The Trials of Nikki Hill (22 page)

“Anything breaks,” Walden said, “phone me immediately, regardless of the time. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at the two P.M. strategy meeting.”

At that meeting areas of responsibility would be carved out and the lead prosecutors would be announced.

“I’ll be there,” Nikki told him.

F
ORTY

A
t approximately eight-thirty
P.M.
that night, Goodman and Morales and two uniformed officers arrived at the Will-ins mansion in the Palisades with a warrant for the arrest of Dyana Cooper Willins. What they carried specifically was a Ramey warrant that would allow them to go into the home to arrest her, even if permission to enter was withheld. They needn’t have bothered. Neither she, nor her husband, nor their security guards offered any resistance.

Goodman was pleased that they allowed it to progress so uneventfully. As a sign of his gratitude, he exercised his option to bring in his prisoner without the use of handcuffs or shackles of any kind.

F
ORTY-ONE

N
ikki arrived at Parker Center at a little after nine
P.M.

She’d not quite finished her second cup of coffee when Jesse Fallon joined her, looking as kindly and avuncular as Santa Claus. Nikki thought she might have been taken in by his benign appearance if she hadn’t known of his effectiveness in freeing Jamal Deschamps or heard Sue Fells’s vituperative opinion of him. He introduced himself, unnecessarily adding that he was representing Dyana Cooper.

“Some coincidence,” she said, “you representing Jamal Deschamps and Ms. Cooper.” When he replied with an enigmatic smile, she added, “You’re also a friend of a Mr. James Doyle, aren’t you?”

To her gratification, he seemed momentarily at a loss. He rebounded quickly, however. “I know the name, but I would not classify Mr. Doyle as a friend.” Before she could press him further on the subject, he shifted gears and said, “I do wish Ms. Cooper’s arrest could have been handled with more civility.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You didn’t have to humiliate my client by sending police to her home,” he said. “She would have surrendered herself gladly had she known you wanted her.”

Nikki smiled. “Counselor, this is a murder case. We don’t usually provide special treatment for murderers.”

“Ms. Hill, you know as well as I that Dyana is not a murderer.”

“Maybe you should save that oratorical jive for a jury, Mr. Fallon.”

“I don’t try cases, Ms. Hill.” His pale blue eyes radiated such intelligence and perception that she felt he might be reading her mind. “Those vigorous tasks I leave to younger, more aggressive and ambitious attorneys, such as yourself. My role in life is to try and keep people from making serious mistakes. You know what I mean, don’t you? The kind of silly missteps that can destroy a career.”

The man was definitely on the spooky side.

Before he could jump into her head completely, she moved away from him to an empty desk. She remained there, consulting her notes until the detectives arrived with a remarkably composed Dyana Cooper.

Goodman invited Nikki into the room to observe the interrogation. She carried her own metal chair, which she placed in a corner, removed from the scene of the action. She sat there quietly, watching the two detectives do their job and Fallon do his.

“Did you murder Madeleine Gray, Ms. Cooper?” Goodman asked casually.

“No, I did not.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“The evening of her death.”

“At her home?”

“Office. Home. Yes.”

“You were there because...?”

“We’d met at a restaurant—”

“The Ivy, right? When we visited your home, I remember your telling us about that,” Goodman continued. “You said you went with her to buy gloves.”

“Yes. I told you that.”

“But it wasn’t true,” Goodman said.

“No.”

“We know that because we talked with the parking guy at the Ivy. That’s a problem with being famous, Ms. Cooper. People remember every little thing you do.”

“That’s one of the problems,” she said.

“What are some of the others?”

“When Ms. Cooper writes her autobiography, detective,” Fallon said, “we’ll send you an inscribed copy.”

“According to the carhop, all you did was whisper a few words with Madeleine Gray. Why’d you tell us you drove away with her?”

“I...it seemed a simple way of explaining how she got my ring.”

“Okay,” Goodman conceded. “Why don’t we move on to why you happened to be at Madeleine Gray’s home that night.”

“That evening,” Jesse Fallon corrected.

“Yes, that evening,” Goodman said.

“Well, I bumped into Maddie at the restaurant and she said a studio publicist had asked her to interview me about my new film,
Whirligig.
She suggested we meet at her place to go over a few of the topics we’d be discussing.”

“Sort of a rehearsal?”

“Maddie preferred an informal run-through. It seemed like a good idea. Especially since we really didn’t know each other all that well.”

“How
would
you describe your relationship?” Goodman asked.

“We exchanged hellos a few hundred times. I’d go on her show if I had something to promote. I suppose we were acquaintances.”

“That true of your husband, too?”

“I think so. But you’ll have to ask John about that.”

“So you went to her place in the Canyon.”

“Yes.”

“Anyone else there?”

“Just Maddie and me. Which I thought was a little unusual. I was expecting a secretary to take notes, possibly an audio guy to tape our conversation. But it
was
a Sunday.”

“In the past, these kinds of assistants were present?”

“Yes. This was quite different. Maddie had been drinking and she wanted me to drink with her. When I refused, she got upset. Started screaming at me that I thought I was too good to drink with her. Nonsense like that.”

“Any idea what was on her mind?”

“I never found out.”

“Meaning ...?”

“I left.”

“Not even a guess as to what was bugging her? Why she was drinking that day?”

“No idea. As I said, I didn’t know her on a personal level.”

“She mention anything to you about money?” Goodman asked.

Nikki noticed that Dyana Cooper hesitated, her eyes shifting to Jesse Fallon. If a signal passed between them, Nikki missed it.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Dyana Cooper said to Goodman.

“You unnerstan’ money, huh?” Morales asked, entering the discussion. “Cash.”

Dyana Cooper’s mouth twitched, possibly in annoyance.

“There was no reason for Maddie and I to discuss money. I wasn’t being paid to do the interview.”

“What about you paying her to keep her mouth shut?” Morales asked.

“Oh, my,” Fallon said, “where do you people get your fanciful imaginations? If you have no more earthbound questions to put to my client, I suggest we call it a night.”

Goodman ignored the suggestion. “Wasn’t Madeleine Gray blackmailing you, Ms. Cooper?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Was she blackmailing your husband?”

Again Dyana Cooper turned toward Fallon, who replied, “If you would like to pose that question to Mr. Willins, I will try to arrange it.”

“I’d appreciate that, Mr. Fallon.”

“Are we finished here?”

“Not really,” Goodman said. “Ms. Cooper, how did your ring come to be in Madeleine Gray’s possession?”

“When she started getting abusive, I stood to leave and she pushed me back onto the chair. That’s when she saw the ring on my finger. She grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand close to her face so that she could get a better look at it. Then she... yanked it off my finger.”

“You just sat there and let her take your ring?”

“It was so unexpected. I didn’t really comprehend what she was doing until she had it. Then she tried it on and couldn’t get it off.”

“So you struggled over the ring?”

“Yes. But it wouldn’t come off. Maddie went crazy. Yelling. Screaming. She scratched me.” Dyana held out an arm and drew back the sleeve of her blouse to disclose three inch-long parallel healing scratches along her right wrist.

“We’ll need to photograph that,” Goodman said. “And we’d like blood samples.”

Dyana consulted her lawyer, who shook his gray head. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t need permission, detective,” Nikki said. “This isn’t testimonial or communicative evidence. The right against self-incrimination doesn’t apply here.”

“No, Ms. Hill,” Fallon said. “What we have here is a simple Fourth Amendment unreasonable search and seizure issue.”

Nikki shrugged. “All right, so I’ll get a search warrant for the blood,” she said. “Or get a court order at the arraignment.”

“Just want to keep everyone honest,” Fallon said. “Now may I arrange bail for my client?”

“We’re not finished here,” Goodman said. “Ms. Cooper, what happened after Madeleine Gray scratched you? What did you do?”

Dyana looked at her lawyer. This time, Nikki saw him nod. Dyana said, “I ...I panicked a little, I’m afraid. I hit her.”

“Hit her?” Goodman asked. “With your hand?”

“No. With some sort of sculpture that was on the table.”

“Could you describe the sculpture?”

“Round and smooth. Globular.”

“How many times did you hit her?”

“Just once,” Dyana said. “Then I dropped the object and ran out of the house.”

“You sure you didn’t hit her a couple more times?”

“Ms. Cooper answered the question, detective.”

“So you hit her... once... and ran. Was she hurt?”

“She... There was a little blood on her forehead. But she didn’t seem hurt. She chased me along the drive out to the road, cursing the whole time. It was a nightmare. I got into my car and drove away.”

“Your car being the beige Jaguar we impounded?”

“Yes.”

“That was the last you saw of Madeleine Gray?” Dyana nodded.

“Could you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for the tape recorder?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do then?”

Dyana frowned. “I’m sorry. What?”

“After this unpleasant episode with Madeleine Gray, what

did you do? How’d you spend the rest of the evening?”

“I...I drove home. Put something on my scratches and did some relaxation exercises.”

Morales leaned forward and grinned at Goodman. “Some what?” he asked.

“Relaxation exercises. To calm down.”

Still looking at Goodman, Morales said, “I bet your hummin’ sounds a lot better than some I hear.”

Dyana Cooper looked perplexed.

“So you was pretty relaxed after that?” Morales went on.

“Reasonably. Considering what I’d been through.”

“Was yo’ husban’ relaxed, too, when you tole him about it?”

The question prompted another silent communication between client and lawyer.

“No. He was... upset,” Dyana said.

“
He
start hummin’?”

Dyana’s eyes flashed. “No. He tried calling Maddie. No one answered.”

“So you two jus’ sat aroun’ tellin’ each other what a bad girl Maddie was?”

“Where’s this leading, detective?” Fallon asked.

Morales regarded him sleepily. “Jus’ tryin’ to find out how your client spent the rest of the evenin’.”

“Then ask that. It’s getting past all our bedtimes.”

“Aw’right. Ma’am, how’d you and your ole man spen’ the rest of the evenin’?”

“We had dinner at home. I put our little boy to bed. We watched a video and went to bed ourselves.”

Morales wiggled his eyebrows and Nikki expected him to make some comment about the Willinses’ bedtime activity. He fooled her. “So you’re tellin’ us that you were at your home that night between the hours of, say, six P.M. and six A.M. the next morning?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Then how can you explain your car being observed at Madeleine Gray’s home that night?” Goodman asked.

Dyana Cooper looked genuinely puzzled, but she was an actress. “There’s nothing to explain,” she said. “It could not have been my Jaguar.”

“Certainly that must wrap it up, detectives,” Fallon said. “Shall we call it a night?”

Goodman studied the woman, who stared back at him, unblinking. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll be transferring Ms. Cooper to Sybil Brand.” The Sybil Brand Institute was the county jail for women.

Fallon seemed surprised. “Why not work out the bail details here?” he asked.

“Nothing to work out, counselor,” Nikki said. “Ms. Cooper is here on a no-bail warrant.”

The elderly lawyer sighed, again the patient parent addressing an unreasonable child. “Why are you doing this? You know she’s no flight risk.”

“You can hash this out with a judge on Monday morning,” Nikki said. “But your client will be a guest of the county this weekend.”

The look Fallon gave her was almost wistful. “Life would be so simple if only people would cooperate,” he said.

“Who wants a simple life?” Nikki asked.

F
ORTY-TWO

H
ey, you behave yourself,” Nikki instructed the big dog as they both went to answer the door buzzer just before midnight. “This man’s special.”

She assumed Bird had already figured that out. He’d watched with mild curiosity as she spent the last hour cleaning up the house, preparing for Virgil’s arrival. Putting fresh linen on the bed, she thought she saw the dog rolling his eyes.

If he really understood her feelings for the detective, he chose to ignore them. As soon as Virgil entered the house and took Nikki in his arms, the dog burrowed his way between them.

“You wanna go to your room?” Nikki asked him sternly.

Bird ducked his head and backed away, allowing them the pleasure of a full-body press.

“Think he’ll ever get used to me?” Virgil said.

“Sooner than I will, maybe,” Nikki said.

She walked into the kitchen, turned down the lights, and turned on the stereo. Aaron Neville was telling it like it was as she led Virgil past the sliding door to the rear patio. There she’d set up two deck chairs and a metal table that she’d bought at an all-night furniture barn on her way home from the office. A thick Mexican candle shared the table with a bottle of good cognac and two snifters, also recent purchases.