“He’ll just deny it,” Walden told her. “We need concrete evidence. Let’s meet tonight at the office, when we’re finished here.”
“I’ll tell Ray.”
“No,” he’d said. “I learned something about Ray today that’s almost as disquieting as the news you’ve brought me. I think we’d better keep Ray in the dark about this, until I can figure out precisely where we’re headed with the Will-ins trial.”
“What’s up with Ray?” she asked.
“We’ll talk about it tonight.”
Without another word, he’d led her into the ballroom and to their table, where they were greeted by Ray, Meg Fisher, and an assortment of familiar office faces. She’d purposely taken a seat several places away from Ray, even though it meant listening to Meg rant on about the importance of the award.
Standing in the now nearly unoccupied cocktail area, she answered the phone warily, hoping it was Goodman and not another threat. Hoping also that it would not be Virgil. She hadn’t figured out what to do about him. About them.
It was Ed Goodman, speaking fast with lots of background noise. “What?” she said, “I can’t—”
“Sorry,” he said. “We’re at the lockup. Dumping the gangsta who killed Arthur Lydon. But that’s not why I called.”
He told her an amazing theory that he and Morales had conceived, the gist of which was that John Willins was living a lie. He was, in fact, one of the founders of the Crazy Eights and was still very much connected to them. He had probably murdered members of his own family to escape prison and establish a new life for himself. When Maddie Gray discovered his secret, he’d killed her.
As incredulous as Nikki was, she understood that it was possible. L.A. was like a Hindu heaven. People arrived from all over the country to begin life anew. Con men were transformed overnight into respected business tycoons. Vegas hookers became actresses with off-Broadway experience. Hospital orderlies automatically graduated to the ranks of prominent physicians. She herself had discovered that several L.A. lawyers boasting Harvard degrees had never even visited that august university. Names were changed, histories manufactured. In the city’s rarefied laid-back atmosphere, résumés were rarely checked and when they were, so what? One merely moved on to apply somewhere less uptight.
That a ruthless South Central gangbanger would emerge as John Willins, multimillionaire music impresario, was not beyond belief. Hell, he probably bought the company with profits from crack cocaine peddled by the Crazy Eights.
“This is starting to sound like a litany, but do you have any proof, detective?” she asked.
“I’m hoping to find some in the town where Willins’s family burned to death,” Goodman said. “There should be records, people who knew them, photographs of the real John Willins. Carlos and I are driving there tonight. We’ll be a hundred miles or so out of our jurisdiction, so we’ll need some sort of paper to flash. Can you put together documentation for us?”
“I’ll do better than that,” Nikki said. “I’ll come with you.”
Sensing his hesitation, she added, “Otherwise, it’ll be tomorrow before I can get the paperwork started.”
“We’re nearly through here,” he said. “We’ll swing by the hotel for you in about twenty minutes.”
She looked down at her cocktail dress, her high heels. “I’ll be waiting.”
She returned in time to hear Joe Walden end his speech on a high note. “Over a century ago, abolitionist Frederick Douglass declared, ‘The destiny of the colored American...is the destiny of America.’ Three decades ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., elaborated on that thought when he wrote, ‘Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny.’ I stand before you tonight, brothers and sisters, to reiterate what both of these great patriots have stated so eloquently, and to add my own heartfelt belief that we alone are responsible for the fate of ourselves, our families, our cities, our country. We alone are masters of our own destiny and the destiny of all Americans.”
Applause and exuberant cries of approval rang from the crowd, and Nikki cheered as loudly as anyone. So stirring had been the district attorney’s words that even Dyana Cooper and John Willins were standing and clapping.
Walden, clasping his award, a carved wooden statue of a tribal warrior, descended from the stage and walked back to his table, shaking hands along the way. Meg Fisher was ecstatic, exhorting her two photographers to “Keep clicking, boys.”
Nikki waited as long as she felt she could, then waded through the crowd to the D.A. Over the congratulations and well-wishings, she shouted, “We have to talk now.”
He nodded and continued pressing the flesh for another few minutes, then gestured with his award toward a door beside the stage. It led to a dimly lighted unused portion of the ballroom. Chairs were piled atop tables. Everything was powdered with dust.
“Is this the reason you left in the middle of my speech?” Joe Walden asked.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “What I heard of it was wonderful.”
He smiled. “I think I even got through to the Willins table.”
“It’s John Willins we have to talk about.”
“As I said, we can talk later at the office.”
“This can’t wait,” she said. She told him Goodman’s theory.
His reaction dismayed her. “It’s too bizarre,” he said. “Willins may have murdered Madeleine Gray. But the rest of it. Escaping from a fire. Assuming the identity of one of its victims. It’s like a Robert Ludlum thriller.”
“I’ll let you know if there’s any truth to it,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The detectives should be here for me any minute. We’re driving to Carver, California, tonight to check out the story.”
“I’m surprised Lieutenant Corben permitted them to notify our office.”
“I got the impression they’re hoping to get something more solid before they try any of this out on Lieutenant Corben.”
“Yet Detective Goodman tried it out on you.”
“I... we’ve had a good working relationship,” she said. “He trusts me.”
“Excellent,” Walden said. “Maybe this time we can stay in step with the LAPD. If not slightly ahead of them. Are you scheduled for court tomorrow?”
“Ray was going to do the cross on the Willinses’ security guards.”
“Ray, yes. Well—”
“You said there was a problem about Ray?”
“Nothing for us to get into now.”
“We should ask for a continuance,” Nikki said. “At least until we know the status of our case against Dyana Cooper.”
Walden nodded. “All right. I just hope this doesn’t turn out to be yet one more fiasco to blow up in our faces.” He smiled and shook his wooden warrior at her. “I trust you won’t let that happen. Keep me informed.”
They reentered the ballroom together, just in time to have a flashbulb explode in their faces. When Nikki regained her sight, she saw that John Willins had been standing just to their right, near the door. Had he been eavesdropping on their conversation?
Walden saw him, too, scowled, and strode past him. Nikki’s eyes met Willins’s for a brief moment, but she could read nothing there. He turned and walked away in the direction of his table.
Members of the NAAL and their guests were impatiently awaiting their cars and limos in front of the hotel. When Nikki got through the crowd, she saw no sign of Goodman and Morales.
Abruptly, a beige Mercedes limousine swung in to the curb, cutting off a departing vehicle. The chauffeur rushed to open the rear door, just as Dyana Cooper exited from the hotel, followed by her husband.
Willins ducked into the limo after Dyana and slammed the door shut himself. The chauffeur quickly returned to his seat. Nikki watched the sleek vehicle disappear from sight.
When the detectives arrived, Goodman said, “Hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long.”<
br />
“I hope so, too,” she told them as she got into the rear of their sedan, “because Willins may know what we’re up to, and he tore out of here ten minutes ago.”
EIGHTY-THREE
Goodman had been hesitant about the scrupulous deputy D.A. joining their hunt for truth since he wasn’t sure how fast or how loose they’d have to play it in Carver. The one-hundred-seventy-five-mile trip was not easing his mind on that score. While Morales sped them through San Bernardino and Victorville and Barstow, Nikki decided to use the time to ask questions. Some they answered truthfully, some not so truthfully, and some they couldn’t answer at all.
She began by taking Goodman through the business of Dyana Cooper’s stolen file once more. Like a dentist probing a particularly sensitive spot, she asked again how he’d come by his information. He still refused to identify his source.
She moved on to the Sanctum. Were they sure that the information about it being the crime scene was reliable? Who was his source?
Goodman looked at Morales. “Les’ sorta simplify the story,” his partner said, meaning that he should leave Fupdup out of it and put his information into Rupert’s mouth. “It was a member of the Crazy Eights, the one we arrested for the murder of Arthur Lydon.”
“You said you were booking him just before you picked me up. You left word about the Sanctum hours ago.”
“These things take time,” Goodman said. “The boy gave up the info about the Sanctum right off the bat. He didn’t personally kill Maddie Gray. He and his pals merely cleaned up the murder scene and removed the body.”
“That’s enough to put them all away for quite a while,” she said.
“Right. But at the time Rupert wasn’t thinking about that.”
“Rupert?” She seemed startled by the name.
“You know him?”
She told them about a confrontation with the clean-cut gangsta at the home of her former friend Victoria Allard. “He had a copy of Dyana Cooper’s file.”
“He must’ve got it from Arthur Lydon before he...Did he have a long leather case with him when he fronted you?” She nodded. “Inside was the machete he used on Lydon.”
Nikki shivered, then said, “Tell me you didn’t use force or interfere with his rights in getting his confession.”
Morales made a noise that might have been a sneeze or a belch. Goodman said, “I think the weapon will speak for itself.”
“How did you obtain it?” she asked flatly, as if she no longer had confidence in their methods.
“We were on our way to talk with James Doyle,” Goodman said, “when we observed Rupert and several other members of the gang parking near Doyle’s temporary residence. We watched the gangstas enter the building—”
“They break in?” she asked hopefully.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “They rang the bell. A friend of Doyle’s opened up. They hit him and entered.”
“You saw them hit the guy and that’s when you went in?”
“Uh huh,” Morales said.
“We found the punks in Doyle’s bedroom,” Goodman said. “Rupert had the machete at Doyle’s throat. But Carlos read the kid pretty well and took a chance that he wouldn’t actually cut Doyle.”
Goodman wasn’t happy with the spare-me-the-horseshit look she was giving him. “Are the other gangstas in custody, too?” she asked.
“No,” Morales replied. “They beat it and we didn’t feel right about shooting them in the back.”
“Why stop at that?” she asked sarcastically.
“Too much paperwork,” Morales said.
“So Rupert told you Willins got them to clean up his murder and dump the body?”
“He used Willins’s gang ID,” Goodman said. “Lee-O.”
“Lee-O? I know that name.” The connection she made obviously annoyed her, and she took it out on them. “Let’s see if I got this straight. This punk-ass Rupert, who makes up lies faster than most people breathe, told you Lee-O killed Maddie at the Sanctum. We all know John Willins whooped it up with her at that spa. Therefore Lee-O equals Willins.”
“That more or less covers it,” Goodman said.
“For the sake of argument, let me remind you that the miserable manager of the place said Maddie was a customer there, too. Suppose she took a liking to some dude she met and brought him to the spa for fun and games. And the games got rough. And he was just Lee-O, the old gangsta, and not John Willins at all.”
“The spa manager would know the truth,” Goodman said, growing sorrier and sorrier that he’d asked her along.
“The spa manager is a slimy weasel who is not about to cooperate in any way. We can’t count on anything he has to say.”
Goodman took the copy of Sandoval’s decrypted notes from his pocket. “This is information that Doyle’s private peeper was gathering.”
She glanced at the page. “These initials are...oh, I see. ‘J.D.’ is Jamal Deschamps. ‘E.G.,’ ‘N.H.,’ ‘C.M.’ And ‘D.S.’ ” She frowned at the page. Goodman assumed she was reading about “D. S.”pulling the plug on her aunt and using the inheritance to attend law school.
“The John Willins material is down near the end,” Goodman said.
He watched her eyes go down to the bottom of the sheet and absorb the information. “Hmmm. These are just Sandoval’s speculations,” she said. “Maybe Willins’s parents did die by accident.”
“That’s what we’re going to Carver to find out,” Goodman said.
“What’s this ‘Emory at Eternal Light’ and the phone number?”
“I don’t know exactly. A funeral home? I’ve called the number a bunch of times. Nobody answers.”
Nikki dialed the number on her cellular. Again, no one answered.
“Can I hang on to this sheet?” she asked.
He nodded.
“This trip better be fruitful, detectives,” she said. “Because if all we have to go on is what you just told me, we’ll be damn lucky to get a conviction on Rupert. Willins? He’ll be as free as O. J. Simpson.” She smiled. “The part about Lee-O being in charge of the Crazy Eights confirms something an old... associate told me. It also explains the bracelet with the lion charm. Lee-O the lion. Which suggests Maddie knew his past.
“Except,” Nikki went on, “if Maddie was murdered at the Sanctum, why was the bracelet found at her home?”
“It was in the room where she’d had the scuffle with Dyana Cooper,” Goodman said. “Knowing what we do about Maddie, it’s possible she might have been amused to flaunt a bracelet Willins had given her right under his wife’s nose.”
Morales interrupted the discussion. “We’re here,” he said.
EIGHTY-FOUR
Nikki looked out of the car window to discover that the Barstow Freeway had been replaced by a dark narrow road between fenced-in fields that went on as far the eye could see in the moonlight. No town was in sight.
“This is Carver?” she asked.
“Naw. This is cacahuates, ” Morales said. “Peanuts.”
“Carver’s the only town in California where it gets hot enough to grow peanuts,” Goodman said. “Almost as many harvested as down in Georgia on Jimmy Carter’s farm.”
“Tha’s why they call the place Carver,” Morales said. “After one of your people. George Washington Carver. The peanut guy.”
Nikki wasn’t sure how she felt about Carver being referred to as “the peanut guy,” but she was amused by the detectives’ knowledge of the territory. “You aren’t putting me on?”
“Absolutely not,” Goodman insisted.
“You did some research?”
“A friend of ours had a book.”
“George Washington Carver, huh?” Nikki said. “Not too many towns named after black men.”
The road continued for several miles without a break in the peanut fields. They reached the end of the fenced-in acreage, rolled past a farmhouse or two, and crossed railroad tracks. A sign by the side of the road informed them that they were entering “Carver, C
alifornia. Population: 14,325 and growing fast as peanuts.”
Downtown Carver, such as it was, was just around a bend in the road. It consisted of the local version of a 7-Eleven, called simply QuickBuy, with a pale light glowing over the front door and an eerie neon sign illumintating the interior; a gas station closed for the night; a former movie house, named—What else? the Carver Theatre—that had been converted to a ninety-nine-cent-or-less store. Finally, there was the probable reason for the conversion of the theater, a video rental shop with a hand-printed sign tacked to a slot that said “Return Videos Here.”
No people were visible anywhere.
Morales drove along at a clip, looking for some sign of life. Ten or fifteen minutes later they found it. Headlights, moving their way from a road to their right. Morales parked the sedan across the road, blocking the truck’s egress.
“Not the friendliest of gestures,” Nikki said.
“It’s doin’ the job,” Morales said as the truck ground to halt.
The black man who swung out of its cab was well over six feet, heavily muscled, and, judging by his expression, not predisposed to liking strangers.
Goodman opened his door to meet the man.
“We need a little hel—”
“Mind getting out of my way?” the driver of the truck growled.
Nikki edged over to the window and said, “We just need some help.”
The trucker eyed her suspiciously or appraisingly, she couldn’t tell. “Where can we find your police chief?” she asked.
“What’s wrong?”
“These two men are policemen from Los Angeles. I’m—”
“I know you, don’t I?”
“I don’t think we’ve met. Can you direct us to your lawman?”
He continued to gawk at her. “That’d be Parnell. Southwest edge of town, near the railroad station. He’s gonna love gettin’ waked up.”
The Trials of Nikki Hill Page 36
