The Trials of Nikki Hill (33 page)

Nikki wiggled her shoulders to shake the stress away. She took a deep breath and headed past the murmuring crowd. She pushed through the double half-door of the bar and followed Wise to their table on the right.

Once seated, she let her eyes wander the short distance to her left where Dayne and her client sat poised and confident. The attorney was wearing a conservative dark blue business suit that somehow complimented her Mowhawk haircut, and her trademark African hoop earrings. The accused was in a simple but elegant dress that might have been a Thiery Mugler. Nikki thought that if the jury were to take a vote that morning, based on just the appearance of the accused and the lawyers, Dyana would be set free and she and Wise would get life without possibility of parole.

Judge Rose Vetters arrived in a cloud of Shalimar that wafted from the bench. “Just what I need,” Wise grumbled. “Dying for another cup of coffee and she gives us perfume.”

It seemed impossible that the judge could hear him, but her head suddenly swiveled in their direction. For the occasion, in addition to the perfume, she’d altered her hair coloring from its usual cotton-candy pink to a silver-blue. She had also eschewed her beehive ’do for a 1950s helmet with flip. Nikki wondered why she hadn’t gone the whole hog and included little barrettes with blue bows. “Morning, your honor,” she said sweetly.

Judge Vetters nodded. In a spirit of fairness, she nodded to the defense table, too. There being no other business, she ordered the clerk to bring in the jury.

Twenty-two men and women, ranging in age from twenty-six to fifty-eight, filed in to occupy the padded executive chairs lined up at the right of the room. Nikki had not been involved in their selection, but she’d spent hours devouring every fact she could about them. For example, the tall black man with the little mustache—one of eight African-American jurors—worked for a shipping company in the Valley. Nikki had taken the trouble to find out that he played blues guitar in a club on weekends and despised the sort of rap music that Willins’s company recorded.

The elderly woman who lived in the Angel’s Flight Apartments with her unmarried daughter, one of six women judging Dyana Cooper’s guilt, must have seemed like a dream juror to Wise and Dimitra. Educated, conservative, white, and apparently unawed by the accused. With minimal digging, Nikki had unearthed the information that she and her daughter had been deserted years ago by her husband, an experience that could very easily lead her to identify with the similarly mistreated Dyana.

So many expressionless faces, trying desperately to keep so many agendas hidden.

Judge Vetters suddenly rapped her gavel. The room quieted. Wise mumbled, “Magic time,” not quite under his breath.

Nikki turned to him, surprised by this bit of whimsy. What she saw surprised her even more. He was sitting straight in his chair, alert and, if not exactly dynamic looking, close enough. The man who’d been moaning about lack of sleep and the absence of clerks only a short time before now seemed to have been replaced by an eager, self-possessed attorney. She’d seen so much of the unimpressive office version of Ray Wise she’d forgotten the man’s success record in the courtroom.

The judge did her introduction, added a few original flourishes in presenting her admonitions, and turned the floor over to the prosecution.

Wise stood and, emphasizing his limp, moved from the table to present the twelve jurors and ten alternates a warm, sincere smile that was quite unlike anything Nikki had ever seen grace the man’s face before. Evidently pleased by several returned smiles, he launched into Los Angeles County’s case against Dyana C. Willins.

He began by describing the actress-singer’s earlier visit to Madeleine Gray’s home on the afternoon of the murder, where “a fight broke out, in the course of which, Ms. Will-ins has admitted, she picked up a nine-pound oval sculpture and smashed it against the skull of Madeleine Gray, drawing blood.

“These are not speculations open to dispute. They are facts as described by Ms. Willins to detectives assigned to the murder. It is also a fact that the blow, though powerful, did not kill Ms. Gray. At least not immediately.

“The coroner will tell you that Madeleine Gray died at sometime between the hours of eight P.M. and eleven P.M. that night, of damage to the skull. The wounds and contusions on her lifeless body offered glaring testimony to the brutality of her attacker. Her murderer was apparently so enraged at Ms. Gray that a beating and murder were not enough. The body was wrapped in a carpet, dragged from the Gray home, and transported all the way to downtown Los Angeles, to a grimy alley off Dalton Street, where it was thrown like so much refuse into a garbage receptacle.

“We will prove unequivocally that Dyana Willins’s very distinctive car was at Madeleine Gray’s home at the approxidence indicating that this same car was used to transport Ms. Gray’s body.

“The defense will be calling many people who will tell you that Ms. Willins is a wonderful woman who couldn’t have committed this horrible crime. I admit having that same feeling myself, until the evidence began to mount higher and higher and I was forced to accept the fact, as you will come to accept it, that no other possibility exists.

“I know you’re probably looking at Ms. Willins sitting at the table over there and thinking: This is an upstanding, honorable, one may even say admirable, wife and mother and beloved entertainer. How could she possibly take the life of another human being, and take it in such a violent manner?

“Before this trial is over, you will know how she did it and why she did it. You will have your proof, ladies and gentlemen. Proof, beyond a reasonable doubt.

“There are five elements to look for in establishing guilt.” Wise held up his right hand, fingers extended. “Identity,” he said, bending his little finger in toward his palm. “Motive.” The next finger folded. “Evidence.” The middle finger joined the others. “The crime must be willful. And with malice aforethought.” Wise’s thumb closed, leaving him with a fist in the air.

“All five are present in this case,” he added, punctuating the sentence with the movement of his upraised fist. “Dyana Willins willfully took the life of Madeleine Gray in a brutal and callous manner. We who are assembled here, seeking justice in a difficult world, will see to it that she is punished for her crime.”

He returned to the prosecution table. “How’d it look?” he whispered to Nikki.

“Great,” she told him. “But I think you went a little over the top with that black power salute you kept flashing the jury.”

Wise looked at his still-clasped fist and grinned sheepishly.

Anna Marie Dayne wiped the smile from his face. “Contrary to what Mr. Wise has just been telling you,” she began, “we’re going to provide you with proof that Dyana Cooper had no opportunity to murder Madeleine Gray and no motive to do so. We will present witnesses who will show you precisely how makeshift and frail the prosecution’s case really is. You will hear testimony that casts doubt on the credibility of the prosecution’s key witnesses, including the two policemen who concocted this absurd case against Dyana Cooper.

“You will hear from Mr. Jamal Deschamps, who was the first African-American to be drawn into this murder case with absolutely no legal justification except that he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “You will hear from associates and friends and, yes, even people who are not so friendly with the accused, who will tell you that it is impossible to think of her committing so heinous a crime as this.

“Finally, you will hear from just a few of an endless list of people who knew the deceased for what she really was, an apparently heartless woman of no conscience who seemed to delight in adding to the misery and misfortune of others, even to the point of receiving money from them to keep their most devastating secrets hidden.

“I tell you these things, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, not to speak ill of the dead, but to open your eyes to the fact that Madeleine Gray was a woman with a vast army of enemies. The prosecution, for reasons we will explore, has chosen to ignore them all—all the rich and powerful and brutal people who can order a murder as easily as one orders a pizza for dinner—and concentrate on just one courageous, deeply religious African-American wife and mother.”

When Dayne took her seat, Judge Vetters asked, “Mr. Wise, Ms. Hill, are you prepared to begin the case for the prosecution?”

“We are, your honor.”

“Good, good,” the judge said. “Please call your first witness.”

“The prosecution calls Dr. Ann Fugitsu to the stand,” Ray Wise said.

Nikki realized that she’d been holding her breath.

S
IXTY-SIX

O
n the third day of the trial, Goodman was called to the stand.

He’d gone over his testimony with Nikki several times, the last being the previous evening. Now she took him smoothly through the various stages by which the LAPD had amassed the information leading to Dyana Cooper’s arrest.

Goodman answered Nikki’s questions confidently and unhesitatingly. The courtroom experience wasn’t new to him. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d occupied a chair in the shadow of an imposing judicial figure, staring at the hopeful face of an optimistic prosecutor or the patent sneer of a defense attorney. But those had all been simply part of the job. This was different. Doyle, the bastard, had made it personal. He was having a difficult time keeping his resentment and anger in check.

To combat precisely that sort of stress his doctor had recommended the calming effect of slow, deep in-and-out breathing. He had been trying that on and off during the hour he’d been on the stand, with the main result being that his lungs were full of the judge’s Shalimar. Meanwhile, Nikki had covered most of the territory—the evidence, the automobile, Willins’s letter in which he admitted adultery, and the fact that Dyana had lied to them during their initial visit to her home. Finally, they arrived at the point Nikki had chosen to end their courtroom duet.

“In the course of that interrogation,” she said, “Ms. Will-ins admitted that she had attacked Madeleine—”

“Objection to the word ‘attacked.’ ”

“Could you rephrase, Ms. Hill?”

Nikki returned to the prosecution table, picked up a sheet of paper, and walked back to Goodman. “Why not just read Ms. Willins’s own words, detective.”

He looked at the page and found it to be mainly a blur. He swallowed, blinked, and the words came into focus.
Jesus!
His head felt like a balloon about to pop. His blood pressure must’ve been rocketing to the moon.

Nikki pointed to a line. “You can start there, detective. Read down to there.”

“Okay.” He squinted. He was used to a more direct light when reading. “‘Ms. Willins said, “I hit her.”

“ ‘ “Hit Madeleine Gray?” I asked. “With your hand?”

“ ‘And she said, “No. With some sort of sculpture that was on the table.” ’ ”

Nikki took the transcript away from him, returned it to her other papers. “You’re familiar with the sculpture Ms. Will-ins mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Why is that, detective?”

“Because it’s the same sculpture that was used to beat Madeleine Gray to death.”

Nikki paused while a murmur passed through the courtroom. Then she said, “Thank you, detective. Your witness.”

As Anna Marie Dayne approached, her smile sent a chill up his spine. She carried a section of trial transcript, opened to a specific page. “Detective Goodman, let’s clarify a point. You say the piece of sculpture the defendant used to protect herself from Madeleine Gray is the murder weapon. On what do you base that opinion?”

“On a statement by an expert, Dr. Ann Fugitsu,” Goodman said.

“You’re speaking of her testimony in this courtroom?”

“I wasn’t present in the courtroom when Dr. Fugitsu was on the stand.”

“No. You weren’t. So I suppose it was a statement she made directly to you?”

“In my presence.”

“Which would make it hearsay.” She handed him the transcript. “Would you read what Dr. Fugitsu actually said in this courtroom, detective? Begin with Mr. Wise’s question about the murder weapon.”

Goodman looked at the blurry lines, saw the name Wise swim before his eyes. He held the transcript farther away, blinking. He read aloud: “ ‘Mr. Wise: “Could you please look at Exhibit D and tell us if this is the instrument used to murder Madeleine Gray.” Dr. Fugitsu: “Since it matches the physical requirements—that is, the proper heft, the smoothness of surface—to cause the fatal wound, and since traces of the deceased’s blood were found on its surface, I would say Exhibit D to be the likely murder weapon, yes.” ’ ”

“Does that sound like an unequivocal statement to you, detective?” Dayne asked.

“Object, your honor,” Nikki said. “Calls for speculation and Detective Goodman is not an expert on linguistics.”

“Withdraw the question,” Dayne said, reclaiming the transcript and taking her time returning it to her table.

She walked back to Goodman and asked a few apparently harmless questions about his career as a police officer, the number of homicide cases he’d investigated, the number of times he’d appeared in court. Then she shifted gears.

“You a married man, detective?”

“Objection,” Nikki called out. “Relevance?”

“Goes to character, your honor.”

Judge Vetters looked dubious. “I’ll let you take a few steps down this path, Ms. Dayne. But only a few.”

“Thank you, your honor. Detective?”

“I’m divorced,” he said.

“Bachelor, huh?”

“A single man, if that’s what you mean.”

“Been a single man quite a while?”

“Your honor?” Nikki complained.

“This is a courtroom, Ms. Dayne, not a dating bureau,” Judge Vetters said. “Move on, please.”

“All right, your honor. Detective, have you ever consorted with felons?”

“ ‘Consort’ is a little strong. I’ve met them, in my line of work.”

“Your work as one of L.A.’s finest,” Dayne said, not without sarcasm. “Well, in or out of your line of work, have you ever cohabited with felons?”

“Not to my knowledge.”