The Silent Widow

Having successfully sowed at least a small seed of doubt in Nikki’s mind, he deftly switched the subject.

‘I actually wanted to ask you about something else,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ Nikki sipped her own drink, still glowing inside from his earlier endearment.

‘Brandon Grolsch,’ Goodman said bluntly, extinguishing the glow. ‘I know you said you never treated him. But might your husband have run across him, at one of his clinics? He was a hardcore heroin addict, among other things.’

‘It’s possible,’ Nikki said cautiously. ‘Doug and Haddon helped so many people.’

‘But they must have kept records, right? Of their patients?’

‘Yeeeees. Some.’ Nikki was hesitant. ‘But it wasn’t like my practice, or a normal medical office. This was a drop-in center. People passed through. Many were homeless, with no ID, no insurance, no social security number. To try to track down one individual would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

‘You know, Johnson’s like a dog with a bone on this,’ Goodman warned her. ‘If it turns out there was a link between Grolsch and your husband, or with you – that won’t look good for you, Nikki.’

‘I don’t see why.’ Nikki sat up taller, rising to Goodman’s challenge, if that’s what it was. ‘I can’t be expected to remember every addict my husband ever treated.’

‘True.’ Goodman smiled, his eyes twinkling again.

Nikki wasn’t sure what to make of it. The entire conversation felt like a strange game of tennis that was part flirtation and part deadly serious. Should she trust him?

‘Why are you so interested in this Brandon Grolsch anyway?’

Goodman looked at her for a few moments, as if weighing up how much he should divulge. ‘We found his DNA on both bodies,’ he said eventually. ‘OK? So now it’s your turn.’

‘My turn to what?’

‘Oh, come on, Nikki!’ Goodman rolled his eyes. ‘If you know anything about Brandon, you should tell us. We think he’s dead, by the way.’

If he was waiting for a reaction from Nikki, he was disappointed.

‘That’s where all these stupid “zombie” stories came from,’ he went on. ‘The DNA we found didn’t come from a living human but from a corpse. Brandon’s corpse. So if you figure you’re protecting him, you’re not. The only person you’re protecting is the murderer.’

‘Firstly, I’m not protecting any murderer,’ Nikki insisted, defiantly. ‘So your partner Johnson can go digging for that needle as hard as he likes. And secondly, you should let him know that I’m well aware of how to handle myself in a courtroom. I’ve been called as an expert witness many times in the past, and I don’t bully easily.’

‘I’m sure you don’t,’ Goodman said, a clear note of admiration in his voice.

‘No offense to you,’ Nikki went on, glad that the conversation had moved on from the subject of Brandon. She’d made her decision on that score and having begun in the lie it was too late to turn back now. ‘But more than once I’ve had to testify against police officers. Your friends in the drug squad, the guys sticking pins in Derek Williams’ picture? Well, guess what? Williams is right when he calls those guys corrupt.’

‘Some of them, maybe,’ Goodman admitted.

‘Many of them,’ said Nikki. ‘Too many.’

Somewhere in the back of Goodman’s mind, a penny was slowly dropping.

‘I’ve been an expert witness …’

‘I’ve had to testify against police …’

‘I’ve seen your colleagues stand up in court and lie through their teeth to protect each other,’ Nikki warmed to her theme, conveniently forgetting that she, too, had just lied about Brandon Grolsch. ‘Doug told me countless horror stories about police planting evidence, framing addicts and small-time dealers to get convictions, and all the while the big suppliers went free. Derek Williams is not the only one with mixed feelings about you guys.’

‘OK, OK.’ Goodman held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘I get it. But try to remember, I’m not the enemy, OK?’

‘I know that.’ Nikki softened. ‘I never thought you were. I only hired Derek because I needed some answers. And because I was getting tired of being treated like a suspect.’

Goodman got the check and again refused to let Nikki split it. Afterwards he walked her to her car.

‘Be careful,’ he repeated. ‘Until we catch this guy. Please be careful.’