Nancy Grace - The Eleventh Victim

C.C. wasn’t sure that he did. He was trying to take it all in, but he just couldn’t. What the hell was Eugene talking about? Who had talent and was wrongfully convicted? Who got liberated?

“It was all a setup from the start,” Eugene went on. “She was probably just trying to advance her own career… You know the type…right, Judge?”

“Oh, yeah…I know the type all right… But I don’t get it. Where do I fit in?” C.C. asked at last, not wanting to appear stupid, but finally breaking down. He knew that whatever Eugene was talking about, the most C.C. had done was read about it over a cup of coffee.

“As I said, he goes free, and chances are, he’s innocent. He could go on and cure cancer, for all we know.”

“He’s a doctor?”

“A chef. He’s a chef, Judge.” Eugene was starting to look impatient. “That’s not the point. The point is, he needs to go live his life. Do some good in the world. He’s an innocent man.”

C.C. tried to digest it all…A chef that might have the cure for cancer?

Eugene leaned in, his arm resting on the top of the open door.

“After all, they were just hookers. Nobody’ll miss them. Now, isn’t that right, Judge? They were hookers, every last one of them, and the city’s better off without a used-up fleet of hookers. Am I right about that , Judge?”

Eugene was so close to C.C.’s face he could feel the heat of his body and smell the lime on his breath.

C.C. was still in the dark and couldn’t figure out quite what to say or exactly what it was that Floyd wanted him to do.

“Well, the city is a mess…That part is true, Floyd.”

Floyd continued on, his voice lowered. “I mean, if you look at it realistically, why waste the State’s money keeping him up on death row for ten…more like twenty years of appeals? It’s the taxpayers’ money. We’ve got to keep their best interests in mind, too. Especially come re-election time…right, Judge?”

All at once, it dawned on him.

C.C. went pale. It was all coming up…up his throat. He could taste Kentucky bourbon and the Monte Cristo sandwich he’d had back on the ninth hole at the back of his throat.

He couldn’t puke right here. Not in front of Floyd Moye Eugene. Not at Augusta National.

Cruise was sitting in jail after the jury convicted; the case was up on appeal at that very moment. A reversal would set him free…let him walk right out of his prison cell and onto the streets with decent, normal people…including C.C.

C.C. swallowed it down.

“I’ll take a look at the case, Floyd.”

“Well, Judge, let me know as soon as you can see fit to. We’ll need that taken care of before we can move forward on the campaign.”

The dirty work clearly behind him, Floyd quickly shifted gears again. He straightened and all but brushed his hands against each other. “So, I believe Dooley would be just the place to announce. It is your home jurisdiction, your symbolic headquarters at the outset, correct?”

“Correct.” C.C. got it out, still fighting back the Monte Cristo.

“Of course, then we’ll have to move you to Fulton County. Although Macon is technically the geographic center of the state, and we do need to appeal to more than just Fulton and metro Atlanta this time, but it’s just easier to work out of Atlanta. You know what I mean. We’ll get started as soon as you can take care of that legal problem. Right?”

“Right.”

“Good, good, good. It’s been a pleasure, Judge, or should I say Governor?” With that, Floyd Moye’s face melted into a smile.

“Oh, no. It’ll always be C.C. for you, Floyd Moye.”

Before C.C.’s Cadillac could turn the bend much less disappear out of view, Floyd Moye let out a single snort-a silent laugh through his nose, not taking the effort required to make a sound-half in amusement, half in disgust.

Eugene flipped out his cell phone. Waiting for the connection, he walked coolly away from the valet, well out of earshot. Cell phones and pagers were banned at Augusta and this was one call that didn’t need a witness.

Glancing around, he spoke. “The rabbit’s in the hole. How’s the view on the beach?”

“Temp is warm and sunny. Slight breeze on the island. Sand white as sugar and not a soul on the beach. Just two island sea turtles.”

“Not for much longer,” Eugene responded.

In a few hours, the fate of an island would begin to change. Pristine and protected, St. Simons Island was the jewel in the crown of the Georgia coast. Not since 1862, when Confederates ripped apart the Island’s lighthouse to thwart Yankee troops, had the Island been faced with such upheaval, nor come closer to another invasion, this time with tourists.

“Okay,” Eugene said into the phone, “he got his. Now I want a call after they meet tonight. I can’t wait another twenty-four hours. Things are heating up. We knew at the beginning timing was the key.”

“It’s a done deal. Count on it.”

Eugene nodded and clicked off.

St. Simons Island, Georgia

THREE BLOCKS BEHIND GLYNN COUNTY MIDDLE SCHOOL, A QUARTER mile from the beachfront pier on St. Simons Island, Virginia Gunn took the last sip of her Amaretto and crushed one cigarette into a green ashtray shaped like a seahorse after lighting her next off its smoldering butt-end. It was always the best sip, having been down at the bottom of the ice the longest.

But she had to be sharp tonight.

“I’m coming, little babies, wait for Mommy!” she called to her dogs, barking out on the deck. “I know you’re hungry, but these aren’t for you! You don’t want chips! Remember what they did to you last time? All that poopy all over the house? You don’t like Ranch-Flavored Doritos, so stop asking!”

She laid out chips and dip on the bar between her kitchen and den, filled another ice bucket, and lit candles scattered artfully around the house.

The dogs kept barking, but for once, she made them wait. Everything had to be just right.

This evening, she had a feeling, was going to be another one of those turning points in her life.

Tonight might be right up there with when she resigned as chief county commissioner of the Island after a vote of no confidence by the Commission eight years ago.

The other commissioners sold her out over the construction of a secluded but still highly offensive goofy-golf course near the United Methodist Center. Naturally, she opposed goofy-golf in all its forms, not only because it would encroach upon nearby marshland, but how could Virginia Gunn, in her right mind and with a straight face, represent to the taxpayers that goofy-golf was anything but tacky?

Virginia had to pour herself another Amaretto on the rocks, getting all worked up again just thinking about it.

She’d simply had no choice but to draw a line in the sand when it came to the Island’s beaches and marshland. Next thing she knew, there’d be Seashell Shacks, mini-marts, beach towel emporiums, and roadside stands peddling brushed-velvet portraits of Elvis and the Last Supper.

Well, of course, the measure had passed anyway. But fate intervened. Before the concrete could be poured and covered with Astroturf, the goofy-golf investors had gone broke and the thing never happened.

By then, though, Virginia had written a scathing letter to the editor of the St. Simons Herald in which she blasted the other Commission members, exposing them for what they were…crass materialists.

At which point, the vote of no confidence went down. She’d stormed out of the middle-school auditorium after claiming that the St. Simons establishment was hell-bent on developing every square inch of the Island.