At one end of the room, two secretaries occupied twin desks. At the other sat a D.A.’s investigator, his jacket open, exposing a gun in a worn leather shoulder holster. The secretary whose name Nikki thought might be Jeri indicated the closed door to the conference room. “Please go in, Ms. Hill,” she said. “They’re expecting you.”
“They” were fourteen casually dressed coworkers and the D.A., gathered at the enormous conference table, several of them dwarfed by their high-backed, blue-gray leather chairs. Nikki was amused to note that the pecking order was being followed: Walden was at the head. On his left was Ray Wise. Past Wise, the lower-echelon D.A.s and clerks who comprised the special prosecution team sat in order of their seniority. One of the lessons learned from the O. J. Simpson murder case was the impracticality of assembling a team in increments to meet the needs of an ongoing trial. It was much more efficient to keep a full team in place, ready to handle high-profile prosecutions as a functioning unit.
“Hi, folks,” Nikki said. “Sorry I’m late.”
“We’re just starting,” Joe Walden said. There were two empty chairs to his right. He indicated that she should take the one nearest him, a gesture that buoyed her confidence.
“Need some coffee? Water?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, getting out her pen and opening her notebook.
“We’re still waiting for—” Walden said. “Ah, here she is.” Dimitra Shaw entered the conference room and moved to the empty chair beside Nikki. She was immaculately dressed in a smartly cut Italian suit not unlike one that Nikki would have been wearing herself if it had been a workday and not the weekend. She nodded to the crowd. “Afternoon. Joe, Ray. Nikki.”
Nikki smiled back through clenched teeth, wondering what the hell Dimitra was doing there. She was not a member of the special team. At least she hadn’t been. Nikki looked across the table at Ray questioningly, but he avoided her eyes. Not a good sign.
“Let’s get rolling,” Walden said. “We’ve got a lot to cover. Ray, why don’t you present your murder time line.”
Wise’s face contorted into a fleeting grimace and he began. “According to Mrs. Willins, at approximately five
P.M. on the evening of the murder, she arrives at Gray’s home in her beige 1970 Jaguar XKE Series III.” Walden wanted them to use Dyana Cooper’s married name in the hope of separating the murderer from the movie star. Nikki thought it was a dumb idea, but if it made Joe happy...“An argument ensues. They fight. Willins hits Gray with a sculpture, draws blood. Gray scratches Willins. Of course, all we have is Willins’s word for it that the fight took place at this time and not later that night between the hours of eight and eleven P.M., when Dr. Fugitsu tells us Gray was murdered.
“Willins lied to Detectives Goodman and Morales during their first interview at her home and again later at Parker Center when she told them she didn’t leave her house that night. Witnesses have definitely placed her car at Gray’s at the approximate time of the murder. A probable scenario is that she drove back there, passions erupted again, and Willins brutalized and murdered Madeleine Gray, rolled her body into a rug, and carried that to her car. She then drove the body to the Dumpster in South Central.”
Walden opened the floor to questions.
Was there anything to the speculation on the news that the Gray home was not the scene of the crime? “We’re ninety-eight percent certain the murder took place there,” Wise replied. “We’ve found signs of a fight. Blood. We know with certainty that Mrs. Willins removed the rug from the premises. Threads matching those on the floor were found in her sports car, along with a strand of the vic’s hair. That’s confidential, by the way.”
“Everything said here is,” Walden added sternly.
Could Dyana Cooper have murdered Maddie and disposed of the body without help? “Mrs. Willins is in excellent physical condition,” Wise said. “The LAPD is, of course, investigating the possibility of an accomplice. But the assumption is that she acted alone.”
Could a celebrity as well known as the suspect have driven a fancy sports car to South Central and dumped the body without being seen? “We’d love for some witness to come forth,” Wise said. “So far we’ve been unable to find anyone who saw Dyana Willins, or anybody else for that matter, placing the body in the Dumpster. We’re assuming she used the Jag, although she might have transferred the body to some other, less ostentatious vehicle. If so, we haven’t found that vehicle. It isn’t any of those at the Willins estate. The police have checked.”
On TV that morning, Mrs. Willins had claimed she had no motive. Was this true? Wise was starting to reply when he was interrupted by the harsh sound of a buzzer. Obviously piqued, the district attorney picked up the phone in front of him. “Jeri, you know I said...Oh, okay, put him on.” The room was quiet while Walden responded to the call with mumbles and grunts. Finally, he said, “I really can’t comment on that right now. Sorry.”
He didn’t seem to notice them staring at him expectantly as he replaced the receiver. He lifted the phone again, punched a button and said, “Get me Lieutenant Corben, wherever the hell he is.”
He turned to the others. “That was a reporter. Arthur Lydon, Madeleine Gray’s assistant, has been murdered at his apartment.” He wrinkled his nose. “Not just murdered. Eviscerated. The police discovered the body nearly an hour ago.
They apparently assumed I wouldn’t be interested. I have to
get my information from the media.”
“Some cooperation,” Wise said.
“If the police won’t come to us, we’ll have to go to them,” Walden said. “At least Nikki will. Right now.”
As eager as Nikki was to get in on the action at the crime scene, she couldn’t believe that Walden felt her presence at the trial meeting wasn’t necessary. “Ray can fill me in on whatever I miss here,” she said as she put away her notes.
“I’ll catch you up,” Dimitra said.
“Good idea,” the D.A. said. “Talk to Dimitra.” Stiffening a bit, he added, “She and Ray will be leading the prosecution team.”
Nikki prided herself on her ability to roll with the punches. But this one was a knockout blow. Her shock must have been obvious to everyone in the room.
Walden lowered his eyes and began straightening papers on the table.
“I’ll be down here working with Ray the rest of the day,” Dimitra said sweetly. “Stop by or give me a call.”
“Sure. I’ll do that,” Nikki said, almost choking in her anger. As she turned to leave, she glanced at Ray. He too had developed an overwhelming interest in his papers.
Murder by evisceration, Nikki thought. Good! Maybe I’ll pick up some pointers.
FORTY-SIX
The police were moving in a phalanx across the hillside beneath Arthur Lydon’s apartment building. Nikki assumed they were doing a ground search, but they might have been practicing a choreographic ensemble piece for the Rose Bowl halftime.
The uniformed policeman who stopped her when she attempted to move past the gathering crowd frowned at her ID but allowed her access. As she got on the elevator, two female cops were getting off. One was saying to the other, “Talk about your lousy tummy tucks.” They both laughed. Nikki felt a chill as she pressed the up button.
She was starting down the stairwell toward Lydon’s apartment when she heard, “Hey, Red.”
Virgil was on the second-level open walkway. He and his partner were standing with three young women. Virgil waved, said something to the others, and headed her way.
“What you doing here, honey?” he asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she said. “Corben’s got us all on this one. But I’m through now.
Let’s go take a drive.” “I just got here.” “Yeah, I know.” He lowered his voice. “Nothing here I can’t tell you about somewhere else.”
She looked down the hillside, where uniformed police were continuing their slow sweep of the scrub. The body had been covered with yellow
plastic. “Okay,” she said.
He turned and waved to his partner. “Later, Roy,” the partner called back. “What’s with the ‘Roy’?” she asked as he led her to the elevator. “Cop stuff,” he said. Looking past his shoulder she did another quick scan of the area.
“I don’t see Goodman or Morales.” “They’re not here,” he said as they got into the empty elevator. “I’ll fill you in.” “You’re acting a little weird, Virgil.” “Not weird,” he said as they began their descent. “Just cautious. The word is out. ‘Cooperation with the district attorney’s office is to be suspended until further notice.’ ”
“Why?”
“You guys leaked the news about Dyana’s arrest. Got to
expect some reciprocity.” “Because of some publicity bullshit you guys are willing
to risk blowing this case?” “Hold it, counselor. You’re playing to the wrong jury.” “Sounds to me like you approve of the order.” “If I did, going off with you now might seem like a real
romantic gesture.” “You’re a devious man,” she said as they left the elevator. “Me?” “King of the crooked answer.” “Untrue. Ask me anything.”
“Where are Goodman and Morales?”
“I imagine they’re in enemy country,” he said.
At that moment, the two detectives were in front of the Willins mansion, where their request to speak with Dyana Cooper was being denied by her lawyer, Anna Marie Dayne. “My client is with her husband and child. She is unavailable.”
“Well, you see,” Goodman said, “there’s been a...development.”
“The murder of Arthur Lydon?”
“Yes.”
“It’s been on the news,” Dayne said. “It has nothing to do with Ms. Cooper.”
“A woman resembling Ms. Cooper was seen leaving the crime scene.”
The lawyer’s stance became a shade less combative. “ That wasn’t on the news.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Goodman said.
“You’re not going to bother her with this. She hasn’t left my sight all day. Not since our press conference this morning.”
“We’d sorta like to hear that from Ms. Cooper. For the record.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” Dayne said. She turned to the security guard who stood behind them. “These gentlemen will be leaving now.”
“We’ll get our answers from Ms. Cooper, one way or another,” Goodman said. “That’s our job.”
“Your job,” Dayne said, “is to find criminals and arrest them. I’m helping you with that by saving you time and effort.”
With that, she turned on her heel and went back into the building.
“Detectives?” The security guard gestured toward the road.
As they got into their sedan, Goodman said, “I’m not looking forward to meeting that lady in the courtroom.”
“She’s pretty fierce with that Indian hair,” Morales said. “Nice ass on her, though.”
FORTY-SEVEN
It was nearly four-thirty when Nikki returned to the eighteenth floor of the Criminal Courts Building to give the district attorney her report on the Lydon murder. Ordinarily, she would have phoned it in, but she’d decided to push the Dimitra Shaw issue.
She relayed the information Virgil had provided, including the eyewitness’s account of a woman resembling Dyana Cooper leaving the building around the time of the murder. She ended with the news that Chief Ahern had instructed the Homicide-Robbery officers to keep the D.A.’s office out of the loop.
“Petty bullshit,” Walden said. “But you seem to have gotten around it.”
“About the Cooper trial,” she said. “You must know I was expecting to be the second chair.”
“Yes. I’ll tell you what I told Ray when he recommended you. You’re more useful in your present capacity as my special assistant.”
So Wise had actually lived up to his end of their bargain.
Too bad. She would have preferred his being the one who pulled the chair out from under her. She couldn’t hate Joe, who’d rescued her from Compton and lifted her out of the deputy pool.
“You’ll still be plugged in to every aspect of the trial,” he said.
“If that’s what you want,” she said.
She wasn’t about to ask Dimitra to fill her in on the rest of the morning’s meeting. Instead, she dropped in on Wise.
The prosecutor was bent over his desk, scribbling something on a yellow pad. He looked up at her and said, “Please, I don’t want to talk about it. I did the best—”
“I know. I just wanted to thank you for trying.”
“Well, we both knew it would be Joe’s ultimate decision.” He refocused on his notepad, obviously uncomfortable with the situation.
She was halfway to the door when he called her name. “You know why Joe picked her, don’t you?”
“He thought she could do a better job.”
He gave her another of his patented disapproving looks. “Still a Girl Scout, aren’t you?” He lowered his voice. “Joe’s fucking her.”
The news shocked her. Maybe she was a Girl Scout. “Who told you that?”
“It’s common knowledge.”
Was it true or was this just another of Wise’s sour takes on the way things worked? In either case, she understood his telling her was a sign of friendship, sort of. “Thanks,” she said.
“For what?” he grumbled, his attention back on his yellow pad.
FORTY-EIGHT
Jamal Deschamps had a tough decision to make.
At the suggestion of both his doctors and his lawyers, he’d been taking it easy. Hanging out in the hotel room that Mr. Ernest Comb-over Jolley, had booked for him. Not overdoing the pain pills, but popping one every now and then to stay mellow. Catching up on his tube time.
That Saturday afternoon, he’d been watching an eight-ball championship from Vegas, sipping a brew and nibbling on nachos with melted cheese from room service, when the scene on the monitor shifted abruptly. One second Little Lou Lazarro was attempting a double bank shot, the next some dude in a body bag was being carted away from an L.A. hillside.
Jamal shook his head, trying to lose a little of the woozy glow from that last Percodan. What the hell is that fly girl with the mike saying?
The reporter was passing along the information that Madeleine Gray’s “personal assistant” had been murdered.
She added, with a wince, that Arthur Lydon had been mutilated by a large knife, “possibly a machete.”
The word slipped past the medication, reminding Jamal of something he’d forgotten, something that the cops might like to know. Screw the blue, he thought. They fucked me over. Let ’em suss this one out for themselves.
As the evening wore on and the effects of the Percodan and beer wore off, his conscience began to nibble away at the edges of his attitude. According to the incessant news-breaks, the cops were looking for a woman in connection with Lydon’s murder. The woman’s description matched that of actress and recording star Dyana Cooper, whom the police suspected also murdered Madeleine Gray.
Cops won’t be happy until they put this one on the sister’s scorecard, too. Like she’d take a machete to somebody.
What he knew, or thought he knew, might get the LAPD to lighten up on Dyana. But he was free and clear of it now. He didn’t want to do anything that might mess up the lawsuit. Or put him in the way of that fucking machete. Sister’s already on the hook for one murder, Jamal told himself. One more won’t change matters much.
Still, he couldn’t let go of it.
He phoned the law office of Jastrum, Park, Wells.
The guy on weekend duty seemed annoyed that somebody had disturbed him. Fucker’s probably busy with his nose in some law book.
“I need to talk to Fallon,” Jamal told him.
“Mr. Fallon will be in the office on Monday morning.”
“I need to talk to him now. Tell him it’s Jamal Deschamps needs to talk to him.”
The man wasn’t
too impressed by the name. “I’ll leave word for him.”
Later that night, Ernest Jolley returned his call.
“Your name Fallon?” Jamal demanded.
“Mr. Fallon isn’t available,” Jolley said with a patience that underscored his effectiveness as a mediator. “What do you need?”
“Advice.”
“About what?”
“I got something I want to talk over with the cops.”
“That’s probably not a good idea, Jamal.”
“This is important.” Jamal didn’t want to get too specific, since he didn’t trust Mr. Comb-over any more than he admired his hairstyle. “Something I feel I have to do.”
“At this stage of our negotiation, my suggestion would be to stay as far away from the LAPD as you can. Unless you want to blow the deal. That what you want, Jamal?”
Shit, Jamal thought as he hung up the phone. Sorry, sweet Dyana. I love your music, but not two mil worth.
FORTY-NINE
At the Sunday service at Faithful Central Baptist Missionary, Nikki was having a hard time concentrating on the Doctor Reverend R. L. Johnson’s sermon. Loreen sat to her left, Victoria Allard, the amateur clothier, to her right, both of them apparently hanging on Reverend Johnson’s every word. Nikki’s attention had been drifting—from the unpleasant thought that Joe Walden had probably pushed her aside in favor of his lover to her conflicted feelings over the speed with which her affair with Virgil was progressing. Adding to her general sense of unease was the presence, across the aisle, of her father, William Hill, sitting with his aging baby-doll wife, Patricia, and their tall, awkward daughter, Emily.
Nikki studied the girl. Could someone she barely knew actually be her half sister? The girl was what, eighteen? Damn, they hadn’t said ten words...She paused at the sound of Dyana Cooper’s name.
“. . . this wonderful woman,” Reverend Johnson was saying, “is experiencing for herself the kind of woes the good
The Trials of Nikki Hill Page 20