Nancy Grace - Murder in the Courthouse

“They don’t have one yet. I guess they’re still sorting it out. Her body’s still at the morgue. At first they thought it was a heart attack or a stroke, but it was neither one.” Billings added, “I’m having the raw oyster platter. Anybody want to share?”

“No, I think I’m going with cheese grits and a salad. Maybe a fried shrimp starter. Want to split some, Finch?” Hailey was still looking at the menu in front of her.

“Oh yeah. That reminds me,” Billings added. “I got a notice. They’re looking for her purse. They thought the EMTs must have collected it in the cafeteria, but it’s gone.”

“They should try the lost and found in the clerk’s office. That thing’s a treasure trove. We got Hailey’s sweater and bag out of it last night.”

Hailey looked up over her menu as the waitress set tall, clear plastic glasses filled to the brim with ice water in front of each of them. She gently dropped down three long straws in white paper wrappers in the center of the table next to a metal paper napkin dispenser and several bottles of hot sauce.

“A purse?” Hailey asked, mulling it over. “I didn’t see that. Did you, Finch?”

“I don’t remember, Hailey. It was all kind of a blur. I was focusing more on the dead lady on the floor. OK, I’ve decided. I’m having the Captain’s Platter. Fried.” Finch put away his menu.

Suddenly, pushing back her chair, Hailey stood up, knocking over the tall glass of water in front of her. The waitress came rushing over, producing two handfuls of white paper napkins seemingly out of nowhere to clean up the table, now soaked.

Oblivious, Hailey stared over Billings’s and Fincher’s heads into the marsh. “Hailey, what is it? Are you all right?” Finch asked her first.

“You OK, Hailey?” Billings echoed.

“Was it a little black beaded carry pouch on a black string, a shoulder strap thing?”

“I don’t remember the bead part, but it’s black. And it’s got her driver’s license in it. I guess her family wants it… why?”

In a lightning flash, it all fit together. The purple face, tongue so swollen the EMTs couldn’t get a breathing tube down her throat, the sudden inability to breathe, the clutching at the throat, the missing purse, the pink lipstick on the Styrofoam coffee cup on the floor… the Facebook photos, the recipe for fruitcake and banana bread. It all raced before Hailey in her mind’s eye.

“Banana bread without the nuts…”

“Hailey, what are you talking about?” Finch grabbed her hand as she still stared straight into the marsh as if she were in some sort of a trance.

“Eleanor’s fruit cake… fruity, not nutty!”

Hailey answered as if she hadn’t even heard him or noticed he’d grabbed her hand.

“She wore a little black beaded pouch everywhere. Even when she was at the softball game and the bowling alley. Elle Odom died of anaphylactic shock .”

Finch and Billings stared at her. Both their mouths hung slightly open, their faces registering a lack of understanding, as if she were speaking some foreign language.

“Listen to me.” Hailey grabbed Billings’s hand, urgency in her voice. “Call the clerk right now. Get that purse out of lost and found. Hurry, before it’s too late!”

“Too late? Hailey, I don’t get it. Too late for what?”

“For whoever took it to find it. And get the EpiPen out of it.”

“Whoever took it? What EpiPen?” Finch stood up now, too, as did Billings.

“Eleanor Odom took her EpiPen everywhere: jogging, Christmas parties, bowling, softball. She always had it with her… I saw it in all the pictures but it didn’t really register. But she didn’t take it to lunch? Now it’s missing? Not in the cafeteria? Not in her cubicle? Not anywhere she’d be? She wore it over her shoulder so she wouldn’t leave it behind.”

They all stood there in a moment of shocking clarity.

Billings pulled out his radio. He held it to his mouth and started calling out a series of numbers.

“The point is, if she had left it behind innocently, they’d have found it by now… in her cubicle, in the courtroom, in the cafeteria. That means somebody took her purse. We’ve got to get it before they do. Eleanor Odom was murdered .”

“But who put it there?”

Billings carefully enunciated the question, yet again, as if in slow motion. Hailey leaned close in to his ear and whispered, “Just because you say it loud and slow, like they’re deaf, doesn’t mean they’re going to remember anything.”

Hailey, Billings, and Finch stood beside the lost and found bin, looking down into it. There, where Hailey had first seen it, lay the black beaded pouch. It was still zippered shut with its long, thin shoulder strap resting limply beside it. Two county clerks were standing beside the bin as well, all five looking down at the little zippered pouch.

The clerks they were questioning looked as if Billings was speaking Swahili. The two kept making darting glances at the purse as if it were a small, but deadly, exotic animal about to leap out of the bin and bite them on the neck.

“Lieutenant, we just don’t know who put it in here. But I’ll ask around…” The taller clerk’s voice trailed off without finishing the sentence. The armpits of his short-sleeved poly blend were darkening with sweat and his eyes blinked rapidly under Billings’s questions. The short, chubby one just stood there, remaining silent, his eyes as wide as saucers at the thought of murder in their very midst… here at the courthouse .

“Ask around where? And when?” Billings wanted answers, and now.

“I guess, here on the floor?” The tall one’s answer came out more like a question.

Hailey elbowed Billings in his side, and none too gently. Leaning into his ear, she whispered again, “Catch more flies with honey than vinegar!”

“Snodgrass… what’s your first name, Snodgrass?” Billings tried to soften his voice.

“Cecil.”

“Cecil, do you have access to an ‘all-personnel’ email?”

“You mean can I write the whole courthouse staff at once? Soup to nuts? The whole shebang?” Cecil Snodgrass’s previously dead eyes now seemed to show a tiny glint of life.

“Exactly. Excellent . Can you do that?” Billings was still playing good cop. He gave Hailey a How’s that for honey? look. She rewarded him with a congratulatory smile plus an arched left eyebrow.

“Yes, I can do that. But, uh, what do you want me to suh-say?” Snodgrass had a hard time spitting it out.

“How about ‘Urgent. Who found this black beaded bag placed in courthouse lost and found?’ and attach a photo of the bag to the email,” Hailey interjected. “That’s easy. Right?”

“Take a picture and attach it to the email?” Snodgrass was still a little slow on the uptake.

“Yes. A picture. You know, with your iPhone?” Hailey answered. He looked a little dazed. The excitement of telling them he could send an “omni,” or all courthouse personnel email, had certainly faded quickly.

“Here. I’ll just do it right now for you. It’ll only take a second.” Hailey reached into her pocket, withdrew her iPhone, and snapped a photo of Eleanor’s pouch.

“OK. I’ve got it. Now, what’s your email address?” Hailey plowed forward.

“Why do you want my email address? Why does it have to be mine? I don’t want a killer mad at me .” Snodgrass turned to Hailey, but Billings cut in, exasperated.

“So you can send the picture of the bag out so we can find out who put it in lost and found.” Once again, Billings was speaking loudly and in slow motion, mouthing his words carefully as if Snodgrass had to lip-read them.