Inherit the Shoes

by E. J. Copperman

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked again.

  I couldn’t help but smile. I had her. ‘I know that Patrick McNabb didn’t kill Patsy, but I can’t prove it. I think you can help me do that.’

  Evelyn’s eyes shifted back and forth a moment. ‘How?’

  ‘You can get PIOUS to help.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  Miles Carney did not look comfortable in a tie. This, of course, was because he wasn’t comfortable in a tie. But in a town where everyone appeared more able to pretend than most, Carney did not fit the mold. He pulled at his collar as if it were a boa constrictor.

  Sitting in the witness chair, Carney explained his position at the Beverly Hills Bow Club (of Encino) and, after some resistance by Cates, was allowed by the judge to be admitted as an expert witness on the subject of archery.

  He gave his background: an Olympic archer in 1996, a consultant on the Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood as well as The Avengers (teaching programmers how to make Jeremy Renner look like a master archer, even if the arrows were computer-generated), and now, manager of the club where stars came to sharpen their hand–eye coordination and fire arrows at a target that wouldn’t sue or prompt PETA protests.

  ‘Mr Carney, you’ve examined the police photographs taken at the scene of the murder. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And based on those photographs, what can you tell us about the person who shot Patsy DeNunzio?’

  ‘Well, it’s someone who really knows their archery. That was a very straight shot and, assuming that whoever it was meant to hit her in the heart, remarkably accurate.’

  Having questioned Carney before, I knew exactly what to ask. ‘Based on the photos, what, if anything, can you tell us about the distance from which the arrow was shot?’

  ‘I’d have to say it was shot from some distance, maybe twenty or twenty-five meters,’ Carney said.

  ‘And a meter, for those of us who are Americans, is how many feet?’ I got a light chuckle from the jury, which was exactly what I was going for.

  ‘Twenty-five meters would be a little over eighty feet,’ Carney said.

  I put on my puzzled face. ‘How can you tell that from the photos, Mr Carney?’

  ‘Well, it’s based on the angle of the arrow,’ he said. ‘Based on the way the arrow fell into her chest, and how deeply it was imbedded, you can tell it hit her from above. That means it didn’t come straight at her, from a short distance, but on an arc. Either someone fired from a good distance away, or shot her from the ceiling. I think the first possibility is more likely.’

  ‘Indeed. So, could Patrick McNabb have fired that arrow from inside the same room as Patsy? Would he have had room?’ I was watching the jury. One woman nodded her head. That was good.

  ‘Well, it was a very large room, and the ceiling was high enough to manage it, but no. The distance is wrong. The room is sixty by forty-five feet, and that’s just not big enough.’ Carney had forgotten about his collar now, and was concentrating on the questions.

  ‘Any idea where the arrow might have been shot from?’

  ‘It’s hard to know because the body had been moved a little from the point of impact, and she might have spun around or something.’

  ‘From another room? The bedroom, perhaps?’ I wanted to beat Cates to the punch, but leave him enough room to hang himself.

  ‘No, no way,’ Carney said. ‘The doors wouldn’t have allowed that kind of altitude. Maybe from outside the house, from a window or an outside door, if there was one attached to the dining room.’

  ‘So, in your opinion, Patrick McNabb could not have fired that arrow?’ Sell it, Sandy, sell it.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Carney said. OK, not definitive, but pretty good.

  ‘The arrow couldn’t have been shot from only a few feet away, as Ms DeNunzio’s sister suggested?’

  ‘No chance. It’s not physically possible.’ Better.

  ‘Your witness, Mr Cates.’

  If Cates was at all rattled by the testimony, he didn’t show it. ‘Mr Carney, let me see if I have this right. You say the angle of the arrow sticking out of Patsy’s body indicates it was shot from too far away to have come from the same room. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you also said you couldn’t be sure what direction the arrow had come from, because Patsy might have moved around after being shot, or the body might have been moved after she fell. Given all that possible motion, how can you know what angle the arrow was shot from?’

  Thank you, Mr District Attorney.

  ‘Because the arrow was imbedded much too deep in her chest to have moved. The police said Mr McNabb was trying to remove it, and could not move the arrow at all.’ The arrow, in fact, hadn’t been removed until the autopsy.

  Cates didn’t flinch. ‘You also said the arrow might have been shot from a window or door. There are French doors to the dining room, and a number of windows. Do you think those might be the most likely places to shoot from?’

  ‘Probably, but I haven’t been to the house, so I can’t say for sure,’ Carney answered.

  ‘Ah, you haven’t been to the house.’ Cates was trying to raise doubts in the jury, but it wasn’t much to build on. ‘So how do you know Mr McNabb didn’t fire the arrow from the door or window?’

  ‘Mr McNabb said he was in the bedroom and then the dining room. He didn’t leave the house,’ Carney said.

  ‘Well, that is, as you said, based on his own statement. How do we know he didn’t lie about that, and that he went outside to fire the arrow to deflect suspicion?’

  ‘Objection!’

  ‘Overruled. Witness is being asked for his opinion.’

  Cates leaned on the railing and asked again. ‘How do we know it wasn’t Patrick McNabb, Mr Carney?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Carney said, ‘but in my opinion, Patrick isn’t a good enough archer to hit a moving target that small, from that distance, with that force. He’s good, but he’s not that good.’

  ‘But you don’t know, do you?’ Cates was grasping for a straw.

  ‘No,’ Carney said, ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  ‘Your Honor, I’d like to call a rebuttal witness.’

  My head shot up. I’d barely made it into the courtroom on time that morning, and before I could begin, Cates was grandstanding.

  Judge Franklin was no less irritated. ‘This had better go to guilt, Mr Cates.’

  ‘It does, Your Honor. It goes directly to the testimony of Mr Carney yesterday.’

  ‘Objection, Ms Moss?’

  I stood. ‘The prosecution had no expert witness on archery on his list, Your Honor. This seems like sour grapes.’

  ‘It’s not, Judge,’ Cates said. ‘This is relevant.’

  Franklin, his dream of a short trial long since gone, refrained from moaning. ‘All right, but be quick, Mr Cates.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honor. The People call Robin Flynn.’

  So, Evan strikes again. Flynn worked her way to the witness stand. Angie and I both had to fight the urge to trip her.

  She gave her highly impressive credentials to establish her expert status, and then the judge again warned Cates to get to his point quickly.

  ‘Ms Flynn, you read the testimony from Mr Carney, who testified yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Do you agree with it?’

  ‘No,’ Flynn said, unsurprisingly. ‘Having looked at the same photographs, I can’t agree there was that high an angle on this arrow. A truly expert archer probably could have shot it straight from a shorter distance.’

  ‘And how, then, would you account for the angle of the arrow?’ Cates asked.

  ‘Any number of ways. It could have been moved after the fact by a man with very strong hands. And perhaps Ms DeNunzio was bending over when it was fired.’

  ‘Do you think there’s any way to know for sure if that arrow was fired from within the room?’


  ‘I’d have to say no,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Your witness,’ Cates said to me, a smug look on his face.

  I stood and approached my former expert slowly. ‘Ms Flynn, how expert an archer would a person have to be to make the kind of shot you’ve described?’

  ‘How expert?’ Flynn wanted something she could quantify.

  ‘Yes. Would someone, for example, have to be of Olympic caliber? Someone who could qualify in most tournaments? Something like that?’

  Robin Flynn considered the question. ‘Probably, but not definitely. If …’

  ‘That’s the only answer I needed. Thank you, Ms Flynn. Do you know Patrick McNabb?’

  ‘No,’ Flynn said. ‘I’ve seen him on television, but that’s all.’

  ‘So you’ve never seen him shoot an arrow?’

  ‘No.’

  A sudden, frantic thought occurred to me. ‘Ms Flynn, do you belong to the Beverly Hills Bow Club?’

  ‘No,’ Flynn said.

  I breathed an internal sigh of relief. ‘Where do you practice, then?’

  ‘At the Nottingham Club in San Clemente. I live about an hour outside of town.’ No wonder Evan was always late to work – it wasn’t his driving! It was the distance! Wasn’t he using that apartment where he cooked me dinner? Did he borrow it for the night from a friend – or the law firm?

  ‘But that’s only about an hour from Los Angeles?’

  ‘Depending on the traffic, yes.’

  Cates was about to ask about the relevance of my questioning, but I cut him off at the pass. ‘Thank you, Ms Flynn. No further questions.’

  I all but ran back to the defense table and motioned Angie to lean over the railing so I could whisper to her. ‘There’s another archery club in the area,’ I said. ‘Get Garrigan on the phone and tell him we need a membership list right now.’

  Angie nodded, and was gone.

  Walter Franklin, eyebrows raised in an arc, looked down at me. ‘If you’re finished with your conference, Ms Moss …’

  ‘Sorry, Your Honor.’

  ‘Would you like to call another witness?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honor. The defense calls Patrick McNabb.’

  FORTY-SIX

  ‘Things hadn’t been good for quite some time,’ Patrick was saying. ‘A month, maybe a month and a half. Patsy, I knew, was seeing other men.’

  ‘Were you angry?’ I watched the jury from the corner of my eye. The women were enthralled, the men a little wary.

  ‘Well, no man likes to have his wife cheat on him,’ he answered. ‘But I understood we’d gotten married too soon, before we really knew each other, and I think we both fell out of love at the same time. I loved Patsy, but I wasn’t in love with her any more. I think she felt the same about me.’

  ‘Did you do anything about the infidelities?’

  ‘I moved out.’

  ‘There were also some pretty dramatic arguments, weren’t there, Patrick?’ I used only his first name when addressing him, to make him more human to those who’d only seen him on television, or sitting silently in the courtroom.

  ‘Well, when you have two performers in the room, the arguments are going to be pretty dramatic,’ Patrick said, smiling sadly. ‘I’m afraid we did shout a bit.’

  ‘One of those arguments came at the divorce settlement conference.’

  ‘Yes.’ Patrick seemed to want to set the record straight. ‘The famous conference where Patsy threatened to destroy Jimmy’s shoes, and I told her I’d kill her first.’

  ‘So, you admit saying that?’ I was letting Patrick play his part, and he was doing so beautifully. We were becoming a pretty good team.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did. I wish I hadn’t.’ Patrick took a moment to close his eyes, and I couldn’t tell if it was to stop tears from flowing, or to start them.

  ‘Did you mean those words literally?’

  Patrick stared at me as if I’d grown a third ear in the center of my forehead. ‘Good lord, of course not!’ he said. ‘It’s an expression, like “just shoot me,” or “I could just strangle him.” You don’t mean it when you say it. It’s merely a way of saying, “I’m angry.”’

  I chose my next words very carefully. ‘Why were you at your former house the night Patsy was murdered?’

  ‘I was actually going to apologize about that argument,’ he answered. ‘And, to be honest, to see if I could get Patsy to change her mind about the shoes. Plus, I had one other motive for going, but …’

  ‘I’m sorry, Patrick, but you’ll have to say it.’ I hadn’t rehearsed this with him, but he was doing beautifully just the same.

  ‘Well, I knew that, after we had a really loud fight, we’d always … that is, we used to …’

  ‘You would make love?’

  ‘Yes,’ Patrick said, actually blushing – damn, he was good! ‘That’s how we made up.’

  ‘So, at the moment Patsy was killed, just after you’d made love, you were not angry with her?’

  ‘Not at all. I think we’d come to a good place in our relationship, where we could let each other go and still have some affection for each other. We’d agreed that night to a fifty-fifty split in the divorce, which would have allowed her to pay off her debts and start over, and I would keep the movie souvenirs I like to collect. And now, I’m so glad I went there that night, even if I’m convicted of doing something I didn’t do, because at least I know we were friends when she died.’ Patrick covered his eyes with his hand and his head shook a little. It was either a magnificent performance, or the genuine article. Even I couldn’t tell.

  ‘Patrick.’ He didn’t look up. ‘Patrick?’ This time he did. ‘One last question. Did you kill your wife, Esmerelda DeNunzio?’

  Patrick’s answer was a sob, but it was a discernible sob. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I did not.’

  ‘No further questions, Your Honor.’

  The judge nodded at Cates, who stood. He walked to the witness box, and slowly began to clap his hands. Slowly, and with great sarcasm, he applauded.

  ‘That was quite a performance, Mr McNabb.’

  I’d barely taken my seat and immediately rose. ‘Objection. Is there a question there?’

  ‘Sustained. Keep your opinions to yourself, Mr Cates.’

  ‘Certainly, Your Honor. Mr McNabb, you say you always had sex with your wife after a heated argument?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Were these special moments for you?’ Cates seemed to be fishing for something, but I couldn’t tell what.

  ‘Yes, they were. They were very tender moments, and difficult to discuss with others.’

  ‘You seem to be able to do so quite nicely.’

  I wanted to kill Cates. No, sorry – I felt angry toward him. ‘Objection.’

  ‘Sustained. I won’t warn you again, Mr Cates.’

  ‘I understand, Judge. Mr McNabb, how did you feel when you found out your wife was sleeping with your butler?’

  Patrick looked at Cates with as much cool as James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause. ‘Until my attorney informed me of that during this trial, I wasn’t aware of it,’ he said.

  ‘How about when you found out your wife was carrying another man’s baby?’

  ‘I don’t like the way you’re portraying my wife, Mr Cates,’ Patrick said. ‘Our marriage was just about over by then, and I understood she was seeing other men.’

  ‘But you were angry, weren’t you?’

  ‘Objection,’ I protested. ‘Asked and answered.’

  ‘Sustained. Get to a point, Mr Cates.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honor. Mr McNabb, about the shoes, the James Cagney tap shoes – did you steal them from Patsy DeNunzio’s house after she was murdered?’

  Patrick’s eyes flashed fury. So that was what Cates was up to – trying to get Patrick to blow up on the stand and show his anger – and it was working!

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you did intend to steal them, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t consider it stealing,’ P
atrick said, ‘because I owned the shoes to begin with. But I don’t have them now.’

  ‘Because someone beat you to it.’

  ‘Your Honor!’ Maybe I could get the heat off Patrick.

  ‘I’m allowing it, Ms Moss.’ I sat down.

  ‘You didn’t answer the question, Mr McNabb. Did you intend to take the shoes from Patsy’s house?’

  ‘All right, yes. I did intend to take them. I didn’t see where they were doing anyone any good there. But it didn’t matter because they were already gone when I arrived.’ Patrick was controlling himself, but just barely.

  ‘Do you think your wife gave them to one of her other lovers?’ Cates goaded.

  Judge Franklin remained silent. Damn him!

  ‘No.’ Patrick was hanging in there.

  ‘You don’t think so? As a memento for an especially good night? A “special moment?” No?’

  ‘Stop it!’ Patrick shouted. ‘Stop talking about her that way, or …’

  He stopped, but it was too late. ‘Or you’ll what, Mr McNabb? Kill me?’ Cates walked away. ‘No further questions.’

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The judge struck Cates’ final remark from the record, but the damage had been done. I sat in my easy chair, trying to watch television to get my mind off the trial. It wasn’t working – news of Patrick’s testimony, with clips taken from TruTV’s live broadcast, dominated every station’s news teasers. You couldn’t watch a Bachelorette dump somebody without hearing about Patrick McNabb’s outburst on the stand.

  Angie walked in with the pizza we’d decided to buy, and said nothing as she set it down on the coffee table. I turned off the TV, and picked up a slice with onions and peppers.

  ‘Would you believe it?’ said Angie. ‘I actually had to talk them out of putting pineapples on the pizza. Honestly, the people out here …’

  ‘Can you give it a rest, already – the California-bashing?’ I asked, exasperated. ‘It’s different, OK, but I came here to be different, and to have a different life! The people out here are … people. You know? They’re just people.’