Murder in the Courthouse

by Nancy Grace

  Thank you, LASIK! she thought quickly before blurting out, “Randolph and Armory!” like she’d just won the clue on Jeopardy.

  “Please stay calm, Cindy. Don’t move! We’re en route.” Dispatch didn’t want her to move; nobody in the Williamsburg residential community needed a 24 wandering through their backyard.

  “It’s Kacynthia. Not Cindy.” She enunciated carefully and spoke loudly as if she were talking to a deaf person.

  What was wrong with these people?

  Kacynthia Sikes kept her thoughts to herself and promptly dialed WSAV. She pressed *3 for viewers to call in breaking news stories as they happen, and to become part of the story themselves!

  Speaking breathlessly into her cell, Kacynthia described in detail the pair of legs and the pool of blood to somebody who answered the phone at WSAV. And this time, she got the street address off the mailbox at the end of the pair of legs’ driveway.

  “Yes . . . I’m standing here in a golden-nude workout leotard . . . I’m at 3443 Randolph Drive. My name is Kacynthia Sikes . . . your station just did a special on me. Penthouse Pet?”

  The cameras would be there any minute. Kacynthia just adored those trucks with the satellite thingies that reached up into the sky.

  Wiping away the mascara from under her eyes, almost involuntarily, Kacynthia sucked in her stomach and poked out her chest.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Savannah airport was so busy it didn’t seem that different from the crush of people back at LaGuardia. Pulling her roller board behind her, Hailey wound through knots of travelers complaining about the wait for luggage. Overhearing snippets of their conversations, she was glad she was a light packer.

  Just as she cleared the last claim belt, she saw him in the distance . . . a familiar figure with his back to her. But between the six feet three inches of frame, broad shoulders, and a dark fedora, she’d know him anywhere. It was Fincher, Garland Fincher, her longtime investigator and sometimes bodyguard.

  Together, the two of them had worked felony investigations from the most filthy and dangerous inner-city housing projects to high-society murders along West Paces Ferry Road. It all raced through her head . . . at the crime lab or murder scene, prepping one case after the next, cruising the strip in an undercover county car, digging bullets out from under a swing set playground in the projects. Combing over crime scenes together, measuring blood spatter, staring in windows, late nights and early mornings at every diner and fast-food stop in metro Atlanta. Coffee, coffee, and more coffee . . . it all blended . . . year after year . . . each case spilling over onto the next.

  Together, they forged a reputation as being unbeatable. The Odd Couple—that’s what they were called around the Fulton County Courthouse. Fincher was a dark-skinned black ex-Marine, six three, ripped, and wouldn’t even drive to church without packing heat, hip and ankle. Hailey barely topped five one, and was slight of frame, blonde, and always unarmed.

  Secretly, she still recoiled at the sight of handguns, ever since Will’s murder years before. Realizing her own aversion, she forced herself to make target practice a routine, and she ranked as one of the best shots in Fulton County, male or female. She hated them nonetheless and even in court, when guns came in as evidence, she held them lightly only when absolutely necessary, as if they burned her fingertips.

  For some reason, though, Hailey had packed her shoulder holster. It was specially designed, made of black, flexible Lycra and Velcro. Leather was often used, but it always bulked up and was easy to spot outside clothing. Not Hailey’s.

  It all shot across her mind in just seconds. As if he knew she was there, he turned just as she walked up to him.

  “Need a ride?” He said it casually, like they’d just seen each other yesterday.

  “Yeah. I do.” She let go of her roller board and in a split second, he picked her up and whirled around with her as if she were as light as a feather. Landing on both feet, they hugged. It seemed like the longest . . . and the shortest hug she’d ever had.

  “Fincher, I don’t get it. Why are you here?”

  “Same as you, Hailey. The Julie Love murder trial. The prosecutors told me yesterday they needed you on the stand. I’m here because I arrested the whiney little SOB. He was up in Atlanta with his new girlfriend . . .”

  “He’s out of town with a girlfriend . . . that soon after his wife disappeared?”

  “Yep. Adams was in Atlanta for one of those ‘weekend getaways’ they always advertise in USA Today. It’s something like a dinner and a weekend stay at one of the luxury hotels. So long story short, Adams had a coupon.”

  “So he’s cheap?”

  “Extremely, but he doesn’t let his lady friends find that out. He had a coupon for the hotel and a coupon for the swanky dinner he took the girlfriend to. I got him the next morning, getting his hair highlighted . . .”

  “His hair highlighted?” She didn’t even try to hide the ridicule.

  “I knew you’d love that part, Hailey . . . him getting his hair done while search crews are still out looking for his wife and baby. Anyway, so they find the body down off Tybee and send an APB out for Adams. Got a tip about the salon there in Buckhead, some fancy-schmancy place. I race over and make the collar.”

  “How’d he take it, Fincher?”

  “Take what?”

  “The arrest. You know, him knowing that somebody, specifically the police, saw through his BS.”

  “The arrest.” Fincher let out a laugh. “Cool as a cucumber, Hailey. Slick would be a better word to describe him . . . tall, good-looking . . . and slick. He’ll be a hard nut to crack.”

  “A hard nut to crack? Fincher, he won’t crack.”

  “Why do you say that, Hailey? I’ve watched you crack the best of them on the stand.”

  “Number one, Todd Adams will never take the stand. He could never withstand cross-examination on all his lovers. Plus, his whereabouts the day Julie Love goes missing are just too sketchy. His story doesn’t make sense. Then, he places himself too close to where the body eventually washes up! Fishing!”

  She thought for a moment before going on. “Second, his whole life is a lie. The whole scholarship story was a lie. He got kicked off the team after one semester. Couldn’t cut it. No discipline. All the lies he told his wife and her family, his family, his friends, and all the other women . . . they’ll all come crashing down on him like a house of cards. He can’t be a liar in front of his own family, his friends. Put money on it. He’ll stick to his story no matter what.”

  “You think?”

  “I don’t think it, I know it. He’s got to save face, so his family and friends can still have the option of believing he was framed . . . that he’s wrongly accused.”

  “So when did you know he was guilty?”

  “The first night I heard about the story.”

  “The first night? How?”

  “It was the dog part. You know . . . the dog getting loose in the park while Julie was walking it, but the dog leash was still hanging by the door. She’s nine months pregnant. No way would she take the dog to the park without a leash and risk it getting loose. Think of her in that condition, digging through bushes and brambles trying to coax back a dog.”

  “Ah . . . the dog leash. I get it. So you do want a ride to the Hyatt?”

  “How the hay did you know I’m staying there? You know I still have death threats hanging over my head down here left over from my old cases. The guys I put in for twenty to life are starting to get out on early release.”

  “Hailey . . . I know you always travel under your mother’s maiden name. I know all your tricks . . . OK?”

  “OK.” Hailey smiled.

  “You brought your .38, right? I know how you hate to carry, but you made a lot of enemies in the courthouse . . . and the jail.”

  Hailey winced visibly. Fincher realized he hit a sore spot and felt bad about it. “You hungry?” Switching subjects, Fincher hoisted up her bag over his shoulder with one smooth p
ull.

  “Who’s paying?” Hailey flashed a smile.

  “The county, baby girl! I got a per diem! Fifty bucks a day!”

  “Fifty dollars? Let’s go crazy! Pizza or cafeteria?” On county salaries, those two had always been their favorites.

  “Pizza. We can even splurge and get a salad.”

  “Man, Fincher, you sure know how to live!”

  The two headed out, side by side, through the automatic door at the front of the Savannah airport and toward the parking deck.

  “You’re driving the county Crown Vic, I hope?”

  “You know it. Nothing like a county-issue Crown Victoria.”

  “Hey, they’re not much on style, but they’ve got good air conditioners. Don’t knock it.”

  “I’d never knock the Crown Vic! We solved a lot of cases in that old brown Crown Victoria.”

  “Tell it, Fincher. We sure did.”

  “We sure did, Hailey.”

  With their years together hanging between them in the air, they crossed the asphalt lanes in front of passenger pickup, across a concrete island loaded with flowers, and on toward the decks.

  Fincher was carrying his police radio in one hand, and the low and monotonous staccato of numbers being called out by police dispatch was the only sound piercing the hot afternoon air. But the shadows were already lengthening; the Savannah sun was just now tipping down toward the horizon. It would be dark soon.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Mom, I swear, I didn’t do it. I didn’t murder her. It wasn’t like that at all. I told you what . . .”

  “Hush. Shhhhh.” She looked around her sharply. “I told you to never mention that . . . that incident again . . . never.”

  Looking deep into her son’s eyes, she held his hand across the table. The trial was set to start tomorrow morning.

  Normally, inmates were strictly disallowed to be alone with anyone other than their lawyers, but in this case, the rules had somehow been bent a little. Todd Adams was the most high-profile defendant ever housed at the old Chatham County Jail. So when Adams’s mother showed up along with his lawyer, who kept a deep tan year-round and had a penchant for wearing sunglasses indoors and out, the jailhouse guards always gave her a few minutes alone with her son . . . without lawyers hovering around and talking incessantly as lawyers are known to do.

  The very last thing this jail needed was a celebrity lawyer like Mikey DelVecchio calling a press conference to complain about jail conditions. That would lead to an “investigative report” on some news magazine show, and the county sheriff’s goose would be cooked.

  The jail had frequent “incidents” it tried its best to keep on the down low. Just the other day, a murder suspect, “Ninja” Hassan DeMay, nearly beat one of the guards to death. DeMay was allegedly angry over marinara sauce on his chili mac dinner and unleashed on a rookie guard.

  Then yesterday a shakedown uncovered a deadly homemade shank, fashioned from weather stripping and the cellophane wrapped around food trays. The aluminum metal stripping had been sharpened to a jagged point by scratching it against the concrete floor.

  Just the kinds of things Mikey DelVecchio need not know anything about. Ever since he represented some Hollywood starlet on a shoplifting charge, he’d been in the news, celebrity treatment all around.

  And even though the star got convicted . . . no matter. DelVecchio went on to represent another Hollywood A-Lister on DUI, then another for going on a drunk and naked rampage in a fancy New York hotel room with a hooker, then a doped-up pop star. Even when he lost, somehow, the convictions never stuck to DelVecchio, just the “glamour.”

  Nobody knew exactly how, but likely thanks to Snoop vaulting the story to national headlines, Todd Adams’s family lassoed DelVecchio into representing their son. The word was that whenever DelVecchio flew into town, he holed up at a five-star hotel, ate and drank like a king, charged it all to Adams’s family, and went to his room with two or three girls on his elbows.

  Everybody in Savannah seemed to “know” Adams did it. Julie was a hometown favorite. She was the public high school’s homecoming queen and everybody remembered it. She was sweet and beautiful and the talk had been, for quite a long time, that Adams ran around on her. But nobody would ever dream of hurting Julie’s feelings by even alluding to her husband’s unfaithfulness.

  Now he was here, in the Chatham County Jail. And with a lawyer like Mikey DelVecchio, nobody could touch him. He got the kid-glove treatment . . . special food, private cell, magazines, books, extra TV time, and perks like this—long visits alone with his mom in one of the inmate-lawyer conference rooms.

  “Shhh, baby. No need to go through it all again. I know what happened. I’m your mother . . . I believe you.”

  “But Mom, why would I kill anybody, much less Julie. She was . . . amazing . . .”

  “She was, she was! We all know that, and we all know you would never, never have intentionally harmed her. Why, nobody doubts that you loved Julie!”

  “I did, Mom, I did!”

  “And the jury is going to see that!”

  “I mean Mom, they don’t have any proof I ever . . .”

  “No! Don’t say another word. You’ve already told me everything I need to know. And I believe you, son! So not another word.”

  Adams’s mother looked over her shoulder and quickly glanced around the room, convinced they’d be overheard. Sheriffs were the worst, always listening, nosy . . . busybodies, no doubt about it. Didn’t they have lives of their own? It was none of their business what went on between her and her boy.

  “And son? No more outbursts.” Tish Adams spoke in an urgent whisper. She cut her eyes toward the guards. “After what happened the other day, we can’t afford another slipup . . . No matter how badly you feel about Julie’s accident, it wasn’t your fault. You absolutely cannot continue droning on and on back here about it. It will be misconstrued! For instance, that horrible prosecutor could take what you said the other day, no matter how innocent, and twist it and turn it and use it against you! You’ve got to be quiet back here! And no talking to cellmates anymore! Haven’t I told you about that? And these . . . these guards . . . they’re not your friends!”

  Glancing sideways, she was convinced the guard to her left was listening. He’d done it before. He practically had an antenna on the top of his head, craning his neck toward Todd and herself as far as it could physically stretch.

  “But Mom . . . I’m not talking about what happened to Julie . . .”

  “Didn’t you hear me tell you last time to shut up . . . these walls have ears . . . are you blind?” Again, Tish jerked her head toward the guards at the door.

  “Mom, I’m not talking about Julie now, I’m talking about Cynthia.”

  His mom stared at him blankly. “Cynthia, Mom . . . Cindy. Remember her from high school? She was in the baton corps? Remember before every football game they’d run out on the field . . . one time she had a baton with fire on the ends and she . . .”

  “Stop it! For Pete’s sake . . . stop it! Yes, I remember the baton with fire on the ends. And yes of course I remember her, Wallace and Helen Gresham’s daughter from the Country Club. She would have been a much better match for you than Julie Love. I tried to tell you Julie was all wrong for you. Yes . . . what about Cynthia? She always wore that little royal blue sequined short set for the dance routines. Too tight and too short, I always told your father that . . . but still. But what does she have to do with anything?”

  “I mean Mom, they won’t bring that up will they?”

  “Who? Will who bring up what?” Her eyes furrowed together so closely they nearly created a single brow over her eyes.

  “Mom . . .” Todd Adams looked uncomfortably around the tiny room, then past his mom and back toward the guards. “You know . . . that we were, uh, friends.”

  “Who were friends? You and Cynthia? Of course you were, you knew each other from high school. You had lots of friends, dozens of friends, of course you did. Yo
u were the most popular boy in school as I recall.”

  “No Mom, I don’t mean that . . . I mean do you think they will bring up that we were . . . um, dating?”

  The look on his mother’s face was unreadable, like a mask. Not a single nerve moved, she didn’t even blink. Not once. She stared straight at him as if she were actually looking through his head at the wall behind him.

  “Dating? Cynthia? You dated Cynthia in high school. Yes. I know that. What would that have to do with anything at all?”

  “I mean, they could argue it was motive, Mom . . .”

  “But that was years ago. That’s hardly motive, that doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Mom, it wasn’t years ago. It was last year . . .” Adams looked down and to the side, his voice lowered to a whisper.

  “Last year? And now you tell me? And is the expression ‘dating’ your word for holing up at some out-of-the-way motel? You let another girl drag you into her problems? The Cynthia girl is divorced from a pool guy and has three kids. Is that the same Cynthia?”

  “He’s not a pool guy. He owns his own pool company, Mom . . .”

  “Like that makes it better?” She spat it out in a whisper but with the venom of a snakebite. “If you keep your mouth shut, they’ll never know.”

  Why did her son keep getting duped by women who were only after one thing? The Adams money. The Cynthia girl rearing her ugly head now. And on the heels of the flood of Julie Love headlines.

  Everyone in town had known it . . . Julie Love was a “catch” at the time the two had gotten engaged. She was the golden girl who made all As, worked at a food bank, and attended church every Sunday with her parents. Little witch was even a Girl Scout. And she was the homecoming queen, which apparently meant something even though it was at the public school. A drama queen as well, always making a big production over her brother. He was handicapped since birth, confined to a wheelchair. Julie Love insisted on carrying him to nearly every major event she attended.