Nancy Grace - Death on the D-List

Hailey stood up and extended her hand. Sookie held it lightly and briefly, her palm and fingers cool and dry to the touch.

“So! I finally get to meet the woman the camera just loves ! You’re absolutely wonderful! Harry loves you! Thank you for coming all the way out here… I hope the drive wasn’t too horrible… ”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t bad at all. And I got lots of work done on the way.”

“You worked in the car?”

“Oh, yes… I dictate patients’ notes right into a little hand-held recorder. I take the information from entries I make during sessions, then send it to a transcription service. It comes back to me within a day or two, all neatly typed and ready for the patient’s file.”

“Oh, my. You’re so…” Sookie paused, searching for the right word… “ industrious!” She kept on a light smile and sat down gracefully on the deep sofa parallel to Hailey’s seat. As Sookie sank into the sofa, Hailey took the cue and sat again in the chair facing both Sookie and the wall of Sookie photos. Suddenly it struck her that there wasn’t a single picture of the woman’s children on display. Somehow, Hailey couldn’t imagine Sookie Downs ever being pregnant, but apparently she was, twice.

“How are your children?”

“Oh, they’re wonderful! Just wonderful! They attend St. Pius private school. It’s really the best out here, but I just hope they don’t fill them up with all that religion ! I don’t want them to be freaks!”

Hailey was silent. Some of her happiest memories were those involving her little Methodist church back home. She’d practically grown up there, running up and down the halls, exploring the quiet sanctuary while her mom practiced away on the organ. Oblivious to Hailey’s silence, Sookie went on. “You know, I just love your hair. Who does it? It looks so natural! I have mine touched up in the city… costs me a fortune.”

Hailey opened her mouth to speak, but Sookie kept talking.

“Consuela… please bring out more hot water for Hailey.” She directed her voice toward what Hailey presumed to be the kitchen area.

“You have a beautiful home, Sookie.” While neither the interior nor the exterior was anything Hailey would have wanted for herself, it was… big. Big and formal.

“Oh… thank you, dear. Architectural Digest has featured it more than once. We just love it. Would you like a tour?”

“That would be great.” Hailey followed along behind her hostess and headed toward the large staircase in the foyer. Climbing the stairs, Sookie went on.

“So you must be wondering why I brought you out to the house. We’ve really enjoyed having you on the show with Harry. You have such a…” Sookie searched for the right word… “s park ! Such zest, let me say. And of course, the camera loves you, but that goes without saying. In fact, you look better on camera than you do in person.”

Hailey paused. That sounded a lot like an insult.

“Oh, please take it the right way. In this business, it’s a huge compliment.”

But by the tone in Sookie’s voice, Hailey still wasn’t so sure.

“This is the children’s quarters.” Hailey had never actually known anyone who had “quarters.”

Sookie walked rapidly down a hallway at the top of the stairs. Hailey heard her own cowboy boots clunking along in stark contrast to the staccato of Sookie’s stiletto Louboutins against the gleaming wood floors. Her hostess then waved her right arm upward in a Wheel of Fortune gesture. Hailey looked in the general direction in which Sookie was pointing and saw a huge light-blue bedroom full of every conceivable toy known to man. There had to be forty stuffed animals sitting on a pale green sofa facing the foot of a painted blue double bed.

Standing at the door to the room, Hailey did a double-take. At the far edge of the sofa sat a little boy. Just as Hailey noticed him, he looked up, and they met gazes. For a moment, Hailey had mistaken his small form for one of the oversized stuffed toys.

“Hi. I’m Hailey.”

The little boy just stared back through a pair of thick glasses, regarding Hailey with a steady gaze.

Sookie spoke over her shoulder as she continued down the hall, never slowing down. “Oh, that’s Kyle. He always has his nose in a book. I keep telling him he needs some fresh air. I wish he was interested in sports. Here’s Emily’s bedroom. The decorator was fabulous! Even if I have to say it myself!”

Hailey still stood at the boy’s door. He looked so lonely, sitting there clutching his book. He kept looking at Hailey, as if he wanted her to come in and play. Actually, she would much rather do that than continue the tour she was being given.

“Want to come with us, Kyle?” She gave him her gentlest smile.

The boy shook his head “no” and looked back down at his book. She paused another moment, but he never looked back up at her. Hailey trailed along behind Sookie again. Between the two bedrooms was another giant room, this one a bright-yellow playroom. Murals of various nursery rhymes were hand-painted on the walls. Each child’s bedroom had a door opening into their mutual playroom.

Next was Emily’s room. It was predictably pale-pink and done-or overdone would be the better word-in a princess motif. The girl’s bed had a royal theme and a glittery, golden crown painted on the wall over its headboard, a large, capital “E” for Emily in the center of the child’s fantasy coat-of-arms.

“She charged me thousands for the headboard, but there’s nothing else like it out there. It’s an original.”

Anything Hailey could have said at that point would have either been an outright lie or a likely insult to Sookie’s taste, so Hailey followed her own rule… when in doubt, say little and do less!

Down a long hall and across a semi-formal reading area as large as Hailey’s New York apartment, came yet another long hall. All the floors were covered in thick Oriental rugs. Even an amateur like Hailey could tell these were the real thing. Given their size, number, and quality, the rugs alone had to cost over a hundred grand.

They turned left toward the front of the mansion’s façade and into a foyer that opened into Sookie’s sleeping quarters.

There at the doorway, Hailey stopped in her tracks.

Sookie’s bedroom was straight out of a 1940s Hollywood movie. A huge California king-size bed was the centerpiece of the room, adorned with a gorgeous custom-made pure, thick, beige, raw-silk duvet with lavish brocade trim around the bottom. It matched perfectly a brocade bed skirt peeking out from underneath the silk cover, so as not to offend anyone with a possible glance at the hardwood floor underneath the bed.

The pillow-show was in full swing in Sookie’s bedroom. Her bed alone had to have twenty pillows of different sizes and shapes artfully arranged against the massive mahogany headboard. Above the bed was a floor-to-ceiling sheath of the same beige raw silk, twisted into a triangle, its point at the top. The upper tip of the silk triangle was secured to the wall by a large, rounded, mirrored medallion. Its facets caught the light in the room, casting tiny bright bits of light across the smooth floors and thick rugs in front of the bed.

There was a fireplace directly in front of the bed, about thirty feet away from its matching mahogany footboard. About twenty feet to the right of the bed was a sitting area with two love seats and a big cushioned chair, huddled around another fireplace. A highly embellished Louis XIV writing desk sat in a corner, as if Sookie were just about to put quill to paper. Photos in what looked to be sterling silver frames were carefully positioned on the writing desk.