Nancy Grace - Death on the D-List

Multiple posters of Prentiss hung behind her… shots from her latest CDs, publicity photos, you name it. In each one she was more stunning than in the last. Beside her sat a desk at which she could sit and sign photos, autograph books or ticket stubs, or basically whatever memento with which the fan approached her. The footage was date-stamped nearly two years before a single bullet seared through Prentiss Love’s mouth and face.

The camera panned out at the enthusiastic crowd, most of whom looked as if they were hanging on her every word. They were mostly twenty- to thirty-something-year-old white males. They all looked, lovesick, at the object of their desire, Prentiss Love.

It was then that she saw it. The camera operator had gone out into the crowd when Prentiss stopped speaking and made herself comfortable at the desk to start the signings. One guy after the next spoke into the camera about how he’d always loved Prentiss Love and couldn’t wait to get her signature. Each one, three in all, had a story about Love that was basically just a variation on the same theme… adoration. But it was there, in the background.

A man standing on the outskirts of the crowd, not really noticing the camera at all, staring intently up at the stage where Prentiss Love sat happily signing away, schmoozing with her fans for $25 an autograph.

Although he wasn’t speaking into the camera himself, there was no mistaking him, standing there. He wasn’t in the line for an autograph, just standing at a distance, never averting his gaze from Prentiss Love.

It was Scott Anderson.

FRANCIS LAY BELLY-DOWN ON THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR BEHIND HIS mother’s sofa. Right now, it was the only thing between him and the Feds at his front door.

The rug at the foot of the sofa smelled of something… what was it? He’d never been quite this close to the fake Oriental rug before, certainly not close enough to get a good whiff of it. What was it?

From his vantage point, looking through the legs of the sofa and across the floor, Francis had a perfect view of a tiny slice of light between the floor and the front door. Staring hard, he was convinced he detected movement outside on the front porch.

Then he heard it. Muffled voices. The jig was up. The Feds were on his front porch. His mother had always said this would happen. Crazy old bat.

What would he tell them? He’d used various computers all over town, actually, all over the country to stay in touch with his lady loves. And he’d used so many different names. He had multiple screen names and all of them only knew him as “Jonathon.” He’d never divulged his real name. Names didn’t matter to Francis… Only feelings mattered.

The multiple screen names should throw the Feds off to some degree… but Francis knew he’d left a track a mile wide. Flowers, gifts, candy, Valentine’s Day cards, birthday cards, Christmas gifts, you name it… It could all be traced back to Francis, or at least to Jonathon, anyway. They’d nail him. He knew they would.

Cards, flowers, candy… What did that prove? Nothing!

Without the murder weapon, they had nothing! Nothing but evidence that Francis was in love… granted, with several different women… but in love all the same. What would they bring before a jury? A Valentine card?

Francis thought of his guns… all of them stashed away over at Crestlawn Sacred Grounds… just yards away from his mother’s plot. They’d never find them. Without that, absent an eyewitness or a confession, what would they have?

Although the murders were nothing but a blurry vision in Francis’s mind, actually more of a big, black blank, he was absolutely sure he would not have been so careless as to have eyewitnesses. And no way were the Feds getting a confession out of him.

In fact, he’d already turned down and dog-eared the number to his old public defender’s office in the yellow pages. He’d even gone so far as to write the Miranda warnings in ink on the inside of his left arm from just beneath his wrist nearly to the inside bend of his elbow.

He’d also written the lawyer’s number directly beneath Miranda in case the Feds used the phone book to beat him. The Feds were famous for beating people with phone books.

The voices rose on the porch.

Didn’t they have to knock first?

Probably not. Francis was pretty sure that good manners were not mandated in the Constitution. They may even have gotten a “no-knock” proviso in his arrest warrant so they could beat the door down with a battering ram if they wanted to. Nothing could stop them.

Francis just had to stay strong and not confess. Stay calm. Stay cool. Keep it together.

Plus, in all reality… How could he give a confession? He couldn’t remember anything.

It was all his damn mother’s fault. If she hadn’t forced, or tricked, all the mind-altering drugs into his system, he wouldn’t be having blackout spells in the first place. Much less days upon days where he couldn’t remember a thing.

How the hell did he put all those miles on his car? Francis had figured it out the night before. There were nearly exactly enough miles on his mom’s Saturn to prove he’d driven to each one of the murder locations. And it would only take a cursory look at his Chevron gas card to prove he’d visited them all numerous times in the past.

Plus, Francis had cashed his disability checks from the government at banks all around the country. So, bottom line, he’d definitely left a paper trail connecting him to countless locations where the ladies had been for one reason or another.

Concerts, appearances, walks on the red carpet, Francis had been to all of them. Granted, he’d always stayed in the background; he wasn’t there to upstage them in their moments of glory. He was just there for support.

He’d even managed to get several shots of himself with each of the ladies. True, they were usually far in the background while he held his cell phone camera out in front of him, taking the shot at arm’s length, but they were in the photos together for sure. Those photos were some of Francis’s most sacred treasures, next to Leather Stockton’s underwear of course, and he’d be damned if he’d erase them off his cell phone memory, Feds or no Feds.

Some things a man just had to fight for.

Oh, yes. His mother was probably looking down at him right now, shaking her finger disapprovingly. She’d always told him women would get him in trouble. With him lying on the floor hiding behind the sofa so the Feds wouldn’t pick up on even the slightest movement inside the house, Francis just knew that she’d be saying, “See? I told you so!”

Just then, the spooks on the front porch slipped something under Francis’s front door.

Oh, hell! What was it? Was it some type of psychotropic drug that would make him talk and tell all about his relationships with the three dead celebrities?

Francis could definitely detect a strange odor. There was no way out now. Wasn’t it illegal to use sodium pentothal to get the truth out of a suspect? Wasn’t that only in injectable form? Could it be reduced to a powder? Was that what they’d slipped under his front door? If so, were they all outside on the front porch wearing gas masks so they, themselves, would not be affected by the truth-telling powder… just Francis alone?

It was suddenly stronger. He felt dizzy. Damn the Feds to hell and back.

Francis crawled around the edge of the sofa. From across the expanse of the living room floor to the front door, maybe twenty feet or so, he spied the packet slipped under the front door. Straining his eyes in the dim light filtering in from outside, he could barely make it out.

He inched closer. The floor was hard against his elbows as he made his way completely around the sofa.