The Trials of Nikki Hill

by Christopher Darden; Dick Lochte

  “How about blood? Skin tissue?” Nikki asked. “Fingerprints?”

  “Why exactly did you call this conference, Ms. Cooper?” a wiry, longhaired young man asked. “It’s pretty unorthodox. What do you hope to achieve?”

  To Nikki’s surprise, a black woman moved quickly behind Dyana’s chair, resting her hands protectively on the performer’s shoulders. The woman’s name appeared suddenly at the bottom of the screen. An unnecessary ID, Nikki thought. Just about the entire viewing audience would recognize the trademark Mohawk hair, large hoop earrings, the brightly colored African dress, and the fiercely determined voice of Anna Marie Dayne. The respected attorney had waged a number of very public and very successful battles against automobile manufacturers and tobacco companies. Her crowning glory, however, had been the freeing of a young black man accused of murdering two FBI agents. She’d convinced the jury that her client had been acting in self-defense. The fact that the jury had been mainly white added to her legend. In less than six years, Dayne had defended three other African-Americans in similarly desperate legal straits and had emerged victorious each time.

  “This is perfect,” Nikki said. “It’s not enough for us to have to convince a jury that one of the most beloved performers in the world committed a brutal murder, but we’ll also have to go up against the Joan of Arc of the legal profession.”

  “Sister is something, all right,” Virgil said. “That’s some ’do she’s got.”

  “Our purpose here today,” Anna Marie Dayne announced, “is to put District Attorney Joseph Walden on notice. Should he heedlessly decide to bring Dyana to trial, we will make sure that every aspect of the process is open to public scrutiny.

  “This morning we have informed you of the underhanded attempt to keep Ms. Cooper incarcerated by denying her the privilege of bail. This illogical and mean-spirited act would have placed her in the same perilous situation as that of the equally innocent Jamal Deschamps. Dyana was luckier than Mr. Deschamps: her blood was not spilled within prison walls. Although her reputation and standing in the community have been tarnished, her pride as an African-American who has risen to the top of a profession not overly receptive to members of her race remains gloriously intact.”

  “Sister is something, all right,” Nikki said. “She makes denial of bail sound like a miscarriage of justice, reminds everybody about the screwup with Deschamps, and ties the whole thing in a ribbon of racial pride. All in less than two minutes.”

  On the small screen the reporters lobbed a few puffballs at the actress and her attorney. Dyana closed the show by thanking them for being so generous in spending their Saturday morning with her.

  “Right,” Nikki said. “Like their news directors and editors gave ’em a choice.”

  She watched Virgil take his cup to the sink and run water over it. Tucking in his shirt, he returned to her side. On the TV, an announcer was suggesting everyone stay tuned for an analysis of the conference.

  “Guess this means our do-nothing morning ain’t gonna happen,” Virgil said.

  “Guess not,” Nikki said, thinking how lucky it was that he was a detective and understood how the job worked.

  He bent down to kiss her on the lips. Bird growled.

  “I’ll let myself out,” Virgil said. Then, with Bird dogging the detective to the door to make sure he left the premises, she turned to the TV, where several talking heads were starting to pick apart the Cooper news conference.

  None of the “experts” could agree on what Anna Marie Dayne and Dyana Cooper had hoped to achieve by the conference. Those sympathetic to the district attorney’s office saw it as a desperate attempt to hide facts with emotion, though, of course, they had no idea what the facts in the case really were. The others—defense attorneys in the main—applauded Dayne for her audacity in seizing control of the situation even before the district attorney had a chance to arraign her client.

  Tiring of their uninformed rhetoric, Nikki clicked off the machine. A memory of the pleasantries of the night before flitted through her mind before being lost to the tasks of the day.

  She refilled Bird’s water bowl, then returned to the kitchen counter. Her coffee had turned cold as ice, but she took a sip anyway. She picked up the phone.

  She made several calls. The last was to the district attorney.

  “How’d she get out?” he asked.

  “The desk officer at Sybil Brand said a young lawyer from Jastrum, Park, Wells showed up with an order from Judge Debruccio and a million dollars in cash.”

  “Debruccio? That figures. Why the hell weren’t we notified she was out?”

  “To quote the duty cop, ‘We don’t usually wake up D.A.s in the middle of the night every time somebody posts bail.’ ”

  “Give me his name. I want to thank him personally for his cooperation.”

  Nikki identified the officer, then asked, “What’d you think of the Dyana and Anna Marie Show?”

  “I’d rather have watched Urkel do his dance,” he replied.

  FORTY-THREE

  Eddie Goodman spotted Lieutenant Corben’s midnight-blue Chrysler as it turned the corner, heading his way. The blazing noon sun lasered through the haze, frying the back of his neck.

  The Chrysler pulled in at the curb, and the passenger door opened, tendrils of cool air greeting him and beckoning him into the car’s icy interior. Corben was wearing a yellow T-shirt with “Lake Arrowhead” sewn on a pocket over his heart. Goodman had never seen the lieutenant in anything but a shirt and tie.

  Without a word of welcome, Corben started up the sedan and pulled away. “What’s up?” Goodman asked. “This about Dyana Cooper getting sprung?”

  “You know an old broad named Nita Morgan?” Corben asked.

  Goodman winced. Nita Morgan. Batgal. “Yeah,” he said. “She was one of Madeleine Gray’s blackmail victims.”

  “She says she’s one of your blackmail victims.”

  “The woman’s a kook. Played a vampire on TV and I think it went to her head.”

  “Well, she’s your nightmare now, pal. She’s bringing charges against you.”

  “Jesus, maybe it was IAD guys at my place.”

  “It hasn’t gone to IAD yet. I just got the call this morning. I don’t know who the hell was at your place.”

  “What’s happening to me, chief?”

  “Fucked if I know. When was it you talked to the Morgan woman?”

  “Couple days ago. I can look at my book for the exact day and time.”

  “You didn’t phone her last night?”

  “Last night I was kinda busy with Dyana Cooper.”

  “Around nine-thirty?”

  “In interrogation room three.”

  Corben seemed to relax.

  “She says that’s when I phoned her?”

  Corben nodded. “Something about ten grand to keep her name out o’ the ’bloids.”

  “Does that sound like me?”

  “Hell, Goodman, I don’t know how you spend your off hours.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Here I am, on a Saturday afternoon, putting you wise,” Corben said, “when I could be in Studio City porking my girlfriend and/or watching the ball game. I’d say that’s an indication I’m in your corner.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Right now? Nothing. If you were in the box with Cooper and her lawyer at the time the Morgan broad says you were calling her, I imagine that’s all IAD’ll wanna know.”

  “But somebody’s out there, using my name to blackmail people.”

  “Not using your name, exactly. Morgan says the caller didn’t identify himself. She’s sure it was you, because you’d been to see her about her nasty little secret.”

  “I bet Morgan’s not the only one on Maddie’s payoff list who’s been getting calls.”

  “The only one we know about,” Corben said.

  “Maybe I should try phoning some of the other—”

  “Christ, Goodman, where�
�s your sense? The last thing you should be doing is phoning anybody. At least until we got this complaint cleared away.”

  “You’re right, lieutenant,” Goodman said. “But if blackmail victims have been approached, somebody must have a copy of Maddie Gray’s special files.”

  “Why does that thrill you?”

  “Right now we’ve got two possible motives for Gray’s murder. Jealousy and blackmail. I’ve always liked the blackmail angle. Way I see it, after Cooper killed Gray, she broke into the cabinet and took her file. That’s why it’s missing from our set. The new blackmailer may have a complete set of files, including hers.”

  Corben had made a long but complete circle and was now steering his sedan toward the curb in front of Goodman’s apartment. “Any ideas on how to find the new blackmailer?” he asked.

  “Got a pretty good hunch.”

  “Fine, then you got your things to do and I got mine.”

  As Goodman opened the car door to the afternoon heat, Corben added, “You go on a hunt for this blackmailer, take Morales along.”

  “I may not be able to get hold of him.”

  “Then somebody else on our team. Until we get this other matter cleared up on Monday, I don’t want you out there among ’em by yourself. If somebody’s fucking with you, let’s keep the odds at two to one in your favor.”

  What Corben said made sense. But if Goodman was going to have to spend his Saturday afternoon with another cop, he could do better than Morales.

  Unfortunately, Gwen Harriman didn’t seem to be near her phone. And Morales answered his on the first ring.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Gangbangers,” Morales said with disgust as their car started up Laurel Canyon toward Maddie Gray’s house.

  Goodman looked back at the vehicle that had just passed, a nondescript black 1963 Chevrolet. “How do you know?” he asked.

  “Bunch of black kids drivin’ in a Chevy and they all got shaved heads, orange shirts, and an attitude. What d’ya think, amigo? A basketball team?”

  Actually, Goodman had barely noticed the Chevy. His thoughts had been elsewhere. Arthur Lydon, the late Madeleine Gray’s assistant, was the most likely candidate to have stepped into the blackmail breach left by his employer’s death.

  When no one answered the buzzer at Lydon’s hillside apartment, the only other place Goodman could think of to look for him was the Gray home.

  “This a wile goose chase, amigo. Le’s go back and roust those bangers.”

  “Even if they are bangers, which I doubt, they’re not our concern.”

  “Concern? It’s our day off,” Morales grumbled as he parked in front of the multitiered house. “We’d get more accomplished checking out those bangers than lookin’ for the li’l man who isn’t here.”

  “If he isn’t, somebody is,” Goodman said. “The front door’s open.”

  Morales scanned the area. “No car. Prob’ly vamoosed.”

  “Maybe,” Goodman said.

  They left the sedan cautiously and headed for the open door. Someone had pried the police lock from the jamb. They automatically drew their guns.

  Instead of entering the house, they split off. Morales circled to the right. Goodman took the left, pausing at the first window to peek past the curtains into the sitting room. No sign of life. Likewise the room directly behind. The kitchen seemed empty, too. That was as far as Goodman could go: the house had been constructed to fit snugly in a pocket of the canyon wall.

  The detective retraced his steps and found his partner waiting for him. Morales shrugged, then walked to the front door. He entered, quickly and silently. Goodman moved a bit more slowly, but just as noiselessly. It took them nearly fifteen minutes to convince themselves that the house was unoccupied. By then, sweaty and on edge, they made another tour of the place, hoping to discover some reason for the break-in.

  Morales found it in Arthur Lydon’s office. He called his partner.

  “Why would the little maricón pry open his own desk?” he asked.

  Goodman looked at the mess behind the desk. The contents of the drawers had been dumped on the floor.

  “If not him, who? Burglars?” he asked.

  “Leaving all the TVs and stereos?”

  With a grunt, Goodman hunkered down to get a closer look at a leather folder resting on top of a pile of papers. He used his pen to flip the top of the folder back.

  “Wha’chu got?”

  “Lydon’s checkbook. Last check was ripped out. Not nice and neat like the rest.”

  “Somebody broke in here jus’ to steal a blank check from Mr. Sweetie?”

  Goodman looked at the next unused checks. “His address is on the checks,” he said, standing up. “I think they broke in looking for him. And now they know where he lives. We’d better hop back to his place.”

  “We was jus’ there and we know he ain’t home.”

  “Let’s make sure.”

  Lydon resided near the Hollywood Bowl, in an art deco trilevel apartment building halfway up a scrub-and-rock hill, accessible from the street level via a separate stone tower that housed an elevator. The detectives rode it to the top. When they emerged from the tower they were standing on an exposed stone platform that led directly to a third-floor balcony running the length of the building. An equally exposed stairwell led down to the other floors, each of which had its own walkway/balcony.

  Lydon’s apartment was at the far corner of the bottom floor.

  Heading there for the second time that afternoon, Goodman and Morales ignored the cityscape as they moved down the stairs and along the walkway, shooing pigeons from their path. The birds seemed to have taken over the building.

  Their defecation, dry and fresh, mottled the walkway. “Flying rats,” Morales said disgustedly.

  As they approached Lydon’s apartment, he said, “Looks like we got lucky.” The card they’d stuck in the little man’s front door was resting on the cement walkway.

  Morales pushed the door buzzer.

  No reply.

  Pigeons flapped their wings in the sunlight, soaring from the roof of the building down the hillside. The detectives ignored them, concentrating on the quiet apartment.

  Morales knocked on the door. “Hey, Mr. Lydon.”

  The door to Goodman’s right opened. The young woman who stepped through it was dressed in starlet housecleaning chic—blond tendrils escaping a tied kerchief, scrubbed face, astonishing body barely covered by a stained muscle shirt and short shorts, two-hundred-dollar running shoes on sockless feet. She was carrying a pillowcase filled with what Goodman assumed was laundry. His imagination went a step further, conjuring up an image of rumpled little items from the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

  She glanced at him, then Morales, and, registering no emotion at all, started away.

  “Miss?”

  She turned, wary now.

  “Would you know if Mr. Lydon has been home recently?” Goodman asked.

  Her large, empty blue eyes seemed puzzled. “Isn’t he there now?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be.”

  “He was in the laundry room a half hour ago, tying up every one of the machines.”

  “You’re heading there now?” Goodman asked, startled by

  the arrival of a pigeon on the walkway rail right next to where his hand rested.

  “Uh huh.” He saw her eyes shift to the pigeon, then follow it as the bird flew off. She stepped closer to the railing and continued to watch its progress. “I still have...”

  She paused.

  Goodman, who’d been a little lost in those blue eyes, saw them widen. Then the generous mouth opened, ready to scream. But no sound came. He couldn’t tell what was happening to the woman. Some sort of seizure?

  Her bundle of dirty clothes slipped from her fingers and she began to sway. Goodman grabbed her before her knees gave out. She was no wisp of a girl and her inert weight dragged him down with her, pinning him to the cement walk. He looked up at Morales for help, but his partner was r
unning past them, ignoring them completely.

  “What the hell . . .” Goodman rolled the woman off of his legs. She was breathing easily, but she was out. He lifted her head and placed her stuffed pillowcase under it. Then he straightened out her limbs.

  He stood up and leaned over the balcony railing in time to see Morales stumbling down the hillside toward...

  Holy God!

  In all his years on the force he’d never seen anything quite like it. Definitely not in the bright Southern California sunshine. A body—certainly Arthur Lydon’s—was lying on its back a hundred yards or so down the hill. Blood covered everything—clothes, face, hands, spiky hair. It still looked red enough to be fresh. Even worse, entrails spilled from a gaping wound in the man’s stomach like glistening worms. The birds—the pigeons—were engaged in an afternoon meal the horror of which was light-years beyond anything Alfred Hitchcock could have imagined.

  Then Morales was there flapping his arms and scattering some of the birds. He looked up at his gawking partner. “Need some help here, amigo,” he shouted, “before these fucking flying rats eat up all our evidence.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Nikki realized that the only difference between arriving at the Criminal Courts Building on that particular Saturday afternoon and on a regular weekday morning was that you didn’t have to wait as long for an elevator. Most of the CCB’s nine-to-fivers were out enjoying another weekend in paradise, but, thanks to the forthcoming Dyana Cooper trial, the eighteenth floor where Joe Walden held sway was fully staffed.

  The prosecutor navigated her way past the guard from county security, a sister with an unyielding attitude, then circled the glass panel desk behind which Jewel, the nicest of three alternating receptionists, pressed a buzzer that unlocked a wooden door on the right. Beyond it was a waiting area that took on an appearance quite apart from the industrial grimness of the rest of the eighteenth floor. Clean and brightly painted, dull floor tiles replaced by a thick new beige carpet, it reminded Nikki of what a real law office should look like.