Nancy Grace - Murder in the Courthouse

Making it worse, the headline over the photo read, “Super Sleuth on the Todd Adams Case!” Hailey scanned the article, which was only a few paragraphs. The gist of it was that the state had brought Hailey Dean on board as a criminologist to save the prosecution-which they likened to a sinking ship, the Titanic specifically. The article rehashed her perfect win record in inner-city Atlanta and, of course, dredged up Will’s murder to make her sound like some sort of angry avenger.

Hailey was used to it. It wasn’t necessarily true, but it sold more papers. Over all her years in the district attorney’s office, she had been both lauded, usually by the newspapers, and villainized, usually by the Atlanta Defense Bar and their related publications. She couldn’t honestly say it didn’t hurt, because it did. Not hurting and being used to something are definitely two very different things.

It was likely cool this early in the morning. Hailey pulled on her usual black running pants and Nikes, with a V-neck zip-up long-sleeved shirt and an old Fulton County Fire Department sweatshirt wrapped around her waist. Although she rarely carried, she was still trained to keep her hands free just in case. She wedged her driver’s license and credit cards bound together by a single rubber band down the left side of her sports bra and a tube of lipstick down the other side. Baseball hat and sunglasses topped it off, and she was out the door carrying only her cells and car keys.

Passing through the hotel’s elegant lobby, Hailey paused long enough to get a free Styrofoam cup of hot tea from a table set up for hotel guests. It was laden with various coffees, decafs, hot water for tea, tea bags, and a huge assortment of creamers and sweeteners.

She hadn’t thought to grab an Irish breakfast tea bag from the cache she packed in her suitcase and stuff it down her bra, so she went for the English breakfast. Fishing it out of a basket of individually wrapped tea bags, she gave it a stir into plenty of hot water and skim milk, and headed to her car parked on the street.

Passing by the lobby doors, Hailey stopped short. A man with long, blue-jeaned legs stretched out beneath the double pages of the paper’s sports section was sitting in a cushioned wingback chair. Although the paper obscured his face, Hailey caught his profile as she rushed by, and the boots alone were hard to forget.

“Cloud! Hello! Nice to see you! What are you doing here?”

He lowered his paper to eye Hailey Dean and broke into a wide smile. “Well, fancy meeting up with you here! And I thought I’d never see you again!”

“Are you staying here, too? That’s a coincidence!”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I am! I was just waiting for a ride heading to a meeting. Where are you headed so bright and early?”

“Oh, I’m just going out for a jog. It’s beautiful today! Hey, I think I saw you at the courthouse! On the front steps, but I was in such a hurry, I couldn’t slow down. I don’t think you saw me.”

“The courthouse? Here in Savannah? Nope, haven’t been there and can’t say I want to! Courthouses and lawyers make me nervous!”

Not missing a golden opportunity, he pressed on. “Hey, want to have dinner tonight? I hear there’s a great restaurant right on the river. About seven-thirty?”

“That sounds so nice, but I have to work. Sorry!” Hailey did her best to look disappointed. What she needed now was a quick exit.

Glancing up at a huge clock over the hotel registration desk, she feigned surprise. “Oh no! I didn’t realize what time it is! I better run. Rain check, OK? Bye, Cloud. Have a great day!” Hailey practically sprinted through the open lobby doors.

That was weird. She was almost positive that had been Cloud on the courthouse steps. Hailey slowed passing the parking deck entrance. She’d always had an aversion to parking garages after prosecuting so many violent crimes that went down there. She avoided them whenever she could and she’d found a spot on the street she could actually see from way up in her room. It was comforting somehow.

Happy to see her car remained vandal-free for another night on downtown Savannah streets, she hopped in. There was a distinct chill in the early morning air, even though she knew that in a matter of hours the place would be boiling. Probably the cool air off the river made everything chilly in the mornings. But it was nice, and Hailey marveled, once again, that it was good to be alive.

Putting her car in reverse and then drive, she caught sight of her own green eyes beneath the red gash on her forehead in the rearview mirror. The red in her eyes was gone and so were the dark circles underneath. She felt great this morning. Everything around her seemed shiny and new, even though she was in the heart of Old Savannah, full of old pirate houses, Civil War homes, and even the home of Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low.

Pulling out onto old cobblestone streets, she drove underneath the arms of huge, ancient live oak trees. Spanish moss hung down low from the limbs like gorgeous, intricate shawls. She could imagine the Wesley brothers, just kicked out of the High Church of England. John preaching here under the oaks and his brother, Charles, on guitar, spreading what would one day become Methodism.

Waiting alone at a red light, Hailey glanced again into her rearview and took a sip of her hot tea. It was delicious and she could feel it, warm, going down.

Foot on the brake at the red light, Hailey held the Styrofoam cup with both hands, the steam still rising off the hot liquid. She took a tiny sip, testing it to see if it was still too hot to take a big gulp.

Hot tea. Hot tea… milk… almond milk… immediately, Eleanor Odom, Elle, sprang to mind. Then there was the lackluster love rival. She’d never forget the look on the face of the judge’s secretary when Hailey first spotted her in the courthouse cafeteria the day Elle died.

She originally looked so… so… mousy . It was the only word Hailey could come up with. But that look on her face… that look changed it all.

With dull, thin, light brown hair sticking flat to her head held to the sides with pins, slightly hunched forward… but then that look. It was so stark, so real. What was it, though? Jealousy? Hatred, maybe?

Who was the judge? What was his name again? Hands gripping the steering wheel, she willed herself to think ! As if Providence intervened… right there on the corner was a placard… a sign on a short, wooden post stuck in the dirt… Bill Regard for Governor! That was him! Bill Regard… that was his name!

But… the secretary… Hailey racked her brain… what was the secretary’s name? Staring up through the sunroof glass and beyond to the Spanish moss swaying in the breeze off the river, it felt like the more she tried to think of it, the less she could remember.

And then, quick as lightning… it hit her… Eunah… Eunah Mabry! Bingo!

Foot still on the brake and no one behind her to impatiently toot the horn should she miss a green light, Hailey did a quick Google search. In just a few seconds, up popped Eunah Mabry in her capacity as chairwoman of the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter. Hmm, Daughters of the American Revolution. She seemed very active in the group, according to Google.

In the most recent posting was a notice of the last DAR meeting… at Eunah Mabry’s house. It was in Ardsley Park, south central Savannah. Wow, that was a surprise. How could a single woman on a civil servant’s salary afford Ardsley?

It was truly Savannah’s first and priciest suburb. Ardsley Park meant plush lawns, elaborate landscaping, six- and seven-bedroom mansions dating back to the 1920s, all either restored or in mint condition. Bordering Victory Drive and running east from Bull Street to Waters Avenue, it was the movie version of Old Savannah that tourists and movie producers alike came hunting.