“Then, as far as you could tell, Mrs. Pherson did not appear to be despondent?”
“My word, no. Happy as a lark, she was. I’m no ornithologist, but I believe larks are presumed to be happy because they sing a lot. Mrs. Pherson was not singing, of course, it being a hotel lobby. But she might have been singing inside herself, as it were.”
“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Elfinstone. I have no more questions.”
“Are you ready to cross-examine this witness, Mr. Donnelly?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Then go ahead.”
Donnelly exchanged places with Owen at the lectern.
“Mr. Elfinstone, how many years have you been in the hotel business?”
“Over twenty years.”
“During this time have you had any experience with guests checking in and subsequently committing suicide?”
“Alas, yes. Yes, indeed, though we try to keep such things private. People tend to avoid rooms where a tragedy has taken place.”
“In your years of experience have you observed that potential suicides exhibit similar behavioral patterns?”
“No.”
“Some were obviously despondent, were they?”
“Yes.”
“And some quite cheerful?”
“Yes.”
“Did others have a calm, pleasant manner?”
“Oh, yes. Lull before the storm, you know.”
“Are you saying, in other words, that you couldn’t pick out a potential suicide on the basis of appearance and behavior?”
“If we could do that, we would steer them to an establishment run by our competitors.”
Mr. Elfinstone was becoming a hit with the audience, and both he and they would have liked the scene to continue. But Donnelly had no more questions, and the judge told Mr. Elfinstone he could step down.
He stepped down, satisfied that he had done his duty and harmed no one. He didn’t believe in the death penalty.
The testimony of Isaac Stoltze and Angelina Gomez took up the rest of the afternoon.
Stoltze was the bartender on duty when Mrs. Pherson went into the bar and sat down beside Cully King. He was a reluctant, if not a hostile, witness. The payment allotted to him by the state would not cover the loss of a day’s wages and the expense of driving up from San Diego. In addition to the financial aspect, being a witness interfered with his principle and practice of noninvolvement. He minded his own business and did his job well, and if other people had done the same, he wouldn’t be here on this witness stand with people staring at him as if he were the one who’d done something wrong.
The state might as well have saved its money. Stoltze could not positively identify the pictures of Mrs. Pherson or the person of Cully King, didn’t recall what or how much they had to drink or whether they went out of the bar together.
Angelina Gomez was a plump, pretty young woman with a face round as a dumpling and eyes like black grapes. It was her first experience as a witness and her first trip north of Los Angeles. She had driven up from San Diego with Mr. Elfinstone, who assured her that there was nothing to worry about, that all she had to do was tell the truth. His assurances made her more and more nervous. The truth kept wandering in and out of her mind like a lost child, never pausing long enough to be identified.
The strain proved too much for Angelina. She sobbed into Mr. Elfinstone’s handkerchief, drank the coffee he’d brought along in his thermos and used his rearview mirror to reapply her makeup. By the time she reached the courtroom she was composed, and the truth was standing quite still in a corner of her mind.
She told the district attorney she was the housekeeping maid assigned to the south wing of the fourth floor of the Casa Mañana. After guests checked into the hotel, she said, they usually unpacked or partly unpacked, then left their rooms to go down for a walk on the beach or to wander through the tienditas on the ground level. During this time she was expected to make sure everything was tidy, ashtrays washed and soiled towels replaced. Angelina was doing just that when Mrs. Pherson unexpectedly returned to her suite.
“Let’s just pause here for a minute,” Owen said. “Did you enter the room during Mrs. Pherson’s absence?”
“Yes.”
“Had she unpacked?”
“Yes, sir. Everything was hung up in the closet or put away in drawers. She was a tidy lady. All I had to do was replace a couple of towels she had used.”
“The clothes that were hanging in the closet, had they been put there carefully?”
“Oh, yes, just like they were for sale in a store, all zipped and buttoned on their hangers to keep their shape.”
“Just where were you when Mrs. Pherson came back unexpectedly?”
“In the bathroom. I offered to leave and come back later, but she said no, it didn’t matter because she was going right out. So I finished tidying up the bathroom, replacing two towels. I heard her talking to herself in the bedroom. At least I guess it was to herself. There wasn’t anybody else there. It was like when you’re dressed to go out and before you leave, you look in the mirror and say, ‘Hey, looking good.’ ”
The audience appreciated this more than Owen did. He was suspicious of Mexicans anyway, and he wondered if she’d deliberately brought up the business of standing in front of a mirror making approving remarks before leaving the house. Everyone did it, of course. He wasn’t the only one. And he certainly never said, “Hey, looking good.”
“Did she sound happy, Miss Gomez?”
“Oh, yes, real happy, like maybe she’d had a couple of drinks.”
“Did you listen to what she was saying?”
“I had to listen. I was there. You can’t open and close your ears the way you can your eyes.”
“What did you hear?”
“Something like, ‘You always wanted to go to Hawaii, and now you get to go.’ Stuff like that. I didn’t think anything of it. A lot of people would like to go to Hawaii, me included. I never even saw Santa Felicia until this afternoon.”
“Then she seemed to be looking forward to the trip, is that right?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Owen had no further questions, and Donnelly did not cross-examine.
Court was adjourned for the weekend.
On Friday night the two older Owen boys, Chadwick and Jonathan, were allowed to go to a high school football game.
Thatcher, the youngest, knew what was in store for him. He could see the constitutional amendment booklet sticking out of his father’s coat pocket, so he hung around the kitchen as long as possible, even going so far as to help his mother stack the dishes in the dishwasher.
“I feel sick,” he told Vee. “Like I got something serious.”
“Really? What do you suppose it is?”
“Chicken pox.”
“I don’t see any spots.”
“Right here on my arm.”
“That’s your poison oak from last week.”
“Or maybe I got Rocky Mountain spotted fever.”
“That comes from ticks not found around here.”
“Then how about endometriosis?”
“Will you spell that for me?”
Thatcher was as easily trapped as a butterfly. He had picked the word up while eavesdropping on a conversation between two lady teachers, and he’d copied it in the corner of a notebook, thinking it might be useful someday. This was the day. He took a scrap of paper from his pocket and read aloud the carefully printed letters.
“Endo meet me oasis.”
“That sounds serious,” Vee said.
“It is. I think I ought to go to bed and watch TV.”
“I think you think wrong. Your father is waiting for you in the den.”
“But I feel weak and dizzy. Things are floating in front of my eyes.”
“You have no fever, your color is good and you ate two helpings at dinner.”
“But what if I really got that disease? It could be fatal.”