Sidney Sheldon's the Silent Widow

by Sidney Sheldon

  ‘I’m fine. I’m calm,’ said Nikki, waving away her objections like a horse dispatching a fly with an impatient flick of the tail. She needed to talk about this, needed to remember. It helped. ‘The first time the lights went out, and the second time … I was on the stairs?’

  She looked to Johnson for confirmation. ‘Yup.’

  ‘Rodriguez was about to finish me off when Goodman showed up. He saved me.’ She looked at Johnson again. ‘He killed Rodriguez. Blew the top of his head right off.’

  Fiona winced at this gruesome detail, but Johnson was unfazed. If anything, he seemed pleased Nikki remembered so vividly.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s right. And after that?’

  Nikki looked pale. Then she started to shake. It was coming back to her: Goodman’s face, his mocking, vicious expression swam before her eyes.

  ‘After that I … I don’t remember.’

  ‘I think you do,’ Johnson persisted. ‘Goodman was going to shoot you next.’

  ‘No,’ Nikki shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t have done that. I know he wouldn’t. He … we were friends.’

  ‘Friends like you and Brandon Grolsch, you mean?’ Detective Johnson laughed, but there was anger there too. Anger at Nikki’s willful blindness. ‘Lou Goodman was a liar and a fraud, and if I hadn’t killed him right then and there he would have sent your brains flying around that stairwell just like Rodriguez’s.’

  ‘NO!’ Nikki sat bolt upright. ‘That’s not right! That can’t be right!’

  ‘Sure it’s right,’ Johnson snapped. ‘Goodman had been in Rodriguez’s pay for at least two years, maybe longer. He grew up poor – he told you about that, didn’t he? He knew what it was like to lose everything. The only thing driving him since his dad’s suicide was the pursuit of money. Wealth. Security. Rodriguez offered him a fast track to millions of dollars and he grabbed it with both, greedy hands. But even that wasn’t enough. He wanted to run the show.’

  ‘You’re lying!’ Nikki wheezed, feeling suddenly dizzy.

  Nurse McManus could take no more. ‘Right. Out!’ she commanded Detective Johnson. ‘We discussed this outside. She’s supposed to be resting. If I’d known you were going to upset her like this, I would never have brought you in.’

  Johnson lumbered angrily to his feet. ‘And if I’d known she was going to insist on keeping her blinkers on even now – even after I saved her goddamned life – I’d have let my partner shoot her!’

  Nurse McManus opened her mouth to interject, but Johnson waved her angrily away. ‘Save your breath. I’m leaving,’ he said. Turning back to Nikki he snapped, ‘And you … if you don’t believe me, try turning on the news. Good luck to you, Dr Roberts.’

  Like a cloud of storm and fury, he was gone.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Fiona fussed nervously around her patient’s pillows. If Dr Riley found out she’d allowed a visitor and then the patient’s condition deteriorated … ‘I had no idea he was going to upset you like that. He seemed so nice out in the waiting room and he’s been ever so concerned, keeping vigil all through your operation and afterwards.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Nikki said blankly, her mind struggling to process everything that Johnson had said. The worst part was that it tallied with her own, fractured memories. Goodman had been about to shoot her. Someone, presumably Johnson, must have stopped him. Or she wouldn’t be lying here, alive and wondering. Would she? And now Goodman was dead too, and so was Luis Rodriguez. Two more bodies to add to the roll call of the dead: Doug, Lenka, Lisa, Trey, Williams. One by one they’d fallen around her.

  But I’m still here.

  Do I really have that bigot Johnson to thank for it?

  ‘What did he mean, about turning on the news?’ she asked the nurse.

  ‘Oh, nothing, I expect,’ the girl replied dismissively. ‘There’s been some coverage about the shoot-out at the warehouse. He probably meant that. But you should rest. I’ll page Dr Riley and be back in a tick.’

  Nikki waited till she was alone to pick up the TV remote, attached by a wire to the side of her bed. Flipping the channel to ABC news, she was shocked to see a picture of her own face immediately filling the screen. It was an old professional headshot, taken a few months before Doug’s accident, and if her name hadn’t been printed underneath, Nikki would have had trouble recognizing that pretty, carefree young woman as herself.

  ‘Beverly Hills Psychologist Dr Nicola Roberts, the woman believed to be at the center of the infamous Zombie Killings case, is said to be in a stable and comfortable condition at Good Samaritan Hospital, after Wednesday night’s shooting incident on San Julian Street downtown, following the reported murder of Rams owner Willie Baden at that same location.’

  I wouldn’t say ‘comfortable’, thought Nikki, flinching at the pain in her leg as she listened eagerly to the reporter’s voice.

  ‘One police officer, Detective Lou Goodman, was also confirmed dead at the scene, along with Mexican businessman and philanthropist, Luis Rodriguez. Both men died from gunshot wounds. Mr Baden’s cause of death has not yet been confirmed by police, although we understand that it was not gun-related. And again at this point we are unclear about the connection between the three victims. Although, as we know, Willie Baden had admitted to an extra-marital relationship with Lisa Flannagan, the first victim of the so-called Zombie Killer. So it would seem there are lots of threads to follow as this story develops.’

  The screenshot of Nikki’s face disappeared, replaced by live images of the warehouse, the streets around it now criss-crossed with yellow police tape.

  ‘Dr Roberts was carried bleeding from this building’ – the reporter gestured over her shoulder – ‘by Detective Michael Johnson, one of the senior officers assigned to the Zombie Killings along with the deceased Detective Goodman.

  ‘The LAPD have yet to make any official statement regarding Wednesday’s events. However, we can confirm that in the forty-eight hours since the shootings took place, multiple arrests have been made, possibly pertaining to a drug ring that Mr Rodriguez may have been involved with … As I say, Chase, details are still scarce at this stage.’

  ‘That’s right, Karina.’ They cut back to the TV studio where a blandly handsome anchor in a jacket and tie – presumably ‘Chase’ – took over the narrative from behind the news desk.

  ‘Things are still pretty confusing on this story but it does appear that drugs were involved, and that Wednesday’s slayings, possibly including that of Willie Baden, may have been a part of a long-running battle for control of LA’s illegal narcotics trade between Mexican and Russian gangs. Last night saw the arrest of prominent LA Philharmonic violinist Anne Bateman, the estranged wife of one of the deceased, Luis Rodriguez. Ms Bateman was actually detained on the tarmac at John Wayne Airport, where we understand she was attempting to board a private plane to Mexico City. Then this morning, as you know, Karina, investment banker Carter Berkeley was arrested at his multimillion-dollar home in the small hours, as was eminent surgeon Haddon Defoe. Also Frankie Jay, a senior official at City Hall, all three men reportedly woken from their beds by armed police as part of the same operation.

  ‘Police also want to speak to Mrs Valentina Baden, but she is reported to have suffered a collapse following her husband’s death and is not fit to answer questions at this time.’

  Stills of Haddon and Carter and the Badens in happier times flashed in front of Nikki’s eyes like part of a dream. So Haddon’s a part of this too?

  ‘Now we can’t confirm this ourselves,’ the anchor went on, ‘but the LA Times are saying that unnamed sources at the FBI have told them these arrests and the recent shootings are all part of the same operation, and that both the deceased, Rodriguez, and the individuals taken into custody were all involved in the supply of a street drug known as “Krokodil”.’

  ‘Exactly, Chase.’ Karina reclaimed the baton at that point, cutting away from the studio to the warehouse shot and explaining to viewers what Krok was and its gruesome effects
on users. But Nikki was no longer listening. Instead she was glued to the images on her screen of Haddon Defoe, still in his pajamas, being led out to a squad car, stony-faced but unresisting.

  ‘It does look at this point as if the police are closing in on a high-level ring of corruption and possibly money-laundering relating to the supply and sale of Krokodil. Interestingly, we’re also getting reports of some connection between these arrests and the Charlotte Clancy case of maybe ten years ago. D’you remember that case, Karina?’ Chase asked.

  Charlotte’s name brought Nikki’s focus back to the report.

  ‘I sure do,’ his colleague nodded sagely, no doubt having just been fed the information on autocue. ‘Charlotte was an au pair from San Diego who went missing in Mexico City. Now exactly how Monday’s victims might fit into this complex picture remains unclear, Chase,’ Karina added helpfully. ‘But we’ll keep you updated as soon as we know more.’

  Nikki hit the ‘off’ button and stared at the ceiling.

  It was all about the ring.

  Williams’ ring.

  Goodman had been part of it. And Haddon. And Carter. And the Badens.

  And the one man Nikki had hated all along; the one person she’d been certain was a liar and a bigot and corrupt – Detective Johnson – he’d been the one good apple in the whole, rotten barrel.

  He saved my life.

  She was still staring at the ceiling when her surgeon came back in.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked. Mistaking Nikki’s tears for physical pain, he started to apologize about withdrawing the morphine. ‘I know it hurts like hell, and I’m truly sorry. But right now it’s important, vital, that you really feel it. That you stay connected to reality, no matter how hard that is.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Nikki, tears streaming down her face.

  And for the first time in many months, she did.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Two months later …

  ‘Aunt Nikki! Aunt Nikki! Look at me!’

  Lucas Adler, Nikki’s godson and the oldest child of her BFF Gretchen, balanced precariously on the handlebars of his (moving) bike on only his hands. Arms outstretched, ten-year-old legs thrust ramrod straight in the air, he looked like a broken neck waiting to happen.

  Thank God he’s riding on grass, thought Nikki, watching nervously from the back porch as her budding acrobat godson hurtled across the Adlers’ enormous lawn. She’d been staying with Gretchen and Adam for two months now, in one of the countless guest rooms at their Beverly Hills estate. It was as nice a place to recuperate as she could have wished for: a beautiful, luxurious home but also a happy one, full of kids and laughter and noise and company. Plenty to distract her from her own, brooding thoughts, on the days when she cared to be distracted. And on the days when she didn’t, Gretchen was there, refusing to take no for an answer, dragging Nikki up and out of her depression with a no-nonsense firmness that had quite probably saved Nikki’s life.

  ‘You’re alive, Nik,’ Gretchen never stopped reminding her. ‘You survived. There’s a reason for that.’

  ‘I didn’t survive,’ Nikki would answer. ‘I was saved. There’s a difference. Saved by a man who stands for everything I don’t. A racist, sexist, deceitful …’ She never seemed to run out of adjectives when it came to describing the loathsome Mick Johnson. And yet part of her knew that the anger pouring out of her towards the cop who saved her life was really anger at herself. For having misjudged him, at least in part. Just as she’d misjudged so many others.

  ‘Well, I don’t care if he lives under a bridge and eats billy goats,’ Gretchen replied robustly. ‘Anyone who saved your life is a good guy in my books. And besides, Nik, this isn’t about him, it’s about you. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? Because as much as we love having you, you can’t sit around on our porch reading the newspaper for the rest of your life.’

  That much was true. At Gretchen’s prompting, Nikki had closed down her practice and given up her lease on the Century City office. She’d also put her and Doug’s Brentwood house – ‘that mausoleum’ as Gretchen called it – on the market.

  ‘You’re rich, you’re beautiful, you’re healthy, you’re educated,’ Gretchen insisted, thrusting listings for yet more swish New York condos under Nikki’s nose while she packed the kids’ lunchboxes one morning. Nikki moving to New York for a ‘fresh start’ had become a minor obsession with Gretchen, who Nikki was starting to suspect might be living out some sort of escape fantasy of her own. ‘You’re still young, Nik.’

  ‘I’m not young!’ Nikki laughed. ‘And neither are you.’

  ‘Well, we’re not old,’ Gretchen countered, slathering yet more peanut butter and jelly onto slices of crustless bread. ‘You don’t want to be alone for the rest of your life.’

  Don’t I? Nikki wondered.

  Watching Lucas deftly lower himself from his handstand and successfully plant his butt back on the saddle with a punch of triumph, she smiled and gave a thumbs up sign before returning to her newspaper.

  Today was the first day of Haddon Defoe’s trial. The charges were money-laundering and corruption. Apparently, ever since Doug’s death, and perhaps even earlier, Haddon had been using his and their charity to channel Luis Rodriguez’s drug money, 90 per cent of it profits from the Krokodil trade. If prosecutors were to be believed, he’d earned millions of dollars in kickbacks, as had the other members of the LA ‘ring’, including the Badens. Willie had made a fortune laundering Rodriguez’s cash before he was murdered, funneling funds into everything from shopping center developments across Southern California to his beloved football team. As for Valentina, her connection to the cartel stretched back decades, with her charity, Missing, profiting from abductions and sex-trafficking, and acting as a front for illicit, even murderous, activity, just as Derek Williams had suspected.

  It went deeper than that, though. According to prosecutors, Mrs Baden was a deeply troubled individual, and may even have had a hand in her own sister’s disappearance all those years ago. Old family friends had come out of the woodwork to speak openly about Valentina’s obsessive jealousy of her sister, María, who had evidently always been the more beautiful of the two sisters. Like so many other Americans, Gretchen couldn’t get enough of the story. Valentina’s trial wouldn’t begin for months at the earliest, if it happened at all. Since Willie’s murder, she’d been ‘resting’ at a secure psychiatric facility near Oxnard. But her trial-by-tabloid was already well underway, and utterly gripping.

  Williams was right about so much, Nikki thought sadly. He totally called it on Missing. More importantly, he’d been the first person to blow the whistle on Rodriguez’s secret life and the waves of corruption and conspiracy that rippled out from it. But it was the FBI who were taking all the credit for that, the same way they were claiming to have ‘solved’ the mystery of Charlotte Clancy’s disappearance – now officially classified as murder.

  In death as in life, thought Nikki, Williams was robbed of recognition. Poor Derek.

  Nikki had attempted a complete detox from all media coverage of the trials. But with the LA Times devoting multiple pages to the story every day, and every cable news show leading with it, it wasn’t that easy simply to switch off. Not often did LA reporters get their teeth into a case involving quite so many of the city’s elite, from politicians to bankers, surgeons to cops, philanthropists to lawyers and even judges; not to mention the sensational ‘foreign meddling’ angle, with Russians and Mexicans fighting a deadly turf war on US soil. It certainly made a change from the usual inane showbiz gossip. It wasn’t only Gretchen who was addicted to the latest twists in the story. The entire city of LA was gripped.

  ‘Hey!’

  Nikki jumped as Gretchen snuck up behind her, reaching over her wicker recliner and snatching the newspaper out of her hands.

  ‘You promised not to look, remember?’

  ‘I know,’ said Nikki. ‘But it’s Haddon’s trial. His picture’s all over the
front page.’

  ‘All the more reason not to read,’ said Gretchen, folding the paper under her arm.

  ‘He looks so gaunt,’ said Nikki. ‘He must have aged ten years.’

  Gretchen frowned. ‘I hope you’re not feeling sorry for him? My God, Nik. After everything Haddon Defoe did to you? All the lies? Not to mention those poor people whose lives got ruined by that terrible drug.’

  ‘I know,’ Nikki said sadly. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘You bet I’m right!’ Gretchen said indignantly. ‘First he profits from their addiction, then he swoops in and acts like their savior. Think how much value all that good PR added to his surgical practice, on top of the millions he got paid by Rodriguez!’ She shook her head bitterly. ‘He betrayed Doug as well as you, you know. I hope they throw away the key.’

  Nikki nodded, too depressed to respond in words. Everything Gretchen said was true, and sometimes she felt the same. But at other times it was hard, changing your opinion and feelings about a person 180 degrees overnight. It wasn’t like Lucas, flipping upside down then right side up on his bicycle, as deftly and easily as a fish gliding through the water. Nikki had known Haddon for years, decades, not just as a friend but as a good man. And while it was true that his recent clumsy come-ons towards her had dented that image somewhat, now she was being asked to accept that he was a bad man, that he had been all along. How did one do that? How did one begin? Facts were facts and could change on a dime, but feelings? Feelings were another story.

  It had been hard enough with Lou Goodman, who she’d only known for a few months and never gotten truly close to. Goodman had put a gun to her head and would have killed her like a stray dog if Johnson hadn’t come along. Killed her for money.

  That was a fact.

  He’d also murdered Derek Williams in cold blood.

  That, tragically, was another fact, one that the police victims’ liaison officer had had to explain to Nikki days after she left the hospital: ‘There’s no doubt, I’m afraid. We found the silencer in Detective Goodman’s belongings, and blood splatters belonging to Mr Williams in fibers of his clothing.’