‘Detective Goodman did receive a phone call, sir,’ Latisha said nervously. ‘Shortly after I spoke with you. I can’t say who that call was from, but he took off after that, sir. Like a bat out of hell, if you’ll pardon the expression.’
Johnson’s mind raced, his stomach sour with fear.
Waving Latisha away, he closed the door to the glass box of an office, and sat down not at his own desk, but at Goodman’s.
The net was tightening, but he mustn’t panic.
Think.
Unlike Johnson’s own desk, Goodman’s was clean and organized, as neat as a pin. The envelope addressed to Dr Roberts was still lying there, as was Goodman’s cell phone, a sure sign that he must have left not just in a hurry but in a flat-spin panic. Johnson looked at the envelope first, carefully reading both Williams’ invoice and the writing on the back, and Nikki’s note to Goodman. His chest tightened when he saw his own name. ‘Johnson’s in this up to his neck.’ Stupid woman! She was about to find out what being in something up to your neck really meant.
Slipping the envelope into his pocket, Johnson picked up Goodman’s cell phone. Typing in the access code he’d memorized long ago, he began scrolling through his partner’s messages and calls, as well as his search history.
It didn’t take him long to find what he needed.
Forwarding the information to his own phone, he quickly deleted the record from Goodman’s sent items. The feeling of fear in his chest intensified as he looked at his watch. Six twenty already! How had that happened? What if he was too late?
Reloading his gun, he ran out of the door.
It was time to finish this thing once and for all.
Nikki closed her eyes and braced herself for the bullet that would end her life. At least, in her case, it looked as if the end would be swift, and not the protracted agony inflicted on poor Willie Baden. Strangely, now that it had come to this, she felt very little fear. More resignation, and a sort of dull ache of disappointment that she was going to die before she understood anything at all.
But the shot didn’t come. Opening her eyes, she was surprised to find Luis Rodriguez staring at her, his expression a combination of cruelty and amusement.
‘Why the rush, Dr Roberts? Don’t you want to talk before you meet your maker?’
‘You murdered Willie Baden.’ Nikki looked at him coolly. He was going to kill her at some point. But as long as she was alive she wanted answers.
‘Indeed.’ Rodriguez gave a little bow, as if accepting a compliment.
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ he laughed. Then, seeing Nikki’s appalled face, added, ‘Oh, come along now, Dr Roberts. Don’t tell me you disapprove? He was a cheating pig, you must have despised the man.’
‘Why?’ Nikki asked again.
‘He got greedy,’ Rodriguez said simply. ‘He’d been taking more than his agreed cut on a little business deal we had together. For a long time, as it turned out. In Mexico he was careful, but here in LA he believed he was untouchable.’ He turned to look appraisingly at Baden’s mutilated, naked body. ‘I disabused him of that notion. No one’s untouchable. Make an enemy of me and I will find you.’
His eyes blazed murderously into Nikki’s and she half expected him to shoot her on the spot. Instead he waited for the wave of anger to subside and said quietly, ‘Next question.’
‘What did you do to Anne?’
Rodriguez seemed surprised that this was what Nikki wanted to ask.
‘To Anne? Nothing that she didn’t want me to do,’ he replied, smiling smugly. ‘My wife likes to be dominated, you see, Dr Roberts. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out by now. But then again, you never really knew Anne. Not like I do.’
‘I knew she was afraid of you,’ said Nikki. ‘I knew she ran because she couldn’t stand one more day in the cage of a life you’d condemned her to.’
His smile died on his lips.
‘You know it amuses me to listen to you try to defend her. Even now, after she brought you here to die.’
‘Because you forced her to. The same way you forced her to watch what you did to Willie Baden. You terrorized her. You beat her!’ Nikki insisted.
Luis shook his head. ‘No, Dr Roberts. You still don’t get it, do you? She does these things because she loves me. In the end, whatever she feels for you, Anne will do anything to please me, and to protect me. Because, despite your best efforts to destroy us, her heart is still mine.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Nikki. But she could hear her own conviction wavering. Anne had brought her here, after all, led her into Rodriguez’s trap. And who knew what role she’d really played in Baden’s killing?
‘I should have stepped in a long time ago,’ Luis went on, his gun still pointed firmly at Nikki’s head. ‘The irony is that I was going to get rid of you before you even met my wife. As soon as I discovered that that buffoon Berkeley had been reckless enough to put himself in therapy. Of all the moronic things to do.’
‘You mean Carter?’ Nikki’s eyes widened. ‘What does Carter Berkeley have to do with any of this?’
Luis’s smile broadened. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’
‘No,’ Nikki said truthfully. ‘I don’t.’
‘All right, Dr Roberts. In that case, I’m going to tell you a little story. Just for fun. And you see if you can fit some of the pieces together. Once upon a time, there was a man. Not a young man, but a man in his prime.’
His voice was deep and mellifluous, like an actor’s, and there was a hypnotic quality about the way he spoke that compelled one to listen. Nikki could quite see how a younger, more vulnerable Anne could have fallen under his spell.
‘Try and picture this man in a forest, a few miles outside Mexico City. A beautiful, secluded spot. It’s a hot, dark night. The moon is full. He’s waiting for a girl. A special girl. A girl whose soft, young body he’s been pleasuring himself with for months now, but not like this. Not like tonight. Tonight will be different. Even more special.’
Nikki felt a cold, prickling sensation creep over her. She shivered. Rodriguez was becoming excited, telling the story. Carter Berkeley’s words came rushing back to her, from their last session together, when Carter had slipped almost into a trance. ‘I see a clearing in the trees. It’s nighttime. It’s dark but there’s moonlight. It’s hot.’
‘He sees her coming,’ Rodriguez went on. ‘She’s stumbling through the fields, taking glances at the little map he’s made for her. Her reddish blond hair, newly washed, swings from side to side as she walks. She’s tall, very tall, and her long, slim legs picking their way over fallen branches and rocks remind him of a young deer. Perfection. She’s so beautiful it’s almost painful to watch her. So young. So innocent! Are you with me, Dr Roberts?’
Nikki nodded, appalled but mesmerized. The pieces were starting to fall into place. Some of them, anyway.
‘Charlotte Clancy. You’re talking about Charlotte Clancy, aren’t you?’
‘Very good,’ Rodriguez grinned. ‘More than anything, it was her innocence that had drawn the man in. It was intoxicating, something he wanted because he had never had it. He’d been young once himself, of course, a long time before. But he’d never been truly innocent. Not like Charlotte. The two of them came from different worlds, different planets. Their stars had never been intended to collide. But collided they had, and here he was, watching her, drinking in the wonder of her as she rushed to meet him.’
‘What happened then?’ Nikki asked, as if this were a therapy session and she was drawing her client out. Which, in a way, she was.
‘Well then, the man got silently out of his car and tiptoed the few hundred feet to the clearing, so he would be there to greet her when she arrived,’ said Rodriguez, playing along. ‘He felt aroused. Excited. He’d been hesitant before but not now. He wanted this. He called out through the darkness:
‘“Cara!”
‘“I’m here! I’m here my love,” she called back.’
&
nbsp; He mimicked Charlotte Clancy’s voice in a squeaky falsetto that made Nikki’s stomach churn.
‘Then she stepped into the clearing and stood shyly in front of him, maybe ten feet away. She tried to come closer but he held up a hand to stop her. Told her he wanted to remember her there, just as she was. Can you picture her?’
‘I can,’ said Nikki, repulsed. ‘She was eighteen years old. A child. What did you do to her, Luis?’
He made another little ingratiating bow and chuckled. ‘Right again, Dr Roberts. So the young lady is Charlotte and the man is me. You’re almost there. I was married at the time, to my second wife – this is a few years before Anne – and I’d had a fabulous summer fling with Charlotte. But then, very unfortunately, she decided to overstep the boundaries. And she really left me with no choice but to finish things.
‘What did I do to her? I asked her to take off her dress. Like Anne, you see, Charlotte liked to be dominated. She was happy to comply. Eager, even.’ He salivated at the memory. ‘I can picture her now, raising her arms, pulling the thin cotton over her head. She had these lovely, high, round, apple breasts and a flat, taut stomach above a tiny pair of lace underwear. Oh, she was perfect, Dr Roberts! She really was. I asked her to dance for me, but she was shy, and she didn’t want to, not at all. So I had to give her a little helping hand. Have you ever seen the human body under machine-gun fire?’
He let out a sadistic high-pitched giggle. ‘I don’t suppose you have. They’re dead long before they fall to the ground, but before that they all do this amusing sort of jerky, jumpy little dance to the rhythm of the bullets, legs and arms flying everywhere. It’s a bit of a mess by the end, but it’s well worth watching, if you’ve never seen it before.
‘Carter Berkeley was one of my bankers. I liked him, but my God he was uptight! Anyway, I’d hoped he would enjoy the little show I put on for him with Charlotte. He’d introduced us in the first place, so he deserved a little thank you, and I’d promised him a surprise, you see. He came along and watched from the car. But he was boringly squeamish about the whole thing, shaking and crying like a little girl. I think he thought I was going to let him sleep with her.’
He laughed again, looking back up at Nikki.
‘I mean, can you imagine? Why would I allow that? What’s mine is mine, Dr Roberts. And always will be.’
It took Nikki a few seconds fully to process everything he was saying, and to square it with what Williams had told her before he died. When she spoke it was as much to herself as to Rodriguez.
‘So Carter was the American banker. The man with the green Jaguar. But he was never Charlotte’s boyfriend. You were.’
‘I’m not sure I was her boyfriend,’ Luis clarified amiably, as if they weren’t talking about a cold-blooded murder.
‘Does Carter still work for you?’
Luis’s expression darkened. ‘My organization isn’t like a bank. People don’t come and go. Once you’re in, you’re in. We’re like a family.’
The word sounded horribly chilling on Luis’s lips.
‘Unfortunately, over the years Carter Berkeley became one of our more dysfunctional members. Hence his visits to you.’
‘And by “organization” you mean your drug cartel?’ asked Nikki.
‘I wouldn’t call it that. Narcotics is a part of our business. So is real estate. We have broad-based interests.’
‘Bullshit,’ Nikki said boldly. If she was going to die, she wasn’t going to do it on this man’s terms. ‘Your property empire’s nothing but a giant laundromat for your drug-trade profits. Same as your so-called philanthropy. You push Krok for a living, Mr Rodriguez. You’re just another low-life drug dealer, no more, no less.’
Luis cocked his head curiously to one side, but didn’t seem angry. If anything, he appeared to enjoy being challenged.
‘Firstly, I don’t have to “push” Krokodil, Dr Roberts, any more than I had to “push” cocaine. Demand is high. I don’t create it. I simply meet it.’
Nikki’s eyes narrowed in disgust. ‘You know what that stuff does to people.’
‘Yes, I do. And so do they. I’m not responsible for my customers’ choices,’ Luis shot back, unapologetic. ‘Nor was Carter Berkeley. He’s been my finance guy on the West Coast for years. He was a damn good one too, until he started getting cold feet. There’s truly nothing more irksome than a late-developing conscience, don’t you agree? Like Lisa Flannagan’s.’
Nikki’s ears pricked up at the mention of Lisa. What did Rodriguez know about her, or her conscience?
‘Anyway, all of a sudden Berkeley’s heart started to bleed for these poor, pathetic junkies,’ Rodriguez went on, bringing the conversation back to Carter. ‘Needless to say, that was after he’d taken his cut. He felt bad enough to spill his guts to a therapist, but never to give back any of the millions of dollars he made from me. He became greedy and weak. Just like Mr Baden over there. Never a good combination.’
Carter was part of this ‘ring’ Williams was trying to warn me about, thought Nikki. He must have been the ‘crooked banker’. And Baden had obviously been part of it too, although where he would have fit in, Nikki still wasn’t sure. Not that it mattered now. Her mind raced. Who else had Derek said was involved? A politician, possibly the Mayor himself. A cop. And someone in the charity world, all taking their slices of Rodriguez’s Krokodil pie.
‘I’ve made many mistakes here in LA, Dr Roberts,’ said Rodriguez, glancing down at the gun in his hand. ‘I admit it. My first was relying on Berkeley. Carter’s a smart guy but he had no balls, as it turned out, and you need those in our business. My second was letting Valentina Baden talk me into working with her husband. Valentina’s a professional. She comes from the same world that I do and she understands the way things work. But her old man was a liability. And then there was my biggest mistake of all, hiring that wrecked boy Grolsch to get rid of you. What a goddamned mess he made of everything.’
Nikki winced. She still found it hard to believe that Brandon would hurt anybody, never mind murder and torture. But the idea that he would agree to kill her, the one person who’d helped him, or tried to help him, more than anyone? That was mind-boggling. What had Rodriguez’s drugs done to him?
‘I should have known the kid was too far gone, too deep in his addiction to do a decent job. But Valentina was obsessed with him and she lobbied for him so persuasively. She and Brandon had been lovers, you see. Back when he still had his looks, before the drugs ravaged him.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Nikki. ‘Brandon’s nineteen. Valentina Baden’s old enough to be his grandmother.’
Rodriguez shrugged. ‘In addiction, as in love, there are no barriers, Dr Roberts, no boundaries. Your husband understood that. I’m surprised you don’t. In any event, I think it excited the old bitch, the idea of lover-boy killing somebody for her. ‘Brandon knows Dr Roberts,’ she told me. ‘He knows her habits, her movements. He can do this, Luis. Give him a chance.’ Stupidly, I let her have her way. It was in the early days of my association with Willie, and I thought it made sense to keep both the Badens sweet.’ Luis shook his head bitterly. ‘My God, what a fiasco. All Grolsch had to do was wait for you outside your office and stick a knife in your heart. I mean, how hard is that? But the whole thing became a comedy of errors. Lisa Flannagan comes out wearing your raincoat, and oops! The moron goes and kills her instead. I mean, he literally cut that poor girl to ribbons.’
Nikki thought about this. It was Goodman’s ‘mistaken identity’ theory. That the killer had mistaken Lisa for Nikki, because it was dark and she was wearing Nikki’s coat. On the one hand, she supposed it was technically possible that Brandon could have been high enough and so amped-up to kill that he would make that sort of ‘mistake’. But surely it was more likely that Valentina Baden had instructed him to kill Lisa, her husband’s mistress, instead of Nikki?
She assumed this possibility must have occurred to Rodriguez too. Although he seemed to have a bizarre trust in Valen
tina Baden’s word and judgment that ran counter to everything else Nikki knew about him. It struck her that Luis Rodriguez would make a fascinating psychological case study, if only he weren’t about to blow her brains out.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘Brandon killed the girl. I had some of my guys here try and clean up the body, but that was a mess too. They were rushed and they panicked and some of that idiot’s rotten, Krok-infested skin gave the cops a DNA match. So now I have a murder investigation on my hands and a three-ring media circus and the Badens and Brandon panicking – and all the time, you’re still alive, Dr Roberts. Which was a very unsatisfactory situation, given the fact you were seeing Anne. My Anne.’
As he said his wife’s name, his entire face changed. Suddenly his chatty, convivial tone was gone. He looked at Nikki with raw hatred.
‘Of all the thousands of shrinks in LA, my wife picks you. The same woman who’s been listening to my banker spill his guts for the past year, who I’ve been trying and failing to get rid of like a damned cockroach. You were the one Anne turned to. What are the odds, eh?’
Slim, thought Nikki. The odds were slim. Someone must have recommended her to Anne. Someone who knew about the Carter Berkeley connection and who actively wanted to put her life in danger. She tried to think who that might be, and why – someone connected to this ‘ring’ perhaps? – but her mind was a blank.
She was still grappling with the idea that Brandon Grolsch had taken money to kill her, and that he had killed poor Lisa. All this time she’d protected Brandon from Goodman and defended him to Williams. And then, only days ago Brandon had called her, begging for help and forgiveness. Forgiveness!
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Luis continued, interrupting Nikki’s muddled thoughts. ‘I would have killed you anyway. Carter Berkeley signed your death warrant the day he walked into your consulting room. But it wasn’t personal at that point. When I found out you were seeing Anne, that’s when things changed.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘That was when I began to despise you, Dr Roberts.’
Sidney Sheldon's the Silent Widow Page 33