Nancy Grace - Murder in the Courthouse

Stepping onto the elevator, the doors closed with a whoosh. Everything was OK… back to normal. They were heading back to the courtroom. She was OK… at least for now, anyway.

It was a contentious morning session of last-minute motions. Again. Hailey took the stand outside the jury’s presence midmorning and it was brutal. DelVecchio tried at every turn to stop her, but Hailey managed to score point after point. She had to totally tune out DelVecchio and Tish Adams as well, who insisted on shooting one murderous look after the other at Hailey.

The lawyers were battling, family was tense, and Hailey was bitterly crossed then recrossed. Todd Adams sat through it all as if he were watching a chess tournament.

Hailey testified straight through until lunchtime, occasionally looking Todd Adams directly in the eyes. At the beginning, he always looked away, but an hour or so into her testimony, he looked at Hailey with pure loathing. She kept at it though until, finally, it ended with DelVecchio dramatically throwing his hands in the air and announcing he had no further questions. The judge ruled immediately; Hailey Dean would be allowed to testify as an expert for the state in front of the jury.

It was well into lunchtime and the cafeteria was crowded. A long line queued up on a gently sloping ramp leading back toward a winding hall that ended at the elevators. The ramp took hungry employees, lawyers, defendants, witnesses, and judges down toward dozens of tables crowded in between two parallel lines of food. There was quite an assortment. In one corner stood a coffee bar, tricked out like a Starbucks, with leaded, unleaded (decaf), and flavored coffee, as well as skim, whole, 2 percent, and even almond milk choices. It was mobbed, of course.

At the other end, a serve-yourself salad bar stood, looking lonely, in the corner of the huge dining hall. Just feet away from lettuce, pale truck-farmed tomatoes, shredded cheese, and gooey dressings stood a long line of hungry courthouse employees as workers in light blue uniforms and hairnets dished home-cooked veggies and meats into small melamine bowls. The employees, in turn, would take the bowl, now full to brimming, place it on their tray, and amble down the line. Starting with red and blue Jell-O with fruit congealed in it, salads and desserts, then to meat and noodle entrees, and finally to veggies, breads, and beverages.

While the sound and smell of it all could be a little off-putting to some, Hailey loved it, and thoughts of DelVecchio’s angry face faded away. The comfort of courthouse voices mingling in unison, the smell of steamy home-cooked veggies and fresh-baked bread, the occasional raucous peal of laughter all struck a chord in Hailey, reminding her of the years she devoted her life to putting the bad guys in jail. These were the people who worked together for justice: court reporters, sheriffs, investigators, secretaries, and clerks. And lowly transport officers like Alton Turner.

They’d always have a smile for Hailey as she’d go through the list of inmates just brought over from the jail. Comparing her many pages of arraignment calendar to their list of transports started nearly every Monday morning for Hailey for ten years. She could see them now in their tan and brown sheriff uniforms, clipboard and pen, sharing a morning hello, maybe a cup of coffee, maybe handing her a notepad when she lost her own. A comrade.

Opting for ladling chicken noodle soup into a tall paper cup, she took a few packs of saltine crackers from a basket beside the steaming hot soup, took a cold bottled water from a tall, glass-door fridge, and balanced a cup of hot water for tea on a worn cafeteria tray. Hailey wound through at least a few dozen tables, most of them full of seated occupants chatting, eating, or glued to mobile devices and oblivious to the world around them, making her way to a single seat at a two-top near a far window.

Placing her iPhone, BlackBerry, and iPad in front of her to read the news, she caught a glimpse of a gorgeous old oak tree just outside the cafeteria window. Its arms spread out toward the building and its leaves shimmered in a breeze outside.

In a flash, she was mentally reliving a picnic she shared with Will under a huge tree just like this one. They were so, so happy. Hailey recalled distinctly wanting the moment to last forever. Lying on her back on a blanket, looking up at the leaves above them, she spontaneously asked the question, “Will we always be together, even after we die?” Will answered immediately: “Of course we will. I promise.”

Even now, she couldn’t imagine where the question came from. Will was murdered the following week and her question under the old oak branches always stuck with Hailey. The sure look in his crystal blue eyes when he’d answered so automatically… “ Of course we will …”

Still gazing at the shimmering leaves outside the cafeteria, in Hailey’s imagination they morphed into the grand old oak outside the apartment she shared with Will, outside their bedroom window. She’d see it first thing every morning, dancing in the sunshine through her bedroom drapes.

Beside the double windows was their bedroom closet and it was there that her wedding dress hung. It hung there silently, pristine, long, long after Will’s murder; no one mentioned it should be returned or, at the very least, that the dress and veil should be carefully folded between layers of tissue paper and put away.

No one dared suggest the dress would never be worn. Of course Hailey would never wear it, and who else would buy it? The wedding dress of a bride who wore black to her fiancé’s funeral instead of wearing the ivory dress in the closet to her wedding?

It was actually champagne silk, not ivory. It was off the shoulder, simple… not an overdone or ostentatious train, but a train nevertheless. The veil was made of light brocade. The two, gown and veil, were meant to gently sway down a carpeted aisle with flower petals gently scattered in her path, all lit by the golden glow of candlelight. In her wedding gown, Hailey should have been admired by a loving crowd gathered at the ceremony and been the subject of photos handed down to children and grandchildren.

Hailey was yanked to alert by an abrupt clatter of a lunch tray practically thrown onto the other side of the tiny two-top in front of her. On it sat a plate piled high with a greasy cheeseburger and a double serving of courthouse curly fries. Fincher pulled the metal chair back with much scraping and plopped down in front of her, smiling.

“This seat taken?”

“Not anymore!” Hailey pulled her tray closer and gathered up all her mobile devices, tucking them into her bag to make room for Finch.

“Some trial, huh? What an arrogant SOB. Am I right? This jury’s gotta see straight through him.” He tucked into the cheeseburger, holding it with both hands. The pressure forced a mixture of ketchup and mustard to ooze out the backside.

“That looks good. Nothing’s better for you than another pound of red meat sitting in your stomach!” She gave him a gentle jab, handing him one of the paper napkins she brought with her from the lunch line.

A surge of new voices made Hailey look over her shoulder to see another wave of hungry lunch-goers coming down the ramp into the cafeteria. Hailey knew at once they were a pool of about sixty potential jurors. Based on their smiling faces, open laughter, and general good spirits, they were clearly just corralled for a trial, because after hours on end of voir dire, John Q. Publics tended to become irritated and grumpy, ready to go home, and ill at being separated from their iPhones.

Leading the pack were two courtroom bailiffs and a cheery-looking young woman. She was curvy but statuesque in a clingy, wraparound dress, a navy, purple, and shocking pink Diane von Furstenberg knockoff. Her honey-blonde locks fell in gentle curls around her shoulders. The huge stack of papers she was carrying could mean only one thing: She was the calendar clerk for that particular courtroom. Hailey knew the stack contained computer-generated sheets of data about the jury pool trouping along behind her as well as the morning’s trial calendar.