The Silent Widow

‘For Christ’s sake, Mick. We have evidence, actual, forensic evidence.’

‘A couple of tire skids? Give me a break. They don’t prove shit and you know it.’

‘Why would she make up something like this?’ Goodman threw his arms wide in frustration. ‘Why?’

Johnson shrugged. ‘For attention.’

‘Whose attention? Yours? No offense, Mick, but I don’t think she’s that interested.’

‘I don’t know, Lou. Maybe yours,’ Johnson shot back, irritated. ‘Maybe she sees your tongue hanging out and your pants bulging every time she walks into a room and she wants a closer look.’

Goodman shook his head. What was this, third grade?

‘I don’t know what her motives are and I don’t really care,’ Johnson went on. ‘All I know is that I don’t trust her. I think she’s messed up in the head.’

Exhausted, Goodman let it go. There was no reasoning with Johnson in this sort of mood.

Interpreting his partner’s silence as a sign the conversation was over, Johnson changed the subject. ‘Any more leads on Brandon Grolsch?’

‘None we can use.’ A troubled look came over Goodman’s face. ‘I traced the girl who wrote to Valentina Baden about his overdose. Rachel Kelsey, her name was.’

‘“Was”?’

‘Uh huh,’ Goodman confirmed with a sigh. ‘OD’d eight weeks ago. Her family buried her down near San Diego. Twenty-two years old.’

Johnson scowled. ‘What the hell is happening with these kids?’

‘I know,’ Goodman muttered. ‘It’s tragic.’

‘I’m sure Nikki Roberts is involved in these murders somehow,’ said Johnson, animated again suddenly. ‘I don’t know how. But I’m sure of it. I feel like we’re this close to seeing the connection. But then poof, it’s gone.’

Goodman didn’t feel ‘this close’ to anything. He just wished that Johnson would quit harassing Dr Roberts and shutting the door on potential new leads she gave them, like the witness in the red car. Because the depressing truth was, if Brandon Grolsch was dead, the driver of the SUV with blacked-out windows might be the only suspect they had.

‘So I’ve got a question for you.’ Haddon Defoe smiled warmly across the lunch table at Nikki. He hadn’t seen her since the night he’d broken the news about Trey Raymond’s death. Thankfully all the awkwardness and pain of that encounter was absent from today’s meeting. It almost felt like old times.

‘Fire away,’ said Nikki.

Haddon fixed her with a gimlet stare and asked seriously: ‘What exactly is a Meyer lemon?’

Nikki laughed. They were in Venice, at one of the newest and most self-consciously trendy bistros on Abbot Kinney, where the menu definitely scored an ‘A’ for pretention.

‘And while we’re at it, what’s an heirloom tomato, a Dungeness crab, and a Jidori chicken?’ asked Haddon. ‘It’s like invasion of the killer adjectives on these menus. Whatever happened to good ol’ fried chicken?’

‘Oh, they still have that,’ said Nikki, slicing into the last, juicy stem of her steamed asparagus. ‘About six blocks away at El Pollo Loco, for a tenth of the price. But we both know that’s not your style, Haddon.’

Haddon was glad to see her looking happier, even teasing him as she used to before Doug’s accident. Ever since Doug’s death, Nikki had changed, a dark cloud descending over her that was part grief, part anger and, Haddon suspected, part utter bewilderment at the things she’d learned about her husband after his death, sides to him she’d never known before.

‘Did you want dessert?’ Haddon asked, finishing up his crayfish (with Meyer lemon crème fraiche). ‘Or shall we get going?’

‘Let’s go,’ said Nikki. ‘I don’t think I’m in the mood for deconstructed, gluten-free chocolate ganache.’

They were headed to the new Venice clinic, an off-shoot of the downtown facility that he and Doug had run together for the last eight years. Doug had been heavily involved in the planning for Venice, an LA neighborhood that, despite its rising real estate values, remained home to a growing number of homeless and mentally ill, many of them long-term addicts. Doug had helped pick the site for the new clinic, negotiating bargain-basement rates on everything and getting a variety of local artisans and contractors to revamp the building, most of them giving up their time for free. Now, of course, it would be Haddon who would run the place, alone. They’d only opened a couple of months ago but already the clinic was full to capacity every single day, with lines of would-be patients forming around the block from before 7 a.m.

Haddon had made the offer of lunch and a tour before Trey’s murder, and was both pleased and surprised that Nikki had kept the date. For Nikki, it wasn’t even a question. Haddon Defoe was a kind man, and a precious link to Doug and happier days, days that seemed so long ago now. She’d come to today’s lunch straight from the police station and her bruising interview with Detective Johnson. She decided not to share that with Haddon, or to tell him about Tuesday night’s attack at the house. Once she told him, he would likely insist on getting involved and trying to help, keeping an eye on her. Nikki knew better than anyone that Haddon didn’t have time for that, not with running the downtown drop-in center and Venice, and having his own medical practice to manage at Cedars. Besides, what could he do really, other than worry? He could hard

ly guard her around the clock, and Nikki wouldn’t have wanted that, even if he could.

As they walked from the restaurant to the clinic, it struck Nikki what a difference six blocks could make. Within minutes, overpriced clothes and antiques stores had given way to run-down 1920s cottages and shabby corner drugstores. A few minutes more and it was all vacant lots, chain-link fences and weeds. Up-ended shopping carts lay littered around amid the familiar detritus of despair that Nikki recognized from the downtown neighborhoods Doug use to work in: old shoes, cans, bicycle parts and trash of all kinds, including discarded needles, foil and other drug paraphernalia. Here and there amid this sea of filth, a few buildings popped up, many old but some new and clean and hopeful, stores and apartment blocks and offices, even an art gallery, trying its luck. Like the palm trees swaying tall and proud, these seemed to offer the promise of something better. After a few more minutes, Haddon strode up the steps of one of them proudly, a whitewashed wooden building on a corner lot that had once been a large home with a wraparound porch and gardens that would have stretched for blocks on all directions. A simple sign out front read Roberts-Defoe Venice Clinic – All Welcome.