Nancy Grace - Death on the D-List

Hailey stopped in her tracks. “Fallon Malone had a stalker?”

“Probably not. But I read about it a few months ago in Snoop .”

“Good to know.” Kolker scribbled a note in his notebook and reached for the footies. “Where’s the coroner’s people?”

“On their way. Don’t want us to touch anything.”

“Good.”

Both Hailey and Kolker put on the blue paper gowns and footwear over their street clothes and carefully entered. Also painted stark white; the den, however, featured a deep red sofa with a matching furry red rug and red accent pieces.

The walls were covered in framed magazine covers from all over the world. Fallon graced each one. On one she was in full riding gear, standing beside a chestnut-brown stallion; another showed her lounging on a beige satin sofa, and many of the others were head-and-shoulder shots. There were dozens of them, the shots taken over the years. And she was absolutely gorgeous and provocatively posed in all of them.

Hailey suddenly noticed that all the conversation among the cops who had gathered at the entryway to her gym just beyond the den had ceased. No one said a word. It was the same atmosphere as at a funeral home viewing, hushed silence. When Hailey entered the exercise room, she understood why.

The gym was state-of-the-art, featuring an advanced set of cardio machines you’d only see at the country’s best spas and exercise clubs. Custom-built cabinets, all white of course, housed a series of weights and barbells, exercise balls, and yoga equipment. The walls, like those in the den, were covered with framed magazine covers, each one with Malone on the front, but in this room, all the covers were from women’s health and fitness magazines.

The room also featured two large flat-screen plasma TVs. Both were still on. One had a Lifetime movie playing, and the other was running QVC home shopping. Lifetime was on mute. The QVC model was showing her hands, one of which bore a sparkling fake diamond cluster and matching bracelet.

There was an exercise bike, a treadmill, and in the center of the row, a behemoth of an elliptical. And there was the cause of the hushed silence, even among hardened veteran cops and detectives.

There she was. In stark contrast to the stunning photos of her lining the walls, so beautiful, so perfect looking, was Fallon Malone, lying skewed across the machine, clearly in the middle of a workout at the time of her murder. She was wearing metallic-silver lycra tights with a T-shirt covered by a baggy navy sweatshirt. She wore white socks and seemingly brand-new white Nike Airs.

Her body was prone, but twisted across the machine. Her feet were still in the vicinity of the machine’s foot pedals, but her body had fallen over, apparently slamming into the machine’s front piece before falling to the right side. She actually appeared to be staring with the one eye still left intact, unblinking, up toward the QVC hand model.

Her mouth was completely gone, now only a gaping hole. Hailey could see her entire mouth cavity, all the way back to her wisdom teeth. A blood-spatter pattern began there on the elliptical, spraying across the machine’s front digital display of time, speed, and heart rate, and further. Hailey walked toward the wall bearing the TV screens.

“Kolker, here’s some pinpoint spatter.” She pointed to it with her right hand, fingers spread out like a fan.

Kolker walked over to see. Hailey continued, “You’ll get the angle and trajectory from this, given her height when on top of the elliptical, and the machine’s distance from the wall. Better bring in the blood expert, too, in addition to CSI. So he or she won’t be testifying only from pictures at trial. They’ll have actually been here. The defense won’t be able to say that.”

“Good idea. I’d have just used CSI.”

“They know their stuff, but just to impress the jury. The spatter expert needs to string it. You know, secure a string wherever we believe the shot was fired and pull it taut along the trajectory path, ending where the bullet would have landed.” Kolker made notes.

Kolker turned back toward Fallon. It was a gruesome sight. Hailey went with him and came to his side just in time to see his jaw clench. For a moment, she thought he might tear up. The room went quiet.

“Let’s keep the techs out.” Hailey said it quietly, breaking the silence in the room. “And look around on the floor before anybody else steps in here.”

“Okay. Guys, hold up just a moment. We’ll check the floor first.”

The CSI crew hung back in the den. Hailey and Kolker got down on their hands and knees, each at an opposite corner, and started examining the floor. The room was silent once again, except for the soothing tones of the QVC anchors interacting with callers and each other. A good fifteen minutes passed as Hailey, touching nothing, searched around and under the gym equipment as best she could.

“Tooth.” She called it out, squatted in front of the elliptical, only a foot or so away from where Fallon lay.

“By the way, you’re an official police consultant now,” Kolker said as he continued to inch across the floor. “Okay? Otherwise, I couldn’t have a civilian here on the scene.”

Hailey was busy scouring the floor.

Kolker was on his knees, making notes about the tooth Hailey spotted. Photos would be taken of the entire room in the state in which it was found, and then photos made with numbered markers beside each and every piece of evidence they uncovered. He then came over to where Hailey was now on the floor, flat on her stomach again, still looking under the elliptical.

She looked up from the floor to see Kolker staring at the QVC screen.

“What? You’re going to buy CZ diamonds off QVC?”

“No. We got our bullet.”

Taking both her hands, Kolker pulled Hailey up to a standing position.

“Wow. Clean,” Hailey remarked.

The bullet had torn a small, neat hole just below the equipment bolting the plasma TV screen to the wall, where it could easily have been missed. They both stood for a moment, looking back and forth from the elliptical to the bullet lodged in the wall.

“Trajectory path right from the door, directly behind the victim, through her head and into the wall.”

“Yep, she probably never even saw him.”

“I just wonder who the hell could make it through the lobby and up here into Fallon Malone’s apartment.”

“Somebody who knew what they were doing. Nobody saw a thing, not the doormen, building maintenance crew… nobody. No sign of forced entry; it had to be somebody who knew how to get in unnoticed,” Kolker responded.

“Or somebody she knew. Somehow. I’m not saying they were bosom buddies, but it was somebody that knew her, all right.”

“Agreed.”

“Plus, the mode of death. There’s no sign of robbery or argument. She’s fully dressed, so probably no sex assault. That leaves some pretty defined motives… anger, jealousy, revenge, hate… or, of course, murder for hire. But that’s a long shot. Usually just happens in the movies. And… from the looks of it, the killer’s a do-it-yourselfer… no accomplice, just one shooter. Only one person entered here, I’d put money on it…”

“I didn’t know you were a gambler, but I agree with you.” Kolker was still examining the floor for evidence.

“I was about to say I’d put money on it if I were a gambler . Which I’m not. I don’t even play the lottery. I don’t trust politicians to run anything.”

“I figured.” They both broke into laughter.

“You know, we shouldn’t be laughing over Fallon Malone’s body. Doesn’t she have a family? They’re going to be devastated.”

“I know, Hailey. But I see so much evil in the world, it feels good to laugh at something.”