last year of law school. “We can afford to take on more staff.”
“Do you think we’re ready to be parents?”
“We’ve done a great job with Bruno.”
“Braden, Bruno is a Chihuahua.”
“He’s very well grounded for a Chihuahua. It’s a high-strung breed.”
“Okay.” I smiled.
“Okay? You mean …”
“Okay, let’s get pregnant.” I smiled. “Just not in Night Court on Halloween.” He smiled back and pulled me into a tight embrace. I hated to let go of him, but I knew we didn’t have a choice. I also knew that I would be falling asleep in his arms that night, and waking up with him the next morning. As we tidied ourselves up, I looked at him, feeling love warm me. He had that look of sleepy post-coital euphoria that I adored.
“You look like you need a nap,” I teased as I pulled my panties back on and pulled my skirt down over my hips.
“Yeah. I hope the rest of this night goes quickly,” he said as he refastened his trousers.
“Get ready for round three,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Chapter Three
When we got 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 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, the courtroom doors flew open and there was a sudden explosion of color. It was Delores Crowley. She was running up the aisle toward the bench.
“He’s here and he wants justice!” she cried, waving her arms like she was trying to land a 747.
“Who wants justice?” Judge Epstein asked with a scowl. There wouldn’t be any justice in her courtroom, dammit.
“The one who died,” Ms. Crowley answered. “I need an empty vessel.”
“Have you met Ms. Brooks and Mr. Fisher from the federal government?” I asked helpfully. Suddenly a blast of cold air came shooting down from the ceiling, blowing their enormous stack of papers all over the courtroom. Coincidence?
“The EMF meter is going off the scale!” one of the Spirit Hunters called out.
“Three point five, three point six, point seven, point eight,” another chimed in, looking at his own little light up box.
“This place is crawling with abnormal energy!” Burt informed us.
“It’s like that every night,” Mr. Brenner noted.
“His soul is disturbed,” Delores went on in a deep raspy voice, her eyes rolling back in her head. I had news for her, that wasn’t all that was disturbed. From somewhere out in the hall, came a horrible sound, not unlike the wail of a Banshee.
“Sid! It’s my Sid! I knew it! He wants justice!” Apparently, Gladys Peterman had not left the building. She came tearing into the courtroom like a bat out of hell, or more accurately, like a bat into hell, in this case I suppose.
“If he wants anything, Gladys, he wants you to shut up already,” her brother-in-law Irv said, coming in after her. “The poor guy can’t even get away from you by dying.” A loud clanging noise sounded from somewhere in the building. I guess Sid agreed.