The Silent Widow

Goodman sat at his desk at the precinct, idly re-reading the meager forensics report on Derek Williams’ killing. No fingerprints. No hairs. No DNA or clothing fibers, other than the deceased’s.

Ballistics had had marginally more success. They’d retrieved two bullets, 9 mm Elite V-Crown hollow-points, and had a good idea of the gun the killer used, a Sig Sauer P938. Unfortunately those were a dime a dozen on the streets of LA. The only real lead was the suppressor the assassin had used, something called a Dead Air Ghost M, a much rarer, top-of-the-range, specialist piece of kit only stocked by a handful of gun stores. If it had been bought legally, the purchaser would have had to file an application for it with BAFTE.

Mick Johnson was out interviewing Dead Air suppliers right now and Goodman was supposed to be trawling the BAFTE records. But he already knew in his heart that Derek Williams’ killer would never be caught. What worried him were the live threats still out there, specifically Dr Nikki Roberts, who was somewhere on the run and who clearly had zero intention of returning any of Goodman’s calls. So far, Johnson didn’t even know Nikki had left town, in direct contravention of police instructions to remain ‘available’ while the Flannagan and Raymond murder investigation was ongoing. Even Goodman had to admit that Nikki taking off the day after her PI got whacked didn’t look good. Innocent or not, it was what Washington politicians referred to as ‘bad optics’.

‘This came for you.’

The bored new desk officer, a young mother named Latisha Hall who’d joined the force to escape the dull routine of domesticity, only to find herself wasting her days filing and delivering mail to a bunch of ungrateful detectives, tossed an envelope lazily in Goodman’s general direction.

‘You opened it?’ Goodman frowned accusingly, seeing the rip across the top.

‘Course not, Detective,’ Latisha defended herself. ‘It came like that.’

Flipping the envelope over, Goodman went white. It was addressed to ‘Dr Nicola Roberts’. Inside were two pieces of paper. The first was a neatly typed bill for ‘services rendered in April/May’ from ‘the offices of Derek. B. Williams, PI.’ It was dated May 12th, the day Williams died. On the back of the invoice, someone had written by hand the word ‘Grayling’ and the number 777.

The second piece of paper had been roughly torn off a pad and was in Nikki’s own hand, hastily scrawled.

‘Thought you should have this,’ it read. ‘Hopefully, it means more to you than it does to me. Don’t come after me. But please watch your back, Lou. Johnson’s in this up to his neck. NR.’

Goodman’s heart began pounding, speeding up like an overloaded freight train heading downhill.

‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded, glaring at Latisha as if she’d delivered some personal affront. ‘Who gave it to you?’

‘No one “gave it” to me. I—’

‘Did it come in the regular mail?’ Goodman interrupted impatiently. ‘Why didn’t you give it to me earlier?’

‘Because I only saw it now, on my desk, when I got back from the bathroom. Sir,’ the girl shot back sassily. Goodman might be a senior officer, but Latisha Brown didn’t take shit from no one. ‘Someone musta dropped it off in person. I already gave out the regular afternoon mail, two hours ago.’

Pushing past her, Goodman scrambled to the window and looked out at the parking lot below and the street beyond. Nikki must have been here! Maybe even in the last few minutes. He scanned the lot, staring down at the handful of milling people, willing her to be there. But of course she wasn’t. He’d lost her. So close, and he’d lost her!

Turning the paper over, he stared at it and the envelope again intently. There was nothing untoward about Derek Williams’ invoice, nothing unusual or noteworthy about it at all as far as Goodman could see, other than the date. And yet Nikki had felt it important enough to leave it for him. To risk coming here to the station in person. Why?

Only the writing on the back, ‘Grayling 777’, was in any way unusual, although even that looked harmless enough, like it could have been anything or nothing. Surely she wouldn’t have come back to LA and taken such a risk just for that?

‘Call Detective Johnson,’ he barked at Latisha.

‘OK,’ she replied sullenly. ‘Call him and say what?’

‘Tell him to get his ass back here,’ Goodman snapped. ‘Right away.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The address Anne had given Nikki was for a small, deserted warehouse, situated right on the edge of Downtown’s fashion district, off San Julian Street. Wedged between two much larger buildings, one a printing shop and the other a factory full of seamstresses, it nestled in almost total shadow, hidden from the surrounding streets by its neighbors, as well as by a double-height brick wall to the rear.

It was an are

a Nikki used to know well. Doug and Haddon’s first drop-in clinic had been only a few blocks away, although a lot had changed since those days. The junkies were still here of course. But rising real estate values and the insane amounts of money pouring into downtown had seen them driven further and further east, past Olympic Boulevard. The new mayor’s clampdown on homelessness had also had an impact. Five years ago, unused spaces like the one Anne had chosen for their meeting would have been full of rough sleepers. Now they sat, still empty but untouched, while landlords waited for a tenant rich enough to pay their outrageous rent hikes, or for a development offer they couldn’t refuse.

Parking at a meter a few blocks up the street, Nikki worried about Anne. Meeting somewhere neutral and private, especially if she had sensitive information to impart, was one thing. But to pick such an eerie, desolate spot seemed at best eccentric and at worst a sign that Anne must be genuinely afraid of being seen with Nikki. This wasn’t a meeting place so much as a hiding place. But hiding from whom?

Nikki’s first assumption was Luis, and Anne had pretty much implied as much over the phone. But why would her ex suddenly want to hurt her now, after all this time? Nikki’s view of Anne’s husband had always been that he was both jealous and controlling, but that, by his own lights, he did love his wife. He might threaten and cajole and intimidate, to try to win her back. But he had never raised a hand to Anne, whatever else he may have done.

And yet the fear, the panic in Anne’s voice when they spoke yesterday had been unmistakable. She sounded petrified. It was a feeling Nikki had come to know intimately herself over the course of the last few weeks. She hoped she would be able to help Anne this one last time, before she returned to her own hiding place, running from her own demons.

She checked her watch. It was five to six when she approached the warehouse, tapping the five-digit code Anne had given her into the keypad beside the front gates. With a satisfying ‘click’ the heavy steel door unlocked, allowing Nikki through to a thin strip of open space, and concrete stairs up to the building itself. Here the sliding doors were already part open, as Anne had said they would be. ‘You can let yourself in. If I’m late, please wait for me. I promise I’ll be there.’

Instinctively, Nikki drew her thin cashmere cardigan more tightly around her as she stepped into a cold, dark room. A trickle of early evening light streamed through two dirty upper windows, but the overall feeling was one of institutional gloom. The gray concrete floor was scratched and pitted, and other than a few desultory plastic chairs and tables stacked against one wall, the space was devoid of furniture. A few scraps of discarded fabric lay scattered here and there, presumably remnants of the last business to occupy the space. Straight ahead, at one end of the room was a double-wide elevator, designed for moving stock rather than people. To both the left and right of it, ugly metal fire stairs led up to a mezzanine level, and then up again, presumably to a second and third floor.