This was no accident.
She looked desperately to left and right for a means of escape, but about three feet of jutting garden wall hemmed her in on both sides of the gate. By the time she maneuvered around it, the car would have hit her. Above her was a small wooden ledge she could conceivably grab onto and try to pull herself up, but it was too high for her to reach.
I’m trapped! Nikki thought helplessly. I’m going to die.
Everything slowed down – her senses, her perceptions, her heartbeat. Even the car’s roaring engine seemed to go quiet, drowned out by the low, deep thud of her pulse.
Right as this peaceful sense of acceptance was settling over her, a red sports car suddenly appeared around the corner. Nikki watched as if it were a dream, or an out-of-body experience as both drivers slid across the road, their brakes squealing as they frantically tried to avoid a side-on collision. Being so much lighter, it was the sports car that spun out of control, shooting past Nikki like a bright red child’s spinning top before miraculously coming to rest, tail end first, in Nikki’s neighbor’s hedge.
A momentary silence fell. Then the SUV backed up, turned and disappeared down the hill.
The owner of the red car staggered out into the road, shaken but un
hurt. ‘Holy shit!’ A young Iranian man in his early twenties, he was well dressed and handsome in the way that LA’s privileged youth so often were. Good dentistry. Good skin. Good body, courtesy of some expensive private gym membership. ‘Did you see that maniac? He was coming straight at you!’
Nikki tried to speak but no words came out.
‘Are you OK?’ the young man asked.
Nikki shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she gasped. ‘I think somebody’s trying to kill me.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Badens’ return to Los Angeles was a low-key affair, unreported by the media and distinctly fleeting. Willie’s private jet touched down in Burbank on a Tuesday night, and his pilot had instructions to fly his boss back to Cabo first thing Friday morning. Mrs Baden would stay in town a little longer, through the weekend, to take care of some loose ends at her charity offices downtown. But their lawyer made it plain to the LA police department that if detectives wished to interview the couple, then Wednesday would be ‘the only convenient day.’
‘Doesn’t it bug you?’ Goodman asked Johnson, as his partner headed off to Willie’s apartment to interview the billionaire Rams’ owner about his affair with the victim. ‘All this special treatment for the rich?’
They’d agreed to quiz the Badens separately, with Goodman meeting Valentina at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills while Johnson grilled her husband.
‘Depends.’ Johnson shrugged. ‘Old man Baden’s been good to the department. Plus he flew back of his own free will to talk to us. So in this case, no.’
It was an open secret that Willie Baden was one of the LAPD Benevolent Fund’s largest ‘anonymous’ donors, a fact that carried a lot more weight with Johnson than it did with Goodman. It was also strongly rumored that Willie had effectively shut down an investigation into his wife’s charity’s finances a year or two ago – some ‘oversight’ on taxes and unreported income. Nothing had ever been proved but the nascent case against Missing was dismantled before it began. The whole thing left an unpleasant taste in Goodman’s mouth.
‘You be nice to Mrs B now,’ Johnson taunted his partner. ‘Don’t let your liberal outrage about “special treatment” get the better of you or you’ll have the chief to answer to.’
‘I’m always nice,’ growled Goodman.
It turned out to be easier to be nice to Valentina Baden than Goodman had expected. Rising from her poolside seat in the Beverly Hills Hotel’s iconic Polo Lounge to greet him, in a simple white shirtwaister dress, Willie Baden’s wife was a lot less flashy and high maintenance than he’d expected. She wore minimal make-up, and her gray-streaked hair was tied up in a casual topknot. She was also disarmingly apologetic about the time it had taken her to return to the US.
‘Unfortunately, it’s not always easy with Willie’s business. We can’t move as freely as we’d like,’ she explained. ‘And it has been a difficult time for me personally, having to process my husband’s infidelity in the full glare of the media.’
‘Of course,’ Goodman said understandingly, accepting a proffered glass of Pellegrino. ‘We appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.’
‘I must admit, I was a little surprised that you wanted to interview me,’ Valentina observed coolly. ‘I mean, obviously Willie had a relationship with the girl who was killed, so I knew you’d want to talk to him. But I knew nothing about her. Lisa Flannagan.’
She turned the name over on her tongue, like an unusual and potentially unpleasant-tasting fruit.
‘The affair was a total surprise, then?’ Goodman asked guilelessly.
‘Well,’ Valentina admitted, leaning forward and enveloping Goodman in a cloud of Gucci perfume, ‘I knew my husband had affairs, naturally. I’m not a fool, Detective. But this specific girl I had never heard of. So I’m not sure what I can add to your investigation.’
‘You accepted your husband’s affairs?’ Goodman raised an eyebrow.
Valentina smiled sadly. ‘I never said that. Marriages are complicated things, Detective. Elements of my marriage have brought me pain. But other elements have been … more positive. I have a lot of freedom to pursue my own interests and passions. My charity work, for example,’ she clarified, although Goodman could have sworn he detected a certain tongue-in-cheek element to this response.
‘Have you heard of a young man named Brandon Grolsch?’ he asked, deciding to steer clear of the tax-evasion rumors surrounding her charity and focus on the matter at hand.
Valentina sat back, startled. ‘Brandon? Yes, sure I have. What has Brandon got to do with this?’