The Trials of Nikki Hill (23 page)

Bird watched them suspiciously as they sat down.

“Nice out here,” Virgil said, looking at the flickering lights of Westchester and Venice, and in the far distance, Santa Monica.

“How was the action at Baby Doe’s tonight?” Nikki asked, pouring a few inches of cognac into their glasses.

“Askin’ the wrong man,” he said. “I was at home, just me and the tube.”

She cocked a skeptical eyebrow.

He clicked his glass against hers, then sampled the cognac. “Umm-umm, tasty,” he said. “My hometown music, too.” The Nevilles were singing “Fire on the Bayou.”

“So you were watching television all by yourself on a Friday night?”

“Watchin’ the election.”

“What election?”

“New Miss Universe. Miss Venezuela got my vote, but . . .” He was staring down the hillside. “Are those tombstones down there?”

“It’s a little cemetery,” she said. “Bother you?”

“No. I sorta like it. Kinky,” he said. “Anyway, they threw the contest to Miss Bolivia, who was on the skinny side. Poor Miss Italy—there is nothing skinny about that woman—was right in the middle of her ‘This is such a great opportunity’ speech when they broke in with the news that Dyana Cooper had been arrested. They quoted an unidentified ‘spokesperson for the D.A.’ Wasn’t you, was it?”

She shook her head. “Nope, I had other fish to fry.”

“You there when Goodman and Morales put it to her?” he asked.

“Uh huh.” Before he could push her about that, she asked, “Was there an official announcement?”

“Oh, yeah. The little man was all over the tube at ten,” he said. The little man was Chief of Police Philip Ahern, a diminutive, wiry specimen who, with his pinched face and combed-over hair, usually resembled a stern schoolmaster at the end of his patience.

“How’d it go?” Nikki asked.

Virgil chuckled. “Well, some reporter from the
Times
asked him if the LAPD was on riot alert and Ahern looked like he ate a bug. ‘Who do you suppose will riot?’ he asked the guy. ‘Shareholders at Monitor Records? Members of the Motion Picture Academy?’

“So some woman from Channel Two informs the chief that Dyana Cooper is an icon for all us Af-ri-can-A-mer-icans. And Ahern says he likes Dyana’s movies as much as the next guy, but that doesn’t mean she can operate under a different set of laws than the rest of us.”

“That’s okay, isn’t it?” Nikki asked.

“I suppose. It might have sounded better coming from a black officer.”

“Or my boss, maybe,” she said.

“Yeah. Even him. Anyway, the little man ended up with the comment that as hard as it may be for folks to believe, not all murders are racially motivated. Then somebody wanted to know, if race wasn’t an issue, why does the LAPD keep arresting black people for the crime.”

“Ouch.”

“It ended the chief’s big moment on a definite downer,” he said.

“They’ll probably be repeating his ordeal on
Headline News.
”

“You’re going to watch TV now?” Virgil asked, his fingers tracing a circular pattern on her knee.

“Guess not,” she said, glad she’d had time to throw those Bugs Bunny slippers out with the garbage.

At a little after eight the next morning, she was sitting at the kitchen counter, reading the paper, when the district attorney called. “I thought you told me Dyana Cooper was, in your words, ‘tucked away at Brand,’ ” he said heatedly.

“She is.”

“Really? Then who am I looking at on Channels Two, Three, Four, Seven, and for all I know, every bloody channel on the dial, including cable and the Internet? Find out and get back to me.”

With a sinking feeling, Nikki exchanged the phone for her remote control clicker. In seconds she was watching Dyana Cooper, live and among polite society, on the lawn of her estate. At least twenty media representatives were seated on folding chairs, facing her.

“What’s up, Red?” Virgil asked, entering the kitchen, wearing his slacks and dress shirt from the night before. Bird, who refused to let the detective out of his sight, followed at his heels.

“Dyana Cooper’s got something she wants to tell the world,” Nikki said.

When he sat down beside her, she could smell her rose soap fragrance on his body, mixing with the pungent coffee aroma in the cup he’d just filled. “She’s out already?” he asked.

“Justice is swift,” Nikki said. “Screwed-up. But swift.”

The video camera shifted and they could see John Willins sitting behind his wife, wearing a solemn expression, a sincere dark suit, and with their little boy squirming on his lap.

“Man looks like a ventriloquist with his dummy,” Virgil said.

“. . . Police Chief Ahern graciously says he likes my work on film,” Dyana was saying. “I’m sorry, but I don’t like
his
work. Last night he told the world I am a murderer. We’re supposed to be living in a country where a person is innocent until proven guilty. Chief Ahern doesn’t seem to understand this point of law. Fact is, he and the district attorney are so desperate to respond to the public demand for action they will do anything or say anything to get the pressure off them and onto someone else.”

“Does that include manufacturing evidence?” a young man with glasses asked.

“Tell me it hasn’t happened here before,” Dyana Cooper replied. “Don’t forget, only a few days ago, they were claiming Jamal Deschamps committed the crime, in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.”

“This is really gonna make your boss’s day,” Virgil said.

An intense middle-aged female reporter from Channel Eight asked, “What do you think their purpose is in dragging you into their investigation?”

“I was unlucky enough to have seen Maddie on the day she died. That’s about it.”

“Surely there must be more?” asked a plump black man from Channel Twelve.

“If so, they haven’t told me about it,” Dyana said. “I don’t know what it could possibly be.”

“How about blood? Skin tissue?” Nikki asked. “Fingerprints?”

“Why exactly did you call this conference, Ms. Cooper?” a wiry, longhaired young man asked. “It’s pretty unorthodox. What do you hope to achieve?”

To Nikki’s surprise, a black woman moved quickly behind Dyana’s chair, resting her hands protectively on the performer’s shoulders. The woman’s name appeared suddenly at the bottom of the screen. An unnecessary ID, Nikki thought. Just about the entire viewing audience would recognize the trademark Mohawk hair, large hoop earrings, the brightly colored African dress, and the fiercely determined voice of Anna Marie Dayne. The respected attorney had waged a number of very public and very successful battles against automobile manufacturers and tobacco companies. Her crowning glory, however, had been the freeing of a young black man accused of murdering two FBI agents. She’d convinced the jury that her client had been acting in self-defense. The fact that the jury had been mainly white added to her legend. In less than six years, Dayne had defended three other African-Americans in similarly desperate legal straits and had emerged victorious each time.

“This is perfect,” Nikki said. “It’s not enough for us to have to convince a jury that one of the most beloved performers in the world committed a brutal murder, but we’ll also have to go up against the Joan of Arc of the legal profession.”

“Sister is something, all right,” Virgil said. “That’s some ’do she’s got.”

“Our purpose here today,” Anna Marie Dayne announced, “is to put District Attorney Joseph Walden on notice. Should he heedlessly decide to bring Dyana to trial, we will make sure that every aspect of the process is open to public scrutiny.

“This morning we have informed you of the underhanded attempt to keep Ms. Cooper incarcerated by denying her the privilege of bail. This illogical and mean-spirited act would have placed her in the same perilous situation as that of the equally innocent Jamal Deschamps. Dyana was luckier than Mr. Deschamps: her blood was not spilled within prison walls. Although her reputation and standing in the community have been tarnished, her pride as an African-American who has risen to the top of a profession not overly receptive to members of her race remains gloriously intact.”

“Sister
is
something, all right,” Nikki said. “She makes denial of bail sound like a miscarriage of justice, reminds everybody about the screwup with Deschamps, and ties the whole thing in a ribbon of racial pride. All in less than two minutes.”

On the small screen the reporters lobbed a few puffballs at the actress and her attorney. Dyana closed the show by thanking them for being so generous in spending their Saturday morning with her.

“Right,” Nikki said. “Like their news directors and editors gave ’em a choice.”

She watched Virgil take his cup to the sink and run water over it. Tucking in his shirt, he returned to her side. On the TV, an announcer was suggesting everyone stay tuned for an analysis of the conference.

“Guess this means our do-nothing morning ain’t gonna happen,” Virgil said.

“Guess not,” Nikki said, thinking how lucky it was that he was a detective and understood how the job worked.

He bent down to kiss her on the lips. Bird growled.

“I’ll let myself out,” Virgil said. Then, with Bird dogging the detective to the door to make sure he left the premises, she turned to the TV, where several talking heads were starting to pick apart the Cooper news conference.

None of the “experts” could agree on what Anna Marie Dayne and Dyana Cooper had hoped to achieve by the conference. Those sympathetic to the district attorney’s office saw it as a desperate attempt to hide facts with emotion, though, of course, they had no idea what the facts in the case really were. The others—defense attorneys in the main—applauded Dayne for her audacity in seizing control of the situation even before the district attorney had a chance to arraign her client.

Tiring of their uninformed rhetoric, Nikki clicked off the machine. A memory of the pleasantries of the night before flitted through her mind before being lost to the tasks of the day.

She refilled Bird’s water bowl, then returned to the kitchen counter. Her coffee had turned cold as ice, but she took a sip anyway. She picked up the phone.

She made several calls. The last was to the district attorney.

“How’d she get out?” he asked.

“The desk officer at Sybil Brand said a young lawyer from Jastrum, Park, Wells showed up with an order from Judge Debruccio and a million dollars in cash.”

“Debruccio? That figures. Why the hell weren’t we notified she was out?”

“To quote the duty cop, ‘We don’t usually wake up D.A.s in the middle of the night every time somebody posts bail.’ ”

“Give me his name. I want to thank him personally for his cooperation.”

Nikki identified the officer, then asked, “What’d you think of the Dyana and Anna Marie Show?”

“I’d rather have watched Urkel do his dance,” he replied.

F
ORTY-THREE

E
ddie Goodman spotted Lieutenant Corben’s midnight-blue Chrysler as it turned the corner, heading his way. The blazing noon sun lasered through the haze, frying the back of his neck.

The Chrysler pulled in at the curb, and the passenger door opened, tendrils of cool air greeting him and beckoning him into the car’s icy interior. Corben was wearing a yellow T-shirt with “Lake Arrowhead” sewn on a pocket over his heart. Goodman had never seen the lieutenant in anything but a shirt and tie.

Without a word of welcome, Corben started up the sedan and pulled away. “What’s up?” Goodman asked. “This about Dyana Cooper getting sprung?”

“You know an old broad named Nita Morgan?” Corben asked.

Goodman winced. Nita Morgan. Batgal. “Yeah,” he said. “She was one of Madeleine Gray’s blackmail victims.”

“She says she’s one of
your
blackmail victims.”

“The woman’s a kook. Played a vampire on TV and I think it went to her head.”

“Well, she’s your nightmare now, pal. She’s bringing charges against you.”

“Jesus, maybe it
was
IAD guys at my place.”

“It hasn’t gone to IAD yet. I just got the call this morning. I don’t know who the hell was at your place.”

“What’s happening to me, chief?”

“Fucked if I know. When was it you talked to the Morgan woman?”

“Couple days ago. I can look at my book for the exact day and time.”

“You didn’t phone her last night?”

“Last night I was kinda busy with Dyana Cooper.”

“Around nine-thirty?”

“In interrogation room three.”

Corben seemed to relax.

“She says that’s when I phoned her?”

Corben nodded. “Something about ten grand to keep her name out o’ the ’bloids.”

“Does that sound like me?”

“Hell, Goodman, I don’t know how you spend your off hours.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Here I am, on a Saturday afternoon, putting you wise,” Corben said, “when I could be in Studio City porking my girlfriend and/or watching the ball game. I’d say that’s an indication I’m in your corner.”

“What should I do?”

“Right now? Nothing. If you were in the box with Cooper and her lawyer at the time the Morgan broad says you were calling her, I imagine that’s all IAD’ll wanna know.”

“But somebody’s out there, using my name to blackmail people.”

“Not using your name, exactly. Morgan says the caller didn’t identify himself. She’s sure it was you, because you’d been to see her about her nasty little secret.”

“I bet Morgan’s not the only one on Maddie’s payoff list who’s been getting calls.”

“The only one we know about,” Corben said.

“Maybe I should try phoning some of the other—”

“Christ, Goodman, where’s your sense? The last thing you should be doing is phoning anybody. At least until we got this complaint cleared away.”

“You’re right, lieutenant,” Goodman said. “But if blackmail victims have been approached, somebody must have a copy of Maddie Gray’s special files.”

“Why does that thrill you?”

“Right now we’ve got two possible motives for Gray’s murder. Jealousy and blackmail. I’ve always liked the blackmail angle. Way I see it, after Cooper killed Gray, she broke into the cabinet and took her file. That’s why it’s missing from our set. The new blackmailer may have a complete set of files, including hers.”