Violet was momentarily silent.
“You’re what, about twenty-five, girl?” Nikki went on. “I guess you needed a weave because your nice nappy twenty-five-year-old hair fell out in one clump all by itself. Your truthful man didn’t get drunk one night and yank it out by the roots.”
Violet’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t make you no less a bitch,” she said before pivoting on her heel and heading for the cashier. All other eyes in the shop were still on Nikki. She could feel her skin tingling. Loreen moved behind her and said, “You figuring on taking a bow, or can we just go?”
“We can go,” Nikki said. “Where’d she get that hair for
the weave, anyhow? Can’t be human. Must be a goat some
where with his ass all naked.”
The two friends left the shop staggering with laughter.
They dined on Caribbean food at Mo Bay in Venice. They covered the usual topics: family problems (Loreen’s little sister was hanging with a guy who looked to her like he was cracked out), the men that should have been in their lives but weren’t, women they couldn’t stand, movies bad and good, general gossip, their hatred of general gossip.
“Speaking of which,” Loreen said, “Jocasta said she heard it mighta been Satanists who murdered Maddie Gray.”
“She didn’t get that from Court TV, I hope,” Nikki said. “Satanists! I’ll have to pass that along to Joe Wal—”
A pager sounded. Both women grabbed their purses, then looked at one another and laughed. “Who’s got the problem?” Loreen asked.
It was Nikki. The digital number on her pager belonged to the D.A. He’d added a double “8,” which indicated an emergency.
She fished a cellular phone from her purse.
While Nikki listened to what the district attorney had to say, Loreen sat back in her chair, looking at the other diners and pretending she wasn’t the least bit interested in their conversation. “Everything all right?” she asked as soon as Nikki clicked off the phone.
“I’ve got to drive out to Wayside Park,” Nikki said, waving to the waiter for the check.
“What’s goin’ on there?”
“Some cons stabbed Jamal Deschamps about an hour ago. It’s not clear how much damage they did. Joe wants me to drive there and find out.”
“Save yourself some time and travel,” Loreen said. “Come back to the shop with me. By now Jocasta’s got the whole story.”
TWENTY-ONE
At just after ten the next morning, Eddie Goodman sat on the couch in the district attorney’s office watching Joe Walden pace while engaged in a telephone conversation with some unidentified party. Morales was at the other end of the couch, slurping a cup of hot coffee. Ray Wise sat stiffly in his chair near the D.A.
The room’s other occupant was the attractive but cold deputy D.A., Nikki Hill. Goodman had read in the paper that her old man, William Hill, had retired after putting in twenty-five years as a cop. Maybe I should look the guy up, find out what you do with your days.
The morning L.A. Times lay scattered on the floor as if Walden had thrown it down in disgust. The headline read “Maddie Murder Suspect Attacked.” What a cluster fuck this is turning into.
The D.A. hung up the phone and announced to the room, “He’s lost some blood, but he’s out of danger. Fortunately for us, since, as his lawyer has been informing me hourly, he should not have been in jail in the first place.” His tone was definitely accusatory, Goodman thought, aimed primarily at Wise. But he and Morales were not there to be patted on the back.
They’d already had their session with their supervisor, Lieutenant Corben, whose salty comments about their handling of the case were still ringing in his ears. Hoping to forestall more agony, he asked the D.A., “How’d Jamal wind up at Wayside, anyway?”
Walden leaned back in his chair and looked at Nikki. She said, “They claim it was a computer glitch. The removal slip was supposed to be for a prisoner named Desmond.”
Walden used his thumb and middle finger to massage his eyes. He looked worked over. Probably had had a rough night, fielding calls from irate, insecure politicians and pit-bull members of the media. Well, Goodman had had a pretty rough night himself.
He tried to put it out of his mind. This was no time to be caught off base, mooning over something that had nothing to do with the Gray murder.
“Any idea why he was cut?” he asked.
“What’s the difference?” Wise said. “Can’t we get this meeting back on track?”
“Damn it, Ray,” Walden said heatedly, “I’ve had just about enough of your bloody impatience. That’s what got us into this jackpot. You and your ‘slam dunk’ case.”
Wise paled and seemed to shrink in his chair.
“The two cons who cut him were third-strike lifers,” Nikki replied to Goodman’s question. “Maybe Deschamps gave ’em a sideways glance. That’s all it would take.”
“What do they say?” Goodman asked.
“They say they’re innocent. It was two other guys.”
“Let me talk with ’em,” Morales said.
“You? Why?” Walden looked surprised.
“I know how to get bangers to open up.”
“What makes you think they’re bangers?” Walden asked. “Nothing in their jack—”
“They’re Crazy Eights,” Morales said flatly. “Gang names are PhillyQ and Mark-It. Sorta a hobby of mine, keepin’ up on the Crazies.”
“Well, they’re not our immediate problem,” Walden said. “And maybe if you’d spend as much time on the job as you do on your hobbies, you and Detective Goodman might have provided us with a better suspect than Deschamps. I’m now in a position where I have to eat shit every time the phone rings. I don’t like shit on my menu, gentlemen. I need a suspect who’ll go the distance, and I need him fast. Stop dragging your feet, and do your bloody job.”
Jesus, Goodman thought, was the miserable night he’d just spent going to be a harbinger of a downward slope his life was taking? He saw Morales’s shiny black eyes suddenly dull and his mustache begin to twitch. Before his partner could say something that would dump them even further into the crapper, he addressed Walden himself. “We’ve been putting in nineteen- and twenty-hour days on this. Not exactly dragging our feet. We’ve given Mr. Wise evidence suggesting other lines of inquiry.”
Walden looked questioningly at his head deputy. “The blackmail theory,” Wise said. “We talked about it.”
“Right,” Walden said without enthusiasm. “Anything else?”
Goodman said, “The bracelet found at the vic’s home.”
“The one that Ray told me had been given to the Gray woman by Deschamps,” Walden said, heavy on the sarcasm.
”According to the inscription,” Wise said defensively, “it was a gift from somebody with the initial ‘J.’ We had a suspect named Jamal. Hell, maybe he did give it to her. The fact she had it doesn’t necessarily mean it came from her killer.”
“I think it does,” Nikki said. “According to Arthur Lydon, Maddie’s assistant, she didn’t wear jewelry. He’d never seen the bracelet before. So the killer either gave it to her that night, or it was something she only wore for him.”
“Logical,” Walden admitted. “So what does that tell us?”
“That the killer’s a ‘J,’ ” Nikki said. “And the little lion hanging on the bracelet must have some significance. Leo the lion. Astrological sign. MGM Studios.”
“Do we have anything on the bracelet’s history?” Walden asked Goodman.
“We know it’s fourteen-karat and that it was handcrafted. We’ll show it to some local jewelers and see what they can tell us.”
The D.A. nodded. “What else have you got?”
“The files in Madeleine Gray’s special cabinet drawer,” Goodman said.
“If the killer pried the drawer open,” Walden said, “we can assume he got what he was after. The celebrities whose files were left behind are probably the only people in L.A. we can be reasona
bly certain did not kill Madeleine Gray.”
“Unless the killer missed what he was searching for,” Goodman said.
“All right, detective,” Walden said. “You’ve sold me. Here’s how it works. One man gets a look at the files and interviews the involved parties. That same man bears the full responsibility if any of the information they contain is leaked to the press. Guess who that one man is going to be.”
“Gonna eat that taco?” Morales asked, barely waiting for Goodman to say no before scooping it off of its cardboard plate. They were having lunch at the Tico Taco on Fairfax, standing up at a wooden counter at the rear of the fast-food hut. “Why don’cha buy a burrito so I can eat that, too,” the thick-chested detective said, wiping his fingers daintily on a small white paper napkin with red and green pepper borders.
“Huh, sure,” Goodman said, distracted.
“Hey, man, your mind’s been on vacation ever since Walden put you on the spot.”
“Sorry, amigo,” Goodman said. But it was Gwen, not Walden, who was occupying his thoughts.
The night before, he’d wound up at her place with takeout ribs. The cocktail of choice had been tequila shooters. A bunch of them and somehow their interest in the ribs had waned to the point where they were rolling around on the carpet, undoing buttons and belts and such.
He was enjoying himself pretty much for a near senior citizen when the phone rang. He was surprised when she pulled away to answer it, then annoyed when she turned her naked back to him and began to whisper into the receiver in a tone that could only be described as intimate.
He watched in silence from the floor as she replaced the receiver and began to put on her clothes. “Sorry, Ed,” she said, not able to meet his gaze. “I’ve gotta go.”
“It’s nearly midnight,” he said. “Your boyfriend just ditch his wife?”
“You don’t know anything about it,” she said tersely.
“I guess not,” he said, looking for his pants.
She gave him a sad smile. “You were the one who told me to go out and find somebody new, remember?”
“I was just mulling that dumb idea over,” he said.
She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “Why don’t you stay here tonight? Sleep a little before getting behind the wheel.”
“Kind of you,” he said, though he had no intention of staying.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wouldn’t have started us up again if . . .” She let the thought drift away.
“I know,” he said, flopping onto the couch, holding his right shoe.
She left, closing the door quietly behind her.
“Ed Goodman, what an asshole thou art,” he said to the room.
He put on his shoe and reached for the tequila bottle on the coffee table. His hand hesitated, then picked up the phone instead. He punched the star key, then the six and the nine.
The combination triggered an immediate response—the dialing of the number of the last person to have called Gwen’s number. Goodman’s mouth felt dry as he listened to one ring. Then two. Then:
“TAA,” a male voice said. “This is security.”
Damn. A business number. With how many employees? “I’m sorry,” Goodman said, improvising, “I didn’t want security.”
“Switchboard’s closed for the night,” the man from security informed him. “Try again after eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks,” Goodman said, replacing the phone.
He tried to shake the wooziness from his head. What the hell was he thinking? Suppose Gwen’s lover boy had picked up the phone, what would he have done? Would he have asked the son of a bitch his intentions? Christ, he may not know the guy’s name, but he sure as hell knew his intentions: to get his ashes hauled whenever he wanted. Gwen obviously was happy to oblige. He, Goodman, was the odd man out in this triangle.
He stood unsteadily, grabbed his coat, and staggered from the apartment.
“What’s it gonna be,” Morales asked him as they headed from Tico Taco to their sedan, “jewelry stores or the ass-holes she was blackmailin’?”
“The assholes,” Goodman said as they got into the car.
“Checking out the ways other people tried to screw up their lives might be just what I need.”
Morales put the car in gear but didn’t step on the gas. He faced Goodman. “You bummin’ me out, man. You can’t let Walden get you down like this.”
“It’s not Walden and I’m not down. I’m fine. I’m high on life.”
“Yeah,” Morales said, nosing the sedan into traffic along Fairfax. “And I’m the fucking king of Spain.”
TWENTY-TWO
I’ll see if he’s in,” the very elegant, slightly anorexic black woman named Rae said into the telephone. She pressed the hold button and looked across the office at Jimmy Doyle, who was lying down on a brown nubby-weave couch reading the Chicago Tribune. On the floor beside the couch were discarded copies of the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and High Society’s Celebrity Skin, all of which she’d picked up that morning for him at Freddy’s Georgetown News.
“Jesse Fallon?” she asked.
He dropped the Trib and twisted on the couch to grab the phone on the table near his head.
“Yo, Jesse.”
“It’s official.” The lawyer’s voice was all business. “Jamal Deschamps is a free man. Or will be as soon as he’s able to leave the hospital. I assume this cancels my debt.”
“It’s marked paid in full,” Doyle said. “You do good work, Jesse.”
“Even when crucial information is kept from me.”
“What information?” Doyle asked.
“The ring. You didn’t tell me Deschamps was found with the dead woman’s ring in his pocket.”
“This is the first I’m hearing about a ring,” he told Fallon.
“What’s your interest in Deschamps, Jimmy?”
“I hate to see an innocent man get railroaded,” Doyle said. “Simple as that.”
“I hope to God you had nothing to do with the attempt on his life.”
“Why would I go to all the trouble of getting you to clear his name,” Doyle asked, “if I wanted him dead?”
“I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the real reason behind anything you do, Jimmy,” Fallon said. “And I’m not sure I want to know.”
They said their good-byes. Doyle reached back, pushed the plunger on the phone cradle, breaking that connection. Then he swung his body around until he was sitting up, sock feet on the thick carpet. He closed his eyes, summoned up a number, and hit the phone keys, a lot of them.
“L’Homme Magnifique,” a bored feminine voice informed him.
“Zorina?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“The fat fart from D.C.”
He could almost hear her smile. “Need another tie?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “My guess is I’ll be back in L.A. tomorrow. Let’s say your place at nine.”
“So your ‘big deal’ is on again, huh?” she said.
“With a little push from this end.”
“What is it you do, anyway?” she asked. “Politics? Show business?”
Doyle considered the question for a beat. “I sorta cover the waterfront,” he said.
TWENTY-THREE
Come in,” Ray Wise said glumly. He was sitting perpendicular to his desk, slumped back, staring straight ahead at a blank wall. Nikki assumed that he’d spied her with peripheral vision, since he hadn’t turned his head when she appeared at his door.
“You left a message you wanted to see me?”
“Sure. Sit down.”
He took his time shifting his narrow body on the chair so that he could face her. She decided she preferred him when he was alert and arrogant, as opposed to his present state, which was almost civil and perplexed. “I...,” he began. He frowned and tried again. “We’re both in the same boat,” he said. “The same sinking boat.”
Nikki rema
ined silent, waiting for him to make his point.
“Years ago, we faced an even more difficult crisis. We put aside our...differences for our common welfare.”
“And you hung around here, jollyin’ it up with fat-ass Gleason,” she said, “while I was bustin’ my hump in beautiful downtown Compton.”
His lip twitched in annoyance. “The point is, we both survived.”
“At different levels of survival, Mr. Head Deputy D.A.”
“Of course. You were the one who fucked up.”
“Well, which one of us is the fuckup this time, Raymond?”
He slumped back in his chair. “Point made,” he said. She thought it was probably the closest he’d come to admitting his fallibility.
“So what do you want from me?” she asked.
“Cooperation.”
She mentally poked at the word. “You want to parse that for me a little?”
“I want ...I would appreciate your consulting me before you make your reports to Walden.”
“Why should I go to all that trouble?”
“It’s as much to your advantage as it is to mine that our reports reflect a uniformity of opinion. It’ll make both our jobs easier.”
“And if our jive don’t jibe?”
He gave her a mirthless smile. “Then I suppose the final decision should be made by the person with seniority.”
“That’s what I figured,” she said, standing.
He waited until she was almost out the door before saying, “There would be a quid pro quo, of course.”
She turned, suspicious, but also curious.
“Assuming the LAPD ever arrests anybody else for the Gray murder,” he said, “I’ll see to it you’re a major part of the prosecution team.”
“Joe Walden already put that on my plate.”
He smiled again. “That’s what I mean about experience. You didn’t hear him use the word ‘major.’ He said you’d be part of the team. That could mean anything from flogging the clerks to making runs to In and Out Burger in the middle of the night.”
The Trials of Nikki Hill Page 11
