Murder in the Courthouse (27 page)

She'd been squinting back at the courthouse, scanning the front steps, looking for Finch. She hadn't been aware, really, of any of the people standing around her, pressing in on her along with all the others waiting to cross.

And then it happened. The stiff arm pushing her forward. Then all she knew was the hot asphalt, the roaring sound of traffic, the insane screeching of the tires, and the squeal of hydraulic brakes.

Everything was swimming in gray and black when she came to, drenched with sweat with people standing over her, some kneeling around her, some trying to ask her questions. At first, their voices and their words didn't make any sense, but then, slowly, it seemed
like she settled back into her own skin and her own senses . . . like she had been out of her body and returned without knowing where she'd gone.

By now, Finch had gotten ahead of her and was all the way down the wide hall leading toward the elevator bank. She spotted him mingling with two of Billings's detectives. “Hailey . . . you coming?” Finch called out to her.

She had to breathe . . . to think. Hailey headed straight across the hall to the ladies' room as if she didn't hear or see any of them.

Maybe Finch and Billings were right, after all. Not that she wanted to go to the ER because she was absolutely sure she was fine . . . but maybe she could have listened to someone else, for once, and not come back to court. Tish Adams's testimony would have been irrelevant to Hailey's opinion on the case anyway. Hailey could've just gone back to her hotel and chilled . . . put her feet up for once.

She shut the ladies' room door behind her. She was finally alone. It was cool and quiet and dark in the smooth tiled bathroom. She could feel the pounding in her head, the ringing in her ears subsiding, at last.

It was completely quiet, finally. No lawyers, no Tish, no Todd Adams, no questions, nothing. The street . . . the sun . . . the bus.

She didn't trip . . . she knew it. She didn't trip at all. But she recalled glancing at the crowd crossing over on her right . . . surely she would have recognized someone . . . someone who wanted to kill her.

But she hadn't.

A random kill in the shadow of the courthouse? Even the thought of it railed against every statistic she knew regarding the manner and assessment of homicides . . . it screamed
unlikely
. So then what? She tripped? No, she hadn't. She fell? No, she didn't. She imagined the whole thing?

Hailey paused. Had she finally reached her limit? One dead body after the next. A never-ending parade of homicides, murders, crime scenes, autopsies, ballistics, the rank, musky smell of human
blood. Was the so-called “avenging angel,” as the press once called her, totally shot? Frayed? Over? Was it even possible Hailey Dean was over and didn't even realize it?

Closing her eyes, Hailey leaned, bone-tired in mind and body, against the wall. But as quickly as she relaxed against the cool tiles, she gasped out loud, instinctively pushing off the wall as if she'd touched a hot stove. A sharp pain in her shoulder smarted.

Curiosity led her over toward three mirrors placed neatly above three sinks in a row. Hailey pulled her shirt down over her arm and there it was . . . a bluish-black bruise just inside the right camisole strap on the back of shoulder.

The words coursed back and forth across her brain, ping-ponging off the inside of her skull,
“I was pushed . . . somebody tried to kill me . . . somebody wants me dead.”

But who? And why?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

J
ust when Cecil thought life couldn't get any better, it did. He took a big bite of another gator-on-a-stick dripping with ketchup. He couldn't resist. After the morning Feeding Frenzy, he spent plenty of time in the Gator Museum boning up on gator facts, particularly the gator's uncanny night vision, because at this very moment, he was heading over to the Croc-N-Gator Night Time Adventure.

Or so the pamphlet said.

He reported to the south end of the parking lot just as instructed and couldn't help but notice multiple signs warning no pets followed by exclamation marks. Cecil could only imagine . . .

His train of thought was interrupted by the faint sound of music. Cecil spotted a tall, extremely pale, pimply teenage boy staring at an iPhone from which thumping, metallic music Cecil had never heard before emanated. The teen stared at the tiny screen as if it were the most fascinating and the most intriguing thing he had ever encountered. Cecil wondered briefly how whatever was on the screen could be more exciting than snapping gators.

Kids. The kid was dressed in khaki shorts that came down to mid-calf and a green polo shirt bearing the Gator World logo. Barely glancing away from his iPhone to examine Cecil's gold-trimmed certificate, he passed off a large plastic bucket with a metal handle, a flashlight, and a mini-container of bug spray.

It was starting to get dark. The sun was just barely showing over the trees in the distance.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks. Which way?”

Still staring at his iPhone behind the card table, the kid pointed across the parking lot. Cecil spotted for the first time an arch of sorts, made of what looked to be the trunks from palm trees. Hanging
from two chains in the upper center of the arch was a wooden sign with the words “Croc-N-Gator Night Time Adventure” in black letters creating a burned-looking effect.

Passing under the arch, Cecil clutched his flashlight and a fresh bucket of raw chicken. Drenching himself in bug spray, he tossed the can into a metal trash can just beside the arches. He followed a path with tiki torches on either side separating the smooth dirt path from the dense foliage surrounding it.

Palm trees, huge palmettos, and sprawling water oaks were draped with hanging sheets of Spanish moss, all growing so thick he couldn't see past them. It was hard to believe all this was right beside the hot asphalt parking lot, now cooling down as the sun set and the moon rose, both sharing the night sky for a brief time. The cicadas hummed rhythmically on either side of him and as loud as they were, he couldn't spot a single one of them.

Where were the others? The pamphlet said there had to be at least five in a group for the Night Time Adventure. As he kept walking, a cool breeze crossed his face and dried the perspiration there. Finally, it was cooling down.

Rounding another curve in the path, a long wooden boardwalk came into view that stretched way out onto what was rapidly becoming dark water. It looked to be maybe eighty or ninety feet straight ahead, then broke off into four different paths like spokes of a wheel.

Standing at the end of the old wooden pier holding his bait bucket, Cecil felt a chill run up his spine. It was completely quiet now except for the hum of the cicadas. He looked up to see the moon, full in all its glory rising up overhead. It was a lonely moon tonight, though. No stars had yet appeared.

The palm trees silhouetted against the sky as the very last bit of sunlight disappeared and the deep, deep dark blue turned into velvety black. It was absolutely incredible.

Still waiting for the others to show, Cecil ventured out onto the boardwalk resting on thick, sturdy beams that obviously went deep, deep into the muddy goo beneath the dark water. Stomping on the boardwalk itself, just for good measure, Cecil determined that yes, it
was safe. After all, he'd checked, and there had never been a single accident at the Gator World Croc-N-Gator Night Time Adventure. Not even one.

Peeking over his right shoulder, he glanced back toward the shore. He had to make sure no one could see what he was about to do and peg him as a scaredy-cat. No one was looking so Cecil bent down just enough to quickly check out the circular posts, the heavy wooden pillars, at least two feet or so in circumference each that supported the boardwalk.

Now he felt better.

He was even more reassured when, at a second glance to make sure he hadn't been spotted, he saw another gator lover milling around at the entrance. Perfect. He could get help with his digital camera. The pictures would be so much better than shots that were so obviously selfies or even worse, taken with a selfie stick.

With visions of all the pics he'd soon be posting on Facebook and Twitter dancing through his head, he was even more emboldened. He'd watched at least a half dozen videos gator fans posted during and after the Night Time Adventure and it was like a big gator party! Thinking it through, maybe he'd Periscope as it was happening! That would be extremely cool. He instinctively felt in his Steve Irwin vest's hidden pocket and identified the calming presence of the hard edges of his iPhone. After, he'd post the rest from his car before he hit the road back to Savannah.

This was the moment he'd been waiting for ever since he found out he'd won the drawing. He was ready, too. He clutched the bucket of raw chicken in his hand. This would be totally awesome! The words he read online came floating back to him as he gazed out at the smooth, black water. “An alligator feeding frenzy occurs when mammoth reptiles, feeding in pools, suddenly engage in a savage free-for-all, viciously clashing over prey.”

This was it. Showtime!

He headed out toward the far end of the boardwalk. The water was quiet, dark, and beautiful. Infused with bravery, Cecil ventured onto one of the four winding wooden walkways deep into the dominion
of Florida's most notorious beast, the mighty gator. Clutching his trusty flashlight and a bucket of raw chicken, Cecil made his way into the gator breeding flats.

He heard a gentle rustle of feathers somewhere in the night sky. Water rippled. He was not alone. He swatted at the back of his right shoulder; somehow a darn mosquito had taken a bite out of him, bug spray or no bug spray. And right through his shirt and the vest, too.

Cecil turned just in time to see that it was no mosquito. It was the gator lover from the shore. He saw the glint of moonlight on a syringe. In a split second and before Cecil even knew what was happening, a hard shove to his chest made him lose his balance.

There was hardly a splash when Cecil Snodgrass hit the water, and even if there had been, there was no one to hear.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A
fter the long-awaited Cuban sandwiches with Finch followed by a hot bath at the hotel, Hailey slept through the night for the first time in weeks. She was so tired, she didn't even close the heavy hotel curtains; and the next morning, she woke up to bright sunshine pouring across the Savannah River and into her room.

The hotel halls were quiet and the traffic far below was muted. She suddenly wanted to go home, not to her apartment in Manhattan but home to her parents' brick house at the top of a long, winding driveway in Macon, south of Atlanta.

It was surrounded by azaleas, dogwoods, tea olives, and purple wisteria hugging the brick and situated in the middle of nothing but soybean fields and tall pine trees as far as the eye could see. It was a place where, in Hailey's childhood, she could ride her bike all afternoon after school, free from fear of stranger danger or maniac traffic, only returning home when the chimes in the little Methodist church steeple nearby rang out that it was six o'clock. By then her mom would be home from work, and supper would likely be on the table.

Lying in the center of the hotel bed with the morning sun on her face, she knew it wasn't just the
place
of home that she was longing for . . . it was the
feeling
of home. Glancing at the bedside clock, it was only 6
AM
, too early to call her parents.

What would she ever do without them? They'd been there through thick and thin . . . Will's death, law school, dozens and dozens of high-stakes prosecutions . . . she pushed the thought from her mind and, as if to get away from it, swung her legs over the side of the bed and headed for the shower.

Hailey grabbed her iPhone and her old, trusty BlackBerry as she passed the bedroom desk where they'd charged all night plugged
into a lamp outlet.
Can't I even walk to the shower without multitasking?
Hailey thought to herself but then smiled.
No . . . I can't
.

She reached into the huge shower, turned the shiny silver controls, and stood waiting for the water to heat up. Leaning against the faux marble bathroom counter, Hailey glanced down at her emails and texts from overnight. There were several from Billings and Fincher from this morning. The last one from Finch had a red flag beside it to mark it as urgent.

She read that one first. “Heading home to Atlanta to see the family.”

Home? He was leaving the trial? What? Then it hit her . . . she scrolled back to the home screen. It was Saturday! No court!

A sense of relief poured through her body. She'd been on autopilot for so many days in a row, she literally didn't even know what day it was! She went back to read the rest of Finch's message. The words glowed at her, “Sleep late! You look tired!”

Ha, thanks Finch
.

She skimmed down to Billings's message. Similar, except no mention of her looking tired, and he asked her to lunch. Hmm.

The hot shower began to steam up the room so Hailey jumped in. She was just rinsing conditioner out of her hair when she thought she heard someone at her hotel door. Quickly grabbing a towel, Hailey called out, “Yes?”

No answer.

Padding back into the bedroom, Hailey looked through the peephole. Nobody. Opening the door, she looked down. At her feet was a neatly folded copy of the
Savannah Morning News
. Hailey leaned down to get it and came face-to-face with a huge shot of Todd Adams's mom, her eyes lolled back in her head, stumbling forward down the steps to the witness stand.

Above the fold.

Hailey picked it up and began to read the story. The banner read “Heartbroken Mom Tish Adams at Son's Murder Trial.”

The banner headline started a slow burn in Hailey's chest.
Heartbroken mom?
What about Julie's mom? What about her? And
her heartbreak? Had the whole community forgotten about Julie's body washing up on Tybee Island followed by her unborn baby girl, Lily? What about that?