The Trials of Nikki Hill (32 page)

“He called me by name. Said for me to do the right thing about Dyana Cooper.”

“The right thing being what?”

“I don’t know,” Nikki said. But of course, she did. Cooper’s thugs were zeroing in on her. What did they want her to do, throw the trial?

She stood suddenly, feeling the need to be in motion. Virgil caught up with her at the door. “Whoa. Slow down a minute, Red,” he said.

“I want to walk.”

He looked back at the dessert, and she made up her mind that if he paused to put the ice cream into the freezer, it didn’t matter how wonderful he was, she’d leave and never talk to him again.

But he passed that test and together they walked down the steps, around the koi pond, and out of the complex. He had-n’t even bothered to lock his door.

“What’s really going on?” he asked as they strolled along a sidewalk broken by the roots of overhanging trees.

“Nasty games,” she said. She described some of the things that had been happening to her and Ray Wise and the detectives.

“Kid tricks,” he said. “Don’t let it mess you up, Red. You’re stronger than that.”

“The voice warned I could wind up back in Compton.”

“Hell,” he said, trying to be lighthearted. “We all could.”

“It has a special meaning, a special threat.”

“What special meaning?”

Cars passed, but they were alone on the dark sidewalk. She turned to him, looked into his eyes, and could see nothing but concern for her. And love. If she was wrong about that, she was destined to be wrong about everything.

She told him about Mason Durant and the destroyed evidence.

He was silent for a minute and she began to feel she had acted too impulsively. Maybe hers was a secret he, as a police officer, would rather not have shared. Maybe he thought

she was being foolish. Maybe it was enough to bring their

brief romance to an end. Maybe...

“Your caller doesn’t know shit about Durant,” he said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“He was trying to rattle you hard. If he’d known about Durant, he would have used the name, not some vague reference to Compton.”

“Why mention Compton at all?” she asked.

“It’s a matter of record you spent time there,” he said. “What prosecutor in her right mind would want to go back? That was the threat. Nothing else, Red. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she said. “Believe me, I do.”

S
IXTY-FOUR

A
t the end of the long day, Goodman decided he was not going to spend the evening alone, eating from an aluminum plate in front of the TV. He convinced Morales to accompany him to the Academy, their purpose being to drown their troubles. It was a good plan, but it didn’t work. After two solid hours of hard drinking, Morales didn’t seem to have even a buzz on, and while Goodman was about three fingers of Meyer’s Rum shy of baying at the moon, he wasn’t any less troubled than when he was stone sober.

“Wha’ the hell’s going on, Carlos?” he asked, for maybe the fourth time since the booze had hit him.

Morales sipped his Seagram’s and Seven and nodded. “Bad stuff, amigo.”

“Wha’ do we do about it?”

“I got my plan,” Morales said.

“Good. I could use a plan.”

“No, man. It’s
my
plan. You’d just get yo’self killed following
my
plan.”

Gwen Harriman joined them at the crucial moment when one sip more would have sent Goodman either into outer

space or rushing to the men’s head.

“Having fun?” she asked them.

“Define th’ term,” Goodman said. “I am un-fa-m-i-l-i-ar wi’thit.”

“He’s shit-faced,” Morales said.

“Not,” Goodman lied. He was definitely shit-faced. But he
was
coming around. Gwen did that to him.

“You boys sure seem to be having a night for yourselves,” she said, looking at the empty glasses nearly covering the table.

“Eddie wanted to get drunk,” Morales said.

Gwen seemed concerned. “Why the booze, Eddie?”

Goodman tried to focus his bleary eyes on her. “Just toastin’ a few folks. A son’bitch named Doyle. An’ your pal Lattimer.”

She frowned.

“Jack Lattimer?” Morales asked.

“I doe know,” Goodman said. “Izzit Jack, honey?”

“Yeah,” she said, cautiously. “But he’s not my friend. I barely know him.”

“Jack Lattimer,” Morales said. “Vice. I worked with him back in the long ago. He was okay, but he was partnered up with that prick Pete Sandoval.”

“Sandoval?” Goodman was sobering fast, or thought he was. Peter Sandoval, who’d left the LAPD to start his own scumbag detective agency? Hadn’t they been working at opposite ends of someth— Lobrano! A Golden State Savings and Loan VP named Martin Lobrano had blown the whistle on his boss, the bank’s CEO, Leonard Quarles, for supposed securities frauds. Lobrano leaped from the eighteenth floor of his Wilshire apartment building just days before Quarles’s trial.

Goodman had examined the death from every angle with

out finding even a hint of homicide. Sandoval had been working for the lawyers defending the S&L chairman. The detective leaned his head back and said, “I have seen th’ glory.”

“You seen what?” Morales asked.

Goodman waved away the question. He’d just remembered that the evening before leaping into the void, Lobrano had had dinner with a man named James Doyle. That’s why Doyle had seemed so familiar at the Willins house. The Irishman had been almost skinny then, with longer hair, one of twenty or twenty-five people he and his partner had talked to about the suicide. Doyle had felt so bad about “poor Marty.” The son of a bitch! The
son
of a bitch!

He was vaguely aware of Gwen saying something.

“Huh?”

“C’mon, soldier,” she said, taking his arm. “I’m driving you home.”

“Whoa, amigo, this young gal hungers for you. She wants your sorry old ass.”

Goodman allowed them to drag him from the establishment and out to Gwen’s car. “See you tomorrow, amigo,” Morales said. “Harriman, take it easy on this old fart.”

As the old fart lay back on Gwen’s too-soft bed, watching her undress in darkness, he asked, “What’s the deal with Lattimer?”

She paused, stepping out of her slacks, then said, “Nothing.”

“No,” he said, marveling at the way her pale skin reflected the moonlight through the open window. “It’s everything. Tell me about it.”

“I can’t.”

“Does it involve a man named Doyle?”

“I don’t know that name,” she said.

He was silent while she removed her bra, then her panties. The sight of all that lovely youth was revving up his old carcass. Heart beating faster. Breathing getting slightly labored. Exquisite warmth flooded through his whole body, then gathered in his groin. The doctor had told him the blood pressure pills he’d just started taking might cause sexual dysfunction, but his body seemed to be functioning just fine.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t enjoy the moment.

“What the hell kind of mess are you into?” he asked.

“You don’t want to know,” she said. She put on a brave smile and slipped beneath the covers beside him. He felt her press against him, cool hand moving across his chest, down over his stomach.

Her breath tickled his cheek. “I do want to know, honey,” he said. “I want that very much.”

“This is what I want,” she said, covering his mouth with hers.

In the middle of their kiss the phone rang.

She tensed, then started to pull away. He held his arms out, away from her body, surrendering her to do as she chose.

The phone rang three times. Four.

She remained suspended, inches above him, the tips of her breasts barely touching his gray-haired chest. Making her decision, she relaxed and lowered her body atop his. The answering machine took over. The caller left no message.

The questions that had been plaguing Goodman’s mind no longer seemed terribly important.

S
IXTY-FIVE

A
t five
A.M.
on the morning of the trial, Nikki watched Bird lumber toward the wooden stairs, then began her ascent up the giant dune. There was enough light in the charcoal-gray, predawn sky for her to make out the prints of some previous climber who had been kind enough to pack the sand. Concentrating on placing her toes precisely on that person’s footprints, she hoped to be able to zone out, using the time to sift through the jumble of information she’d be needing in court.

Instead, she reflected on Dimitra’s funeral. The gathering had been small. Joe, who’d made the arrangements, had been there, of course. And Ray. Virgil. A few other deputies and clerks. Several men and women she did not know who’d been friends of the deceased. No family. Nikki wondered if her own funeral would be any better attended.

Dimitra had left instructions in her will that she be cremated. But the rather whimsical request that her ashes be scattered over the city from the top of the Criminal Courts Building surprised Nikki. Joe did the honors and they watched the wind add their colleague’s remains to the general pollution of downtown L.A. Then the district attorney reached into his pocket and handed Nikki a bracelet. “She left a will. She wanted most of her things sold off, with the money donated to charity. But she specifically stated that this was for you.”

It was an angular solid gold bracelet. “She wrote that she had it made in Taxco,” Joe told her. “She was sure you wouldn’t have anything like it.”

Nikki blinked away the tears and kept moving up the dune.
Focus, damn it,
she demanded of herself. Near the midway point, her pacing became totally automatic and she began to concentrate on the trial. Their case, though not airtight, was pretty compelling. There was a strong motive. Blood evidence. Fibers from Madeleine Gray’s rug found in Cooper’s car. One witness, a gas station attendant, could place the Jaguar in the vicinity of Maddie’s home at the approximate time of the murder. Another, young Missy Rosten, had seen the car parked at the murder site.

The sky was brightening. Nikki could make out the edge of the dune. Somewhere to her left, Bird stood at attention, watching over her. To her right, another early climber moved past. Nikki’s thighs were burning, calves knotted. Her lungs gasped for air. Just a few more steps and she was over.

Bird trotted to her side.

Shaking out her limbs, waiting for her breath to return to normal, she thought about the ways Cooper’s spin doctors were moving public opinion back in her favor. John Willins had made several public confessions of adultery on various television venues, pleading with audiences to think what they might of him, but to maintain their belief in the innocence of his wonderful wife whom he’d treated so shabbily. At the same time, stories had broken in several leading magazines describing a prosecution team in disarray, scurrying to bolster a disintegrating case against Cooper.

The battle would be won in court, not in the press. Not this time. She gave Bird a comfort pat, then turned to slide back down the face of the dune. She was ready for the trial. Maybe she’d even take another run up this little hill.

Later, on her way to the Criminal Courts Building, she heard the same AM pundits who’d been talking about “Dyana’s dark decision” just days before now commenting on her “nobility” and “innocent demeanor.”
The gods of the airwaves taketh and giveth.

She was just a few blocks from work when the AM station switched to a live report from the CCB’s entrance on Temple Street. A hard-pressed reporter who was being pinballed by the anxious crowd described the “frenetic and frantic atmosphere on this morning of justice.” He asked people why they had come; the obvious answer was repeated over and over, not only by the interview subjects, but by the crowds chanting “Dy-an-uh. Dy-an-uh.”

Well,
Nikki thought,
that’s why I’m here, too.

She could imagine the scene on Temple—a combination circus, soapbox, flea market. And a gauntlet for anyone participating in the main event.

She took the rear entrance to the employee parking lot.

She arrived at her office a little after seven A.M.

Wise was prowling the corridor. He looked terrible. Bags under bloodshot eyes. Hair poorly brushed. Little bits of white paper stuck to his jaw. “Where the hell are the clerks?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Talk to our case manager.”

“She’s got to get on top of things,” Wise said, following Nikki into her office. “We need clerks here by seven every morning. Maybe even earlier.”

“They’ll be here for us,” she said as he dropped onto a chair. “Rough night?”

He rubbed his eyes. “We left here when? About nine?”

“About then.”

“When I got home, the power was off. I should have gone straight to a hotel, but the electric company assured me the problem would be taken care of. ” He rolled his head around his shoulders, prompting a succession of pops and cracks. “Unfortunately, surprise surprise, it turned out that it was not an area problem, but one specific to my domicile and, evidently, I had to be awakened at the ungodly hour of three A.M. to be apprised of that fact.”

“What caused it?”

“They thought some kid in the neighborhood might have stuck a penny in one of my main outlets in the garage and shorted everything out. You and I know that’s bullshit, unless Willins has a kid on the payroll.”

Nikki nodded in sympathy. “Ray, you know you’ve got paper stuck to your face?”

“Oh, crap!” He began brushing at the white flecks. “I’m used to my electric. I shaved down here with a blade and nearly cut my throat.”

There was a noise out in the corridor. A junior clerk with coffee and doughnuts. Wise looked as though he might kiss the young man.

At a quarter to nine, Nikki and her slightly less askew cocounsel descended from the eighteenth floor to the ninth, worked their way past the assorted clerks, lawyers, gofers, members of the news pool, witnesses, guards, and court officials to enter Department 140.

Nikki paused just inside the swinging doors and surveyed the partially carpeted, wood-paneled space that was smaller than the average Bel Air living room. She took in the four rows of spectator seats, filled by reporters, Dyana Cooper’s immediate family, including her errant husband and her minister father, friends, associates of Anna Marie Dayne, and members of their own prosecution team. A handful of court watchers—retirees who were at the building all day, every day, watching trials—were lucky enough to have had their names drawn in the morning lottery.