The Trials of Nikki Hill (26 page)

“African-American woman like yourself,” Sister went on, “in a position of power. You oughta be doing good in this world, ’stead of trying to bring down the righteous. I’m gonna light a candle for you.”

Other churchgoers were starting to gather, curious about the confrontation. Nikki, hemmed in by the big woman, surrounded by her huge breasts, felt the stirrings of panic. Then she heard Loreen whisper, “Sister, would you light a candle for
me?
”

Sister Mumphrey eyed her suspiciously. “I suppose I could.”

“Excellent,” Loreen said. “And when you got it burning real good... you think you could shove it up your big, fat, sanctimonious ass?”

Sister staggered back, shocked, and Nikki, giggling, seized the opportunity to squeeze past her.

“Put me down for one of those candles, too, Sister,” Victoria said.

The three friends linked arms and strolled from the church, giddy as schoolgirls.

F
IFTY

D
o you understand the charges against you, madam?” the supervising criminal court judge, Peter Deal, asked Dyana Cooper Willins.

Sitting in the crowded courtroom on Monday morning, Nikki watched as the singer-actress managed to look both composed and vulnerable, replying, “Yes, your honor.” Anna Marie Dayne was at her side, wearing her trademark hoop earrings and a dress a shade more subdued than at the press conference.

“How do you plead?” Judge Deal asked.

“Not guilty,” Dyana Cooper Willins stated simply and convincingly. The one thing she certainly was not guilty of, Nikki thought, was bad acting. The woman had style and class and strength. Maybe keeping a low profile in this prosecution wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Over the next few weeks, that proved to be even more the case. Thanks to the blood samples, fingerprints, and the eyewitness accounts of the presence of the accused’s automobile at the crime scene at the approximate time of the murder, Judge Samuel Fried at the preliminary hearing found “sufficient cause to believe this defendant guilty.”

After that, the prosecution lost just about every other round.

Instead of the venue requested by Wise, the Van Nuys Branch Court, with its relatively conservative, law-and-order jury pool, the trial would be held at the Criminal Courts Building, the same downtown location where the Simpson case had unfolded. Wise’s argument had been that the Gray home, which the prosecution believed to be the murder scene, was in a district served by the Van Nuys Branch Court. Anna Marie Dayne countered by contesting the claim that the Gray home was the scene of the crime. On the other hand, there was no disagreement as to where Madeleine Gray’s corpse had been discovered.

Another blow to the prosecution was Fried’s selection of Rose Vetters as the judge who would preside over the trial. Vetters, a somewhat eccentric woman in her fifties who wore her pinkish hair in a towering cotton-candy style, had spent years in the district attorney’s office before moving on to the bench. Like some others who have made that segue, she was known to demonstrate her “fairness” by favoring the defense.

Finally, Judge Fried, over Wise’s almost apoplectic objections, allowed the one-million-dollar bail to remain in effect. He did, however, impose a ban on television in the courtroom and public discussion of the case. There would be no more Cooper press conferences.

Of course, there had been no need for spoken communication when Anna Marie Dayne and her client were greeted by the media upon leaving the CCB. Their victorious smiles were worth several thousand words.

F
IFTY-ONE

J
immy Doyle was in hog heaven.

He was comfortably ensconced in a splendid villa in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Boulevard that was rumored to have been one of the locations where a late president of the United States had held secret assignations with a sexy movie star. Assistants and secretaries had been hired. Phone lines and computer terminals had been installed, one of the former connecting directly to the Century City office suite that was being used by his handpicked defense attorney, Anna Marie Dayne.

He had tested that line earlier to suggest that Dayne evoke her client’s right to a speedy trial, which meant that the courtroom battle would begin no more than sixty days after the arraignment. The logic behind the suggestion was that the prosecution would be hard pressed to put their case together that quickly, while the defense, with a nearly unlimited budget, could hire all the legal and administrative expertise necessary.

Another direct connection led to an unidentified office in

downtown L.A. where five of the country’s most experienced spin doctors were providing television and the press with the best-processed news money could buy.

Doyle was in the office he’d established on the villa’s second level testing a special lumbar-friendly chair when a secretary informed him that Mr. Sandoval had arrived.

Peter Sandoval was a veteran private investigator with a colorful history that went way back to an association with the late Howard Hughes. There had not been a major celebrity scandal on the West Coast in the past several decades in which Sandoval had not been involved in some capacity. His energy was as infinite as his scruples were limited.

Moving to French doors that opened on a balcony overlooking the city, he said, “I remember this place. You know who used to fuck right in this room?”

“Not only do I know it,” Doyle told him, “the provenance probably upped the rent by five grand a month. What have you got for me?”

Sandoval pulled a notebook from his coat. “You’ll love this one, Jimmy,” he said. “The prosecutor, Dimitra Shaw? She cut off auntie’s life support.”

“Come again?”

“Her mother was a crack whore and she was raised by her aunt and uncle. This was in Frisco. The old codger croaks when Shaw’s still a kid, but the aunt hangs in till she’s in her teens, then comes down with intestinal cancer. Too far gone for the knife. In terrible pain. So Shaw gets a nurse to look the other way while she pulls the plug.”

“And which part of this story am I supposed to love?” Doyle asked.

“The part about auntie’s life insurance. Fifty gee. Peanuts by today’s standards, but enough, with the house and a few other things, for Shaw to go to law school.”

“No one checked it out?”

“Nope. Written up as death by natural causes. The ‘natural’ death took place in the middle of the night. There was just one nurse at the desk, Shaw’s friend.”

“Nurse get any of the loot?” Doyle asked.

“Nothing in her bank records of the time to even hint at it.”

“How’d you find out about the euthanasia?” Doyle asked.

“You have to know who to ask,” Sandoval replied coyly.

“If I decide to use this, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

“Relax, Jimmy. A member of the cleanup crew was there for the whole show.”

“Signed statement?”

Sandoval unzipped his briefcase and withdrew a sheet of paper, signed and notarized. “Cost us four large,” he said.

“Wisely spent,” Doyle said, reading the paper.

“Rumor floating around that Shaw’s the D.A.’s current honey.”

Doyle thought about that. “What have you got on
him?
”

“Not much. Born in Southern California, some little burg a couple hundred miles inland. Folks died when he was in his teens. Moved in with relatives. Yadda-yadda-yadda. College. Law school. Joined a firm. Then Tom Gleason took him under his wing.”

“Good old Tom,” Doyle said. “The people’s friend. Why do you suppose he decided to act as mentor for Walden?”

“Tom did a lot for the black community.”

“Sure he did,” Doyle said. “It’s a big community, and since the sixties, they’ve been known to vote. Anything more on Walden?”

“Your average unmarried nonhomo. Seems like a pretty straight shooter.”

“What’s that mean? I seem like a straight shooter, too.”

“I get your point,” Sandoval said. “We’ll dig a little deeper. See if we can find some broad to slap him with a Clarence Thomas.”

“Now you’re thinking,” Doyle said. “What about the other prosecutor, Wise?”

“So far, all we know is he’s a first-class prick.”

“Show me a lawyer who isn’t.”

“About the dude who saw the Jag leaving the Gray home, Stephen Palmer?”

“Forget him,” Doyle said. “Dyana’s copped to being there in the afternoon.”

“I like to be thorough,” Sandoval said. “You might find this amusing. The guy’s married, but he smokes the skin cigar. Guess who used to be his bung-buddy?”

“Liberace?”

“Your references are a little moldy,” Sandoval chided. “No. Not Lee. But just as deceased. That blackmailing little fuck, Arthur Lydon.”

Doyle frowned. “I’ve been meaning to ask: you clear on that one?”

Sandoval put up both hands in protest. “Me use a machete? All that blood. Gimme some credit. I just black-bagged his apartment. You said you’d take care of Lydon.”

“I meant I was gonna pay him off,” Doyle said. “Wonder who hacked him?”

“That kind of close work suggests a certain, ah, personal animosity,” Sandoval said. “My guess would be one of his victims. Like the client. You ask her about it?”

Doyle shook his head. “Some things you’re better off not knowing. You don’t suppose this Palmer guy is gonna try to hit us up now, do you?”

Sandoval shrugged. “Only time will tell. But even if his little pal trusted him with the key to the vault, the guy’s gotta realize the mortality rate on that racket.”

“Screw him,” Doyle said. “What about the witness who counts?”

“Young Theodore Maxwell?” He reached into his briefcase and withdrew a videocassette and a glossy photograph.

Doyle took the photo. It was very dark and grainy. “What the hell’s this?” he asked. “I can’t see what the kid’s doing.”

“It’s a bad transfer. The video is clearer. Young Theodore on his first visit to a jab-joint. Sampling a little heroin. Kids today, huh?”

Doyle looked at Sandoval. “You are the best.”

“This is my town, Jimmy. I just let other people use it.” He handed Doyle the tape. “I figure we can play it nice and give the kid the option of changing his story about the Jaguar. Or we can play it nasty and let the lawyer surprise him by asking him during cross-examination if he does drugs. Either way, his word won’t mean shit.”

“I vote nice. No sense ruining the kid’s life if we don’t have to. Drugs! You know, Pete, every day I give the good Lord a little thank-you that I’ve been spared fatherhood.”

“It’s got its up and downs,” Sandoval said. “My daughter gave me nothing but shit for the first twenty years of her life. Now she’s got a big job with the phone company. We get along fine and I got access to any unlisted number I want. For just fifty bucks.”

“Family values,” Doyle said. “How you doin’ on my cop friends?”

“Did you know Goodman was one of the dicks looking into the Lobrano suicide?”

“It took me a while, but I placed the face. He missed the boat on that one.”

Sandoval grinned. “They all missed the boat on that one. Otherwise we might not be here today, plotting more evil.”

“So tell me about Goodman. Tell me he keeps a white sheet in his closet.”

“Wrong closet,” Sandoval said. “I think the guy may even be kosher. I pulled his chart. Married a few times, but no record of abuse or anything like that. Just incompatibility. Kind of an off-duty wild man, though. Shooting off guns at parties.”

“No kidding? I wouldn’t have guessed it. Plug anybody?”

“Naw. Good record as a cop, but at least one fall from grace. There were these sisters, the Jastrups, lived in his building. Hookers working for old Madame Sonya.”

“Sonya,” Doyle said, smiling at a private memory.

“Yeah, well, when they pulled in Sonya and her operation, Goodman somehow kept the Jastrup girls out of it. Then he took up with Edie Jastrup for about a year.”

“How long ago was it they closed down Sonya?” Doyle asked.

“Seven years.”

Doyle looked disappointed. “So seven years ago he helped out a hooker. That’s not exactly the mighty club I was looking for. He been shooting his gun lately?”

“Not that I’ve found. He’s been taking it real easy.”

“Maybe he’s on Prozac,” Doyle said.

“That wasn’t on his medical sheet, but I’ll check.”

“I was just kidding,” Doyle said. “What about the Mexican?”

“Morales? Now there’s a real class act. Used to stick perps headfirst into toilets, until one almost drowned and he was suspended. Sadist. Bully. Loudmouth. Asshole. Those were some of the nice things I heard about him. After his last partner got smoked in some dive, it looked like he was gonna have to go solo, he was so disliked. Then Goodman agreed to put up with his crap.”

“Why’d
Goodman
need a new partner?” Doyle asked.

“The guy he rode with, Aaron Ferran, ate his gun.”

“Why?”

Sandoval shrugged. “Too old. Too lonely. Seen too much of this shitty world.”

“Sounds like you could be describing Goodman, too,” Doyle said. “Check out the Ferran thing. Maybe he was dirty and his conscience did him in. That’d give us some mud to rub on Goodman. Be off with you, now. I got things to attend to.”

“When do I get to meet the lady?” Sandoval asked.

“Dyana?”

“Naw. Showbiz twists I can see any hour of the day. Anna Marie Dayne. When do I get to meet her?”

“Never, if I can help it,” Doyle told him.

“Why?” Sandoval looked more surprised than hurt.

Doyle cocked his head to one side. “Because she operates on a different level, boyo. The suckers and mugs of the world are, in her eyes, the poor and oppressed. She believes in honor and integrity and all that other horseshit. I’m afraid it might confuse her to discover we had a scumbag like you on our team.”

Sandoval wasn’t offended. “What about
you
being on her team?” he asked.

“Me? Every time you pick up a copy of the
L.A. Times,
you don’t see a picture of me pattin’ some celebrity child molester on the back or posin’ with some cop who’s just caved in a black guy’s dome for going five miles over the speed limit. I keep a profile so low not even
Hard Copy
could stumble over it.