The next two months are a blur. With so little time to prepare for a major trial, all I can remember are documents, precedents, police reports and witness statements. There was some negotiating with professional expert witnesses about who would be available to testify on what aspects of the case, and there was digging through the prosecution’s discovery statements to try and get a handle on what that jerk Renfro (who actually seemed like a nice guy) might be planning to use to destroy me.
And there was the whole issue of whether or not Robert Reeves had actually melted the cables on the crane holding James Drake aloft or, more to the point, not. I hadn’t completely decided that for my own purposes, but I kept reminding myself that it didn’t matter because I had to provide a defense for Reeves whether he’d done the crime or not.
But on the upside, there were no attempts to kill me, and no particularly spectacular attempts to intimidate me into dropping the case. I guess with time running out, whoever had been doing so had decided there just wasn’t a point anymore. A shame, really, because my client had been doing his best to drive me away but I couldn’t take the bait.
Robert Reeves had been evasive on a good day. On a bad one he was dismissive, insulting, condescending and arrogant, but then arrogant had been the default setting he’d had installed when he was born. So perhaps it was just dismissive, insulting and condescending because the other was sort of reflexive and therefore involuntary with Reeves.
The LAPD had investigated the ‘bombing’ of Patrick’s car and come up with a very large amount of nothing. The man I recognized as one of the two who had abducted Angie and me had been found and questioned, but had an alibi that took him away not only from Pasta Fazool when the car would have been tampered with, but also from OKBurger at the time I was certain I’d seen him there. So let’s just imagine that my belief in his alibi (a girlfriend who said they were at home ‘snuggling’ at the time) was perhaps a tiny bit shaky.
I had, with the help of Jon Irvin, taken statements from Burke Henderson (again), Mrs Stacy Reeves, seventeen members of the Desert Siege crew from prop masters to grips (who apparently were in charge of lighting), and craft services people who essentially put out tables of food.
We had not been able to re-question the alleged Mrs Tracy Reeves, who had suddenly left Los Angeles for her ancestral home in Dayton, Ohio, and was no doubt there incognito because nobody including the Dayton police (or her alleged not-so-much husband) could locate her. Reeves did seem somewhat peeved about that, indicating that he had dropped his lovely sort-of spouse from the company payroll, tax benefits or no.
On the plus side, nobody remembered seeing Patrick there on the day of the accident. And no one could testify (as far as I could tell) to seeing Reeves bend over the cables right before the stunt was attempted.
But on the minus side, nobody had seen anyone else do anything suspicious either. Now, it’s not necessary in court to prove that someone else did the crime of which your client is accused. The onus of proof is on the prosecution, who has to prove he did do it. There’s the whole concept of reasonable doubt and the one about innocent until proven guilty.
The problem is, juries hear all that and think they’re being very cautious about the rules, but when they see someone they think did the crime, they tend to convict that person, and when they decide the defendant is a nice enough human they tend to acquit. In other words, juries are completely and totally unpredictable. The fact that there are mountains of legal rules in place tends to be secondary to whether the defendant takes the stand, and if they seem to be, you know, likable.
Robert Reeves, in my humble estimation and that of virtually everyone who had ever met him (besides Penny) was not likable. Even Penny wouldn’t say he was likable, but refused to offer an opinion even when asked.
The night before the trial was scheduled to begin was, as always for me, a hectic time. Patrick, however, saw it as a time when I should take my eyes away from the paperwork, try to take a break from the tension, and therefore – as had become his completely unrequested custom – he hosted a pre-trial dinner at his house.
Patrick is insane.
The group of us – me, Patrick, Angie, Patrick’s sister Cynthia (in from Vancouver for the evening, because of course …), Nate (looking as uncomfortable as a man can look, but still gawking at Patrick’s massive movie memorabilia collection), Jon and his wife Diane – around a table only slightly less lavish than that set by Henry VIII. I’m guessing. Maybe Charles Laughton overplayed it and Henry just sent out for roast pheasant from a take-out place. The butler Jason was seeing to the service and Luann, the cook, had prepared enough food for a reunion of the championship Dodgers team from whatever year it was recently when the Dodgers won the World Series. A lot of food, I’m saying.
Cynthia seemed especially surprised that Robert Reeves, whom she would have assumed was the guest of honor, was not in attendance. Patrick explained it was because he, Patrick, might be called as a witness – he knew I wasn’t calling him and he wasn’t on Renfro’s list or I would have seen it – because that was better than saying nobody liked the man I was about to start defending and we couldn’t actually be sure he hadn’t intentionally caused a stuntman to die on his set.
Law is a funny business. From the outside.
‘But you’re not going to testify against Sandy,’ Cynthia said. Cynthia has no British accent because she is in fact Patrick’s half-sister and grew up in Pensacola, Florida, after their father had relocated there sans Patrick’s mom and their children. ‘Aren’t there rules against that?’
‘There are rules that say a spouse isn’t obligated to testify against their wife or husband who stands accused and can refuse to do so,’ I explained. ‘There’s nothing that says if you’re dating someone they can’t testify for one side or the other, if an attorney is involved. It might seem a conflict of interest, but in this case Patrick isn’t going to testify either way, I’m pretty sure. He wasn’t there when the incident occurred.’ I looked at Patrick. ‘But just to be safe, that’s all I’m going to say about the case.’
‘There exists a video that shows me there in the park when they were testing the stunt,’ Patrick told Cynthia, despite my trying to communicate how he shouldn’t. A kick under the table used to mean so much more. ‘But I wasn’t there and I can’t figure it out.’
I tried chatting about things other than Robert Reeves and whether he’d killed a man for reasons that didn’t make any sense (that lack of real motive was going to be a key part of my defense, particularly if we ever managed to find Tracy Reeves or whoever she was), like Patrick’s premiere the following week, which got me a wry look from Patrick who was still waiting for an answer to his invitation.
Honestly, I’m never this indecisive about anything. I don’t always make the right decisions, but I always make decisions. And this nagging feeling that committing to the premiere meant I was agreeing to live with Patrick was complicating my mind in ways that were completely unfamiliar. I just didn’t think this way.
Patrick’s previous romantic history was certainly a stumbling block. He was a champion at falling head over heels for someone and pursuing her. But once she responded, he wasn’t great at sustaining the relationship. His marriage to Patsy had been headed for divorce before she was murdered. His most recent engagement, to a real-estate agent named Emily, was official before Patrick could honestly remember the color of his fiancée’s eyes, and broken off after a five-minute conversation with me. And the aftermath of that, for the record, didn’t go great.
He’d asked me to marry him seconds after I realized I was in love with him, and it took months before he’d take no for an answer. If I agreed to take him up on his offer and live in this enormous house, would Patrick immediately decide the hunt had been the fun part and try to find a diplomatic way to move me back into the apartment with Angie? Would Angie be able to keep her job? I didn’t think Patrick would be that petty, but it was certainly a concern.
But yes. The dinner party. Right.
‘It’s going to be a weird affair,’ Patrick was saying about the Desert Siege premiere. ‘I mean, a man died on set, the director is on trial for his murder and I’m in the middle of it. The press will undoubtedly be brutal.’ He looked directly at me. ‘I find myself dreading the red carpet. Does that make sense?’
‘Of course it does,’ said Cynthia. A veteran of films and prestige television, she could weigh in knowledgeably about the need to do difficult promotional tours for films, although as far as I knew, no one had ever died while making one of her movies. ‘I get nervous before one of these things and that’s without someone being murdered while the movie was being made.’ She stopped, looked at Patrick and then at me. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
I assured her there was no need to feel that way. ‘I’m just the lawyer,’ I said. I was thinking of excuses I could use to leave the party early, because my stomach was clenching just thinking about showing up in court the next day. That was an excuse, wasn’t it? I should say that.
‘I get nervous before court every time,’ Jon said. Was he stealing my excuse? I looked at his face. Nah. The man was in earnest. ‘I’m sure Sandy is really nervous, even if it’s clear the evidence against her client is at best circumstantial.’
Nate coughed. It wasn’t because he was sick. Still, he seemed surprised when everyone turned in his direction. He sat back as if being attacked and blinked a couple of times. In a conversation about being nervous, I realized I’d never seen Nate look at all anxious before.
‘Sorry,’ he said, although I’m not sure for what. ‘It’s just that the evidence isn’t all circumstantial.’ He made eye contact with me and I knew where he was going, but the subject was already out on the table. ‘We have video of the accused going after those steel cables with something that might have been a bottle of acid. And if we have it, you can be pretty sure the prosecution is going to have it.’
People like stories about crimes and trials when they’re not directly involved. Cynthia, who had been so traumatized by her accusation and the events that surrounded it that she hadn’t worked for six months, now seemed absolutely enthralled. ‘Really! So your client did kill the stuntman?’ she asked.
‘No, that’s not what it means,’ I told Cynthia. ‘That video could show a lot of things. We don’t know yet.’
A phone buzzed and Angie reached into her jacket pocket to pull out her phone, but the work one Patrick had given her and not her personal line. She looked at the screen and her eyebrows dropped to half-staff. She hit a button and said quietly, ‘Patrick McNabb.’ I knew she wasn’t Patrick McNabb but that was how she answered that phone. She listened for a while. ‘Hold on. I’ll see if I can find him.’
‘Whoever it is, tell them I’m not available,’ Patrick said. ‘The movies can wait.’ He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, which always worked.
‘Apparently there’s someone at the door who wants to see you,’ Angie said.
‘Tell them I’m not home,’ he said. ‘How did they get this address?’
Angie’s face looked pained. ‘It’s Lieutenant Trench,’ she said. ‘I gather he has a subpoena for you.’
Patrick swiveled his head to look at me. I put up my hands. ‘Let him in,’ I said. ‘Looks like you’re going to be a witness.’
Naturally. For Patrick, Trench came himself.