Nancy Grace - Murder in the Courthouse

“Not because you didn’t want to! Because he never asked you! You’ve been jealous of Elle since the day she came here. And you can tell your Yale-educated, rich-boy judge that I don’t like the way he treated Elle. He’s a piece of crap as far as I’m concerned! And I don’t care if he knows it! In fact, you tell him Deputy Marks said so-”

The deputy was abruptly cut off by another sheriff who seemed ready for battle, materializing out of scattered tables, chairs, and food lines. “Hey, shut your mouth! She never slept with that pompous ass. That’s not true. Don’t talk about her like that!” The younger, painfully thin sheriff sporting a sparse, ginger mustache stepped into the mix, his Adam’s apple bobbing in anger.

“What do you have to do with this, Marshall?” Deputy Marks gave the younger sheriff a confused and disapproving look.

Marshall stammered. “N-n-nothing! I just, I just thought she… she was a nice lady!” He finally spit the remainder of his sentence out and with that, turned on his heel and stalked up the ramp toward the elevator bank.

Marks looked after him, seemingly surprised at the younger man’s outburst, but with a look of dawning settling over his features, he realized just how popular Eleanor Odom had been.

Eleanor’s body was about to be hoisted onto a gurney. The deputy turned back to the judge’s secretary, contempt smeared across his face. “Don’t act like you care about her now that she’s dead. Get out of my sight, Eunah! You sanctimonious prat! Judging her, the whole time wishing it was you ! With him! You and your judge both make me sick. Get lost… you don’t deserve to even see her body taken out.”

And with that, Deputy Marks stormed out the opposite end of the cafeteria. He blasted through the other set of swinging double doors toward the employee parking deck.

Eunah Mabry stood rooted to her spot, an absolutely mortified look on her now sheet-white face. Her ramrod-straight posture swayed a tiny bit as she glanced around the cafeteria, especially at the group of people closest to her, clearly overwhelmed at the thought they may have heard the accusations against her.

For a moment, Hailey thought the mousy woman might just keel over with embarrassment, but slowly, bright red crept up her neck and across her cheeks. Knowing they’d certainly heard it all, Eunah Mabry quickly turned away from the cluster of people. Maintaining a rigid backbone, she all but ran up the sloping ramp, disappearing through the set of double doors to the elevator banks.

“Who was that ?” Hailey turned to a sergeant.

“I’m not really sure, but I’m guessing it’s Judge Regard’s secretary. And I think I know a little too much now. About Judge Bill Regard. Probably more than his wife does.”

Hailey glanced around at the sound of unfolding plastic. The paramedics were zipping Elle’s body into a black plastic body bag.

“Wait!” shouted a male court reporter Hailey recognized from the metal detector line that morning. Perfectly dressed in a crisp shirt, tie, and slacks, he stood up from his chair near a window. He had been sitting there, holding his jaw in both palms and elbows on the tabletop, watching the shock unfold through his fingers.

He crossed the room to the gurney. Reaching the body, he placed a silent kiss on the first three fingers of his right hand, then gently touched them to Elle’s lips as she lay there.

Hailey looked up at Fincher. “So Eleanor Odom’s got two sheriffs, one judge, and a court reporter in love with her and she drops dead at age what… 36?”

Finch looked quizzically. “Two deputies, one judge, and one court reporter… that we know of .”

“It’s not a crime, Fincher.” Hailey responded quickly to the tone in Fincher’s voice. They stood, watching as two paramedics rolled out the gurney.

“What’s not a crime?” He feigned ignorance.

“Sleeping around. If a man did it, you wouldn’t even comment. And if there was, he’d be a hero. So put a sock in it.”

“I didn’t say a thing!”

“But you were going to! Don’t deny it!”

“OK! I was! You’re right! I was going to make a joke, but you’re right. The lady’s dead. Sorry, Hailey.”

Walking through the double doors to the outside toward the parking lot, they passed a sheriff, heavily muscled, blonde hair buzzed close to his skull. Neck, face, and arms heavily tanned from riding in his cruiser with the windows down. He was turned facing the wall, his forehead lightly touching it. From his profile, Finch and Hailey could both see tears rolling unabashedly down his cheeks, his nose running profusely. As they passed, Fincher patted him on the back and they kept walking.

“Make that one judge, one court reporter, and three sheriffs, Hailey.”

There was a long silence between them as they entered the elevator alone. “She obviously lived a very, um,” Hailey searched for the right word, “… full life.”

“Hailey?”

“Yes, Finch?”

“You should have been a diplomat. The UN could use you.”

“Shut up, Finch.”

The doors to the elevator swished open and outside, it looked warm and dazzlingly bright. Heading through the huge oak courthouse doors, they stepped into the sunshine.

“Hey, Finch? Is she the same Eleanor that Alton Turner kept emailing?”

“Oh, darn! I left my bag in there!” Finch and Hailey both stopped in their tracks. They had just made it up several flights of stairs and all the way to their rental car in the courthouse parking deck.

“What’s in it, Hailey? I thought you brought it all with you to the cafeteria. I saw your iPad, I know, there on the table.” Finch looked over at her as if he couldn’t believe that she, Hailey Dean, would ever make a fundamental mistake like leaving anything of value in an open courtroom. A courtroom usually full of criminals.

“Nothing really valuable. And you’re right. I did bring my iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry with me to lunch. But I left my shrug and carry bag of notes in the courtroom to save our seats. The bag is just the old canvas one I’ve had forever, nobody would want it. Or my notes on the trial… nobody would want those… but me!”

Side by side, the two headed back down the same flight of concrete stairs they’d just climbed up. It led to a side door to the front entrance. “OK. I’ll walk back with you. But one thing… what’s a shrug ?”

“You have a wife and two daughters, right? It’s a sweater, for Pete’s sake!”

“Whatever. I’ll go back with you even though you are cutting into our pizza time.”

“I never agreed to more pizza. Let’s just get that on the record right now.” At the top of the granite steps, Finch tried the front center door.

“It’s past closing time, Hailey. Door’s locked.”

“Let me try the one on the side.” Hailey twisted the knob of the huge door on the right, one of three across the massive front façade.

The knob turned under her hand, and she pushed the big door forward. The doors opened into an anteroom leading to a massive lobby. Front and center was a huge walk-through metal detector positioned directly in front of the center door. The rest of the lobby was cordoned off, so Hailey and Finch had to go back through the machine again. Sitting beside it reading a magazine was a lone sheriff working the overnight shift.

“Hey, man. What’s up?” Fincher greeted him.

“Hey Fincher, Miss Dean. What brings you back to the courthouse so soon? Didn’t all the courtrooms adjourn right after Elle… I mean… did you guys hear about the excitement in the cafeteria?”

Fincher peeled three guns off his body (waist, shoulder, and ankle) to drop them one by one in battered white plastic bowls and put them on a conveyor belt for screening. Hailey put her iPad and phones in a plastic basket that followed along after Finch’s guns.