The Trials of Nikki Hill (12 page)

She pressed the elevator button.

“Look, my name’s Virgil Sykes,” he said. “I know your name, Nicolette.”

The elevator door opened. Several people got off, including an attractive African-American woman in black jeans and a Day-Glo T-shirt.

Nikki stepped into the elevator.

“Wait,” the man shouted.

“Hi, Virgil, honey,” the woman in black jeans said in greeting.

“Bye, Virgil, honey,” Nikki said as the elevator doors closed.

She arrived at the meeting in Wise’s office to find the head deputy and Detectives Goodman and Morales all looking depressed.

“What’s up, Ray?” she asked. “Your subscription to
Hustler
give out?”

Wise was too down to respond in kind. “The results of Deschamps’s polygraph have come in,” he said. “The news is not good.”

“When did we give him a polygraph?” she asked.

“
We
didn’t give it,” Wise said. “His frigging lawyer requested it.”

“Bleed ’em and plead ’em? A polygraph?”

“Mr. Deschamps has new counsel,” Wise said. “Jesse Fallon.”

Nikki knew the name, of course. Fallon was a legend. “The black Melvin Belli” was how one of her law professors described him. “How in the sweet brown-eyed world did Deschamps get himself an attorney like Jesse Fallon?”

The two detectives looked blank. Wise shrugged. “With all due respect,” he said acidly, “you don’t suppose it could have been the notoriety of the murder coupled with the color of Deschamps’s skin?”

“Fallon’s never been interested in notoriety before,” she said. “He’s made his bones a hundred times over. I heard he was all but retired.”

“What difference does it make?” Wise whined. “The old bastard’s involved and he’s whipping our ass. Let’s move on—to the progress our LAPD associates have been making.”

More bad news. The detectives had just come from interrogating Dorothea Downs, the woman Deschamps claimed to have slept with the night of the murder. His alibi was firming up.

Wise sighed. “Is the woman a whore?” he asked the detectives.

“Whore?” Morales said. “Naw, she’s just a gal who likes the baby’s arm every now and then.”

“She works for a boutique,” Goodman said. “Sells clothes.”

“Don’t take me literally, detectives. I wasn’t asking if she hooked. When she gets on the stand, what will the jury see? Will they see a woman of loose morals who can’t be trusted to tell the truth? Or will they see a nice, upstanding female with whom they can identify?”

“She got dyed hair,” Morales said. “Orange like a Popsicle.”

“Good,” Wise said.

He was asking them more about Dorothea Downs when Walden called, requesting his immediate presence. “The detectives are here. Shall I bring them?”

Evidently the answer was no, because when Wise replaced the phone he said, “Gentlemen, that wraps it up for now. Nikki, he wants us.”

Nikki thought the two cops looked like they’d been given the day off. She wanted to catch them while they were in that mood, so she followed them into the hall. “Detectives,” she called, “could I ask you for a favor?”

They turned to her.

“I went through most of the files today at your office. But I’d like to take a look at your murder books on Madeleine Gray,” she said. “At your convenience, of course.”

Goodman hesitated before replying. Each homicide detective maintains a murder book that is supposed to contain every bit of information that officer has collected and every event in which he or she has participated. Because of the myriad details that go into it, a murder book can in fact be a series of thick volumes. Often, these books are used by superiors to gauge a detective’s effectiveness.

“It’s for my eyes only,” Nikki said. “The district attorney expects me to provide him with an overview of the case against Jamal Deschamps. It’d help if I could get an idea how the investigation has been progressing. All very informal. I won’t be quoting you or anything like that.”

Morales shrugged. “I know you think I’m nuthin’ but a refried asshole, Nikki, but I’m here for you. Anything you need.”

Said without his customary smirk or leer, the sincerity of his reply surprised her and threw her off balance. She felt she should make some gesture to indicate that his friendship was appreciated. But she couldn’t shake the belief that any display of warmth would be misinterpreted. So she offered him a tentative smile and turned to Goodman. “What about you, Ed?” she asked.

“Why not? My life’s an open murder book.”

She thanked them and, spotting Wise heading for Walden’s office, moved off in that direction herself.

S
EVENTEEN

G
oodman was relieved that the D.A. had excluded him and his partner from the meeting with Wise. Walden wasn’t a bad guy, but, as Goodman saw it, the strain of dealing with the hue and cry over Maddie Gray’s murder was taking its toll on the man. He didn’t want to be around when or if the

D.A. blew his stack.

Morales evidently had noticed the change in Walden, too. “Big shot’s not smiling so much these days,” he said as they descended to the parking area. “I never liked the
cabrón.
Right from the start I got him figured as Tom Gleason in blackface.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Goodman said.

“You knew he was Gleason’s boy, right?”

“Yeah. Still, he’d have to go some to be as big an asshole as Gleason.”

“Asshole and a half. Thanks to him we got at least four stone killers walking the streets today,” Morales said as they got into the car. “Crazy Eights.”

“I used to hear those stories,” Goodman said. “Mainly from Jay Barkovich.”

“Sure. Barko and his partner—what was his name, Ruger?—they took every last fuckin’ Crazy Eight off the streets. Had ’em in the lockup. Gleason gives ’em a pass, a slap on the wrist, because some minister swears they was good boys at heart. Good boys! I hope that fucker Gleason is rottin’ in hell with some of those good boys.”

“What’s with your hard-on for the Crazies?” Goodman asked.

Morales paused only briefly before turning on the ignition. “It’s personal,” he said, the finality of his tone ending the discussion.

The two detectives spent most of the afternoon at the scene of a drive-by shooting on the Hollywood Freeway near the Cahuenga Pass. The vic was a male Caucasian, age eighteen, who’d spent some of his childhood in a popular TV series about street life. The bullet had removed the back of his head. He’d been in the slow lane, but it was still a minor miracle that his untended Mercedes-Benz 300SL had avoided collision, merely swerving to the right and nestling against the far side of an exit ramp.

It was a wearying investigation. The freeway, connecting the San Fernando Valley to Hollywood and downtown L.A., was clotted with vehicles nearly every minute of the workday. Surely someone had witnessed the shooting. But had that someone thought to study the killer’s car? To write down the license number? Would they be part of that diminishing number of citizens willing to stand up and be counted?

Photos of the traffic were taken periodically by the highway patrol. With luck they might have caught something useful.

By five-thirty, the detectives had not received their golden phone call and nothing had dropped into their laps except a small vial of cocaine found in the 300SL’s glove compartment. Goodman didn’t mention drugs when he notified the boy’s mother, but he might as well have. She seemed to blame him for her son’s death, pounding him with her tiny fists. He and Morales finally got her to calm down enough to tell them how to reach the boy’s father, who, it turned out, was a barber at one of the Hollywood shops where the term had been replaced by “stylist.” The man fell apart completely and had to be sedated.

Another day on the job.

They arrived at the Academy shortly after seven.

Gwen Harriman was drinking with her partner, a Samoan named Manolo who stayed twenty to thirty pounds beyond the LAPD weight limit except for the periods set aside each year for annual physicals. Judging by his size, that time was far off.

By eight, Morales left to have dinner with his family. An hour later, Manolo departed in search of another few pounds of body fat. He’d tried to convince Gwen and Goodman to join him but they’d both previously gone through the expensive and generally unappetizing experience of dining with the big detective who enjoyed talking with his mouth full.

By ten, Goodman was sorry he hadn’t eaten earlier. The room was spinning. Gwen was bending his ear about a boyfriend who was not treating her right.

“Get
him
on the horn,” Goodman said. “Tell
him
your problems.”

“You’re more understanding,” she said. “Besides, I can’t phone him at home.”

“Married?”

She nodded, then finished her bourbon. “Let’s go to your place.”

“Not tonight,” Goodman said.

“Then let’s have another drink,” she said.

So they did.

E
IGHTEEN

N
ikki’s afternoon had been considerably less active than that of the two homicide detectives. For a half hour she sat in Joe Walden’s office watching in silent amusement as he chewed the ass off Ray Wise for selling him on the Deschamps indictment. Following that entertaining interlude, she returned to her desk to immerse herself once again in the known facts of the case.

She was rereading Goodman and Morales’s initial interview with Deschamps when she became aware of something in her doorway. A brown hand waving a white handkerchief.

“I hope that’s clean,” she said.

A sheepish Virgil Sykes entered the office. “Pressed it myself this morning,” he told her, tucking it back into the top pocket of his suit. “Didn’t want you to shoot me before I could apologize.”

She thought, somewhat begrudgingly, that he wasn’t a bad-looking man when he cleaned himself up. “Who you pretending to be this time, in your nice threads? A Fuller Brush salesman? A defense attorney?”

“Nope. Just a cop who had to give a deposition to one of your associates.”

“Which associate?”

“Dimitra Shaw.”

“The Sutter case?” she asked. It had been at the top of the media slice-and-dice list before the naked body of Maddie Gray refocused their attention. A three-year-old boy had been beaten to death. His adoptive mother, who was being charged with the crime, had declared that the child battered himself to death in a fit of rage.

“The Sutter, yeah,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Listen, you mind if I park for a second?”

She hesitated, then said, “For a second.”

“I’m really sorry about that stunt at the office,” he said, taking a stack of books from a chair and placing them on the floor. “Sometimes I can’t help being an asshole.”

“They have shrinks for problems like that.” She wondered if he was being straight this time or just opting for a subtler put-on.

“Anyways, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I was hoping we could make out like it didn’t happen and start out from the jump again.”

Her bullshit sensors, hair-triggered by past experiences with gangstas, junkies, murderers, and men in general, were on full alert. “What is it you really want, Mr. Styles?”

“It’s Sykes,” he said. “Virgil Sykes.” He broke into a grin. “You remembered my name. That was a put-down, right? You playing the dozens? What comes next, a ‘you so stupid’ rank?”

“I don’t see you as being stupid,” she said.

Their eyes met and held for a moment. She looked away.

“How’s the Gray case going?” he asked. “You keeping Goodman and Morales hoppin’?”

“Not me, exactly,” she said. “I’m just gathering rosebuds for my boss.”

“But you got eyes for doin’ more than that.”

“You my psychic friend?”

“What else? You want Ray Wise’s gig?”

She’d certainly given it a thought. “Why not?”

“Not gonna happen.”

“No?” She could feel herself flushing.

“Course not,” he said. “It’s one thing for Walden to make you his assistant, cause that’s what guys have—women assistants. But how’s that gonna look, if a black D.A. appoints a black honey as his chief deputy?”

She glared at him, anger spreading through her body like fire. “How’s that gonna look?” she repeated incredulously. “Why you smug, jive-a—”

“Gotcha,” he said, chuckling.

She shook her head. “You’re a bad man,” she said, unable to hide her smile.

“Like I’d seriously think it’d be a mistake to replace a bigoted asshole like Wise with an intelligent, dedicated, open-minded prosecutor such as yourself.”

“You don’t know what kind of prosecutor I am.”

“Sure I do,” he said. “I checked out some of your work in Compton. The Gandy trial, Mary Loomis—that was a good one, set fire to her old man—the Dawes boys...”

“You looked up my trials?” She couldn’t believe it.

“I had somebody fax me the salient details.”

“Why?”

“Why you think? I’m interested in you.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I figured it’d give us something to talk about at dinner tonight.”

“Not tonight,” she said.

“But you haven’t heard the program.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’ve got other plans.”

“Big mistake,” he said.

“I’ll try to live with it,” she said.

He stood. “Well, then, I guess I’ll jus’ try to live with your rejection.”

She watched him walk slowly from her office.

A beat later, he was back. “Damn, woman, you let me walk out of your life, jus’ like that?”

“I sorta figured we might be meeting up again,” she said.

“Look,” he said, “we been going around it today, but I really think something might be brewin’ here.”

“My fiancé would be happy to hear that,” she said.

“Fiancé? Aw, shit. Don’t tell me that. The Lord couldn’t be that cruel, to put you in my path twice and then have you be private goods.”

“No,” she said, amused by his terminology. “No fiancé. I’m still
public
goods.”

“Well, now,” he said, straightening, the smile back on his handsome face. “Then there’s the chance we can pursue the idea of gettin’ together?”

“You know where to reach me,” she said.