Nancy Grace - The Eleventh Victim

His neighbors had no idea what he did for a living.

But everybody who was anybody in certain circles knew that he was the best in the Southeast. He got it all-on tape, audio, and video-for people all over the country. Private dicks, the mags, sleazy divorce lawyers, jealous lovers-they all knew where to come.

If they had the money.

But even with business being good, he could always use more fat wallets like this one.

This was a major gig, and that moron Judge Carter made it easy.

Frank had tailed him for seven weeks, and the idiot never even looked in the rearview mirror. Not even once. Oh, wait, there was the one time Carter had actually waved at him.

For the first few days Frank started out with rented cars and elaborate disguises, which of course he billed to the customer, along with the entire stakeout. The bill was never questioned. The disguises didn’t last long, though. No need.

By the end, Frank was parking his Toyota right behind Carter’s car over at his girlfriend’s apartment. No fear of detection whatsoever.

Frank had hated people like Carter his whole life, ever since kindergarten. The ones who had it all, got it all without even trying. The Haves. Carter was so drunk off his own sense of self-entitlement, so used to the world being his oyster, he never looked up from his own front zipper.

Speaking of which, he was probably out in front of the Pink Fuzzy right now still trying to get his zipper up.

If he could find it.

New York City

HAILEY FROZE…HER MIND WRESTLING HAND-TO-HAND WITH her vision. She was speechless…staring at the impossible…the illogical. It couldn’t be true… It didn’t make sense.

Her silver Tiffany pen, engraved on the side, given to her by Katrine years ago after a murder trial.

She and Fincher had torn apart the courtroom looking for it…spending hours down on all fours between the pews of the courtroom, where Hailey had wandered during her closing arguments. They’d searched through all the evidence, the trial files and notes, even retracing Hailey’s footsteps back and forth to her office there in the courthouse. Finally, they gave up. Hailey remembered walking to the county parking garage that night feeling a loss, repeatedly touching her neck where the black silk cord normally hung down.

She never saw it again until now…years later in the interrogation room at the NYPD.

“Surprised, Hailey?” Kolker rolled the glinting silver back and forth gently between his thumb and fingers.

She had her back to the wall. The only strategy she had was to play him. Let him do all the talking. He was incredibly pleased with himself, barely able to contain his elation over the pen. Could he hold it in? Was Hailey wrong?

It took about thirty seconds.

“You thought you pulled it off, didn’t you. But you left this little calling card. You were there with Hayden when she died, Hailey, and this proves it. And I want you to know…I picked it up myself.”

He actually turned toward the mirror, his back to her as he went on.

“It didn’t take me long to realize it belonged to none other than the treating psych for both dead women. That’s no coincidence, Counselor. By trial time, believe me, we’ll come up with a way to explain your alibis. Just be glad New York got rid of the death penalty.”

So her pen had turned up after all this time…under Hayden’s body. In a single thoughtless boast, Kolker had given away a major prosecution strategy. Now she knew the strategic significance of the pen, where they’d found it, how they planned to use it against her, and, significantly, exactly who had picked it up. She knew about the hair, the article, the timing of the murders…it was no small amount of evidence…and this was just the beginning of the investigation.

Mustering every ounce of technique left in her body, she managed to keep a stoic mask in place. But now she understood the State’s case, what tied her to Hayden’s murder and, connecting the dots, to Melissa’s as well. Now she had the ammunition she needed to fight back.

But she had no choice. It would mean lying to the police. She wanted desperately to tell the truth but…they’d never believe the truth about the pen disappearing. It was a major gamble because if she were caught lying, she’d look guilty as hell. But tonight, there was no other way out. She reminded herself that Kolker couldn’t possibly know the history behind the pen. She swallowed hard and it hurt her throat.

“Hey…I’ve been looking for that. It’s my favorite. But Kolker, even coming from you, I’m shocked. This can only mean you searched my office without a warrant. I haven’t seen my pen since Hayden’s last visit. She was twisting the cord, wrapping and rewrapping the silk portion between her fingers while she talked. She played with it nearly the entire session. So it was there, in the office, but then…you came by…Kolker…did you take the pen from my office?”

The words were poison to any major investigation, accusing the cops of planting evidence, and they hung, foul-smelling in the close quarters of the interrogation room.

He was speechless. In one minute, the momentum shifted.

Realizing she had a tiny advantage, Hailey pressed on.

“Kolker, is that the only way you can crack a case, planting the pen as evidence? Even coming from you, I’m shocked.”

Sensing that he was faltering, she leveled her eyes to his and put the accusatory shoe on the other foot. “Did you go in without a warrant? Did you find it, read the engraving, and place it there under her as she lay dead? You’re the one who’s sick, Kolker, not me. It’s so much more sensational to try and pin this on me, isn’t it? A regular street thug wouldn’t do, would it? Just how far will you go to make a name for yourself?”

“I didn’t-”

Suddenly, Kolker was keenly aware that his colleagues and superiors behind the mirrored wall were watching him.

All right, Hailey, that’s enough. Keep it simple , she warned herself.

How many times had liars done themselves in by creating an elaborate story that could be attacked from countless angles?

Learn from their mistakes…say no more…see where he goes with it.

She could see the wheels turning as it slowly started to dawn on him that the discovery of the pen wasn’t exactly the airtight piece of evidence that would clinch the case for him. In fact, there were any number of explanations why Hayden may have had the pen. She could have borrowed it, swiped it, used it, and then, unthinking, dropped it into her artist’s notebook.

“You mean that’s it? This pen is why you’re holding me? And the fact I was trying to help Melissa and Hayden?

“The kinky journal entries, as you so eloquently put it, Kolker, is research I’ve been doing for over a year on the psychopathy of serial killers. All of them, Gacy, Bundy, Zodiac, Boston Strangler, BTK…the notes weren’t about my patients at all, and I’ve sent the theory to over a dozen psych journals to see if they’d be interested in publishing. There are records. Try that on at trial. Oh, and they’d never get in at trial anyway because they weren’t in plain view on my desk, they were in a file drawer beside my desk. You searched without a warrant… I knew it.”

She looked him square in the face, unrelenting. “Oh…and the hair…your big forensic evidence . It means nothing. I hug nearly every patient when they leave each session, Kolker. I’ll have a string of patients testify to that at trial, so dig in, Kolker. They’re transfers from me to them. Or maybe they caught a hand in my barrette or touched my shoulder.”