Nancy Grace - Murder in the Courthouse

Hailey gave him a withering glare in response. He didn’t wither. Instead, he just looked right back at her.

“Last I checked the Constitution, it’s still a free country, Fincher. I know it’s not my ‘jurisdiction’ and it’s not my ‘case.’ I’m like every other ordinary civilian going about my very own business. I just happen to be curious, that’s all.”

No response from Finch.

“Listen, I just want to go look at the back windows of the house, just to see if somebody could’ve gotten in that way. Maybe just look around the outside of the house, no harm in that. Maybe visit with a few neighbors… just to get the temperature. Know what I mean?”

“Oh yes, I know what you mean. You’re investigating the case behind Billings’s back. That’s what you mean, Hailey. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

She was silent for a few seconds, then spoke. “OK. Have it your way. I won’t butt in.”

This was not at all what Fincher expected. “I’ve never known you to give in that easily. Are you sick?”

“No, I’m not sick but as a matter of fact, I was up half the night studying the Adams case.”

“Studying the Adams case? You’ve studied it for months, you’ve interviewed witnesses, the Chatham County Medical Examiner, visited the scene… and you’re still studying? What more is there to know? He had a girlfriend, he wanted out… so he killed her. There, case solved… you’re through studying.”

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted-”

“Are you still claiming I interrupt you? I hate to interrupt, but that’s absolutely not true.”

They both started laughing.

“That’s right, you would never be so rude. But yes, I stayed up late studying so I’m going to go crash for a couple of hours. I’ll call you in a few.”

He gave her a long, hard look. “Promise? Because, in the history of Hailey Dean, I have never once known you to take a nap. You’re really going back to the hotel to rest? Because that’s just what you need to do, whether you ever do it or not.”

“I absolutely am going back to the hotel. I promise I’ll call in a couple of hours.”

He looked at her face, searching for any sign of obfuscation. There was none.

“OK. I’ll see you on the flip side.”

“OK. See you!”

Hailey headed to her car. She’d promised, true. But what she’d promised was a different matter altogether. Choosing her words carefully, she’d promised specifically to call him later. She knew it was tricking him, but pulling out of the parking garage and heading into the sunshine, she knew full well he would end up laughing about it.

She Google-mapped Alton Turner’s address and headed out of downtown Savannah. Hailey smiled to herself in the rearview mirror. He’d laugh all right. In the end.

The neighborhood where Alton Turner lived looked almost deserted in the middle of the afternoon. Most of the residents of the sleepy little suburb were at work.

Hailey retracked the route she and Finch had taken the first time she’d ever been there. She didn’t even need to consult her Google map. How could you forget the first time you ever saw a severed torso lying on a garage floor?

Turning a corner, Hailey spotted Alton’s house. It was just as precisely neat as ever. Pulling her rental car into the driveway, Hailey got out and slammed the door just in time to spot a guy on foot with a ponytail walking away from Alton’s. He had a huge camera slung over his shoulder and was just turning the curve in the street. Had he just been here? Maybe a crime-scene tech… or the Savannah Morning News .

Hailey turned from the guy who had now disappeared into the neighborhood and faced Alton’s house. She took one step and stopped. Something was wrong.

She stood stock-still, just looking. After a few moments she realized what was out of place. There were pinecones and leaves scattered across the front lawn. Pinecones. Hailey’s mortal enemy as a child. The things were little, barbed grenades to the touch and when accidentally pressed against bare feet in summertime… oh, the scream that would follow. And Alton’s yard was covered with them, thanks to some tall pine trees at the edge of his lot.

Pinecones on his otherwise immaculate lawn? That would’ve driven Alton Turner absolutely crazy.

Instinctively, Hailey strode across the lawn and, bending over, picked up the ten or so prickly pinecones dotting the yard. There was a group of shrubs surrounding an ornamental willow off to the side of Alton’s house with a concrete birdbath and decorative swing nearby.

It was a lovely setting. Hailey imagined Alton landscaping it and knew without being told that he and his mom had sat in that swing together many an evening. The shrubs and willow were positioned in a bed of pine straw… a pine straw island so to speak. The perfect place to ditch the pinecones.

Hailey quickly dumped the sharp cones behind the bushes. Just to the rear of the island, she spotted three more cones.

Ugh. Why was she doing this? Cleaning the yard of a dead man she’d never even met? Automatically, a voice answered in her head. Because I’d want someone to do the same for me .

Truth be told, Hailey felt like she knew Alton and actually connected with him. Looking through his home, reading his emails, looking at so many photos of him, even looking in his fridge, for Pete’s sake, Hailey was convinced she knew Alton Turner… and she liked him.

Maybe she was just projecting, but she could feel the pang of loss he’d felt when he lost his mom. Immediately, she recalled a small black-and-white photo she’d seen. It was framed and positioned beside his bed. It was an old shot of Alton and his mom when he was a boy. He was standing partially behind her. She had on a short-sleeved print dress with a white apron tied behind her, covering the front of the dress from the waist down. Alton was hugging the tops of her legs with both arms.

He was smiling and so was she. Hailey paused and it struck her that throughout Alton’s home, she hadn’t seen a dad… anywhere. Not a single photo of him… not a trace. His mom was all he ever had. Alton, aside from trying to fit in with the other sheriffs at work, was alone in this world.

Hailey understood. She bent over to get the rest of the pinecones and spotted some trash as well. There was a cigarette butt barely edged with bright red lipstick and a piece of round black plastic, something about the size of a Gatorade bottle top.

Did the Eleanor from the emails smoke? Had she been here with Alton? Hailey tossed the cones behind the bushes and carried the cigarette butt and the plastic back to her car to throw away.

The bits of trash were minute, but Alton Turner would’ve flipped if he’d seen litter in his yard. Hailey smiled to herself and tossed it into the back floorboard of her car.

Now, to get down to business. She wanted another look around Alton’s place. Alone. Without a fleet of crime-scene techs, and Fincher, God bless him, nagging at her with questions.

Cell phone in pocket, Hailey clicked her car locked and headed along the white cement driveway toward the garage. The garage door was back in place and a tiny coil of yellow crime scene tape was curled like a fuzzy caterpillar on the drive at the edge of the garage door. That was all that was left, to the casual eye, of the discovery of a dead body.

But as Hailey walked closer, she could see the dark stain on the concrete at the edge of the door. If a potential home buyer didn’t know better, they’d probably think it was an oil spill.

But Hailey knew it was Alton’s blood. She was rooted to the spot, staring down at the concrete.

A bird chirping overhead in the pines filtered through her thought process, and she looked up to the green branches and to the blue sky beyond. What really happened to Alton Turner?