Judgment at Santa Monica

by E. J. Copperman

  ‘Yes. You’ll recall. Cynthia said she went to Wendy’s house because Michael texted her and offered to negotiate a reasonable settlement to their divorce without involving people like me who actually know what they’re talking about in such matters.’ Most of the time.

  ‘It can be … distracting to hear other people discuss one’s marriage,’ Patrick said. I had sat in on one conference about his impending divorce before his wife was murdered and it had not been a love-in. Whatever those were.

  ‘Anyway, what did Michael say about texting Cynthia? Did you forget?’ Then I remembered Cynthia had told me about Michael texting her before Patrick had arrived at the police station, but Patrick had not been exiled from the room today when she’d said it again.

  ‘Michael said specifically that he had not communicated with Cynthia that day or for a week before, on his attorney’s advice.’ I caught a quick glimpse of Patrick smiling after he said that, thinking he had somehow scored a point on me for mentioning attorneys in a manner that wasn’t derogatory.

  ‘Does Cynthia have an assistant?’ I asked. ‘Maybe Michael texted to a number that doesn’t get through to Cynthia.’ There had to be some reason she’d gone to her mother-in-law’s home that night. Unless the reason was to kill Wendy Bryan, which would put a major crimp in my case.

  ‘Cynthia has three assistants,’ Patrick answered. ‘But to my knowledge she always keeps her personal matters to herself and does not have her assistants answer on any texts that aren’t going to be about business.’

  I hadn’t heard the last part of that. Three assistants? I worked for a high-end law firm and had to share a secretary with two other lawyers, but the actress had three assistants all by herself? There needed to be major changes made to employment laws in this country.

  ‘So why did Cynthia go to Wendy’s house if Michael didn’t ask her to?’ I pondered out loud.

  I should have known better. ‘Seems like a hole in her story,’ Judy said. Thanks a heap, Judy.

  ‘She must be confused,’ Patrick offered. ‘Or Michael is lying. I’d vote for the latter. The man’s a cobra.’ The blandest man in the world was a cobra. Make up your mind, Patrick.

  I pulled the car over and stopped it. ‘Maybe we have to go back and ask Cynthia why she told me a lie about Michael texting her.’

  Patrick waved a hand. ‘Nonsense,’ he said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and was talking to Cynthia before I had a chance to turn around in my seat and look at him. ‘Cynthia, love,’ he began. I knew he was just being Patrick, but I thought he was slathering it on a little thick. ‘We have a question.’ He waited, then put his phone on speaker so we could hear. ‘When I went to see Michael yesterday—’

  Cynthia interrupted him immediately. ‘You went to see Michael?’ It wasn’t panic in her voice. It was annoyance bordering on anger.

  ‘Yes, love. I told you I went there with the investigator, Mr Garrigan. And when we were there, a question about the night … it all happened came up.’

  ‘What did Michael tell you?’ That was years of anger, all in five words.

  ‘He said that he was at a business meeting that night, which Mr Garrigan is trying to verify.’

  ‘I bet he won’t be able to,’ Cynthia answered. ‘I bet he was off with some woman he thinks is the next love of his life.’

  I decided that if this was the way we were going to play it, I might as well assert myself as the lawyer once again. ‘Cynthia, it’s Sandy. Here’s the thing: Michael said he never texted you and asked you to come to his mother’s house that night.’

  ‘So he’s lying.’ Well, problem solved!

  ‘Can you prove that? Did you save the texts on your phone?’ If she had, we could easily show that Michael had indeed called his wife that night. The content of the conversation might not be admissible – her word versus his – but the text itself, given that Michael had lied about it, would be a useful weapon in court. I’d have to get Michael deposed.

  ‘No. I deleted them.’

  Of course she did. ‘You deleted the texts from your phone?’ I said. It wasn’t so much clarification I was after as some sense of why someone who hadn’t committed a murder would do something that stupid.

  ‘Yeah, before I went there. I delete all his stuff. I don’t want to be reminded of them.’ It wasn’t quite enough to make the Flimsy Excuse Hall of Fame, but it would certainly be in the conversation.

  I’d have to check with Nate and see if he could check with Cynthia’s service provider for her account records. There might be a tech marvel who could retrieve deleted texts from Cynthia’s phone, but I was starting to worry that I was on the wrong side in this case. Cynthia was suddenly doing her best to act like someone who had indeed killed her mother-in-law with a television acting award.

  ‘Do you remember what the exact words he used were?’ Ask for details and you can sometimes get a stronger sense of how confident the person is in their story. Confidence doesn’t always equal truth but it doesn’t hurt.

  ‘I don’t know. Why are you taking his side?’

  ‘She’s not taking his side,’ Patrick butted in. ‘You have to understand that Sandy needs to be able to prove anything she says in court. Evidence is very important.’ That’s what he learned from playing a lawyer on TV. That evidence is important.

  ‘Patrick’s … right,’ I said, overlooking my impulse to say he was sort of right. ‘The more verifiable evidence we can get, like a record of the texts, the better we can prove that you didn’t kill Wendy Bryan.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t.’ Cynthia might have been on some anti-anxiety medication or she might have been on sedatives. But even in this short period of time she had lost some of the intelligent edge she’d had when I’d talked to her in her house only minutes ago.

  ‘We know that, love,’ Patrick said, trying to modulate his voice into a soothing tone. Patrick doesn’t like people to be upset and he wants to solve all their problems for them. It’s a sweet impulse, but as with everything else he takes it too far. ‘We’ll get back to you when we hear from Mr Garrigan.’ And he disconnected the call. I was too overwhelmed to take him to task for ending my client meeting.

  ‘She sounds guilty,’ Judy said, as ever with no inflection at all.

  ‘She’s not guilty!’ Patrick doesn’t often shout or show anything but charm, which as an actor is very unusual. But now he was practically vibrating with rage. ‘She’s not guilty and you shouldn’t ever say something like that!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Judy intoned.

  From the front seat it was hard to make eye contact, but I turned in my seat to attract Patrick’s attention. ‘OK, Patrick,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to come clean with me. I get that Cynthia is a friend of yours and you’re upset that she’s in really bad trouble. But you’re paying her bills when she doesn’t need you to and you’re picking out attorneys for her. You’re defending her when her case seems difficult to defend. You swear you’ve never had a romantic relationship. Fine. So what’s the deal with you and Cynthia Sutton?’

  ‘Cynthia is my sister,’ was the reply.

  TWENTY-ONE

  A coffee shop is not the best place in the world to figure out a puzzle that makes your head hurt. For one thing, caffeine feeds the pain. For another, there are people around who might, just on the off chance that one of your companions is an extremely famous TV actor, tend to stare and potentially interrupt. But it was close, and I couldn’t hold this conversation and drive in Los Angeles at the same time.

  ‘Your sister?’ I said. ‘You have never mentioned having a sister and you didn’t bring up this juicy little tidbit when you introduced Cynthia to me. Or, for that matter, in any of the many conversations that you and I have had about her since then. What do you mean, she’s your sister?’

  ‘It’s very simple,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Why do I doubt that?’

  Heads were already turning and the waitress (this place wasn’t trendy enough to have baristas) had made a point of
lingering a little too long at the table when she’d taken our orders. I’d gotten a bottle of spring water because see above re caffeine.

  ‘All right, so Cynthia is actually my half-sister,’ Patrick went on, without acknowledging my remark. ‘After my parents divorced my dad moved to the States, got remarried and they had a daughter. So Cynthia, if you look it up anywhere but IMDb, where she didn’t tell them, is a Dunwoody.’ Dunwoody is Patrick’s real name, although not his legal one. He became Patrick McNabb officially to the city of Los Angeles, the state of California and the United States of America less than two years ago.

  ‘And you both came here as actors and became great big stars?’ I asked. ‘That seems awfully unlikely.’

  ‘Ask Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine,’ he countered.

  ‘Oddly I’ve lost their phone numbers. And if you have to go back sixty years to prove your point, it might not be as obvious as you think. How did you both manage that when you admit yourself you barely had a test reel when you came to LA?’

  ‘Cynthia was already a bigger name than me even when I was still in London,’ Patrick said. ‘She didn’t exactly pull any strings for me when I got here, but mentioning her name in a couple of interviews certainly didn’t hurt. I think the producers on Legality looked at my reel, thought I was OK, and then found out I was Cynthia Sutton’s brother and hired me. But Cynthia made sure it was written into both our contracts that the connection would never be used to publicize any project either one of us was connected to.’

  ‘Why not?’ Judy could stare at the door with the concentration of a Doberman whose owner had not come home yet and still manage to join the conversation.

  ‘We both, but Cynthia especially, didn’t want it to look like we were remarkably close or that we were involved in each other’s career,’ Patrick explained. ‘The fact is we grew up in separate households in separate countries. We’d visit every year or so and that was about it. My mum didn’t want me flying across the ocean to be at my dad’s, and when I was really young I wasn’t crazy about the idea myself.’

  I shook my head, mostly to get the cobwebs and the confusion out. ‘This is beside the point,’ I told Patrick. ‘You’re paying for Cynthia’s legal fees and pushing me on the case because you’re her brother, or half-brother, and you never even mentioned it to me.’

  He hung his head a little, but I saw it was meant to obscure his face from people at a nearby table and the waitress, who brought our drinks, saw how Patrick was positioning himself, and left, probably cursing the Hollywood big shot who couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge his loyal fans. ‘I am sorry about that, Sandy,’ he said when she had left. ‘I’ve just gotten so used to not telling that part of the story that it’s become reflex. But no matter what, you must make sure that she is acquitted.’

  I noticed Judy’s neck tensing up in the back as she looked out the front window. ‘Something?’ I asked her.

  ‘Man carrying a gun,’ she said steadily. She might just as well have been mentioning that there was a blue jay nesting in a tree in front of the coffee shop.

  Now I tensed up, but Judy shook her head. ‘He’s walking past. Didn’t even look in.’

  ‘You know the process, Patrick,’ I said. ‘This will take a few months at least to iron out. In the meantime, Cynthia can continue to work, to see friends, to have relationships. The only thing she absolutely has to do is answer the phone when I call and answer my questions honestly.’

  ‘That’s two things,’ Judy noted. Her neck still wasn’t a hundred percent relaxed. Even for her.

  ‘Mr Garrigan is dragging his feet,’ Patrick complained. His lips were pursed, a sign of impatience.

  ‘Mr Garrigan is being thorough and professional and, like I just told you, we have a good few months to build a case. I know your thinking, Patrick. Stop expecting Nate to deliver the real killer all wrapped up with a bow on his head. That’s not his job.’

  ‘Lindsey Waverly would be able to do it.’

  ‘Who’s Lindsey Waverly?’ I asked.

  Patrick looked positively wounded and made eye contact for the first time in a couple of minutes. ‘He’s the character I play on Torn. One of them, anyway.’ It bothers Patrick that I don’t watch his show regularly. Angie, on the other hand, has devoured every project the man has ever come close to being involved with and can recite whole paragraphs of dialogue without so much as a prompt.

  ‘Forgive me. But you must learn patience. Our job right now is to establish not who killed Wendy Bryan, but that it definitely wasn’t Cynthia. And I’m not sure I’m certain of that.’

  Patrick’s head swiveled in my direction quickly, like it was being manipulated by very taut rubber bands attached to each temple. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Cynthia is acting like a guilty party and I need to figure out if that’s just part of what she does to inspire sympathy, or if it’s because she actually took the TeeVee award – or something – to Wendy’s chest herself.’

  ‘Wow,’ Judy said without any inflection whatsoever.

  Patrick huffed. I drank some more water. Judy scanned the room again. ‘Not crazy about that guy with the gun,’ she said. ‘LA’s not a big “concealed carry” town. Not this part of town, anyway. Too big a coincidence.’

  ‘Should we leave?’ I said, not letting on that the hairs on my arms were standing up, which was not attractive in the Southern California heat. I reached for my jacket.

  ‘I think so,’ Judy answered.

  We stood up, Patrick still with a grumble on his face, and headed for the door. And it was that exact moment, when I was worried about being shot, that my phone rang.

  I thought to ignore it, but the ID indicated the call was coming from Maddie Forsythe. She was the client whose case I had bungled and I should have been working on her appeal right now. Yes, I’m that infused with guilt. Call my mother and ask her why.

  We had just made it outside the coffee shop and were heading to my car, parked three spaces up the street, when I connected with Maddie. But I couldn’t get a word in before Judy yelled, ‘Down!’

  She stayed on her feet and pulled her weapon from the hip holster she was wearing. Patrick and I dove for the pavement like we had (with help from Philip, who suddenly appeared from around the side of the coffee shop, gun in hand) at the restaurant the first time I’d been shot at (this year). You know, two days ago.

  But I did hear shots ringing out and I did in fact hide my eyes because everyone knows you can’t get hit with a bullet if you don’t see it coming.

  I heard a total of six shots. Then for a long moment it was quiet and I worried that Judy and/or Philip might have been hit. Or Patrick! I tore my hands off my eyes. Was Patrick all right? I forgave him for everything while I turned my head to the left to check on him.

  He was fine. I could start blaming him for things again. He stood up and patted Philip on the arm. ‘Well done,’ he said.

  ‘What the hell,’ I said. ‘This is getting really old.’ I somehow managed to get myself to my feet without tearing any article of clothing. When I looked around I had some inkling of what must have happened.

  The man who had passed the coffee shop before and attracted Judy’s attention was on the pavement, face down, not moving, about thirty yards away. The handgun she’d seen weighing his pocket down was still in his right hand. Another man I’d not seen before was sitting on the grass bay (the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb), holding his arm, which was bleeding. Philip was standing next to him, pocketing a handgun he’d picked up off the ground next to the as-yet-unidentified man.

  Patrick walked over, concern on his face. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘I heard all those shots and I thought something awful had happened.’

  ‘Something awful did happen,’ I told him. ‘But I’m OK, and I’m glad you are, too.’

  We fell into a hug on the sidewalk. It was all about terror and relief.

  Then I remembered I was on the phone with Maddie just as Judy w
as calling 911 and letting the cops know what had happened. I still had my phone in my hand and oddly it was not damaged. I must have subconsciously protected it when I’d dived to the ground. A weird outgrowth of modern technology and its effect on the urban woman. I’d suggest it to a sociology major as soon as I met one.

  Patrick and I separated and I brought the phone to my ear. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to Maddie. ‘It’s just that all of a sudden—’

  ‘Someone just tried to kill me,’ Maddie said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  As if I’d had him on retainer, Lieutenant Trench showed up at the scene of my latest devastation within ten minutes. Given LA traffic, it was a minor miracle he could arrive the same day as the shooting. I figured Trench had planted a homing device on me at some point and just cruised around Los Angeles waiting for someone to take another shot at me.

  ‘This is becoming an unfortunate habit.’ He had arrived only a few minutes after the first uniformed officers, who were taking statements from Philip and Judy largely because they actually knew what had happened. I had covered my eyes and done my best ostrich impression, so my account was going to have some serious gaps in it. ‘Does this happen often in New Jersey, Ms Moss? Did you bring this sort of mayhem with you when you immigrated?’

  I ignored the banter; Trench was back to his needling mode and in the professional manner he’d abandoned only the night before in my apartment when he’d wanted to warn me that this might happen again. To be fair, he wasn’t using any I-told-you-so points, so my admiration for him was not in any way diminished.

  ‘Lieutenant, my client just called me and said someone had tried to kill her at almost exactly the same time this was happening,’ I said. ‘It sounds to me like these were coordinated attacks.’

  ‘Brava, Ms Moss. You have mastered the art of the obvious. Yes. I am aware that Ms Forsythe was assaulted on the street outside her home by a man carrying a knife. Luckily she is uninjured but there are officers on the scene as we speak and they will report to me given that these are, as you have so aptly pointed out, related incidents. The real question remains, who exactly are the people who just opened fire on you?’