The Eleventh Victim

by Nancy Grace

  But when Hailey picked up the phone and checked caller ID, she saw it wasn’t Dana at all.

  “Mother!” she said into the receiver, glad she hadn’t missed the call.

  “Honey, you’re there!” Elizabeth Dean sounded pleased on the other end. “I was expecting to get your answering machine. I’m so glad you’re not out running. It’s so dangerous, you out at all hours in New York City.”

  Hailey wanted to remind her mother that it was dangerous down in Atlanta, too. Maybe worse…But she knew that would go nowhere.

  “That’s why I joined the gym. So you won’t worry! How’s Daddy?”

  “I’m fine. Your daddy’s fine…tired…you know.”

  Yes, she knew. Mac Dean had been battling heart disease for years. It worried them all. And her mother had her own problems but still took care of her father non-stop.

  “When are you planning on coming down to see us?”

  “I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it. We were just together up here at Christmas…it hasn’t been a month! It was so nice having you here with me. I keep thinking about it…I miss you so much.”

  “It feels like a lot longer than that.”

  Hailey stopped short. Her mother was right. It did. “Come back and see me again. I’ll buy the tickets.”

  The answer was prompt—and predictable. “Oh, we couldn’t let you do that.”

  Of course, they could—but they wouldn’t.

  It wasn’t just about pride. Hailey knew that her parents still held out hope that she’d “get over this,” as they put it, and come back home to Georgia.

  “Anyway, it’s not the tickets, Hailey. You know your father hates to fly. And I can’t leave him alone here, not even for a few days,” she added, lest Hailey suggest it.

  And she had been about to. It was on the tip of her tongue.

  “You haven’t been back home to visit in so long. I miss you, sugar.”

  “I miss you, too. I’ll try, I promise. When things slow down.”

  The truth was, she didn’t want to go back home and back to all the memories. It could trigger a depression Hailey couldn’t afford.

  They talked a little longer, about people Hailey used to know and places she used to visit. She missed them so terribly—sometimes her chest ached she wanted to be back home again so much. But all she had left there were her parents. They were the only link to her old life. She’d deliberately lost touch with everyone but Fincher and now he was in Iraq.

  Just before they hung up, her mother said, “Oh, Hailey, by the way, they’ve been writing about that man…the last one you put on death row.”

  “Cruise?”

  He wasn’t the only one she’d sent to death row, but he was by far the most prominent—and the most cunning.

  “Yes. He’s trying to appeal. Like they all do. The Court won’t let him out, though, will they?”

  “They won’t.”

  “I hope not. Good night, sweet girl. Sweet dreams.”

  The phone clicked off. Sweet dreams. She wished.

  20

  Atlanta, Georgia

  C.C. PARKED THE CADDY, SLIPPED THE KEYS OUT OF THE IGNITION, and weaved through parked cars to cross the asphalt parking lot of the Pink Fuzzy. Stepping into the club’s heavily air-conditioned, darkened fantasy universe, his nerves immediately calmed down and the pain of public service magically began to ebb away.

  Making his way to the bar, he ordered a bourbon and found a prime seat just in time to catch a floor show featuring the most exquisite woman he had ever seen in his life.

  Her dark hair fell down her back in waves, and if those curves weren’t natural, there was a plastic surgeon out there that rivaled Michelangelo.

  Sitting there, C.C. was mesmerized by her stunningly choreographed routine, set to music that simply chanted the same question over and over on the loudspeaker: “Who let the dogs out? Who, who, who, who?”

  Or were they saying “woof”?

  Whichever. On each “who” or “woof,” she bent over and poked her fanny right out at the audience and directly at eye level. Her G-string, which she shed provocatively near the end of the song, was appropriately decorated with a spotted-Dalmatian motif on the front. Despite the limited lyrics, she performed like a buck-naked prima ballerina on opening night at Lincoln Center.

  When she was finished, C.C. nearly fell off his bar stool applauding.

  The girl launched into her next routine, to “You Can Keep Your Hat On.” It ended with a crowd-pleasing coup de grâce, a Chinese split that brought down the house. He watched her leave the stage and disappear down the steps.

  She had to rake in at least a deuce and a quarter per song, C.C. decided. Inquisitive at heart, C.C. wound his way to the back of the club to find her. Two twenty-five wasn’t cheap. He wondered how much he had left in his wallet.

  There, he discovered for the very first time, a super exclusive lounge area sequestered from the rest of the bar called the “Pinkie Suite.”

  It cost a cool thousand to get in, but once you paid up, they’d hand you a Cuban stogie, a pull of bourbon straight up with open bar from then on, and let the good times roll. No questions asked.

  The best part: Select clientele could take the entertainer of their choice into private, pink-velvet-curtained booths for some special one-on-one time with your own Pink Fuzzy.

  C.C. was in. No question about it.

  And there she was: This time up close and personal in the Pinkie Suite.

  Cigar and bourbon in hand, he made his way over. She was seated demurely on a bar stool, having a go at the salted peanuts placed out for free on the bar, her legs modestly crossed over a standard Pinkie G-string now replacing the Dalmatian.

  “Your routine was a thing of beauty. I take it you’re a trained…what?…ballerina?” C.C. asked, sidling onto the stool beside hers.

  She looked him up, down, and over. No answer. Just a sip on her drink and another grab at the peanuts. She obviously did not know who he was.

  “So how are you tonight? Has anyone told you you’re gorgeous?”

  “Fine. And yes.”

  “I liked your act. It was very creative.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Who does your choreography?”

  “I made it up myself.”

  Impressed, he nodded. “You’re quite a talent. Ever think of doing something to ‘Freebird’?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, you should.”

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “I’m an artist. I need to be moved by the dancer’s muse in order to create a routine.”

  “So? ‘Freebird’ doesn’t move your muse?”

  “It’s passé.”

  “It’s classic.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She glared. Obviously, he’d stirred up her creative dander. Oops.

  “I’m just sayin’…I’m dyin’ to see you do something to ‘Freebird.’ That’s all.”

  She shook her head. Not a chance. Obviously, the muse frowned on “Freebird.”

  “The music’s all wrong. Where would I work in the Chinese split? It’s my trademark.”

  “That, I don’t know.” C.C. edged his stool closer. “How about you and me go continue this conversation in one of those booths?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you know who I am, honey?”

  She shook her head as though she didn’t care, but he could tell she was interested in finding out.

  She leaned forward a little as he took out his wallet and flashed his gold-plated judge’s badge at her.

  “You’re a cop?” She drew back a little.

  “No! I’m a judge.”

  “Really?”

  “You bet. How about you come with me to my ‘private chambers’?” Again, he nodded at the curtained booths.

  She shrugged. “Why not.”

  A half hour in the Pinkie Suite with Tina, and C.C. was in love.

  Damn, they didn’t have anything like this in Dool
ey County.

  After the last floor show, C.C. trailed Tina across town through empty streets to a two-bedroom apartment she shared with Lola, one of the other dancers at the Pink Fuzzy.

  “You know what I’ve been thinkin’, C.C.?” she said as they walked up to the door. He stayed a few steps behind her, admiring the view illuminated in the arc of the headlights of a beat-up Camry parked at the curb

  He was afraid to ask, but he did. “What’s that?”

  “I need some collagen for my lips.”

  Damn! She was a beautiful girl, and discreet.

  But Lord, he had a feeling this was gonna cost him. He might have to actually go back to working for a living, but the thought of his old law practice situated on the little square in downtown Dooley County made his stomach hurt.

  “I think you’re perfect just like you are,” he said, trying to dissuade talk of more plastic surgery.

  “Home, sweet home,” she said with a smile, and led him over the threshold.

  C.C. stepped into the apartment’s tiny foyer and let out a bloodcurdling scream when he was met with the sight of a bloody corpse just inside the front door.

  The judge continued to scream bloody murder as he took off running for the Caddy.

  “C.C.! Wait!” Tina called, chasing him down the brick walk in her stilettos. “It’s not real! Shut up the screaming and get back in here!”

  C.C. skidded to a halt, turning back. “Not real? What the hell is it?”

  “It’s Lola’s Christ!”

  Lola’s Christ? What the hell did that mean?

  C.C. slowly climbed the steps again and peered inside.

  C.C. was raised Baptist and was only familiar with airbrushed pictures of Christ wherein He was beautiful, clean-shaven, fair-skinned, and blue-eyed…usually walking on water or holding His hands out lovingly to the Universe, with the morning sky emblazoned behind Him. Not all bloody and mangy-looking.

  Lola’s Christ was a mangled-looking, life-size figure hanging by His hands and feet on the nastiest-looking cross C.C. had ever laid eyes on. It was incredibly realistic. The thing had to be six by four feet at the wingspan, with shiny red acrylic blood flowing down the forehead, hands, and feet. Sharpened thorns were jammed into His whitened forehead, and Christ’s eyes looked mournfully to the heavens, clearly in a lot of pain.

  “What is that doing here?”

  “Lola collects religious memorabilia,” Tina informed him as she closed and locked the door behind them. “She was going to be a nun.”

  “But she became a stripper instead?”

  Tina nodded. “Nuns don’t get paid very well.”

  According to Tina, Lola deeply identified with Saint Anne of Glycerine, who had been the wife of a very wealthy eighteenth-century Catholic businessman, and mother to his seven children. One afternoon at Mass, Anne had been moved by a vision of Christ to strip off all her clothes before a monastery full of monks and, on the spot, take on a vow of paupership.

  “Stripped naked like that, of course the monks thought she was a saint,” Tina solemnly told C.C.

  “Of course.”

  As she explained it, Lola connected spiritually to Saint Anne. While Anne stripped during Mass in exchange for paupership, Lola stripped at the Fuzzy on the half-hour in exchange for all the tips she could cram into her garter belt. Lola attributed her success to St. Anne and claimed she kept a vision of the saint in her mind’s eye every night during the floor show.

  It seemed to make perfect sense to Tina.

  Still rattled by the bloodied corpse in the hallway, it took C.C. a full twenty minutes stretched out on the living room sofa, two bourbons, and a dose of Tina’s special talents before he could get himself back together.

  “Want to see the rest of the place?” Tina invited.

  “Does it lead to your bedroom?”

  From what he could see, Lola was a strange one. The apartment was completely covered in shrines to dead saints and especially to Lola’s favorite, the Virgin Mary. Two large ceramic figurines of the Holy Mother guarded not only Lola’s bedroom, from a table situated outside her door, but also protected the fridge. Both looked deeply saddened by the state of affairs in the bedroom and the kitchen, so, as Tina explained, Lola routinely left the two Mother Mary figurines tidbits of candy, cookies, and juice to cheer them up.

  “It’s the Mother Mary’s fault we have roaches,” she told C.C.

  It was 4 a.m. when C.C.’s head hit the pillow in Tina’s bedroom. The last thing he remembered was looking up at the gauzy canopy over her bed—all pink, of course. The whole room looked like the inside of the magic bottle on I Dream of Jeannie. Now that was a classic. What a show. He loved Jeannie and the inside of her bottle. Tina’s choice of decor was brilliant.

  Genius, in fact. Why couldn’t Betty ever think up something like this…a bedroom just like the inside of Barbara Eden’s magic bottle?

  21

  St. Simons Island, Georgia

  THE THIRD BATCH OF HAIRY MARGARITAS WAS KILLER STRONG. IT was time for Virginia to throw out the bait before her guests started getting sloppy—or sleepy.

  “So what does Greenpeace think of the Commission’s plan to replenish the beaches and dredge up all that sediment off the ocean floor?” she asked.

  Nothing like plunging right in.

  “It’ll be the end of the sea turtles, you know. But then, Greenpeace isn’t involved with that type of issue, is it? You know, saving endangered species.” She hoped the lob would create a defensive stir.

  It did.

  “Well, ‘Peace’ normally attacks higher profile moves so that we can make an environmental difference and a statement worldwide. Two birds, one stone.” Ken spoke up first, emphasizing the abbreviated “Peace” to modestly convey his familiarity with the Peace higher-ups.

  “It’s such a shame nobody’s acting on the turtles’ behalf. And after all the attention the spotted owl got.” Virginia clucked her tongue. “But then, the owls got a mention by the vice president, so they live. The turtles die. God knows what’s on the floor of the ocean outside those paper mills north of the Island. You know that’s exactly where they’ll get the sand to dump on the beaches.”

  Warming to her subject, she lit another Salem Light off the last butt. “Greenpeace started with such a wonderful concept. But then it turned into sort of a celebrity house pet, snarfing up only the tastiest treats.” Pleased with her analogy, she saw that Renee, at least, was nodding in agreement.

  “I guess the little guys like us get left out in the shuffle sometimes,” Virginia said sadly. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. I mean after all, it is just one link in the eco-chain.”

  Ken bristled, and Virginia realized that nothing else she could have said would have reached so far under his skin. To suggest that Peace was all hype amounted to pure heresy to the four Peacers hunched around the blender under the spell of the hairy margaritas. They didn’t get asked out much and they didn’t want to argue with their hostess, let alone piss off the wieners again.

  Virginia was banking on a watershed of discontent among the guerrillas—dissatisfaction with their distant leaders, who seemed more like Hollywood celebrities than comrades united in common goals.

  After a moment, Ken said brazenly, “Well, you know the bigs at Peace don’t have to be in on every save we make.”

  Virginia just looked at him over the rim of her glass, saying nothing, hoping he’d go the next step.

  He did. He couldn’t stop himself.

  “We’ve been misled by the Herald and the county commission!” he promptly decided. “Odds are they’re probably in league together…these things just don’t happen by coincidence. They’ve conspired…This is a conspiracy…I feel it.”

  He was on a roll.

  “If Virginia’s right, we’re obligated to take some sort of preemptive strike before it’s too late for the turtles. We can’t stand by and wait for this thing to make its way through all the Peace channels. That could take weeks, maybe even m
onths. The time is now, the place is here, and the people are us.”

  He was standing now. His words unleashed a grumbling among the guerrillas.

  “It’s true. I’ve thought it for a long time but didn’t want to say anything. Peace has become too big, too sensational to care for the turtles,” Renee said. “They’ve gone Hollywood. They’ve turned into celebrities. When’s the last time they climbed a tree?”

  “First the turtles, then what’s next?” Dottie wanted to know.

  “We have to seize control!” Suz injected herself. “Not slogans and bumper stickers. I’m talking action!” She had margarita salt on her nose.

  “Exactly!” Virginia trumpeted, trying not to look smug.

  22

  Atlanta, Georgia

  AS VIRGINIA AND THE GUERRILLAS FEVERISHLY PENCILED PLANS on a yellow legal pad late into the night, two hundred miles to the north, Eugene waited.

  In an oak-paneled office in Atlanta, Georgia, a lifetime away from the ocean lapping against the Island dunes, he waited.

  Drinking scotch through the night and never leaving his desk-side phone, his cell phone burning in his hand as a backup, he waited.

  The call came from a cell phone deep within the Georgia House.

  A bottle sat on the floor by his desk, within arm’s reach of his chair, emptied sometime around three that morning. His office was dark when the phone rang; he still hadn’t pulled open the heavy drapes from the night before.

  The “insurance bill” had passed.

  Not a single question was raised on the floor, not a peep. No one had even noticed the change in definition of “tree.”

  Matt Leonard had been right all along. They didn’t even know what it meant.

  Democracy at work. They just voted as they were told, like sheep.

  Eugene hung up and walked to his window.

  Through the slit between the drapes, he peered into the dark.

  The Island coast was his.