The Trials of Nikki Hill by Dick Lochte, Christopher Darden

victim’s fingernails to make a small boy.”
    “Deschamps says it was the other broad who tore him up,” Wise said. “So maybe he wasn’t lying about that. Anyway, there was enough for Fugitsu to work with. She said she’ll have a blood type for us today.”
    Walden consulted his watch. “Any particular time today?”
    Wise shook his head.
    “Take us through the crime, Ray.”
    Wise plucked a yellow legal pad from a briefcase beside his chair. He flipped a few note-filled pages and began. “Sometime between seven and ten P.M. Deschamps and the deceased were at her place, probably playing some sort of sex game. There were booze and drugs, according to Fugitsu. But no semen was found in the body. So maybe Maddie tells the guy no and this pisses him off. The party gets rough. He belts her around, just like he’s belted other women in the past. She doesn’t like it, gives him some of it back and that pisses him off even more. He picks up something handy and uses it to crack her skull.”
    Wise’s scenario was raising a number of questions in Nikki’s mind, but she knew better than to interrupt him. Instead, she made notes and kept quiet.
    “So there’s Deschamps with a dead woman on his hands. In the woman’s house. Still, he doesn’t panic. It’s dark outside. The house is secluded. He wraps Gray’s naked tokus in a rug and drags it out to his car. He wants to dump the body ASAP, but he’s afraid to take the chance of somebody seeing him. It’s unfamiliar territory to him. So he drives down to an area he knows, South Central, where, even if he’s seen, there’s less chance anybody’s going to report it.
    “After he unloads the body, he feels wired, excited. He goes to a bar, picks up a bimbo,” Wise consulted his notes, “one Dorothea Downs. They screw until around two A.M. when her roommate shows up and Deschamps takes a walk. “That’s when he remembers the ring on the dead woman’s finger. A bauble like that’s worth a few bucks. So he goes back to the alley. And gets nabbed.”
    Walden nodded, then turned to Nikki. “Comments?”
    Her mind started to compose a diplomatic response, but Wise hated her guts anyway. So, the hell with diplomacy. “What makes you think the murder took place at her house, Ray?” she asked. “The police still aren’t sure where it happened.”
    “Depends on who you talk to, sweetie,” he replied. “The house is where they found the likely weapon. You know, the hunk of metal sculpture with blood on it. There’s a missing rug Deschamps must’ve used to wrap up the body for delivery. And, there’s the broken lock on the vic’s office cabinet.
    That might be considered a little clue, too, that the murder took place on the premises.”
    “What do you suppose happened to the clothes she was wearing?” she asked.
    “Relevance?” Wise inquired.
    “If she and Deschamps were engaged in sex play that turned deadly and if she wound up naked in an alley, wouldn’t her clothes be in a pile near the murder scene?”
    Walden gave her a smile of confidence and turned to Wise. The prosecutor shrugged his bony shoulders. “Maybe Des-champs folded them up and put ’em on a shelf.”
    “The clothes she was last seen wearing are missing. Shoes, too.”
    “So Deschamps dumped ’em in another alley.”
    “Why?” Nikki asked. “If he killed the woman in her own home, why not just leave the clothes there?”
    Walden’s head deputy looked at him pleadingly. “Can’t we stop with this bullshit? In seventeen years on this job, I’ve yet to try one case where everything made perfect sense. As anybody with any experience knows, murderers don’t behave rationally. So he took her clothes. Why? I don’t give a shit. Maybe some of his blood got on them. Maybe he likes going in drag. They’re missing. If they turn up, fine. If they don’t, too bad.”
    Walden asked, “Anything else, Nikki?”
    “Ray, you say he dragged the body to his car. What car? According to