The Trials of Nikki Hill Read Online Free Page B

be around to dance on his tombstone.
    “May not even be five years,” she said. “They might vote you out, the next election.”
    “Not much chance of that,” he said. “You’d be better off wishing me dead.”
    “No problem there,” she said.
    Tom Gleason’s inevitable, fatal coronary had occurred near the end of her second Compton summer. The D.A. appointed by the Board of Supervisors, Seymour Kehoe, was apparently unimpressed by her superior record of convictions. Fortunately, he remained in office for only the final three months of Gleason’s term. His defeat at the polls prompted her to apply to the man who beat him, Joseph Elijah Walden, the first African-American to be elected to that post.
    Weeks went by without a response. She’d just about decided that Walden had filed and forgotten her letter when he phoned. He’d been on vacation out of the country, he explained, and had read her request only that morning. He’d be happy to meet with her to discuss the possibility of reassignment.
    She arrived at their luncheon meeting feeling anxious and guarded. He put her at ease almost immediately by recounting an incident that had occurred during his European trip. He’d been trying to impress a woman he’d just met, but his less-than-perfect pronunciation had led to an embarrassing confusion between the French word for fish,
poisson,
and the American word
poison.
The self-deprecating vignette was only mildly amusing, but it served its purpose in relaxing Nikki to the point where she began to feel comfortable in his company.
    Their resulting conversation had been wide-ranging, moving from the frivolous to the serious and back again. She’d left the restaurant quite impressed by the intelligent and charismatic district attorney. He must have been impressed, too, because one month later she was back on the job at the Criminal Courts Building.
    Now she was in the thick of it, stepping eagerly from the elevator at the third floor of Parker Center, ready to begin her first assignment as the D.A.’s new special assistant.

T HREE
    T he interrogation of the suspect, Jamal Deschamps, a twenty-five-year-old African-American apprehended near Madeleine Gray’s body, was taking place in one of the small rooms off of the Robbery-Homicide bullpen.
    A round, balding detective named Duke Wasson brought Nikki up to date while she poured herself a cup of black coffee. “Suspect’s been in custody about three hours. He cried lawyer, and his low-rent mouth just got here ’bout a half hour ago. That’s when the party started. Been goin’ on ever since.”
    “Who’s the attorney?” she asked.
    “Bleed ’em and plead ’em Burchis,” Wasson said, grinning. Elmon Burchis was well known for putting on an elaborate legal display until the actual date of trial, when he would invariably plead his clients guilty.
    “High-level case like this,” Nikki said, “maybe Mr. Burchis will change his game plan, get somebody a little stronger to come in with him.”
    “With what we got on Deschamps, they jus’ gonna be walkin’ the dog.”
    “What
have
we got?”
    “Proximity, motive. Dead woman’s property in his pocket. An’, oh yeah, he’s got banged-up knucks and his back looks like he’s been wranglin’ wildcats. Gotta be pieces of him under the vic’s fingernails. Goodman and Morales are in there wearin’ him down.”
    “Carlos Morales?”
    “None other. Know him?”
    “Uh huh,” she said. “To know him is to love him.”
    “Then you see what Deschamps is up against,” Wasson said.
    “Who’s Goodman?” she asked.
    Wasson’s expressive round face seemed momentarily puzzled. Then: “Oh, you musta met Morales back when he was partnered with Tony Black.”
    She nodded.
    “Good guy, Blackie.”
    “Uh huh,” she said, her mind recapturing the image of Tony seated on the floor of his apartment, Bird’s huge head in his lap, both of them quietly listening to a cassette of John Coltrane and the amazing