Inherit the Shoes

by E. J. Copperman

  ‘Of course you can,’ he answered. ‘I always mean it at the moment I say it.’

  ‘That doesn’t help at all.’

  Patrick sat down again, and looked at me with an expression of absolute admiration. ‘What must we do next?’ he asked, ignoring my remark entirely. ‘Can you check with your sources at the police to see what they have on me?’

  ‘I don’t have sources at the police, Patrick. I’ve only been in Los Angeles for two weeks! Besides, this is not a television show. Lawyers don’t do that stuff themselves. They have investigators who look into and gather the evidence. I do the law, the police and the investigators do the detection. OK?’

  ‘But surely the prosecutor’s office will share their discovery with you? I mean, they have to tell you what the evidence is against me, don’t they?’

  ‘No, Patrick, they’re not going to just hand me all their evidence and tell me where the holes are. They’re going to give me a list of their witnesses and physical evidence, and maybe a little more than that, but they’ll be tickled to death if I don’t know things they know, and they’ll be even more tickled to exploit the difference in our information base if it’ll help put you behind bars. They really believe you killed Patsy, so they’re not terribly interested in finding evidence that doesn’t prove your commission of the crime. That’s our job.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘I see. This is very useful. I’ll have to mention it to our writing staff.’

  My God, he still thinks he’s a lawyer on television!

  ‘Your first concern shouldn’t be your show,’ I suggested slowly. ‘Your first concern has to be this trial. For the next six months or so …’

  ‘Six months! This is going to take six months?’

  ‘At least. It’s not the movies, Patrick. The court system is backed up beyond belief, and we want as much time as we can get to do discovery and plan a defense. So more time is better for us.’

  ‘But I have another two episodes to shoot this year, and we’ll be back at work in August for the next season,’ he said, seemingly thinking out loud. ‘I don’t see how I can be on the set and out finding the real killer at the same time.’

  My jaws were now pressed together so hard I was afraid a tooth might actually shoot up into my nose. ‘You’re not finding the real killer!’ I shouted. ‘You have to let the investigators do their work. You have to answer my questions and do what I say! Do you understand?’

  His smile only broadened. ‘That’s brilliant!’ he said. ‘Can I use it?’

  I put my hands over my eyes and hoped that when I took them away, I’d be back in New Jersey prosecuting a B&E artist for breaking in through someone’s back door and stealing a $75 Blu-ray player. I tried picturing myself alone on a beach, but in my mind’s eye, Patrick kept washing out of the surf and asking if he could watch the way I sat on my blanket to research his character. I breathed in very hard and coughed. When I took my hands off my eyes Patrick was handing me a bottle of water.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I took a large sip and composed myself. I spoke very slowly. ‘Patrick. Please. Try and block out all the other voices in your head and listen only to me. I’m going to explain to you how this will work one … more … time. You can’t go back to work on television while you’re accused of murder. You can’t use anything I do for your character. You can’t go out and search for the real killer. All you can do is answer my questions and follow my instructions. And you must not expect that huge pieces of evidence are going to find their way here from the D.A., or that a surprise witness will appear at the end of trial and exonerate you by breaking down and confessing on the stand. That doesn’t happen in real life. Things that happen on television won’t happen here. There won’t be any car chases, our lives won’t be threatened, and I’m never going to sleep with my client. I can also guarantee you that phone will never ring with a sympathetic policeman on the other end calling to offer some help because he thinks the wrong man is being accused. OK? Never!’

  The phone rang.

  I stared at it, but he didn’t even blink. ‘I’m sorry, Patrick. I told them to hold all my calls,’ I said. ‘It must be awfully important.’

  ‘Not at all. Go ahead.’

  I picked up the phone as if it might explode. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ms Moss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I work in the medical examiner’s office. I have some information you might need.’

  This doesn’t happen, I thought. This doesn’t ever happen.

  ‘Can we meet?’ I asked. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘No. They’ll find out I called you. It’s against policy. Look, they just did the autopsy on Patsy …’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The M.E. found traces of semen in her. Fresh. Like she’d had sex right before she died. There won’t be DNA for weeks, but the blood type matches your client’s.’

  I closed my eyes again. ‘My client?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s why I’m calling. Tell Patrick I’m a big fan.’

  And then he hung up.

  EIGHT

  ‘Of course I had sex with her,’ Patrick said. ‘We always had sex after a big argument – it was always our best sex. I don’t see what the big fuss is about.’

  Riding in my car, Patrick wore a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes and a pair of dark sunglasses to ward off reporters and enthusiastic fans. He insisted on opening the car window despite the admittedly ineffective air conditioner, and seemed disappointed that people weren’t noticing him and asking for autographs.

  ‘That’s what worries me, Patrick,’ I told him. ‘You don’t seem to understand why any of this is a big deal. Your wife is dead. Someone shot her with an arrow, and left enough evidence to convict you seven times over, and you don’t see why it’s relevant that you had sex with her right before she died.’

  We’d decided that, with media requests coming in by the minute and reporters camped outside the door, a conference in the office was going to be impossible. Patrick’s house was decidedly out of the question, so we headed for my apartment, hoping that because I was not yet listed in any local law records, the media might not have uncovered my address yet.

  ‘I don’t have to worry about it,’ Patrick said with great cheer. ‘I have you. You’re …’

  ‘Please don’t say “brilliant” again,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m not brilliant. I’m not even sure I’m any good. You can’t simply rely on me to get you out of trouble. You have to work with me.’

  ‘All right, all right, I won’t say “brilliant” any more,’ he said, although his downturned lower lip betrayed his disappointment. ‘So you tell me: how are we going to find out who killed Patsy?’

  The one thing I’d decided I liked about Los Angeles was the city’s decision to display large signs indicating which street you were approaching. That way, you knew well in advance if this was the street where you needed to turn. Of course, given the traffic, you had plenty of time to study the signage, because it was impossible to drive an entire block in less than fifteen minutes. But one had to find the positive wherever one could. Fixating on the signs was also a good way to avoid strangling Patrick, as I’d already answered his question at least three times previously.

  ‘We’re not going to find out who killed Patsy,’ I finally managed. ‘That’s not our job. We’re going to let the investigator Mr Bach assigns to the case look into it and see if he can find evidence that you didn’t kill her. If he finds evidence that someone else did, he’ll pass it on to the police so they can determine if the evidence is compelling enough to drop the charges against you. Do you understand all that?’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s what I meant.’

  Sure it was. ‘Tell me about Patsy’s career,’ I tried. ‘Why did her income drop so quickly in the past year?’

  Patrick took off his sunglasses and stared at me. ‘You don’t know?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I don’t. And put those glasses back on.’

  Amazingly, he did. ‘Don’
t you ever turn on a TV? A computer? Entertainment Tonight? E!? Even TMZ?’

  ‘Sorry. I like books.’

  Patrick shook his head in astonishment. ‘Books. Really. Well, all right then. Patsy had a big hit with a record when she was only sixteen. Huge. The next Lady Gaga before there was a Lady Gaga.’ He paused. ‘You know who Lady Gaga is?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure. She’s from New Jersey.’

  ‘OK. So Patsy was on top of everything – movie deals, concert tours, more record contracts, the whole works. And for almost a decade, she did very, very well. But starting about five years ago, when she was almost thirty, the record sales started to slip. Lady Gaga became the next Patsy. And she did it better. So Patsy started trying to be a serious singer, you know, like Celine Dion.’

  ‘Serious?’ I said.

  ‘Right. But that didn’t work. So she tried rap, and had a rap album all ready to go. The record company took a listen, heard this Italian woman in her thirties trying to sound like Jay-Z, and cancelled the contract. Just like that.’ Patrick looked at the floor in what appeared to be honest sympathy. ‘Poor kid couldn’t pull herself together after that.’

  ‘You met her when?’

  ‘Right when she was recording the rap album. I knew it was lousy, and told her so, but she wouldn’t listen. I told her to try Vegas, sing the old hits – come back like Rod Stewart and sing standards. She really did have a lovely voice, you know, but Patsy didn’t think I understood show business until Legality came along. I came in during the sixth season of the show when everybody thought it was going to be cancelled. And for some reason people latched onto Arthur Kirkland and I became this big thing. My manager renegotiated my contract and I was making a lot of money. And then, all she knew was that I was doing much better than she was financially, and she resented it.’

  ‘That’s what broke up your marriage?’ I asked as I looked for a left turn lane. In Jersey, we have traffic circles, which everyone but Jerseyans pretend they don’t understand. They make a hell of a lot more sense than these crazy turning lanes.

  ‘That, and the fact she slept with everyone who passed by the front door,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might … DUCK!’ I shouted. The barrel of a shotgun was sticking out the back window of the car to our right, and it was aimed directly at my car.

  ‘Anyone who might duck?’

  I swerved severely into the left turn lane, the only place where there was room for another vehicle, and made the left turn without looking, but with plenty of gas. I felt like my shoe had been nailed through the gas pedal to the floor. I couldn’t move it, and the car was speeding up violently.

  The car with the shotgun, a black Cadillac Escalade, barreled across two lanes of traffic to follow us. Patrick, startled by the sudden turn of events, turned in his seat to see who was after us.

  ‘Get down, now!’ I shouted.

  Then I realized I was driving the wrong way on a one-way street, and suddenly, that required most of my attention. I took the first right turn I could after dodging sixteen angry horn-blowing Angelinos, and the Escalade followed doggedly, the shotgun still extended a few inches out the rear driver’s-side window.

  ‘Where are we?’ I screamed..

  He’d ducked his head under the dashboard. ‘How the hell would I know?’ he asked.

  A shot rang out, and the passenger’s side mirror flew off my Hyundai. My eyes narrowed. You can threaten a Jersey girl’s life and chase her through the streets, but you damage her ride at your own risk.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ I yelled out the back of the car. ‘Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with?’

  ‘Is this the right time to be calling them names?’ Patrick asked from somewhere below me. ‘I mean, mightn’t that get them a tad peeved?’

  We reached … a major boulevard (I was traveling too fast to read the sign, no matter how conveniently located it might be), and I turned left onto it. Luckily, the rest of Los Angeles appeared to have taken another route, because there was just normal traffic here.

  Another shot rang out, and the rear window of my car shattered. I screamed, mostly with rage, and noted that the speedometer had me driving at over eighty miles an hour. That was an interesting statistic, I thought. Really should take the time to analyze it someday soon.

  ‘Raise your head long enough to look at that car and tell me if you recognize it,’ I said to Patrick. He seemed liberated by the idea, and sat up eagerly.

  ‘It’s an Escalade,’ he said. ‘Every fifth person in Southern California has one. The other four have Teslas.’

  ‘Swell. Which way are we going?’

  ‘The wrong way. We’ll hit the ocean soon, and then we’ll be cornered.’

  There was no left turn lane, and the gun was still poised outside the Escalade window. The way I saw it, there was only one way out.

  I had to drive like a Jerseyan.

  Pulling to the far right lane, I noticed the gigantic vehicle pulling up on our left. It was almost close enough for a shot, but on the wrong side. I surveyed the traffic and determined it was just about time to make my move.

  The rear window on the passenger side of the Escalade slid down enough for the barrel of the shotgun to fit, and it was pointed directly at my head.

  I slammed on the brakes, and the Escalade, taken by surprise, passed my Hyundai. As soon as it cleared, I hit the gas and went right, directly onto the sidewalk, barely avoiding a fire hydrant and two miniature dachshunds walked by a six-foot tall woman in a skin-tight exercise outfit. People screamed, but the dog woman kept right on walking and talking on her iPhone.

  I swung a hard left, imagining the traffic circle in my mind, and rolled the car into the far lane, going in the other direction, across five lanes of traffic, before the Escalade could slam on its brakes. It crashed into a palm tree, which did not have very much yield, and stopped.

  My Hyundai, still traveling at top speed, made up a lot of ground in a very big hurry as Patrick, staring out the now non-existent back window, beamed.

  Finally finding a freeway entrance, I pulled onto a northbound lane and exhaled. Never attack a Jersey girl’s car, I thought.

  Patrick, still smiling, sat forward in his seat and regarded me with something approaching adoration.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘We’ve had the phone call from the cop, our lives have been threatened and there’s been a car chase. What was the last item you mentioned?’

  NINE

  ‘What kind of city is this?’ I wailed at Junius Bach. It was bad enough I’d had to tell my boss about the events of the past hour, but now he was standing in my devastated living area, surveying the scene with the air of a man whose servants would have had this mess cleaned up weeks ago. ‘People were shooting at us! In New Jersey, people don’t shoot at you. Not strangers, anyway.’

  Bach looked around the room again, with a slight degree of desperation on his usually placid face. ‘Is there … something on which to sit in this room?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, sure.’ I moved some cartons off the sofa and gestured for Bach to sit down. He managed to do so without actually taking the handkerchief from his pocket and covering the cushion. But it was obvious he’d considered it.

  ‘Now then, Ms Moss, you called me here because you’re upset, and that is certainly understandable,’ Bach said in tones that belonged on a public radio station. ‘But we need to attack this problem rationally. Now, do you know for certain that the car behind you was actually shooting at you?’

  Patrick was staring out the window in the vain hope that someone on the sidewalk many stories below would recognize him. ‘The shattered back window and the side mirror flying off would seem to indicate that, Junius,’ Patrick said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I told him. ‘Someone obviously doesn’t want Patrick or me alive to upset the apple cart of the police investigation into Patsy’s death. If we’re dead, the case is closed and the details never heard in public.’

  ‘That�
�s hardly obvious,’ said Bach. ‘This is Los Angeles. This is the world capital of drive-by shootings. There are any number of reasons it might have happened.’

  Oh my God, I thought, he’s in on it! I knew it was right not to call the cops first! It was a conspiracy! Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Besides, the judge had threatened me with prison if anything untoward happened involving Patrick. That was to be avoided.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Junius,’ said Patrick, coming to my rescue. He walked from the window to the center of the room, dodging boxes along the way. ‘Sandy doesn’t know anyone in this city, and nobody would have expected me to be driving in a car like that. It must be connected to Patsy, all right. It’s the real killers trying to cover their tracks.’

  ‘Of course you’re right,’ Bach said, immediately capitulating. ‘I hadn’t thought it through.’

  I marveled again at how an imperious godhead like Bach could be reduced to sycophant by the presence of a television actor who happened to pay his firm a lot of money on a monthly basis. But in this case, it was working to my favor, so I didn’t let it bother me.

  ‘Mr Bach,’ I began carefully, ‘this case is not going to be simple, and it’s not fair to Mr McNabb that only one attorney in the firm be dedicated to it. He needs a team, a group of the best criminal defense minds in the city, to …’

  ‘Are you saying you can’t handle it?’ Bach immediately looked for weakness he could exploit later, and I was happy to provide him with some.

  Have I ever said anything else? ‘Not alone, by any means,’ I answered. ‘There must be others in the firm with experience in criminal law.’

  ‘Not really, no,’ Bach answered. ‘At least, none who could handle a case of this type. We’d have to bring in someone to act in an of counsel capacity.’

  ‘Other lawyers?’ Patrick’s eyebrows were so low they threatened to meet on his chin. ‘I told you, Junius, I want Sandy on this, and no one else.’

  Oh my God, he was going to blow it for me! ‘Mr McNabb,’ I said, pivoting on my left foot because my right ankle was still angry with me for all the pushing on the gas pedal, ‘no single lawyer can handle a case of this magnitude all by herself. I’ll still be your first chair at the trial, if we get that far.’