Read Online The Trials of Nikki Hill by Dick Lochte, Christopher Darden - Free Book Online

“What was Maddie wearing yesterday when you left?”
    The young man looked at Goodman. “I gave that information to the detective.”
    Goodman took out his notepad. “Red Dana Buchman suit,” he read. “Silk paisley blouse, red and yellow. Black Ferragamo pumps.” He looked at her as he put away the pad. “All missing.”
    “Lemme call over to Jamal’s,” Morales said. “See if they found the rug or the dame’s clothes.”
    “Do it from the car,” Goodman said. “We’d better get going if we expect to hit the bank before they lock up. You want to drive with us, Ms. Hill?”
    “Nikki,” she said. “Yes, I’d like to tag along.”
    “Fine. Thanks for your help, Mr. Lydon. I imagine we’ll be talking with you again.”
    “Be still, my heart.”
    Nikki was surprised at how excited she felt at the opening of Maddie Gray’s bank box. Sharing the small room with the two detectives and an officer of the bank, she was almost holding her breath as Goodman lifted the long metal lid.
    “It’s fulla cash,” Morales said, staring down at rows of bound bills. He quickly began counting the packets. There were twenty, each containing twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills. Under the last stack was...another key.
    By the time they were finished, they’d opened four of the late Maddie Gray’s bank boxes and amassed a total of two hundred thousand dollars.
    “That must’ve been some rainy day Maddie was waiting for,” Nikki said. “I don’t get it. She was making all she needed with her show. Why would she screw around with blackmail?”
    “Control,” Morales said. “Lady liked to make people squirm.”
    “I wonder why,” Nikki said.
    “Why? She was one mean bitch.”
    “What do you suppose made her that way?”
    “Not our problem,” Morales said. “We only care about who made her dead.”
    They replaced the boxes. Goodman told the bank manager that someone from the LAPD would be returning for the cash, which was now evidence.
    As they drove away from the bank, Morales turned to Nikki on the backseat. “Like ole times, eh? ’Cept for Blackie not bein’ here, of course.”
    “Except for that,” she said. In truth, she didn’t think it was like old times at all.

N INE
    J immy Doyle spent the better part of the afternoon strolling around the Beverly Hills shopping area, checking out the boutiques along Rodeo and Little Santa Monica. He didn’t have much else to do until the cops got their act together. If they ever did.
    The sun was just starting to dip in the west when he was drawn to a shop called L’Homme Magnifique, where five years before he’d purchased a couple of three-hundred-dollar silk shirts that the buttons had fallen off of the first time he wore them. “So?” the salesman had told him when he’d complained. “Have your butler sew them back on.”
    Doyle was amused by that kind of brass. He looked around the small showroom hoping the snotty smart-ass was still there, but the only salesperson on the floor was a woman wearing dark green lipstick that made her pale face look like something out of a Stephen King novel. Good body though. He asked her if Harold was still working there.
    “I don’t know any Harold,” she said, not giving it much thought. “There’s a Raoul who does the books.”
    “It’s not important,” he said. “I’ll just look around.”
    “That’s what we’re here for,” she said, purposely glancing at her watch.
    He was fingering a cashmere sport jacket so soft it felt like eiderdown when his beeper gave a chirp. The blinking number was Hobie Adler’s private line. Doyle patted his breast pocket and realized he’d left the cellular in his hotel room.
    “Got a phone I can use?” he asked the voluptuous ghost woman.
    She looked at the little disk on her wrist again. “Sorry, closing time,” she said.
    They could be rude in other parts of the country, but no place beat Rodeo Drive for attitude. He loved it.
    “Suppose I buy this?” He held up a