Sidney Sheldon's the Silent Widow Read online

  ‘I do know, Gamma.’ Trey kissed the old lady on the top of her balding head. ‘Believe me. I know.’

  It was kind of Haddon to stop by and see him. Thoughtful.

  At the same time, a small part of Trey felt suspicious. Why had he chosen tonight to trek all the way out to Westmont? Doug Roberts had been dead a year and he’d never ‘stopped by’ before. And why all the questions about Nikki and the police? Was it really coincidence, Dr Defoe’s visit coming so soon after Lisa Flannagan’s sudden death? And did he really not know anything about Lisa’s murder?

  Trey helped himself to a large plate of El Pollo Loco wings, trying to push these irrational fears aside. I’m being paranoid. What could Haddon Defoe possibly know? A few minutes later, his cell phone buzzed. Reading the text, he stiffened.

  ‘What’s the matter, baby?’ Martha Raymond asked. After all Trey’s years of addiction, she’d learned to watch her son’s reactions like a hawk.

  ‘Nothing.’ He smiled.

  ‘You sure?’

  He nodded, putting the phone away. ‘Just work. Something I forgot to do.’

  After dinner, Trey did the dishes and took out the trash. It was important to keep to his normal routine, not to look as if he were rushing. He knew his mom would worry if anything seemed out of the ordinary. Only once the kitchen was clean did he grab his jacket, as casually as he could.

  ‘I’m going out,’ he told Marsha.

  Instinctively, her eyes narrowed. ‘Out where?’ Trey hadn’t used in over two years, but ‘I’m going out’ still triggered a fear response. It probably always would.

  ‘Jus’ for a walk, Mama.’ He kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘A walk? In our beautiful neighborhood?’ she raised an eyebrow.

  Trey chuckled. ‘I need some cigarettes. Today was a crazy day, you know? I won’t be long.’

  ‘OK, baby.’ Marsha forced herself to relax. He was a grown man after all. She couldn’t keep tabs on his every move. ‘Watch yourself.’

  ‘I will, Mama.’

  The cool evening breeze on his skin gave Trey Raymond no comfort as he walked down Denker Avenue. He was wired like an over-strung guitar, ready to snap at any moment.

  He waited till he’d turned the corner, out of sight of his house, to pull out his cell phone and re-read the text:

  ‘Be at the corner of Vermont and 135th in 1 hr.’

  That was all it said. But it was all it needed to say. Trey knew who the text was from, and what it meant. He wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. It was too late for that.

  He could see the corner, less than fifty yards away. Apart from a couple of wasted hookers, slumped against the convenience store wall, it was deserted.

  His phone buzzed again. MMS. A picture this time.

  Trey clicked it open and felt the bile rise up in his throat. It was a woman’s torso, what was left of it, covered in stab wounds. Her bare breasts had been sliced open grotesquely, like a split chicken ready for stuffing.

  Lisa? Or someone else, someone new? Another victim?

  Beneath the picture were two words. ‘Hurry up.’

  Trey started to run. He reached the rendezvous, breathless, but there was no one there. No cars, no people, nothing. Only the hookers sitting on the curb. Crouching down over the girls, Trey shook one by the shoulder.

  ‘Was anybody here? D’you see anybody waiting here earlier?’

  The girl looked up at him blankly, her pupils dilating like the pulse of a dying star. Trey tried her semi-comatose friend. ‘Please!’ He could hear the desperation in his own voice and it scared him. ‘I’m looking for someone. It’s really important.’

  The second girl sat up suddenly, like a robot whose batteries just got replaced. ‘Looks like you found them, sugar!’ she grinned. ‘Behind you!’

  Trey turned, just in time to feel the crackle of the Taser burning into his chest. The pain was excruciating. He fell backwards, slamming his head on the concrete.

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘Two pairs.’

  Lou Goodman laid his tens and eights down on the Formica table. Mick Johnson, his partner, was addicted to heads-up poker. Goodman had learned the game to try to bond with the older man. It hadn’t worked, so far, but Goodman kept trying.

  ‘Straight.’ Johnson cracked a smug smile, laying out his six-through-ten. ‘Guess that means the breakfast’s on you.’

  And the heart attack’s on you, my friend, Goodman thought, watching his partner begin to attack his second enormous stack of Denny’s pancakes, drowning in syrup and whipped cream.

  The two detectives had escaped the station together to compare their progress, or lack of it, in the Lisa Flannagan murder case. Flannagan’s former lover, the billionaire Rams owner Willie Baden, still hadn’t returned from his vacation home in Cabo San Lucas. Conveniently, he’d been in Mexico the night Lisa was killed, vacationing with his loyal, long-suffering wife Valentina, and the couple were no doubt planning to stay there until the salacious press coverage about his and Lisa’s affair died down. Goodman had told Johnson about the connection between Valentina Baden and Brandon Grolsch’s mother, Frances. But a cursory call to Valentina’s charity offices had yielded nothing of use, which left the detectives with little option but to await the Badens’ return.

  Meanwhile Johnson had drawn a blank with the dead girl’s family (no siblings, both parents dead, and an aunt in Reno who hadn’t seen Lisa since she was six) and Goodman was no further ahead in establishing whether Brandon Grolsch was dead or alive, never mind how his DNA came to be under Lisa’s fingernail. Like his parents, none of Brandon’s old friends or girlfriends had heard from him in eight months, and Goodman’s calls to all of the various rehabs and drop-in centers known to have treated Brandon in the past yielded nothing. Though it pained him to agree with Nathan Grolsch on anything, it did seem increasingly likely that Brandon was, indeed, dead. Unfortunately, ‘likely’ wasn’t good enough.

  The only other clue they’d managed to find turned out to be a damp squib. There had been a lot of excitement when one of the techs recovered pieces of Lisa’s clothing from the stretch of freeway close to where the body was dumped. But when the lab reports came in they were inconclusive; the unusually heavy rain around the time of Lisa’s death had washed away any useful DNA traces. That left them with only the baffling fingernail cells to go on. So far there’d been no sign of Dr Roberts’ missing raincoat, the one she claimed to have lent Lisa the night she died, nor of the murder weapon.

  All in all, it wasn’t exactly a triumphant start.

  ‘I don’t trust that psychologist broad,’ Johnson observed, as he did every time they discussed the case, pushing the cards aside and shoveling forkfuls of pancake into his open mouth. ‘I think we should talk to her again.’

  Goodman frowned. Johnson’s growing obsession with and dislike of Dr Nikki Roberts, the victim’s beautiful therapist, was almost as disheartening as their lack of evidence.

  ‘Talk to her again and say what?’ he asked, exasperated.

  ‘We could ask for her notes,’ Johnson mumbled, spooning more cream onto his stack. ‘Session notes. With the victim.’

  ‘Not without a warrant, we couldn’t,’ said Goodman. ‘Doctor–patient information’s privileged.’

  Johnson snorted derisively. ‘She’s not a doctor! She’s a frikkin quack. That lady has about as much medical training as the tarot card readers on Venice Beach.’

  ‘That’s simply not true, Mick,’ Goodman replied. ‘I don’t understand why you hate her so much.’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ the fat man grumbled.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Goodman asked.

  ‘She’s attractive,’ Johnson said simply. ‘You like attractive women.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  Goodman pushed aside his cold coffee. He thought everything about Denny’s was disgusting. He couldn’t understand why so many of his colleagues seemed to love t
he place. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘it doesn’t matter whether she’s attractive or not. The point is, she has nothing to do with this. She’s a distraction, a sideshow. We need to focus on speaking to the Badens and we need to find Brandon Grolsch.’

  Johnson grunted noncommittally. His ringing phone interrupted the sullen silence. ‘Yello?’

  Goodman watched him slowly put down his fork and stop eating. He was listening intently to whatever was being said on the other end of the line. After what seemed like an age he said an abrupt, ‘OK. We’re on our way now,’ and hung up.

  ‘What was that about?’ asked Goodman.

  ‘Remember Treyvon Raymond?’ said Johnson, pushing back his chair. ‘The snotty little black kid from Doc Roberts’ office.’

  ‘The receptionist? Sure,’ said Goodman. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Someone found him dumped less than half a mile from where the killer left Lisa Flannagan. Naked. Multiple stab wounds, including one to the heart.’

  ‘Shit.’ Goodman exhaled slowly. ‘So we’ve got a serial.’

  ‘Not yet we don’t.’ Johnson stood up and lumbered towards the door.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Goodman asked.

  ‘Treyvon Raymond’s still alive.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  In the heart of West Hollywood, Cedars-Sinai Hospital has always been synonymous with celebrity and glamour. Frank Sinatra and River Phoenix died there, Michael Jackson’s kids were born there and Britney Spears was admitted to the psychiatric wing there after her head-shaving breakdown.

  However Cedars was also a bustling, inner-city hospital and home to LA’s busiest ER. Every day, ordinary Angelinos poured through its doors after car crashes or overdoses, ambulances offloading every type of human pain and misery from burns to gunshot wounds to victims of rape and domestic battery. Some of the city’s top surgeons and specialists could be found here too. One of them, a slight, softly spoken Iranian by the name of Dr Robert Rhamatian had just finished surgery on Trey Raymond – what was left of him – when Goodman and Johnson arrived.

  ‘When can we talk to him?’ Goodman asked the surgeon anxiously. ‘It’s vital we hear what he knows.’

  Dr Rhamatian sighed heavily. He was exhausted after six grueling hours in theater and not in the mood for two pushy cops and their demands.

  ‘I don’t think you understand, Detective,’ he said, with a patience he didn’t feel. ‘Mr Raymond is very gravely ill. He’s heavily sedated right now, which is why he looks so peaceful. The operation was successful, as far as it went, but the damage to his left ventricle is extensive.’

  Goodman looked blank.

  ‘He was stabbed in the heart,’ the surgeon clarified. ‘We’ve done the best we can for him, but I’m by no means certain he’ll survive.’

  ‘All the more reason we need to talk to him,’ Johnson said gruffly. ‘Can you wake him up?’

  ‘No.’ The surgeon looked at the sweating cop in the syrup-stained shirt with distaste. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Did he say anything before he went into surgery?’ Goodman asked, hoping to get something useful out of the doctor before Johnson alienated him completely. ‘Was he conscious at any time? I’m sorry to press you, Dr Rhamatian. But we think whoever did this to Treyvon Raymond may have murdered a young woman a few days ago. If Treyvon saw his attacker, or can remember anything at all, it’s vital that you tell us.’

  ‘I understand,’ said the surgeon. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t know what happened before his surgery. You need to speak to the paramedics who brought him in. I’ll get the names for you. Hey!’ Turning around he glared at Johnson, who was trying to open the door to the recovery room. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t go in there.’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll find I can,’ Johnson said rudely. ‘I’m gonna ask that boy some questions while he’s still alive to be asked ’em, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I told you, he’s sedated. He won’t be able to hear you.’

  ‘Then I won’t be bothering him, will I?’ said Johnson. ‘Look, Doc, you did your job already. Now it’s time for us to do ours.’

  Dr Rhamatian looked at Goodman as if to say, Can’t you do something?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Goodman muttered. But he did nothing to restrain his partner as Johnson pulled open the door and walked in.

  ‘So am I,’ said the surgeon angrily. ‘For the boy’s sake. This is an outrage.’

  He stormed off, presumably in search of reinforcements. Goodman hurriedly followed Johnson into the recovery suite.

  ‘Do you have to be such a dick?’ he asked Johnson. ‘The man was helping us.’

  ‘No he wasn’t.’ Johnson didn’t look up from the bed, where Trey Raymond was lying prone and still, his bandaged chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm, with the help of a machine that looked like a cross between a prop from a 1960s sci-fi movie and a pool cleaner, complete with long, corrugated tubing. His arms, neck and cheeks were covered in shallow knife wounds, exactly as Lisa’s had been, and his face was bruised beyond recognition. No wonder the killer had left him for dead.

  ‘The kid’s dying, Lou,’ said Johnson. ‘Even you can see that. It’s now or never.’

  ‘I know,’ Goodman said somberly. ‘But—’

  He was interrupted by Johnson’s loud clapping, his fat hands crashing together inches above Trey’s unresponsive face.

  ‘Wake up!’ he shouted. ‘Tell us who did this to you. TREY!’

  ‘Mick, come on—’

  ‘I said, WAKE UP, DIPSHIT!’ Johnson bellowed. ‘Open your GODDAMN EYES!’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Grabbing him by the shoulders, Goodman pulled Johnson back. ‘Stop it. Leave him alone. What the hell is wrong with you?’

  Johnson turned, and for a moment looked as if he were about to punch his partner in the face. But before he had a chance, Trey suddenly opened his eyes and let out a panicked scream.

  ‘I don’t know!’ he yelled, his arms twitching manically. ‘Please! Oh God! I DON’T KNOW!’ His head was tossing from side to side. He screamed again and then an awful gurgling sound began from somewhere deep in his throat. Even Johnson looked alarmed. One of the machines started beeping and a stream of nurses and medics ran into the room, as Trey slumped back, unresponsive, onto the bed.

  ‘Who let you in here?’ one of the interns barked at Goodman and Johnson. ‘This is medical personnel only. Get out!’

  Johnson hesitated, but only for a moment. He followed Goodman out.

  Out in the corridor, Goodman turned on him. ‘What in God’s name was that? We could get prosecuted! What if the kid’s family make a complaint?’

  Johnson laughed. ‘What if they do?’ There could be no mistaking the racist undertone in his words. The unspoken implication that nobody would listen to the likes of Marsha Raymond, a poor, black single mother from Westmont. Not for the first tame, Goodman felt a surge of real dislike for the man he was forced to work with.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he called after Johnson, who was already headed for the exit.

  ‘Back to the precinct,’ said Johnson. ‘The boy’s clearly not gonna make it, so that ship’s sailed. Still, at least we now know one thing for sure.’

  ‘We do?’

  ‘Sure we do. It’s the same killer. Assuming Trey dies, that’s two victims inside of a week, both attacked and dumped the same exact way.’

  ‘OK,’ said Goodman, not sure why this obvious fact seemed to please his partner so much.

  ‘So you tell me,’ Johnson spelled it out. ‘Who’s the one person that connects both of the victims?’

  The penny dropped.

  It pained Goodman to admit it. But this time, Johnson was right.

  As far as they knew, Lisa Flannagan and Trey Raymond had only one thing in common.

  They were both close to Dr Nikki Roberts.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Earlier that morning, Nikki Roberts sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath. Her sweat-drench
ed T-shirt clung to her body and she was shaking, shivering, as if she’d just been pulled out of icy water. Her bedside clock said 4.52 a.m. Wearily she sank back against the pillows.

  It was the same dream she’d been having for months, or a variant of it anyway: Doug was in danger, about to die, and was screaming out to Nikki, begging her for help. But she didn’t help him, and he died, and it was all her fault. Sometimes he was drowning and she stood and watched from the beach, letting it happen. Sometimes he was in a car, careening out of control, and Nikki held some sort of remote control that could activate the brakes, but she refused to use it. In tonight’s version, they’d been walking along the clifftop path at Big Sur and Doug had somehow lost his footing and slipped off the edge. He was reaching out to Nikki, pleading for her hand to pull him back to safety. But this time, instead of simply refusing or ignoring him, she’d actively peeled off his clinging fingers one by one and pushed him to his death, watching as he was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. She’d murdered him. And the worst part was, in the dream, the act had left her with a sense of elation, a tremendous feeling of power.

  A few hours later, an emotional Nikki met her friend Gretchen Adler for brunch on Melrose.

  ‘I had the dream again,’ she said as the two women sat down at Glorious Greens café.

  ‘The Doug dream?’ said Gretchen.

  Nikki nodded. ‘Only this time it was worse.’

  Nikki filled Gretchen in on her latest nightmare while a handsome waiter hovered over them. Nikki ordered her usual poached eggs, toast and triple-shot latte, while Gretchen went for a vile-looking kale-and-beetroot smoothie and a bowl of something involving sprouted grains. Gretchen was Nikki’s oldest friend – they’d known each other since high school – and a sweetheart of the first order, but for most of her adult life she’d been fighting an on-off battle with her weight. As far as Nikki could tell, she rarely got any thinner, but was always raving about some new diet or other. At the moment it was raw-vegan.