Nancy Grace - Murder in the Courthouse

“But to call him incredible is an understatement, really.” Eunah, her back still to Hailey, began making coffee. The very back of her hair was matted flat, revealing her scalp where she must have slept the night before. Unaware of her mussed hair, Eunah retrieved the milk from the fridge and set it on the kitchen counter beside another empty wine glass, again with dark red residue in the very bottom.

“Now, back to Cape Fear . You know Martin Scorsese directed that. The judge is a big fan of his. I got him a meeting.”

“With Scorsese?” Hailey’s eyes widened.

“With Scorsese! The two had coffee right here at this very kitchen table. They certainly did.” Eunah’s free hand grazed the top of the old table lovingly, lost in the memory of the moment the three of them, Eunah, the judge, and Martin Scorsese, all gathered around her kitchen table .

“Wow! I hope you got a photo!”

“I did, actually. Would you like to see it?”

Hailey didn’t know exactly what she was fishing for, but on more than one occasion, a whim… a hunch, so to speak, had steered her right during an investigation. Hailey didn’t know what, if anything, Martin Scorsese or this house or this woman had to do with the death of Elle Odom. Maybe nothing at all.

“I’d love to!” Hailey answered brightly. She truly did want to see the shot of Scorsese with the judge and Eunah Mabry, but it wasn’t about Scorsese. Hailey wanted to see a photo of the judge with Eunah.

She followed behind Eunah, trying not to stare at the bald spot on the back of her head from her bed pillow. Once in the parlor, however, she realized it may not have been the pillow that caused the hair eyesore. There on an ornately carved sofa upholstered in deep blue velvet was a huge photo album of sorts, but stepping closer, Hailey saw it wasn’t full of photos.

On each page was a carefully preserved wine label, a description and history of the wine itself, and the date and circumstances surrounding the uncorking. Without actually flipping through the open pages, Hailey judged there to be at least a hundred completed pages… so far.

The room was strewn with scissors, tweezers, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and a third crystal glass smudged with red wine and lipstick. By the positioning of the pillows on the sofa and a throw blanket on the floor, it looked like Eunah Mabry spent the night right here, drinking and scrapbooking about her last bottle of wine.

On the coffee table beside the wine glass was the photo to which Eunah referred. It was enlarged and framed in an elaborate sterling silver frame.

There they were, Eunah, Scorsese, and Judge Bill Regard leaning in toward each other over coffee cups at the kitchen table, smiling. Regard was in the middle as opposed to the famed director. Eunah sat beside the judge, leaning in and almost touching cheek to cheek.

The look on Eunah’s face in the photo was unmistakable. She was smiling all right, but not really looking at the camera. She was looking at the judge beside her, just inches from her own face. There was no mistaking it… it was the look of love.

Clearly, Eunah Mabry was deeply in love with Bill Regard. Judge Bill Regard, possibly Governor Bill Regard, was, most important, a very married Bill Regard.

“That’s a lovely picture. He must be a fine judge. I saw one of his campaign signs at a red light this morning.”

“Oh, he is. I mean, he is a fine judge… and he is running for governor. Casting his pearls before swine, I say… pearls before the swine. That’s from the Bible.”

“Yes, I believe it is,” Hailey murmured back, holding her eye.

“Oh, it definitely is. And truer words were never spoken. Of course, he’s too good for the people. They can’t possibly appreciate a man of his stature. And now… this… this scandal threatening it all.”

Still holding her coffee, Hailey looked up from the photo of Eunah and the judge and took a pretend sip of the vile brew. “What scandal?”

“Why Hailey, you were there that day. I’m positive I saw you. The day that woman, Eleanor Odom, the bottled blonde? The day she threw herself on the floor and passed away right there in the lunch crowd in the county cafeteria. Of course, she went and did it when she had an audience.”

“And she was so young.”

“Not as young as she’d have you believe, mark my words. That Eleanor Odom is no spring chicken! She’s thirty if she’s a day!”

Hailey suppressed a smile. In her book, thirty was young. She managed to nod her head. “You think so?”

“Oh, yes, I do. But the judge wouldn’t believe it. He was blind to her… her ways … if you know what I mean.” Eunah Mabry gave a knowing nod and her eyes narrowed. “You know, always buzzing around his chambers, especially just as court would be ending and everyone going home. I would stay at my desk and catch up on busy work just to keep her away from the judge. Oh, she loved to corner him alone and throw herself… throw herself at him.”

“No!” Hailey really didn’t have to say much at all to keep Eunah Mabry going.

“And the makeup and the perfume. She never once set foot at that courthouse without being positively painted up like an Indian on the warpath. The rouge, the eye shadow, the lipstick. It was so overdone. Ghastly, really. And the perfume. I’d know that smell anywhere… something cheap.”

“Oh, dear.” Hailey was actually interested.

She mentally recalled the moment she’d seen Eleanor Odom coming down the ramp to the cafeteria. She wasn’t overdone at all. She looked lovely, young, and full of life with a fairly natural beauty and perfectly applied makeup. Nothing like what Mabry was describing, not that Hailey could vouch for how the woman smelled.

“Oh, and there were plenty of times I’d beat the judge in to work and I’d smell it. Oh yes I did, I smelled it.”

Hailey leaned forward in her seat across from Eunah on the sofa. “Smelled what?”

Eunah reached out for a cigarette, lit it with a black plastic lighter from the coffee table, inhaled deeply, and, pursing her lips as if she were whistling to her left, exhaled to the side. Her eyes narrowed again, and in the morning light Hailey could easily see the smoker’s wrinkles etched forever around her mouth and eyes.

“That horrible perfume. She positively reeked of it. I’d know it anywhere. It would be hanging like a shroud in his office.” Her words were barely above a whisper now… more like a hiss.

“Interesting use of words… hanging like a shroud . Why do you say that?”

Slightly taken aback, Eunah paused, tapping her cigarette into a china ashtray stuffed with cigarette butts, presumably from the night before when she’d obviously fallen asleep on the sofa with a glass of wine. Or glasses.

“I really don’t know why I said that. I guess because… I always thought she’d kill the judge before she’d let him go.”

“So they were having an affair?” Hailey looked her square in the face when she asked, gauging Mabry’s reaction.

“I would never say that about a man as fine and true as the judge! He was too good, too pure, too… too… honorable ! But oh, she wanted to! There may have been a moment where he slipped… slightly… but what man wouldn’t when they’re chased? Hunted like an animal in the forest?”

Hailey glanced back at the photo of Regard on the coffee table. He looked like anything but a hunted animal. Young, tanned, muscular, and athletic-looking. He had a vibrant smile. His upper lip was thin, his lower curved to accent perfectly even white teeth. His dark brown eyes seemed to glow back at the camera. It was hard to imagine this man being the prey, not the predator.