He moved past Lydon, putting on his thin rubber gloves. He used one finger to push the drawer open even more.
“What did your boss keep in there?” Nikki asked Lydon.
“I don’t know. This room was off limits.”
“Folders,” Goodman said, staring into the drawer. “Folders labeled with nicknames. ‘Hummer.’ ‘Jailbird.’ ‘Porn Pop.’ ‘Team Player.’ ‘Booty-Bandit.’ ”
He joined them, rolling off the gloves. “When was the last time you were up here, Mr. Lydon?”
“Yesterday afternoon. Maddie summoned me to say I could leave early.” “You usually work on Sunday?” Nikki asked.
Lyndon nodded. “Prepping for Monday’s show.” “But yesterday she sent you home early,” Goodman said. “Every now and then she would do that. Other times she’d ask me to stay late. It evened out.”
“Why do you suppose she wanted you out of here yester
day?” Nikki asked.
The young man shrugged. “She expecting a boyfriend?” Nikki asked.
“I imagine she told me to go so I wouldn’t know what she
was expecting.”
“Could she have done all this damage?” Goodman asked. “Maddie had her paper-tossing moods. But she wouldn’t pry open a cabinet.”
“Did you know about those files?” Goodman asked.
“When I first started working here five years ago, Maddie made it very clear that this room was private. I was to enter
it only at her request.”
“Didn’t that seem a little weird?” Nikki asked. “Maddie’s business was secrets. So, no, I didn’t think it weird.”
He paused, raised an eyebrow. “I wonder . . .” he began. “What?” Goodman asked.
“I assume you think that whoever...killed Maddie also
broke into the cabinet?”
“Possible,” Goodman said.
Lydon took a step into the room. Goodman’s shout to hold it stopped him in his tracks.
“Sorry, I just wanted to check...There’s a hand-carved wooden box on the desk you might find interesting.”
Goodman took a few steps to the desk. “Yeah. I see it.” He lifted the box’s lid very gingerly.
“Key to . . .” Goodman blinked and squinted. “. . . Bank of... Beverly.”
“One afternoon,” Lydon said, “while I was standing at her desk waiting for her to finish a phone call, I happened to notice that key in the box. She’d forgotten to close the top. She saw me looking at it and went a little postal. Slammed down the receiver. Called me a sneak and ordered me out of the house. Before I got to the front door, she’d calmed down. She felt so bad she gave me her tickets to a Liza concert. Maddie was like that. Big temper, big heart.”
Before Lydon got too misty-eyed, Goodman said, “There’s something else I want to show you.”
They all moved downstairs to the room with the dark green walls. “Anything unusual?” the detective asked.
“The rug’s gone,” Lydon exclaimed. “Why would anyone want to steal that?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Goodman asked.
“It was just a modern Romanian copy of a Kashan. Couldn’t have been worth more than six or seven hundred dollars.”
“Could you describe it?” Nikki asked.
“Like I say, a copy of a Kashan. Basically red, with yellow and blue triangles around the edges.”
“How big?”
“It was in the center of the room. I’d say eight feet by twelve.”
“Anything like that in Deschamps’s place?” Goodman asked Morales.
“Closest thing to a rug was the food on the guy’s kitchen floor.”
Nikki asked Lydon, “What was Maddie wearing yesterday when you left?”
The young man looked at Goodman. “I gave that information to the detective.”
Goodman took out his notepad. “Red Dana Buchman suit,” he read. “Silk paisley blouse, red and yellow. Black Ferragamo pumps.” He looked at her as he put away the pad. “All missing.”
“Lemme call over to Jamal’s,” Morales said. “See if they found the rug or the dame’s clothes.”
“Do it from the car,” Goodman said. “We’d better get going if we expect to hit the bank before they lock up. You want to drive with us, Ms. Hill?”
“Nikki,” she said. “Yes, I’d like to tag along.”
“Fine. Thanks for your help, Mr. Lydon. I imagine we’ll be talking with you again.”
“Be still, my heart.”
Nikki was surprised at how excited she felt at the opening of Maddie Gray’s bank box. Sharing the small room with the two detectives and an officer of the bank, she was almost holding her breath as Goodman lifted the long metal lid.
“It’s fulla cash,” Morales said, staring down at rows of bound bills. He quickly began counting the packets. There were twenty, each containing twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills. Under the last stack was...another key.
By the time they were finished, they’d opened four of the late Maddie Gray’s bank boxes and amassed a total of two hundred thousand dollars.
“That must’ve been some rainy day Maddie was waiting for,” Nikki said. “I don’t get it. She was making all she needed with her show. Why would she screw around with blackmail?”
“Control,” Morales said. “Lady liked to make people squirm.”
“I wonder why,” Nikki said.
“Why? She was one mean bitch.”
“What do you suppose made her that way?”
“Not our problem,” Morales said. “We only care about who made her dead.”
They replaced the boxes. Goodman told the bank manager that someone from the LAPD would be returning for the cash, which was now evidence.
As they drove away from the bank, Morales turned to Nikki on the backseat. “Like ole times, eh? ’Cept for Blackie not bein’ here, of course.”
“Except for that,” she said. In truth, she didn’t think it was like old times at all.
NINE
Jimmy Doyle spent the better part of the afternoon strolling around the Beverly Hills shopping area, checking out the boutiques along Rodeo and Little Santa Monica. He didn’t have much else to do until the cops got their act together. If they ever did.
The sun was just starting to dip in the west when he was drawn to a shop called L’Homme Magnifique, where five years before he’d purchased a couple of three-hundred-dollar silk shirts that the buttons had fallen off of the first time he wore them. “So?” the salesman had told him when he’d complained. “Have your butler sew them back on.”
Doyle was amused by that kind of brass. He looked around the small showroom hoping the snotty smart-ass was still there, but the only salesperson on the floor was a woman wearing dark green lipstick that made her pale face look like something out of a Stephen King novel. Good body though. He asked her if Harold was still working there.
“I don’t know any Harold,” she said, not giving it much thought. “There’s a Raoul who does the books.”
“It’s not important,” he said. “I’ll just look around.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” she said, purposely glancing at her watch.
He was fingering a cashmere sport jacket so soft it felt like eiderdown when his beeper gave a chirp. The blinking number was Hobie Adler’s private line. Doyle patted his breast pocket and realized he’d left the cellular in his hotel room.
“Got a phone I can use?” he asked the voluptuous ghost woman.
She looked at the little disk on her wrist again. “Sorry, closing time,” she said.
They could be rude in other parts of the country, but no place beat Rodeo Drive for attitude. He loved it.
“Suppose I buy this?” He held up a silk tie—blue with tiny white dots.
She shrugged, then pointed a green fingernail at a telephone resting on a tiny counter at the rear of the store. “It only works for local calls,” she said.
“This tie really two hundred and fifty bucks?” he as
ked.
“If that’s how it’s marked.”
“Ring it up for me while I make my call,” he said.
“Cash or card?”
“You get a lot of people plunking down two-fifty in cash for a tie?” he asked.
“You’d be surprised,” she said, taking his card with a practiced boredom.
Hobie Adler seemed to be awaiting his call. He picked up on the first ring. “Me,” Doyle said. “What’s up?”
“I have the file,” Adler said. One of his minions had removed the Manila folder containing Dyana Cooper’s secrets from Madeleine Gray’s home. “I don’t suppose you want to see it.”
“Not in this lifetime,” Doyle said. “You take a peek?”
“No.”
“Good. What you don’t know for a fact won’t lead to perjury. Give your shredder a workout.”
“I gather there were a number of other files,” Adler said.
“I hope your boy left ’em,” Doyle said. “We want ’em found. We want the world to know the kind of broad she was.”
Adler cleared his throat. “Ah, Jimmy, we’ve learned that the district attorney is probably going to charge the young man they arrested.”
“Good source?”
“Hasn’t failed me yet. So it seems unlikely we’ll need your services. I just got off the phone with John Willins, who wanted me to convey how grateful he is for your help...”
There was a time when Doyle would have been happy to take the short-end money and head back to D.C. without having to lift a finger. But pickings had been slim for a while, and in truth, he’d been looking forward to the action as much as the cash.
“Is he thirty grand grateful, you think?” he asked.
Hobie Adler was silent for a beat, then replied, “That should be acceptable. John is sitting on top of a three-billion-dollar music empire.”
“Then let’s make it forty grand.”
“Don’t be greedy. We’ll split the difference. You flying home tonight?”
Doyle looked at the saleswoman, who was shifting from one foot to the other impatiently. “Tomorrow morning, probably.”
“Have dinner with me at Morton’s.”
“I’m a little tied up. Catch you next trip.”
“You’re not upset, are you, Jimmy?”
“Not at all,” Doyle lied. “The situation changes, you know where to reach me.”
He’d barely replaced the phone when the saleswoman was handing him a slip to sign. “Am I keeping you from something?” he wondered.
“Since you asked, yes.”
“What?”
“I’m meeting a friend for drinks.”
“Male friend or female?”
“Female.”
“She as bitchy as you?”
She eyed him appraisingly. “At least,” she said.
“What’s your name?” he asked. When she hesitated, he said, “You’ve got mine on the card.”
“Zorina,” she said.
“Zorina what?”
“Just Zorina. You know. Like Madonna.”
“You’re not a dyke, are you?”
“A dyke?” She shook her head in mock disbelief at his naïveté. “You old guys are too much. You mean do I go down on women? Sometimes.”
“But not exclusively?”
“No. Not exclusively.”
“Good. Then why don’t you and your friend have dinner with me tonight? At one of those hot new places where we can all smoke illegal Cuban cigars with our coffee.”
“I don’t eat red meat,” she cautioned.
“Tell me something I can’t guess,” he said.
TEN
When Nikki returned home that night, Bird was waiting. It had been an exhilarating day, from Nikki’s promotion to Jamal Deschamps’s interrogation to the discovery of Madeleine Gray’s secret cash boxes. All the Bouvier cared about was that it had been a long time since breakfast.
He yipped in delight at the sight of her, his nubby tail twitching like a pendulum as she bent to embrace him. “Sorry I’m late, baby,” she said. “My hours are gonna get a little goofy from here on, but I won’t forget to take care of my big boy.”
When she stood up, she saw that he’d dragged his cedar-filled mattress into the otherwise bare living room. He marched to the lumpy, loud plaid object and plopped down on it proudly.
“Don’t get too cozy in here,” she told him. “Sooner or later I’m going to make it to the Furniture Mart. Then you and your bed get moved to the spare room at the back.”
Bird gave her a skeptical look that suggested hell would freeze over before she furnished the room. Then he growled that he was more than ready for dinner.
“Probably want a walk, too?” she asked.
He ate while she switched into her jogging gear. She selected a hot-pink outfit because it reflected automobile headlights. It almost glowed in the dark. By the time she’d double-knotted her shoes, snapped on her fanny pack, complete with Walkman, and downed a glass of water, Bird had finished his meal and was eagerly pacing the floor.
They’d gone about ten blocks when she heard her name on the Walkman. She’d been listening to one of the all-news stations, fully expecting more of the same Gray murder bulletins that had been broadcast during her drive home. A statement from the LAPD that an unnamed suspect was in custody, a sound bite from Arthur Lydon about what a caring boss Maddie had been, and several short eulogies from Hollywood celebrities who considered themselves to be “among her closest friends.”
What the anchorman was saying now, however, was that “the district attorney’s office has announced the appointment of deputy Nicolette Hill as Joseph Walden’s special assistant. The career prosecutor’s main assignment is to act as liaison between the district attorney and the LAPD Major Crimes unit working on the Madeleine Gray murder.”
“So that’s my main assignment, huh?” Nikki said. “Maybe if Joe Walden had let me know I might have been able to give that Times reporter at least one definite answer.”
The big dog slowed his gait to look back at her.
“Don’t mind me, Bird,” she said. “Just talking to myself, like all the other crazies.”
Two messages were waiting on her answering machine when she returned.
The first was from Loreen Battles. “Well, girl, you keeping secrets from me?” Though her best friend’s raspy smoker’s voice was no less harsh than a weed-whacker scraping the sidewalk, Nikki always found it extremely comforting. “Do I have to get my information about your new job from Channel Five?” Click. End of message.
The other call had been even more abrupt. A hang-up. No name. No comment. Nikki wondered if it might have been her father, though whatever gave her that idea she couldn’t say. They hadn’t spoken in over two years.
Loreen was at the beauty salon she owned and operated. Judging by the amount of noise coming through the phone, the place was jumping. It usually was until nine or ten at night. “Oh, it’s you,” Loreen said, pretending disinterest, “my suddenly famous friend who knew me when.”
“I’ve been wanting to call you all day to tell you about the new job and everything. But I’ve really been on the run.”
“I know,” Loreen said. “I been watching the TV. Justice in L.A. has a new name. Nicolette Hill.” Nikki laughed. “I’m bad, huh?” “You’re badder than bad,” Loreen said. “Pam Grier’s got nothing on you.”
Nikki carried the phone into the kitchen. While she searched the shelves for something that might pass for dinner, she filled her friend in on some of the day’s highlights.
“What’s the scoop on Maddie?” Loreen asked.
“Much as I love you, girlfriend, I can’t get into that,” Nikki said.
“Oh, Lord, the sister’s goin’ Hollywood on me.”
“I knew you’d understand,” Nikki said.
“Hell I do,” Loreen said, only half joking. “You want to get some food tonight?”
Nikki peered into her nearly empty fridge. One solitary fr
ozen fish dinner. “I’d love to,” she said. “But I’ve got notes to type and I need some sleep. Been up since four.” “Fess up. You headin’ out to Spago, right, with your new fast friends?”
“Hell, yeah. Then we might just jet off to Mah-zet-lan.”
“I knew it. She’s goin’ Hollywood. Probably won’t be able to make it to Juanita’s tomorrow night, either.”
Every month Nikki and the other women who constituted the Inglewood Money Mavens investment club met at one or another’s home for drinks, dinner, gossip, and whatever news of their stocks and bonds the remaining time allowed. Nikki usually enjoyed the gatherings, but if Loreen didn’t quite understand why she couldn’t tell all about Madeleine Gray’s murder, what would the rest of the Money Mavens think? That she was one stuck-up bitch.
Of course, they’d think that if she didn’t go, too.
“I’ll be there,” Nikki said.
“Probably won’t be as glam as a secret agent like yourself is used to.”
“Girl, the day I outglam Juanita is the day fish stop swimming.” Juanita Janes was a very theatrical actress, formerly of Broadway but for the last seven years a member of the cast of a popular soap opera, The Power and the Passion.
“Juanita’s something all right,” Loreen said. “Takes a special kind of woman to make a turban look like anything ’cept the result of a bad head wound.”
“By the way, my title is Special Assistant,” Nikki said, feigning annoyance, “not Secret Agent.”
“ ’Scuse me,” Loreen said, chuckling. “All your secrecy musta confused me.”
ELEVEN
The morning was overcast and gloomy, a fitting backdrop for Nikki’s arrival at the four-story building on Mission Road in downtown Los Angeles where the county autopsies were performed. A traffic snarl on the freeway had made her at least ten minutes late. That was only part of the reason for her anxiety, however. It was her first visit to the dreary facility.
She walked down a long hall, purposely keeping her eyes above the level of an incoming body bag. A confusion of people in a variety of uniforms moved swiftly around her. Nikki thought that if she worked there she’d keep on the run, too, to avoid having to think about the constant presence of death. By standing in his way, she got an orderly pushing an empty gurney to pause long enough to direct her to the elevators.
The Trials of Nikki Hill Page 6