The Trials of Nikki Hill

by Christopher Darden; Dick Lochte

  He moaned as she unrolled the condom over his erection.

  He started to lean forward, but she pressed her hands on his chest. “Let me,” she said again, and when he answered, “Yes,” she straddled him, placing him inside her.

  She began rocking, slowly at first. Then her movement became feverish, demanding.

  Like a dancer adjusting his style to his new partner’s, Virgil’s body matched hers in intensity, meeting her thrusts with perfectly timed thrusts of his own.

  How can he know so much? she wondered. How can a man with a backbone move like that?

  And then she shivered and that wonderful, all-encompassing warmth spread through her, making all questions moot.

  THIRTY-SIX

  I can tell you this for a fact,” Lieutenant Foster Corben said to Goodman on Monday morning. “No one from the LAPD, not Internal Affairs, not the chief, nobody from around here is talking to your neighbors.”

  Corben was as burly as a middle-aged former linebacker. He had dun-colored hair, small active brown eyes, and a razor cut of a mouth over a jutting chin. He sat at his desk, big head cocked to one side, mouth half-open, studying his detective.

  “Thanks for checking it out,” Goodman said.

  “Any idea who these guys might be?” Corben asked. “What they’re after?”

  “My guess is they’re people working for Willins,” he said. “What they’re after is background info that’ll make me look like a donkey in court.”

  Corben frowned. “You’re not getting paranoid on me, are you, Goodman?”

  “Oh, I’m paranoid, lieutenant. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

  “When they do, we’ll talk about it,” Corben said, dismissing him.

  An hour later, Goodman was back in the lieutenant’s office. Morales was with him. According to a report from Serology, a blood trace scraped from the steering wheel of the Willins Jaguar was a match for Madeleine Gray’s type, O-negative.

  “They also found another trace on the door handle,” Corben added. “Type AB.”

  Goodman frowned. “The company carrying Willins’s life insurance claims he’s an O-positive kinda guy.”

  “Yeah,” Corben said. “So they’re saying over at the D.A.’s. Seems AB is what they found under Maddie’s fingernails, too. They’re thinking maybe a slight mistake has been made. Ah, judging by that expression on your face, Goodman—sorta like you been slapped in the puss with a flounder—you know somebody who might be AB.”

  Goodman nodded. “The wife,” he said. Why hadn’t he even considered that possibility?

  “Hell, the first I saw of the Jag,” Morales said, “it looked like a lady car to me.”

  “You gentlemen are invited to a meeting over at the D.A.’s to discuss the new developments,” Corben said.

  “When?” Goodman asked.

  “As soon as you get there.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Nikki had begun the week feeling great, but her romantic glow was dimmed somewhat by the report from Serology.

  She and Wise spent the morning feverishly putting together a case against Dyana Cooper. And they weren’t entirely satisfied with the results. Sitting in the district attorney’s office, watching Detectives Goodman and Morales file in gloomily, she realized that no one seemed very pleased by their prospects.

  “All right, folks,” Walden said, when the detectives had taken their seats. “Serology has dealt us a new hand. Let’s review the bidding, Ray. What’ve we got?”

  “One: vic’s blood type on the Jaguar,” Wise said. “Two: Dyana Cooper’s blood type found under the vic’s fingernails.”

  “Three: Cooper’s blood type and fingerprints found on probable death weapon in vic’s home,” Nikki added, just as she and Wise had planned, to demonstrate their solidarity. “Four: cast-iron witness to the Jaguar being in vicinity of vic’s home the evening of the murder.”

  “Tell me about motive,” Walden said.

  “Jealousy or a reaction to blackmail,” Wise said. “Or a combination of both.”

  “Take ’em in order,” Walden said.

  “All right. Jealousy,” Wise said. “Husband is screwing Maddie.”

  “Proof?” Walden looked around the room.

  “There’s the ring, evidence piece number five,” Wise said.

  “The ring Willins supposedly bought for his wife?” Walden asked.

  “The ring that wound up on Maddie Gray’s finger,” Nikki said.

  “You don’t believe Dyana’s story about leaving it in Madeleine Gray’s car?”

  “Gray was wearing it when she died,” Nikki said. “You find a friend’s ring, you give it back. You don’t start wearing it.”

  “Gray was a blackmailer,” Goodman said. “Maybe the ring was part of a payoff Dyana Cooper was making.”

  “Let’s stay with jealousy,” Walden said. “How does the ring play into that?”

  “Willins and his wife have a beef,” Wise speculated. “He gets so pissed off, he takes her ring and gives it to his mistress.”

  “Possible,” Walden admitted. “But we still don’t have any evidence to support a romance between Willins and Maddie.”

  “We’ll go talk to the maricón who worked for Maddie,” Morales said. “And we can check out her competition. Those fuckers are in the gossip business and they didn’t like her, you can bet. They’ll know exactly who was slippin’ her the sausage.”

  Walden winced at the detective’s metaphor but agreed with his suggestion.

  “Why do you suppose the ring was still on Maddie’s finger?” Nikki asked. “I mean, the body was left in the alley, naked, with a ring on her finger. Why leave the ring?”

  “Maybe Cooper just overlooked it,” Wise said.

  “An expensive, one-of-a-kind ring that’d lead right back to her? Might as well leave a calling card.”

  “As you and I agreed, Nikki,” Wise said, “it’s unlikely the death was premeditated. Cooper wasn’t planning on killing anybody. Once that happened, she panicked. Forgot about the ring.”

  “She panicked, but she dragged a naked body out to her car . . .” Nikki turned to Goodman. “Have they found any blood or hair in the Jag?”

  “Not as of a half hour ago,” Goodman said. “But about the ring. The jeweler told us it was Dyana Cooper’s size. Gray was more zaftig. The ring was tight on her. So tight, Deschamps had to break her finger to remove it. Maybe Cooper couldn’t get it off and didn’t have the heart to use a knife.”

  That seemed to be an acceptable explanation. Morales, who’d been slumped in his chair, seemingly bored by the discussion, straightened suddenly. “ Tortilleras! ” he exclaimed.

  “Say what?” Walden asked.

  “ Tortilleras! Lesbos! Maddie and Dyana were bumpin’ the fuzz,” Morales explained enthusiastically. “Maddie throws her over. Or they get in some catfight. Whatever. If they’re lovers, then everything fits.”

  They considered that possibility for a few silent moments. Wise nodded, warming to the idea. “Gray’s autopsy finding: evidence of sexual activity without the presence of sperm,” he said. “It plays. She gave Maddie the ring. They got in a fight. Maddie dies and Dyana can’t get the ring off her finger.”

  “If Cooper is a lesbian or bisexual,” Walden cautioned, “it’s not a preference she developed overnight. Celebrities live in goldfish bowls; somebody should have some thoughts on the subject. When you gentlemen chat up the gossip crowd, you might want to put that on your discussion list.”

  “You don’t want us to ignore the blackmail angle?” Goodman asked.

  “Absolutely not,” Walden said. “I assume you’re going over Cooper’s background with a fine-tooth comb?”

  “Any skeletons in her closet, we’ll find ’em.”

  “The only thing in her closet is her,” Morales insisted. “Maybe Maddie tried to sell her some videos of their sessions.”

  “You want us to bring Cooper in?” Goodman asked. “For questioning, at least?”r />
  Walden considered it, then replied, “With the press hanging around, if you bring Dyana Cooper in for questioning, you might as well accuse her of the crime. I don’t think we’re there yet. We still don’t have a definite on the murder weapon. Our witness who places the Jaguar at the Gray home in the evening also saw Gray alive after Cooper drove away. That may negate the tire prints. Cooper can say that the blood was spilled before she left.”

  He turned to Nikki. “You were on the money about Des-champs. What do you think about Cooper?”

  She glanced at Wise, who nodded imperceptibly. “Ray and I have been picking this apart for the last couple of hours. We just don’t have enough to make a case.”

  “All right,” Walden said. “Detectives, it’s up to you. Nail it down for us.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The golden phone call came in four days later.

  It came from a patrolman named Fuller who suggested Goodman visit the home of a family named Rosten at an address just up Laurel Canyon from Madeleine Gray’s.

  When Goodman and Morales arrived, Fuller was having coffee with Mrs. Kenneth Rosten, whom he referred to as Lu-Anne, and her teenage daughter, Missy. Looking at the mother and daughter was like seeing the same person at two stages of life. Both were small, nervous, and had features that were sort of... well, “rodentlike” was what Goodman wrote in his notes. There was also something disturbingly sensual about them, almost feral, which he didn’t write down.

  Dull brown hair on mom, with a few strands of gray. Bright orange hair on daughter. Mom in her short skirt and loose blouse. Missy in her ripped Levis and skimpy blouse with tears to provide a peek-a-boo view of her bra and tummy. A stud was stuck into her left nostril.

  “You mind telling us what you told Officer Fuller?” Goodman asked the girl.

  “Teddy and I were driving home from Weezie’s and we saw this car at Maddie Gray’s place.”

  “Teddy would be...?” Goodman asked.

  She slumped back in her chair and began rubbing her stomach, running her fingers in and out of the holes in her blouse. “Teddy Maxwell. My beauhunk.”

  He assumed that meant boyfriend. “And Weezie’s?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Tha’s a club the kids go to,” Morales said. “Over on Vine. Snake pit.”

  “Okay,” Goodman said, wondering how Morales, whose kids were too young, knew where teenagers hung out. “So you and your ‘beauhunk’ were driving here and you saw a car at Gray’s.”

  “A Jag. One of those real intense Jags. Not all boxy like today.”

  “When was this?”

  She looked at Fuller. “Like I told him, the night of the murder, at just a little before ten. Because, like, I’m fifteen now, I’ve still got a ten o’clock curfew Sunday nights.”

  Goodman looked at Mrs. Rosten—LuAnne—who wet her lips with her tongue before nodding in agreement. “She was home by ten.”

  “Tell me a little bit more about the car, Missy.”

  “Soft top. Light brown. Tan. Top was up. An XE.”

  That was almost right. “How do you know it was an XE?”

  “Teddy told me. He knows cars. His dad sells ’em.”

  So, they moved on to Teddy Maxwell.

  Thanks to a maid at the Maxwell home, they found him with two of his buddies at a gun club on Manchester, having a fine time blasting targets to smithereens with Hämmerli 280s, high-end, high-tech handguns.

  The boys, with their buzz cuts, white cotton shirts, and chinos, struck Goodman as throwbacks to the 1950s, except for the weapons in their fists. They seemed not at all intimidated by the two detectives. One asked to see their guns, a request that was denied.

  Goodman, who didn’t like the idea of gun clubs in the first place, and who really didn’t like the idea of seventeen-year-old boys waving weapons around, not to mention the noise, made the interrogation short and sweet.

  What he got from Teddy Maxwell was that the car he and Missy Rosten had observed at ten to ten on the night of the murder had been an XKE. Just like the one that they’d seen at the Willins home.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Sorry to interfere with your plans for the evening,” Joe Walden said to the four people in his office, “but in approximately”—he consulted his watch, which read 8:03— “twenty minutes, Dyana Cooper will be arrested for the murder of Madeleine Gray.”

  Nikki was seated on the couch, sharing it with a seemingly bemused police lieutenant named Rockland who was in charge of media relations for the LAPD. Wise was occupying the soft leather chair to the left of Walden’s desk. To the right sat Meg Fisher, a stylish if slightly jaded-looking woman in her fifties who supervised public relations for the office and who frequently was mentioned in the press under the sobriquet “spokesperson for the district attorney.”

  “Assuming all goes according to plan,” Walden continued, “Ms. Cooper will be escorted to Interrogation at Robbery-Homicide. From there, she will be taken directly to the jail at Parker Center for booking. She will then be transferred to Sybil Brand.”

  “No bail?” Rockland asked.

  “That’s the way the warrant reads,” Walden said.

  “Arraignment will be when?” Again from Rockland.

  “Monday morning, bright and early, before Judge Rule.”

  “Pays to have a friend in court,” Rockland said. “Well, we’ll want to make the ten o’clock news with the announcement of the arrest, so I’d better start my calls. I’m pretty sure Chief Ahern will want to break the news himself.”

  “Better him than me,” Walden said.

  Rockland frowned. “Meaning what?”

  “Everybody loves Dyana Cooper. In a situation like this, people may decide to blame the messenger.”

  “She’s a murderer, right? The arrest is righteous?”

  “Legally? Most definitely,” Walden replied. “But the public may have other ideas.”

  “I’ll pass along your concerns to Chief Ahern.” Rockland made his exit.

  The room was quiet for about as long as it should have taken the lieutenant to reach the outer limits of the offices. Then Meg Fisher said to Walden, “You naughty man. Even if Dyana Cooper resembled the late Mother Teresa, it would still be the kind of CNN moment any public official prays for. In fact, while Lieutenant Rockland is busy getting his ducks in order, I should probably make a few calls myself. Starting with CNN. I’m off to my spider’s web, to spin, spin, spin.”

  “I thought she’d never leave,” Wise said sourly when the PR woman had gone.

  “You’re not fond of Meg?” Walden asked.

  “I didn’t like her when she covered the crime beat for the Herald-Examiner. I didn’t like her when she read the news on Channel Five. Why should I like her now?”

  “Because she’s on our team.”

  “Reporters are reporters, Joe, and sooner or later they’ll piss on the carpet.”

  “Meg is the best, Ray. It’s easy to find somebody to clean carpets.”

  Nikki, who’d lost much, if not all, of her patience in the last ten or fifteen minutes, said, “If that’s it, Joe, I’m going to try to grab a bite before going over to Parker Center.”

  “Anything breaks,” Walden said, “phone me immediately, regardless of the time. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at the two P.M. strategy meeting.”

  At that meeting areas of responsibility would be carved out and the lead prosecutors would be announced.

  “I’ll be there,” Nikki told him.

  FORTY

  At approximately eight-thirty P.M. that night, Goodman and Morales and two uniformed officers arrived at the Will-ins mansion in the Palisades with a warrant for the arrest of Dyana Cooper Willins. What they carried specifically was a Ramey warrant that would allow them to go into the home to arrest her, even if permission to enter was withheld. They needn’t have bothered. Neither she, nor her husband, nor their security guards offered any resistance.

  Goodman was pleased that they all
owed it to progress so uneventfully. As a sign of his gratitude, he exercised his option to bring in his prisoner without the use of handcuffs or shackles of any kind.

  FORTY-ONE

  Nikki arrived at Parker Center at a little after nine P.M.

  She’d not quite finished her second cup of coffee when Jesse Fallon joined her, looking as kindly and avuncular as Santa Claus. Nikki thought she might have been taken in by his benign appearance if she hadn’t known of his effectiveness in freeing Jamal Deschamps or heard Sue Fells’s vituperative opinion of him. He introduced himself, unnecessarily adding that he was representing Dyana Cooper.

  “Some coincidence,” she said, “you representing Jamal Deschamps and Ms. Cooper.” When he replied with an enigmatic smile, she added, “You’re also a friend of a Mr. James Doyle, aren’t you?”

  To her gratification, he seemed momentarily at a loss. He rebounded quickly, however. “I know the name, but I would not classify Mr. Doyle as a friend.” Before she could press him further on the subject, he shifted gears and said, “I do wish Ms. Cooper’s arrest could have been handled with more civility.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You didn’t have to humiliate my client by sending police to her home,” he said. “She would have surrendered herself gladly had she known you wanted her.”

  Nikki smiled. “Counselor, this is a murder case. We don’t usually provide special treatment for murderers.”

  “Ms. Hill, you know as well as I that Dyana is not a murderer.”

  “Maybe you should save that oratorical jive for a jury, Mr. Fallon.”

  “I don’t try cases, Ms. Hill.” His pale blue eyes radiated such intelligence and perception that she felt he might be reading her mind. “Those vigorous tasks I leave to younger, more aggressive and ambitious attorneys, such as yourself. My role in life is to try and keep people from making serious mistakes. You know what I mean, don’t you? The kind of silly missteps that can destroy a career.”