The Trials of Nikki Hill (38 page)

“The check was for the so-called favor?” he asked, just to get it straight.

“I threw it in his face,” she said. “He pushed it back at me. Said he didn’t mean to insult me. I’d done something very important for him and he was just showing me his gratitude. It had nothing to do with our relationship.

“I tried to explain the only reason I’d done it was because of our relationship. I sure as hell didn’t want to get paid. That made it seem like I was on his pad.”

“That’s the fact of it,” Goodman said.

She gave him an anguished look. “Yeah. I figured that out. It’s why I haven’t cashed the check. If I did, it would put me in his pocket for all time.”

“You took it.”

“I had no choice.”

“Well, there’s ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ ”

“You still don’t get it, do you, Eddie? Let’s see, how do I make you understand? You know the guy we work for. Not Corben; Chief Ahern. He’s a client of Hobie’s. And a personal friend. You see where I’m headed with this?”

“You saying
Ahern
’s on Adler’s pad?”

“You’re a sweet man, Eddie, but you’re focused on the small picture. Ahern’s not on anybody’s pad. Still, that wouldn’t stop him from burying me, or you, if his pal Hobie

Adler whispered in his ear that we were bothering him.”

“Adler told you this?”

“No. He told me that unless I behaved, in his words, ‘like a good girl,’ and took the check for a job well done, he’d be forced to ‘do something unpleasant.’ I didn’t ask him to be more specific. I just took the check. But I didn’t cash it.”

Goodman mulled that over, then said, “Okay, tell me about the favor.”

She shook her head.

“Let me explain something to you, kiddo. You stepped over the line. What we’re doing here now is figuring out the price you’re gonna have to pay for that. Answer my questions and maybe the worst that happens is that you quit the force. Clam up and I’ll take everything I know to Corben. You can imagine how he’ll handle it.”

She finished off the tequila, dropped the empty bottle to the carpet, and said, “I stole Dyana Cooper’s blackmail folder from Maddie Gray’s cabinet.”

Goodman stared at her, momentarily speechless.

“Hobie made it sound like no big thing. Maddie was blackmailing a close friend of his. His friend was worried that the information might become public. Couldn’t I find the file at the Laurel Canyon house and remove it.”

“And you said...?” Goodman prompted.

“I told him I wouldn’t steal evidence from a crime scene. Even for him.”

“But you did.”

“Hobie got where he is for one reason. He’s the greatest salesman in the world. He said, ‘What if I can convince you that it isn’t evidence?’ I hesitated and was lost.”

“Why? What’d he say?”

“If his friend had killed Maddie, she would have taken the file. Since it was still at the house, it meant she was not the murderer and therefore her file was not evidence.”

It was the same bullshit line of reasoning he’d heard from the D.A. He was fed up with it. Fed up with everything. “Adler conned you,” he said in disgust. “There are a hundred reasons why Cooper might have left the file behind. Maybe she panicked. Maybe she searched and couldn’t find it.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t figured out for myself,” Gwen said.

“Okay, tell me about it.”

“I just did.”

“The file. Tell me what was in the file.”

She wet her lips. “Hobie didn’t mention whose file it was, just that it was labeled ‘Soul Sister.’ He ordered me to take it to him without looking inside.”

“Sweet Jesus, he had you that buffaloed?”

“This isn’t Disneyland, Eddie,” she said and began to describe the contents. In essence there were photos, newspaper clippings, and a marriage certificate indicating that a decade before, Dyana Cooper, under her real name, “Diana Crosley,” had married a young man named Isaac Hughes in her hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Hughes had subsequently murdered a man in a bar fight and taken flight to escape justice. He was apparently still a fugitive.

“Not evidence,” Goodman said sarcastically. “Shit. Why the hell couldn’t Dyana Cooper have found the damned file herself after she murdered Maddie, and kept you out of it?” He frowned. “How’d you know where to look for it?”

“It didn’t take a rocket scientist,” Gwen said. “I walked into that upstairs office and saw the file drawer hanging open.”

He leaned forward. “
You
didn’t pry the drawer open?”

“No. The murderer must have . . .” She stopped, realizing the same thing he did.

“Assuming the murderer jimmied the file drawer and left Dyana Cooper’s folder behind,” he said, “it means that prick Adler may not have been conning you after all. She didn’t kill Maddie. What did he say when you told him about the busted drawer?”

“I didn’t. He didn’t want to know anything about the file or how I got it. He wants the whole thing done and over. That’s why he’s demanding I cash the check. That’s what he was calling about the other night when I let the phone ring. And tonight.”

“He sure took his time to tell you that.”

“We got that out of the way right at the jump,” she said.

“So you’re still sleeping with the guy?”

“It’s easier duty than telling him no.”

He leaned his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “The answer to what you’re wondering is this,” he heard her say. “I hate the manipulating control-freak son of a bitch. I want out. Can you help me?”

“I don’t know,” he said, getting to his feet.

He reached for her phone.

“Who are you calling?” Gwen asked.

“My lawyer.”

Nikki Hall answered on the fourth ring. He apologized for calling so late.

“It’s okay. I was having a nightmare, anyway. What’s up?”

“Do you and I still have a client-attorney relationship?”

“Wait a minute. Am I still in the nightmare?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not. Can we have some kind of privileged communication?”

“Damn. I’m not going to want to hear this, am I?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then why don’t you just keep it to yourself?”

“I have to talk to somebody at the D.A.’s office.”

“Privilege only goes so far.”

“What about trust?” he asked. “How far can I trust you?”

“I’m not about to answer that till I know what we’re dealing with.”

“I have some information about the Gray murder, but I can’t tell you how I got it.”

“Any other good news?”

“I don’t have any evidence to back it up.”

“I’ll put on some coffee,” Nikki said. “Come on over and we’ll talk about it. See if it’s as bad as it sounds.”

He made a mental note of her address and hung up the phone. Gwen looked worried. “You’ll come back after?”

“Will you be here?” he asked.

The biggest black man he’d ever seen slid out of a car and intercepted him before he reached the front door to Nikki’s home. “Your name Goodman?” he asked, saving the detective the effort of trying to tear his gun out of his pocket.

He nodded.

“ID? Just use your fingertips, please.”

Goodman plucked his leather-covered ID from his inside pocket, using thumb and forefinger. The big man backed to the street lamp, looked the official document over carefully, and handed it back. He walked the detective to the door and pressed the buzzer three times in quick succession.

Nikki answered the door wearing black sweats with white piping. “Thanks, Sonny,” she said to the giant, who jogged back to his car.

The first thing Goodman noticed on entering the house was that there was no furniture. The second was a huge black hound about a foot to his left, glaring at him. “Better shake my hand, detective,” Nikki said, “or you’re liable to lose one of your limbs.”

The handshake seemed to satisfy the dog, who followed them into the kitchen.

“Coffee smells great,” Goodman told her.

“Pull up a stool and I’ll pour us some. Then we can get right into this bad news you’re bringing.”

It didn’t take him long to fill her in. When he’d finished, she said, “So we have to assume that on the night of the murder somebody other than Dyana Cooper pried open that drawer to get at a file that was not Dyana Cooper’s.”

“That’s the bottom line,” he said.

She was lost in thought for so long he began to feel uncomfortable. She turned to him. “Your informant was hired by Dyana Cooper to get her file?”

“Not directly by her.”

“My point is: Dyana knows about her file being lifted.”

Having no idea where she was going with this line of questioning, he nodded his assent. “She has to know it,” he said.

Nikki seemed oddly relieved. “Then it isn’t exactly the same,” she muttered.

“What isn’t?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing. I’m just cautious about the disclosure of evidence. In this case, we can be reasonably certain the defense has this information and has chosen not to use it. It would be tricky. Your informant would have to take the stand, say he stole evidence. He could then incriminate whoever put him up to it. But Dyana would walk. More coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“What I’d love to do, detective, is to kick your ass out of here and forget we’ve ever had this meeting. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass this information on to Joe Walden and let him decide what to do with it.”

That was not good news. “I was hoping to retire in a couple of years,” Goodman said. “If you tell Walden I’m withholding the name of someone who removed an item from a murder scene I’ll be in Internal Affairs within an hour and out on the street in two.”

“I understand,” she said, picking up the phone and dialing. “I’ll remove the middleman. That would be you ...Oh, hello, Joe, hope I didn’t wake you.”

Goodman watched her stand and walk to the doors leading to the rear patio. “I just received another of those calls,” she said. “No, no threat this time. Just some, ah, pertinent information we have to talk about.”

She turned and winked at Goodman. “It’s sketchy and there’s not much substantiation, but it could have one hell of an effect on the trial.”

Goodman took his empty cup to the sink, expecting to rinse it. But the sink was piled so high with dirty dishes he was afraid that if he turned on the water, it would splash onto the floor.

Nikki was in the midst of passing along the news about the “Soul Sister” file and its contents. Goodman waved his hand until she looked at him, then he mouthed the word “Thanks” and gestured toward the door.

The big dog watched him suspiciously as he walked across the living room. He let himself out, making sure the door clicked shut behind him.

Outside, the air had turned a little cooler and damper. The bodyguard was in his sedan, as alert as an owl. Goodman got in his own car and drove back to Gwen Harriman’s apartment.

S
EVENTY-FOUR

S
aturday morning, shortly after nine, Nikki and Ray Wise were seated across the desk from the district attorney, who was turned partially away from them staring out of the window, thinking over the news she’d brought. News no one wanted to hear.

The scene was strikingly reminiscent of her terrible meeting four years before. The same office. The same kind of situation. The same three people. Well, not quite, but close enough. As she watched Joe Walden cock his head to the right in thought, she discovered an actual physical resemblance between him and his mentor, Tom Gleason. Not in looks, though Walden was approximately the same height as Gleason, but in general appearance and gesture. He favored the same smartly tailored suits, red ties, and bright suspenders that Gleason had worn. She wondered if they came from the same shop.

The more she studied Walden, the more obvious it became that Gleason was his role model. The way he spoke, the easy charm, even the quick anger. She wondered why she’d never noticed it before.

He spun around suddenly to face them. “It’s just too bad we don’t have a tape of the conversation,” he said pointedly. “The police lab might’ve been able to use their fancy equipment to let us know how much of the story is true, if any.”

“I didn’t have time to set up the recorder,” Nikki said.

“We have to assume the caller is someone in the employ of the Willinses,” the D.A. said. “What do they hope to achieve by floating this information by us?”

“It’s clever,” Wise said. “According to Mr. X’s ‘confession,’ Maddie’s drawer full of blackmail goodies had already been broken into when he arrived for Dyana’s file. The clear implication is that Dyana therefore could not be Maddie’s murderer. I say this is all crap and we should ignore it. Any hint of this will send the jury into a tailspin.”

“Nikki?” Walden asked.

Her discomfort was growing. Since she trusted Goodman, she supposed that the sequence of events had taken place exactly as he’d outlined them. It wasn’t cast-iron proof that Dyana hadn’t murdered Madeleine Gray, but it certainly raised a substantial doubt of her guilt.

To convince the D.A. and Wise, however, she’d have to tell them about Goodman. Then the detective would have to give up his source. It was always a bitch to try to work around the truth.

“Nikki?” the D.A. asked again.

Play the game, Gleason and everyone else had advised her. All she had to do was say she agreed with Wise. Just nod her head.

“We should at least consider the possibility that the story is straight,” she said.

“Why?” Wise asked.

“If the story is true, we ought to be prepared should the defense try to introduce it. It would be devastating to anyone involved in the theft of the evidence, but Dayne may use it anyway, with her back to the wall.”

“Nikki’s point is well taken,” Walden said.

Wise begrudgingly admitted it was. “I suppose we could check out the bit about the earlier marriage,” he said. “It’d be evidence of the woman’s secretive nature and her longtime association with violent crime.”

“Wouldn’t it be lovely to find out Dyana Cooper had neglected to divorce her first husband?” Walden added. “It could void her present marriage, which in turn would remove Willins’s protected spouse status.”

Wise’s smile was not a pretty sight. “I’d love a crack at that bad boy on the stand.”