Free The Trials of Nikki Hill by Dick Lochte, Christopher Darden Page B

foreign hair, pubic or otherwise, had been found on the body. “No flakes of skin, either,” she said. “However, the fingernails on the victim’s right hand yielded a small amount of blood and tissue. A slightly larger amount was recovered from under the left thumbnail.”
    Goodman asked about rug fibers.
    “Numerous coarse fibers dyed mainly red and yellow were found on the skin and in the hair,” the doctor said. “In addition, many other particles were clinging to the body, probably the result of the corpse’s residence in the garbage bin.”
    While the coroner listed the various Dumpster contents found clinging to the corpse, Nikki’s attention shifted to the doctor’s assistants, who were busily photographing body samples and collecting fluids. Madeleine Gray’s liver was thrown on a scale, then deposited into a plastic bag. Other organs were weighed and put in a larger bag that was closed and placed between the corpse’s legs. The corpse was then cocooned in a material not unlike Saran Wrap. Finally, a rope was tied around the late Madeleine Gray’s arms and shoulders. Why, Nikki couldn’t imagine.
    At the end of the ordeal the detectives put away their notebooks, and Wise, who’d filled several pages of a legal pad with his small, precise printing, clipped his pen to the pad. Nikki was startled to realize that her own pad was blank. She’d forgotten to take notes. She quickly zipped up her briefcase and hoped Wise hadn’t noticed.
    His interest was elsewhere. “When will we have the final results of your tests, doctor?” he asked.
    “Two weeks,” the coroner replied. “The DNA? You’re
    talking more than a month.”
    “What about blood type?”
    “I could have something on that for you today,” she said. Wise told her that would be lovely. Then he turned to Nikki. “Meeting in Joe’s office in half an hour,” he said. “Don’t be late.”

T WELVE
    N ikki was impressed by Joe Walden’s apparent calm. He had less than an hour to decide if he should formally accuse Jamal Deschamps of murder or set him free. Still, he was leaning back in his chair, chilling out while Wise relayed the results of the autopsy. When the head deputy finished, Walden sighed and focused on his spotless desktop. Except for the fingers of his right hand doing a little dance on the arm of his chair, he might have been a man with nothing of consequence on his mind.
    Nikki, on the other hand, felt restless and uneasy, as if she were several cups of coffee over her limit. The morgue experience had left its mark on her, its peculiar, funky smell still clogging her nostrils. Then, the article about her in the morning
L.A. Times,
which was waiting on her desk when she arrived, added its own jolt of anxiety. Not only had it carried the erroneous information that she was the deputy “overseeing” the Gray investigation, it referenced the infamous Weenie Defense Murder Trial, noting that “Hill refuses to discuss either the trial or why she chose to spend the next few years out of the fast lane, serving in the Compton courts.”
    Just as vexing, the article mentioned her father, William Hill, citing his long and distinguished career as a member of the LAPD. Nikki had carefully stonewalled questions about her personal life and, much to the dismay of Press Relations Deputy Meg Fisher, had cut the interview short when the reporter had grown too insistent in probing into her upbringing. She had also turned down requests for interviews long or short from, according to Meg, twenty-six legitimate news outlets. Of course, to Meg, the
Globe
was a legitimate news outlet.
    Ray Wise, perched beside her on an uncomfortable gray leather chair that was a twin of hers, cleared his throat suddenly. The noise seemed to shake Walden from his reverie. “I’m surprised more of the killer’s flesh wasn’t recovered,” the D.A. said. “Judging by all the scratches on Deschamps’s back, I was expecting there to be enough skin under the