Nancy Grace: Murder in the Courthouse

“How’d he take it, Fincher?”

“Take what?”

“The arrest. You know, him knowing that somebody, specifically the police, saw through his BS.”

“The arrest.” Fincher let out a laugh. “Cool as a cucumber, Hailey. Slick would be a better word to describe him… tall, good-looking… and slick. He’ll be a hard nut to crack.”

“A hard nut to crack? Fincher, he won’t crack.”

“Why do you say that, Hailey? I’ve watched you crack the best of them on the stand.”

“Number one, Todd Adams will never take the stand. He could never withstand cross-examination on all his lovers. Plus, his whereabouts the day Julie Love goes missing are just too sketchy. His story doesn’t make sense. Then, he places himself too close to where the body eventually washes up! Fishing!”

She thought for a moment before going on. “Second, his whole life is a lie. The whole scholarship story was a lie. He got kicked off the team after one semester. Couldn’t cut it. No discipline. All the lies he told his wife and her family, his family, his friends, and all the other women… they’ll all come crashing down on him like a house of cards. He can’t be a liar in front of his own family, his friends. Put money on it. He’ll stick to his story no matter what.”

“You think?”

“I don’t think it, I know it. He’s got to save face, so his family and friends can still have the option of believing he was framed… that he’s wrongly accused.”

“So when did you know he was guilty?”

“The first night I heard about the story.”

“The first night? How?”

“It was the dog part. You know… the dog getting loose in the park while Julie was walking it, but the dog leash was still hanging by the door. She’s nine months pregnant. No way would she take the dog to the park without a leash and risk it getting loose. Think of her in that condition, digging through bushes and brambles trying to coax back a dog.”

“Ah… the dog leash. I get it. So you do want a ride to the Hyatt?”

“How the hay did you know I’m staying there? You know I still have death threats hanging over my head down here left over from my old cases. The guys I put in for twenty to life are starting to get out on early release.”

“Hailey… I know you always travel under your mother’s maiden name. I know all your tricks… OK?”

“OK.” Hailey smiled.

“You brought your.38, right? I know how you hate to carry, but you made a lot of enemies in the courthouse… and the jail.”

Hailey winced visibly. Fincher realized he hit a sore spot and felt bad about it. “You hungry?” Switching subjects, Fincher hoisted up her bag over his shoulder with one smooth pull.

“Who’s paying?” Hailey flashed a smile.

“The county, baby girl! I got a per diem! Fifty bucks a day!”

“Fifty dollars? Let’s go crazy! Pizza or cafeteria?” On county salaries, those two had always been their favorites.

“Pizza. We can even splurge and get a salad.”

“Man, Fincher, you sure know how to live!”

The two headed out, side by side, through the automatic door at the front of the Savannah airport and toward the parking deck.

“You’re driving the county Crown Vic, I hope?”

“You know it. Nothing like a county-issue Crown Victoria.”

“Hey, they’re not much on style, but they’ve got good air conditioners. Don’t knock it.”

“I’d never knock the Crown Vic! We solved a lot of cases in that old brown Crown Victoria.”

“Tell it, Fincher. We sure did.”

“We sure did, Hailey.”

With their years together hanging between them in the air, they crossed the asphalt lanes in front of passenger pickup, across a concrete island loaded with flowers, and on toward the decks.

Fincher was carrying his police radio in one hand, and the low and monotonous staccato of numbers being called out by police dispatch was the only sound piercing the hot afternoon air. But the shadows were already lengthening; the Savannah sun was just now tipping down toward the horizon. It would be dark soon.

“Mom, I swear, I didn’t do it. I didn’t murder her. It wasn’t like that at all. I told you what…”

“Hush. Shhhhh.” She looked around her sharply. “I told you to never mention that… that incident again… never .”

Looking deep into her son’s eyes, she held his hand across the table. The trial was set to start tomorrow morning.

Normally, inmates were strictly disallowed to be alone with anyone other than their lawyers, but in this case, the rules had somehow been bent a little. Todd Adams was the most high-profile defendant ever housed at the old Chatham County Jail. So when Adams’s mother showed up along with his lawyer, who kept a deep tan year-round and had a penchant for wearing sunglasses indoors and out, the jailhouse guards always gave her a few minutes alone with her son… without lawyers hovering around and talking incessantly as lawyers are known to do.

The very last thing this jail needed was a celebrity lawyer like Mikey DelVecchio calling a press conference to complain about jail conditions. That would lead to an “investigative report” on some news magazine show, and the county sheriff’s goose would be cooked.

The jail had frequent “incidents” it tried its best to keep on the down low. Just the other day, a murder suspect, “Ninja” Hassan DeMay, nearly beat one of the guards to death. DeMay was allegedly angry over marinara sauce on his chili mac dinner and unleashed on a rookie guard.

Then yesterday a shakedown uncovered a deadly homemade shank, fashioned from weather stripping and the cellophane wrapped around food trays. The aluminum metal stripping had been sharpened to a jagged point by scratching it against the concrete floor.

Just the kinds of things Mikey DelVecchio need not know anything about. Ever since he represented some Hollywood starlet on a shoplifting charge, he’d been in the news, celebrity treatment all around.

And even though the star got convicted… no matter. DelVecchio went on to represent another Hollywood A-Lister on DUI, then another for going on a drunk and naked rampage in a fancy New York hotel room with a hooker, then a doped-up pop star. Even when he lost, somehow, the convictions never stuck to DelVecchio, just the “glamour.”

Nobody knew exactly how, but likely thanks to Snoop vaulting the story to national headlines, Todd Adams’s family lassoed DelVecchio into representing their son. The word was that whenever DelVecchio flew into town, he holed up at a five-star hotel, ate and drank like a king, charged it all to Adams’s family, and went to his room with two or three girls on his elbows.

Everybody in Savannah seemed to “know” Adams did it. Julie was a hometown favorite. She was the public high school’s homecoming queen and everybody remembered it. She was sweet and beautiful and the talk had been, for quite a long time, that Adams ran around on her. But nobody would ever dream of hurting Julie’s feelings by even alluding to her husband’s unfaithfulness.

Now he was here, in the Chatham County Jail. And with a lawyer like Mikey DelVecchio, nobody could touch him. He got the kid-glove treatment… special food, private cell, magazines, books, extra TV time, and perks like this-long visits alone with his mom in one of the inmate-lawyer conference rooms.

“Shhh, baby. No need to go through it all again. I know what happened. I’m your mother… I believe you.”

“But Mom, why would I kill anybody, much less Julie. She was… amazing…”

“She was, she was! We all know that, and we all know you would never, never have intentionally harmed her. Why, nobody doubts that you loved Julie!”