The Trials of Nikki Hill (25 page)

He didn’t seem to notice them staring at him expectantly as he replaced the receiver. He lifted the phone again, punched a button and said, “Get me Lieutenant Corben, wherever the hell he is.”

He turned to the others. “That was a reporter. Arthur Lydon, Madeleine Gray’s assistant, has been murdered at his apartment.” He wrinkled his nose. “Not just murdered. Eviscerated. The police discovered the body nearly an hour ago.

They apparently assumed I wouldn’t be interested. I have to

get my information from the media.”

“Some cooperation,” Wise said.

“If the police won’t come to us, we’ll have to go to them,” Walden said. “At least Nikki will. Right now.”

As eager as Nikki was to get in on the action at the crime scene, she couldn’t believe that Walden felt her presence at the trial meeting wasn’t necessary. “Ray can fill me in on whatever I miss here,” she said as she put away her notes.

“I’ll catch you up,” Dimitra said.

“Good idea,” the D.A. said. “Talk to Dimitra.” Stiffening a bit, he added, “She and Ray will be leading the prosecution team.”

Nikki prided herself on her ability to roll with the punches. But this one was a knockout blow. Her shock must have been obvious to everyone in the room.

Walden lowered his eyes and began straightening papers on the table.

“I’ll be down here working with Ray the rest of the day,” Dimitra said sweetly. “Stop by or give me a call.”

“Sure. I’ll do that,” Nikki said, almost choking in her anger. As she turned to leave, she glanced at Ray. He too had developed an overwhelming interest in his papers.

Murder by evisceration,
Nikki thought.
Good! Maybe I’ll pick up some pointers.

F
ORTY-SIX

T
he police were moving in a phalanx across the hillside beneath Arthur Lydon’s apartment building. Nikki assumed they were doing a ground search, but they might have been practicing a choreographic ensemble piece for the Rose Bowl halftime.

The uniformed policeman who stopped her when she attempted to move past the gathering crowd frowned at her ID but allowed her access. As she got on the elevator, two female cops were getting off. One was saying to the other, “Talk about your lousy tummy tucks.” They both laughed. Nikki felt a chill as she pressed the up button.

She was starting down the stairwell toward Lydon’s apartment when she heard, “Hey, Red.”

Virgil was on the second-level open walkway. He and his partner were standing with three young women. Virgil waved, said something to the others, and headed her way.

“What you doing here, honey?” he asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said. “Corben’s got us all on this one. But I’m through now.

Let’s go take a drive.” “I just got here.” “Yeah, I know.” He lowered his voice. “Nothing here I can’t tell you about somewhere else.”

She looked down the hillside, where uniformed police were continuing their slow sweep of the scrub. The body had been covered with yellow plastic. “Okay,” she said.

He turned and waved to his partner. “Later, Roy,” the partner called back. “What’s with the ‘Roy’?” she asked as he led her to the elevator. “Cop stuff,” he said. Looking past his shoulder she did another quick scan of the area.

“I don’t see Goodman or Morales.” “They’re not here,” he said as they got into the empty elevator. “I’ll fill you in.” “You’re acting a little weird, Virgil.” “Not weird,” he said as they began their descent. “Just cautious. The word is out. ‘Cooperation with the district attorney’s office is to be suspended until further notice.’ ”

“Why?”

“You guys leaked the news about Dyana’s arrest. Got to

expect some reciprocity.” “Because of some publicity bullshit you guys are willing

to risk blowing this case?” “Hold it, counselor. You’re playing to the wrong jury.” “Sounds to me like you approve of the order.” “If I did, going off with you now might seem like a real

romantic gesture.” “You’re a devious man,” she said as they left the elevator. “Me?” “King of the crooked answer.” “Untrue. Ask me anything.”

“Where are Goodman and Morales?”

“I imagine they’re in enemy country,” he said.

At that moment, the two detectives were in front of the Willins mansion, where their request to speak with Dyana Cooper was being denied by her lawyer, Anna Marie Dayne. “My client is with her husband and child. She is unavailable.”

“Well, you see,” Goodman said, “there’s been a...development.”

“The murder of Arthur Lydon?”

“Yes.”

“It’s been on the news,” Dayne said. “It has
nothing
to do with Ms. Cooper.”

“A woman resembling Ms. Cooper was seen leaving the crime scene.”

The lawyer’s stance became a shade less combative. “
That
wasn’t on the news.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Goodman said.

“You’re not going to bother her with this. She hasn’t left my sight all day. Not since our press conference this morning.”

“We’d sorta like to hear that from Ms. Cooper. For the record.”

“You’ll have to take my word for it,” Dayne said. She turned to the security guard who stood behind them. “These gentlemen will be leaving now.”

“We’ll get our answers from Ms. Cooper, one way or another,” Goodman said. “That’s our job.”

“Your job,” Dayne said, “is to find criminals and arrest them. I’m helping you with that by saving you time and effort.”

With that, she turned on her heel and went back into the building.

“Detectives?” The security guard gestured toward the road.

As they got into their sedan, Goodman said, “I’m not looking forward to meeting that lady in the courtroom.”

“She’s pretty fierce with that Indian hair,” Morales said. “Nice ass on her, though.”

F
ORTY-SEVEN

I
t was nearly four-thirty when Nikki returned to the eighteenth floor of the Criminal Courts Building to give the district attorney her report on the Lydon murder. Ordinarily, she would have phoned it in, but she’d decided to push the Dimitra Shaw issue.

She relayed the information Virgil had provided, including the eyewitness’s account of a woman resembling Dyana Cooper leaving the building around the time of the murder. She ended with the news that Chief Ahern had instructed the Homicide-Robbery officers to keep the D.A.’s office out of the loop.

“Petty bullshit,” Walden said. “But you seem to have gotten around it.”

“About the Cooper trial,” she said. “You must know I was expecting to be the second chair.”

“Yes. I’ll tell you what I told Ray when he recommended you. You’re more useful in your present capacity as my special assistant.”

So Wise had actually lived up to his end of their bargain.

Too bad. She would have preferred his being the one who pulled the chair out from under her. She couldn’t hate Joe, who’d rescued her from Compton and lifted her out of the deputy pool.

“You’ll still be plugged in to every aspect of the trial,” he said.

“If that’s what you want,” she said.

She wasn’t about to ask Dimitra to fill her in on the rest of the morning’s meeting. Instead, she dropped in on Wise.

The prosecutor was bent over his desk, scribbling something on a yellow pad. He looked up at her and said, “Please, I don’t want to talk about it. I did the best—”

“I know. I just wanted to thank you for trying.”

“Well, we both knew it would be Joe’s ultimate decision.” He refocused on his notepad, obviously uncomfortable with the situation.

She was halfway to the door when he called her name. “You know why Joe picked her, don’t you?”

“He thought she could do a better job.”

He gave her another of his patented disapproving looks. “Still a Girl Scout, aren’t you?” He lowered his voice. “Joe’s fucking her.”

The news shocked her. Maybe she
was
a Girl Scout. “Who told you that?”

“It’s common knowledge.”

Was it true or was this just another of Wise’s sour takes on the way things worked? In either case, she understood his telling her was a sign of friendship, sort of. “Thanks,” she said.

“For what?” he grumbled, his attention back on his yellow pad.

F
ORTY-EIGHT

J
amal Deschamps had a tough decision to make.

At the suggestion of both his doctors and his lawyers, he’d been taking it easy. Hanging out in the hotel room that Mr. Ernest Comb-over Jolley, had booked for him. Not overdoing the pain pills, but popping one every now and then to stay mellow. Catching up on his tube time.

That Saturday afternoon, he’d been watching an eight-ball championship from Vegas, sipping a brew and nibbling on nachos with melted cheese from room service, when the scene on the monitor shifted abruptly. One second Little Lou Lazarro was attempting a double bank shot, the next some dude in a body bag was being carted away from an L.A. hillside.

Jamal shook his head, trying to lose a little of the woozy glow from that last Percodan.
What the hell is that fly girl with the mike saying?

The reporter was passing along the information that Madeleine Gray’s “personal assistant” had been murdered.

She added, with a wince, that Arthur Lydon had been mutilated by a large knife, “possibly a machete.”

The word slipped past the medication, reminding Jamal of something he’d forgotten, something that the cops might like to know.
Screw the blue,
he thought.
They fucked me over. Let ’em suss this one out for themselves.

As the evening wore on and the effects of the Percodan and beer wore off, his conscience began to nibble away at the edges of his attitude. According to the incessant news-breaks, the cops were looking for a woman in connection with Lydon’s murder. The woman’s description matched that of actress and recording star Dyana Cooper, whom the police suspected also murdered Madeleine Gray.

Cops won’t be happy until they put this one on the sister’s scorecard, too. Like she’d take a machete to somebody.

What he knew, or thought he knew, might get the LAPD to lighten up on Dyana. But he was free and clear of it now. He didn’t want to do anything that might mess up the lawsuit. Or put him in the way of that fucking machete.
Sister’s already on the hook for one murder,
Jamal told himself.
One more won’t change matters much.

Still, he couldn’t let go of it.

He phoned the law office of Jastrum, Park, Wells.

The guy on weekend duty seemed annoyed that somebody had disturbed him.
Fucker’s probably busy with his nose in some law book.

“I need to talk to Fallon,” Jamal told him.

“Mr. Fallon will be in the office on Monday morning.”

“I need to talk to him now. Tell him it’s Jamal Deschamps needs to talk to him.”

The man wasn’t too impressed by the name. “I’ll leave word for him.”

Later that night, Ernest Jolley returned his call.

“Your name Fallon?” Jamal demanded.

“Mr. Fallon isn’t available,” Jolley said with a patience that underscored his effectiveness as a mediator. “What do you need?”

“Advice.”

“About what?”

“I got something I want to talk over with the cops.”

“That’s probably not a good idea, Jamal.”

“This is important.” Jamal didn’t want to get too specific, since he didn’t trust Mr. Comb-over any more than he admired his hairstyle. “Something I feel I have to do.”

“At this stage of our negotiation, my suggestion would be to stay as far away from the LAPD as you can. Unless you want to blow the deal. That what you want, Jamal?”

Shit,
Jamal thought as he hung up the phone.
Sorry, sweet Dyana. I love your music, but not two mil worth.

F
ORTY-NINE

A
t the Sunday service at Faithful Central Baptist Missionary, Nikki was having a hard time concentrating on the Doctor Reverend R. L. Johnson’s sermon. Loreen sat to her left, Victoria Allard, the amateur clothier, to her right, both of them apparently hanging on Reverend Johnson’s every word. Nikki’s attention had been drifting—from the unpleasant thought that Joe Walden had probably pushed her aside in favor of his lover to her conflicted feelings over the speed with which her affair with Virgil was progressing. Adding to her general sense of unease was the presence, across the aisle, of her father, William Hill, sitting with his aging baby-doll wife, Patricia, and their tall, awkward daughter, Emily.

Nikki studied the girl. Could someone she barely knew actually be her half sister? The girl was what, eighteen? Damn, they hadn’t said ten words...She paused at the sound of Dyana Cooper’s name.

“. . . this wonderful woman,” Reverend Johnson was saying, “is experiencing for herself the kind of woes the good

Lord uses to test the best of his children. May she have the strength to withstand this persecution.”

Persecution? Was the Reverend, a man she’d always considered to be intelligent and just, staring directly at
her?
She flushed and felt self-conscious. And angry.

Loreen picked up on her tension. She leaned close and whispered, “Chill, girlfriend. Even the Rev can go off track now and then.”

The Reverend wasn’t alone.

After the service, Nikki noticed that several people she’d known since grade school seemed to be avoiding her. She fielded hostile glances from faces she didn’t think she’d ever seen before. Worst of all, Sister Mumphrey descended on her. “You heard the Reverend. What in the world is the matter with you people, Nicolette?”

“What people is that, Sister?” Nikki replied, fighting to remain calm. From the corner of her eye she saw Patricia Hill, nose in the air, hurrying her daughter past them.

“Law people,” Sister was saying. “Police people.”

“I’m not exactly a po—”

“Supposed to be defending us from the evil in the world. Instead you spend your time making life difficult for good folks like Dyana Cooper. A minister’s daughter.”

Nikki’s father was only a few feet away. Tall, graying a little, but as straight-backed and full of pride as always. Staring at her now with a look of...what? Disappointment?
The son of a bitch. What the devil does he want from me?