Judgment at Santa Monica

by E. J. Copperman

‘My name is Sevda Lakonya.’ The woman being sworn in as a defense witness was in her early thirties and dressed considerably more expensively than I was. And, I noticed, her fingernails were polished and shaped so artistically they almost looked like no one had worked for hours on them.

  Bart the bailiff finished swearing Sevda in and she sat down gracefully. She’d looked like she was traveling inside a cloud since the moment she had arrived in the courtroom. It wasn’t a flashy thing, not like a major Hollywood star entering the room (as I’d seen with Patrick and Cynthia). Sevda clearly was a confident woman and accustomed to being treated as someone with influence. She was, after all, in charge of most of the cuticles in the entertainment industry, I’d discovered when researching her.

  ‘Ms Lakonya,’ I began, ‘are you the manicurist who does the nails of the defendant, Cynthia Sutton?’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean by does,’ Sevda answered. ‘I treat the fingernails and toenails for many very important clients, and Cynthia is one of them.’

  So, yes. ‘Were you at Ms Sutton’s house the night Wendy Bryan died?’

  ‘Yes. We did a mani/pedi and I did some work on her eyebrows.’ Cynthia didn’t look pleased at that last mention; ironically, her eyebrows knotted in the middle.

  ‘What kind of nail polish did you use on her fingernails?’ Might as well start with the stuff Valencia was expecting.

  ‘It’s my own blend,’ Sevda said. ‘I don’t like to give out the formula.’

  ‘Well, I might ask you to do that because it’s important to know how long it would take the polish to be fully and completely dry.’

  ‘I can tell you that,’ Sevda said, waving a hand like we were dishing it after a number of mojitos. ‘That color and sheen would be dry to the touch in ten minutes.’

  ‘Yes, but how long before it would be completely dry all the way to the nail, so that it would not be subject to, say, deterioration if immersed in liquid?’ Why say blood if you don’t have to?

  ‘I mean, if you’re talking about absolutely dry, that would take forty-five minutes to an hour based on the humidity level in the air.’ Sevda, still pleased with herself, smiled at me. I was such a nice peasant.

  ‘What time did you finish the appointment and leave Ms Sutton’s house?’ I asked.

  ‘According to my log it was six fifty-five.’ Clearly Sevda was very thorough. She did not have to think for a moment or consult notes.

  I paced a little and nodded, acknowledging her answer. ‘Now, Officer Crawford has testified that the nine-one-one call came in and he was dispatched at seven thirty-eight. That’s forty-three minutes after you left Ms Sutton’s. If her nails had been drenched in blood’ – there are times you can’t help it – ‘after that amount of time, would the polish have deteriorated, even a little?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have seen anything.’ Sevda was being protective of her work and her reputation.

  ‘No, certainly,’ I agreed, ‘but would it have broken down at all chemically?’

  ‘I imagine so,’ Sevda said. ‘It dries to the touch, but not that completely in that amount of time.’

  ‘So at least traces of it, elements, would have shown up in the medical examiner’s report, wouldn’t you say?’

  Valencia objected out of reflex. ‘The witness is not the medical examiner,’ he noted. As if we didn’t know that.

  ‘Sustained.’ Hawthorne wasn’t going to let Sevda testify to what should have been in the autopsy report. That was fine. The idea had been planted in the jurors’ minds, and it wasn’t the point I most wanted to make anyway.

  ‘Did you also work with the victim, Wendy Bryan?’ I asked Sevda.

  She sat up proudly. ‘Yes, I did Wendy’s nails for the past ten years. In fact, that is how I met Cynthia.’

  Perfect. ‘So you had been to Mrs Bryan’s house many times before.’

  The smile got broader. ‘I couldn’t begin to count,’ Sevda said.

  ‘So, did you get to know the people who worked for Mrs Bryan?’

  ‘Some of them,’ Sevda said. She looked puzzled that I would bring other people into the equation when we could have been talking exclusively about her.

  ‘Do you know Isobel Sanchez?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’ She clearly didn’t want to talk about Isobel Sanchez.

  ‘Did you have occasion to talk to Mrs Sanchez often about the goings-on at Mrs Bryan’s house?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know that I’d say it was often,’ Sevda answered. ‘Maybe once or twice.’

  ‘Don’t be modest,’ I said. ‘I could note that you and Mrs Sanchez were seen by other employees on numerous occasions having detailed conversations. A chauffeur named Otto specifically mentioned that to me when I was talking to him about testifying.’ Otto had not had anything else of any interest to say and had not been working the week Wendy was killed because he was on vacation in Aix-en-Provence, France, leading me to wonder why I’d gone to law school when a driver’s license had clearly been more than enough.

  Sevda’s face colored a little. ‘Isobel and I would talk occasionally,’ she said.

  ‘Did you see Pierre Chirac at the house very often?’

  Apparently considering Pete Conway less of a sensitive subject than Isobel Sanchez, Sevda relaxed a little in the box. ‘I did for a while. He was living there. I came in on him once when Wendy wasn’t even home; he had his own key. Luckily he was fully dressed. But then there was a falling-out of some sort, I was told, and Pierre moved out.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Wendy Bryan?’ I asked Sevda.

  ‘I did her nails the day she died.’ The tear she sniffed away appeared to be authentic. ‘Maybe three or four hours before I went to see Cynthia.’

  ‘When you were at Wendy’s house that day, was Pierre Chirac on the premises?’ I wasn’t sure and was taking a chance but there was some security video from the camera across the street that wasn’t all about Lieutenant Trench, and I’d seen a figure drive up, too far away for a clear view.

  ‘No,’ Sevda said. ‘Not that I saw.’

  Oh. That was not a good surprise. I looked at Cynthia, who shrugged.

  As I turned back toward the witness, Sevda added, ‘But I did see Penelope Hannigan drive up when I was leaving, and that’s just about the same thing.’

  Bingo!

  I thanked Sevda and let Valencia ask her about the particulars of the nail polish for a half-hour, something the jury would surely punish him for later. Then Hawthorne dismissed Sevda and said, ‘Ms Moss?’

  ‘Your Honor, I would like to recall Penelope Hannigan.’

  FORTY-THREE

  ‘Ms Hannigan, you remember that you are under oath?’ Judge Hawthorne asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Penelope said. She was not at all crazy about being back on the stand and she hadn’t even heard Sevda’s testimony. It had taken us the entire lunch break to locate her and bring her back to the courtroom. Luckily Penelope had been nearby, checking on the status of her lawsuit against Wendy Bryan’s estate.

  Hawthorne nodded in my direction and I approached the witness stand. ‘Ms Hannigan, why didn’t you tell us you had been at Wendy Bryan’s house the day she died?’ No sense beating around the bush this time. There was blood in the water. Does that constitute a mixed metaphor?

  ‘I was not asked,’ Penelope answered. That was true enough, but it was also evasive.

  ‘I’m asking now. Were you at Wendy Bryan’s house that day?’

  Penelope’s lips pursed as if she were sucking the juice out of a lemon. ‘Yes.’

  You don’t often get a murmur from the spectators, but there it was. Just like in the movies.

  ‘Why did you go there that day?’ I asked. I knew what she’d say and I knew what was true. It’s good to know both things, especially when they’re not the same.

  ‘I was going to check on the details of Pierre’s show, which was scheduled to open two weeks later,’ Penelope said. ‘There were questions about the placement of certain
works and the prices to be ascribed to others.’

  ‘So you weren’t there to threaten Wendy with a two-hundred-thousand-dollar lawsuit and complain that Pete Conway hadn’t been paid yet?’ I asked.

  Valencia twitched but said nothing. Patrick looked like he was watching the most engrossing movie he’d ever seen. Angie, recognizing the look on my face, was grinning widely. Emily looked bored.

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘Your lawyer Mr Brady’s schedule notes a phone call from you – that he billed you for, by the way – that took place less than two hours before Wendy Bryan died, but you weren’t going there to talk about the lawsuit?’

  Penelope’s eyes flashed daggers – or perhaps bent fake TeeVee awards – at me. ‘No. As I said, I was there to discuss the details of Pierre’s show.’

  I didn’t press the point. ‘In which room of the house did your meeting with Wendy take place?’ I asked.

  ‘I believe it was in the den,’ Penelope said.

  ‘You believe?’

  The scowl. ‘It was in the den.’

  Pete Conway walked through the door into the courtroom just at that moment and Penelope definitely saw him enter. Her eyes widened a bit and she swallowed heavily. She picked up the bottle of water that was left there for her and took a sip. And that was when I knew what to do.

  ‘Did you notice any special decorations in the den, on that day or on any other you might have happened to visit?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’ Penelope was looking past me directly at Pete.

  ‘Say on the shelf over the bar,’ I said. ‘Did you notice any particular object?’

  ‘No. I don’t recall anything special.’

  ‘That is where the statuette that Wendy thought was Cynthia Sutton’s TeeVee award was kept,’ I noted. ‘Wendy’s housekeeper Isobel Sanchez testified it was prominently displayed and couldn’t be missed by anyone who came in.’

  ‘Well, I had been there many times before, and I guess it became one of those things that you see but you don’t notice, you know?’ Penelope’s eyes never left Pete and seemed to be sad, like she was hoping he’d leave, or that she thought she’d never see him again. Or that she was sitting on something sharp. It was hard to tell, except she could have gotten up if she was sitting on something sharp.

  ‘I guess so. Ms Hannigan, was anyone else in the house when you visited Mrs Bryan that day? Or was it early evening?’

  ‘I don’t remember what time it was, but no, there was no one else in the house. Even Isobel the maid wasn’t there.’

  ‘Be careful, Ms Hannigan. What if I could produce security footage, taken from across the street, that showed Mr Conway – that is Mr Chirac – letting you into the house when you arrived?’ I saw Cynthia lean over and ask Jon a question and he shook his head negatively.

  ‘I’d say that footage is not accurate. Pierre was not in the house when I got there.’ Now Pete was looking like something was dawning on him and he looked back at the door as if deciding whether to leave.

  ‘So he arrived later?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. No. He wasn’t there.’

  ‘Make up your mind, Ms Hannigan.’

  Valencia, riding a white horse, rose to defend my witness. ‘Badgering, Your Honor.’

  ‘Ask a question, Ms Moss. Don’t editorialize.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honor. Ms Hannigan, one last time. Was Mr Conway at Wendy Bryan’s house at any time during your visit the day she died?’

  Penelope’s panic-stricken face did not move or change. Later Angie told me she thought that Pete might have nodded at her just a tiny bit, but she said he looked terribly distressed too.

  ‘I think he might have come later,’ she said. ‘I don’t recall exactly.’

  I took a deep breath because this was the big plunge and I wanted to do it right. If I made Penelope worry about Pete, things might go Cynthia’s way. If you know what I mean. ‘Ms Hannigan. The security footage shows no one but you entering Wendy Bryan’s house after four p.m. until Cynthia Sutton arrived at seven thirty-five. But it shows you arriving in a taxi and it never shows you leaving.’

  Having seen the video footage, Detective Brisbane had declared it irrelevant because he said the camera occasionally turned away from a view in which Wendy’s door was visible for ten seconds. I didn’t think a car could drive up, Penelope could leave the house and get in, and it could drive away out of camera range in ten seconds. If I’d told Trench what Brisbane had said, he probably would have pulled out hanks of his own cop-short hair. ‘Now, can you tell me if you were in the house when Wendy Bryan died?’

  ‘No!’ Penelope practically barked the word out. It seemed to escape from her rather than her sending it. ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Then what time did you leave? If you arrived after four and the defendant got there just after seven thirty, what time did you leave Mrs Bryan’s house that day?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember. You’re confusing me.’ Penelope had not expected to testify today, then thought it would be about particulars and now was finding herself placed at the scene of a murder. In all, she was having a rough day. She took another sip of water. She’d have to ask for a bathroom break soon.

  ‘I didn’t intend to confuse you, Ms Hannigan,’ I said. ‘But I’m trying to figure out how, if you were in the house when Wendy Bryan was murdered with a TeeVee award, you didn’t see or hear anything and you don’t remember the award being in the same room as you when you met with the victim. Did Mr Chirac come in at some point to take you out of the room?’ Turn up the heat.

  ‘Pierre … Pierre wasn’t there,’ she insisted. ‘You said there was no footage of him coming into the house.’

  ‘That’s true, but Mr Chirac had a key from the time he’d been living in Mrs Bryan’s house. Where was he living on the day she died, do you know?’

  Penelope sat up straight. ‘He was living with me,’ she said.

  ‘Then why didn’t you go to the house together? Had you and Mr Conway had a falling-out of some sort? Because a neighbor of yours called the police the night before saying she heard raised voices at two in the morning, followed by a slamming door.’

  ‘That might have come from another apartment,’ Penelope said.

  ‘It might have, but it didn’t. The neighbor specified which apartment was generating the noise, and it was yours. So I’ll ask again, Ms Hannigan: why didn’t you and Pete Conway go to Wendy Bryan’s house together?’

  Penelope was red in the face and her neck showed tension. I won’t say the veins were popping but clearly not enough blood was making it to her brain because she forgot to lie. ‘He took his own car! I don’t see what the big deal is about that.’

  In the spectators’ area, Pete Conway put his hand over his eyes.

  ‘So Mr Conway was—’

  ‘Stop calling him that!’ Penelope’s lips were pursed and for a moment I flinched, thinking she might spit at me. ‘His name is Pierre Chirac!’

  ‘Very well. So Mr Chirac was in the house when you arrived?’

  Penelope looked out into the courtroom but Pete wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t shaking his head. She wasn’t getting any instructions. ‘Yes,’ she said in a very small voice. Hawthorne asked her to repeat herself, and she did.

  ‘And neither of you saw or heard the murder take place? Why were you out of the room when Cynthia Sutton arrived?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ We were back to that.

  ‘Your Honor.’ Valencia was on his feet again. He might need a recess to iron the wrinkles out of his pants. ‘I’m not aware of Ms Hannigan being on trial here.’ Again an objection without an objection.

  ‘Let’s try to stick to the case at hand,’ Hawthorne said. Which sort of sustained the non-objection, but not really.

  ‘Certainly,’ I said, like I had a choice. ‘Ms Hannigan, you testified that you didn’t see the TeeVee award in the room when you met with Wendy Bryan. Did you see it at any
other time that day?’

  ‘I don’t think … wait. Yes. I saw it in the center hall which was unusual because that’s not where Wendy had been keeping it. She said she was going to give it back to Cynthia that night.’

  Valencia smiled. Cynthia shook her head.

  ‘Where in the center hall?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where in the center hall was Wendy keeping the TeeVee when you saw it that day?’

  Penelope’s eyes really wanted to pop out of her head and spin around the room a couple of times, but the laws of physics prohibit such things. ‘On a shelf.’

  ‘That is a very distinctively designed room and the jury has seen pictures of it,’ I told Penelope. ‘There are no shelves there large enough to hold an object the size of a TeeVee award. Ms Hannigan, is Mr Chirac a strong man, physically?’

  Stunned by the change in direction, it took Penelope a moment to answer, but she did so quite proudly. ‘Yes, he is,’ she said. ‘It infuses his art, particularly his sculptures.’

  ‘So he could probably bend a metal statue down in the way that the counterfeit TeeVee was bent, would you say?’

  Penelope was shaken but had composed herself again. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Did you know the TeeVee was not real?’ I asked.

  ‘No. How would I have known?’

  ‘Well, you were fairly friendly with Isobel Sanchez, and she knew because she had replaced the real TeeVee, which she sold for three thousand dollars on a dark web site, with the fake one. She has given that statement to the police. She also says she told you about it because she knew you were upset with Mrs Bryan and wanted to let you know she wasn’t paying you because she didn’t have the money, and not because she had lost faith in Mr Chirac’s artwork.’

  ‘I don’t remember her saying anything about the TeeVee,’ Penelope’s mouth said. Her eyes said something along the lines of If I had that TeeVee now I would stab you with it.

  ‘I’d like to get back to the time of the murder,’ I said. Valencia, behind me, made a gesture that was supposed to communicate he was glad we were heading in that direction. I mentally added him to my Christmas card list so I could take him off of it later. ‘According to the medical examiner’s report, the stabbing took place somewhere between six twenty and eight p.m. Since we’ve established that you and Mr Chirac were in the house at that time, can you account for your whereabouts at that time?’