Judgment at Santa Monica

by E. J. Copperman

  ‘Then he told the DA that, based on what he could tell from the physical evidence, Isobel Sanchez had sold the real TeeVee, Pete had twisted the fake one into a weapon, and Penelope had done the stabbing, probably before Pete had made it into the room. Part of this conclusion was reached based on the study Trench had made about Wendy’s character. He deemed it plausible that she’d be upset about not have something to lord over Cynthia and that she would undoubtedly have used slurs and insults when dealing with Penelope.’

  ‘So Penelope killed Wendy.’ Patrick sat back. ‘I thought it was Pete because he was that stupid.’

  ‘Pete is stupid, but he isn’t mean enough to kill someone in cold blood,’ I said. ‘Polygraph tests, which are not admissible in court for good reasons, indicated that Penelope’s story was more plausible than Pete’s. And while there were no fingerprints from either suspect on the TeeVee, because the “important parts” had been wiped before giving it to Cynthia, there were some of Penelope’s in the room and not Pete’s. There was a very partial footprint from Pete’s designer shoes on a piece of Wendy’s smashed cell phone. Brisbane did a truly awful job and is right now being pressured to retire.’

  The rest Patrick knew: Penelope was charged with murder, although only second degree because it was determined that the crime was not premeditated. Pete rolled over hard on his manager/girlfriend/partner-in-crime, and Penelope finally confessed. Patrick knew that, but hadn’t been convinced Penelope was the murderer because … well, because it was a tangle and Patrick likes things neat.

  Cynthia’s divorce from Michael became final six weeks later after her husband abruptly dropped his demands for ownership of their house or any money from her. The fact that he’d lied to Patrick, Nate and the police (!) about texting Cynthia and summoning her to his mother’s house the night she died – because Wendy really did want to extort some money from her daughter-in-law and hoped to use the TeeVee as a hostage – might have had something to do with it.

  So here we were, Cynthia back at her home a free woman, Jon back at the office working on a case of his own, Angie with a rare day off (out buying new clothes to better conform to the Patrick McNabb ‘brand’), Maddie Forsythe off to … it was better not to think about it … and me, standing in the courtroom with my jaw no longer dropped, being ushered out to the hallway by Patrick, who seemed to find the whole thing amusing. Maybe he’d insisted on the recap to get me back to reality, but I was still stunned.

  He led me out through the hallway, where there were no reporters waiting for word on a minor prostitution case. A few heads turned as the TV actor appeared, but people were generally respectful of our privacy once they saw my stunned expression and figured I was currently smelling toast and on the way to the nearest Emergency Room.

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ Patrick said quietly. ‘You just need a minute.’ Of course I knew that, but he wanted to be supportive and I let him do it. I didn’t even flinch at ‘darling’, because he called every woman he knew ‘darling’ or ‘love’. He’d seen too many Cary Grant movies on TV when he was growing up.

  We made it to the elevator and were about to get on for a quick trip to the parking levels.

  And that was when I noticed the man in the denim jacket, reaching into his pocket.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Immediately my complete torpor in reaction to Maddie’s revelation shook loose and I was clear-eyed and activated. No, really.

  My first impulse was to push Patrick out of the way. I knew the guy with the gun wasn’t there for him and I wasn’t about to let another man get shot because he was standing too close to me. Patrick looked astonished, took a step back after I pushed him and said, ‘Sandy!’

  ‘Run!’ I shouted, and endeavored to do exactly that, away from the elevator (I knew I couldn’t go in there) and in the direction opposite Patrick. Four people standing at the elevator doors turned in confusion and stared at me.

  The man in the denim jacket looked at Patrick, then at me, and started walking in my direction. He wasn’t running like I was, he was walking with an accelerated pace. He had the advantage of not wearing heels but I thought this was a bad time to stop and change my shoes.

  The Glendale County Building, where the courthouse is located, is not a huge structure like the courthouse in downtown LA. There weren’t tons of options to consider when looking for an escape route. I chose the least-crowded option I could see, a corridor off the lobby, with the idea that at least other people in the building wouldn’t get shot because of me. Not again.

  I ran (drawing curious looks from other people in business clothing) to the turn and went into the corridor, which seemed to lead to offices for county officials. I’d never been down this way before and really didn’t want to stop to read each nameplate on the doors. I was heading for the EXIT sign at the end, which led to a stairway and – with any luck at all – an alarm. My current dilemma (among a number of others that I had all of a sudden) concerned whether I would climb the stairs after I hit the door, or descend. Which one would be more likely to confuse my pursuer?

  After all those years of trying to get past the tree or the parked car, I finally knew what I’d been running away from my whole life. And I didn’t want it to catch up with me.

  Right now, I could hear Denim Man’s heavier, faster footsteps behind me, and as I ran I anticipated hearing the report of his pistol and then … what?

  If I could just make it to that EXIT sign …

  ‘Hold it!’ I heard from behind me. I wondered if that ever worked for him. Would people just stop so they could be shot more efficiently? I ran faster but I was already noticing my breath coming in gulps. ‘Stop now or he dies!’

  There could only be one ‘he’. And of course the next voice I heard was Patrick’s. ‘Keep running, Sandy! Don’t worry about me!’

  Whose idea was it to make these corridors so freakin’ long?

  But my stomach was clenched and not because I was running hard and wasn’t in Angie-type shape. My stomach was clenched and it wasn’t because I was terrified of being shot, although I was. My stomach was clenched and it wasn’t even because I was enraged that this guy had waited months to come after me again. Where the hell was Judy?

  No, my stomach was clenched because I absolutely couldn’t cope with the idea that Patrick McNabb might die and it would be my fault. Even him telling me I shouldn’t stop was a reason I chose to stop. I was only about fifteen feet from the EXIT sign. The very definition of ‘so near and yet so far.’

  I turned and faced the man in the denim jacket, who was indeed standing just about twenty yards away, a very reasonable distance from which to shoot someone. And he was holding a gun to Patrick’s head, his other arm holding Patrick close to him to use as a shield, as if I might have a weapon on me.

  Now that I thought of it, how did he get a gun into this building? There were metal detectors at the doors and security personnel everywhere except right here where a professional killer (I assumed he was not in it for sport) wanted to shoot me down and then probably kill Patrick out of spite.

  And what scared me was that the thought of Patrick dying was even worse than the realization that I might get killed myself. That was something I’d have to mull over a few nights, if I ever saw the sun go down again.

  ‘How’d you get a gun into the county courthouse?’ I said. I figured if I engaged him in shoptalk, he might forget to do his job and talk with me like a colleague.

  ‘Sandy,’ Patrick said, a catch in his voice. ‘Why didn’t you run?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you anything,’ the gunman said. I was impressed. Back home he would have said, I don’t have to tell you nothing. It was a higher class of assassin here in the big city. ‘I just have to kill you.’ That seemed awfully talky for a guy with a gun. Why hadn’t he shot me already? It would be a bad idea to ask him, right?

  ‘Who hired you?’ I demanded. ‘If I’m going to die, I at least deserve to know who asked for it. Was it the chief of pol
ice?’

  Denim Man looked bemused. ‘The chief of police?’ he said. ‘You think the chief of police needs to hire somebody if he wants you to disappear? He’s got nine thousand cops under his command. If he wants you to go away, you’d be gone already.’ He maneuvered Patrick closer, only ten yards from me.

  ‘Then who?’ Trench had filled me up with the idea that the upper echelons of the police department wanted me dead, and now the guy who’d been trying to kill me for months was saying it wasn’t them? ‘Why do you need to shoot me?’

  Patrick struggled, but he neglected to take into account that all the fights he’d been in on television had been carefully choreographed and planned so that he would win. He tried the classic elbow-in-the-ribs move and Denim Man just pivoted and held onto him. ‘Slow down, buddy,’ he said. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  There was considerable commotion in the lobby behind the gunman and he twitched his head to check. He knew he didn’t have much time and was eyeing the very same EXIT sign I’d been trying to reach. He was already planning his escape for after my lifeless body was lying on the floor. ‘Who hired you?’ I demanded again.

  ‘I don’t get names. It was some woman. She’s mad at you for stealing her fiancé. You shouldn’t mess with other people’s fiancés, lady.’

  I stared at Patrick and he stared at me. ‘Emmie hired you to kill Sandy?’ Patrick said. My face must have had the same mixture of horror and exasperation that his did. All this because I’d told him to slow down his wedding plans?

  ‘I told you, I don’t know names. Now go over there.’ Denim Man spun Patrick around and pushed him toward me. ‘All I know is first I was supposed to kill him and then I was supposed to kill you and now I’m supposed to get both of you. So I get paid double. It’s been nice knowing you.’

  He raised his gun and pointed it at Patrick and I just couldn’t bear the thought or the stupidity of this situation. I fell to my knees.

  That seemed to distract Denim Man as he turned to aim at me (or the perceived motion of me) and found me not where he expected. He fired one shot that clearly went over my head. Then he turned again, and instead of adjusting his aim at me on the floor – the much easier shot since I was practically immobile – he took quick aim at Patrick.

  Behind me there was a sudden ruckus as the stairwell door burst open and there were Philip and Judy, who (as I saw once I lay down and rolled over to look) were both holding automatic weapons on the gunman. ‘Freeze!’ That was Judy. She took her job seriously. She took everything seriously. Judy probably would have taken Woody Woodpecker seriously.

  Stairs work in both directions, I reminded myself. The element of surprise had gotten Judy and Philip to the right place at exactly the right time.

  Denim Man, professional that he was, knew when he was outgunned. He very carefully lowered the gun to the floor, left it there and stood up, hands behind his head. ‘I’m unarmed,’ he said carefully.

  Philip held him and then there was building security there and before I knew it county officers joined them. There was quite the swarm around us. I was amazed Trench didn’t show up, but in my mind he was watching through security cameras suspended from the ceiling that broadcast directly to his cell phone. No doubt Emily Webster, Patrick’s ex-fiancée, was already in custody.

  My main thoughts, however, were on Patrick. I rushed over to him and threw my arms around him. ‘I’m so glad you’re OK,’ I said.

  He sounded amused in my left ear. ‘I have always been. But I was worried about you.’

  ‘That’s because you’re in love with me,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t mock me, darling,’ he said.

  I moved back and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’m not.’ And I kissed him very seriously for as long as I wanted to, which was long. ‘I love you too,’ I said when I came up for air.

  FORTY-SIX

  ‘Ms Moss,’ Lieutenant Trench said, ‘we must stop meeting like this.’

  To say the scene after our latest narrow escape had been frantic would be something of an understatement. Philip held Denim Man’s hands behind him and applied zip strips while being offered no resistance. I was willing to bet Denim Man had been through this ritual more than once before.

  Angie appeared minutes later. I didn’t see when Patrick had texted her (because I knew I hadn’t), but she might have just been hovering over the Glendale County Building waiting for something to happen that required her attention. With Angie anything’s possible. She used to run some Dairy Queens. Now she ran Patrick.

  She was beside herself with unnecessary guilt. ‘The fourth time you get shot at and I wasn’t there for any of them!’ she wailed. To me, I’m pretty sure. Patrick had only been shot at three times.

  ‘I’m glad you weren’t there. You could have gotten shot.’

  Then, as if teleported by Captain Kirk himself, Trench had shown up, without Sergeant Roberts this time. I asked the lieutenant why his shadow was not shadowing him and he said that, as I’d expected, there was the matter of arresting Emily Webster and Roberts was seeing to that.

  ‘You should send a SWAT team,’ I told him seriously. ‘She hired a guy to kill me because I had a conversation with her boyfriend.’

  Denim Man, who was being led away by two uniformed officers, stopped for a moment. ‘At first it was just to kill him,’ he said, nodding his head in Patrick’s direction. ‘Something about forgetting an anniversary.’ He looked straight at Patrick. ‘You’re better off with this one, buddy.’

  ‘I agree,’ Patrick said and Angie, her eyebrows now orbiting her head, opened her mouth. I shook my head and she closed it again but her eyes were full of mischief. It was going to be a long haul.

  ‘Take him,’ Trench said to the officers. ‘And write down anything he says.’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘Emmie. How could I have been so wrong?’

  ‘You don’t have the best history,’ I told him. Then I turned toward Trench. ‘Speaking of being wrong, Lieutenant. You warned me that the upper echelons of your very own department were angry with me and it turned out to be Patrick’s ex-fiancée.’

  ‘I am sure it will come as a surprise to you, Ms Moss, but I am actually not infallible. However, I did not say that anyone in the LAPD would try to kill you because that would be absurd. And they were angry with you about the prostitution case. You persisted far beyond what had been expected.’

  My head was still reeling from that one. ‘Yeah. Maybe beyond what I should have done,’ I said.

  Trench raised an eyebrow. ‘Once the issue of the client book was settled, I’m told the deputy chief was considerably less concerned,’ he said.

  ‘But Maddie kept the book.’

  He nodded. ‘And will continue to keep it. Confidential. As it has been for years.’ He saw to it our statements were taken and then he left, no doubt to go foil the Joker in a plot to contaminate the Los Angeles water supply.

  After a minute it felt weird to be standing around in a corridor of the Glendale County Building so we picked up my briefcase (which an accommodating bystander had brought from where I’d dropped it) and started back toward the elevator that would take us to my venerable Hyundai.

  ‘Sooooooo?’ Angie said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We got shot at,’ I said. ‘Did you miss that part?’

  Angie regarded me with a stern look. ‘You know what I mean.’

  I did know what she meant but for some reason it was embarrassing to discuss. So I said, ‘Later,’ and for some reason thought that would be that.

  Of course it wasn’t. Patrick, who had been grinning broadly ever since I’d embraced him out of relief, stopped walking and looked into my eyes.

  ‘What?’ I said, noting that people were already starting to look.

  He did just what I’d have most wished he would not do. He took my hand and knelt on the incredibly municipal floor.

  ‘Sandra Moss,’ he said. ‘Would you do the honor of becoming my wife?’

&nb
sp; Angie gasped and put her hands to her face.

  I pulled him to his feet and hugged him close to me. ‘Oh Patrick,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Sandy Moss: a lawyer in Los Angeles transplanted from New Jersey

  Angie: Sandy’s best friend from Jersey, who came out to LA to visit and stayed

  Patrick McNabb: Famous TV actor whom Sandy defended successfully in a murder trial

  Detective Lieutenant K.C. Trench: LAPD homicide detective

  Nate Garrigan: An investigator sometimes employed by Sandy’s law firm

  Holiday Wentworth: Sandy’s immediate superior at the firm

  Madelyn Forsythe: Sandy’s client accused of prostitution

  Cynthia Sutton: Sandy’s client accused of killing her mother-in-law

  Wendy Bryan: Cynthia’s late mother-in-law

  Michael Bryan: Cynthia’s soon-to-be-ex-husband and Wendy’s son

  Marcus Valencia: Deputy DA prosecuting Cynthia’s case

  Brian Longabaugh: Deputy DA prosecuting Madelyn’s case

  Judge Coffey: Madelyn’s case

  Judge Hawthorne: Cynthia’s case

  Judge Reinhold: Popular actor in the 1980s and 1990s, not appearing in this book

  Leopold Kolensky: Wendy’s financial consultant

  Pete Conway (Pierre Chirac): Artist associated with Wendy’s gallery

  Penelope Hannigan: Pete’s (Pierre’s) representative

  Jon Irvin: Sandy’s associate and second chair at Cynthia’s trial

  Detective William Brisbane: Detective assigned to Cynthia’s case

  Isobel Sanchez: Wendy Bryan’s housekeeper

  Gail Adams: Expert witness on TeeVee awards

  AUTHOR’S NOTES