Nancy Grace - Death on the D-List

Her spontaneous tirade stopped Todd cold. He looked around to see if one of his pals was going to defend him. They didn’t.

Todd turned his attention to Hailey. “With us is Hailey Dean, former prosecutor, who has been at the Malone crime scene. Is it true she was shot in the head?”

“I will not comment on anything I observed at the scene.” Hailey was stone-faced. “But I will confirm your reporter’s story that Malone was murdered in her apartment.”

“Assuming they catch the guy, I guess you’re ready to string him up as usual, right, Ms. Dean?” His tone was sarcastic, as if there were something wrong with jury trials followed by sentencing for cold-blooded murders.

“I’d have to hear the facts at trial, Harry. But if your reporter is accurate that Ms. Malone was unarmed and shot from behind with no chance to defend herself, and if there is no affirmative defense such as self-defense, accident, or insanity, I think a jury’s consideration of the death penalty would be appropriate. Of course, any lawyer worth his salt would already know that the state of New York outlawed the death penalty.”

Todd’s response was fast. “How does it make you feel, Ms. Dean, to send someone to Death Row? Have any of your targets actually been put to death?”

If he was trying to make her feel bad, it didn’t work.

“That would have been a decision made by a jury after hearing facts and evidence on some of the most heinous, most brutal murders ever seen in the halls of a courthouse. It was my job to offer that alternative to jurors, an alternative they had the right to accept or reject.”

Hailey heard Jacobs try to interrupt. She didn’t stop. “And just for your information, Harry, so you don’t continue to mislead your viewers, regardless of what Mr. Jacobs and the professor on the panel today have to say on the subject, most of America believes that certain murders, depending on the atrocity of the crime, do warrant the death penalty.”

Todd’s face was beet red and Hailey spotted perspiration on Jacobs’s upper lip. It beaded through the thick makeup they’d caked onto him.

“And as you may or may not know, death row appeals take up to twenty, twenty-five years to complete. So the answer is no, as of today, none of the convicted murderers I put on jury trial have sat in Old Sparky or gotten the needle… yet. ”

She knew instinctively that her references to “the needle,” or death by lethal injection, as well as her use of the term “Old Sparky,” as if the Georgia electric chair was somehow an old friend of hers, would irk Todd and gang.

Someone in Todd’s control room mistakenly pressed the wrong key and Hailey could hear the directions being thrown at Harry Todd over and over. “Get out! Get out! Go to break! She’s doing it again!”

On camera, Todd looked confused, and the other two men on set, Derek Jacobs and Robert Seefeld, looked like they’d bitten lemons.

“Just read the prompter, Harry. Read the prompter. ” Hailey overheard the voice as it continued in Harry Todd’s ear.

“When we come back, exclusive! A look inside Fallon Malone’s murder apartment!” Against all bets being waged in the control room, Todd did manage to read the words right in front of him.

The show’s music suddenly geared up and played over the famous clips of Fallon Malone washing the Vette. Then there was a dissolve to police cars swarming outside her penthouse apartment just as a van drove onto the scene. NEW YORK MEDICAL EXAMINER’S MOBILE UNIT was emblazoned across its side underneath a depiction of a large, gold police shield.

Hailey looked down at the bottom of the camera’s monitor where the precise time down to the second was displayed in dimly lit red digital numbers. Only twenty minutes had passed.

It was going to be another long hour.

MR. ANDERSON?”

“Yes…”

“Lieutenant Ethan Kolker, NYPD. Do you have a moment to speak to us?”

The next morning, when Scott Anderson answered his front doorbell, he certainly didn’t expect to find Lieutenant Kolker flanked by two huge NYPD uniformed officers on either side of him. The three of them at the edge of his front door practically blocked the morning sun behind them. It was only 7:30 a.m. and Anderson was still in the sweat pants and T-shirt he’d slept in the night before. His dark hair, usually perfectly coiffed, was still tousled from sleeping.

Kolker flashed his badge, the gold shield reflecting a seventies-style light fixture hanging from the ceiling behind Scott Anderson there in the foyer of his suburban home. It looked like an agglomeration of clear, crystal icicles hanging in a mass, lit from inside its center. His ex bought it years ago. After nine years together, she left with half of everything he’d made off the PGA tour, the house in Boca, the two dogs, and the Porsche.

He got the house note and the crystal light fixture. All because of a fling. It had been nothing to Scott. It was just a girl who sold sandwiches at the Masters down in Augusta. An Augusta local, for Pete’s sake. It wasn’t like he would ever leave Rachel for her. He could barely even remember her name. Or any of the others, for that matter.

His ex found out about the sandwich girl. One night when he was a little late coming home, she hacked into his cell phone and heard messages from the girl. Scott’s contention was that his wife had no right to listen to his private voice mails… that she’d violated his Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

Note to self: Never use your birthday as the numeric code to your voice mails.

“Hello, gentlemen. What’s up? Somebody get their car egged again? I swear, I didn’t do it! I don’t even like eggs!” Scott Anderson flashed his best smile, which even this early in the morning was dazzling white, thanks to several sessions too many at a teeth-bleaching franchise.

“Got a minute?” the tall one with the tan, standing in the middle, answered. He didn’t smile back.

“Sure. Come on in.”

At first thought, Anderson assumed he’d keep them on the front porch just outside his front door. He was afraid they were like vampires; you had to invite them in and once they’re in, you’re a goner. But neighbors would be slowly driving by, starting their commutes to work and pre-schools at any minute.

No need for them to see the three men, two in uniform, on his front porch. A quick glance at the street in front of his yard confirmed the three had arrived in an unmarked car, thank God. He ushered them in and with one more sharp glance toward the street, Anderson closed the front door behind them.

He stepped ahead of them and took them through his empty living room. The hardwood floors were bare, no rugs and no furniture. Just one lamp sitting on the floor in the corner. It had once sat on a beautiful end table, whose top was decorated with several tones of inlaid wood, just at the arm of a deep navy brocade sofa.

All the living room furniture was gone the afternoon he came home to discover Rachel gone with most of the household goods. He’d dashed to the phone and dialed the 800 number to his checking account.

Empty as of twelve noon that day. Not even one penny left in it to keep the account open. The only thing of any value she’d left in the house was his beloved water bed in the master bedroom. He’d had it since his bachelor days.

She’d left it all right. But only after she stabbed it repeatedly with a kitchen knife. The carpet beneath the bed was soaked and, after a day or two, had the foulest smell to ever hit his nostrils.

And all the crotches had been cut out of every single designer suit he had. They were worth thousands. His tailor managed to save a few of them. You could only spot the mending if you stared really intently at his crotch.